A while back I mentioned that Jesi and I did a photoshoot. We spent THREE HOURS doing our makeup and hair, etc. We then spent about an hour taking pictures. It was LOADS of fun and we had a fabulous time.
Here is Jesi putting on her makeups.
We used a lot of makeup. This is a shot of all the tools we used to make ourselves beautimous. Each of us ended up wearing two sets of false eyelashes!
From beginning to end, we had a great time. Here is what it looked like putting our makeup on from beginning to end.
Jesi:
Me:
With all the makeup, hair, clothes, and posing done, I got the pictures into photoshop and played with the colors a bit to make them super gorgeous.
It was a lot of fun, but in the end (after we had each gone our separate ways and stripped off the itchy false eyelashes and wiped the gobs of makeup from our face), we realized that we hadn't taken any pictures together! Oh noes!! So, rather than putting the makeup on again and taking more pictures (HA! Yeah, right!), I just photoshopped us together with a fancy background. I personally think we still look adorable.
Well, friends, after a grueling day on the road (ugh), we are finally in Utah. We spent all day Wednesday moving Jesi's stuff up into her apartment, choosing the best room/cabinets/mattress (because Jesi was the first one there!), and making the rounds at Costco and Walmart. We got her a bookcase and a few other pieces of furniture to fix up the little place. She's living at an old complex that I lived in when I went to school. It's a decent little place, if a bit old and dirty (seriously, we're talknig to the manager about that tub... it's pretty gross) and the wi-fi doesn't really work (another thing we need to talk to him about), but other than that it's a fun place. We met her roommates today and they seem pretty nice. She also only has two other roommates which means, as of right now, Jesi gets her own room! Sweet! It also means that I get to sleep in a bed while I stay at her apartment this next week! Double yes!! :D
While Jesi was at her new student orientation thing, Mom, Dad, and I went over to Blickenstaff's. Now, Mom had kept talking about how we were going to go to Hobby Lobby and Blickenstaff's while we were in Utah and for some reason we thought that both were craft places. We were pleasantly surprised when we got to Blickenstaff's and found it was a really cute candy and toy store! Lots of fun little toys to see and play with. My particular favorite was this adorable sock monkey umbrella. I was a little tempted, but decided that I didn't need a little kids umbrella (no matter how cute).
We also got some delicious candy. They had some of my favorites: peach gummies and grapefruit slices. Unfortunately, they got left in the car while we were in the BYU Bookstore and totally melted into a bag of one giant peach-grapefruit flavored gummy. It was very sad.
Sad, and really gross looking. But still really delicious. We have learned a lesson today: gummies melt in high heat. I'll have to remember that in the future.
Tomorrow we plan on hanging out again while Jesi goes to orientation, eating dinner with Anna, Dante, Mike, and Katie, and doing those last minute errands that will need to get done before Mom and Dad leave for Oregon.
I hate this election season. When people find out I'm LDS (Mormon, for those of you new to this), they often smile knowingly, tilt their head back a little and say something along the lines of, "Oh, I bet you're excited Mitt Romney's running, aren't you?"
No. No, I'm not. I strongly dislike Mitt Romney. He and his wife might be the nicest people in the world. I don't know; I've never personally met them. But, I'm liberal and, well, he's really, REALLY not. And for some reason people sometimes have a hard time getting it through their heads that I am LDS, have a strong testimony of the Church, and I'm not conservative.
Crazy, huh? Apparently there are a lot of us Christian liberals, but people are still surprised when they find out I'm liberal. Not that I'm quiet about it... bring up touchy subjects like women's health issues and gay marriage around me and we'll have a fun chat. ^^
But my liberal-ness not really what I came to talk about. I wanted to tell you about Facebook.
Yes, Facebook. That wonderful political platform where Liberals and Conservatives, Green Party's and Libertarians alike can get together in a safe, online environment to debate rationally about political issues.
Wait, no? Facebook ISN'T a platform for political debate?
