"For myself I am an optimist - it does not seem to be much use being anything else." -Sir Winston Churchill

It's the weekend!!!  I can't even explain in words how happy I feel that this long week is over!  This weekend is General Conference and my roommates and I are going off for the weekend....to a magical place with no internet.  This should be interesting... :)  I love the internet.  It is one of my main de-stressers.  But this weekend won't be stressful at all, so hopefully I won't need it. :)  I have my books, I have my friends, and I still have a fragment of my sanity, so I'm good for the weekend!

So, with that upbeat optimism, I'm going to enjoy this weekend and choose to be happy even though I probably failed my latest math assignment.  It's only one assignment, though, so I'll just try harder next time.

Here is a song called "Paradise" from Coldplay's newest album.  I love it.  It makes me feel so happy, and it's just a really great song.  Words can't describe it, so just listen for yourself:

I absolutely can't wait for October 24th.  So enjoy the weekend!  Later. :)

"Blessed are they who heal you of self-despisings. Of all services which can be done to man, I know of none more precious." -William Hale White

I loved this quote when I read it, just because it's so true.  Up here at college I really have gone through times where I just despise myself.  Sometimes after an exam that went badly or just looking in the mirror after a long, hard day, I just feel disgusted with myself.  No matter what, though, my roommates never let me say bad things about myself.  They counter every bad thing with something good.  And even though it doesn't make a bad day good, or a mean thought about myself nice, it does help.  It just makes me realize that I shouldn't judge myself based on my hardest and worst days.  So that must mean that my roommates are really blessed.

This week has been crazy busy.  It's Homecoming week, which means there are all sorts of activities ALL THE TIME.  Plus I've had papers, quizzes, vast amounts of homework, and I was getting low on groceries and clean laundry.  In other words, I was swamped.  Usually when I get swamped one of two things happen.  I either handle everything efficiently and organized, or I freak out and have a mental breakdown that usually includes crying and all that fun stuff.  This week was a little of both, but it's been a good week all the same. :)

So when I get stressed, it helps to have some fun music.  Right now, I am really liking the new Pandora layout.  It's so much faster and lots prettier!  My favorite station right now is Ellie Goulding Radio.  It's really fun.  I just heard a song that I really liked, so I'll post it here.  It's called My Love by The Bird and the Bee:

So enjoy!  Later. :)

"I love quotations because it is a joy to find thoughts one might have, beautifully expressed with much authority by someone recognized wiser than oneself." -Marlene Dietrich

This sums up my blog perfectly.  With a quote, you have authority.  You get the satisfaction of realizing, "Yes, that makes sense!" or "That's just what I was thinking about!"  Someone important can say something that you can't quite put into words, and their quotes can shed light on your emotions.  I'm convinced that you can tell a lot about what people are going through by what quotes they like.  It's fascinating, actually. :)

Here in my new apartment, I brought a dry-erase board.  It came with five dry-erase markers.  This has come in handy.  I love quotes (as you can probably see...I have a blog about quotes) so whenever I find a quote I like, I can just write it down and see it for a week.  Like I mentioned before, this week's quote is Shakespeare (dedicated to Novak Djokovic).  It might be cheesy, but I like it.  :)

I think it's kind of funny.  I have a blog about quotes.  And now I have a post about quotes.  So if I include a quote in this post, then it's a quote in a blog post about quotes in a blog about quotes.  Hey, it makes sense in my head.  Keep up. :)  So I'm going to post a quote that I just found and really like by Barbra Streisand:  

"You have got to discover you, what you do, and trust it."

I really liked this quote at the moment.  I've been struggling a bit trying to figure out if I really should go into English.  I just haven't had the "moment" that everyone talks about where they just really knew it was for them.  But then I realized, through working for it, I'm finding out so much about myself.  That sounds super cheesy and really self-centered, but it's kind of true.  I really do feel like if I end up with my major as English, it really will be right for me.  And I can always go to grad school! :)

So to lighten up the mood a little, I'm going to post a song.  Most people have heard it, but I just love it.  It always makes me happy.  And when I hear it I want to travel. :)  It's called Hoppipolla by Sigur Ros:

So enjoy!  Later. :)

"Be not afraid of greatness: some men are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them" -William Shakespeare

So I've kind of abandoned this poor blog...but not completely!  I have just found that with homework and having a life, I can't post every day.  In summer it was easy...I had hours each day to think of a quote or find a cool song, but now every spare moment is used to study German vocabulary or make a snack with the roomies.

But this quote is now on my dry-erase board over my head in my room.  I dedicated it to Novak Djokovic, who just won the US Open (tennis).  I knew he could do it, and he didn't let me down!  When I was younger, I remember watching figure skating, and rooting with my whole heart and soul for Sasha Cohen.  But time after time, she'd fall at her most pivotal moment.  She never got gold in the whole time I watched her.  Finally I have an athlete that I can actually say, "I was rooting for him from the time he was ranked 132 in the world until he made it all the way to #1."  That's right.  :)  He was obviously born great.  And achieved great. :)

So with that, I'll just post a song that doesn't really relate.  My new roommate loves Maroon 5, and if you haven't noticed, stuff tends to sink in after a while.  I didn't love or hate Maroon 5 before, but with constant repetition, it starts to sound a bit funner and I start listening to it in my spare time.  I actually really like Adam Levine's voice.  It's just different and so interesting.  So here's his new song called "Stereo Hearts":

I don't like rap, but for some reason it doesn't bother me in this song.  So enjoy!  Later.

"There's gold ahead, there's golden dreams in life's hills and valleys." -The Rocket Summer

So I know I've pretty much abandoned this poor blog all week, but hey.  I'm a college student again.  :)  So classes have been going great, but yesterday in my World Religions class, my professor showed us a video of recorded lecture from Yale.  It was a course called Faiths and Globalization.  And all it took was one minute of that video, and I was captivated.  I wish I could go to a university that other universities use as class material.  And Tony Blair was even going to come to one of the classes lectures.  I mean, how great would it be to have those kinds of opportunities and professors?!  So I'm just going to put it out there...one of my golden dreams is to go to an Ivy League.  It'd be so expensive and so hard to get in, and I know it's probably never going to happen...but I have to admit, it's a dream... :)

So this song by The Rocket Summer called "Hills and Valleys" is probably going to be ringing in my ears by late tonight.  I'm going to my first concert...The Rocket Summer.  It's going to be interesting.  But I really do like this song!  So here it is:

So enjoy!  Later. :)