happy casimir pulaski day!

do something extra-mustachioed today in celebration :)

thoughts on thursday

for the past few weeks, i've been going to water aerobics a couple times a week with mom. i am, by far, the youngest person there, since probably most people my age are either at work or school or getting ready for one of those at 8 in the morning. just another aspect of this funny time in my life. but water aerobics is pretty cool. it's exercising without really realizing that you are. probably the best moment, though, was last week when we warmed up to a version of "mmmbop"--i'm fairly certain i was the only one who knew the song. rec center water aerobics: always a good time.

now that i have a job, i'm all of a sudden in the market for a car. it feels weird. so many things are happening! pretty soon, i'll have my own medical insurance and my own car payment and i'll be living in a place where i probably won't know anyone. life is crazy. but back to the car: i really wish i could get a little suv, but i don't know if that will happen. so yeah, that's going on. i'm looking to become a car owner.

i'm listening to the new avett brothers album on npr's first listen as i type. can i just say that it is one of the greatest saddnesses in my life right now that i most likely won't be able to see them anytime soon? so good.

i got this book/kit from amazon last week. i like to doodle, and i would love to be able to do some hand lettered, hand doodled art projects. since i had just gotten the kit the day before, my notes from conference are the most artistic they've ever been.

i downloaded the app duolingo earlier this week and now i'm learning how to speak french. on my phone. so far it's pretty cool, and the lessons get pretty advanced as you go along. i'm kind of excited about it. anybody want to speak french with me when i can actually hold a conversation? maybe next i'll try to master german.

last week the last season of the office went up on netflix, and, naturally, i watched it in about three days. and i cried in probably a third of the episodes. it's still really bittersweet that it's over, even though the ending was perfect.

why haven't i made this my cover photo yet??

i'm still deep into the old testament. i'm hoping things spice up a little bit soon, because numbers and deuteronomy and joshua, while informative, were pretty dry. but i will be vigilant!

i also need to recap conference, which was amazing. coming soon! in the meantime, life is still good. happy thursday!

anyone seen this?

the church is awesome. and, this is kind of earth day appropriate, right? maybe i'll bring it out again for father's day.

thoughts on saturday

first of all, it's 45 degrees right now. whenever i write "degrees," i always want to say "dees-grees," like rick dees, the legendary dj, because i used to listen to "rick dees and the weekly top 40" on kiis fm every saturday when i was growing up. those were the days. but i digress. this time of the year is one of my favorites, when it is just starting to warm up and you don't have to wear a coat but it is still breezy and a little chilly so you aren't sweaty and hot. probably it will get cold again before spring really hits, but i'm going with the sun for now.

last night, i went to smith's for some provisions (read: cpk pizza and trix cereal). the provo smith's on a weekend night is always an adventure. as i was walking out, a girl and a guy were walking in. the girl veered toward me and said, "oh, your hair is so thick. it's so pretty." and then walked away. it was really weird and really funny at the same time.

this is a cool essay, because 1) the author ghost-wrote a ton of Sweet Valley High books, which, how awesome is that? and 2) she captures exactly how i feel about graduate school sometimes all the time:

How different were any of us, despite our attenuated lives as graduate students, from anybody else? The darkest of dark secrets: how much I hadn’t read, and didn’t know. How little I felt I had to say that was different, or new, or mattered.
Your task, my thesis advisor in Oxford told my tutorial partner and me, is to be original. Your thesis won’t pass otherwise.
I haunted the bookshops, certain my argument had already been written. Afraid to ask him: is original the same thing as different? As important, or relevant, or even good?

people should watch alias. it's so great. i just finished the fourth season, and i think it might be my favorite. and jennifer garner is awesome, you guys. i'm grateful argo was nominated for stuff this year, only because it meant jennifer garner went places looking amazing.

see what i mean?

and, finally, we heard this song at the cougarettes concert and we've been obsessed with it since then. when i saw the show the second time, i decided the dance to this song was my favorite. (couldn't get the real video to play, so you have to look at teen wolf, apparently.)

have a great weekend!

resolution for 2013: doing good

for the past couple weeks i've been thinking about resolutions for this next year. for the most part, a lot of my resolutions are the same. graduate, exercise more, do creative things. but the other day something occurred to me that i hadn't really thought about before.

dad asked meredith, and he's asked each of us at various times, what good she did that day. she had an answer, but as i was pondering the question for myself for that day, i wasn't sure if i really had an answer.

