A Study Break Discussion of Mac&Cheese

Since I am taking a study break to make food and I'm also waiting for some water to boil for my Mac & Cheese, I find it appropriate to address the following photo: 

I saw this a few months ago on Pinterest, and found it to be both true and hilarious. The infamous "To open push here" tab has been victimizing thumbnails and willpowers for just about as long as I can remember. While I have labeled it simply as a deceit (see word and arrow in photo above) and a punisher of young, hungry victims, I have another item of business to discuss:

This darn thumb tab is completely and totally useless. 

Most people are not aware of this, because, as stated above, it's mostly just a horrific item intended to make us suffer. But suppose, just imagine with me for a moment, that it did, in fact, work as it purports to work. What would be the result?

You would, indeed, be able to pour the macaroni out of the box and into the pot of boiling water through the nice little opening that the tab would theoretically provide. This, if it were possible, would be true.

But what of the cheese?

I speak here of the cheese packet, the cheese that is the "Cheese" in "Macaroni & Cheese." One might even refer to it as "The Big Cheese." (Though there may be some argument as to whether "The Big Cheese" should refer to the largest cheese, or what Kraft claims its Macaroni & Cheese to be--that is, "The Cheesiest." As yet, consider the question in question to be still under debate.) 

Back to this cheese packet and the tabbed opening of the Macaroni & Cheese box. Let's say you have, by some feat of human strength, agility, and unbeforeseen prowess, managed to get this tab open, thereby creating the opening that permits the macaroni to exit the box in an orderly fashion. Now you want to get the cheese packet out of the box. You tip the box, but alas! The cheese packet is, shockingly, too large to fit through the tiny opening that the tab provides. What do you do now?

You open the darn box the way that boxes are meant to be opened, and fetch out yo' cheese. 

So tell me, world: why in the heck would I use the danged tab opening when I have to open the box the old fashioned way anyways to get the crappin' cheese out when I am fully and completely capable of opening said box the old fashioned way, fetchin' out ma' cheese and settin' it on the counter, and then pouring the noodles into the pot of boiling water, thereby avoiding the thumbnail abuse and ego-damage that this box entails to any person fool enough to try to use the stinkin' tab?

You know, I think that the tab just exists as an insult to humanity. Because we're not smart enough not to pour the cheese packet into the pot of boiling water with the noodles. 

Then again, we're not smart enough to figure out the motherfatherin' tab, so I guess I really don't know who is really in the wrong here. 

Huh.

Anyways ... time to get back to the books!

Procrastination and Motivation

I no longer believe in trying to do homework when I'm not in the mood.

Why? Because I languished on my bed in weird, contorted positions that resulted in significant discomfort for a good half of the day, and spent the rest having terrible posture at my desk and making my back hurt. And what did I achieve in the midst of all this pain and suffering?

ABSOLUTELY NOTHING REMOTELY RESEMBLING PRODUCTIVITY.

I might as well have been breaking scads of dishes on the kitchen counter with a face of complete despair and disgust, because believe me, I was/am DISGUSTED with myself, and despairing at the horrific waste of a day that today truly was. And it's not just because I completely failed in regards to getting my paper written earlier, but that I knew that I couldn't do it. Every time I pulled the documents up on my screen, I stared at them miserably for a few seconds, tried to read a few pages, but just collapsed from sheer paper-loathing every single time. But because of fear of the possibility of never reaching that point of motivation and inspiration that always inevitably strikes at a reasonable time, I just sat in front of the freaking computer achieving nothing and feeling gross for hours on end. HOURS. HOURS. I KNEW THAT I COULD DO NOTHING TO MAKE MY PAPER HAPPEN AND SO I JUST SAT HERE AND WATCHED IT NOT HAPPEN WHEN I COULD HAVE GONE OUT AND DONE SOMETHING AWESOME WITH MY DAY. Idk what I possibly would have done, but it would have been AMAZING. Or maybe, ya know, I just would have gone to Wal-Mart or something. Anything would have been better than what I did.

Wow. In my angsty pit of regret, I completely forgot the awesome part of this story.

At approximately 8:45ish, I was laying on the floor of the living room with Chelsea and Paul, staring at the ceiling, when suddenly I knew it was time to get up and write.

And I churned out more (and at a higher quality) in a single hour than I did in the previous who-even-knows-how-many hours (but if we were gonna guess, somewhere in the realm of 12-15).


Suffice it to say that I am never, EVER doing homework when I don't feel inspired ever again for as long as I live. In other words, goodbye guilt, and hello FUN THINGS :)

A Rant: "Like"

It seems to me that there's always at least one person in a class who frequently feels compelled to comment, and who, unfortunately, also grates massively on your nerves. Perhaps it's just the simple fact that they seem always to have something to say that is truly bothersome and inspires you to look for other reasons to want to plug your ears and shout "LA LA LA LA LA" every time their hand goes up in the air ... but we all know that we find those other reasons. Whether or not this is the case for you, I will leave to your own interpretation of yourself. But for me, whether this is the true reason that I'm bothered by one of my dear classmates' comments, or simply a justifying cover-up for the fact that I seem to glean nothing from the words that come out of her mouth, I don't really care about right now. Because the fact that I'm hung up on right now is that this girl cannot eradicate the word "like" from her vocabulary.

