Emergency Lent

I'm calling an emergency period of Lent. Why? Because I need to give up Facebook Stalking for at least 40 days, and I think it might be the hump I have to get over to make it to, oh, idk, FOREVER.

Now, you might be thinking to yourself, "Why would Kayla do this? She has excellent connections, and skills, and sneaky ways of going about things that make her ability to Facestalk someone into practical familial closeness is nigh unto criminal, all with the added bonus of not being totally creepy and using her talents for evil."

And, of course, all these things are true. I have an arsenal of abilities, mostly brought on by excellent deductive skills, reasoning, and awareness of key technological advances that have come about in the past 5 years or so, which make me an excellent source when you're wondering about your next blind date, or trying to find out if that dude you saw in that one show is available, or not. Furthermore, these skills are never used for evil purposes, like totally creeping on strangers beyond the vital information. (Unless you count looking at strangers' wedding albums, but every girl does that, plus I look at wedding blogs, so I really just do that all the time.)

Well, despite all these magnificent things, I have come to the point where the connections between people have seriously creeped me out.

There was that one time when someone posted an album of photos from their FHE group, and one of my friends that I met through my roommate's boyfriend was in that album multiple times. That wasn't strange.

Once I was looking at a friend from MO's new pictures, went to her profile, and saw that we had a mutual friend in a girl that I got to know a little bit in CO. That was kind of random, but not too weird.

It started to get a little shocking when I went to a party hosted by one of the guys in my ward, and, while I was dancing to my heart's content, watched three former floormates (who live rather distant from where we live) walk into the party as well. I mean, there could only have been like 100-150 people who passed through that party that night. And there's only like, over 30,000 students at BYU, PLUS all the UVU kids that live here in Provo, instead of Orem. No big deal.

And then there was how I started going to a university ward back in MO (a 45 minute drive, mind you) and got to know some of the people down there. And then, when I returned to good old BYU, received a phone call from the first counselor of the bishopric of that ward, asking me if he could give his brother-in-law my cell phone number. I said yes, the young man's name was given to me, and I never heard from him. I did, however, see his name pop up on another friend's Facebook status. A friend/former floormate who is now DATING him. I mean, out of the over 30,000 students on campus, he picked one of the less than 100 girls that I could actually knew by name? No. That's not weird at all. Surprising, perhaps. But not at all an uncommon occurrence at the Y.

No, none of these things, surprising or unexpected or weird as they might have seemed for a moment have really fazed me.

But now, a threshold has been crossed and there is some SERIOUS weirdness taking place. This is what happened:

The Short Version:

Unattainable Gorgeous Man of the Week is friend to the little brother of former floormate who is friends with (related to?) a guy that I met on a random outing in early September who is friends with some of my ward BFFs.

The Long Version:

Last week, I decided, on the spur of a moment, to attend a certain event which shall remain nameless. At that event, I was surprised to encounter people I haven't seen in ages, including a certain relative of theirs that I've never met, but heard of, who arbitrarily received status as Unattainable Gorgeous Man of the Week. Because hey, he's really good looking. No big deal, right?

Fast forward to tonight. I'm sitting here, being bored and lonely and whatnot, and I decide to look at a friend's new profile picture. That, of necessity, led to looking at other pictures of that person. As I'm looking at this friend's pictures, I find a picture that I'm in. I look at the other people in the picture with us, wondering who the heck some of them are. I remember one of the guys in the picture, and I remember thinking he was cute, but that there was some barrier to getting to know him, either he was shy or dating someone or who knows what. So I think, What the heck! If his relationship status is on Facebook, then maybe that'll jog my memory and I'll know and I won't have to sit here wondering why the heck I didn't get to know this cute guy better.

Thus went my thoughts, but, behold, once upon his page, I see that we have mutual friends. Two former floormates, in fact! I notice that this young man has the same last name as one of my former floormates. It's a relatively uncommon last name, and I think, surely this girl has a family picture stowed away somewhere in here that can tell me if they're related. We're friends, and so I'm browsing through her pictures, enjoying seeing prom photos and whatnot, until I finally find one family picture.

This is where hindsight tells me I should have stopped because now's the point where it's just late enough that I don't give a crap that I'm being creepy, even though I TOTALLY am being a creeper. At least I'm (wo)man enough, and secure enough in myself to admit to it. (Because you all know that you do the exact same thing, only I'm being honest about it. Judge me, if you will, but only after you consider your own behavior, and your own integrity on the matter!)

