New-ish Blog

I've decided that Steve and I can have a joint blog like most other married couples have, so I'll post some updates there:

http://morleys2.blogspot.com

Good times!

Back to school

We got a moment of relaxation with Martin Luther King, Jr. Day yesterday, but now I'm back at school. I didn't do as much homework as I should have, and unfortunately wasn't able to spend much time with Steve, but it was a nice break regardless. Steve has been working on the car (that my Grandpa Bruderer gave to us since he can't drive anymore) and it's been taking longer than anticipated. It's either do the work manually while buying the new parts for a good couple hundred dollars or pay someone else to do it for about $1400. We don't exactly have oodles of money to spend... so it's costing Steve his time. I wish I knew more about cars to help out, but I would slow things down by not knowing much of anything. Oh well.

What else of importance? I was considering just losing gavinmikhailfans.net since I stopped updating it and the forums were getting swamped with bots. I had closed down the forums and the domain name had expired... but I decided yesterday to just get it for another year anyway. Gavin is doing more now, and I think I could keep up with it. I spent so much time on the layout and it got a fair amount of traffic; I think it could really be something. Unfortunately, I should not have kept thephantomzoners.com since that has been abandoned with a lot of bots as well, but I guess I had set it to automatically renew so I've already been charged for another year. Oops. I'll set it so it doesn't do that again. Maybe this summer I can give Jephthah's Domain a new look. It's had that one for a while. I think I might change the color scheme to something more happy as well. I unfortunately came up with black and blue in high school thinking that black was the coolest background color there is. Eh, it's alright. But, I think white with maybe a dark blue and and yellow or something would be more eye-catching and exciting. Then people might be more motivated to actually stay on my website and look around. I've had it for a while and have definitely spent too much time on it to give it up. I can put whatever I want on that website. Yay for websites!

This all came up because my dad is coming up with another business. He wants a website for his Christmas light shows. He's making a program that makes it easier to program cooler stuff, and he wants to sell it. superstarlights.com has been bought and is waiting to be made. I've got a basic idea for it, but right now the roadblock is that byethost (my hosting) is having trouble sending me e-mails, so I still haven't gotten the information to login and upload things to it. I've contacted support... and we're getting there. Wow. I've made a lot of websites. I've got jephthahs-domain.com, spiderwebman.net, gavinmikhailfans.net, thephantomzoners.com (didn't do much to make this though, since it's just a pre-made forum), and now this superstarlights.com. A pretty good resume if I wanted a job making websites. In fact, my dad is paying me to keep up with spiderwebman.net (his other business) and superstarlights.com, so that's pretty cool. Extra money is always nice.

Wow. I think this could possibly win the competition for most boring blog post ever. Oops. I was trying to make these more exciting. Oh well. Maybe next time?

Classes This Semester

How do you like the new layout? I'm not completely sold on it, but figured I should change things a little bit since I've had the other one for a while. Eventually I might make one myself so I feel more unique.

I'm going to complain a little bit about powerpoint. Students of all grade levels know how painful they can be, and I think in college they tend to be a little worse since they have more material to teach, and most of them have never taken a teaching course. They just know what they're teaching really well, not necessarily how to be a good teacher. I'm really thinking of my philosophy teacher in particular this semester. His slides are just bullet points of sentences that are very wordy. He could condense them into bullet points of what we really need to learn. Then he talks, and talks, and talks, and talks, and talks about things not on the slide and I'm not sure what I'm supposed to get from the slides. Sometimes he says things on the slides and says that we won't be tested on them, and sometimes we will. I don't know how I'm going to do in the class. The good news is that I do enjoy doing the reading--even if there is a lot of it. I really enjoy philosophy and thinking about ridiculous things using logic. I just don't know what I'll need for the class, and his presentations are really really boring.

My schedule is slowly getting more packed during the day with less time for work, which just means less money. I won't be able to go to as many reed classes as I hoped... but hopefully I can still go to Geralyn's reed class on Friday. I'm finding that my palm pilot is really helping out. It helps my brain not have to remember everything. Whenever I remember a random thing I'm need to do, I add it to my to-do list. It's great.

