Off roading with Alex

Last week I went off roading with my friend Alex for the first time. He took me to Manzanita Flats (just below Running springs, he was going to take me to Hocum Valley, but it was too foggy to go that far.) and we got to walk around on the rocks next to the creek for a while. The scenery up there was beautiful. Lots of green trees and plants and waterfalls. We packed a lunch and had a picnic when we go there then went exploring.





All the pretty scenery on our walk along the creek before we stopped and headed back



I got cold, so he let me have his hat :)


Pretty creek on the way back to the truck.


Smile Alex :)



he let me drive on the way back to the highway! It was soooo much fun!


final waterfall before hitting highway 38.
I got to go again to the same spot later that night, but didn't have my camera and it would have been too dark for pictures anyway. Fun day. :)

Santa Cruz

Wow it's been a while since I posted. A couple of weeks ago I drove all the way up to Santa Cruz to see my friend Lauryl. We went to the beach the day I got there and just hung out. The beach was really pretty, and only a couple of blocks from the house her Grandma had rented for their vacation. I don't have pictures of the house, sadly, but I do have some of the beach.
Lauryl


pretty beach scenery


look at the pretty cloud formations :)

We also went to see star trek that night, and had dinner at a cool Mexican restaurant. The food was gorgeous!


carne asada quesadilla carne asada tacos

Due to the fact that I had to leave the next evening, we got up bright and early and headed out to find used books stores and thrift stores. As we were driving we saw this hair salon. I needed a picture of it :)


isn't the name just perfect?

Next we stopped at a doughnut shop. Lauryl is fascinated with them because apparently they don't have doughnut shops in either Virginia or Idaho. Go figure.


lets play with the food! :)

when we got to a consignment shop(basically an expensive thrift store) I found this AMAZING skirt, but didn't buy it, because I had already bought another skirt at the previous store.

pretty huh?


these shoes were just fun, but too small, no danger of buying these! :P

after we were done with consignment shops we went to lunch in a little cafe that was connected to a book store. They had such yummy sounding food!

mine was a pesto panini with Lauryl's was a walnut avacado salad
cheese and spinach type stuff pretty huh?

After lunch we went to a used book store. the book store had a copy of an Anne of Green Gables book that I needed to replace because Patches chewed up my copy several years ago. They also had the Jane Eyre movie, and No Reservations, as well as a cople of ASL books I'm pretty sure I'll need later for school. I was super happy. :)

When it was time for me to leave we took a couple of pictures outside her house.

conflicted

For the first time in my life, I have no idea what I want. See, growing up, I always had my mind set on one thing or another, but it was always one thing at a time. For example, when I was little, I wanted to be a vet, when I got older(and really into horses) I wanted to be a jockey, a little bit older, and I wanted to do therapy with Horses, and finally in high school, something with ASL. Last year was horrible, and although it seemed like CSUN was the best place to achieve the ASL goal, I hated the school, and it's philosophy towards hearing people/interpreters/etc. So I switched to Biola. I thought I was okay with not really being able to do ASL, because if God was calling me to Biola, then it must not be in His plan right now for me to pursue Sign Language. However, I finished up ASL 3, because they offered it, and I had already taken 1 and 2, and 3 finished up my requirement. I also wanted to take it. My original goal was to take through level 5 and be done. Then I met the ASL 3 teacher. She is amazing, and really helped me to see that I didn't HAVE to drop ASL because there's a community college nearby that offers a REALLY GOOD interpreting program. So I worked out all the details, and enrolled in two classes. The problem started when the 8 am class just became too much for me to handle. I kept skipping because my schedule requires me to be up late most nights and operating on little to no sleep just doesn't work for me. So I struggled, and was doing ok, but not very well, and finally just got so discouraged, that I dropped the classes last monday. Here's where the problem arises. I'm happy that I can sleep in, and that my schedule is remarkably freer, but I feel like I'm letting go of something that is really important in my life. At first I was okay with it, but I have a friend who is taking an interpreting class at another community college right now, and I'm kind of jealous that she can do that so easily. Bottom line is, I really want Torrey, and I really want ASL, but apparently I can't do both at the same time. For now I've chosen Torrey, but I'm not sure how I'll feel if I wait until I graduate Biola to pick ASL back up again. I'm worried that I'll be so worn out by school that I won't have the energy to continue, that I'll just want to be done. I worry that I'll never have the ability to really make myself go to a class that starts at 8, so that I have to get up before 7 in order to be there on time. Thew problem was not that the class was too hard, it was that I did not have the will power to get up in the morning, knowing that it would make my normal tiredness just that much worse. Granted, usually when I get up and get going it wears off a little bit, but not enough for me to be okay with it when I could sleep till 12 otherwise. I really want ASL, but I want Torrey too, and I don't know how to reconcile the two. They seem to be conflicting interests simply because I am inadequate to do them both, and that really makes it hard for me to know what is right. Was God, in calling me to Biola(and it seemed like a pretty clear call to me) telling me that ASL was not what He wanted in my life? But if so, then why did I meet Koreen, and why did it seem possible, only to become not possible because sleep rules my life? Was it His way of telling me to grow up and deal with being tired all the time? That it doesn't have to rule my life, and it's ok to be tired because I'm doing what He wants? It just doesn't seem like there is a real answer. Either me allowing myself to sleep is a sign of immaturity that God was trying to get me to work on by giving me an 8 am class, or He doesn't want me to do ASL, one of the biggest passions I have, or I was confused about His desire for me to be at Biola, or Biola is only supposed to be temporary, to get me from place to another, and I'm supposed to go back to ASL(either at CSUN, or at Mt. SAC, either way)because God just needed to get me back on track instead of continuing to run away. Problem with that Biola only being temporary is that I don't feel the desire to leave. I still wanna be here, I am slowly making connections with people, and getting a great education. Which also cancels out my being mistaken about ever coming here to begin with. Which leaves either I'm supposed to drop ASL for now, it's God telling me, not yet, or I'm supposed to grow up and push through being tired. Seems like the latter is the right answer, but at least right now I don't see how that is really possible. It's all so confusing.

