A few thoughts on growing up

Okay, I'm gonna be honest with you few faithful blog viewers: Being a grown up has been really hard for these past two years. Not that I completely consider myself a grown up. I still drink milk out of a box with a straw sometimes, and sometimes I go buy a pack of underwear just because I'm too lazy to do laundry. I am obviously not exactly the poster child for adulthood.
However, I am two years older than I was two years ago (MATH!), and I would say that I've learned a considerable amount in those two years.
Please prepare for one of my beloved lists.

1. I love my mom and dad a whole heck of a lot.
2. It's a lot easier to love my mom and dad that much when I live 40 minutes away from them. Sorry Mom and Dad. It's not you, it's me.
3. Living at home is a lot easier than living on your own, but when it's time to go, it's time to go and once you're gone, it's really hard to move back in.
4. As easy as it is to say think that your parents don't let you stay out until 3 in the morning because they hate you and are anti-freedom (which makes them TERRIBLE Americans), but rather because parents were once teens too and they know that you do stupid stuff and they probably don't want you to die (or so I'm guessing).
5. Sometimes you're wrong about that friend that you were going to be friends with forever. People change and lives change and it's okay to not be friends with that person.
6. Sometimes that friend doesn't see your "friendly parting" in the same way and you find out that someone you really cared about now hates you. Don't let that feeling of sucking just sit there and fester and do bad things to you. Work on being a better person and move on. Lingering on it won't make it or you any better though.
7. Other people make mistakes. You make mistakes. Everyone messes up in their life. You aren't a terrible person because of it and neither are they. Move on.
8. Work on moving on a lot. Progress is good. Not doing anything is not good. Don't do that thing.
9. It's okay that you can't keep food off of your clothes when you eat. Just remember to try really really hard to do that if you're on a date with someone cute. Or don't. Who knows, it could be an icebreaker.
10. Sometimes it's okay to be broken and to tell people about it. You can't always fix yourself on your own. One of the hardest decisions I've ever made was to let people into my life and admit that I wasn't as fine as I pretended to be but it was also one of the best decisions I ever made.
11. Laundry is really important to do if you want to have clothes.
12. People sometimes believe different things than you. That's okay. They're still people and you still need to love them.
13. Sometimes, you need to be alone. That's okay. But don't be alone so much that you start to get lonely. Loneliness is sometimes your own fault and when it is, that's silly. Don't choose to be lonely. Be with friends. They're a good thing to have around.
14. Sometimes your blog posts are a little bit serious and that's scary.
14. Sometimes you forget how to count correctly.
15. Sometimes you're gonna disappoint yourself and maybe even people around you. Sometimes it feels like all you do is disappoint people. Don't let yourself think that you are only a disappointment because that's a really sad thing to feel and also it's definitely not true.
16. Be nice to people. Even if they're really hard to be nice to. You'll feel better about yourself for being nice than for being mean.
17. Don't be serious too much. It scares people. Mostly it scares me. I only like funny things, guys.
18. Lists are the best.
19. Do stuff you like. Work at a job you like. Or at least make a job you don't like fun. Take classes that interest you. Spend time with people that make you happy. You have to make yourself happy because life is gonna try really hard to make you not happy sometimes and you can't expect others to fix that for you.
20. Sets of ten are great, and I have no more advice for myself and for all of you. Also, I thought this would be a great way to end this blog post and then it was a little bit awkward and I think I'm making it more awkward now... Uh... Okay, bye! (Goodbyes are hard.)

Chemistry as understood by a writer.

As a college student, I am required to take certain classes. One of those is chemistry. At some point last semester I decided that it would be a good idea to take the summer course, which also happens to be online, leaving me to try to finish a full course in a shortened period of time and without those boring in-class lectures that do help quite a bit. This has left me with the task of trying to understand the straight-to-the-point textbook on my own, basically. As it turns out, my brain likes to work with very strange analogies. (But not the ones in my human biology textbook. My brain hates those.)

Today's analogy is the "Atoms are high schools" metaphor.

Here are the relationships.

Atom nucleus= A boy.

Electrons= Girls.

Chemistry says that the radii of atoms decrease as the number of protons in their nuclei increase because the electrons are more attracted to the greater positive charge.


My brain says that as the boy bulks up into a hot muscular man, the girls flock to him more than when he was a spindly-armed nerd.

This analogy went into much further detail than this, actually. It ended up being a rather convoluted school system with cities, suburbs and rinky-dink little rural towns. There were classes and social groups. Everything combined into a crazy explanation of science that could not possibly make understanding this book any easier to anyone but me. And this is the easier of my two science books to understand. My notes on cells read more like a movie script than a simple re-writing of a textbook.

