Plot Lines From A Shotgun

Change of plans, folks

2008-06-24T15:34:00.003-06:00

"We're at the end of the universe, right at the edge of knowledge itself, and you're busy... blogging!" -Doctor Who

It's been a long time since I've blogged here at good old Blogspot. I've never really been satisfied with my own blogging, really. It may have something to do with my incapacitating inability to truly express myself, coming from years of habitually repressing emotions. Or maybe it's just that I'm too lazy to think of witty things to say. It's a toss-up...

In light of this, I have decided to take a fresh start and begin a new blog: clicky!

Rock rock on

2007-10-01T16:42:00.000-06:00

So, October 26th. My good friend Joe's band (Art of Attrition) is having a CD Release Party Concert, with another band named Counterfeit Digits...

However, over this past weekend, Joe told me he wants to get a few people together and have like an "acoustic" cover band to have for the first act, and he wants me to be in it. It would be him on lead guitar with me on either rhythm or bass (or both), and then we'd have either his best friend Cameron or this other guy Sam on drums.

I might be in a concert. Playing and singing. We'd do 4 or 5 cover songs, with a couple of originals, potentially one of my songs included in those originals.

Can you say, freakin sweet?

By the way, I'm totally in love. With roadtrips. And laughing. :)

FINE!

2007-07-11T23:11:00.000-06:00

So, life is life I s'pose. Busy, full of new friends and some fun times, and big decisions. I'm quitting both my jobs. Scratch that, I already quit one, and the other one I gave my 2 weeks' notice today. So, as of July 27th, my life will be completely different. Honestly, I very VERY much welcome the change. Tomorrow I have an interview with another company I'm probably going to work for, a place called Verio. I'm kind of crossing my fingers to be able to take a couple of weeks off in between jobs. I'm completely burned out... Hence why I got sick!

Health.exe is mostly back up and running. It took a few blows, was down for the count for a while, but is back (almost) good as ever. I have this awesome cough, but other than that, all's peachy keen.

I can't decide what to do this fall about housing. I want to move back to my dad's house for a couple reasons, 1) it's awesome living there, getting to know them and spending time with them, and 2) everything's pretty much free. However! I really would like to stay in my apartment with my amazing roommates this fall too. It's only like $250 a month, and I should be making plenty of money... I love my roommates. I love apartment life. I love my neighbors and my ward and the fact that all you ever have to do is look outside and pow, you've got something to do for the night.

hmmm....

Unable to initialize health.exe

2007-06-21T00:07:00.001-06:00

I can't remember the last time I was this sick. I feel like my whole body is infected with something. My head is swimming, my muscles have committed mutiny and THEY decide when they want to work, not me. I'm exhausted but seem to only be able to sleep during the daylight hours. I can't talk. My throat burns, but apparently it isn't strep, despite the white blisters on my very red and swollen tonsils. My left eye is all puffy and red, my glands are swollen, and, just to top it all off, I'm starving but have no appetite! Sad day, eh? Not to mention the coughing fits!

Being sick is lame. It started on Thursday night/Friday morning, with 2 hours of uncontrollable chills and other fun stuff. I went to the doctor on Monday, which is where they found out it's not strep, but he thought it might be Mono. LAME. Aren't you supposed to at least get a good makeout session out of it when you get mono? Seriously!

Maybe it's just my body telling me I need to freaking slow down. That even though I feel like I could and should be able to take on the world AND work 80 hours a week, I really can't. That yes, your emotional well-being really does affect your physical well-being. And that no, you can't make up for being tired emotionally and trying to hold up other people by throwing yourself into working non-stop. Dang it.

Not to mention that I'm irritated this is making me miss work. I don't have any PTO left! I feel horrible for missing, too, like I'm missing my best friend's wedding every day I miss work. What's up with that? I went in to Dentrix today, because I was feeling sort of okay this morning, and I only lasted 3 hours. This is ridiculous!

I almost kind of want to quit, though. GAH. I don't know! I just wish I wasn't sick.

BUT! Happiness is that I get to talk to my mom every day now. I got to see her, and spend time with all of my siblings in the same place at the same time. All 5 of us all together for the first time in probably 10 years. Well, all together and having a good time for the first time in about 10 years, hehe. It really was awesome. I missed my Mommy.

Realizations and elephants

2007-05-10T13:00:00.000-06:00

Last night I had this really crazy experience. I was writing in my journal and such, and just kind of pondering/praying, thinking about the Eric situation. I decided the other day that I need to tell him we can't be friends, that I need to reject him and spit him out. (I wrote a little bit about that.) But then I thought, hmm, maybe I should pray about this, it's affecting my entire life and that's lame. So as I was doing that last night, I got this impression that said specifically, "You need to forgive him for what he's done to himself." Not You need to forgive him for hurting you and not You should talk to him and be friends. Holy crap.. I realized I hate him more for that, what he's done to himself, than for what he did to me. I feel insulted that he did so many bad things while appearing to be such a good person around me, spending time with me -- "the good girl" -- and doing so much crap on the side. Like I was absolutely no good influence at all. Nothing I did made any difference in him.

But I realized that I'm insulted, but not hurt. I know deep down that it's not my problem, it was his own issues and I did the best I could to help without pushing. There really wasn't anything else I could have done. I was fine back in February before I saw him, before I found out exactly everything he was doing to himself. The second I found out was when I got mad. I've been holding on to all these terrible feelings like I was slighted, but really they've just been because I'm mad at him for doing stupid things. I'm kind of over what he did to me, because I'm a buff girl and I can tie my own shoes and everything, but it's harder for me to forgive someone else for the things they're doing to themselves than what they're doing or have done to me. I care too much. I try too hard to make the world a better place that I get so emotionally tied up in helping, and get pissed off when nothing I do can make a difference. So, there we have it.

So, I've been hearing about "The Color Code" thing for forever, and I've always wanted to look into it and see what color I'd be. There's Red, Blue, White, and Yellow. I finally found it online (thecolorcode.com, who'da thunk?) and I took the 45 questions and I came out as White.

