NEW BLOG ADDRESS!

I got me a new blog so I shall no longer be using this blog address. I'm sorry. I hope you will still read it. Who knows, I may still come back to this one. I promise the new one will be better! At least you will be able to tell I am trying. Why am I doing such a thing?

I don't know.

Aubrey VS The Month of June

Episode 7

We last left our hero after she had lost her Magical Card of UVU Plus-ness. After making contact with the temple of riches she has reported the loss of said magic card... WHAT WILL HAPPEN NEXT???

With the swiftness of a burning wick of a firework, Little Ichigo prepared for the day ahead. She did not look forward to the unpleasant duties that undoubtedly laid in the near future. Perhaps, for this reason, Little Ichigo had forgotten (again) where she had ceremoniously placed her gifted Flip-Flops of Sesquipedaliah (Google it) and the Abiquitous Baume Pour Les Lèvres. Frantically, with heart beating and shallow, quiet breathing, she diligently shuffled through all her possessions, looking for the unique Abiquitous Baume Pour Les Lèvres, for, she knew, with this also lay the Flip-Flops of Sesquipedaliah. In a last, almost but not quite, desperate attempt our hero looked beyond her usual level of sight on perspective and found the once Magical Card of UVU Plus-ness. At once, Little Ichigo sought out communication with Big Mamma Guru.

"hmmm... found magical card, I see. But still magical it not is." advised Big Mamma Guru. "Must hasten... Hasten indeed. For Shrine of UVU Mula holds power to bring back. Bring back from ordinariness it does. Go my little hero. Go forth and make tribute."

It is here we see our hero back-flip into the distance, fighting her way through a sea of freshmen to the Shrine:

Pretty cool, desu ne?

Ichigo stumbled up to the shrine doors. With her last ounce of energy, she fell through the doors. A shuffling of a nondescript shrine caretaker brought Ichigo back to her senses. What is she came to do? "We do not accept human tributes." hazard the priest. The card! Ichigo round house kicked her way back up onto her feet. Sophisticatedly, she told of her recent troubles and desire to restore honor to her magic-less card. The priest squinted happily as he lead her down a incense filled corridor. Their soft, muffled steps sounded like grenades in a church within the silence. Finally, the priest lead into a room concealing an idol of accounting. Ichigo stepped forward to offer up the card, but the priest stopped her. He politely took the hand and placed it before the idol. After a few moments of peaceful humming,, the priest returned the newly re-magicaled card to the rightful hands of our hero.

"I must pay tribute to my karma." whispered Ichigo. A gentle melodious sound filled the room. "I can help you." kindly offered a priestess. This, however, was no ordinary priestess. Once a good friend of Big Mamma Guru and a past source of dire help for Little Ichigo, this priestess is the bomb.com. Ichigo followed the priestess to the next room in which they beheld yet another idol of accounting. "We shall send this tribute to your karma account. May I see you're one and only true Magical Card?" Ichigo placed her hands into her pocket... nothing. It was completely empty. Her eyes widened. How could this have happened? She checked her pockets and her satchel over and over again, more and more frantically and with extreme thoroughness. Soon the priest joined in the search for the again missing card. Somehow, from point A to point B, the card had gone missing. How could I be so reckless? Such carelessness and right after loosing it the first time too. Another priest happened to pass by. "What are you all looking for?" "We lost a magical card from point A to point B." He gave the obvious response. "Have you checked your pockets?" he suggested. Ichigo, to prove her point, reached into her pockets as she said, "Yes, I..." her voice trailed off. As she brought out her hand, she revealed shiny Magical Card of UVU Plus-ness.

Episode 9

Once again, our hero entered into the field of freshmen. A daunting task... but not for Little Ichigo! However, suspicions are arising as strange and unusual things occur. Things run smoothly... too smoothly. People are being nice... too nice. What is going on? Is our hero finally loosing it? Can she trust her fellow partners in crime? Or is there a secret that everyone knows that Ichigo is unaware of? TO BE CONTINUED...

I may not have the writing talent of my dear friend, the author, or the creativity of my friend, the writer, but I had fun with this. (P.S. It's based on a true story) I think I did a good job considering I had German running through my mind. (Ich bein lecker)

I'm pretty much awesome. In case you didn't know already.

BREAKING NEWS: Bear Attack

My father emailed this to me. I think it's important we keep things like this in mind as we venture into our summer adventures:

Bear Attack in Churchill , Manitoba , Canada

These are pictures of an actual polar bear attacking a man.

