Oh La La London ... &ct.

In the wake of destruction caused by my approaching field study in the grandmotherland, my poor blog here has been neglected. Blame it on the fact that I'm blogging thrice-plus a week for my field study prep class—I feel like I'm on here all the time, and so it can't possibly have been that long since I last blogged. Anyways, you can check out the fun link over there to see how my project and whatnot is progressing. Right now it's pretty boring because I have to be constantly reflecting on readings and whatnot, but I hope that it'll get more interesting once I actually, you know, leave the country.

Moving right along ... I've nothing really wonderfully interesting to tell anyone about or talk about right now, so I'll give you a couple of blurbs about what's been happening to me since school started:

• Three consecutive class periods delivering 15-20 minute presentations in English 620. That being said, graduate classes are AWESOME, and so much more interesting than regular classes. Also, easier. 
• A Saturday in Park City for the Sundance Film Festival. Awesome to keep the tradition going, but all in all that was probably one of the worst days of the semester. A quick summary of the awfulness: bad weather, frozen feet, a hour long nauseous bus ride, and then a 3-hours-in-horrific-terrifying-dangerous-weather-whilst-being-simultaneously-super-nauseous-and-in-pain-à-la-the-flu-car-ride followed by four hours being miserable alone in bed, and topping the night off with offering up pineapple-and-Canadian-bacon oblations at the altar of the porcelain god. 
• A super rad 3-day weekend in Vegas spent enjoying a time at the Hoover Dam (so many dam jokes...) and on the strip (love me some Bellagio fountains ... seriously though, they're inspiring), and bouldering in Red Rock Canyon with new dinner groupies that I absolutely adore. Also, having a full-on picnic in a Wendy's, defying gravity, being an awesome Kinect volleyball player, calling Colorado home, and it was just awesome, okay? Here's some photos I stole from Caitlin because I accidentally left my camera at home: 

Hoover Dam :)

At the top :)

I'm somewhere in this photo.

Wonderful, wonderful fountains.

But enough about how much my life is such the best all the time. :)

I was lucky enough to stumble upon (and not StumbleUpon) a pretty awesome website this weekend. It's called ThoughtCatalog.com. It's kind of like a group blog/non-fiction-journalism-musing-awesome-ness that I really love. I highly recommend the following post: You Should Date an Illiterate Girl

Didn't tempt you? Here's an excerpt: 

Don’t date a girl who reads because girls who read are the storytellers. You with the Joyce, you with the Nabokov, you with the Woolf. You there in the library, on the platform of the metro, you in the corner of the café, you in the window of your room. You, who make my life so expletives difficult. The girl who reads has spun out the account of her life and it is bursting with meaning. She insists that her narratives are rich, her supporting cast colorful, and her typeface bold. You, the girl who reads, make me want to be everything that I am not. But I am weak and I will fail you, because you have dreamed, properly, of someone who is better than I am. You will not accept the life that I told of at the beginning of this piece. You will accept nothing less than passion, and perfection, and a life worthy of being storied.

Seriously. Go read it. It's stupendous. And I'm sorry about the expletives. But it's really so, so, so good.

In Memorium. Sort of.

Last summer, I became a full-blown Fossil fan. I'm still too painfully frugal to buy anything at full price, but being a mere hour away from a Fossil Outlet, and having a Dillards five minutes away that has ridiculously fantastic sales makes Fossil much more accessible. While I love all of my purchases oh-so-very-much, I particularly loved a certain red striped scarf. Do you all remember it?

Scarfy at Sundance with friends.

Scarfy likes pizza.

Me, Scarfy, and our sidewalk manfriend.
This picture would be nothing without Scarfy, let's be honest.

How could you forget it? It's made more appearances in pictures of me than any other accessory I have, and has starred in two consecutive profile pictures. Really, it doesn't get much better than that scarf. It's red, striped, stretchy, and it's Fossil. Swoonarama.

Some of you might also remember the tragic day in ... probably February when Scarfy, that dear, sweet, stretchy, beloved scarf, was abducted, never to be seen again. It all happened on a very rough day, a day on which Heather and I went to the gym. It was cold outside, so I had worn my scarf up to class that day. Having become exhausted earlier than my fellow healthy people, I had gotten changed first, and took a seat outside the gym doors. While I waited, I was still very warm and indoors, so I put my coat and scarf in my backpack. At some point in the process of getting out a book to read and returning that book to my backpack, I removed Scarfy, and because of the angle of my vision relative to the ground and my seat ... I was not able to see my beloved scarf when I grabbed my things and walked away, leaving that precious scarf behind.

