more things I've recently made

So I won the Blog Candy from Aunt Elaine's blog the other day: a set of stamps, pens, some paper, and an ink pad. I've already used those stamps several times in the few weeks I've had them! At Trina's baby shower, to make a get well card, for some magnets my ward mission council made, and I finally decided to use them for some fun yesterday, just to see what I could come up with. I don't have tons of paper or supplies, so it's really simple. But I've learned that frequently, less is more.

And speaking of Trina's baby shower, it was so fun! I couldn't have done it without Ashley, so I definitely can't take credit for it all. She had some fantastic ideas and by the time we got everything decorated and people started showing up, it looked like something people would pay money for! I was so busy that I didn't take pictures of any of it, but I did take some of the gift I made for Trina. I love making hooded towels now, and matching wash cloths to go with them. I'm planning to make some and sell them on my Etsy store (as soon as I have some time!). But here is hers. The photos aren't the best because I was in a hurry, but you can still see how cute it is.

Now I need to get back to work. Bob's been getting onto me about finishing those incomplete assignments, but I needed a break! So back to work it is.

Trina's Baby Shower invitations

After going to Marissa's baby shower a few months ago, Trina said something about me helping to do hers at the end of the summer. So here it is, the beginning of August and I'm trying to get things all planned for it. I've split up the responsibilities between me and three other people, so hopefully it won't be overwhelming and too expensive for me. I'm really excited about it. I love throwing parties and making cute invitations and things.

And speaking of invitations, I got a sample of Trina's done. I love how it turned out! Sometimes I look at the things I make and I think, "Did I really just make something that freaking amazing?!"

So here is what they look like:

And here is what will be printed on the green section in the middle:

Maybe I should just make announcements and invitations for a living. I really enjoy doing it. I just wonder if people would actually want to pay me for it.

These are a few of my favorite things.

I really enjoy crafts and hand-making things, from hair clips to jewelry, to my day planner.

I decided to document my favorite items I've made. some of them are on my Etsy website, and some I use every day. I wanted to document them as a reference for myself and for anyone else who'd like to see crafty little things, whether for fun or for inspiration.

A more recent item for sale on Etsy. I love this lace! It's almost tacky, but still cute if used right.

This one was so easy and fun. Someone bought it off my Etsy store just two days after I posted it up!

I like this one. It's very earthy and reminds me of autumn and Thanksgiving. 

I'd seen some flowers like these before, so I tried to see if I could make them on my own. My first attempt resulted in the ones on the bottom left. I really like how they all turned out!

I actually made these for Bob over a year ago, while I was still in Tennessee and working at the bead shop. One day he asked if I could make him something other than jewelry. I came up with these. We have them on display in our front room because we like them so much.

I have always struggled to find a planner that I like. They either have too much or not enough. So I took a mini three-ring binder and made it my planner. I made my own cover just like I wanted, and I've never had a better planner! Not too big, not too small. For a while I even printed my own pages to go inside, but then I found some I actually really love.

I found these yellow and black swirled beads in San Diego over Christmas last year. I love them! But I don't know that I'd ever wear them. So I decided to at least make something someone else could wear.

 I'll put others up on occasion as I make them.

I've debated on writing up instructions or tutorials for how to make some of these. I'll consider it if anyone leaves a comment asking for it.

Which one(s) do you like?

They hired the right girl.

I've been a little stressed and overwhelmed by my new job, even though I love it. I worry that they're gonna decide that I'm not capable enough for it, because Marcel (the other designer they hired that I work with daily) is really good at it. So I've been trying to keep from being an annoying overachiever or just shutting down completely. Polar opposite reactions, I know. I'm a little nuts.

So yesterday at work we were dissecting part of a working prototype to look at its components. It was a simple handle that was screwed into the side of this product, and we were looking at how it works exactly. We needed a philips screwdriver, and Zack went to look around for one. He came back with a really insufficient, too-small flat head hoping it would work because it was all we had.

And then I hoped beyond anything I'd ever hoped for that I hadn't unloaded my backpack completely from when we went camping a couple weekends ago... I usually keep it in there anyway....

