Random Thoughts 2

This post is basically a way for me to get all my random thoughts out of my head so that I can focus on studying for my finals.

I got a job at Downeast! Yay!

I've been on four amazing dates with an amazing guy!

I can't believe the semester is almost over, but I still can't wait for winter break.

Does it ever seem like all the good things in life happen at once?

I can't remember the last time that I was this happy!

I love my institute class and my institute teacher.

I have no respect for my abnormal psychology professor.

Monday was one of the most uncomfortable days of my life.

I love being a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

I love being a nursery leader. It's probably the number one reason why I don't go to a singles ward.

I'm missing an amazing dinner tonight because of work. :(

I'm going to a Zeta sleepover tonight.

I love Christmas!

One of the most peaceful things in the world is listening to Christmas music while drinking hot chocolate and siting in front of a fully decorated Christmas tree.

I have to preform in my ballroom dance class and I'm not excited.

I really need to write my friend Jennie and it is going to be an amazingly long letter.

I really really want to see the light on temple square!

I warned you that it was going to be random. Now let's see if I can actually study now.

New Car

I should start this by clarifying that it is not my new car that I am talking about it is my moms. I just get to drive it.

Since I started driving I've been driving my mom's Mazda. I loved the Mazda. I even gave her a name. Her name was Elphaba Stitch Smith. Elphaba because she was green, Stitch because it was a 626 Mazda and Stitch was experiment 626, and Smith because that is my last name. Well as Elphaba became older, she is now 12 years older, she needed more and more repairs. It finally got to the point that every couple of months we were paying hundreds of dollars to keep her running. This week we had to get her inspected and she failed, despite the fact that we had just had her repaired in September. It got to the point wear it would actually be cheaper to buy an new car then to keep up with repairing Elphaba. So my mom bought a new car.

The new car is a red, Impreza hatchback. Now my mom is a very good sport and didn't even roll her eyes when my dad suggested the crazy lady as a name for the car, because the car is red and we are Ute fans. However, After Aly saw the car she told everyone that we couldn't call the car crazy lady because the car was a boy. Try as we might we couldn't convince Aly that the car was a girl. So we had to come up with a different name and the new name is better. Louie the Ute Mobile! Isn't that awesome. We decided that since Louie Sakoda (Utah's kicker in 2008) didn't get drafted we needed to honor him in some other way. What better way than to name a car after him.

We love Louie! The car and the person.

All Smiles

So there is this really cute boy in my institute class. I really like him. Today he asked for my number! I haven't stopped smiling since.

Little Lessons

A couple of weeks ago my littlest sister was playing with chalk in the front yard. After a while we heard her  yelling. We watched out the window to see if she was just having fun or if there was a problem. It was a problem. As we watched we discovered that there were three little boys across the street teasing her. She doesn't take tease very well because she is Autistic. We quickly brought her inside to calm her down.

It didn't take us very long to get her to calm down, but she still wanted to play outside. We tried to convince her to play in the back yard, but she insisted on playing in the front because she wanted to finish her drawing. We finally agreed to allow her to play in the front yard again on the condition that she ignore the boys across the street. My other sister and I decided that we would go out and play with her to make sure that there wasn't anymore trouble.

As we played the boys shouted things across the street obviously looking for a reaction. Every once in a while I would have to remind my littlest sister to ignore them. She would take a deep breath and then go back to her playing (which is very impressive for an autistic child). The more we ignored the the ruder their comments became. Finally I could hear them talking about coming into our yard. At that point I stopped coloring and started watching. Soon after one of the boys was making his way across the street. At that point I knew that ignoring them was not longer an option, so a yelled "If you come into this yard I will call the police." I knew that I actually wouldn't but I also knew that it would stop him from actually coming into our yard.

At that point he  stood in the street yelling at me. He told me that his dad could beat me up. After about a minute of this a asked Aly if she was  ready to come inside. She said yes and we started cleaning up. At this point my dad was on the porch watching. Once we were inside my dad told the boys that they needed to learned some manners. My dad can be very intimidating when he want to be and I'm sure that right then he was, but it didn't phase the boys. The one in the street told my dad that he wasn't afraid of him. At this point our dog Sparky escaped from the house and ran toward the little boy in the street (anyone who knows Sparky knows that he is harmless). The little boy screamed proving that he wasn't as tough as he looked. Sparky was then brought inside. We all hoped that we would never see those boys again, but we did.

