Rawr!!!

I have a new musical obsession! Can you guess what it is?

Yes, I am most definitely talking about The Lion King (some costumes, huh?). I really love the music in this, and was kind of surprised by how much I don't know, and by the fact that Disney left some of the best songs out of the movie. :( Fortunately for me, I checked the touring schedule, and Lion King comes to SLC next summer! I just hope tickets don't sell out before I even know they're on sale like what happened with Wicked. How soon do they usually start selling tickets, anyway?

So, I don't really have much to report. I made some cheesecake-swirl brownies on Thursday, subsequently decided to go on a temporary no-sugar diet, and made Chris give away half a pan to the people he home teaches. I also made rye bread this week to use in sandwiches, though the loaves came out smaller than I thought they would, so they make kind of small sandwiches. I managed to score some King's Singers tickets for this Wednesday, so Chris and I are planning on going to that this week, and Jordan's coming down late on Halloween night to watch Sweeney Todd the Musical with me, which is playing in Provo this week. I've spent way too long sitting in the stupid HFAC this week, drawing the inside of the building. I don't have that picture to post yet--it's not done, and I can't bring myself to work on it right now. I think I'll just wake up early and do it tomorrow. The herb garden Chris gave me for our second monthiversary is thriving once more, after I almost destroyed it through lack of water, and the parsley's doing much better now that the basil and mint aren't completely blocking it out. The rosemary and oregano are pretty much toast, though. Chris has made the switch from contact lenses to glasses, so we're now the official "nerd" couple of our ward. I keep thinking about cutting my hair, but I'm continually talked out of it by Chris and my mom, so I'm thinking maybe I could dye it instead. Maybe something like blue? Or rainbow?

I think it could be cute, but maybe they'd rather I just went with a haircut instead ;)

And... that's about all of the random stuff I could think of to spew on this blog post. Oh yeah, I did finally finish the cover for my mom's book!

There might be some minor changes made, but this is pretty much it, and I'm super happy to finally have this done! And now I'm going to bed. Sure, this is kind of short, and very random, but at least I posted!

She's Coming...

I'm finding it a little hard to believe that I'm actually halfway through the semester. The weeks have just been passing by so fast... and yet, I just took a midterm, and my computer art class is almost over, so it must be so. Speaking of that class (which is on block schedule, so its last day is Monday), I must've spent over ten hours this weekend finishing up all of the assignments that are due. I mean, luckily it's a pretty fun class, so I didn't really mind doing those assignments, but it's still a lot of time, especially when I also have a large drawing due on Monday and a brochure and cover to design for my mom's book ASAP. At least I have some fun things to show for all that effort, though (or at least I think so). For example, a lovely self portrait:

Looks just like me, right? ;) I also have a very lovely room (and don't judge me--my professor told me to just let the chair float so it would fit in with the linear perspective, but I needed something to explain the floating chair, so...):

An extremely useful chart documenting my level of alertness everytime the snooze alarm goes off in the morning (notice how my level of alertness skyrockets the very last time it goes off when I realize that I only have 30 minutes to get to class):

And... this:

Apparently there was a reason I edited all those voodoo doll pictures, and this is it. I still don't completely know what to think about this... but it was lots of fun to make! I wish you could see it in all its glory, but I had to get it down to a pretty small file size to upload to Blogger, which involved a lot more work than I thought it would :P Rest assured that, viewed at its full size, it's very cool.

And... that's pretty much the gist of everything we did in my computer art class. Will I miss it? Well, it was a lot of fun, but it did start at 8 in the morning, and now that it's over school doesn't start until 11, so... I think I'll be okay ;)

Oh, and beware the Egyptian voodoo doll. She's coming...

Grumpy Toes

My toes are not happy. No, they are not. I got myself some glitter toes kind of a while ago (weeks? months? I can't remember), and was told by the lady who did them that they wouldn't come off. And you know, that's great in theory, but in real life application I feel like there should be a good method to get it off on purpose, and there really isn't. I finally resorted to chipping the glittery stuff off piece by piece, and now my nails look very sad indeed. I looked up pedicure prices online, and even at the beauty schools it'll be about $20, so I guess they'll just have to look sad for a little longer. One of my toes is pretty happy, though. It was hurting all last week and I couldn't figure out why, and then Chris stepped on it while we were dancing last Friday and now it feels better. Go figure.