Am I being oversensitive? I mean, lots of people use the word "like" in ways that extend beyond its dictionary definition, and they do so with very high frequency, compared to other words. "Like" has become our space filler, the word that comes out of our mouths when we realize we don't know the word we really want to say, the word that seems to indicate an impending metaphor ... but not really. I could go on, but I'll just stop for the time being, because I'm sure, scientific minds that you all have, want some evidence to support my point, and not just my own unadulterated irritation.

Last class, I took it upon myself to tally the number of times she said "like" in one comment. In one comment, probably lasting 30-45 seconds, she said the word "like" 32 times. It doesn't even seem possible, does it? But let me tell you how possible it is. There were moments when I could barely finish one tally before I had to put two more down. There were a lot of "and like, it's like" and "and it's just like" and sometimes some "and like, it's like, just like" ... (And I won't even mention (beyond this single moment) how many "ya know?"s there were smushed in there as well). I know, it's sounds like I'm kidding. But I assure you, I am 100%, bet-your-bottom-dollar, I'm-going-to-claw-my-eyes-out serious about this girl. I'm amazed that she could actually convey a message that was so watered down with "like". It was truly horrific.

And that being said, I'm going to pass you over to Taylor Mali, who is (1) a perfectly fantastic slam poet and personal favorite, (2) full of words of wisdom on how we do, and should, converse.

First Video: for the purposes of my own message, I recommend watching the first minute or so. You can keep watching if you want to hear his poem (which I also recommend) "Any Language Much Less English"



Second Video: I've posted this here before, but it's just fantastic, so I'm posting it again. You should watch all of this one, and enjoy the beautiful typography. :)




He's brilliant. I wish everyone would watch these things. Can you even imagine how much better comments in class would be?

:)

Who Says?

If I knew that when the sun rose this morning, it was carrying with it such a bitter reminder of my own fallibility, I might have buried my head under my covers and refused to get out of bed.
Perhaps I’m being a little over-dramatic right now, and I’m willing to accept that. Tomorrow, today probably won’t seem like such a disappointment. But for now it is and I deign it my responsibility to be honest and confront this unpleasant sense of disappointment in myself. Allow me to explain how this all went down.
Yesterday, I decided that I needed to take a little sleep, so I got all comfy on the love sack and shut my eyes. I’m not exactly sure when I went to sleep, or really when I woke up. I just know that at some point in the middle of my sleeping, I woke up abruptly and remembered that I had a paper due at 5 p.m. today. I am immensely grateful that God (and yes, it was God. I hadn’t thought of the paper at all, except for the 30 seconds of class last Wednesday when my prof mentioned it in passing) was loving enough to remind me that I had a paper due. Even if it was in the middle of a nap.
Being that I have decided not to do homework on Sundays, I didn’t do anything about it, and merely lamented the fact that I had failed to remember earlier, and also that I failed to study at all for the American Literary History test that I had to take today. And yes, it had to be today because my professor’s one of those lame people who only keeps tests open for one day, even if that one day doesn’t work for you AT ALL. So here I am with this massive conundrum: I have to study for a sizeable midterm, and write a paper, oh, and go to a group project meeting and do other homework all in one day.
Now, I realize that I could have managed my time better, and if I was a better student, I would have remembered these things and prepared for them and today wouldn’t have been a massive stress bomb on my life.
But I’m not, and I didn’t, and it was.
The paper took me WAY longer than it should have, and I turned it in frantically 1 minute before the deadline, knowing full well that it was more than 50 words too short, a.k.a. automatic 10% deduction. So that was disappointing.
It was also disappointing that I didn’t start studying for my test, which I needed to start taking by 8:00 until 5:00. Let’s look at the time breakdown here:
-Relatively Minor Paper: 11:00-5:00 (6 hours)
-Definitely Significant Test: 5:00-6:20, 7:00-8:00 (2 hours and 20 minutes)
Is this at all sensible, or indicative of which one should have been my top priority? No. Not at all. Very much the opposite, in fact.
So, after dinner group, I came back and studied more (and missed out on Heather’s pies ), and then charged up the hill, which meant my calves were on FIRE, and prepared for an abysmal failure. On the upside of things, the test didn’t turn out to be an abysmal failure. However, the overload of stress that today was can’t really be ignored by the tiny fact that one test wasn’t an abysmal failure. I am simply too entrenched in the general unhappiness of today for that to happen. (Tomorrow I will be fine, so don’t worry about me. I’m just expressing things as they are in the present moment.)
Right now, the only thing I’m finding consolation in is the song, “Who Says?” by John Mayer. Just ignore the stoned part.

