Hey so

I'm back. I found another computer that wasn't being used and that wasn't going to be shut down. *phew* this keyboard is somewhat different, which is why I'm back here. Okaybye

This will be quick

because I still have to finish this paper and not much time to do it in. Okay: random thought of the day: Rebecca Black's initials? RB: Really Bad. Ponder that for a while.
Ummmm I feel like there's some other stuff to say but mainly anyone reading this is going to be disappointed because there's not really any content it's just me warming up my fingers and getting ready to typetypeteyp
on that note, I sure am glad that we have computers. Imagine if our teachers wanted us to print our essays and we had to rent out a time in a legit printing place (like where the Book of Mormon was originally printed) and we had to set every letter by hand. That would get rather annoying. And The computer just told me that they're all shutting down for devotional soon.
Cool. That's way neat.

It must be that time again

and by that time I mean I'm working on my paper. Yay. I'm a little tired-tipsy right now, so my thoughts are not coming together very well at all right now. Hopefully this word vomit will increase my thought processes, and enable me to write my essay faster and easier and more awesomer. Yeah. This will *totally* help. Awesomer is exactly what I need to use on my essay.
Actually, I'm in a different part of the library today, and I'm liking this keyboard better than the last one, so it should at least help my WPM in that respect (though I'm still a sloppy typer; good thing this isn't a type writer or else I'd have to put correction fluid all over the place. So I had my German party today: we had lots of good food (this one kid made a pizza on wheat bread. Suprisingly good!). But the feature of class was that every groups' skits were due. Three groups had filmed their skits, and the other two groups (ours included) performed ours live. My favorite of the other skits was the two guys who had done a rough translation of RB's Friday into German, and filmed themselves biking around. Actually, I might be able to find it. Gimme a sec.
YES! I found it :)

It's made even better by the fact that they can't sing..at all. Gelol.
Ok, that just made me really happy again. I'll leave you all alone now, and try to get another page down. See you in another page and/or occurrence of writer's block

Long time no see

Back so soon...it must just mean I'm procrastinating. Though I almost have a full page! Only 4 more to go :(
So random information about myself: I've been going to the gym with some of my roommates (mainly Chase, though) for the past two months (on and off). We change up our routine every time, but we keep one thing every time we go: the bench. I think it's my best measure of improvement: When I first went I started off benching something like 85 pounds; as of Tuesday, I benched 135. And not maxing out, either, but I got a full 10 reps in.
So college is awesome: I'm having teacher sanctioned class parties in at least three of my classes: the only thing that's bad about that is that I have to remember to bring stuff in: on Monday I have to bring cups in for my social dance party, and then I'm bringing chips in for my German 101 party (Deutscheparty?)! The following Wednesday is my acting class's party (and did I mention that it's the day I get my mission call? no? well it is. WO0000OO00oo00OO00oOooOOO0t!).
Ummmmm go go gadget gratuitous video:

Hello World

yo. Sup. Okay, let's cut to the chase. I haven't been posting recently because I haven't had the time. There's this whole college thing around me and that, surprisingly, is rather time/commitment/life/blegh consuming. If I happen to not be posting, one might safely assume one of two extreme cases: 1) I am tearing my life to shreds, playing video games at all hours of the day/night, never going to sleep and possibly developing a drug habit. Or 2) I am spending my free time improving myself, going to the gym, going running, actually doing homework that isn't due tomorrow, and getting my mission papers ready. Yes folks, my mission papers. I got them all prepared, and turned in 10 days ago (Sunday before last). I should get my call one week from today (provided you're reading this and it's Wednesday, otherwise just go to next Wednesday). So that's FREAKING EXCITING!!! *ahem*.
To be honest, the biggest reason I'm updating, writing all of this stuff that no one cares to read anyways, is because I have a paper to write, and I am a master procrastinator. Now, I've had my roommate hide my video games, and I ditched my laptop in order to come to the library and use a computer that doesn't have any sort of games on it at all. Of course, then I found some flimsy excuse about how I'm not used to these keyboards, and so the best way to deal with that was to hash out a blag post. (yeayy). This is the result of my 'efforts to get acquainted with my computer'.
Short blurbtastic blurb about my life: I have finals in two count 'em two weeks. Actually, it's more like 10 days. I have the next two days of class, plus the following week, then finals. Of course, some of my finals start before the proclaimed Week O' Pain. Both of my dance classes are testing next week, Swing in my social dance class, and our final dance for my clogging class.
The below, for funs, is the first dance we did (in class we test a skills test, then a short solo, then a dance. This video was the first dance we did, and we are in the process of learning our last one now, which we will test next Thursday).