Enough about my toes. I have kind of a crazy week ahead... or at least, a crazy day. I have all sorts of stuff due on Tuesday, including studying for a test, and I'm supposed to go to work on Monday so it could be a late night. I'm actually really, really hoping that I can get someone to cover for me tomorrow, because it's stressing me out just thinking about it. Today wasn't very productive, either, because I had to finish my egg drawing. Technically it was due last Wednesday, but because Chris accidentally threw away my special art paper last Tuesday night when I was going to start working on it, my teacher said he'd let me turn it in tomorrow. My teacher actually thought it was really funny--he said it was like the dog ate my homework, only it was my husband. I thought that was kind of a funny comparison. I don't know if Chris thought so.

Anyway, here's the drawing. Sorry it didn't photograph well:



Like it? I call it "The Difficulties of Interracial Relationships" (I used white and brown eggs :). See how the front two eggs are in wuv? And their relatives are watching them, disapproving? Ha ha, I had to try to insert something to make this drawing interesting, because drawing eggs is so boring. I can't even begin to say how happy I am to finally be done with drawing eggs. For some reason, almost every drawing teacher feels the need to assign an egg drawing, probably because of the tediosity of it all, but I'm finally done! Oh, and as long as I'm posting artwork, I'm sure you want to see this:



I call it "Beyonce in the Garden", mostly because the guys in my art class thought she looked like Beyonce. She's actually a statue sitting in the memorial garden next to the HFAC, but Beyonce works for me. The idea was to use different types of line in this drawing, and even though I was sure my teacher didn't like it (it didn't look a thing like any of the other drawings that were there), he gave me a 9. That's right, a 9. Out of 10. He's kind of a harsh grader, so I was pretty proud of myself :)

Well, it's really, really late right now, so I think I'm going to drag Chris to bed. I don't have much else to share, anyway. Unless you want to see more of the Egyptian voodoo doll?



I thought so :)

College Days and Weekend Adventures

As per usual, it's been quite awhile since I last posted. School has started, and I find my new major to be infinitely preferrable to my previous one. Of course, I'm in all the intro classes, so it's not exactly exciting yet, but I decided today that if I would rather draw a crumpled up paper bag for ten hours than read a chapter on the immune system from my old textbook, then I'm probably in the right major.

In fact, I seem to recall promising somebody (can't remember who) that I'd put up some of my artwork on my blog. So here you go:

Voila! C'est magnifique, no?

No?

Yeah, that was the obligatory blind contour drawing that they for some reason must make us do at the start of every drawing class I've ever taken. The basic idea is that you're not allowed to look at your paper at all, so proportions and lines end up all messed up because you don't know where your hand is on the page in relationship to where you've just drawn. I've always pretty much hated it. Still, this should be the last basic drawing class I ever take, so this should be the last time I ever have to do this again. Should.

I have enjoyed my Intro. to Digital Processes class, though. You pretty much sit there for 3 hours and mess around on Photoshop, which is something I like to do in my free time anyway, so it's like play time for me.

Seriously, how is this even a class?

Ha ha, my Egyptian voodoo doll :) Yep, that class is a lot of fun.

I also like my 2D Design class. It's pretty easy and fun, and my teacher's a really nice guy. We spent the first little while inventing shapes, then we talked about unity in design, and we've started working on negative space (which reminds me, the FedEx logo has received over 40 awards worldwide. Can you guess why?)

Our last assignment was to design a personal logo using our initials. One of them had to be white, and you had to be able to tell what both letters were without it being too obvious. I really, really liked the first design I came up with, but to my dismay, a few too many people were unable to identify both letters. What do you think?

