My Fifty-sixth Post

My grades for last semester, in order of how important the class was:

C
A-
B
B
A

So. Yeah, the C really sucks, I'm not sure what I'm gonna do about that. I really don't want to retake the class, though.

Since the computer is in constant demand at my house right now, I'm finding it hard to find time to type up my thoughts. I have hand-written several pages of them though, and I might find time to type them up later. We'll see.

My Fifty-fifth Post

Three things that can make me happy even when I’ve spent 14 hours in an airport:

(1) The unexpected joke the security guy made when he looked at my boarding pass
(2) The guy at Quiznos noticing I was having a bad day
(3) The man sitting across from me who kept pretending he didn’t know his wife and kept introducing himself to her.

So, other than the flight home, my winter vacation has been wonderful so far. My family’s annual Monopoly Championship of the world was held on Christmas Eve. I won last year (which was a miracle—I’m really bad at that game), so I was in charge of the prize for this year. My sister, Sundevil, won my carefully chosen prize of a Suduko-a-day calendar. My little brother, Runner, went bankrupt first and got his name on the “loser-y” trophy for the third year running. He was trying to lose, though, so I don’t feel sorry for him. I think it’s funny that we don’t really keep track of the winner—just the “loser.” That, and the fact that our trophy is a small length of 2x4 with green army men nailed to it.

Speaking of board games, I played my first official game of Scrabble this week. My sisters and I (all of us were in town!) were looking for something to do, and my new sister-in-law (Sil) suggested Scrabble. Now, my family has never really been into Scrabble and none of us really knew how to play except Sil, so it was an interesting game. I got very frustrated when I had the most perfectly placed, high scoring word in the entire game, but it was disqualified for being a proper noun. Who says Syria’s not in the dictionary? But it was good fun anyway.

Heh. Being around my family during the holidays makes everything seem hilarious. Let me share a few stories to illustrate my point. Let me start by saying that Sundevil and I share a fondness for zebras, dating back to a strange inside joke from our teen years. Over time, we have continued this joke mainly in the form of stealing zebra-themed things from my mom’s stash of grandkids toys (the two zebras from the Noah’s Ark set, the two ‘Z is for zebra’ blocks from the ABC building blocks, etc.) and smuggling them off to our respective apartments. This year my mom had purchased a toy nativity scene for my nieces and nephew to play with. Sundevil and I were very disappointed to see that there were no zebras in the set, and the following conversation took place:

Sundevil: Hey! There are no zebras!
Me: Yeah! How come there aren’t any zebras?
Sundevil: He loved zebras! I don’t think He would have consented to being born if there were no zebras present.
Me: Yeah, He totally loves zebras.
Faybe (my younger sister, entering the room) : Who loves zebras?
Sundevil: The Baby Jesus, of course.

Now you can’t tell me that isn’t funny.

Another conversation, held during the Monopoly game between Sundevil and Char, my other younger brother:

Char (after being sent to jail for the third time): So are you gonna give me your “Get Out of Jail Free” card?
Sundevil: I’ll give it to you for $100.
Char: Really? Yeah, okay!
Sundevil: But you can just pay $50 to get out of jail.
Char: Yeah, but with the card, it’s free!

Hee.

I love my family!

My Fifty-fourth Post

So I spent a long time at the library today. I had a paper that sort of snuck up on me. The professor technically would have accepted it up until Thursday, but you could tell that he really didn’t want to spend Christmas Eve grading papers. So I figured I’d turn it in today in hopes of encouraging lenient grading. Anyway. It took me a long time to get it all down on paper… mostly because I simply could not concentrate.

Anyway, I ended up going to work almost 2 hours later than I was scheduled. I was able to do this because my co-worker, Drazi (I’ve decided to stop using initials—it’s getting confusing!) is amazing. Anyway. Work ended up being so fun, and we ended up getting a little crazy toward the end.

Now, for a little back-story, my manager has recently implicated a new policy that basically sucks. My job takes place in a rather loud area, so it’s difficult to have much in the way of conversation. Drazi and I joke that the most useful skill we’ve learned is how to have an entire conversation with someone without being able to hear a word of what the other person is saying. You think I’m exaggerating; I’m not.