"I might have my Leatherman in my backpack," I said as I dashed back to the other room to check a certain pocket on my backpack.

Zack looked up with an expression of complete awe on his face and said, "If you have one I'll be really impressed."

Needless to say, he was really impressed.

They did hire the right person for this job, girl and all. So, Russ, it looks like I am getting paid to be awesome.

The best Christmas present ever.

To love life...

I used to live life just wishing and dreaming about the future. I never paid much attention to how life was in the moment or how I was doing in the present--I'd done that during my high school years, but it never seemed to make me any happier. But when I started living to reach future goals, I at least had more hope in my life. And then I started living life for nothing but the future because I hated how things were in the present. It's like I went from one extreme to another in search of happiness and peace of mind, still never finding it. I mostly just ignored myself because I didn't like me, and the best way to distract myself from me was to think about where I was going instead of where I was at the time.

It wasn't until my therapist pointed out to me that I need to be sure that I like where I am now that I started realizing those one-way thinking habits. As obvious as it is, I never recognized that I needed a "happy medium" of both to be happy myself.

I am now pleased to say that I love who I am (perhaps for the first time in my life). I have goals I'm working towards, complete with a healthy view of myself right now. Here are some of those goals and how where I am now is helping me to reach them:

1. Graduate with a BFA in Industrial Design. I'm getting valuable experience at work designing products of all sorts. I'm finishing that incomplete I took in one ID class last fall. I'm going to finish freshman level ID classes in the winter, apply and be accepted into the upper level ID classes.

Final assignment from one of my ID classes last year. Not bad, for a freshman, though it could be better.

2. Live in a nice, comfortable house/home. We just found a different place to live that's still in our ward boundaries. It's the main level of a house, with lots of windows and lots of sunlight, a bigger kitchen, large living room, and lots of closets with storage space. No more dark basements for us. And rent is even cheaper than what we're paying now. We're trying to be careful with our money so that we can begin saving up to buy/build a house that we'll actually own one day. We have family photos (our extensive 2-person family of Bob and I) and hope to get more, as well as images of Christ and the temple to put up as daily reminders and to invite the Spirit into our home.

3. Have kids... several kids... Even though we're not trying for it right now (and if we get surprised I think well be okay), we're both learning so much about how we're going to parent. Some things I hope to do/not do: Not lay my infant child on the floor at church during Sacrament meeting, show them how to enjoy the outdoors, not put them in front of the TV as a quick fix to keep them entertained everyday, let them help me to cook meals and treats, teach them how to sew and make simple crafts as young as they want to start learning, assign chores they can do--with or without my help--at certain age marks, begin teaching them what it means to be chaste and to have morals as young as eight years old, show them how to love and be generous to others by my example, instill a love for music, singing, and instruments in them from infancy.

4. Play the piano... Again. I still have an electric keyboard I got for Christmas one year when I was a kid, and it still works. I'd also like to take a piano class at BYU before I graduate. I started one last year, but I was taking too many credits and had to drop it. I still have 3+ years to try it again.

5. Open my store/bakery. I started my Etsy site. I took a couple of classes at the LDS Employment office about being self employed and starting a small business. I have tons of fabric and some other supplies to help when I want to get it up and running. I've looked into small business loans and calculated out how much money I'll need just to get it going. I've got a business plan started, and I'm almost ready to get the business actually started. It's just not the right time yet. But it will happen.

Chrissy Konachamp won the Iron Man World Championship in 2007.

6. Finish an Iron Man race. I've been riding my bike everywhere--to work, to run errands, to look at potential houses to move into, etc. I went on an hour long ride the other morning before the sun came over the mountains and made the midday heat unbearable. If I can strengthen my knees on my bicycle and by swimming, I'll be better able to run long distances without blowing them out. I've also been monitoring what I eat. I've been eating far less meat, partially because it's expensive and partially because too much meat isn't healthy, and replacing what I'd normally put meat in with rice or beans or something similar. It's been both cost effective and I'm feeling great.

