summer reads

See these bookmarks? They need to be in books. Books of my choice. I've enjoyed a lot of the books I've read for my classes this semester, but there's something different about reading books of my own choosing. Today I took a large stack of books from my bookshelf and made a tower of summer-reads, which I'm really excited to get into considering the fact that I haven't read over half of the books that I own... I can't help it if I keep buying books before reading the ones I have; I love my growing library! It helped that a few years ago I worked at a place where I could buy books for $1 or $2 (believe me, I took advantage of that... often...)

I shouldn't even be thinking about this right now!! On top of the fact that I haven't even taken finals yet, I'm not going to have time to do personal reading until after spring semester in London (woo!) but I can't help but make a list so I can be prepared for actually having free time. :)

See right ----> for my summer reads list. What's on your list?

the series of unfortunate events that was today

good. gracious. (that's how today feels for me) let me give you the lowdown:

last night (which is not today, i know. keep reading) i was up writing a paper, and after several hours of constant inability to concentrate, i decided to finish today in between my classes. so this morning i woke up (late) and rushed to class, la la la anyway after my class i went home to finish my paper that was due at 3. now, i also have a class at 2. but somewhere in between writing my paper and going back to class i got it into my mind that my 2 o'clock class really started at 3, so i thought i had an extra hour before my class started... so i took my time. i even took a 20 minute nap. when i walked into my class at 2:55, i noticed that i didn't recognize anyone, even the professor. i walked out. after i walked out i looked at the clock, and all of the sudden something clicked in my brain and i realized that i completely missed my last day of this class (i had to turn in a paper for this class too - i emailed the professor and begged for mercy... at least i got it haha)

that was incident #1 (honestly, after an entire semester, who forgets what time their class starts? i'm losing my brain... or as jessi would say, i'm "loosing" my brain) time for incident #2:

i went to the grocery store to pick up a few things. after getting back to my apartment i got out of the car and locked it (from the inside... normally i lock it from the outside with the clicker thing, but i was going to have my hands full of groceries) anyway, i got up to my apartment and started searching my purse for my keys... and guess what, they weren't there. i walked back down to my car, leaving the groceries in front of the door, and saw my keys sitting innocently on my seat. locked. in my car. and of course, the only spare i have is also in my car (i'm lame, i know). fortunately my roommate showed up to let me in a few minutes later.

yikes! i am going crazy. fortunately, there are a few redeeming factors of the day. #1, desserts at olive garden: i went with my sister and her boyfriend (i'm getting used to being the third wheel; again, i'm lame) and had desserts. they were fabulous. #2, jack johnson is coming to salt lake city in august (i. am. so. there.)

i'm still looking for someone to break into my car, so i don't have to pay a professional to do it. sigh.

almost...

there are a lot of "almosts" in my life right now. almost done with this semester (only two more official days of class), almost on my way to london for six weeks and, a little further ahead, almost done with my undergraduate degree (which is so, so, so great). i thought i had a year left for my bachelor's degree, but i figured out that i could do it in one semester... so come december, i will be a free woman! well, semi-free. who knows? i might end up in graduate school. i'm not really thinking about that right now... i just have to work on not dying before december. my friend toni told me tonight "post on your blog!" and i felt like a neglectful blogger. so here i am, neglecting other things like homework (10 page research paper, go jump off a cliff). and just to let you know, i'm planning a big blog design overhaul (i get sick of my blog design, time for change again!) so expect changes in the VERY near future!

oh, and by the way. i've been home for my mission for 1 year today! holy cow, crazy. i miss you, uruguay!

My dear blog friend, I miss you. I would love to post more often, but next to realist novels, folklore projects, research papers, daily quizzes that require me to do all the reading, and a multitude of other homework obligations, blogging tends to fall by the wayside. Sometimes, I get sick of being in school. I tire of doing homework for hours every day, and feeling guilty when I'm not doing homework. However, though I feel like I'm being mentally squashed by continuous schoolwork, I have to remind myself of the many advantages of being a student:

* Not having to find a "real" job (yet).

* Being able to answer the question "why are you not dating anyone?" with "I'm too busy."

* Reading (for the most part) fantastic literature. Being an English major has its perks (but I'm a decided bookworm, so I realize this would not be an advantage to some).

*Satisfying my urge to learn, learn, learn. For this reason, I am considering graduate school. Yes, I would be willing to put up with another couple of years after I'm done with my undergraduate degree.

*There are more, but you get the idea. Everything has pros and cons.

