The Alliance

 I recently sat down with my handy dandy notebook that I like to write in when... well I like to write in it for anything and everything. I wrote down a list of different books that I could review for this blog. I tried to have a variety of different genres (luckily I am unopposed to any of the genres that I have yet encountered).
I have decided to write this first book review on one of my all time favorite books. This particular book is not very well known and is kind of old:

I first read this book when I was in 6th grade (so clearly it is not a hard read) and I fell in love with it at once. We read it for school, it was one of those books where you had to write summaries on; the books that make you hate reading normally. This book however, has the opposite effect, an impressive feat. 

The book starts out in the future; the world has ended and civilization is barely holding on. One group was prepared for the end and they are able to continue a small community through their hard work and perseverance. However, they soon discover that more people have survived the calamity that destroyed so many than they originally thought and they are taken to a community that appears perfect. In this Utopian community, crime rates are basically non-existent and despite the occasional disturbance, everything runs perfect and smoothly. This is where the real story begins: full of intrigue, action, fighting, sacrifice, and love. This book is packed with relate-able issues, themes, and messages. 

I have a hard time committing to a set method of rating or even a set rate that something (books, movies, etc) deserves. I tend to change my mind after time has passed. However, presently I will go with the popular 5 Star method:

               

Perhaps I am biased about this book, because I have loved it ever since I was twelve years old, but I would give The Alliance by Gerald N. Lund a rating of 4 out of five stars.

                                      

This book keeps you on the edge of your seat, from the first sentence to the very last word. Characters are well developed and cause one to actually care about them and their well being. This is a thought provoking book and stays with you years after you first read it. This is what makes a book a "good book" in my opinion. Lund is able to create characters that you care about, themes that speak to you, a book that leaves you entertained, and makes you so disappointed that it's over that you have to reread it over and over again.

I truly enjoyed this book when I first read it, and years later, I am still entertained by the mere thought of it. I hope you take my advice to read it because it truly is one of my favorites.

Also, if you have any feedback, comments, ideas for me, books that I should review, or anything else you can possibly think of hit me up!

Book Blog

As of late I have been thinking of my blog. Just thinking about it and not doing anything about this particular blog. But thinking is a step up to what I was doing previously -- which was nothing.
What I was thinking was that I missed blogging. I really did. I missed writing, writing about nothing or anything and figuring out my life. That's what writing can be for me. Because this summer I am not taking any English classes, I haven't really sat down and written anything (besides letters) in such a long time. I was missing it. So, I knew that I wanted to start up writing on my blog again, but truth be told, my life is exceptionally boring. I could tell you all about the friends that I have that are getting married, going on missions, moving away, and having babies. As for what I was doing, I could tell you all about how difficult anatomy is and all about the human body. A blog about my life would put those reading it to sleep, and I would probably die of boredom just from writing the posts. I figured I had a few options for this blog of mine and I mulled these options over in my head for some time, until I came to a conclusion.
 My first thought was to make my life more exciting (which I still plan on doing), but at the moment I need to focus on school and not on thrill-seeking. Plus all my friends are leaving; thrilling adventures aren't very fun when you are all by your lonesome. The amount of friends that I have left is a grand total or 2 (that may be a slight exaggeration). Also thrill-seeking gets expensive and I am a cheap-o.
Another option was to change my blog into the entertaining, though highly unoriginal fashion blog. Problem: I am not super duper into fashion. I like my fashion and I think my skills of matching a top to a bottom are sure to be praised (bahah), but clothes and style is not really a passion of mine, and I want to write about something that entertains me more than the mere basics that I have hanging in my closet.
Finally, a truly wonderful idea came to me: A book blog. I love books. Love them so much. I am always looking for new books to read, and when I come across a good book, I just eat it up. It's also a dream of mine to become a movie critic. Wouldn't it be a dream to just watch a movie and then write what you think about it in a clever and original way? So, I have decided to make that dream of mine become a reality, but instead of a movie critic, I will become a book critic on this own little blog of mine.
Finding a good book to read is really a problem. They aren't like movies where they are ranked in stars or thumbs up. There aren't commercials that make a book look exciting or stupid. Really, the only way to find a good book to read is by recommendation. That is what my blog is going to do. Recommend books to the public. I haven't decided if I am going to post on just the books I like, or post on all the books that I read for this shin dig... That still needs to be pondered in my brain.
If anyone has any recommendations, ideas, feedback, anything like that, feel free to leave a comment.
My first book review will hopefully appear in the next few days, depending on how busy I am.

Cellular Devices: What a blessing.

