This is a blog about my many anticipated adventures (and misadventures) at BYU. It contains many random things, to appear as I see fit. Stories with friends, pictures of beautiful things, silly videos of me, at times vlogging, fun links to show you (like youtube vids or cool websites), music and movies I love, art and artists I think the world should see. But at the heart, this blog is to help me find my place in life. And you're invited to join me along my journey!
Thursday, March 14, 2013
I'm Back?
For starters, I'm engaged!! To the most wonderful man that could possibly have been made for me. Our wedding is April 27th of this year. We got engaged in June of last year, so it's been a while. Mormon engagements are a little different. We don't shack up together and go ho-hum until we feel like getting married. So, the tension and stress is a little more heightened. But we couldn't avoid it, family comes first, so we moved the date from December to April. But I would recommend keeping it to four months from engagement to wedding.
Even though we've had more than enough time to plan, it's still incredibly stressful! I'm taking the minimum of 12 credits at BYU, only two ballroom classes and several science classes, and I'm still flopping around like a beached whale. Quite literally. Because I've cut back on dance, I think I've gained at least 20 pounds since the summer. I've never felt my sides touch when I bent over, or felt my thighs, butt, arms or back jiggle when I ran. It's infuriating and a blow to my self-esteem.
And here I will list the many wonderful qualities of one Kent Pimentel (skip to spare yourself the sap):
Kent is kind and patient. There have been countless times when I have broke down crying from stress, from sadness, or for no good reason at all, and he's been there for me with the perfect response. He's helped me prioritize, comforted me with hugs and little kisses on the cheek and forehead. He dances with me in the kitchen when no one is around. He dances with me at the supermarket. He dances with me in the street. He tells me all the time that I am the most beautiful girl in the world, and it's funny because he's the only one I believe. He makes me feel beautiful, with compliments and smiles and so many little things. "I would still love you," he says, "even if you looked like a truck. But you don't look like a truck. You're more of a Ferrari." He doesn't get upset when I'm sulky, he just tries to love me back to happiness. Anyone else I know would be exasperated and say "oh come on enough already." Not him. He is a total nerd, in a good way. We both love Sci-Fi shows. I introduced him to Doctor Who, he introduced me to Stargate. He appreciates art, politics, music, dance, geeky computer stuff, philosophy, history, everything! His passion for life is amazing. He makes friends so easily and is so outgoing.
tl;dr Kent is awesome and I'm terribly lucky to be marrying his face.
I suppose I should sleep maybe. But I could get so many things done in these early hours... Perhaps next time I'll list details about the wedding and receptions!
1434
Thursday, September 8, 2011
The Trouble With Nice People & One of My Greatest Fears
One of my greatest fears is disappointing people by not meeting their expectations of me. Today I let my ballroom partner down. I honestly thought he said we were practicing at 9, but he actually said that we were practicing at 8 and we could practice at 9 if we needed to. He waited 40 minutes for me to show up, but I was taking a nap and didn't hear him calling until 8:45. I feel awful, especially because we only practiced for half an hour (due to lack of space, sleep, and patience), and we were going to go through all our routines today. To make up for it, I'm going to get there half an hour early, practice spinning, and go over our routines by myself until he arrives. He deserves better. I also talked to another ballroom friend, who did basically the same thing I did. I think it's because we're all trying to adjust to our new schedules, and we're finding we need more sleep than we could get by on a few weeks ago. We're tired, frustrated, and napping through our commitments. Solution: earlier bedtime and making time to practice more and warm up.
Friday, September 2, 2011
Let the Weekend Begin
I love making friends and keeping them. It's a wonderful feeling to be walking between classes and see a friend from two years ago and still be interested in each others' lives. Many of my guy friends got back from their missions a few weeks ago, and it's so wonderful to know that they are the same people I knew, but stronger and wiser. I'm so grateful to have friends that exemplify the values they believe in. It's such an affirmation of my own faith, and it gives me hope that I too can be strong and incredible.
Team is going to be awesome. Betsy, our 2 O'Clock Team coach, is going to be choreographing the new Lindy-Hop for the Homecoming Parade in October. The routine hasn't been changed since 2005, so this will be fun. I'm so flippin excited for this year! And my ballroom partner and I got a new Cha Cha routine from Brent. It's crazy, but fantastic. Like our samba routine.
