something this town will forever talk about

woo woo endowment is done! spring semester classes are registered! we are now wearing one more layer than we were before and so far I haven't noticed a thing

notes from the endowment itself... won't go into too much detail obviously

- i had to show up early in order to do my initiatory in preparation for the actual endowment. before that happened, I met with the temple matron (wife of the president) and she explained the general gist of what would happen... except I already knew everything she was telling me because I'd seen videos. SO. I was inexplicably very anxious that entire conversation

- then we got dressed in proper ceremonial clothes and stuff. that was fine. not too different from what it's like to do baptisms, honestly, except I wear sandals over the socks and I have a bag of extra stuff that I carry with me.

-  chose to go to a temple farther away than the temple I usually go to. It's bigger, with more rooms that have murals and stuff on them. Next time I will go to the closer temple, but for my first time I wanted it to be special.

- anyway. initiatory I was still stressed. but I figured out that if I shut my eyes and didn't try to hold eye contact with the person doing the ceremony, I didn't get quite so bad. And some of the words they said really resonated with me.

- There's a certain word you get in the initiatory that you take with you to the rest of the stuff. I really liked the one I got.

- the endowment itself... went into the room and it was empty. we waited a longggg time to start and I was still very anxious. I got my friend Sam, who was coming with me, to let me have her bracelet to fidget with and I pretty much fidgeted with that the whole time. My hands got really sweaty.

- the actual rituals weren't too bad. but the waiting and the sitting still and not having anything at ALL to do, when I'm used to doodling or taking notes all the time... it made me really on edge. At some point Sam (who is wonderful and also very good at noticing stuff about her friends' emotional states) gave me her hand to hold onto and that really helped. It was a little weird, but it also helped a lot because I was slightly freaking out and I didn't want to be freaking out.

- at the end I was just glad that I made it all the way through. I was too stressed and keyed up to stay in the celestial room for very long, so I just said hi to all my friends who had come through with me (and I was very glad they did! Every time a new person I recognized came out I was like yay! Another person who likes me and is here for this important thing!!) and then went straight out to get dressed again.

- there was a bit of confusion about where to meet up afterward but eventually we worked it out and I got out cookies and muffins for them, and a bunch of real food for myself because I had been fasting the whole day. It was really nice to have a bunch of people I knew and liked in the same group. We took pictures which was really neat

- of course I can't write this up without mentioning the absolutely banger outfit I showed up in. my hair was cool, I got a red jacket and black pants and black pointy heels that I bought at the thrift store thirty minutes before I had to leave for the temple. I kid you not. I made the outfit, looked at the available shoes, and realized that I did not have the Correct Shoes for this outfit. So I went to the thrift store and lo and behold they had shoes in my size that were exactly what I needed. God is awesome 

in front of your house~

 goshhhh today is a fun day. good day today. good days are nice and I love them.

- taking a break from Tumblr for the weekend. Last time I tried to do that, I wasn't able to! but this time I have come up with a genius idea: I will post a big post that I want a lot of interaction for, and then I'll leave it for three days so that it's at the top of my blog and super visible! now I can't go post stuff on there, even if I want to, because I need to leave that post at the top where people can see it

- it is lovely outside. a little bit cold, i had to wear a hat to avoid getting my ears hurting. but the sky is blue and the sun is shining so I really can't complain

- I had some star decorations hung in my room, but they fell down a month or two ago. Sam came over yesterday to bake cookies (which we baked with shortening, not butter, and dairy-free chocolate! because one of my friends who is coming is dairy-free) and we were looking for my cookie sheets, which had mysteriously disappeared.

- we never found them. they are still AWOL

- but while Sam was in my room, she just decided to hang up the stars that had fallen down. I didn't even notice until I was going to bed that night and realized they were up again and slkdjflskdfjlkdjsf that is legitimately the nicest thing I think anyone has done for me. I can't believe she is real

- music stuff ehehe. I found a fun new song (courtesy of Josh from high school) called Convoy. It's about trucks grouping up and speeding so that the cops can't really pull any of them over for speeding. It's illegal, but the way the song went was super whimsical and fun and sldkjfld just. there are mentions of rubber ducks. I am in love

- fasting today and honestly fasting is SO MUCH BETTER on school days. Every time I have fasted for a specific reason, and not just because it's fast sunday, is SO HELPFUL. I feel so much less hungry and upset because it's for a reason and that's okay. when I'm just fasting because it's fast sunday... idk. it's meaningless. And it's on a sunday, when there's nothing else to do either. I think I will try to fast on days other than Sunday, and make fasting more meaningful. 