I know I could have been a lot better, what with energy and high knees and remembering the progression of the steps and such. Don't hate.
Anyways, I should probably get to my essay now. If I do find myself faltering, I'll come right back here, don't you worry :p

Self referential random title

Hello again. I speak to you from beyond the veil...of procrastination. My life is actually pretty busy, whether you believe it or not, and while one (me) might think from time to time about updating one's (my) blog, such a thing does not happen, not when there's minecraft, or dates, or webcomics, or what have you.
However, I received my due chastisement when, in a bout of such procrastinatory action, I found my way to Brian's Blog (alliteration always intended), where lo and behold, he too, was lazy and not updating. Key word there being 'was,' because he is updating now; one of his Kentucky friends had convinced him to do this cool little '30 DAY BLOGGING CHALLENGE EXTRAVAGANZA OF SERIOUS AWESOMENESS." Actually..... the 30 day thing was his. But I'm keeping the whole thing, for reasons of my own. Basically, the premise is this: every day for the next 30 days I post something on a theme or topic and you like whether you like it or not (wait..). Technically, by taking on this challenge, this becomes day 0: the 30 day challenge explanation and description. It's day 0 in the 30 day challenge...I guess it's an array or something of size 31? and we're at index 0? sure. Let's go with that.
Change of topic. So, I was sick on Monday. Like, really sick. Sicker than I remember being in a long time. It started really suddenly, too, on Sunday night: at around 7:00 I just suddenly started getting cold, like, really cold. I put on four layers of clothing, then got in bed and shivered my way to a fitful sleep. Monday I stayed in bed. Like, all day. I got up to drink, use the bathroom, and throw up (twice). ..yay. Out of the blue, Courtney texts me asking if I'm alright, which I manage to convey to her that I'm not, and she brings me blessed things: powerade, tylenol, chicken soup. It would have made me very happy at the time were I not totemo miserable. As it was, I was marginally less miserable due to the supplies. (Thanks Court!)
Not to mention that I got fired on Sunday...I mean, on Sunday, really? I worked grounds, right? and as such, I was expected to come in whenever it snowed more than an inch. I was told that if I missed three snow removals, I would be fired. Come Saturday morning, I missed my second one. However, it turns out my boss was more lenient with the hirees than she should have been; there needed to be a budget cut and mine was the one that got slashed. So I'm also looking for a job, as well as trying to make up all this work from the Sick Days (duhn duhn DUHHHN).
I feel like I ramble...do I ramble? I kind of always thought that that was kind of the general nature of my blog. I guess so. Moving on!
Last week I did some pretty cool stuff: stuff that I'll only glance over now, but that if I had blogged then would get pretty detailed overviews. Last Friday I skipped all (3) of my classes to go to SLC. The cozening behind this was A Thousand Suns Tour--Linkin Park's tour for their new album. I'd never been to a legit concert before, what with standing wicked close to the stage and having people spit beer on me (accidentally, I'm sure) from behind. But it was awesome. I even knew like four of the songs that LP played. Then, of course, I got this awesome T-Shirt to prove I'd been and that I like music too. No really, I do! I swear, I like music as much as the next guy!
It was awesome. Pics:

before the show; right against the stage

as we were walking up and away (most of the things on the ground were beer cups)

So that was cool. Next thing!
The Sunday before that, I went to Bronson and Cherie's (?) house to celebrate Grandma's and BJ's birthdays (I apologize for being inconsistent with apostrophes, but I don't know which use is correct), as well as BJ's engagement! Whooo!1! (of course that's old news by this point, but.....whatever). Analia (lo siento de la deletreado, no se como hacerlo) had gotten this awesome cake from a friend of hers. Pics:

Cake! movie themed: there are pictures of BJ on edible paper behind the marzipan film strips

The cake was wicked good: it was layered with I don't even know what but it was good. Some fruit something or other.

