Embrace the Camera Day-hoping

Dears,

I've been coming and going quite a lot this week as you can tell. It's been quite exhausting and 

I'm hoping for a relaxing weekend!

In the car just about to leave for dinner at Kevin's parents home.

It's time to recharge my batteries.

But in the meantime, even with everything that is going on at school, I have some fun things coming up this weekend just in time for Lovers Day.

Plus a giveaway.

And by the way, I'm so excited to share this with you!

It's finally happening and only three months away. 

{even though it seems a lot longer than that}

But it's soon, right?

Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement. Nothing can be done without hope and confidence.
~Helen Keller

Fingers crossed!

Dear Joyful Readers,

This past weekend has been intense. My semester has been extremely crazy. I've done nothing but homework lately. But on the bright side, it's my last semester! 

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Here in less than an hour I will be taking a giant Communication Law test. Keeping fingers crossed! 

Wish me luck and thanks so much for being a lovely reader.

I will be back later with fun posts and I'll share with you my favorite picture that I took of Kevin and Aiden yesterday.

Along with all the superbowl fun.

Hope you had a great weekend!

Happy Monday!

~Lis 

Kevin's World - Family Studies

My family from our wedding day.

As many of you know, I am close to graduating.  This semester, I just need to finish up my senior project and present at the technical open house.  That counts as a three credit class.  However, to qualify for financial aid (Pell grant = free money = happy students) I needed to take an additional three credit hours.  I decided to take an internet class, so that it wouldn't interfere with my work schedule.  The three credit internet class that seemed the easiest was FCS 2400, or Family Studies.  So far, I haven't been disappointed.  With less than an hour a week, I have been doing rather well.  The class has filled all expectations of me getting money from the government while doing the least amount of extra work possible.

As you may have guessed, this is not a really a post about how easy my semester is.  Even though I signed up for the class because it looked easy, I have been rather surprised at how interested I have been in it.  On more than one occasion, I have mentioned the class content to Lisa.  This week especially, when the teacher opened up a discussion on immigration, I was more than happy to put in my two cents' worth.  We have covered information on the changing nature of families, the statistics of family life, and different paradigms for studying families, to name a few of the themes.  So often, discussions about family are framed in a religious or moral context that I have found it interesting discussing these same issues in an academic context.  One assignment included a link to a conservative group dedicated to preserving the traditional family that we were to view and critique, either agreeing or disagreeing with their views.  Critical thinking, after all, is what separates a university education from vocational training.

Who knows, this one class that I took because it looked easy may spark a lifelong interest in families.  ;) After all, many people have successful careers based on interests and talents they didn't know they had until they got into college.  Maybe, just maybe, I'll try out this whole family thing some day and see if it's worth the hype it gets in this class.

But seriously, I am looking forward to starting our family, and this class gives me an opportunity to look at some of the issues facing families in a methodical way.

Congrats!!!

One of my favorite blogs won this award yesterday.

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I was thrilled!!!

And so to say Congrats to Today's Letters, I'm writing today's post in their style.

 Dear Mr. Jones, I love it when you make spaghetti for me. It's my favorite food in the WHOLE entire world! Dear University of Utah, You should really consider making it appropriate for students to be at least 20 minutes late for class. The fact that you keep tearing out parking lots to build new buildings and not replacing parking lots, makes it a parking nightmare.  Dear Dr. Vergobbi, Do you realize in your syllabus that you have written that we need to attend class at least five different times in bold, italicized, all caps and underlined? Will you please, please, Please, PLEASE, PLEASE let me into your Communication Law class so I can graduate? Yes, I will attend class. Dear Aiden, You are so funny. You pulled your socks off your feet when you were finished eating dinner. Grandpa then put the socks on your hands and you clapped with JOY. Dear Husband, I love you oh so much more. I don't know what I would do without you. Thanks for bringing me JOY everyday.

Dear Today's Letters, You guys are freakin' awesome! Congrats on being the Top Blog!

Tonight, I'm going to be cheering these ladies on.

My friend Sarah Nitta on the right with her mom Denise.

Pink team rocks! Sarah, I am sorry that you have gone through several miscarriages.

