Relationship status via football analogy

I have two institute classes today. I love them both a great deal. Today one of my teachers had us all stand and introduce ourselves--the usual--name, hometown, major, where you served, etc. EXCEPT this teacher thought of a creative way of sharing our relationship status--football analogy. No joke.

Punt--dating a lot but no one special

Fumble--Just got out of a relationship

Benchwarming (Put me in coach)--not dating anyone at the moment

Touchdown--engaged

1st and down--dating someone

That was a new thing for the day. I'm...punting and benchwarming?? I dunno. But my name's Mallory, I'm a Sociology major, I served in Rome, Italy, and I plink around on the mandolin.

How To Save a Life

Today I donated blood for the very first time. I've always wanted to donate blood but am knowingly too much of a pansy to give it a fair attempt. So today my roommate asked me if I'd join her in saving someones life through this campus activity.

The guy was pretty nice. The needle was bigger than expected. The bag filled up faster than I'd imagined. And I wasn't as queasy as Jack from While You Were Sleeping. It really wasn't as bad as I'd thought and I am actually looking forward to doing it again. Yep...nerd. Best of times.

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.