Hello from Holloween! I just finished heating up microwave dinner and it smells pretty amazing.
Right now, Sara, Nayab, and th occupants of room 301 are in room 302 getting ready for a Holloween movie: Cabin in the Woods. 3/6 of us haven't seen it.
Wait, before I go on I should explain what's been happening tonight.
After Sara's, Amy's, and Jill's yoga class, we kinda dressed up: Anna Beth went as a hobbit, I kinda went as a mad scientist, Jill as an urban ninja, and the rest of us had masquerade mask. First, the six of us went to Jill's house, so she could pick up stuff for camping this weekend. Then we went to Family Video where it took us forever to choose a movie to watch tonight. Afterwards, we went to Wal-Mart for random assortment of things. While we were there, we realized that we hadn't had dinner yet, so we all got microwave meals to eat while we watch our movie.
It definitely feels like it should be the weekend, but most of us have class tomorrow (darn you Sara!)...dumb 8am class...
But we're all comfty now and settled in to watch the movie.
Good night!
Ps Who else can't wait til the Halloween candy goes on sale?

Hello from visual overload! The past week, I’ve been reading a chapter book a day for a reading journal due a couple of days ago, and on top of that I’ve been keeping up with my 88 pages a day for my challenge, and I’ve had textbooks and things to read for class, and so pretty much all I’ve done this past week is read, read, and read some more. But because of that, I’m not two-thirds of the way into my book list, which is nice :) Toward the end, though, I’m going to have to start picking up the more involved reads. Wuthering Heights
and I, Claudius are still on the to-read pile, not to mention A Patriot’s History of the United States (it’s like a textbook, only with no pictures, smaller print, and longer chapters…). And even with all the reading, I still have a ton more homework to do. It’s like it never ends!
On a more interesting note, registration started yesterday, so I’m all signed up for next semester’s classes! Yay 5 a.m! And tomorrow’s Halloween! Last I knew, we weren’t completely sure what we were going to do, but I think scary movies are going to be involved, so that’ll be…
interesting. Then at the end of the week will be Jill’s birthday camping trip! So there’s lots of fun stuff coming up, but not much use talking about it now-I guess that means I’ll have a lot to talk about next week :D And for now, it’s Question Tuesday!

Anna Beth:
If our country’s entire education system operated with no cost to students/their families (meaning that elementary school through grad school & etc. would be free and accessible to everyone), how do you think our country would be different, and do you think people would be happier? *Ignore the impossibility of this ever happening. Just pretend*
I actually wrote a paper about this for my Utopia/Dystopia Colloquia last year. I think the country would be SO much better off if we could manage this, though, of course, getting people to agree to it would be the difficult part, since it would take a lot of money initially. But
imagine how much we could improve people’s lives if everyone had access to the same quality education! We could reduce, and conceivably eliminate the gap between rich and poor, because a lot of what keeps people stuck in low-paying jobs is the fact that they can’t afford the investment of an education that would give them access to higher salaries and careers that they aspire to. If it were free to everyone, then anyone could go back to school and get the education necessary to better their position in life. Also with a better educated population, crime rates would go down, because less people would be tempted to resort to stealing or other crimes, because they could make their own money. And you learn more than just facts and theories in school. You also learn about moral issues and right and wrong, so people would (hopefully) be more caring and compassionate and willing to help those who were in need. Really, the benefits would extend far and wide, to improving the standard of living because more educated people would make more important discoveries to save lives and make
things more efficient, and eventually outweighing the initial cost of the whole thing by coming up with ways to reduce and even eliminate the deficit. So, if we could do this, life would be awesome. The end.
If you could combine 2 species of animals to produce a result similar to CatDog, what 2 would you combine?
CatDog is kind of gross. But I guess I’d pick a…CatBird? That’d be interesting.
Do you have any personal goals for the road trip? (Example: my goal is to write every day)
To have fun and not lose anything important?