One rotten, nightmare of an evening later, (it was a Wednesday, and I had a late class, and, as I recall, the whole day had been a nightmare. Even my family here in MO remembers it because I called my mom about how miserable and terrible it was, topped off by the loss of my scarf), I went looking for Scarfy down at the Smith Fieldhouse. I asked if anyone had turned it in to the desk outside the gym--no one had.

Now tell me: if you had found a scarf like Scarfy, would you return it to the desk instead of taking it with you? Like heck you would! You'd have taken it too because it's JUST THAT AWESOME. This is unfortunate for me because I never saw Scarfy again. I'm sure someone, somewhere is keeping that scarf hidden until next winter so that they can pretend that they bought it and not have to worry about me catching them in their thievery on campus (because believe me, I looked at every single reddish scarf I saw for like a month, hoping to catch the thief red-necked). I'm pretty sure I cried on my way home that day, and it took me a long time to get over it. Scarfy, you will be missed ...

... or rather, not so much.

What is this blasphemy?! you ask. Well, let me tell you (and really, I should have told you a couple of weeks ago when it happened ... I've just been a loser and not told anyone for inexplicable and unaccountable reasons):

Over Memorial Day weekend, I returned to the Fossil outlet, hoping to perhaps catch a glimpse of a Scarfy-scarf. Unfortunately, those dreams were not to be realized...

... until Memorial Day itself (2 days after my fruitless search at the outlet) when my mom, having just returned from Vegas, pulled out the exact same scarf (which she had purchased at a Fossil outlet in Vegas) and gave it to me :)

Needless to say, I am BEYOND HAPPY. I love my scarf.

"What A Frickin' Life I Have"

--Michael Buble

I got called out a couple of days ago for not blogging recently. It's a show of just how busy I've been that it's taken me this long to get around to fixing that problem. Yes, it's been almost a month since I last blogged, and frankly ... there's not too much to be said that I haven't texted or Skyped or Facebooked to you all, and the majority of that isn't something that I think belongs on the internet anyways (wink, wink) so am I off the hook? Or at least forgiven? :)

Let me tell you what my weeks look like these days.

• Sunday: Leave for church at 9:10, church 10-1, hang out until 1:30-2ish, home by 3, ... w/e.
• Monday: Wake up at 7, get to work between 8 and 8:30, lunch 12-1 either by the statue of Lewis, Clark, & Co. or in the park by the governor's mansion, leave work by 5:15, bed by 11:30 (attempted, usually)
• Tuesday: Same as Monday, but leave for institute at 6:10, institute 7-8:30, hang out sometimes until 9:30, home by about 10:15.
• Wednesday: Same as Monday.
• Thursday: Same as Monday.
• Friday: Same as Monday.
• Saturday: Sleep in as late as possible, do stuff, bed by midnight.

Now, I suppose it's fair to point out that (1) I'm only in my third week that looks like this, and (2) there's usually some kind of date/hanging out activity that happens on Friday or Saturday, so it's not quite so dry and stale as it may seem.

But it's still pretty dry and stale. I'm making $13 an hour instead of $25 an hour like I was originally told, but I guess the fact that I'm only a junior in college with no kind of similar experience makes me less valuable to the team anyhow. I pre-populate, edit, and track documents, among other things, which today included being the scribe for a 3-hour long meeting. Now, I don't want you to think I'm complaining, because I'm really not. Let me explain.

This summer is teaching me a lot about the phrase "I will ... open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it."

I'm not going to be explicit in the nature of said blessings, because, like I said earlier, not everything in my life right now is something I want to post on the internet. But here's what's up: I'm being blessing beyond my capacity to receive. Or, rather, I'm being blessed with things that are far above my maturity, skill, and personal merit, and my capacity is so small at times that there is simply not room for me to juggle one blessing, let alone two or three or twelve. They become difficult to handle; they are (for lack of better words) cumbersome and unwieldy in my small and graceless hands. I simply don't know what to do, and I feel lost and like a failure, and it's a challenge. I should be dropping these things left and right; I should be curled up in my bed, amazed that I was able to even touch these kinds of blessings.

But somehow, I'm hanging on to them. Or maybe they're hanging on to me ... I really don't know. Maybe there's some kind of divine glue or tape or thread that is keeping me attached to these things, even when everything about me and them is like magnets being pushed together with the same poles facing each other. The forces of nature should be pushing these things away from me, but they aren't.