so, one of my resolutions is to do good everyday. i guess it's my iteration of "do a good turn daily," but i would like to focus more this year on looking outward and not being so wrapped up in all my stuff. i want to be able to say that i did something good each day, since a lot of the time these days i feel like i'm just leisuring my life away. and yes, i'm verbing leisure.

i want to be more like these people, who are so quick to serve and forget themselves. 

thoughts on wednesday

--what's with girls talking to each other like babies when they first see each other? that's a weird thing.
--conference time (the kind of conference time where i am sitting around all day waiting for my students to come talk to me) should always be about a million times more productive than it is. when i'm sitting outside my office in the jkb there is just some instinct that kicks in that tells me i can't do any real work.
--i just remembered the word "ornery" thanks to nat the fat rat and now i want to use it all the time.
--this is maybe one of the best things from the office ever. it's from the latest episode, and it's an instant classic. so good. i'm glad to see they haven't decided to slack off this final season. "hats off to you for not seeing race!" hahahahahahaha

--talking on the phone is fun. it can sometimes be just as good as getting letters.
--loving this song lately:

happy wednesday!

getting ready for general conference

i'm always excited for general conference weekend, but this time i am especially excited because i've been preparing an institute lesson this week about the prophet, the other apostles, and conference itself.

for those who might not know, general conference is a semi-annual event in our church where the prophet, President Thomas S. Monson, other members of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, and other leaders of the Church speak to us, members and non-members alike. we consider these talks to be the word of God given with our specific challenges and circumstances in mind. just as in biblical times, God speaks to His people through the prophets. we have a prophet and apostles today who prayerfully seek the counsel of God to then give to us. if we follow this counsel, we will find "safety, peace, prosperity, and happiness" (m. russell ballard, "his word ye shall receive").

i know this is true. i know that the things we hear in general conference are directed specifically toward us and our individual challenges. i have felt the peace that comes from following the prophet and the other servants of God.

tune in to general conference if you can. if you listen, i know you will hear something that is directed to you personally.  it will be a marvelous weekend!

(and i'm so excited to be able to attend the saturday afternoon session with some of my favorite people :) being in the presence of the prophet is one of the best things in the world!)

thoughts on wednesday

i was going to call this "hump day thoughts" but then decided not to and then decided to just share my thought process anyway.

yesterday i had sixteen conferences with students. one way i know the semester is officially underway=conferences. then once those start, it feels like they never stop. but, miracle of miracles, all of my students yesterday showed up, for the most part on time, and they all had drafts. that almost never happens. and most of the drafts were pretty darn good. have i said that i love teaching?

i read this article on the @ symbol yesterday. it was awesome.

my brother posted this video on my wall last night and then promptly sent me a text that said "check out the vid i put on your wall." i did, and within the first 30 seconds of viewing i was clapping my hands in delight. taylor swift + hanson=all of my wildest dreams coming true.

i am so glad i'm getting paid on friday.

if anyone knows of a house south of campus that will have four spots for girls come winter, let me know. it is becoming more and more apparent that the four of us need to move in together asap.

and, last thought, thought that's always in the forefront of my mind, why is dating so dumb?

happy wednesday!

it's things like this that make me want a husband and baby so bad...

this song...it's been on my mind since i first heard the album, and it is so beautiful. "a father's first spring"--scott avett's thoughts on being a new father and how he felt about his new daughter. i especially love the line "i was a child before the day that i met eleanor."

listening to...

i watched the decoy bride today on netflix, and it was pretty good. i mean, david tennant, scotland, kelly macdonald's awesome scottish accent. what could go wrong?

this song came on near the end. it is so beautiful. i know i'll be coming back to it.

(this is just a lyrics video. nothing cooler on youtube, so still listen to the song if you don't want to endure the video.)

delightful weekend: part one (sleepover at emily's)

almost none of this weekend was planned. it just ended up being awesome, which is probably a testament to how many great people i have in my life right now.

this is going to end up being more of a list than anything else, because i could go on and on about everything we did. so i'll try to be more brief. also, why am i the worst with taking pictures of stuff? that reason alone makes me want a smart phone really bad. but anyway.

• emily, sloane, and i have been trying to schedule some time to watch felicity (post forthcoming--it's taking me forever to get all my thoughts organized about this crazy show.) for some time, especially since i finally caught up to them. friday was the appointed day. i went to emily's after class, at 4, sloane brought this amazing cupcake something-or-other ice cream, and we watched an episode before sloane had to leave.

