Blah...

So you know how I said I was writing a book?

Yeah...

I got about a chapter and a half of it out.

And then I realized later that it was stupid.

I think I just lost my inspiration.  And started doubting myself.

But no biggie.  I have other things to worry about, like finishing my online class.  And Kathy coming on Friday morning.  And losing weight (because let me tell you, I'm turning into a fatty.  If any of you know any good diet plans, let me know).

Oh, and Michael Fassbender.

So beautiful...

Seriously.  This man makes my heart skip.  And I don't care that he's 34 years old or dating Zoe Kravitz (who is 22 years old, which gives me hope).  I ADORE HIM.

Okay, Fassy fan-girl rant over.

Oh, and can I add Jamie Bell is quite attractive as well?

Oh my...

I mean, LOOK AT HIM.  He's a good actor.  AND he dances.  Oh, and did I mention he's super-mega-foxy-awesome-hot?  Case and point: THE ABOVE PICTURE.

Okay, now I'm done.  So on with real life.

MY MALE BEST FRIEND TREVOR CAME HOME FROM HIS MISSION THIS WEEK!!!!  Can you tell I'm excited about that?  I can talk to him about pretty much anything.  And for those of you thinking, "Oh, your male best friend?  I think I hear bells in the distance...," no, it isn't like that (even though a lot of people try to tell me it is, which makes me reject the idea even more, SO SHUT UP ABOUT IT).  Trevor is more or less my brother.  From another mother.  But we've been chatting on Facebook the last couple of nights, and it's just been great getting to talk to him in real time for the first time in two years :-)  We take care of each other, he and I, and it's great having my brother home. 

Actually, a LOT of the guys I knew from my freshman year are, and have been, coming home from their missions.  It's pretty awesome, needless to say.  I'm really excited about seeing everyone again this next school year.

So a mini rant now.  Trevor and I were talking tonight (it's currently 12:54 AM my time), and I mentioned how crazy this next semester was going to be, and how I was definitely graduating single.  Which I am pretty content with.  I have plans for my life, and sure, marriage is in there (somewhere), but I kind of like my independence (shocker, right?).  And Trevor made some comments like, "Well, don't reject it if it's there," or "What kind of guys do you like?  I want to introduce you to friends."

Okay.

I don't date a lot.  I've only ever had one boyfriend, kind of two (I had a sort-of relationship with a guy, but we were never official), and I let myself get absolutely crushed by both of them when it didn't work out.  ESPECIALLY with the sort-of boyfriend.  I was hung on this guy from the latter half of my junior year of high school until my freshman year of college.  And then I finally got over him (although I still think about whatever happened to him).  I realized he could never give me what I wanted and deserved.  But I have this problem, where I like guys and freak out when they like me back, or I don't like guys that like me, or I like guys that I will never get.  It seems like this is pretty standard for a lot of girls, because we're dumb and emotional and hormonal and all that.  And I always whine about boys, and about how even though I whine about them I secretly want one.  I mean, hand-holding and cuddling are the greatest things ever, and without a boy where can I get my fixes of those?

Anyway, back to the rant.

I understand us LDS girls are supposed to get married and have babies, and that we should make that a priority.  But...it's not for me.  At least, not right now.

I mean, I'm not saying I'm averse to dating or marriage.  Heck, dates can be super fun, and I hear married life is the best.  But I'm scared of being set up with guys that I end up not being interested in.  Because what if he's interested in me, but I have no intention of ever seeing him again?  This happened to me this last semester, and I feel awful in this kind of situation.

Goodness, I don't really know where I'm going with this.  More or less what I think I'm trying to say is, someday the right guy will come along.  I'm not going to just go out with someone I have no interest in, or who I don't have those specific feelings towards.  That's not fair to him.  And it's not like I haven't put myself out there, because I have, and I've gotten shut down (and it's not like all of them were "out of my league," shall we say).  If I fall in love with a guy, and he loves me back, then yes, I'll do the right thing and get married.  But I'm not going to rush it.  I'm always waiting for a guy, and I always get told, "It'll happen when you're not looking for it."  And you know what?  I'm starting to get that.

I'm a big girl.  I am in control of my own heart and feelings.  I know eight months is a long time (by Mormon standards) to find someone and get married, but I'm not going to force it with someone I don't have the right connection with. 

Anyway, I realized that I'm more content with my singleness when I'm not in Provo.  Probably because I'm surrounded by married people in Provo and they're rubbing their euphoric happiness in my face.  But right now, I have plans for my life, and they involve a single me.

And I think I'm okay with that.

Anyway, I don't know if you've read my novel or not.  But it feels good to spill all of this out.  But I should get to bed.  We leave for Schinnen in about 8.5 hours, and I still need to sleep and shower before then.  So good night!