WHITES are motivated by PEACE.
They seek independence and require kindness. They resist confrontation at all costs. They are typically quiet by nature, process things very deeply and objectively with great clarity. Of all the colors, WHITES are the best listeners. They respect people who are direct but recoil from perceived hostility or verbal battle.

WHITES need their "alone time" and refuse to be controlled by others. WHITES want to do things their own way and in their own time. They ask little of others and resent others demanding much of them. WHITES are much stronger than people think, but are not often seen for their strength because they don't easily reveal their feelings. WHITES are even-tempered, diplomatic, and the voice of reason; but can also be indecisive, inexpressive, and silently stubborn. When others interact with you, as a WHITE you respond to them best if they are kind, accepting and supporting of your individuality, and if they look for non-verbal clues to understand your feelings.

Whites are independent. Unlike Reds, who want to control others, Whites seek only to avoid being controlled. They simply refuse to be under another's thumb, especially when treated without the respect they feel they deserve. Whites want to do things their way, in their own time. They do not ask much of others, and resent it when others demand things from them. They often comply with unreasonable demands - just to keep peace. They will only express their anger and frustration when they can no longer stand being bossed around. Whites do not like to be pushed, and they can be fearsome when they finally "blow up".

WHITE NEEDS:
To feel good (inside)
To be allowed their own space
Respect
Acceptance

WHITE WANTS:
To withhold insecurities
To please self/others
Independence
Contentment

My hair is getting long. That makes me happy. Being constantly but mildly sick for almost 2 weeks straight, however, does NOT make me happy. Alas. I need to get some antacid pills or maybe a bottle of sleep. Man if you could bottle sleep in hour pills.... holy crap. That person would be a billionaire in less time than it takes an elephant to fart. (Don't ask about the elephant fart thing... It's not okay!)

I'm thinking I'd prefer not to be rescued

2007-05-08T07:31:00.000-06:00

Go see Spiderman. It'll rock your world. Laughter and fury and confusion and tears and hope, all rolled into 2.5 hours of amazing effects and dialogue and music. I wish I remembered the quote from the very end, but I can't. Something about "the battles raging within". If anyone goes to see it and remembers that quote, leave me a comment!

I'm all moved in to my new apartment, sleeping there and everything. Or not sleeping, whichever you prefer.. haha. It's been cool so far, both of my roommates are seriously fun and our apartment is cute. I'm really super tired, especially in the morning. Yesterday I actually slept in a couple of hours accidentally, my alarm didn't go off! It was very unfortunate. Yeah, if I drank coffee, I'd sure be drinking a LOT. Life is good though. :) My new department at Dentrix is the bomb and I'm doing fairly well. (Except for being 3 hours late yesterday, that wasn't so much on the "cool" side. But even then, even my bosses were like "Oh don't worry, it totally happens!" Crazy!)

You know, body language -- especially the subtle kind that you don't even realize you're doing -- can be quite telling. At the same time, how can you trust someone else's subconscious? Since last year and all the events it contained, I've been doubting my intuition. Apparently it actually can be very very wrong.

I got to be Ninja of the Day last week in training at Convergys. Apparently it's pretty cool that I tried to get everyone in my training class to all go out together to the midnight Friday night showing of Spiderman 3, even though only 6 people actually went. I don't think I deserve Ninja of the Day just cuz of that, though... the idea was 95% selfishly motivated.. :) Plus, I think Liz (my new trainer) could see that I wasn't feeling particularly bubbly or happy for the first part of class that day and took pity on me. Then we played Mafia and Signs and Chinese Writing for the last 3 hours of class. Man I love that class! We tried playing games with another class that's training for Cingular, but they were super lame and immature and annoying, so we're sticking with the 12 people just in our own class. We're too cool for other people anyway. Honestly, every single person in my class is really cool. Some have their own special brand of cool, but they're still nice and fun and not completely retarded. Our trainer says we're closer than any class she's seen. We had an awesome ice-breaker the first day. One of the girls, Ashlee, got everybody to show one weird thing they can do with their body. Like I can make the BEST pig face in the world, one girl can fold her eyelids inside out, one guy can suck his top lip into his nose, etc etc. It was really funny.

My first training class wasn't nearly as cool. There were a couple of cool people, but overall mostly everyone stuck to themselves and were kind of spikey. Seriously everyone gets along. We're doing really well and our test scores are always super high, and I really think that's because everyone gets along and is really comfortable with eachother. There's no roadblock that's caused by awkwardness, because there isn't any awkwardness.

So, there's a guy. Sort of. There's a possibility, let's just put it like that. He's really shy until you get to know him, and even then he's still pretty shy and really quiet. He's not hugely social, also until you get to know him. (Both of the above are totally on the "plus" side of the pro-con list. I've had enough of the outgoing social butterflies, they're more likely to go off with someone "more interesting".) He says he's "boring" and that he spends a lot of time reading. He likes to cook, he's taking a ton of really awesome and challenging classes in the Fall, and he's got a smile to die for. You know, one of those smiles that if you didn't already think he was attractive before you saw him smile, you definitely do after. It's a really sweet smile, very unassuming and honest. And by honest I mean it's the kind of smile that says "I wouldn't actually smile if I didn't think that was funny/cool/etc".

Cons: he's just shy of a couple months younger than me, turning 20 on the 15th. He's not sure if he's going to go on a mission or not.. If he's not going to go on a mission, then I'm not sure he's the one I'd want to date. If he does go on a mission, then I don't want to date him and fall for him just to have him leave for 2 years.

Oh, what to do.

I don't even know if the reason I want him to like me is because I really do like him or because I really really just want to be with someone. Especially since I'm going to be having to face Eric every day pretty soon. I saw him yesterday when my class went y-jacking. I sat down the row and didn't really acknowledge him until he came down the row and said hello. Even then, I tried to make my face pleasant and friendly but I don't think it worked very well. Guess my heart wasn't in to being friendly and nice to him. He looked good, though. He toned up and cut his hair and doesn't seem like he's smoking pot anymore. Ugh. I looked good yesterday too, so HA! I wore pink. I actually look good in pink, and I've lost like 10 lbs and you can sort of see it now. Maybe the whole "working 2 full-time jobs" thing is good for my body. Minus the lack of sleep.

