Wednesday, December 28, 2011

A Hiatus from blogging, and also regular life

Judging space, should you require it:
                                                                                                             
                                                                                                                 
                                                                                                                 


Because I'm a slacker blogger, that's why. Update whirlwind: Finals are over and I survived, like a champion. I had bags under my eyes. I was exhausted. I had a lot left to do. But I was a champion cause I took all those tests and worked all those shifts and wrote all those papers and I didn't even overdose on caffeine and the week contained only minimal amounts of internal author arguments and only one meltdown, and that was in Hobby Lobby and had nothing to do with studying.

So. Notable Holiday Break Occurrences thus Far: (which I reserve the right to blog further about)
- Sleepovers with my nieces and nephew. Also, staying up til three in the morning talking to my sister who I haven't seen in four months. Playing peekaboo and catching children as they jump from the stairs and making cookies and doing hair and tucking in to bed and changing diapers and snuggling to my heart content! I think God made me the youngest sibling because he knew I needed to be an Aunty.

- Going back to work at my old job. Exciting things happened, aka the "Christmas Party" where we all piled into one car and drove to Provo and ate ice cream, followed by some harrowing experiences. (The jury is still out as to whether this subject is internet appropriate. More to follow, maybe.)

-Impromptu drives to Provo with my father where we wandered around the mall eating pretzels and I told him of my ambition to someday own a Prada handbag. Or Marc Jacobs. This is a desire I am kind of ashamed of, because I don't believe in spending thousands of dollars on extraneous purses when there are children starving in Africa. But a girl can dream, both for better systems of goods distribution worldwide as a solution to malnutrition and also of really pretty accessories.

- Christmas shopping with Justin, at which time we drank Japanese sodas and ate a candy bar made of milk chocolate and bacon. It was really odd. Also, it continues to amuse me every time people think we are a couple. Aka, the girl at Kinkos asked her coworker if she had helped "the couple over there". Also, when Justin left me alone in the line at World Market, the man behind me started talking about Japanese soda flavors, only he moved way closer than necessary or comfortable. And then Justin came back and he turned around and moved away very quickly. Ha! He is a good repeller for unwanted pursuers. Not just for region dances anymore!

- Taylorsville's Christmas concert! I was very pleasantly surprised to find that I actually remembered the whole Hallelujah Chorus, and also that I can still sing those notes. Who knew! Love that. I think that Taylorsville's stage will always be one of my happy places, and there is something about standing on that top riser next to Jessica singing high A's that fills my soul in a way no other thing can. Oh, Choir! How I miss you!

- Christmas Day! Going to the Golden Living Branch with my whole family and singing for all the residents at sacrament meeting. I love singing there, be it young women's groups, graces, or madrigals. I like it best with my family. Faking the alto line with Rose was great fun. "We'll just wing it. If we get it right, it will be a Christmas miracle!"

As for the blogging hiatus, it will probably continue following this cop out post. In lieu of blogging, I shall be reveling in the short lived opportunities for interaction with people here in the 801. No promises until the second week in January. And then I will whip out some stuff about the wonderfullness that is life, and maybe delve into some deep thought.

P.S. I find that life, and blogging, sometimes resembles a "CalvinandHobbesian" balance between the pure and active pursuit of joy found in things like Calvinball and Spaceman spiff fantasies and the deeply existential and personally challenging social commentary presented through the eyes of this six year old genius and his pet tiger. Aka, when do you know when to take a break from experiencing and blog about the experiences? Or maybe a better question is when do you stop reporting the experiences and start analyzing them? Just. If I ever start posting recipes of what I made my husband for dinner with step by step pictures accompanied by no intelligent thought, will someone please tell me to get a life? And now that we are way off the beaten track and it is one a.m...... continue hiatus!

P.S. For a good example of such a fragile "CalvinandHobbesian" balance, go here. This is my friend Brogan. He blogs. Rather brilliantly. Feast.

Sunday, December 11, 2011

Disclaimer

I can't be witty. I can't be insightful. I can't even be cheerful. There's nothing left. The one thing I want to say is that I went to Relief Society today and we had a lesson on the judgment day, during which we talked a lot about finals week and how it is kind of eerie how the two are sort of the same thing.