So even though this semester is kicking my butt, despite the fact that my classes are enjoyable, I can scare up the motivation to stick it out. One thing helping me right now is the fact that in May and June I'm going to London. Thank you, study abroad, for saving my life before I even go.

An Item of Business Pertaining to the Harold B. Lee Library

I'm sure there were those who saw me walking home from campus today who thought I was a little odd. Why? Because it's a beautiful, sunny day... and I am carrying an umbrella. It wasn't open, mind you. But carrying it was enough, I'm sure, for others to come to the conclusion that I am either 1) a pessimist 2) dutifully prepared for every situation, like an overeager girl scout 3) off my rocker, or 3) seriously attached to my umbrella.

I'm not, though (seriously attached to my umbrella, that is). This brings me to my first item of business. A week ago today, it was a gloomy day. The rain was drizzling and dripping down from the dark sponge clouds, and I snatched up my purple, pink, blue and yellow striped umbrella before I walked out the door. Now, let me relate the history of the umbrella. When I moved to Provo and realized my lack of umbrella would lead to excessive and unpleasant sogginess, I set out to purchase an umbrella. When I saw this umbrella, I was immediately attracted to its color and shape. You see, it's not one of those umbrellas that conveniently folds up to a six inch, easily store-able object. This umbrella always retains its three foot height, even after being closed. Anyway. It was a great idea of an umbrella, but after a few days of use, I recognized the inconvenience of carrying it around instead of being able to store it handily in my backpack. So I wasn't too fond of the umbrella.

Okay, back to the rainy day. I was in the Harold B. Lee Library on the BYU campus, on the very bottom floor, in the auditorium, listening to a poetry reading (note the extensive use of prepositional phrases). I had stashed my umbrella under my chair, and was enjoying the reading. When the reading ended, I headed out the door and began my enjoyable 15 minute walk home. About halfway there, I realized that my umbrella was still stashed under my chair in the Harold B Lee Library, on the very bottom floor, in the auditorium. At this point, I had two thoughts in my head: 1) that I wasn't really in the mood to walk all the way back, and 2) that my umbrella was an annoyance, anyway. Decision made, I left the umbrella to rest in peace under the chair, or in a lost and found.

Today, I again found myself in the library for a reading. This week, my writing creative non fiction professor was doing a reading from his new book (plug for Patrick Madden: buy his book! http://www.amazon.com/Quotidiana-Patrick-Madden/dp/0803222963/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1267221344&sr=8-1) anyway, as I took my seat, I serendipitously chose the same row, and sitting on the very seat I was about to sit in was nothing other than my umbrella. Maybe we were meant to be together always. Despite its faults, it had served me well and clearly wanted to remain with me until the end of its days.

This time, I did not leave the umbrella.

25...

is the natural number following 24 and preceding 26

is a square number

is the atomic number of manganese

is the number of years of marriage marked in a silver wedding anniversary

is the number of cents in a quarter

is the number of days approximately that takes the sun to do a complete rotation on itself.

Fascinating, I know. What may interest you more is that 25 is how old I will be... tomorrow! For some reason, 25 feels important. I mean, honestly, it's a quarter of a century. This is big news!

Birthdays are times that lead to reflection about life, like: yikes, I'm getting old or what do I want to do this year? or what have I accomplished so far in my life? Sometimes I look at other people who are my age or thereabouts and think "man, I have to start doing something with my life!" However. I think sometimes I get too caught up in what other people have accomplished in their lives, and start to measure "success" by events, or awards, or careers. And I forget... success isn't necessarily defined by what we do, or how much money we make. Success, to me, is knowing that I am in the right place at the right time, working to accomplish my goals and having fun in the meantime! So even if I'm broke and not done with college... I'm getting there :)

Marilyn Monroe says it perfectly: "I don't care about money, I just want to be wonderful!"

The Love Game

Optimism is great. After an extended period of pessimism, I begin to notice the point at which negativity begins to affect my emotional well-being (rather, others’ emotional well-being). The other day, when I was in this state of emotional instability, I was in the kitchen with the intent of making guacamole. I was particularly excited for this; it had been awhile, and guacamole is up on my list of “food I will never get sick of.” As I scraped the avocado into a glass bowl, I slipped a sliver of avocado in my mouth: it tasted like mold. And I, you guessed it, yelled. At the avocado. As far as I was concerned, the avocado was guilty of negligence, treason and murder. The murder of my guacamole. About this time, a glimmer of rationality in my mind told me I needed to play what my mom likes to call the Love Game. I proceeded to lower my voice, and my temper, and make a verbal list of all the things that I love. I love when I get a text from my mom and it reminds me of when I had to teach her how to use a cell phone. I love chocolate. I’m pretty sure I love the guy who sits next to me in one of my classes. I love writing.