Anyway, I altered it just a little bit, and this is what I came up with:

I was kind of sad at first, but now I think I like the new one better (not that there's a world of difference between them). I think the white letter is more obviously an "S" now, too. It seemed pretty obvious to me, but I've gotten everything from an A to a lowercase D, and I guess since I was the one who made it, my perception's probably a little skewed.

In other, non-school related news, Chris and I went on a weekend adventure last week. His work was having a party in Park City, so we went up and got to go on the alpine slide.

It was fun, though I'd probably like to go faster next time.

While we were in Park City, we decided to stop by the World Market, since there isn't one anywhere near Provo. Let me tell you, that place is amazing! We definitely spent over an hour there, maybe two. They have all sorts of food from different countries, as well as jewelry, little statuettes, scarves, furniture, cooking tools, and lots of other stuff. We bought some fun flavors of Jones soda there, as well as two bottles of Torani's flavoring syrup which Chris says is all over the place in Oregon, but for some reason is very scarce in Utah. I also bought a cool soup cookbook, and coveted a cute little dessert cookbook.

Chris doesn't understand my obsessive love for cookbooks. Neither do I, really, but I definitely love 'em.

After getting a little lost on our way out of Park City and ending up in Salt Lake rather than Provo, we eventually made our way back and got some dinner at a little Chinese place on Provo Center Street. Turns out that good Chinese restaurants can be kind of hard to find in Provo, but this one was really good and relatively cheap. As we ate, we checked out the BYU game score on Chris's cell phone and became thoroughly depressed, and we got to have fun trying to back out of our parking spot into game day traffic when we were finished. Then we went home and made some Italian sodas from our newly bought Torani's syrup and played Guitar Hero 5 together. It was a good day :)

Life has definitely been a lot crazier since school started, but overall it's been fun. Things are a lot better now that they've hired a few new employees at Pita Pit and I'm not being overscheduled anymore. I even volunteered to make dinner this Wednesday for a girl in our ward who just had a baby, realizing to my delight that I would actually have time to do so. In fact, maybe I should try cooking more often--Chris is a little too happy that we're having "real" dinner this Wednesday, which is probably a sign that we've had too much Zatarains and Hamburger Helper in the recent past, but what can you do?

I'm Back!

My, this has been quite a long absence. After spending awhile looking through other people's blogs today, I got to contemplating on the status of my own blog, and I decided that just because I let my Jerusalem blog fizzle out, that wasn't any reason for the whole blog to suffer an ignominious death. So, though I'll probably never get around to finishing Jerusalem, I am back to blogging (and if it makes you feel any better, as soon as I get home again I'm going to get my Jerusalem pictures on to some picture sharing site, like Photobucket or Flickr, and you can view them there if you feel so inclined. I'm pretty sure the pictures were your favorite part, anyway).

Kind of a lot's happened since my last post in April, the biggest thing probably being the part where I got married. Chris and I have since settled into our cozy lil' basement, gotten everything unpacked, and even fixed up the yard to look semi-presentable (it was kind of an overgrown nightmare when we first moved in). Chris also had himself a birthday last month, and I made him his very own German chocolate cake in celebration.

Sad to say, most of this lovely masterpiece went uneaten, since I don't really like cake and Chris can only eat so much cake. I got to tease him about needing two boxes of candles for his advanced age, though, so it was all worth it.

I made a particularly good-tasting dinner today, if I do say so myself (and Chris has affirmed this statement, so I feel pretty confident in making it). Because church starts absurdly late, meaning we don't get home until about 6 pm when I have no desire to start on dinner, I have declared Sundays to be "Crockpot Day". However, I really only have so many crockpot recipes in my cookbook, and even though I got a Crockpot recipe book from a friend at a bridal shower that's been rather helpful, I've kind of been scrounging around for ideas. Today, I decided to try out a copycat recipe for Cafe Rio's Pork Barbacoa.

