It's Official

And I have a Polo to Prove it!

Thats right Ladies and Gentleman!

I am an official BYU-I Student Ambassador 

and a member of Student Support.

Well what exactly does a Student Ambassador do?

Well I go to the Rigby building every Thursday from 7-9

I sit at this desk

And I Call/Email/Facebook prospective BYU-I Students

and try to convince them to come to the 

BEST SCHOOL EVER!!!!

Don't I look official?!? :) 

I also answer any questions they might have and help them through registration, housing and all that jazz! :) 

I work with some pretty cool people

Don't we all look so official in our Grey Polos?

And the best part is we got a free pen and we can wear our polos whenever we want. So guess who's gonna walk around BYU-I campus looking official?

This Chick

Only at BYU-Idaho

Wether you are walking around campus, sitting in class or studying in the library you are bound to overhear conversations. Sometimes it's by accident and sometimes... its on purpose... Yes we people watch here in Idaho. Anyway the long and short of it is people say funny weird things.
Here's just a few! :)

Professor in Religion Class: "There is a special place in outer darkness reserved for people who cheat in my class

Professor in Book of Mormon Class: "If you watch enough movies you understand the gospel."

English Teacher talking about the values of doing homework: "I get it, you're all busy trying to fin your eternal companion, but please remember to do your homework."

Music History Professor talking about music that he doesn't like. "It's not my cup of herbal tea" (just to avoid the appearance of evil because what BYU-I professor would drink anything but herbal tea)

Professor in Book of Mormon Class talking about missionaries who get "Dear John'd": "It's called the Circle of Life! You'll return from your mission and steal someone else's girl!"

Boy with a Hershey's chocolate bar talking to a girl he just met 20 seconds ago. "I felt inspired to bring this chocolate bar today for someone, so here, the spirit told me you need this."

You've got to love BYU-I Mormon culture!! :)

~Keep Smiling~ :)

Sparks Fly

So you may have noticed that the picture on top of my blog is changed. That's because I changed it. :) I felt it was time to give the paris picture a rest and do something else. But where would I find a picture that was pretty, fit my blog color scheme and fit my personality as well? I shall tell you!

Last night, at about 11 some of our friends came over and invited us to go do steel wool photography with them. Are you wondering what that is exactly? I was too! When I heard steel wool photography I was a little bamboozled, but then they showed us some pictures of the night sky illuminated by strands of light, which looked pretty cool. I wasn't certain how the desired affect was achieved using just steel wool (since my only exposure to the substance had been watching my brother light it with flint and steel in our garage during his scouting days) but I decided to have a little faith and go along anyway.

Basically to this steel wool photography right you need:
steel wool
a whisk
string
lighter
a tripod
a niceish camera
and any props you want

You stuff the steel wool in the whisk, tie the end of the string around the whisk, light the steel wool on fire and then just spin it super duper fast to get sparks flying everywhere. Of course you have to set your camera up on a tripod and get all the settings just right so that the shutter stays open for long enough to catch the light and sparks going everywhere, but how important is that detail really? Just kidding, that's kinda the most important part if you want to capture the event on film. Also, this type of photography is known as "long exposure photography" and works best done at night. The shutter speed is so slow that it only picks up the light and anyone who is standing still for an extended period of time. So if you're moving around with the flaming steel wool, you're invisible in the picture!

But enough talk, you probably want to see the pictures!

This is me spinning the steel wool 

Anise, Josh and I chillin while Jake spun the steel wool 

because we aren't moving, the camera picks us up

but not Jake

Jake, Josh and Ross carrying me

Me! 

And then we decided that we wanted to try out some different poses. Anise pointed out how cute it would be if a couple were "kissing" under the umbrella with the sparks flying in the background. Unfortunately none of us are dating or even remotely romantically interested in each other so what would be the point of taking such cute pictures. We hummed and hawed about it for a bit, but finally decided we would take umbrella kissing pictures just for the sake of ART!!! Plus our faces would be hidden by the umbrella so it's not like anyone would know who it was anyway!

And thus the "kissing" pictures ensued 

Here's Anise and Jake

 They actually turned out better then we though because you can see the silhouette of their heads leaning in towards each other

Here's me and Josh

And then I adjusted the lighting on it just for fun 

After we finished up, we all made a pact to NOT tag each other in these "kissing" pictures on facebook! Everyone was very adamant about making sure that this point was clear! I mean, I don't want people to think I'm dating Josh, Josh doesn't want people to think he's dating me, Anise doesn't want people to think she's dating Jake and Jake doesn't want people to think he's dating Anise. And so in social media we remain nameless silhouettes "kissing" behind an umbrella.
Though I've resolved that as soon as I do get a significant other, I will definitely be hauling Josh out to the middle of nowhere with his camera, steel wool and whisk to take REAL kissing pictures behind an umbrella, because seriously how CUTE would that be!!! :)

~Keep Smiling~ :)

San Diego Family Reunion Recap- like a month later...

