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Want to know something exciting!? After years (or maybe just months) as just a spectator...

This is #forrealsies happening. The #REAL Gina Jackson had joined the twittershpere. #hashtag #tweet #holdtheapplause

— Gina Jackson (@Ginakiah) April 8, 2013

I've joined in on the twitter fun! Aaaaaand I've already made a typo. But feel free to follow me so my tweets aren't speaking to no one. :)

Little Big Things

It is getting close to the end of the semester so things are getting a little crazy and I'm super duper busy (and stressed about final projects and exams!). But here is a recap of the crazy awesome things that have happened this week!

The Holi Festival of Colors was this past weekend! It is always fun to have a chalk powder fight with my best friends and a gaggle of strangers who have all forgotten about personal boundaries- but my airways always pay the price. This year I tried bringing a bandanna to cover my mouth and nose but I still had black snot for a day or two. 

My friend Bre and I dyed Easter eggs with Kool-Aid! It was the two of us alone in the kitchen dying eggs.... in an apartment that neither of us live in.  Our dear friends who actually live in this apartment were all distracted by their ever-so-interesting homework.

The Kool-Aid egg dying technique worked surprisingly well! Super fast and super intense colors.

This week I also paid first and last month's rent for my housing contract about to start at The Colony! I AM SO FREAKING EXCITED TO LIVE THERE!!! Also, that was probably the most cask I had ever held in my hands at one time. I felt very rich for the twenty minutes it took to go from the bank to the housing office. Now I feel very poor.

 To celebrate, my future roommate Ana and I had lunch at the only place we could still afford after handing our life savings over to The Colony.

This week we discovered that if you go to Macy's at 3 in the morning the cheerful employees will be stocking shelves and more than happy to part with the leftover boxes. That is one step closer to moving into our dream apartment.

*Now I would like to take a moment to say that YES, I do love my current roommates, they are super awesome. And YES, I have also really really really enjoyed living in Centennial and my ward is AWESOME. I love them.*

And finally, they added another monitor to my computer at work. Now I have double the screen space to squint at spreadsheets and databases every week day! Huzzah!

Finally, this week is General Conference, which means two things:

1. Two night slumber party with the Roman Gardens girls. Caffeine, McDonalds, games, super bed, and learning how to play poker.

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2. It means GENERAL CONFERENCE! Here is the Facebook event. I am so looking forward to listening to hours and hours of love, hope, charity, peace, comfort, and testimony this weekend. Is there anything better? Probably not. :)

Pop-Tart Vending Machine Dinner

"I have the rumblies in my tummy that only HANDS IN-N-OUT can satisfy!"

Today at work I was minding my own business when BAM! A wild survey for In-N-Out appeared.  I made the giant mistake of  actually taking that survey even though I knew thinking about mouth-watering burgers and fries was not a good idea when the only thing I had eaten in the past 8 hours was a single spoonful of peanut butter.  A few minutes later my tummy had the rumblies that only In-N-Out could satisfy, but my food options were limited to the BYU Broadcasting vending machines..... so, vending machine Pop-Tarts is was! yaaaaay!

An hour later my roommates offered to give me a ride home from work because they were "in the area."  In this case, "in the area" is code for "just got done eating at In-N-Out and remembered you were getting off work on the way back to the apartment." The worst part was that I could still smell the grease when I got into the car...

My tummy still has those rumblies. I'm sorry tummy.

Scheduling Problems

I got an email with the sign-up sheet for the upcoming Locks of Love event at BYU.  I've actually been waiting all year for this event because I would get an awesome free haircut while donating 10 inches of my hair... and if I totally hate my hair being short or it looks terrible I could just say "hey, I needed to cut off a certain length to be eligible to donate so don't judge me for wanting to help people!" I'm too much of a scaredy-cat to make any drastic changes to my hair otherwise, so I really needed this excuse and was getting super excited about it!

BUT then I realized the event is March 8th, and that week/weekend I am going to be in Ohio at the ITEEA conference for TechEd majors. Dreams = crushed.

Not Crocodile Tears

Do you ever get upset and cry over something small and stupid like your friends not going ice skating and then get even more upset with yourself and cry harder because you are crying over something which is totally not worth crying over?

Because maybe that is just me.
And maybe I need to start getting more sleep.

Hello 2013

So far you have been a bitterly cold wonderland trapping me inside and resigning me to my usual lazy habits of movie watching and Facebook stalking.  I hope we become better friends.  The kind of friends who make and keep promises, find time for responsibility and fun, eat plenty of vegetables and ice cream together, and learn and keep secrets each other's secrets.  Let's have nicknames and adventures, and come backs.  Let's talk, sing, read, dance, run, swim, jump, skip, stumble, tumble, build, listen, climb, and soar.  Let's help each other do better. Let's be better.

With anticipation,

Gina Louise Jackson

R.I.P. Betty

Sometimes bad things happen to good people. Sometimes you are left in situations thinking "why did this have to happen to me?"  Sometimes your know people who you think are invincible, but aren't.
And Sometimes your best technological friend of the past three years, who has survived many dangerous hits and falls in the past, falls off a soft couch cushion and onto a carpeted floor.  And sometimes the shock of that short fall leaves that friend in need of rest- a rest that it will never awaken from.  And when that happens and you are left there, feeling lost and all alone in your apartment -when all of your friends and roommates have gone home for the holidays to see their families  -when your own family is hundreds of miles away... remember, that bad things happen to good people because they are the ones strong enough to handle it.

Good bye Betty, thank you for being a friend.

Also, this post might be a little melodramatic.

Also also, remember that a broken cell phone isn't the end of the world

(even if you are a starving college student that can't afford a new one)!

I'm going to take this as the start of a new wireless-communication-free adventure....

...that will last for an indefinite amount of time...

...where I will face perils unheard of among the greater part of young adult society for many years...

...I may or may not survive...