School, Skin, and Mexican Food

I have three more weeks left of classes and the pressure is certainly building. Naturally the pressure of working on assignments has made me more lethargic. Over the weekend I couldn't get myself to work on anything. I have my major assignments coming up quick and I can only hope that I will get them all done and get a decent grade. In order to keep my scholarship I have to get 75% on average for the semester, but I just learned you will get a larger scholarship if you get 85% or more. Of course I will do the best I can, but now there's more pressure to do really well and 85% is really high for Australia grading systems.

Another concern lately has been about my skin. I've suffered from acne for a long time. Normally my face acne isn't that bad, but I make it look worse because of my habit of picking at it. Severe skin-picking is even considered a disorder called dermatillomania, although I'm not sure I qualify. I'm a perfectionist and little bumps or pimples on my face are great targets. I also do it subconsciously and most often when I am stressed or in deep thought. Add all of my previous acne problems with my birth control implant (see picture of Implanon to the right) and suddenly I have severe acne that never disappears! A while ago in Eugene, OR I saw a dermatologist who told me to get the implant taken out for my acne problem. At the time I decided to try managing my acne because I was not ready to take out a free implant that lasts for 3 years and switch to a pill. Since I have been in Australia my acne has continued to get worse and I have finally come to the conclusion that the implant has GOT to come out. 

My first plan of action was to get my healthcare card, which I had forgotten to do when I first arrived. This led to a very frustrating experience. I went to the Overseas Healthcare (OSHC) desk on campus who told me I don't show having any coverage and sent me to the Higher Degree Research Office (HDRO). After about 20 minutes there they sent me back to OSHC with proof of my payment for OSHC as well as the University documentation of my coverage. Unfortunately the woman at the OSHC (I should add I've talked to this woman before and she is very cold) said that the papers don't give her anything and that HDRO needs to fix it by talking to Avikash who makes sure the money goes to OSHC. I asked to speak the first time I spoke to her since I knew he was the one to solve this problem, but she told me she couldn't just have any student go and talk to him. Luckily the second time she seemed sorry for me and tried to call him, but he was gone. Frustrated with this whole scenario, I went back to HDRO to tell them about what happened and my advisor there said Avikash was on leave and she will work to try to get it sorted out and get back to me. The whole thing was ridiculous, and who knows when I'll get it sorted out. In the end I called the medical services and they told me I can bring in the proof of my OSHC (the papers I received) and that should be enough. I now have an appointment with the doctor on Thursday and I am hoping all will go well and I can get my implant out!

Over the weekend I finally came to terms with the fact that my face looks terrible due to acne. On Saturday the ward had a Mexican Fiesta Activity as a late Cinco de Mayo. I had agreed to help out and arrived early to help with decorating and food prep. I caked on makeup to hide my blemishes and kept my hair down to hide the worst spots, but when I started helping in the kitchen I had to pull my hair back. I was in the kitchen for most of the activity helping serve the chicken or pork for the tostadas/tortillas as well as refilling sauces and whatnot so hiding my face was not an option and I soon become more occupied with what I was doing than how I looked. 

The activity was a total success. We had so many people and too much food. The Riveros family did all the cooking and Daniel Riveros used to be a manager at the Los Hermanos restaurant in Provo, Utah so you can be sure the food was good. My favorite was the fried ice cream and I hope I will be able to recreate it some day. Daniel says you mix Kellog's Corn Flakes, coconut, chocolate chips, and honey as the batter for the frozen ice cream balls (click here for the closest recipe I could find). It took hours to clean everything up and I didn't get home until late that night, but I wasn't really complaining. 

Sunday I decided to keep my hair up since by then most people had already seen my acne scarred face. Ironically the first talk was by one of the counselors and he was talking about how he lost his two front teeth and was really distressed about it (luckily he was already married). As he prayed to God about his teeth he felt that the Lord told him not to worry about his body and to focus on his wife and his family. Not long after he met a dental student that led him to an orthodontist that fixed his teeth. I felt this talk was for me and the Lord wanted me to know that He would help my body to heal. Nothing miraculous has happened, but since then I have a doctor's appointment to hopefully resolve some of my concerns, and I have become less frustrated about it. 