Who says I can’t get stoned,
Turn off the lights and the telephone,
Me in my house alone?
Who says I can’t get stoned?
Who says I can’t be free
From all the things that I used to be,
Rewrite my history?
Who says I can’t be free?
Who says I can’t get stoned,
Call up a girl that I used to know,
Fake love for an hour or so?
Who says I can’t get stoned?
Who says I can’t take time,
Meet all the girls on the county line,
Wait on fate to send a sign?
Who says I can’t take time?
Who says I can’t get stoned,
Plan a trip to Japan alone?
Doesn’t matter if I even go.
Who says I can’t get stoned?It’s been a long night in New York City,
It’s been a long night in Baton Rouge.
I don’t remember you looking any better
But then again, I don’t remember you.

I almost did some crazy things tonight. Not crazy in the get-stoned-or-something-equally-rebellious kind of way, but just the doing-things-that-I-know-would-end-very-very-badly kind of way, because sometimes we want things that aren’t good for us. Like ice cream and J Dawgs and extensive exposure to sunlight.
Speaking of sunlight, today was a great reminder of a little pessimistic lesson that I’m rather fond of at present. I’m perfectly aware that it’s pessimistic, but you can kind of turn it on its head, and then it’s not pessimistic anymore. I just think it sounds and works better in the pessimistic sort of way.
So today I was walking back from class, miserably anticipating finishing my paper, I was walking through the sound circles area in front of the JFSB. The sun was shining, it was beautiful, and I can’t deny that. But we had one of those semi-rare moments when, despite the sunshine, it happened to be raining. I had no clue where that rain was coming from, but it was definitely falling on my face. And here’s where the pessimistic lesson comes in:

Just because the sun is shining
doesn’t mean it isn’t going to rain.

Isn’t that lovely? Sure, you can flip it and say that just because it’s raining doesn’t mean the sun isn’t shining. But let’s face it – usually when it’s raining, the sun ain’t gon’ shine. That’s just the way it is. Whereas the first one … well, it just works better and you and I both know why.
Blame it on all the Byron and Keats I’ve been reading today, but dangit, I reserve my right to be pessimistic sometimes. And right now I’m having a pessimistic moment, and I feel like shouting to the world that even if everything in your life is going just peachy, it doesn’t mean that you’re not going to end up with a wet face and shoes. That’s just the way life works. It’s not perfect always. Doesn’t mean you can’t be happy anyways, but it means that disappointments are going to come regardless. Sometimes, you’re just going to have to turn in papers that aren’t exactly what you hoped them to be, and you’re going to be practically hyperventilating and praying that all those six hours spent writing this tragically imperfect paper don’t come to a bitter finale by not letting you upload your paper. (Thank goodness that didn’t happen, even though for a little bit, I was totally scared that it was going to.) Sometimes you’re going to be sitting at a kitchen table trying to cram as much information about transcendentalism and realism and naturalism and romanticism and regionalism and whatever other crapism that you’re supposed to know into your head as you can, even though you haven’t done any of the reading since the last class, and your professor sometimes acts like he’s stoned on the sound of his own voice and his own stupid trivia and makes you want to punch a baby. Sometimes you’re just going to be so disappointed with the way you handled things, and the fact that you can’t do everything, and that you make really stupid mistakes sometimes.
Sometimes these things happen.

Paper-Writing Ego

I just wrote a 3.5-page paper

in 4 hours

with numerous breaks

(including one to make spaghetti

with from-scratch sauce)

and not a single ounce of stress,

even with the looming 6 p.m. deadline.

I emailed it in 35 mins early.

Am I ridiculously proud of this?

Yeah. I am.

So I have a massive paper writing ego.

What of it?

Wednesdays, and Another Commitment

I think we can all agree that the week would be better if we could skip Wednesdays. They're just awful. It's the day that your exhaustion with the week becomes unbearable, but it's still too far from the weekend for you to be able to rejoice.

Yep. That’s exactly how it feels. My Wednesdays are particularly awful because they are basically Mondays (woof) without the joy of Fridays (Yay!), with the addition of two once-a-week classes, one of which is a 2.5 hour evening class, which means I’m on campus from 10-1 and then again from 3-7:30 (but sometimes as early as 7, though I wasn’t so lucky today). On Mondays and Fridays, it’s usually 10-11, and 3-4. you can see that there is a big difference there. Plus the fact that I leave for class before 3 means I don’t really have a good time for dinner, unless I eat on campus. Let me just stop that little brain fart right there—that is never going to happen. At least, not often. (Oh, that I were a freshman, and could have the wish of my heart: to again carry the magic money card!)
As if that weren’t bad enough, today was made worse by the impending ID Midterm in my Music 202 class, which meant that I was spending every spare moment drilling Bach, Beethoven, Haydn, Handel, and Mozart in my head. Not fun. Because afterwards, all you have in your head is a bajillion little violins and sopranos singing “And suddenly! There were with the angel! A multitude of the heavenly host! Praising God! And singing! …“ and then it goes into the “Glory to God” section of the Messiah, blah blah blah you get my point. It’s all fine and dandy here and there, but the constant pounding is really doing wonders for the state of my head right now. And, to make things worse, there were about 4 questions on the test that I just guessed on, or was stupid enough to think I could go back to later (couldn’t – it was a timed, PPT test with only 2 questions per slide, and those two questions being composer and title (or genre) of the work.) Then there’s the weather, and the fact that the past few days of sunny sunshine and happiness are about to be obliterated with winds, cool temperatures, and the very stuff of nightmares—snow. Oh, and I’m sick. And I have to go to French tomorrow. And I had to listen to another lecture about stinking North Korea, because, as he is popularly known, the Larry Miller of BYU campus is a whore who is prostituting the Kennedy Center Lecture Series by focusing on as many Asian topics as possible to help his little minions/slaves/b’s. (Not to be disrespectful of the Real Larry Miller, of course.) I think you’ve got the idea – Wednesday has been a Wednesday, and a particularly bad one.
I can’t wait for next semester when I only have class on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 1:30-6:30. That is SO heinously bearable I can’t stand it. Four day weekends always? I’m all over that.
Now on to my second topic. I had almost forgot about it, but then I looked at my title again. Hah. Well here’s the thing: I stalked somebody again. Blog stalked them indirectly, actually. And, once again, I find myself needing to commit to not stalking people anymore. I can’t do it. There’s too much creepy there. Creepy what I’m doing, creepy what I’m finding, and makes everyone involved, stalker AND stalkee, seem like more of a creeper than any of us actually are. Today, I take a solemn vow: no more stalking. I’m super done with it. Super, super, super done.

