I am youth. I am joy. I am freedom!

Once upon a time, there was a group of ten girls who went on a study abroad to a distant land called London.  Their group made a trip out to a magical land called Paris.  One of the days on this magical trip turned out to be the best day of the magical trip because these ten girls made it happen.  They walked to the top of Notre Dame Cathedral, admired the stained glass at Sainte Chapelle, strolled down Champ Elysees, and snapped pictures at the top of L'Arc di triomphe.  They ate the best crepes and gelato in the world.  They meandered around the Louvre until closing.  By the end of the day, walking was nearly impossible, but they were happy. 
The ten girls declared themselves the Dream Team because of this marvelous day they had experienced.  When they were to get together again, they would have a Dream Team Reunion, or a DTR.  The day ended.  The weeks flew by in London.  And they moved on with their lives, but not without that magical place constantly in the back of their minds.  They spoke of when they would have a DTR, but life got busy. 
This week, however, the girls decided to break the habit of not having a DTR.  Not everyone was able to join, since one of the girls in in New York, another serving a mission in Colorado, another was at a concert, and yet another had lots of schoolwork to do, but at least -4 is better than not seeing anyone at all.  They made pizza and animatedly chatted about boys, school, work, etc.  Then, in the light of it being a London reunion, they went to the musical "Peter Pan".  It was fun and delightful and all too familiar.
And for one night, they were able to go back to the magical land as a Dream Team.

{dinner-me, annie, laura, kira, jenny}

{Peter Pan-kira, laura, rachel, me}

for l'artiste in all of us

I'm currently sitting in my Music 202 class, learning about the genius that Mozart was.  Can I mention, first off, how much I love this class?  I love music, we all know that.  As of this last year my interest in art transformed from a mild respect to love.  And, duh, I love literature.  Music+Art+Literature+taught by an Aussie who knows everything there is to know about all of the above=Music 202.  Highly recommend it.
Anyways, being in the class reminded me of the opportunity I had to go to the Carl Bloch exhibit at BYU's Museum of Art with my good friend Cameron, recently.  I first heard about Carl Bloch in London, when some of my friends from the program went to Copenhagen, Denmark for a weekend trip.   A lot of his original works is in Copenhagen, including as part of the altarpieces for some churches there.  Bloch's work is frequently featured in LDS publications, as you Mormons out there will probably realize.  BYU was able to get some of the altarpieces in addition to paintings and etchings on loan to display at the MOA.  If you are at all interested in art, GO SEE IT.  It was so beautiful and was probably one of the most spiritual experiences that I've had involving art. 

{Christ Healing the Sick at Bethsada}

Even though Bloch was Catholic and I am Mormon, meaning we have some different views on Christ's life, I felt the central message of Christ's love that he relayed in each of his paintings.  I have a testimony of the fact that reading the scriptures is not the only way to learn about and draw closer to Christ, our Savior.  I believe that it is possible to feel the Spirit and to understand our Savior's life through art and music.  And I did draw closer to my Savior through the work of Carl Bloch.

{Peter's Denial}

Portlandia

Here's a shout out to my home turf.  I lived in the Portland Metro area since I was 8 and I feel like it has helped to define who I am.  I mean, in my persuasive, open-topic paper for my Freshman year paper, I wrote about recycling.  I love the city.  The waterfront, the Saturday and Farmer's Markets, the concert venues, and even the weirdos.  I miss the rain.  I miss OMSI.  I miss the trees.
So you can imagine how excited I was to hear that someone else noticed how...unique...the city is.  There's a new mini-series called "Portlandia" that are just little skits of the funny things about Portland.  Every single thing they did this last episode was dead on.  My friends and I just laughed and talked about how we've experienced what they talked about.
Here's a snippet of what it's like:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0XM3vWJmpfo

Yo hablo palabras malas y yo no las sé.

