The Harry Potter Blizzocolypse BYU Dream

I had one of the strangest dreams of my life last night. Here what I remember:

I'm in the BYUSA office in the Wilk when all of a sudden a female administrator comes running into the office, frantically grabs Angela, and tells the packed office of volunteers to brace ourselves. It's then that I gain this super vision and can look all the way down the desk, past clubs, and out the stairwell's window to the outdoors and see there is a HUGE storm outside. I also then realize that the ground and building are buckling in undulations. People are being pitched in the air, screaming, the lights are flashing on and off, the wind/rain/thunder death-storm can be heard roaring through the office, people are grabbing on to things... mayhem. I run with a couple other (unfamiliar but recognizable in the dream) people and hide in a doorway/corner for safety but we still don't feel safe.

The building stops rocking to the extreme extent and the administrator, who has now turned into a sort of Bellatrix, tells us to leave through the front of the office. People start running out and in the mass, I go against the flow and leave out through a secret back hallway and down the stairs by Jamba. As I run out to the terrace, I realize the Center for Service is empty, as though it never existed. I see a couple people I know that are running up stairs (the Wilk has now combined with aspects of Hogwarts) to the theater on the top floor.

I take off after all these people, avoiding the administrator/Bellatrix. While passing the BYUSA office again, I see the window plastered with people that have been stupefied. I shudder and continue following the crowd as they race to the 20th floor's theater (which seems to be Alta's auditorium, just much more mystical). The auditorium is darkened and an hour and a half brainwash event is going on (like something from Lost). I realize I need to keep my eyes closed (maybe because the two leaders at the front have the eyes of Medusa/the basilisk?) Everyone else seems brainwashed by their eye powers instead of being turned to stone or struck dead.

I sit and listen to the presentation for a really long time, but after putting on my sunglasses, I can peek out and see people just standing up and leaving. The male and female brainwash leaders at the front don't seem to notice. I see a boy in the front wearing a red jersey, who looks much more like the Cedric Diggory from my imagination more than Edward Cullen, about to stand and make his own escape, and decide to leave with him. I make my way past all the people in my row and army crawl to the front where Cedric is. He bolts for the door and I run out with him. I yelled something victorious as I leapt through the doors.

On the other side, Cedric has already left and I know I just need to get out. I leave out the Jamba lot doors, accio my broomstick, hop on mid run and kick off into the air, just out of the grasp of some evil people that were trying to thwart me. I fly low to my house, which seems an awful lot like the apartments from Westside Story, and get indoors. My roommates all happen to be male. They are very happy that I'm home and tell me about this awesome event that's coming up. They've hung posters the size of the Jonas Brother's Stadium of Fire poster that hung on Lavell Edward's stadium from our building advertising a concert from Beethoven, Hitler, and other famous dead people.

It now clicks that they've been brainwashed too because these were the very people I'd heard about during the brainwashing presentation, but because I hadn't seen it, I was still myself. I got back on my broom, cut the zip ties that were holding up the two posters and accidentally caught the attention of two police officers/zombies from Thriller. They start chasing me, I go back to my roommates who have snapped out of the trance since I cut down the posters and we run to the nearby apartment complex that closely resembles a combo of the Avenues and the Riv.

Neither of these places offer a good place to hide from the swarming Thriller zombie police but luckily the multicultural student association was having an event here with a live bear. They perform a Native American dance and release the bear which distracts the TZP. I run out of the complex, everything is in flames...

and I wake up.

President Holland is one of my favorites.

I found this radio conversation between President Holland, his wife Pat, and Sheri Dew yesterday. It's about an hour and a half long but I think that you'll like it. Take a break and click here to listen.

I think profound thoughts. A lot.

Tonight I was facebook chatting with my dear friend Alli Goodfellow. She is one of the most lovely people you'll ever have the pleasure to meet. In the course of the conversation, I said the following

"The future changes with our choices."

What does this phrase mean to you?

Good luck with finals everyone. I've been under a rock this semester. I miss blogging.

oh, what do you do in the summertime?

