Free round-trip airfare to Japan!!!

Best news of my life: The Japan Tourism Agency has proposed offering 10,000 free flights to Japan to convince the people of the world that it is safe to visit Japan, despite the recent earthquake and radiation crisis.
I'm totally down.  They're trying to target celebrities/internet celebs to get the word out to as many people as possible.  Good thing I post frequently on my blog, which is extremely well-known (by the 2.5 readers who happen to come across it once in their lives by sheer dumb luck ;)).  Good thing I have a Twitter account.  Good thing I post regularly on Facebook and have a bajillion two hundred and three friends who all comment and read my posts.  Yeah, I'm pretty much set....  Japan or bust, baby.
P.S. In case you don't believe me, here's the actual article:
http://blogs.wsj.com/japanrealtime/2011/10/11/tourism-remedy-10000-free-flights-to-japan/
P.P.S. You actually have good reason not to believe me, because I lied about three things on this post....(see above paragraph)

Visiting Japan has always been my dream.  Actually, visiting any eastern Asian country is my dream.  I would lovelovelove to live there one day; I'm not picky about where, specifically- I just know I want to live somewhere in China, or Japan, or Taiwan, or Thailand, or South Korea (North Korea's a little sketch-sketch at the moment, in case you're spending more time than me in the musty fluorescent-lit basement of the USU library these days, which is actually where I'm writing this ha how embarrassing)

The plan is to take Mandarin Chinese next semester, so China would probably be a pretty good place to live, considering my plan.  I would love that.  A real dream of mine would be to work for the U.S. Foreign Service in China.  That would be beyond cool.

 <-- That's where I'll be going. NBD.

Can't wait for this to happen.  Sometimes, it's so hard to wait and just enjoy life now.  I just want things to be sped up by a few years, ya know?  I mean, my life is fantastic right now-- couldn't ask for much more, except maybe a good pair of winter boots.  I have nothing to complain about, but I do sometimes find myself wishing that I could skip ahead to the part of my life where I'm some big-shot, traveling the world, speaking 5 different languages, buying expensive clothes all around the globe, and eating divine delicacies from all over.  Yeah, that'll be the life. 

Of course, my life now really isn't bad at all: I am taking the most interesting classes ever (I'm completely biased) Macroeconomics 1500, Intro to International Politics 2100, Sociology 1010, Business Statistics 2300, Creative Arts 1330, and Yoga 1010 (hands down best class ever)

I'm also doing research for these professors who are presenting to Congress in D.C. and I might be going with them sometime or something... (OH MY FREAK, IS THAT NOT THE COOLEST THING EVER?!!?!?!?!?!) 

I have the best friends in the world, who are so so so much fun.  Seriously, I don't think you could have funnier, nicer, and overall better friends.  My friends have shaped me so much in helping deal with hard things in my life, strengthening my testimony of the gospel, and reminding me to have fun and loosen up.  They are positively incredible.  Really.  (I would post a picture, but I don't have one with everyone that needs to be there in it. Awkward...)

I have the most wonderful family.  CONFESSION: this maybe will sound a baby bit pathetic, but sometimes, I turn down invitations to go hang out on the weekend, just so I can play with the fam.  They're too much fun. 

Also, I'm in a bunch of clubs that make my schedule that much more hectic, but so much fun.  I'm seriously in love with life at the moment.  It's too great.  

To add to all of that, it's fall, which is my favorite in the world.  It's gorgeous outside-- even when it's raining.  And I have a crush on scarves, trench coats, pea coats, coats in general, boots, gloves (particularly, red gloves) and hats.  

I want that.

Phew! That was a really long post.  And really mostly about nothing at all.  Whatevs.

Tata! Hope your week is fabulous!

Lovelove, Justine

First Day of School!!

Whoo hoo! So it's not really my first day of school yet, but I have to check-in today, which I count as just as good.  When I'm thinking clearly, I'm completely stoked about my first year of college, but I can't seem to escape those irrational moments when I freak out to the max.  For a while now, I've been thinking there should be a class to teach you how to do college.  At this point in my young life, I am profesh at being a high-schooler: I know all the ins and outs.  But college?  I'm pulling up a blank.  Luckily, I have found a solution!  My college of choice, Utah State University, offers just the class I need: a class that teaches me how to do college!  How perfect is that?  You can bet your bottom dollar I snatched that up real fast.  Tomorrow is my first day of the course, and it makes me feel a little better.

