I have a lot of stuff that I'd like to write about, but since a lot of it isn't really immediately necessary (just my thoughts on my dad running for president, movies I've seen, etc.), I'll just try to catch up on what's been happening.

My roommates Britney and Nancy came back from a month-long trip to Australia and New Zealand on the 4th.  I haven't seen them for more than 2 minutes yet, but they seem to have had fun.  I got my best score ever on Pinball (the one that comes with the computer) on the 2nd - 2,787,750. I've never gotten over a million before. I was very very proud of myself. On the first I had lots of fun trying to figure out how to explain how to get the garbage disposal to work to a Korean who doesn't really speak English very well.  I read three books at work one day last week, which I was happy about. The series was called Midnighters, by Scott Westerfield. I've read a couple other books by him, and they're all pretty good (he wrote the series with Uglies, Pretties, and Specials).

July 4th was lots of fun! I didn't have work the night before, so I wok e up at 1 AM and had fun sitting about and reading a book by Tanya Huff (Sing the Four Quarters - in my opinion, the best of that series by her). Around 7 I realized that the hot air balloons were back (the day before a bunch had gone up from the field by my complex for a race across Provo), so I tried to wake up Jenny, who had wanted to see them the day before but slept through her alarm. After that incomplete success, I took bunches of pictures and went to the field in my bare feet with my camera to see what kinds of pictures I could take. I'll write more of an entry about that later - I've got TONS of pictures to go with it. I think I went a wee bit camera happy.  After that I went to the gorcery store and bought supplies to make hamburgers for myself, as well as a gallon of ice cream  and two packs of sugar cones. Oh, and rolls of Sweet tarts were 4 for a dollar, so I got 4 of those and 4 sour ones.

The rest of my morning/afternoon was spent reading and snacking - very satisfactory. I slept until 10:15, when I heard the fireworks going off at the BYU stadium. Provo gets WAY more into Independence Day than Harrisburg does, and the fireworks are definitely longer and better. I saw about ten minutes of it from my porch before I had to leave for work, and walked past a LOT of people sitting along the sidewalk in front of the military building next door  to watch the show, including most of my ward. I was afraid I'd have to deal with drunks at work, but if any were staying here they went straight to their rooms.

Yesterday… I went to the gym after work for two and a half hours. I actually felt really good about it, and didn't mind it because I had brought Pride and Prejudice to keep myself amused. About two hours on the elliptical machine, with half an hour of weights and ab exercises in the middle. I'm feeling it a little now, but not as badly as I thought I would. I came home and showered before leaving for work at the library, which only lasted about two hours before I finished my work. My supervisors weren't there and I had nothing else to do, so I went home and went to sleep.

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Okay, that was during work, and now it's after I got back from the gym and showered. I'm leaving for work soon, so I'll just post this and leave, then write more (probably) tonight.

~Katie

Outline of Last… Forever (Because I'm too lazy to really type it all up individually)

·         Maggots

Cleaning checks were on Saturday (the 23rd), and Serenity was cleaning out the pantry-type area of our back closet when she started screeching and ran outside. Under a rotting bag of potatoes (guess they don't like potatoes as much as I do) were hundreds of maggots and maggot eggs. She and Jenny almost got sick, so I ended up having to clean it up as much as possible. Of course, I think there were also some eggs down in the carpet, as for several hours after I cleaned it up off the carpet there were maggots crawling up out of the carpet every now and then. Gross. We called the office and it's been cleaned up more thoroughly, by the way, so the apartment is safe.

·         Night Auditor group

I was just futzing around to find a place to host my blog at when I stumbled across a hotel night auditor group on livejournal.com. I could relate to a lot of them, and it was hilarious.

·         Shoes

I would just like to say how proud I am of myself. I bought sandals for church with a small heel a couple months ago, and I haven't died yet! I'm going to buy a pair of actual shoes with heels this weekend, and hopefully those won't kill me either. We'll see how it goes. The ones I want to buy are really cute, though, so I'm excited.

