Well then.

What a surprise! It's been over two months since I posted! And seeing as the last thing I posted was sad news, lets post happy news.

Well, I don't really have any.

But. School starts in less than a month!!! I'm really excited about that. And I get to move into my new apartment on the 25th, and that is really exciting too!

Summer has been great. I got to go to California for 10 days with the family and that was a lot of fun. Other than that, I've just been working at the library and as a nanny 1-2 times a week, which of course I love.

I did a 9 day nanny stint while the parents went to Honduras. That was fun! But a long time, but none the less, I very much enjoyed it.

Not much else is going on. I am taking Chemistry, Chinese, Humanities, Statistics (again) and the second half of doctrine and covenants. That's 16 credits...we'll see how that goes!

Oh and I changed my background if you didn't notice =]

Hope everyone else is doing well!


-andrea

Barbara Jean Whaley

My Aunt Barbara died today. She was only 61 years old. We found out 6 weeks ago that she had stage 4 pancreatic cancer, which had spread to her liver, spine and bones. She did a week of radiation and a round of chemotherapy. The radiation helped shrink the tumor in her knee to allow her to walk for a few more weeks. The chemo made her weak and only prolonged the inevitable. We were able to celebrate her 61st birthday with her on May 8th. It was great to be able to have one more gathering with her. She was in good spirits at that time. At the beginning of last week (the week of May 23), she went down hill and we thought we were going to loose her then. She had been in a rehabilitation place, but had to be transferred back to the hospital. We found out she had an infection and so she was put on antibiotics and given a blood transfusion and everything turned around! I got to see her on Thursday (May 27th) and she seemed pretty coherent (or at least while we were there she was). We got to visit with her for a good 2 hours. We helped to decorate her new room (she had been moved to a hospice center) and just get to visit with her (unbeknown to us kids, for the last time). On Friday, she started to go down hill. She was getting another infection. From Friday on, she only continued to go downhill. She was in and out of consciousness and she didn't remember things. Last night was not good for her. She had a fever of 104 and her oxygen level had dropped from 86 to 64. Her pupils were fixed and dilated; she was unresponsive. We were surprised to wake up this morning and find she had made it through the night, but we knew it would only be a matter of a few hours now. I went to nanny, and I got the call that she had passed away. She left this mortal life to continue on her journey around 12:30 PM on Tuesday, June 1st. What is interesting is that she died right around the same time that my Auntie Janice did, almost 7 years ago.

We are hoping to have her funeral this Friday, June 4th, but we will know for sure tomorrow if that is going to be possible.

Crazy people in the library

So we get some interesting folks come through the library (or who call/chat us). I thought I'd share two of them with you.

1) I got a call, and on the caller ID it said Ut St Govt. Ok. Interesting. I answer, and the first thing out of the guys mouth was "Are you in front of a terminal?". I was confused about what he was asking, so I asked him to repeat the question. He did, and I still didn't know what a "terminal" was. So I said I was sitting in front of a computer, and he was like, yeah, a terminal. Ok, so now a computer is called a terminal, good to know. He the proceeded to ask me to look up books and call numbers, though he didn't have a specific book he wanted. He asked me to go to an online translator and translate a word (forgot what it was) into Chinese (he didn't know I spoke a bit of Chinese) and then put it into the library catalog. By this time, I have a few people waiting for me. I tell him that if he isn't looking for a specific book that I can help him find, I need to go help other patrons (it had been about 7-8 mins). He tells me just to do it so I do it quick and he asks me to read through the results. And this is when he asked me if I spoke Chinese. How random. So I read him the pin yin and he asks me to click on one of them. I do, and then he wants to speak to someone about this book. I tell him the librarian isn't in right now, but I'd be happy to give him their number. He says no, he wants me to call them, leave a message with the call number of the book and his phone number. He rattles off a different phone number from the one he was calling from, but I didn't catch it before he said "Ciao" and hung up.

Come to find out, this wasn't his first (or last) time calling. He called a total of about 4 times before one of my coworkers kind of told him off. Another coworker and I did some research and found out he was calling from the mental hospital in Provo. Great. So that was exciting.