7. Serve a full-time mission as a senior couple. Bob and I went to the temple last night, and it was a wonderful experience. I've been trying to make prayer and morning scripture study more of a priority, though I'm not perfect at it yet. We've been trying to be better about fulfilling our callings, especially since we're ward missionaries. And like I said earlier, we're really pushing to keep a specific budget, including saving for later in life.

I have more goals, but these are the ones that were on my mind as I recognized myself again this morning. I decided to write them down so that I could get them organized into reality and reflect on them later. Plus, it feels great to see my successes and accomplishments and let those be my focus rather than my failures. And even my failures have resulted in some success. For example, I considered dropping that piano class last year a failure, but had I not done that, I wouldn't have taken other steps to get to where I am now, and where I am in my life is a really big accomplishment for me.

It's nice to see the big picture and see things, and myself, accurately.

The newest employee of ETS....

So I've been looking for a job ever since I quit mine back in April. I was so tired of stage managing. It was a great job with great co-workers, but I was stagnant. I was making as high a wage as possible, I wasn't learning anything new, and I was just feeling very stuck. It was even affecting other aspects of my life as well--I was feeling stuck in school as well as in my relationship with my husband.So I quit--I was just done.

Then I went to Singapore for three weeks, which put job searching on hold. I returned at the beginning of June, and from then on I'd been submitting applications, creating resumes, going to the LDS Employment office, started my Etsy business, and I've been thinking for some time now that I should just really get focused and settled in a job of some sort. 

Last week I got a response to an application I had submitted for an editorial position for a company that publishes scrapbooking magazines. They wanted me to complete some writing exercises to see if I was cut out for the job. I enjoyed doing them--it was fun and I felt like I was pretty good at it. I submitted them on Monday, and they told me I'd find out either way in the next week or two. 

I also started taking a series of self employment classes at the LDS Employment office and decided to get my business plan up and running again for my gift shop/bakery. At the same time as that, I realized that Bob really needed to get a move on in regards to his schooling. In order to do that, I had decided to postpone my schooling for a bit and work full time so that he could focus on school and get done that much sooner so that life could progress a little more (aka having kids). I was totally fine with that, stopping my schooling a bit and then finishing it later. I even decided to move forward with my business because the location I was looking at for the store became available again. So I was pretty excited. It seemed like everything was supposed to go in that direction.

Not even an hour after talking that choice over with Bob and settling on it, I get a phone call to schedule an interview for a position I had applied for weeks ago. It was for a company of student engineers who were looking to hire some industrial designers. I decided to go ahead with the interview, if nothing else just for the experience. I doubted they'd want to hire me--I'm still just a freshman in the program. 

I went to the interview yesterday. A fellow classmate, Quinn, from my ID classes last year was interviewing before me, and on his way out we chatted momentarily. Then I turned to walk in for my interview. I introduced myself before even looking at who was interviewing me. It turns out that it was Zack Bomsta, the guy who married a former roommate of mine two weeks earlier, whose reception I'd attended. Small world! He laughed and said he was already aware of who I am, though it didn't register until just then when he saw me. He asked me questions about Quinn, who--I'll be honest--is amazing and extremely talented. I admitted that he was one of the top 10 students in our classes when it comes to quality of work and talent. Then we went on to questions about me and my capabilities. On my resume I included my study abroad course to Singapore and the experience I now have with international relations and collaborating with others to create a product. We discussed that, and he said that it made my application stand out from all the other ones. I had forgotten about that. I suppose that would make me look pretty awesome.

After the interview, I still didn't feel super confident so I basically forgot about it. I continued on in my business things and preparing to not take classes come fall semester. Then today Zack calls me and says he wants to hire me. I asked if I could talk it over with my husband and get back to him about it. I talked to Bob. I prayed. I read my scriptures. I called my Dad. I prayed some more. And then I called Zack back to ask more questions about the job.

I learned that it pays $15 an hour and I'll be working anywhere from 10-20 hours a week on average. He even said some of the current employees have time for full or part time jobs in addition to this one, as well as school. Also, they have two ways of hiring people: either through BYU or through a different agency if any of the BYU students don't have enough credits to be employed by BYU. 