note to self

 It is really neat having friends. Why did I not do this before. Friends are the coolest things in the world and I highly recommend. 

bite it back with all your. MIGHHHHEEIIEEIIIT

 have you noticed that all my titles are song lyrics? they are all song lyrics. I like songs and I like listening to songs. So there you have it

Anyway! today was another busy and Tired day. I've discovered at this point that I have a real lack of energy a lot of the time. I am no longer depressed and I have things I want to do, but at the same time I cannot be doing things all day. I just can't. I spent a good 45 minutes in the afternoon just laying in my bed, because I needed to Not Do Things for a while. It's... not something I'm used to doing. But that's okay.

went to the reception for a new exhibit at the art building. this time it's mostly paintings of plants, landscapes, etc. I... really like that. Honestly my FAVORITE art is landscapes and colors and real things. I don't like abstract stuff quite so much.

I also went to a seminar that my roommate invited me to! it was a seminar on how to healthily date, and the guy was a marriage professor. he gave us three things to avoid and how to avoid them: 

1) go on casual dates more. don't just hang out and don't just date one person

2) don't go too fast. Avoid "relationship blindness" where you get married super fast and then you realize that actually, you don't know them at all

3) don't try to "rescue" someone you're dating. As friends that's okay. As ministering whatever that's fine. But you shouldn't be dating someone you're also "fixing".  

My takeaway was mainly the first one. The other two will not be problems for me at all but the first one... ha. I don't really date at all. Maybe I should put more effort into it? I don't know. Dating is hard and it really really doesn't make much sense to me.

My friend did my hair today! That was nice. I've never really had that experience before so it's nice to do that now with someone I like.

Tomorrow is my endowment! Fingers crossed it goes well, and there's good weather.... 

how bizarre. how bizarre!

 - bought some beef liver to improve my iron intake. also because it was cheap! at first I didn't like it at all, but the more I eat it the more it grows on me. I will definitely try it again.

- not much else to report, today. I did a fair bit of writing, went to group therapy, went to devotional, did more writing. For some reason I woke up at 6:00 am today which was fun

- learned about attachment styles in relationships. secure is normal (50% of the population is this), anxious is linked to self esteem issues and usually means being clingy, looking for lots of compliments and reassurance. avoidant is tied to trust issues and means you don't like getting too close. stay away from me. chaotic means you have trust issues AND self esteem issues, so you oscillate wildly.

- fun fact! secure is not necessarily the "best". It is possible to have a perfectly happy anxious-anxious relationship because both people are clingy and meet each others' needs. It's also possibly to have a perfectly happy avoidant-avoidant relationship, where both people stay at arms length and are ok with that.

- i will absolutely be applying this to my OCs

- fun fact: I think a lot of the times that I'm craving sugar I'm actually just dehydrated. something to be aware of, I guess 

What a day (sarcastic)

 yeah it’s been a real one yall

- only one class today but it was a heck of a class

- I was supposed to bring printed copies of an assignment to class except I couldn’t get the printer to work!!!

- so I was late. AND I didn’t have the thing I was supposed to bring with me…

- in the chaos I forgot that I was supposed to be reserving a bowling lane for my FHE group. Whee. So we ended up doing a board game night instead, but that was okay. It was fun. I bought One Night Werewolf for the occasion and we had SO much fun

blah blah razzmatazz

 Some highlights from the last few days:

- the fire alarm went haywire in the apartment above us, so my friend who lives there brought her cat to my dorm. He is currently hiding under the couch

- bookbinding with Sam and her friend! Mine turned out pretty good, we bought jackets for cheap from a thrift store and used the fabric to make a hardcover for the books. I’ve got a very nicely hardcovered copy of the Lightning Thief on my shelf now

- actually fasted this fast Sunday. Usually I forget. It was a weird experience, being hungry for such a large part of the day, but I was able to push through and get things done anyway. I also cooked like three different things after church because I was bored and hungry. 

- stadium singing! Always fun, we sung “put your shoulder to the wheel” which is a favorite song of mine

- significant progress has been made with endowment and mission papers. My endowment is in less than a week and I need to work out snacks and buy the clothes but besides that we are good to go!

- a girl in the ward opened her mission call today and invited the whole ward. There was food. She’s going to the Philippines.