Pokenails.

Sometimes, I am incredibly nerdy.
Sometimes, I am mostly just girly.

Other times, those two sides of me meet and create something extraordinarily me.

Today was one of those days.

It all started on, of course, Pinterest. I found a link to this: http://www.ohsoprettythediaries.com/2012/04/manic-mani-monday-flame-manicure.html

It was a way to make wonderful designs on my nails, something which I had never been able to do because frankly, I just have a horrible time trying to use my left hand to do anything. But here was a magnificent method to turn my nails into works of art, full of expression and beauty.
And so it began.

I tried this a couple of times before, but neither attempt was picture-worthy. Or really worth having on for any amount of time at all. My third attempt, however, worked quite well, and that is what brings us here.

Here is the finished result:

Pokenails.

This was such a fun project, and one that I know will make a certain Elder Wil Wixom proud, when he finally hears about it sometime in the future. (Japan is SOOOOOOOOOOO far away!)

While there are a few things I would do differently to give them an overall cleaner look, I am quite happy with the finished result, and my inner nerd is squealing, along with my inner girl.

Of course, my best blogging happens when I have a paper due.

Tomorrow morning, I have a five page-paper due. Instead, I'm blogging. Because sometimes you just have to stop writing about Bill Clinton's 1993 inaugural speech and instead write about anything else for a little while.

About one week from today will mark two months of my life as a missionary girlfriend, and it never ceases to amaze me how hard things seem like they will be while I'm dreading them for weeks and months leading up to them, but once I actually get there, it's never nearly as bad as I imagine it will be. I think it helps that my mom was inspired to spend my whole life telling me that if the guy is worth marrying, he's worth waiting two years for. Actually, I'm pretty sure she started teaching me this lesson long before either of us ever joined the church, which is a little weird, thinking back now. But anyways, the beginning of the wait is over, and that's supposed to be the hardest part, right? Right?

I read on a blog somewhere else on this giant internet some advice for girls who were preparing to send a missionary off. Something stuck out to me that went somewhere along the lines of "Right now, you may love his voice. Or his smile. Or his eyes. But for two years, you're gonna have to love his handwriting." I have not read a more accurate summary of what it's like to be a missionary girlfriend anywhere else.

But... the upside to all of this is that I can focus on school. Uh... yay? Basically, it's almost finals week, and I am ready for summer. When I'll be doing online courses... My enthusiasm for school is not at the highest it's ever been right now. That's alright though. I am so close to done! And then summer will come along, and it will be absolutely marvelous.

Finally, because I just really need a list to cheer me up from school, here are some things that I am truly excited for:

1. My next letter from my missionary.
2. School to be DONE.
3. The multiple craft projects that I really am going to do this summer.
4. The closing Institute social this weekend. Free food is always a good thing.
5. Moving to New York at some point in my life, even if it's just for a couple of months.
6. Going to bed.

Well, I guess I'll finish this post up so I can finish my homework and get that last item on my list DONE!

Procrastination is beautiful.

So, it's Wednesday, and I have quite a bit of homework due tomorrow, along with a 6-page paper due Monday that I haven't even started yet. Am I working on it?

Nope.

I'm playing with Gimp (a free program, very similar to Photoshop).

How am I justifying this? It goes something like... "Well, one day I wanna be a journalist. And not just a journalist, but a photojournalist. Nataly, if you want to be a good photojournalist, image manipulation (even to just make the picture look sharper) is something you probably should learn how to do."

So here are the pictures...

The Original:

This is a random picture my dad took when I put on my prom dress so he could see it the first time. This was the day we bought it, so if my smile look cheesy and sarcastic, it's because I was tired from shopping that day. It had been a pretty long day.

And here is the edited version:

There. Now my dress and lipstick stand out way more. :) Yay Colors!

Well then, I feel accomplished. And it was actually pretty fun. 

Now that that's done though, does it mean I have to do homework? Bleh.

Hmmmmmmmmm... college.

Well, here I am. A freshman again. The newbie. The young one. The baby of my school. Now, I must admit, college life so far hasn't been that hard. I'm sure there will be days that aren't gonna be as easy, but so far, so good. It's mostly been a lot of chilling with friends. And a little homework now and then. Also, lots of junk food.

