LDN day one

So, I am in LDN, and it is just as dreamy as I imagined. The hostle we are staying in has internetzzz you can pay for--and is GHETTO. I love love LOOOOVE it. Today i learned how to work the underground, how to work british money, and how to cross a british street during rush hour. I also learned that getting lost can lead to some pretty amazing adventures. Today I mostly just walked and walked and walked and WALKED!! I am taking tons of pictures I will upload later to the book.

The room i am in in this hostle is up about 100 flights of super steep super narrow stairs--after walking around, not fun. when i came back down to go on the computer, i just held on to the rail and flopped down like a little rag doll. my legs are going to be sooooooo sore tomorrow.

Tomorrow we go to the brittish gallery i think, and then toorrow night i go to wicked! the girls that saw it tonight said it was amazing, so i am super excited.

i am also almost out of time

i love europe already

Life is too short to wake up in the morning with regrets. So, love the people who treat you right, forget about the ones who don't. Believe that everything happens for a reason. If you get a chance, take it. If it changes your life, let it. No one said it would be easy, they just promised it'd be worth

iWant

My eurobuddy Drew came into came into class today with THIS on his laptop:

snow white's revenge.

Mt. Eyjafjallajokull

has had me thinking a LOT these past few days.  I would be eternally crushed if it's ash cloud didn't move from over the UK, but it's kind of made me realize that you can't always depend on other people and other things for happiness and personal growth, because sometimes they fall though.

I hope very much that things work out and I still get to go to Europe, because I have been looking forward to thins for a year--since the day I told my mom I feel trapped and then sat in Amy's house looking for travel abroad trips after her simple solution "go on a foreign travel studies tour".

Lately I can't function unless I know when the volcano is doing.  This is the latest: http://www.xomba.com/ash_cloud_over_europe_flights_may_resume_after_delay_volcano_iceland

GOOD NEWS!

Church was really good today.  Like REALLY good.  I got to sit by christina and Zach in sacrament meeting, and then sunday school and RS was all just combined but it was good.  i think I am going to like the ridge.

If you aim at nothing, you'll hit it every-time.

It has also been quoted by the great Rob Dyrdek that "the only enemy of success is laziness".  I really think it's true that you get out of life what you put into it.  The only way to have a friend is to be one.  I know sometimes I am selfish and not the best friend out there, but I am trying to do better and put other people first--sometimes it's just kind of hard.

Preparing to go to Europe has had me in a dream like state these past few days for many reasons:

number one:  I am going to effing EUROPE!

number two:  I am going to see some beautiful art and be M-O-V-E-D by it.

-Researching that art has taught me a lot about the artist and the tales of   the time

number three:  It makes me wonder what else is out there for me

number four:  with my new passport, i can TRAVEL

number five:  I am the lucky one because I am not the one getting married at 20 and I get to still be selfish for a few more years. :)

-I'm just not ready to get married yet.

number six:  Euro-trash hipsters

number seven: Youth Hostels

number eight:  I am so grateful for my family and the fact that my mom works again.  Even though it was hard and lonely in high school, it is worth every day home alone now because my mom can help me out with school and traveling and self discovery through both.

number nine: I have gotten a lot of lucky breaks in my life. 

number ten:  I can't sleep when I am excited!!!!!

All in all I think that this trip will let me get to know myself a lot better, and hopefully the ME i am suppose to be, not the ME i use to be or the ME i think i should be.  (She's really not that cool and actually, kinda lame.)  It's funny how much more enjoyable life is when you finally realize "maybe God does know me a little better than I know myself, and maybe he knows what's good for me a little better than my friends do..."  Imagine that.

I started my EutoTrip wish list for my travel studies class.  I am making it into a little book that i can write in with a ball point pen since all i do with an english minor and communication major is write papers and and do projects on the computer.  It's cute and I am very happy with how i is turning out.  

I also started researching for my 30 pieces of art I need to research before we leave: We have to write a one page paper about each one, that way, when we find them we can know their history and hopefully have a stronger reaction to the piece of art.  I am doing some Monet, Van Gogh, and Manet as well as Michaelangelo, Degas, and some Impressionist art.  I am also interested in architecture, fountains in Rome, and the egyptians and greek art that will be in the Lourve and other museums.

p.s. i think my indie-cred is about to SKYROCKET.  j.k (but seriously...)

TWELVE DAYS

10 things that make katherine happy

1. Pinkerton (bonus: dog and album)

2. Hip Hop, Rap, and Ludacris

3. crazy hair--borderline manes

4. Travel and dreams of it (not to mention planing!!!)

5. dorms PSYCH!  

6. Bright Eyes/ Conor Oberst

7. Guitars and pianos

8. Lists (bucket, wish, to-do...)

9. Dance Parties.  drop it drop it low girl.

10.  Missionaries

janesville doll:

Back in High School,  I played on the Lady Spartans volleyball team.  It was fun and I've got some good memories; however, the strongest one has nothing to do with the games, and everything to do with the bus rides to away games--specifically the games in Mankato and the ride through Janesville.

The Janesville doll is: weird, bizarre, and all together horrifying.

The Janesville Doll is a doll, hanging in the attic window in this little old house in Janesville MN.  It looks out over the park across the street, and year after year it sits there and watches life go on.

creativity

I was thinking the other day about education and how wonderful it is from a "life" point of view.  It is absolutely good to know things about the world you live.   Take time to learn about your country and your culture, then leave it all behind and travel to the four corners of the world and learn about theirs.  I am all for making the world your classroom, but I also believe that our intelligence enslaves us as well as liberates us.

