Julia's Occupations

Wednesday, March 11, 2009

You know you go to school in the ghetto when...

Wednesdays are my super long days at school already. I start class at 9:00am and don't get done until 10:00pm. I still can't really figure out why I did that to myself. Today was especially hard because I feel like I'm getting a cold and it took all I had to just get up and go to school today. As I was just about to finish my ergonomics class today my classmate leaned over to me and asked me if I got a text from the Trojan alert system. I hadn't checked my phone in a while so I looked at what hers said

Trojans Alert: Shots fired @ Budlong & Adams. 1 suspect & weapon in custody. 3 suspects @ large. LAPD perimeter north of UPC. Stay inside until further notice.

Well I had just finished a 13 hour day and there was no way I was going to stay at school any longer. I didn't mention that where the shots were fired was a couple of blocks away from my building. So we all decided that we would just walk in groups and brave it through the night. I walked with my friend to her car and then she dropped me off at my car which was only about a half a block away. I hate that I have to get a ride to my car half a block away. As I drove to the freeway the cops had Adams blocked off and there were helicopters circling, trying to catch the suspects still at large. As I got in my car I turned on the radio and what did I hear, no nothing about the shooting by USC, but another high speed chase on the freeway that ended just after I got in the car.

Somehow I made it home without any other criminal activity. Sometimes I really wonder why I ended up here. Thank goodness for spring break!

Friday, March 6, 2009

Unwelcomed guest

Always looking much younger than my age may soon be ending. Today as I was straightening my hair (yes it was a weekend, about the only time I actually do my hair) I was trying to look at the back to make sure it was sufficiently straight and I saw a hair that did not match the others. After further inspection I discovered that this hair was much lighter, much whiter than the rest of my hair. So I did what all girls do when they find a silver hair, pull it out. Let that be a lesson to others who want to take up residence on my head. They will be plucked out. Sadly this hair didn't know what it was getting its self into. When I pulled it out one end (the older end) was a lovely reddish, brownish color (I'm never quite sure what color to call my hair), but the other was a not so lovely shade of silver/white. I guess 25 is just going to be too old for my hair.

Thursday, February 19, 2009

Sara's Birthday

Happy Birthday Sara! For Sara's Birthday we went to Mulholland Grill for dinner. Jessica, Danielle, Josh, Jeff, Danny, Sara and I all went. Danny had to cut out shortly after we got there, but the rest of us had a wonderful dinner. The food was really good, but the service was sub-par. Maybe they knew that we didn't have as much money as the rest of the people there! After the dinner we came back to our place and had root beer floats which Sara had been craving for weeks. Others joined in for the birthday festivities and Danny returned for his classic gloomy birthday song. Yay for birthdays and a reason to eat and party.

Jeff, Sara, and Josh at Mulholland Grill staring at Sara's wonderful cake concoction.

Jessica, me, and Danielle enjoying dessert

Josh "helping" Sara get the chocolate out of the bottom of the glass.

Ahhh how cute!

Josh had a little dessert malfunction which Sara was fixing with the Tide pen

The delicious dessert.

Roommate pictures with Sara sportin' the police badge. Happy birthday to her.

Exploring Los Angeles

Late in 2008 Kristen, Bethany and I decided after going to the Griffith Observatory that we needed to explore our home town a little bit more. There are so many places that we've never been to so our group New Years resolution was to explore LA once a month together.

So for January we happened to find out way to the Fair Oaks Pharmacy. Sara, Danielle and I had pretty much just eaten an entire batch of chocolate chip cookies on this particular Saturday. We had made plans to attend a Glendale singles ward activity along with Kristen and were just about to leave when Josh and Jeff showed up at our house. We managed to convince them that they should come with us. As we made our way out the door Jeff somehow came up with the idea of going to the Fair Oaks Pharmacy for milkshakes before going to the activity. I had the black cherry milkshake and it was wonderful. Adding more sugar to the already sugar filled girls was just what was needed for the best night ever.

By the time we made it out of the pharmacy it was time for the singles ward activity to be over. We showed up right after the closing prayer and took our time mingling before deciding we'd had enough of meeting new people (even the Harry Potter look-alike couldn't keep our attention). We had two cars which both managed to get lost before we made it back to Josh and Jeff's house for movie watching. The combination of sugar, not enough other food, and getting lost produced gales of laughter from all the girls, especially Sara, Kristen and I. I must have burned off all the calories I ate that day just from laughter. What a wonderful way to work out.