It's weird to think that I'm getting so close to graduation. After this semester, it's just another year! Then a semester of student teaching, though that will be a lot different from normal school. It's all one class I'll be able to focus on. Hopefully I can student teach wherever Steve goes for grad school. He just has this semester, and then two more. It's amazing to think where my life is now. I'm almost in my 4th year in college, married, and 20 years old. The 20 years old isn't as hard to believe. I still feel young since most everyone else I'm around is older than me, namely Steve and all of his (now my) friends. Steve's 24 and they are around the same age. But, that's alright. I've always seemed to like hanging around people older than me, and now I'll be "hanging around" Steve for quite a while. :)

I swear there are more exciting things happening in my life. I don't know. I think this will do for now. I'll try to make future entries happen more often and be more exciting. Yay. :)

I'm Married

I suddenly got terrible at updating this thing. I was doing so well with the Sunday update thing, and then I left for Korea and Japan/got engaged and it all went downhill. Tons of new things to talk about!

First of all, I got married on August 28th, 2009 in the Oquirrh Mountain Temple to Steven Adam Morley. I am now Sarah Bruderer Morley and have most things changed to say that. It's still a hard question when people ask me what my name is, but it's getting better. :) I am definitely enjoying the married life. It was a little weird for the first month or so since it was really just us two. Two people in an apartment. No other roommates, no other distractions, just us. Not to mention that he's male! I'm used to living with girls and their perks, it's definitely different living with a guy, but I'm into the swing of things. His habits, my habits, and just our schedules. Now it feels pretty normal. :)

We finally got all of our wedding pictures as of today. It was annoying because our photographer said she would send us CDs of the pictures 5 weeks after the wedding for editing and whatnot. Alright, sounds good. Two months later, we have nothing. So I called, e-mailed, called again, etc. She wasn't very good at responding... anyway, we finally got our CDs about 10 weeks after our wedding to find out that about 5 of the pictures weren't written to the CDs correctly. So I called... nothing for about a week. I e-mailed, and then she responded in like an hour. It was quite unexpected. Anyway, we finally got them all. You can see almost all of them (except the 5 that didn't work) on facebook. This is a pretty good one:

What else? The semester has ended and the new one is starting tomorrow. I did slightly better than my GPA, so I guess being married hasn't been detrimental to my grades. :) I took CS 240 which was rather intimidating since it's known to be a very time consuming Computer Science class, but I ended up with an A! Yay!

For Christmas, Steve and I flew back to Texas and we actually got a white Christmas! That's absolutely insane! I've never had a white Christmas in Texas. The only times we had white Christmases was when we went to Utah for Christmas, which I think was only once. Maybe twice. I thought it was cool. Kind of interesting that the first Christmas Steve comes to Texas for Christmas, we happen to have a white Christmas. :P

I got some pretty awesome gifts as well. The biggest one was a palm pilot! I'm actually really excited about it, because then I should be more organized! I have my calendar all set up for my classes and such and hopefully I can just bring it with me and schedule things right when I hear about them, set it to remind me, and then I won't have to worry about remembering them! It's pretty awesome. I really like being organized.

This past week has been a lot of fun. We got back from Texas on the 29th and have had people over almost every day to play games and eat food. That's probably my favorite thing to do, just play games with friends and family. It was a little ironic that the only day we didn't have people over was on New Year's Eve since Steve wasn't feeling very well. We ended up just watching two movies and playing the game of Life. It's been a long time since I've played that game--a lot more luck is involved than I remembered. :P It was fun, though. Steve wasn't really up for a really intense strategic game anyway. It was just relaxing and fun.

So, happy 2010! I'll try to be better at updating this thing.

I'm getting married!

I know it's been an incredibly long time since I've updated... but... oh well. :)

Anyone who is reading this probably already knows, but I'm engaged! Steve and I are going to get married on August 28th at 10 AM in the Oquirrh Mountain Utah Temple. Yes, that's a week from tomorrow. Wow! It's coming so close!

