Here I am on a Friday night...

Just getting ready for some Torchwood: Miracle Day!
For those of you who haven't watched Torchwood, I highly suggest you give it a try. Well, that is if you like supernatural sci-fi shows.

Lately I've just been wanting to get back to school. Strange, I know. I think it's because I want to do more photography! I love summer vacation and I really like being with my family, but for some reason this summer I have really been sapped of my creative streaks. I just haven't come up with many ideas or executed the ones I have. Major boo!
So luckily, with new classes, I believe that my creative bounds will be tested. Sort of like reality TV shows. Well namely one that I've been watching lately. Project Runway.

Once again, if you haven't seen it, go watch an episode or two. Google it. I love this show because it challenges people to stretch their creativity. Finding ways to make clothes using inspirations like cities, pieces of art, and other crazy stuff. Or they have to make a garment using only fruit or things you would find in a pet store. I think it's amazing!
Another great TV show is the Amazing Race!

The other day we played a game in my singles ward. It was based off of the Amazing Race. In teams we had to complete several challenges like walking with a cup of water on our heads or decyphering a code with words in a cemetery. It was really cool. I got really competitive, I always get competitive in games like that. Haha, anyway, we were the white team and the last ones to leve from the first 3 challenges. Luckily in the cemetery we caught up and worked our way to first place. We kept our winning pace until the very last clue and area, and there I lost the whole competition for my friends and teammates! DX It was horrible! The last clue said to run up to the top of the baseball bleachers at North Ogden Park but I didn't hear the "top of the bleachers" part. So the black team caught up right behind us and they immediately ran to the top of the bleachers as my teammates did as well. Only I stayed at the bottom thinking that there was nothing else to do! So thanks to me the whole team lost first place and came into an oh-so-close second place. D:
Haha, I really don't care. But my other teammates made a big deal of it. It sort of stinks when others ostracize you just cause you lose something. That's one reason why I don't like playing sports. But all the same, I think that we did a good job coming up from the bottom all the way to the top.
I'm so excited to go to school! Woot woot! Even though grades aren't that fun to think about, at least I have 2 Photo classes, 1 Framemaking class, 1 Asian Studies class, and an Art History class!  There's also going to some free time. Except for Wednesdays. :P
This semester is going to rock!

Dear Nicki Minaj

Sometime after I got home from my mission I got your album Pink Friday.

Yes, there you are, with your crazy looking Barbie leg. I didn't really listen to any of the music seeing as I'm not really into rap. I thought that your rap would be like everyone elses. But oh, how I was wrong. Well, wrong and right. Your rap is, in a way, like everyone elses because you sing/talk really fast and use some not so wholesome language at times. I'm not proud of it. But you're different in your ability to catch me and keep me reeled in. Mostly with your song Super Bass.
Super Bass is awesome. It's beyond awesome! It's BE-AWESOME! Catchy, fun, and great to sing. It's my goal to memorize the whole song by the time I get back to Provo. But one thing I love about you Nicki, is that you dress up and get funky without all the campiness of Lady Gaga. With you it's just 100% cool. Here are some snaps from Super Bass the music video to prove my point.

I really want to try and do a photo shoot using black lights. Like this. ^^^^^^
Anyway, thanks for the music Nicki. Keep doing what you do. But hopefully with less profanity. You are too beautiful to use it. :D
Love always,
Spencer

I am so bad at blogging. Summer update.

I am so lame! I don't ever update my blog. Even though lots of cool stuff happens in my life. Well... sort of cool... Okay not that cool. But stuff does happen!
Anyway, here's the update for summer. I've been at home and I've been able to get some cool stuff done around here. The main highlight of the summer so far has been my training to become a yoga teacher.

Yes, I'm going to do this one day. And I'll be that thin.

 I am learning from my friend Jo at Yoga Jo's here in North Ogden. (yogajos.com FREE classes, come see me teach one day) It's a lot of fun and I'm learning a ton of different things about the body, the mind, and even meditation. All good things.
On top of these teacher training classes and my own personal yoga practice, I've been out running/jogging/walking everyday in order to help my workout. It's been sort of killer. I've been either jogging for 1.5 to 3 miles or I've been walking/jogging for two hours on and off on the Ogden River trail. Good stuff. I feel a lot healthier than I did coming home from Provo, and I have learned to discipline myself to go out and do something to get my heart pumping.
In past news, my family and I went to Yellowstone National Park about 2-3 weeks ago and we had a great time. It was my first time back since after my mission. I love YNP and we were able to explore the park more, without bear attacks. I even exercised my Nature Photo skills and knowledge to make cool images. Here is one.