The Diet of a College Student

Here in K1, we pride ourselves on the quality of our meals. We stand proud behind our beautifully displayed pasta bar. We rejoice in our massive exhibition of cupcakes and dipped cocoa spoons. We will ravish your taste buds with our calzones, spaghetti sauces, pizzas, meatballs, and Chinese Buffet Doughnuts. On any given evening, without occasion, we, unlike most college students, will whip up a full blown and incredibly delicious meal. It's a beautiful thing…
… most of the time.
Now, I guess it's not fair to implicate my roommates in this. It's mostly me. I'm really the one to blame here. Why? I'm not really sure. If I had to guess, I'd probably say it's because I either want to go all out, or I just quit. It's kind of like me with cleaning. If I can't do a full-blown spring-cleaning kind of deal, I will probably just ... not. You’d think I’d just get over it and make a quasi-real meal. No. I just go straight down the path of crazy. Here is a list of some of the bad food choices I've made this year:
5. Things Straight Out of the Can
Be it the pineapple tidbits I just finished, the cherry pie filling that left me full of sick, or the jellied cranberry sauce that’s on my list of “never purchase ever again,” I’m semi-notorious for eating stuff out of the can. Idk what’s wrong with it. It saves me from having to do dishes. But it’s not always (read: ever) meant to be eaten that way, so it tends to taste pretty shady. And yet I keep doing it … huh.
4. 7-Up … on Frosted Mini-Spooners

  ⁺⁼

One sunny Saturday morning, I woke up excited for breakfast. As I was about to pour myself bowl of Frosted Mini Spooners (remember, this was back at the beginning of fall semester when I was relishing every moment I had with cereal that didn’t taste like horse feed after a summer of Kashi and Chex. Woof.), I spotted a 2-liter of 7-Up sitting on the counter, and thought, in the middle of my morning intellectual fog, “Soda sweet. Cereal sweet. Sweet plus sweet equal very sweet. Good, yes?” Reason caught up with me for a moment, and said, “Are you serious?” A few seconds passed, and I was unsure of what I would do. Then I said to myself, “I’m in college. I DO WHAT I WANT.” Fortunately, I had enough foresight to only put seven or so Frosted Mini Spooners in my bowl, and only a quarter of a cup of soda in my bowl. Strangely enough, it tasted just like Fruit Loops at first. Then that 7-Up-y tang and carbonated fierceness that Sprite could never harness threw me into a tailspin. Rude.
3. My New Year’s Eve Feast: Ritz crackers, a chocolate Snack Pack pudding, a raspberry peach fruit juice, and peanut butter … I don’t even know what else.
++ +  +  =
Being that I had just flown back home from Christmas break that day, and had spent like 14 hours travelling, it was perfectly acceptable that I didn’t want to go out and party on New Year’s Eve. I’ve never really cared much about the New Year, except how it destroys my erasers because I am constantly having to rewrite the date. I don’t make resolutions, because hey, who wants to be hugely disappointed in themselves come February (or January 5th, as the case may be …) when they realize that they’ve completely failed as a human being, and can’t even successfully give up carbonated beverages for a month (5 days …). Not like I’ve ever tried that, because I have a full-blown addiction to carbonated things, and I would never give them up because I see no reason to, as I have limited access to them.
So as I’m lying on the couch, I realize that I’ve got no groceries, but also that I don’t want to cook, and I’m capital-H Hungry. I’m too lazy to walk to the market (slash forget that it exists), and so I start scavenging the cabinets for things that are edible. What I find are Ritz crackers, a chocolate Snack Pack pudding, some raspberry peach flavor packets, and peanut butter. I might have found a few other things, but I know that those things were definitely there. I collect my items, ashamed of myself, and shut the blinds tight, lock and bolt the front door, fluff the cozy sack, and find pillows, blankets, and my cellphone, and plop down in front of the TV to watch Oceans 11.
But it doesn’t stop here. I know, it already seems bad enough that I’m spending New Year’s Eve alone in my apartment, eating these things, wrapped up in my little cocoon of loser-dom. Oh no. I had to get creative. I’m mixing up my peanut butter and pudding, I’m sloshing juice into my mouth before I can even swallow the cracker (which is, surprisingly enough, not that bad …).
I don’t really remember what else went down in my fit of insanity and sick hunger, but I am not proud. Not proud at all.
2. Straight Sea Salt