Good news is that you're making a difference in the world and I'm sure you'll have a healthy baby soon.

We're cheering you on!

If you have a moment, take a quick look at their video and be sure to watch them tonight!

She turned her cant's into cans,
and her dreams into plans.

~She

Convergence Text Story

College Students Need Healthy Options

by Ryan Agnew, Lisa Jones, Blakely Richmond and Zoe Cooper

We've all heard the term, "Freshman Fifteen," the declared title regarding college students and weight gain. Studies have shown that 3/4 of college students gain weight their freshman year, learning unhealthy habits that remain with them the rest of their life. These unhealthy habits will impact their weight for years to come.

Being that we ourselves are college students, we know the influences that fast food has on our busy lives. A lot of college students work while they are going to school, making our lives full of deadlines and a rush-rush attitude. For instance after working an eight or nine hour shift at work, it's late in the evening, the typical college student still has to head home and do homework or study. It was a long day and most college students are starving constantly, so given the option of going home and preparing a meal that will take time and effort or just stopping by a convenient drive thru on the way home, the majority of students would probably take option two.  Most students know that fast food is not good for them but with our lives in constant motion, we often suppress our nagging conscious and give in to the evils of fast food.

"Whether students like to admit it or not, many college students find themselves gorging on quick, convenient fast food on a regular or semi regular basis throughout their college years. Male students in particular choose to frequent fast food restaurants, due to its easy accessibility and relatively cheap price. Female students also were guilty of eating at fast food joints but they did not go as much because most female students were conscious about their weight and how many calories they were willing to ingest. Aside from being convenient and relatively inexpensive, research studies revealed that peer pressure also led many students to find their way to fast food. The study showed that when students friends wanted to go get some late night fast food, they felt compelled that they needed to follow the pack and often indulge themselves while there, even if they didn’t necessarily want any fast food to begin with."

With more than 30 percent of college students falling into the American College Health Association's obese or overweight categories, it's easy to see our concern. Too many students just may not have the healthy options available or accessible. At the Heritage Center here at the University of Utah, nutritional facts are not provided in the dining hall. There could be a difference for many students, in what they choose to eat, if they know what's in their food. 

While weight gain is the main concern on most of our minds, let's not forget that many students suffer from other eating disorders such as anorexia, bulimia, and binge eating. According to the Massachusetts Eating Disorders Association, 40 percent of female college students have eating disorders and 91 percent of female college students have attempted to control their weight through dieting. These statistics focus on women, which does not mean that eating disorders are not common for men and women alike. Eating disorders are more common than we realize and the hard part about being away from home is that for college students the eating disorder goes unnoticed. 

This happens to work both ways. Our bad habits that we gain during our college experience whether gaining or losing weight, will almost always go unnoticed at school and our friends may be in denial from their own disorders. Some may not even know the signs of an eating disorder. 

What can we do about this? It seems that too many students are at the extreme when it comes to eating. Yale University has set the example by providing healthy options to their students along with the information on what's best to be eating. They have even taken out white bread from their cafeteria.  Some schools such as Lincoln University are even making all obese students take a fit for life class. Experts say that the thing to do would be to make everyone take the fit for life class in the future to start making a difference. 

Statistically, 66 percent of college students don't consume the recommended amount of daily fruits and vegetables, 50 percent of all students get enough fiber intake, and 60 percent eat too much saturated fat. 

Starting bad eating habits now will almost guarantee bad habits for the future. Do you want the future of college students to be the next Biggest Loser contestant? It's time to bring the word healthy into college. 

Convergence Sounds Video

Remember the Convergence Video? Our project is actually on college students and what they eat. For example, "Freshman 15, truth or myth?" 

This particular assignment happened to be just sounds. Oh the sounds of food. Jim was impressed because everyone else had an interview as their sound. This was a lot of fun and I spent a lot of time editing out the laughing.

Convergence Video

Today started out a little rough. As usual, I was pretty tired when I woke up and hit the snooze button. Kevin kept trying to keep waking me up but I wouldn't. I ended up missing my first class and threw on clothes for next class. Luckily, I did make it on time for my convergence class.

Convergence Journalism is simply this: You learn how to make news videos.

