Making Life Hard

Oh, the things we do to make our own lives difficult.

You know what I'm talking about: eating food that's not good for you, procrastinating studying and paper writing, staying up late for no reason at all, getting hopes up over things that can't happen ... You know, taking your head and wedging it between a rock and a hard place, then buttering your face so it slides down even further into the crack and stays there.

Why do we do these things to ourselves? We glut ourselves on these things that give such fleeting satisfaction, and typically do more damage to us and our lives than they improve them. I mean, I'm sitting here with grandma's ugliest Alaskan sweaters on my teeth, I think I've burned the tastebuds off my tongue from sheer acidity, and my jaw is cramping from chewing. But will that stop me from putting more handfuls of Skittles in my mouth? As yet, the answer is a resounding NO. I'm not even enjoying them; in fact, they're contributing significantly to my non-enjoyment of this particular moment.

Maybe the punishment isn't strong enough, you say. Perhaps the stakes are not sufficiently high to produce the resilience necessary to combat the tempting flavors happening in my mouth. But I can tell you that, all too often, the stakes are high enough and the punishment is horrifying enough that it should produce proactive and preventative behaviors. I should be able to say, "No. Get away from my mouth. You're messing me up right now."

But not so much.

For your sake, I hope you are not like me. I hope that you have the kind of fortitude that keeps you from procrastinating all your studying, paper writing, and packing so that you can enjoy the last three days and nights of this period of your life. I hope that you can force yourself to go to bed when staying up late takes so much and gives so little to you. I hope that, when you're alone with a tempting bag of Skittles Blenders, you can reach down inside of you and access that well of strength that will make you put them out of your reach. And for heaven's sake, I hope that when fantasy knocks on your door in rather shoddy disguise and asks to stay for two and a half weeks, you have the gumption to demand an inspection of intentions.

I hope that you have the power to resist the things that make life so beautifully difficult. I hope you can look past the appeal on the surface——the having fun, the tasty sugar, the writing silly and metaphorical and cryptic and self-centered and patronizing blog posts in the wee hours of the morning, the illusion of happiness——and keep your life in control.

I hope you can tell the difference between what is just going to make life difficult... and what is worth it.

Because I sure as heck can't.

I'm Practically Famous

Guys, I'm practically famous!!!!***


(***If you're using a really loose definition of "practically" ... and "famous" ...).

I'm in a music video. Of sorts. And it's only on YouTube. And the guy's not really famous much at all.

BUT... I'm still in it. So. Whatever. At like 0:06.

Yay. I'm so cool, y'all.

Except not really. Just enjoy the novelty of this moment.

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?

:)

The Reality of Frozen Yogurt

Frozen yogurt places are quickly becoming Utah's greatest culinary prostitute. Is there a single block between Provo and Salt Lake that doesn't have a Yogurtland, Spoon Me, Spoon It Up, Yozone, etc.? If it weren't for cupcakes, fro-yo would be Utah's only culinary prostitute, and we know that the only thing taking up more real estate than fro-yo places is LDS chapels. (Now don't get me wrong--I love the fact that I can travel down 9th East in Provo and see, I dunno, 28 chapels and 13 more under construction (rough estimate).)

But I'm digressing from my point. 

I've never really been a frozen treats kind of girl. I can enjoy a good vanilla cone, or small dish of ice cream every now and then, but I will never be the kind of girl that craves it. Blame it on my sugar-free-cereals upbringing, subsequent sugar gluttony, and then recovery. Or blame it on the fact that I have sensitive teeth and a tongue that just don't like cold things. Whatever reason you choose, take it, run with it. Fact is, I'm not an ice cream girl. Or a frozen yogurt girl. If anything, I'm a frozen custard girl, but that's another topic for another day. For me, the point of frozen yogurt is to get enough to allow you to get as many mini gummy bears as possible half-frozen on top of it. The fro-yo's just an adhesive cooling device. 

Now, I suppose the fact that I'm already not such a fan of frozen yogurt really discredits my reliability as a giver of the following opinion, but so be it:
Frozen Yogurt is a LIE, STEVEN!!! 

Just kidding. Your name isn't Steven. I was just channeling Jack Black there for a moment. (Please view the following video if you no comprendo.)

Anyways. Back to the reasons why frozen yogurt is a lie. 