Yeah, this isn't a very good picture--the silly camera kept wanting to focus on the Dr. Pepper can. It was a really good burrito, though. Really good. I don't know that it tasted exactly like Cafe Rio's, but it was still really good. I ended up using this recipe that I found on someone's blog, and I pretty much followed their advice for cooking the rice and beans, as well. The key is to cook the pork loin all day in Dr. Pepper, though I've heard Coke works pretty well, too. Then you stir in some brown sugar and green chilies and various other stuff, and that's pretty much it. I also used those tortillas that you can buy from Walmart that you cook yourself. It is an extra step, but it's soo worth it. All other tortillas will seem lacking after you use these tortillas... so maybe you don't want to try them after all. I've spoiled myself, it seems :P

This week I really want to try a recipe I saw recently for strawberry shortcake, so I'll have to get back to you on how that goes. I have this craving for lemon bars, too... but I can't eat them all by myself, and Chris apparently does not like lemon bars. He's not a huge fan of sunshine, happiness, or the sound of children's laughter, either (I love you, Chris!). Maybe I'll make them when I go home for the day on Tuesday.

Oh, and guess what? The lady who did our wedding cake posted about it on her blog! I don't entirely know why my tiny little sketch of how I wanted the cake to look caused her to praise my artistic abilities, but I thought it was cool how she put it on her blog.

(Almost) The Rest of Galilee

This post'll be pretty heavy on the pictures, but I'm pretty sure you prefer it that way anyway. Honestly, that first field trip was the best one we went on, and even though all of the other ones were awesome, they just didn't really compare. We did see some very pretty places, though! So, here we go!

Day 4: Class, napping, relaxation, fish dinner
The highlight of this day was definitely going to the kibbutz for a fish dinner.

This is my fish:

This is my fish after I finished with it:

It was pretty good, with salt.

Day 5: Gamla and Qazrin

See those ancient ruins on the left side of that hill? That's Gamla:

By the way, my picture's so much cooler and prettier than the one on Wikipedia. It makes me so glad that we came during the spring! Anyway, it's in the Golan Heights, and the name comes from the word gamal, which means "camel" (see it's shape?). Now, I could've walked down to see the ruins, but there was also the option to go hike to a waterfall, and (is this horrible of me?) I've seen a lot of ancient ruins recently, so I chose the waterfall route. I'm really glad I did, too--spring was in full bloom, and the wildflowers were so pretty!

See? Beautiful.

A GQ photo.

Me sitting in the pretty flowers.

I don't have any good pictures of the waterfall, though.

Next we went to Qazrin, and it was okay. Not as fun as Gamla, though. There were some ancient ruins there, and we saw a really cheesy movie about a rabbi-turned-apostate who came riding into town on a horse, on shabbat which is like a rabbi driving to synagogue (both of which are really really bad). That was pretty much it. It was quite the movie. I don't know if it's just Israel or if all tourist movies are like this, but I've never seen so many horrible, cheesy movies in my life. It's great :)

Day 6: Shabbat at Tiberias
Did you know there's a branch at Tiberias? It's tiny--and I really mean tiny--but it exists. That's where we went for church on Sunday. It's held in this Italian-style villa place (and I've been kicking myself over the fact that I didn't think to bring my camera), and the room where they hold Sacrament Meeting overlooks the Sea of Galilee. We didn't stay for Sunday School or Relief Society because that would've really strained the branch's capability (10+80=a lot more than they're used to!), but I really enjoyed Sacrament Meeting. You know those wooden things that hold the hymn numbers? Those were pretty cool, because they had four of them--one for each language spoken in the branch (English, Russian, Spanish, and Hebrew). There actually weren't numbers in the Hebrew one, since there isn't actually a Hebrew hymnbook yet, but they still had the wooden number-holder up there (what are those things called, anyway?).

On our way back from Tiberias, we stopped at Yardenit, which is a traditional Christian site of the baptism of Christ, and where most people who are baptized in the Jordan River nowadays go. I don't know how I'd feel about being baptized there--I mean, it'd be cool, but there are some massive fish! Bro. Huff baptized his daughter there years ago, and said that he almost forgot what he was saying in the middle of it because the fish were nibbling at him.