Hmmm...yes?

So that past couple of days I've been OBSESSED with the "Jane Eyre" (from this year) soundtrack.  It is just absolutely gorgeous!  It was composed by Dario Marinelli, the same guy to did "Pride and Prejudice" with Keira Knightly in it, which was also amazing.  This soundtrack is more dark and moody, but still has that magical sound that just takes you away like "Pride and Prejudice" did.  I seriously just keep lying around and listening to it, daydreaming.  Heck, I even listened to it for the full hour I was on the elliptical today!  It has totally captured me.

Anyway, my daydreams always consist of some story or movie that I make up in my mind.  Of course they're romances, because I'm a girl, and that's what we do.   I've been running around a few different ones the past few days, but there's one I thought up today that I really like.  So much, in fact, that I think I'm going to write a book.

Yep.  I'm writing a book!

Now don't get me wrong, this book is most definitely NOT going to be the greatest or most original thing ever written, I can promise you that.  But I've always liked making up stories, and I feel like this one could actually make sense.  It'll be along the lines of a Jane Austen book, I suppose.  It will most definitely be around the same time period of her books, or maybe around the time of the Bronte sisters' books, like "Jane Eyre" (see why this story's in my head?  It's the soundtrack, I tell you!) or "Wuthering Heights."

I don't know how the easiest way to go about this is, since I'd like to type it on my laptop, but it doesn't work anymore, and I don't really want to type it on my parents' computer, because I'm afraid they'll read it, and I don't think I want anyone reading it until I'm good and ready for them to.  I know some people will type stories in a blog, chapter by chapter, but I don't know if I'll be writing the book totally in order.  At the moment I have different sections of the book really thought out, and kind of know how I want to string things together, but I'm just not sure.  Does anyone know of a way for me to type this out without people reading it?  Because a notebook is just not an option!  I would go insane from trying to handwrite everything.  So, your suggestions are welcome!

Arr, Mateys!

So we went and saw "On Stranger Tides" tonight, and it was quite good, I have to say.  I really did like the story, and I'm excited for the next one or two movies that are going to follow.  Johnny Depp was brilliant, of course :)  I would gladly go and see it again, just not in 3D because it's really not worth it to go and see it in 3D.  But if you haven't seen it yet, you definitely should, I don't think you'll be disappointed.

Rapture...

So apparently there was a ton of hype that today was going to be the end of the world or something.  Pretty ridiculous, right?  And I had a non-member friend who said that one day, there would be someone who would predict the end and actually be right about the date, and it just boggles my mind that people don't read the Bible, when it says that no one will know exactly when it will happen, so no, there will never be someone who will correctly predict the day the world will end.

Anyway, worldwide drama aside, life has been pretty chill.  The parental units and my Uncle Jon and Aunt Monica have been on a Baltic Cruise all week, and I am extremely jealous of them because they got to sail into St. Petersburg, which is RUSSIA, people!  I just wish I could get over there.  Maybe I'll get to go over there sometime this summer?  But it looks like we're staying closer to home vacation-wise this summer, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but we'll see if I can get over there or not.  My dad said that he was going to try and bring back "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" in Russian for me, which would basically make my LIFE, and I'm sure he was successful in his endeavors, so I'm really excited :)  It'll give me something to work on this summer (besides my Independent Study course that I've supposed to have been working on for over a year now...yeah, we'll just not talk about it).  But yes, I am a slacker (as you well know), and still have to finish my Humanities 202 course.  Although my extension lets me have until August 11 to finish it, I want to be done by the end of June.  I feel like that is a very reasonable goal, even with all of the essays and reading.  I mean, it's not like I have a job or anything, and the only thing I really want to be doing is working out (because I've realized that I'm kind of a fatty and want to get down to AT LEAST what I was when I graduated high school, if not skinnier than that) and reading Harry Potter in Russian, so I think I can do it.

So being at home alone has been kind of interesting.  We currently have three dogs and two cats in the house, and needless to say, I never want to get a dog.  Don't get me wrong, I love animals, but the dogs we have (two or which are Jon and Monica's) are SO much work.  A lot of times one or two of them will follow me EVERYWHERE I walk.  It's really annoying.  And then I've had to sleep in my parents' room with them, and one of them sleeps on the bed with them, and she's the biggest dog of all the ones we have. I hate the smell of dog, and sometimes I'll catch her sleeping on my blanket, which makes me mad.  And the most infuriating thing of all is the barking.  THEY BARK AT EVERYTHING.  One of them will sit on top of the couch so she can look out the window, and if she sees someone she goes ballistic, and then the other girl dog will start barking, and now our dog feels like he's allowed to bark, too.  And no matter how much I yell at them, THEY WON'T SHUT UP.  Dogs are just too much freaking work.  I'm definitely a cat person.  They hardly ever want attention, and you only have to make sure they have food, water, and a clean litterbox (and sometimes you don't even need THAT if they're an outdoor cat).  Needless to say, my future [at this moment imaginary] husband will have to do a LOT of convincing if he ever wants to get a dog.