Anyway!

I also don't know if part of the reason I'm questioning it and almost shying away from it is because I'm scared. Well, I am scared. There are too many guys that are such pond scum, and there definitely seem to be plenty of them at Convergys... It's like a scum-magnet. I'm just nervous that I'm not sure what's going on in my head. I feel like I'm ready to start something new and I don't have any problems with commitment anymore, but I don't want to get into something without knowing more. So I won't. And I'm definitely not making the first move, but even though he's opening up more and more, I can't picture someone as shy as him jumping off that ledge. Alas. Maybe it'll stick to a standstill.

In the meantime, it's fun. At least I'm distracting myself without hurting anyone else.

We play with these smelly markers in class, and the orange one seriously smells like Sunkist soda. Oh man, I would drink that marker if it wasn't so bad. It's so not okay.

Mother of all updates

2007-04-16T14:51:00.000-06:00

Upcoming concerts in Utah that I want to go to:

April 30th - Gwen Stefani - Delta Center ($60)
June 5th - The Veronicas - Avalon ($12)
July 7th - Warped Tour - Fair Grounds ($73)
September 11th - Keith Urban & The Wreckers - Delta Center ($95)

I love it when people are on hold for 4 minutes and 12 seconds and immediately say, "I've been on hold for FOREVER and FINALLY someone picked up." I bet that doctor uses the Microwave directions on the Pop-Tarts box. Seriously, man.. loosen up your schedule a bit.

Not sure what I'm going to do about this summer. I'm going to be working my butt off with one full-time and one part-time job, with balancing a couple of online classes (which actually should be pretty fun and easy). I'm not 100% sure about moving out into the apartment I've been seriously considering moving to. The plan was to move out next month into an apartment down in Provo with my good friend Jaimie. We'd each have a private room, with 2 other roommates. Rent would be about $200 a month, which really isn't bad at all. My rent last year in my severely ghetto (but awesome) apartment by the stadium was $135, plus any utilities above $40. (I only ended up paying about $20 in utilities total for the whole summer. Woot!) It would be a TOTAL blast, Jaimie is so fun and I love living out on my own. However, I really love living at my dad and stepmom's house too, despite the stigma of "living with your parents" which really isn't a stigma yet at my age anyway. I have as much freedom as I would living out on my own, plus lots more free food, rent, laundry, air conditioning, and a pet. I could afford it, really. I don't know though, it would cost about $800-$1000 more overall to move out than it would to stay at home, above the regular costs of what I'm doing right now. That's quite a bit of money.. One of the main points of living with my parents was to get on top of things with finances, to pay off my car and have enough money for school and not go in to debt. I don't think I'd go into debt out in an apartment for the summer, but that'd be $800-$1000 that I'd be down. I could be saving that for France next year. I could use that extra money to help pay off my car.

I could also use some of that money to go to Hawaii at the end of May... Hehe AND I still gotta figure out when and how I'm gonna go visit Maryland this summer. :)

This has been a year for many travels! So far this year.. February -- Denver. March -- Vegas and Disneyland. April -- New Mexico. Yes, I went to New Mexico this weekend! Finally, all four of "the siblings" were together in one place at one time. Sarah and Jason (my sister and brother-in-law) drove down with their kids from Denver, and Jenna and I drove down from here. We left about 2:30 PM on Friday and got to Albuquerque around 12:30 or so, checked into a hotel and totally crashed. The whole of Saturday was spent hanging out with Robert, his kids, Sarah and Jason and their kids. Jenna, Rob, and I went and had breakfast/lunch at the restaurant where he works, then picked up his two little girls Audi and Ambri. Then we went to the mall to see Hailey, their older daughter. She's about 14, and she's got a boooooyfriend. We all went to the zoo (sans Hailey and the boooooyfriend) which was a total blast despite all the animals being NOT out in their areas. There were some peacocks chilling around the bushes though. Good times. :-D Then we went to a park, took some "four siblings" pictures for the first time since I was about 11 years old, then hung out at Rob's place for a bit.

Then Jenna and I decided to drive home that night instead of sleeping and driving home the next day. Whew! Craziness. It was alright, overall. The last hour could have been potentially disastrous, but we made it home safe and sound around 6 AM. :-D It really was a good trip. I'm sure Jenna has posted tons of pictures on her blog (or will shortly) so I'll save the space on mine. :)

So my work computer exploded. Ever heard or imagined the sound of a carrier jet taking off? Yeah, my CPU fan became a carrier jet. I spent most of Friday and a good portion of today getting a computer figured out that would let me actually use what I needed to use for doing my job. :-D It was fun! I got to play with computers and install and sit on my bum not taking phone calls, AND be approved for it. Sweet!

Speaking of jobs, I start training back at Convergys today. Should be interesting.. I'm kind of excited, actually. There's potential for making lots of new friends, since there's a huge new bunch of people working there and I'll be with my training group for probably 3-4 weeks. This summer I WILL be avoiding the mistake I made last summer, that finally is coming to a final resolute resting place.