Life Without Technology

I remember in high school and earlier where my life didn’t rely on internet, cell phones, and other forms of technology. Back then my friends and I played more outdoor games, or used old school video games like Sega Genesis and Nintendo 64. It didn’t take long after high school though for me to completely rely on technology and not just for entertainment, but for getting things done.

It used to be that I preferred always physically writing out my notes/outlines for everything. I still do that once in a while, but I have learned the value of embracing technology. I’m significantly faster at taking notes on my laptop, and if I need to write something down I can note things by voice onto my phone. My favorite is using my scriptures on the LDS app on my kindle. No matter the device I use I can highlight passages of scripture or conference talks and add notes or tags to my highlighted sections for later reference. Since my notes are synced on all my devices I can always find them. Life is certainly made easier in many ways with technology.

Unfortunately, I’m experiencing some serious setbacks by having very limited internet access. My apartment internet is not working at all currently. Regardless of the complaints made by my roommate and I last week and again yesterday, nothing has been fixed. So to complete my assignments and projects I have had to go to the library to get things done. Saturday I was there all day from opening to close (10am to 6pm). Things got worse because Monday my laptop decided it won’t connect to the internet in the library. The IT people told me that the library is working on some internet improvements and my computer probably won’t work in the library until it’s fixed in a week or so. Now I have to wander around campus to find a good quiet place that I can stay for 6-8 hours and work. This has been EXTREMELY frustrating! I no longer work out because I want to maximize my daylight time at Uni for the internet and I can’t motivate myself to workout at night. Now I have to download whatever I can so I might be able to work or do some reading for class at home, but some things such as my class blogs are impossible without internet access. Life without technology and internet in particular is no fun.

On a happier note, I have completed the majority of my smaller assignments (click here to check out my biology blog) and can now put most of my efforts into my large assignments due in a few weeks. I feel confident I’ll be able to get everything done and I’m mostly grateful I don’t have a job so that I have been able to devote as much time as needed to my assignments as well as work around my current internet issues. Additionally this internet inconvenience has allowed me to spend more time reading other books like Pride and Prejudice. Also, I’ve been able to assist the missionaries with two lessons this last week which is always fun and uplifting. In short, I’m greatly missing technology, but I’m trying to make the most of it. Hope everyone had a great Mother’s Day!

Time Flies...And So Will I

As I mentioned before, Macquarie University is a semester based school where each term is 13 weeks long. We get a two-week break mid-semester (Macquarie is one of the few that does this) and there are two-weeks at the end for exams (click here to see Macquarie calendar). So my term ends in the middle of June and that is just over a month away! Now that I am more than halfway the semester is moving by quickly and assignments are coming up fast.

The ideal situation for a student would be to have each assignment evenly spread out so that you only have to focus on one at a time. So far I have been able to take care of just one at a time for the most part, but now things have changed. I have one major assignment worth 60% of my grade due at the end of the semester which you are supposed to be working on regularly throughout - easier said than done. I just finished my statistics assignment due tomorrow, and now I am working on the biggest assignment I have for my MRes (Academic Writing) class which is due on Friday. We have to do a 2000 word critical analysis of an article or comparison of two articles. I'm just now starting it! After this I have two major assignments to continuously work on. I have one major assignment for Biology worth 60% of my grade due at the end of the semester which you are supposed to be working on regularly throughout - easier said than done. The other big assignment is a working group proposal that has the potential to be a nightmare. The proposal is basically a 5 page summary of some fantastic question that you would address by bringing in multiple researchers from various disciplines or backgrounds on that topic. Coming up with the idea, the people, the theoretical itinerary of the meetings, etc can be quite difficult. I definitely have my work cut out for me for the rest of the semester. 

