Home Again, Home Again

Suzy, Melissa and Haley, March 26, 2010

This weekend Suzy and I played hookie from school and came home to surprise Haley for her birthday.  I can't believe that my baby sister is a teenager.  Friday Haley, Suzy, Mom and I went to lunch with Dad and then  spent the rest of the day shopping and hanging out, just the girls.  It was so much fun.  I wish I could come home every weekend.

March 18th

On this day in history:

In 1584 Russian Czar Ivan IV, or Ivan The Terrible, died at age 53.

In 1766, after months of American protests,

Britain repealed the Stamp Act.

In 1965 Soviet cosmonaut Aleksei Leonov

made the first spacewalk.

In 1990 the biggest art theft in U.S. history occured at the

Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston. 

The works, including pieces by Vermeer and Rembrandt,

were never recovered.

In 2004 a small asteroid made the closest approach to Earth

ever recorded, only about 26,500 miles away.

In 2009 Paul Rasband reported to the 

Provo Missionary Training Center.

In the last year I have:

Turned twenty. 

Traveled to England, Wales, France and Spain.

 

Started running with the goal to run a half marathon in May.

 

Decided to declare a Chemistry minor and changed my plans about graduate school.

  

Cut off more than a total of 12 inches of hair, and cut bangs for the first time since third grade.

In the next year I plan to:

Actually run my half marathon.

Get the most out of my last year of college:  
good friends and good grades :)

Do something with my London pictures.  Editing them would be a great start.

Be friendlier.

Live with Suzy, just like we always planned.

Be happy.  Every day.

Beware the Ides of March

While Monday has never been my favorite day, I like the idea of starting my week with some cheerful gratitude.  In honor of March 15th, fifteen good things about today:

15) Finding the perfect birthday gift for a friend

14)  The lady behind me in line at the store who helped me decide on the gift

13) Matching my earrings to my shirt...both are ORANGE

12) Eating my favorite Subway sandwich for lunch

11) Apologizing to people for being a monster over the weekend...if I missed you, please consider this my apology

10) Not wearing a jacket because it's such a pretty day

9) Morning phone calls to Mom

8) My new, yellow 'Choose to Give' shirt

7) Carrying my pink 'All the World's a Stage'  bag and reminiscing about going to the Globe Theatre

6) Having my very own name plate at work

5) Learning how to make a 'table of contents' page in Word...it's so easy!

4) Free 'High in the Sky' juice at work...yum delish!

3) Little reminders that I have a healthy body

2) Walking around the roof of the Spencer W. Kimball Tower

1) Making the irresponsible decision to wear heels instead of flats today...because who doesn't need a little fancy from time to time?

So take that Brutus.

Happy Birthday Blog!

This is my 52nd blog post, and I'm writing to commemorate my blog's first birthday. That averages out to one post per week. Thanks for following!

<3
Melissa

Happiness Is...

Ten things that made me happy today:

* Walking across campus today in the sunshine, seeing little tips of green leaves poking out of the dirt.

*Hot chocolate in the morning.

*Running into Daniel in the library.

 
*Being able to run four [or more!] miles.  Never thought I'd be able to say that.

*Seeing more London pictures Allie posted on Facebook...plus running into Caitlin M. and Lisa H. on campus.

*My new journal.  It's adorable.

*The Sharpie Pen.  Writes like a fine point marker, but doesn't bleed.  I love it.

*The nice girl I sat by in Human Development.

*Playing with K'nex in English.

*Craisins.  Best thing ever.

Ceramics Update

Here are some new pictures.  We've been having fun :)

Suzy cleaning the bottom of a bowl she made.

Suzy's 'flower' pot :)

My latest creation.

Why I LOVE my Major

Today in Organic Chemistry we learned about epoxides.  It wasn't that cool.  But for the last half of the class Dr. Savage had us put away our notes and we talked about why OChem is important.  He started talking about 'antimicrobial peptides.'  These proteins are one of the defenses that our bodies use to kill bacteria.

Chemists and biologists are working on synthesizing a new class of molecules called Ceragenins.  These molecules mimic the effects of our bodies' antimicrobial peptides and are capable of killing bacteria.  Upon further research I learned that my professor, Dr. Paul Savage, invented these ceragenins.  He told us in class that it was likely that these antibiotics will available for human trials.

Today I got so excited about biology and chemistry that I just had to blog about it.

I really just love my major!