Okay, okay

Well, on a much more superficial note than the last post, I have decided to finally grace all of you lovely readers with an actual update on my life.  So.

I'll start off with my birthday, because Tess has been bugging me about that :)  The night before my birthday Heidi and I went to BYU Spectacular, which was, in a word, spectacular.  Great singing, cool dancing, dresses that made me want to join the Young Ambassadors...  Awesome.  On my actual birthday, I went to the dentist's, the opthamologist's, Divine Comedy, and swimming.  It was fantastic.  Then I got the stuff for Muddy Buddies and substituted that for an actual birthday cake.  It was delicious.

Now, the birthday package from the fam didn't come until 5 days later, but it was no less appreciated!  I ate all of the chocolate in about three days, am working on the rest of the deliciousness, and love the laptop case and earbuds.  (Note to Levi: Nice job on picking out the earbuds!  They conduct sound so well that I can run with only on in my ear and still hear the music, which is a lot safer and more comfortable. Thanks :)  All of you who helped to put that together are wonderful and amazing in every way, and I love you ever so much.

In other news, I am running a half-marathon next Saturday, the same event I ran last year.  It should be great. I've been training for it a little more intensely, and I'm trying to go running at least 5 times a week.  I was kind of proud of myself today for running 2.4 miles in 20.5 minutes, with a significant uphill slope for about half the way.  We'll see if that translates into an improved time for the actual run...

Also, and this is just a comment as my birthday has passed and Christmas is too long to wait... I love these boots, and I may buy them:


http://www.callitspring.com/us/women/boots/booties/85441891-trousdale/37

Aren't they cute?  Oh, and one final note.  Heidi and I had an afternoon of photo shoot/zucchini bread madness on Saturday.  The photo at the top of this post is my favorite picture of me, albeit on a strange prop.  Heidi hasn't posted any of her pics, or I would put some of her as well.  That girl is photogenic.


Anyways, I'm off to study now, so remember that I love you all!

<3
Eliza

Realizations

I hope nobody is offended by this post.  If you are, I'm sorry.  I'm not trying to be insensitive, and I hope you don't see it that way.

So, as most readers of this blog already know, three girls were hit by a train yesterday in Spanish Fork.  Kelsea and Savannah Webster, ages 15 and 13, and their friend Essa, also 15, were taking pictures by the railroad tracks and somehow got caught between two trains going in opposite directions.  They were blown by the slipstream into the trains, and Kelsea and Essa were killed instantly.  Savanna is in critical condition.

I first met Kelsea and Savannah when I was twelve and I came over to babysit them, along with their older and younger sisters.  I babysat them periodically for a year or two until their older sister was old enough to take care of them herself.  Since then, they've followed me in young women's, come over to our house for many family game nights and activities, and have joined our family at school events and church activities.

They were our neighbors for about a year, and Savannah and their littlest sister would walk up the hill with Tess and Levi from the bus stop.  I've seen the Websters as almost equivalent to cousins for our family.

A couple of months ago, Savannah and Kelsea moved out to Utah to stay with their aunt and father while their mom tried to find a different job so she could move and have all of the girls with her again.  I remember hugging them good-bye after church on their last Sunday in Sonora, and joking that I didn't know when we would see each other again, but it had better be soon.  

Last night mom called me and told me, more or less calmly, that Kelsea Webster had died.  I felt like I had been sucker-punched.  My only possibly response was to ask how.  

After a good hour or two of crying and breakfast this morning with the only other girl from our ward at BYU, I was still having a bit of a rough time with the whole idea.  How could this have happened?  How must their family feel?  Wasn't there anything I could do to help?

This evening, the story came on the news and my roommate came and got me so I could see it.  It was hard to look at their faces on the TV screen and know that Kelsea won't be around to give me an exuberant hug or favor the room with her fake sarcastic girly laugh.  I didn't even know how Savanna was, or whether, if she survived, she could ever be the same.  

As I walked out of the room halfway through the newscast, I was still trying to get a handle on the whole thing.  It's okay, I assured myself, it's not like they're dead.  