Well, that resolved all my problems and concerns. I can go to school while taking as many or few credits as I need, and I can have a second job on the side if necessary (or if I get that editorial job). Not only that, but I realized that when I'm done and finally get that evasive Bachelor of Fine Arts degree I so much want, I'll have experience in the exact same field I'll be going into. What company won't want to hire someone with both a degree AND experience? Seriously! If I can keep this job until I graduate (which I think I want to already) I'll have 3-4 years of design experience in the workplace!

I'll be working on a panel of four industrial designers--including Quinn and two other upperclassmen, one of which I've heard great things about. I go in tomorrow at 11am to get hired with the other three, and then we're getting right to work. It looks like I'll be taking classes this fall after all, and it'll probably be only 6-9 credits worth.

It seems like it's too good to be true. But if it's really as good as it all sounds right now, can I just say jackpot!!

The Lord really knows what He's doing. When I think I have something figured out and it seems right and I go that way, he always stops me if I'm wrong. Thank goodness that he never lets me down and He never leads me in the wrong direction.

In other news, Bob auditioned for a short movie today. Neither of us really think he'll get the part, but it was fun anyway! In the Craigslist ad it said to bring a headshot and resume. Well, considering that Bob has no acting experience, a resume seemed a little ridiculous. But we decided a head shot would be good. So I took some photos of Bob this morning, and here's the one we picked.

I think he's dang handsome. 

<3

My Etsy store!

So if you don't know already, I've been wanting to open a little gift shop/bakery for most of my life. I had a location picked out and I was hoping to get it going this fall. But I didn't sign the lease for the location soon enough. I walked by there a couple of weeks ago and the "For Lease" sign was down and there were some things in the windows. Talk about disappointment! I was super bummed out.

I decided that maybe it just isn't time to get it going yet.

Bob took me out to some fun little boutiques last week, Cherry Lane & the Flower Basket. I loved them! I wish I could work in one of those shops, or at least sell some of my creations to them for resale. But I wasn't feeling very good about my abilities since I hadn't gotten any responses on my job applications or resumes that I'd turned in a few days earlier. So I didn't bother asking anyone about it.

Instead I just decided to get an online shop going. Thursday, the same day that Bob took me out to those boutiques, I logged into my Etsy.com account and created my shop, and posted a few items for sale.

On Friday I got a message from a lady who just happened upon my page, and she gave me some wonderful suggestions and feedback on it. Then on Saturday she bought one of my items! Holy cow--my first sale not even two days after I opened my shop with only three items for sale! I was so jazzed when I looked at it tonight that I posted a few more items and improved my bio and policies page among other things.

So now I'm really excited about selling my creations! If you haven't already, go and take a look at it. And if you have an account, please make my shop a favorite (only if you like it, and if not, let me know how I can improve!).

If I can't go to work, I'll let work come to me. And I'm going to have a blast doing it!

Here today, Gone tomorrow.

I love how things in life can change so quickly. One day I'm single, the next I'm married. When I go to bed the house is nice and clean, I wake up in the morning and there's an inch of water covering our bedroom floor. My hair is long in the morning, then short and messy in the afternoon. I wake up at home and go to sleep that night on the other side of the world.

On Monday I was registered for summer classes, and on Tuesday I dropped all of them.

As it turns out, I filed my FAFSA too soon. Had I waited a month until after I had gotten married, I would be getting grant money to go to school right now. But because I filled it out when I was still single, I was considered dependent on my parents. It just so happens that the 2009 FAFSA is still being used for summer term, and there's nothing I can do to change it even though my situation is drastically different than it was eight months ago.

So to avoid getting a loan for as long as I possibly can, I'm just pushing my classes back another year. I'll finish my GE's this fall, while I should be getting some nice grant money, and then in January I'll take the classes that I was going to take now. That means I won't get to apply for sophomore year of Industrial Design until August of next year.

As frustrating as it is, I've decided to stop trying to rush it. The fact is, I'm not going to graduate any sooner, and I might as well try to enjoy life instead of trying to rush through it to get to a final end point. I need to enjoy where I am now, wherever that is. Besides, Bob still has at least four years of school left, so it's not like we'll really be going anywhere anytime soon.