Race for the Cure | May 8th
Race for the Cure has become a family tradition of sorts. The Salt Lake City race is one of the biggest with over 17,000 participants this year. Now that it's so crowded, we just walk the route and enjoy seeing all the crazy pink that people deck out in.


attend lots of wedding receptions and bridal showers
Hooray for love! Seriously. I went to a lot of them.


become addicted to LOST
Thank you Chad Johnson. When he left to NYC for his summer internship, he graciously allowed me to borrow the first five seasons... and from there, I got just a little addicted. I started three weeks before the sixth, and final, season's finale and was able to follow the saga from beginning to end.


assist with the Special Olympics | May 27-29

Such a cool event. My friend Justin Smith referred me to be on the Games Organizing Committee a couple of months back. With the way that BYUSA elections worked out, I was able to get going right when they started planning in April. I had the great opportunity to help out with the public relations, a lot of which was heavily involved with the media. I was able to meet some really great people and was really touched by the mission of the Special Olympics.

[taking care of business]

[best dance ever.]

[a few of GOC friends]

vacation in Kaua'i | June 11-19
First trip to Hawaii! That's kinda a big deal. Mom, Joe, Emmie and I took a break and had some fun far far away from the mainland.

Emmie and I probably had too much fun taking pictures and making music videos

The best part of the whole trip was really just catching up with my BSE.

[just arriving at the hotel]

 [can't get enough of this]

[just after our surfing lesson]

[camera lovin']

[so much fun happened in this hammock]

[BSE]

help Mom plan her wedding
It's not to common to be able to help your mom plan her wedding. I got to share in this great joy as her Maid of Honor. My biggest responsibility was creating the perfect wedding playlist.

start the next year of BYUSA fun

[the infamous hand tap game]*

Adventure Experience was up near Bear Lake. This is the bunch of officers I'll get to become best friends with over the next few semesters; I can't wait.

*not pictured: Jared Colton

be uplifted by the Manti Temple Pagent | June 25

[Manti, UT]

I'd gone to the pageant a few times as a kid. Coming back here was wonderful. We went down as a ward activity; such a powerful experience. I'll be sure to bring warmer clothes next time- it got cold! 

celebrate the 4th of July for four straight days
This was probably the most epic 4th of July I'd experienced in a long time. Because the 4th was on a Sunday, everyone in Utah decided that it meant we needed to celebrate Friday through Monday.

[hiking the Y]

 [everything the light touches]

 [triumphant at the peak]

 [gearing up for the parade on the 5th]

 [dragon posing]

[I was on the float... and then the front page of the DU!]

watched BYU go viral

I can't get enough of the HBLL Production Team. I was with Olivia as we watched this get 300 views... and we thought that was a lot!


break a world record in the World's Largest Water Balloon Fight
The Office of Spring and Summer came up with a great ploy to make people stay in Provo- the World's Largest Water Balloon Fight! We stole the record from the University of Kentucky and I was never so wet in my life.

 [we made a lot of friends]

[the aftermath]

This is the link to the Kyle Andrews music video for "You Always Make Me Smile" that was made during the event. Here's the KSL 5 news story. 

spend a lot of time with Olivia Gallegos & Rachel Schwartz

Yup. Just can't get enough of these girls.

Who I am.

This is on my mind tonight.

LOST reading list

• I became addicted to Lost this summer. I wanted to assemble a list of all the literary works it references. In all its glory, I present it here.
• 
  