2) So I work till midnight 4 nights a week. On Tuesday night, I was sitting at a desk where I can't see out to the foyer. I by chance look that way, and see three police officers coming. Interesting, this could get good. One stays around the corner while the other two approach a man who is sitting in the chairs. One of the officers asks the man if he has a weapon on him! The man gets a bit confused and goes to check. The officer says woah, put your hands up. The man does, and the other officer asks him to stand up. He stands and the officer checks his belt loop. It looked like he might have had on an empty gun holster, and maybe another holster for like a phone or something. I think the determined that he did not have a weapon on him, but asked for his ID and questioned him about why he was there. The cops left without him, and a few minutes later he was gone. He was kind of scary looking. He was super tall (like 6'5) and had a super long, black beard, and a wide rimmed black hat.


Oh the joys of the library =]

Aunt Barbara

I know some of you already know this, but some of you don't. Most of you do know my Aunt Barbara though. She was diagnosed with cancer about a week and a half ago. We are slowing finding where it is, and right now it is in her pancreas, liver, spine and bones. Every time she goes to the doctors they are finding it in more places. She was admitted to the hospital last night because she was in such pain (because it is in her bones) and the pain medicine she was being given was not doing enough. An oncologist has seen some of her scans, and she had a biopsy of her liver today, and an oncologist will review everything on Thursday. Things are not looking good as it is. From some of the research I've done about it, by the time someone is in pain like she is, its almost too late, so we are really praying that things will work out, but know they may not. So if you all would be praying for her, and for my family, that would be wonderful. I'll keep you all updated on how she is doing.

Oh the joys of school

So school is almost over!!!!! Only this week, next week, two days of the following week and then FINALS! And then no school till September! Can't wait!!

I won't be going to school over spring/summer, just working in the library and doing some babysitting twice a week for a family who is related to a family I babysat for in China (and now here since they moved back). The parents are going to Honduras for 9 days in June, so I'll be watching their kids while they are gone. They have a girl, Aubrey, who will almost be 4 when they leave (and she has Down Syndrome but is the cutest thing ever!) and Michael who will be 18 months old when they leave. It will be great!

Not much else is going on. Haven't officially declared a major, but I pretty sure I am doing Biology with a Chinese minor. I was going to do Biology Education/Chinese teaching minor, but I'm going to just do straight biology because if I want to later on, I can go do an accelerated nursing program. And with Chinese, the straight Chinese minor is less classes than the teaching. So I'm pretty excited. For now though the plan is to get my teaching credentials after I get my degree.

I also got to see the family I used to nanny for this past weekend which was great! I didn't know when I was going to get to see them again since I'm not going to be able to go out to California this summer. So that was great!

I'm moving home for spring/summer as well, but will come up to Provo to work/go to church and then babysitting in Springville. I was moving out of my ward because my bishop was getting released, but then they called the 1st counselor, whom I love, as the bishop, so I decided I didn't want to move out anymore! Originally I was moving into an apartment with Lily (from China), but now I'm moving one building over to live with my other roommate Michelle and I'm really excited to live with her! She is great and I think we will have a lot of fun together! And I'm excited to NOT move out of the ward!

Thats about all thats going on with me =]

Snowmobiling and more

I feel bad that this has been sitting waiting to be seen. Here are pictures from snowmobiling almost 2 months ago =]

So my family went with my dad's sister's family (The Algers) to West Yellowstone, MT at the beginning of February so we could all go snowmobiling! It was so much fun! I had such a great time! I actually got to drive my own snowmobile, which was awesome. The not awesome part: I crashed my snowmobile into Noelle's. That was fantastic. Some damage to my mobile, but no one was hurt =] Lots of us got stuck in the snow, which was awesome too!

Johnson Family

Really neat trees covered in snow

My poor stuck snow mobile..or maybe it was Moms...or Noelles

Sam and Julie

Same snow mobile stuck

Maybe I'll post more pictures...some day. Blogger is annoying and doesn't put the pictures where you want them...

Missionaries in Romania

I don't know who of you have seen this news article, but 2 missionaries who were serving in Romania died this weekend. And sadly, I knew one of them. Elder McKay Burrows was in my ward freshman year. He was a great guy! One of my friends on Facebook had posted about this, and she said something like, Pray for the Burrows family, and the missionary in Romania had died. I was like...I know a missionary in Romania with the last name of Burrows. And sure enough, it was him. He and his companion died of natural gas asphyxiation. Its incredibly sad. I remember when he announced his mission call in sacrament meeting, and he was excited to be going to Romania, but nervous at the same time. Its so sad to see missionaries die on their missions, but you know that it is because the Lord had a more important mission for them.