Blah.  I need to go to bed.  I spent waaaay too long trying to get this thing for primary figured out, and I still need to sleep, wake up, shower, and I have to take the bus to church, which will honestly take almost an hour with the bus ride an walking, so yay me!  Then I get to come home and make sure that the house is all nice and clean for when the parents come home.  I cleaned the kitchen a couple of days ago, but then I make cupcakes today, and the kitchen is REALLY hard to keep clean for more than a day, because the dishes pile up really easy, and our dishwasher doesn't work, so we actually have to wash everything and then we just put them in the dishwasher to let them air dry.  It's kind of annoying, but what can you do?

So I realized that my friend Jocelyn and I are the only girls from our high school class in Vacaville that aren't married or engaged.  It's kind of crazy!  People are growing up and getting married and having babies, and I still feel like I'm this 18 year old kid, when in reality I'm 21 and going to graduate from college in less than a year and still don't have a solid plan for my life.  IT'S SCARY!  I mean, I have an idea of what I want to do, but if that doesn't work out?  It's not like I have a great plan B thought out.  I mean, when I was younger I always dreamed that I would get discovered and be famous and yada yada yada, but at this point, let's face it, it's not gonna happen unless a miracle occurs, so I'm just scared.  I read all of these articles about how it's really tough for college grads these days to get a job in the area they majored in, and read an article the other day that said humanities was one of the major whose graduates are least likely to get a job related to their studies.  Talk about discouragement.  But hopefully everything will work out for the best.  I need to suck it up and be an adult now, no matter how much like a kid I feel like, so I guess we'll just see what happens.  One day at a time, right?

Holland!

So I am officially back in the Netherlands now!  It was weird, because I consider California as home and would NEVER call Holland home, but driving back to the house, it felt like I was coming home.  I guess it's because it's where my family is, and we're finally all together again :)

I flew in early on Thursday morning, and Mom and Dad picked me up from Schipol and drove me home.  Then the Elders and Harry came over from dinner that night.  It's been forever since I've had missionaries over!  You don't really get that in college, which kind of stinks, but oh well, I'll get to do it this summer.  It looks like they come over every Thursday night, which is nice for them, because they get yummy American food ;-)  This week is steak, so it's good for everyone haha.

So my family has been letting this German kid, Robin, from my brothers' school live with them, because he used to have to wake up REALLY early to take the train to school because his family lives so far away.  He's a sweet kid, he fits in pretty well with the family, which is nice, since he's here from Monday afternoon to Friday morning, then he goes home for the weekend.  But he'd been living in my room, and we had to switch everything out, so now he and Chris are sharing a room, and I get one all to myself :-)

So Mom and Dad are supposed to go on a Baltic cruise next week.  The big stop on this trip is St. Petersburg, which makes me SO jealous, because you can't imagine how badly I want to go to Russia haha.  But my Mom just says that someday we'll get to go on our own cruise, and it took her how long to be able to?  So I get no sympathy from her in my plight haha.  But it's all good, I'll get over to Russian someday, I guess.

So my best friend from freshman year, Trevor, is going to be coming home from his mission in about 6 weeks!  I'm super excited to get to hang out with him again next year.  A lot of guys from my freshman year have started coming home, so it's a really exciting time.  I remember when they were all leaving, and how I thought it would be forever, but two years really isn't that long at all.  It amazes me how fast the time has flown.  I mean, I'm graduating from college in less than a year!  That's a very bizarre thought to me.  You always think it's going to last forever, but college really doesn't last that long at all.