On top of my building amount of work to do, my internet is being really finicky again. I talked to Maria who works at the main office and she said it's always had problems and that it's worse than dial-up! She's going to talk to the IT people, but it sounds like I'm just going to have to live with it for now. My solution is just to spend loads of time at the library. Although school is going by quite quickly, the time it's taking for me to be with Matt again seems slow. I'll have to deal with all the internet issues till the end of July when Matt will be here and we will get our own place. That transition may bring it's own set of frustrations so perhaps I should just be happy with what I have for now. 

If you were not yet aware of my July plans, I am going to fly back to the US on July 4th and then the very next day Matt and I are going on a trip to Ft. Lauderdale, the Bahamas, and then Orlando/Walt Disney World. After we get back we'll have just enough time to make any final preparations before we fly to Sydney. I've been monitoring flights to Florida and Sydney for a long time. It's quite stressful actually. I created e-mail alerts on kayak.com for every possible combination of flying to and from Florida, different dates to fly to Sydney, and more. Last week my e-mail alert showed a really good drop in a flight from Orlando to Eugene, but Sydney flights had jumped up $300! I found a decent combination for the Florida trip and decided to look at a flight to Sydney on July 21st which I hadn't really looked at. It wasn't the cheapest I had seen, but it seemed likely the flights would not go down much below the $1086. I was still torn on whether I should buy them right then or not so I e-mailed the information to my mom, and got ready for bed. As I was praying I was asking Heavenly Father what I should do about the flights and felt that I should trust my mom's advice. By the time I ended the prayer my mom had e-mailed me and I was able to call her. Normally she doesn't check her e-mail at that time, but that day was different. This was a huge blessing because my internet wouldn't let me load the pages to purchase the tickets so I had to give my mom all the information over the phone to purchase them. Had I waited I likely would not have gotten the  prices I did. Although I was up past 1 a.m. that night it was well worth it. Now I don't have the stress of getting stuck with expensive flights anymore. 

Recently I made my first ever batch of oreo truffles. You grind up oreo cookies (takes a long time!) then mix it with cream cheese and form it into small 1in balls. After being in the fridge for an hour I dipped the truffles into my peanut butter/chocolate mixture and left in the fridge again to harden. They are so good! I try to only eat 2 or 3 a day. Also, to add on more calories, I went to spend time with Paiges again on Sunday. We had roast beef, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, carrots, and home-made rolls! Sunday dinner American style for sure. I'll be sad when they go back to the U.S. like many other American families in our ward. That night we had some fun as I helped Corene Paige put some useful apps on her phone. One of which I highly recommend for husband and wives called Find my Friends (click here for android version, or here for iphone). This app allows you to know where someone is, create alerts for when they arrive or leave at a place (use it on your teenagers), and some other fun features. The iphone free one isn't as nifty as the android one, but they still work the same. Another thing I introduced them to was the animal personality test I randomly found (click here to test it out). Matt and I had done it earlier and discovered that I am a fox and he is an otter and our love and marriage is tricky, but worthwhile. It's a lot of fun and it was surprisingly accurate for me and Corene.

Hopefully I will be able to have some fun while I combat all my assignments in the next month! 

Dancing and Pioneers

On Thursday night Matt and I were discussing new movies coming out such as Iron Man 3 and Star Trek. He was saying how Iron Man 3 comes out May 3rd so I figured it would be a few weeks later here. To my surprise the next day Iron Man 3 was already here! Naturally I had to jump on the opportunity and see it before Matt so I went with a couple of friends that night. The movie was fantastic as expected and I won't say any more as not to spoil anything.

Before the movie we grabbed food at a sushi place which proved to be a very unique experience for me. We sat next to the sushi train where small plates of sushi and other food goes around on a conveyor belt and you just grab what you want and eat it. At the end the waiter counts how many plates of each color/value you have to calculate the cost. I discovered I'm quite American when it comes to sushi. I tried sushi with salmon and fish eggs, prawns, some kind of octopus ball thing, and a couple other unknowns. The sushi was good, but at the end I grabbed some teriyaki chicken that was easily my favorite. I still miss the Beaver Roll at the sushi place near OSU, but I think I will have to find new favorites while in Australia.