I understand that your political opinion is an important part of your life and, thus, something you would want to express on your Facebook profile. However, my fabulous friends (some more than other, well ONE more than others...) don't often post links to articles with well researched articles exploring issues, opinions, and plans of candidates. No, they post things like this:
LAWL!! Dats 2 Funi! Herp derp derpy herp...
Friends, this is what we in the educated world call a "straw man argument," one of the many (and it seems like the most popular) logical fallacies that make political debate so much "fun" to watch. Don't get me wrong, these things can be hilarious. The Unimpressed Willy Wonka meme is one of my personal favorites. However, the problem I have with memes such as these is that they seem to be all people use to demonstrate their political beliefs. When I only see these memes on your Facebook, I start thinking that these straw man memes are the only place you are getting your information for the up and coming election. Which makes me sad. And a little angry.
It's doubly aggravating that most of my friends who decide to post pictures like these on their Facebook are usually Conservative, so, yeah. There's that.
For those of you who don't know what a straw man argument is, allow me to explain. Basically, it's when you oversimplify an opponent's argument, then attack this oversimplified version. For example:
This picture oversimplifies two issues and then attacks them by comparing them to Cuba, hopefully invoking bad feelings about fascist regimes. I could get into why this argument sucks (most developed countries of the world have something close to universal health care and, whoa! They aren't ruled over by crazy fascists! How do they do it!?! *sarcasm sign*), but I'm trying REALLY hard not to turn this post into a rant about my own political opinions. Failing pretty hard on that one, I know, but I really am holding back, I promise.
Conservatives aren't the only ones that utilize the straw man argument to piss people off. Us liberals do it, too. Take this picture comparing Rick Santorum to Osama Bin Laden.
Much as I dislike Santorum (really, strongly, dislike), I don't think he would go become some great dictator bent on killing and oppressing America.
So, lovely people, this is what I would like to ask of you: If you are going to post political whatever on Facebook, please, PLEASE let it be a link to an article of some sort. Those are so much easier to ignore than horrible memes such as these. If you feel the burning need to SHARE ALL THE MEMES!!!!!!!11, then please do it on sites meant to share fun little things like straw man memes. I personally like Tumblr.
Otherwise, please forgive me if one day I finally break down and send one of those comments on your memes that I usually delete before sending. Most likely this will never happen, though I might post a link to this post to show you how I feel. ^^
And now a cat video because any "serious" post should have a kittens at the end to make people feel happy.
I know that I said that I was going to post more of those pictures Jesi and I took, but you'll just have to wait to see them until after I get back from Utah because that's where I'm going to edit them up. That means you'll get to see them in about 3 weeks or so. Sorry if that's what you were looking forward to, but, not really my problem. ^_^
These last few weeks have been a ton of fun around here. My two cousins, Amanda and Alex, came for a three week visit. Two of those weeks I wasn't really able to spend any time with them because of work, school, and this MASSIVE paper I had to write. I even took the paper with me on our camping trip with the kids!
The paper was actually a lot of fun to do, just a lot of work as well. I took Abnormal Psychology and, along with our normal class reading, we had to diagnose a "public figure" and then research the current literature on our diagnosis. I decided to diagnose Hyun Bin's character from the Korean drama "Secret Garden" with a diagnosis of Narcissistic Personality Disorder and Situation Specific Phobia: claustrophobia. It was a lot of fun to analyze his character and read some of the research. Well, some of the research was horrendous. I had several articles that were based in neuroscience which is not my forte. I was looking up at least one word per paragraph. I though I was done with that after college Spanish...
After the paper was done, I was able to spend a little more time with the kids, sewing, crafting, shopping. Good times.
The parents took the kids back to San Diego and then headed off to spend a week and a half in Arizona for an art retreat for Mom and work for Dad. This left Jesi and I alone with full run of the house! Woo hoo! We crafted to our little hearts' content, did a little cleaning, and overall had a grand old time.
Parents got home Wednesday night (more like REALLY EARLY Thursday). I worked Thursday and then I started my awesome FIVE DAY WEEKEND!!
