My New Home @ Mozaic

I have been fortunate to have some pretty neat roommates in my nearly 1.5 years here in the LA area, with only one major exception (you know who you are, and you would never read this blog anyhow). To anyone reading who doesn't know who the exception is, ask me some day when you're up for a hearty saga. :) But I digress. Although I have thoroughly enjoyed my roommates heretofore, and have many fond memories to recall, it is time to move on. Our lease was up this month at our charming Culver City house and so I bid adieu to the persistent background hum of 405 traffic, crappy water pressure, the wood floors and stained glass windows I adored, and what I'll miss most of all-- the bike path to the beach. I've traded all of that in for 830 sqft that belong all to meeeee, elevators, a wall of eastward windows that look out to Union Station below, Olvera Street around the corner, The Original Phillipe's within walking distance, and Chinatown just a stone's throw away. This new neighborhood feels like a completely different town (well, it is), and while I only moved, like, 10ish miles away, I feel like my life has already completely changed.

New photos of my new home:

Oh hey, courtyard view from my front door...That's the top of the U.S. Post Office Annex illuminated in the background.

Welcome to my abode:

Palm trees outside my window!

My lil nook:

That's me up on the top floor!

inside Union Station:

Union Station at night.

nighttime traffic on the Avenida.

Graduation Schmajuation/Goodbye, Provo

My dad left a voice mail for me a few weeks ago. He mentioned how excited he was to be coming out to visit for my graduation from BYU and that he understood how I might have some mixed emotions about this time in my life. Thing is, I don’t really. My time has come. I am ready to move on to the next thing. I’m finished living in Provo. That said, there are some things that I will miss about my college years, and I’ve compiled a few lists to pay tribute:
(fantastic pictures from graduation are forthcoming, I promise.)


Things I will miss about BYU/utah valley

• Really great classes like Don Quijote with Rosenberg and Hispanic Cinema with Weatherford
• J-dawgs
• Smart Cookie
• Thai Ruby, even though I can only count how many times I’ve eaten there on one hand—it was the setting of one of the most hilariously hysterical nights of my life (jooj, ali, lauren, R-diggity-dog, you know what I'm talkin' 'bout)
• The Y
• Timpanogos (here's a view from campus)
• Sundance—the Alpine Loop part, and the Film Festival
• Running on the foothill trails
• Riding my bike up Provo Canyon River trail
• That great feeling of finishing a term paper and turning it in
• Dancesport
• Really awesome forums/lectures by awesome speakers like Paul Rusesebagina and Valerie Hudson.
• views like this at the football games (goodbye, 3rd row season tickets...)
• The Kennedy Center, one of my favorite places on campus to be.
• The JFSB—courtyard, terrace(s), mac lab, all of it.
• Hunger Banquet
• international cinema
  
• Holi at Spanish Fork (see previous post!)
• Taking it too far with my roomies
• Condo Row
• Springtime nightgames. Actually springtime, period.
• BYU 61st ward
• W5. ‘nough said.
• Long walks and talks with Amy, Rachel
• Letters to the editor, Police Beat in the Daily Universe. In fact, here's a good one from this past month:
  

Criminal Mischief

April 1: BYU police responded to a call reporting a tampering with the BYU sign on University and Canyon Rd. Students had placed paper letters over the sign "Enter to learn, go forth to serve" to make it read "Enter to date and to mate."

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Things I will not miss about BYU

• Really terrible classes like

Physics 105
Physics 106
Physics 107
Physics 108

• Homework/busywork!
• Sharing a room
• The piano in the apartment upstairs—or at least, their song selection.
• My crappy oven
• The bridal fair ads
• Everything closing at 10 pm or earlier.
• Late nights with Harold (this is from my last night; notice Lauren peering over her laptop:)
  
• The ridiculous honor-code office.
• BYU off-campus housing and the stupid 2 mi. radius rule.
• The creepy couple that made out in the front row of my Psych 111 lecture course. Everyday. Blech.
• The eventfulness of seeing bearded men. (Thanks for breaking the monotony of this one, Paul and Matt. Love that scruff.)