Life is hard, but I'm good with that!

I've been going to classes on how to be a better diabetic this week, and I'm excited to report that I'm going to have a complete health/lifestyle change! It's going to be so incredibly hard, but I couldn't be happier! I'm going to be healthier and have more energy and just have an all around better life!

I was diagnosed with diabetes when I was 11 years old and it has been a constant battle in my life to keep control of it. I never let on to anyone that it was hard for me, but it has been extremely challenging. After a while I just gave up trying. I've been living like a normal person for all of these years and I was never concerned with how it would make me feel later in life. There is nothing wrong with me, so no one need be worried. But, I just have a new outlook on life since I've taken these intensive diabetes management classes. My blood sugars are normal and I feel great!

Having said all of that, I want to share with you all some recipes (as I try them) from my diabetic cookbooks. A lot of the recipes are lo carb and lo cal, so they will be good for all those out there that are earnestly dieting :) I don't plan on making this into a food blog, but I think it will be fun to try out new recipes and share them!

The first one is called Banana-Pumpkin Snack Cake and it's from this cookbook that only uses 4 ingredients or less in each recipe! This one just has 7.5 oz of canned pumpkin, 1/2 cup of water, a box of banana nut muffin mix and 4 tsp of cinnamon sugar. You mix the first 3 ingredients together bake it in an 8x8 pan for 22 minutes at 400 degrees, then after it comes out of the oven sprinkle the top with the cinnamon sugar.

Here's a picture. It's not the best quality because I was too lazy to get my digital camera, so it's just taken from my computer and doesn't look super appealing. However, it's delicious! There is only 21 carbs and 111 calories in a piece when you cut the pan in 8ths. I recommend it to anyone who loves pumpkin. That means in the Winter I'll probably be making them a lot for my best friend twinner roomie :)

Until next time,
A Diabetic Southern Girl in the South :)

Overheard at the South Carolina Children's Theatre

I love my hometown. Don't get me wrong. I REALLY, REALLY do. But, I feel like somebody has pulled a Dorothy on me here. It is so ridiculously HOT this week. I feel like if I'm breaking out in a sweat just walking from my car into the theatre, it's too hot. I'm just glad I have a job that's inside! I don't know how landscapers and whoever else works outside in Greenville is handling it! Anyways, enough complaining... today I'd like to share some of my favorite things I've heard (or have been told) that students said this summer:

1. "I was on a cruise this weekend and I think I saw Justin Bieber on the Disney Cruise next to my boat. He said on the Disney Channel that he was going to go on a surprise cruise, so I think that I saw him, and the old guy who made him famous."  Old guy = Usher. I almost DIED laughing.


2. Teacher: Tell me 6 things about presidents.
Student: Abraham Lincoln, George Washington.... um, I don't know anything else.
Teacher: How about our current president?
Student: Uhhhhh.....
Teacher: Obam...
Student: Obamlincoln!!!!

3. Male student: I'm not allowed to eat lunch this week.
Me: Why can't you eat?
Student: I'm a dancer and I have a recital. So I have to skip lunch.

4. I took a 4 year old boy in Pirate Camp to the "potty" and this is what happened.
Me: Are you almost done in there?
Student: Yeah. (opens door with his pants down) Wanna see my underwear??? They are really cool. They have penguins on them.
Me: Oh, nice. Those are cool penguins.
Student: I know. They are from Madagascar.

Later that week. Same boy had to go "potty" during class
Student: (Opens door with pants already pulled up, buttoned and zipped) Wanna see my underwear??? They have penguins again!
Me: Oh, no thanks. Just tell me what they look like buddy.
Student: No!!! I really want you to see them!!! (proceeds to pull down his pants and show me)

4 year olds have no shame.

5. "I have these chips in my lunch and they are lime flavored. They are so good....(bites down on a chip) Ouch! I got lime juice in my eye! It hurts so bad!"

These are just a few. I'm sure there will be more to come in the future :)

Love,
A Southern Girl Melting in the South

Man do I SUCK at blogging!

Ok, here's a huge update on my life.

First of all, I'm no longer a southern girl in the land of potatoes, well at least for a couple more months, that is. I've moved back home and I'm about 2 1/2 weeks into my internship which I am ABSOLUTELY loving. For those of you who don't know (if anyone is even actually reading this) I'm assisting and teaching acting camps at the South Carolina Children's Theatre's 'Theatre Arts Conservatory' this summer. So far I've assisted some Exploration classes for itty bitty's (age 3-5) and 1/2 day acting classes for grades 1-5. It's been an absolute joy to watch the kids enjoy performing and see how much they can learn in only a week. It's so rewarding! I can't wait to be a teacher. I also got some exciting news this week! I was slated to teach one class all by myself this summer (the rest I am either assisting or co-teaching with someone more experienced) but I found out this week that the class "made!" This basically means that enough kids signed up for the class so they didn't have to cancel it due to under-enrollment! I am SO EXCITED! I will be the teacher. I can't get over how much I love saying that :)