Now I need to find a job. I was going to wait until August to find one, when I finished summer term, but since I'm no longer taking classes I need something to do. Plus, Bob isn't really making enough income by himself at the moment, and we've been hurting a bit for cash since I quit mine back in April. I searched on-campus jobs at BYU and only found three that I'm interested in, and then I found a few others on Craigslist. I'm surprisingly motivated about this too-- yesterday I made a resume in half an hour, and I think it's pretty awesome.

(https://acrobat.com/#d=Towitc6GfueosOBk9uCucg)

Then today I made an online portfolio to go along with my resume. Most of the things in the portfolio are likely graphics you've already seen in an earlier blog, but I like the effect of having them all together in a nice and neat slide show display. (After clicking on it you can use your mouse or left and right arrow keys to navigate through.)

(https://acrobat.com/#d=4grH5CmqSpiAfdsc85X9Tg&x=s)

So if anyone knows of anywhere in Provo or Orem or any other nearby place that could use a designer with my abilities, let me know. I would really love to get a job doing something I like that will also help me in my career goals.

Also, the other day a friend of mine sent me a message via Facebook. I met her and her family in San Antonio while I was serving as a missionary there. I love them a lot. So in this message she tells me that she wants to stop at my place on her way back to Texas from Washington state. She'd gone up there with her mom and siblings because they moved there recently, but she needed to get out and find a place to work. So rather than just stop here for a night, I told her she was welcome to stay here for a little while if she needed to. So Chelsie and her cat, Tiger, are staying here for about a month now. She'd like to get a job, but I 'm not sure if she'll be staying long enough to find one. She's planning on leaving in August, so we'll see.

As I was discussing this decision with Bob, I was reminded of my own mother. I remember letting a few people live with us from time to time. My mom was so willing to open up our home to friends and family if they needed a place to stay. I guess some people might think it's a little weird, but I feel like it's my way of serving others when there's not much else I can do. Plus, when I was 19 I remember wishing there was somewhere I could go and get away from life and my problems, a haven of sorts. If I'm able to do that for someone--especially a friend I care about--and help to get their life in order, why shouldn't I? Besides, we have fun together. She does remind me a lot of myself a little bit when I was 19.

And on a random note, I found this cool website the other day. If you like fabric and have some extra money, or if you need something for a specific sewing project and you can't find it, here's a solution:

SpoonFlower.com

I think it's a great idea. I just wish it wasn't so expensive.

Favorite ID Assignments

In case you don't know, I'm studying Industrial Design and BYU. I changed my major about 8 times before I found this one, which is what I was looking for all along. Let me explain why this is my chosen major. I'm a hands-on learner. I don't do well in lectures or on tests, I struggle to stay focused on what I read when I study text books, and I can't stand writing research essays about something I have no interest in.

So why am I in college? Because I need an education. I'd often catch myself drawing or sketching instead of reading, looking around myself and analyzing how poorly things are constructed or made instead of listening, and enjoying interesting images and nicely designed things online instead of typing papers.

Industrial Design requires no text books, we have no tests or final exams, and lectures are rarely longer than 20 or 30 minutes. For homework, we get really vague, ambiguous assignments and we have to complete them by the next class period. They involve the various elements of design, both on 2-dimensional and 3-dimensional levels. In other words, we have to make things look pretty--both images on paper and models you can pick up and hold. And it took me three years of misery in majors that I hated to find this four year program that I adore. Yes, I still have three more years of it even though I've already done four years of schooling. The timing is my main regret.

So I love my major and I'm super excited to continue on in learning and making tons of projects when summer term starts on Monday. But I still have this incomplete that I took for a class last fall when I was dealing with, well, lots of things. I wanted to finish the incomplete grade and get all those assignments turned in before summer term began, but I just feel stuck--like I can't get creative enough to finish all of the assignments.

