the magic formula for happiness.

do you ever feel like me, and you finally get sick of all the worry and stress... and you just sit down and decide, not to give up, but to just enjoy life for a second?

there are far too many reasons not to love life.

today i decided that biochemistry was far too stressful, and that i needed to sit still and just STOP WORRYING for one afternoon. while surfing netflix, i found the "happy" movie.

what makes you happy? 

when it comes down to it, a lot of things make me happy.

(i'm quite easy to entertain, actually...)

1. cuddling on the couch makes me happy. 

2. a hot cup of tea with a good book.

3. buying something random. especially from the dollar store.

4. fuzzy things.

5. feeling healthy.

6. learning stuff.

7. getting tips at work.

8. having someone remember your name.

9. inventing something for dinner that actually turns out. 

10. compliments. especially from strangers.

11. starting something new. a cause.

12. fruit.

13. having a clean room. (is it just me, or does having your room organized just make it feel like the rest of your life will just fall into place?)

14. finishing something.

15. sunsets.

16. holidays.

17. pinterest. and even better than pinterest: having someone ask you if you found something cute on pinterest, and saying "heck no! this was 100% jess!!!

18. having my toes painted and

19. having time to wake up in the morning and feeling drop-dead gorgeous when i walk out the door.

20. spending time with my family.

what did i learn from the happy movie?

life changes so quickly. unless we are truly happy and content with the person we are right now, we will be chasing an idea for the rest of our lives. 

we can choose to be happy.

accepting yourself completely comes as a part of the healing process.

there is no such thing as pleasure without pain.

"what do you want in life? to be successful, to be happy, and to live a long, healthy life."

what is it to be successful? and at what cost?

there is a lot of talk about a "toxic lifestyle" - the way that we live, trying to be more successful, and earn more money, and be more... just more.

i think it's time that we slowed things down.

take some time to sit down and read a book without feeling like you are wasting time.

i don't like to get too deep on my innermost thoughts here... but i had a thought the other day. i had basically failed a biochemistry test, and was thinking that my life was pretty much over because i need that class to get into grad school. 

so i called my mom. (aren't they just great? especially when the world seems like it is coming to an end.)

and after i told her how my life was ending, and feeling dejected, inadequate, and completely stupid, she just said, "it's gonna be ok."

is it bizarre that my whole day changed after that little comment? 

so grad school might have to wait a little while, but does that really mean my life is over???

no.

so when you are feeling like the world is ending, just think to yourself: it is going to be ok.

until there is an alien invasion, or an asteroid hurtling directly towards earth, i think that i'm going to keep moving on, keep moving forward, and just be happy.

even then, who knows?

:)

***

on a different note, this is my newest obsession/phase.

for the next 30 days, i doing the whole30 challenge!

find out more here.

*insert jaws theme song here*

[19.]

something i miss.

this view.

i know it might look a little bit dry and dusty... 

cuz it is.

but it is the best place on the planet. 

aside from maybe here:

so i don't actually have a picture of my house... and google earth only had a very tiny, grainy picture.

it just can't do it justice.

and you want to know the best part about my day?

getting this:

it's got a fin!

i'm sold.

home. well... ish.

i know that you've been getting sick of seeing pictures upon pictures of a little town i have lovingly called home over the past few months... but unfortunately, all good things have to come to an end. 

why are sleepovers so much stinkin' fun?

even just moving my bed 5 feet made the last few hours in jerusalem simply epic.

besides the fact that there was no place for my mattress...

so true... so true...

if any of you four are reading this... just because i go to a different school does not mean that you can just forget about me.

[muahaha!]

recipe for a dogpile:

one person

a) lying down on the ground

b) being forcibly thrown to the ground

+

as many enthusiastic friends as can balance on top

=

one cute pic and a whole lotta pain for joan on the bottom!

we got skillz.

...but not enough to make it all the way to the top.

good try guys.

"a" for effort!

 under the j.c...

shhhhhh!

the school rivalry never ends... not even in jerusalem!

we decided for our last day evvvver, that we would walk from bethphage to jerusalem. (this is following the route that they still go down on palm sunday every year)

this was walking downnnnnnnn... the road was quite steep actually.

hence the airplane.

ok... fine. my yoga is a little shabby.

fashionable? 

considering i've been wearing the same clothes for the last three months, i was quite excited for the change! 

i think i followed this kid for 5 minutes...

fresh. bread. smells. so. goooooooooooooooood!

gummies!!!

don't ask.

we all know that it had to end.

but none of us knew that it was going to be that hard.

you know how they tell you to rip it off like a bandaid?

you have to do it all at the same time.

you can't take half of the group and leave the rest!

but they did.

professor chaddy (chadwick) and his amazing wife kim

the first group.

this was the "sweet 16" that got stuck at jfk on the way over 3 long months ago.

hopefully their luck is better this time!

those of us who were left went out and watched our last jerusalem sunset.

the huntingtons

the camera just can't do it justice.

airplane rides - 17 hours.

airplane meals - 4.

sitting in front of a screaming child while we took off and landed? priceless. 

wanna hear a great story?

after sitting on a plane, and never thinking that i would ever see anything but the tops of clouds, crop circles and airport security... we finally landed in salt lake city!

after resurrecting my phone (for the first time in 3 whole months!) i called my ride, and found out that she hadn't gotten the memo about when i would get in.

hmmmmmm... problem!

but luckily, i had several saviors that happened to live in orem, and that were merciful enough to take a very jet-lagged, semi-conscious college student to orem to her friend's house! (thinking back, i barely remember the ride... i'm pretty sure that i thought i was more conscious than i actually was...)

the next day, i went to a friends bridal shower, called all of my family, went to ikea (and pretended like i wasn't the walking dead) and then headed back to meet with my cousins that were going to take me out to dinner.

the cousins picked me up, and we drove to bamboo hut for dinner.

the last time i went to bamboo hut was with my family.