I finally saw Kung Fu Panda 2 and drooled a little bit at the gorgeousness of it all. The character design...and the colors...and the action sequences...and the animation... *speechless*
Watermelon Juice
Among other awesome things we discussed, he brought up Schrodiger's Riddle: What is Life? and the interesting fact that just as Adam was commanded to name all the creatures he could find, we are still naming living organisms today (just in a highly organized, latin-based way).
Tonight were the ballroom auditions for the BYU Ballroom Dance Company. I went to help out and dance with the guys auditioning. Thankfully, both the guys I danced with got called back, so at least my shaky memory of social dance steps didn't hurt their chances! I'm really excited to see who got put on our team tomorrow :) Several of my friends from Summer Team got on. I think this will be a fantastic year.
I should mention that fresh-squeezed, chilled watermelon juice is an excellent beverage.
Wednesday, August 31, 2011
College is Hard
But my Chem 107 class, a lab, is terribly disorganized. Two of the TA's don't speak very good English and for the first fifteen minutes, my labmates and I just stared at each other and our tables like "what do we do now?" So frustrating, but I'll do what I can to make it less complicated for myself.
Monday, August 29, 2011
Back into the Fray
Friday, October 15, 2010
Awesome Week: Part III

Sunday, October 10, 2010
BYU Homecoming!

Sunday, September 26, 2010
Back at BYU
Friday, May 14, 2010
AAAH so much sushi.
Okay okay. I kinda went crazy.
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
Misomisosambaaa
Ingredients:
4 cups water
1/3 cup miso paste
3 green onions, chopped
1 tbsp shredded nori or wakame (seaweed)
1/2 block firm silken tofu, cut into 1 inch cubes
Dash soy sauce
1/2 teaspoon sesame oil
Bring water to a slow simmer and add seaweed. Simmer for 5-6 minutes, or more depending on your preferences. The seaweed will taste less salty/fishy if you simmer it longer. Reduce heat to very low and add the rest of the ingredients. Stir until miso is well dissolved. It is best not to boil the miso, because it will lose some of its nutritional value and the soup will taste different.
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
Sushi!
Monday, May 3, 2010
Summer 2010: Week 1
Mokay. So this morning, I awoke to my phone buzzing from several txts from my sisters telling me to wake up and get my butt over to the high school, so I went and gave them their presents (Lise got a BYU sweatshirt like mine, Sasha got the first book in the Wheel of Time series called The Eye of the World), talked to my old science and calc teachers (below are the doodles I drew on Dr. Pegram's board), and then drove my sisters home (with much car jamz). Then I took them to dinner at Sweet Tomatoes (DELICIOUS italian thin crust pizza with crazy awesome tomato sauce), then to ballet. While they were at ballet, I went and hung out with my ballroom teachers. Everyone was super excited to see me, and I talked to Ray for a while. He knows some awesome lindy and blues places, so I'll be going this week. ^_^Then drove my sisters home, screaming lyrics all the way, making people look at us weird. Came home. Kinda worried about finding a job. The end of day 1 home.
Wednesday, April 28th:
Today I was going to do a lot of stuff (like laundry, visit more teachers, talk to students about college, etc) but no. I was lazy. SO I ended up visiting my awesome friend Steph after I dropped my dad off at the bus station on his way to Saudi :'( . We made tortilla soup. It turned out SO GOOD. I don't even know how, we didn't follow the recipe. We just threw stuff in we thought would taste good, like black beans and corn and peppers and chicken. It was so so fun. After that, I drove over to my sisters' ballet studio in Newton. My old ballet teacher was there and she was so excited to see me! Ms. Busch was so nice, and she let me come in and watch the class. My sisters have gotten so incredibly good. I'm really amazed. I do miss ballet a lot, but not quite enough to go through the pain again ;) Turf Toe once is good enough for me. So then I went to dinner at Lam's with my mom (really good Vietnamese food). I got tofu vegetable red curry with summer rolls and coconut juice. It was so amazing. The guy next to us had a ridiculous accent and was really loud about how awesome he was. He and his date(?) even started singing some hokey song at one point. It was all we could do not to laugh out loud. I could barely contain myself. After our lovely dinner (and me being interrogated on various points of my life), I drove off to ballroom for the group lessons. Everyone was so happy to see me, but I can't believe how out of shape I've gotten after only a few weeks! I'm going to be there so much this summer. It's gonna rock. BYU ballroom team, here I come.
