Christmas Break

I've been home having fun with the fam since last Sunday. The drive home was a blast involving icy roads, heavy snowfall, and a lot of time. Thankfully, we made it home without going off the road. Since then, I've done some exciting things: the Christmas Eve dinner, Christmas, caroling, talking to Joanna, gamage, eating, rock climbing, the Scoresby Scamper 5k, building snow tunnels through the drifts, movies, and other adventures. Today Jan and I played (poorly) our instruments in church. In the middle of the piece, Mom realized she was missing a page of the accompaniment, so she made up a part while Janet and I just stared at our music, trying to figure out what was happening. People still said they liked it, so...whatever.

thoughts on the WRI

I want to take minute to post on some thoughts I had while I was working today at the Women's Research Institute. The Institute is under a review by the administration, and I have been helping to gather information for it. I have learned more about the WRI than probably anyone else that has worked there, save the directors. As a part of the review we sent out letters asking people who have been involved with the WRI and the Women's Studies minor to answer some questions about how it has impacted them. Most of the answers were very positive. The WS minor has helped many women learn about themselves in the light of Heavenly Father's plan in a way probably no other class could, as well as prepare them for graduate work and relationships beyond college. Interestingly, many, many of the students went on to serve missions and/or complete graduate studies. The affiliates were grateful for the support the WRI has given to research that really wouldn't have an arena anywhere else on campus. But, one of the points that a few former students and affiliates brought up is the contradictory idea of having a real women's studies program at Brigham Young University. There are topics that the University won't want discussed in the academic/gospel perspective light that it teaches in. These are mostly hot topics such as abortion, LBGT/queer studies, feminist theory, or patriarchal hierarchy. The minor could never be made a major because of these limitations and what one professor called the vagaries of hiring faculty in the field. Yet, it is a necessary thing to have at a good, solid university due to the perspective it brings. The administration has always been down on the WRI, but think of the negative impact and publicity shutting it down would bring on BYU and the Church, especially when BYU has always had a problem with gender equality in education, female faculty, and such. I talked about it with some friends, and the same sorts of contradictions seem to exist in other fields, especially ones that could be considered generally liberal. Obviously, my work has affected me in more ways than paying for rent, groceries, and the cell phone bill.

Thanksgiving 2007

Finally, here are the pictures from my Thanksgiving. The first ones are from a hike we did around the rim of Snow Canyon by St. George. The others are from Hop Valley, in Zion National Park. It was amazing, and I'm positive that a camera can't compete with being there and seeing the awesome views in person. But, here they are. It was cold up above the canyon, especially with the biting wind, but in Zion's we were alright with jeans and a long sleeve shirt. The highlights are hiking through a sandstorm, (no one was willing to take their camera out of their backpack for some reason,) seeing some dead cows on the valley floor, and not seeing a single soul the whole time we were hiking the second day. Who wouldn't want to hike a couple miles through the sand to see those views?

freerice

For all the word lovers in the family, and everyone else, check out this website: www.freerice.com
I don't know how real it is, but it is amusing and a good way to waste quality time you are supposed to be spending with your term paper. At least they both have to do with words. My best vocab level was 48

fire blowing

We did an awesomely cool (or hot) FHE activity Monday. Yes, it was fire blowing. Here is the video of us blowing fire. Of course, my group blew out our flame before the blowing, but we caught the other group's flame. Yay for BYU FHE activities.

Compliments of my dear roommates, you can all relive me opening my mission call. I'm excited!!

I'm sure you are all excited to find out where I am going on my mission...but you (and I) will have to wait. It was supposed to come in the mail today. All day I was distracted and excited thinking about it. So, I left work early and ran to check the mail, but there was no mission call. I checked my papers online to make sure everything was right, and I noticed that my apartment number wasn't included on my address. We noticed the mail lady was across the street, so my roommate Carolyn and I accosted her and told her the sit. She said someone else had done that part of her route that day, so she didn't know about it. She took down my name and number (she knew my apartment number from my name :)) and said that if it was at the post office, someone would call me tomorrow (Thursday) morning. She also said she didn't recall seeing any mission calls that morning, so that worries me a little. So, it is either slow, or there was an attempted delivery, or it is for some reason on its way to WI like Jo's. Whatever it is, I hope it comes tomorrow because I am an impatient person, and I have been waiting for this for a long time. Now I am going to a prospective missionary fireside. I had hoped to more than just a prospective missionary at this point, but I'll just have to wait.

Sarah's Mission

As you know, my mission papers were submitted last week. I will most likely get my call Wednesday, November 7 unless it goes to my Wisconsin home for some reason. Due to popular demand we will have a guessing game for the assignment of my service, including a small, unknown prize for the winner. (Props to Ben for being closest on Joanna's mission call.) So, please post your guess as a comment, and don't make huge general guesses such as South America. It makes it hard to count you as the winner if your guess covers half the missions of the church. Love, Sarah

Wow, you might be surprised at my blogging ability, but I made a slideshow for my blog. It's pretty awesome. I want you to know that the picture where I can't smile is when I had my wisdom teeth taken out.

Yay! My birthday was Friday. Here I am blowing out my candles and wearing the apartment birthday jacket. I have yet to do anything I couldn't do when I was only 20.
P.S. Please notice the wheelchair in the back of the picture. My roommate bought it from DI when I couldn't walk.

This lovely sweater was a present from my roommate. It is a DI find from a long time ago that I tried to give back to DI. My roommate took it out of the DI bag and gave it to me for my birthday.

