Drumroll please....(literally)....DJOLE

So I came up to school almost a week early because I had a job interview in the temple cafeteria. It would have been sweet hours, good pay, and (naturally) a lovely work environment. I was therefore pretty bummed that I didn't get it. Not anymore. If I got that job, then I wouldn't be able to do THIS for an hour and a half every Tuesday:

Today was my first day of African Dance. I am so glad that I didn't have to drop this class because it was incredible today. It is the first time that I've been in a class when you literally cannot have any inhibitions. It was hilarious and so fun. After she'd teach us something new, I'd just shake my head smiling. It's so fun. I have a friend from my ward who's hilarious and has taken this class 4 times. 4 times! So she's incredible at it and gets way into it. All of my job applications say I can work ANY night but Sunday and Tuesday. Time for worship, and time for dance. Priorities=straight as an arrow right?

We learned Djole dancing today--the kind from the video. Honestly, I went into the class just kind of expecting to shake it. Wrong wrong wrong. There's just so much movement happening all of the time. I adore every second. I learned quickly that my hair needed to be pulled up and to dress lighter. Soo much sweaty goodness happening. There are like 10 drummers in our class that drum for us. A bunch of them have dreadlocks longer than my hair has ever been and I secretly think they're so cool. haha So regardless of the fact that some of my other classes are going to be mentally intense this semester, I know I'll look forward to this one every week. I left class smiling, tired, thirsty, energized, and stoked for next Tuesday. They're doing a performance in October and I'll probably do it with them. haha And I'm probably going to take this class again next semester. And when I go to Africa one day after I graduate, they're going to be impressed...and then teach me more. :)

Well...Here it goes...

Well Blowsville, you're putting up a tough fight, but I WILL find employment here. I spent the afternoon calling every place that I drove by to see if they needed hired help. I picked up an application to any and every place that's even "accepting applications". I'm trying to have the best of attitudes about it. It's kind of annoying being rejected time and time again...especially by jobs that I feel overqualified for. I guess I'm just supposed to learn to be humble and patient? Riddle me why those are Gods favorite lessons to teach me. My standards have dropped, my desperation has heightened, and hopefully I'll be working someplace soon...even if it's minimum wage.

I figure as long as my attitude is better than this lass

then I'm doing a-okay. :)

I've got a case of the rambles

• My mouth is mocking me via canker sores. One on the top of my mouth, mind you. I've heard that your mouth is one of the fastest healing places on your body. Well prove it. haha Mine have been throwing a romping party for several days now and they're not rocking my world. If that sounded like I'm whining, I'm not. I don't really care. I'm just fascinated, that's all.
• Also, I put my retainers in last night and woke up with both of them of my mouth and next to my very own torso. What is that about?!
  
• A band that has been really rocking my world lately is going to grace us with its presence here in Logan on Monday! My joy is full. Yes yes, to the brim.
  

I know the guitarist and mandolinist (though they're usually playing the drums and guitar) so it'll be cool to finally see them live because they're nothing but marvelous through the speakers in my vehicular.

• Feeling hot hot hot. My room is the opposite of drafty but there are no screens on my windows. The every burning question remains: Do I sweat my way through bedtime or feed every insect that finds its way into my room with my sweet nurturing blood? Consider my goat got.
  
• My room is completely decorated. EXCEPT I have this killer cool flag from the island off of Italy that I lived on and I really want to hang it up. How does one do that when I'm not allowed to put any holes in the wall? Any suggestions? I think it's so cool but I'm stumped with how to get it to stay. Let me know if you have a solution. I wish that there was a magic spell that could solve my problems. "Flaggicus Stickicus!" Wow. Nerd.
  
• I met a new roommate today. She goes by the name of Candy and her homeland is that of Peru. I got all excited and said, "Ooo I love Peruvians!" haha And she was pleased by this. Just because I've met a bunch of Peruvians in Italy and consider them friends, it's like I have the right to positively stereotype everyone from that land.

Trying to speak my language

My roommate and I showed up at a house of a bunch of guys in our ward last night. (I guess yesterday one of them gave her the favorite, vague, "you should stop by sometime." and she was going to take him up on it.) I had just finished journaling and eating zucchini and felt that showing up at someones house sounded like a swell idea.

They were cool and we had fun hanging out with them. During my jog this morning something popped back into my mind that I'd forgotten about. I thought it was funny. We've all served missions and for some reason we were talking about mine in Italy (there were zero tantrums thrown on my part regarding the conversation choice) and one of the guys said, "Ah, I've always wanted to learn Italian......Si, bueno."

Awkward silence. Lots of laughter. Uh...that wasn't Italian.

Spiritual snackpack

My zipcode has returned to that of Blowgan.

I drove up, unpacked, and...uh...wrote in my journal on a pretty hill on campus. Yipes. School or employment couldn't come soon enough. Although the time to think and write down what I think was refreshing. Is it awkward that I love reading through old entries in my journal? I'm always surprised by little details that I'd forgotten about and something about reading it from my own hand makes it feel like I'm literally living it all over again. Wow. Tangent. It just made me realize (like I have many a time before) that I need to be better at writing in my journal. I love blogging and stuff, but I do actually keep somethings private...despite what you might think from reading this.