Oh, so they had all of these signs hanging up with Mark 1:9-11 translated into different languages, and this was by far my favorite one:

I guess this is a real language, and I have to wonder--is there a bible translated into Pidgen? Because I want it!

Day 7: Class, naptime, more relaxation :) (these days were awesome!)

Day 8: Jezreel Valley Field Trip

Okay, actually, I lied--this really was a cool field trip. It started with us going to Mt. Tabor, which is probably the Mount of Transfiguration (the other possibility is Mt. Hermon, but it's out of the way and really tall and covered in snow, and I just think Mt. Tabor is more likely). There was a church there that we went to that had little chapels to Moses and Elijah on the sides, and we talked and sang hymns there and had a little contemplation time. The taxi drivers who drove us up and down were insane, though! The road that goes up the mountain is really zig-zaggy with all of these hairpin turns, and the taxi drivers have driven that same route so many times that they like to see how fast they can take the turns. The first taxi driver even had sound effects and hand-actions--I kind of wanted to tell him to put his hands back on the wheel, though I guess he knew what he was doing.

A cool stained-glass window.

Whitney, contemplating.

This sign was next to a cafe near the church. I really liked it :)

Next we went to Nain, which is where Christ healed the widow's son. I wish I'd taken some pictures there--I don't know why I didn't. Nain is a smaller, out-of-the-way town, and it's kind of a smaller church which is kept by a Palestinian family. If you ever want to have a good discussion on spiritual insights to be gained from the miracle at Nain, talk to me. It's such a great story of Christ having compassion on the "little person" who maybe doesn't feel like they have a big or important place in the world.

After Nain we went to Beth Shean, which also used to be known as Scythopolis. It was a very Hellenized town, and though it's not quite as big as Jerash was in Jordan, it still has some cool Roman ruins--you know, columns, theater, bathhouse. The works.

Gan Ha-Shelosha was up next. I don't think it has any historical significance, but it did have a SWIMMING HOLE! It was a little bit windy, so I guess it wasn't the best swimming weather, but at least the water was relatively warm. There were these tiny fish that would swim around and kind of suck on your toes (which I didn't really mind, though I couldn't keep myself from kicking them away whenever they did it--it felt so weird!), and there was a waterfall that we sat under for awhile that felt kind of like a back massage. There were also way too many local guys wearing speedos, or just plain underwear. Is this an international thing, or do U.S. guys wear Speedos all the time, too? Because I've never seen so many Speedos in my life--Gan Ha-Shelosha, Tel Aviv, Eilat, the Dead Sea... anywhere where we've been swimming, guys have been wearing speedos. It's just gross! :P

Finally, we went to our last stop, which was the Bet Alpha Synagogue. There, we watched another cheesy movie and looked at the mosaic inside (which is kind of different because it has the zodiac sign and pictures of people on it, which show a mixing of Jewish and Greco-Roman culture--technically, synagogues should NOT have pictures of people or pagan symbols inside). Afterwards, we finally got back to Ein Gev.

Oh, and I can't remember exactly which day this happened on, but I bought a two-hour internet card to use while I was there, and on one of these days I checked my email and found out that I GOT INTO THE ILLUSTRATION PROGRAM!!! (I was excited about it, in case you couldn't tell.) So, fall semester I officially start my art classes! It makes the prospect of going back to classes in the fall again a lot easier to handle!

I was originally going to post all of Galilee on this post, but I've had it UP TO HERE with Blogger and stupid formatting problems, so I'll be back soon with another post. I don't know whether it'll be before or after I get home, though (which happens this Thursday!), since I'll probably be keeping myself busy this week fitting in everything I want to do before I go. Then I guess I'll have to catch up on everything that happened after Galilee--snorkeling in Eilat, Palm Sunday, floating in the Dead Sea... shoot, there's still a lot left! Oh well, I'll catch up eventually ;)

Galilee--Days 2 and 3

Let's dive right in, shall we?