Anyways. I just wanted to post that.

You can see the article here: http://www.ksl.com/index.php?nid=148&sid=9522925

-Andrea

Life.

So school is going well, which is good! I still need to get my major (biology education) officially declared, as well as my minor (chinese teaching). So hopefully that can get done sometime this semester =]

I'm really enjoying all my classes and all my professors. Stats is kind of boring, and so is my PDBio (Physiology and Developmental Biology) class because, at least for PDBio, its all stuff I've already learned. Stats is just boring because...it just is!

So I have to start trying to figure out where I am going to live next year...not sure. I'd like to stay on Condo Row where I currently am, but I want to get out of my ward. There are about 130 girls and 36 guys...and I'm not joking at all! I don't like a lot of the girls either; they seem too stuck up and too, like they are better than everyone else. There are a lot of really sweet girls too, but this definitely isn't my favorite ward people wise, though I do love my bishopric! They are fantastic! So we'll see where I end up, but I do really need to start figuring it out! February is the month where you pretty much have to decide.

Not much else is going on. I am taking pictures of my roommates this afternoon (hopefully!) and if they turn out like I am hoping they will, I'll post some! I really am getting back into wanting to take pictures, and so yea!!

Hope everyone is doing well!

RESULT!

I think I have finally found a Religion teacher I love at BYU!!

He is my new D&C teacher and his name is Scott Esplin. He is absolutely fantastic and I am very excited to learn about the Doctrine and Covenants this year!! We do have to write a paper, but I'm not worried because I'm just happy to have a religion professor that I am excited about on the first day of class!! Luckily he teaches the second half of D&C so I'll be taking it from him!

Just had to let everyone know that I'm really excited!!!

New Semester

So I started a new semester...already! Christmas break was way too short! I worked most of it, which was fine. Long, but fine.

I got my grades back too, and they were exactly what I was expecting. Nothing fantastic (except for Chinese) but at least they were not lower that what I was planning on them being. Believe it or not, my lowest grade was in New Testament.

This semester I am hoping my religion (D&C) professor is much better! I haven't had the class yet (I have it in 30 mins), so I'll have to report back, but I read great things about him.

I am currently in 4 classes and trying to get into another one. They are: Chinese 102, Humanities 201 (like from BC to 1500 AD), Stats 221 and D&C. I am trying to get into a PDBIO class...we'll see if it happens. I went to the class yesterday, and there were about 40 kids sitting on the floor...thats how many people want to get in. Hopefully though!! Otherwise I'll just be taking 12 credits. I was going to take an intro to public health class, but I'm pretty set on being a Biology Teacher that I didn't want to take the class and make my major decision any harder. And I haven't regretted dropping the class, so I figure that is good!

I also have my new work schedule, and sadly I work on Saturdays now. So I work Mon 8-12, Wed 8-12, Thrs 9-12, Fri 7-11 and Sat 4 hours (rotating). Oh well.

So I think it will be a good semester. I just really hope that I get into the PDBio class that I need. I'd really like to get it over with while I have PDBio stuff fresh in my head.

And I'm super excited to be in Chinese again with all my friends! The class is about 1/2 familiar people and 1/2 new people. And some of the new people are intimidating!!! They are much more advanced than us!!! Oh dear!

Well I hope everyone had a fantastic Christmas and New Years! I'll have to post about those two events (though I think I did post about Christmas). One of my resolutions (that I just made up) is to blog more. I managed to blog almost the whole month of December, so I'm sure I can blog once or twice a week!

-Andrea

A Decade in Review

So you know how, at the end of the year, or decade, lots of newspapers and such post "The Best ... of the Decade/Year", I thought it would be neat to do one of those. So here I go.

10 Biggest Events of the Decade (in my life) that I am not soon to forget (Not necessarily in any particular order):

1. Moving to China

2. My Aunt Janice and Grandpa Alan passed away

3. I started middle school, 2 high schools and college.

4. I some how made it into BYU

5. I finally decided what I want to be when I "grow up" (this is the one question you are asked your whole life, so finally deciding is pretty exciting!)

6. I got to visit New Zealand, the Philippines, Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore and lots of places in China.