The happy (awesome) couple!

obligatory "awwwwww :)"

Kay, this was like the most amazing thing ever: there's this guy in the valley who is independently wealthy, and so decided to make his own chocolate. This stuff is so beyond good. It makes lindt taste like wax. Which it doesn't. So think on that.

Grandpa taking a turn bowling on the Kinect

Ok, those were some events. Now some other things. Pokemon Black and White launched in Europe today; they hit our shelves on Sunday. I wasn't going to get it. Then I spent (more procrastination) some time on their website and became convinced that I might possibly quite enjoy either black or white. Of course, with the whole out of a job thing, I've promised myself I won't get one until I have a new, reliable source of income under me. But it should be cool!
umm lessee: oh, one of my friends in the ward has set up his own minecraft server, and we spent some time playing on that. It's pretty cool.
I'm going to bed now. Expect another post from me tomorrow, or else make sure I do post tomorrow

so this is why the call it a web-log...

So, there's this thing that happened to me. It's called (and this is the scientific term for it (or so the doctors tell me)): Schwester-was-has-royally-messed-things-up-con-mi-Libro-De-Cara, or Kamarimasita for short. So, I have no working facebook right now, and don't really expect the all-powerful facebook team to fix it in the near future. Cool. Which means, I've had all these really cool and smart and funny things to tell people....but haven't been able to put them anywhere. Of course, as everyone knows, thoughts that don't get put anywhere gradually waste away in the brain, so I've got a municipal dump somewhere in my prefontal cortex. If this goes on for much longer, I won't be able to tell anyone when I get my mission call, and when I'll be opening it, which would just be annoying.
The moral of the above story was Don't Expect Great Things from Disadvantaged People.
So, Peter Pan (that one thing I was doing that one time) ended a while back (right after that one time) which leaves me with all this free time....that I quite quickly filled back up. Tuesdays and Thursdays, my class schedule is such that I am in the RB for my last class of the day, which makes it really quite easy to go to the gym with my roommates (easy for me. They still have to come across campus. But that's good for them. It'll build character). I've gone, oh, 4 times in the last two weeks....and I am quite surprised at what is happening to me. Mentally, at least, I've always kind of identified with the archetype of the skinny, quiet kid that most people pretty much ignores but turns out to be a super genius and saves the planet..well, at least I did until I started not being that person (which started in about 6th grade when I learned what the term 'love handles' meant). But enough reminiscing about my dark and lonely past. That's what biographers are for. The story I'm getting to is that I'm starting to build up some appreciable muscle, and it's a nice change. Yay.
The moral of the story above is that Looks can be Deceiving, so don't eat the special of the day.
With Peter Pan being over, I am able to focus on my classes, especially my TMA 123 class (fundamentals of acting), which was during Peter Pan (which meant I wasn't able to go to it). Turns out, it takes a lot of time; basically the only work we do in that class is scenes, but that work is compounded by the fact that the scenes are two-person scenes, and to do any appreciable work at all the two individuals involved in said scene must contrive a time and location at which to practice. So that takes a lot of my free time.
In all previous scenes, we were learning different, well, fundamentals of acting. These were objectives, tactics, physical obstacles, room conflicts, and secrets. With every new item appended to our learning, we were to create a scene and include all of the things we had learned thus far. However, come Wednesday, we were assigned scene partners and assigned a specific scene from a play. So that is what I am working on for that class; my scene is from a play called "Mary Mary." My character's name is Bob. So that's cool.
The moral of the above story is To Eat your Breakfast, because the Llamas only have Fruit Hats.
More coming.

Did you hear the one about the giraffe with asthma?

...ya, me neither.