I wrote these lyrics, while listening to my friend Kr5is's new song. They've been tweaked a little bit since then and will continue to be tweaked:

Your eyes, colors of the universe
Color the universe inside my soul
Your symphony dazzling before my eyes
And I am taken.
This feeling soft like feathers
Held in secret under wing
Filed away between moments of life
And our hearts left unbroken
Sand through the glass
Slowly playing all too fast
Swirling through the air
Between here and now, tomorrrow
Colors shift and twirl through your hair
Shifting too hard, becoming a blur
So mistaken, now forsaking you.
You couldn’t see my face
Trust, you have been misplaced
Somewhere beneath dusty rugs and linen laced with lies
You said you'd be there
Sand through the glass
Slips through the cracks
Slowly hurrying to lick the wound left behind
And I realize
Sand through the glass
Slips through the cracks
Never lost, going back home
Eyes opening slowly knowingly now
They're going back home
They’re going back home
I’m going back home

And yeah. Ummm... yeah. I haven't really written any sort of poetry/lyrics that I was at all happy with in about a year and a half, probably. I've gotten really good at repressing things. So good, in fact, that recently all those repressed feelings of anger and hurt bubbled to the surface just at the moment I thought things were fine. The past two months have practically been the journey all over again. Those lyrics, they're my journey. I can't image the words and phrases make too much sense all jumbled together like that, but it makes perfect sense to my experience.

Since this has been the mother of updates, I'm going to be wrapping this up. Tell me what you think of the lyrics, if you read them! :)

Motivation and registration

2007-04-02T20:26:00.000-06:00

I don't know what happened this morning, but holy crap. I woke up this morning with all kinds of excitement and motivation. I have a plan! Yes, that's right. Hoddie has a plan! I haven't had a plan in forever.

Here's the plan:
I'm going to be a workaholic this summer. First, there is a 99.9% chance that I will be in a different department by the end of this month. I'll be making a ton more money. I'm going to change my schedule so I'm working 6:30-3:00 or 7:00-3:30. Then, get this.. I'm going back to Convergys. There is a training class that starts at 3:00 and goes till 11:00. Since I worked there for freaking 7 months, I'm almost certain they'll be able to work with me on getting to training an hour late, and possibly even knocking a week or two off of the 5 weeks of class and 2 weeks of nesting. I decided to go back for a couple of reasons, but the main reason is tuition reimbursement. Which leads me to the other part of my plan.

I registered for two online classes at UVSC: Sociology 1010 and Intro to Theater. The Sociology class is what I need to start working on my Sociology:R&A major, because I HAVE to start it this summer, but just physically can't take the in-class class at BYU. Plus, it's not offered online or through Independent Study with BYU... So, hence the UVSC thing. The Intro To Theater class fulfills one of the GE requirements I haven't done yet, AND it sounds really easy and fun. Most of it will be reading "exceptional" plays and going to performances. I love theater, I love plays, I love reading, and I don't mind typing up brief summaries/reviews. Sweet! It's going to still be pretty expensive to do just those two classes, which is what brought me back to thinking about Convergys. Tuition reimbursement really is seriously awesome.

So, I'll be working my BUTT off for about 5-6 weeks, going from about 7 AM till 11 PM. Yes, that kind of sucks, but after 3:30, my day is just sitting around listening to a whole lot of stuff I already know, and getting paid pretty good money for it. After training is over, I'll work part-time in the afternoons, still working full time at Dentrix, cuz I love that place and the insurance rocks.

When fall comes, I'll have another decision to make.. Stay at Dentrix or stay at Convergys? I won't be able to do both. But that's a decision for Fall, not for summer. I'm gonna work my butt off for a month of summer, then make TONS of money, still have a total blast with making friends in my apartment at The Branbury with my cool future roomie Jaimie.

Also, I already have my schedule for Fall semester planned out. I'll be taking Soc 300, 306, RELA 211, French 201, and one other undecided class. I already have times and teachers picked out too. :) They all end by 12:00 PM! Now, to pay my overdue fees so I can get the Cashier's Office hold on my records removed so I can actually register.

Motivation and excitement totally rock. I don't know what happened, but seriously, I need more days like today.

Disneyland and Las Vegas rocked. Best vacations ever. I'll eventually probably get some pictures posted, because I mean there are only about 3,000 of them..

May = Moving out, starting a second job, going to Denver to see WICKED!

Drench yourself in words unspoken
Live your life with arms wide open
Today is where your book begins
The rest is still unwritten

Lil' Brudder, can you give me some sound financial advice?

2007-03-09T14:55:00.000-07:00

Okay, so I've got two huge options, with one of them having a couple of sub-options.

Move to Atlanta for 6 months to a year, OR
Stay in Utah and either:

Start working in the Sales department ASAP
Stick around in High Tech until "the end" or until another offer comes along

Moving to Atlanta is really appealing, for several reasons:
1) I would be spending a year in a brand new town all by myself (well, with my sister) for the first time in my life.
2) Having work isn't an issue -- that's the whole reason I'd move out there, to move where my current job is moving.
3) I'd be living in close proximity to basically everything under the sun you could think of, there would never be a shortage of this thing called "having a life".
4) I'd be closer to my cousins (in North and South Carolina), closer to Maryland, and close to Florida!
5) It would just overall be incredibly fun and potentially one of those life experiences that most people get when they go off to college. I never had that phase, really, since going to college was basically just like going home. Yeah, I missed Maryland, but it wasn't like being in this new place with new people and a totally different culture than anything I've known.

Staying here would allow me to get through another couple of semesters and go to Paris for study abroad in Fall 2008. Staying here would be the sensible thing to do. Finish school. It's already going to take me an extra year and a half to graduate. It's not risky to stay here, just finish school and find a guy and settle down and plant some roots.

And honestly, I really can't figure out which one I want to do more. Go to Atlanta and put the 2nd option off for a year or finish school as fast as humanly possible?

What should I do?? What would YOU do?

The joker and me went on our way

2007-01-28T23:29:00.000-07:00

Songs that I can officially play all the way through on guitar, with singing and sounding fairly decent:

The Wreckers - Leave the Pieces
The Wreckers - Lay Me Down
The Wreckers - Cigarettes
Lifehouse - You and Me
Green Day - Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)
Michelle Branch - Goodbye To You
Avil Lavigne - Keep Holding On
KT Tunstall - Other Side of the World
KT Tunstall - Heal Over
BBMak - Out Of My Heart
Corey Crowder - Here's Lookin' At You, Kid
System Of A Down - Roulette
Howie Day - Collide

It looks like a long-ish list, but seriously.. most of those songs use the same 3 or 4 chords, just in different progressions. Haha I'm working on a couple more, and possibly some original stuff.. But that's gonna take a while. Give me recommendations on songs to check out and learn! I need to find some challenging songs to work my fingers and get better.