It gets a little more interesting too ... I think that, rather than me clinging for dear life and watching my fingers slip and feeling a strain, I'm feeling better equipped to handle these blessings. It's almost like I'm being blessed by my blessings at the same time that I'm being tried by my blessings ... because trials are blessings ... and it's like this outrageous cycle of blessing and trying and trying and blessing and on and on, over and over again.

The craziest part to me is that I wasn't going to come to Missouri this summer. I was going to go to France, and after I decided I wasn't going to France, I was going to stay in Provo ... because really, what could there ever be for me to do in Missouri? Work at Old Navy and have no friends? I also was about 95% sure that my scholarship was in the tank because of my French 321 class, and I figured I could make better money by working a couple of jobs here in Missouri (one of them being Old Navy) and I'd be able to make up at least a little bit for losing it. Furthermore, I had only been casually considering coming home for a couple of weeks when one afternoon I found myself sitting on the couch doing homework and then suddenly I had the most bizarre, all-consuming bout of homesickness. We're talking instantaneous crying jag, and after that I knew I couldn't stay in Provo for the spring. I couldn't do it, not for anything. I felt like I was running into my parents' bedroom in the middle of the night like I did when I was little and I had a bad dream.

So tell me how, after all of that, I ended up not only keeping my scholarship, but getting a job that pays almost twice what I was making at Old Navy, with more hours than I ever could have gotten at Old Navy, which happens to be in my line of work/study, and is a way more legit job that is really intended for college graduates which will carry much more significant weight on a resume than just about anything I could ever even have dreamed of?

Oh, and let's just throw in the fact that I've been spending a lot of time with one of the most awesome, impressive, fantastic people ever. (I won't say any more on that subject.) And just chuck into the whole mix the thousand other things that just seem so far beyond the scope of what anyone should even be allowed to hope for in their life.

I mean, I don't even know what to think, let alone what to say. There is simply not room enough to receive the things I have been given, and not enough room in heart to contain the gratitude that I feel. <3

Reflections on Valentine's Day

Yesterday may have been the best Valentine's Day of my life, to date. And just to answer your questions, yes, I'm as pathetically single as I've always been; and yes, I've always been pathetically single, at least always on Valentine's Day. So, if I've always been single and I'm still single, what on earth was I doing, rejoicing in a day that many people in my condition (pathetic single-ness) bitterly refer to as "Singles Awareness Day"?

Let me tell you.

I should probably first confess that I have not always been a fan of Valentine's Day. I was always annoyed with the gross couples in high school who always wanted to have their hands all over each other, and then shelled out $40+ for some huge, hideous stuffed animal that their significant other would have to drag around school all day, stare goopily at in every class, and take up everyone else's space with. And that was just the stuffed animal. There was usually also a few enormous boxes of chocolate, and heinous numbers of balloons that obstructed vision, and tended to pop when they hit the lights. (I'm very afraid of popping balloons.) Of course, it didn't help that I'm Mormon and therefore forbidden to date, and that I also had a propensity for balking in the face of PDA that I was expected to participate in, and also tended to reject anyone who tried to date me. Not like that was a huge number of people, but ya know, it happened from time to time. I have also been known to say that I don't like the idea of people waiting for holidays, birthdays, and anniversaries to celebrate love, because shouldn't it be celebrated all year? (Now I see my own logical fallacy: ex. I love Christmas, but we sure as heck don't treat any other day of the year like Christmas.)

However, my attitude about it has completely changed. And for the better, I'm sure. No, I'm not dating anyone. No, I'm not "almost dating" anyone. No, I don't see this changing any time in the near future. BUT I do see it happening some time in the future, and I think that that is something worth looking forward to.

On Facebook, I saw a lot of people posting statuses about hating Valentine's Day, referring to it as "Singles Awareness Day," and even someone who wore all black and then went to an Anti-Valentine's Day party. And that's okay; if it makes you happy to sneer at a holiday dedicated to love, so be it. Good for you. Do what makes you happy. Those just aren't the things that make me happy.

I would hate to think that I shouldn't be able to enjoy Valentine's Day until I am happily dating or married to someone. I would hate even more to think that I should be miserable on such a day because of my relationship status. Could I feel better about myself by being irritated at and speaking out against all the people who are, bless their hearts, so happily situated? I mean, I would hate to burst any bubbles here, but that just doesn't work. There's no happiness in trying to devalue someone else's happiness.