That mental statement caught my attention as I reminded myself that Kelsea and Essa are, in fact, dead.  But then I realized what my subconscious was telling me, reminding me of something my mind has always known but my heart hadn't quite acknowledged - they're still there.  I will meet Kelsea again, and she still has potential, a life, a future.  We're just going to be missing out on her company for a while.

It is harder to face than an extended leave, I know.  We humans have a hard time trying to comprehend even a year into the future, let alone eternity.  The time of separation will seem like forever.  But that's not what's important - the important thing is that it's only a separation.  They're not gone, not - for lack of a better word - dead.  Kelsea and Essa still exist.  They still know the inside jokes we had, they still know us just as well as they did, and they still care for us just as much as they always have.

I'm so grateful to heavenly father for helping me to come to this realization at this time.  I know it won't be easy dealing with their deaths, but it gives me hope to think that it's not a permanent separation, and their chance at life isn't over.  We didn't have the chance to say good-bye, but we will have the chance to say hello again.

<3

Eliza

This is weird...

So, last time I'd passed 10 years of my life it was so exciting to have two digits in my age.  Now I'm 20, and there's still only two digits!  What a rip-off!  Nonetheless, I am kind of excited to be a year older.  On the other hand, I'm not a teenager anymore.  Sad.  However, it's my birthday!

I'm not planning to make a cake.  I think I'll go buy the ingredients for muddy buddies.  So far for my birthday I've gone to BYU Spectacular (last night - thanks Heidi!), the dentist's office (where they were going to give me a J-Dawgs certificate for my birthday but were out so they just gave me $5), the opthamologist's office (where I got yellow eyes!), and work. After my work meeting I'm going to redeem all of my birthday coupons for Red Robin's, Baskin Robbins, Cold Stone Creamery, and Weinerschnitzel with Heidi, and then all of my roommates, Heidi, Caroline (freshman cousin!), and I are going to Divine Comedy.  Yay!

<3
Eliza

Eliza Houghton and the Awesome Roommate

Hello, all.  Disclaimer before I begin: all of my roommates are awesome.  Only one of them, however, has introduced me to four hilarious youtube videos in the past two weeks, and so it is with great pleasure and honor that I announce this week's Awesome Roommate: Megan!!  And here are the videos that won her the awards!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZwM3GvaTRM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y57sYHIDP_Y

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qvgVMecNp0c

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aeYOdgwByLc

Also, this post is dedicated to Marta, who posted that bit of coolness on the family blog the other week.  Love you all!

<3

Eliza

Lunch out

Well, as you may be able to tell, my new smartphone (with 2x as many megapixels as my old camera, and much more portable and useful) has inspired me to take more pictures of my life.  Now, most bloggers apologize for days when they take pictures on their phones - not me!  Just be happy they're this good!  And that they exist at all...

Stacey and Erin at Sammy's.  We actually ate lunch at Osaka and went to Sammy's for pie shakes, but I may have forgotten to get pictures while we were eating lunch...

Pie shakes!!  Delicious.  And way cute restaurant.  I should have gotten a picture of the front, sigh.

Heidi, me, and Stacey in Sammy's.  Ignore the weird squinty thing.  I think my eyebrows have gotten too used to being quirked one at a time.

<3
Eliza

P.S. How was your weekend?

By any other name...

They call me... she who puts weird things in dishwashers.

And also, she who empties the dishwasher.

<3

Eliza

P.S. Last time it was a combination lock.  And pennies.

Tour

Homework!

Bed!  Covered in homework-related paraphernalia!

Over-desk shelf!

And again, with the food-related items shelf!

And everything else. This is my room!



<3
Eliza

Update on Life, September 10, 2011

My pump!  Today is the 8th anniversary of getting my pump.  This isn't actually the pump I got eight years ago, but I've been on the pump for eight years, so HEY!

Remember those cute shoes I posted about last week?  This is a bloodstain on the heel.  The other shoe has a matching stain.  :(

I LOVE BOUNTIFUL BASKETS!!  This week I got lettuce, spinach, green beans, yams, grapes, peaches, pears, bananas, cauliflower, and FIGS!

Heidi went glasses shopping with me and was hungry, so we stopped at Kneaders so sh could get some late lunch.  Yum.  I really should have gotten some pics of us trying on crazy grandma glasses...

