the ups and the downs

Here I am... a week into my adventure and slowly but surely learning that it's nothing like what I expected. There are things that I like more than I thought, and things that I don't know as much as I thought.

1. Making all new friends. It is soo tough. When we first got here (we meaning me and Courtney), we thought we would just find all these new friends and have a new life. We learned after a week of working working working, we still barely have any friends and are still working our tails off to get new ones.. particularly boys because....

2. Finding new friends. A couple days into the journey, Court and I decided we have truely found the girls that we want to spend our time with. Their names are Tessa, Peri, and Macall. All from Utah, yes we came this far to make friends with more Utahns :) These girls have their heads screwed on tight and they have their fingers screwed on correctly... meaning, they have their priorities and standards in the perfect place and they aren't WEIRD. Some of the girls here are so wack that you just want to smack their little perky little faces

from left to right we have me, Court, Macall, Peri (p.s. her real name is Perpagillian), and Tessa

3. DRESS CODE!! Ay yi yi, so much more strict that I ever imagined. We can wear shorts... on Sundays we wear skirts and dresses.... oh- but everything has to go PAST our knees. Got dress coded twice for that. Also, we have to be lookin' our best so, no athletic shorts in the dining hall- even if they are past your knee length basketball shorts. It's been quite the battle. I had no idea that boys get so turned on by knee caps.

4. I plan to buy myself a ukelele and become good at it. I learned a song at the PCC the other day. "You are my Sunshine". My very first song. The man that taught us was actually really really nice!



5. I love Courtney Ingalls with all my heart. We get separated for a few hours a day and it is the most painful part of this journey. We never ever spent time together in high school and I have spent the last 15 days with her and LOVED it. Such a cute girl. Such a great example.

more things to come on a later date. we are off to a "marriage conference" dance to meet future husbands! only at byu
oh... did I ever mention that here, we strongly advise to have study groups.. ya you might learn a little but you can meet your future companion (a quote straight from my biology teacher)

bugs. asians. and easy mac.

oohhhh byuh college life.... where to even begin?
We arrived Friday morning, and 2 hours later I had gotten in trouble for not following honor code. Are you aware that at BYU your shorts don't go to your knee... they go past your knee. Boys apparently get very turned on by knee caps. Something that I was completely unaware of.

Next item of business, this place is asian nation. A lot of these people are from Hong Kong, Japan, Fiji, Tonga, Africa... all over. How crazy that I am the minority in this situation?! Never had that happen before. It has really opened my eyes to how lucky I am. Yesterday in Sunday School, we went around and said our name, where we are from, and what we want from Christmas. I felt so spoiled as I heard people say "all I want is to go see my family." "all I want is to be able to talk to my family on the phone" "all I want is to see all of your smiles." "I would like a Book of Mormon that is in english" "I would like to be able to understand what everyone is saying so I can laugh with all of you" "I don't really think I need anything" WOW! I am sooo lucky!! It was just a given for me that I am headed home for Christmas. That is a dream for some people. Seriously, just counting my many blessings.

Now for the bugs, we have just decided to make them our friends. Places they love: our beds, table tops, and walls. When you get to the point where you are killing bugs on the screen of your laptop and think nothing of it is when you know you have been around these little guys quite a bit. Breakfast is not served in the cafeteria here, so Sunday mornings we don't go there, so by after church you are SO ready to eat yummy food in our lovely cafeteria... well me and Court were completely unaware that on Sundays and Sundays only, the cafeteria is closed from 2-4.... we happened to get there at 2:04. awesome. So we decide to head over to our little community kitchen at our dorms that no one ever uses and cook up some easy mac and cheese. Now, let me tell you why no one uses this kitchen. You walk in and see bugs. You might as well be greeted by bugs. Crawling ALL OVER the countertop. As you decide to snoop around and look in all of the cupboards, you run into dried up who knows what kind of food. little mini ants are of course eating at this as well. Then just for kicks, we look into the oven and BUGS AND BUGS AND BUGS come crawling out of the thing!! They must have been stuck in there for ages. Gross, right? Needless to say, we finally pulled through and ate in the cafeteria.