Life is so much simpler with cell phones. They take out all of the complications of life that people had to cope with before.
For example: Romeo and Juliet. Romeo could have just popped out a text to Juliet that said "Yo, I be fake dying. Just to give you a heads up." And poof that story would no longer even be a story.
Whenever someone went missing, people had to go out and actually search for them. Manually. How hard. Man. We have it so easy. All we have to do is send someone a text or call 'em up and just say "hey were did you disappear too?" Problem solved.Only when they don't answer is when there is a problem.
For reals. Cell phones make life so much easier and less stressful. I am grateful for this invention.

Harry Potter

My love for Harry Potter is certainly unhealthy. Like ridiculously so. Today I realized that if ever I were to get a tattoo (not that I am or anything) but it would absolutely be Harry Potter related. That is not even an exaggeration. My tattoo would be Harry Potter related. No doubt.

Da BoBo

Today I decided to blog about one of my little nieces. Now, I love all of my nieces and nephews a whole whole lot and each and every one of them has a special place in my heart. But today I am blogging about the sweet Brenly Belle. Or as she is more commonly known: BoBo, or my personal favorite da BoBo. 

When her mom had her new little (not little anymore, he looks like he is a baby that ate another baby. That kid is huge) baby brother, she stayed over at my house and she has never loved me so much as she did in that weekend. Plus I took her to the hospital to meet her new little bro, just me and her, and I am pretty sure that people thought she was my baby. Secretly I loved it. She is not, just in case anyone was wondering. Anywhoo, the whole weekend she was staying at my house, she would follow me around the house saying my name and if I went in the other room, say, the potty room or my bedroom, she would stand outside the door calling my name and if I didn't come out fast enough, she would start crying. Needless to say I loved it.

 It was hilarious. 

Please excuse my zitty face, but aren't we presh? (Mostly I just wanted to blog about this BoBo because we have this picture together from when we went to California and it is delightful.)

Splendidly Delightful

When my grandpa was bishop, he called himself as a nursery teacher the week that he got released as the bishop. He didn't tell anyone. He just did it. And then the High Council man got up immediately after and released my grandpa from being a nursery teacher and bishop and called him to be a member of the High Council. 

My Grandpa didn't just think about doing this, he actually had the nerve to get up in church and call himself to a really fun calling, which I think is almost inspiring. It makes me want to go through and actually do the funny things that I think of.

What an inspiring man. If only I had been there. It is an awesome story. 

Mostly my Grandpa was just splendid.

The Most Magical Place on Earth

This weekend I went to Disneyland! So much fun!

It was decorated all Christmas-y and cute. This is everyone that went.

Jon, Sheridan, Mark, Vanita, Nathan, Tiff, Rachel, Emily, Chantry, and Meagan

Chantry and I have the same last name, plus we are not even related (that we know of). We are cool.

It was quite cold so we made a line of cuddly-coldness

All the precious girls together. We are cuties.

CALIFORNIA, HERE I COME!

I AM GOING TO CALIFORNIA IN THE NEXT 12 HOURS!! I am seriously sooo excited. I am going with a big group of friends, my first real friends trip. It is going to be awesome and I will make sure to take lots of pictures, and hopefully I will actually blog about this fun experience since I do have my new goal to fulfill of writing something everyday. I am beside myself with joy for this new adventure. I have been needing an adventure in my life and here, this one appears!! WOOT WOOT!

and it would be a dog

According to my niece, if a girl and a girl were to get married they would only "live with a boy and it would be a dog." Therefore it is not good to get married to a girl if you are already a girl.

Curfew

I have a curfew and it sucks. I hate it. I am recently 20 years old and I have to be home at 12. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.

A New Goal

Since my major is English Literature and I want to be a high school English teacher, I came up with a new goal last night: I am going to write a little something everyday. It can be something as little as a witty facebook status or as big as a ten page paper for school, but I have to write something everyday. I have my journal I can write in, Blog I can post on, school work papers I have to write, letters to write to missionary boys. Really I can write whatever I want, where-ever I want, but it has to be something every single day. I love reading the written word of other people, so I might as well improve my own writing and the best way to do that is to study the work of others and practice on your own. That is my goal. Peace out world. Perhaps more will appear written on this blog.

My Love/Hate Relationship with Proof-Reading

Once I do it, I love it, I like thinking of new ways of writing something or finding my mistakes and knowing that I made my paper better with my fantastic corrections, additions, or deletions. I even like finding my mistakes, I feel smarter because I was able to find a mistake. But the problem is that it is so hard for me to start proof-reading. I always procrastinate doing it, and my theory is because I don't want to address the mistakes that I made, because, well, I would like to be perfect every time the first time around. I don't like the wake-up call that I get when proof-reading. I am forced to accept, yet again, that I am not as grand as I like to think. Sometimes I like to turn papers in without proof-reading because then I don't have to be brought down to a lower level on the "Rachel-is-really-awesome-building" that I tend to reside in, even if my paper makes me sound like a bigger idiot than I am because I didn't catch mistakes.