Okay, so the second week of school has passed.  Of notice this week is that I picked out some new glasses (though I have yet to order them), got a flu shot which laid me out for 10 hours (!), went out to lunch with my old roommate Amy, played games with my old roommate Stacey, bought a new Microsoft Office package (ouch!), ate J-Dawgs with Heidi and Caroline, ran my first womanstats meeting, and have the first week of club water polo today!  Yay!

I'll give an update on classes later, but right now I've got to get back to homework, so... Toodles!

<3
Eliza

Random tidbits

Also, while I'm posting random bits and pieces, here's an email that Tess sent me at the beginning of June that I think is absolutely hilarious:

Miss Eliza Houghton,

 

   I must now inform you that there is no way you are a witch.  I have recently discovered that magical peoples in America are never invited to any magical schools because we are too revolutionist.  But you are probably still wondering why that means that you are not a witch, am I right?  Well, you are too much of a procrastinator on the internet.  You say you will post, but you don't.  You say you will AGAIN, and you STILL don't.  Thus you cannot in any way be at all magical.

Sincerely,

Minerva McGonagall

Minerva McGonagall,

Deputy Headmistress of

Hogwarts School of Witchcraft

and Wizardry

 

 

Spanish class madness

Holla, folks.  I'm not quite ready to get back into the swing of things and write a real up-to-the-minute post, but I have a quick anecdote to share at least. Yesterday in Spanish class we had to choose, as a class, several famous people to "interview" as.  Our choices were as follows:
-Scooby Doo
-Tom Cruise
-Anne of Green Gables
-Capitan Von Trapp and his esposa Maria
-Capitan Crunch

My favorite part was when we were discussing "personas crunchatizados," or "crunchatized people."  It was pretty funny.

Back to school fun

Well, I'm back to school, so I'm going to try to get back into the habit of blogging as well.  For now, here's a photo update on the last couple of weeks:

Mom's birthday dinner.  Because while I'm not a consistent picture-taker, I usually snap some photos of food...

Mom with her birthday cake.  It was a banana split torte.  Delicious.

Dad with his birthday cake.  Sorry, the photo is blurry because I got it from facebook...  Anyways, I didn't get to eat the cake, but I hope it was delicious in spite of its looks...

Vegetables from a coop.

A picture of a beater car so Luke doesn't feel so alone.

New shoes!  For cheap, of course.

Love you all, and more to come later!

<3
Eliza

Pictures of Mexico, part 1



At a store between Irapuato and the village where we stopped and bought popsicles made of real fruit.

 The pig that lived next to the box where we slept for the first week - we named it Puercito, or "little Pork."

Baby goats playing in an old tire out back...

Mangy dogs lying in the shade behind a (one-room) house.

Octavio eating a tootsie pop.

A newborn baby goat.

Amanda riding a (small) horse near the internet cafe.

Gathering outside the internet cafe.

Looking out over Guanajuato.

Heidi and I matching in Guanajuato.

The whole group, minus Tim, who took the picture.

There were two alcoves in this church/cathedral thing. The first one was to some random saint, and the one on the right was dedicated to girls trying to find boyfriends.  The columns were designed to look more female.  The fact that this exists amuses me immensely.

More to come.  Love you all!

<3

Eliza



Mexico!

Hola, amigos y familia!  This week I am in Mexico for a study abroad (and next week, too...)  Here is a run down:

On Monday, we left BYU at 4 am, and arrived in time for a 7:10 flight to Phoenix.  Then we flew to Guadalajara, Mexico.  After waiting on a bus for an hour without air conditioning, we finally got out and starting walking around.  We toured a cathedral and then went to a local market, where I got heat stroke.  It was great fun.  I sat at the front of the bus for the 4-hour drive to Irapuato, where we stayed in the Flamingo Hotel, which is surprisingly very nice.  The next morning we exchanged money, packed our bags, and went to the grocery store before loading into a van and driving to the villages. 

