watermelon in winter

Well, here I am.  Sitting in my apartment in Provo, enjoying my last day of freedom.  Tomorrow I begin school again, except this time..it's my last fall semester here.  It has been a REALLY long haul up til now, but I finally feel like it might be coming to an end.  Supposedly I'll be graduating in April, but there will be a LOT of work between now and then!  BUT, after graduation and one more field camp, I will be moving permanently to Brazil and I will marry the love of my life, and THAT my friends, has been a long time coming and I am more excited about that than I have been about anything in my life (and you all remember how excited I was before I went left to serve a mission!)!!!! Yes, obviously I had to put another picture of us on here, because I think we are just so great together! :) So since I last wrote, I moved back to Provo from my parents' house, and while I wasn't happy about it, it is something I have to do.  Since being back in Provo ...

So once again I am blogging from somewhere new.  Well, it's not really new to me...this is somewhere I've been far too many times, but I've never blogged from here!  I'm in the Salt Lake airport, heading home for Christmas! And the best part...I get almost  MONTH at home with my parents! I even get to spend my birthday with them! So, finals are behind me, stress is behind me, and now it's time to relax.  I'm on freedom time right now, and can do whatever I want!  I've got a list of miscellaneous things I want to do while at home, people I want to see, projects to finish with Mom, walls to paint with Pops, movies to watch, books to read, and obviously probably the biggest chunk of my time: lots of Skype time with Renato!  It'll be nice to just relax.  This last semester was all kinda of crazy with all kinda of stress in unexpected places and times.  Surprisingly, it wasn't even all about school.  It was a lot of learning that as much as I pl...

So, the new semester officially began a few weeks ago...but today, it REALLY felt like it.  It was my first test!  I had a Chem 105 test today that I felt about 95% prepared for, and though it took me forever to do (lots of math!), it went well.  I don't know what I got yet, but that's ok, I feel good about it. The start of something new is always exciting!  This semester, I am seeing how as I've drastically changed my schedule, I actually have MORE time and am MORE on top of things, and I don't get stressed out, because I know the time and time restrictions I have.  Getting up at 3 and working at 4 means I need to be consistent in getting to bed on time every day.  As I've done that, I've wasted less time and been able to accomplish more during each day.  Even though I don't sleep as much as I probably SHOULD, I've been feeling more energetic and alert!  Except, maybe, for my classes in the early afternoon (it's that time of day...).  My b...

Hey everyone!! So last week was the first week of classes, and I think it's going to be an awesome semester.  Crazy insanely busy?  Yes.  But then, I wouldn't be Karen if I didn't have a semester like that.  On the bright side, I have no more worries of calculus or physics during my undergrad career!!!!!!!  I'm in Chem this semester, which will require a bit of work, but I don't think it'll be the same magnitude as calculus, so it's all good.  And I'm back in organ lessons, which is wonderful.  And my Portuguese Literature class is just awesome...and something I really enjoy.  I'm in a couple of geology classes, one of which is geological communications, so it's all about computers and computer programs. In other news, I don't know if I mentioned it on here or not, but I've been looking for a new job since January, that would have better hours and better pay than I was getting at Heritage Halls.  I've applied to countless places, had...

What is art? What is literature? What is love? What is beauty? What is a sacrifice? What is ugly? As I was reading an assignment for my Brazilian Literature class, I got thinking about how abstract life can be, how we can't often define things in one way and have that way apply to everything in life.  Your definition of art is probably very different from mine, and what we find beautiful could also be extremely different.  How you feel love for someone is different than how I feel love for someone, and it is not even something that can be put into words and fully expressed. BYU has a motto, "The world is our campus".  I was thinking about this over the last couple of weeks as I was in my geology classroom...out in the field.  Just as I am not limited to a classroom to learn, I am not limited to a dictionary definition of abstract words, words that really have no definition.  I can spread my wings and fly away with how I interpret things to be, and ...

So while being a thief, why not employ procrastination to be productive?  Like updating my blog.  I don't know how productive this actually is...but hey.  In procrastinating my paper, I've gotten a lot done!  For instance, today I updated my journal on a bunch of things I've overlooked the past couple of days.  And I started cleaning my room/packing for the mission.  And I labelled a couple hundred pictures.  And I caught up with friends.  And I worked.  And I volunteered at the Temple.  And I went on a date.  And...yeah.  See?  Not completely a waste of time!  All those are good things!  But I'm at the point where I KNOW I need to do this paper, but I just can't seem to focus.  I can focus on anything else, but this task for some reason seems way too daunting.  But I need to finish it like a month ago, but in reality, tomorrow is basically the last day I can really finish it without a huge panic before...