The first full day at Galilee was very nice. We kind of had an every-other-day schedule worked out with our field trips in Galilee, so half of the students would go to class one day while the other half went on a field trip, and then we'd switch the next day. My group had class the first day, so after going to New Testament that morning, we pretty much had the whole afternoon free to nap (which I definitely did! I was so tired!), play around in the water, walk along the beach, and basically just relax. It feels like we've been on the go so much this semester with field trips and classes and exploring the city, so this free time was a much appreciated novelty for us.

The next day, we went on the best field trip ever! It was packed, but it was sooo good! Basically it went down like this:

Sea of Galilee
The first thing we did was go out on a boat into the Sea of Galilee. There, we talked about Jesus walking on the water, and Jesus calming the storm, and we sang "Jesus, Savior, Pilot Me" and "Master, the Tempest is Raging". The Sea of Galilee is so interesting to ponder about. It bore witness to so many beautiful miracles during Jesus' life and was the source of several of the apostles' livelihood, but at the same time it was also the source of trials and terror for the Lord's anointed. Sometimes I wonder what the apostles thought as they looked out over the Sea of Galilee, and what it might have represented to them. Anyway, it was a great opportunity to think about Christ, and the challenges in my own life, and how looking to Him can help me overcome them.

Mt. of Beatitudes
There was a beautiful spirit to this place--almost like a temple. Some members of our class put together thoughts on some of the beatitudes, and one of them particularly stuck out to me for some reason: "Blessed are they who hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled." It's probably because my desire to learn more about the Gospel has become more of a hunger and thirst-type feeling as I've been here, and when I've gone searching for it, I really have been filled. I don't know, that's what was on my mind while we explored this beautiful place.

Tabgha
This was a pretty short stop, but it was the location of the loaves and fishes miracle, and it has this mosaic there that's featured in souvenirs all around the Holy Land--mugs, coasters, wall hangings, you name it. So we talked about that miracle, and then we took pictures of the mosaics, and then I took pictures of the candles because I'm weird like that. Moving on.

St. Peter's Primacy
This was a church dedicated to Peter, though I can't quite remember the significance of its geographical location--maybe you can Google it. Anyway, the acoustics of the church were great, and we sang several hymns there, including "Abide With Me", "We Thank Thee, Oh God, For A Prophet", and "How Great Thou Art". An older couple came in while we were singing "How Great Thou Art," and I guess they knew the hymn because they started singing with us. I wanted to stay there longer, but too soon we were moving on...

Capernaum
...to Capernaum. And it turns out that Capernaum was my favorite place we've ever been to, ever, so I was okay with that. It's interesting, because it visually wasn't that distinct from anywhere else we've been--Capernaum's not inhabited anymore, so pretty much there were a lot of old rocks, and I'm afraid that by this point old rocks have kind of lost their charm. But I just remember us sitting in that ancient synagogue where Jesus gave his "Bread of Life" sermon, and imagining the scene in my head as my teacher described it to us. Just the day before, Christ had fed the large multitude with only a small number of loaves and fishes, and I'm sure he and his message had never before been so popular and well-received. However, he soon perceived that many of them were following him for the wrong reason--they wanted him to be around to take care of their physical needs, and he was sent to fulfill a much higher purpose. He must have known how hard the next day would be, when he would have to disappoint them and let them know that he brought spiritual relief, not temporal--he spent much of that night in prayer. The next day, he taught them. He taught them in that very same synagogue in which I sat of how he was the Bread of Life, sent from heaven to bring everlasting life to all who would believe on his name... and they rejected him. One by one, they got up and left the synagogue, because they were looking for a physical Messiah, not a spiritual one, and they couldn't handle his words. In the end, only a small group was left. I imagine Jesus must have felt somewhat despondent
when, in the end, he turned to the twelve and said, "Will ye also go away?" Then Peter--faithful Peter--answered him, "Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life."

Capernaum made me ponder, because really, his question is addressed to all of us: "Will ye also go away?" Something about that story just tugs at my heart, and makes me want to be a little bit better in my life, so someday I may be among the ones who didn't abandon him. The experience I had at Capernaum is one of those that I'll be able to look back on and draw strength from for the rest of my life, and I'm so grateful to have been there.