Absolutely

I've come to learn that sometimes I am better off alone. I'm happier, I have more time to focus on the important things in life, I work harder and laugh louder. When I start falling in love my mind is always on him... I can't concentrate, my mind is always racing. One second I'm on top of the world and the next I'm getting smashed at the bottom. I spend less and less time with the people that mean the most to me and lose pieces of myself along the way. And then, when my world drops out from under me, I'm left with nothing.

I'd like to believe that someday the right person will come along and love me like my grandfather loved my grandmother: completely and absolutely. But until that day comes, I'm perfectly okay with being alone.

#19 Festival of Colors

On the last full moon of the lunar month, Hindu's and many other people all over the world celebrate the end of Winter and the arrival of Spring. They do so by having a Holi Festival, aka the Festival of Colors. Thousands gather together and are given, or purchase, bags of vibrant colored flour/chalk and count down until a full blown "color war".

The biggest Holi Festival in the United States is held at the Lotus Krishna Temple in a small town here in Utah called Spanish Fork. People fly in from all over the US to attend, and thousands of Utah residents make the drive to Spanish Fork every year. Well over 30,000 people participated this year and 50,000 bags of colors were imported from India and were completely sold out.

I had the opportunity to go to the second session yesterday and it was honestly one of the most amazing experiences I have ever had. I went with some of my close high school friends and we almost didn't make it on time. Spanish Fork is about 50 miles south of Salt Lake City and normally takes about an hour to get there. There were so many people on the freeway driving down there that it took almost 2 hours. People were parking up and down the streets all over the town and we had to park about a mile or so away. We got there just two minutes before the countdown started and when we went to buy the bags of colors they had been sold out for over 20 minutes. So we just headed down into the crowd and counted down with the tens of thousands of other people.

When the countdown ended handfuls of colors were thrown up into the sky, and into people's faces :] The air was so thick with colors that we could hardly breathe for a few minutes.

We sang, we danced, we celebrated!

Charity, Melissa, and I

Me and Mary Joy!

Will's face!

My eye.

Charity's eye.

Laura and I.

Charity and Mary.

Melissa and I.

Llamas!

Here are a few videos of the festival... MAKE SURE TO WATCH THEM!!

I love learning about other cultures and religions and this was a perfect opportunity to do so. I think a lot of times people fear things they don't understand, and some of the time they don't want to take the time to understand because they have already made their own assumptions. If we would just take the time to get to know people and learn about what they believe and where they are coming from, we will realize that despite our differences, we have a lot in common. We are all human and we all share this world.

Going to this festival really opened up my eyes and made me realize even more that we are all in this together and despite our differences, we need to love and take care of each other. It doesn't matter where you come from, what you believe in or what color your skin is: we are all alike in some way or another. 

This festival was all about bringing people from all different backgrounds together to celebrate something we can all relate to. Nobody cared if you were Hindu, Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Buddhist, or any other religion and it honestly gave me hope that someday we can all put our differences aside and learn to finally get along and learn to live together peacefully. 

Needless to say, I am making the Festival of Colors an annual tradition from here on out. It was honestly one of the greatest things I have ever had the chance to be a part of and I can't wait to go again next year.  

If you ever have the chance to go to this festival DO IT! Just be prepared to get super messy and sneeze out rainbows for a few days after. I promise you won't ever regret it!

My Life

#15 Steal a garden gnome

Meet Caesar, the Garden Gnome! And his trusty steed Gerber, the Creepy Faced Baby Spirit!

RayCray and I took him on a wild adventure throughout the Salt Lake City streets this weekend. Finding a gnome is a tough business, but luckily Rach had seen one in her relative's neighborhood. We commandeered the little guy by the cover of darkness and set out on our adventure. First stop: The Scenic Motel on Foothill Boulevard!

Next was the ever spectacular Hogle Zoo!

Then we gave him a tour of our stomping ground, the U!

No stop to the U of U is complete without a visit to the Pie! Mmmmm...

Caesar even got to ride a wild Utah buffalo!

Taking over the world... one state capitol at a time!

He even got to dance with two lovely girls at Prom! Ow ow!

Our tour of Salt Lake ended with a beautiful Avenues view of the valley.

We returned Caesar and Gerber to his family the following day complete with these pictures and a note explaining his disappearance. We wanted to take him to a few more places (Temple Square and the Gateway to name a couple) but ended up not having time. But the little gnome's adventure is something him and his family will remember for a lifetime!

Revised 20 Before 20

I have come to the conclusion to cheat on my 20 Before 20 list and change some things around. I found a few different things that are far more fun than some of the things I had on my first list. So here we go!!

1. Go on a road trip. It doesn't matter where.Last September I went on a road trip to Oregon with Rachel and Jeff; it was SO much fun and we were only gone for 3 days. Sometime over spring break or over summer break, I want to just take a week or so and get out of town. DISNEYLAND!!!!!!! Best road trip destination? I think so.

2. Go skinny dipping! It's a bit scandalous, but I have always wanted to do it. Maybe on my road trip we can go to Southern Cali and skinny dip in the ocean? That would be epic for sure.



3. Go to a drive-in movie. Sadly, I have never ever done this. And I feel extremely deprived. Click here to read about my drive-in movie awesomeness! 




4. Take an art class. I want to learn to blow glass... or make jewelery. Taking ceramics again would be fun. I never learned how to throw a pot so that would be a great skill to learn. Something like that. I don't want to take the conventional drawing or painting class. Something more daring. Read about my amazing glass making adventure here!

