roommates are, as some might say, a blessing and a curse.
they are a blessing because you can sometimes talk to them for hours and hours about anything and everything and they don't think you are weird.
however, this is also a curse, because it makes me want to be at home hanging out with them instead of doing all my work, the work which will possibly save me one thousand dollars or allow me to graduate or lead me to a good grade or ensure than my students have a productive day in class.
they are also a blessing because they get me and actually want to be with me, too.
however, this is also a curse because, why would i want to be around other people who don't love me as much or understand my meaningful looks or listen to my dating advice (i am still amazed this is still going on, seeing as i have no qualifications for giving dating advice.)? and, it's a curse because, how am i ever going to find a boy who does all that stuff too (minus the dating advice, most likely)?
so now i am going to leave the library because i can't bear the thought that they are having fun/deep conversations without me. although, my justin bieber album just came on, so maybe i should stay just for that...
Tuesday, September 27, 2011
wikipedia love: a poem
my go-to guru
(in class,
in conversation,
in debate)
my mecca, feeding my trivia addiction
and
proving me right.
we say it's unreliable, yet we rely on it.
if it's not there, it doesn't exist.
a distraction, but an educational one.
which is perhaps the best kind of distraction.
this is what i wikipedia'd tonight. it was worth it.
(in class,
in conversation,
in debate)
my mecca, feeding my trivia addiction
and
proving me right.
we say it's unreliable, yet we rely on it.
if it's not there, it doesn't exist.
a distraction, but an educational one.
which is perhaps the best kind of distraction.
this is what i wikipedia'd tonight. it was worth it.
Tuesday, September 20, 2011
laughter is the best
i thought of that title this morning when i was walking to campus, and it reminded me of when, in dinner for schmucks, the steve carell character says, "you may say i'm a dreamer, but i'm not" and then i started to laugh, which is really the point of it all, especially this post.
sometimes i get embarrassed about my laugh. it's usually a whole-body affair. sometimes i thrash around or throw my head down on top of my hands or, conversely, throw my hands up to my face. i think it can get rather violent at times. even if i'm not in a situation where i can spasm all over the place, i laugh really loud. there was this lady in my ward growing up who you could always hear during church. i'd hear a laugh during a speaker's talk and think, well, sister so-and-so thought that was funny. i'm that sister so-and-so now.
but really, i kind of love it. i love to laugh, i love making people laugh, i love it when people make me laugh. so if people get annoyed at me for laughing loud, so be it.
it also makes me rethink when i get annoyed with people's legitimate weird laughs. legitimate as in they thought something was hilarious and laughed about it, as opposed to annoying fake laughs. but people can't help their laughs. it just bubbles up inside of you and comes out. (side note that isn't really a side not: i just looked up "burst" to see what it said and it gave this definition: to fly apart with sudden violence. that is awesome. and it perfectly describes my laughter.) so, i shouldn't make fun of people's laughs; i should go see what's so funny.
speaking of funny, look at this hilarious picture, which was shown to me by nathan. maybe he didn't want his name associated with this picture. oh well.
happy laughing!
sometimes i get embarrassed about my laugh. it's usually a whole-body affair. sometimes i thrash around or throw my head down on top of my hands or, conversely, throw my hands up to my face. i think it can get rather violent at times. even if i'm not in a situation where i can spasm all over the place, i laugh really loud. there was this lady in my ward growing up who you could always hear during church. i'd hear a laugh during a speaker's talk and think, well, sister so-and-so thought that was funny. i'm that sister so-and-so now.
but really, i kind of love it. i love to laugh, i love making people laugh, i love it when people make me laugh. so if people get annoyed at me for laughing loud, so be it.
it also makes me rethink when i get annoyed with people's legitimate weird laughs. legitimate as in they thought something was hilarious and laughed about it, as opposed to annoying fake laughs. but people can't help their laughs. it just bubbles up inside of you and comes out. (side note that isn't really a side not: i just looked up "burst" to see what it said and it gave this definition: to fly apart with sudden violence. that is awesome. and it perfectly describes my laughter.) so, i shouldn't make fun of people's laughs; i should go see what's so funny.
speaking of funny, look at this hilarious picture, which was shown to me by nathan. maybe he didn't want his name associated with this picture. oh well.
happy laughing!
can you ever just be whelmed?
i'm having that feeling right now where i can't focus my attention on any one thing for longer than about fifteen minutes. it's a problem. i have a lot to do.
but, i do feel as if i am making some progress. i am moving past the lethargy and discomfort which has been the past three weeks of school. i can finally think about a thesis prospectus and focus on my classes and my teaching.
i'm kind of satisfied with this at the moment. i am setting some goals so i can get everything done in a timely manner, but i'm not going to freak out (yet).
but, i do feel as if i am making some progress. i am moving past the lethargy and discomfort which has been the past three weeks of school. i can finally think about a thesis prospectus and focus on my classes and my teaching.
i'm kind of satisfied with this at the moment. i am setting some goals so i can get everything done in a timely manner, but i'm not going to freak out (yet).