About a week later I took Aly and My brother out to dinner. We got McDonalds and brought it home. As I pulled into the drive way I realized that the boys were back. I thought we will just go inside and not even deal with them. As I we were going inside Aly turned to the little boys smiled, waved, and said "Hi!" I motioned her inside. Once inside I said "Aly, those were the boys that were mean to you last week, why did you say hi?" Her answer amazed me. She told me "I want them to know that I am nice."

I learned an amazing lesson that day in forgiveness, humility, and Chirst like love. I have a greater understanding of what is meant when we  are asked to become like children. I hope that one day my little sister will be able to look up to me like I look up to her.

Tutus

My littlest sister is nine years old and has asking what I was going to be for Halloween since the beginning of August. I told i didn't know yet but to wait until the end of September and I would let her know then. Well the end of September came and I had no idea, which is weird because I usually come up with something. When she once again asked me what I was going to be for Halloween I avoided the question by asking her what she was going to be. A fairy princess she told me. Well the wheels started to turn in my head and I decided that it was a pretty great idea. So I told her that I would be a fairy princess too.

My mom got very excited about this because she had seen some really cute tutus that she wanted to try to make herself. We bought 40 yards of tulle later we started making the tutus. I cut the tulle into five inch sections and then tied them around an elastic. When I started I thought that there was no way that I would use all that tulle. Turns out I did. Yep, all forty yards of tulle where used to make two tutus.

I'm quite proud of my tutus. They are huge and poofy. It's wonderful. I'm not going to post pictures yet. I think that I will wait until after my family's Halloween party.

Make Good Choices

My first three years of college I lived at my Grandparent's house in Salt Lake, but I would usually go home to Layton on the weekends. Whenever I did that I would always leave Sunday night after dinner, as I would leave my dad you yell "Drive safe. Make good choices!" Well one week I was running out to my car to put my bag in it before I said good bye to everyone as I was running out the door my little sister yelled "Make good choises!" Everyone immediately burst out lauging.

Today I was leaving my pyschology class and as everyone was leaving my psychology professor yelled "Have a nice weekend! Make good choices!"

I get the feeling that someone is trying to tell me something. Hmmm...but what could it be?

Dancing

I'm taking a ballroom dance class, and I must say that it is pretty awesome. We will be learning 4 dances, the foxtrot, the waltz, the cha-cha, and swing dance. Right now we are learning the foxtrot. I really like the foxtrot and my teacher. She teaches us at a good pace  and in a good order. Even if I don't feel completely comfortable with the last step that we just learned, the next step that she teaches us compliments the last step and helps me learn the last one even better. She is also really good a making sure everyone has a partner. In my class we have more girls then guys (of course). To make sure that every girl has a chance to dance with a partner we switch partners about 5 times a class. She also watches to make sure that the girls that didn't have partners before have a partner the next time. I really like this because you get to experience different styles of leading, which is especially nice if you had someone who was a bad leader before.

So this leads me to a humorous story (or at least humorous to me). One of the guys in my class is really tall, his name is Regan. I barely come up to shoulder. Well he asked me to dance. This makes for a very awkward dance position because your arms are suppose to be parallel to the floor. Needless to say that unless he wanted to hold on to my head his arms couldn't be parallel to the floor. Well we tried our best and made didn't do have bad. The other awkward part is that while we were in dance position, if I ever wanted to talk to him I had to look straight up.

Now for a really humorous story. Our teacher was talking to us about how the foxtrot is a traveling dance and how we had to REALLY big steps so that we could travel really far. Well since my partner Regan is really tall he was really excited because he can take REALLY big steps. The couple next to us looked at Regan and then looked at me and said "Yeah, but I think that your partner counter acts that."

Stuck

One of my favorite Christmas movies is called A Christmas Story. It is seriously amazing. One of the best parts is when one of the kids sticks his tongue to a telephone pole and it gets stuck. Now you may be wondering why I bring up a Christmas moving in the middle of July. The reason is simple, I can now say that is no fun to be the one with your tongue stuck.

