The Power of Six, Jekyll & Hyde

The long weekend was a nice breather after a hectic week of back-to-school insanity. On Monday night, I got to go to the Payson Community Theater's production of "Jekyll and Hyde: The Musical". It was incredible!! There was so much talent. Jekyll/Hyde was a one-man marvel. His voice was flexible and perfectly controlled, whether in the pure tones of Jekyll or the rough growls of Mr. Hyde. And his ability to warm the heart with the character's courage and virtue in one moment and make you feel sick with horror and fear the next was admirable. I had never even heard of this musical before, and I loved it. Even though it was a smaller community production, the talented cast members made it spectacular. The music was beautiful as well. But what made it most powerful was how it really made you think about human nature and the forces of good and evil. I'd love to read the book sometime.

I just finished The Power of Six, the second book in the Lorien Legacies Series by Pittacus Lore. I read it in two days (about 400 pages, mind you, with classes and hw). The series is about the last surviving individuals of a race of good aliens, whose planet was destroyed by a race of bad aliens. The good aliens are trying to survive until they can defend themselves and Earth and return to their planet Lorien to bring it back to life, but the bad aliens are trying to destroy them and Earth. That's a pretty watered down summary, but you get the picture. I read the first book, I Am Number Four during the roadtrip to and from the California ballroom competition this summer. Just for the record, it's a TON better than the movie. The movie makes it look like the kid had no idea what's going on, and his guardian comes across as a jerk. The book is a lot more comprehensive and dramatic, and there are powers and creatures and situations (that are kindof really important) that you never see in the movie. It's a pretty fun series. It makes it better that Number Seven's name is Marina. :)

Back into the Fray

This summer has been a marvelous experience for me. I took Spring and Summer terms at BYU which kept me delightfully busy. I now have a Latin Ballroom competition partner, and we've been having fun practicing, competing, and having various adventures (like breaking down in Vegas). My family got to visit Utah last week, and it was so wonderful to see and be with them! We went to Bear Lake and went tubing and soaked up some sunshine. I also got to go to several fantastic concerts this summer (Owl City, We the Kings, Ludo among others). Lots of my friends from freshman year just got back from their missions. Just so much awesome packed in to four months.

I have made some rather exciting personal discoveries. My mom brought me my copy of 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens from when I was in high school. I love that book. Maybe someday I'll read the grown-up version that Sean Covey's dad wrote. But it has so much good advice and uplifting, motivational stories. The friends that I have surrounded myself with this summer have been amazing; just being with them and watching them live their lives encourages me to be more than I am, that I can be more.I am living for the pure joy of life. It's hard work, but that makes it better. I have more confidence in myself and my ability to accomplish what I set out to do. It is such an empowering feeling.

First day of classes at BYU went well. I'm a Microbiology major for good. I had my first MMBio class today and Pearl of Great Price, as well as plenty of ballroom class auditions. I'll know tomorrow at 4 which ones I got into (crosses fingers). Probably doing Betsy's team again this year. Can't wait for homecoming! The Lindy Hop routine we do around campus is so much fun.

And here's a crazy, beautiful song by Imogen Heap that just makes me want to skip around

Propeller Seeds by imogenheap

Awesome Week: Part II

Wednesday

Today I tackled on of the things on my BIG To Do List: decide on a major. Well okay, I actually didn't get as far as actually declaring it, but I narrowed it down to three. It's going to be Micro/Molecular Biology, Environmental Science (w/ Micro/Molec emphasis), or Genetics. And the nice thing is they have very similar required Chem and Bio classes, and some even have interships abroad! I can travel for my major! :D We'll see how this plays out. I do know I'm officially a Ballroom Minor, so at least I have that covered.

Work was actually really enjoyable today too! I finished all the data entry, and then did some manual setting changes on a virus-eaten laptop, and then played with a couple of disastrous Macs. And my boss and I decided to take a break and bought the domains for me and each of my sisters. We're kinda weird. To top it off, he gave me an early birthday present: a freakin' Wacom Bamboo Pen & Touch graphics tablet. I kinda freaked out a little bit. It's been on my wishlist for six years, and I've been trying to save up money for one. Gleeeee! To my father if he reads this: I promise I won't let it distract me from my studies. It just sits under my desk, pleading for me to finish my homework quickly.

Thursday

One of my friends gave me a pleasant surprise this morning. He whisked me away at 7 am to Kneaders for breakfast. They have THE BEST bread I've ever had. I had a breakfast sammich on a croissant and we shared a humongous cinnamon roll. Pretty much the perfect way to start the day.

Then after working hard and braining good all day, I went to Blue Tango, where we are learning the Thriller dance! We're having an hour rehearsal every Thursday until the week of Halloween, where we will perform it. We're using a really good tutorial on YouTube. I'm also watching the original music video over and over to get down the awesome Michael Jackson-esque styling and moves. It's been one of my life goals to learn the Thriller dance, so it's a dream come true! I'm totally going to be a zombie flapper for our Halloween Blues night.

Spotlight! Mike Tompkins singing Dynamite and Fireflies. He sings all the acapella parts himself, and then fuses them together. Super fine.