Secondly, I have pretty  much decided to audition for The Drowsy Chaperone in the fall. I've been listening to (and when I say listening to, I really mean belting my lungs out to) musicals in my car all week on my daily commute to the theatre. Sometimes, I just cry because I am so happy to be letting out what I've been pretending to not care about anymore. I don't know how many more opportunities I'm going to have to perform before I go out into the "real world" and I want to take advantage of the opportunity. I mean the worst thing that could happen is that they say no (and honestly, that's what I've come to expect at BYU-I). I'm excited to begin my song preparation and monologue and all that, it's just been a while since I've done it and it's getting me all jazzed!

Thirdly, I've been to Disney World twice since I've been home AND I'm going back again in August. Life is good. I love that place. Also, although this is not Disney affiliated, it is Orlando affiliated and I will be returning to The Wizarding World of Harry Potter in August, which is going to be AMAZING!!! I can't wait to have a frozen butterbeer and listen to the frog chorus. Not to mention THE FORBIDDEN JOURNEY, which is hands down the most awesome theme park ride (which I feel slightly dirty saying as a Disney CM). Nevertheless, I'm excited for August!

Fourthly, everyone, and I mean EVERYONE should read the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series. It is great! I am personally a lover of Greek mythology so this book is like the nectar of the gods to me :) It's clever and witty, and they are all pretty quick reads. I'm on the 4th of the series of 5 books right now and I just don't want to put it down! So go to the library or the nearest bookstore and GET THEM!

Lastly, I'm registered for classes in the fall! Yay! As much as I am loving being here, registering for classes always makes me ready to get back to school. I'm taking American Lit (which will hopefully make me love poetry), Math 108 (which will be a constant headache), Rhetorical Studies (which might not be fun, but I have Brother Keller and he can make any class awesome), Comm Practicum (which I have no idea about), and Senior Writing Seminar (which is scaring me to death right about now!) I can't believe I only have 2 more semesters left on campus!!! AHHH!!! When did I grow up?

Well, until next time (and that may quite possibly be 4 months from now), much love from


A Southern Girl in the South...Missing the Land of Potatoes :)

If you need me, I'll be in Middle Earth for the next two weeks.

I haven't updated in forever, and a lot of things have changed!

First, I'll talk about how this semester is going. Everything got really stressful about 2 weeks ago because BYU-I's live Disney College Program presentations were this past Wednesday and Thursday. Our team had information tables pretty much everyday that I was working and then we also spent most of our free time putting up door hangers at off-campus housing complex's all over Rexburg. Plus a couple of us went down to ISU in Idaho Falls and distributed information there as well. That kind of consumed my life for a while, but now we are done with live presentations and we met our goal! Now we just have some e-presentation stuff to hand out, but there is no time table on that, so we can do it whenever, which is nice. As far as my classes go, they are pretty good! I'm definitely ready for the semester to be over, though. I can't wait to be done! I'm reading the ENTIRE Lord of the Rings Trilogy for my British Lit class, so I feel like I'll probably just be living in Middle Earth for the next 2 weeks. Plus, I'm writing a 15 page research paper on how Tolkien's books (LOTR and The Hobbit) support teaching fantasy literature in middle and high schools. So, I'm gonna be pretty busy! But after all of that is finished, Holly and I fly home on April 9th, and the fun can begin!

Now on to summer vacation. My family is going on a CRUISE!!!! I'm so excited because I've never been on one. We are going on a 5 night Caribbean Cruise that stops in Cozumel, Mexico! It's going to be awesome. Then, I'll come home for about a week, then I'm flying down to Orlando to work from May 1-8, and then I'll be spending the next week, May 9-14, down there on vacation with my grandparents and some of my cousins and their kids! I am overjoyed! Then, I'll come home and hopefully start working somewhere in Greenville. Then in June I'll start my theatre education/teaching internship at South Carolina Children's Theatre. I'll assist classes in June and part of July, then I'll start teaching on my own mid July and August! What an incredible experience for me! I'm so blessed to have such awesome opportunities in my life. So, I'm sure you have gathered this by now, but it is true, I won't be spending my whole summer at Disney, which is a bummer, but at the same time, I have so much to look forward to this summer. I'm going to be at home for a whole summer, so I'll get to see a heck of a lot more of my family, and I'll be able to go to church at a normal time instead of at night like I did in Florida. So, I'm definitely looking forward to it! I'm also still contemplating a trip to California in late-august. So many decisions!

So, there's an update on my life! Hope everyone else is making awesome plans! However, if you should need to reach me in the next couple of weeks, I'll be in Middle Earth, so you can send any mail to my boyfriend Sam Gamgee (I'm quite a bit taller than he is, but we're in love and working through this as a couple).

