Wednesday, April 29, 2009

Wisdom Wednesday

WW12- Wear Comfortable Clothing to 3 Hour Awards Banquets
Tonight was the "Rotary Century Scholars Banquet"
What a mouthful.
The whole dinner/banquet was commemorating the top 100 students from the Boise School District, and let me tell you... I've never seen so many nerds in one place before! :) The dinner was good- I ate ravioli while everyone else ate yucky looking chicken. Ohh the joys of vegetarianism!
There were a couple speakers, and then the majority of the time was spent clapping for all 100 Rotary Scholars and their "Significant Educator"My teacher of choice was Karen Moss, my government teacher. She is the best.. so funny! She bought me a bike helmet for Christmas.. I love her! Anyways, I say wear comfortable clothes because my skirt was not 3-hours-of-sitting comfortable. However, I endured.
Here's a video of me getting my award.. wooh! Ha and you can go here to see my info page in the Idaho Statesman if it so pleases you.

Take a look at THIS hunk of gold! Hah.. the fact that I got a medal kind of killed me. :)
Awww my loving parents who come out to support me.. I commend them for sitting through the ceremony with no bathroom breaks :)

Tuesday, April 28, 2009

A Wise Use Of My Time

There are a trillion things I should be doing right now.
But where am I? Craigslist. Looking for a roadbike.
You see, my cruiser is my best friend... Rico Suave and I are tight!
However... I think he's gonna have to stay home come September when school rolls around.
So I am thinking about this little guy:
76 Schwinn.. yes, I can see myself hightailing it to American Heritage on this bad boy.
Oh I am in love

Saturday, April 25, 2009

The Rundown...

So this is for Rachel, Heather, Jessica, Angela, and my other roommate- who hasn't been inducted into Robison yet. Ha! Anyways, for everyone else (Yes, you, Diana) you probably already know all this. So bare with me. :)
Dear roommates-
I figured this would be the easiest way for you to get to know me! So, here we go. The life of Alyssa!
So this is ME- my name is Alyssa, most people call me LyssI live in Boise, Idaho and LOVE IT!
This is my family.. Dad, Me, Payton, Lindsay, Kourtni, and Mom

I've lived in Boise my whole life- my Dad is from eastern Idaho, my mom is from Springville, UT. I go to Timberline High School- go Wolves- and can't WAIT to GRADUATE! (19 days left..) I can't wait to graduate so much that I have been counting down the days since the 1st day of senior year. In fact, when kids want to know how much more school is left, they come to ME first... I have a paper chain in my room that has been there since January. It's great.
My hobbies are basically running, facebook-ing, riding my cruiser bike, hanging out with my friends, anything and everything outdoors, and writing. Ha- as you can see I really like to write about anything and everything.
My favorite foods are peanut butter(I eat it with a spoon), ice cream, and smoothies, and burritos. I'm a vegetarian, and I haven't eaten meat in 2 years.. I just don't like the taste & texture.
Basically I just like having a good time.. I LOVE doing anything with them, and we usually find dumb things to do, like feed ducks, race in shopping carts, go roller blading, tie dye, hang out at the river, ect.
What else... I'm a huge fan of music- I saw none of you like Country.. darn. I love it. hahaha but no I love all types of music- my very favorites are Coldplay, RHCP, Matt Costa, Brett Dennen, Ben Folds, The Decemberists, Death Cab For Cutie, Andrew Bird, Bob Dylan, Bob Marley, Stephen Marley, 311, Josh Ritter, Dave Matthews Band, Rage Against The Machine, Audioslave, Built To Spill, ect.
Oh gosh.. what else.. I love the Spanish language. I've been studying it 5 years, and really want to become fluent!
So, I am drawing a blank on what else to tell you.. if you want to know more, just find me on facebook, twitter, or e-mail me. Can't wait for August! :)

Wednesday, April 22, 2009

Wisdom Wednesday

Well, this WW was sparked by this theory I have crafted and aged to perfection.
WW11 Listen To My Theory
There are two types of people in this world:
Those who live by the mechanical pencil & Those who do not.