• "Mt.Tianmu Ascended in Dreams" by: Li Bai
• A Brief History of Time by: Stephen Hawking
• A Christmas Carol by: Charles Dickens
• A History of World Societies by: John P. McKay, John Buckler, Bennett D. Hill, Patricia Buckley Ebrey
• A Separate Reality by: Carlos Castaneda
• A Tale of Two Cities by: Charles Dickens
• A Wrinkle in Time by: Madeleine L'Engle
• After All These Years: A Novel by: Susan Isaacs
• Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by: Lewis Carroll
• An Occurrence At Owl Creek Bridge by: Ambrose Gwinnett Bierce
• Animal Farm by: George Orwell
• Are You There God? It's Me Margaret by: Judy Blume
• Bad Twin by: Gary Troup
• Bluebeard by: Charles Perrault
• Book of Laws by: Manu
• Caravan of Dreams by: Idries Shah
• Carrie by: Stephen King
• Catch-22 by: Joseph Heller
• Chains of Command by: William J. Caunitz
• Civilization and Its Discontents by: Sigmund Freud
• Dark Horse by: Tami Hoag
• Dirty Work by: Stuart Woods
• Domes of Fire by: David Eddings
• Easy Prey by: John Sandford
• Eleventh Hour by: Catherine Coulter
• Everything That Rises Must Converge by: Flannery O'Connor
• Evil under the Sun by: Agatha Christie
• Fahrenheit 451 by: Ray Bradbury
• Fear and Trembling by: Sören Kierkegaard
• Fire in the Mind by: George Johnson
• Flowers For Algernon by: Daniel Keyes
• Grimm's Fairy Tales by: Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm
• Haroun and the Sea of Stories by: Salman Rushdie
• Harry Potter by: J. K. Rowling
• Heart of Darkness by: Joseph Conrad
• Hearts in Atlantis by: Stephen King
• High Hand by: Gary Phillips
• Hindsight by: Peter Wright
• Holy Bible: King James Version
• Hotel by: Arthur Hailey
• I Ching
• Island by: Aldous Huxley
• Julius Caesar by: William Shakespeare
• Jurassic Park by: Michael Crichton
• Juvenal
• Kings of Love: The Poetry and History of the Ni'Matullahi Sufi Order by: P. L. Wilson, Nasrollah Pourjavady
• Lancelot by: Walker Percy
• Laughter in the Dark by: Vladimir Nabokov
• Left Behind: A Novel of the Earth's Last Days (Left Behind #1) by: Tim F. LaHaye, Jerry B. Jenkins
• Lord of the Flies by: William Golding
• Lucan
• Memoirs of a Geisha by: Arthur Golden
• Moby-Dick by: Herman Melville
• Mysteries of the Ancient Americas: The New World before Columbus By: Robert Dolezal
• Nighttime is My Time by: Mary Higgins Clark
• No Place Like Home by: Mary Higgins Clark
• Notes from the Undergound by: Fyodor Dostoyevsky
• O Pioneers! by: Willa Cather
• Of Mice and Men by: John Steinbeck
• On the Beginnings of Miss Rachel and Miss Pauline by: Alfred de Musset
• On the Road by: Jack Kerouac
• On Writing by: Stephen KIng
• Our Mutual Friend by: Charles Dickens
• Pale Horse Coming by: Stephen Hunter
• Parker's Astrology by: Julia and Derek Parker
• Plautus
• Prey by: Michael Crichton
• Rainbow Six by: Tom Clancy
• Redemption by: Leon Uris
• Roots by: Alex Haley
• Scientific Genius by: Dean Kenneth Simonton
• Skinny Dip by: Carl Hiaasen
• Slaughterhouse-Five by: Kurt Vonnegut
• Stranger in a Strange Land by: Robert A. Heinlein
• The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by: Mark Twain
• The Annotated Alice by: Lewis Carroll
• The Bailey Chronicles by: Catherine Cookson
• The Brothers Karamazov by: Fyodor Dostoyevsky
• The Chosen by: Chaim Potok
• The Chronicles of Narnia by: C. S. Lewis
• The Coalwood Way by: Homer Hickam
• The Dark Tower series by: Stephen King
• The Epic of Gilgamesh by: Anonymous
• The Fountainhead by: Ayn Rand, Leonard Peikoff
• The Greatest Generation by: Tom Brokaw
• The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by: Douglas Adams
• The Holy Quran
• The Invention of Morel by: Adolfo Bioy Casares
• The Keep by: F. Paul Wilson
• The Little Prince by: Antoine de Saint-Exupery
• The Moon Pool by: A. Merritt
• The Mysterious Island by: Jules Verne
• The Oath by: John Lescroart
• The Odyssey by: Homer
• The Outsiders by: S. E. Hinton
• The Pearl by: John Steinbeck
• The Power of Beauty by: Nancy Friday
• The Scottish Bride by: Catherine Coulter
• The Shape of Things to Come by: H. G. Wells
• The Sheltering Sky by: Paul Bowles
• The Shining by: Stephen King
• The Stand by: Stephen King
• The Stone Leopard by: Colin Forbes
• The Survivors of the Chancellor by: Jules Verne
• The Third Policeman by: Flann O'Brien
• The Turn of the Screw by: Henry James
• The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by: L. Frank Baum
• Through The Looking Glass by: Lewis Carrol
• To Kill a Mockingbird by: Harper Lee
• Two Dollar Bill by: Stuart Woods
• Ulysses by: James Joyce
• Uncle Tom's Cabin by: Harriet Beecher Stowe
• Valhalla Rising by: Clive Cussler
• Valis by: Philip K. Dick
• Virgil
• Watership Down by: Richard Adams
• What Katy Did by: Susan Coolidge
• Y: The Last Man, Vol. 1: Unmanned by: Brian K. Vaughan

EPIC Spokane road trip :)

Over the last two days, Miss Rachel Schwartz and I journeyed to the great state of Washington, and back. It was quite the road trip. We left Provo just after nine and arrived in Spokane at ten that night. Luckily for you, we v-logged every hour. Please stay tuned for the film to be posted; as you wait, please enjoy these photographs.

