Not so much controlled chaos...

as wildlly out of control chaos. My life this past semester, and especially these past few weeks, has been insane. If I had to pick one emotion to describe me throughout this time I would say overwhelmed. That's not to say its all been bad, but rather that there is a whole lot of good and a whole lot of hard all thrown at me at once and the result is a serious lack of sleep :) Which actually might be explain the following photographs.

The sad part is I have an insanely awesome video of the whole routine that this dang blog won't let me upload. If you're dying to see it, e-mail me. Otherwise, hold out till Thanksgiving or Christmas and I'll hook it up to the big screen for your viewing pleasure.

So, for the story behind these...For those of you who don't already know, I'm activities co-chair for my ward. How it works is my co-chair, Jason, is insanely outgoing and suggests absurd ideas. I, on the other hand, am (or was) basically as anti-social as it gets when it comes to ward functions and thus, avoid activities all together. So, in our weekly ward council meetings it goes something like this... Bishop asks for some ideas for activities, I suggest we flat out skip the activity, Jason counters with a ridiculous proposal, and then we come to a compromise. Unfortunately, the week I was in Texas he suggested a ward talent show and I wasn't there to counter. This week in ward council I made sure to make Bishop aware of our pattern of activity planning so he doesn't make that mistake again in the future. Anyway, what I'm getting at is that as c0-chair I am obligated to participate. Uh...one incy wincy problem...I DON'T HAVE TALENTS ---> at least not any that you'd share on stage with your ward members. However, after much pondering, I came to the realization that I do in fact have a talent. I am an incredible hula hooper. That may be a slight exaggeration but I am better than average, that's for sure. Consistent with most events of this semester, it kind of just snuck up on me and caught me a little unprepared. Today I get home from volunteering at the retirement community and realize I don't have a song, an outfit, or a routine. In the hour between my arrival home and the performance I put together a nice 80's number to the song "You Spin Me Right Round," with 80's outfit and hair included.

Ok, so for the next outlet of my academia overload... My recent participation in my Adolescent Development's Mock Trial. The idea behind the case was that a hardworking, religious teenager ends up getting knocked up by her trashy boyfriend. She sues the school because they taught abstinence only and therefore, she was unaware of preventative measures that could have been taken. And where do I fit in to this mess? You got it, I was the knocked up teenager. Oh how well my teachers can read me! Needless to say I took my part very seriously, as did most of the other participants. We did some massive research and presented our case for a comprehensive sex ed program like there was no tomorrow. Blew the defense out of the water... I mean, when you get a classroom full of conservative Mormons to vote in favor of your liberal proposal, you know you've done something right. Well anyway, here's some pictures to show you how it all went down.

Here is the entire cast of us. Most impressive is my teacher in the middle wearing an entire Judges outfit, from the white wig to the gavel.

Here is the prosecution. I don't know if the teacher did this on purpose (probably because she's in favor of the comprehensive program we were fighting for) but our side was STACKED. Seriously, those girls behind me are the smartest, funniest, and most opinionated in the class and it really worked in our favor.

This lovely young lady is my friend Amanda Kizerian and my teacher assigned her the part of my mama. After the trial she stops us and informs us that "I wanted to put you two together because I thought you'ld be hilarious but that you'ld really bring it...and you were and you did, I'm so proud!"

Once the trial started I meant business. I was in character 100%. This is my, "I'm just an innocent little girl who was misinformed" face...

This, on the other hand, is my..."defense, that's bull crap and you know it" face.

This is a little piece of my victory dance caught on camera. My favorite part of picture is the look on my teacher's face. She was loving it. She not only knows I'm a whack job but she LOVES it.

And last but not least. What happens when you're at the point of busy where you're consistently skipping entire nights of sleep...

A KIDNEY STONE

I don't know that anything I write right now will do this experience justice. Suffice it to say it was the worst pain I have experienced in my life. Luckily I had heard about kidney stones before so when the pain got real severe I was pretty sure I knew what was causing it. If I had waited any longer to go to the hospital I probably would have passed out from the pain before they had the chance to drug me up. Just as a word of warning to anyone who gets one in the future, don't expect the morphine to make it all better...it basically dulls it enough for you to tolerate it.

Both these pictures were taken after it passed and I was flying high on morphine.