my happies

so i've been slacking in my blog updates- i apologize. anyhoo, i don't have too much time, but there are some fabulous things that i have to report. so here are my happies:

• i applied a few weeks ago for a scholarship from the French Department for my study abroad and....I GOT IT! :)
• earlier this week i thought it was going to have to take a test and write two papers all in one night (which would have sucked), but it turns out one of my papers got pushed back, and the other one was supposed to be written on a conference talk so i just tweaked my sacrament meeting talk from a while back and voila: insta-paper!
• the weather has been absolutely lovely lately (with the exception of maybe today and yesterday that have been a little chilly)
• i got everything worked out with my love whitney for our weekend in paris after my study abroad is over. hooray for amy and whitney eurolove 2008!
• and finally, I BOUGHT MY TICKETS FOR PARIS TODAAAAAAY! AND, i got an amazing deal on them. yay!

and unfortunately, two deaths to report in the Amy Hansen family:

• Sylvia Trevors Cunningham went downhill this week. First it was mold all over her pumpkin bottom, and then mushy spots started to appear on her head, and finally, she peed on the kitchen table. She's currently residing in a plastic trashbag in my kitchen because I just can't bring myself to throw her away yet. Maybe when she starts to smell...
• my precious iPod has officially kicked the bucket. We've been through a lot together, but after numerous attempts to revive the little guy, I know that it's a done deal. I'll have to figure out some way to cope and live a life without portable music. Sad sad day.
  

my medically induced spring break

so yesterday morning at about 7 am, i was blissfully sleeping in my warm cozy bed when suddenly, my body realized that it had totally forgotten to give me a birthday present. since it was four days late and all, it decided to really go all out and get me....KIDNEY STONES! gee THANKS body! it's what i've always wanted. oh wait, except you already gave them to me once. don't you know how tacky it is to give the same gift twice? come on body. get with it.

anyway, after writhing on the floor in agony for about a half hour, i crawled into my roommate ellen's room to ask her if she could drive me to the health center to which she most graciously obliged. gotta love that ellen. the drill was about the same, pee in a cup, get an abdominal x-ray, a nice shot in my almost-backside, and then magical prescriptions. the only thing about the magical drugs is that they either put me into a delirious coma, or make me throw up all over the place. not that i'm complaining...i'd rather have comas and vomit than ridiculous pain ANY day.

some silver linings in this situation:

• i don't have to go back to class until tuuuuuuesday! and since i'm basically functional (other than the coma and stomach pyrotechnics), i can still make an effort to keep up with my assignments so i don't have an aneurysm when i go back to school.
• since i vary between not eating, and then throwing up anything i DO try to eat, i could possibly come out of this ordeal with 5 or so less pounds! (that's kind of a stretch of a silver lining, but come on i'm trying here)

• ok this is the best one: the love of my life megan patterson (bless her little heart) created a sort of "happy kidney stones" care package for me. it includes: flowers, a 2 liter of dr. pepper, 3 huge bottles of blue powerade (gotta stay hydrated), rocky road ice cream, a giant fashion magazine, aaaaand...a barbie coloring book with crayons. i dare you to try and say that's not the greatest thing ever.

the end of an era...

march 15th marked the end of my teenage years...ah the dawn of a new day! and what a glorious day it was. me and the buds made plans to go to salt lake for the night, get some chow, and dance our little hinies...hineys? off at a club.
so we got all pretty and headed for the big city. the only hitch in the plan was...SNOW. snow snow stupid stupid snow. despite mother nature's gift from hell however, the evening was a success. we stuffed our faces at olive garden, got sang to in Italian by a group of waiters deathly afraid of having their picture taken, and then headed to the club.while i was slightly afraid of getting molested by people at the club (walking in was definitely a "toto, i don't think we're in the wilkinson center anymore..." moment), we managed to make it out of there with our dignity and virtue! hands down, the best part of the night was when they played "piece of me" by britney spears. don't mock- it's awesome.
on sunday, the birthday celebrations continued with CAKE! good times were had by all. we even had a gypsy fortune teller. apparently i'm going to marry dave mansfield and have 3 children and get verrrrrrry fat.

"tell me gypsy..."

so shout out to my girls megan and holli who helped make my birthday weekend awesome. and also to my parents for the birthday package of joy that arrived in the mail. ♥

who the heck...?!

my roommate holli gave me the link to this personality test, so i took it because they tend to be interesting and amusing. here's the link if you feel so inclined...

http://www.humanmetrics.com/cgi-win/JTypes1.htm

anyhoo, i took the test but i'm not so sure my results really apply to me. apparently i'm an ISTP personality type: Introverted Sensing Thinking Perceiving. i had to do some wikipedia searching to get a better description of what that means. here are a few excerpts:

According to Myers-Briggs, ISTPs excel at analyzing situations to reach the heart of a problem so that they can swiftly implement a functional repair, making them ideally suited to the field of engineering. Naturally quiet people, they are interested in understanding how systems operate, focusing on efficient operation and structure. They are open to new information and approaches. But contrary to their seemingly detached natures, ISTPs are often capable of humorously insightful observations about the world around them, and can be closet "daredevils" who gravitate toward fast-moving and/or risky hobbies (such as bungee jumping, hang gliding, motorcycling, parachuting, SCUBA diving, etc.), recreational sports (such as downhill skiing, ice hockey, racing, etc.), and careers (such as aviation, firefighting, etc.).

According to Keirsey, ISTPs, or "Crafter Artisans", are masters at using tools of every type—artistic, technological, martial. Although they are introverts, they are authoritarian in their interactions with others and can be forceful at influencing people. They focus on accomplishing tasks efficiently and skillfully.

To master the tool of their interest, ISTPs require a certain degree of seclusion in which to practice. The result is often a virtuosity that other types find difficult to match.