The pictures were taken while people watched and
could do nothing to stop the attack!

Reports from the local newspaper say that
the victim will make a full recovery.

The photos are below.

May your troubles always be smaller

than your imagination!

The Legend vs The Legend

The Legend vs The Legend:

Hugh O'Brian vs HOBY

I totally met a famous person. If you don't know who Hugh O'Brian is, the educate yourself. He's a big deal.

"The most important thing... is to teach young people to think for themselves."

Dr Albert Schweitzer

For those of you who don't know what the HOBY story is (which is probably just about everyone who will be reading this) I'll summarize for you.

Once upon a time in 1958, Hugh was famous for playing Wyatt Earp (TV cowboy) and he was invited to go to Africa with Dr Albert Schweitzer. As the name implies, he's German (yay!). He's also a famous missionary/theologian/musician/philosopher. Of course, the handsome Mr O'Brian accepted! He was out there in two weeks, volunteering at a hospital by day and having deep discussions with Dr Albert by night. (From those conversations came the above quote.) When it was time for Hugh to go back to America, Dr. Albert asked, "Hugh, what are you going to do with this?" Two weeks later, Hugh O'Brain started on what would become Hugh O'Brain's Youth Leadership (aka HOBY).

So what was it like to meet the legend that started the legend?

Nobody knew he was coming. I mean NOBODY. Not even the program directors. It was the last day and emotions were running rather high already. Hugh wasn't suppose call this weekend but during the closing ceremony, he did!

I couldn't quite hear what was going on, but it sounded like he was talking about paint balling. Then after a while I heard an echo of the voice on the phone. I turned around to see THE HUGH O'BRAIN walk in! The room erupted! Some people were in tears and others shook with excitement.

Oh. Did I mention I also ate lunch with him? Ya. We're like besties now. He's like 80 now and I think the age is getting to him. I was a little worried to see him drive off. I guess if he got lost, he could always just call up his buddy Robert Redford. Hugh is a charming, insightful, interesting (in every sense), and what you would expect your average 80-year old man to be.

This man has changed thousands of lives. He has changed mine. And there he was; Looking for his keys. His legend lives through thousands of HOBY alumni across the world. He spoke of what has happened to many HOBY alumni (many of which are now running our country). My story is just starting as are many others. I am so excited for all of this years ambassadors and I can't wait to see what they do and become. One man, just one, gave birth to this:

Yes... That is me laying front and almost center. Totally against character, right?

And that isn't even the most of it.

In Memory...

My poor shoes... they served me well... may they rest in peace.

We've fought the good fight and should them cows whose boss. We've made some good memories but your time has come. Fare thee well.

See you in that big green pasture in the sky!

Two Worlds, One Life

There are two worlds: the world we can measure with line and rule, and the world that we feel with our hearts and imagination.

~Leigh Hunt~

What happens when you have two separate identities for two different worlds and those two worlds meet up?

According to my Interpersonal Communications text book, it's absolute chaos. Super stressful chaos. My entire life, I have heard of examples where something like this happens and the effected individual tends to have a mental break down of sorts. In summary, it's never good.

But lo! There is such a thing as HOBY magic! Now listen children...

Remember the story about the dance? I forgot to mention my friends DJed it. They're pretty boss at it too! During dinner I was outside with the staff and DJ Thumpa (Or DJ Danny as some people call him) swagged his onto the HOBY scene. I've known this guy since high school and thus he was one part of "another world". This wasn't that big of a deal though. He's been there every year I have been so I was expecting this, and I don't see him that much anyways. No biggy.

Fast forward to Saturday, the last day of HOBY. Some emotions are already raising. Also the day of the college fair. After doing a final cabin check (and the appearance of Mr SUU), I entered the main lodge to find that some of the college reps were there. I looked around to see if I could see UVU. No dice. So I keep walking to join the admirable and winsome Brown Crew. For some reason that I am unaware of, I took on last look around and that's when I saw my buddy from UVU's Prospective Student department! I may have been a little louder than usual, because everyone, and I mean EVERYONE, stopped talking to watch me hug my friend.

This second encounter was a little different from the first. It was unexpected, and from a current life that I am still a part of. It's still going to take a little more to phase me. having my two worlds meet for a few moments didn't send my spiraling into an identity crisis. In fact, it probably helped.