Jill:
Why is it so adorable when a guy brushes the hair out of a girl’s face?
Because it’s so sweet :) I guess it’s kind of universally recognized as a way for him to show interest, so it’s the idea behind it, and the possibilities of a relationship developing, that make people get all smiley and “Aw”y.
Which is worse: physically cheating on your spouse or emotionally cheating on
them?
I’m not sure what you mean by emotionally cheating? Do you mean developing feelings for someone other than your spouse? I feel like physically cheating is worse. It can’t be undone once it’s happened-there’s no going back. But if you develop feelings for someone else and resist them, then that shows that you still value the sanctity of your marriage and want to be able to save it, even if your feelings make it hard. It still might be possible to get help and get back your feelings for your spouse before your thoughts become actions. It’s obviously still possible to save a marriage after physically cheating, but there’ll still always be that knowledge of the big mistake that got between the two.
If you were married to a man but then fell into a coma for 15 years, how lenient or non lenient would you be if he had an extramarital affair and then you suddenly recovered and woke up?
Well, obviously, I would not be very happy about it. I don’t really know about leniency, though. I guess we’d have to talk about specifics- whether it was just a moment of weakness, or whether he’d completely moved on while I was gone, whether he still wanted to be married. That would be a pretty awful situation to be in, though :/
Do you have a favorite flag (not counting the USA) if so, which one?
Umm…. Argentina’s is pretty.

Anna Beth wins favorite this week! I am fairly certain that I told her about my paper when I wrote it, but seeing as it was a whole year ago, I suppose I’ll forgive her for apparently forgetting about it. And anyway, it was fun to think about again :)

Love,
Sara

Hello from Munchkin,

I know I was going to do a comparison with the Disney princes and actors but it was soooo hard and I need more time so until then a real short blog about how Final  Fantasy graphics have went from good to freaking amazing!

Starting with FF7. These were the best graphics back in the day..LOL I know right 

and now the newest Final Fantasy game. The main dude is Noctis ..sorry about the Japanese...its not out in America yet..or Japan but it will be out in Japan first
There is two trailers. Change the quality to 1080 by clicking the wheel on the bottom when the video starts. Click play then the cog wheel to change to HD for best experience. 

Improvement or what?

Sincerely, I love Noctis. 

Hello from the Saturday before Halloween! I’m in the midst of preparations for the day of costumes, candy, and general mysteriousness… Although really, since it’s happening on a Wednesday, I’m not actually celebrating Halloween until Friday, when the BCM is having its annual Barn Party. I’d tell you what it’s like except I have no idea. I’m just excited I get to be in costume!! :) I’m still not telling what my costume is… I’ll post pictures eventually ;) I will tell you it is a couple costume with Mark… *ensues giggling* Tonight I am going to finish sewing our costumes because I know I won’t have time in the middle of the week to complete them…

ALL the WORK! Oh goodness. I have no idea how this past week happened. My planner was completely full for everyday this week- so that by the time Thursday night rolled around, I had no idea that the week had happened. I was pretty much on auto-pilot- wake up, do homework, go to class, do homework, be slightly social, do homework, go to sleep at a terrible hour, wake up, repeat. Thursday was the worst- I had a homework assignment or major project or quiz in every single class due. There was no breathing time, but I was so relieved God brought me through this week. I have a test Thursday, but I’m praying this week should be better. I need some time to sleep!!!!!!!

I really don’t have much else to comment on… Oh! I turned in my absentee ballot! =D And I actually did take the time a week/2 ago to watch the 2nd Presidential debate and look up information and platforms on both major candidates… so I made an informed decision. Not the one I was expecting initially, but I’m hopeful. :) At least I voted.

I hope you all have a lovely weekend!!!!!! Also, I’m so happy for Rachael- I loved looking at the pictures from your group’s runway show :) Running from your blog’s fashion tip, I’m kind of stuck. I’d love to pull off printed jeans, but I really don’t think I can, and every time I see them I really want to try them… I’ll give in next time. ;)

The song of the week… is quite terrible for me, simply because I am in general not a huge Taylor Swift fan. However, since her album came out, I thought I’d evaluate it… and unfortunately, a lot of the songs on there I came away from thinking… How were these not performed by a tweenage girl under 13?!!?! Still, there was one that I really, really liked… :) Note that I absolutely adore the bridge and its imagery. Her lyrics here are spot on- the one thing I give her credit for is having well thought up, unusual lyrics (for her songs that don’t have a lot of initial airplay).

