Wednesday, September 23, 2009

A revamp!

If you hadn't noticed, I am revamping my blog. sometimes you just need something new... a little spice in life. :) So if it threw you off... I apologize.

Thursday, September 10, 2009

BYU: ranked 9th (from 20) Oaklahoma: not in the top 10 anymore!


Can you believe that I am one month away from getting married?! I am having a hard time believing it myself! My check list is getting longer and more urgent... not because there's more to do, its just more specific now. We are moving past the general plans and focusing on (my favorite part) the details! Yay!!! Our announcements are in the process of the final edit, and will hopefully be ordered today or tomorrow, to be mailed out by next week... so *cross fingers* I hope you like them! :) (in case you wanted to see my engagements, check out Crystal's Blog.)

Life for me is crazy but I am enjoying it! How could I not be totally stoked to start my life with Bryce?! But its more than that, I just started school again and I am so excited for the semester ahead! Because of the nature of my life right now, I had a difficult time choosing a class load that I felt I could stay on top of, while planning a wedding, and missing a week in the middle of October. Ica and I had been planning on a couple of classes together that I wasn't sure I wanted to miss out on so I didn't want to defer... Finally, I have the best class schedule I could have come up with... but I admit, it wasn't all me... It just fits together so nicely that I know there was some divine help. Already, a week into the semester I have learned so much I can barely contain my excitement!

SFL100: Strengthening Marriage and Family.
This class focuses on and studies in depth The Family: a Proclamation to the World. I am absolutely loving this class so far and can't wait to dig in deeper. My professor's motto is "Get it off the wall and into your lives." And I fully intend to apply what I learn into my circumstances in life. Yesterday we discussed the great plan of happiness and how learning the stories of the Creation and the Fall, the Atonement really help us to better understand our divine potential. We talked about how important our bodies are and what a blessing we have. We should be grateful for the one we have and take care of it b/c we love Heavenly Father and want to show him that we are thankful. Worth and worthiness are not the same things... our worth never changes. God loves us no matter what. But our worthiness is dependent on our agency and how we use it.

RELA 312: Old Testament (GEN-2Samuel)
My favorite professor here at the Y is Sis. Strathern. This is the third class I have taken from her. I know I have posted about her before. Luckily I discovered that she is teaching one class of Old Testament this semester. Naturally, Ica and I signed up for this class first! Her classes are intensive in reading and recording. She expects us to think and reason intelligently in class and always pushes us to see if we can come up with something profound. Right now we are discussing the Creation and the Fall. Yesterday we discussed the great plan of happiness and how it was started, and moved along through the choice of Adam. Did you know that "Adam" in Hebrew means "Mankind"? there is no gender specific. So in other words, mankind made the choice to leave the garden and come into a mortal life. ... cool...
We also talked about how the Garden of Eden is a temple. In every temple, Egyptian, Hebrew, Muslim, Hindu, LDS there is one major purpose for it... That purpose is to be in the presence of God. Everything else is a means to get to that ultimate goal. In every temple there is a Tree of Life. The Garden of Eden had one but we compared it to the one in Lehi's dream... they are the same tree. Because we have both accounts we can better understand both a little better. Ica and I were giddy coming out of class discussing this fact. Cherubim was placed there to keep Adam and Eve from eating the fruit and becoming immortal in a fallen state. But Lehi and his family had proven their obedience by holding to the rod and making the journey to the tree... they were in a redeemed state and so were invited to partake of the fruit... wow... there's so much!!! I invite all to try reading both accounts (Gen. 3, Moses 4, 1Nephi 8, 11, and 15) then try to compare and contrast... you will be amazed!

Geography: need I say more?
Actually it was interesting to see. I have been so excited that my two above classes were tying in together so nicely. Both were giving me great insights from different perspectives. I admit I am not terribly excited about this class as I am about the others... but it is important that I take it. Last night however, we began to talk about (yes, you guessed it) the creation of the world. It was fascinating in the light of what I have been learning to get a whole new perspective on the "periods" of the creation. My professor read to us from a General Conference talk explaining an LDS standpoint on the scientific theories of the forming of life here on earth. God must really want me to get it... because I have now been hit with the same information three different ways in three of my classes... I guess I should really take it to heart!

PWS112: Floral Design
A general education requirement filler and possibly the best class ever! In this class we learn flower and plant names, how to design floral arrangements in a variety of different styles. We are going to learn confidence in our own style, and have a skill that we can use for the rest of our lives. Today she went through our ID quiz list and she showed us each flower that will be on it. I got to bring home a teddy bear sunflower... a special, dyed variety of sunflower that looks pretty cool. It makes me happy... :D


Our football team created a huge upset in the ranks this last weekend. Before playing the 3rd best team at the Dallas Cowboys stadium we were ranked 20. Now? We are ranked 9th! Oklahoma is no longer in the top ten... :) Thousands of BYU fans were partying at the Lavell Edwards Stadium on Saturday night... wish I had known... ;) My SFL 100 Professor missed class last week because he went to the game in Texas... and the ranking was announced in the middle of my floral design class... :) so... GO BYU!!!!!

Anyway, that's life for me so far... a new update soon!!!