Insta-overload

Instagram is pretty cool. Instant access to someones view of the world. We can see events and people through their eyes in small snapshots. That's pretty neat if you ask me.

I get a great deal of amusement out of Instagram. One of my favorite activities is going to a person's page and narrating their Instagram feed. Scroll through all the things they have posted and come up with dialogue for each picture, trust me it's a good time.

But there are a few things that annoy me on Instagram:

People that only post selfies. Not even with other people. Just their face. Over and over. I don't mind a selfie here and there, I have selfies on my Instagram, but if your whole feed is just one selfie after another with only slightly varying facial expressions I apologize because I have probably laughed at you once or twice. Or narrated all of your selfies with different voices reading your captions.

People that over use hashtags. It's obnoxious. Don't do it. People that hashtag every word: #if #this #is #what #your #caption #looks #like #then #you #are #doing #it #wrong. Or my other personal favorite: #newshirt #blueshirt #itsnew #newnewnew #newblue. We get it. You have a new blue shirt.

Nature accompanied by scripture. Nature is beautiful. Scripture is wonderful. But please take it easy. Moderation people.

The inspiration for the title of this piece is dedicated to those of you who feel the need to post a book about your significant other or best friend. I get that your boyfriend/girlfriend is your mcm/wcw every week but really if I have to scroll past another endless caption about how amazing that person is I might cry. This also applies to your best friend. I get it, you are close and have a lot to celebrate as legendary best friends but sometimes short is sweet, something simple well done will always beat something complex poorly executed, and the picture is supposed to mean a thousand words; you don't have to add your own.

Anyways. Instagram, cool. People that do these things, not cool. Remember moderation with your social media kids.

Churro Challenge

After Young Life on Monday night my sisters and I with our good friend Sooky ran to Del Taco to do the Churro Challenge. I was introduced to the Churro Challenge at Malibu Young Life Camp and introduced it to my sisters and Sooky for the first time last night.

Rules of the Churro Challenge: All participants eat a churro and are not allowed to lick their lips until all churros are finished.

The Churro Challenge is a test of willpower and is just plain funny.

Zona was struggling hardcore, Hailey is perfect as usual, and Sooky is the man. I was trying to eat a churro and not lick my lips and film all of this at the same time so I should get points for multitasking or something.

Enjoy the video and try the Churro Challenge for yourself!

A Day of Dead Week Told by Cats

Dead Week brings out the worst in all of us 

The alarm starts going off and forcing yourself out of bed is the worst thing you can possibly imagine

The only way to survive is to have a constant intake of coffee

You are up to your eyeballs in assignments and projects

The stress is so much to handle basically anything will distract you from having to deal with it

You try to get your mind off of things by working out but it only seems to make things worse

People tell you its going to get better. Its not. 

You work for days on a project. It becomes an obsession.

The lack of sleep pushes you to the edge of not being able to deal with other people. 

But eventually you make it through the day and realize how fabulous you were at getting all the things done

Then you slide into a state of insanity that feels like sleep but really you are just hanging on for the next day. Dead Week is the best week. 

Bonus of Dead Week. 

The Struggles of Sarcasm

I love sarcasm. Its probably my favorite means of communication. If a person can have a completely sarcastic conversation with me then they are a friend for life. I can joke around and talk in circles for hours as long as the other person can follow and contribute to the conversation.

These people can be few and far between. Finding these people brings me a lot of joy.

The only issue is sometimes with these people, our combined sarcasm creates this riddle of non serious banter that all of a sudden becomes serious. But, because we were both being sarcastic the "serious" conversation that developed can't actually be taken seriously. You become so used to being sarcastic that the line between sarcasm and actual conversation is so blurred neither side knows if we are still being sarcastic or if we have become serious. Both sides leave the conversation with a mild sense of confusion wondering if what we talked about was a real thing. Which actually kind of adds to the fun of having a sarcastic conversation, keeps you guessing in a world of hypothetical situations. These conversations are my favorite.