You may notice as you have gone to these frozen yogurt places that fro-yo typically has the consistency of soft-serve, maybe a little firmer, and is somewhat less creamy and more tart than regular ice cream. This is in the style of regular yogurt vs. cream. In theory, frozen yogurt and ice cream are just the significantly chilled versions of their refrigerated counterparts. 

This is not true. How do I know? Because I am eating a frozen yogurt right now and it is not the same as fro-yo!

I know. That doesn't make sense. Because frozen yogurt and the general concept of fro-yo are two very different things. I'm talking about a yogurt, Raspberry Yumberry to be exact (yeah, idk what a yumberry is either. Stop worrying about it. It tastes good, and that's all that matters.) which I bought probably a week ago. This yogurt, as it so happens, fell victim to the everyone-in-our-apartment-has-too-much-food incident, which tends to result in fridge-tetris, hard-to-shut-doors, and an inability for the cool air to get around to everything. You may be thinking that this is a problem because the food closest to the door can't get cool. Oddly enough, that is not the problem. The problem is with food getting stuck in the back where all the cool air is also stuck. Hence, the reason I think of that area as the second freezer. 

Other foods of mine have been a victim of this, mainly produce, like the lettuce and my celery (R.I.P. celery). You wouldn't think that freezing would really be much of an issue. Just defrost it, right? WRONG. My poor celery got freakishly floppy and looked bruised, and the lettuce last year was just as much of a disaster. Needless to say, I get a little angry with the fridge, but it's nbd, right?

I suppose I should have realized that my Raspberry Yumberry yogurt, having been knocked back into the second freezer area of the fridge, might have fallen victim to this chilly death. It wasn't until I pulled back the foil that I actually recognized that it was, in fact, frozen. And instead of moving it to the front of the fridge and allowing it to slowly defrost, which may have worked, I kept pulling back the foil. 

This was the wrong decision. 

Somewhere in my head I thought, "This will be fine. It'll be just like fro-yo in a cup. Or like one of those awesome Minute Maid frozen lemonades. Just with a more yogurt-y taste."

WRONG, my friends. SO MUCH WRONGNESS. 

I may have experienced some anger at this realization. 

And what a realization it was.

Turns out, when yogurt freezes, it also separates. Yeah. Into the watery-ish part, and the actual yogurt goop part. To make matters worse, I tried to microwave it slowly, so as not to have warm yogurt. I tried a couple sessions of 30-seconds at 50% power, which were interspersed with spoon jabbings into the little cup. Welcome to shards of ice in yogurt dregs. 

At this point, fearing the imminent yogurt soup, I gave up on the microwave, and decided to stir it into submission. Nothing like a little friction to get things moving slowly, right?

Still so wrong. 

Ultimately, I ended up with some watery room-temperature Raspberry Barfberry melange with little cottage-cheese like curds of stubborn still-frozen yogurt dregs swimming in it.

What I'm really trying to get at is this:
frozen yogurt 
is not the same as 
frozen yogurt.

And you know what the worst part of it all is?

... I still ate it. 

A Rather Overdue Ramble

So I figure it's time to get back to this blogging thing. I haven't posted since mid-June, and I've got seven drafts sitting between now and the last post, each of them starting out with something along the lines of "Well, I'm back!" or "I'm such a loser because I haven't posted in forever" .... The irony of it is all so very beautiful. And maybe this will be just one more dumb draft to jump onto the pile, but I sure hope not. What's even funnier is that I wrote this paragraph last night, before going to Rachel's to watch Pushing Daisies, and it almost got discarded, but I'm committed to getting this darn post published.

Life has been so good to me lately, and once again I find myself counting blessings that so far exceed anything I could have possibly done to "deserve" them. I will spare you the list, because I feel like it would come across a little like bragging, which I don't want to do at all. I know I have done nothing to merit the life I've been given, the bizarre monsoon-season of blessings that seems to be perpetually drenching me with happiness. Sure, I have my angsty moments, and there are times when things in my life aren't obviously either blessings or something-less-bless-ful ... but it seems to me that there's a blessing in everything, and it's always better to choose to see something as a blessing than to see it as something else. It's weird that I'm even saying this right now, because I haven't been in a particularly good mood today ... not terrible, but not really good either. Mostly bored. Kind of like Lady Dedlock...