The next day was the long awaited "So You Think You Can Dance" YSA performance. I met up with Brock and Kaytlin at the central station after getting quite confused about locations, and then Damon drove us all to the Sutherland Entertainment Centre for the show. It was a packed venue with not the best visibility, but still fun. They had Jazz, Country (Toy Story themed), Musical Theatre (RM theme), Swing, Latin, Contemporary, and more. Each stake did a marvelous job, and I attempted to record a little of them, but unfortunately I can't get them to load. Although I have no desire to be a YSA again, I miss being able to participate in some of those activities. It was a blast to participate in the one I was in over 3 years ago (click here to see video) and proved to be a night to remember since I got in a car accident that night as well. I think there should be more fun married couple activities as well so we don't become hermits. Perhaps it's just expected that you'll have kids really soon meaning you aren't allowed to do fun stuff.

Sunday I gave my talk on the pioneers. This might easily be the most difficult talk I have ever had to prepare, and probably the worst one I've given in a long time. I think the Lord helped people to hear my word better than I actually spoke them since I got many nice comments. In the end I feel that I did my best and hopefully the Lord helped others to hear what they needed. Most of all I'm very grateful for having to write that talk for all the interesting things I learned about my own family history.

For years my grandparents (on father's side) have talked about the Standing and Baddley family that were pioneers. All I remember is that they had nice graves in the cemetery in Salt Lake City and were pioneers. Beyond that I didn't really pay attention to the stories. By working on my talk I learned that my great, great, great grandfather James Standing actually took care of Hyrum Smith's family for a bit, was imprisoned with Brigham Young, helped shoot home-made cannons at the mobs in Missouri, and was a stone-cutter for the Nauvoo temple and the Salt Lake City temple. I also learned about his family and how his son Joseph was killed while serving a mission in Georgia, and his eldest son James Varley Standing started to go blind in his later years. James Varley apparently was quite talented and liked to ride in wagon wheels spinning around and he could walk on his hands for over a block tricks. All of his younger days may have led to him going blind, but he still married a lovely woman by the name of Eliza Baddley. Eliza's family didn't really approve of their marriage since James was going blind. The small white house they lived in still exists about 12 blocks from the temple in Salt Lake City. Although I don't remember this, my dad claims I've been there or had it pointed out to me many times. Apparently there is some great pioneer history on my mother's side as well, but I didn't have time to extract it all. Family history can be quite fascinating and I am sad I have not delved into it more.

The last few days I have mainly focused on my next Statistics assignment. My teacher gave us all an extra week at my (and probably other's) request since just a day before many of us were still completely lost. I overthink it too much and then I get easily confused on what to do. With the extra time and working with classmates I'm sure we'll figure it out. This also gave me time to watch Life of Pi yesterday. I read the book a long time ago when someone recommended it because I wanted to work with tigers. It was a really good movie with some neat scenes. There is a lot of debate about the meaning and truth of the movie, but it's not based on a real story so I don't understand why there's so much debate. I will say that if it were true, I would believe that the boy could survive on a small boat with a tiger and all that occurred in Pi's story. I believe that things can be true even if there is no logical explanation for it.

Lazy Days

After April 15th when I had my presentation things have been very laid back. Since I'm on break I don't have any classes or assignments, but that doesn't mean I don't have anything to do. I was super proud of myself finishing two blogs for my Biology class (click here to see them). After that it's been ridiculously hard to get myself to do much of anything.

For the last week there have been some serious internet issues going on. It was so bad for a little while that I had to go to the library to get anything done. Suddenly it was better, and now it's messed up again. Sometimes if I reload a page a ton of times it might work. I don't mind going to the library but it's not a good place to skype with Matt, nor does it have quick access to food. Also, there's something about the library that makes me feel guilty if I am procrastinating or wasting time there. Hopefully it will get better soon and stay that way.