Thursday, September 15, 2011
on the reading of essays
i'm in this creative nonfiction workshop right now, and it's pretty awesome. basically what i do for this class is read beautiful, thought-provoking essays that remind me how inconsequential and small i am.
i read this essay yesterday (even though i knew i wouldn't be in class today due to my probable lumbar puncture--that shows you how much i like this class. i do the homework even when i skip class.) called "on the pleasure of taking up one's pen" by hilaire belloc. it is lovely, and it expresses my sentiments exactly:
this is another reason why writing with paper and pen is preferable to typing. you don't have the pleasure of feeling the weight of the pen in your hand and seeing the ink flow from the tip at your will.
it makes me want to write.
i read this essay yesterday (even though i knew i wouldn't be in class today due to my probable lumbar puncture--that shows you how much i like this class. i do the homework even when i skip class.) called "on the pleasure of taking up one's pen" by hilaire belloc. it is lovely, and it expresses my sentiments exactly:
God bless you, pen! When I was a [girl], and they told me work was honourable, useful, cleanly, sanitary, wholesome, and necessary to the mind of man, I paid no more attention to them than if they had told me that public men were usually honest, or that pigs could fly. It seemed to me that they were merely saying silly things they had been told to say. Nor do I doubt to this day that those who told me these things at school were but preaching a dull and careless round. But now I know that the things they told me were true. God bless you, pen of work, pen of drudgery, pen of letters, pen of posings, pen rabid, pen ridiculous, pen glorified. Pray, little pen, be worthy of the love I bear you, and consider how noble I shall make you some day, when you shall live in a glass case with a crowd of tourists round you every day from 10 to 4; pen of justice, pen of the saeva indignatio, pen of majesty and of light. I will write with you some day a considerable poem; it is a compact between you and me. If I cannot make one of my own, then I will write out some other man’s; but you, pen, come what may, shall write out a good poem before you die, if it is only the Allegro.i love that. the pen really does matter. there are certain pens i am okay using, certain pens i will not use, and certain pens that i prefer, that give me just the right line weight and just the right curvature and just the right amount of ink color. for example, these days i use the papermate stainless steel barrel fine ballpoint pen. i love it.
this is another reason why writing with paper and pen is preferable to typing. you don't have the pleasure of feeling the weight of the pen in your hand and seeing the ink flow from the tip at your will.
it makes me want to write.
Tuesday, September 13, 2011
stretch of time
this is definitely a two post day, since i have been neglecting my blog in favor of paying attention to my health and wallowing somewhat in misery. but now that i'm at least more back-to-normal than i have been of late, i feel okay about updating the little corner of the world that cares what i am up to.
i was already feeling rather unmotivated about this semester, but once i started feeling sick/gross, most of my productivity went out the window. it's hard, because when you are sick you want to just lay around, but i had/have to deal with everything that accompanies the beginning of a new semester.
anyway, maybe i should just record the haps for posterity, since i've also been neglecting my journal. the day before school started, i felt like my ears were plugged and i had a headache. at school, i felt even worse. i felt dizzy when i touched my face and added a feverishness to my symptoms.
tuesday i mustered up the courage to go to the student health center, worried all the time that something was seriously wrong with me. everybody was telling me not to freak out, but it was hard to stay calm when i felt so bad. the nurse practitioner at the health center told me that a tube behind my eardrum was inflamed and prescribed me mucinex, which would hopefully cause the swelling to go down and gie me some relief.
i gave it about four days before i pretty much gave up on the mucinex. i was still in almost constant pain and discomfort, and i still had to go to class and teach my two classes. i would have periods of time where i felt okay and could manage everything, but it always came back.
on sunday, i felt okay to go to church, so i got ready and drove to campus where i would meet meredith, who was already up there. almost as soon as i walked in the building all of my symptoms resurfaced. i made it through relief society, but i would have been crying all through church after that. meredith and i went home after church and i received a blessing, which made me feel a lot better, at least emotionally, and we went to see dr. kelly, an ear, nose, and throat doctor who was also one of dad's companions. i was pretty convinced by then that my problems did not originate with my ears, but i wanted to keep making sure all of my bases were covered. he told me one of the most frustrating things, though:
well, it's nothing obvious.
i was hoing that he could just give me something to make it go away and let me get on with my life. but, he said that if things didn't get better, i should get a brain scan just to make sure nothing was wrong there, which is basically my biggest fear, because i know how brain tumors are. in the meantime, though, i realized that i was getting spots in my vision that made it especially hard to read. and...i have a lot of reading to do in my life. it's kind of the definition of an english major. and i just like to read anyway. so that made me freak out even more than i had already. it's one thing to have to go to school and work through some pain and discomfort; it's another thing to have to do it when i can barely see and read.