It's such a weird time in my life right now. . . I've had to say good-bye to so many people in the last few weeks, and I must admit that I am not a fan of good-byes.  I either have to shut off my emotions, while I bid them farewell, or risk scaring them off forever with the red, splotchy, wet, hiccuping monster that comes out when I give myself up to the sobbies.  For all the see-ya-hopefully-sooner-than-later-and-not-nevers I've given, I will still see A LOT of the kids who went to high-school with me.  I feel incredibly relieved that I will see about 13.5 of those people and devastatingly depressed about the other 200 or so kids.  Ok, maybe it's not that dramatic, but I wouldn't put it past myself to throw a full on tantrum at the sight of a few of those nice, clingy, negative, gossipy, lovely people.

Unlike most young adults starting college, I have chosen to remain at home for my first year.  Call me a big baby if you want, but I'm saving big bucks by living with my parents and eating my mommy's cooking.  Actually, I'm not picky: I'll eat anyone's cooking at my house-- except for my own. ;)  I'm a little bit worried about not meeting as many new people as the kids who've moved out, but I figure that 10 or 50 years from now, I won't regret living with my family for one more year.  Yeah, I really doubt that I'll have any regrets about it whatsoever.  My family's just too much fun to be around. :)

Ever since the middle of my Senior year, I've been bombarded with well-meaning high-school counselors and grandmas and snotty college kids warning me about how much harder college will be, and how I'll have to work sooo hard, and I really have no idea what hard work is, and I'm just a little baby high-schooler, and I'm going to be overwhelmed but don't worry, because it happens to everyone and even though it will be so hard, you just might want to off yourself because of the heavy workload and finals and not being able to keep a 4.0 like in high-school, you'll be just fine.  (Whew!  Talk about a run-on sentence.  Sorry Mrs. Dyer!)  I might sound really cocky and egotistical right now, but I'm not extremely worried about the workload.  I was pretty involved in high-school, and almost died tragically from the exhaustion of it all, but I think I can handle college.  On the other hand, I might just fail college English, especially if I throw out a beastly sentence similar to afore mentioned run-on sentence, and I may very well be eating these very words for breakfast for the next month.

Regardless, come what may and love it. :)
Lovelove,
Justine

Frustrations of Life

It's been a while since I last blogged, but I finally found some time and the desire to get some frustrations out.  Ha.  I'm on my school's We The People team, and Nationals is in about a week, which has definitely been on my mind lately and has been stressing me out.  I have 6 members in my unit, and it hasn't always been smooth sailing, especially not now with all the extra stress...  To try and deal with it, I've been repeating a mantra of sorts in my head over and over and over again.  One of my close friends came up with it, while listening to me complain and whine (he's a sweetheart.)  He told me it's best to assume "everybody's just doing the best they can."  Needless to say, it was not what I wanted to hear at the climax of my moping, but it was definitely a good thing for me to realize.  So I've been repeating that to myself incessantly this past week, as I deal with personal conflicts in the unit, people skipping out on meetings and not telling anyone why, desperately needing to exercise patience when it has gone MIA, and many more exciting and rewarding aspects of working in a dysfunctional group of U.S. Constitution nerds.  :)

I've also been looking up some "uplifting" quotes to try to lift myself out of this depressing funk I've got myself in.  Despite reciting "everybody's just doing the best they can" endlessly in my frazzled mind, I am far from actually believing it, and therefore, tend to get down on myself and my unit.  Just a little tiny bit.  Yeah... just a little.  Anyway, point is: I'm trying to get out of it. :)  So, true to my native Utah roots, I'll be sharing a cheesebomb cutsie quote:

“Being considerate of others will take you further in life than a college degree."
- MARIAN WRIGHT EDELMAN


Good one, right?  I thought it was quite appropriate for my situation.  I tend to get stuck on myself and think I'm sooo busy and soooo important (especially with college and scholarships coming up,) when really, everyone has more than enough reason to think that of themselves, but what would that help?
In the end, the best thing I can learn from this whole experience is how to look beyond myself.  The solar system doesn't revolve around me.  Nope, it really doesn't.  

Wish us luck at Nationals. :p  We'll need it. :)

Here we go.

Welp, I'm trying out the whole blogging thing... I feel like a classic Utah mom starting my blog about life's joys and hardships and my latest quilting project.  Don't worry-- I will definitely post pictures.
It's my spring break this week, and for the most part, I've been successful in completely forgetting about all my responsibilities.  Naturally, I've left all my homework and other joys on my to-do list for the Sunday night before I go back to school.  Can't wait for that one.
I'm a little lost as to what I'm actually supposed to post on these blogs... I highly doubt anyone will actually read this anyway, so I guess I could write anything I wanted.  I could write about my feelings on serious political issues.  I could puke up all my deepest darkest secrets.  I could write anything I like about my friends.  Or enemies, for that matter.  Meh, I'll think about it.  In the meantime, I'm off to eat some lovely sugar cookies my dear little sister has made. :)
Ciao