I’m one of those people that really likes salt. I like salty popcorn, salty caramel … all sorts of salty things. Now, our apartment has a spice rack, a really cute one, on which there is a bottle that holds (you guessed it) sea salt. And it’s the cool stuff that is in pretty sizeable chunks too. It’s great stuff.
So let’s set the stage for this a little bit. We’ve invited some of the gentlemen from #6 over to watch a movie and make homemade caramel, and we’re having a lovely time with them and a few other people that we didn’t really know. As Logan is stirring up the caramel, I’m chilling in the kitchen and I see this little jar of sea salt. So I start pouring tiny piles into my hand and eating the little pebbles of sea salt. Nbd, right? Well, as I'm going along, my throat kinda starts to burn, but it’s a cold, wet burn (yes, all three of those can be happening at the same time). It was weird, but I didn’t really think anything of it, and I kept eating the sea salt.
Suddenly, I realize that I’m going to barf. What do I do? I walk past everyone straight to the bathroom, kneel down in front of the toilet, and proceed to offer up my oblations to the porcelain god. Then Natalie came in and I was barfing and my face was covered in tears, because even if you’re not distressed, vomiting is one of those things that makes all the liquids in your face start coming out, whether you will it or not. That’s just reality.
1. Campells Chunky Baked Potato with Cheddar and Bacon Bits Soup … on Rice

 ^{+  =}

This was probably the worst possible thing I ever did. Let’s just clarify that shopping hungry isn’t only bad because you want to buy things you don’t need. It’s also bad because suddenly, things that should never, ever look good suddenly look delicious. It’s a good thing we’re not supposed to shop on Sunday, because if I went grocery shopping on Fast Sunday, I’d probably come home with a jar of pickled eggs or pigs’ feet or something. Granted, I was further deceived by the $1 price tag. A meal for $1? I’m on that like white on rice.
Which is funny, because rice is where things start getting really shady… Well, shadier than they already were.
So I make this soup, and realize that it’s not what it was pretending to be. The thing about canned soup is that it looks like there might be some variation in there, but they let it sit in the cans for like a billion years before they try to sell it to the public, and by that point everything has just decided to share flavors and textures, so it’s mostly just this homogenous slop that’s also probably carrying botulism. I realize this, and suddenly also realize, thanks to the stank … I mean steam rising out of the pot it was brewing in, that this soup is very dense with “flavor.” Knowing that my taste buds couldn’t take that kind of intensity, I knew that I had to find some way to stretch the flavor out and dilute it. I was afraid to put water in it, because that would make it grosser. Then I remembered that I had a Tupperware of rice in the fridge from some previous meal. I think to myself, “Soup on rice? It’s kind of like a sauce thing on rice, right?”
WRONG. It was like my mouth was Hiroshima and my own stupidity dropped a starch bomb on me, decimating all hope of happiness for the rest of the night. I was full within like 3 bites, the smell of the Cheese-Whiz-y cheddar “flavor” in the soup was giving me a headache, and I think they used hog tongues to make those bacon bits. So … awful … ughhhhh.

First Day of School

... first day of school! Prove to Dad I'm not a fool! :)

So first day of classes is over and done with, and I don't think I've ever been so nervous in my life. Maybe I just forgot that I got nervous the past couple of semesters, but I always have this fright that I'm going to go to the wrong class. Or, like today, that (1) there are so many RMs in my French class that I feel like an idiot, and (2) I don't want people to judge me like I'm a marriage-obsessed freak for taking Marriage & Family when I'm not even seriously dating anyone. There are other reasons to take it! Hmph.

However, I am looking forward to tomorrow and getting introduced to my other classes. I've got two English classes, which are, of course, wonderful. One's going to be kind of small and awkward, but that's okay. (Just to explain, it's so small and awkward that they are advertising it on the English bulletin board in the JFSB. I blame the professor for sending out an email like, before Thanksgiving I swear, explaining that we were going to focus on "poetry, love, and the cosmos." Literally half the class dropped it after he sent that. Including me, but then I had to sign up for it again. Boo.) The other is American literature, and I hope that somehow I will learn to appreciate it, because, as is, I kind of hate it. But I am open to it, so that's a good thing, right? :) Then there's the Kennedy Center Lecture Series, with Heather and Natalie, and finally, Music 202. I am actually weirdly excited for Music 202, except for the fact that it's an evening class. The only other section of it is taught at 8 a.m., and I don't think I can handle that. Haha. But maybe I will switch if I can't take the 2.5 hour insanity that is an evening class? Who knows. Idk if I can make it all the way to the JKB by 8 a.m. ... probably not.