Instead, I'd like to make a suggestion, and that is this: Valentine's Day isn't necessarily about celebrating relationships, it's about celebrating love. It's about celebrating the fact that I love my family, that I love my roommates, that I love Girl Scout Samoas cookies (and Samoas ice cream!); that I love books, and sunshine, and flip flops, and green grass, and friendship, and good food, and swimming pools, and chick-flicks. It's about celebrating the fact that love is possible. Maybe I'm not dating somebody right now, but is that any reason to ignore everything else that I love, and not be excited for when love does come along? I know I'm risking sounding like the BYU stereotypical marriage-rabid coed, but I'm pretty sure I'm right here. (And I'm not marriage-rabid, thank you very much.)

Why not listen to love songs? Why not have happy little hearts everywhere? Why not be happy about life and love and everything that is awesome? Because I'm bitter about not being in a relationship? I'm sorry, but how petty and shortsighted is that!

It's like being miserable at your birthday party because you're not allowed to eat your cake yet. Well sorry, people. It's my party, and I will be freaking happy if I want to. :)

Hobert's Monkey

Somewhere in the midst of the chaos of 21 people trying to arrange food and bags and gear and bedding and gifts and who knows what else, I've been able to find escape in the living room (of all places) to tell you an incredible story. This is the story of Hobert's Monkey.

---

My dad has a dental assistant named Jane, and Jane has a son named Robert. Robert, like many children, learned to pronounce his R's some time after he learned to correctly pronounce the rest of his alphabet. Because of this, Robert was not able to pronounce his own name correctly for some time, calling himself "Hobert" instead of Robert.

After a little while, Robert learned to pronounce his R's, but he still insisted on calling himself Hobert. In an attempt to trick Robert into calling himself Robert, rather than Hobert, his mother, Jane would ask him questions.

"What's the name of the animal that has long ears and a fluffy tail?" she would ask.

"A rabbit!" Robert would say.

"What's your name?" she would then ask.

"Hobert!" Robert would reply.

She would continue to ask him questions such as, "What are we driving on?" ("A road!") and "What kind of car drives really fast?" ("A race car!") after which she would ask Robert his name. Regardless of her attempts at tricking him into correct pronunciation, he continued to respond "Hobert!"

One day, Jane bought her son a stuffed monkey, which he liked very much. After playing with it for a little while, he decided to tell his mom what he had named the monkey.

"Robert," he said, "is Hobert's monkey!"

---

Thus endeth the tale of Hobert's monkey. Hope you enjoyed! :)

Year Two (ow ow!)

So it's been exactly two weeks since I posted, and what an excellent two weeks it has been. I somehow managed to get all of my stuff packed up, I flew from St. Louis MO to Albuquerque NM to Salt Lake City UT, and didn't make a complete fool of myself in the process (notwithstanding my best efforts, as the man whose newspaper took a significant sip of my ginger ale would surely attest).

I feel like this is going to be a really successful semester too. My room has been clean almost every single day, I've been staying caught up (if not ahead) on all of my homework, and I feel like I know more people in my ward already than I did in my ward all last year. How awesome is that? Oh, and I'm not starving, I've been eating healthy stuff, I've been getting up between 8 and 8:30 (well, not on the weekends), I've been going to bed at decent times (again, not on weekends), and (I shouldn't even be congratulating myself on this) I've showered almost every day, even when I felt like I really didn't need to. I did laundry. I keep all my clothes hung up. I am striving for organization and excellent cleanliness and positivity and sociability and every good thing that I more or less abandoned this summer because, even though there were many excellent things about it, there was a lot that was frustrating, upsetting, annoying, boring, and overall unpleasant, whether I acknowledged it as such or not. Now I have such a better perspective on what awesomeness is.

We had an excellent cookie ice cream sandwich party, which I will label as even more than successful. It was fantastically awesome, we got to know so many people, and more or less landed ourselves a very popular, fun position in the ward. We're like ... cool. :) Haha.

Now for something a little embarrassing. Last Sunday (and by last I don't mean yesterday, but the first Sunday in our new ward, the day of Cookies on the Corner) I kind of cried a little bit in church. Haha. Yeah I know ... I mean, there was a changing of the bishop's counselors, I didn't know the old ones, and who the heck cries over new ones ... well, not me. But during the sacrament, I was kind of thinking/praying to myself, and I just felt this overwhelming sense of gratitude about being in this ward, and that all of us (the whole ward) have been put in it for a reason. It was just such a good feeling, feeling that things are going to go well for us here and that there's a purpose and just... idk. I cried a little bit. Felt like kind of a pansy, I mean, I should be able to hold these things back. I tried. I think I disguised it rather well, actually. Bangs can really come in handy, if you know what I'm sayin'. But yeah. This is going to be such a great year. I'm so happy to be here! So happy that I have such great friends! So happy and so grateful that things are going so well right now! I love life! :)