COLLEGE!

so i figure i'd tell my blog about my crazy life. i am the worst college kid ever. i have absolutely no social life or free time. but i am really involved so at least that's good. i currently work 5 days a week am taking only 13 credits but that includes choir and company which have a lot of extra stuff. I just got called as one of the 2 relief society presidents in our ward cuz we have 80-90 girls. I am also the institute choir pianist which i am not nearly talented enough to be playing for. so let me just give you an example of how a day goes for me. so here is today

4AM wake up/get ready

5-10AM work

10-11AM change and eat lunch

11-3PM Class

3-4 (right now) little break

4-5 help set up for relief society meeting (enrichment)

5-6 relief society meeting

6-7 presidency meeting to finish up some assignments

7-8 Choir secret practice for our test tomorrow

8-9 shower get ready for bed

9 sleep to get up at 4 the next day

right now almost everyday every single hour is planned of my day. even on weekends! it's crazy but somehow heavenly father is making it possible for it to happen and i haven't had anything super important overlap. one of my good friends the other day told me that he thinks that being this busy now is just preparing us to be busy in the future. he told me to imagine have 4 little kids to worry about and working and being the relief society pres. it was a really good perspective for me to think about. the Lord helps us grow little by little. i know that right now in my life is teaching me things that i will use for my family and my callings in the future.

i feel like because of how busy i am i am happy though. being productive is a very good thing and i feel productive every day! haha well thats the exciting college life of elise. haha looks like i'll be going on a mission because there is absolutely no time for boys right now :)

oatmeal cookies

i decided today that i am like an oatmeal raisin cookie. i was thinking about these particular cookies at work today and thought about how when they are the only sweet around, most people would take one and enjoy it. they're farely tastey. but if there was a plethora of treats to choose from they are chosen last. they look good, and they taste good, but there is something about knowing that they are better for you that makes people shy away from them.

i think as a person i'm definately this way. when there are a ton of other people around, i'll nonchalantly hide in the back ground, no big deal. but part of this i think is that people know i'm healthy for them. if that makes sense. i don't mean this in a conceded way at all. just that sometimes i'm a little much to handle and delve into life too deeply so people would rather choose the chocolate chip cookie or the snicker doodle before me, but in 10 minutes you'll want another cookie, or you'll want something to eat. an oatmeal raisin cookie has substance. the oatmeal will sustain you.

now that you all think i'm a weirdo, i'm done now. :)

2-2-11

so i've been pretty stressed the last few days about tons of stuff. So last night my mind was going crazy thinking about grama jones and school and whatever spencer's deal is. yeah and i knew that if i went in to my job interview this morning with all of it on my mind that i would do really poorly. so i tried to remember what i used to do to clear my head. i usually play the piano but it was like 11 so there was no where i could go. then i remembered that i used to write poems to clean my head out. it took me like 10 mins and i just rattled it off without even thinking about it. for some reason making my problems rhyme makes them make sense in my head. haha so here's what i wrote just for fun:

it seems there's times in one's life

when time just floats on by

without much effort on my part

my days each hit the sky

its in those times when i think to me

is this really real?

but on those days, i don't learn much

and there's not much to feel

then slowly, in a flash of light

the table starts to turn

i find it's on the harder side

when i really learn

i see myself just trudging by

not knowing what to do

and then i free myself from pride

and finally turn to you

why is it that i feel alone

when i need you most

but you can be the window

when the world's door's closed

i'll turn to you and try my best

to listen to your will

i'll cleanse myself and find some time

to sit and just be still

what you want is sometimes hard

for me to understand

i'll listen to the still small voice

and not my own demand

it will be rough, i know it will

but i can make it through

by opening a broken heart

and listening to you

i'm grateful for the things in life

that make it worth the pain

because through you i can be clean

and free from any stain

you made me who i am today

and who i will become

it helps to know of who i am

and where we all came from

thanks for the love you give to me

unconditionally

but mostly thanks for simply

for listening to me

COLLEGE!!!!!!!!!!!!!

IT CUT MY PICS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

so i figured i should update you on my college life. i am LOVING EAC. there are so many peoplehere that i love and so much that i enjoy here. its so nice.

so this weekend we had company weekend. i danced for 24 hours in 5 days. it was awesome. i really am liking all of the people involved in the music program here. i'm not a music major, but i love the people and the music anyways....

this is me and jolene and jeremy. jolene is now one of my roommates. last semester we met her in our ward and has become one of my best friends ever. it's fun and i love her to death. we go to almost all the sporting events and paint our faces quite a lot.

kristi lived with us last semester and then got married in december. it was super fun for us to meet shannon and kristi and to get to know them so well. it was so nice to get to go to her reception in mesa over christmas break

this is jolene and me and jessica. i'm always with these two. jess is my best friend in the whole world and i have been so grateful to be able to share a room with her and get to know her.

