My discovery...

So last Thursday my Film class went to LACMA, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, where I saw this painting:

The Magdalen with the Smoking Flame by Georges de La Tour

Does it look familiar? It should:

It's in Ariel's cavern "under the sea". Crazy right?! I think that it's awesome!!! Go Disney and art!!

Living the Dream

I have finally lived a childhood dream!

That's right I had chocolate milk WITH the red and white striped straw!! That's right this just happened!

Be jealous ;)

Twinkle Twinkle Little Star...

Ever since Fiji I have fallen head over heals in love with the stars. I've never seen a sky so black or stars so bright, as a matter a fact I've never seen so many stars in my life! But with the time change I don't get to see my stars in the early morning before seminary like I used to and I miss my stars.

Till tonight then...

Happy Veterans Day

Thank you to the men and women who currently serve and served this country and to all those that gave their lives for us.

Uncle Sam is calling....

I hope you all voted today!

May the best man win :)

Let's see how much you can save!

Well happy Dia de los Muertos!! (Day of the Dead, the day after Halloween) Well I know that you were all totally impressed by my amazing costume yesterday. ;)

"Hello this is Flo from Progressive, how my I help you?" Yep this won Best Costume at the Penrod's Halloween party. Yeah, I'm pretty proud, and personally I think that my Bump-It is my best feature. ;)

Hope you all had a Happy Halloween last night!

My new obsession...

So Christopher thank you so so very very much for those mix CDs that you gave me over the summer! They are currently all I listen to in the car and I'm in love with them! Come Thanksgiving I need you to tell me everyone that you put on my CDs & make me some more CDs :). But my current obsession is the one, the only, JONSI!!!

Seriously, I'm in love with this album <3

Welcome to movies with Brooke

I would like to give my professional critique on The Perks of Being a Wallflower.

First off I did not see any "perks" whatsoever in this movie. If the perk is getting stoned and occasionally getting laid in a make-out setting then all right, however, we will agree to disagree on these "perks". Now my professional critique is as follows:

Was the movie filmed well? Yes, I actually really enjoyed the cinematography, even if it did remind me of The Social Network. Both are kind of dark story lines and so are filmed in a darker setting than would be normal; all the shots had an old memory feel. Everything felt like it was damp, like how when you soak something in water and it's darker.

Was the acting good? Yes, it definitely wasn't bad acting. I just felt awkward. Let me be specific, I felt awkward watching them, they made ME feel awkward. 

How were the actors? The main three actors, Logan Lerman, Emma Watson, and Ezra Miller were good. Their characters were very interesting, rather complex. Individually I liked them, all together however and as we got further into the story I just found myself getting tired of them. I can only watch high school going a rye for so long. 

How did it make me feel? Honestly, it made me happy that I have values and a strong Mormon background and support in my life. As I watched it all I could think was "This isn't high school. This isn't high school. It's so much better than this!" My hands never left my face for the whole movie.

You want my advice? DON'T SEE THIS MOVIE, TRUST ME!!!

Without further gilding the lily....

What I get to hear in Film:

"Can't you all see Brooke waving at us from a yacht? She's going to leave us and live on a boat."

"I'm writing Brooke's name down on the ballot. I'd vote for Brooke, wouldn't you?"

"Brooke is the Grace Kelly of this class. She would make kissing classy."

"She is the James Dean of Mormons."

Thank you Film, you make me feel so good about myself!

Español?

So it seems that Spanish teachers and I have a little bit of a misunderstanding of some kind. I seriously must have some disease that affects Spanish teachers. In the staff room there's probably a picture of me saying: WARNING DISEASE CAUSING AGENT, REPEAT DISEASE CAUSING AGENT!!! You may wonder why I say this? I say this because last year my Spanish teacher decided to leave us for around 6 months, due to family issues and the like; so my substitute teacher felt more like my teacher and my teacher more like my substitute teacher. Kinda weird, but seriously what are the chances of it happening again?

Well this year I had my Spanish teacher, Sr. Moreno, for seriously, a week. ONE WEEK!! I have had a sub ever since, that's been what, over a month now?! And he's not coming back as far as I or anyone else can tell.

Basically I don't think that I was meant to learn Spanish, but at this point I don't think any of the French or German teachers would take me in considering my reputation.

Sincerely,

Sick in Spanish

NEWS update...

Homecoming....... I'm going!!

My friend Ryan asked me today, I'm still waiting for a picture from my friend to show ya'll, but yeah, I've got a date! He even got me my favorite flowers, daisies. :)

And as fate would have it, I have a dress! ;)
it's at http://www.anthropologie.com/anthro/product/clothes-dresses/25751744.jsp 
Tell me what you think of it! And since Ryan is uber tall that means I get to wear heels if I so desire!!

Annoyed.....

Alright so I'm just slightly annoyed and I thought that I would voice my frustrations to you. I hope Christopher, Brendan, and David that you never did this! So homecoming is in a few weeks and my friends are starting to get asked. Well I've been informed by more than one source that there is someone who is going to ask me, well why hasn't he asked me yet? He's had, seriously, like a week, why don't I have a firm date yet?!

Homecoming blues.....

Film Noir

Alright so in Film right now we are watching Film Noir movies and they've been interesting. We've watched:

and...