I'm settling in for bed just trying to decide how I will spend my last few moments of consciousness for the day and I'm torn between a silly tv show, or a book from an author that blows my mind to bits. Huh. That was an oddly graphic way of expressing my admiration for him. Anywho, I've only read a couple of pages when I came across a doozy of a sentence that sunk into me for a long while as I continued to think about it and how I felt about it. It's from a book called "Yearning For the Living God" by F. Enzio Busche. Just chew on this for a sec k?

"True joy comes only through developing the reality of closeness with the living God"

I'm just saying...I've been rereading it for a few minutes now just thinking and...it's spiritual deliciousness isn't wearing off. Just thought I'd share.

Lasts, beautiful moments, Joshua to the Groban

• Well hot dang! I leave for school in like...2 days. Craziness.blogspot.com. I'm excited, nervous, skeptical, and optimistic at the same time. I cannot believe that summer has already come to a close and that it's time for me to start my (just wait for it)...LAST year of my undergrad! Woot woot!

• Last night was my very LAST night working at Red Mango. That's right, my career of working as an underpaid yogurt specialist has come to a close. Last night was actually super fun. One customer stopped and looked at me at the register and said, "Thank you for being so nice. It seems like all of the people that work here are rude and snobby. You are just so kind. Tell us your name, we're going to tell Lauren. (the owner)". Sweet right?

• Also, the last 40 minutes of work were at a stand still. I believe Lady Gage knows the answer: Just Dance. We were all caught up on our work so we turned up the work CD and shook it real good. Zero regrets. A super part-time, minimum wage job doesn't necessarily have a lot of perks, but how often will I be able to have a dance break on the job? Seizing the moment was the only option.

• Can I share a beautiful moment with you? I was in Texas visiting my darling sister and fam and had such a lovely moment in testimony meeting. It probably won't be that big of a deal to anybody else but I found it beautiful in it's simplicity and sincerity. Two different boys (probably 10-13??) got up to bear their testimonies. Both of them said the following phrases: "I want to get married in the temple. I want to serve a mission one day." I don't know why it hit me but I just instantly loved them. How often do you hear young MALES publicly and willingly express their desire to marry in the temple? It was darling that that's where their desires are and they could say it. Beautiful.

• The second boy added this little phrase which I found incredible lovely as well, "I want to do the right thing." Call me a sap (I have been listening to a lot of Italian Josh Groban lately), but that was beautiful. What a pure and lovely desire. How many people honestly have 'doing the right thing' as their motive? It really made me reflect on what passes through my mind before I make choices and if I can honestly say that I have that pure desire to just always do the right thing--punto. Loved that.

• Speaking of Josh Groban, my friend Ashlee and I hit up his concert. Yipes. Not a disappointment. I listen to all kinds of music. I adore variety too much to just limit myself to one genre, but there is something legitimately satisfying about listening to that mans music. It seems like the motive of certain bands out there is to numb you--make you not feel anything whatsoever. It is for that reason that I can't get enough of a musician that makes you feel something. Odd that that is something so out-of-the-ordinary right? I love that mans music.
  

• More Josh Groban tid bits, Ashlee and I find our behavior hilarious sometimes and were...umm...doing some dancing during the concert. We got asked to settle down by the gentleman sitting next to us. His constant texting and inattentiveness spoke volumes for his lack of desire to be there. His wife is clearly the neck in their relationship. Dear future husband, please take me to a Josh Groban concert on occasion please. If I promise we can make out afterward, would that make it worth your while? I hope my grandmas don't read this.
  

Well I pinky swear this time to deliver pictures on my next post. Lots of stuff coming up: job interview, cute-ifying my room in Blowgan, themed parties to throw, races to register for, classes to take and friends to make. I'll probably include you in more than you'd like. Deal with it. :)

The latest of bulleted ramblings...

• I am magically delicious. I wouldn't wish this quality on anybody. I went star gazing with a friend the other night--for 30-45 minutes--and the wee bits of exposed skin were buffeted upon by mosquitoes. (yes, I looked up the spelling for that word. Judge if you must). One of my feet has literally ten massive bites on it which I have shamelessly scratched in a perfect display of no self control. Wow. I should only go out in the day time.
• Speaking of...summer time is coming to a swift close. I'm freaking out. I have one month to rid myself of a farmers tan that shouldn't exist this late in the game. I have the unfortunate resemblance of corpse dipped in elmers glue. Being Vitamin D deficient is not a good look for me. I have work to do before summer's over.
• Robert Pattinson: I, like all of the other 13-year old females, found him to be a bit of a casting mistake in the Twilights flicks. ya-da-ya-da. The point is: I saw "Water for Elephants" and...didn't have a problem finding positive feelings for him. Is it the tamed eyebrows? The hair not trying to defy gravity? Or lines obviously written by a girl like, "You're a beautiful woman. You deserve a beautiful life." that unfortunately get me every time? Unknown. But he was not a series of unfortunate events in that flick.
• I'm leaving for a week in Texas tomorrow. Woot woot!! I'm soo excited to play with my wonderful sister, her son that is websters definition of darling, chilling with my cool bro-in-law, and any and all things Texas. I l-o-v-e- being the minority. Have we talked about this before? I just love it.
  

Well there you have it. Another bulleted post of my ramblings. I promise to post pictures on my next one. Til then...bisoux, baci, kisses!