Side note: Peanut butter M&Ms are good. Regular M&Ms eaten with actual peanut butter, on a knife, are even better. :)

Now, as many of you know, I dislike math. I GREATLY dislike math. In fact, it was probably the main reason I did not get a 4.0 my senior year of high school. My most painful experience to this day has been the AP Calculus exam. I HATE MATH! I have always hated math. It has been a kind of defining characteristic of Nataly. Now, though, I actually think that math and I will end on a good note. This semester is my last math class. EVER. Unless I switch majors later into something science-y or something. (Which at this point, I'm thinking won't happen. I think I'm basically gonna stick with the College of Humanities and Social Sciences.) The good thing, besides it being my last class, is that Stats actually does not sound that bad. I am actually hopeful for an A this semester. :O

French, however, is being slightly annoying right now. First, we had a nice, expensive book that we had to buy for one-hundred and sixty dollars. Fine, at least we knew about it for a while, so we could buy it, get our minds around having to buy a book that expensive, and maybe even save up money specifically for that book, so it wasn't so hard to have to buy. I would have been fine with this one super-expensive book, but then I found the second day of class, less than a week before our first assignment was due (and I've actually not been procrastinating, so I have been itching to get this assignment done.) that we need to buy some software. And an access code. That cost another seventy dollars. ... That is two-hundred and thirty dollars for one class. On top of tuition AND separate class fees. Freaking French. But hey. At least I can tell you that my name is Nataly in an incredibly more attractive way than before. :D

Uhh... College? What?

Wait, what? My best friend is moving to college... tomorrow. Tomorrow?!? How does that happen? I still remember when we were young little first graders and comparing our heights to see who got to use the extra short bathroom sink. And now we're college students? What the heck? I mean, sure, I've got over a month and a half to go still, but that's way soon. And my bffsf..fsf (or something) is moving tomorrow! When did we all get so old? D:

Silly spanish translations.

Lately, I have been translating from {english to spanish} and {spanish to english} a lot. Through this, I have learned that there are lots of very silly phrases that are normal in their original language but are quite silly when translated literally. I will list a few here.

Meter la cuchara {spanish}

- Literally: Stick your spoon in.

-Meant as: Stickin' your nose where it doesn't belong!

Mocosa {spanish}

-Literally: Boogery

-Meant as: Bratty

Codo {spanish}

-Literally: Elbow

-Meant as: Someone who is cheap.

Me caes gordo(a) {spanish}

-Literally: You fall on my fatly.

-Meant as: You annoy me.

Sana, sana, colita de rana. Si no sana ahora, sanara manana. {spanish}
-Literally: Heal, heal, tail of a frog. If it doesn't heal today, it'll heal tomorrow.
-Meant as: Just a silly little rhyme to get little kids to stop crying when they're hurt.

Well, considering I've only been able to think of this many of the course of several months, (actually, I'm sure I've remembered more, but I forget them before I write them into the draft of this, so they're gone.) I'm gonna just end it there and post this. Enjoy!

Sitting in the library... Wondering what to blog about.

So... I'm in the library. With nothing to do except homework, and obviously I'm not gonna do that until the very last second. Zakery, however, is being quite studious over here. What a N00B. Now I am successfully distracting him. BWAHAHAHAHA.

Well, it's been a little while since I last posted, so maybe I should say something about exciting stuff that has occured recently.

1. Prom was last Saturday. It was pretty awesome. Wil wore suspenders. :) They were rad! I got red lipstick on his face. But it was kinda on his hair a little since he wouldn't stop struggling. Who struggles against getting kissed on the cheek by a girl? Really?

2. I took my senior pictures yesterday. I'll probably post my favorite ones on here once my photographer does her magic with them and sends them back and such. It was a blast taking pictures though. The photographer let me goof around a little bit. It was way fun.

3. I'm liking the numbered lists recently.

4. Being sick is AWFUL! I hate having a sore throat, cause you know what? I love being able to swallow food without crying.

5. Zak is making a blog so he can follow me. :) Haha. This distracting stuff is TOTALLY working. Nataly FTW. :D

Au Revoir, Nataly.

This post is of no consequence whatsoever.

I don't really have anything specific to blog about today, but I felt that I have an obligation to my subscribers (I have a whopping six of them. One of those is myself.) to post something from my new laptop that I finally got the guts to buy. He's an HP (which obviously stands for Harry Potter) and his name is Giorgio. He's Italian and likes to wind surf. (Yes, I do personify most of my belongings. For example, my cello; His name is Oliver and his favorite food is Chicken cordon bleu.) This dear laptop of mine has become a great friend in the last 3 1/2 days. We've laughed together; we've cried together. And we will stay up for many more nights together, especially once we reach college.

   I just hope I won't resent him in a few months when I see something way better.

Ciao, Nataly