The Secret Journal

I just finished an amazing book! I pretty much read it nonstop the last two days until I finished last night at 5 am ha ha, I am such a nerd. It was an LDS fiction called The Secret Journal of Brett Colton. It was about a girl who is 16 and just having a tough time in high school but on her 16th birthday she gets a letter from her older brother who passed away when she was only two. Her brother, Brett, had written in a journal specifically to her during his last two years of life. Towards the end of the journal Brett starts getting interested in church and also leaves her a Book of Mormon that he has read, highlighted, wrote notes in. This book was so good and I suggest you all read it! Here is a quote of my favorite part. In this scene the main character, Kathy, is at the hospital visiting a friend, who is LDS, and witnesses a priesthood blessing.


"If someone had asked later what words were spoken during that prayer, I couldn't have told them because of what washed over me, engulfing me completely. I honestly had never felt anything remotely like it before. Ever. The quiet, calm, peaceful power of it took me completely by surprise. I had no idea what I was feeling, but tears formed in my eyes and my heart pounded. The only feeling I could possibly relate it to was stepping from a cold room into bright sunlight, only instead of feeling warm on the outside, the warm, glowing sensation I felt was inside me. It was overwhelming."

Weekend Recap

Ok so this weekend was innnnnntense! Friday morning I drove down to Tucson to spend some time with Ashley, because I missed my bff. When I got there we watched this movie Michael gave us called The Secret, which was actually really good. It was all about the law of attraction and how if you want something bad enough and know you will get it then you will, which sounds like a great deal to me! I can think of many things I would like to law of attraction my way. After that we went to The Day's, her mish's parents, home for dinner with the elders. That was really fun, the Days are amazing! I love mormon families! Sister Day let me borrow all these cool lds fiction novels that I am super excited to read. Then we went to her friend Kaleb's house where there was this big party to watch him open his mission call, I had never been there to see someone do that before so that was really neat! He got called to serve in Brazil! After the party Kaleb had killed a rattlesnake and he skinned it and grilled it and Ash made me eat some!
Then we went to a U of A institute dance, which was really lame, there were like no people! ASU institute is prettttty much amazing and no one can top us! Then we went to a house belonging to a bunch of ysa guys to watch Dan in Real Life, which I found to be really funny! The people at the house were pretty cool too. After that, I know what a long night huh, it was about 2 am by now and we all went to IHOP for breakfast, and Ash was wicked tired and acting like a looney lol it was scary. What a longggg night, but boy I had a blast, thanks to Ash! The next day we slept in and then got lunch at this place called Eegee's and then I just drove home since I had to work at 5. Work sucked because I had to go work at the north phoenix in n out and I didn't know anyone there, and they were not nice to me! And I didn't get my breaks! I was supposed to get 50 minutes worth of breaks and I got 10..ugh the things I do for my job!

Well my fabulous weekend is over, now it's back to working everyday and sleeping pretty much never lol

Love, Madison

I love days like this

I just could not sleep last night..so once 4 am hit I decided to drive out to Avondale, kidnap my little sister, and take her out to breakfast at IHOP before she had to go to school for finals. I love her so much, I really wish I could be as cool and easy going as her, hopefully her spontaneity will rub off on me. After I ate a delicious vive le french toast my sis and I stopped by the park and played on the swings, and this horribly frightening see saw (I thought I was gonna die everytime it flung me towards the sky). I think this picture is pretty much amazing, she was sadly realizing how short she is and I caught it on camera.



After I dropped off Alli at school I was bored and messing around on her computer and found this website with really funny tee shirts called BustedTees. Here are some that made me laugh.











I also went on a nice run this morning, took several naps since I didn't get any sleep during the night, went swimming once Alli got out of school, and had dinner with my dad. Overall I would say it was a successful day. Now I am back in Tempe, yet I still feel like something is missing, I hate that, I had a great day, why do I not feel satisfied? Ugh I am so stupid.

Goodnight, Madison

I Want to be Something That's Different

I just got done watching Freedom Writers, I figured since madtv made fun of it it must be worth watching, and I just loved it! This is the kind of change I want to happen in my classroom one day. I want to be able to inspire my students to go above and beyond and to feel as if they can achieve their dreams and more. But, can someone like me really accomplish such a goal? Can I really be a great teacher and have an impact on my students? I really hope so, but it's hard not to doubt myself, with no experience, and with such a naive view on life, I think I need to really change my outlook on life and truly understand what life is like for people from different walks of life before I can be an effective teacher. This also made me think..do I really want to stick with an elementary ed. major? My original plan was to be seconday ed./english, maybe that is what is right for me, ahh who knows? Well, I know of one person who knows, I just haven't asked Him yet, lol, maybe I should get on that.