Once we are educated, we no longer can believe that clouds are the left over smoke from fires all over the world, or that we can roast tree tops on sunsets like marshmallows.  The fire can no longer tan your skin.  Stars aren't just ideas that were never given a change to become anything and tiny people no longer live on my globe. 

When we are educated life looses its poetry and its magic.  

Stars are just balls of fire, trees are too far from the sunset to roast,  the light from a fire doesn't have the right kind of rays to tan you, and clouds are made up almost completely of water--not smoke.

It's good to be educated, but sometimes it kind of kills the A.R.T.

ART

While looking through some old folders on my desktop of pictures and poems and school work I found a folder FULL of art i have found online and liked,  I think when i get more settled I will start painting again and I think these might be my inspiration:

On another ART RELATED thread:  My classes for my euro-trip started today.  It's like art boot camp, but it's really interesting and it is getting me super excited about the trip.

One of the classes I am doing is an independent study where we make up our own research project to do.  We have to do research before we leave, then spend time looking for the thing we researched while we are in europe, then when we get home we make a portfolio or write a paper or compile it all somehow.  I think I might do how religion influences religious architecture in different countries.

For another class we have to make a bucket list (already have one) for our trip and then research 30 specific pieces of art and write a one page paper about them,  when we find them we do a little response and  make it all into a journal.  We also have to fine 15 pieces there that MOVE us and those we research when we get home.  All of this goes into our journal too.  I am super excited, but I think it might be a lot of work so  I will probably be in the l.i.b. all day tomorrow.

I know I am not as artistically inclined as a lot of my friends, and that I really don't now much about art from a statistical point of view, but I do know that art can MOVE people, and create though and change.  The world needs more leaders and less followers.  

I don't know, I guess there is balance in blazing a trail and being difficult, but it's the trial and error that shape us and make us.

Euroclasses: day one.

Today I started my euro trip classes.  I really am excited, even though it's all kind of a little overwhelming.  I will be in EUROPE in two weeks!

I could not sleep last night, at all.  I spent some time stumbling and thinking, but all in all I just laid in bed and waited for sleep to come... it never did.

This is one 

of the treasures I found while stumbling.  It reminds me of dreams and magnetic poetry:

FACTS:

1.)  My mom is sending me her nice camera so I can take it to Europe with me.  I am very excited, mostly because lately I have been having a lot of ideas about 

photography and different pictures I could take

2.)  I thought I had lost all of my paintings in the process of moving, but I found them im a remote corner of a discrete box.  True, I was mostly sad about loosing the canvases--the paintings aren't that great--but it's still nice to have them back.

Here is some inspiration for long locks, lovely looks, and life:

.

3.00 AM: insomnia

Is it okay that even though I don't have a boyfriend--or plan on getting married anytime soon--I have already made the following decisions about my wedding:

-I want my colors to be brown and goldenrod so I can have sun flowers in my bouquet

-I want the wedding party to release doves

-I want my first dance to be to "first day of my life" by bright eyes.  (cheesy?  don't care.)

-I want to get married in the SLC temple

-I want a reel dee-jay at my reception 

and set the following requirements for my future eternal roommate:

-He's gotta be tall enough that I can wear heels around him

-He's gotta be able to make my LAUGH until I can't stand up anymore

-He's gotta be adventurous and spontaneous but still responsible and spiritual

-He's gotta NOT say "dude" or use the words "fag", "gay", or " retarded" in casual talking

-He's gotta be an returned missionary and care about the church

-He's gotta be smart

-He's gotta like to travel 

-He's gotta think I am beautiful inside and out, and be able to deal with my crazy

-He's probably gotta be a little bit crazy too...

He will preferably:

-have dimple

-have dark hair and light eyes

-be musical and artistic

-be well read so we can talk about books

Having friends get married or start seriously dating is... really weird.  We are all still so young, and marriage is  E-TER-NAL!  It's a BIG deal to decide to hitch yourself to someone for the rest of time.

I guess for me it just doesn't seem like the right thing to do right now.  I just want to work on me for a while, have a few more years of fun and still be able to be selfish for a little while longer.

I just want to use this time to work on me and try to be the best version of me that I can be.  

I'm only 20 and there are still a l.o.t of things I am figuring out about myself.

Summer2010.

dreams really do come true.

Dear Rob Drydek,

Will you marry me?

Love,

Katherine Ann Fleming

World Traveler.

In less than three weeks I embark on my Humanities Tour--I could not be more excited.  I have one more final today at 12:45, and then i am free.  At least until monday when I start my classes for my eurotrip.

I can't believe how fast this semester went, how different it has been from how I imagined, and how close Europe is.  Throw in the two moves I have to make between then and now and time will fly like paper.

I still am trying to construct a euro-bucket list.  Any suggestions?

My mom was right, I am lucky I'm not getting married at 2o. I still have a few years to be selfish and do what I want.

-travel

-music

-art

Dear MTV

I understand (and completely appreciate) that Fantasy Factory has filled the void to an extent, but there is still a hole in the MTV universe left in the wake of the closure of Rob & Big.  My name is Katherine Ann Fleming and I would like to take on the task of filling that remaining hole.

I am 20 years old, and attend Brigham Young University-Idaho in Rexburg Idaho.  Before you go get your maps let me tell you this: when you go to school in a small town you have to be more creative to have fun, and I firmly believe that you get better memories for the extra effort.

I value my education and work hard to make good grades, but I also value fun and work hard to make good memories and have good stories.

I am on a "fast grad" program and go to school year round now.   I am especially excited for the upcoming summer semester because a lot of my friends will be coming back to Idaho.  Their return paired with warm weather and long, summer nights means that all sorts of crazy things will be happening.

I have no professional training in acting, no job, and no shame.  

Do with that what you will.

Yours Truly,

Katherine Ann Fleming

think it will work?