Fall 2010

Every time registration rolls around, I seem to have forgotten how slow the BYU server is. I don't remember it being too bad when registering for this semester's classes...and aren't things like this supposed to get better when you're a senior in credits?

My conclusion is that BYU doesn't want me to ever graduate. If I can't register for classes, I don't take classes, I never graduate and I just stay at the Y forever. I can't decide how I feel about that right now.

Whatever BYU's views and my opinion on them is, however, the fact still remains that registering for classes is obnoxious and the bane of my existence. Picking them--not bad at all. I know exactly what I want to take, when I want to take it. It is simply the BYU server, pooping out on me, that is holding me back

Deep, Calming Breaths

(vi.sualize.us)

It's times like this where I wish that I wasn't taking 16 credits and working 17 hours a week, and where I wish I had been able to follow through with my (only half-reasonable, but still somewhat feasible) goal of research or writing on my conference paper for at least an hour a day. Because here we go, I need to have 4 pages due by tomorrow, and I can't just start writing it until all my research is done, and I am nowhere near close. Gah. Maybe we'll just change my writing style around and write a some really horrendous 4 pages.

I've decided that this summer I am taking a break. I know that I should at least work a bit, but right now I really just want to not really do anything. I am going to chill out around Provo and go up home to Twin a lot. I am going to go running and swimming and hiking and walking. I am going to sit in the MOA and outside on the grass and write write write. I am going to write personal essays and Honors Portfolio/Thesis things and just write for myself and catch up with myself. And I am going to read for fun. I am going to start my mission papers. I am going to go to the temple all the time. I am going to take road trips and laugh with my roommates and make good food and draw with sidewalk chalk. I am going to take time for myself and chill out.

Here is what I will NOT do this summer: pull, oh maybe 5 all-nighters in a row to write a conference paper and do a German portfolio and write an American lit paper and do all this jazz that I like doing, just not late at night and all at the same time. And be lame.

The end.

I'd Rather Pick Flowers Instead of Fights

Songs of the Post: Dental Care and Cave In by Owl City

Well, here we are. Starting my 5th hour of German homework for today. Why do I let myself get behind again? OH YEAH. Beacuse I hate this class. Not the language itself. I love Deutsch. Just the class. AHHHHHHHHH. But alas, I also care about my grades (and the money they give me...) too much to just let it slide, so I force myself to catch up on homework.

Oh yeah. And then I have to do my other homework that's all due tomorrow. I just might die. It might be an all-nighter. (Which is why I'm blogging?)

And that is why Owl City is being played right now. I've realized that Owl City is my all-nighter (or practically such, because I hope to at least get some sleep) music. That one night last semester when I had my first essay for Westover's class to write and had to do essentially all my research and write the paper between 10 p.m. and 1 p.m. the next day? Yeah. Spent/wasted quite a few hours listening to Owl City. And tonight after I got home from band instead of singing Robin Hood like I usually do after band, "Cave In" popped into my head. Probably because my head is about to cave in. But, you know, "every mushroom cloud has a silver lining." Only about an hour of German left. Hopefully. I can do this. I can. I can. I can. And then I'll be all caught up with homework. Until, you know...tomorrow. Such a depressing thought. I wish I was going to England in a month like I was last year. :(

(Alex Brown Photography)

I'll just keep my helmet on. This might get messy.

I Think I Can

(vi.sualize.us)

If I can make it through tonight, I can do anything.

...uh...

This is going to be me this week. Yep. Dead and flushed.

Peaceful Pandemonium

(vi.sualize.us)

Sometimes I feel like I'm in this room. And it's so beautiful. So much is going on all around, but it's all happy and beautiful and somehow...the chaos is serene, tranquil. Relaxing. All I can do it sit back and watch the sky, life, float down upon me and wonder how everything can be so exquisite and enchanting. And then you curl up with one of your best friends on another best friend's bed while listening to some beautiful music and start to drift and flutter and linger, your mind-thoughts and heart-thoughts mingling with each other and peace enveloping you.

Supposedly, the "Falling Garden" thinks for the people in this picture. I don't like the idea of giving up my thoughts, but at the same time, that's what I feel like--giving up my worries, all the bad parts of life to the garden. And then I just lie there soaking in the joy, watching colorful glass flowers that will never break meander their way down from heaven.

Months and Years

You know, it could be happening in 2 months.Instead it'll be a bit over 6. I could be taking big steps towards it right now. But I'm not. Because of a decision I made a few months ago delayed this process. Which is a good thing. I'm excited for the intervening months and I feel like I'm doing the right thing. I do. I do.

Yeah, I'm trying to convince myself right now. Convince myself that it's the right thing still, that I shouldn't go back to my original plan. Because no matter how right it feels, and no matter how much sense it makes logistically, spiritually and (usually) emotionally...waiting is still hard when you want something more than anything and for the past 4 years you've been expecting to be practically there at this point in your life and now you have to wait longer. 6 months is a long time. A lot longer than 2 months.

So even though I'm used to waiting, now that it's getting closer, I want to wait less. It's like some inverse exponent thing (I'm tired, okay?). And even though I was excited for Fall, and still am, right now I wish I wasn't going to be here for it. I wish that what I want right now is what Heavenly Father wants and has in store for me. Because waiting even longer right now is feeling like my heart is breaking. I don't want to wait any longer. But I will, if that's what He wants.

(all pictures from vi.sualize.us)

Blogger

This is no surprise, but I'm slightly addicted to Blogger. The end.

I love this picture

(vi.sualize.us)

FRIDAY

I am so glad it's Friday. This means that tomorrow I can:

• Sleep in
• Laundry-ify it up
• Spiele Organ like my life depends on it (because my grade kinda does)
• Attend a fabulous RS activity
• Maybe actually do some other homework. Maybe.
• Have no social life, because I'm hoping to practice Organ for at least 10 hours between today and tomorrow
• Essentially I'm going to kill myself, but frankly, I get to sleep in until 10 tomorrow morning, so I'm perfectly content.