So I started thinking about this awhile back, and it was just cemented into my brain Monday when I was sitting in Stats. You see, I sit by this really smart girl who I like to sideways stare at while she, in her perfect handwriting, writes in her good-as-new agenda and using her mechanical pencil. Not only does she use her mechanical pencil, but she also has a MECHANICAL ERASER! She is one of the kids that bends over during a test and whispers, "psst! Do you have any .5 lead?" To which another mechanical pencil kid whispers back, "sorry, I only have .7!"
This is the type of thing I laugh at. Every time. I am definitely not a mechanical pencil kid. In fact, while my wood pencils usually look like they were possessed by a rabid dog before me. Despite this, I kinda pride myself on the fact that I didn't even buy school supplies this year. My pencils NEVER have erasers, are frequently shorter than my ring finger, and say things like, "Olentangy Indian Caves" or "Student of the Month". They've got character.
So that is my thought for the day.. what type are you? A high maintanance, but usually neat and together, (and smart) Mechanical Pencil Kid, or a low maintainance, probably-should-take-more-pride-in-your-work-and-erase-the
-smudges Wood Pencil Kid?

However, I must say that I only have 21 more days of worrying about having pencils... for next year I will be a different kind of kid.. A LAPTOP KID! :)




Sunday, April 19, 2009

Oranges Always Taste Better When Running

So it happened, and once again I lived to write about it.
In fact, both my mother and I did!
Robie Creek went just swell. The weather was perfect! Mid 70's, a light breeze that powered me up a few rough spots once or twice, and the sun shone (Ask my mom about her hilarious iPod sunburn, cuz it's just that!) For those of you who may not know, Robie is 8.5 miles uphill- 3 miles are through a neighborhood near Tablerock, and then on a dirt road for the remaining 5.5. The next 4.6 are downhill- and when I say downhill I mean "OMG my I can't stop my legs!" steep. The fast time down does remedy some of the time lost going up, though. Last year iPods were banned, but this year they were reinstated as non-contraband, and I was really glad. It was nice to have Bob Marley, Dave Matthews, Rhianna, and 311 cheer me on. :)
I definitely didn't feel ready to run before the day came, but when the race started I think the adrenaline picked up the tab for the cost of not training all that much... along with the help of 4 ibuprofen. I felt unusually excellent. I am definitely not complaining about that!
The race progressed quite nicely... the only part I didn't enjoy was the downhill. I was tired. That's about it. The last two miles seem like four. I just wanted to stop and oh, when I saw there was only .1 mile left I was thanking the heavens above! And when I saw the finish line... ahhh man it was great. 2:15:30. One minute worse than last year.
After Robie is one big party. In fact, that is half the reason I run! The food is great, and this year I even got an award. That's right! You're reading the work of the 1ST PLACE LOSER! Haha yeah.. I got 2nd in my age group. Wooooh. When they called my name I danced all the way up to the stage.. Diana will testify of it. Hahaha the announcers said that "I must not have run fast enough with all that energy."
After running Robie for the 2nd time, I am a bit cautious as to whether I want to run another 1/2. It's not that I'm afraid of other races, it's that I'm just afraid they won't be as good or fun as Robie is. This year the theme was Picasso's- "The Blue Period", and some people REALLY get into the different themes every year. My favorite part was seeing some guy in a kilt.. sorry buddy, that was LAST year's theme. :) Anyways, it was REALLY great, and I'm sad I can't run next year... it'll be in the midst of BYU finals. Boo hoo. Guess I am going to have to face my fears and find another half.. or full :)



And here we are. The Champs! Kurt also got 2nd in his age group, and then Sierra got 3rd. Yay for us! Oh, and thanks to Diana for taking all these pics, and volunteering/cheering us on. Ella es la mejor!

Wednesday, April 15, 2009

Wisdom Wednesday

WW10- JOIN CHOIR. (Your 2nd semester of your senior year, that is!)
When I picked my schedule for senior year, I didn't have any intentions of taking choir.. in fact that was the LAST class I really ever thought I'd take. The last time I'd taken choir was in 5th grade... pretty sure That scared me away, and I filled my days making fun of choir kids.
Until I found out they were going to Disneyland.
Yes, that's right! Right when I heard the D word, I knew I had to fanangle my way into choir. Granted, I had an opening since Student Council fell through, though. So, on Apr 1-5 we departed for California! Our first day was spent driving probably about 10 hours. Not that much fun. At all. Plus, right when we left we made a pit stop at Vallivue High School, only a half hour away from Boise, and had to sing there for about 3 hours first. I definitely had NOT planned on that! We finally reached our destination however, Sacramento, and crashed at our hotel.
The next day was Thursday. We got up early, had a sub-mediocre continental breakfast, and then headed out to the University of the Pacific.

