if you're still reading! :)

So I don't know if anyone is still reading these, but I thought I'd let you know something pretty intense. Day after yesterday I went sledding. I want to put a warning on sledding. It is dangerous. I ran into a tree and broke my ankle. It broke all three bones- the fibula, tibia, and talus. What a bummer Christmas present! :(
But word to the wise- don't try to stop going 10-15 miles an hour with your ankle against a tree... it doesn't work so well. :)

Merry Christmas!!

Test Day

Last night I spent an hour and a half going through the study guide for our test today. I typed up answers again that I had already written down to review more. Then I got up early this morning to study again. I got to class and was feeling okay about things, with the exception of a few ideas I hadn't quite memorized for the test.
Brother Embree LOVES us! He walked in and (in my ears I heard) since I'm the best teacher ever, I'm allowing you to work in groups of 4! Holy cow! This was music to my ears! We finished the test in 15 minutes and I'm pretty sure we rocked on it!
Now that's communication at it's best! When you hear a positive confirming message! :)
I did want to share my funny way of remembering the steps of relationships:
I Entered Isaac's Igloo By Dancing Cha-cha, Salsa, And Tango.
Initiating, Experimenting, Intensifying, Integrating, Bonding, Distinguishing, Circumscribing, Stagnating, Avoiding, and Terminating.
I love fun ways to remember things for tests. haha too bad this wasn't even on the test... :)

Dishes duty

At the beginning of the semester like any good apartment of girls, we set down some rules for dishes and cleaning and such. It worked great!... for about a week! We brought it up again after just doing the dishes ourselves (there are 4 of us who actually care) and it got better.
Now it's December and the dishes are piling up again. It was funny, Brother Embree actually brought this same idea up in our comm class. That day we were discussing conflict. There are two types of personalities when it comes to conflicts- the avoiders and the confronters. I myself- most def an avoider! I go to others and vent my frustrations, but at all costs never approach the other person, unless forced under pressure. In the dishes dilemma being the avoider, I'd just rather complain and do the dishes myself... getting more and more frustrated each time. (i just keep thinking to myself- 3 more weeks...2 more weeks...) haha I think I'm learning that I need to become a little more of a confronter and balance out my avoider-ness. :) Being both can be a good thing. I don't know, what do you think?

All about me

Yesterday in class we talked about self-disclosure. First off, did you know that 95% of all communication is superficial- regular ole, how's it goin stuff. When Brother Embree shared that with us, I was blown away. How boring! Then we discussed that it's that way because its SAFE. Why would you trust just any ole person with the secrets of your life?
We did a little group discussing and shared things like our favorite ice cream flavor, favorite trip, what we're most scared of, and a sincere compliment to someone in the group. It was so interesting to see how easy the first questions were and how hard the last two were to answer. You wouldn't think it'd be the hard, esp considering I have known these people since the beginning of the semester.
I've been paying attention to the conversations I have with the people around me and trying to see how far both of us would go in revealing information. With my family and roommates it's easy to share EVERYTHING! But then with my friends I saw on campus, it was the superficial stuff again, for the most part. We do have to take into account that I am a southern girl and therefore share a little more than a gal from Idaho or Washington would... :)
You know, this is something that seems really important to me. I want to try to focus a little more attention on this in the future. This is the key to having MEANINGFUL relationships. Best friends! Boy/girl relationships. I went through a relationship with this guy for 9 months were I disclosed SO much information about myself, and he disclosed very little- not much of a talker. I assume that's why it was so hard to breakup when we did, because he knew SO much about me... I had trusted him with that information.
No wonder we're so careful with our dreams, desires, and secrets... :)