It was so hard getting up this morning because I felt something like this:

(vi.sualize)

And because something like this:

(vi.sualize)

was going on in my dream. Except I was at a cute boy's house for dinner. And while his older sister loved me, his dad didn't seem to like me that much...oh well. Only a dream.

Always Remember

Anyone who experienced it knows the images, sounds and emotions from that day and its aftermath, knows where they were and what they did.

It changed our nation, it changed our way of life, it changed everyone of us individually.

I was 12.

I wonder how the little kids felt that day; how these kids who were in elementary school at the time, now in high school and college, remember that day. I wonder how those even younger--those like my brother who was 1 and a half, or my 3 siblings who weren't even born--view it. Is it like the way they view things like the Civil War and even Pearl Harbor and JFK: distant events that had a dramatic impact, but we didn't experience it, so it's difficult to really say what it means or understand just how everyone was touched? Is it simply the event that brought about a war and tighter airport security?

I sometimes hear people say that it bothers them that people only acknowledge the event on its anniversary. But I know that's not true. It still affects us. We, as a nation and as people, are still cleaning up the rubble. We still feel our hearts constrict and our throats close off. We still blink back tears coming to our eyes. We still wait in silence, almost feeling as if it wasn't real and didn't really happen, like the entire world dreamed the same nightmare, and one day soon we're all going to wake up.

But we're not waking up, because we're already awake. And as time passes on, perhaps those who guard the flag here on campus during the anniversary will realize less and less what that day meant, what they're watching over and honoring. Soon the flag won't even be guarded, and memorials will be all that remain of physical associations with the event. Memorials are tangible and do touch the heart, but still never come close to the feelings that even a 12-year-old girl from Idaho who wasn't specifically affected by the attacks has about that fall morning.

We will always remember. When we're 30, when we're 60, when we're 100. It's those feelings, those images and memories--intangible but very real and poignant, that will live forever with all those who experienced 9/11.

MAC

I remember back in the days when I used to hate Macs. Really. When they confused me and I just couldn't stand them. But now I love them. No particular reason. I just do. They just...feel better. And so I am here on this Mac in the Humanities Lab in the JFSB, studying for my astronomy test, being really happy. Yay!

After my mission, when it's actually reasonable to make techonological upgrades in my life, I am definitely getting a Mac.

Weekend Akin to Freshman Year

Two tests and a paper to complete before 5 on Monday? No problem. Let me just: attend a 30-minute dance party. See Alice in Wonderland in 3-D at midnight on opening night dressed up with some of my best friends (I was the Queen of Hearts). Go to IHOP afterwards. Not get home until 3:30 in the morning. Walk through inches of snow in open-toed shoes, after not wearing a coat in 60 degree weather most of the day (and much of the next day). Go to the Vocal Point concert with Christine--and still be crushing on one of VP's members. Work a 4-hour shift. Chill out with Sarah Lutz. Dine on delicious Indian food at Bombay House with England folk. Watch Slumdog Millionaire (Mill-in-air!) with said England folk. Dance my heart out at Cupid's Ball for the last little hour. Have Cupid's Ball (aka our ward party) shut down by police. (Dear Provo citizens: College town, Saturday night, not even midnight, third year of Cupid's Ball. Don't complain. You were welcome to come dance too.) Blogging, instead of sleeping. Being very content, despite everything that still needs to be done. Feeling like this picture, which I love:

O ye'll tak' the high road and I'll tak the low road

(wandelen.filternet.nl)

I just want to sit nice and warm on the couch looking out to Loch Lomond with the sun streaming in through the windows, after hiking Ben Lomond that morning...clean and invigorated and tired and more-than-content, with my journal in my hand and a blank page before me, ready to be filled with words and sketches of the loch and mountains before me.

But I feel like the times where I want to write the most I have nothing to write about and have so much else to do. Sigh. All I want to do is be in a youth hostel somewhere in the UK, writing and thinking and laughing and loving.

(planetware.com)

P.S. I now officially have a goal. I've signed up to do a writing marathon the weekend of March 18-20, where my entire focus is on writing. In that weekend, I am going to write and turn some of my half essays into 2 full essays. The end.

Mischevious Grin?

I can't believe it's March already. My little brother turns 18 in a week. You know how old that makes me feel? I'm excited though, because that means that he will soon be down here with me and that means that it will be fall and I'm all sorts of excited for fall for so many reasons.

You know what's bad? When you you're unmotivated in everything that needs to get done, i.e. Astronomy questions and Organ practicing and the like. Things that you enjoy. But all you really want to do is just go outside and lay on the grass wearing your read coat because it's so BEAUTIFUL and talk with a friend and/or think about England and/or write your guts out because you miss writing so much and when you saw John Bennion on Friday he gave you a mini guilt trip about not working on your Honors Thesis and/or doing your English homework like reading JANE AUSTEN and other awesome things. But you can't do that until later because you have more important things to get done before hand. Which do not consist of blogging, but you know what, I'm going to blog, dang it.

I want to know what is going on with my summer. Unfortunately, that's out of my control until who knows when. Just let me know if I'm going to be an EFY Counselor this summer so that I can actually plan my life!

I'm kinda giggly right now for no reason. And I just want to go listen to some awesome that is Ingrid Michaelson right now and sing along and get rich and buy everybody nice sweaters and teach them how to dance.

But instead I'll actually finish my astronomy assignments, and start studying for the 2 midterms I have this week and all that jazz. Oh yeah. But I wonder how people would feel about me blasting music and singing in the library...I AM in the No-Shh Zone... :)