Summer School is OVER!!!

Today was the last day of my summer Chemistry class!! Woohoo!! Now I get a week off before I start a temporary job at the music store my big brother works at, and then I'll start normal classes. So much for summer break :P Oh well. Now that school is over I can get to work hardcore on my reading list :) And then in less that a month I'll be 19! Woohoo!!
In other news I started going to a student ward, which so far has been fun, and I really like the bishop and his counselors and their wives. They are all really nice and so are the members in the ward that I've met so far.
Aaaand that's pretty much it :)

Meet Hamlet: aka My Sister Rocks

This is Hamlet. He was discovered on my ceiling today, and I was just going to set a trap and spend the next week on the couch. But my awesome sister decided he needed to die so he didn't escape and bite her kids, so we moved the book shelves and she and my mom took him down. It was pretty epic.
It was also pretty disgusting.

Wildlife in my Backyard

In the last week I have seen the following things in my backyard:
Ants, lots and lots of ants.

A wasp

Lacewing Flies (These are one of my favorite bugs)

Scorpions, of course

A carpenter bee

A lizard

A ground snake (see previous post)

A kitten (which made its way into our house and attacked my sister-in-law and I when we tried to pick it up to take it outside)

And a Vulture

We see most of these on a regular basis, but I haven't seen a snake or a vulture around here before, so that was pretty cool. There are also a bazillion doves and pigeons and crows that like to sing 24 hours a day, which is kind of obnoxious at 1 in the morning but it's fun to wake up to. :)

Meet Mo:

Yesterday several members of my family were swimming in the pool in our backyard. At one point my nephew shouted, "Hey look Dad, I found a snake!" And in his hands was this little guy:

At first we thought he was dead and we told my nephew to put it down and my mom proceeded to pick it up with the pool net. Then it started wiggling around so we figured he was still alive. My brother went in to Google it to find out what kind of snake he was and my niece and I watched him, and she told me to touch it so I pet his back and named him Mo. Then my brother came out and informed us that he is a slightly toxic ground snake that eats scorpions.

So we put him in the alley behind our house where he has been assigned the task of eradicating our scorpion population.

Summer Reading List

In three days I will take my last final and then I will have finished my freshman year of college!! Woo hoo! So in preparation for a long, hot summer spent largely indoors with air-conditioning, I am compiling a summer reading list. So far, here's what I have:
1. John Adams by David Mccullough
2. The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
3. The Kane Chronicles by Rick Riordan
4. The Iron Heel by Jack London
5. Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins (When it comes out)
6. Enna Burning by Shannon Hale
7. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
8. 1984 by George Orwell
9. Dune by Frank Herbert
10. Plato's Republic by Plato
11. Walden Pond by Henry David Thoreau
12. The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexander Dumas
13. The Tempest by William Shakespeare
14. Horatio Hornblower by C.S. Forester
15. A Swiftly Tilting Planet by Madeline L'Engle
16. Beowulf as translated by Burton Raffel
17. El Leon, la Bruja, y el Ropero by C.S. Lewis
18. Common Sense and other writings by Thomas Paine
19. Rifles for Waite by Harold Keith
20. The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
21. Angels and Demons by Dan Brown
22. Don Quijote De La Mancha by Miguel de Cervantes
23. Moby Dick by Herman Melville
24. Standing for Something by Gordon B. Hinkley
25. Tally's Corner by Elliot Liebow

A lot of these are books that I tried to read when I was younger and had no idea what the heck they were talking about, so I guess I'll give them another shot and see what happens :) Any suggestions?

School

I have just completed the last essay I have to write this year! YAY!!! And this week I have two tests, and after that I only have 3 more tests and then I will have completed my freshman year of college! Here is a list of the things I have learned this year:
1. Do not go off campus in downtown Phoenix alone, ever.
2. The kidneys are retroperitoneal (I'm pretty sure that's not how that's spelled :S)
3. Cadavers do not smell as bad as dead fetal pigs
4. The shuttle at ASU is FREE!!
5. The fruit snacks from the vending machine at the Language and Lit building are the best fruit snacks EVER
6. The institute has dollar lunch every week. For a dollar!!!
7. Do not hang out near the ashtrays, hang out in the institute building
8. If you wanted to, you could live in the institute building, they have everything (I'm pretty sure a couple guys I know live there, because they are always there)
9. Comfy shoes are a must on campus
10. How to run around in a circle
11. Do not talk to strange men who want to take you with them to play beer pong
12. Steer clear of the dorms
13. Two words: Subway Tuesday!
14. Carpooling is the best
15. Apparently drama is not only reserved for high school (gracias celery!! :))
16. How to construct a truth table
17. That owl city exists, and is pretty awesome
18. How to gross people out: talk about cadaver lab! (Pictures increase effectiveness by 67%!)
19. Paying attention to what you're reading goes a loooooooong way
20. Procrastination is my second greatest enemy
21. Pickles are my greatest enemy.
22. Rain + ASU = :D
23. Sprouts ice cream = life saver
24. Orange juice is a necessity for surviving statistics
25. DON'T EAT THE BROWNIES!!!!
Can't wait to see how much of what I learned falls out of my brain so it's nice and empty for being filled again next year!

So this week my sister and her 3 GORGEOUS daughters (Strawberry, Apple and Mango) are staying with us for Strawberry's spring break. They are so dang cute. It's awesome. For instance, yesterday Apple was shooting a dragon toy at me and said "Ha ha, I made you dead! You're fired." She takes after her aunts and uncles :)

In other news I only have one month left of my freshman year of college!!!! I just have 5 tests, 2 papers, 7 quizzes and 10 homework assignments left!!! And then I get to start summer school! Woo hoo. College is great. The super lame part is that I have to go to school while my sister and her kids are here :( But that's OK, I got to spend all week with them over my spring break :)

In other other news, the weather is beautiful outside. I wait 11 months out of the year for April and it's finally here. It smells like flowers outside and it's not too hot, not too cold. Too bad it'll be over soon and we'll be getting to 110 degree weather. Awesome.