Basically the most entertaining part of my job is the music we play over the speakers. We can turn the volume up high enough so we can hear it above the clamor of our little workspace, and then I can sing along to it as loud as I want without anyone being bothered by it. Previously, we’ve had a wide range of control over the music that we listen to. We could choose the radio station or bring in CDs, and we control even the volume (although technically we aren’t supposed to change it). All of that changed after Thanksgiving when my manager decided that we could only listen to that radio station that’s been playing non-stop Christmas music since early November. Now, I really have nothing against Christmas music—in fact, I love Christmas music…

But.

There are some drawbacks to listening to this station for 20 hours a week for an entire month. For one thing, radio commercials get really annoying after a while. Really, really annoying. For another, they tend to play the same songs over and over and over again. It’s not uncommon to hear the same song three times during my regular shift. Now granted, they’re usually different versions preformed by different artists, but still! Let’s just say I’m getting really tired of “Little Drummer Boy” and “Do You Hear What I Hear.”

So when Drazi and I realized today that we were working out last shift together for the rest of the year, we were feeling nostalgic for some of the CDs we used to play. We appealed to our direct supervisor (not my manager—he was gone for the day) who could see our plight and was very understanding.

And that is how we ended up blasting the soundtrack to Wicked over the sound system at work. Drazi, Ash (another coworker from a different area), and I have had a lot of practice singing along to this particular musical. In fact, we know pretty much every word, harmony, and counterpoint on the entire CD. And we sing along. In parts. Needless to say, we had a fabulous time. Then I treated Drazi to ice cream to make up for my missing two hours. It was great. I feel energized, like I can even conquer my remaining three finals which have recently started to weigh a little heavy on me as finals week progresses.

So this has been a needlessly long post. Sorry for subjecting you to it.

My Fifty-third Post

So I actually have three blogs—did you know that? Besides this one, I have a blog that my sisters and I use to tell funny stories, post silly pictures, and generally keep in touch.

You know what I just realized? None of my sisters even live in the same city anymore. All of my brothers do, though. Maybe that’s why we have a blog, and they don’t. Although one would assume that they (my brothers) would want to keep in touch with us. I wonder why they never want to read our blog. If they had a blog, I would read it. Hmph.

Anyway, my third blog is one I used during my brief stint as “ward historian.” This was a calling that I was very excited about… until I realized my only purpose would be to make a slide show at the end of the term. I basically used it to post and keep track of pictures from ward activities. It isn’t very interesting (unless you were in my ward and knew the people), so I’m deleting it today. Goodbye, “History in the Making,” you’ve served your purpose well.

My Fifty-second Post

Do you ever get things stuck in your head, and you don’t know what they are or where they came from? This happens to me a lot with numbers. Like just now, as I was brushing my teeth, this random string of digits came into my head, and I simply couldn’t figure out why they were so familiar to me. I finally realized that it was the phone number to my dad’s office (which I probably haven’t dialed in over four years).

It’s not always numbers, though. A few nights ago as I was trying to fall asleep I got the word “phenobarbital” stuck in my head. Do you know what that is? Because I sure don’t. A quick trip to the dictionary tells us that it is an anticonvulsant drug. Why on earth this word would get stuck in my head is beyond me. It only just came to me where I’d heard that word: it was from an episode of Grey’s Anatomy two seasons ago.

Weird.

My Fifty-first Post

Starting next month, passport required to return to The USA from Canada, Mexico. Starting in 2008, you'll also need a note from your mother and a Toby Keith CD.

I love Fark.

My Fiftieth Post

Action is better than anticipation. Sometimes you just have to have those hard conversations. And even if it takes you twenty minutes to build up enough courage to go over there, only to find yourself sitting and staring at the door, unable to move—even when you panic and have to find sanctuary in the bathroom while you desperately try to gain control of your emotions—even when you boldly stride back to the door, lift up your hand and find yourself unable to knock—at least you’re on your way. So although you don’t know what you will say, or what the outcome will be, you offer a timid knock and take a deep breath as a voice within beckons you inside. At least in ten minutes it will all be over.

My Forty-ninth Post

So I have an alarm clock. Unfortunately, there have been issues with it lately, in that it hasn't been waking me up. I've narrowed it down, and I think I've figured out what the problem is: it is in the kitchen, while I typically sleep in my bed.

Yep, that'd do it.