For journalism students, we all know how to write and for the most part, take a decent picture. We've learned the very basics of layout enough to squeeze by. Oh but what about that thing we call the evening news? Nada. Zip. Zero. Zilch. Don't ask on how to use a video camera and let alone edit the it.

For this reason alone, I'm glad that this class was added on to the curriculum.

On this particular day we talked about sound and how we can use it. We talked about how sound can be very effective and why natural sound is the strongest. Our teacher introduced us to media storm and now I am hooked. The images are powerful, I want to learn how to take better pictures like that.

At the end of class, came the big let down. This teacher gave us a huge "required" extra credit assignment when I thought my group was ahead (note the word required). It may not seem like a lot when you read what it is, but trying to fit it in the busy schedule of three students in one day, almost impossible. I was pretty upset.

The list: Film and notice the sound in these places.

1. interview someone at a trax (train) station

2. interview someone at the union building

3. interview someone in an office

4. interview someone in an ideal place for sound, that you are not allowed to ever use in this class

The time to go to all these places, ugh, oh boy. We made it though.

Started with the ideal place for sound, in a studio. It included me without any makeup on and last minute thrown on clothes.

We then went to that particular teacher's office and he wouldn't let us interview him. So I did the next best thing. I called daddy, who of course let us come in to his office (not dressed as I should have been) and film him. It changed my whole entire mood, as he said, "This is cool." He even gave us his business card to prove that we worked on the assignment.

The next steps weren't that burden some anymore and my team member Ryan seeing how tired I was, agreed to the film his friend at the Union. The video didn't turn out that bad and we made our point about sound.

Thanks to daddy who saved the day. As a side note, I did eventually end up going home and showering that day.

My teammates think I have the coolest dad ever and I know that I do. I'm glad my dad thinks that I'm important. Maybe that's why that even though I'm grown up, I still call him daddy.

The day I felt I let everyone down

Saturday, was just a hard day. I was really sick and my mouth was hurting really badly. I think I've developed some sort of toothache and probably an infection in my gum. Otherwise, I'm not sure why it would hurt so bad. I broke my tooth back in July and thought nothing of it because it didn't hurt. Plus, while we have insurance, we just didn't have the money to go see the dentist. (I'm almost done paying off the doctor bills) I pretty much forgot about my tooth until it started to hurt.

Sadly, on Saturday it was the day of the big race. I trained for it and everything. Somehow, I just had to catch a cold the week of, miss lots of class, sleep away the days, not update the blog, not finish my homework, not read textbooks, not unpack, not clean and just sleep the time away. I hated it. There's a famous quote from my favorite book. "When you're in bed, you're dead."

I certainly felt like that. My sister-in-law Bethany came over the morning of and must of freaked out by the mess she saw. I bet she couldn't believe the amount of clothes that were everywhere. I did have them organized but the flimsy rack that they were hanging on decided to break. We just didn't have enough time to get a new one.

While they were gone, I did a lot of sleeping and when I woke up, a lot of cleaning. Mostly because I was pretty upset that I have lost Nie Nikon once again in the same week. I found it earlier in the week in a HUGE pile of laundry. So I attempted to search for it once again while trying to organize everything. Second let down, is because I had some amazing pictures of the Nixon family and their garden, which I still plan to share with you (once I find the camera). I just hope it's around the apartment and not in the Comm building.

I literally waste so much time looking for things around this apartment. I think I've lost my mind and I feel so behind on everything. However, I have a plan to buy hooks to put keys and cameras on so I don't lose them. I just don't know where to put my glasses quite yet.

I felt bad not running the race. They had such a great time! Just look how dirty they got. Lexi ran with my team and replaced me. It was nice of her to do that and be covered with mud, literally.

When Kevin came home, there was no sign of Nie Nikon and the place still wasn't that clean. Too many boxes still, if you ask me.

Luckily, I have a forgiving husband and took me out to buy a new rack to hang my clothes on after he came home (and showered, of course). Then he gave me a coupon to Orange Leaf for some frozen yogurt to use after Women's Conference. Good thing too, Jen and I had a wonderful time just catching up. We both had cake batter mixed with red velvet cake, with cheesecake bites on top. Way to end a hard day.