This last Sunday was fun because I went to go visit the Websters. Stephen and Rosely have a large home in

Stephen and Rosely Webster

Kenthurst, NSW where I stayed in 2009 for my study abroad. They are such and amazing LDS family and I had a spectacular time last time I was here. It was quite difficult to get there actually because I had to take two buses and the closest I could get to their home was the nearest shopping centre. Unfortunately those buses don't run very frequently either so it's impossible to get back home after 7pm. Luckily Rosely was able to pick me up from the bus stop and drive me all the way home after dinner. It's fun catching up with people! I'm constantly amazed at how much has changed in 3+ years.

Tuesday I went on an adventure with my classmate Elayna. We had planned to go to the city to watch the movie Kon-Tiki. I was excited for the movie since I had read the book. Elayna's bus was quite late so she told me just to go ahead and get food without her at Oporto's. As a side note: Australia uses chicken salt on their french fries (chips) which makes them so much better! We decided to follow my phone and just walk to the theater because we had enough time. The GPS had us go through a parking lot (car park) and then work our way to the theater. Luckily we made it on time, only to discover they didn't have the movie Kon-tiki nor had heard of it. I must have misunderstood what theater it was at or something. In the end we decided to watch the zombie movie Warm Bodies. This gave Elayna time to grab some chips and eat before we saw the movie. Warm Bodies definitely exceeded our expectations by being the first romantic comedy zombie apocalypse movie that I have ever seen. Afterwards I had all kinds of fun getting home because I missed the train I planned to take by seconds and then took another train to a city bus stop that would stop right by my house. I got home late, but in the end I had completely finished reading The Silver Chair by C.S. Lewis and had a very fun night.

Yesterday I went to a Biology seminar (this one wasn't required) by Duncan Irschick. He is a very accomplished scientist that has worked in many areas but some of the more interesting aspects of his work with geckskin - an example of biomimicry. Biomimicry is innovation that has received its inspiration from nature. Using geckos as the model, Irschick and his team were able to create an adhesive material that works just like gecko adhesion. The simplest explanation is that a soft material (like saran wrap) will adhere but it needs to be paired with a stiff material. Duct tape uses a liquid adhesive on the stiff fibers, but it can't be easily removed. Additionally the liquid adhesive will pick up dust and other particles that make it lose it's adhesive ability. Geckskin uses rubber paired with fabric (the stiffer the better) to adhere. Not only can a small piece of this hold hundreds of pounds, but it can also be easily removed with no residue. Unfortunately it would not hold if it was rotated so they added a tendon like geckos have that helps it to be more stable. It's pretty neat stuff, but I was sad he didn't bring any. Click here to watch a piece of his lecture online. Another interesting part of his seminar was about a spider that rips one of its genitals off and swings it around in a circle which helps it seal the wound. It's got seriously huge genitalia so by removing one it can move quicker and hopefully be able to beat other males at mating with the female (click here for video). Biology is such a fascinating subject! A few other things I learned was that patents in the US cost about $25,000, and an international patent is $35,000. Apparently the business side of inventing things is kind of a nightmare and it's easy to get ripped off, have your project fail, or just go broke.

At the seminar I also met a guy at Macquarie who is working on spider silk. Apparently spider silk is the strongest material known to man, but we can't reproduce it. The silk starts as a liquid form that they then make into a solid. We can reproduce the chemicals to make the liquid, but to make the silk into a solid like spiders is a long way off. If this material could be produced it may have all kinds of uses because it is insanely strong and can absorb a lot of energy. Irschick's geckskin could be ridiculously strong if made with spider silk. I'm interested to see where that research goes.

It's been a fun and relaxing week. Nevertheless, Sunday I am giving a talk in church and next Wednesday I have an assignment due so the rest of this weekend I have plenty to do.