• meredith and tess met up with us and we headed to cafe rio for dinner. it was delicious as always. after dinner we made the trek to costco, where such glamorous items as toilet paper, water bottles, and vitamins were purchased (passive voice used intentionally to protect the identity of the buyers.

• here the festivities really began in earnest. we decided, on the way home from costco, that we might as well have a sleepover since we really just wanted to hang out with each other anyway. so we gathered our sleep essentials and reconvened. emily and i have been talking about watching amelie and making rice pudding for ages, so we finally did that. amelie=beautiful and funny and happy. homemade rice pudding=creamy and sweet and one of the best things ever. 

• then, it was getting pretty late, and at first i thought things were winding down. but emily was determined that we should make a lip-sync music video, and that lead to a little game i like to call "fun with photobooth" and a lot of taylor-swift-music-video watching.

• finally, we went to bed. i did wake up in the middle of the night to the crazy lightning and thunderstorm that was happening, but i swiftly fell asleep again. when we woke up, we decided to go visit tess at work at the awful waffle. i love a good crepe, so i was pleased with my nutella and strawberry creation. and the whipped cream made me want to die. it was so good.

this concludes part one of this series. stay tuned for more exciting news.

go listen to this!

remember how i really love the avett brothers? i was so sad this summer when i couldn't go to their show in salt lake because i was coming home from lake powell. but they have a new album coming out, and the lovely people at npr have decided to give us a first listen to the album, the carpenter.

here's the single, too, "live and die." it's good.

love this commercial

in the absence of the olympics, i forgot how much i love this commercial for, of all things, the google nexus 7. i guess i'm a sucker for depictions of dads with their little sons. there's probably some psychological meaning in there somewhere...

a matter of laughing

sometimes i think i laugh too much.

anyone who knows me knows that i really do laugh a ton. in general conference this past april, elder scott gave a talk about receiving personal revelation. one thing he said worried me for a while:

Another principle is to be cautious with humor. Loud, inappropriate laughter will offend the Spirit. A good sense of humor helps revelation; loud laughter does not. A sense of humor is an escape valve for the pressures of life.

 though i wouldn't say my laughter is often inappropriate, it is loud. i worried that this trait, this thing that is such a huge part of me, was actually holding me back. but then a few people reassured me that, just as elder scott says, a good sense of humor is healthy.

this weekend was our ward campout, and there were many standout moments, but by far my favorite thing was our late night, hour long game of big booty, classic campout/party/children's game. you can see an example, which is a slight variation on the game we played, in this video. (note: this is from big brother. i don't watch big brother. but it was the best youtube had to offer in the way of big booty demonstrations. start at about 5:20 and watch until you get the gist.)

i'm pretty sure i'm not going to be able to capture the hilarity of our particular game of big booty, especially since no one else seemed to be laughing nearly as much as i was. but, three boys in particular were very intense about this game, and their intensity was killing me. this all went down four days ago, and i can still crack myself up if i think about dan's nonchalant introductory ritual or tyler's sing-song technique or michael's fake-out strategy. i wish so badly that we had some video evidence of the game, because there were times when i was laughing so hard that i was on the floor, and it was then that i had this realization.

sometimes i get laughing so that i lose control of my body. i find myself on the ground or flung over the side of the couch or whatever and i think, what the heck am i doing here? i'm clapping and hiding my face and rolling on the ground, but i can't stop it because the comic urge has struck, and i just have to ride it out. i think most of the time people think i'm ridiculous, that i'm laughing for show or something. i'm not. i really do think a lot of things are funny, and i can't suppress it when it comes.

one observer commented that, if you ever want to think you're funny, just spend a day around courtney. and that's probably true. i find humor and amusement and delight in many things, and i'll let you know when i think you are funny.

the same observer later told me that he thinks that if he spent just 10 minutes in my shoes, in my mind, he could die happy. and that maybe changed my perspective a little bit. so i'm going to keep laughing.

happy leap day!

 today is that magical day, the day that only comes once every four years, when we get a bonus twenty-four hours.

the thing is, because this holiday only occurs quadrennially, it seems no one really knows how we are supposed to celebrate. what does one do on leap day?

luckily, last week's episode of 30 rock answered that question:

 (sorry about the quality--nbc is pretty lame about putting clips on youtube, and it looked weird to put just the video link)

so, today i am wearing blue and yellow, and leap day william is going to trade my tears for candy, because heaven knows i have a lot of tears and i could always use more candy. and hopefully this leap day thing will catch on.