This five day weekend was pretty random. I usually work every Saturday, but my boss gave me this Saturday off. With no sessions Friday, Monday, or Tuesday, I ended up with a five day weekend. I spent Friday hanging out with Jesi at a movie. Saturday we went with Dad out to Saturday Market.
Jesi and I had a fabulous time, but were a little sad. Usually Saturday Market is SUPER fun. But this time it just seemed like the same old stuff. I wish they would change things up a bit. They've had the same vendors for years. And a little variety, please! All the jewelry looks the same, the handicrafts all have the same feel to it. There were very few booths that really stood out from the rest. After a while they just kind of all blended together. Jesi compared it to shopping at markets when we were in Vietnam and Korea. I personally think shopping at those places is way more fun because 1) it's always a game to try and buy ANYTHING because of bargaining and language barrier (more fun on some days than others), 2) every once in a while you find really cool stuff that you would never see in the States.
Now it's Sunday and I think I'm going to try and get a little more picking up done in my room, maybe get some things ready for our trip to Utah. We're all taking Jesi down to start up at BYU and then I'm staying with her for a few days before heading up to Salt Lake to stay and visit with my old roommate Mindy (whom you might remember from my trip to New York). I'm super excited for visiting Mindy and playing with Jesi, but really sad that Jesi is going to be gone at college. TT^TT She'll have tons of fun, though, and I'll be getting really busy with grad school soon.
Jesi and I had a bit of fun yesterday. We put on a TON of make up, two sets of false eyelashes, cute clothes, and took pictures! We were trying to go for a porcelain doll look, and I think the make up worked, though our poses and expressions ended up more cutesy than doll like.
Here's a quick preview of our pictures. I'll post more later.
Welcome!! My name is Jennifer and this is my brand spanking new blog. If you've known me for a while, you've probably seen my old blog from high school and college or my blog from teaching English in South Korea. I've been back from Korea now for almost a year and a lot has happened since then.
For one, I got into graduate school! Starting at the end of September this year, I will be starting up full time at Portland State in the School Counseling program. I am really excited and a little nervous (for various reasons).
I've also got a part time job working for a local franchise of Dream Dinners. It's not super fancy, but everyone there is really nice and I get to do a little bit of design work for the owner so that's always fun.
I'm living with my parents to save on grad school costs. This is both a good and bad thing, through no real fault of my parents. Just, you know... being 25 and living with your parents can be a little stressful. Most of the time we're good, though.
Currently, I am having a really awesome week hanging out with my baby sister while our parents are in Arizona.. This super awesome fun time week follows a pretty sucky week where I hit a deer (car, deer, and me are okay) and a parked car (their car is not so much okay). I then ate myself into a mild tummy ache at a pizza arcade place before going to work with a crappy attitude and a fake smile. So, this week is most appreciated.
One thing you need to understand is that my baby sister, Jesi, aka Chicky, is my best friend. There are seven and a half years separating us, but we are still super close.
She just graduated high school and is leaving for college in less than three weeks! We've spent this week doing very little that is productive, but lots of fun has been had.
I took Jesi downtown to Powell's City of Books, a giant new and used bookstore. We spent about two hours roaming around before deciding we'd spent enough money this week (did I mention we went to Old Navy as well this week?)
Much of the rest of our time was spent playing with the sewing machine. Jesi made me an awesome, beautiful pillow with a favorite quote from Doctor Who: "Bowties are Cool." I made her a pillow to match the quilt for her new apartment that has her nickname on it: "Chicky."
Jesi still hasn't quite gotten a handle on how to work her quilt through the sewing machine to finish off the edges. We might have to take it over to LaFawn and beg her to let us use her stronger machine to punch through the thick edges.
We made a few other things as well this week. Jesi made a couple of adorable stuffed animals and I
hemmed some pants and made a few lace underskirts to add length to some of my shorter dresses.
At some point we are supposed to clean the house. We have plans to get this done, so hopefully the house will look 100% better by the time parents get back next week.