At the villages (we are staying in Mesa de Agirre, and walk through Cañada de Ortega to get to El Estanco), we all eat together in one place, and the women in the village make our food.  It is delicious.  Who knew that so few ingredients could make so many really good dishes?  We sleep among the villagers, with two students each at different houses.  Heidi and I are together, and we have the best host family ever.  Our hostess is Ana (I don't know her husband's name), and she has lots of cute kids as well as a piglet kept in a pen next to our little hut which we've named Puercito, or little Pork.  On Tuesday and Thursday nights, we got bucket baths, which are super cool and altogether much better than being sweaty.  They're called bañitos. 

Other things about the village...  I played tag with a group of little boys aged 4 to 10, and had a blast.  They kept on sitting on 'safe,' and so I made it a rule that when I was it (often, so the little boys could catch someone), I would count down and then the base would no longer be safe.  It was a blast. 

Okay, just for the record, the rest of this post will have no real order.  It's just random thoughts about what has been happening. 

On Tuesday we saw a baby goat get born (well, actually we barely missed it... but it still counts), and we saw a baby take her first steps.  On Thursday we killed a nest of scorpions that were in our hut.  We then proceeded to pull the bed away from any walls and wake up frequently throughout the night.

During the days, we've mostly been giving computer lessons on the three computers in the village's (El Estanco, not Mesa de Agirre) internet cafe.  First we taught the family that owns the cafe, then we taught anyone who came in during our scheduled class time, and then we taught a bunch of schoolchildren.  I took on an additional project, which makes me very grateful that I brought my own computer - I've been making videos and tutorials on how to create email accounts and navigate facebook and skype.  It's taken a lot of time due to technical problems, but I'm finally progressing!  We've also done some construction work, but it's a bit slow, as they're mostly small projects and there's not a lot of room for many people.  The girls especially don't participate much.  The men of the villages who work with us hand shovels and tools to the guys in our group, not the girls.

Oh, funny story: a truck of materials came on Thursday.  The first truck had come on Wednesday, when I was down at the cafe.  Both days we had to unload concrete bags from the truck, probably 50-75 pounds each.  I went and started unloading, of course, and the men who'd delivered it all were very surprised.  Apparently the two girls who'd helped on Wednesday had worked together on their bags of concrete.  One of the men came up to me and told me in broken English: "I have never seen a woman lift one of these.  Never."  I was highly amused. 

Another cool thing about the village: we have a guide named Beto who works with Choice, the NGO that is directing our activity.  (Background info: he's a 23-year-old Mexican vet who can't get a job in his profession.  He's also very funny and helps us translate a lot.)  Most times when we go to or from El Estanco from our home base in Mesa de Agirre (about 2 miles on a hill), Beto will drive us in the truck.  May I just say that I LOVE riding in the back of a truck?  Seriously one of my favorite things ever, and it's making me contemplate buying a motorcycle one day. 

Okay, one more funny story about the village: we have three guys with us who went on Spanish-speaking missions, and they and Beto do most of our translations.  One of them was standing nearby when a village man came up to Beto, not knowing that he (Jordan) spoke Spanish.  Here's an approximate dialogue of what they said:
Village man: "How do these Americans do it with white skin?  Don't they just burn up?"
Beto: "I don't know.  I think maybe they put something on their skin."

Awesome.  Anyways, teaching the children has been fun, if a bit frustrating.  I don't really get their accents, and so I have to ask them to repeat everything, even their names.  Ah, well.  Our group is a lot of fun, and I get along with almost all of them quite well.  We have great times.  I will update about anything I forgot about the village later tonight or tomorrow, and also post about leaving the village and visiting Guanajuato.  Love you all!

<3
Eliza

Harry Potter wiki is awesome

And here's proof:
From the Harry Potter Wiki - Did you know...
...that Alan Rickman was the only Harry Potter cast member to find out their character's fate before the release of Deathly Hallows?

• ...that Neville Longbottom's wife, Hannah Abbott, is the landlady of the Leaky Cauldron?
• ...that Harry Potter and Albus Dumbledore both see the same thing when looking into the Mirror of Erised; themselves happily reunited with their family?
• ...that when Fred and George Weasley bewitched snowballs to bounce off the back of Professor Quirrell'sturban in the winter of the 1991–1992 school year, they were unknowingly hitting Voldemort in the face?
• ...that Arabella Figg makes her living by breeding Kneazles?