7. I took a tour of the East Coast

8. I started babysitting and nannying, which spurred a life-long love of kids =]

9. I got to visit Hawaii

10. September 11: I was luckily not affected directly, but it is one world-wide even that I won't soon forget.

Top World Events that stick out in my mind:

-September 11

-Fighting in Xin Jiang, China (this is really significant to me because I visited here before the most recent fighting, and it was my favorite trip)

-Disappearance/Murder of Laci Peterson

-Kidnapping of Elizabeth Smart (and her subsequent finding)

-Disappearance of Susan Powell

-Crash of AirFrance Flight 447 that disappeared over the ocean

-Tsunami in Southeast Asia

-Hurricanes that devastated the South

Top Movies I have seen (and this probably isn't a comprehensive list since I've seen so many!)

-Angels and Demons

-Twilight/New Moon

-Poseidon

-The Secret Life of Bees

-Enchanted

-Juno

-(I know there are more!)

Ok. I'm going to stop here and think more, and come up with more lists =]

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!!!

So my Aunt Kathy wanted to know what the first thing we watched on our new TV was...the Utah VS Cal State Football game....not our choice =] We had family over that night, and I have one diehard utah cousin, so we had to watch the game. After that though it was 3 Star Wars movies. My dad's choice.

Christmas eve was wonderful. We went up to Temple Square, where the lights were not on. We were told that Temple Square would be closing 6, but turns out the buildings were closing at 5 and the lights didn't come on till around 5:30. So we went into the Joseph Smith Memorial Building to the viewing deck, and waited till the lights came on. Then we did a quick tour (as we were freezing and hungry!) and then went back to my aunts to eat left over soup and sandwiches. Yummy!

Then we came home and I watched half of A Christmas Story.

Christmas morning we started opening presents around 8:30. We all got great things; lots of clothes, I got a few movies, but the best???

WE FINALLY GOT A WII!!! So excited!!! Its the perfect addition to our new TV and entertainment system.

Overall, we are all very happy people!!

Now, off to Aunt Sandy's for a great brunch!!!!!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!!!

Holiday Party #1

So tonight we had a gathering with my mom's side of the family. It was the first real big one in a long time. All my mom's family was there except for one uncle (and family) that lives out of town, and an aunt (and family) that lives out of town. It was a lot of fun! We had probably 30 people including kidlets. We did a "white elephant" gift exchange game, except that we brought useful gifts and not weird gifts. We had soup and sandwiches which were really good and lots of yummy desserts!!

Tomorrow we are going up to temple square to see the lights which I'm excited about =] I haven't been up there this year, so I'm glad I get to go with my family.

And then its Christmas! I'm really excited this year!

Also, my family got their new, beautiful, massive entertainment center and 47" flat screen tv. All fantastic Christmas presents!

Merry Almost Christmas!

Clean apartment and almost Christmas!!!!!

So this evening I did all the dishes, washed some towels, wiped down the counters and stove, and swept the floor. And now we have a clean apartment!

I was also able to finish wrapping christmas presents (my moms were the hardest because they were weird shaped) and now I am watching Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (the original). I'm so excited that tomorrow will be my last day of work for a while!! It will be way nice to have a break!

And I can't wait for Christmas!! I'm getting really excited to see family and eat lots of great food!!!

And I also got my work schedule for next semester...and I work Saturdays =[ Its only 4 hours, but I'm not excited. And then I work Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. I start at 8 this semester instead of 7, except for Friday. So hopefully all will be fine.

I can't believe that it is almost 2010!! I'm going to have to do a decade in review post, seeing as a lot happened between the year I turned 10 and 19.

-Andrea

Oops

So I guess I didn't blog last night. It was a long day. My roommate Lily was taking a friend to the airport, but she wasn't comfortable driving home by herself. So I went...at 5 AM with them to the airport. We were actually dropping two people off, and the first person's flight left at 7:15 AM, and the second person's flight left at 9...so we dropped off the first person than drove to temple square and ate breakfast, then back to the airport. It was a really long day.

I also went to the Asian ward yesterday with my roommate Lily. She got a new calling as the Chinese Sunday School teacher, so I went to listen to her give her first lesson. She did a good job =] Of course I didn't understand the majority of it, but she had a powerpoint in English. So that helped.

And now today I am at work. For 10 hours. Not too sure why I signed up to work for 10 hours...today tomorrow and Wednesday...but I did. So here I sit. I have yet to start reading my books, but my favorite that I have read before was "The Bean Trees". Probably because it was the only one that had an interesting story line to it. I also love the book "The Secret Life of Bees" which is also a fantastic movie!!