Grumpy Cat is my Spirit Animal

The resemblance is uncanny...

We are basically twins.

 Enough said.

Challis Adventures

My family rocks. This is our Spring Break trip to Challis in short.

Ranch house. 

View from the porch

Shooting pellet guns and BB guns

Only my little sister can look this good out shooting

Okay, both my sisters look good out shooting

Shooting pop cans until they are no more

On the river searching for our parents

Great weather 

Dad caught a fish

Its pretty cute in all honesty

They like each other. Most of the time.

Zona is sassy

This probably describes their relationship perfectly.

Orange and Black cat!

Spring Break was a success. 

Chicken, and Cars, and Knives. Oh My.

Wait.. What. 

Spring Break just happened. I was pleased with its overall occurrence. It was the perfect blend of relaxing with things to do. My family has a good friend that lives in Challis, Idaho (its okay if you have no clue where that is, small town next to big river middle of no where) that invited us to stay in her ranch house for a few days. We have stayed with her a few times and her ranch house is beautiful:

One of my favorite places to get away. 

My family and I piled into our Suburban and I got the very backseat. My dad tells me that dinner is the food that we packed to eat on our little adventure to Challis. The catch is the food was a whole chicken my parents had roasted and I was supposed to cut this up into manageable chunks for sandwiches. Only problem, no way to cut up cheese or chicken to put on the sandwiches. My dad tells me that there is a knife in his backpack he uses when camping. After digging around for quite some time I located the silver death blade I would be using. So I used a box of crackers as a cutting board, I thought the situation called for a barrier between my legs and the knife, and began making these ridiculous sandwiches. 

Seriously? Who uses this knife in a moving car.

I succeeded in making a huge mess and I only cut my finger once and it wasn't even bad. I made my whole family food in a moving car with a knife I should not be allowed within 20 feet of for safety reasons, without causing serious harm to myself or anyone else. But really. Who lets me use a knife in a moving car. I have a horrible track record when it comes to making decisions and I generally struggle with basic things so letting me have a knife is a terrible idea. But I do make a pretty great sandwich if I do say so myself.. 

Soccer has been Mean Lately

I love my sport more than almost everything. I am my happiest when I am playing soccer. There is little better than the feeling of leaving everything on the field and walking away exhausted. But soccer has been mean to me lately. I have not had good luck with injuries the last few weeks. I sprained my ankle almost 3 weeks ago. It is a re-sprain of the same ankle I sprained during State Cup last May. 

I had to walk on Graduation with an air cast:

I rocked the beat up old Vans for Graduation

The ankle isn't very strong because of the first sprain so it happened again during warm ups before a Saturday game. 

The original damage. Monday after the injury

After a couple days. Less swelling

 I randomly got this giant ball print on my leg during warm ups last Saturday. I had been cleared to play and my ankle was all taped then this happens. What the heck. Just quick info, I still have the bruise and the mark and it's Thursday.

Ball Print from Warm-ups 

 But the ankle is getting stronger and improving well! I'll be playing after spring break no problem. Fingers Crossed! Blessed to have an athletic training staff to take such good care of me!

Naps are Confusing

I am not a big fan of naps. I never have been. Ask my mother. As a child I wouldn't nap and I don't really nap now unless I am exhausted.

Most naps sound like a good idea. I'll crawl into bed after practice just to try and warm up, or I'll get to practice early and sleep in the locker room, or get to my media class and fall asleep on the couches before class. All relatively pleasant situations. 

But, without fail, I wake up completely lost to my surroundings and with no clue as to what is going on around me. I feel no more rested than I did before I got the bright idea to nap. I am grumpy. It never fails. 

I took a half hour nap today on accident and woke up, saw my clock said 7 and thought I had slept to Wednesday and it was time for me to wake up and get ready for class to take an exam. I'm pretty sure I made some noises or said something random because my roommate just laughed at me. I'm still pretty confused what happened. Naps just become voids in my life that I can't remember clearly and that freaks me out.