Weird weekend. I'm almost glad it's over, minus the fact that I don't get to sleep in again for another 6 days. A lot of things in my life feel like they're about to break loose and spin out of control, and I'll definitely be trying my hardest to stop that from happening. Find a niche, settle in, calm down and be patient.

I miss my mom.

Mmmm... time for sleep. Yes, definitely. Sleep is a perfect synonym for Happiness.

I had a dream about you

2007-01-25T21:48:00.000-07:00

I was contemplating doing an entry asking whoever read it to just leave a one or two word comment, just to find out how many people read this thing. But then I realized I would probably never update again, because knowing how many people are reading my blog would be kind of disturbing, even though that's kind of the point of "blogging". So I'll remain in my blissful state of ignorance.

I feel like I'm picking things up at work. I mean yeah, I'm picking up on more of the actual work-related information, but I'm getting more than just that. It's a whole way of thinking, of analyzing problems, figuring out when, where, and how the problem started and what you can do to fix it. If the brain is just a more complex computer, shouldn't there be some sort of shortcuts? Seriously, imagine if you could just right click on your brain and select "Manage". Or if you could map your brain to another brain and be able to share the ideas/feelings/memories you want to share. Wouldn't that make things a lot simpler? Yeah.

I have more direction with school stuff, and I'm getting impatient to get started. It's going to take me at least another 3 years, but at least now I know what I'm going to do. Now all that's left is to figure out how to fit work in there. I still don't know where I'll end up with this whole Dexis-taking-over-the-department-I-just-barely-joined thing, but whatever happens I absolutely must start taking classes this summer. I'm not as worried about paying for school anymore, which is really nice, mainly because I started filing my tax returns last night. My W2 from Convergys hasn't come yet, but I started filing for Maryland, and maaaan it's beautiful. With my regular paychecks, plus my tax return, plus whatever the bonus turns out to be, I'll be completely out of debt by the end of this summer. Woot. I'm so sick of having that hanging over me.. It'll be nice to be on top again, and able to save for school and Europe and all that fun stuff the future brings, and stop having money run my life.

Sometimes you can try to overwrite a memory or an emotion with something else. But every now and then, like a badly re-recorded VHS tape, bits and pieces of those memories and emotions surface on the screen again. Like when you get a random phone call from someone you didn't expect to ever call you again. And you find out that person has been asking about you, concerned you're mad at them. And you pass them driving on your way home, see that stupid half-attatched license plate... Lame.

Potluck tomorrow.

I learned another few songs on the guitar tonight. Sweet! How can a day get better, really?
1) Finding out how much money I'm going to get back from the government
2) Baking more delicious edible cookies
3) Feeling more and more comfortable with guitar, something I've been wanting for about 3 years.
4) Going to bed early!

Yes, I'm gonna go work on #4 right now. Goodnight!

It's an arms race

2007-01-22T23:24:00.001-07:00

You know how some people have a comfort blanket or a specific comfort food they turn to in those times where you just need that little something to settle your mind or run away from things? Well, I have a comfort guitar. Playing my guitar for my fish really gives me an odd sense of security. Probably because my fish doesn't have an opinion one way or the other, he's just glad there's someone around. Whenever I play, he swims to the middle of the roots and just sits there and stares at me. Sometimes he'll take a lap or two around the tank, but then settle back into his staring-at-me position.

Money situations are starting to get a lot better. Still way too much to pay for, and a few things I need to get rid of, but overall things are far more manageable now. I tell you what, though.. I seriously can't wait for my tax return. It seriously better be good and fat. Also, I'm crossing my fingers that the "Transition" lasts through the summer. Yay for big fat bonuses. :)

2007 is going to be devoted to paying off my car, paying off my credit cards, and saving up money to go to Europe.

I don't know what to think of things. The one thing I do know is that I'm way more screwed up now, not to mention less optimistic and more cynical about people's intentions and motivations. I'm not sure if I should quit while I'm ahead, or stop being an idiot and calm down and be patient. Then again, patience really didn't work out so well last time.

Can I right click on my brain and select "manage"? Yeah, that'd be great. To see all the components laid out, to be able to Update or uninstall whichever components aren't working properly. Mmmm.... brain defrag..

That is all.

Making it for yourself

2007-01-10T17:34:00.000-07:00

You know that feeling you have after a really good, really fun date? Yeah. Good times. I guess I should update about it, mainly because typing is faster than writing and I want to remember it.

I left work on time, about 5:30. I headed home, because my family had made dinner specially so I could eat it too.. (They made chicken rice alfredo! It was goood..) So I got down to Sam's apartment at about 7:00. I talked to his roommate Andy for a minute, then Sam and I left and headed out for our "fishing" adventure.

Our first stop was D.I. to look for fishing hats and other necessary fishing stuffs. We spent like an hour trying on all kinds of hideous hats, and eventually found these two hats that were actually pretty decent. They kind of match in style, one is green and one is red. After the hat issue was tackled, we found this little stuffed killer whale. Then we found a jump rope for our "fishing rope" haha.. And poor whale, he got noose-ed! Sam made a little noose with the jump rope, to "catch" the whale. AND we found a net! haha It's this little fake plastic tennis racket, and the string isn't really tight together, so it was the net. And, of course, we had the bait... Gummy worms! In addition to getting said fish paraphernalia, we took some pictures with my phone and got some posters for his room.

After that, we headed out to actually GET the fish. He wanted a betta fish, in a vase with a peace lily. (Yay for automatic feeding!) So first we went to Petco to pick out the perfect fish. It took a while to find the perfect one, and the race came down to three potentials.. One dark blue one with red tinting, one very red (and very feisty) one, and a really cool looking multi-colored crowntail betta. The dark blue one was kind of lazy and apathetic... In other words, it was boring. The crowntail was a little concerning, as it swam in really odd patterns.. sometimes sideways.. haha Plus, the red one really was the coolest one, from the beginning. He was all feisty and in-your-face. Muahahaha. You gotta have a fish with personality, ya know?