Thursday, April 29th
Today was pretty dang sweet. I took apart my mom's MacBook (because the hard drive died) and went Blues dancing. It was pretty cool because there's basically a clone of every blues dancer I know in Provo. But now my toe is acting up again. Joy.
Friday April 30th:
Ordered the harddrive for the Macbook. I plan on taking apart our other two MUCH older computers for kicks. I went to ballet (took the Tahoe, man that thing is a monster) with my mom and sisters. I helped weed and water the ballet garden, which was quite nice given the uncharacteristic warm sunny weather. Then when my sisters got out of ballet, we went to dinner at a Middle Eastern restaurant called Karoun with my relatives from Alaska. I also discovered, while I was chatting with some of the ballet people, that Mr. Anderson has a huge thing for ravens! I think I might make something raveny for him, like a tribal raven painting or something.
Saturday, May 1:
LOBSTER DINNERRRR that I have been dying to have for YEARS. We had lobster and mussels and clams and oysters on the half shell. I've never had them on the half shell, so it was a pretty fun experience. And I've heard that they are an aphrodisiac? I'll have to test that out one day in the distant future :P Must be the zinc.
Sunday, May 2nd:
Drove my sisters to Snow White rehearsal. Then Mom, Lise, Sasha, and the Alaskans went to theCoach Grill for dinner. Whoa-expensive, but really tasty.
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
In Which Marina Exemplifies ADD
Another week of stress-induced mayhem!
I took the physics test last week, and miraculously got a 78% overall! Huzzah! Since the class as a whole didn't do very well, he's offering a makeup test to get half our points back, and I'm definitely taking advantage of that opportunity. Today I took a Book of Mormon exam, and tomorrow I have a calculus exam and a quiz.
Last night was really wonderful! I went to Dance Lab, which was basically a huge dance in the ballroom specifically for Social Dance students. It was amazing! I've learned Foxtrot and Cha-Cha, and a little bit of swing and waltz in my class so far. My favorite by far is Cha-Cha. The whole attitude and social interaction (aka flirting) of the dance is so exciting.
Halloween is tomorrow! I'm wearing my costume from two years ago, Jemima from the musical CATS. I'm going to wear it aaaall day. I'm really excited! I'll definitely post pictures.
And as of now, I have three days left of my childhood before I officially become an adult. Aaah! It's a weird thought...
Randomness time!
First spotlight: Last.fm
This is an amazing site where you can make an account, and then favorite lots of artists, composers, groups, and songs you like. You can listen to full tracks up to three times. Your library of favorites becomes your own "radio station" and you can listen to all of your favorites on random as much as you want! I absolutely love it. I like to leave it on when I'm doing homework, and I've found a few new groups that I really like. For example:
Your Vegas. This group, to me, sounds like the grandchild of Coldplay, and the child of Keane. The smooth height of the singer's voice reminds me a lot of Keane, and the calm, catchy beats in their songs are similar to Coldplay. A few of my favorite songs are "In My Head", "Up Until the Lights Go Out", and "Troubled Times".
Another group I've discovered is Phantom Planet. I just like 'em. :3
While we're on the same note (haw haw), if you haven't seen Dr. Horrible's Sing Along Blog, you should do so right away. Click the the link that says "watch it right now". Give yourself about 45 minutes to watch it. It's an amazing little comedic-tragedy musical that was written during the writers' strike. They wanted to make something professionally made, while still being very low budget. The songs are very catchy and funny! *sings* "With my freeze ray I will stop! the world..."
In the world of literature:
John Green, a young adult writer, is still on his tour for his most recent novel Paper Towns. I read his other two books, An Abundance of Katherines and Looking for Alaska. I absolutely love his writing style. He expects a lot from his readers (who are generally Nerdfighters), in that he expects them to think critically and analytically about the symbolism and messages he is trying to convey. Basically, he likes his audience to be active readers. Paper Towns was #5 in the New York Times Bestselling list, and is #6 this week, in a large part due to the huge population of Nerdfighters who watch him and his brother, Hank, on their YouTube vlog Brotherhood 2.0. I'm looking forward to when I can escape campus to Borders and buy a copy! (I think I'll get one with happy Margo on it...)
DeviantArt spot!

Visit the amazing art gallery of Leonidafremov! His stunningly gorgeous work is done in oil paint in a style that he has created and practically perfected. He uses strong, bright colors in scenes that dazzle the eye and warm the heart.
And that concludes my spazzy ramble!
Best wishes!
M Scribble