after one scheduled mri fell through on tuesday, i finally made it to the hospital and the dreaded test on thursday. i was super nervous, because the mri is associated with scary things for me. and, since i wasn't feeling a lot better, i knew there was a chance something serious was going on with me. the scan itself was very weird. i knew if i opened my eyes at all i would have some kind of panic attack, so i kept my eyes shut tight no matter how much the crazy noises were bugging me. when the exam was over, the technician told me that the results would be sent to my doctor in one to wo business days. i was pretty devastated in that moment, because i felt like i kept getting held up by things and still not getting any real relief. luckily, the doctor got the results really quick and called mom: my brain looked totally normal. no brain tumor!! yay! that was good news, but it meant that i still didn't know what was going on wirh me, and i had to wait until tuesday (today) to meet with the opthamologist to see if this really was a problem with my eyes.
on friday and saturday i was wearing my sunglasses most of the day because it just felt better. i wore them in walmart and felt like a dork, one of those ridiculous people who wears sgs indoors. but i realized that i shouldn't mock those people anymore, because maybe they have eye conditions haha.
today i finally met with dr. davis, who is another of dad's mission companions and the opthamologist who first thought 'brain tumor', so i was nervous once again. it was pretty clear that there is a problem with my vision. when the assistant asked me to read the euye chart, there was a dark spot over half of it in my right eye. when dr. davis looked at my eyes, he found that my optic nerves are swollen, which would usually indicate some kind of growth. since i already had a clean brain scan, though, the doctor thinks that maybe i have a pseudo-tumor caused by who knows what. so the next step is seeing a neurologist and having a lumbar puncture aka spinal tap. it's still frustrating, because there's nothing i can do right now to feel better and be able to see clearly, so i'm in the same place, though the rest of my pain and discomfort is gone, for the most part.
though the past two and a half weeks have been fairly miserable, i am grateful to have my family close and parents who are willing to ferry me around so we can get to the bottom of this. i'm also grateful for the knowledge i have of the gospel and of my heavenly father. i know that, no matter what's going on and what's happening with me, everything's going to be okay. hopefully all of this gets sorted out soon, but i'm going to be okay. and maybe that's what i am supposed to be learning.
so, onward.
i was already feeling rather unmotivated about this semester, but once i started feeling sick/gross, most of my productivity went out the window. it's hard, because when you are sick you want to just lay around, but i had/have to deal with everything that accompanies the beginning of a new semester.
anyway, maybe i should just record the haps for posterity, since i've also been neglecting my journal. the day before school started, i felt like my ears were plugged and i had a headache. at school, i felt even worse. i felt dizzy when i touched my face and added a feverishness to my symptoms.
tuesday i mustered up the courage to go to the student health center, worried all the time that something was seriously wrong with me. everybody was telling me not to freak out, but it was hard to stay calm when i felt so bad. the nurse practitioner at the health center told me that a tube behind my eardrum was inflamed and prescribed me mucinex, which would hopefully cause the swelling to go down and gie me some relief.
i gave it about four days before i pretty much gave up on the mucinex. i was still in almost constant pain and discomfort, and i still had to go to class and teach my two classes. i would have periods of time where i felt okay and could manage everything, but it always came back.
on sunday, i felt okay to go to church, so i got ready and drove to campus where i would meet meredith, who was already up there. almost as soon as i walked in the building all of my symptoms resurfaced. i made it through relief society, but i would have been crying all through church after that. meredith and i went home after church and i received a blessing, which made me feel a lot better, at least emotionally, and we went to see dr. kelly, an ear, nose, and throat doctor who was also one of dad's companions. i was pretty convinced by then that my problems did not originate with my ears, but i wanted to keep making sure all of my bases were covered. he told me one of the most frustrating things, though:
well, it's nothing obvious.
i was hoing that he could just give me something to make it go away and let me get on with my life. but, he said that if things didn't get better, i should get a brain scan just to make sure nothing was wrong there, which is basically my biggest fear, because i know how brain tumors are. in the meantime, though, i realized that i was getting spots in my vision that made it especially hard to read. and...i have a lot of reading to do in my life. it's kind of the definition of an english major. and i just like to read anyway. so that made me freak out even more than i had already. it's one thing to have to go to school and work through some pain and discomfort; it's another thing to have to do it when i can barely see and read.
