SHAYNE CLARKE

First: Please do not judge my writing. I write these blog posts SO quickly and I write SO much for most of the posts... and.... I do not read over any of it! Whoops?

Second: Thanks for the awesome semester! This was my favorite class in all of college by far! Not just saying that! I tell everyone about how I literally get excited to go to class! I will genuinely miss it!

Third: Thanks for making us write a blog. I am not into blogging but now I have an online journal of my life with Daniel and it will be something I can refer to forever! I will never make it public, and tell all of my Facebook friends every little detail of my life... but now I have a personal journal that can be accessed anywhere!

Fourth: Here are some Falcon pics. This wouldn't be a proper shout out to Shayne Clarke the famous falconer without some Falcon pics!

My car at home is a 1963 Ford Falcon!

Strezzzzed Out Seeester

My teacher gave me an assignment to do something nice for someone who is more stressed out than I am. I have been having a hard time finding someone who fit this description because I have been pretty stressed to say the least.

I was walking towards the communications building when I ran into my little sister Jessica. She is a freshman here at BYU and this is her last semester before she goes on a mission. She is an okay student, but not the best (JUST LIKE ME). She is currently in a physical science class and she is not doing well in it at all.

As I ran into her, she was headed to the testing center to take a test for that class. It was the last test before the final...(Who gives a "midterm" the day before reading days?) She needed to do well on the test if she wants to pass the class. I asked her how much she had studied and she explained that because of her crazy work schedule this past week, she hardly had any time. She was freaked out because she did not feel prepared enough and knew that she would be doing a lot of guessing.

I had been walking to the comms building for my next class that would not be starting for another two hours. I was just going to work on my MCOM case analysis until class started.

I am protective of my siblings, and I get sad when they do not succeed so I decided to help her. I told her I wanted to sit with her and go over her notes and help explain things she didn't know. I did poorly in that class, but now that I know how to study better, and because it was not a class I have to currently deal with, it is much easier to learn about. We sat for an hour and a half and I told her the things I knew about the topics and we looked the hard concepts up on the internet. I gave her a little pep talk and reassured her that she shouldn't stress about it because it was not the end of the world. As she left to walk over to the testing center, she seemed happy and had a more care free attitude about it. She was as prepared for the test as she could have been with the time she had, and at that point there was nothing else to do about the situation other than try her best.

She texted me after she got out of the test and she got a 78! That is not a good score in the BYU world, but for Jessica, in that class, it was amazing. Her previous scores were so bad I can not write them publicly. Haha. Mine were equally as bad so I don't judge!

She was really excited and with this very improved score, she has the confidence to do better on the final for that class.

I love my little sister and it was fun getting to spend some extra time with her because I usually am not able to. It was also fun getting to see her do much better than usual! I think that being supportive and showing her I wanted to take an interest in her and help her is what made the difference. The studying maybe did a tiny bit, but showing someone you care can go a long way!

TRAVEL

I want to keep a log of the places Daniel and I go together. I will have one list for states we have been together, and another list for countries.

U.S. States:

California

Utah

Colorado

Massachusetts

-Cape Cod, Mass

-Martha's Vineyard, Mass

-Nantucket, Mass

-Salem, Mass

Maine

New Hampshire

Rhode Island

New York

Washington D.C.

Virginia 

Traveled Through:

Pennsylvania

New Jersey

Delaware

Arizona

Nevada

Maryland

Countries:

Mexico

Turks and Caicos
Puerto Rico (Not an actual country, but I'm counting it!)
Philippines
Malaysia
Indonesia
Singapore
Thailand
Laos
Cambodia
Vietnam
China

Missing Barcelona

I spent a few months in Spain a few summers ago. I got there May 1st, and got home in July.  I went with one of my old roommates Hilary Packham. I think about it everyday and I wish so badly to go back. If only we had bundles of money because I would be there in a second.