Anywho. It had just dawned on me that I hadn't blogged. So I blogged now. I'm way excited for Christmas and food and gifts, but mostly for lots of food. And no work or school.

Merry Christmas Everyone!

Book List

So my Aunt Kathy wanted to know what books I had plans to read.

They are as follows:
The Bean Tree by Barbara Kingsolver

I know why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey

The Catcher and the Rye by J.D. Salinger

The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold

And a Mary Higgins Clark book

The only one I haven't read is the Mary Higgins Clark book. We'll see if I can finish them all!

MckMama

So I am an avid blog reader. And one that I check everyday (other then family blogs of course) is MckMama.com

I started reading MckMama when her son, Stellan was born. He was born with SVT (supraventricular tachycardia) which means that his heart would beat too fast (around 220 beats/min) unless he was on a cocktail of medicines. He was rushed to Boston when he was 4 months old for an ablation (where they try and zap the extra electrical pathway in his heart that causes his heart to beat too fast), but it was unsuccessful because he was so small. It was also hard to complete because his extra pathway was located right on his AV node, which means that there was a good chance they would destroy his AV node, meaning he would have to have a pacemaker for the rest of his life. So they sent him home on more (and higher) doses of medicine. Fast forward to November, the week before his 1st birthday. Stellan stopped responding to the medicines and was becoming sick because of being on all the medicines. They took him to the hospital where it was decided that he would have to have another ablation. He was flown to Boston, and he was taken off all medicines so the doctors could see when they did the surgery where his pathway was exactly. They started detox on Sunday, and had the surgery planned for Thursday. Sadly, Stellan coded on Monday morning. They were able to revive him, but had to do an emergency abaltion. They decided that if they had to, they would destroy his AV node and he would have a pacemaker for the rest of his life. So during the surgery, they had exhausted all options, and the pathway would not go away. Right before the main Dr. decided to destroy the AV node to get rid of the pathway, one of his colleagues suggested that they go through his aorta to try and get rid of it. Now, if they were able to ablate the pathway, they wanted to ablate it for 2-3 seconds to be sure it would be gone. (Oh and the chances of a successful surgery without destroying his AV node was like...20%) SO they go through his aorta, have access to this pathway WITHOUT touching his AV node, and they ablate it...for a whole minute. His surgery was a home run!!

Stellan was curred of his SVT with no lasting effects. He still has an intact AV node, and there was no damages to his aortic valves. There is less than 1% chance that his SVT will ever come back.

So why did I post this? Not quite sure, but I love reading this blog! It is quite a well known blog now, because of Stellan. His parents have been on the news because of him and his mom is just a fantastic blogger (and photographer). They also have 3 other children.

Though the reason I blogged about this now is because MckMama is giving away Lightroom 2 (a photo-editing software) and if you blog about it, you get another entry into the contest. So I'm blogging about it and getting another entry into the contest! I doubt I'll win, but thats ok.

Now you all know about Stellan.

So go check out www.mckmama.com to learn more about them and to enter to win Lightroom 2!

-Andrea

DONE!!!!

I'm DONE!! I decided to just study and take my last final tonight so I could be done!! So I studied and took it. It took 1 1/2 hours, and wasn't fun. I went through and answered all the ones I knew...which was almost 1/2. And then I went through and used process of elimination, and then I completely guessed on about 10. I didn't do so hot, but the class is curved, so yeah.

So now I'm free! I made a list of books I want to read over break. They are all ones I read in high school, but I want to re-read them now, thinking I'll appreciate/understand them more. So I'm pretty excited.

OOh. And last night I was craving sweets...so I made homemade, from scratch, brownies. And they were sooooooooo good!!

I worked for 7 hours today, and it actually wasn't too bad. So I'm less worried about break work (I was afraid it would be realllly long) but I'll be able to read and such too.

And I'm hoping to get a hair cut this weekend, so I'll be posting about that!

Have a great night/day!

Once Again

I did nothing today. I was supposed to study, but because I didn't have any work, that didn't happen. I work tomorrow and I will study (because I won't come home from the library till I do) and then either take the test tomorrow night or first thing Friday morning. And then I'm done!!!

Really

don't have anything to blog about. Took another final today. Didn't do so hot.

Only one more to go!!!!

And I'll be done!!!