1. Sleep. It is boring.
2. Going to the bathroom. Gets in the way of all my fun and I don't like to have to plan around them.
3. Having to do hair AND makeup. I often just choose one or the other. Both is a little overwhelming.
4. Eating and drinking. See #2.
5. Paying for food. If I need it to live, should I really be paying for it? Should I pay for air, too? I don't think so. Food should be free. Especially tasty food.
This is a picture of what I came home to late the other night... thanks Jason. You are the cheese and I lahv you.
Also in the news: my friend Natalie broke her foot falling down her icy Boston steps.... lame. And my sister Kristen is super amazing with the insights and has the cutest kids. See here.
And now, back to planning my lesson and trying not to daydream too much. Hahaha, I'm a dork.
Mornings: I love love love mornings. I think they are the awesomest for thinking and getting stuff done. My coworker and I have this new resolution to be in to work at 7am. So here I am early... and definitely blogging, because it's creepily quiet in here and I'm not sure how to handle it. So I reach out to you in this virtual fashion, somehow proving my existence is still valid by posting my thoughts online. What a weird void I'm trying to fill right now.
To Do Lists: Every day I fill out an index card with a list of things to do. They fall in three categories: "Today," "Work," and "Soon." Every day I check off about two things on that list. I'm beginning to wonder why I even make it... maybe to keep myself humble because I can easily see how awesome I am NOT doing. Sigh... Maybe under the "Today" section of the current card I'll write "Do stuff on this list."
Biggest Loser: Week 2's weigh-in showed that if you work out a lot but then increase the amount of food you eat, you stay at the same weight. Huh. Adios, fun nighttime snacks and mid-afternoon treats... :)
Dorkiness: Last night found Jason and I on the phone for over an hour having PFHE--Potential Family Home Evening. Hehehe. His term, not mine. I don't say stuff like that because it gives me ulcers. We made a paper chain (well, two, rather) to count down the days until I go to Utah and then read Alma 32 together. I kept thinking in my head, "This is oh-so-dorky!" But then I got over it because it was still fun. Hehe. Permission to be retarded?
Snow Day: It snowed 8 inches yesterday, or something. I decided I didn't want to have yet another traumatic snow experience with my car, so it was imperative that I stay home for almost the whole day. I slept until 9, made French toast for my roommates, sat in my bed doing some work but mostly burning cds and aimlessly surfing the internet, shoveled snow for a good hour, and finally headed in to work at 4:30pm. What a day.
Back to work...
Favorite two links of the day:
http://www.wikihow.com/Braid-a-Woman%27s-Hair-on-a-Date
http://popvssoda.com:2998/countystats/total-county.html
Here I come, back to the world of the bloggers with a vengeance. A new look, a new outlook, and an apparent affinity for Van Gogh. Who knew? Here's a report on 2007, since I didn't blog about it so awesome...ly.
January: Worked, put off running, made new friends, got new cool coworkers, was very cold.
February: Started running, bought new car to combat coldness, scratched said car, loved missionary work.
March: Can't remember. My mom's birthday is this month, though. Oh yeah, one failed romantic enterprise.Holy cow. It is HOT in Boston. I ran this morning and I probably lost about 5 pounds in pure sweat. Gross, man. Gross.
So it is entirely possible that I remain single for the rest of my born days. I came to this realization today when I was reflecting upon my inability to reciprocate romantical feelings towards those menfolk that feel them for me, and my just-as-awesome inability to make boys that I really dig like me back. What is up with that? So I have declared for myself a celibate life, and I will now become a literary genius. I think that's what all truly frustrated people do, don't they? Or perhaps those that just have a lot to say. I seem to fall in both categories lately. Haha.
I also by the way am convinced that temples are the coolest places on earth, and that each of us has a specific plan, a specific mission, and a specific need to put our wills on the altar of sacrifice constantly.
And that isolating oneself is BAD.
I think I should probably go to bed.
I've found that for me, home is where the heart can rest. I've been home for two days and my heart feels so at peace. Sure, there are constant tuggings at it to be better, kinder, more loving... but I've noticed that in my home, I feel safe. I feel like the most pure me, and that even though I recognize my shortcomings, it's a safe place to start over and not feel attacked for past mistakes. Yay for home! I went to my home ward today and a lovely woman who is grandma to the whole ward basically came up to me and put her arm around me and said, "Welcome HOME." I felt like Anne of Green Gables or something. I knew I was home. Ahh, bliss.