You know when your mixing something in a hot pot and you want to add eggs? If you put the eggs straight in, they'll cook too quickly and you'll have scrambled eggs with whatever you were mixing. You have to do something called tempering. You take a little of the hot mixture and add it to the eggs to slowly bring them to temperature, then finally you mix everything together.

This is what happened when my two worlds collided. Now, it's easier to keep a little more of HOBY in my life. Love it or leave it. Hey UVU, you better get use to it.

Happy trails

We Take a Break for a Very Good Day

This week I spent a lot of time with my nieces. Above, one of them is doing the Downward Dog. These sweet little dolls help me appreciate every day at it's face value. Spend an hour with them and you will too.

However, a day during this past week we took a break from each other. I had to be a grown up and go to work. It was like any other day of work, nothing too special. BUT THEN...

I ran some errands on campus. Doesn't sound too exciting, does it? But that's where you'd be wrong!! I took care of business, man! Curious as to what happened? I'll let you in on some of the precious little things that occurred:

• I took care of financial aid. That's one thing checked off of my To Do list.
• Despite the rain, it was a gorgeous day!
• I checked out the Pope Building to see if I could find a good place to get some homework done, but that was a no go. I was about to go down the stairs at the same time as a young man, BUT he was very gentlemanly with a "Hello" and an offer to let me go down the stairs before him. Who know thing like that happen?
• To take advantage of the wonderful weather, I did some studying outside. The after rain smell was overwhelmingly amazing, the birds were flippin' happy, and so was I.
• As was mentioned before, I studied outside. I found some serious study spots! (Try saying that ten times fast) I found a place next to a dried up stream. However, because of the aforementioned rain, this day it was a babbling brook/stream.
• Whilst cranking out some much needed reading (Criminal Justice of all things), a birdie came next to me and took a bath. It's joy splashed upon me like the sun on my face and the wind in my hair. (Yep. I just got all sentimentally poetic-like.) Then a very tiny yellow bird came down and dance around his bathing friend. It was just too perfect!
• So I went find another study place. One that didn't make me feel so happy and ooy-gooy. I started to head for another building on campus. Just around the stream bend there were two sleeping ducks.

• I'm like 5 years old.
• While studying in a quiet corner, a religions teacher was very nice to me and asked "When it comes to yogurt: chocolate? peach? or blueberry?" I said blueberry. He started to leave and said he'd be back. What on earth was this guy doing?? He went into his office which was not too far from where I was crouched over my Criminal Justice. He quickly popped out and said "Sorry, not blueberry. I meant raspberry." I said raspberries are good too. Then he came out with a raspberry Creamie! Stuff like this actually happens!!

Here is the deep side. Sometimes, life is like this dried up stream that turns rocks yellow and smells like trout (good memories). Some days, we have the waters of life flowing through us and sometimes not. We can't always see what's coming, but if we keep going we may end up on the ride of our lives.

Also, who needs an excuse for a good day? Good days have wonderful thoughts within themselves! Great things happen. You don't have to dig into everything.

Happy trails!

(P.S. If you want to hear another reason that greatly contributed to my overfilling gooberness of that day, ask me.)

Wait... You Can Learn From a Dance?

There is a bit of insanity in dancing that does everybody a great deal of good. ~Edwin Denby

(Left to Right, Me creeping, Micheal- JStaff and Katie, Clint and Belen, then demonstrating the "dead bird" would be two staffies, Jerry and Lena, and in the back is the brown crew. The best crew.)

If you know me, you know I'm not a big fan of dances. Sure I like dancing, but dances just are not really my scene. At least that's what I thought! Although it only lasted a little over an hour, this most recent dance is probably one of the best so far. Should we explore the possible reasons why?

Never trust spiritual leader who cannot dance. ~Mr. Miyagi, The Next Karate Kid, 1994

(Jessica and myself showing off our "Furniture Sale")

Maybe I've never noticed this in other dances, but this one was just therapeutic. There is something about getting down to a beat, getting lost in a crowd, having your ears blasted out, and cutting loose that brings out another side to people you don't normally see. You forget all your problems and expose this different side of yourself to people you barely know.

I danced with 16 year olds. Actually, it was more like they danced with me. I would be minding my own business, just dancing with some friends, then a ton of ambassadors (sophomores) will trap us and act as though we were equals. or at least until one of them says "I'm dancing with a 21 year old! So cool!" Dancing does not discriminate. The next day everything went back to normal, other than we all felt a little closer than we were before. I must agree with whoever said, "This is better than a rave!"