I cannot believe May is pretty much halfway over!!! In about three weeks I will be experiencing probably the busiest week of my summer, be looking forward to hearing a lot in my blog around June 7-20 :)

Love, Madison

el presidente?

this made me laugh...wowzas

I showed this to my dad and he said "maybe there are some new states we don't know about". He wants Obama to win, it was a meager defense though.

mmmm summer

I am very excited about this. I went to my grandma's house for mother's day on sunday, and my family was just being so nice to me, saying I look like I lost weight and how grown up I am getting, and they were actually being nice about me being mormon, weird...lol. We were talking about how I am almost 21 and my uncle said that I will be able to drink and gamble and I said well no I won't because I don't do those things and he just said, oh.. well you can definitely still have fun on your birthday without drinking, and my family was just saying fun stuff I could do on my 21st, it was nice that they were finally starting to sound supportive of me. Yay! But the thing I am REALLY excited about is that while I was there I sat down at my grandma's old piano and was just messing around, since the only song I can play is Families Can Be Together Forever, lol, and my grandma came over and said, you know that is yours when you're ready to take it? I was so excited!!! My grandma has officially given me this old piano that belonged to her mom and is just a cool family heirloom, and it is a piano, I won't have to worry about paying a ton of money for a piano once I get my own home, I will just have to refinish this one and get it in good enough condition for my family and I to play. My grandma also started talking about her family and stuff and it was just cool to hear about my ancestors..I really wish I had written down everything she said though so I could use it for family history stuff haha.

These past couple of days have been fun, on sunday I went to my home ward and got to sit with Michael and Natalie and their twin 3 year olds, I love them all to pieces. After the opening prayer in sacrament everyone said amen, and one of the twins yelled AMEN, and started clapping, it was hilarious! I also went to sacrament in the singles branch out there, which happens to consist of like 10 people lol, to hear my friend Caleb give a talk. Yesterday I wanted to really celebrate mother's day without breaking the sabbath so I took her and Alli, my little sister, to see Baby Mama, which was hilarious, I really liked it. Then i stopped by my dad's and ended up falling asleep on the couch for a little bit. Then I went over to Michael and Natalie's to say bye to them and the girls. Around ten I went and saw Ironman with Erica, Ashley M, and their roommate Amanda, and that was also really good! I haven't been to the movies in a long time, yet I enjoyed both the movies I saw yesterday.

Today I am going shopping with Ashley, which is exciting cause I haven't seen her in a few days, that is weird for us since we usually see each other all the time..what am I gonna do this summer with her in Tucson? Oh I am so happy right now, I just cooked my own lunch, and it was good! Anyone who really knows me also knows that I can't cook worth crap, I can bake like no one's business but cooking is another story! So I baked some chicken and steamed some veggies, and it was delicious, I am feeling very proud of myself :)
Love, Madison

Living with a shadow overhead

The last few days have turned from the biggest feelings of relief into the biggest feelings of disappointment. Tuesday I turned in my massive ten page paper, took my last final exam and then went to an In-N-Out company party at Dave and Buster's, which was a great end to my semester cause I had a blast! Wednesday and Thursday I went to Avondale to see my family and friends, which was also great, I had really missed them all. I came home Thursday night, and that is when my downward spiral began. I checked some grades and started out being ecstatic because I got a 92% on my final paper, putting me at an A for the class, woot woot, I then checked my grade for my online childhood development class, saw that I got a 100% on my final exam and was so stoked because that should have put me at another A, but I glance down and see that my final grade is a C, what the crap?! I checked the gradebook and apparently she did not receive my last two homework assignments, which I happened to bust my butt on and submitted on time through blackboard, but there must have been a computer mess up because she did not receive them, and there is no record of me ever turning them in. I e-mailed my teacher asking if there was anything I could do, she basically said "sucks to be you" I couldn't re-submit my assignments, even though I had them saved and it would take two seconds to submit them, she said she had submitted grades to the registrar and I should have been more responsible, ugh, how could anyone say that I am not responsible! So I have to talk to the department head and see if there is anyway I can get my grade fixed, there is pretty much zero chance though. I pretty much busted my butt this semester, working full-time and going to school, and I will still most likely lose my scholarship because of this one stupid class, and it isn't even my fault, if I actually didn't do the assignments I would accept my fate, but to lose my scholarship over this makes me feel so defeated, like I worked so hard for nothing. My grades will be as follows: A+, B, B, A, C (stupid), giving me a gpa of 3.18, just below the requirement of a 3.25 for my scholarship. Oh, and I might lose my other scholarship because my parents made to much, I am meeting with the guy in charge on thursday to figure things out.

It is very very very nice not being in school. I have time to get sleep..I have been working out every day, I have read a bunch of books, and I just feel so great about myself. The one thing I am not excited about is that I have to get a second job working with kids for my major. By august I need a letter of recommendation from my employer saying I work well with kids or whatever. So today I applied at the YMCA to be a summer camp counselor, but I told them I only want to work like 10 hours a week, since I will probably be getting close to 40 at INO. Lame.