So basically naps are the most confusing wonderful things. Extra sleep, good. Waking up horribly confused, not good. The internal conflict I have over naps is probably more dramatic than it should be. 

Birthday Adventures

I find this ridiculously funny

So yesterday was my birthday! It was pretty great. I had an amazing day and was truly blessed by my family and friends. I felt very loved by all the wonderful people in my life.. My little sister, Hailey, showed up at my dorm and wanted to take me out for coffee. So of course I was excited for that and we headed off to Starbucks. My little sister is a maniac of a driver and almost missed the turn to get into the parking lot but she goes flying into the parking lot and we pull up to the drive through. I order my usual Grande White Chocolate Mocha with an extra shot and Hailey decided she wanted the same thing. So she tells the lady over the intercom that she wants the same thing except in a 16oz...

For those of you that don't regularly drink coffee at Starbucks a Grande is 16oz.

A look of horror crossed her face as she realized what she said and then had to spend 5 minutes fixing her mistake to the drink lady. We finally get our order sorted and we pull up to the window. The girl working I have two classes with and she is laughing at us. Hailey pulls up to far away from the window and has to get out of the car in order the pay the lady for our coffee.

That's right. Not roll down the window and lean awkwardly out of it far away. Full open the door get out of the car and walk to the window far away. I am dying I am laughing so hard. While we are waiting for coffee the lady notices the windows on Hailey's car have window paint on them. Hailey's birthday is two days before mine and her friend had written all kinds of goofy things, watching Hailey tell the Starbucks lady about her windows and what they said was hilarious as my little sister gets kind of awkward around people. We finally got our coffees and were headed back to school when Hailey stalls her car at the stop sign. At this point we are crying we are laughing so hard. Gasping for air and trying not to spill the precious coffee we made it back to school where a bunch of my friends had decorated the inside of my dorm room with balloons and streamers. It was a great surprise, I don't get surprised very easily and so the fact I didn't suspect anything is a feat in itself. I felt so loved and it was a great way to start celebrating my birthday.

So thank you to everyone that wished me happy birthday yesterday and thank you to those that made my day so special.

The Gamble of Social Events

College is a time of making friends and having experiences that you will remember for the rest of your life... Or that's what they tell you anyways.

To promote all of these experiences and friendships colleges often dream up events and gatherings for you to go out and have fun and meet people and find your soul mate etc. There are fairs and games and things with weird names you wouldn't even consider thinking was cool but you pay 5-10 dollars and show up and participate in whatever madness someone has created. Some of these events are worthwhile and you can appreciate them, other events make you want to run into a wall just to escape going.

For instance, my dorm is divided into wings and we have "family time" on Tuesday nights with the people that live on your wing. This is supposed to promote bonding with the people that you live with and have fun, all that jazz. My RA is super crafty and is always coming up with little things for us and tries to make "family time" more fun with little treats or gifts. Our last family time featured this gem:

Pink drink is bad

It was like drinking a My Little Pony. Cherry soda and ice cream mixed to create this foamy pink concoction. This combined with us sitting around and staring at each other made for a real fun time. To enforce the atmosphere of participation you get fined if you don't show up to "family time", I may or may not know this from personal experience. Forced bonding time is my favorite.

But because college is a time of meeting new people and making friends we all go to these events and gamble our time on an experience that could go either way. Its a risk we seem willing to take and perhaps we stumble upon a new fun experience or a new best friend. I don't fully understand the whole mentality of these social situations but at least you can find some laughs brought on by the absurdity of the events provided.

Food Pyramid

I am taking a Fundamentals of Wellness class this semester and I have to tell you I don't approve of the "My Plate" deal. Don't try to tell me how much food to put on my plate. No. I like the pyramid better so I created my own food pyramid because the national guidelines aren't cutting it for me.