There is a reason for this; it may not be a good reason, but it is a reason. See, I like having music on in the background when I'm doing "stuff." Since I tend to do a lot of “stuff” in the front of my apartment, it’s handy to have my CD-playing clock radio out there during the day. By the time I’m ready to go to sleep, I realize that if I try to take my alarm clock back into my room, plug it in, reset the time, and set the alarm, I will most definitely wake my very light-sleeping roommate who will then be annoyed with me. So I usually decide it’s not worth it and attempt to (a) find someone who is going to get up early enough who is also willing to wake me up or (b) borrow H’s cell phone and set the alarm on that.
I ended up borrowing H’s cell phone on Thursday night on the condition that I wake her up before I left for class. Overhearing this, C asked if I could also get her up when I got up. So on Friday morning, I woke up to the charming little alarm on H’s cell phone, crept into C and H’s room, and woke up C, being careful not to disturb H (so that she could sleep uninterrupted until she needed to be awake). I then set about making breakfast and such. After a few minutes, I realized that C had fallen back to sleep, so I gently reminded her that she really did need to get up. I then took a shower, and when I got out, I discovered that C had gone back to sleep yet again, so I proceeded to throw back her covers, open the blinds, and threatened to get a glass of ice water if she didn’t get up. C was then finally awake enough to realize how late it was getting, and thanked me for making sure she was actually awake. I finished getting ready for the day, and left for class, proud of myself for being such a good roommate.

It wasn’t until about 3 hours later that I remembered that I had never woken H up.

I had a break between classes, so I hurriedly went over to where I knew her 11 o’clock class was, and was slightly relieved to see her there. However, she did not look happy with me. She had not woken up until 10 minutes after her first class had already started, so she had arrived almost a half an hour late, ruining her plan to finish her homework during the lecture. So much for being a good roommate, huh?

Anyway, the moral of the story is: don’t keep your alarm clock in the kitchen.

In other news, I spent about an hour last night hiding amongst the bookshelves in the library. Don’t worry, I wasn’t compromising my standards. I hardly ever see my good friend N anymore because she’s so busy, so when we ran into each other last night, we wanted to talk. We didn’t want to disturb anybody, so we held our conversation deep in the bowels of the fifth floor of the HBLL. It was one of the best conversations we’ve had in a long while.

My Forty-eighth Post

I like this blog. I don't know why I try so hard to hide it from people. Don't you think I have friends who might be interested in my thoughts and the things going on in my life? Well, I do. I'm going to stop hiding and come out of my blog-closet. You know... eventually. No, you know what? I'm doing this. I'll even make my profile public and put my blog on my Facebook profile. That'll ensure that a total of three people will eventually find their way to my blog.

Also, if Rudolph Valentino were hitting on you, he might say something like this: “You make me al dente with desire.” Not that I know from experience or anything.

My Forty-seventh Post

My favorite announcement from church today:

"There will be no marriage prep class today because... um... the teachers got married."

My Forty-sixth Post

I just found this list stuck in my scriptures. I can't remember writing it.

Ideals:
-marry in the temple
-help my friends and family learn to love the gospel
-learn to be unselfish
-have a strong testimony that will support me in hard times
-see the ideal situation and trust that it can become reality

Yep, that's me. Idealistic.

My Forty-fifth Post

So, blogging. That's cool.

I haven't done it in a long time. This is mostly because blogging requires me to (a) have something interesting to say, and (b) be motivated to write about it.

I have decided to read the Book of Mormon this month. I haven't read the whole thing all the way through since high school. In fact, that's the only time I've read the whole thing from start to finish. If I figured right, I have to read 17 pages a day to finish on New Year's Eve.

You know, I was thinking about not going home for Christmas this year. I mean, I just went home for Thanksgiving, and I know I could pick up some easy cash if I stayed around and worked over Christmas. So I was seriously considering not going home. Then I got this email:

Okay kiddo! I need to know dates as soon as possible so I can try and get you airfare home for Christmas. Yeah!!!!! I didn't get to see enough of you at Thanksgiving to really help me get over missing you. I love you a whole bunch - Did you know that?

Mom

How can I tell her I'm not coming home after that? Plus, she's willing to pay for my flights... so, it looks like I'm going home.

Also, I've decided that I'm not a bad person just because I've never played Scrabble.