Love,
A Southern Girl in Middle Earth

My Life: Revised

Well, I've made my decision. I will not be staying in Rexburg for the spring. I just don't feel that it's right. This week I fasted and prayed and got the assurance that the LOGICAL thing to do would be to stay here, but today I've learned that just because it's logical doesn't necessarily mean it's right.

The day I fasted, I made the decision to stay and I felt pretty good about it. I went along the rest of the week with that decision, but still feeling weird about it. I tried to ignore the feelings and put them aside and force myself to believe that this was what I was supposed to do, that it was the right decision. But, today at church, all of these thoughts filled my head and everything that any speaker or teacher was saying brought me back to my decision, until finally, someone said something along the lines of "we need to take time for ourselves to keep ourselves sane." Which made me realize that if I stay here, I'll do 5 semesters of school in a row, with very little down time. I don't really think I could handle that. It's only 4 weeks into the semester and I already feel stressed and a little burned out. I just couldn't keep it all in anymore and so the flood gates were opened. I just cried it out, but that didn't really make me feel much better.

So, we got home and I decided I'd call my Dad later on that night to get his advice, but right as I was finishing up making dinner, my Grandmama called me. It was kind of odd, because she doesn't call very often. I usually call her to give her updates on school and life in general, so it was interesting that she called me tonight. She could tell that I was upset on the phone, so I told her I was having a hard time deciding whether or not I should stay in Rexburg over the summer. She didn't even know I'd been thinking about it, but she told me that if I was crying that much over it, maybe it wasn't right for me to stay.

Then I talked to dad and he told me that I shouldn't overwork myself. If I am on a path towards graduation, there is no need to rush myself. I have a plan, I know what classes I still need to take and when I need to take them, so I feel good. He also said that I should take a break if I feel like I need it. Then, I talked to mom, who was a little more skeptical, but felt better once I told her my new graduation plan, which is as follows:

This summer do a Disney College Alumni Program (I applied today and we'll cross our fingers I get it.) Go back to school and finish up my coursework over next fall and winter. Not sure about next spring, but that's over a year from now, and I'll cross that bridge when I'm a little closer to it. I'll student teach fall 2012, which ends in December. While student teaching, I'll apply for a Professional Internship at the Walt Disney World Resort in Education (crossing our fingers I'll get that, too) Then, while on proposed Professional Internship, I'll apply for teaching jobs, just in case 1. I don't get offered a full time position with Disney or 2. decide I don't want a full time position at Disney.

So, there it is. My new "life plan" it may not work out this way, and as much as I sure as heck hope it does, I've learned from this experience that life is gonna throw all kinds of crazy stuff at me, but I just need to have faith that I can get through it with a little help from the big guy upstairs :)

Love,
A Revised Southern Girl in the Land of Potatoes

Life…it ain't easy.

So, up until last night I had a plan for my life. I was going to stay in Rexburg for Spring Semester, have my last semester in Rexburg be in the Fall and then student teach in the Winter. Well, thanks to this weird feeling I had last night that WOULD NOT let me fall asleep, I now have doubts about this plan. I don't know if I'm supposed to be here in the spring or not. It's weird to me because most people always say that it was the best decision they ever made to stay on their off-track. So that makes me think that maybe I'm crazy or maybe I just have NO IDEA what I should do for the rest of my life.  I know I love to English and I know I want to teach it, but having to make such a huge life decision when I'm only 22 is really just a lot to ask of a person. Not to mention the overwhelming feeling of "needing" to get married is ganging up on me, too. I know staying here is the logical choice, but I just have this odd feeling that it's not what I'm supposed to do and I can't understand or explain it. I'm wracking my brain trying to figure it out while at the same time writing papers, going to meetings, planning lessons, trying to have a social life and a million other things that a college student has to deal with. Just when I thought I was taking control of my future, this stupid little inkling has to creep in and tear down what I thought I should do. ugh. life…it ain't easy.

Love,
A Very Befuddled Southern Girl in the Land of Potatoes

The Latest Excitement in My Life

This week has brought some pretty exciting things into my life! I'm definitely going to keep busy this semester, of that I'm certain. So, here's what's going on!

First, I turned in my Fast Grad application today, which is a huge weight off of my shoulders. I've been needing to do it for a while, but I think I've been subconsciously scared to turn it in because that means I'm only 3 semesters away from being done with college. I'm excited but at the same time I'm scared out of my mind because then I have to be a responsible adult and get a real job in the real world. I'm also a little bit sad about staying here for the spring semester. I mean I want to stay, don't get me wrong, but I'll miss my brother's high school graduation being here, which is a big bummer. I know he'll understand because I really, and I mean REALLY need to finish school, but it's still lame that I won't be able to be there :( But, now that I've turned it in, it's up to the advising/registrar's office to decide whether I'm able to stay. The education advising office said I should be fine and to look for an email within the next few weeks.

