I Have Much To Say

But it'll have to wait (because I am SUPER tired). However, here's a few things you can look forward to:

• A FOTW post (warning, it does involve men with accents again)
• Recap of my whirlwind trip to Utah (complete with pictorial representations)
• Overview and initial feelings of how the semester is going to look including professors/classmates/course work etc.
• Nostalgia post (because why not?)
• An insightful (not on my part) and eye-opening post on dating/marriage
• A confession (nope, that's all I'm telling you!)

See? I got exciting stuff planned... I just need to type them all up. Hope you guys are doing well and have a FABULOUS Labor Day weekend!

I'm such a nerd

Today was my first class this semester and not going to lie, I totally missed school. Not really all the work and reading involved, but all my classmates and feeling like I was learning new things and engaging in stimulating, thought-provoking, philosophical conversation. Not that I didn't have those conversations this summer but it's just different in a school type setting with people that know what you're talking about.

I didn't realize how much I missed seeing my classmates till we had a mini reunion before and after class. No seriously, we all gave each other hugs and asked how the summer went, etc. Last year a few classmates and I would always end up standing in the parking lot after class to have a discussion on the most random topics, but we would love the discussion so much that we'd end up staying out there really late. We had one tonight, and though we didn't have one as long as usual, I loved every minute of it. We laughed, complained about our class or the stupid and/or annoying people in it, and just enjoyed each other's company and stories. It was refreshing, not to mention that it was actually cool outside for this parking lot convo.

Of course, I might be changing my tune and complaining about how I'm going to die or how I'm super stressed as the semester progresses, but someone remind of this post and how I said I missed it, okay?

Also, I leave for Utah tomorrow, so hopefully I survive that straight-through 21 hour drive. :) Don't miss me too much while I'm gone loves!!

The Thing I Told You To Keep Your Eyes Peeled For...

I'm going to Utah THIS WEEK!

Yup. It's going to be a SUPER quick kind of last-minute trip, and while it's a long story about how it ended up working out, the important thing is I'm going and I'm excited. I'm mainly going to help out my brother Cameron bring all of his stuff back down to Texas because he decided not to continue going to Utah State in Logan and instead move back home and transfer to University of Texas at Dallas (where I'm going for my Master's!).

BUT while I'm there I also get to see a few friends I haven't seen in literally years! I'm going to be able to go see my friend Libby at her wedding open house/reception (and she doesn't know I'm going to be there BT Dubs). I haven't seen Libby since before she left on her mission, which was like 4 years ago. Also there will be other people I know at the reception/open house that will be there as well that I'm so stoked to see, but besides Libby I'm psyched to get to see my friend Wes, whom I also haven't seen in like 4 years either. (I'm secretly hoping I get to see Academy Fantasia, Wes, so I sure hope you do it within the like 2 hours I'll see you.)

Among the peeps at the open house, I'm hoping to get to see my friend Carey, that is if our schedules can mesh and she can work me in around working with the BYU football team. :) I'll also see mi familia in Provo since we're staying with them and all... and of course I'll get to briefly drive the streets of Provo and remember all the good times I had in college.

Sounds like this trip will be awesome, right?

Well... here's the downsides (for all involved):

I will have to drive (because I'm hauling my brother's crap, remember?), but my dad, who is ALREADY in Utah with my brother at this very moment, insisted that he drive with me since he doesn't want me driving alone. So, I'm picking him up from the airport (after flying in from SLC) on Thursday and then heading out on the road where we will drive straight through, no stops, taking turns, until we arrive on Friday at the Bubble that is Provo, UT. Then Saturday morning we'll wake up super early and drive ALL the way back to the Promised Land of Texas, luckily stopping this time in the Land of Enchantment that is Albuquerque, NM for the night and continuing on on Sunday. Also, I have to miss the first day of 2 of my classes, but I already emailed my professors and they say it's cool. :)

Yeah... I'm pretty much going to be dead by the time this is all over. AWESOME! Just in time for the start of the semester too. It's going to be great.

So Much for Straight A's

I just checked my grades for my summer class and I have mixed emotions about it. I'm a little disappointed because it means that I now no longer have straight A's for my grad school career (don't worry it's not failing or anything and it's kind of close to an A). Y'all know me, I'm such a perfectionist. I dropped my Honors Geometry class in high school and went to regulars after 2-3 weeks because I had gotten a 70 on our first test. (Yes. True story.)Yet at the same time, I was kind of expecting it and knew I hadn't done that well.

BUT I did learn something.

I in no way want to take a business or marketing class EVER AGAIN.