So this summer is going to be pretty busy.  I have an online class I need to get done, and Chris is supposed to be flying out in a little over a month to go back to the States to work and save up money for his mission. He'll be over there until he has to come back for his mission farewell, which will probably be at the end of this year.  I can't believe my brother is going to be leaving on a mission at the end of this year!  It's crazy.  And then my tia, Kathy, will be coming over here to vacation with us for about a month, which should be a  lot of fun.  She'll be here for pretty much all of July, and then I'll be leaving in the middle of August or so to go back to Utah.  I don't even think I'll be able to move into my house at that time, I'll probably have to kick at my Uncle Ivan and Aunt Lori's place again, or maybe with Kathy's sister and brother-in-law, so we'll see what happens.  I didn't want to have to come back until the 22nd, but there's a chance I'll have to get my wisdom teeth out at the end of the summer back in Utah if I can't get it done here, so my parents decided to send me back a week earlier just in case we had to do that.  But I didn't need to be back until August 22nd (which is the move-in day on my contract), and then I have new-student orientation training on the 23rd, and then the actual NSO from the 25th-27th.  I'm actually excited to by a Y group leader for NSO this year.  I think it will be fun to welcome the incoming freshman my senior year of college, and give them a nice intro to the campus and BYU life.  I hope they like me ;-)  But then orientation will end on Saturday, and the Monday after I'll start school!  I'm excited for next year, because I get to take a lot of ballroom classes since I decided to make ballroom my minor (more or less.  I'm not doing the actual ballroom minor, because I would have to extend my graduation date in order to do that, but I have to have 8-9 hours of non-humanities coursework, and since I already had 2.5 for ballroom, I just decided to make things fun and continue on with that).  Needless to say, I'm really excited for all of my ballroom stuff :-)  I'm really hoping I'll make it onto team next year some time, but we'll see how things go, I guess.  It would really be a dream come true if I could make that happen.

So I'm kind of an old lady, and I've been going to bed really early since I got back.  I sleep for almost 12 hours, but because I'm going to bed so early it's not making me wake up very late in the afternoon, so that's good :-)  Tomorrow I have to go to a doctor's appointment with D.J. and Mom, because D.J. needs more meds and Mom wants him to get his lungs tested, and then she also wants to get me in so we can talk to a doctor about my skin.  For those of you who see me on a regular basis, you know I have pretty bad acne on my face, and nothing topical I've been given has worked, so we're hoping the doctors will actually listen to me this summer and give me a pill of some sort to get rid of my acne.  I can't tell you how much I want to get it gone; it's only gotten worse since I've come to college, and I hate having it.  I get the really gross cystic acne, too, so it's even painful to have.  Needless to say, once I can get it gone, life will be AMAZING.  So here's hoping :-)

Bah...

...still a slacker haha.  But whatever, this is WAY more than I usually write on here.  See, I'm getting better!

Anyway, it's been almost a week since I've gotten to my aunt and uncle's place, and we STILL don't have a flight for me all figured out.  Mom flies back to Brussels tomorrow, and hopefully I can get mine by tomorrow.  Not that I don't love my relatives, but I hate being in limbo and just want to be back home and not living out of suitcases.  But the guys that take care of my flights were out of town, and Mom said they thought that I was going to be done with school NEXT month, so they didn't know they'd be needing to get mine done.  Unfortunately it takes a couple of days for them to get from D.C. back to Germany, so we'll see how soon I'll fly out of here.  I can't believe I'm saying this, but I'm kind of looking forward to the 8 hour or so flight.  I really do enjoy flying, and that means I'm on my way home to my family :)

So I'm really lucky, because at this moment the power cord (I almost spelled that "chords," and then had to spell check it.  Music nerd much?) to my laptop is actually working!  It's basically dying, but I'm able to get these spells where I don't even have to hold it in to my laptop to get it to work.  I'm just going to have to buy a new one once I get back to Holland.  I've been lucky that my laptop has lasted me all of college so far.  I still think I'm going to need to find a way to back up all of my files, though, just in case I have to get a new one sometime.  Anybody know of any online websites that will do it for free?  I know it's a long shot, but I really don't want to have to pay for it, and if my laptop crashes again like it did my freshman year (worst month and a half of my LIFE) I really don't want to be without them.  So if you have any suggestions, let me know!

So I know some of you probably don't care, but I am TOTALLY stoked for the royal wedding in the morning.  I'm excited for the dress, the ceremony, their kiss on the balcony of Buckingham Palace...I just think they are such a cute couple!  I'm really happy for both of them.  Kate gets her prince, and William finally gets to protect the woman he loves, which he couldn't do for his mom.  Okay, I'm super lame.  But I can't help it ;)

Gah...

...so much for me writing on here everyday. My whole entire weekend was very relaxing, needless to say. It's nice being out of school for the most part. I still have to finish up my independent study class, but other than that I am freaking done :)

It's been difficult trying to get me a flight back to Holland, so we still don't know when I'll be getting back yet. I'll hopefully be back by the end of this week, but we just don't know right now. I'm anxious to be back with my family one last time before Chris leaves on his mission at the end of this year. I can't believe so many people I know will be coming home from their missions this summer!!! I'm excited to see all of them next year when I'm back at school. It makes me hope that this summer will go by kind of quick ;)

So for my grateful thing for today, I'm grateful for children. I've been getting to play wi my cousin's son Grey while I've been here, and he is the cutesy little kid! I love how willing he is to love me even though he barely knows me, and I love how kids never make anything boring.

Anyway, that's all for tonight. I hope everyone had a happy Easter Sunday :)