*sniffle*

 but i only have 2 more days til i see them!

we walked in, and my cousin turned around and said, "let's sit here."

but there are people in those seats..........

it just took me a really delayed second to realize:

dad.

mom.

brooke.

whaaaaaaaaaaaat?

you guys aren't supposed to be here!!!

and then i squealed.

(i never squeal.)

best. surprise. evvvvvvver.

turns out, everyone was in cahoots.

and i had no idea.

i'm blaming it on the fact that i was suffering from a severe case of jess-has-had-absolutely-no-sleep-in-the-past-three-days...

i wasn't on the top of my sleuthing game.

we went and drove up to midway, where we got to go stay in a little swiss-themed condo.

this is more green than i've seen combined in the last three months.

it was a little bit of a shock to see hills this big... and this green.

we went for a walk after church.

(do you notice something different about this picture?) 

the drinking fountain is cool... yes.

but i have different clothes!!!

the drinking fountain was pretty fun too.

sooooo green!

i just can't get over it.

my little sis.

isn't she pretty?

:)

it's good to be home.

well... almost.

Galilee: Day 5

July 15

On the road again… I just can’t wait to get on the road again…

Today’s field trip was to Gamla. You know that little scripture, “a city set on a hill cannot be hid”? Well, Gamla is one of two cities that would have been visible across the Sea of Galilee while the Savior was giving the Sermon on the Mount. 

me and nutmeg... you can see gamla in the background.

The other was the polis (a large city) of Hippos. You would have been able to see (or at least know the location of) both of these cities if you were sitting on the other side of the lake. There isn’t much left of those cities now… and unfortunately, there was a little thing called a “war zone” that used to be here. I thought the banana plantations looked pretty harmless, but I guess that my parents want me to make it home safe, and that getting blown up while trying to hike up to Hippos wasn’t really a wise option. So we nixed that plan.

But Gamla was awesome! I’ve always had this really weird fascination with ruins… I think it is the 5-year-old in me that has dreams of becoming a famous archeologist that comes out at these places.

At Gamla, we learned the meaning of hiking uphill both ways. We also learned what it would feel like to be a Dr. Seuss character. 

here we have a who-zit and a whats-zit.

but these two are acne free!

But one really important thing about Gamla was the synagogue. After the Romans defeated the city (which was a Zealot stronghold during one of their rebellions) 4000 Jews were killed, and the other 5000 jumped to their deaths. The city was never rebuilt, so we actually got to go and sit inside of the ruins of a 1^st century synagogue. In Matthew 9, it talks about Jesus going “about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every sickness and every disease among the people.” If the Savior really did got “to all the cities” he would have gone there. And he probably did. So the house that we saw, the stones on which we sat, probably knew the Savior. And if they could talk, I wonder what they would have to say to us.

Gamla also had one of the best views ever. It was incredible. We hiked all the way up to the top, and then as far out on to the promontory as we could before we were leaping from rock to rock like a bunch of mountain goats. We finally gave up, took some awesome pictures, and then headed back. 

i don't want to be the commander that tried to attack this city...

but you have to give kudos to the roman commander that did take the city! 

On the way, Dan and I took a little detour and decided to stop by and see the olive press. Just a quick look, and then it was another hike back up to the bus. I think the hike back was worse. But we survived, and there was a glorious bathroom that awaited us at the end!

From Gamla, we went to Kursi. Even though we didn’t get to go to Hippos, this city played a bit of a role in the story of the devilled ham. Hehe. (i.e. the story of the devils that went out of the man into the herd of swine). Kursi was located in the Decapolis, and so they were not predominantly Jewish. This explains why there was a herd of swine nearby. Christ was walking through the area and met a man that was possessed by many devils and was living inside of the tombs in the hills. Jesus cast out the devils into the swine, where they ran down the steep hill (it’s not a cliff) and drowned in the sea below. The place is lovingly deemed today “piggy hill” in reference to its claim to that Bible story.

After the field trip, we got back to Ein Gev, and then we left again to go float the Jordan River. When they said “float” I assumed that they meant “in single person tubes down the river,” which kind of confused me when they told us that we were not supposed to get in the water… we got to the river, and it turns out that they were rafts. Like the kind you go white-water rafting in. That made a little bit more sense. Did we stay out of the water? Maybe for like 2 minutes… until we got around the corner, out of the view of the management. Then it went into a full-scale war. Cries of “boarding party!” and “attack!” were coming from all directions, and no one was safe in their own raft. I got kidnapped, and never quite made it back to my original raft. (They actually ended up with only 3 people in that one… and the people in it were so tiny that they just zoomed down the river!) My new raft was all for attacking… we managed to get 9 people in it at one point… right before we started sinking.

Note to self: even though I had a swimsuit on underneath, the white shirt was NOT a good idea for this outing. Especially since I only have a limited number of clean clothes for this trip.

We ended the day with a visit from our favorite ancient near east teacher… but I don’t think we could give him the attention that he deserved… we were all wiped out. I think this is actually one of the nights that I managed to get to bed at a somewhat decent hour. Scratch that… I still got to bed late, but this one was earlier than most.