PANCAKES.

It's been a while since I've climbed on top of my "why I love SUU" soapbox.

I guess now would be a good time. Now that finals are over and I can breathe again.

This past Sunday night from 10pm to midnight (a perfectly normal time for college students), loads of students gathered in the dining hall for an all you can eat pancake breakfast. Sounds pretty ordinary right? Well, we were there for more than just the pancakes.

The faculty and staff were serving us the pancakes. All we had to do was grab a fork and sit at a table--my English professor from my freshman year took my order, Jared was pouring orange juice and chocolate milk, the Vice President for Student Services was busing tables, my boss was cooking the bacon and the postmaster was flipping pancakes.

Oh and did I mention the President of the university was playing the piano for us this whole time?

OBVIOUSLY we are stoked!

Matchers. Waiting in line for Pancakes!

We all loved it. A new annual tradition that the the faculty and staff will serve the students pancakes before finals. And this year we raised almost $1,000 dollars for charity while doing it. 

That, my friends, is the epitome of SUU. I love this place. I love the community I've created here and the people at this university who care.

But now it's time for a little break. I'm pretty excited about that too! 

i don't mean to brag but...

i got the high score on my political communication test. again. last time it was 101. this time it was 97...a little step down. but still, i'm happy!

this class has been one of my all time favorites at SUU. i've realized this semester that classes are a lot more fun when you are actually extremely interested in what you are learning. (it doesn't help to have a good professor as well). i mean, a whole unit on political parodies (and yes, there is legitimately academic research about it) who doesn't love that?! and don't leave out debates, news coverage, campaigns, advertisements, nominating conventions etc. etc. etc. yes. if you can't tell, i've loved that class.

pair that with another one of my all time favorite SUU classes, event management, and i'm looking back realizing what a great semester it really was.

this 97 percent was a good confidence booster for the rest of this next busy finals week! as my roommates and i like to say--"WE CAN DO HARD THINGS!"

now back to my debate analysis paper with the unexpected comparison of Bill Clinton's 1992 debate performance to that of Mitt Romney's 2012 debate performance.

it's okay, you can call me a nerd.

see the changes

allow me to get sentimental here for a brief moment: 

i've realized lately that change is constant and inevitable. people come and go so quickly, especially during this stage of life. people i have in my mind as being here forever are suddenly going to be gone. friends i've relied on are now going to be a phone call, letter, or skype chat away instead of a block, a car ride or a bed away.

this makes me sad, but it also makes me extremely excited. we are all on a different path and all are perusing exciting, new adventures and experiencing life. a new start, missions, graduation, grad school, study abroad, marriage...the list goes on.

the problem arises when i feel stuck. stuck in cedar city going to school, going to work, sleep, repeat. but then i know that i have a path, too. there is a God who has a plan for me. and right now, this is it. and it's a good place to be, and there are people to serve here who rely on me. comfort zones need to be stretched and new friends need to be made. not to replace, but to add. i have a lot to learn here.

and to all of the new, exciting adventures awaiting you, thank you friends for continuing to be on my path, whether you are in riverton or russia or anywhere in between.

"Our dilemma is that we hate change and love it at the same time; what we really want is for things to remain the same but get better..."

and life DOES gets better everyday. 

i am NOT a cat person & other realizatons

hello there.

i am embarrassed that it has been SO LONG since i last blogged. it's been a very very busy semester, and somehow blogging has not been at the top of the list.

so what better way to kick off a new season of blog by sharing some recent realizations.

first, i am NOT a cat person. friday morning as my roommate rebekah and i were getting ready for a long event day, reba knocked an my door and said "listen..." there was meowing in our house. i just about had a heart attack and pretty much shut the door as fast as i could. there was a stray cat that had somehow found it's way into our front room.