Lower Falls, Yellowstone National Park

Now, there is a badly edited part in the sky, but come on, I was just learning. :) Anyway, so I got some pretty good stuff out of it! And rest and relaxation is always a +. If you haven't been to Yellowstone, please go soon. It's a wonderful place. Also Grand Teton National Park. Example:

The Grand Tetons at Oxbow Bend

But now I'm back in the city of Ogden. We came back from Yellowstone on July 4th in the morning and were here in time to celebrate Independence Day with our neighbors and with fireworks. Just stay at home fireworks, not my annual Weber High football field fireworks. Cause I didn't have anyone to go with. :( Anyway, we still had a great time and I was able to get to sleep even with all the booms and crashes going on outside.
So now that all that stuff is done and over with, I'm just looking forward to finishing yoga teacher training, which actually won't happen for a while and also it's good to know that Pioneers Day is coming up, which is always a fun celebration. More fireworks! :D
Oh! I almost forgot the most important part! I've been practicing the art of editing my photos. Well, of people. The photos of nature seem a little easier to edit, but with people you have to worry about editing skin, eyes, lips, blemishes, and many other small details. So I was looking to take some simple portraits and I got my friend Sam to help me. As much as I think I'm a "creative" artist (cause all artists are creative), I did pretty cookie-cutter portraits that look like studio shots or maybe even senior portraits. Nice, simple, good looking, just not all that innovative and crazy. But it turned out for the better. They were easier to edit and I think I did well. Here they are.

Pretty good work, right? At least I hope so. I know that when I get back to school in Fall I will have a specific class about editing and in Winter a specific Portrait class. But for now, I think that I did pretty well. And what's really nice is that a lot of my friends actually said that they want me to do photos for them now! In conclusion, I might start a small little business of portraits and see where I can go from there. It was just good to actually do a photo project in the summer since I've been vegging around the house.
And that brings me to my final comments. I have new photo ideas!! *applause* This next semester I'll be taking a class with 4x5 cameras.

Vintage no?

And I already have my photos somewhat planned. I want to make images that can be used in a series so for each assignment I want to link the image to a Fairytale. It's mostly been spawned by my new-found love of the musical Into the Woods. (Go watch it on Netflix! Now!) But yeah, I am going to do photoshoots based on fairytales and hopefully all will turn out great.
Okay, this is actually a long post with all the photos and everything.

The Happiest Place on Earth

For the past week and a half I've been in San Juan Capistrano, California. I came with some family friends to see their sons graduation and to just plain relax. Luckily there as something else planned as well. DISNEYLAND!

Retro no?

 Now, I have had fun this whole week. I love this family and we have made jokes and played games and gotten along so well, but for some reason, yesterday seemed to be the pinnacle of this trip. I was even planning on not going because I didn't want to spend the money! ($105 for a 1 day park hopper) But I'm so happy that I did. I went to the family that I live with in Provo and we started off the day by getting tickets to a show called World of Color, which I shall come back to soon enough. This was in California adventure so we decided to hang around for a while in there. We went to the new Little Mermaid ride, which is like the Peter Pan ride and the Snow White ride, you don't really do anything but sit down in a giant clam and watch as the movies plot unravels in front of you. Then we rode some rockets that are like giant multi person swings. Then we decided to go to the California Screamin, one of the best rides in the park.

Just a small part of the ride. Photo by Wikipedia

This ride is awesome! From the beginning it goes from 0-60 mph in 3 seconds or something like that. Really fast, really exhilarating. And not only that, it as at this ride where I found out what Single Rider passes are. When someone is riding along they can move basically to the front of the line and be added on to the ride if there is a space empty. Basically the normal 30 minute wait to get into the ride was cut down to 2 minute wait, it was fantastic! After that we went to the Ferris Wheel and had a good time relaxing and enjoying the breeze high up in the air.
Later, and after an incident where I wasn't able to push a stroller through a gate, we had a lunch break and then moved on to Disneyland. Sadly Space Mountain was closed, our first ride destination, so we started our way to other rides including The Pirates of the Caribbean (fully decked out with Captain Jack Sparrow, Captain Barbosa, and Black Beard), The Haunted Mansion, The Matterhorn, The Safari Boat Ride, Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, the Indiana Jones Adventure, and Splash Mountain.
We ate Dole Whip from the Tiki Tiki Room.

This horrible photo is not mine, but I used it cause it shows the Whip and the Float

And I bought pins for myself and for my friends! (So expensive but so worth it.) I even got some good ol' Disney cell phone covers! One of Donald Duck and one of Steamboat Willie.
Really there was so much going on that the day flew by, but there was one thing left, the water show World of Color. I've been to Fantasmic, and I really like that water show. I think it's probably changed since I've last seen it, but I thought it was cool how villains were incorporated and I was expecting the same type of show in World of Color. But boy was I wrong!
World of Color started of phenomenally which fountains shooting out water and lights illuminating different colors. If you don't know what I'm talking about, check out the photo.