[the incredible great skies of Wyoming]

[retirement dream: painting clouds just like these]

Big shout out goes to the Colton's for making this trip a possibility and making sure we were taken care of every step of the way. Thank you again! 

The REAL festival of color

A few weeks back, the Hare Krishna temple over in Spanish Fork held their annual Festival of Color in celebration of Holi. Instead of getting covered in chalk, Lauren and I had a very successful shopping trip. (Her blog: http://thelovelylifeof
laurenlytle.blogspot.com/)

To celebrate my birthday and the beautiful spring weather, Mom and Joe took me to the Thanksgiving Point Tulip Festival. According to their website, the gardens cover 55-acres and yield approximately 250,000 bulbs.

The Tulip Festival runs through May 1st. It might be wise to call ahead and see how the tulips are looking.

Tulips are definitely my favorite flower.

reading days are the best days

Dear BYU,
   
Thank you very much for Exam Preparation Days. Not only do they provide me the opportunity to catch up on my studies, I'm able to de-stress and have some fun.

[clubs & g-unit]

[Rachel & Ryan- models.]

[sticky, eyes burning, but oh so happy]

[they're just bruises, right?]

[G+T+K @ OG]

I definitely feel rested and ready to display my knowledge on these finals.

Unforum 2010: BYU Tube

This was the second year that I had the opportunity to participate in BYUSA's Unforum. Adam Ruri, last year's president, planned the event with Deidre Edmunds and they did a wonderful job.You can check out their blogs here: http://adamruri.blogspot.com and http://deejmbl.blogspot.com.
    
Divine Comedy, Rugby Team, BYUSA's Club Style, Living Legends, Folk Dance, President Samuelson, and Cosmo all participated. Unform us also where the 2010 Brigham Award winners were announced. These people are the top of the top. Only five were selected and truly are some of the most incredible people I've ever met.
    
Probably the coolest part about Unform was when we asked for help cleaning up at the end and 80 students immediately came down to lend a hand. That's just one of the reasons why I love BYU.
   
If you'd like to learn more-
BYUSA: http://byusa.byu.edu/
Divine Comedy: http://www.divinecomedy.net/
Rugby Team: http://www.byurugby.com/
BYUSA's Club Style: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2201308752
Living Legends: http://www.facebook.com/pages/BYU-Living-Legends/87491030773
Folk Dance: http://pam.byu.edu/similarpage.asp? title=International%20Folk%20Dance%20Ensemble

Shout HOORAY!

Best birthday ever. No joke. 

     

Tony and Blake greeted me in the morning with warm cinnamon rolls and birthday singing. My lovely roommates came in with balloons and more singing. At work we had doughnuts and even more birthday singing. 
       
I turned 20 at 2:33 out in the warm sun in Brigham Square on my way to the BYUSA office. I supervised the (final?) branding photo shoot for the giant pop up with a big group of beautiful friends. Precious Taylor bought me Jamba. Everyone in the office snuck up and sang just before the end of office hours. Thank you BYUSA friends!
     
Emmie called me in a British accent just after 5 to figure out where I was. Dinner with Emmie and Mom at Fusion Asian Grill; we loved our Korean food. Mom bought me 4 dozen blue and white balloons at Maceys. 

[childhood dream realized]

[BSE- 6 days short of 6 years]

Then it was back to the Wilk to set up for the surprise party. Yes. Surprise. That's what I wanted and that's what I had. 

    

My wonderful graphic design friend Zach Woffinden designed these beautiful invitations for me. You can find more of his work here: 
http://zwoffdesign.com/

   


The party was wonderful. In the end, over 500 guests were invited- woo! Mom and Emmie got to stick around and meet a ton of my college/high school friends. Thanks to everyone for making sure they felt loved and included in all our fun.

[Just a few of my wonderful birthday guests]  
     

It was such a fun night. After the building coordinator kicked us out, and a quick run to Wendy's, we had cake back at Liberty and my wonderful roommates gave me a beautiful painting; I think all my close up pictures of flowers inspired them. I can't wait to hang it up! The night concluded with a car talk into the early morning and reading "nice notes."

Thanks again to everyone that added to my birthday. I loved getting the texts, reading all your facebook posts, hearing your birthday wishes, and seeing all of you throughout the day.
   

That's why it really was the best birthday ever. Goodbye teens; I'm 20 now!