reader's forum

i am growing to love the daily universe. last week this letter was in the reader's forum:

I was horrified by the photo of Michael Phelps that appeared in The Daily Universe on Monday. Phelps, a rather muscular and good looking man, was shown shirtless along with another attractive swimmer.

Doesn’t The Daily Universe understand the women of BYU’s campus cannot lead virtuous lives with clean thoughts when they’re presented with pornography at every turn?

What makes this problem even worse, though, is the fact that male sports teams all across campus routinely practice with their shirts off. Perhaps men, in their own purity and innocence, don’t understand how the female mind works. Seeing a woman in a bikini has no effect on a man, so he doesn’t understand what it does to a woman when she sees a topless man.

Let me explain: unlike men, we can only control our thoughts to a point. When men walk around half-naked, they turn themselves into pornography, and thus they tempt us.

So, out of my deep love and respect for the men on this campus, I beg them: please stop turning yourselves into pornography. Show yourselves enough respect to cover up and save the sight of your naked torso for your wife. Besides, women need you to be the gate-keepers of chastity.

-Emily BelangerLee, N.H.

at first i thought this girl was serious and then i thought she had to be kidding, but i still wasn't quite sure until i looked on the daily universe website. click here to read all the responses. i don't know if you will, but i got quite a kick out of what some of the squares at byu said. some people just need to relax.

that's a little racist

i got this sample of a tinted moisturizer from sephora a while ago and i thought i would try it out this morning. it was a little too c. thomas howell in soul man for me.

it was one of those "one color fits all" tinted moisturizers. i'm going to have to disagree.

plaid shirts required

one good thing about utah is that there is a fair pretty much every weekend. i don't know if there were fairs in colorado, but i never went to one until i came to utah.

post river trauma, we decided to go up to the weber county fair in ogden and we had a great time. don't worry the plaid is not a coincidence.

i think this was called a scottish highlander. it was kind of huge and precious.

i had to wait like five min. for this woman to stop petting it so i could take a picture. gross.

this cow smacked her with its ear about half a second later.

lindsey's a little timid now.

this thing was huge.

all i remember is that it was from brazil.

i am apparently really pissed that this goat won't look at me.

these goats really loved each other.

i swear this animal doesn't have a head.

karaoke. terrifying.

but seriously, does anyone have any milk?

we went to a ysa thing at the u after.

that explains the expression on my face.

fool me once, shame on you. fool me twice, shame on me.

i hate the provo river. and i'm pretty sure it hates me because i haven't heard of anyone else having as much bad luck on that river as i have.

last summer we floated the provo river when stacy came to visit. we had fun, but it was also horrible because we weren't very good at navigating and kept screaming as we ran into every single rock and tree along the way. oh, and when we almost drowned that wasn't very enjoyable either. but we did still have fun, it was like a crazy little adventure. at least that's how i remember it.

i decided it would be a good idea to join lindsey, andrea and the ward to float the provo river yesterday. i had kind of been wanting to do it again and it was going to be free, so i jumped at the opportunity. this was a giant mistake. it has been blazing hot lately but we chose to go on the coldest day of the summer. i knew it would be cold, but i thought maybe that would just add to the adventure. it sure did.

andrea, lindsey and i started down the river in our tubes. we didn't want to get separated, so we held onto each other. the water was pretty darn cold, but we were okay once our body parts started to go numb. then as we are just floating down and minding our own business, this family comes by on a raft and they thought it would be a good idea to throw buckets of glacier water on us. they just laughed and laughed because apparently we didn't look cold enough or wet enough.

it seems that if you hold onto each other's tubes it is more difficult to navigate, but we didn't figure this out until about half way, so we ran into everything and it was quite painful, especially because we were so cold. then we got stuck by this huge branch, so we just thought we could push off it and go on our merry way. ummm, that isn't exactly what happened. andrea got sucked under the branch and her tube capsized. i literally was thinking, "oh my gosh, andrea is going to die." seconds later i get sucked under, then lindsey right after me. as the current dragged me along all of the rocks at the bottom of the river (thank goodness it was shallow, otherwise i most likely would have drowned) i was trying with all my might to hop back onto my tube, and i just couldn't do it for the life of me. i was pretty much terrified at this point and finally was able to get on.

then it came time to get out and walk around the bridges. since i had just gotten drenched from head to toe, i was so cold i could barely use my muscles to lift my tube and get out. with some help i was able to get out and put my flip flops back on and start walking, which is really painful from all the dragging and my big toe was bleeding. a good looking and nice man noticed our uncontrollable shivering and the flatness of our tubes and offered to pump them up for us, which made a huge difference. he was really nice and told us he couldn't believe they let us go out because we could get hypothermia. for reals. we didn't stop shaking the entire time while he was talking to us and pumping up all of our tubes.

