Colloguing...

Here's what I've been up to in 2-D design. Wendy’s been asking me to post these for a while, so here they are!

Three Trees by Andre Derain

(Yes, this is done out of sand paper)

(Notice Queen Creek is in the middle!)

Always, I Want to Be With You!!

I like my friends. I love them. My friend Diana tonight mentioned how at the end of the night she just wants to be in a room with people that all know her name. So true. And I’m so glad I have that :)

Also, Hilary and I are Robot Unicorns for Halloween. If you don’t know what that is, you better play this game! I died laughing my head off the first time my friend Alex introduced it to me. Basically it was the ONLY costume we could be this year, duh. And don't worry, we even have the theme song playing with us everywhere we go!

Hil and I as robot unicorns!! Dash!!!

Time.

A man in Alaska said this to me. I like this. It’s made me think how we need to take advantage of the valuable time we have now by doing the things we truly want to do and seeing the people we really care about. There really is no way to gauge the amount of time we’ve got.

Just the Way We Are

Hilary and I just woke up from a good sleep and we are both in our pj’s, have the lovely bed head, and make-up-less. There’s something so happy about waking up with someone and groggily sharing dream stories or random thoughts that our floating around in our little heads.

JFSB- Fourth Floor.

I love the balcony. I think this might just be the prettiest spot on campus.

I am sooo full!!! So I can’t study…

Life is soo good.

I just spent 20 minutes laughing my head off on the floor with my roomie.

I love my classes (except MComm).

I’m in the tastiest dinner group ever.

AAaand I get to go to Texas this weekend for my Granny’s 100th Birthday party.

MMMmmm!

Oh hi.

Hmmm, I haven’t written on here in a little while Blog. Sorry about the neglect. SSoooo this month has been crazy busy!! Home for two weeks, Alaska for one, and San Francisco til now.

Home: amazing and sooo good to see the fam bam, but not enough time to just chill. I did get to see a few close friends though!

Senior Year Besties! It was soo good to see Chelsy and Cami.

Alaska: Cruised all over Fairbanks with my fam, grandma, and her two fatty Chihuahuas.

Grace and I in Alaska. This trip brought back so many memories of how trips used to be when we both live at home. Miss those.

San Fran: Andrea and I walked our lil feet all over San Fran, saw the tourist classics, and got to see Andrea’s “hip & artsy” school.

Andrea and I. I'm going to miss my cousin mine.

Today: Flew home and am packing up Thelma and

Tomorrow: Drive up to P-town!

Day after Tomorrow: Still in Provo Aaand in Provo to stay!

Lets just say I’m excited to be in 1 place for awhile :)

Dominican Republic here I come!!

What a day. Oh man! I got all packed, said good bye to a few friends, and lastly finished my beastly project 10 minutes before we left. I had to make an online portfolio by writing my own html and css. It was pretty challenging, but I learned quite a bit. If you want to see what I did check out http://anna.jbteaching.com/index.html .

I am amazed at how fast this term went. It was sad parting ways with my Roomie Emma. We've had some good times together this term and I've learned a lot from her. We're also waiting for her to get her mission call. Man am I excited to hear where my lil world traveler is going to go! It was also sad saying bye to my cousin mine, Andrea. She's leaving me in the fall for San Francisco Art Institute. I'm excited for her as she's going to have a lot of opportunities there, but it's going to feel weird not having her with me at the Y. She's been a great best friend up at school the past three years.

So right now I'm sitting in the airport with my 7 best friends for the next 6 weeks. I'm a little nervous about the teaching aspect of this trip but I'm excited for what I'm going to learn while I'm there. If anything this is going to be more of a learning experience for me than it is for them!

Happy happy, just not quite enough time..

I drove Thelma down this weekend to home sweet home. This was my first time making the drive from Provo to AZ all by myself, but I surprisingly enjoyed myself! I had a great time thinking to myself and jamming out to some good tunes :)

This is one of my favorite views on the drive home, just south of Page. You drive through a mountain enclosed road and then, bam. a beautiful view that screams Arizona!

Home was great! I got to play with my nieces and nephews, pick some fresh nectarines and apples in the summer evening, sleep in my own bed, do some shopping with my mom, and spend a little time with my parents, my sisters, and my dear friend Chelsy. Being home for a day was just enough to tease me! It sure did get me excited for August, when I actually get to spend some real quality time home!