Hence, the last thing I have left inside me, standing here on the brink of the semi-annual week of brutality, is a sheer muscle aching teeth grinding will to survive until 1:20 on Friday. From here on out, that does not include blogging.

So basically, this is goodbye. I'll see you on the other side.

Monday, December 5, 2011

Wonky Occurences in the Workplace

More listmaking. Buckle up.

- My alarms decided not to go off this morning. Thus, I woke up at 6:30. You know, the exact time I am supposed to be at work. But that's okay, cause I ran all the way there and was clocked in at 6:38. Did anybody even notice I was late? Not so much. Score.

- Not only did my supervisor not care about this little punctuality hiccup, he asked my boss to give me more hours on his shifts and she said sure cause they like me. Score! More hours agenda taken care of.

- Tonight at work, I was serving food like normal, and I asked this guy in line what I could get for him, right? Then there was this awkward moment when I thought he said "Can I have you?" Pretty sure he meant food, but then he blushed, so maybe he really said you? So that was uncomfortable and stuff.

- One of my supervisors asked me how my dating life was going. And then he told me that I don't have a boyfriend cause my facebook posts are boring. And then at the end of the night he told me to go home and find a boyfriend. Uhh...how do you say....

I like my job. Never a dull moment.

This is the part I call Frantic Oragnization

Guys. It is midnight. And I have spent the past hour making lists and planning every possible thing in my life from here until Christmas. I made a list of all the stuff I need to print, and one of all the stuff I have to do tomorrow specifically, and a list of all the reading I have to do, and The Final List (finals week desperation-style), and posted them on my computer, two different spots on my walls, and in my folder. A copy is going in my planner, too.

Aka. It is late and I am stressed and OCD has stopped making house calls and set up residence until further notice. Here we are, fresh on dead week. This is the semi-annual week marked by obsessive bed-making, sticky notes, frantic folder clean out sessions, freakish efforts to tear out every leftover strip of paper from all the torn out pages in every one of my notebooks.

At this moment, I am fighting for deep breaths. Which is all the more painful because of my lung debilitating hacking cough. The whole day has been a struggle between feelings of suffocation and pain, which is now involved in basic bodily functions like breathing. I have been going to my happy place. Literally as well as figuratively, I suppose. I did have Lit History class today.*

This state of things is, alas, further evidence ( as if my high school schedule wasn't enough) that I am a masochistic human being. Aka, this sounds like a bad day to most people, but really it was a good one. Why is that? Desperate late night organization and homework and resume writing and list making somehow makes me feel quite accomplished. I don't know if that is healthy.

Therapy? I think so.

* For reals. Lit History class is my happy place. 

Friday, December 2, 2011

Questions, concerns, emotional outbursts?

C. Emotional Outburst.

Aka this has been a great week and it is culminating here on this lovely Friday afternoon of the best freaking day I've ever lived!

When I came home from Thanksgiving and had three more weeks of school staring me in the face, I though I might die from the very sight. And the thought of all those papers I had to write rearing its ugly head made me nauseous. And then the best week of the whole semester ensued, characterized by the following epicness:


 Diet Coke, obviously.
Watching NCIS
frantically puttying the holes in the wall and reattatching my headboard and stowing contraband items in my trunk in anticipation of cleaning checks
paying rent. by myself. 
Dracula, obviously.
Singing in the dishroom at work. Loud.
cleaning out my desk and closet at 3 a.m.
obnoxious awkward hands contests in the middle of class
doing homework with Shane and Stephanie
bribing myself with noodles if I will do my homework
getting a christmas tree in the living room
writing papers on campus in the wee hours of the morning
my professor telling me that my paper is perfect (snap. victory. happy hyperventilating)
getting mail!
getting mail with pictures my nieces drew for me that I am going to hang on my ceiling
skipping shamelessly through campus in celebration of such fabulous events

All these things, coupled with wishing over railroad tracks and sliding down railings, are the kind of things that make life dang good. There isn't even a word blissful enough to describe my mood right now. 

But this song comes close:

Also, I want to learn to play the guitar. That is the sound of sunshine.

word.