You must also take into account that whether you like it or not, dancing is a form of exercise even when you're just jumping up and down, trying to stay upright. Exercise, as we all know, releases endorphins which makes people happy. There were some serious happy vibes.

We're fools whether we dance or not, so we might as well dance. ~Japanese Proverb

(Me, Jerry, and Jessica bouncing. P.S. I'm doing it in cowboy boots. Not an easy task.)

I have to add that I learned how to jerk, how to "bounce", how to beat box, and re-learned the Tragedy dance. I learned a lot that night, and it was only the first official night of the conference! Who knew I could still break it down?

I also feel the need to add that after I cleaned up after the dance, I had the brilliant idea to blow dry my hair upside down. The result was a mane. Add a hoodie, sore back, and an Oreo, you get a creepy hobo. Fun times! Anyways, when I woke up that morning, my hair was still puffy, that is why my hair looks that great in the above picture. I had many different kinds of learning experiences.

After going over all of these possible reasons as to why this dance was such a great experience, I have to admit that there is only one reason that ultimately contributed...

These guys.

(The Gang: Including Staff, J-Staff, Facilitators, and others)

HOBY 2011

"Service is a lifestyle" -Mike Anderson

Another HOBY conference has come and pass. The only way I could describe this year's experience would have to be... interesting. Every year is special and unique. That is why, unlike last year, I will actually blog about part of my experience.

Evey year I learn something new at HOBY and every year I am reminded of things I should be doing. Such an example would be goals. To start off, I am setting a goal to blog a little bit about HOBY as often as possible. Wait! I don't think that's specific enough. I will blog at least once every three days. With spring semester and work, I have nothing else to blog about.

HOWEVER! I will be posting my experiences in my own way. I am blogging about lessons I learned and impressions I took from HOBY. And of course, there will be pictures.

Until next time. Happy trails!

(P.S. Yes, that is me laying in the front. This picture was chosen because it was everyone from HOBY and because the "funny" picture would be too revealing of my experience. We don't want to jump ahead.)

That Good Old Fashioned School Stress

Sometimes I wonder, did I really want this? Am I really where I am suppose to be? Did I bite off more than I can chew? Was I really ready for this? Maybe I jumped the gun?

It seems like there is a lack of balance in my life and a lot weight to hold up. The more I try to focus, the less focused I become. I find myself thinking up songs when I should be thinking of research topics.

I sometimes feel overwhelmed with life and it's lack of adventures. A lot of the times things do not go as planned and I feel as though everything is falling into ciaos. And yet...

... Everything is fine. Between the blurs there is something. Burnt out, yes. Certifiably crazy, perhaps. Beat? Defeated? Never. Summer is almost here. It's coming too soon and not soon enough. hopefully it will come before I loose all the hair on my head but after I get everything done.I find myself staring out windows and at walls more and more often. We all handle stress differently. I wonder if it's possible to change the pattern of how we carry out through the stress. Am I destined to become spacey, or will I someday become overwhelmed like others do. Or will I someday learn to manage my life and keep a cool head in the face of... finals. How do you handle those crazy moments of your life?
As pictured above, I still have much to do. I haven't felt like this for a while. Oh spring... Please kidnap me and leave a ransom for my brain. Thank you.

One Year of Growth

I had the stunning realization that it's been a year since I've made one of the most important and life changes choices of my life. I am pleased to admit that I do not regret it one bit. If I got the chance to do my life over again I would make the same choice.

I have seen a world.

I have heard it's sound.

I have felt it's emotions.

I am ready for more.

I have been to concerts.

I have met new people.

I have spoken new words.

I have eaten new foods.

I have crawled on the floor.

I am excited for more.

If it wasn't for that one single choice... that final yes... All this would be different. I would not know the happiness I now know. I would not have felt certain emotions both painful and good. I would not know people and the values they share. I would not be the woman I am becoming.

I have never been so scared in my life but I have never been so excited either. I have never been more cautious or more adventurous. Is this a part of growing up? I have asked myself if perhaps I am growing up too soon? Too fast? Too young? If I am I don't mind. I would not have it any other way.

When a friend of mine had passed on, one of my brothers read me a quote about how he no longer has to suffer through this miserable life. In that moment I realized, this life isn't miserable at all. Even in that moment, one of my most painful, I loved my life. It's my God-given gift and I cherish it. All of it.

I can't wait to see what this next year will do.

Happy New Year!

Aubrey

P.S. Let it be known that this is my first post

that did not have any misspellings.

(at least according to the spell check.)