Since writing the above I have had a sad experience. It occurred to me that, although I do not yet have my book (it is still being shipped), the library does have it. So I looked it up, and it showed that there was a copy checked out, but it didn't indicate how many copies of the book they had, and since there are often multiple copies, I thought, "Hey, why not?" So I go up to the library, fully expecting to find this book on the shelf, and therefore expecting to be able to do my homework.

Not the case. The book wasn't there, my feet were aching really badly (I had on my new boots. Squee.), and I couldn't do my homework. Actually, a more accurate statement is that I still can't do my homework, because I still don't have my book. Is it too much to ask for the miracle of it showing up tomorrow? I kind of think so, but we shall see. Perhaps I will just get one from the Bookstore and return it asap? I don't even know if I can do that. I wish I could find someone with a copy of the book, and then I would borrow it from them for like an hour and it would be lovely. Who knows though. Gosh books, just get here.

I'm sick of waiting. Plus, it makes me nervous to not have it. :( Boo.

Passion

When I flew back to Provo, I had (at least) nine books in my carry-on and "personal item." This is not a joke or an exaggeration. I carried Les Miserables, Little Dorrit, Who Stole the Wizard of Oz?, The Book Thief, Made for Heaven, The Big Bento Box of Unuseless Japanese Inventions, Le Livre de Mormon ;), Little Bee, and The Day the Falls Stood Still. Let me tell you a little story about that last one...

On my last day in Jeff City, I wanted to go buy a movie. I was going to order it online, but then I saw it on the Barnes & Noble website for the same amount of money that it would cost for me to purchase and ship it from Amazon. Since we have a Barnes & Noble in town, and I kinda had a few books in mind that I thought I'd like to get a peek at, maybe even buy, so I drove over there. Much to my dismay, the movie was $10 more in the store than online, for reasons which still boggle my mind. To add to my misery, the book I most wanted to buy wasn't even in the store. How's that for cruel? But I really like looking at books, so I kinda hung around to see if there was anything else I'd be interested in purchasing.

As I'm browsing (extensively, mind you) this old man who works there comes up to me and asks me if he can help me. Now, I tend to shy away from these types of people (read: employees) because I really don't like being helped. Not while I'm shopping anyways. I'm pretty good at deciding for myself what I want, and plus if I can't find what I want, I figure it's not worth having because I'm pretty good at finding things, if they're put away properly. Anyways, I have digressed from my story. I change my mind about him helping me, and ask if he can help me find the book The Girl in the Blue Dress by Gaynor Arnold. It's about the wife of Charles Dickens, and it sounds like it's a really good read. To my surprise, he didn't baby me over to where it was supposed to be on the shelf, which is what I half expected him to do, but immediately went to the computer to see if it was in stock, and where it would be if it was. It didn't happen to be there, but he gave me a print out with the ISBN on it and stuff.

Then he says to me, "You're not from around here, are you?" And I was just kind of shocked, because I don't feel like I frequently give off that vibe, and certainly not in a bookstore, because I'm always comfortable in a bookstore. Surprised, I said no. As my surprise was absolutely evident in my face, he said, "A reader in here that I don't recognize? You have to be from somewhere else." After that, I kept browsing, he suggested The Day the Falls Stood Still to me, and I ended up purchasing it.

Now, the book is not the point of the story. The point is how good it felt to have someone see me, recognize what I'm passionate about, and then verbally acknowledge it. You wouldn't think that would feel good, but having this total stranger nab me as a big reader felt wonderful. It was like, "Yes! This is what I like to do! This is what matters to me! And you can tell just by looking at me that that's what's important to me!"

Of course, there are many other things that are important to me, Church, family, friends, etc. But I feel like those belong in a different sort of category. They're kind of apples-and-oranges with language and literature, you know? It's just been over the past few months that I've come to realize exactly how much I love words and language and the way that they can be used, and it's so gratifying to know that that love is apparent to other people, because I think when you have that kind of love, that kind of passion for something, it radiates. Maybe not to everyone, but there are other people who can see it.

I think back to how I felt my first semester of freshman year. It wasn't exactly a good semester, and I questioned a lot of things about myself and what I wanted to do. As a senior in high school, I had known that I was interested in English, but I also knew that that didn't necessarily translate well into a career. In fact, I still know this. It doesn't exactly scream practicality or promise for the future. But I had this moment, after I had accidentally declared myself a pre-communications major (based on my application to BYU), as I was sitting in my communications class, that I realized I absolutely hated comms. I hated everything about it ... except for the days that we talked about books as a form of media and communication. For some reason, that just warmed my heart and soul to think about how powerful the written word is, and how enduring books are, and how much happiness they've brought to me in my life. I mean, I was always the kid who got the maximum number of library books, who was in the advanced reading class in elementary school, who racked up AR points like nobody's business, and who was always writing stories or composing sentences in her head. That's just who I was. It's always been a part of me.