Taylor Swift- “All Too Well”

Hello from late blog is late. It's 12:40 and Rachael, Anna Beth, Amy, and I just got back from off campus adventures. And I may have forgotten about blogging until now. (don't give me that look :P)
Anyway, we're watching Tales from Earthsea now. (we were planning on having a Disney Princess marathon, but that kind of failed.
In other news, I've been planning out some things for the story I'm writing for Nanowrimo/Noshanowrimo and it's been quite enjoyable.
I'm finding it hard to both watch the movie and write this....so bye for now. sorry about the lame blog.

Here's something interesting:

Hello from Japan. Okay, not really, but right now Amy is sitting in the floor giving an introduction speech in Japanese, and it sounds really cool. In other news, Jill's mom sent a box of cookies for Jill...which means for Jill to share with all of her freeloading friends. Thanks, Jill's Mom! The s'mores cookie was delicious, and then Amy gave me a couple of delicious double chocolate chip cookies from Subway that she didn't want. But I'm going to exercise at fencing later, so I won't feel totally unhealthy. :)
This week has been very Disney-tastic. Last night after a long discussion of our favorite princesses and princes, we decided to watch Tangled--one of my absolute favorite Disney movies! Also, I'm writing a research paper for my English class about Disney princesses and the movies' portrayals of women. A lot of people argue that Disney princesses--just like Barbies--create unrealistic beauty standards for little girls and reinforce gender stereotypes. But I don't really agree with that criticism. So what I'm doing is arguing for the positive development in Disney's portrayal of female characters throughout the timeline of Disney princess movies. Yeah, so basically, this is the second class this semester in which I have gotten to write about Disney movies for academic purposes. I call that a successful semester. :)
So because I can't think of anything else to write about, here's a list of my top 10 favorite Disney movies. My order of favorites changes all the time except for maybe the top 2 or 3. 

10. Tarzan
9. The Rescuers Down Under
8. Robin Hood
7. The Aristocats
6. Mulan
5. The Great Mouse Detective
4. Beauty and the Beast
3. Pocahontas
2. Tangled 
1. The Lion King
 
So that's my top 10. Have you seen them all? Which are your favorites? What's your top 10 list? And who are your favorite Disney princesses and princes? I JUST REALLY LIKE DISNEY, OKAY!!!?!?!?!?! :D

Love,
Anna Beth

P.S. Because it hasn't been mentioned enough, we bought VidCon tickets!!!

P.P.S. Be sure to check the Etc. section for my latest challenges, even though they've been posted for a while. One of them is coming up soon. Hint, hint...


TOTALLY UNRELATED POST-MIDNIGHT BONUS TANGENT:
Last night Jill and I were arguing about the attractiveness of pirates (at least fictional ones). She doesn't see the appeal, but I wanted to make my case and see how you guys feel about fictional pirates. I mean obviously in real life, pirates were grubby and smelly and had scurvy and did a lot of horrible things. I'm not saying I would be attracted to a pirate in reality. I'm just saying the fictional ones are SUPER attractive (and yes, I'm talking about the characters themselves, not just the actors who play them). There's that feisty, free-spirited, adventurous quality about them, and I think it's romantic. Plus, they're not bad to look at. Enjoy a slideshow of charming captains:

So what do you think? Are you a pirate lover? Why or why not? Does being a pirate add to or subtract from the attractiveness of a character? Are there other important pirates I've left out? Let me know in the comments!

Hello from halfway through the semester! Who's ready to register for Spring classes?!

So I don't have anything new news to add that hasn't already been said. But yeah, we're going to VidCon...and meeting famous people...and going on an epic road trip...and going to be poor, but it's so going to be worth it! And I still can't wrap my head around it.

Anyway, I mentioned that I'm the fashion director for my group's runway show and not that the show is this Friday, I have a better idea of what's going to happen. Both groups have to follow the theme--Girl's Night Out-- and we're pretending we're doing the show to help raise awareness for breast cancer because it's October. So we're going to somehow incorporate pink in all the outfits and have pink decorations and Christmas lights lining our runway. Jill and Anna Beth said that they were going to come and I was going to ask them later if one of them could bring their camera...
The best part so far is our mannequin. There are random mannequins in the classroom, so we just took one and wrapped streamers around it so it looks like it has on a ruffle dress--it's super amazing! But shhhhhh....don't tell anyone because it's a surprise!