this is all the girls i hung out with my first semester. we took lots of nice pics together

there are fires almost every weekend. it is crazy and super fun. this is at the homecoming bonfire

underneath the stage at fall sing with some of the girls from company

halloween!!!!! nat got to come up and hang out with me

anyways that is kind of a rough some up of my life. its super fun and i love it.

passion

okay so i was just going through some old emails that i wrote while i was in california. and i found this. i read through it and decided i wanted it somewhere where i would know where it was instead of hidden in my emails. this was the email i wrote mr. tenney after i watched the st. david choir perform at their competition. it is my feelings on passion, and it is super weird

so i had already decided that i would probably cry through the whole thing, but i've really had something against crying lately. i think it's because i could have so much to cry about right now and i decided that i was going to try to be happy and positive and not cry, so i don't cry. i mean i still cry just not about things of non-spiritual origin. well so i didn't want to cry because i knew that if i started crying i wouldn't be able to stop because i would have started feeling sorry for myself and would have cried because i wanted to be on stage and not because the show was bringing me to tears. honestly though singing and dancing are the only things i miss about st. david. i don't miss my friends or even my family because my friends weren't the right kind of friends, and my family i will be with forever. so i didn't want to cry just because i missed it. but something else happened.

(this is weird i'm warning you) i started shaking. at first i was like oh it's cold in here or i have the chills because of the show, but it was more than just the chills from good music. it was like my mind wouldn't let me think about how badly i wanted to be a part of the music, so my body started telling my mind what to do. i don't know if that makes sense, but it didn't really make sense to me either. because subconciously i was telling myself that i didn't need to be on that stage, but my body was telling me that i was supposed to be there. my head knew that music wasn't what i "wanted" but my whole self other than the logical part was telling me that the audience was the wrong place for me.

then you guys came back in and i was gonna get up and give hugs and tell people how impressed i had been, but i couldn't even get up because i knew if i said one word i was going to explode and just loose it. so then i started watching the next group and thats when i started crying. i didn't drop a single tear during your show but i bawled through the next 2. i just couldn't bare to think that those kids may never do anything real. they will always be doing the macarena. then poor natalie and rachael were so confused that i was crying.

well so then once i calmed down i started thinking about the hows and the whys and the what the craps. so this is my theory (it's weird again sorry)...

one year at girls camp we talked about morality and virtue and president merrill gave us a lesson on passion. he talked of course about physical intimacy being a passion, but then he talked to us about how being hungry was a passion and that you needed food to satisfy that passion. k so here are 2 definitions of passion:

-the state of being acted upon or affected by something external, especially something alien to one's nature or one's customary behavior.

-violent anger

k i know this is weird but think about it. food, you have to eat. your body demands it of your mind. sex, uh yea you get it. violence usually someone's head doesn't tell them to hit someone, it's an external, uncontrollable force. then this brings me to another definition of passion. one that is a little more important than either of those:

-the sufferings of christ on the cross or his sufferings subsequent to the last supper.

i take that to mean the atonement. when christ's body bled from every pore because of the love he had for each individual that had ever or would ever walk the earth, his body overpowered his mind and acted for itself and that my friend was passion greater than i can even imagine

therefore, my new definition for passion is this....

-any thing or idea that demands that the body should overpower the mind.

k this is a stretch from music, but i've thought a lot about why we need a body and why we have power over satan because of our bodies. because i've thought about the fact that satan still thinks and acts and understands things and such, so why does it matter if we are physical when our physical body, when separated from out spirit, is just inanimate. do you get what i'm saying? like your spirit is what makes your body work, and satan has a spirit, so why does a body matter? but then all of this has made me realize that a body holds literal power. maybe without the spirit it doesn't, and i guess spirit and body together make soul, so the soul has power and satan doesn't have that? i don't really know. this whole deal has provoked A LOT of questions. not only ones about the purposes of life and the plan of salvation, but smaller questions like "do i really want to graduate this summer? or do i want to go back to st. david and just deal with high school for another year if it means i can have all of this in my life?" or "do i really want to waste all my life on nursing? but then would i want to go to school with people who dont have the same feelings toward music as me?" and a lot more. well i'm sure i could write an entire book about this because my head has been going crazy, but this e-mail is already enormously long, so i'll stop for now, but MAYBE i'll write a song about this.