So I come to this picture, and, surprise, the guy I'm looking for isn't in the shot, giving me no indication of whether or not these two are related to each other, specifically in the sibling sort of way. However, there is this other kid.

Don't ask me why, because for the life of me I can't fathom why I clicked on his danged name beneath the picture. I mean, the kid is CLEARLY a young'n. We're talking like, my little brother's age. It wasn't some cougar-like tendency or anything weird like that. I'm not a baby licker, like some people are. That's gross.

Regardless, I clicked on the picture.

Now, it has become clear that Facebook's "Friends" box on others' profile pages has a sixth sense regarding the people you might (and really probably do) know. I can't explain it fully, except through the following phenomenon.

As I'm looking at this young man's page, I see our box of mutual friends (aw, how sweet), and then, below it, the box of HIS friends ...

And wouldn't you know, there's the Unattainable Gorgeous Man of the Week.

At that point, I'm all like ... Whhhhhaaaaaatttttt ...... ??????? Because, frankly, this is all so sudden. I only remembered that Gorgeous Man even existed like, a week and a half ago. I've never even met the guy. Just heard about him, and seen him like twice. Maybe only once!

And yet here he is, popping up in the friends list of a high school boy whose older sister was a former floormate of mine who may or may not be related to a kind of cute guy whose relationship status remains mysterious that I met in early September when hanging out with guys who have since become ward BFFs, but who certainly were not at that particular point.

That's weird.

That's REALLY weird.

And the weirdest part about it is that I even realized how weird it was. I'm a little embarrassed that this even happened, and even more so that I'm admitting to it. But I figure we all do weird things, and it's amusing enough that it'd be selfish not to share, right? Also, it's 1:30 in the morning, and I've been alone or with family for the past 5 days, and you can imagine that that has an effect on one's sanity, whether for better or worse. Judge away, my dears. Judge away. I know that, despite my actions in my sleepily-disabled state, I am not a true creeper, and that's good enough for me.

But if you EVER need any Facebook stalking help, don't you DARE come asking me. :P

Really though, I love you all. Hope your Thanksgiving holidays were as wonderful as mine was!

Craigslist

So, since I'm home alone and a total failure at being productive, I decided to watch a movie on Hulu. Turns out there aren't a lot of great movies on Hulu, if you're not into Lifetime movies, or steamy R-rated's. There are also a lot of documentaries, such as Supersize Me, and one called 24 Hours on Craigslist. Now, I didn't get more than 3 minutes into it, because it was just terribly put together and I have SUCH a hard time watching low quality film. However, it did lead me to do a little Craigslist browsing myself, just for curiosity's sake.

And let me tell you, I've never been so creeped out/amused in my life. Okay, that's a total lie, but seriously, there are SO MANY weird dudes in the Provo/Orem area seeking cuddles and NCMO, it's just not even funny.

What I want to know is this: what makes any guy think he's going to find a smart, attractive girl to hook up with on CRAIGSLIST?

I'm going to take a little tangent here and say something that might seem a little shallow to you. People (should) date within their own range of attractiveness. I have a small number of observations/opinions that are a part of this. (1) This usually happens naturally. (2) Most people can't (and shouldn't) expect to date someone who is significantly more attractive than them. (3) You see attractive girls dating unattractive guys WAY more often than you see attractive guys dating unattractive girls. (4) Watch Dating in the Dark. Therein lies proof that girls accept a wider range of attractiveness in guys than guys do in girls. (5) When a girl accepts a guy who is less attractive than her, and then that guy rejects her, what kinds of things does that do to her self esteem? (6) This is turning into a rant, when the point I was shooting for was ...

I think that unattractive guys post on Craigslist looking for attractive girls. I think this is a completely unfounded hope, and I highly doubt that attractive girls are prowling Craigslist, looking for a good cuddle with an unattractive guy. Get real, people.

Ya know, I started writing this post a couple of days ago and now I have nothing else to say about it. So ... hooray.

Worlds

I've been thinking a lot today about our world, the conceptions of our world, the way those conceptions have changed over time, and what those conceptions mean for us.