5. Take a cake decorating class. After watching Cake Boss and Ace of Cakes, I really want to learn how to decorate cakes. I want to learn how to make fondant and gum paste flowers and then I want to make a cake for someone's birthday. 

6. Ride in a hot air balloon. Everyone is going all gaga over skydiving but I have never heard of anyone going on a hot air balloon. It's a bit pricey but it would totally be worth every penny.

7. Go rock climbing. I attempted to do it once when I was little... all my big cousins were in the harnesses going up, but I "wasn't old enough" or "not tall enough" or some lame excuse like that. So I pouted at the base and then decided to be rebellious climbed like 2 feet off the ground before my mom made me get down. Ever since that day, I have wanted to do it for real.

8. Swim in the Great Salt Lake. I have lived in Salt Lake my entire life and have only been on the shore of the lake maybe one or two times. Talk about lame. Yeah, it smells like shiz and is pretty much the grossest  body of water ever (besides Utah Lake. gag.), but I want to swim in it. They say there is so much salt in the water that you don't even have to tread, you can just float off and be lazy.

9. Speaking of the GSL, I want to go to the railroad. There is a set of railroad tracks that go straight through the GSL, cutting it into two halves. The north half has a certain type of algae that makes the water pink, and the southern half has algae that makes it a greenish blue. I want to walk along the railroad tracks and see this phenomenon for myself.
 

10. Hike to the top of Mount Olympus. This was one of my New Year resolutions from last year and I never did it. So this year I WILL do it. 

11. Grow a garden. I haven't decided if it will be a vegetable garden or a flower garden just yet. Maybe I'll do half and half. But what I have decided is that it will be amazing.

12. Learn to make candles and/or soap.This just seems so relaxing and rewarding at the same time. Some things you make just get put on a shelf forever or get thrown away. But you can use candles and soaps everyday and they would also make great gifts. I talked to my mom earlier and she agreed to do this with me which will be uber fun.

13. Sundance it up in Park City. Yes, I have lived in Utah my whole life. And no, I have never taken advantage of the fact that for 10 days every year, celebrities and film makers from all over the world come to Park City and I have never gone to visit them. This must change. I became a star at Sundance. Read all about it!

14. Get a decent job. So I won't live the rest of my college experience poor and starving. Success is mine! Check it out here!

15. Steal a garden gnome. And then take him on a wild and crazy adventure and take tons of pictures! Then I'll return the little guy to his family along with all the pictures from his adventure. See Caesar the gnome's adventure here!

16. Make my mark on Suicide Rock. At the base of Parley's Canyon in Salt Lake City, there is a giant rock jetting up in-between the freeway loops that is covered in graffiti. I want to add to the art.

17. Go to a midnight movie showing in full costume. I'm thinking the next Harry Potter? I want to be Snape. I didn't go as Snape, but Bellatrix was just as great. Rhyme? Sort of?


 

 18. Wear University of Utah attire to BYU's campus and count how many dirty looks, insults and physical injuries I sustain. If I can get my hands on a Max Hall shirt, that would be even better. I caused quite a commotion Down South! GO UTES!

19. Attend the Festival of Colors! I have always wanted to do this. It's at the Hare Krishna Hindi Temple in Spanish Fork, Utah (and at other locations all of the world). Thousands of people gather in one place to celebrate the beginning of Spring. You basically get in a HUGE color war, throwing handfuls of powdered coloring at each other until everyone looks like a rainbow. THIS WAS SO MUCH FUN!! READ ME!




20. Go paragliding. I always see people up on the mountain doing it, and I want to do it too! Being pulled behind a boat would be awesome as well.

Other Adventures:

21. Go to Hawaii. Ah, the crystal clear waters of the Pacific, leaning palm trees, beautiful Polynesian dancing, luaus... sounds like paradise! And it was! Read here!

22. Make my own Halloween costume. I have wanted to be Princess Jasmine from the Disney movie 'Aladdin' for a very long time. But all the costumes you can buy look nothing like her outfit! So I took matters into my own hands and made one myself!

#14 Get a decent job.

Guess what? Starting tomorrow I will be doing ^this^ for a living. I got a job as a shelver at a local library! It's the perfect job for me, wouldn't you think? 

I have been trying to get this job for a few years. I was offered a job my junior year of high school but it was at a library an hour away so that didn't work out. Then after a one year hiring freeze, two shelver tests, three interviews, and a whole lot of waiting, I finally got one! Party!!

It couldn't have worked out more perfectly. It's at a library right down the street from my grandmother's house and the hours they gave me allow me to still take her to get her hair done every Friday! My main concern with getting a job was not being able to spend time with her every week but that won't be a problem now!

So anyways, that is my good news of the week! Hopefully I will like this job because I've worked so hard for so long trying to get it. We'll see!

Life Lesson #14

Life Lesson #13

Life Lesson #12

Nobody puts baby in the corner...

I thought I knew what I wanted,
only to find out what I wanted wasn't what was best for me.
I jumped in feet first only to scrape the bottom,
and that scares me more than anything...
to have no space to grow.

It makes me want to run to somewhere far from here.
A fantasyland.
A place where I can sink my feet into the ocean
and find a person different than the one I now see in the mirror.
A place just beyond that empty space at the end of each fingertip,
close enough to reach out and touch
in case fantasy doesn't live up to reality.

Sweet Freedom...