Bednar and Boys Bathroom

Elder Bednar came to town and had a fireside. Me and these buds of mine went to it. It was awesome. He is so funny. Did anyone know this beforehand? because I certainly didn't. Also, before the fireside started, I went to the bathroom and definitely started to walk into the boys bathroom. It was awesome.

Sometimes I like to be Creepy with a capitol C,

Mostly when Tiff Tiff and Brenda bribe me with wonderful gifts.

 The bribes: 
Pumpkin chocolate chip muffins homemade by Tiffy, and 
1 shirt exclusively from Brenda (If you know Brenda, you know that she makes really cool shirts).

And all I had to do was one tiny, measly, little thing.
All I had to do was change my relationship status on FB to being in a relationship with a certain boy... he doesn't even have to accept my request for him to be my relationship buddy or anything (I think he denied the "being my FB boyfriend" at present though, sad).
I agreed to this deal in a heartbeat. It's probably the best deal I have ever made in all of my existence.
Now I will be slightly fatter with those muffins in my belly and a fabulous new shirt that I can stretch out with my newly-formed belly.

Big Fat Zero.

Lately I have been having these dreams where I have multiple boys chasing me (usually just two, but occasionally that number grows)... I think it's because my subconscious is trying to make up for reality. In reality the boys chasing me is a big fat zero. Like this: 0. Apparently my mind needs to boost itself up from this dismal and sad number that is in fact zero, and so my little mind makes fictional and nonfictional boys be in love with me. Apparently I have a problem and I just shared it with the world. Please don't mock me for what my subconscious does to me when I am sleeping.

Missionary Girlfriends. BEST. THING. EVER.

Lately I have taken to this group on Facebook. Seriously it is the best thing ever. If ever you are in need of a good laugh and to feel really good about yourself, I suggest joining this group on Facebook. It is called Waiting for a Missionary. These girls have taken fake pregnant pictures of themselves and sent them to their missionaries, love to wallow in their grief of their gone missionary boys, and like to plan their weddings. Oh and my personal favorite, throw hissy fits about their boy's fam. Or discuss what they should do because they have two missionary boys. BEST THING EVER! Whenever I get on that page, I feel so good at my seemingly normal and not-crazy-self. Plus these girls are really good to laugh at. So if ever you are having a downer or just need a good laugh, I recommend this page to you. Or maybe you might be one of these crazies and want to join for realsies. You have been warned. You will be laughed and mocked shamelessly (at least by me). A word of advice though, this is a private group and you have to wait for the girls that are in charge of it to accept your request to join (if you so choose to accept this mission of mockery and laughter), it took forever for them to add me, and those few days were pure torture. My laughter levels -- and therefore my health -- have increased significantly since I was able to join this group.

Poetry will be the death of me.

Poetry is dumb
It makes me inside go numb.
There are no rules,
So it can be written by all you fools.

You can do whatever the crap you want
The stupid words at night will haunt.
And people will think that you are clever,
But really it makes me want my head to sever.

Like Yoda poets talk
And Yoda we should not mock,
Nobody thinks like how poetry is written,
And you don't need to write a poem to show that you are smitten.

Unless the poem is clever or funny,
It should not be written, except perhaps for money.
Perhaps I lack Culture,
But poetry makes me want to be devoured by a vulture.

These are my thoughts on poetry,
And while I am sure you would pay to here my opinion,
My thoughts are here written, free.
If you want you can even become my minion.

School is now in session

Since it has been almost a whole month since I last blogged, I have decided that the time has come for a brand-spanking-new post. This past month has been super eventful and busy and I love it. Plus I started college again. Oh how I have missed school! Crazy I know, but when you go a semester and summer without it, you begin to miss it. Maybe that is only me though. That time definitely helped me to figure out what the heck I wanna do with my life. And now I can work towards that goal. So exciting, I know.

Work started too. I have missed those little kiddies ever so much and I love that I get to work with them yet again, I have the funniest conversations in my daily life now. Nobody has as good conversations as elementary children. 

One of my fourth graders has decided that he loves Oprah. He loves Oprah. Isn't that the most awesome thing you ever heard? His teacher has decided that she loves this little boy as well, and is having him write a friendly letter to Oprah. I asked him about it one day, wondering what sorts of things he would write to his role model, aka Oprah, and because I think that it is so funny that he loves Oprah so much. He said, "I will tell her all about how she changed my life because she taught me to be a good boy and to take responsibility and how to make choices, and then I would tell her my age and she would be amazed." (I kinda made up that quote, he said something similar to that, except the part where Oprah would be amazed was a direct quote from the mouth of little 4th grader boy). He is seriously one of my favorite people to talk too, but it is soooo hard to hold back little chuckles when he talks to you.