I even drew it on graph paper... 

I'm pretty sure these are the only things you need to eat to survive. None of these things have serving sizes. Unlike the boring national guidelines that like to limit the amount of food you eat, with my pyramid a serving size is whatever you want it to be. Half a bag of tortilla chips with salsa? Go for it. The limit does not exist on Nutella. Any pizza can be a personal pizza if you believe in yourself. French Fries= heaven. Coffee is of course the highest on the priority list. I could probably eat 17 of those little oranges if I had access to them. Top Ramen is the meal of champions. That is all. It's pretty self explanatory which makes it way better than the confusing national guidelines and their charts.

So in your face national health guidelines. My pyramid kicks your "My Plate" system's butt.

This is What Soccer Does to You.

There are many joys of playing soccer. You are in fantastic shape. You can eat massive amounts of food and not care because you will just run it off at practice. The list goes on and on. But there are some downfalls:

1. You have no life outside of soccer. You are either at practice, a game, lifting weights, or watching film. There is no life outside of soccer. "Sorry, I cant I have soccer" is a common response to most invitations.

2. While you have great legs from all the running, you are also sore. All the time. Its normal. You cant go up stairs effectively because you cant move your legs. It's like the staircase is mocking you.

3. Massive bruises. Cleat marks. Tan lines. It doesn't get much better than soccer player legs. The bruises make for great conversations.

4. You would rather wear athletic shorts or running leggings than a dress or jeans. The difference in comfort is astounding

5. No more Icy Hot? Might as well give up on today. More than once I have been identified by my mom because she can smell the icy hot before she can see me.

6. The people that make fun of soccer. Its honestly a lot harder than just running around and kicking a ball. If you ever make that argument against a soccer player just remember they train to run for 90 minutes and will not be afraid to get into a fight with you.

7. There is no such thing as an off season. It's not real.

8. "Optional practice" Wow. That's a weird way of spelling mandatory.

9. You have to buy pants a size to big to fit around your thighs. Then you belt them to keep them from falling off. The struggle is real.

10. Soccer may not be everything but it's right up there with oxygen.

My Movie References are out of Control

Khan, Star Trek: Into Darkness

In case you haven't seen Star Trek: Into Darkness yet, the villain is Khan who is played by Benedict Cumberbatch. I loved this movie and I recommend it highly.

Anyways, yesterday I was in class and my professor was talking about technology and how it is replacing human interaction then he asks, "Would you rather have me teaching the class or Khan."

I sat up in my chair and blurted out "Khan!" Who wouldn't want an attractive villain to teach class as opposed to a professor. My professor looked extremely confused and just goes, "You would rather have Khan academy educational videos teach instead of me?"

Sinking down into my chair I glanced at a guy in my class as we both started trying to justify this comment with explanations of Star Trek: Into Darkness. Once my professor realized we had been talking about a villain from a movie and not an educational video he just started laughing and quickly moved on to the rest of the lecture.

Leave it to me to make a movie reference out of my professor's lecture and replace him with a villain.

I find myself referencing movies more often than normal. I can hardly get through a conversation without throwing in a movie quote. Its a problem. 

Tuesday, you suck.

The joy of Tuesday is that I have class at 8am and then don't get done with classes until around 9:30pm. At 8am I have Survey of Art and Music. Its a graduation requirement and so I drag myself to class and attempt to stay awake. I am the worst morning person so the fact I made it out of bed means I should get a gold star for the day. Usually I am barely awake for that class and wake up around half way through my second class. My professor actually came and told at me today that if I was going to sleep during class I should just leave. Let the record show we were done with the lecture and were just watching a movie but hey it was really important to her. Once I get my coffee I do better and can function at a passable human level. The rest of my day includes a wellness class, a video production class, soccer practice, team meetings, and my parachurch ministries class (that is three hours long). I get back to my dorm at the end of the day and I just want to fall down and not move for about the rest of my life, but then I remember homework. Today has felt long. I'm going to curl up into a ball and sleep for a while now. After I finish my homework. Curses. 