Funny things happen in Ferndale, though... I went to my friend Meredith's wedding yesterday, lovely, and afterwards my parents and I headed to the spring formal to get some wedding reception ideas for my sister's wedding in July. The stake here puts on a spring formal to give the kids an alternative to the sometimes nasty prom environment. It's really cute and the parents go all out on decor and food and all the fixins. Yesterday they had a lighthouse, boats, a boardwalk, a sea scene, seashell lights, candle-sand lanterns... you name it, it was there, and it was magical. Apparently the magic had an effect on the 16-year-olds, too, because one of them asked me to dance. I was like, "Um, I'm 25." He responds, "Oh really, you're that old?" Hahaha, poor kid... and poor me, who apparently still looks like she's in high school! Arghhh. I'm sure I'll love it when I'm 70, but for now... HAhahahaha. Best moment all week.
I found myself tonight at MIT. I got sucked into the intellectual side of things, I suppose, though I must say the most appealing part of the place to me was the lovely view of the river. Ah yes, AND the stimulating environment. Ian Hutchinson gave a lovely discourse on the rationalization of faith and science and whether or not they are at odds or not. My date and I concluded that science is a particular area of focus of the larger whole that is religion--that is to say, science is a way of coming to know truth, and much truth can be had by observing things as they are and through repeatable demonstrations that they are so. However, as Emma Darwin wrote to remind her husband Charles, "May not the habit in scientific pursuits of believing nothing till it is proved, influence your mind too much in other things which cannot be proved in the same way, & which if true are likely to be above our comprehension." Or in my words, there are many ways of proving things, not all of which are perceived by the area of our mind that conceives of things along a logical continuum. In fact, as I learned in the Museum of Science last week, one of the largest pieces of our brains is the part that is concerned with things moral, ethical, and religious. It is, in fact, about three times the size of the logical and analytical parts of our brains. So, then, we are meant to observe things as they are, scientifically, as they were, historically, and meant to find out how things will be through other faculties--things which, though they may perhaps not be "proved in the same way," yet they can be felt to "ring true," and to "have a certain authority," to borrow from Professor Hutchinson. And so I conclude again, because of things I have felt even again tonight, that not all things are known, but they can be, based on the laws and the grace of the Lawgiver.
Whew. That's what a night at MIT will do to you.
So I finally decided today that it was time to get running. I'm doing a half marathon in May. That's like 13 miles. MUCHO running. So today I stepped onto the treadmill in attempt to get my legs back in condition and my knees re-oiled for the journey. Mostly, though, I was amused by the inter-gym interplay. On my left are the musclehead guys impressing the mirror with the enormous amount of metal they can lift up to their chests--repeatedly--and on my right is the married guy who just got off his corporate job and is running away all the stress. In the corner is the girl who's learning what the bench press is for the first time, and then the girl with something to prove who keeps rowing and rowing and rowing on the floor beside me. And then there's me, sometime runner, in my Duke shirt, switching between CNN and the Knicks game. I wonder which category the other workerouters were putting me into? And yet I realize that it doesn't matter--one opinion does, and I can't see others' thoughts nor they mine, so I really shouldn't be deciding what type of a person anybody is anyway. What matters most in the end is not my heart's capacity to endure a long run but its capacity to extend love.
And work today was great--amazing how much better of a mood I'm in when I realize that PMS is the cause of all my woes. Ha! Realizing the cause of things helps me deal with them better. Now if only I could figure out what has caused me to be, as my sister puts it, "eternally weird."
Tonight I also fell asleep on the floor while listening to some lovely guitar playing and singing. Ahhh, bliss. Why is it that every girl is smitten by the guitar and yes, even by "Tears in Heaven"? I've heard it a million times but somehow it still makes me swoon.
I need to go to bed before I faint. Onward....
Do you ever have days where at the end, you think, 'hmm, I could have just skipped today entirely and my whole life would be completely unaffected'? Well, I have decided not to have those anymore.
And here is a picture from Christmas! These are my friends visiting before we went home for Christmas. Lisa, roommate Leah, me, roommate Blair, Kristy.
Happy New Year to all y'all...may it be filled with love and laughter! I've noticed a lot of people lately wishing for the new year to bring you "nothing but happiness." I have learned that sometimes life is better with a little sadness to help you appreciate the happy, so I will stick with wishing you instead my personal favorites. Love and laughter. :) Happy new year!