Some of the things I miss the most:

The adventure
The Sun
The Spanish
The beaches
The soccer
The people
DANCING
Traveling around the country
Bo de B
Gelatiii
Gelato in general
My friends there
The little precious Spanish babies!
My Spain family
Trying to understand different accents
Edith's rice
The Metro
The culture
THE BREAD
Prideful Spaniards using Catalan
The music
Random beach nightclubs
San Juan Holiday
The tourists
and.... EVERYTHING!

Do not miss:
Gaining so much weight
No baked goods
No dryer machine

Daniel served in Barcelona... WE DID NOT MEET THERE.... and he says he has lived there long enough.  I would move there for a few years... but not any longer than that. The city life was great, but it was only for a summer and I had no obligations. No serious boyfriend, no job, no school, and no internship. I literally went to the beach every day and then went out dancing at night. Who wouldn't love that right?

I would love to have a kid or two there so I could take them to the park, and around the beautiful city.  That way, they could be fluent little Spanish speakers! All of the cutest kids speak Spanish! I could also improve my Spanish dramatically because if Daniel was working there, I could spend my days exploring the city with our young kids and be forced to use my Spanish. If I could come back home completely fluent (conversationally.. but definitely not grammatically) after just a few months, thinking about going there for two years makes me so excited! I love Spanish and I want to continue to learn more and improve my speaking, listening, and writing abilities. What better way then to go back to Spain right? That was my initial logic for going to Barcelona. It was worth it for sure but the only bad thing is now I just crave to go back.

My only other struggle is that when we have enough money to go on a trip, part of me will want to go to a new country that I have never been to, and part of me will want to go back to the countries I love!!!

Well, enough ranting about something that can not happen at this point. It is just more of a reminder of what I am missing out on!

Hasta luego España! Te echo de menos!

Below are some of my favorite Spain pics! They are in RANDOM order. Viewer discretion advised.

BCN=Barcelona

Whitney's study abroad group came to Barcelona

Club in Seville

Fake tats were hilarious

BCN beach

Club in Valencia with my old friend Carlos (left)

Mcflurry's in Spain = Amazing

San Juan

Black chick

Hey Hil

Love my ice cream!

BCN sunset... I mean SUNRISE... out too late?

Ahh I want to go back

Creepers!

Beautiful random buildings everywhere

SO NOT OKAY

Please help

Valencia

Random kid's pool at his nightclub 

Last night in BCN :(

BYU friends

Metro buddies

Miguel's car

Eating rabbit with Jackie

Donating blood... safe?

In Valencia with Carlos

His roommate

Dark girl!

I was chubbbbby

Edith's rice!

Mi familia

Mi mama de España

BEST.FOOD.EVER.

Alejandra! 

Dark

My friend Miguel

Buddy from our church

SKETCHY RIDES

So sick from the fair

About to throw up

First day in Barcelona!

Parks all over 

Flight attendant friend 

Their chips SUCK

This was in a market!

BCN beach!

Thessy!

I love the beach

Beautiful city

Weird food... octopus! 

RONNY

Fair food

Metro

Yay!

Fair food

La iglesia allí!

Ximena and Lee the lovebirds

Sagrada Familia

BCN beach.. Barceloneta

The fish

Metro!

Met our Brazilian friends 

CHILD

YSA activities 

No dryer.

Brasil friends

Pig. in. bag. in. grocery. store. 

Las Ramblas

BCN CLUB

CRAZY win

Train thing up the mountain 

SO high up

Edith!

lovebirds

ew

yum

amazing random Argentine musicians 

Random salsa dancers 

AMAZING

Creepiest man alive

YSA dance.

He likes Madrid. BCN beat them

He was bitter

I hit my arm on a nail

BCN won Champions league!

So drunk. So sad.

City was trashed

After BCN won champions league 

FULL stadium 

Random Brazilian woman

child

Huge vending machine 

Chocolate and Churro  

Carson

Whit

Carson and Christie 

The port!