The attributes of each personality form a hierarchy. This represents the person's "default" pattern of behavior in their day to day life. The Dominant is the personality type's preferred role, the task they feel most comfortable with. The auxiliary function is the role they feel the next most comfortable with. It serves to support and expand on the dominant function. One of these first two will always be an information gathering function (sensing or intuition) and the other will be a decision making function(thinking or feeling) in some order. The tertiary function is less developed than the Dominant and Auxiliary functions, but develops as the person matures and provides roundness of ability. The inferior function is the personality types Achilles heel. This is the function they are least comfortable with. Like the tertiary function, this function strengthens with maturity.^[1]

• Dominant Introverted Thinking (Ti) - The ISTP lives a world of logic, basing any decision on logic. They process information from their auxiliary function to create strategies for action at a moment's notice. They love to examine complicated systems.
• Auxiliary Extroverted Sensing (Se) - This function gives the ISTP an element of spontaneity, embracing chances to plunge headfirst into experiences. It also gives them a keen insight into situations similar to that of the ISTJ. Their occasionally tunnel-visioned curiosity for the world around them gives them a "leap before you look" tendency. They are notorious for taking apart devices to "see what makes them tick", before consideration as to whether they can put them back together.
• Tertiary Introverted iNtuition (Ni) - Never as open in their theorizing as the INTP, the ISTP prefers to keep themselves grounded in the situation at hand, using their intuition to visualize components and concepts that they cannot see and touch firsthand, such as the wiring in a circuit board.
• Inferior Extroverted Feeling (Fe) - The weak point of the ISTP, they may interpret criticisms of their ideas as criticisms of their competence. While they strive to follow the edicts of logic, this can also lead them to ironically and illogically stubbornly cling to their own ideas even when proven wrong

so. apparently these characteristics apply to me, but i'm not so sure. some of them i can identify with, but others i'm just like uh...no. i even took the test twice to make sure nothing sketchy was going on. guess it just goes to show you don't really know yourself until a personality test tells you who you are.

kiddddding.

he'll getcha!

star wars according to a 3 year old

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me and the punkin

first, some background. when my lovely parents came to visit me last october for general conference weekend (approximately the 5-8 of october), they bought me a pumpkin in the spirit of halloween and all things fall. generous, yes? yes. anyway, as time went on and the pumpkin maintained a more permanent position on our kitchen table, i decided to spice things up a little. so naturally i drew a face on the pumpkin with a sharpie, and from then on she became (first of all a she) Silvia Trevors Cunningham. (Trevors is her maiden name of course.)
Silvia Trevors Cunningham and i have had a wonderful 5 months together. she's held up like a champ- not even a hint of mushiness, she's still as firm and pumpkin-y as the day she came into my life that wonderful day last october. obviously, this period of happiness deserves to be recognized. through thick and thin, Silvia Trevors Cunningham has been there for me, always waiting on the kitchen table to lend a pumpkin ear whenever it's needed.

megan, silvia's godmother
(it doesn't matter if we're not catholic)

So here's to you Silvia- may our time together continue to be unnaturally lengthened by whatever freak of nature fertilizer the farmer used to grow you.

we're ready for spring.

dear utah,

i'm not sure if you're aware of this, but it's march. march 9th to be exact. i thought i would take this moment to let you know that it's ok to stop being cold all the time. we had our fun with the snow and bitterly cold wind, really we did. but i've had my fill of all the joy getting my faced burned off by ice and northerly gusts can bring. so please take my personal suggestion to keep the warmer temperatures coming. everyone will love you so much more for it. don't worry- we have our bikes ready.

love,
amy

because provo is boring.

do you ever have those nights where you've just eaten way too much sugar and decide that you can't possibly sit home any longer without setting something on fire? it's called the "provo effect," combined with the "no spring break effect." photo documentation is provided to illustrate the behavior inspired by these dangerous effects.

1. taking pictures with religious statues

2. possible stone animal cruelty

3. awkwardly climbing trees

4. theft of lunch trays

5. subsequently using stolen lunch trays to slide down steep hills of snow-turned-rock solid ice

as you can see, the "provo effect" combined with the "no spring break effect" can lead to utterly random nights.

evidences of the bubble

so i was reading "the daily universe" (byu's newspaper) today and every week there are updates in the police beat. just to give you a little taste of the criminal world of the Y, i thought i'd share some of the best ones.

"March 1: A student called BYU police when she observed four individuals at the duck pond attempting to catch ducks in a net. The officer who responded saw the individuals leaving the duck pond and ran after them. After being questioned the students said they were simply hanging out and did not know that they should not tamper with the ducks..." [A LIKELY STORY! HA!]

"Feb. 28: BYU custodians called police when they discovered pink ink marks written on the walls in the Joseph F. Smith Building. The individual who wrote on the walls was caught on camera but was not identifiable. Police will clean up the image and investigate further." [Gosh I hope they catch the guy...what a menace!]

"Feb. 29: BYU police received a call reporting a white male wearing a gray hooded sweatshirt walking around Maeser Hill hitting people. When officers responded, the suspicious male was not on the premises." [Or perhaps the criminal mastermind packed a different colored hooded sweatshirt and quickly changed at the first sign of the cops! That would fool them...]

i sleep in fear each and every night.

was pizza really invented in italy?

(somehow i doubt it.)

so i made pizza last night for the very first time. and not just one pizza...but 2 (and a half kind of)! it was my turn for dinner group and i thought i'd do something kind of fun and chill. and i actually did enjoy making it- from the dough to the decoration. pepperoni, ham and pineapple, and half of a veggie (because i ran out of dough). deeeeeeelish! next time i make it i want to track down some round pans...just so it's more pizza-y. an extremely purple onion.

an extremely awesome pizza.