I love writing. There’s something about the scratching of my pen or the click-click-click of the keyboard that calms me down to my toes. Already the disgust of the moldy avocado had slipped from my memory and I headed to my laptop to write about it.

* * * *

Deep down inside, I know I will never write a Hamlet or a Middlemarch or a Moby Dick, or anything akin to the literary masterpieces I adore. At that, you might say that’s not very optimistic¸ and I would have to say, there’s a difference between optimism and delusion. That’s not to say that I don’t dabble around in the delusional from time to time, but I realize that I may never be a great writer. I may never be a well-known writer, or a wealthy writer. Or successful or recognized or appreciated. But that doesn’t (and shouldn’t, I believe) stop me from writing.

I love the satisfaction of looking down at a page of my personally constructed creation and realizing, I thought that. Writing is a necessity to me, like a winter coat in Alaska or sun block in the Sahara. If I don’t write my thoughts down, they don’t allow me to concentrate on anything else. When I get my thoughts down on paper, I can extract them from my mind and move onto other thoughts. Shakespeare must have had to finish Comedy of Errors before he ever started Hamlet (although it’s very possible that his mind was trained to think in comedy and tragedy at the same time). On a smaller scale, that’s me. Writing helps me move on.

It also keeps me up at night. The minute my light goes off at night, my mind lights up and starts free-writing. At this point I have a choice: try to squelch the literary seedlings, or flip my light on and scribble something down. Either way, I lose sleep and get dark circles under my eyes. But when I scribble something down, I feel like I lost sleep for a justifiable cause. I’ve tried to train my mind to turn on only during my waking hours; every time, I find that I haven’t gotten to the point of flipping my brain on and off like a breaker switch.

Writing fulfills my need for creativity; there’s something innately human about the need to create. Writing beautiful sentences for one person might be like brush strokes on a canvas for someone else. I crave the ability to make something out of nothing. Well, not really nothing. It’s the ability to turning thoughts and ideas into cohesive words and phrases, like organizing the elements of language into my own person universe on paper.

I love writing. And as long as I have a pen and paper, or Microsoft Word, the Love Game will be easy to play, and moldy avocados will be only one step in the writing process.

for the love

...of waffles.

during Christmas break, I made a wonderful little discovery with my family: Red Rooster Waffle Co. in West Jordan, Utah. I have always enjoyed waffles, but it wasn't until I experienced a Red Rooster waffle that I truly understood the potential of a waffle. After our delightful culinary experience, we decided to try our hand at creative waffle making. Inspired by Red Rooster Waffle Co., this is what we made:

*waffles (whole wheat, because that's just the way we roll)

*egg (poached egg, or if you don't feel ambitious, fried)

*hollandaise sauce (we made it vegan, for health's sake...)

*diced tomatoes, red onion, and a little spinach on top.

If that doesn't sound appetizing to you, it's just because you haven't TASTED it yet! soooo good. Inspirational. We're probably going to end up making some sort of waffle creation on a regular basis... just as my sister stated: "I'm going to be more creative with my waffles." There you go.

If you have any inclination to try our waffles, let me know. We can work something out (:

The Wet Collection

It's been too long! I have thought at least once a day for the past month "I should post on my blog," but then something else always supersedes it and then I forget. But after today, I need to write. So.

This week has been pretty insane, trying to get comfortable in my classes, establish a routine, and jump on the homework train once again. For my creative nonfiction class this week, we have been reading The Wet Collection by Joni Tevis. I have absolutely loved this book - not just a book; a journey; a literary experience! I love when I read books that remind me why I love literature so much. Anyway, I finished reading The Wet Collection this morning, which was timely because Tevis was coming to BYU today to do a reading of her work. I was looking forward to the reading, but when I sat down in my creative nonfiction class, in walks Joni Tevis! My professor had arranged for her to come to our class to answer questions before the reading. I'd never had the opportunity to meet an author whose work I loved, so having her in our small classroom was really great! And very inspiring. After our class we went to the reading, and it was wonderful to hear her read from her own book. After she read, there was period of question/answer, and then we went into another room and she signed books and chatted with us a little. From the whole experience, reading her book, hearing her talk about and read her own writing, I learned a few of what I consider to be important things:

1. I love to write, but it's always something that I have never felt brave enough to take on. She mentioned she had always wanted to be a writer, and at 19 or 20 when she starting thinking seriously about writing, she realized how hard it was going to be. But that didn't stop her; she took it on as a challenge. So instead of being intimidated by writing, I feel like I should go for it, and do it because I want to, and because I need to not be afraid to do hard things.

