summer, por favor

I came to a realization when I got up this morning to go running. When I have to wear more than one layer of exercise clothes to run, it's TOO COLD. Time for the indoor track.

Winter is just around the bend here in good ol' Provo, and I can honestly say, bring on the summer. I want it back. Someone told me that it was going to snow tomorrow, and I about had a nervous breakdown. It's OCTOBER, for crying out loud! Winter here goes from November to March (ish) and that's completely unfair to me. That's five months.

I am completely aware of the fact that it hasn't even started to get really cold. But I'm a desert girl, so I'm already wishing for the warm summer sun.

BUT I am also trying to be a positive thinker. What DO I like about the cold?

*hot chocolate

*Christmas

*winter accessories

*watching snow (not driving in it, or being in it, just looking at it)

hmmm....

that pretty much does it.

PS random quote of the day: "The amount of women in London who flirt with their own husbands is perfectly scandalous." [Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest]

out of the mouth...

In a desperate attempt to stay attentive in my grammar class, I started doing what will certainly be a daily tradition - I began to take note of all the crazy/hilarious things that my professor was saying. This experiment isn't entirely limited to my grammar professor, he is just the craziest one I have right now. So expect frequent updates!

class 10/13 Prof. Manning, English Grammar

"...and since you have an adjective in your pocket, throw it in there!"

while talking about our biases towards traditional grammar verses an in-depth analysis of word and phrase categories: "our biases are like our paper mache helmets; if you never go into battle, you'll never be disappointed."

explaining that obscure grammar exercises will never be used in real life: "it's like chin-ups. You never want to be in a situation in life that you have to do a chin-up - they are used only in exercise. In real life it means you're hanging off a cliff or something..."

as well as "you will never do the "downward dog" in real life. No....? OKAY that was just a joke for those people that do yoga." (I thought it was funny) :)

"HOW in the name of heaven and grammar can there be two specifiers in a row? It's just impossible!"

class 10/14 Prof. Christianson, American Literature

student: "did Emerson actually write poetry, or just write about it?"

professor: "yes, unfortunately."

...and that's just in two days... :)

I should be doing homework!

and instead, I write poetry. Here is my brief moment of peace before the test material madness...

Fleeting moments of peaceful exhalation

Intermittently interrupt my quickstep days

I pause

Peering past the plaid crowd

Into the towering cumulus drifting low

On the horizon, previously unnoticed

And quickly passed over

I quicken my step to keep up

With the general public

Passing over the moment

The billow drifts

No longer unnoticed, but forgotten

Until the next fleeting moment of peaceful

Exhalation

Intermittently interrupts my quickstep day.

CELEBRATION!

It was a beautiful thing to click "submit" as I turned in the paper that has consumed my life this past week. It's never a good thing when my teachers say "we're expecting you to spend 25-30 hours on this assignment." Those are the times when I kick myself for being an English major. The assignment? To write a historical/biographical analysis about one of the texts from this unit. The text? "My Kinsman, Major Molineux," by Nathaniel Hawthorne. It included a YEAR of research, I spent hours swimming in the depths of the BYU Library website. But all that matters now is that it is DONE!!!

So what do I feel??

So now I can enjoy five minutes of peace before I start studying for my two tests that I have this weekend. What else is on the agenda this week? Melville, subjunctive Spanish, sentence parsing, 1 Nephi, and more. Oh, the life of a student!