All I've got to say is that Film Noir is unique unto itself. I really enjoyed The Maltese Falcon, well let's be honest I really just love Humphrey Bogart, but I enjoyed the story. Double Indemnity was good, it was the runner-up for the best movie in 1944 and it's said to be the best film noir movie ever made, but honestly not my fav. 

I look forward to the future films I'll be watching and can't wait for our field trip to Universal Studios tomorrow! Leave school for an amusement park? I think yes! And I get credit for it?! Even better! 

BLOG update!!

OK so I talked to my history teacher Mr. Wittenberg, he actually had not heard of Christopher, but Brendan. He was a shot-put coach and remembered Brendan from track and what not. All though he says he might have had Christopher....

Crisis Averted! ;) ( You know I'm just kidding right?!)

I'm Back!

Sorry that I've been absent for so long, I was truly enjoying my summer and forgot to write. But now school has started again; I'm still trying to decide how happy I am about this. All the same, here is the traditional first day of school photo that signals the beginning of all new school years and welcomes those early seminary mornings with a smile (sometimes).

School looks good so far, I think I've got some good teachers; my history teacher knows of Christopher so I may need to watch my footing there! ;) Just kidding, but I'll keep you posted Christopher on what he knows of you. But I'm really liking my film class, everyone knows me and my religion now and where I'd possibly like to live one day, thank you Sautner. He basically gave a close to 10 minute rant on why it was silly that I might consider Virginia as a possible place to live, then in the end told me it was actually a good place to live anyways....

All the same school is looking alright and I'm now officially an upperclassman. CRAZY RIGHT?!?!?!?! And a very very big bonus is that I have a parking pass, I pick it up tomorrow!

I love you guys so much and I wish that Thanksgiving would already be here!! Love ya <3


P.S.....
I wanted to share this photo with you all because I think it  captures Bella's personality in so many ways. :)

xoxo

Looking ahead

The Olympics are over. Tis a sad thing, and the weird thing to think about is that next Olympics when they're in Rio de janeiro, I'll be 21. That's weird!! But hey it's only a year and half till the next Olympics in Sochi, Russia. I'm so excited!!

Check it out:

I'm the most excited!!!

If you build it.....

So I didn't go to Fiji just to relax, enjoy the scenery, and eat. If you recall I did go to Fiji on a humanitarian trip so we could build bathrooms. I regret to say that I didn't get pictures of the first day or so, but we had to start from scratch, digging in the ground and everything. This was a very labor intensive project and I'm happy to say that I did come home with some new muscles!! And to be honest I'm very proud of myself and this project, it's my baby.

Day 2 of bathroom...

...beginning of septic tank.

Building the base of the septic tank.

Big Jim helping Sam get those higher nails in.

And TADA the finished product.

I'm incredibly proud of it, I can tell you how it works and everything! But regrettable we didn't get to finish 100% because it rained the very last day so the cement lids wouldn't dry and we couldn't put them on the septic tank. And that red is the primer, we had one more coat of the green paint. So they had to complete it without us. :(  But other than that we finished!!

I'm a Foodie

The food in Fiji is to die for!! At the beginning of our time in the village we would dare each other to eat the food, but once we realized how good it was no daring was necessary! I mean how often am I going to eat deep fried sweet and sour fish?! But don't eat the taro, whatever you do resist the taro at what ever cost!! I've never gagged before, but I gagged on the taro.

Now since Fiji is a British province the Brits have affected their culture in many ways. For example their money has the Queen on it, but the biggest thing is that they have tea time!! So twice a day I got to sit down to tea and some delicious food of some kind. I got to sample coconut bread, several pies, donuts dipped in lemon juice, this kind of panini things with fish and onions and much much more....

This is a cousin of the donut, absolutely delicious! And our tea was always lemon leaf tea, sweetened with REAL cane sugar!!

This is a kind of tortilla in a sweet sauce, delish! (And mind you this all made from scratch in a hut no less!)

The aforementioned REAL cane sugar. It's brown and courser like kosher salt and it's amazing, I don't think I can use white sugar ever again!

This was probably my most favorite tea time food. It's pancakes, but you unroll them put cane sugar on it, roll it back up and enjoy, heaven!

Then the fish. At first sight, not very appetizing, but I promise you it's good. They're not a fishing community for nothing!

Before....

After....

And last but not least. I know that I was in Fiji, but I really looked forward to this meal...

and it didn't disappoint. :)

Home Sweet Home

Well I'm home!! These past 2 weeks have been amazing for me. I've truly grown in more ways than one and I can't wait to tell all of you about it!

So everyday I'm going to post a plethora of photos and attempt to show all of you how amazing and life changing this trip was for me. But FYI these photos don't even begin to express how amazing this trip was or even scratch the surface of what I have learned. But still, they're fun photos. :)

These guys were singing for us at 5AM!!

Now here is Waya Lailai Resort (it means small waters). This is where we spent our first weekend in Fiji and it is everything you imagine Fiji would be: beach, paradise, swimsuits, jungle, the works.

the resort.....

Sitting in a hammock on a beach in Fiji; does it get better than this? I think NOT!!

the beginning of our treacherous yet beautiful hike in the jungle....

I made it!!!

doesn't it look like a bear and a gorilla?!!

So that was just a snippet of my first weekend in Fiji. But besides those 2-3 days I never saw the beach again while I was in Fiji. Well I never got in it again anyways and Fiji didn't stay paradisiacal. I got a very good look at the real Fiji and it's very filthy, very 3rd world, but I feel in love with it all the same.