UCLA festival of books

Told you it was coming soon :). On Sunday, April 26th, I drove up to Northridge, picked up Lizzie, and off we went to the festival. We went last year too, so it's kinda becoming a tradition for us. :) We met Sam, one of her friend's from high school, that she introduced me to last year :), and began exploring. For the first few minutes we browsed the children's books and just walked around until Sam got there. Then we went in search of comic books. The most amazing thing happened on our way to the comic books. We passed by the LA Times stage, and who should be speaking but Marlee Matlin! I didn't recognize her at first, just saw that there was someone on the stage signing, so I stopped to watch for a few minutes, then they said her name. I was soooo excited. Apparently she wrote a book, and autobiography, and was talking about it. We were headed to hear Ariana Huffington(sp?) speak, and when that didn't work out we were able to go to Marlee's book signing. :) It pretty much made my day.

Getting ready in the morning


Car ride over(I promise, the car was stopped at a light when she took the picture:) )


Right after we got there, a nice lady asked us if we wanted her take our picture, so she did, then we took her's and her friend's. :)


Marlee Matlin, at the LA Times stage, her book, and getting to meet her. :)


"Longest" story in the world, a conglomerate of different people's ideas, all written down on slips of paper, makes the story 130 some odd feet long. :) Sam paid a dollar and I got to add a sentence.


Sad faces when we couldn't find funnel cake at the end of the day.

coming soon...

when I get the time and energy to upload pictures, I will blog about my day at UCLA'S festival of books. Lots of fun, but it's late, and I have a lot to do over the next few days. At least it is something to look forward to though. :)

free! free! free!

Alright, it took me a while to do this(sorry Emily, but at least I'm doing it right? :P) but, here we go.

I like giving things to people, so here's the deal. Emily participated in a giveaway and I thought I would too. The first 5 people to respond get a really cool gift from me. Sounds fun right? The only catch is that if you respond you have to give something away to someone else. Doesn't matter how many people or what it is, as long as it's something. you also get to choose how to advertise. I also make no guarantees as to what I will give you, because I don't know who will respond yet. So start responding. :)

fun times :P

I got called in to work tonight, so I told them yes, cuz who would turn down the chance to make money right? I had nothing going on tonight anyway. :) I got a parade shift, which basically means that I got to stand somewhere and tell people which direction to walk, while being yelled at by those same people because they want to walk the other way. Not too bad, my voice is almost gone from all of the yelling, and one of the other cast members was flirting with me the entire time. It was actually really funny because I wound up trying to explain my Torrey paper to him, and thus Torrey, and how we read all this classical literature and then discuss it. When I mentioned Aristotle, he said "Oh Aristotle, he was the guy who invented the telescope right?" and I said, "nooooo, Aristotle was a philosopher" his response? "But he was in Astronomy too right? He was the guy that discovered that everything revolves around the sun." I'm having a really hard time not laughing at this point, trying to explain who Aristotle was, and that it was actually Galileo who discovered that everything revolves around the sun. It was kinda cute though, cuz I think he was trying to impress me. Gave me entertainment for the night anyway, until he asked if I had a boyfriend. I was actually smart this time and just said "it's complicated" but still, why is it that all of the guys I might be interested in at Biola I don't have a relationship with, and every guy I'm not interested in is so curious to know if I have a boyfriend or not? *sigh* life can be so frustrating.