late night text

last night at 12:49 am, i received this text message from a 213 number:

hey mark, here is the site i was telling you about last night http://nbcnewson6.com/work. i've already made $340 so far today. see you saturday.

 i get texts from solicitors every so often because i (stupidly) gave out my information in order to get a $500 h&m gift card. but this one was creepily personal, and don't text me at 1 am, please, nbcnewson6. thanks.

also, today is the first day of lent. last year, i gave up facebook. i've already done that this year--i was spending WAY too much time stalking--so i'm trying to figure out what i should cut out for the next six weeks. ice cream would be a good one...but could i do it?

and, in other news, the emails with special birthday offers are starting to roll in :) yippee!

a new outfit for my little blog

so, i just reformatted my blog. i guess i've been wanting to switch things up for a while, but i'm not super html-savvy, and it freaks me out a little. it's not exactly what i want. maybe i'll google how to fix some things in the next few days. and, since i changed the font of my blog description, i realized that the first set of quotation marks is backwards, but, of course, for some reason i can't change it. if it bugs you as much as it does me, i am truly sorry :)

i wanted a grey and white chevron background, but then i couldn't figure out how to get rid of the solid color background at the top by the blog header. that was annoying. so we'll see how long i keep it this simple.

meanwhile, i've just spent the last hour schvutzing around while i should have been doing homework. ah well, the night is still young.

(p.s. schvutzing is a word, right? i tried to look up some yiddish sources, but nothing definitive came up. maybe people spell it a different way? whatever. using it anyway.)

ward talent show

tonight was our ward talent show. i haven't been to one of those for a couple semesters, and i forgot how thoroughly entertaining they are. some highlights: female roommates engaged in post-date breakdown, performed in true shakespearean fashion; a couple amazing hip-hop routines (one jazz-based, one tap-based); and, my personal favorite, one of those awesome upside-down-chin-singing acts, sung to a javert-valjean selection from les miserables. those things are always hilarious--bravo, dan and david.

i wanted to write about the talent show when i thought that a girl in our ward was going to get engaged right in front of our eyes. her roommates told her to come up on stage as their "special guest," then they went offstage for a second. instead of the roommates, though, her boyfriend came out, holding a guitar and wearing a tuxedo. oh man, we were thinking, this girl's getting engaged! he said some cute things to her and sang a really cute song, and all along we're like, this is leading to a proposal, right? i mean, if he doesn't propose at the end of this, i am going to be really bummed. and i was getting really anxious for her and a little teary because the song was pretty cute (although i think i would be horribly embarrassed/awkward in the same situation). the song ended...and it looked like he wanted to do something else.

but then they just stood up and kissed in front of all of us and that was it.

and we were like, huh? what just happened there?

so before the disappointment, when i still thought something awesome was going to happen, i was thinking to myself, this will be a sweet story for the blog, especially during love week. after the disappointment, i guess i still wanted to share it, since it still is a demonstration of love. and i'm sure someone else i know will get engaged this week :)

because it is love week, after all.

thoughts on saturday

i think my feet have shrunk over the past year or so. is that normal? i mean, it's not really a problem, but it's kind of weird, right?

who would have ever thought that i would watch, much less love, pretty little liars and the vampire diaries? i was a firm non-believer and facebooker-scorner. but, although they are pretty dumb sometimes, they are both actually pretty awesome, too. i mean, how do we still, after three seasons of pll, not know who A is (i've only seen up to the end of season 3 because hulu plus and abc family apparently don't like each other all that much)? and why is the vampire thing still happening, and i'm into it? and boone from lost is actually really hilarious and great?

i have a bunch of posts half-written because i haven't wanted to finish them because i know it's going to take a while. so...yeah.

this semester, all of my classes and work overlap. the things i'm learning about in my classes come up in my research, which is cool. too bad i can't really make a project out of all that, though.

it's almost valentine's day, which is one of my favorite holidays. more on that later.

i've used my all-sports pass more this year than i have any other year. men's volleyball=so awesome. have i said before that volleyball players have the most attractive physiques? they are tall and muscly, but not too muscly. anyway, that's all i have to say about that.

in winter

winter can be hard. you are mostly confined to the great indoors, since it is typically frigid cold outside, and there really isn't much to do inside that doesn't involve a couch and netflix. and hey, i love my couch and i love my netflix. but it can get old pretty fast.

sometimes winter makes you sad. sometimes winter makes you feel lonely. but that will pass, just like the cold always gives way to the beautiful warmth of spring and summer.

for me, fall is harder than winter. the long lazy summer days are still fresh in my memory, it keeps getting darker earlier, everyone's front doors start to stay closed. fall makes me sad. fall makes me feel lonely.

winter is crisp mornings. winter is my birthday. winter is sososososo close to spring. and we're almost there, people!

but in the meantime, let's not completely skip winter.

purchased, finally

as of tonight, we are going to taylor swift in june.

and it will be amazing and epic.

thanks, nana!

watch these: lincoln and lars and the real girl

i've been watching a lot of good movies lately, both old movies that i've been meaning to see forever and new movies that i knew i would love. these two each fit one of those categories.

last weekend, emily asked me if i wanted to see lincoln, and my answer was a resounding YES. i am a sucker for historical drama, and i'm especially fascinated by abraham lincoln, since i have realized that i really don't know much about him as a person. the movie was awesome, and now i'm obsessed with daniel day-lewis (if you want to know more about him and his process (which you do), read this great article from TIME.) his portayal of lincoln was thought-provoking and eye-opening. being the President in a time of peace would be hard enough; how impossible would it be during wartime, not to mention civil-wartime? all of the acting was great, with bonus joseph gordon-levitt, and lee pace of pushing daisies fame! obviously, les mis is amazing and groundbreaking in terms of movie musicals, but i'm all about lincoln and daniel day-lewis come oscar time.

we are still without a dvd player, so our home-movie-watching capabilities are limited to netflix these days. last night we decided to watch lars and the real girl. the premise is pretty wacky--lars (ryan gosling) is very socially awkward and lonely, so he buys a "real doll" who becomes his girlfriend. the reactions from his family and the town are hilarious, but even more endearing was how lars treated "bianca," a wheelchair-bound brazilian missionary. who makes up a girlfriend in a wheelchair? ryan gosling is great; he's adorable and lovable and you just want him to be able to make something happen with someone real.

so, those are my two new recommendations. see them as you will!