So Fetchin' Grownup

I don't know if I've really established this before.  In case I haven't, let me just put it out there for the record.
I am a child.
While I may pretend to be blase about many things, inside I'm a screaming romantic, making a big deal about every stinkin' thing.  The smallest of things excite me.  Let me give you an example.
This weekend I boarded a plane to visit my best friend Lizzie in Texas.  I've ridden planes before but this time I was all BY MAHSELF, not family.
My dad dropped me off at the curb and I'm all, "ok dad, thanks, see ya in awhile!"  Completely calm and collected (or at least trying to be) because you know, this is no big deal.
Sike.
This is a HUGE deal.
I just felt so grown up.  There I was going to visit my married, pregnant, best friend living in another state.  All I could really think was, "this is the terminal.  I'm walking through the terminal.  alone."  "I'm going through security.  I went through security without getting confused or losing my mind!"  "Oh my gosh.  Now I'm walking onto the plane.  I'm on a plane!  I'm touching the plane with my hands!"
And this, my friends, is why you should be thankful I don't have twitter.
Don't even get me started on the actual flying aspect.
"I'M FLYING!!!!" was my very mature thought process.  I swear I've done this before.  I took off and landed a total of 6 times in the past 4 days and it never got old.  I was on a fetchin boeing 747, a giant metal contraption holding a hundred people or more and we were in the FRICKIN AIR.  So cool.

Now let's see if I've mastered the picture thing yet.

Looking super grown up on the late night flight
Don't judge my ghetto phone for taking crappy pictures.

Normal signs in the Vegas Airport

Welcome to Texas my friends.  Isn't is gorgeous?

This is my best friend.  I love her more than I can say.  She's gotten me through a lot.  Thanks for such a wonderful time LizDawg.  (Sorry I can't stop calling you that.)

i WILL enjoy this

Right now I'm sitting in my front room, with the windows open because it's raining, wearing a sweatshirt and and blanket because the windows are open and it's cold but hey, it's raining and smells good and that way I can hear the car that passes every once and awhile.

Last year when I needed ambient noise for studying I used to search "rain with cars" on youtube.  People make videos of this for real.  Three hours of just rain and a highway.  But right now, I'm experiencing it first hand.

I want to remember this moment.  It could really suck, because I've been up for an hour already and I'm tired, but I'm up because there's tests to be studied for, papers to be written, and because of the procrastinator I am, very little time to accomplish it all.  But it doesn't suck.

Because this is not forever.  Someday (soon) I'll be studying scriptures in the morning, doing companionship study, or maybe prepping lessons.  I'll come back to school yes, but it'll be a different place, with different roommates.  Carla won't be down the hall in the kitchen also studying.  And then there will be a man roommate (not in the way of cohabitation mom, don't worry) and eventually little teensy (loud and smelly) roommates and then bigger roommates (still loud and smelly) until it's empty again.  Maybe I'll still sit in the front room early in the morning then and listen to rain but I'll probably be in an adult diaper or something by that point.

This is a sweet moment.  Right here.  Right now.  My computer has been acting up and it freezes for ten seconds every time I stop typing or moving the mouse.  So even when I need to pause and think or edit, I'm hitting spacebar and delete.  Spacebar and delete.  It's annoying usually, but right now it seems only a vague and endearing quirk.  And as a result this is a word vomit (as my dear friend grace so charmingly puts it) blog post.

You see, the thing is, I like studying.  I like the mornings, even the painfully early ones.  I even like being kind of tired, in the way that I know it's because I have things to accomplish, in the way that it pulls me from homeostasis.  I like being just a little bit cold, on the parts where the blankets doesn't cover.  I'm warm almost perfectly, with just a hint of a reminder of that I could be cold, but I'm bundled up and I'm not.  I like the rain and since I'm up, I like sound of the birds.

It's everything cliche right now, essentially I've written a hallmark card, or a commercial for a brand of coffee.  But it's true.  Everything sentimental has been wrapped up into this one weird moment and I feel nostalgic and wise and life stretches out ahead of me and I remember that I won't remember this, but I want to.  This is what makes up life.

Sometimes things are special because they don't last.  This is that.  So I will enjoy it.

Weekend Words (It's Been Awhile)

The light comes gradually, much like the rising of the sun.  

You can discern the increase of light on the horizon but never all at once.  ...  

Sometimes receiving inspiration is like a foggy day.  

There's enough light that you can tell it's not darkness anymore.  

It's not night.  

But it's not brilliantly illuminated.  

You can see just enough to take a few steps ahead into the cloudiness.  ... 

There's enough to take just a few steps.

And then the light continues ... just far enough to press forward.

David A Bednar

Full video here

This inspiration, this light, that comes so gradually isn't only related to spiritual matters in the stereotype of things spiritual.  It's also related to taking a few more steps when I run.  