Other than preparing a wedding, this summer has been pretty insanely awesome. After Winter semester ended, I had a week or so of staying at my Uncle Don and Aunt Debra's place until I left on tour with the BYU Wind Symphony to Japan and South Korea! Whoa! Yeah, I totally went to South Korea for a week and a half and then to Japan for a week and a half. It was basically an awesome experience, though I was sure aching the whole time to just go back and see Steve again. It probably took away from what I could have gotten out of the trip, but it was still awesome and testimony building. My favorite part was probably going to church in Korea and Japan and seeing how similar the church is EVERYWHERE in the world! It's amazing! I loved singing hymns in English while the rest of the congregation is singing the same melody in Korean or Japanese! The same spirit is there. Oh... such good stuff. I loved it.

I did also happen to see Steve in Korea for a couple days! That was awesome. It was incredibly hard to leave him again in Korea knowing that I'd have to wait yet another two weeks before seeing him... but I obviously survived. :) I love him.

After coming back from tour, I stayed with Ashley in her apartment for a couple days before going up to Idaho with Steve to meet some of his family on his mom's side. We still aren't engaged at this point... but everyone is expecting it. I'm just waiting on Steve to buy a ring and propose. :) That was a lot of fun--especially to spend some time with Steve that I had earnestly wanted for about a month. (The couple hours in Korea hardly fulfilled that desire to see him.) But, alas, it didn't last too long as I left a couple days after Idaho to go back to Texas for a couple days before going up Nashville with my mom for Fan Fair! We got to help run Billy Gilman's booth since I'm on the staff at BillyGilmanFans.com and meet up with Andrew and Greg again. Aww, such good times that was. At least my cell phone worked that time and I got to talk to Steve at night before going to bed. I also have many pictures from this, but I don't have my camera with me. I'll post them on facebook later. :)

After Nashville, we went back to Texas where we happen to meet Steve at the Dallas airport! Well, "happen" meaning we planned it all out and such. That was also great fun. He got to meet my parents and all of my siblings except Paul. He got to see the house I grew up in and the town I grew up in. Still not officially engaged yet and Steve is making all these excuses on why he doesn't have a ring and how he doesn't have any money. I know he didn't have much money and I was just hoping it didn't go on for too much longer since we really needed to get to planning if we wanted an August wedding. Okay... yes. We were planning things about 2 weeks or so before we were engaged. :)

So, we flew back to Provo together that Saturday on June 20th. That night Steve and I had planned a dinner and a movie date at his place at 7. I thought it was cute to actually plan a date since usually it's, "What should we do tonight?" "We could watch a movie at your place like we always do." "Yeah, alright. We'll have ice cream, too." Something like that. So, I show up at his place at 7 (he insisted on me not coming earlier) and he's standing at his door with this grin on his face. He's definitely planning something. Proposal? No... he doesn't have a ring! Right?

I walk in and he has dinner prepared with candles on the table and classical music playing in the background. Oh boy. Somethings up. So we have dinner, and during dinner he tells me that he got the movie we can watch tonight in the mail. "What movie?" "You'll see." He won't tell me the movie? What the heck? After dinner he gets it out and it's a special edition DVD of "V for Vendetta" which just happened to be the movie we watched on our first date back in February. Okay... I'm really suspicious now. So he asks me to go ahead and turn on the TV and put the DVD in, so I did. I turn on the TV... open up the DVD case and this is what I see:

(That's a picture of Steve and I in front of the Seoul Korea Temple)

I looked at it not knowing whether I should answer just then or what, and so I looked up at Steve and he's walking towards me and he has a little black box and opens it... a ring! He has a ring! Not just any ring... but a ring that's absolutely perfect!

