Rebecca

In the spirit of Halloween, I figured I'd finally get around to posting a mood board for Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca. This was the last BBC Booklist novel I read this summer before my hiatus. I had originally planned to keep reading novels throughout the semester, but that was before, when I was naïve and thought I could keep it up while writing three papers. All is not lost, I plan to resume the Booklist over Christmas break.

I had no preconceived notions going into Rebecca. All I inferred from the cover was that the novel was a romance thriller. I guess those words sort of describe the novel, but only in a very broad sense. The story was a little slow to get started, but once it did, it was hard to put the book down. I kept making up little scenarios in my head for how the mystery would resolve itself. I'm still a little creeped out by the fact that we never learn the narrator's name; it sort of made me feel as if I couldn't quite trust her. I was also convinced that the narrator would somehow end up becoming this sinister character with an evil twist to play in the plot.

There was such an eerie gothic feel to the novel, and it's incredible how du Maurier makes Rebecca's presence felt and have such a power or presence without using any supernatural apparition. The novel was brilliantly written, and it's clear to see why Hitchcock's take earned an Oscar for best picture. The film really complemented the book by filling in personality gaps for Max, and Mrs. de Winter. Honestly, the film made me like Mrs. de Winter a whole lot better!

life lately via (mostly) iPhone photos.

*This post made possible by Andi Tyler. Who gave me her spare iPhone 6 when my iPhone 4 died two weeks before school started.  Andi, you're the real MVP!

  

  

(R to L: 1&2 My prima Sofia's birthday. She's obsessed with Moana,  3. Sharing a delicious pizza with Nicole after a long day of moving, 4. My cousin's son. I love spending time with my 1/2 Asian babies!, 5.An impromptu mission reunion with the Crawfords after the first reports of Hurricane Harvey, 6. Breakfast with Lauren who was visiting from Arkansas, 7. Running into Elaine on campus! She attends my parent's home ward and I helped her out with her college essays, so full-circle to see her on campus, 8. fire from a ward campout, 9 &10 my roommates being cute)

My BYU sophomore year crew at Dre's baby shower!

Puerto Rico crew at Chlo's wedding

Sophomore year roommates at Kiersten's wedding. 

Last year of grad school folks. It's here, and it's real. 

Somedays I feel 100% ready to take on the world and fight against inequality in America. Other days, I feel melancholy thinking about a life without school. When I graduate in April, I'll have been in college for eight years--the same amount of time from 5th grade to senior year of high school. So yeah, it's been a while. 

Those who say that grad school gets progressively easier are only sort-of right. I know how to do law school now. I get how to do fairly well on tests (here's looking at you 4.0!) But, the thing is, you get progressively busier and more involved with every year, and you start working during the school year. 

I'm still milking BYU for every civil-rights/WOKE-esque class and experience it has. This semester my course load is as follows:

1. Social Change Colloquium: A seminar-like class where visiting scholars come and present their papers related to the topic of social change. I am forever referring to this class as my "social justice" class.
2. Sociology of Race & Ethnicity: Auditing another undergrad course. If it sounds familiar, it's because it is. I took this class last fall, but loved it so much, and was convinced by one of my civil rights seminar professors that I needed to hear his take on the class. So here I am, again.
3. Social Policy & Feminist Legal Thought: 8 women + 1 female professor talking about issues that deeply affect every aspect of our lives. It's the best! This class gives me hope for a better world and has permeated into my every conscious thought. Case in point, last Friday, I did initiatories in the temple and decided to spend some time in the celestial room. I was pleasantly surprised to see one of my classmates. We took some time to talk about how the theories discussed in class relate to worship in the temple. Nerding out guys, even especially in the holiest of places. We have a class group chat and are constantly sharing articles with one another. We are your ultimate local girl gang.
4. Civil Rights: I took a civil rights class last winter; this is the companion to that class. This one focuses on Civil Rights in public accommodations, housing, education, etc. Also, it's a paper class and I'm muy excited to write the paper for this class. I will potentially post it here.
5. Urban Design: Arguably my least "woke" class this semester, but me & my girl Marissa have taken it upon ourselves to make sure to raise our hands and promote inclusive language and thoughts in the class. Sorry, we're not sorry.
6. Legal Drafting: Basically, this class teaches me how to become a better legal writer. We meet once a week. It's a nice little skills class that teaches me how to take my journalistic background and apply it to the legal world. 

Now that I've thoroughly bored you out with my class descriptions (if you really know me, are you actually surprised?) a little rundown of the rest of my life:

I moved! I love my new townhome, but that probably merits its own post. I have a new calling, and Heavenly Father was definitely listening to my prayers, because it's not that time consuming. I'm the RS Activities Chair. Translation: I get to plan parties and service opportunities for the women in the ward. I stopped wearing makeup full-time. What does full-time mean you ask? I only wear it for special occasions (so far, this has been for a photoshoot and a wedding). Everything else, I'm bare-faced. church included! It's wonderful (in-depth explanation forthcoming).

I work two days a week in SLC and can be found on the 6:20 am frontrunner train on a frequent occasion. I went to Houston (H-TOWN!) over placement break to help with hurricane cleanup (another post, y'all). I'm back on snapchat (laurenmarieflo--sidenote, this is pretty much my username for everything). & I have a pen-pal correspondence with my fifth grade crush doing time in jail. (!!!?!?!?!!???) Guess you'll just have to check in later for more details on the juicy updates, huh? See what I did right there? 

😏 😏 😏

obligatory last, first day of school photos:

A story about the following series of photos. Sometimes you become real good friends with the BYU Law School photographer and she asks if she can take pictures of you and your friends. Sometimes one of your friends asks if said photographer will take a picture of him hugging you and you're kind of apprehensive about it. Sometimes that apprehensiveness comes across in the photo and the photo gets sent to the entire law school class on the first day of school as a sort of "welcome back" greeting and post it to the school's Instagram account. Sometimes your phone blows up with texts about this photo and one of your friends in undergrad finds it and turns it into a meme. 

^^I would like to note that in true Chicana fashion, there is a nearly empty bottle of Tajín in this photo. Evidence of my watermelon + tajín snack moments earlier. I've got chile powder in my bag, swag.