I know that we're not supposed to be envious, but I have bilingual envy.
I've been thinking about it since Tuesday, when I met with my Spanish Study Buddy.  She's been in Provo for 4 months and is already better at English than I am at Spanish.  I've been learning Spanish since my Sophomore year in High School.  Granted, I took a two year break when I started college, but she's been here FOR FOUR MONTHS. 
Here's what happened.  I'm supposed to talk in Spanish for 2 hours before our first test and so I decided to be a part of this program in the ELC called Study Buddies.  I talk for 30 minutes in Spanish and she helps me to improve my conversation skills and she speaks in English for 30 minutes and I help her improve her conversation.  Pretty low key, which is just what I need.  I show up Tuesday for our lil study sesh and wait for her to come. And wait. And wait.  I call her.  I call my friend, Seth, who served in Guatemala for 2 years and comes back suddenly fluent in another language (green envy monster appears every time he speaks. ok, there are some things I need to work on in my life, including having bilingual envy).  I ask if we can practice Espanol since my study buddy forgot about me.  As I'm driving to his place, she calls me back, so I go back.  Seth tells me that he wants to practice, too, but that he's too lazy to drive down to us.  So I get to know my buddy, hablar-ing and English-ing.  I'm not too nervous because I know that she's in the same boat as I am.  We both struggle with each other's language but at least we struggle together.  No pressure.  Then suddenly Seth shows up, going off in the other language to my buddy how he wants to practice his Spanish, being as he just got back from Guate and doesn't really have anyone to speak to (he has me, buuuut we all can guess how much patience that requires from him).  She speaks in the other language to him and then I realize that she's MY hablar-ing buddy so I try to join the conversation.  It's not so low key anymore since there is now a person who is fluent in both languages involved (green monster of envy).  It was nice at some points when I'd forget a word in Spanish and he was my personal human Spanish-English dictionary, though. 
I get into the flow of the conversation, both of us turning to Seth every once and awhile to help me with certain words, when the conversation turned towards certain words that are different in Guate and Mexico (where my buddy's from).  Really trying to put myself out there and be all-hablar-knowing, I through out a word that my teacher from last semester taught us for "cool".  I won't repeat it as to avoid offending any hablars out there, as I did with Seth and my buddy.  Yeah. First day with the study buddy and I'm already dropping obsenities.  In my defense, it's not offensive in some Spanish-speaking areas of the world.  But it's pretty bad in Guate and Pueblo, Mexico, as I find out.  Yep. Awesome. 
You can imagine that soon after that, I decided that it was time for us to speak English.  And I kept it G-rated in both languages, I promise.
When we left, in order to continue the cultural experience, Seth fried me a plantain, something he ate frequently on his mission. 
Then I ate some funfetti cake to bring myself back to America, where I decided is the right place for me.

¡Olé!

tuesdee nights

blueberry muffins, glass of milk, reading for eng 293, and jimmer on the t.v.
I heart college life.

Christmas and New Years.

It's a little late, but I can't skip over my wonderful Christmas break! 
I could have gone home really early, because finals weren't too bad, but I chose to stay and work up until the 23rd.  It was a little creepy staying in my apartment by myself for 5 days, but I survived. 
When I finally was able to make it out of Provo, I headed towards sunny Southern California for my grandparents' house.  For the first time in a long time, my whole extended family on my mom's side was together.  So we took professional family pictures.  I haven't received those, yet, but here are some pre-shoot fun ones.

{Ericksen sibs}

{My sister could be a model.}

{my adorable grandparents--one of the greatest examples of love I've ever seen}

Christmas Eve was the traditional see a movie and go out to dinner.  We saw "True Grit" (recommend it), and ate at B.J.'s (Pazookie? Please and Thank You).

Christmas Day was wonderful.  Everyone was together and we just laughed and cried and loved.  My Great-Uncle Jay was there to remind me how happy I'll be in my cardboard box, since I can't do much with an English degree, but I love it anyways.  My cousin is studying art and my brother music so we figured our "Feed Us" sign will be beautifully written and crafted and my brother can play music for us to attract charity.  But at least we will all be happy.  Haha I love having Uncle Jay around (who got his masters in poetry, by the way...).  We had the Christmas feast, which the teenagers were banned to the outside table since there was no room for us inside at the adult table.  It was cold outside...but the food was good!  Even though it was a short stay, it was so worth the trip. 