I gave him a couple guidelines on the type of ring that I'd like, and he did a great job. :) :) :) You can see the video when he actually proposed on facebook if you haven't already. Just as a warning, though, there is a lot of a kissing. ;)

So, I called everyone I could of think of and explained that same story to a bunch of people and went home utterly excited and overwhelmed. I'm getting married. I'm engaged. I'm only 19! I'm going to turn 20 two days after I get married on the 30th of August. I honestly never thought that I would get married so soon. It just kind of... happened.

So, after that Summer term started and we dove in head first into this huge check list of things we need to get done for the wedding. I took English 316 and Computer Science 236 and planned a wedding. Well... helped planning. Steve and I both worked on things. He was working during the day while I was at school, and in the evenings we'd try to get things done. At this point pretty much all the big stuff is done! We just need to actually go out and buy the decorations and food that we've planned on and get it all setup. Tomorrow night I'm meeting with my Aunt Kristi to see how I want my hair done when I get married. On Tuesday night I met with the Stake President to get my Temple Recommend and Living Ordinances Recommend signed. That was an awesome moment as well. Oh man, I'm so excited. It's sooo close! A week from tomorrow! This week went by quickly... next week surely will too with all the planning. I'm going to be married before I know it. Wow.

Classes finished and I'm pretty sure I pulled off an A in English 316 and a B+ in Computer Science 236. Not too shabby. It was almost an A- in CS 236, but I won't complain too much about a B+ for a pretty hard and time consuming class.

Pretty much I'm just going to Education Week and learning a bunch about marriage and life in general (volunteering at it as well so I could go to the classes for free) and just anticipating the 28th. Oh boy. So close.

I think that'll be it for now. I hope to see you at one of the three receptions!

School's Out For Summer!

I'm officially done with my 4th semester at BYU. I should have this nice feeling of release and freedom from being done, but instead I'm just kind of there. I think I'm just a little nervous about some of my grades. I'm not going to fail any of them, but I'm almost positive I'm going to have my lowest GPA so far this semester... which really isn't too bad... but whatever. :P It'll be good. It's mostly Calculus 2, which was a freakin' beast this semester. I failed every test, but managed to be just about the average every time. It's a matter of how much they curve. I'm hoping for a B of some sort... which for a 4 credit class won't really help me out much. Oh well. It'll be okay. :)

Yesterday I moved out of my apartment, since they kicked us out, and am now at my Aunt Debra and Uncle Don's place for the next week until I head out to Korea and Japan for the Wind Symphony tour. I'm really excited to head out, but I've also this certain level of aprehension of not knowing exactly what to expect, nervous that I've forgotten something I'm supposed to have gotten since I was kind of late jumping on the tour bandwagon and haven't gotten all the information I'm supposed to have gotten the entire semester/year. Not to mention I have this huge solo I just got the part for about a week or so ago. I mean, I can play it. It's a matter of having a good read and whatnot. Which, I don't really have oodles of English Horn cane to kill a bunch of reeds with. It'll be okay, I'll just keep telling myself that. :) We have rehearsals on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday from about 9-4 or something ridiculous like that. It'll be like an intense All-Region that ends with going to Korea and Japan for 3 weeks and performing. Oh boy, I really need to get back into practicing so it doesn't kill me when we rehearse. I think I'll do that tomorrow.

As far as Steve and I go (the boyfriend I went on about last entry), everything is going absolutely fantastically. There was the "Traditions Ball" that we went to about 2 weeks ago, and it was a wonderful night. Here we are all dressed up and such:

Aww... we're so cute. :) I love that picture. Right now he is in Korea since that's where he served and mission just visiting and whatnot. Yes, he was just "happen" to be there when I am for the Wind Symphony tour. Basically I really miss him right now, but I'm able to talk to him on gmail chat, so it's all good. I'm really excited to go to Korea to see him as well. :)