School vs. Religion

This last week was an interesting one. This week and next week are the mid-semester break so all last week I had to work on assignments that were due yesterday. Not to mention it was conference weekend for me so I was praying I'd be able to finish everything on time.

The week started out all right on Monday because I skipped my boring Statistics class so I could go to a seminar on the erasure of fear memories. It was a really neat seminar about how children actually recover from conditioned fear situations better than adults. Hopefully in the next week I'll write my blog on it for my class and you can read more details about it. Later the day wasn't as great because I saw my first assignment grade for another class (MRes). I got 70% and my teacher had made comments about how I didn't need subtitles and I didn't have a conclusion. It was a 500 word definition so I couldn't see how I could lose so much for things that I had no idea not to do (we didn't have a grading rubric). I figured I would talk to my tutor about it. Unfortunately my Friday class with her got cancelled because she's sick so I e-mailed her and was grateful she was well enough to respond. Apparently there was a typo and I got 80%. This made me feel better since I have to get 75% or above in my program in order to keep my scholarship and eventually do a PhD. However, I was still frustrated I lost 20% on stylistic things and not the actual writing so I still plan to discuss it.

A few of the other girls in my program were also discussing about our ridiculous writing assignment that was due the next Monday. This ended up being a very valuable conversation for me. I knew that the grading system here is pretty different, but the last time I was here I still got 80-90% on everything. Here 75% and above is a Distinction which is basically getting an A or high B. A High Distinction is 85% and above and is equivalent to an A+ in the US (see table below). This reminded me that I'm still doing well if I get a 75% and above and I should feel lucky if I get above 85%. In the end I feel a whole lot better, but I still get frustrated that I seem to get lower grades than my classmates. Yesterday I finally was redeemed when I got my Statistics assignment back and I got 93%! I spent two full week and loads of time with the teacher so I would have been furious had I not done well. Finally I have a class I can do well at, and hopefully it will boost my average grades in case I do poorly in another subject.

Australian University	U.S. University	Canadian University
7=High Distinction	A+	85-100%
6=Distinction	A	75-85%
5=Credit	B	65-74%
4=Pass	C	50-64%
3=Conceded Pass	D	40-50%
1 or 2=Fail	F	0-39%

The other school frustration occurred last week when my internet suddenly became ridiculously slow! Pages struggled to load, I couldn't get any videos to load at all, and doing online assignment stuff was impossible. I already had to go to the library to get research articles (I still had that issue) so I had to spend a lot more time there. In the end though, I completed my assignments and I didn't even mind going to campus on Saturday to get stuff done. It was a beautiful day and I finished enough of my homework to lay in the sun on the grass and listen to Conference talks on my phone. I even did my skype call with Matt outside that day and he thought I was on a golf course at first. In the end all went well.

If I were to talk about all my favorite talks on Conference this would be a VERY long blog. Instead I'll mention some of my favorite quotes:

Craig A. Cardon - "We must see men not as they are at present but as they may become" 

Richard G. Scott - "Don't rationalize away future happiness by taking shortcuts instead of applying sound gospel principles"

David A. Bednar - "The Lord's truth is not altered by fads, popularity, or public opinion polls."

Thomas S. Monson - "The great test of this life is obedience"

Jeffrey R. Holland - "Hold fast to what you already know and stand strong until additional knowledge comes"

Bruce D. Porter - "We need not fear the future, nor falter in hope and good cheer, because God is with us."

Over the next 40 days I will be joining my friend Laura Wleklinski in doing a 40 day challenge to read and reflect on one conference talk per day (including priesthood session and Young Women meeting). I am considering starting another spiritual blog to go along with it. We'll see if I have the time. I LOVED conference and I think I got so much more out of this one than any other. Now the next step is to apply it all.