did you also know that the tradition goes that leap day is the day a woman can propose to a man and he can't refuse without giving her some sort of payment in return? in denmark, if a man refused a proposal on leap day, he was required to give the woman twelve pairs of gloves. in some places, a woman intending to propose on this day was supposed to wear a "scarlet petticoat" as a fair warning that she was up to no good. so i should probably take that opportunity; by tradition, i might even get fabric for a new skirt out of it.

today is the day where nothing counts, because real life is for march. so put on your yellow and blue and celebrate leap day!

life is a special occasion

i was watching something on hulu one day, as i am wont to do, and i saw an ad for hallmark. i don't remember exactly which version i saw that day, but you'll get the idea from this one.

 

the main thing i am concerned with here is the sentiment at the end: "life is a special occasion." how beautiful is that? this piggybacks on the birthday post i wrote a few days ago. actual special occasions (birthdays, holidays, anniversaries) are awesome, but what about the awesomeness of regular life?

this has been going through my head since i saw that little ol' ad the other day. life is a special occasion! amazing, glorious, exciting, momentous things happen every day, and i want to celebrate those things.

one of my favorite bloggers talked about this idea of celebration late last month. she decided that her theme for the year would be a simple one: parties. parties for explicit reasons, parties for holidays, parties for no reason. just parties, little mini celebrations throughout the year, excuses to decorate and dress up and get together with people you love.

i certainly love parties (though maybe not as much as andrew w.k. does), and i'm going to make this my own theme as much as i can, but i want to find ways to celebrate outside of parties as well. this means sending cards in the mail, maybe heart attacking someone's door to let them know i  care, writing little notes to my friends and family telling them how awesome i think they are, making treats for people, and perhaps a host of other things. the idea is that life is something to be celebrated--goodness, some days getting out of your pajamas constitutes a reason to celebrate.

come celebrate with me?

good day

some days i feel bad.

i stress about teaching, thesis, dating, friends, living situation, looks, THE FUTURE/what the heck i'm going to do with my life. all of that good stuff that women of a certain age in master's programs might worry about on a fairly consistent basis.

today i feel good.

if i were (was? my training tells me to use the subjunctive, but my ear tells me to give it up and stop acting so pretentious.) one of those cool fashion bloggers, i might post a picture of my outfit today. because i look pretty good. and looking good usually makes me feel good.

my class went well this morning, and i have no reason to think my later class won't go well. and good classes usually make me feel good.

today is friday, and even though i don't have anything epic planned (though i guess not having epic plans doesn't necessarily mean epic things won't happen. the weekend before last, the weekend of night games, haunted insane asylum, yoga, hot springs, amazing incredible fort, rousing game of fill-in-the-blank, southern-style cooking, dance party, and cool runnings, didn't really require any prior planning. and it was EPIC.), the weekend means relaxation and fun. and good friends and good fun usually make me feel good.

so, i feel good. life is good. and here's a song to brighten your day, too.

(this song plays in the last scene of one of my favorite favorite movies, ramona and beezus. have you seen it? if not, you should. it is great and is sure to make you feel good.)

not sure if this really warrants a good title

i'm in the mood to blog, so i figured i would just jot down a couple of the things i've been thinking about/doing in the past couple of days.

yesterday and today we had a massive harry potter marathon. we started the first movie yesterday morning at 10 and finished the last movie in the theater today at 6:30 pm. it was awesome. i probably won't watch any movies for the next few days, but it was pretty cool to, one right after the other, see all the movies and how the actors change and what becomes more relevant later on. and the last movie was just as good the second time. i pretty much want to watch it everyday. i'm still not ready to quit harry potter mania. so i won't for a few more weeks.

i finally finished grading rhetorical analyses. nothing more to say about that. on a related note, only two more weeks of class this summer term.

as my post on saturday intimated, i taught on sunday about the resurrection, and it reminded me how amazing the second coming will be. even more incentive to do what i'm supposed to be doing here.

and, finally, here's what i'm listening to right now.

good night :)

saturday doings

there's not much that could be better than spending a saturday afternoon thinking and reading about the resurrection of Jesus Christ. and that study has led a lot of other good stuff, like buying new jenny phillips music on itunes and rediscovering mormon messages, like this one based around my favorite favorite talk.

life is pretty good. it's good to remember that every once in a while. or all the time.

for your viewing pleasure

(sorry the second one is flipped. it's worth it.)