My nieces and I! They are quite the goof balls!

4 days. That’s it!! 4 days til I fly with 7 other TEE students to the Dominican Republic to teach tech classes! It’s coming too quick! While I was home, my sister Grace kept on teasing me about how much I’m going to melt there! We looked up the weather and it said it was in the 80’s with 80% humidity…. Then she was like, “well at least you have AC where you’re living right??” Actually no, we don’t. Grace just started laughing away! Oh how she loved giving me a hard time! Then my other sister Wendy was saying how she had a friend who went on a mission there whose nose got soo burnt that it was red and all crusty! Ahh!! I think they just like to tease me more than anything… That’s what they’re good at ;)

Our lil TEE fam will be living and teaching together just outside of Santo Domingo

Ultimate Bed!!

When Lindsay, mine and Emma’s close friend from Jerusalem, comes down to sleep over, we like to make what we call ULTIMATE BEed!! This is something that started in Jerusalem when we would take our mattresses outside on the back patios of our rooms and put them together to enjoy sleeping outside. Good times!
After making it a couple times, we decided to leave our beds like this permanently. Anyways, when Linds comes down, I get the joy of waking up to this:

It sure makes me smile :)

Roadtrips are fun to do doo do dooooo do

What a week! I’ve been in 3 states this week and have had quite the adventures! So Tuesday evening, Marci and I took off in Thelma (my car) for Lake Powell. Lake Powell is a place very dear to my family. We’ve been going since before I can remember and make a point to go every year at least once. It’s been harder as the Gordon fam has grown up, but we finally worked out a week where each of us could go!

Here's the whole Fam Bam

It got a little chaotic at times with so many people on one boat; I guess this happens with big families, but we still had a good time together! The water was still a little chilly, so we stuck to kayaking and hiking. Sadly, a huge storm blew in this weekend Aaand one of the engines decided to quit working so most of my fam is still out on the Lake til it all blows over! I just pray that the weather lightens up so they can get the houseboat back to the marina! We’ll see what happens here in a day or two..

Idaho. After driving back to Provo on Saturday, I got right back in the car and drove up to Burley, Idaho with Andrea, Mandy, and Landon. Our close friend, Morgan’s, mission farewell was going down. We had a wonderful time at the Stoker home and had a great last hurrah with Morgan. We all ended up staying up til 4 am joking and laughing like we did freshman year and lastly having our last “floor time” talking about our life wants and goals. I love how close we are and how much we truly care about each other. I’ve never had this close of a friend leave before and it’s really quite foreign for me. Morgan has been a best friend to me since freshman year of college, so I’ve come very used to having her around to talk to, be with, and count on. From the selfish side, I’m sad to not have her here with me at school, but I know the Lord needs her and that she will touch many lives just has she has mine. Good luck my babe and I WILL be writing you just as I promised!

Morgan, Mandy, Andrea, and I: Roomies 08'-09'
We're going to miss you Momo!

Back in Provo

I’ve found I am terrible at blogging! Just wanted to say that real quick!

I got home from Jerusalem on the 23rd of April, was home for a few short days and drove up her to good, ol’ Provo for classes this spring. Things have been changing so fast and the pace hasn’t seemed to be slowing down, so I feel like I haven’t really had time to soak in all the change happening around me! It was sad to leave beautiful Jerusalem, but life is still happy :)

Life this summer:
• I’m living with a good friend from Jerusalem in a cute little, blue house
• I’m taking 3 classes and working writing lesson plans
• I am going to Lake Powell next week with the Fam Bam, can’t wait!
• I’m going to the Dominican Republic in June to teach tech classes

It’s a busy summer, but let the adventures keep on coming!

Little Nothings of the J.C.

A few things that have been going on here in Jeru:
1. We've been on lock down the past couple days
2. I miss walking in the Old City-- I've been in the center for toooo long
3. I have 1 final down and 4 more to go
4. We are obsessed with Psych here. We watch at least one episode a day..
5. Sunday was Purim, Jewish Halloween, and we went Jewish folk dancing, crazy but so fun!
6. Passing notes in Hebrew is the new fun thing to do in class
7. We go to Galilee in two weeks!!