Oh, I love my job. It is tiring and sometimes difficult, but the really hilarious kids make it all worth it.

Summer Lovin'

The beginning of the summer Brenda and I made a list of different things that we wanted to do this summer. Work has started up again for me and so that means that summer is almost over. This is the list and I will also let you know what we did and didn't do. I will also give thoughts and feelings on the different things that we have on our list.

* will mean that we accomplished the goal that we set.

Summer Goals

• Take a pottery class* (This was so much fun and I am so glad that I got to take this class with two of my best friends. Plus now I have a whole lot of cool pots that I made now.)
• Go to the Cabin* (This was also fun, except a certain individual was also there and put a damper on our experience)
• California (we probably won't get this one done this summer. How sad)
• Make fudge* (It turned out pretty grainy, but it was a pretty good attempt for our first time of making fudge without any help)
• Cake decorating (we could still do this one...)
• HSM night (hasn't happened yet, but there is still time)
• Speed walking* (This is the bomb. I like it better then running by a whole lot)
• Triathlon (I don't really know why we set this goal, there was no chance we would do this haha)
• Swimming* (luckily I have a pool so this was easily done)
• Crocheting* (We are pro at this. Just kidding we aren't, but we did have nights were we would watch movies and crochet. It was awesome.)
• Aprons*? (I did make an apron by myself so I am not sure if this counts...)
• Drive in movies (don't worry this was planned for a group thing and unfortunately hasn't happened, but there is still time)
• Sewing* (aprons?)
• Friendship bracelets* (we did this. I still haven't finished the one that I am making though)
• Paint* (we painted shirts for the 4th of July)
• Music video (any music video made by Brenda and I would be fabulous on every level and it is a shame that we haven't crossed this one of the list)
• Learn how to do cool eye make-up (That's what Pinterest is for, right? haha)
• Go to the desert or on a hike (it's too hot)
• Job hunting (we didn't do)
• learn to dance (bahahha could never ever do that)
• Garage sale/thrift store shopping* (This is the best! I recommend this to like everyone)
• Remake something (... I don't think we have done this quite yet)
• wood construction (nope)
• Garden (nope, but I think Brenda might have a little on her own)
• Get not fat* (success!!!)
• Make paper (nope, but this would be fun to do with little kiddies)
• Go to Barnes and Nobles and learn to do something from a book (We kind of did it, but I don't think it counts)
• Calligraphy (nope)
• Bake Apple Pie (Brenda baked apple cobbler, and I ate it. Does that count?)
• Make recipe books* (We gave one of our high school friends that recently got married, a recipe book for her wedding present so I think this counts even though Brenda did it all)
• Make Protection Pouches (protection pouches are little pouches that we are going to keep with us always that are going to contain items that will protect us from mystical beings i.e. a silver bullet to save us from werewolves; wooden stake, vampires, etc.)
• Have a tea party (oh I hope we still do this. It would be amazing on so many levels) '

Although we haven't accomplished a lot of the goals that we set, we still did a lot and had so much fun doing them. Plus we also were able to accomplish a lot that isn't on our list. Overall it was quite a fun summer.

I am now an Earth Bender

I am in a ceramics class, and let me tell you. It is fabulous! I love it! Please read my list as I explain just why this class is so wonderful:
1. I am pretty sure that my teacher is gay,
2. I am doing it with my best friends,
3. My ceramics class is basically the only time that I ever see one of my best friends,
4. The weekly tradition of going to U-Swirl afterwards when we are all covered in clay is delightful,
5. My clay turned my hands orange (it looks like I tried out tanning lotion on my hands and no where else),
6. Brenda and I have learned to become one with the clay,
7. I discovered that I am a clay whisperer,
8. The unhealthy love that Brenda and I have for Avatar: The Last Air Bender series has come out to play when we decided that throwing pots is equivalent to becoming an earth bender,
9. The joy and happiness that you get when you finally finish a pot is the best! And every time that you eat out of that bowl, you (mainly I) get filled with a sense of happiness and pride.
Tuesday is my very last day of this class. But I have learned so much and I think that I am ready for a break. One day I plan on taking another ceramics class and becoming pro. If only throwing pots was an Olympic sport, it would be my goal to go to the Olympics for my ceramic skills. Also, one day I will put up pictures of us in the ceramics studio.