we got back in and had learned our lesson, so we didn't connect tubes and ended up doing the last half of the river alone. i don't think i have ever prayed that much in my entire life. i paddled the entire time and kept asking Heavenly Father to help me get down as quickly as possible because i was not having fun, and to help me navigate so i wouldn't get hurt anymore. Heavenly Father answers prayers guys, because i didn't have anymore complications and i got down that river pretty darn fast. it isn't too much fun doing it alone, and it also isn't very fun when little boys sitting on the rock you can't get away from think it is really funny to splash you. i was so annoyed and of course yelled at them as i floated away. "thanks a lot, reeeeeallly appreciate it."

i got to the end and was luckily able to get out without any complication, unlike the first time. some man helped me put up my tube and another guy laughed at me while i was convulsing at the side of the river waiting for lindsey to get out so i could get my towel. we sat in the car with the heat on and i really don't think i stopped shivering until i got home. my arms are chafed from all the paddling and my whole body hurts. i'm slightly bitter.

in summation...if i ever suggest we float the provo river, please refer me back to this post.

*this was really long, so if you made it the whole way, you can have a prize.

r.i.p. john hughes

goodbye john hughes. you have touched every one of our lives so deeply with your cinematic genius. you will be missed. i grew up watching your movies with my older sisters and i'm pretty sure they are some of the best ever made, especially my favorite movie ever...sixteen candles.

and thank you for introducing perfection into my life that no real man can ever live up to...

oh jake ryan. you will always have my heart. love you.

paper heart

okay, okay. this is kind of precious.

pudge thoughts

i don't know how i feel about this.

we are definitely having a party like this one at our apartment when school starts. let the awkwardness begin.

really? 61 times? i don't know if this story is more ridiculous or sad.

have you seen this poster? definitely creepy.

so tony romo broke up with jessica simpson. i am still hoping for her to get back together with nick lachey. they were just so precious together. all i know is that every saturday in high school i watched marathons of the newlyweds on mtv and it was pretty much amazing. and apparently since nick's break up with vanessa manillo he has been rebounding with some girl that looks like jessica. why can't these two just realize they are supposed to be together?

meet the thomases

these are all of my sisters. i kind of really like them.

and yes, we are all wearing the same shoes.

we searched high and low for those moccasins.

my precious little brother, nash.

he's going to be a freshman at byu in the fall.

we're going to have a grand time.

i have pretty much the cutest mom ever.

a little thomas eyebrow raise action. my father taught me well.

notice how i don't look like anyone in my family...

was i adopted and no one told me? thomas family secrets.

thomas family reunion 2009.

this is my dad's whole side of the family (-4 people)...there's a lot of us.

for our reunion we went down to southern colorado.

this picture is in ouray, the prettiest little town ever.

i have pretty much the greatest family. i love them.

running out of time

so it's august and summer is quickly fading...well not really, but school starts in 27 days and i have quite a few things i want to do before i become a slave to my studies. okay, we all know that i have never been a "slave to my studies" since studying is very very low on my list of favorite things to do, but i think we can all agree that once school starts, i will have much less time.

at the beginning of the summer i made a list of projects i wanted to accomplish:

1. alter a dress that is several sizes too big, but hey it was only $10 - done, though it didn't really work exactly how i had envisioned

2. hem all of my dress pants - attempted, but brooke told me to not hem them and start wearing heels to work (which i also have not done and will not do)

3. make a dress

4. make a quilt - in progress

5. sew pillows for the living room in my apt - done, pictures to come

6. make a skirt

7. make my citizen jeans shorts - done

i have obviously made a lot of progress on these projects...

and i have all these adventures i want to go on before school starts:

1. bear lake

2. float provo river

3. seven peaks

4. kfc in a park

5. camping

i also want to:

1. become a bronze goddess (well on my way after a lot of hard work)

2. finish reading the historian (almost there, though i don't want it to end)

3. make jam

4. become a runner

5. start riding my bike

so much to do in only 27 short summer days. do you have any goals you need to accomplish before the summer ends?

summer summer summer

i enjoyed a very summery weekend.

it started off with riding bikes around the cul-de-sac with a & g friday night while babysitting. before that we made some delicious chocolate chip cookies. mmm mmm good.

saturday i attended "slip n slide mania" at a park in sandy with some friends. as you may know, i live my life in fear and when i saw this 200 foot slip n slide, i promptly let everyone know that i would not be going down the slide but would be happy to spray people and the slide with the hose. what can i say? i'm just a giant pansy. BUT i did end up going down the slide...twice. i am so proud of myself. even in spite of the fact that my behind is quite sore from it. and since i was standing in the sun all day...i am kind of becoming a bronze goddess. summer goal #1 - check.

saturday night i finally got to see 500 days of summer. utah is so lame and i swear we never get the cool movies when they first come out. can i just tell you how much i loved this movie? a lot. that's how much. it was sooooo good. it was smart, funny, artistic, sad, beautiful...it was just wonderful. seriously though, it is one of my new favorite movies. it is creatively put together, the soundtrack is awesome, the actors all did an amazing job, this movie really is perfection. the characters are very relateable - i am totally tom hansen, so thanks a lot. i can't decide if that's a good thing or not. go see it right now if you haven't already. if you have seen it, leave a little comment on what you thought and we can have a little discussion about it, okay? okay.