...the back story is that courtney had left early for the gym that morning and said that when she left, the door was wide open. if you don't shut the door just right it won't shut all the way--so needless to say we are paying close attention to that now! then there is the fact that for some reason there are stray cats all over our street. kinda creepy...

on saturday, i got home from a trip to st. george and heard reba and courtney having a small anxiety attack in the kitchen. then i heard meowing. i shuddered. NOT AGAIN. come to find out there was a cat in our cupboard. i say come to find out because i could not bring myself to leave my room. it just grossed me right out. it's not even the cat itself, it's the sanitary factor here--my OCD was kicking in.

thank goodness that in both cat cases i had brave roommates who got the cats out. ewwwwww. i am usually the roommate to calm everyone down and kill the spider or take out the moldy pumpkin so i figure it's a pretty good trade off. they can get rid of the live animals and i'll take care of everything else.

so i am not a cat person. and i spent last night sanitizing our kitchen.

photo's courtesy of reba, because heaven knows i couldn't bring myself to see them inside our house!

 second realization: some things go WAY better than you plan. this halloween, the executive council decided to throw a little P.A. party and tell the ghost story of old main. old main was the first building on campus and is rumored to has a ghost that haunts the building especially the top floor. at midnight on a full moon, people are supposed to be able to see her. so we made arrangements for one of our advisers to come that night and tell us the story. we called campus safety and they vetoed our hopes to have someone planted up there to scare people. and when i say veto, i mean STRONGLY vetoed. it was rough, but we decided it would still be fun to hear the story. a group of us gathered at old main at about 11:30 and we heard the story. pretty creepy. then, just for fun, we thought we might as well stay until midnight to see what happens! well, what happened no one was expecting. right at midnight, there was a flash of light in the top floor windows and a shadow of a girl walked back and forth and back and forth. and the blinds went up and down and up and down. eeek! it was so scary and fun and everyone who was there ate it up. i wish we could take the credit for it (although to this day no one on campus will fess up to who it was up there...so maybe it really was the ghost?) it was a great college memory and gave all of us a new story to share on our tours. that worked out WAY better than we ever could have planned for. thank you virginia loomis--ghost of old main.

us with our scared faces on. oh yeah, we lit candles. every ghost story needs candles.

third, i know what i want to do with my life. disclaimer: i have come to find out that these phases can fade quickly, so don't be holding on to it a year from now because it might change. Anyway, we just had a unit in my event management class about political event management. um--dream job. my teacher taught us about managing political events on a national scale (she has had a lot of experience--even more awesome!) and gave us a little pep talk at the beginning: "i was a student sitting at SUU just like you not too long ago and NEVER would i have believed that i would be managing events for the president of the united states some years later...so don't let yourself believe that this doesn't apply to you--it very well could." okay so that's not a direct quote but that was about the jist of it. it was so interesting to me and combined a lot of the aspects of public relations and political communication that i have been learning about in my other classes. i love when everything ties in like that! so yes. right now when people ask me what i want to do when i grow up, that's what i say. and then i usually have to explain what that means. which is fine, because i'm not even 100% sure. and i know i'm not going to immediately get there...but i can dream right?

well there you are. 3 realizations i've had as of late. i hope to be blogging more regularly now so keep checking back because chances are i'll have more random realizations soon.

recent loves

 1. GOOGLE DOCS. I have always appreciated them, but now even more so. These have saved me with ambassador stuff. Seriously. I have a google doc for everything. Every doc I make can be shared with 10 other who may or may not be living in the same city as me, who can then edit it. Thank you google.

 2. RAISIN BRAN CRUNCH. Have you ever tried this cereal? If you haven't, I highly reccommend it. I bought a box a week ago today and I'm already very close to finishing it off. Delish! And when I eat it, I feel like I'm being healthy!

 3. THE WEST WING. Okay, where has this TV show been my whole life?! I just started the first season this week and it is SO good. I love all of the characters and it makes me wonder if that's how life really is working in the West Wing? Most of me says no, but the other side secretly wants to believe it. Allison Janney as CJ the Press Secretary is my absolute fav. Dream job? Maybe.