That doesn't apply to everyone of course. Tons of people don't figure out what their passions are until they're in college. Lots of peoples' passions don't translate well into majors. Many people have multiple passions, and have to decide how their passions are going to be a part of their futures.

But some people don't recognize their passions.

Doesn't that make you sad? It sure does me. I know how it feels to feel like you're working towards something you couldn't care less about, even if it has a more clear path to careerdom than the things you actually do care about. I just happened to be lucky enough, and maybe even crazy enough, to run away from the things I didn't care about, and towards the things that made a difference in my life--books, and French. (Aw. <3.)

I feel like the following quote is outlandishly applicable here:

Don't ask yourself what the world needs; ask yourself what makes you come alive. And then go and do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.

-- Harold Whitman

Isn't it so true though? I mean, you can tell when people don't like their jobs, or even their majors. It's painfully obvious.

You can also tell when people love what they're doing, when they have a passion for it. Furthermore, it doesn't just make them happier. It makes them better at what they're doing, because they care more about the results, and not for anyone's sake more than their own! When you love what you're doing, you want to increase your knowledge and improve your work. It's a natural consequence.

I can't help but think of Bob from The Incredibles, right at the very beginning. Remember? He looked like this:

Ohhhh. Poor Bob. Look how miserable. But when he decided to do those things that he cared about most, he made himself, and everyone else, happier.

Am I trying to justify the fact that I'm majoring in two things that aren't exactly Career-In-A-Jar Majors? Is it because my dad and grandpa and other people have been asking me a lot lately, "So what are you going to do with that, exactly? What are your plans for the future?" Maybe. Maybe I'm really just that dumb. But I don't think so. I mean, we've all had the teachers who love to teach, and the teachers who hate their lived because they're teaching and they hate teaching. You can tell the difference in everything that they do and say. They're worlds apart. They might get the same (crappy) pay, but what does that matter when there's happiness involved? You know what they all say, "I'd rather be poor and doing something I love, than rich doing something I hate." Okay, yeah, it's cheesy ... but isn't cheesy usually also paired with "true"? I dunno. Just a thought.

I guess what I'm saying is that, even when I don't love my classes, I love English, and I love French, and I love the fact that I get to study more about them and increase my understanding and progress towards my goals in each of these disciplines. I'm so glad that I have the opportunity to follow my passions, and to improve upon the world through something that makes me feel so alive. :)

Oh, and can you tell that I'm so stoked to start a new semester in a couple of days? ;)

Whiners

I really hate whiners. I realize that I am a(n extremely verbose) complainer quite often, but at least I have legitimate reasons to back up my complaints. And when they aren't legitimate, they are always well-worded and/or extensively passionate. Despite my periodic dips in the Well of Whining, I feel that the particular situation I wish to discuss is an unusually legitimate, and is one for which I feel more than usually passionate. As to well-worded-ness, that is yet to be seen. But I hope that it will be so.

Seriously, though, this is a very big deal to me, and I refuse to remain silent about it. Here's the problem: Some students (yes, at BYU) seem to be severely afflicted with a sense of entitlement that renders them rude, and is, frankly, an embarrassment to our fine educational institution.

I've noticed the tendency towards this sense of entitlement a few times through my experience at BYU, particularly as I've taken my GE classes. I suppose this can be partially attributed to freshmen, just out of high school and used to waltzing through their classes without even grazing over the thought of making an effort, and maybe that's why they think that they have a right to have every answer to every test question handed to them on a solid-gold platter without having to learn anything that they won't actually be tested on. Maybe that's where the problem is originating. I HOPE that that's the only place it's coming from. I'd be even more embarrassed to be numbered among the students in my class, who really are acting like a skid mark on the undies of our campus.

Just to be clear, I've had two GE classes this semester, Biology 100 and Sociology 111, and as I've attended the final reviews for each of these classes, there have been multiple students who have sat around complaining about having to know things that aren't on the test. Like two extra percentages, or a couple more dates. When my Biology TA listed the three statistics that we should know, a student asked, "But which ones are actually going to be on the test?" My TA said, "You just need to know them. One of them could be on the test, or all of them." The kid was obviously not satisfied with this answer, and the girls sitting directly behind me said in softish voices, "This isn't a game. Why won't he just tell us?" Later, while the TA was writing something on the board, the girl next to me leaned over and said, "It's better if you take your contacts because then you can't see how ridiculous it is that he's writing that on the board."

Now, I'm going to admit that even though I went to most of the lectures, I in no way have been paying attention for the past month or so. Considering the barrenness of the classroom and the tendency of numberless concourses of students to leave mid-lecture (which really is so disrespectful I could just spit), I'd say there's a pretty decent chance that the majority of the people in the review weren't coming to class, and of those who were there, they probably weren't paying much more attention than I was. And let's be honest, if you really pay decent attention in class, reviews aren't that necessary. Helpful, yes, but not necessary. You can get a very decent grade without them. Very decent.

As one of the less-attentive students, I was just happy that he was willing to set aside two hours in the middle of his finals week to hold a review. That's kind of a big deal, you know? I mean, we are ALL very busy, and there have been reviews held every single day since the last day of class. That's huge.