Back at BYU

Well, it's only a few weeks into the semester, and a lot has happened, both good and bad. Due to the more recent events, I've been really upset and I realized I'm not nearly as happy as I was at the beginning of last school year. I'm on a mission to get that Me back. It was that Me that attracted friends and made other people happy, and that made me happy. I was funny, silly, always found with a smile and something to talk about. Always ready for some new adventure, whether that was late-night park games or splashing in puddles with equally ridiculous friends. Now I want to find the balance of happy-friendly-fun Me and productive-scholarly Me. I know it's possible. I'm also trying to be better spiritually. I haven't been doing some of the basic things I know I should, like praying and reading my scriptures, not with real intent.

Maybe I'll be blessed with that artistic inspiration I've been missing for so long.

*So as not to seem so bleak, one of the awesome bits of news is that I got onto the 10 o'clock BYU Ballroom Team! It's an entry-level team, so we compete with each other to move up to the higher teams. BYU has five teams within the Ballroom Company, so there is plenty of room for improvement.

"Don't You Know You're Beautiful" by Seabird

You Keep Staring Like You've Never Seen the Stars...

If you need me to remind you who you are...

Yeah, I'm on a little bit of an Elbow kick right now. They've got such chill, lovely music.

[Station Approach, The Stops, The Bones of You, Mirrorball, Grounds for Divorce, Weather to Fly]

Basically the biggest thing I did all day was eat a slice of pizza at Sweet Tomatoes. I talked to a mom there who has a job in nutrition, so it was a huge treat for her kids to have pizza. :P They were super cute and were telling me all sorts of crazy stories. I also planned my trip to Bard to visit Sarah. Hopefully that will happen Thursday. I need to get cracking on studying calculus, I'm going stir crazy without a job! And I really want to paint something. Inspiration just seems to elude me. Maybe if I find the right song... "The Stops" is really stuck in my head.

...and I'll miss you the way you miss the sea.

~Marina

A Return to the Y

It's soo good to be back at BYU. Utah is a very special place to me. However, I miss my family immensely. So my sister Lise and I have decided to create a DropBox. This is a two-person filesharing system. It started because I took all my music with me when I went off to college, and she and her sister Sasha just got mp3 players, and had no music. Lise is basically addicted to my musical taste, so I drop some of my music into our dropbox and she downloads it. We also have a Word document going that is something like a penpal/letter/email/blog between us. It's really quite fun! Every time we add something to dropbox or add to the Sisterlog, we change the title of the document to something ridiculous and usually having to do with an inside joke. For example, the first time I sent it, it was entitled BACON!!, as a nod to one of our favorite standups, Jim Gaffigan. We talk about what's been going on in our lives, what music we want from each other, and really silly and stupid stuff we think will make the other laugh.

So the spotlight from our very first correspondence was Imogen Heap's new album Ellipse, Mika's new album The Boy Who Knew Too Much, and Regina Spektor's new album Far. So far, I only have Imogen Heap's album, but what I've heard of all them is AMAZING.

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

Randomosity!

I'm in the library, er, studying for physics with Rudy and Katherine in the No Shhh! Zone. I feel like I understand most of it conceptually, but writing equations for systems confuse me a bit. We've been doing conceptual and calculation practice problems like crazy.

Thanks to Jeff, I recently discovered the genious of an LDS composer/musician named Jon Schmidt! His work is so passionate and exhilarating! Go listen to his music right now! My favorites are "All of Me," "Waterfall," "Game Day," and "Pachelbel/U2".

College is very difficult but an absolutely wonderful experience. I have so many stories to tell from within the past two months, I'll just blog them whenever I suddenly remember one! For example:

A couple of weeks ago, a bunch of us went to the projector room in the LRC to watch Jurassic Park. I'd never seen it, so it was really exciting for me! We brought blankets and pillows, and the girls crowded together on the floor and most of the guys sat in the student chairs. Everyone got really excited when the granddaughter came on, because apparently I look a lot like her. I absolutely love the soundtrack/theme of the movie, of course. Who doesn't love John Williams? I remember playing the theme in middle school and loving it. As we were watching the rest of the movie, when the raptor burst out in the basement, I screamed so loud! Everyone laughed, since they knew it was coming.

Another movie story! At about midnight, we all decided to sneak onto the track near Helaman Halls and watch "Stranger than Fiction". Everything worked perfectly. I got my speakers, we all snuggled up together in blankets and pillows, some sat on a covered bench, and the laptop was propped on the ___. We watched until 3 AM or so, and the laptop still had 12 minutes of battery power left. We packed up, left no trace of our having been there. Just as we were walking out, we saw a little golf cart pull up. Some of us started running away (stupid!), but we were pretty much caught. They shone the light in our eyes, and Katherine spoke up:

Campus Police: Why do you think you guys can be in here?

Katherine: Well, the other day a janitor told me that if you lived in Helaman Halls, you could use the track any time you wanted.

(all of us thought she was BSing, but she was telling the truth! a janitor really did tell her that. probably to see if she'd get in trouble...)

CP: How did you guys get in here?

K: Um, we crawled under the fence...

CP: And is that a good indication that you're welcome in here this late at night?

All of us: Nooo....

The funny thing is, they let us off without a hitch! It felt strangely good to get away with it. See what Mormons do for thrill-seeking??

Until next time, DFTBA!