4. RUNNING. Yeah right, like anyone really looks like the girl above when they are running. But nonetheless, I have been trying to go running 3 to 4 times a week in the past little while and I have discovered that I kind of like it! I'm in no way a good runner, but it is such a great stress reliever. I have an armband that I can stick my iPod in and just GO. Since I've moved to a new place I have discovered a new route and have been exploring some different neighborhoods in Cedar City. Can I just say on a side note that people in Cedar are so friendly? Everyone just sits on their front porch in the evenings and I love it.

what have you been loving recently?

i'm back

well...it's been a month. but what a month has it been! here's a quick recap:

sorry for the picture overload...but as you can see, its been an eventful 2nd half of the summer. what? school starts in 2 weeks?! crazy. welcome, new adventures!

spontaneity

--a conversation.

7:10pm
jenna: bailey, do you still have those free tickets to the Shakespeare festival? We need to go!
bailey: it looks like tonight is the last night the coupon is good for...
jenna: LET'S GO!
bailey: umm right now? the show starts in like 45 minutes! and we still need to eat dinner!
jenna: YEAH right now! We will get some arctic circle after we get our tickets! What play is it good for?
bailey: titus andronicus... (?)
jenna: yeah. we're doing it. lets go. we will look up what the play is about on our way there.

7:20pm
on their way to the ticket office bailey looks up the storyline from the festival website:

"Heads are going to roll in Shakespeare's vicious play of revenge and retribution as a power struggle between Titus Andronicus and Goth Queen Tamora erupts into a vividly gruesome personal war. Combining beautiful poetry with human violence, Titus Andronicus was one of Shakespeare's most popular plays during his lifetime, and will prove to be the same for Festival audiences."

bailey: ummm jenna...are we sure we want to go?! gruesome? heads are going to roll? vicious? human violence?!
friendly ticket lady: we definitely have availability for tonight! i can actually put you guys on about the fourth row--center stage. you lucked out!
jenna to the ticket lady: ummm how is this play? are we going to be scared? is there a lot of blood?
friendly ticket lady: yeah, it is pretty violent but it is really amazing the costumes and the acting are extremely well done. just go into it expecting to hate it and you might end up liking it.
bailey: why didn't we think of this earlier! we could have gone to a comedy or les mis! i'm way nervous!
jenna: we're going to be fine.

7:50

bailey to the friendly old lady next to us: are you from out of town?
friendly old lady sitting next to us: yes i'm from slc. i work at the festival  during the summer doing seminars for audiences before the plays. i used to be the theatre critic for the SL tribune.
bailey thinking to herself: oh great...now we are sitting next to a theatre critic and shakespeare lover. i've got to pretend to love this play.

8:00

the play begins.
and it was good. the acting was AMAZING. it was tragic and yes, violent. but our theatre critic friend told us about the symbolism of the plot and characters, her critique of the set and costumes and about all of the other plays at the festival. lucky for us (thank goodness) the director didn't like stage blood, so he didn't use it.

all in all, jenna and i pledged to be spontaneous more often. it was a summer memory i won't soon forget!

summer so far

| what i have pictures of: hiking, solar eclipse watching, utah summer games,st. george temple trip |

 

 | what i wish i had pictures of: laughing until i cried at walmart, a visit from syd, scootering around the house, evening walks through cedar city, water fight, long chats with my roomie, "domestic diva" shopping/meal planning, seeing courtney, watching the mother of a prospective student tearing up during a tour, a growing teva tan |

june hymn

“And so with the sunshine and the great bursts of leaves growing on the trees, just as things grow in fast movies, I had that familiar conviction that life was beginning over again with the summer.”-f. scott fitzgerald

it's a BEAUTIFUL monday and it's finally beginning to feel like summer for me here in cedar city. the sky is blue, the red mountains are spectacular, plans for BBQ's and trips to the reservoir are in the works and i hope to buy a watermelon and eat it on the front porch. the utah summer games begin this week--meaning that cedar city suddenly becomes a thriving metropolis. i'm staying busy and making my days more productive, which must be aiding this sudden renewal of energy i'm feeling. thank goodness for that. did i really need a whole month to recover from the semester? (answer:yes i did).