So the week ended on a really high note. I should add that on top of conference and school I had just finished reading Jane Austen's book Persuasion and Sunday night I watched the movie. I'm not sure which Jane Austen book will be next, but I'm also now reading/listening to the Voyage of the Dawn Treader. I actually think the book was better for Persuasion, but the movies are better for the Chronicles of Narnia. We'll see if that pattern continues.

Yesterday I went to have FHE with Brock, Kaytlin and Dave which concluded my great spiritual weekend. Brock gave a fantastic lesson on relieving stress. My ultimate favorite though was the video by Amy Cuddy he showed at the end about how you should fake it till you become it (click here to see the video). Ironically this goes in so perfectly with Jeffrey R. Holland's talk on how everything starts with faith and you build upon it. I truly believe that you can be whatever you want to be if you set your mind to it. I've been able to do many things in my life that has proven to me that anything is possible. The Lord will help you to become even more than what you think you can, but first you have to show him you are willing to work for it.

Blue Mountains and Cuttlefish

It has been nearly two weeks since I have posted anything, simply because I forgot. I'll just focus on the highlights to prevent writing a novel.

After a nice easy week of classes I was able to start my long weekend with an early morning hike in the blue mountains. Dave Cruz and his roommate Paul picked me up at 6 am and then we drove up to the beautiful blue mountains (see Pictures page for more blue mountain pics). We got there around 7:30 am and combined two hikes together so we were there nearly 5 hours hiking. To my surprise in our first hour or so of walking Dave spotted a lyre bird on the trail! I've never seen one in real life and it was running along the trail in front of us! Everything just got better with the gorgeous views, spectacular waterfalls, and sun coming in through the trees.

Hiking also provided a great time to chat with Dave and Paul so it was a fun way to get to know each other better as well. We stopped at one of the waterfalls and decided to take a swim, but the water was definitely cold. After swimming in it for a little while it got better, but when I got out and continued to hike I was freezing for a bit. At the end of the hike is when we encountered all the other hikers, tourists, and crowds which made the narrow pathways and stairs difficult. Dave wanted to sprint up all the giant steps to the end, but my poor short legs were not up to that challenge. Afterwards we cooled off and had lunch where I introduced Dave and Paul to my favorite app to catalog movies called MyMovies. They were anxious to start cataloging all their movies so we went back to their apartment and watched A Lot Like Love while they sat scanning stacks of movies into their apps. When I got home I was exhausted, but it was so wonderful to do something active again!

The next few days I spent a lot of time wasting time. I started a new tv show for fun which ended up being a bigger commitment than I anticipated. Merlin is a fun, witty, fantasy tv show that I spent a lot of time watching all five seasons. It was a great way to pass the time at first, but I was quickly reminded why I typically don't watch tv - it's too easy to waste time. When classes started again the next Wednesday it was hard to find the motivation for homework. The issue with a holiday is that you remember how much fun it is to not do homework! Nevertheless, I did start on some assignments early and was able to be semi-productive by the end of the week. 

Friday I went to the city to visit my friend Damon to catch up. It's amazing how much you can cover over dinner. We went to a Malaysian place and talked about what we've been up to for the last 3-4 years. The food had so much flavor! I love asian food and the lamb was awesome, but we ordered cuttlefish which for some reason I thought fish equals something like halibut. Cuttlefish tastes like squid, so it has a very weird, hard, and chewy texture. Neither of us liked it much, but the lamb and roti we had was plenty filling. Afterwards we had some very rich hot chocolate which was too much for Damon so I had most of his as well. It was a nice night, especially because it's always great to catch up with good friends. 

It has been a wonderful and relaxing two weeks, but this week I have a LOT of work to do since I have two assignments due on April 15th. Additionally General Conference is this weekend for Australia (it's difficult to watch live since that's the middle of the night for us), and I am hoping to set up some fun things to do over the break from April 17th to the 29th. I'm determined to not get started on another long TV series that will eat up my time. I think I will stick with reading Jane Austen, The Chronicles of Narnia, and traveling to the city and beaches for fun.