Today has been a very good day-- although busy with school, it started off with getting emails from a special someone who still says "you're gorgeous"-- even from Illinois-- and ended with FHE games at some friends' ward.  In between, I sketched for homework, met my cute South Korean roommate who is finally moving in after a month, ate lots of veggies {I seriously can't get enough}, and worked out {500 crunches + 100 calf raises + 100 squats + 100 situps + 100 high knees + 100 jumping jacks + 40 pushups + 10 clap pushups + 1 minute handstand with stomach against the wall  + 1 minute plank + 1 minute candlestick all followed by some real good stretching and I feel FABULOUS}.
    Have you ever thought about what you would do without the ability to read and write?  Not only is so much of our culture founded off assumed literacy, but whether I'm at school, doing homework, or entertaining myself, my eyes are always flitting from left to right.  As a fourth-grader my life plan was to be a famous author, so my little heart would've melted upon hearing my Critical Inquiry professor complimenting the writing skills in my essay.  He commented that he was raising the bar for me because of it and hoping that I could find an outlet for such potential talent.  Oh, I was grateful! and informed him that I am writing a book and am also an avid blogger.  Without home responsibilities, I spend a lot of time evolving the ideas for my novel, and although it is so much harder than I ever anticipated, it's a work in progress and I love every minute of it.
      On the subject of blogging, I am so happy that I decided to start this blog over seven years ago.  Over the summer I dedicated weeks to organizing and condensing it all {the end of fifth grade up to high school graduation} into the physical format of a 400-large-paged-tightly-spaced book. Having the pleasure of flipping through almost a decade of precious memories that would've otherwise been lost is unbelievably satisfying, although I'm almost convinced that my dad loves it more than I do {church is just one example of the places he has brought it to show people}.  These days, I keep a little booklet with me at all times to write other, more personal  senior year/summer memories that I'd rather not share on the Internet.  The hippocampus is quite an incredible little feature our brains have, and the way our memories can store so much information continues to marvel me.  I'll have totally forgotten something and then randomly it will just resurface in my mind!   If I'm counting correctly, Dallin asked me out for the first time a year ago this week, so there have been plenty of souvenirs my memory has yielded up.  Seriously, to anyone at all reading this, I beg you to write down your memories like I do, no matter how insignificant they may seem at the time, because you'll only start to miss they when they fade away. 
On a totally random note, my friend told me that a guy she was with commented on how different my face looks from the average girl.  It was all complimentary, but here's a fun fact for y'all: I'm 1/32 Native American, and during a trip to Texas last year, my great-grandmother pointed out that I had the same face shape as herself, my grandfather and  my mother.  We all inherited it from our ancestor, a Creek Indian who was born on the Trail of Tears.  How interesting that, despite my blood being almost full-majority European, genes would work in a way to have a person from each generation display a rare physical feature of such precious and tragic heritage.