Secondly, I'm serving as the BYU-I Theater Council President this semester! This is a great opportunity for me to gain experience so that if I'm eventually the faculty advisor of a theatre or drama club, I'll actually know what I'm doing. So far, I don't have any other officers, which is a little bit stressful and worries me, but I'm sure once we get everything up and running again for the semester all will be well.

Thirdly, I found out what exactly I'll be teaching at the middle school for my education class this semester. I'll be in a four person teaching team, my partner and I will begin each class period and then the other partnership will finish up and close the lesson. We'll be teaching Health every Thursday for the rest of the semester and next week we will be doing introductions and teaching about drugs. I'm the leader in my partnership this week, so, I'll see what it's like to make up a plan for the class period and then assign tasks to the other people in my group. I am really looking forward to this experience, I feel like it will really teach me how to be a teacher. Today, I got to go observe the class I'll be teaching and it looks like a really fun bunch of kids.

Lastly, we had our first Disney College Program Campus Rep meeting today. I have to say, it's not quite what I expected. Some of the cast members that have been reps before seem to have a very negative outlook on recruiting, which makes me really upset. I want to do all I can to get the word out about the program because I had so much fun while doing mine. There is some animosity for the Program at the University because of things that have happened in the past, but I hope that we can just deal with the fact that not everyone on campus is going to support us and do the best with what we have to work with. We don't have any support from the Internship office, which is going to be really tough, but I feel like if we work hard and keep a good attitude about everything that we can do a good job and meet all of the goals that the company sets for us. I'm really happy that I've been given this opportunity and I'm looking forward to getting to know my fellow reps better. I've been thinking a lot lately about trying for an Education Professional Internship at the Walt Disney World Resort, but we'll just have to see where life takes me and what opportunities present themselves in the future. I'd love to work for the company as a career possibly facilitating Traditions, DAKlimation, or Discovery Day classes. I think that would be such an amazing way to make a living and such a fun job that I'd love to go to everyday!

So, overall, I'm really excited about everything going on in my life right now. I'll be keeping busy, but that will be good. I feel like I do better when I have lots going on because I actually have to make a schedule of my day. I never wanna go back to last winter where I had too much to do and was so busy that I barely had time to sleep, but I'm comfortably busy, which is perfect for me!

Love,
A Comfortably Busy Southern Girl in the Land of Potatoes

5 reasons this is going to be a great semester :)

Every time I start a new semester I am always reminded of Finding Nemo: The Musical at Animal Kingdom. "Time for school! Time for school!"Although I don't live in an ocean, I do live on an iceberg, that will eventually melt. In this post, I'd like to share with you 5 reasons (in no particular order) why I know this semester will be awesome.

1. The weather hasn't actually been that bad yet. I haven't had to break out my big coat and wear leggings under my jeans so hallelujah to that!

2. I love my roommates! They are all just so adorable and I feel like things are going to be great for us this semester. I'm also so lucky I get to live with my best friend. It's going to be amazing! 

3. Games nights on Sundays, with friends, old and new! Even though there will be one extremely important person missing from those :(

4. My classes are pretty great. Some of them are definitely going to be a challenge, but I'm kind of in the home stretch, so I should expect to have more challenging courses, I guess. My Brit Lit class is going to be amazing, my professor is just delightful. I'm reading A Tale of Two Cities for my Victorian novel of choice for the first half, and I have to find a modern British novel to read, so if anyone has any suggestions, I'd surely appreciate them! English 314 will probably be my toughest class because I have to write 37-42 pages over the course of the semester, which is daunting to say the least. I'm in Science Foundations 101…ugh…that's all I'm gonna say about that. Interpersonal Communications is going to be my most fun class this semester. I just get to talk to people in class all semester pretty much and get a grade for it! The class I am most excited about, though is Ed 361, Secondary Education Principles of Teaching. I get to actually be a teacher! I will go to Madison Middle School once a week starting at the end of this month and team teach with other students in my class. My favorite thing about this class is that I am going to get a snazzy name tag like I'm a REAL teacher! It will say "Miss Fogle" BYU-Idaho Teacher Education. Ahhh! How cool is that! If you can't tell I'm really excited about this.

5. I have late classes! It's soooooooo incredibly wonderful. I don't start classes until 10:15 on MWF and 9:45 on Tu/Th. It's great. I'm going to have more motivation to get up and go work out in the gym because I don't have to get up every morning at 5 am to have time to work out and get ready for my classes. So sweet. 

Well, that's why I'm really excited for this semester. I'm definitely gonna be keeping busy, but it will be great for me :)

Love, 

A Southern Girl Who Has Returned to the Land of Potatoes