Then we went to Home Depot to search for the plant, and had a really great conversation on the way there... But man, you wouldn't think it'd be so hard to find a peace lily!! We finally found one after about 30-45 minutes, but it was really hard because it didn't have any blossoms on it. It was just leaves, which happens, it's fine.. But there wasn't a name on the pot, so it was a matter of comparing the leaves to pictures of the plant in all the books in the Garden department. hehe

Then, off to Wal-Mart to get the vase and the rocks! Since the fish is red, Sam wanted to get black rocks, and then sift out some white rocks from the small size. So cool! He has the greatest creative ideas, I swear. After we finally had everything we needed, we headed back to my house to put it all together.

Sam played the piano for a few minutes while I made some room on the kitchen counters to do the stuff. (My dad has just installed one of those "under the cabinet cd player/radio" things, and all the contents of that cabinet were all over the counters and such.) He's an amazing piano player. You can tell just by listening to him play that he's really comfortable with it. Some people play the piano like it's a constant performance, always sort of stressing about it. He plays like breathing, just very natural and flowing.

Getting all the soil out of the roots of the plant was a team effort, haha. But that finally got done, and we set about sorting all the whites and blacks out of the little rocks, while listening to Brian Regan on my laptop. My little sister helped us, it was so fun. We put on the Comedy Central Presents video, cuz Sam hadn't seen it, and my dad watched with us too. He was really cool about meeting my family, totally asking my little sister questions and acting really relaxed with my dad there too. It was such a blast!

It took until about 11:15 to get the vase set up with the rocks (and I changed my fish's water too), but then I took him home. He had to sneak the fish into his apartment, all secretively like... I dubbed him 00Sam. (Okay, it sounds cooler out loud. Say it! "Double-O Sam".. almost like double-0 seven.. ANYWAY. So he finally got the fish in his room without getting caught, then came back out to get the posters he got and say goodbye and everything.

And the night ended with a goodbye hug, and then a nice very traffic-free drive home which included a call to Jaimie, since I'd missed her call earlier that night. :)

I guess you could say it was a really typical Provo first date, but I'm beginning to appreciate that idea more and more. For the kind of relationship I want, things need to start out slow and progress naturally without being forced on either end. It feels really good though.

Yeah, things may not go very far, it may not work out in the end. But that's kind of okay. I'm not really scared about getting in to this. This marks a turning point in the type of guys I date. (Namely: I dated guys who are bad for me. Now I'm going to date guys who aren't jerks.)

Plus, I had a blast going fishin', AND I have a cute hat, a jump rope, a little stuffed whale, and memories of a fun adventure with a fantastic guy. Very good times. :)

Cowboys ride into sunsets
The good guy always gets the girl
Cinderella has just fit
The glass slipper that changed her world
We all know the stories
We all know the fairy tales
We all get the glory
Of making it for ourselves
From the beginning
We're all looking for a happy ending
Every dream of winning
Every love we've been in
Right from the beginning
We're looking for a happy ending

La-hooo-za-hair. Loser.

2007-01-04T16:28:00.000-07:00

So, it's funny what you learn everything about someone you could have loved once. Drinking and doing pot while dating me and seeming to be such a clean person. What a hypocrite, what a loser.
I never thought this song would literally apply to my life, but hey, it does. Or, it did. Things are going to be so much better now. Sometimes you just need a new face around. :) Someone who actually IS what they appear to be.

You loser.

It's funny when you think it's gonna work out
Till you chose weed over me, you’re so lame

I thought you were cool until the point,
Up until the point you didn't call me when you said you would
Finally figured out you're all the same,
Always coming up with some kind of story

Every time I try to make you smile,
You're always feeling sorry for yourself
Every time I try to make you laugh,
You can't, you're too tough
You think you're loveless
Was it too much that I asked you for?

Thought you'd come around when I ignored you,
Sorta thought you'd have the decency to change
But babe I guess you didn't take that warning,
’Cause I'm not about to look at your face again

Can't you see that you lie to yourself?
You can't see the world through a mirror.

C- is for Poli Sci, that's good enough for me..

2006-12-29T16:53:00.000-07:00

Holy ca-rap.

I got a C- in Poli Sci. Now, I know some of you might look at that sentence and think, "Man, I bet she's upset about that." But no, you would be wrong. I'm totally ecstatic! I literally thought I was going to fail. Like, fail fail. I got a C-! WOOT! I got a better grade in the class than I got on any of the tests, lol.. I am a new fan of the whole "curve" idea.

So my grades were overall better than I thought they would be. Only sad thing: I got a B+ in French 102. Triste! I thought I was going to get an A in that class.. But my GPA for the semester comes out overall to 3.0, so that's much much better than the last 2 semesters.. haha Granted, I really could have done better, had I worked harder. I know I didn't work as hard as I could.. But still, it's decent and it's good to know my grades and that I'm no longer on academic probation at BYU. Eat that, priority registration date!

Updates to come about:
-Work
-Christmas
-Guitar
-Knee
-Melting Pot
-Boy
-Babies

(Important: Note that the last two are completely unrelated.)

PS - BDoyle, I don't think I'll get to do a post a day, but I'll try at least once a week!

Call me Hosley

2006-12-22T13:00:00.000-07:00

That's it.. I'm fairly certain I failed my Poli Sci final, and thus fail the class. And by fail I really mean that I hope I got a D. I seem to be habitually taking all these classes that I completely love but totally fail. How red-ick-you-loss. (Go ahead, sound it out, you Mad Gab fiend!)