We sang here, in this pretty sweet church. The acoustics were superb! .. and let me tell you, since my 4 months in choir I know allll about acoustics. :) After this we just kept driving to another place in Cali, I really have no idea where, and there we sang with my choir teacher's brother's choir. If that makes any sense! After that, we drove more to this place called, John's Incredible Pizza. How incredible it was! :) Basically the place was like a Chuck E. Cheese for adults..

Here's me and Cameron in front of JIP. It was just so incredible! Man, I just remember how terrible I am at arcade games though.. as the picture shows, I had like 6 tickets compared to Britni's 50+!
On Friday morning it was our very last time to sing. We went to University of California in Bakersfield.. I think.. and sang there. Then we went to Centennial High School and sang for the choir class there. Oh to go to school in Cali! Everyone was so tan.. and the parking lot was looking like a Mercedez-Benz dealership!
After that we went to Venice Beach. Oh my gosh! Such a nifty place! We first went in the water...

Then, we made our way to the shops on the beach.. man we saw some of the BEST people..

The first guy rode around on roller blades singing and playing the electric guitar.. not well might I add.. The 2nd guy was just painted gold and wanted you to pay him to move. The mural was just great.. I love pretending to be an alcoholic. :)

The rest of these pictures are just glimpses of the beach.. the trailers in the 2nd pic were painted with murals all over, and these little kids above were eating cereal off the sidewalk.

This video is for Kourtni... basically she wanted me to take a picture of some "Real Life Gangsters", or just RLG's as Brit and I called them, but I thought a vid would be even better!
After Venice Beach we drove to LA. Oh the LA traffic.. glad I don't live there. It was horrendous! However, I kinda enjoyed the drive- seeing all the sights, people, and palm trees! My favorite sight besides the Pacific Ocean was Hollywood sign- I thought that was pretty nifty!
When we got to our hotel that night, we only had a few hours to get ready before dinner. Friday night was spent at Medieval Times- a dinner and show place where you eat Medieval food with your hands and watch jousting and other medieval sports.
Plus you get these nifty crowns :) Oh, and this was our knight. HE WON! Go RED! Man.. from the moment I saw that bald knight I knew he would be the winner.. and what do you know. He was!

Saturday was the day we had all been waiting for... DISNEYLAND! Yes. It was as fun as it sounds!
Here is Brit, Myself, and Cam before the Tower Of Terror

And on the Tower

What else to say about Disneyland? We went to all the good rides, and even though it was packed, one of our friends basically grew up in Disneyland, so she knew all the ins and outs of the park. Our experience, complete with fast passes and a friend in a wheel chair to get us to the front of the line, was grand!

Here we are taking a nice pic of us in some hats at Pooh's house

And here is Britni and I eating our 4 dollar chocolate banana and 4 dollar frozen lemonade. I spent 40 bucks in food at Disneyland.. not only is it the happiest place on earth, it's also the most EXPENSIVE!
Our day of fun ended at 10 PM after the fireworks, when we were all herded onto the buses for our departure back to Boise. We drove all night long, and I had the pleasure of sleeping on the nice dirty bus floor. Twas grand. Especially when we all woke up suddenly to our bus slamming on the breaks trying to miss hitting a car at 3:45 AM. The driver was CRAZY. He was definitely the only downside of the trip... okay, in addition to us driving forever and 4 days. In fact, someone told me that over the course of our trip we'd driven enough miles to equal the span of the US. Golly!
On Sunday we returned to Boise around 3:30. Oh, I was so glad to be home, sleeping in my own bed, and having my mom cook food!
So, that's my long winded wisdom for today.
Join Choir. If you've got a super incentive to go to DLAND or somewhere else equivalent.

My Mom Said To...