No, I did not get my tongue stuck to a telephone pole. I got my tongue stuck to a Popsicle. Yes, it hurt. What was worst is that it got really confusing when I couldn't decided whether to laugh or cry. I ended up doing both

Firtst Week

School started for me this week and now my first week back to school is over. I survived. I thought I might share with you some of my adventure from the first week of school.

Zeta had RUSH this week, which meant Tuesday night and Thursday night where devoted to that. Tuesday night we met all the girls that wanted to RUSH. There were so many and I'm sure that it was completely overwhelming to them. We have a very cute them this year, its capture the moment. I love it! I think that it fits the college mentality. Our display was really cute. Katie did an amazing job! Unfortunately I don't have pictures. On Thursday we got out new girls. It seems like we have some really cute, outgoing girls. I can't wait to get to know them better. We also went to the Sigma Gamma Chi carnival which is always a blast.

On Monday while I was getting ready for school I tripped twice. My mom found it pretty funny. I told her that it was a great way to start out the first day of school on an uphill campus. Believe it or not I've never actually tripped on Campus. So what do I do? Not only do I trip, but I completely fall down. By the time I'm done falling I'm facing in the opposite direction of the way I was walking. Luckily I was followed by a polite person, who helped me up and made sure that I was ok instead of just walking by. I did a quick inventory of myself and made sure that I was ok. However that night I discovered that one of my toes was scrapped up and swollen and the next day discovered that my knee was bruised. Not bad for one fall.

I really liked all but one of my classes, but that is okay because I found a class to replace it and now I like all of my classes. :)

I didn't really want to go back to go as of Sunday night, but realized that I really missed school as soon as I got back on campus. I love my campus and think that it is beautiful (of course it will be even prettier when they are done with construction). I love learning and going to school. I guess I just forgot that because of my last year. My last year was really hard on me and made me forget how much I love school. Now I am refreshed and ready to learn some more.

Random Thoughts

So I have a bunch of thought running through my head, and I'm hoping that if I write them down that I will be able to think straight again. None of them are  really connected and none of them are long enough to put into a post by themselves, so I am going to post them all together.

I miss my dad. He is in Korea for 3 weeks. Normally when he leaves town he is able to call us at night. But since it is international its a little bit harder. We can email him, but it just isn't the same.

I'm kind of mad at myself because I forgot about two different appointments in the same week.

I'm getting my hair done tomorrow. I'm really excited. It probably won't look to different, but it will be nice to get rid of all my split ends.

I hate that Disney movies can make me cry, even after I've seen them a million times.

I loved being able to see Heather, Sarah, Alex, Natalie, Drew, James, Megan, Andrew, Emily, and baby Sarah. I have so my fun being with them. It is crazy to see how big my cousins get. Both families need to visit more often. Especially since James thought I was 14.

Swings are the best part about going to a park.

I can't believe how much my little brother can eat! I bet he is going to be really tall.

School starts in less than two weeks. Crazy? Yes! Where did my summer go. At the same time I'm kind of excited.With school starting so does ZETA! Totally excited to jump into the new semester. It is going to be amazing.

My best friends Annie came home from Ukraine. I'm so excited to have her back home. Hopefully we will be able to do lots of stuff before school starts.

I was called as a Nursery worker. I'm really excited. I think that little kids are so much fun and I can't think of a better calling then to get to play with little kids all day.

So that is basically all the random thoughts in my head right now. I kind of liked doing that, and I am pretty sure that I will do it again. Stay tune for more random thought with Justine.

Best Quote EVER!!

Okay so I will probably be the only person in the world who will think that this quote is amazing, but that is okay. For that reason I have to give a little background information about myself and about the show that this quote came from.

First me. I love my name. I think that it sounds beautiful and elegant. The only thing that I hate about my name is that it seems that no one one can read or say my name right the first time.Ever since I was a little, people have messed up my name. I have been called the wrong name more than I can remember and have had it spelled wrong only slightly less. Justin is usually what I get mistaken for.

Second the show. It is called the Wizards of Waverly place. It is about a family of wizards. In this particular episode Justin and Alex both win a contest to write and illustrate a comic book. At the end of the episode they are reading the review of their comic book.

Now here is the quote

"The Russo sisters, Alex and Justine, have taken over the reigns with flair."

Do you see why I find that completely awesome? After 21 years of being called Justin when my name is Justine, its nice to see someone named Justin mistaken for a Justine!