That's from Bleak House, if you didn't already know. (And if I know you who will read this, you most likely don't. She's great though, isn't she?)

I've been so bored lately, waiting for something exciting, trying to figure out what I really want to do with my life (especially since I tried to figure out my schedule today ... it's weird having to pick through the last few classes I  have to take). You get the gist. At any rate, it's not very exciting, and I'm super distracted right now by the following video:



So this is the kid that won the last American Idol season. He's seventeen, and you sure as heck wouldn't guess that after hearing that voice. Homeboy's a bass and a half. Or, as Nicki Minaj would put it, a Super Bass. He seriously sounds like he's almost 40. It's incredible.


... and suddenly I have nothing more to say. I'm too distracted, too bored, to keep writing. Whatever.

Elizabeth Gilbert on Nurturing Creativity

One of "Those" ...

I think we've lost our articulateness, as a society. I was just thinking about how this week has been one of "those" weeks, and how somehow that has become an all-encompassing word to mean anything from "the most awful, dreadful, nightmarish 7-day period of my life" to "nothing happened that merits the effort of speech."

With what audacity do we dare sum up 168 God-given hours in such a pathetic, ambiguous word? Especially one that is usually attended with a negative connotation?

It's hard to say why we choose to do this. Do we think other people don't care about our lives? Do we not care about our lives? Are we afraid that they will be annoyed or bored with the things we have to say? Do we have anything to say? Or do we simply not know how to say it?

I can't help but think right now of Taylor Mali's slam poem "Totally like whatever, you know?" Watch it. It's awesome. :)

Are we so uncertain about the value of the things we have to say, do we have so little emotion invested in the things that happen to us, that we simply cannot articulate our own lives?

And isn't that something that's kind of important? Shouldn't we be able to talk about our lives, about the things we think, and about the things that are important to us?

Where things really get confusing for me is how we simultaneously have people who will post on Facebook every single thing they do and every single thing they feel. "SOOOOOO annoyed :(((((((((((" or "Bobbie Butthead is at Chile's right now. Chicken Enchilada Soup. YUMMMM." (I recognize that I'm being really immature by including the word "butthead" in my blogpost, but at this point I just don't even care. Judge me at your will and pleasure.)

Do we simply have no idea what is worth documenting and discussing? Or are we just afraid to talk about the things that actually ARE worth documenting and discussing because we don't want people to argue with us and judge us? Do we just not develop our opinions deep enough to have understanding sufficient TO argue them?

Are we so afraid of sounding stupid that we aren't willing to take the chance of sounding smart?

Being Offended, and I LOVE THIS CABIN

I'd just like to make a tiny little comment on people being offended (even a little bit).

DON'T LET IT HAPPEN.

People need to learn to be happy with their own lives, and stop caring about what everyone else does and says, because it doesn't matter. And don't bring it up on Facebook. That's just kinda tacky.

As a piece of paper on my seminar teacher's wall once said, "Anger is like taking poison and expecting the other person to die." I know I'm not the best example of living the principle contained in this little phrase, but when I remember it, I remember not to be angry, bitter, jealous, annoyed, offended, etc.

Besides that, who wants to waste a second of their day harboring bitter feelings when there are so many good things in life?? For example, this ROCKING cabin that we're staying in right now. And there's a video tour, if you've got 10 minutes to waste. It's terrible video/sound/camera-holder quality, but I'm not a film major or in any way planning to have anything to do with film for the rest of my life, so no griping. Haha. Here 'tis: The Cabin

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.

Dear Rachel

Hello Roomie!

So remember this one time when you decided to be a turtle in the hallway? I was just thinking about how hilarious that was and decided it was blog-worthy. Since I can't embed the Facebook video code, you get a pseudo-storyboard.

Bahahahahah. I love it. :)

Now I have to confess that it's not merely that event that made me laugh today, although I certainly did end up thinking of it for a considerable amount of time. You see, I decided to stalk you today. Yup. Starting at Blogger and eventually continuing on to Livejournal, which is where I found this:

I guess you learn something new every day. For example, I learned about your hampering history, which I assume extends far beyond these two particular incidences. Shocking, really. Haha. Seriously though, I love you. You're awesome.

I figured that was relative, considering he likes turtles and you wear hampers like turtle shells and I like you. :) Hoorah!