·         Hot air balloon this morning

The other morning I saw a hot air balloon that looked like a strawberry ccme up from the field about 2 blocks from my apartment, so it was really low. I see hot air balloons every now and then as I walk home from work (since the person on shift after me is RARELY enough on time for me to catch the 7:12 bus - I hate that), but that was the lowest I'd ever seen before.

·         Netflix

So I forgot that I signed up for a Netflix free trial until three DVDs showed up in my mail the other day (Monday, I think). I got Stranger than Fiction (not as good as people said), Because I Said So (I watched it at 1.5 or 2 times speed and it still wasn't very good), and The Devil Wears Prada, which was actually not that bad.  I ordered three more movies that should get here tomorrow - Serenity, Reign of Fire, and The Prestige. I've seen the first two, but not in a long time, so I'm really looking forward to getting the movies!

·         Bought Microsoft Office Enterprise (or whatever it's called)

Very useful, actually. I'm trying to get used to OneNote before school starts, since it's REALLY useful and I'm looking forward to using it more. I'm already organizing my political science course notes with it, and it's very convenient. Of course, I've only used it for about an hour, but I like it.

·         Books

The other day at the Bookstore I bought new headphones and three books. My headphones were broken, and the books… I don't really have any excuse except that they were on sale and really good. Elantris was recommended by a bunch of people in my ward (it really is very very good), I got the complete Jane Austen collection in one huge book, and The Hero and the Crown, which is definitely a very good book. I love Robin McKinley's books.

·         Hilarious ward activity (ice cream)

On Thursday (I think) last week there was a great ward activity. We did a lot of relay races, and the one I did best at was putting shaving cream on balloons and then using razors to shave it off. I just used the back of the razor instead of the blade - worked just as well and no one noticed until it was over, then we just laughed. The best part of the activity was definitely dessert. People paired off, with one person putting a garbage bag to protect their shirts and then lying down on the ground, and the other person going up on the second floor walkways (that go to the apartment doors). The person up top proceeded to feed the person below ice cream sundaes one ingredient at a time by dropping it into their mouths from about 15 feet up. It was hilarious. The best part of that was when Spencer was squeezing butterscotch down to Amanda, but the bottle was blocked up. So he kept trying to squeeze it, and then the whole top came off and suddenly emptied the entire bottle of butterscotch into her face. It was GREAT. I was so sorry that at the time I was locked out of my apartment (Becca had locked it and Jenny and I didn't have keys with us) so I couldn't get my camera. It was amazing.

·         Big group date w/ Spencer

Saturday a little after 6 PM Spencer called and asked if I'd like to go to this big group date at the bishop's house with him. I said yes, showered quickly, and we drove over with McKay and his date (Shayna). I guess there were about 8 couples, including the bishopric and their wives. We played Action Clue (kind of like charades mixed with Clue), then three-armed volleyball, and then roasted s'mores. Oh, and there were hot dogs for dinner. It was really fun. Joy for being social!

·         Killer Bunnies/Mall trip

Went to the mall last Saturday and got Killer Bunnies and the Quest for the Magical Carrot - great card game. The game store had a back room with Warhammer 40K, Magic cards, etc. I just sort of wandered about for a few minutes to soak it in. It was pretty funny when the guy who was working back there asked what I was doing. I just said that I have four older brothers and he laughed and nodded before asking if I was homesick - nope, but it was pretty funny. I also found a shoe store with some nice shoes that are providing motivation to find out how high of heels my foot can tolerate (just for church, not 24/7). It was strange to notice that about 1/7 women over the age of 18 that I passed were very obviously pregnant. Weird.

·         What I love about BYU

My roommate Serenity started dating this guy a few weeks ago, and she's positively GIDDY about it. I'd gag if I weren't happy for her. But I just love that at BYU they waited like four dates before they even held hands. I mean, at any other college she wouldn't be excited about the prospect of a date in quite the same way, you know? I'm just so glad that BYU can preserve our innocent joy a little longer than anywhere else. You'd think more non-Mormon parents would try to get their kids to go here - where else can your kids learn in such a healthy environment? Not to mention that tuition is under $2000 per semester. What a hidden treasure is BYU.

~Katie

"AAAAAH!" -Becca this morning when I crept up behind her and scared her before I left for work. :D Priceless.