Anyways, Tuesday you suck. 

College Classes are Ridiculous

We all know that one kid in class that talks continuously, it doesn't matter if the professor is lecturing, if there is any pause for input this kid has their hand up in the air and is sharing their wealth of knowledge with the rest of us. It doesn't even matter if the professor wasn't asking a question, they somehow feel the need to shout out their opinions and questions like they matter to the rest of us. Between the stupidity and the know it alls there is the Green portion of the chart.

One time a kid in one of my media classes asked if we were getting to use wireless microphones while the TA was clearly holding a mic with a cord attached... Just go sit down in the Blue section of the chart, thank you.

Orange stands for Survey of Art and Music. I can now tell you 32 different pieces of art, what time period they are from, what city they were found in, and the significance of that piece. I'll add that to my list of useless information I will never need in my career in Broadcasting.

Purple is my Intermediate Video Production class. At least its for my actual major in the career field I actually want to go into.

Conflict and Consensus History. My head is spinning by the time I leave this class. So many dates and people and significant movements that the textbooks I bought weigh as much as I do. All the reading and memorizing and studying and I still have no clue what is going on. Yellow, we all know how this feels.

Red can be any class on a given day. Sometimes you just cant think anymore and feel the need to give up on school, drop out, and become a street performer. Or take a 3 hour nap. Or eat your weight in Oreos while watching Netflix. It varies.

Gotta love college, right?

Film Shoot Fun

This last weekend I was asked to be on a film shoot for a girl in my major's senior project. I was very excited and had a lot of fun. Of course though with any situation I manage to cause problems for myself. For instance I accidentally hit one of the lights while moving equipment.

A fun and scary thing was I got to be an extra on the set. In the film a store was being robbed by two men and I got to play one of the customers that got robbed. My job was fairly simple; pretend to study candy in the aisle, turn around when man came in yelling, and act like I was actually getting robbed.

The only directions I was given was to act like this was really happening and to look scared. The looking scared part was pretty easy, being in front of the camera and having someone screaming at you pretending to rob you is a little stressful. I wasn't sure how to actually act in that situation. The guy had a baseball bat for crying out loud. I had a lot of time to think about it and probably just ended up looking confused.

The other awkward moment came when I was trying to put a cable away that was all twisted. There is a special technique for wrapping up cables called Over Under. It just keeps the cord from getting tangled while wound up. So I was attempting to Over Under, I am actually decent at this but was struggling in this particular instance, and my professor's wife was standing there watching me. She comes over and tells me the way I learned to Over Under is wrong and is much better done a different way. Desperately trying to make a good impression on her I tried her technique and did the best I could. But the whole time she was just standing there watching me, I felt very uncomfortable because of how much I was struggling and pretty soon things were fairly tangled, she eventually walked away but I could feel my good impression going down the drain.

Oh well. I still had fun.. Good times.

Winter is hard.

One of the major downfalls of winter is how much clothing you have to wear to stay warm. For instance,  after practice I changed into baggy sweat pants and an over sized boys sweatshirt that I wore with Ugg boots. Of course because it was after practice my hair was up in a braided pony tail that was falling out giving me the appearance of a homeless lady.

Now I don't really give that much thought into how I look but on this particular day I was doing homework while sitting in the campus coffee shop. My friend who was doing homework with me invited me to go to Starbucks with him and some other people.  Because coffee is the purpose of my existence I agreed. Showing up I realized that the three other girls going with us looked adorable.  They all had on cute boots and sweaters with scarves, and then there's me. I had to laugh at myself a little bit. I totally fail at dressing like a cute college girl. But I did get great coffee. Sometimes I consider putting more effort into my appearance but then I remember how much I love wearing sweats and that usually wins.