What else is there to go on about? Well, I've got a lot ahead of me in the next month or so. So, I'm going to be here for a week, rehearse like mad at the end of the week, leave for Korea at 5 AM Monday morning (ugh), fly on a ridiculously long flight basically all day Monday and get there and settle in Tuesday, including a performance, I'm pretty sure. I'll be in Korea for about a week and a half, and then we'll go to Japan (which will include a wake up call at about 3 AM...) for another week and a half. Then I'll come back to Salt Lake/Provo for another week or so. (I was going to try to come back to Texas ASAP after that, but I'm hoping to use that time to spend with Steve after a while of not seeing him... yes, I'm somewhat pathetic. :P) Then, I'll come back to Texas for about a week, and then head up to Nashville with my mom for the CMA Music Fest again and hang out with Greg and Andrew. It'll be a lot of fun. :) Then, after a week of that, I'll come back to Texas for a couple days, and then finally go back to Provo a couple days before I start the Summer term and move into my new apartment. It's pretty busy and travel-filled, but it'll be a lot of fun. Traveling really is a lot of fun, although exhausting. I'm not suspecting I'll get much sleep the 3 weeks I'll be in Korea and Japan. I also suspect that I won't really fully adjust to the new time zone (which is like 15 hours ahead...) and then come back utterly exhausted and probably sleep for 24 hours straight. Ugh.

Alright, I think that'll do for this update. I'll try to remember to update next Sunday, but then I actually have an excuse to not update for a while since I'll be out of the country. I have absolutely no idea if I'll have access to a computer. I'm hoping so since I'll have a ridiculous amount of e-mail to go through... we'll just see. I'll be sure to take a lot of pictures. :)

Sarah has a boyfriend??

Yes, this is very true. Sarah does indeed have a boyfriend. Weird! That's my excuse for not keeping up with my blog, as well. We are both rather busy during the week, so we really only get to spend that much time together over the weekends, which include Sundays. Oh well. Here I am before Conference and I figured I should try to post to catch people up with my life.

This week was basically incredibly busy. I kept staying in the Talmage working on this lab for CS 124 until midnight, only to not finish it in time. It turns out I spent a couple hours on something I didn't have to do... which, I did learn a lot from, but it's not like I have oodles of extra time to learn something I don't have to. I'm pretty sure it's done now, hopefully it will pass off tomorrow. I also had 2 tests I took back to back, with another test I'll take tomorrow, and I had to play my mock jury in Master Classes and attempt to practice with my accompanist since Hindemith is incredibly hard to play with the Piano. Oh yeah, and I had a concert Thursday night. But, no worries! The week is over! There's just this week, and then half of next week, and then FINALS! It's so freakin' close!

Okay, so I'm dating. That's was something else that was somewhat upsetting this past week as well. I was so busy (and so was he, with this project that never seems to end) that we could never do anything. I'd come home and see my roommate and my 5th roommate (basically her fiance) spending time together studying or on the couch, and I'd get jealous rather than annoyed. "She has time to spend with her boyfriend..." But yesterday we went bowling and then watched a movie, and today I'm going to his place to watch general conference. :) 

Something that made this week bearable was April Fool's day. Steve and I (that's his name, by the way, Steve Morley) were "officially" dating on the 25th (last Wednesday), and then on April Fool's we figured it'd be fun to be engaged. Somewhat of an impulsive decision at about midnight in the Talmage labs the night before. Oh boy, it made April Fool's utterly hilarious. It all started with my mom sending me a text that morning that said, "Sooooooo I saw facebook. April Fool's?????????? Call me. Love, Mom" LOL! I laughed so hard! I called her back, and she was actually believing it. I had to actually say, "Mom, I'm not engaged. It's April Fool's." It's been a week! A week since we've been dating! I am at BYU, but I could never make a decision like that in a week. Steve was getting congratulations all day long, as well. Wednesday was the peak of my stress/business this week, and I happened to have a great day because of my fake engagement. Steve did mention that this was kind of crying wolf, which I guess it is, but it was fun anyway. :) I figure when I actually get engaged it'll be something people will be expecting, and it will most likely not be on April Fool's Day.

If any of you don't frequent facebook, I'll include some pictures for your enjoyment. :)

Aww, we're so cute. :)