The other hold up was that I have to take pictures of all the projects and assignments I do. I lost Bob's camera battery charger around the time that I went to Singapore. So I've been trying to finish assignments and find a good deal on a charger (especially since we literally have zero money to spend ever since I quit my job). I looked online and found the charger for about $25. That's a quarter of $100! Do you have any idea what I can do with $25??? So then I felt a ping of inspiration and looked on Craigslist. No luck. I went to KSL, and just a day earlier someone had posted an ad selling the exact charger I need--plus a battery (which, batteries are expensive!) and transfer cord, all for $10! I LOVE when inspiration comes. We went and picked that up yesterday.

So back to my dilemma of not feeling creative. The assignments I have to do are all 3-D. In other words I have to build things out of card-stock, balsa wood, and foam-core board.  I've got one and a half of the 7+ assignments done. So how do I find inspiration to finish the rest of them before August?

I remember getting some ideas from looking at my 2-D assignments for some of my classes. So I found my USB drive that I had them all stored on, and took a look at them again.

I impressed myself. It's been eight or so months since I've looked at them, and I really like some of them! I wish I could print out my favorites, frame them, then hang them around our office so I could inspire myself. However, a lack of money is keeping me from doing that.

So next best thing, I'll post them on here and see how other people feel about them. I'm not really fishing for compliments, just encouragement...

Okay, if you want to call that fishing for compliments, maybe it is. But really, I just need a little reassurance and a pick-me-up.

So to explain a bit on these, I used Adobe Illustrator to create them. There was no right or wrong way to do our projects, as long as we were using our knowledge and understanding of design to do them. And our assignments were extremely vague, which I quickly learned just gave us more freedom in creating them. For example, one assignment from that class was to make a composition using four squares to demonstrate the word 'tension'.

Wait, what?

                     Exactly.

An assignment on rhythm and emphasis.

Another assignment on emphasis. 

Notice how your eye travels as you look at it. I learned to manipulate lines and space to have you look where I want you to without you really knowing it.

Assignment on rhythm and how to make it nice instead of annoyingly repetitive.

Another on emphasis and movement. 

(This one was inspire by a photo of sand dunes. Can you tell?)

Inspired by the way fabric moves in the wind (like a flag).

Inspired by stairs. 

(It's hard to make it interesting and not boring. You try it!)

I love brick and cobblestone roads and walkways. Can't you tell?

This was a fun assignment! We had to come up with and present a product of limited edition M&Ms in honor of the Olympics. This was mine. I really like it.

 An assignment on pattern exploration and presentation.

Can you find the single shape I created the whole thing from? 

I highlighted it somewhere.

My final project for that class, called a "Perceptual Painting".

We were to create something that expressed ourselves using all the elements of design that we'd learned so far in the class. This is my explanation of it:

I love sketching, especially with charcoal. I created the squares using lines that resemble the way different sketching mediums look on paper. 

I always want to be unique and different. Sometimes I feel like people are expecting me to be this perfect little person, a 'square' just like everyone else. So I do that for a while, but before long I have to break out of it and be me again. Hence, the squares and the one in the background that is being destroyed. 

I picked the various shades of brown because it seems like such a boring color to many people, but if you look carefully, it can turn into some of the richest, most warm and comfortable hues you'll ever find. Similarly, I hope that people can see more in me than what first meets the eye.

Lastly, I love literature and poetry, both reading and writing it. With that in mind, I incorporated some favorite lines of a favorite poet. The words leave an open-ended question, because I'm curious to see what others will make of this creation of mine.

That's all I'll post on here. It's kind of a lot, but we had tons of assignments like these. I just included my favorites.

What do you think?

Singapore Trip: Part 2 + Coming Home

Both Sundays we went to church . And it was just like church back home! Except, instead of Spanish translation, there was Chinese translation for those who needed it. And everyone had Asian accents. One of the missionaries serving in the ward we went to is actually from San Antonio! It was fun to meet and talk to him. I really love how no matter where I go in the world, the church will still be the same. There I am in this completely foreign country where nothing is the same as home, but as soon as I step inside the chapel it's all so familiar and comfortable. I just love that.