But, good and happy news..
*I'm fairly certain I got A's in both French 101 and 102, which is a nice fat 8 credits of A's.
*I am completely done with the semester, and since I'm not really doing classes next semester, I'm free to work and have a life!
*I had a really great conversation with someone close to me on Saturday night.
*Saw Eragon. It was pretty good, actually.
*I started my new job! I'm still training, but I'm having a total blast. I just feel so good here. It's gonna be a rock awesome sweet job. (and drinks and snacks are totally only 35 cents from the vending machines, which if you ask my wallet, is a very happy thing.) The people are so freakin cool, the job is challenging, and I get my own desk. HA! Take that, Convergys!
*I get the basement in the new house I'm moving to in February! This is my "I'm SO excited!" face. I was really hoping that one of my future roommates doesn't actually want it, and she doesn't, so I officially get the basement. Woot.
*Sam is coming back to Utah in a week. Awesome.
*Christmas is in on freaking Monday. Guess I should probably go shopping... haha
*I get to talk to my momma on Saturday or Sunday. And I haven't gotten to talk to her in almost 6 months.

Aaaand, I think that's about it for now. :) Lots of happiness, lots of fun. Lots of stress that will soon be over.

HA. Another update.

Q: What did the chicken say to the duck?
A: What's up, duck?

As the eyelids slide slowly closed..

2006-12-10T02:53:00.000-07:00

Am I the only one who sits here staring at the blank textbox for a long time before actually writing something? Hmm. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that it's 1:40 AM.

It feels weird to type with my left hand. Since I got my guitar back from my sister on Sunday, I've played it every single day. I learned 2 new full songs, which is kind of a big deal because I only knew 2 full songs before this week. So yay, now I know 4. They're all pretty, and 3 of them are way super easy. One of the new ones this week was kinda hard to get down, at my level. But now I can play all 4 songs straight through at full speed and sing along too. LJ, wow! I'm a big kid now.
Anyway, the point is -- it feels weird to type with my left hand because of the calluses that are forming on my fingertips. That is all.

Man, I'm so tired. But I really want to update, as this has been the greatest weekend I've had in a really long time. And the best part? No Bumface! This weekend was the first weekend in 6 months where I didn't even want to see him. In fact, there was someone else I wanted to see and fortunately got to see for about an hour and a half last night/this morning. This "someone else" shall be updated about at a later time. :) But, Friday started off pretty well, with my accidental sleeping in and missing of classes, which resulted in my waking up really refreshed and rested. Got my paycheck deposited in the bank, went and did my drug test for my new job, and then had a great day at work.. I talked to Jake, my team leader, and officially gave my resignation. I won't really be working this week, I'll just be using my 18.5 hours of PTO (paid time off) and working maybe an hour a day, IF that. But not Wednesday!....heheh.. Wednesday holds big plans.. Anyway!

After I left work, I just came home and relaxed for a couple of hours. Played guitar, talked to my family, ate dinner.. The whole shebang. Went to Laura's party, "Bomb Voyage" haha. I stayed there for about 45 minutes, then left to go meet up with my really good friend Jaimie at the UVSC Institute dance. I'd never been to one before.. I was basically picturing it to be a lame, bigger version of the retarded stake dances back home. But it was surprisingly awesome! We ended up in this big group of people, some people from work and friends and friends' friends, and we were all dancing right in the middle of the packed floor. They played pretty good music and it was incredibly liberating, to just let go and go crazy and have a blast with awesome people, even did Karaoke with Jaimie and the Johns (Ricky Bobby and John John) and Alex. Yay for Twist & Shout! haha

After the dance ended at midnight, we all decided to go out to IHOP, but the IHOP here in Orem was totally packed, so we drove up to the one in American Fork. Oh man... the drive up there was awesome, the food was awesome, the conversations and laughing attacks and the waiters were all awesome, aaand the fact that I didn't have to pay for my food was pretty awesome too. :-D And, of course, since it was a Friday night and we were all incredibly hyper, there was no way we were calling it a night at only 2:30 AM. So we did what any group of college students will do. Wal-Mart, baby! We walked around Wal-Mart for a little while before discovering the perfectly positioned TV and game of Guitar Hero just sitting there waiting to be played by any passersby, along with cushions and chairs and an empty shelf. Lots of fun, great success. :-D I even got a turn at Guitar Hero, even though I totally sucked at it, hahah.. I had texted Ben and told him to come to Wal-Mart on his way home from work if he wanted to, since I knew he gets off work at 3AM. He showed up right as I was starting my turn at GuitarHero. Great fun! I totally didn't get home until 5:00 this morning, that's how long we sat around chilling in the aisle in Wal-Mart.... and it was beautiful.

Lots of hyper, crazy fun times yesterday. Today was a bit more low key, but still totally awesome. Got a new watch (as mine fell off somewhere in transit from work to home, how unfortunate), hung out with Pavel, played guitar, went to Fazoli's with Jaimie and John John (not Ricky Bobby) aaaand then watched Home Alone with everyone back at RickyBobby's house. Good times, good times indeed.

I feel a certain freedom. It's been coming for a couple of weeks, but it really solidified last night. I may not know how I feel about certain things, but I definitely know what I don't feel, and that is how I used to feel. It really is done, and it's such a huge relief.

Yay, one more week till I start Dentrix. I'm excited and terrified and antsy and nervous all at the same time. I feel quite a bit out of my league, and it will be a challenge, but I'm up to it.

Holy crap, I'm unbelievably tired... Definitely bedtime. Very definitely.

But the future is bright once again.

Good night.

C'est la fin

2006-12-07T23:36:00.000-07:00

It's December. Lots of things end in December -- the end of the semester, the end of the long built-up anticipation for Christmas, the last of Fall weather, the end of the last few pennies spent on holiday gifts... But for me, this December holds more endings and beginnings than that. Yes, the semester is ending, which is a BIG relief, and which also ends my academic probationary status at BYU. But this month is bringing the end of my dead-end job at Convergys. After next Saturday, I won't be working for Cingular anymore -- I'll be working in the High Tech department at a company called Dentrix. So many things are so much better there. Yeah, I'll be kind of out of my league for a couple of weeks until I catch up and catch on to everything that's involved, and get to know the software I'll be supporting and all of that, but overall it feels like it's just going to be a lot better than where I am right now. Better pay, awesome benefits, awesome people, awesome experience, better work environment.. You know. All the goods.