Also, my roomie, Elissa, and I are in love with the song Dance Anthem of the 80's by Regina. The other night she learned how to play it on the Ukulele and it made me so happy :)

Party in the... Jerusalem!!

So it’s been awhile… And I’ve found the longer you go without blogging, the harder it gets to actually get yourself to post something!

So much has happened and I’ve been loving it all!

First off, we went to Egypt for a week. It was amazing!!

A few highlights:

Dance parties on the bus
Long conversations with friends
Seeing the Pyramids
Seeing desert land that seems to never stop
Riding a camel
Seeing Karnack and Luxor Temple
Felucca boat rides on the Nile
Scary Egyptians hitting on you, “Lovely eyes”
Watching the sunset on the Nile
Dancing in the club of the hotel
Hiking Mount Sinai
Looking up at the sky speckled with stars
Watching the sunrise on top of Sinai
Singing hymns that make me feel closer to God
Hearing the testimonies of my new, close friends




The list goes on. It was a great week and most definitely brought all of us closer to each other.

Since Egypt we’ve had quite a bit of fun and I’ve learned that studying seems almost impossible here!! It’s just too hard when you eat, sleep, study, go to class, go to church, and party with the same people! We all have way too much fun!! It’s always a party in the pita!!

The Mustache Militia. Gag me.

The men of the J.C. decided to make a pact to grow out ‘staches for a minimum of ten days. And don’t worry, they even signed contracts! There’s one thing I learned from those horrible ten days. Mustaches just aren’t attractive… except for Aaron’s. The Mustache Militia closing party was one of the best days of my life! We heard raps, poetry, blog entries, and songs about everyone’s feelings about the ‘staches, a lil out of control! The ladies of the 309 (Elissa, Stella, Becca, and I) wrote a lovely song called Meager Mustache Men expressing our anti-stache views. Someone had to! Elissa and I sang it that night and it was a pretty big hit, not gonna lie! Most of the guys have shaved them now, thank goodness!

Valenstines Day (as our security guys say)
So fun!! I think this is probably my most favorite Valentine’s Day ever! During the day a group of us went to the Chagall windows, soo pretty!!
We also went to Church of the Visitation and the St. John Ba Harim church. All of this was in Northern Jerusalem. I liked it a lot on the Northern side. It had a different feel than East and West Jeru. It was much more chill and not as busy. While walking around, we found this amazing Gelato place. It was soo cute! We ended up getting two rounds of gelato that we split between Bentley, Emmy, Ron, and I. Soo good and so worth it!!
That night we had open mic night. We had a real good time, as always. We heard sappy poetry, love songs, movies, uke sing along, etc. It was great! My Valentine, Greg sang me a cute lil song, I loved it! My other personal fav was when my roomie sang My Heart Will Go On (from Titanic) to Tall Blonde. She has a killer voice and Tall Blonde’s reactions were priceless! It basically left all of us rolling around on the ground laughing our heads off!! Then of course we couldn’t end the night with anything but a dance party! The party began to trickle down around 11 but about six of us stayed and ended up dancing for another hour acting like five year olds. I love that we’ve all gotten to the point that we have no reserves with anyone here!

Last night for FHE we went to the Jackson’s AND we made cookies!! So tasty!! I miss baking and miss home made cookies! We had a good time talking with each other and getting to know them. I feel like there is a lot I can come to learn from them these next few months.

School. Oh, oh yeah!
We have three weeks til Galilee! Yay! But this means these next couple weeks are going to be craycray!!

First Couple Days in Jerusalem!!