A few of us went for a walk one Sunday afternoon. We passed the rich neighborhood where the homes were like duplex-style townhouses. They were huge and beautiful! They were white and looked very western, but there was still that Asian influence in them. Then just past those houses we stumbled upon this crazy place. It was like a huge park devoted to Asian and Buddhist culture, full of painted statues from folklore and stories. It was so big we didn't even get to see the whole thing before we had to leave.

One part was so weird though, and kind of grotesque. In the eastern religions here, they mostly believe in reincarnation. So their doctrine is that after you die you get judged and depending on how well you did in life you cross one of three bridges to your next life. The golden and silver bridges are good, but the third bridge is the one to the 10 Courts of Hell. You have to go to each court and if you committed a crime punishable by that court, you have to suffer a punishment. Some of the punishments are really horrible, and there were little statues and figures demonstrating of all of it. Some punishments were getting sawed in half, having your guts pulled out through your belly button, being thrown on a hill of knives, being boiled in hot oil, and other really gruesome things that I won't mention more. It was so weird!! There were some I couldn't even look at because of how graphic they were. Talk about disturbing. Not exactly what I'd planned on doing on a Sunday afternoon--church in the morning, walking through Hell in the afternoon... But it made me again very glad to know the truth. Quite comforting to know that when I die I don't have to feel more pain--no arms getting chopped off or getting ground by a stone. I'm also glad that I only have to deal with mortality once, rather than being reincarnated over and over until I can become good enough to break the cycle. The spirit world and kingdoms of glory just sound so much better to me, plus they make more sense and the Spirit constantly confirms the truth of it to me all the time.

Monday the 24th  we got out of class at noon. The NUS students love taking us around to tour places and trying to get us to eat different foods and things. So we went to the Steamboat restaurant for lunch, and as expensive as it was, it was really fun. It was like a buffet, but way different than a US buffet. They bring these huge pots of soup to our table and put them on these hot plates to cook. Then we go and grab all this raw food--meat, noodles, and all kinds of things that I don't know the names for-- and we put what we want in the soup. It was SO good! And then the broth left over after having so many things cooked in it tastes amazing! There was this mango flavored pudding and some rose flavored ice cream for dessert. Both were delicious!! If it didn't cost so much money I'd definitely go back!

Afterward we went to Sentosa! It's a little island off the southern edge of the country and is still part of Singapore. It's a big tourist attraction, but being Monday there was hardly anyone there. We spent all of our time at the beach because it was so gorgeous and there was so much to do. We had a blast and took some amazing pictures as well. We stayed until after the sunset, then walked around the island some. There's this huge Merlion (mermaid + lion) statue there that is just beautiful and is all lit up at night. It's about 10 stories tall and is very majestic looking. It was a really fun afternoon, even though I'm pretty sure a responsible student would have been doing homework and research with all that free time instead of having so much fun.

The following days were mostly just full of lectures in class and group work outside of class. My group consisted of myself and three other people: Sin Lian, Siraj, and Wayne. Sin Liang and Wayne are Chinese, and Siraj is Indian, I think. We decided to redesign a product that would better accommodate a person transferring from the wheelchair to another surface (bed, toilet, couch, etc.) and still keep it affordable. We explored so many ideas, such as a wheelchair-friendly bed, some crazy transfer devices, and the wheelchair itself. Our final design is a wheelchair with a transfer board built into the armrest. It took forever to get to that point though! We ended up actually buying a used wheelchair and building a very rough, functional prototype and I made some final sketches of what it would look like if produced commercially (see below, though they're not as good as I'd like them to be). I really like how everything turned out, but getting there was really difficult. Three very different engineering-minded people and an industrial designer rarely see things the same way to start with, add a communication barrier in there with people who speak the same language at different levels and with really thick accents and you get a lot of stubbornness and frustration from everyone, though I think I felt it most. Though the thing I learned most from all of this was patience and perseverance.

I wish we'd had more time there for sight-seeing. I didn't have time to ride an elephant, swim with dolphins, or go on the Singapore Flyer. The last Friday there we presented our final designs to the class, and then at 3:00am that night we were on our way to the airport. But we made the best of it, and a bunch of us went out to have fun that last night.