THREE CHEERS FOR JUNE!

the pleasure's all mine

first of all, let me admit that i have quite an array of guilty pleasures (maybe i should make sharing one a weekly post...hmmm it's a thought...) but one in particular has stood out to me lately.


let me preface by saying that both of my roommates were gone last weekend so i had the house to myself for a few days. thats when i realized...


i like to sing show tunes at the top of my lungs when no one is home.


so maybe now that i've shared my guilty pleasure with all of you it's not so much "guilty" anymore? yes, yes i think i'll just call it a pleasure. sing a show tune at the top of your lungs in an empty house-- it is quite exhilarating. i suggest beginning with a classic rogers and hammerstein. 


okay so maybe that's a tad bit nerdy. but it is a pleasure. and i don't really feel guilty about it anymore... so glad i got that off my chest!

 [what are some of your guilty pleasures?]

the age of worry

john mayer's new album "born and raised" was released today. and anyone who knows me knows i LOVE the music of john mayer. i'm saving my money to buy the whole album, but for now i used the last few dollars on my christmas itunes gift card to buy my favorite song: AGE OF WORRY.

take a listen and tell me what you think:



Close your eyes and clone yourself
Build your heart an army
To defend your innocence
While you do everything wrong

Don't be scared to walk alone
Don't be scared to like it
There's no time that you must be home
So sleep where darkness falls

Alive in the age of worry
Smile in the age of worry
Go wild in the age of worry
And say worry, why should I care?

No your fight is not within
Yours is with your timing
Dream your dreams but don't pretend
Make friends with what you are
Give your heart then change your mind
You're allowed to do it
Cause God knows it's been done to you
And somehow you got through it

Alive in the age of worry
Rage in the age of worry
Sing out in the age of worry
And say worry, why should I care?

Rage in the age of worry
Act your age in the age of worry
And say worry, get out of here!

the secret of life is enjoying the passage of time

a cedar city summer

well folks, i finished my second year at SUU. hard to believe how fast time flies! i have mixed emotions about staying in cedar city for the summer. it will definitely have its pros and cons...but right now, lets focus on the pros. i am now drafting the one and only...

THINGS I WANT TO DO IN CEDAR CITY THIS SUMMER LIST:

• go hiking. a lot.
• swim/exercise every day
• cook delicious food
• go to the shakespeare festival
• read 6 more presidential/first lady biographies
• have bonfires up the canyon
• explore cedar city neighborhoods
• play night games
• go boating at sand hollow
• meet new people
• organize my wardrobe
• GHA
• be spontaneous
• take a picture by the "Festival City USA" sign [sydnie must be present for this one...]
• organize everything involving presidential ambassadors
• have a 'tour of cedar city' tasting/critiquing of local restaurants
• go to tiki shack multiple times a week
• take more pictures

I feel like that is a significant list and should hopefully keep me busy! i'm excited for what  the next few months have in store.

happy summer!

all good things

yesterday marked the last event of my time coordinating recruiting events with the ambassadors. i have absolutely loved  doing this. i have learned more about myself doing events than i ever thought possible. i have learned to be positive and flexible when things get stressful. it has been one of the most rewarding experiences of my college life. i have never laughed so much, cried (a little), been so tired, and spent so much time on campus. i'm going to miss laughing over "food shooters", "billboards", abbreviated names, "the crescendo", check bags, and song lyrics. after over 20 events together, i have truly loved the relationships i have been able to form with ambassadors and admissions staff.

but, it's true. all good things eventually come to an end. which is why i say...bring on my next ambassador adventure, i'm ready!