Tagging at it's finest.
8 Favorite TV Shows:
That's easy. I don't watch it.
But on the rare occasion I do I'm either watching the news, Discovery Channel, Travel Channel, or something else Payton never wants to watch with me.


8 Things I Did Yesterday:
1. Got up at 7:30 and missed periods 1-4 due to lack of homework actually being done. I love staying home from school!
2. Finally got caught up in Stats by taking my last make up test and turning in my assignments.
3. Got a little squeamish at our blood donating presentation. Yeah. I give blood for the 1st time on April 28. Be ready for a post on THAT one.
4. Track practice... yeah, not so into that this year.
5. Volunteered out at the Meridian Gift shop... my very last day. (tear) I accumulated 349 hours and 12 minutes while there from Jan 06- April 09. Weird to think it's over!
6. Went to work. Blahhhh not that exciting.. I washed some dishes, scooped some yogurt, ate too many samples...
7. Got a letter from the DMV saying my driving privileges have been revoked and I get to pay a big ol' fine for something I don't even know about. Great!
8. Thought about going to Argentina during winter semester this next year...


8 Favorite Restaurants:
This is easy. I am so good at eating
1. Merritt's Country Cafe. Scones. Thanks for introducing me, Emily :)
2. Baja Fresh- Unless they put MEAT in my SALAD.
3. Bajio's- Their salad is so grand.
4. Fanci Freez- The best ice cream ever.
5. Lucky 13- Just the best pizza around.
6. Johnny Carino's- I just have a love for italian food... and going there in Idaho Falls.
7. Olive Garden- Endless soup, salad, and breadsticks is a vegetarian dream :)


8 Things I Look Forward To:
1. Graduation/College
2. Growing my hair out really long
3. To not be a slave to school for 3 months
4. Summer roadtrips/ backpacking
5. Seeing my friends in Idaho Falls and Eric coming home.
6. Having Emily come home this summer from college
7. Learning the harmonica
8. Finding the perfect road bike.


8 Things On My Wish List:
1. Road Bike!
2. 25 hours in the day
3. My knee to be restored to it's youthful non-pain self
4. A rockin' job this summer
5. To find a 5 dollar bill on the sidewalk
6. To be fluent in Spanish
7. To have people send me letters
8. A big hammock to sleep in at night under the stars with no mosquitoes.


Tagging 8 people... divided by 2:
1. Anna Thorn
2. Diana Cook
3. Emily Scoggin
4. Rachael Hansen.
WHAT?! Numbers 2 & 3 don't own blogs? Well, get on that friends. :)

Tuesday, April 14, 2009

Prom 2009

This prom was a good one! The day started when we all went to breakfast in the morning. All the guys thought it would be fun to kidnap their dates for breakfast, and since Diana's and my dates didn't know the plan we decided to kidnap THEM. Well, that morning we picked up Diana's date first, and then were going to be late for eating, so we decided to call my date, Skyler to tell him to be ready when we got there.
He was out in Eagle at a basketball game.
So, I had an invisible breakfast date! But oh, those strawberry pancakes were grand with or without Skyler! ... and I succeeded in spilling water all over Madison Mangum. Sorry buddy :)
After breakfast we went home to get ready, and at 4:30 the night began!
So here we go! A photographic journey through Prom 2009... be excited.oh look! It's me in my dress! This number was my cousin, Lexi's.. so that meant FREE for me. I spent 9 bucks on prom wear.. a pair of earrings. It was GREAT.Some pics of the family for good measure....These two boys are some of the best in the WORLD. Skyler is on the left, and my date. David is on the right, Diana's date. This year Diana and I decided it would be fun to go to prom with boys OLDER and more MATURE, so we went with our college friends. (Not to mention we didn't get asked by anyone in high school ... :) )
All of the girls in our group...A hilarious picture of Madison Mangum in the white tux...
More girls.. we're fab, don't you think? :)
Me and Diana taking a picture in the PF Changs bathroom for good measure. We ate there, and food was gooood.
Me and CloeyDiana, Kenny Hughes, and myself.
My favorite couples.. man we coordinated well, don't ya think?Some attitudeSky and meHailey Clements and meUs at the dance..Some of us at 5:30 AM. We'd been partying hard all night, and went promptly to sleep after this was taken :) ... until about 8 AM that is.