Collections

Each person in my family collects things, with the exception of one person. Bet you can't guess who. Yep me. My Dad collects everything. We say that he collects collections. He collects hotwheel cars, Disney pins, airplanes, watches, comic books, and legos etc etc. That is only a small list of things that he collects. My Mom collects tea cups. Michal collects dolls, and Disney pins. Nathaniel collects baseball caps and Disney pins. Aly collects stuffed animal or as she calls them her pets. My Mom says that I collect bobby pins, but I don't think that really counts.

The fact that I don't collect anything kind of frustrates my Dad because when he goes on work trips he doesn't know what to get me. He always has at least a start with everyone else because of what they collect. Well I figured out something that I collect but I don't think that it is going to help very much. I collect hobbies. See I was right it isn't going to help him very much.

Oops

I am a horrible speller. I always have been.  When I was in Elementary school I hated taking the weekly spelling tests. I had to study my spelling words everyday. I wasn't one of the kids who could just figure out how to spell words by sounding it out in my head. I had to look it (still do) or ask someone else how to spell it. In jr. my first drafts would always come back covered in red marks of things that I needed to fix, usually because I didn't like to take the time to read through my drafts before I turned them in.

So why do I tell you this? The answer is simple... When my little sister read my last blog post she found at least three grammar and spelling errors. She probably found more but didn't tell me because she could tell that I was getting annoyed. I went back and fixed the ones that I could find but I probably didn't get them all. There are probably a few in this post as well (kind of ironic huh?)

So this post is mostly to inform you that most of my posts will have grammar or spelling errors. Will I try to catch them? Yes. Will I be successful at trying to catch them? Probably not.

Crocheting

So a couple months ago in Zeta we learned how to crochet these really cute cute scarfs. The red one is what they are suppose to look like and the purple one is the one I made. I think that I used the wrong kind of yarn on mine. Next time I make one I will get the right kind of yarn and it should look much better. I probably won't do another one until it is closer to  winter.

I have crocheted before. My grandma use to have me crochet when I said that bored when I would visit her in the summer. So learning how to crochet this scarf was really easy for my. I really enjoyed crocheting and don't know exactly why I stopped. I might have needed a break or I may not have had time. I realized while I was working on this scarf  that I missed crocheting and crocheting really helped me relax.

This last year of school was really hard for me. I had to take a lot of really hard classes and it really stressed me out. Toward the end of the year I realized that I needed away to relax and the crocheting was the best way to do it. So I went out and bought a pattern for a baby blanket and yarn. Then whenever I would feel like I just couldn't handle studying anymore I would take a break and crochet a row or two of my blanket. I got so that I was pretty fast. This meant that the breaks I was taking from studying weren't that long and that my new hobby wasn't taking that much time away from school work. This was a really great thing for me.

Well last week I finished my first baby blanket. It's not perfect but I learned a lot while making it and I think that the next project that I do will be much better because of it. I am really proud of this blanket and can't wait to use with my children in the future.

Utah

I have gone to the University of Utah for the past three years and I have loved every minute of it. I love my school and I think that it is the best school in the world. Yes I know that there are many who will disagree with me but this is my post. I love my school so much that I tend to get offended when anyone says anything bad about it, but I also get incredibly excited when anything good happen to my school. Something really great happened today.

Are you ready to here what it is?!?

The University of Utah was invited into the Pac 10 conference and today we excepted that invitation! This means great things for our athletic program and for our school. I am so proud of all out athletes who worked so hard, and for all our coaches. I am excited to see this change take place. GO UTES!!

Summer

So I think that this blog is mostly going to be away to keep track of things that happen in my life, but you are Welcome to read it.

I love summer for many reasons here are just a couple. I love that the sun is out and that I can just sit outside and be warm. I love that I have time to do things that I love like reading, hanging out with friends, watching movies, and other things like that. I love that I don't feel the stress of school. I love the smell. Summer has a wonderful smell. It smells like freshly gut grass and barbeque's. I love the holidays that we have in summer. There is a different feeling to those holidays, they are more laid back and it doesn't take as much preparation for them. Summer holidays are just a time to relax.

As much as I love the summer I know that as soon as it is time for school to start up again I will be just as excited for that as I was for summer.