This is epic. I wish I had been able to be home to see it. I wish I could have been in it, when it really comes down to it. Probs to J-Csap and Will for the reenactment.
So, this is really short: I've had peter pan all week, and in one hour from now it will be all I'm doing today. Before that time I have to read these articles for New Testament and take a quiz on them. Also, I have another German test on Monday.
It snowed earlier this week, which made work a lot easier (since we don't actually have to shovel the main pathways (the tractor plows take care of that), when it snows we just do general ice melt and curb cutting). And my first full payday was yesterday (by which I mean I was paid for a full two weeks of work, instead of a few days here and there as I was last semester before I really got into the swing of things). So that makes me happy.
I'm really enjoying my Japanese class: we're learning katakana, which is a system only used for words borrowed from other languages. So I can spell tape in katakana (romanized as 'teepu') or cake (keeki), but not any of the native Japanese words we're learning in class. It's actually quite fun, working on learning an entirely new alphabet. I'm thinking of getting a whiteboard for our kitchen, so I can practice there; also, it would just be neat to have a whiteboard.
I had a clogging quiz on Thursday; I had only gotten 5 hours of sleep the night before, and so I was ex-haus-ted. I did as well as I could, but it was physically difficult to get my legs up and going.
We started the cha-cha in social dance this week; but that means that we're testing the foxtrot on Wednesday. Cool. It's social dance, but I haven't really gotten to know anyone from the class because it's basically 'dance for a half minute, then switch partners. Rinse, repeat'.
Also notated:
||: dance for half minute, then switch partners :||
or:
while(class.hasNext()) {
dance for half minute;
switch partners;
}
all that to say that I don't really know who I could dance with for test.
Ummmm okay I have to get back to my readings now. Go Dwarves!
Also Cougars! We beat SDSU on Wednesday, which is like a huge deal. I guess. I was in the DeJong concert hall the whole time :/
Cool. Tchüss!

...and the yak wanted to go to Belgium, but I stayed back

hello, hello, hello! It's that time of the (insert time period here) again! I finally have a free day in which I can do stuff. Not to say that yesterday wasn't productive: I slept in until 12:30, then got a haircut from a friend, made German pancakes for breakfast, and played racquetball with my roommates. Of course, Peter pan followed...and it was an interesting show. I'm sure that it was just the product of 5 full nights of work, but things just got sloppy. NO, we did not drop anyone. It wasn't that kind of sloppy. There was one part, though, in the Peter v. Hook fight where Peter is supposed to fly, but she kind of forgot to put on one of her hooks...so she went up and did a kind of diagonal flip in place. There were other places, too, where the actors were rushing the music, and some lines that were forgotten or slow to come. I'm glad for everyone's sake that we get a two day break.
Today was church. Hurrah!
That's basically it....this past week was fraught with Peter Pan, and a small annoyance stemming from CS 235 having to do with a lab to turn in that I had to turn in late (good luck with that sentence). I am pretty much addicted to creamery chocolate milk, now...I'm going through a withdrawal seeing as how I finished it all last night and can't buy more until tomorrow...oh noes! In other news, I'm learning Japanese and German. Ist gut. Totemo Ii des nee. Also, I have a clogging quiz on thursday, and a New testament quiz on the same day. Also, I'm tired. I get really into these webcomics, and am reading them into the late hours of the night.
Ummmm yeah. We have ward prayer at 8, and our FHE is presenting. It should be fun. yeah. I want chocolate. Also, I think I'm going to go have a nap now..
Wait! I also went to walmart last night. I got some more contact solution, and some real peanut butter, and some parmesan cheese. And some bread. yay. wow. I need sleep. bye.