A short 15 hour drive back to Oregon was what we did the next day.  You could instantly tell when we crossed the California/Oregon border because it started to rain.  We stopped by to see the Medford Temple, which none of us had ever seen before.

Monday, I went to Seth's house for the first time in over 2 years and we did what we used to do 2 years ago: play video games with his siblings.  Only this time, it was the FUNNEST game I've ever played: Dance Central.  Oh. My.  No controls, just dancing!  And it's the actual dance moves from the dances.  Seriously, I can't get enough of this game hahaha.  We also ate at Mashitas.  If you're ever in my area, I will  take you to Mashitas. Yum.  That night, I also ate at Cold Stone. Again. (I love my brother's job)
That night I picked up my mum and brother at the airport and we went to Ikea for my first time.  My brother and I love "(500) Days of Summer", so we got a kick out of this.  Also, when I first came to college, I wanted to study Interior Design/Architecture.  Been wanting to since I was 14.  I changed my mind on that, but I still love everything about home decor.  GAH! That place was amazing.
Wednesday-Thursday, I made pillows for our beach house.
Thursday, I went shopping for the beach house with my mom all day (again, I'm loving this fresh pallet for home decor).  My friend Grant came over to chat.  We were sitting on my couch and he says: "So, do you have any plans tonight?  Because my dad has tickets for the Blazers game tonight."  Uh, yes I have plans. I'm going to my first NBA game wih Grant Collins.  On the way there, I asked him who we were playing and I found out it was the Jazz!! WHAT?! I think he got annoyed about the fact that I kept mumbling something about this being the best night of my life. 
Blazers won.  We got free Chalupas.  Good night.

good seats

Grant Collins and I

PS Grant Collins and I went to our Senior Prom together.

{feel like ions ago...}

Friday, my family, Grant, Allie and Caitlyn went up to our beach house for New Years celebrations.  Many people ask just how cold the Oregon coast is, and, trust me, it's cold (I wore 3 coats every time I went out).  BUT it's one of the prettiest places in the world, to me.  We had some moving-in to do, but after a few hours of us girls trying to figure out how to put the stupid Ikea chairs together, our house looked more like a home.  We found out some cool details about the area we moved in to.  We saw these petrified logs all along the shoreline when we went out exploring and it was a little bit eerie.  But we found out that around Christ's time 2000 years ago, the shoreline was further out and these stumps used to be a forest.  A natural disaster came and blew out the tops of the trees and they think either a tsunami or a volcanic eruption is what caused these stumps to be petrified after the initial natural disaster. They finally reappeared some years ago after lots of years of erosion. 

Check out pictures here.

We also found out that this town is slightly haunted.  Of course.

After hours of playing Just Dance 2 on the Wii (another fav), we watched the ball drop and drank Martinellis.  Then we passed out watching "How To Train Your Dragon".

I had a fun first day of 2011.  We went to Lincoln City and walked around the little shops and ate salt water taffy.  Then, of course, we ate at Mo's for lunch (if you ever hit up the Oregon coast, eat here-best seafood ever).

I went to church and hung out with the family the last day. Then I flew back to the snowy place where I currently reside.  I missed Oregon the minute I spotted the snow.

But this semester has been so much fun and I love my classes and I'll see my family again, soon.

Happy twentyeleven!

emotional

One year ago today, I got off the longst plane ride of my life to get in a car that drove on the wrong side of the road and dropped me off, in the snow, at a place I've never lived before.  My feelings? Ecstacy and anticipation for the 4 months ahead of me.

I had arrived at 27 Palace Court.

I began my whirlwind of a journey that took me to strange palaces, windy hillsides, and even underground coal mines.  I visited places where they didn't speak my language and didn't eat my food. 

I walked miles and climbed an innumerable amount of stairs.  I was stranded on an island due to volcanic activity. I went to elaborate, expansive gardens where they filmed romance movies.

Best of all, it helped me to remember who I am and what I'm doing with my life.  And I made some really great friends in the process.





I volcano London.