Yesterday was my first full day in Jerusalem. It’s been great! So last night, all my roomies, Stella, Elissa, Becca, and I all got unpacked, showered and went to bed. We were exhausted! At about 3 though, I woke up freezing my butt off! Our room was icy cold! Anyways, I basically jumped out of bed when my alarm went off! As for today, first thing, we went on a walk through old Jerusalem and West Jerusalem. There was so much to see! As we walked through the city, one thing I’ve really noticed is how religious and dedicated the people are to their beliefs. I have so much respect for them and their devotion. It makes me want to be more dedicated personally in my own religious beliefs. One stop we made was at the Austria Hospice. As we climbed up the million flights of stairs, or as it felt, we had an amazing view of old Jerusalem from the top. It was cool to see all the many buildings and winding roads. Then when we got back down to the bottom, we went into the chapel of the hospice. Brother Allen talked to us about how what was so great about the hospice is that it provides everything a person needs when they are making a pilgrimage. It provides housing, food, a doctor, and a place to worship. He then told us that as we are here in Jerusalem, we shouldn’t think of ourselves as tourists, but as people making pilgrimages as well. He told us that we should try and focus on the spiritual things we can learn and grow from as we are here and treat our visit here as those that make pilgrimages. As he said this, I felt a strong desire to do as he said. I am not just a student here, but someone making a pilgrimage to the holy land. I want to make the most of these next four months and try and learn as much as I can about my Savior and try and experience all that Jerusalem has to offer.

First day of classes = today! And… they were surprisingly not too bad! I can tell I am really going to love my New Testament class. As for my Near Eastern Studies class, it will take a lil more patience!

So we were all split up into committees AND I’m on the Birthday committee!!!! Yay!!!! It is going to be soooo good!

We went out into the city today for the first time without the security guards. At first I felt like the biggest American tourist ever! We were all together and so loud and I kept on thinking, can we be any more American?!! Luckily we then split up into groups of 4 when we got into old Jerusalem. Much better! As we walked through the city I just absorbed everything. I really enjoyed just walking around and see how all these people live but I will say going into the city sure makes me feel overwhelmed of everything I have to learn about the people here and the history of Jerusalem. I just feel so ignorant sometimes… I most definitely want to try and take advantage of these next four months to learn everything I can! After roaming around for a couple hours, we came back to the center. Man were we tired! Then for our first Friday we watched some Oceans 13, played some Dalmuti, did some yoga, worked out, and played a lil Mafia. Tomorrow is the Sabbath, I know a lil weird! It will take some getting used to on Saturday! I really do look forward to seeing what church is like here!

Jerusalem, here I am!!

After two days of flying, I'm finally here in Jerusalem!! Things have gone great! First we flew to the JFK airport in NY. Then we had a 4 hour lay over til 9 pm. During all this, the 18 of us all together got to know each other pretty well! Then we flew to Tel Aviv and didn't get in til 3 pm the time here. Man all of us are so tired! We were all falling asleep in our lectures that we had tonight... Anyways, when we landed, it still hadn't hit me. My mind just kept on thinking "I'm just going on Vaca, no big deal!" Anyways, once we landed in Tel Aviv, then came the customs part... So This guy in my group, Gage, was just a person ahead of me. When talking with the customs guy, he got flagged and they made him wait on the side. When I got up, the guy asked me where I came from (being all attitudy with me) and then asked me what I was doing. When he understood I was doing the same thing as Gage, he sent me over with him. Then they told us to go with some lady and then wait to talk with someone. Both of us sat outside an office all nervous of what was going to happen! There's no freakin way they can't let us through! Plus EVERYONE else in our group made it through! Anywho, after waiting for about 10 minutes, they finally said we were actually ok and gave us our passports back and sent us on our way.

Our drive to the center is when it started to hit me that I was actually here. It was beautiful! It has rolling hills with beautiful homes and buildings. In some ways it actually reminds me of home, just how it is more deserty here. As we pulled up to the center, being the first group to arrive, all the workers and service couples were there waiting to greet us. I'll be honest, I got me a lil choked up. It was so amazing to see how excited these people were excited to greet us to our new home when they didn't even know us! They all are so friendly and extremely inviting. As you walk in, there is a huge arch and a huge window overlooking old Jerusalem. It is quite the view! It was breath taking as the sun was setting. Once inside, they gave us a grand tour of the center, and let me tell you, it is a gorgeous building!! After seeing the entire center, we had dinner and a couple short lectures. Tomorrow we go on a walk throughout Jerusalem!

Just being here today, I feel so extremely lucky to be here. I keep on thinking over and over, man I am one lucky girl to get to be here in this amazing country and with this group. I can tell we are going to have some real good times together. Well, the real adventure starts tomorrow! So far though, I completely am loving it here.