Today in my British Literary History class, we were reading Caedmon's Hymn, which goes a little something like this:

Now we must honor

The guardian of heaven,

The might of the architect

And his purpose,

The work of the father of glory,

As he, the eternal Lord,

Established

The beginning of wonders.

He, the holy creator,

First created heaven as a roof

For the children of men.

Then the guardian of mankind,

The eternal lord,

The lord almighty,

Afterwards appointed

The middle-earth

The lands, for men.

The reason I bring this poem up is that, in my class, we noted the Anglo-Saxon cosmology, in which heaven is the roof of the house, earth (middle-earth) is the body/interior of the house, and hell was that which was beneath the house. Now, there was a lot of other stuff about it, but that's the basics of what I'd like to focus on.

Because what are the repercussions of believing that your earth is a home that God has built for you, and that heaven, God's home, is the roof of that house, and what protects you from the outside elements?

I think that this is not too far a shot from LDS doctrine, only I'd make the roof the Gospel, rather than heaven, because faith in the gospel of Christ is our shield and our protection from the storms that would beat us down while we live on this little planet of ours. It's a very functional analogy, I believe.

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The other aspect of worlds I've been thinking of today came from my biology class. We were watching my professor's movie that she made about Tongans, and it got me thinking about what it would be like if I had been born into a different culture, a different "world," so to speak (and to maintain a sense of continuity throughout this post). I thought about how different my life would be if I had been born Tongan, or Japanese, or French, or African, or Nicaraguan ... Part of me was kind of sad that I had missed out on not having that same perspective on life that comes from each of these unique, fascinating, and beautiful cultures. I mean, I might have liked being an Australian, or an Eskimo, or Spanish, or Indian ...

But despite my small portion of sadness at missing out on the cultural richness that these other nationalities would have offered me, I am grateful that I know of worlds before and worlds to come, and the Creator of all of these worlds and cultures that placed me in the situation that I am, both because it has been a great blessing in my life, and because I know that where I am is the best place for me to be in the eternal scheme of things. It's a great comfort, knowing that God is out there, and that He has a plan for our lives, a plan that has the power to make us fantastic and happy beyond our ability to comprehend. I can't imagine being satisfied with life, were it not for that knowledge.

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The final thing I'd like to share with you is this video. It was made using a tilt-shift camera lens, which gives the video a really interesting quality. Rather than telling you what that quality/effect is, I will just let you observe it for yourself:

Small Worlds Project: Circular Quay. Pause while a clip is playing to share it.
Tilt Shift Video by Keith Loutit | Twitter | Facebook

Isn't that interesting? It looks like a little playset, with little dolls running around and toy cars and plastic trees ... But it's all the real world that we see every day with our own eyes. Of course, God is acquainted with every intimate detail of our lives, but I feel like this is what we must look like from heaven. Like a bunch of little toys, waiting to be picked up and rearranged at the will of God.

It's kind of funny, how everything looks like it's in miniature. It makes all these things we do, these mindless motions and stupid activities and things that happen in our lives that distract us from the plan seem so ... insignificant.

Maybe that's because they are, and we're simply looking at the world, and at life, through the wrong type of lens.

This Must End

You may have noticed that I haven't blogged anything in the past month. I owe this to the fact that I was overcome with some sort of self-consciousness since there were people (besides the people who always read it and/or hear about almost everything I write about anyways) who were reading it. I know you aren't judging me, so I don't know why I got so self-conscious about it, but I did and that's the truth. So I have about 50 (no actually it's only like 5) drafts piled up in Windows Live Writer that are just waiting to be finished, because I can't really compile my thoughts suitably. Basically I just didn't like what was coming out. However, I've come to the realization that I really need an outlet. I've been going crazy over the past couple weeks, and I think it's because I haven't taken the time to write my thoughts down and clear out all the excess gunk in my head so that I can actually function like a normal human being, which is what I'd really like to do with myself right about now. I can no longer keep these things to myself. The silence must end. NOW.