But these fountains shot to great heights, even rivaling the Ferris wheel. Then the awesome music came on singing "The world is a carousel of color!" and we all were enchanted by swirling fountains and stuff.
THEN, the link ins began. I had a feeling they would start off the show with the Little Mermaid, it's sort of tradition or something, and plus since the new ride opened they had to showcase it somehow. Here's the weird thing and a sort of confession, I love the Little Mermaid. I know it's weird for a guy to like a show as girly as this, but I can't help myself. So when I heard the iconic words come out from the blue water saying "I wanna be, where the people are", and as I saw a projected image of Ariel swimming, I got really sort of sentimental.

These water projections were awesome!

Little did I know that this was the beginning of a sentimental rollercoaster. Part of Your World finished and in came Under the Sea, then Finding Nemo, then another sentimental and beautiful scene from Wall-E where Wall-E and Eve dance in outer space. It was wonderful. Next Toy Story and Up. Then another sentimental part when Aladdin and Jasmine began to sing A Whole New World, and the magic carpet flew across the watery screen. But for some reason, I became really emotional when, during a transition, some of my favorite lyrics were sang during a very ethereal montage. "What I love most about rivers is..." and then Pocahontas dove off a waterfall and then began a big scene of Pocahontas music and epicness, inspiring wet eyes.

The waterfall

Then came other pieces like Pirates, and even the scary Night on Bald Mountain. Towards the end, they had a beautiful montage of parenting moments in Disney, like Mufasa and Simba, Bambi, and Dumbo. They showed the scene where Belle confesses her love for the Beast and his transformation and then they transitioned into the Princes and Princesses, with Flynn Ryder and Rapunzel, Tiana and Prince Naveen, Snow White and the Prince, and of course Aurora and Prince Philip. After this kiss fest, (haha blush) they culminated everything into a great relapse of all the characters seen (once again, wet eyes), and ended strongly with the World of Colors theme song and Mickey as the Sorcerers Apprentice projected on a wall of water controlling the whole magical scene.
In few words, it was the greatest water show I've ever seen and I was very sad to see it end. However it was the end to an extraordinary day at Disneyland and at California Adventure. Sure, we didn't get to ride Space Mountain. Sure, they didn't have Mulan or Hercules or Nightmare Before Christmas in the water show. But it was just too great to even care about the small stuff.
It was one of the best days I've had since I've been back off my mission. But alas, I know that I need to return to the real world now. And that's alright, I think the magic that happens at Disneyland and in the World of Disney can stay with us throughout our time away. I have goals of going back regularly and I would love to do an internship there, which are often on posters at BYU. I think that even though Disney is totally unrelated to the Gospel and to the Church, there are many similarities. Good will always win. There is a light inside of all of us that we should let shine. Look for the good and light in the world and not for the evil and darkness.

So I feel like I learned something at Disneyland yesterday and it was wonderful to remember all of those great moments.
PS, I didn't take ANY photos on my Canon. I know, it's crazy! But I was so caught up in the moment, I didn't even think about taking time to take photos.

Going Viral

So for the past 2 weeks I've been feeling pretty sick. I have headaches in the front and back of my head, sharp and dull respectively. I've had the chills even when the sun is out and I've overheated at night and gotten hot flashes. I feel really light headed and dizzy every once in a while. All in all I didn't even know what was going on. It all started when I got back from my nature photo camping trip (the photos will be dispersed throughout this post) and I was thinking that I was just dehydrated and so I drank a lot of water for 2 weeks. But when I didn't get better I got scared.

I called my parents and they told me to go to the clinic. My mom thought that I most likely had Mono, which is possible ONLY because I share bottles every once in a while. But I realized that my bottle sharing hasn't happened for a while. My cousin, however, reminding me that Mono takes 6 weeks to manifest or whatever and so maybe it's been growing for a while.

Anyway I went to the doctor and had them examine me. It was fairly easy, not even a real physical. They drew blood and I had to wait as they tested it. The doctor also suspected that it was Mono but he said that the blood test would help confirm it. When he came back into my room, he stood by the counter and cryptically said, I have good news and bad news. The good news was that I didn't have Mono and that my white blood cell count is normal. However the bad news was that the Lymphocytes in my blood were low, and that meant that I definitely had a viral infection or disease. Also, they didn't know what I had. The doctor said that their Mono test isn't that reliable (I don't know why, don't you think all clinics or hospitals should at least have up to date, more reliable tests like that?). So he said he was going to send my blood to another clinic or blood place and have them check it there. Then we would be able to know for sure what I have. So he gave me some medicine to take for a sort of sore throat I've been having due to allergies and something for the light head. Sadly the sore throat stuff makes me drowsy, not very good with my already problematic fatigue.

Today I took the medicine at 1 and then I clonked out until 6. Craziness.
Anyway, the point is peeps, you may have to stay away from me for a little while. And I you sadly. I don't know what I'm going to do about school.

Well, at least I got the photos. I don't know what they have to do with my virus.