Pastels are for elephants and zoboomafu

So I know I went on this whole spiel about how I would post and then I basically didn't. But fear not, I have an excuse! It's called: I'm working and taking 18 credits. Yippee! I kid you not, every day of school so far has gone like this:
7:00--wake up and get ready for work (shower, breakfast, head out)
8:00-11:00--work. Usually consists of 40 mins to an hour and a half of actual work, the other time spent chilling in the shed or watching movies (last week I saw the A Team, Star Trek, and Bourne Ultimatum (twice)).
11:00 (12:00 TTh)-4:00--classes. MW are as follows: Social Dance 11:00. Japanese 1:00. German 2:00. CS 235 (Data systems) 3:00. Acting Fundamentals 5:00-7:00 TTh are as follows: New Testament 12:00. Japanese 1:00. German 2:00. Beginning Clogging 3:00. Friday is the same as MW but without Social dance and Acting fundamentals.
5:00 and on 'till morning--Peter Pan rehearsals. As a fly boy, I'm there early so we can get in extra not-dropping-people practice. And, it being tech week, those things go pretttty long. Which is why I bring my DS to the rehearsals. =)
Rinse and repeat.
This weekend was pretty chill: Saturday started off with (surprise!) Peter pan rehearsal. I came home to find that one of my roommates had broken his leg and was in the hospital. I then went to a little Summer FHE reunion with my...well, with my summer FHE. DUh. After that I visited some people, and ended up watching that facebook movie (I think it's called social network or something). I wasn't too impressed: It was kind of just showing how Zuckerberg screwed some people over in making facebook, portraying him as someone with mild asperger's and the founder of Napster as some ruthless evil guy (appropriate synonyms not coming to my mind right now: the after-midnight-brain-dead-effect.) That night we hung out with our FHE sisters, playing some intense Nertz, monopoly deal (which I won after 2 rounds :) and various ping pong games. It was nice. Come Sunday, I got a new calling! (which I did find out about on Thursday, so it wasn't a huge surprise or anything :). I am no longer the ward service committee co-chair: I am now my FHE's indexing specialist, which means I'm going to have to come up with creative ways to get my family to do indexing, and keep indexing. I'm thinking baked goods...but am open to suggestions. (homework help? ice cream?). After church I proceeded to do all of my home teaching. BOOO YAH! I like getting it done early. We had ward prayer at one point (~8:00) after wards I was really tired, so of course I stayed up until like 12:00. Today was pretty chill: I slept in until 10:30 (yay!) and then got a lot of work done (which is good because I won't be able to get any done the rest of the week. The highlight of the day was when I got to hang out with a friend of mine (Jennifer), who actually left the ward after last semester and I thought I wasn't really going to see much of anymore, but came to church on Sunday (which gave me the opportunity to set up plans for today). We went to J-Dawgs, a hot dog place just south of campus that is actually really really good, and not too expensive, either. We then checked out the Carl Bloch exhibit at the museum of art, which was really quite amazing. Their set up is spectacular, and I hadn't realized what kind of works Bloch actually has done.

And then we played ping pong, in our own, not-able-to-play-ping-pong way (it was actually quite fun). *cue awe inspiring picture of ping pong...* The only thing about that whole thing was that I don't know whether to classify it as a date or not...I did pay for her food, but never was the word 'date' mentioned....but who am I to question the mysteries of the universe? :P
Anyways: My roommates and I did go to visit Greg today at the hospital; I brought him my DS so he wouldn't get too bored (I did forget to bring the charging cable, though, which made me sad ): But he seems to be doing alright.
FHE today was fun: we made cards for Greg's room, so that will be cool for him when he comes home.
Now I'm really tired, so I'm going to bed. G'night!

stuffstuffstuff

wow, a lot has happened in the past two days. I'm gonna start with Monday and see how far I get.
The special thing about Monday is that it was Winter NSO, or New Student Orientation for winter semester. Needless to say, there are far fewer people new to BYU come winter than there were in Fall. As a Y group leader, this made the experience quite a ways more enjoyable. Highlights of being a Y group leader: free breakfast, free lunch, free shirt, being able to help people new to campus around, being able to appear experienced and sage through being a Y group leader, etc. Because of the people constraints, the event took place over the course of a single day. We got campus tours in, education in Zion, and a library tour, as well as convocation and traditions of honor (which the Young Ambassadors performed for). My group consisted of about 8 kids, 4 of whom were returned missionaries, 2 of whom were girls that had graduated high school early, and 2 of whom were girls that had transferred. The transfer student population come winter was a lot higher than in fall.
The other interesting thing about NSO is that there seemed to be a lot more international students. One of the new move-ins in our ward is from Albania.
Another thing that I noticed is that most of the guys are RMs. Out of the guys that moved to my hall (that weren't here in the Fall), at least 3 of them are returned missionaries (including one of my new roommates).
*soapbox moment*: Notice how I wrote "RMs". There is no apostrophe within the word, because it is merely an acronym representing a singular noun, and then pluralized. No "RM's" or any such thing. Remember that.
So NSO was over at 5, which allowed me to go home and chill...by which I mean I kind of chilled at my apartment, then went to visit some friends in Bowen until 11:00. When I came back my roommates were watching Bourne Identity which was awesome.
OK. I'm falling asleep now. I have a big day ahead, so I'll try and post more. Later.