So I have a couple of things going through my head right now, the first of which is my sociology class. It's just Soc 111, nothing special. I mean, I really like the class and I think it's totally great, and I found out that Jake Heaps is in my class today, which is kind of interesting I suppose. Anyway, we had these big old papers due a couple of weeks ago and we just got them back today. Which wouldn't have been a big deal, except that I found out that my printer sabotaged me. For those of you who don't comprendo, here's what happened:

The Violent and Tragic Destruction of Page Four

Yeah. I turned that in. (Moment of Irony: "Dancing Through Life" from Wicked just came on my iTunes, and the line that says "mindless and careless" played right as I uploaded these photos. Well said, Fieyro. Thanks for pointing out my own idiocy.) I mean, do you see how heinous that looks?? It's so embarrassing that I let that slip under my radar. I should know better. This happened to me once in my first semester, and it was just as embarrassing, only less because I actually knew the person who was grading it. (Why is it more embarrassing when a stranger grades it??) But yeah. How could I let it happen? I remember being in such a hurry, and that I was a tiny bit late to class that day... Gosh. Lesson learned. I no longer trust my beast of a printer, not a bit.

In other news ... I had a great moment last night after Heather and I went on a walk last night. We ended up getting home at like 1:00, and I stayed up doing who knows what until like 1:30-1:45ish. I go into the dark bedroom and proceed to prepare myself for bed. Being that it was dark, I had to turn my lamp on, which totally woke Natalie up. I really didn't mean to, but I didn't adjust the angle of the lampshade as well as I thought I had, and it was terrible. To my surprise, however, she sits up a little bit and starts talking to me.

"What did you win?" she asks. I, of course, am confused as heck. What did I win? What on earth is she talking about?

"I don't know what you're talking about," I say back, continuing to change into my pj's.

"She had a Wheel of Fortune thing out there. What did you win?"

I still am extremely confused, but also extremely tired, so I kind of ignore the question and keep getting ready for bed.

"By the way," Natalie says to me, "This isn't dream talk. I'm awake."

Oh really?

I give some kind of non-committal response and go brush my teeth. By the time I'm done, she's asleep again and I go to sleep.

This, of course, is not the end of the story. As I'm putting on my makeup this morning, Natalie comes in to do the same and asks me, "When did you go to bed last night?" I tell her that it was 1:30, 1:45ish that I went to bed.

"Did I try to talk to you last night?"

Oh yes. Yes, you did. I told her this, at which point it became very funny. I admit, in the middle of the night, I was more confused than amused, though it was a funny moment. It was one of those moments when exhaustion made everything less funny rather than more funny. Once we were both fully aware that she was totally like, dream-talking to me, we both laughed. Like I said, it was funny.

This brings up something else that I'd like to talk about. Have you ever had a moment when you have been trying to nap, or have accidentally fallen asleep, or you're trying to go to bed, and then someone wakes you up or says, "Oh yeah, she's asleep," but you find yourself either suddenly conscious, or you simply hadn't fully fallen asleep? I know it's a confusing way to put it, but I think you understand. You're all intelligent folks. Have you ever noticed that whenever this happens, you often feel this sudden need to alert everyone around you to the fact that you're awake? It seems so important! They have to know that you weren't asleep. Never mind the fact that you're completely incoherent and the only thought that IS forming in your head is "I'm awake. They have to know I'm awake." All the while, you're just proving that you're totally not awake OR coherent. So silly, and yet it always seems like such an urgent matter... Funny.

In other good news, the BYU Bookstore had a $1 Book Sale! It was great. I didn't even know it was happening, and then this girl who was at a focus group that I went to (which I'll tell you about in two shakes) told us that she went to it. And I was like, "BOOKS FOR A DOLLAR? Sign me UP baby!" So I went with my awesome amiga Katie, during the time that I should have been in class... but the focus group was gonna make me 15 minutes late anyways, and I think it's so rude to interrupt class like that, especially a class with only like 30 people in it, that I just can't do it. So I skeeeeeped. Whatever. No big deal.

Anyways. I'm going around and I find all of these great books. Like FIVE great books that I want super bad. And I think to myself, "It's so great that I have been keeping my wallet in my backpack lately!" (I usually don't, because I usually leave it in my purse, also because I don't want to have money for food when I have food at home that I can eat.) And then I realize that no, I do not have my wallet. I had to lend Natalie some money last night so we could pay our electric bill and my wallet wasn't there. So I think, well if Katie has money with her, I can pay her back pronto once I get my wallet. Alas, Katie's wallet is not in her backpack either. Desperate for these books, I head to the register to beg this girl to hold the books for me. Then I see my friend Glen from Missouri who happens to work at the Bookstore. The girl, of course, tells me that she can't hold the books for me. I try to explain that it'll only be 15 minutes and I'll be back with my wallet. She still can't do it. Glen, naturally, hears my predicament and offers a suggestion: that I hide the books in a box underneath one of the tables and then put another box on top of it. So that's what I did. I then ran home to grab my wallet.