I'm sorry if I let you down. This whole sick thing better end soon.

I also really hope that this teacher has Nie Nikon. I have two classes in the same room. I'm hoping that it was an honest mistake there.

I'm going to the dentist later today, lucky me. First time in almost two years. Poor person who has to clean my teeth. I think they'll have to pull that tooth out. We'll see.

It started and ends with a list

I decided that for one of my upper division classes to take a Magazine Writing class. I was pretty excited to get into the habit of writing again and having someone critique my work. Little did I know how hard it would actually be.

These past few weeks we've been focusing on a personal essay and I have to say my colleagues and I have come up with some pretty interesting stories.

When it came for our first draft, I completely forgot about the assignment. I have a break between my classes and chose to print off a story from my blog. It seemed okay since it was a favorite experience and I didn't think she would linger long on the subject.

She liked the story but it just wasn't deep enough, not a story that would move someone. The example that she then gave me was about another student in my class who had saved an older woman from drowning and changed his life because of it. My thought was that not everyone has the opportunity or change to save someone's life. Even if we do save someone's life, we may not even know it because it may just be a simple act.

Then came the humiliating moment. She had us write down our top three of our highs in life, lows in life, and turning points in life to try to get everyone to think more deeply. I did this pretty quickly thinking that this would only stay in my notebook. The teacher then called on me and said, "What did you write?"

Gulp. I wasn't planning on sharing but participation points are a huge part of our grade and so I let it go.

Highs

mission

getting married

graduating high school-finishing the yearbook

Lows

miscarriage

getting sick in Pelotas (while on my mission)

failing my first year of college

Turning Points

going to Woods Cross

joining yearbook

going on a mission

miscarriage

The teacher proceeds to write these up on the board one by one and I can hear this huge gasp from everyone. I flinched but stayed strong only because Lexi was sitting next to me. She then proceeds to highlight which ideas she wants me to write about. She highlights two, mission and miscarriage, lingering over the miscarriage. I gulp again, knowing I don't even want to go there. I want and need an A in her class more than anything, I weigh my pros and cons to see if I can get out of it.

I thought about it for about a week. I didn't want to touch my book or any of the homework until I decided.

I knew it was coming and the real subject that the teacher wanted me write about the miscarriage. Another girl in the class starts to ask me about it, she's only 18, with her whole life ahead of her. She tells me that she is interested because it probably has happened a lot to students but no one will talk about it. She then proceeds to help me list ideas on what type of angle I could take.

That did it for me. No matter how difficult it was, it was time to let it out.

I come up with another draft, this time something that is deep for me and has forever changed my life. The teacher asks me to read the first few paragraphs and has to stop me at two because I can't go on. Lexi takes over and later tells me how writing can be very therapeutic. I agree with her.

What I don't think what the teacher knows is exactly how hard it was for me to do this. Right now, if the miscarriage hadn't happened, I wouldn't be in school, I would be taking care of my newborn baby.

I still haven't finished the final draft because I have to take it in increments not to fully break down, but this is what I realized.

The story begins like this:

It started with a list. A list about joy and things that make me happy. The list was "100 things of joy" for me to complete during the entire year. Most of it, was centered around our baby that was due in September. We were thrilled with the idea of becoming parents.

There is a feeling of the greatest joy, at least for us, when we found out we were going to be parents. Just the thought of it made my husband Kevin and I, fill with immediate happiness. We felt we were ready for this next step in our lives, that we would have a family. My list included several things such as "buy a crib."

The story will end somewhat like this:

It ends with a list. A list that is growing everyday about joy and all the things that are wonderful in this world. I have learned to cherish everyday and to not waste time. My motto has always been, "Live life to the fullest." By finding joy everyday, I know that I will accomplish this and will be able to overcome everything difficult in this world.

To you my readers, thank you for being apart of my journey. It has been difficult, but I know we can all overcome hard things. I may or may not post my final draft when I'm done, I'm thinking about it. If you would be interested in reading in, maybe you comment on your vote. The teacher is talking about finding a family magazine to publish it, she liked it that much. All I can say is, we'll see.

Thank you for now.