2. I was trying to convince one of my friends to start a blog, and she said "my life isn't interesting enough." I think that's such a myth about writing. One of the things I've learned in this class so far, and from Joni Tevis, is that you don't need to have the life of a rock star so you can have interesting things to write about. The most important thing is how you look at your experiences. She said "I write to make sense of my life."

Anyway. Not sure where exactly I was going with this, but here's my thoughts on the day.

It was an day/week that inspired epiphany :) and that's always nice to have.

Read Joni's book! The Wet Collection:

quote mania

Today, today, today! I had my LAST class of this semester. Needless to say, I'm ecstatic (I will be more ecstatic in a few days after I've taken my finals) but Jessi and I were so happy today that on our way home from class we called our little sister Hailey to sing her happy birthday (it's not her birthday) and then we kicked the icicles off everyone's cars... yeah, good times. AND I'm wearing yellow tights and a green coat (Elf, anyone?)

So anyway, I've come to terms with the fact that I'm a nerd. I was reminded of that fact yesterday when I had my last transatlantic literary history class, and I was sad. Yes, I was sad. It's kind of ironic, because this class had given me more stress than any other class I have taken thus far. But it was definitely worth the pain, and I feel like a much more legitimate English major. In honor of the wonderful learning experience this class has been, I'm going to share a few of my favorite quotes:

"When it becomes necessary to do a thing, the whole heart and soul should go into the measure, or not attempt it." Thomas Paine, Rights of Man

"Poetry is the breath and finer spirit of all knowledge; it is the impassioned expression which is in the countenance of all science." William Wordsworth, Preface to Lyrical Ballads

"Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting.

The Soul that rises with us, our life's Star,

Hath had elsewhere its setting,

And cometh from afar:

Not in entire forgetfulness,

And not in utter nakedness,

But trailing clouds of glory do we come

From God, who is our home..."

William Wordsworth, Ode: Intimations of Immortality

"Oh! lift me as a wave, a leaf, a cloud!

I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed!"

Percy Shelley, Ode to the West Wind

"There she weaves by night and day

A magic web with colors gay.

She has heard a whisper say,

A curse is on her if she stay

To look down to Camelot."

Tennyson, The Lady of Shalott

"When I am in trouble, eating is the only thing that consoles me. Indeed, when I am in really great trouble, as anyone who knows me intimately will tell you, I refuse everything except food and drink."

"Jack: I'll bet you anything you like that half an hour after they have met, they will be calling each other sister. Algernon: Women only do that when they have called each other a lot of other things first."

"Then a passionate celibacy is all that any of us can look forward to."

Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest

"And from right to left along the lighted shore moved a wild and gorgeous apparition of a women... she was savage and superb, wild-eyed and magnificent... her face had a tragic and fierce aspect of wild sorrow.... Suddenly she opened her bare arms and threw them up rigid above her head, as though in an uncontrollable desire to touch the sky, and at the same time the swift shadows darted out on the earth, swept around on the river, gathering the steamer into a shadowy embrace. A formidable silence hung over the scene."

Joseph Conrad, The Heart of Darkness

"We must have you married before you are educated beyond eligibility." Tom Stoppard, Arcadia

"It is easy in the world to live after the world's opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude." Ralph Waldo Emerson, Self-Reliance

"The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation." Henry David Thoreau, Walden

"And you that shall cross from shore to shore years hence are more to me, and more in my meditations, than you might suppose." Walt Whitman, Crossing Brooklyn Ferry

"I would prefer not to." Herman Melville, Bartleby, the Scrivener

"This world is not conclusion...

Narcotics cannot still the Tooth

That nibbles at the soul"

Emily Dickinson

"One could do worse than be a swinger of birches."

Robert Frost, Birches

"I was of three minds

Like a tree

In which there are three blackbirds

...

A man and a woman

Are one.

A man and a woman and a blackbird

are one. "

Wallace Stevens, Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird

"Besides the neutral expression that she wore when she was alone, Mrs. Freeman had two others, forward and reverse, that she used for all her human interaction." Flannery O'Conner, Good Country People

"Dying

is an art, like everything else.

I do it exceptionally well.

...

Out of the ash

I rise with my red hair

and I eat men like air."

Sylvia Plath, Lady Lazarus

okay, I apologize for the comprehensive list of quotes that might be interesting to only... me :) if you made it this far and are still reading, congratulations! Please tip your waiter on the way out.