It's a few more minutes productively studying.  

It's the slow replacement of apathy with passion.  

It's a little more peace with myself - the way I look.  

It's a little bit better lesson plan.  

It's a few more confused minutes as I try to understand questions that seem to have no clear cut answers - but at least I'm looking, at least I'm thinking, at least I'm trying.  

And it's a few more pieces of understanding, of becoming, creating, developing. 

Sometimes it's not getting lost a second time on the way to work.  

And sometimes it's getting lost even worse than two weeks before, only this time having the courage to ask for help sooner.  

All I'm saying is I think there's hope that someday the willpower will come.  Someday I won't even need willpower because it will be second nature.  Someday the confidence will replace the fears and insecurities.  And maybe that someday is today.  Just a little.  Just a degree.  But today.

I Eat This Crap Up

Accounting, while incredible painful, comes attached with two professors in possession of a wacky sense of humor.

Behold, an excerpt from one of my practice problems:

"Heber Smith, a college student in Utah, is investigating what he believes is a promising business opportunity.  His idea is to manufacture and sell plastic jello molds in the form of the Salt Lake Temple.  Heber has a tentative purchase commitment from a book and gift retail chain for 4,000 units over the first three months of initial operations."*

Plastic jello molds in the form of the Salt Lake Temple.**

Hold on.  Wait.  Just let me... one more time.

Plastic JELLO MOLDS SHAPED LIKE THE SALT LAKE TEMPLE.

YES.  SO MUCH YES.

Brilliant.

This is hysterical people.  I love crap like this.  Love it like a fat kid loves cake.  I love it when people have the that wry sense of humor and add it into small details of an otherwise normal or boring situation Bless you Norm Nemrow for being a wack job.  It's right up my alley.



*I just want you to know that I clicked back and forth between screens to type this up, it wouldn't let me copy and paste.  THAT'S how important I thought it was.

**Guess what you ALL are getting for Christmas??

The Good

Look at that.  Three posts in the SAME. WEEK.

Are you suprised?  You shouldn't be.  I promised I would write.  And now that I'm at BYU my promises are soooo much more meaningful.  Like Karl G. and the Honor Code, I'm bound by my word of honor. Draw a line in the sand!  I shall die in this blogging circle with mine honor intact!  Read that with chariots of fire playing in the background.  Way inspirational.

Filthy honor code.

In order to write this much, it means that I'm putting off other things.  Like schoolwork.  Which you know is probably not that important anyway.  Except when I fail my classes and can't get into my program and have to drop out because school is too expensive it's going to be YOUR basement I'm living in.  Yeah I'm talking to you Marleen.  I hope that with all your urging for me to write more you factored in the possibility of having a hobo trying to sneak into your basement, filching bits of your food, and scaring your children.  It'll be so much fun.  You can make sure I have fresh cardboard every week and in return I'll write clever clever things.

But on to the good.  With all the tests and scheduling problems and unhelpful advisors I've gotta remember the good.

The size. I thought living at this huge school with all these people would kill me.  Except for the few time I did hide in the library shelves to avoid crowds though, I was wrong.  I love the anonymity.  Yesterday I watched a guy walk across campus with a legit boombox on his shoulder.  Didn't even phase anyone.

The resources.  Last year to study for biology I, ok Slamdon had to buy a recording device to record lectures so we could review them over and over.  This year, my anatomy teacher records his lecture on his own and puts it online where I can listen to it any time.  On top of that there's about 800 TA's that hold lecture reviews several times every week.  Last year in my science lab I went once a week for two hours and then didn't return until the next week.  This year in lab, there's a two hour lecture and a possibility of four hours of open lab offered from as early as 7:00 am until 11:00 pm.  There's an accounting lab, a chemistry tutoring center, which I've basically set up camp in.

The people I'm living with.  I explain the difference it makes to live with girls that I actually know and like.  They're so dang cool.  Here's something that'll really blow your mind.  They actually cook.  Like prepare meals for themselves.  Like human beings.  This instead of buying $40 of groceries and then leaving them in the back of the fridge to rot and eating fast food instead.  Weird right?  They make homemade applesauce, they train for half marathons, play the violin in a band, edit applications for grad school.  They also dog pile on the top of the bunk bed while I'm trying to sleep.

Wait I'm making it sound like I live in some superhuman sorority house.  It's really not like that.  They've only thrown bologna at me while I sing Celine Dion ONCE.

There's just a million little things.  It's the walk to school.  It's the prayer before anatomy class - not nearly as pod people as I thought it would be.  It's the extended library hours, the international cinema, the window conversations with the neighbors next door.  It's being able to give my dad a heart attack by jumping out at him when I see him on campus.

I just love it here.  I love life.