I hated this class. I wasn't interested in anything that I was supposed to be learning, everything was incredibly boring and confusing because I have no experience in business or marketing (everyone else in the class was in their 5th semester in the business program), and because it was online it was harder for me to motivate myself to actually study/read, not to mention that getting a response (both quickly and one that actually answered the question/made sense) from the professor was like pulling teeth. So I just winged it the whole class. Luckily I had a fairly strong group that knew what they were doing (for the most part), so I just did my part to help out and took whatever grade we got (cause it was better than the grade I would have gotten if I had to do it on my own).

Whatever. It's over, and at least I passed (gosh, never thought I'd be okay with that phrase...). Fall semester starts next week, so maybe I can bring my GPA back up over the next 2 semesters. My last 2 semesters.

P.S. I have some fun/exciting things going on in the next few weeks (well next week actually) that I want to tell you all about, so you know... keep your eyes peeled.

FOTW: Tyler Hoechlin

As a new resident of Richardson, my first order of business was to get me a library card. I was mainly getting it so I wouldn't have to shell out money to buy our book club pick this month, but also because I hear that the Richardson library has a great selection of DVDs. And you know I loves me the movies.

Anyways, I dragged my roommate with me as well and after we both received our cards, I went straight to the info desk because I didn't want to go searching around for the book I wanted (Matched). Well turns out there were already 16 people on the waiting list for it, so I gave up and decided I'll just have to buy it (I downloaded the audiobook actually). So, since we were conveniently right by the DVDs/CDs, we walked around and browsed.

I picked a few CDs I liked, and then while looking through the movies I came across Road to Perdition. Now this movie I've always been meaning to watch. I had seen it, but it was the CleanFlicks version so I was super confused and didn't know what the heck was going on because they had cut so much stuff out (don't get me started on what CleanFlicks did to my beloved Love Actually). After that I swore that I would watch the actual movie so I could understand it. After telling my roommate this story, she convinced me to get the movie.

On the weekend I decided I had some time and decided to watch it (that and it was going to be due soon). I'm happy to say I now know what happened and I do think it was a good movie. After watching it I decided to look it up on IMDB (what you don't do that?). I was mainly looking it up so I could see if this boy had done anything else after filming Road to Perdition:

He seemed like a cute kid in the movie and I wondered what happened to him and what he looked like now. When I clicked on his IMDB page and found the following, you wouldn't BELIEVE how shocked I was. No seriously, mouth hanging open, eyes popping out of my head shocked:

Yeah. See what I mean?

Turns out the kid's name is Tyler Hoechlin and he is only a year younger than me (with his birthday being on 9/11 which has got to be difficult, right?). He was apparently in 7th Heaven, but I never watched that show. He is, according to IMDB of course, an amazing baseball player and got into his college on a baseball scholarship. Since he's been pursuing baseball, he hasn't done much acting, but was close runners up to Shia LaBeouf in Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle, AND Robert Pattison in Twilight (I hope he's counting his lucky stars he didn't get that role). But he was most recently in the new Teen Wolf, which I've also never seen (umm it was on MTV and I don't ever watch that channel), but now I'm slightly intrigued.

His next film Melvin Smarty is in post-production and looks rather obscure, but if he looks like this in it... I might go see it anyway.

The Apartment Saga--Boiled Down Short Version

Now that I'm past all the ridiculousness that happened with my seemingly cursed apartment, it doesn't seem like too much of a saga now. I'm really hoping, praying, and keeping my fingers crossed that we are on the other side of this hill and things are looking up. In short, here's what happened:

• Some drama happened with me and my family because I wasn't exactly packed yet and they decided to move all my stuff and pack it for me even though I didn't ask them to, which led to them being mad that I wasn't prepared and packed already.
• Because of said drama, I wasn't in a particularly pleasant mood and was rather distracted when signing the lease, which led to us signing the lease without looking at the apartment first (not a good move on my part).
• Once we had the keys, our initial looksie seemed okay, but as we started moving things in and taking a closer look we noticed a few things:
• Like how there was a giant cochroach on the ceiling, which was of course a tell-tale sign that there were others like it lurking all up in the kitchen and my roommate's bathroom/bedroom, which means umm we didn't use our kitchen (and really still haven't) or unpack anything in it.
• The pipes under the sink leaked (and still does actually) and we noticed that apparently this is a continuing problem because that one cabinet has been painted to cover up the water damage.
• The screen door was installed backwards (the lock was on the wrong side so couldn't latch) and the screen fell out, which to their credit, the complex did fix very quickly.
• Also we had a slight problem with our gate keys and of course couldn't get them working after the office was already closed, on the weekend.
• We couldn't get satellite because of the way our apartment faces and because the complex wouldn't let the satellite be outside the patio or attached to the railing.
• Of course you guys remember my little Internet problem. Well, since then, we found out that AT&T can only give us their basic DSL package (which is not what we had signed up for), which is incredibly slow, because our phone lines are too old to allow them to give us a faster package.
• There were other things with each of the issues, other little things that just compounded and made dealing with it all at once right when we moved in a HUGE pain.
• Most of these problems, in fact, were noticed after the office was closed or required other people (pest control, AT&T peeps, maintenance people, etc.), which means we had to wait on all of them to get things fixed. And I hate waiting.