We went to Orchard Boulevard, the busiest and most crowded street in the entire country I think, and walked around, shopped, and watched street performers. We went to this spa to try one of their services too. They have these little fish that eat the dead skin off of your feet. All of us Americans had to try it. My friend Brian and I went in first, and as soon as he stuck his feet in all these little tiny fish immediately covered his feet and went to town. I had the hardest time putting my feet in after I saw that, because it reminded me of leeches for a minute. But Brian talked me into it. It was the weirdest sensation in the world! My feet are the only place I'm not ticklish, but it tickled so much, especially when they'd wiggle themselves between my toes! We were all laughing and squealing while trying to be quiet in this nice relaxing place where people were in the next room getting massages and pedicures. My feet did feel pretty nice afterward though. It was so much fun! I want to do it again.

Then we found this huge playground. I mean, I'm not kidding. We didn't even get to see all of it because it was so humongous! And there were fun things for adults too! It started out with this small merry-go-round thing that maybe four people can stand on, and as it started spinning you'd lean in and it would speed up. It was so funny to see people try and stay on it when it started spinning really fast. It became a game to see who could stay on the longest and who could walk in a straight line after being on it. There was also a two-story high pyramid with a web of ropes inside it for climbing on. And then my favorite part were these short zip-lines. I seriously want to build a playground like that in Provo because tons college students would seriously love it, along with kids.

None of us went to sleep that night, and then on the flight back I slept for five hours during the first flight, and about three for the second one. Jet lag is kind of rough, but coming home was great! It was wonderful to see Bob again. I got dropped off by a shuttle at my house, and Bob came out to get my suitcase. As soon as I saw him my heart did a flip and I couldn't stop smiling. It felt just like old times when I'd visit him before we ever lived closer than 12 hours away from one another. He'd put his hair in this little faux-hawk thing that I think is super hott, And as soon as we stepped inside our house and closed the front door we just stood there and hugged for several minutes. I don't know how to explain it, but something about his touch just relaxes me like nothing else in this world.

I fell asleep for most of the day. I couldn't sleep much that night, and around 3am I found myself completely awake and unable to even close my eyes, much less fall asleep again. It turned out that Bob was awake too (since his sleep schedule was all thrown off from staying up too late playing video games and things, and not liking to sleep without me there). So we got up, I made some pumpkin bread and we played Halo on the X Box for a few hours until it was daylight. (See, Bob had borrowed our friend Scott's X Box soon after I left, since Scott had recently gotten some other gaming consoles and never uses this one anymore... and it might just end up ours, who knows...) Then we both fell asleep at about 10:30am, and I didn't wake up until 3pm, which meant we completely slept through church. And then I somehow woke up again at 7:30pm, even though I don't remember falling asleep again. Adjusting to the time here is proving a bit more of a challenge than I thought it might.

Lastly, I am so glad to get back to familiar food again! In Singapore there are food stalls and restaurants that claim to have "Western Food." Never go to any if you ever happen to be in that country. I tried one, just to see what they thought American food was like. I got barbecued chicken, and it came with French fries that reminded me of cardboard, some vegetables that I didn't entirely recognize, and an omelet. The chicken tasted more like it was fried in lard and then covered in Catalina salad dressing. Needless to say, it was horrible. Now, I loved the authentic food in Singapore, but my insides did not like it very much. I had a stomach ache almost every day from it, and my intestines just did not like absorbing all these weird, new things. The last night there we ate fish head something, frog legs, shark fin soup, and of course--rice. It was really delicious, but a few hours afterward I had to find a bathroom every half hour, because I definitely ate something I should not have. Not fun, especially having to fly home shortly thereafter.

 (Fish head. See it  on the right side of the platter?)

So on Saturday night I cooked again. I missed cooking! I missed being able to read food labels too. Even though the national language is English, everything is still in Chinese or Malay for the most part. So I made barbecued chicken sandwiches with peas and carrots on the side, something I am familiar with that is cooked right and didn't give me abdominal problems the next day. Such a relief, and it tasted so good.

It was a fun trip, but it's good to be home.