This is sooooooo late!!! We had our Mikolajcik family reunion at the end of December but I only just finished the video for it and I didn't feel like I could post about it till the video was finished. In my defense though the only reason I couldn't get the video done was because I was waiting for pictures and video from other family members.

And in the defense of my nameless family members who took a very very long time to get this stuff to me, well they have pretty crazy busy lives and getting pictures to me probably wasn't their number one priority.

So now that we've got all the necessary disclaimers out of the way, here's the video!

~Keep Smiling~ :)

Road Trip

Let me set this up for you:
 It's a Friday night and four super cute college girls are sitting around with nothing to do. This is almost illegal at BYU- Idaho! Nothing to do on a Friday night?!? Monday through Thursday you might be able to get away with vegging at your apartment and maybe watching a chick flick and eating ice cream and calling that entertainment, but on Friday, when the curfew is extended an extra hour, nothing to do on a Friday night is basically like a sin (almost as wicked as wearing shorts on campus)
So these four super cute college girls decided to remedy the situation. They began to brainstorm!

"We could build a fort!" suggests one.

"Yeah, but we did that last week!" comes the response.

"Or we could play in the snow."

"It's too cold!!!"

"What about going to Sammy's?"

"Nahh."

"We could go to Provo." one girl says, obviously joking. This statement is followed by chuckles, chortles and a few dismissive head shakes.

"Why don't we?" Anise looks around at her roommates and friend Kris (who had stumbled upon their perilous plight when he knocked on the door to check up on his adopted little sisters.)

"I don't know." a girl sitting over on the couch shrugs.

"Seriously why don't we?" Anise persists. "If we left now we could get there by like 12 and then spend the day in Provo and come home tomorrow night."

"Why don't we?" one of the girls echoes the sentiment, looking around at her friends.

A very quick logistical conversation followed and before these four girls knew it, they had stuffed a couple of necessities into their bags, loaded up Kris' car and headed off on a four hour trip to Provo Utah. A trip that originated from the simple sentiment "Why Not?"
The next four hours was full of singing at the top of our lungs, a couple gas station snack stops and an early breakfast at IN-N-OUT at 1:30 in the morning.

IN-N-OUT stop at 1:30 in the morning

That night, I crashed on my friend Megan's couch. The next day, her grandparents took us out to lunch and we got to eat the "Best Chocolate Cake" in Provo.

And then we dressed up and walked around downtown and took pictures

That night, I met back up with Hannah, Vanessa, Kris and Kris' friend 

and we experienced the Provo night life. 

Hannah's older brother was playing with his band at Muse Music Cafe so we went and rocked out to a few bands.

 

Written all over the walls were signatures, statements and little notes from previous customers

I found this statement so incredibly applicable. "No Sleep" is basically every college student's life. 

It was a super fun weekend. Even though we got back super early this morning and now I am sooo tired, it was totally worth it!

~Keep Smiling~ :)

Mission Call

So my beautiful and intelligent gorgeous roommmated Hannah got her mission call last night!!!

I am sooo excited for her and I know that she is going to be an amazing missionary!!

Hello 2014.... So Long 2013

In the past 365 days I have done a lot of things.  I have laughed I have cried, I have made good decisions and I have made bad decisions and I have made a (sometimes not so smooth) transition between the old 2012 model of Alina to the latest 2013 model of myself. To think back and do a recap of the last 8760 hours of my life might take some time and serious thought so I'm just going to stick to the basics. Here's the readers digest version of what I did in 2013

I said Goodbye to My Older Sister when she left for Birmingham Alabama

on a Mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints

I got asked out cutely for the first time

I went to Prom

I Graduated 

I wrote my first accapella song and made my first music video

I Started College and was blessed with 5 of the best roommates ever

I rode in the bed of a truck for the first time

I went sling shot paintballing for the first time

I went to General Conference with my roommates in the conference center

I was called as Relief Society Teacher and got to meet some of the sweetest girls in my ward

I shot a gun for the first time

I had Thanksgiving away from Home for the First Time

I took a trip to San Diego for the Mikolajcik Family Reunion 

So lots of firsts. And now onto 2014, a year that I hope is filled with adventure and laughter!

Looking back I have realized that I am in such a different place then I was last year (and thank heavens it's a good place! :) Last January I was in High School trying to figure out where to go to college, this January I am in college studying to become a composer and as for next January... well who knows where I will be for I am planning on starting my mission papers when I get back to school, submitting them in May and then serving as a Missionary for 18 months in whatever state or country that Heavenly Father wants to put me! :) I am so excited to move on to this next chapter of my life. 

Goodbye 2013

Hello 2014

~Keep Smiling~ :)