Tuesday, December 21, 2010

rainy days

i just read that the mayor of st george declared a state of emergency for southern utah; water levels are expected to exceed water levels in the flooding of 2005. and the rain keeps coming!

a rainy christmas isn't quite the romantic ideal, but it is some form of precipitation, so i suppose it's better than nothing. not quite winter wonderland, not quite california christmas: we sit somewhere in the middle.

i've had a rocky relationship with rain. in the past, i've found it hard to look at rain without thinking gloomy, depressed, and tears. it could be because rain isn't too common in the southern utah desert that i grew up in, and i've always preferred sunny skies. but the places i've lived outside of southern utah have taught me one or two things about rain. in provo, rain comes more frequently than in st george and i've learned the art of the umbrella. i also learned that it's helpful to wear a skirt on rainy days, because my pants {usually too long, because of my shortness} usually drag in the wetness and stay wet all day long. wearing a skirt in the rain wasn't a problem in uruguay, because i already wore one every day! in uruguay, i learned that rain in southern utah {or provo, for that matter} is nothing. i learned what it really means to be raining cats and dogs {and cows, and pigs, and sheep}. when it rains there, it rains with all its heart and soul. in london, i learned how truly lovely rain can be, and that despite soggy days, london is still beautiful.

so i've learned that rain can be good. there is something deliciously melancholy about a rainy day, and something refreshing about the feeling of the earth being washed and scrubbed clean. and there is no better smell than rain in southern utah {it's the sagebrush}.

nevertheless, when the sun finally makes an appearance again, i will welcome it.

Saturday, December 18, 2010

a few words



done
{with this semester} {and my undergraduate degree}


home {finally} {for christmas}


as you can tell, being DONE and HOME leaves me {mostly} speechless!


Merry Christmas!


¡Feliz Navidad!



Thursday, December 9, 2010

no rest for the [insert word here]

i could say no rest for the weary, but that's cliche, so i'll say no rest for the person who has been slacking off on her grad school application and gre preparation for the entire semester and now is pretty much freaking out.

good news: today was the last day of classes. what does this mean for me? it means that i just finished the very last classes of my undergraduate career. BOOM, BABY. i wish i could say i felt elated, but i'm not there quite yet. i have finals looming (although i'm not too worried.... less worried than i should be, perhaps) and grad school applications that i've procrastinated until now. shame, shame, shame. that gives me more stress than anything at this point. i realize that so much of this semester has been spent doing things that are immediately important (homework, for example) that the things that will be important for my future have fallen by the wayside. i pray that i can spend some good quality time this coming couple of weeks doing grad school application, and that i don't completely shame myself taking the gre.

i know i shouldn't rely on the "if it works out, it's meant to be" logic too heavily. i mean, i believe it's true, that if i do as much as i can the rest will sort itself out. i just need to get busy doing as much as i can. i'll get right on that.

Monday, December 6, 2010

ask me how i feel

go ahead, ask me.

how do i feel? thank you for asking.

i feel FANTASTIC/ECSTATIC/GROOVY/PEACHY/SWELL/ PHENOMENAL!!!!

why?

i just compiled my final countdown list. this list includes all the homework i have to do and finals i have to take before the end of the semester (in other words.... all the homework i have to do and finals i have to take before i can call myself a byu GRADUATE!) it's a pretty good sized list, but the fact that in less than two weeks i will have completed my undergraduate career (and what a long road it has been) makes me more than thrilled. it is enough to pull me through the stress of the last two weeks of school. hallelujah!

tonight i went with jessi, sabrina, and annalisa to the first presidency christmas devotional at the conference center. what a wonderful way to kick off the christmas season! being in the same room with the prophet and apostles is always thrilling, and tonight was no exception. here are some highlights of the evening:

*when president uchtdorf quoted "the grinch who stole christmas"

*mormon tabernacle choir (and orchestra)'s rendition of "oh come all ye faithful"

*the foggy evening that made the temple and the lights at temple square all misty and ethereal.

*when someone said MERRY CHRISTMAS to me! first time of the season!

ps: i watched casablanca for the first time this weekend. humphrey bogart, you are one fine man. and ingrid bergman is dazzlingly beautiful. and it's an incredible movie. if you haven't seen it, repent! so good. sooooo good :)

Friday, December 3, 2010

deep sigh

ahhhhh, the weekend. i can take a deep breath, even if it's just a short one. this morning i came to a realization: if you still haven't unpacked from thanksgiving break, your week has been WAY way too busy. yes, half of my clothes from thanksgiving break are still sitting in my suitcase. pathetic! ridiculous! unacceptable! that's like a metaphor for my life right now - i'm a little behind in everything, but at least i still have clothes, right? and a seafoam green suitcase, and a blue polka dot carry-on bag from the cath kidston store in london! don't forget those. if you're going to have your clothes packed for a week after a trip, make sure you have fantastic luggage to look at/trip over. because stubbing your toe on seafoam green is less painful than boring black.

i'm thankful that this week is over, and that i was able to get everything turned in, and thankful for forgiving professors who hopefully won't dock me toooooo much for late research papers {4 research papers in 2 weeks is too much. really}. and i'm thankful that today when i was driving home from my 8 o'clock class, i passed brant on his way to class.

and oddly enough, i am thankful for all the homework i have. i started to complain about the amount of work we are given at this university, but then i stopped an had an epiphany {like a light bulb! haha that reminds me of rudolph the red-nosed reindeer}. if professors expected less from us or gave us less to do, we would inevitably learn less. i realized that one of the reasons i am at this school is because i like to be pushed. we humans have a tendency to stay where it is comfortable, so it's nice when someone says "no, i think you can do more."

so this post is dedicated to my professors. yes, sometimes i curse the amount of work you make me do, and the sleep i lose in order to complete it, and the amount of time it takes away from people that i love. but at the end of the day, i'm thankful to have learned about american literature, or writing, or families, or life in general.

gracias!

Wednesday, December 1, 2010

words, words, small talk

words keep me alive. they fascinate me with their ability to mean everything and nothing, to drive right to the heart of a point or skirt around an issue, to horrify and electrify and surprise.

there are words that satisfy me, like succulent and befuddle, and others that amuse me, like fiddlesticks, poppycock, and mollycoddle (where do those words come from, anyway?). there are words that sound better spoken with a british accent, like rubbish and darling.

i can't live without words. to speak is to be ALIVE. maybe this is one of the reasons why small talk annoys me so much. small talk is a crime of words. small talk is nothing but robotic, and certainly never includes words like succulent.

hi, how are you?
well, thank you. you?
good. how was your day?
good. yours?
okay.

sometimes you can try to break up the cycle by giving a five minute spiel in response to how are you? but that can backfire on you, because instead of starting a real conversation you could reveal that the other person has no desire to know how you are, but simply wanted to ask for formality's sake. then it gets awkward, and usually ends like this: well, good luck with that! which sounds about as sincere as barbie.

small talk can lead to a real conversation, yes. and i do like people to ask me how i'm doing, rather than not. but sometimes i feel starved of real conversations, feeling lost in the sea of superficiality, where people put up brick walls and don't really want to know how i'm really doing and don't want to tell me how they're really doing.

today, i lack intellectual interchange. but maybe i'm just too tired to make the effort, and it's really me who is at fault, not other people.

so, how are you today?