Furthermore, reviews are, as always, completely and totally optional. So if you don't want to be there, don't be there. You knew that this review was going to last two hours. Why you would think it would last 30 minutes is so far beyond me, that I can't even express it adequately.

And seriously, we're paying a pittance for our education here at the Y, so what makes you think that you should have everything handed straight to you? I mean, I am so hugely against people thinking that they can just pay for things and get what they want without working for it, but I am even more against people paying very small amounts of money, paying costs that are subsidized by tithing from members of the church all over the world, and still expecting to not have to work at all for their education. You ingrates. I'm so sick of you.

What do you have to do that is so much more important than studying for a final anyhow? I mean really? How much is really as important as this right now, short of your mother being on her deathbed? Oh, I'm sorry... Is your boyfriend eating his dinner alone in the Cougareat right now? GET SOME PRIORITIES.

Why is it so hard for you to be respectful, huh? I mean really, there is very little that grates on my nerves quite like people being disrespectful, and I'm APPALLED at the number of people who were cutting off the TA, who were making snarky comments, who were asking him to tell them exactly what was going to be on the test, and who were just being rude to him, and to the rest of us who were in there.

I literally wanted to punch every person within a 5 seat radius of me in the face. I have never been so disgusted in my life. The majority of students were so rude, so disrespectful, and so disgustingly convinced that they deserved to have the answers to every question on the test given to them so that they could memorize them and spit them out verbatim with the smallest amount of effort possible.

NEWSFLASH STUDENTS: You don't deserve a degree UNTIL you've made an effort.

Those rude students in my Biology class are not making an effort. Well, they're making an effort to get out of making an effort, and that is simply not acceptable. I am so repulsed at their behavior, and at any student who exhibits the same behavior. It's absolutely foul, and it's an embarrassment to the university, and to the Church that we represent. Students need to be more respectful, and need to care more about their education. Because that's what we're here for; that's what life is all about—learning. And if you're expecting the purpose of life to be given to you without asking anything of you, you need a serious attitude adjustment. And you certainly don't need to be at BYU, because there are people out there that would actually put in the work, that deserve to be here, when compared to your whiny tushes. Stop being so ungrateful, and get rid of that revolting sense of entitlement that you possess.

I need to stop. This rant is getting outrageous, and also I'm running out of G-rated words to describe my annoyance with these idiots that call themselves students. UGH.

Don't You Hate It When ...

It can happen to anyone, anytime. You slide your feet further under your seat, you clasp your hands together, you try to adjust your desk or move your chair, your stomach makes the gurglies....

And you just know that someone in the near vicinity is going to think you ripped one.

What do you do? This depends on who you're with. If you're with friends, you can laugh it off and explain what happened. If you're with family, you don't even need to say anything. But if you're with strangers ... Well, let me just tell you what happened to me this week.

I just so happened to be sitting in my Biology 100 class, absorbed in Facebook and StumbleUpon, as I am wont to be in the middle of the world's most brain-mushing GE. In the midst of this absorption, it became apparent that it was time to participate in an in-class assignment. We had to write down whether or not we should try to save endangered species, or something dumb like that. I don't really care what it was, because it's not really important. What IS important is that while I was waiting for the TA's to tell us what to do with our papers, my fingers were not occupied with my keyboard. So, as so-called "nervous" people tend to be, I needed something to do with my hands. I often struggle, especially when I'm extremely bored, to keep my hands still. They've got to be doing something. So I was clasping my palms together, squeezing my joints about, which led to my palms squeezing together. This was not a problem, as I had exceptionally dry hands that day. Except something went wrong, and there it went ... the flatulent noise that boys have perfected by the age of seven.

Only it wasn't a perfect one. Not one of the loud, obvious, fake ones that we all know so well. No. This was a terrible one because it was just loud enough to be heard, but quiet enough to sound like I'd tried to sneak a real one. There were people right in front of me ... I knew that they had heard. And I was sitting all by myself, which meant there was no way I could even pretend that the guy next to me was responsible. No. I was trapped.

I had to let them know that it was an accident! That it was the pure product of unfortunate circumstances, the result of the tragic laws of science and vacuums and whatnot!! So what do I do?

I start squeezing my hands together with furious speed.

But they, of course, were unusually dry, and I couldn't get the slightest hint of a sound to eject from my hands. So I lift my hands up a little higher, so that maybe if I can't repeat the sound I just created, then maybe they'd catch a glimpse of my hands and therefore understand that the mystery sound was not a legitimate Bronx cheer, but just the result of air rushing between my palms.

Some time after this, I just gave up.

But don't you hate that moment when you know that people around you think that that sound they just heard could have been the warning bell that their air is about to be befouled? Then, of course, you're in this losing battle with time trying to make the same sound again so people realize that you haven't tried to cropdust them.

Whether it's frantically rubbing your shoes against the floor, tromping all across the wood trying to find the squeaky board again, or squeezing your hands together with enough ferocity to permanently attach them to each other, we'll all do anything to keep people from thinking that we are guilty. And I think it's hilarious.

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.

---

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.

---

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 :)

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! :)