Since then, the pest control people have come and sprayed/powdered and done who knows what else, and I'm happy to say that though I've seen plenty of dead roaches I haven't seen any live ones, which I would like to keep that way. We have unpacked most everything in the kitchen and even bought groceries! (We still haven't used the kitchen as in cooked anything because it's been too freakin' hot to do that.) After I bugged (haha!) my roommate because I'm too used to the fast Verizon Fios of my parents' house, we are switching to the much faster (at least than what we have now) Time Warner Cable so that I can watch a 20 min. episode of the Colbert Report in 20 min. (hopefully) instead of the 30-40 min. it took me a few days ago. (They are coming this Friday, so hopefully all will go well.)

Again, I don't want to jinx anything, but it appears as if things are looking up. Now if only I could find the time to actually unpack my room instead of having stacks of boxes everywhere...

VERY Belated FOTW: Harry Potter Edition

So I meant to post this a while ago, but the whole moving and lack of Internet at my apartment thing prevented me from doing much of anything. Not to mention, I needed to take my final and you know... study. But rest-assured, I have been thinking about what/who to put in this post, and I'd like to think some of these may be somewhat unexpected and all of them are from Harry Potter, you know in honor of the final movie coming out and all. (For some awesome pictures of me dressed up at the midnight showing and description, check out my friend Anna's blog.)



First up is Tom Felton who played Draco Malfoy. I would like to say, I think he is way more attractive as himself than he is as bleach-blonde Draco:

That hair makes him look super washed out. But, with his normal hair, he is definitely cuter. Of course Harry Potter wasn't his first gig. Does anyone remember him as Peagreen in The Borrowers??? Cause I certainly do. :) Anyway, he plays the annoying, bratty kid pretty well. So well, in fact, that he plays a much similar character in the upcoming Rise of the Planet of the Apes, which I totally want to see! I'm excited to see what other roles he'll take on now that his Harry Potter days are behind him, and I hope he'll get to play the good guy every now and then.

Next up is the very handsome and sexy Jason Isaacs who plays the evil Lucius Malfoy (aka Draco's dad). Again, I hate the way he looks as Lucius:

I'm sorry but long blonde hair only looks good on women or Legolas. But look at those pictures when he's normal!!! He's very attractive. He's been in lots of other things, probably most well known in America (after HP) is probably the new live action Peter Pan (he played Captain Hook/Mr. Darling). He's apparently in the new upcoming movie Abduction, which stars Taylor Lautner, and let's be honest, I'll probably end up seeing it just so I can see Taylor Lautner with and without his shirt on. So, we'll see how he does in that one. He is very attractive, so I hope he appears in more films for American audiences because I'd love to see him in a movie where he doesn't have to wear a wig.

Last and biggest shocker of them all is the incredibly hot Matthew Lewis, who played Neville Longbottom and used to look like this (!!!):

and this:

and now looks like this:

 and this:

Granted, I think they made him wear false teeth in the films once he started growing up, but still! I mean COME ON! If you are not completely shocked/drooling over Matthew Lewis, I'm seriously going to question your sanity.  I REALLY REALLY hope he gets thousands of acting gigs playing the leading man because he clearly looks like one now. But for reals though. When I saw the pictures of him from the HP premiere start coming up on my Tumblr feed, I was amazed! "That's the dude that plays Neville?! No freakin' way!" And now I absolutely love him and I don't even know him and have only seen him play a secondary character in one film series (who happens to have a kick-a scene in this last film).

And on that note, I sure hope that if you haven't seen the last most epic HP film by now that you don't even speak to me until you do (I sure hope that is none of you). The men of HP (all of them including the leads: Daniel Radcliffe and Rupert Grint who while I may or may not find attractive, I did not include because I figured they're getting all the attention anyway) have grown up (or grown more attractive in my eyes as the case may be), and will hopefully continue their acting careers in other great films. I love Harry Potter, both the films and the books, and I'm sad that with this last movie it's basically over. But thank goodness I can read the books and watch the movies over and over again.

And on that note I say: Good luck to the kids of HP, may they not be forever typecast into roles because of the ones they held in Harry Potter!