so uhm. for some reason today has been very thoughtful. i have a couple minutes before i have to go to institute so i figured i'd write down some of the stuff i've been thinking about. so i got asked today what i wanted out of life. i was like I want a family. i was then ask "no i mean like professionally" and i was like "well i'm going in to elementary education so i'll probably teach school and i'll love it, but i chose that because it will help me to be able to teach my future children." that was followed with "So all you want is your family?" and i was like " well i want a good family. i want to be a good enough parent that my kids will know how to make good choices even when i'm not around." i was then asked if that was what i wanted because my mom passed away. i was puzzled that that was the response. i said "no. it's because that is what life is about."

i think it's interesting that you can want something your whole life and then get to where you actually can study that and realize that's not really what you wanted afterall. i think one of the biggest things i've learned from being at EAC and from all the wonderful people here is that life is about preparing the earth for the second coming, not about seeing how much you personally can achieve. i feel like i've changed so much in the last couple months just because priorities are being realized. maybe it's just part of growing up and that everyone at 18 or 19 discovers that life isn't about what they thought it was. that it is about other people and not you. idk. it's been an interesting day......

poems

so i've been going through a bunch of my stuff getting ready to move, and i found some old poems i wrote while in california and then heidy kartchner gave me back one that she had that i wrote the last week of school so i figured i'd post them so i'd have them for later !

first is just one that i wrote about some thoughts i had at my first mutual activity while i lived in california. i didn't know anyone yet, and we were going ice skating. i had plenty to think about though and learned a lot from the ice. lol

Ode to an ice rink

Stepping onto the ice
I’ve never felt so alone
Not only new faces surround me
But things I can’t know til I’m grown

This ice has been battered
like me it’s been bruised
Its hopes have been shattered
By blades on my shoes
But its biggest mistakes
When rightly repaired
Are the ones I can’t feel with my skates

I see girls holding hands
Will each choose to support?
Or will one lose her balance
Help the other fall short
One girl does a jump
Neat tricks of all kinds
Because speed is required
Her fall is harder than mine

Stepping off of the ice
I can tell that I’ve grown
who thought from an ice rink
there was so much to be known

okay this one is one that i wrote at school one day in california. a boy at my high school had died the day before. i had never met him, but it caused a big stir at the school and got me to thinking.

The cycle of life creeps up to your path
in each turn you take on your journey
unconscious thoughts turn up each time
and give life it’s meaning and glory
birth marriage death—each a new page
but each brings new hope with new worry

the power of life, creation, and love
accompanies each son or daughter
whether struggling, secure, or down in the dumps
a new face makes your world brighter
but each child grows, the joy soon forgot
and life turns to a new chapter

then you see love the promise it brings
when life is so cruel and mundane
marriage pops up and you rest assured
‘cause life’s meaning shows up again
But what wil she do whenever she sees
That she someday will be without him

At last you meet death, it can’t be avoided
But a necessity for life
you learn a new love that pierces your soul
and gives your road a new bump called strife
but you put that behind you and discover that
you still have to continue your drive

then when hope’s disappeared, and your hearts only a hole
a miracle helps you go on.

and this last one is the most recent. it's probably the closest to my heart, so don't make fun of this one. lol. uhm i wrote it when i was convincing myself that EAC would be okay and that i didn't need time for me to go perform. yeah. anyways

Twelve years here and I’m done
I’m leaving for real now
I’ve made it through this messed up place
And now I’m wondering how

I’ve never been the perfect kid
Unless you’ve seen my grades
I learned here how to work real hard
But also to misbehave

There were times that I knew
People looked at me with admiration
I’ve seen that look in people’s eyes
That look of appreciation

But then came times when I knew
People saw through my sorry act
A look of questioning filled those eyes
And they’d turn their back

But life gave me a miracle!
I regained confidence
I was blessed with sunlight
After living in a trench

I spent a year flying high
And reminding me of me
I learned about what bondage is
And that I was finally free

But now I new turn takes the stage
And I don’t know what to do
Again I’ll get that awful look
Of disappointment from you

Everyday I’m told the same:
“do what will make YOU happy”
I wish that someone else just saw
That this choice has nothing to do with ME

Yes, it’s MY life but I know me
I know I’ll make the most
Because this virus gets passed along
I’m just the current host

Life’s not about what I choose
To make MY life the best
If anybody else could see
It’d be a weight off of my chest

What I do affects the world
And people who love me
So why did I choose to
Make it hard to be who I will be

I’ll step it up and take the challenge
I’m not known to back down
I’ll make my life what it could be
And not continue bound

12 years from now I’ll look down and see
what’s on this page
and realize through smiling eyes
that this was just a phase

life will goe on no matter what
and I know the part I’ll play
I’ll choose to be who I know I am
By what I choose today

Maybe this seems a selfish choice
But it’s not about money
Its about knowing all I can
When my father in heaven calls me

uhm i love poetry. it is one of the easiest ways for me to express myself. sometimes it's REALLY gay and corny, but for some reason, when life rhymes it makes more sense.