I'm having fun. Classes start on Wednesday and things won't feel quite so much like efy. If this place has taught me one thing, it is how lucky I am to have the family that I have and the means that we have. I am very very fortunate to have sanitary things and have life come so easily for me.
Until next time, much love from your very hot, not air conditioned friend :)

all recovered :)

SOOO a week ago I finally got the surgery I have been waiting for. As junior year of high school began to open up, I started noticing my right eye was a little bit more open than my left, but didn't think much of it. Then, the summer before senior year I started noticing that it looked like my left eye was closed when I smile for pictures. NOT GOOD. (especially considering the fact that my friends are crazy picture takers) I made sure to try hard to open my eye real wide for my senior picture and just let it be. You can tell it's saggy, but it was the best I could do.

I wanted it all taken care of before this summer because I don't want a droopy eye in hawaii and I didn't want it for Megan's wedding. Well, I got my wish half way. Last week on Thursday, August 11, I was put under and this is what lovely little Dr. Del Canto did to me. He flipped over my eyelid and tightened the muscle in it. Then proceeded to stitch up some of the tissue and then fold the lid back to where it belongs. I spent the next week icing my eye and let me tell you. It's hard to ice one eye, be able to see out the other, and not have to hold the ice pack there. Needless to say, Sue and I got pretty dang creative- and when I say Sue and I, I mostly mean Sue. We tried to put the bag of peas on my face and then put a sleeping mask on me, but that didn't work because then I couldn't see out of my right eye. Then, Suzy went and bought some kids size hair bands (those stretchy ones that go like around the outer rim of your hair, not like an elastic for a pony tail) and we would criss cross them. It worked quite well until my head stretched them to their limit and they weren't tight anymore. We ended up doing that for about 3 days and on the 4th day, I used an old masquerade mask from zurchars and wore that around with an ice pack under it. I looked good!

This was a conversation I had with Sawyer (3 years old) the day I got my surgery while I had the hair bands and peas on my eye.
Sawyer: Sarah? What are you doing?
Me: I'm in my bed! My eye hurts.
Sawyer: Oh. Cause you are a pirate?
Few minutes later Sawyer comes back into my room.....
Sawyer: Hey sarah? What do you say?
Me: Huh?
Sawyer: Tell me what you say!
Sarah: aaarrrrgggggg
Sawyer got laughing hyserically and played that game the rest of the afternoon, come to find out the next day he woke up asking his mom if he could go "visit the pirate"

I really didn't swell up or bruise too bad. AND my eye didn't really hurt that much but it was SOO itchy. The stitch in my eye felt like a hair that I just wanted to pull out. We went back yesterday and good 'ol doc pulled the stitches out... OUCH!! But it's over. And I'm alive. And I have two normal eyes now!!!!!!! :) :) I shall now try to post a pretty funny picture of myself in recovery.

a new perspective

I have been the most unfaithful little blogger... it will not happen again :) I want to fully blame this on the fact that I cannot figure out how to put pictures on for the life of me.. but thats not completely true. I have been SO busy that any free moment I get, I go running and/or sleep. My apoplogies to all who read..... so I guess, sorry jasmine.

SO I will just give a giant brief overview of my summer. Went on the cruise. Most amazing week ever. LOVED it. If I could spend more time there, I most definately would have. Met some coold people and just embraced the caribbean. Maybe pictures to come later?