On to our fashion portion of today's blog!
One of the upcoming trends for Spring 2013, and it's even starting right now for Fall, is printed pants. I actually really love the look of these pants, hopefully I'll be able to pull them off if I ever get a pair!

As you can see, you can choose to be a little more conservative, or be brave and go with an extra-bold pattern.
This trend definitely started with the colored jeans. I still need to find the perfect pair of red skinny's...

If you're going to buy one of these pretty pants, I would recommend wearing them with a solid top so you're outfit doesn't look too crazy!

http://brokeandbeautiful.com/2012/how-to-wear-inexpensive-printed-jeans/

And as an extra note: I said JEANS...I personally do NOT approve of leggings as real pants.

Hello from we're going to VidCon!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Tickets went on sale yesterday, and Jill, AB, Rachael, and I all have ours! And hopefully soon Amber and Amy will know if they can go on the roadtrip, too! But not everyone's going, and we've still got, what, nine months? So I'll move on.

Ummm......

Aahhhhhh....

My life is so not interesting enough for a blog :/

Well, one thing I did do a couple of days ago was count up the total number of pages I have left to read by the end of the year. It's looking like I'll have to read 88 pages a day to finish in time. So... I guess we'll see how that goes. In addition to that, I'm currently having to read a book a day for my Children's Lit class because of a Reading Journal I have due by the end of the week. Granted, they're mostly books written for elementary-aged kids, so that means huge font and not too many pages. And it's actually pretty fun. Is it sad how much I'm enjoying these kids books?

Which reminds me of another cool thing I can tell you! Well, cool in a nerdy way that I think most of you will appreciate, at least. I finally got a library card last week! After living here six years, I have finally filled the hole that only a library can occupy :P

Yeah... so after that exciting edition of this week' s Life and Times of Sara, I'll move on to Question Tuesday:

Anna Beth:
What do you watch besides Doctor Who and Bones? And NCIS, you still watch that right?
Well, I don't much watch NCIS anymore. I see it on tv sometimes, but I don't really make any effort. Aside from that, there are several other shows I purposely DVR so I won't miss. Bones is obviously one of them, although the Presidential Debates have been interfering with its schedule air time lately :/ I also watch Big Bang Theory, and I've started watching Elementary, which is pretty interesting, though really different from Sherlock. I was watching Finder, but it only lasted one season. And I usually watch Big Brother in the summer, though I didn't watch this last season as much. The people they choose to go on there have begun to get on my nerves. Also, Reba's been on a lot lately, and I tend to get stuck on the couch watching it for a long time when I need to go do homework. Television is a problem...

Jill:
Is it lying if you don't actually know the truth?
Well, I feel like your wording is kind of weird. One way to interpret that is "if you don't know the truth and you just make something up, is it still lying?" to which the answer is definitely yes. If you don't know something, then the only truthful thing you can say is that you don't know. Anything else is pure speculation, which, if you pass off as the truth, is a lie.
What I think you were getting at more is "Is it lying if you think you're telling the truth," which is trickier. Technically, it is a lie, because it is not true. But since the person telling the lie thought it was the truth, it isn't morally a lie, so it's not as if the person should feel bad for the inadvertent lie- it's not really their fault.

If plants could talk, would you still eat them?
I don't feel like I'd have much choice in the matter. I mean, I have to eat something, and I'm pretty sure it would be really unhealthy just to eat meat all the time. I would probably try to avoid plants that I personally had heard speak to me, though, so I don't think I could handle having my own vegetable garden or anything like that. Not that I'd be able to grow my own vegetables anyway.

Also, what plant do you think would be the most talkative?
Venus Fly Trap is the first thing that comes to mind. Probably since it's already got its own sort of mouth to operate.

So, that's all the Questions I've got for today. Jill wins! Give me Questions! Bye!