<3

Eliza

Three accomplishments

#1. I set my bed up on cinderblocks.  Alone.

#2. I have managed to get through my sociology of development classes without falling asleep once. (or doing more than 20% of the reading, but that's a different story...)

#3. I made a vegan chocolate cake.  With avocado frosting.  It was gross.

#4. I slept on a couch for three nights.

#5. I got new roommates (Alex, Sarah, and Chandy)

More detailed updates to come!

<3
Eliza

A heart-breaking picture

I know this is a big turnaround from the last post, but I just wanted to show you this picture.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/23/world/asia/23graduate.html?scp=1&sq=japan%20elementary%20school&st=cse

It was on the front page of the New York Times today, and it's an elementary school graduation in Japan.  The auditorium had to be cleared of evacuees before they could have the ceremony.  What makes it awful is that the little boy is probably crying because members of his family died two weeks ago in the tsunami.  It pretty much tore my heart in half.  I am grateful to be living on high ground, both at home and at school, physically and spiritually.  My prayers are with the ones suffering from the effects of the tsunami.  

Family

You know what's awesome?  You're awesome.  This paper I'm writing?  Not so much.  Wish me luck!

<3
Eliza

Heidi's guest post

Hello. I am Heidi. That is my  name. I am cooking with Eliza and also Megan, whose blog this is not. They are great chefettes and I am not, and therefore am intimidated. But not really because they are nice. And I also like to eat the things they create. But this time, I contributed, with cookies from a bag. Good bye now.

Hello. I am Heidi. That is my name. I am a generally boring person, who does homework and makes plans to do awesome things that never actually happen. Also worth noting: I like the sound of typing on a Mac. Good bye now.

Hello. I am Heather. That is not my name. Eliza is forcing me to doo thislasdlkfjap-io1j! ... That was my face hitting the keyboard, which was propelled by Eliza's hand. Not really because she is not abusive... ahem.

Hello. I am Heidi. That is my name. This is not my blog. This is my guest blog post thing. I have never commented on a blog before, and here I am writing my own post. I couldn't feel more fulfilled. Megan is laughing and making me feel self-conscious. Also, she is eating grapes, like a queen of the olden days. This is really difficult. I cannot come up with intelligent things to say.

I will now give this blog back to Eliza, because this blogging stuff is surprising difficult. Amen.

There's just something about February...

... that makes my diabetes want to destroy me.  I'll try not to let it this time, but spending approximately 90% of the last 48 hours with a blood sugar above 250 kind of gets me down.  The real problem is that I have no energy or motivation to do anything.  Anybody know someone with a spare pancreas?

New hours, or Elijah's prophecy coming true

In the past few weeks, I have discovered an amazing new thing: there are extra hours in the day!  4:30-8:00 am is not a myth!  Wow.  Seriously a revelation.

So, I've been going to sleep earlier and getting up earlier - usually I'm in bed by 9 (!) and up before 5.  It's awesome!  I don't have to work through being tired, I don't late-night binge, the apartment is quiet while I do my homework, and I'm late to class less often!

Also, I'm turning into my grandpa.

This leads me to think of a whole new meaning of the prophecy of Elijah, of children turning their hearts to their fathers.  Since coming to college I have discovered that my parents were right about a lot of things that I always thought they were mistaken about.

Here is a list of things I've learned from my parents and now do:


Getting up early and going to bed early


Keeping my fingernails short (otherwise you clack in class, and nobody likes a clacker)

Make the bed (for pictures...)


Save money (yes, I totally have gold bars stored under my bed)

Eat a healthy breakfast every morning (wait, what?)

Exercise often (or at least take pictures when you do)

Keep receipts (and file them when your purse starts overflowing)





And other things I have learned but am still working on implementing:


Keeping up is easier than catching up (otherwise you end up feeling like this at 3 am)


It's good to clean your room occasionally


You don't really need that many shoes



And things I'm still not sure they've figured out, but which I will probably admit I was wrong about a few years down the road:


You can have bad handwriting and still be awesome


Flip flops are great!


Sweats are the best!


Fiction rules the world

Food processors are essential to life

Anyways, still learning.  I can't wait to corrupt my own children.