Second, I had a birthday. It was a decent day. Just worked. Then, that night the most amazing thing happened to me. Kellie suprised me with all my friends meeting at Cafe Rio for dinner but sitting there across the room was my brothers good friend, Chase. I have been in secret love with Chase for at least 5 years. And guess what he did? Kissed me on the freakin' cheek. It meant nothing to him but sure made my heart flutter. (p.s. I'm not literally in love with him-figure of speech)

What else? I've just been working working working. I found myself a new best friend. She is about 2 feet tall. Short brown hair. 3 years old. Is barely fitting into 2 year old clothes. Mostly wears crocks. Can't eat wheat. And lives to be in the swimming pool. Her name is Charlie and I can't get enough of her. One day, I'll be able to post videos on this thing and you can learn for yourself what a sweetheart of girl she is. She is constantly remind me she loves me, she can sing disney songs, she calls my mom "zoo", and she calls me mom. I will seriously miss her SOOO much when I leave :(

I have been spending so much time with my mom recently and have loved it. She's really great. We always seem to laugh and laugh. First at the fat girl eating her moms soups, next at the girl dressed up at the soccer game with her diet pepsi, next at grandma barton telling me I need to stop by Australia while I am in Hawaii, than at the old lady scooting backwards at the rest home... just everything :) if there was a reason I wasn't moving to Hawaii, it would be because I don't want to be away form Sue, BUT as part of our adventures together today, we watched "Soul Surfer"... I would reccomend it to ANYONE. I cry everytime. There is a big theme in it, not looking at things so closely, but getting a bigger perspective on life. In this movie, she's lost her arm, but she is trying to see the good it can bring out in her. In baby graham's case, he is 8 months old and fighting leukemia, but his family can still have a good attitude about it and know that he will make it through and is acknowleding how much it has brought their family toghether. I want to be able to do that. I feel like I could really grasp a bigger perspective on things. You can really stop reading this if you are bored yet because at this point I am just rambling.

34 days until my big adventure. I. CAN'T. WAIT. New people :) New surroundings :) New school :) crazy bugs :/ cafeteria food everyday :/ BRING IT ON :)

Almost There

Well said Princess Tiana. Well said.

I've always wanted to have something in common with a disney princess and today I figured it out. Princess Tiana. (extra plus, she's brown)

Tiana had a dream. Her dream was to own a restaurant. She had dreamed this since she was little. It was going to take a lot of hard work and sacrifices to do this. She risked friendships and sleep so she could earn money for this restaurant. I am not quite this extreme but.. I have some valuable arguments. I have a wish. My wish is to move to Hawaii, attend BYU there and have the time of my life. I've only dreamed this for about 9 months. It will take lots of work and sacrifices to achieve this. I will risk being away from my family and time spend with friends due to working full time this summer.

"There ain't nothin' gonna stop me now, 'cause I'm almost there". I made it through high school. I really had to push through those last few months but I did it and am as happy as ever. Nothin' could possibly stop me now.

I'm sure I will face my "trials and tribulations". I know I will, but with the help of the man upstairs and some phone calls with my best friend, Sue- how bad could it be? Not bad at all. Not one bit.

Every single one of my posts is about graduating and moving away. I will try to stray from the topic... it's just constantly on my mind.

ITS GETTING CLOSER

AND CLOSER

AND CLOSER

EVERYDAY!!!!!!!

Be looking forward to pictures of Jude and Knoxx comin up on the blog. First day of being their nanny tomorrow :)

until next time,

your soon to be hula dancer ;)

I've been lying this whole time...

As the end of high school is comin' around and I am seriously starting to think about reality, I've been really good about putting my time towards earning money and saving it. I really have. I say to people "I don't shop anymore." I have a confession ladies and gentlemen, it's a lie.

I am addicted to online shopping for "running wear". Cute jackets, tanktops, and all different sorts of pants.... I can't stay away. I don't buy any of it but I could stare and search for HOURS. We all have our weaknesses and this one is mine.

Besdies when I'm not at school, even when I'm not running- I wear my running stuff. It's comfty yet cute. Casual yet not lazy. Anything a girl could ever ask for. I went 4 1/2 days straight wearing a sports bra. Honestly, 4 of the greatest days of my life. Enough support that I'm not in pain.... was that tmi??

Anyway, Clark likes nordstrom, Jazzy likes makeup, and I like workout clothes. That's just how it is. Now I can rest at night knowing that I'm not living a lie.