Love,
Sara

So I have wanted to do this for a while. Just to take a break from all the video game craziness and after watching yesterdays Once Upon a Time episode I was inspired. So these all real life celebrity chicks who I think the Disney princesses look somewhat alike or vice versa. Let me know if I was accurate or just blind when making any of these choices. Let me know if you like a specific one, don't like one., or have another celebrity in mind. Comment Below and Let me Know! Note eye colors may not be accurate but that's nothing a pair of conatacts can't fix!

Starting with Ginnifer Goodwin as Snow White- I really can't see any other person as Snow White anymore because of her and Once Upon a Time

Scarlett Johansson as Cinderella

Holly Madison as Sleeping Beauty (Aurora)- Okay I know Holly Madison is a play boy bunny (I actually found a picture of her with clothes on!!!!!)..but still she looks like Aurora in my opinion and Hey if Aurora was in present say and actually real I am pretty sure so wouldn't be as sweet an innocent either :p
(She's Regina George!) 

Ariana Grande as Ariel or Lily Collins as Ariel- I had a hard time with Ariel..I feel like both girls represent her well...except Lilly Collins has really thick eye brows...pretty but not Ariel like and well Ariana is Mexican which Ariel isn't but she does resemble Ariel with the innocent face and big eyes and red hair sooo you choose.

Ariana:

Lily Collins:

Emmy Rossum as Belle

Kourtney Kardashian as Jasmine- I know many people say Kim Kardashian but Kim has a huge butt which Jasmine does not and Kourtney is my opinion is prettier and more petite like Jasmine. 

Anna Sophia Robb or Amanda Seyfried as Rapunzel-  Again I could not pink...Anna is cute like Rapunzel but Amanda resembles her too...

Amanda:

Anna:

Saleisha Stowers as Tiana- IDK why but in my opinion they look alike...

Jamie Cheung as Mulan- Because Once Upon a Time spot on as a pretty kick a$$ Asian chick as Mulan.

Shay Mitchell as Pocahontas

Jessica Szohr as Esmeralda-Both are exotic beauties

Ashley Greene as Megara aka Meg- Meg is all angles in a pretty Greek way and well Ashley Greene is all angles as well and stuff

The End
So what do you all think and what are your opinions?

Sincerely, Munchkin

Hello from a fairly normal Saturday. In all of the craziness that’s been going on (read: so. much. HOMEWORK!), it’s a relief to have a day to relax, work on things (it never stops), and hopefully spend tonight with Mark. Date night!!! <3

This week has been pretty much filled with homework and projects that just appear out of nowhere. Probably the #1 thing that annoys me the most in school is when a professor reassigns homework or a major project to be due sometime the next week, especially when that happens to coincide with your other 2 major projects in other classes. I promise you, if I didn’t have a planner to organize things, I would be in major trouble right now. Actually, I was wondering on how you all feel about online planners- ie Google Calendar, Apple… umm, stuff- I don’t know what it’s called on there, etc. Something about having it physically handy relieves me from having to worry about things for some reason. *shrugs*

Anyway, not too much to remark on besides the homework- I did, however, just get back from Phi Lamb retreat! It was a lot of fun- we got to stay in wood cabins!- and I really enjoyed the time to get away from campus, build relationships with the other girls, and spend some time talking to God. Speaking of which, have you all ever heard God tell you to “shut up and stop worrying”? The one thing that I take away from my quiet time was that, while I was praying, I just felt my thoughts stop, and I felt the overwhelming feeling that I was trying to take things into my own hands too much. So I stopped… and felt at peace. God’s pretty cool like that. :)

As there is homework to do, I will need to stop blogging, but I will leave you with 2 songs of the week! (One to make up for the 2nd song mistake last week… lol it just got annoying haha ;)

This is one of my favorite contemporary worship songs of all time… So I thought I’d share it and hope that you all also feel the same! It is that song for me- the one that comes back to you when you just feel the need to praise God. I love it so much.

Hillsong United – “Like an Avalanche"

And following on the actual connection between these 2 songs, I actually heard both of these songs at Sanctuary, the worship service I like to go to on Thursday nights when The Point isn’t meeting at the BCM… This is, again, that song for me. It just gets caught in your head, and I never want to let it go. <3

New Life Worship – “Great I Am”