after one scheduled mri fell through on tuesday, i finally made it to the hospital and the dreaded test on thursday. i was super nervous, because the mri is associated with scary things for me. and, since i wasn't feeling a lot better, i knew there was a chance something serious was going on with me. the scan itself was very weird. i knew if i opened my eyes at all i would have some kind of panic attack, so i kept my eyes shut tight no matter how much the crazy noises were bugging me. when the exam was over, the technician told me that the results would be sent to my doctor in one to wo business days. i was pretty devastated in that moment, because i felt like i kept getting held up by things and still not getting any real relief. luckily, the doctor got the results really quick and called mom: my brain looked totally normal. no brain tumor!! yay! that was good news, but it meant that i still didn't know what was going on wirh me, and i had to wait until tuesday (today) to meet with the opthamologist to see if this really was a problem with my eyes.
on friday and saturday i was wearing my sunglasses most of the day because it just felt better. i wore them in walmart and felt like a dork, one of those ridiculous people who wears sgs indoors. but i realized that i shouldn't mock those people anymore, because maybe they have eye conditions haha.
today i finally met with dr. davis, who is another of dad's mission companions and the opthamologist who first thought 'brain tumor', so i was nervous once again. it was pretty clear that there is a problem with my vision. when the assistant asked me to read the euye chart, there was a dark spot over half of it in my right eye. when dr. davis looked at my eyes, he found that my optic nerves are swollen, which would usually indicate some kind of growth. since i already had a clean brain scan, though, the doctor thinks that maybe i have a pseudo-tumor caused by who knows what. so the next step is seeing a neurologist and having a lumbar puncture aka spinal tap. it's still frustrating, because there's nothing i can do right now to feel better and be able to see clearly, so i'm in the same place, though the rest of my pain and discomfort is gone, for the most part.
though the past two and a half weeks have been fairly miserable, i am grateful to have my family close and parents who are willing to ferry me around so we can get to the bottom of this. i'm also grateful for the knowledge i have of the gospel and of my heavenly father. i know that, no matter what's going on and what's happening with me, everything's going to be okay. hopefully all of this gets sorted out soon, but i'm going to be okay. and maybe that's what i am supposed to be learning.
so, onward.
sports fan
i wouldn't necessarily call myself a sporty person. a sports enthusiast, maybe, but not really a sports lover. i don't really have teams that i follow (besides byu, and even then it's only football and basketball--i couldn't tell you how the baseball team did this season), i don't watch espn regularly, i can't recite stats.
but i'm also not anti-sports. if someone is watching a game i'm semi-interested in (and nothing else that i have to watch is on), then i'll probably pay attention and get into it. i know how most sports work and understand the rules. i might not be able to predict a call before it's announced, but i can usually tell you what it means. i like going to games and getting behind a team. it's just fun. i've never missed a home football game in five years at byu, but i also have a confession: i typically don't watch away games. gasp, i know.
my dad and brother, however, are really into sports. they pretty much watch anything except for maybe nascar and boxing. i go to them when i want to know what exactly it means that byu went independent or how the nba draft works or who the newest jazz player is.
so, i guess what i'm getting around to with this discourse is that it would probably be better if the guy i eventually bring into my family has at least some working knowledge of sports. or maybe just an interest, or a willingness to be interested.
i was thinking about some of the guys i've liked in the past and how they probably wouldn't have really fit into my family because they really didn't care about sports at all. liking sports isn't everything, obviously, but it's something.
anyway, this post ended up being kind of inconsequential, as much of life is. but, at least it's out there now and maybe i'll remember not to like guys who hate sports in the future.
and, now that is finally football season and yesterday i got our first tickets in my inbox, i am beginning to feel the excitement that comes with this time of year, and that is something i need, especially after the couple weeks i've had. go cougs!
but i'm also not anti-sports. if someone is watching a game i'm semi-interested in (and nothing else that i have to watch is on), then i'll probably pay attention and get into it. i know how most sports work and understand the rules. i might not be able to predict a call before it's announced, but i can usually tell you what it means. i like going to games and getting behind a team. it's just fun. i've never missed a home football game in five years at byu, but i also have a confession: i typically don't watch away games. gasp, i know.
my dad and brother, however, are really into sports. they pretty much watch anything except for maybe nascar and boxing. i go to them when i want to know what exactly it means that byu went independent or how the nba draft works or who the newest jazz player is.
so, i guess what i'm getting around to with this discourse is that it would probably be better if the guy i eventually bring into my family has at least some working knowledge of sports. or maybe just an interest, or a willingness to be interested.
i was thinking about some of the guys i've liked in the past and how they probably wouldn't have really fit into my family because they really didn't care about sports at all. liking sports isn't everything, obviously, but it's something.
anyway, this post ended up being kind of inconsequential, as much of life is. but, at least it's out there now and maybe i'll remember not to like guys who hate sports in the future.
and, now that is finally football season and yesterday i got our first tickets in my inbox, i am beginning to feel the excitement that comes with this time of year, and that is something i need, especially after the couple weeks i've had. go cougs!
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