Block.

Oh, hey, world. It's me, Jansen. I've been thinking about this blog..mainly about how I haven't posted on it in ages, but more so about the content thereof. When I first started this blog it was with the intent to display a piece of college life. However, my posts end up just being boring transcriptions of my life, and quite frankly, I think they're boring. Of course, once I'd stopped posting every day, it made it even harder to come back and post somewhat consistently. I did say in one *recent* post that I'd keep this blog to random thoughts of mine, but I realized a while back that all of my random thoughts that I feel are worth sharing end up going on facebook. Therefore, I am in a pickle about all of this: I think what I'll end up doing is sharing thoughts about my life, and fill in the background if necessary. Though again, the whole boredom factor is still there. I dunno. We shall see. It is a new year, and I have made a decision to myself to write in a journal somewhat frequently; only problem is I don't really have a journal, and I don't know if this would suffice, or if I should create a private venue for such matters. Or just both. Is the importance in journaling the fact that it gets written down, or that I have a record of my life that I can refer to in later years? Dunno.
Light bulb! If I include enough philosophizing in my ramblings, it might be interesting enough to keep people's attention.
Thought number n+1: I can *review* movies I've seen! Yay! Someone versed in the fine arts of the cinema might recognize my Light Bulb! quote: it's from Despicable Me, which I saw for the first time on Friday. Quite frankly, it is adorable. One might go so far as to declare the movie to be adorbz. Love the minions. Love the fact that Russell Brand played a comedically old doctor. Love the whole idea of the plot. Loved Steve Carell's execution of the Gru character. And of course, loved Agnes, Edith, and Margo (in that order).

What is he going on about?
Also over the break: I saw Tron and Narnia. Two exceptional movies, in very different veins. Tron was simply awesome: it took the world from the original movie and expanded on it. I have my issues with it, such as: how does a guy design a laser (in the '80s) that can convert mass into energy, and vice versa? How does a rich kid who lives in a shipping container have the ability to be good at disc combat? Granted, his skill with a motorcycle was already demonstrated, but his hand to hand combat abilities went unexplained. But besides all that, it was an amazing movie. Graphically beautiful, with a surprisingly good storyline and of course classic actors (Jeff Bridges did an amazing job). I'd definitely see it again. Now, Narnia I saw on Friday, and was quite impressed: at two things. 1) at the overall quality of the movie. They certainly did not skimp when it came to visual effects; *spoiler alert* Dragon Eustace was especially impressive. And of course, it being the land of Narnia, the inhabitants thereof were equally impressive. 2) I was impressed at the quite blatant (from my point of view) acknowledgment of the underlying Christian themes. I felt that in the Voyage of the Dawn Treader, the focus of the movie was on temptation and the resisting thereof. This was the thing most powerfully conveyed by the movie, but they also showed the repentance process, again, with Eustace. Of course, the best bit came at the end with Aslan telling Lucy and Edmund that in their world he was known by a different name, and that they needed to come to know him (Him?) there as they had come to know him in Narnia. Now, I'm not saying that they did this in error, quite the opposite in fact. I'm most impressed by the fact that they were able to get it produced through hollywood and have it be a major motion picture.

While I'm on this bent about changing up my blog posts, I'm going to try and not save a post from day to day.. just post it before the day's over, whether I like it or not. Maybe it'll come out rushed. Maybe not. But here it is.