So for a good time and lots of laughs I would recommend the Fair Oaks Pharmacy. Stay tuned for Februarys version of exploring LA...

Sunday, January 25, 2009

Weather

While checking the local newspaper for what's going on in the world today I came across the weather. I think this is my favorite forecast so far. Monday ??? we don't know what's going to happen. Weatherman-the only job you can have where you can consistently be wrong (or ambiguous in this case) and people will still keep paying you.

Wednesday, January 7, 2009

Century Minus a Decade

Grandpa's Birthday Cake

Grandpa and Grandma at Yen Ching

My grandpa will be turning 90 in a couple of weeks so over Christmas break while everyone was off of school we decided to celebrate his birthday. We got together on the 2nd and had a wonderful party for him. Everyone was there except for the three cousins who are on missions. We started out with the task of taking family pictures. It wasn't as bad as it could have been. Laurel took the pictures of everyone and then used the timer to get all of us together. After the pictures we went to Yen Ching, the best Chinese place ever, for a great dinner. All the older cousins sat at a table together which was tons of fun.

Geoff getting the perks of being an MC

Geoff was put in charge of the program so we planned all sorts of fun/embarrassing things for our parents to do since they pawned it all off on us. I think the restaurant was glad when the 30 of us left and went to the church for the next part of our night. We had decorated the Relief Society room with birthday decorations and even brought the couches in so that Grandma and Grandpa would be comfortable. The program started off with Carolyn singing Somewhere Over the Rainbow. Aaron and Reese did "Chem 111" which involved using household chemicals to make experiments.

Grandpa was a Chem major, so this went over well. Susan played Can You Feel the Love Tonight. Thomas played a song on the piano by Rachmaninov. Melanie sang Stormy Weather. The little cousins sang I am a Child of God.

Mike and Timothy played the trumpet and the funnel to Popcorn Popping. Then we got to the even more fun part. We had Barbara juggle sugar packets from the restaurant.

She did ok with the first one, but could use some juggling lessons. Dad played Home Home on the Range with the spoons. And Bob did the classic Heart where he takes his heart out and then swallows it again.

But the best part of the night was hearing each of the children talk about Grandpa and his wonderful life. What an amazing man he is. I love learning more and more about him all the time. It was so much fun to see all the family and just spend quality time together.

Crusin' California

After all the Christmas festivities were over my family packed up and made the >1000 mile drive from Oregon down to Southern California. I must say that flying is the way to go, even though I don't particularly enjoy it either. But it wasn't too bad thanks to Grandma Scoville and the DVD player she got us for Christmas. The kids were plugged in in the back seat most of the drive down. We do have one of those monster vans that holds 15 (well 11 because the back seat was taken out so we could fit our luggage back there) but it was still close quarters. Susan and I ended up sitting in the front row, then Steven, David and Laura were in the middle row and Thomas got the whole back row to himself for most of the trip. We left on Saturday the 27th and drove down through the snowy mountains of Oregon. We were blessed though because we didn't even have to put chains on and we made it safely through the mountains. We drove down to Walt and Jodi's house in El Dorado Hills that day. It was fun to see them. I hadn't been to their house for many years. We had a great dinner and then headed down to Glen's house in Livermore. He wasn't there because he was still gone for the holidays. But we stayed at his house. I also hadn't been there in years and his house looks quite different than the last time I was there. We had a funny visit about 10:30 that night. Some of the Priests in Glen's ward heard that he had neices that were staying at his house that weekend and decided they wanted to meet them. So they came over with cookies and ice cream. Too bad we were all getting ready for bed by the time they got there. They missed meeting Susan. But we went to his ward on Sunday and Mom recognized one of them that came to visit the night before. It was quite amusing.

After church we drove to pick up Carolyn and Nate in San Jose and then proceeded down Highway 101 to San Simeon. It was a beautiful drive (much better than I-5). Dad did a good job driving, but it got kind of windey after a while and we all started to feel sick. We did stop a couple of times to get out and just see the beauty. We stopped off on the 17-mile drive through Pebble Beach and other great golf courses. It was great and the houses were amazing. We made it down to San Simeon that night and ate dinner and just played games.

Santa Barbara Coast

Carolyn and I at Santa Barbara

Monday morning we went through a tour of Hearst Castle. It was amazing. There was a beautiful view of the ocean and the house was astounding. The guest house was better than any house I'll ever live in. We also watched a movie on the building of Hearst Castle. It was amazing to see the vision that Hearst had and that he was able to see it into action. It made me contemplate what my vision for my life is and how I can accomplish that. Good thoughts for a new year.