By this time, I've got a time crunch because I wanted to walk home from class with Rachel, so I needed to go and get my wallet, get back to the Bookstore, buy the books, and get back over to the sound circles in front of the JFSB at 12:50. Naturally, when I get home, my wallet is nowhere to be found. I look everywhere I can think of, including my bed and the closet where the washer and dryer are. But all my searching is in vain. I'm starting to get antsy, and my brain is saying, "God doesn't want you to have these books!" and my heart is fighting with my brain saying, "BUT IT'S GOOD TO HAVE BOOKS! AND THEY'RE ONLY A DOLLAR!!! PLEASE!!!!!!!" I start sending out frantic text messages to my roommates, trying to figure out if any of them saw it or know where it went. But it's no good. No one knows where my wallet is, and I'm starting to have horrible visions of people going under the table, pulling out the top box, and finding all five of my darling $1 books in the bottom box, then laughing as they twirl their curlicue mustaches and cradle my books beneath the sheath of their black cloak (total Bowler Hat Guy style). Terror was running through my veins. It was horrendous. Just as I'm about to give up, I see a bump under the rug. Lo, and behold, tis my wallet. So I ran back, retrieved my books from the box (you can't imagine my relief when I saw them there), purchased them, and ran to meet Rachel to walk home. It was great. Here's what I bought:

Snapshots by Michal Govrin

The Work of Print: Authorship and the English Text Trades 1660-1760 by Lisa Maruca

Sky in a Bottle by Peter Pesic

The Beautiful Fall: Fashion, Genius, and Glorious Excess in 1970s Paris by Alicia Drake

Flaubert: A Biography by Frederick Brown

Quite the mix, wouldn't you say? I'm actually really excited about all of them. The first one, Snapshots, was translated from Hebrew, and it's written by an Israeli woman who has won every single one of Israel's literary awards. The Work of Print is more historical, and talks about the changing concept of authorship and print culture during the Enlightenment period. Then there's Sky in a Bottle, which is also kind of historical, and talks about the changing understanding of the answer to the question, "Why is the sky blue?" through history, art, science, and the works of classical philosophers. Sounds fascinating, no? The fourth one, The Beautiful Fall also sounds interesting. I've never read a book about fashion and stuff before, and it looks super cool. The last one, Flaubert, is probably going to be the hardest read of all, but we just learned about Gustave Flaubert and Madame Bovary in my French class, and it sounds like he had a kind of crazy life, and I'd like to understand more about him. So that'll be cool. But yeah ... pretty fun, huh? I'm stoked to read them. Also to amass a larger collection of books. I love books. Oh so very much.

Anyways, on to the focus group stuff. Today, as I was hanging with Rachel and Katie and we were chilling on some of the couches on the third floor and I'd accepted the fact that I was absolutely not going to get to take a nap when a man walks up to us and asks us if we're doing anything over the next hour and would we like to attend a focus group with some consultants from the East Coast. We said okay and followed him into a classroom where there were a couple people hanging out in front of some blueprints of the Wilk and a computer with a slideshow going on it.

The purpose of the focus group was to discuss how students use the Wilk currently, and what could be changed to make the Wilk more appealing to students, and what might draw them to the Wilk during the evenings, most particularly on the first floor in the Post Office/Bowling Alley/Outdoor Adventures area. It was actually really interesting to think about why I go the places I go in the Wilk, what kinds of changes I'd like to see, what kind of changes they're thinking of making, and what I liked and disliked about the proposed changes.

And let me tell you, those changes look COOL. The study won't be over until January, and then I'm sure it'll be some time before they actually put those changes into action and actual construction, but I really want to be here when they happen so I can actually use them. They really look awesome, and they could make that area down there so hoppin' I would probably never want to leave. Okay, that's a total exaggeration, but it is going to be awesome. Be so excited for the future, guys! It's gonna be FLYYYY :)