Apparently my blog isn't entertaining enough for certain family members. Maybe I should post things I've written for my classes, too. Although it was very good, I don't know if my proposal for my advanced writing research paper would be any more entertaining. Instead I'll write about a childhood memory. So, one of my friends got me Mille Bornes for my birthday. I remember at a tender age playing this game with the family. And I seem to recall that everyone played all their hazard cards, red lights, out of gas, flat tires, and speed limits, on me. Fortunately, my roommates now like me, and don't do so undeserved things to me.

It snowed on the mountains this weekend. This is Spanish Fork Peak with lots of snow on it.

To compare, here are some pictures of me and some people in the ward on Spanish Fork Peak in June. As you can see,there was still a lot of snow, but it was still hike-able.
Here is Y Mountain in its fall glory. The picture doesn't do it justice. This great shot is from the porch of my apartment, as is the first picture of Spanish Fork Peak. As you can tell, now that I am physically able to hike, there is too much snow to do anything.

What to do on campus

The past few semesters I have had an hour between class and work. If I walk home I feel like I have to turn around and leave for work right away. I sometimes try to do homework, but I am not very productive when I know I don't have much time. So what do I do while I eat my peanut butter sandwich and wait to go to work? Here is Sarah's list of things to do on campus when you are bored:

1. Eat ice cream from Sugar and Spice (recommended flavors include peanut butter cup and graham canyon)
2. Go to the MOA. Currently showing is a Minerva Teichert exhibit
3. Go to a computer lab and surf the internet
4. Find free things. This includes food of all sorts (one week I got free food every day), t-shirts if you're lucky, all sorts of fliers, candy, pins and buttons, pens. If there is any sort of job fair, you are in luck
5. Play in the Eyring Science Center
6. Read the police beat and the letters to the editor in the Daily Universe
7. Easter week, look for the hidden eggs. We have yet to be successful in finding one, but we never lose hope
8. Go to a lecture or colloquium
9. Watch people. The best places are usually the Wilk and the southeast corner of the JFSB
10. Do the crossword puzzle or sudokus in the newspaper
11. Read the magazines in the bookstore. There are even chairs in the magazine section, so they must not mind too terribly
12. Walk around until you find someone to talk to, or if that fails, call someone

Running and Emily's birthday

I feel healthy and whole (more whole) today because yesterday I got my stitches out of my mouth, and I finished my physical therapy with permission to run. I fought against the urge to run out the door to the Provo River Trail when I heard the news, and this morning I woke up early to go running. It was fantastic, and after I got home, it got about 15 degrees colder and began raining. Included is a picture of how happy I was to run.

We celebrated Emily's birthday last week. She is now very old. Here are the before and after pictures of Emily opening her birthday presents. Certain family members should notice that Emily is indeed wearing a Fully Invested shirt.

I began my lab research this week. We are starting to make a drug out of a Peruvian plant, Maca, to test on a line of breast cancer cells. To learn more about the medicinal value of this plant, please go to the following website: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maca
I was just a little taken aback to learn what the exact effects were.

A Student's Life

Yesterday I woke up at 6:30 to do my laundry. I got some other stuff done and got ready for my 9:00 class. I managed to stay awake the whole time even though the demos were boring. The last one redeemed the others, though: The professor shot a ping-pong ball into a kid's back with the force of 6 Gs. After that I hurried to the Marriott Center to get a seat for President Hinckley's devotional. It was packed, and we managed to get a seat looking at President Hinckley's back. It was awesome to hear him talk. After that I went to the bookstore to get a few things, and I ate lunch. I got a free t-shirt and a free hot dog at the Homecoming kick-off,which made me happy. After that I went to work. When I got off work I went read over the material for my lab. I went to the lab, and spent two and a half hours trying to work the equations for the data we got. Finally, at 8:45 I got home. I ate a burrito and a big bowl of ice cream, and I talked with some girls in the ward about the Ohio State Buckeyes, and I headed off to bed for another long day.

Over the weekend I went to the IndiaFest. I ran into Rachell Roberts, which was fun. As my friends and I were walking around a girl in a sari ran up to us and asked, "Do you want to help get the devil out of the pond?" We excitedly ran up to the pond to participate in this cool religious ceremony where we help exorcise a devil. We were disappointed to instead find that a big cardboard devil that they were going to burn had fallen in the lake, and they needed help lifting it out. It was funny anyhow. After, we watched the BYU game at Kiwanis park on a huge screen. It was fun to watch the game outside like that with 1,500 other students, but it was also a disappointment. At least Ohio State won.

I'm looking forward to Homecoming weekend, although I'm having my wisdom teeth taken out on Friday. I'm pretty positive I'll take it well though. I will post some pictures when my friend emails them to me...which could be awhile.

It begins...

I have been hassled into writing, so welcome to the blog of Sarah Afton Scoresby. Some people may not believe it, but I am happy to be in school again. I like all my classes, and I am especially excited to finally start doing undergraduate research. I met with the lab director today to talk about which project I would be working on. It is possible that during this semester I will achieve one of my life goals and find a cure for cancer.

Emily, Preston, and I took Joanna to the MTC today. I was more than happy to miss an hour of work to go, and I'm glad I could. I was impressed with how well Joanna composed herself considering she is one of the softhearted family members. But then, I know she didn't eat anything all day and could barely say more than two words at a time. I am committed to write to her at least once a transfer, but I have a feeling she will be expecting more.

I'm already anxiously awaiting the weekend. I am excited for being able to sleep in until probably 8:00, watching the BYU football game, and attending the India Festival at the Hare Krishna Temple in Spanish Fork. Also, I'm really hoping to be able to run soon. Hopefully I'll get the go ahead when I go to physical therapy Friday, and I can go on a refreshing morning jog Saturday morning. I hope I can run soon because I think my forced lack of exercise is finally starting to catch up with me!