I'm finally ending the Bumface chapter of my life, as well. It's ending in my head and in my heart, despite the fact that in reality there probably wasn't much there to end. It should have ended a long time ago, but hey, what is December for but to have some things come to a close, to make way for bigger and better things in the year to come? I'll be out of his life, and more importantly, he'll be out of my life. At this point, after everything that's happened, he would have to do something pretty drastic to keep me around. I've done my part, I tried hard, but you know what they say about beating a dead horse.

I'm moving in to a house in February. Sweet!! It's such a gorgeous place with really cheap rent and toons of space. There's a huge fenced in backyard with a weeping willow, perfect view of Mt. Timpanogos on the northern side and a perfect place to watch the sunsets towards the west. The girls I'll be living with are completely amazing, and one of them will be bringing her dog to live with us. So, great roommates and a beautiful house and my own room and a sweet dog and freedom and independence.. That spells perfection.

Also, December has brought the end of my beta fish. RIP, Fish! You will be missed. I'm sorry I killed you by changing your water. I won't do that to my next fish, I promise. You didn't die in vain!

Goodbye Convergys. Hello Techiedom!

Time for a change

2006-11-06T19:01:00.000-07:00

Well, it's time for many changes.

Hopefully at least one of those big changes will be happening by the end of the week, which will spur some other big changes.

Finally!

chicgeekchicgeekchicgeekchicgeek.. Bring on the geekness!

By the time you lose it you're not afraid

2006-11-01T19:02:00.000-07:00

So it's basically been almost a month since I last updated. How retarded.

I'm not really sure what to say when I'm feeling like this. When I'm feeling anything, really. I used to be really good at expressing my emotions through written words. I used to write poetry like crazy, not to mention journal entries and various rants and ramblings. But now, I just don't anymore and I'm not sure why. I'm constantly thinking, constantly feeling, but somehow I never think or feel in words. The translator is broken, or maybe things are just too complex now. No, that's not it either. Emotions are always fundamentally the same. There are varying degrees and strengths, and of course the situation always changes so it never seems to feel the same. But really, if you feel scared of something, it's fundamentally the same as the first time you ever felt fear.

Maybe that's not always true.

So, since I can't ever really express things, I listen to songs instead. There's a certain art to expressing your own feelings through songs you hear, of listening a song and interpreting what you think it means compared to how you feel, and recognizing how the way you feel influences your version of the song. What a song means to you isn't necessarily what it meant to the writer or another listener. I don't know, I think I never make any sense to anyone but myself.

The way this song speaks to me describes things perfectly. The fear, the confusion, wanting to let go but being so utterly trapped in a certain mindset that you can't let yourself be happy. It's what I see happening, and I know there's something I could do, but I have no idea what or how or when. All those one-worded questions that float around in the vast expanse between what makes sense and what actually is seem to only have one answer... and I can't find it. I'm the Tuatha'an, always searching for The Song, a song that probably never was and might never be. But they keep searching, over thousands of years. Maybe they won't ever find it. Maybe I won't ever find it. Maybe that's okay.

It's a crime you let it happen to me
Nevermind, I let it happen to you
Out of mind, forget it there's nothing to lose
But my mind and all the things I wanted

Everytime I get it I throw it away
It's a sign, I get it, I wanna stay
By the time I lose it I'm not afraid
I'm alive but I can surely fake it

How can I believe when this cloud hangs over me
You're the part of me that I don't wanna see

Forget it

There's a place I see you follow me
Just a taste of all that might come to be
I'm alone but holding breath you can breathe
To question every answer counted

Just fade away
Please let me stay
Caught in your way

Forget it

It's a crime you let it happen to me
Out of mind, I love it, easy to please
Nevermind, forget it, just memory
On a page inside a spiral notebook

Just fade away
Please let me stay
Caught in your way
I can live forever here

Forget it

How can I believe when this cloud hangs over me
You're a part of me that I don't wanna see

I can live forever here..

The fear, the confusion, wanting to let go but being so utterly trapped in a certain mindset that you can't let yourself be happy. Every time you get it, you throw it away. You let it slip away because you're scared. Once you finally decide to let go, once you're finally ready, you've already lost the chance. You see me, you know me, you feel for me, and worst of all, you know I see you, know you, and feel for you. You know I understand you, and that scares the pants off you. You put on the charade of narcissism, but what you really want is for someone to love you, yet you're terrified of letting yourself feel that way again. There's a place you saw me follow, a place inside your head where you thought no one could understand. Just a taste of what could be, that's all you let yourself have before wrapping yourself back in your cocoon, before sending your emotions off for hibernation again. You're out of breath, but I've got plenty to spare. You ran backwards, trying to block it off, refusing to truly feel for someone again because your internal failsafe warned of possible danger. So you shrug it off as if it didn't matter to you and you write in your journal another memory of another girl. What did you write about me, I wonder? Or have you written it yet at all?

I want to stay there, caught in your way forever. Caught in the way of your retreat. You haven't fully retreated from me yet, you're still attatched. You're happy around me, whether you admit it to yourself or not. Sometimes your mask slips off and you show the sincerity you try to cover up with bravado and sarcasm. What exactly is keeping you around, and what exactly is keeping you away?

You can't live there forever. Someone will pull you out of your self-prolonged pain, spin you around until you're raw but clean and you can start breathing again. I don't know when, where, who, or how, but it will happen, and you will love it and remember how to be happy.

Eat that.

Well in fact..

2006-10-03T23:33:00.000-06:00

Well, I suppose I haven't updated in quite a while. I've kind of lost interest in writing about my life in here. When I write about something it usually goes out to MD in Email# style (<4) but I suppose I should make some kind of update to keep it "active". haha

Life... life has been quite interesting. I guess it's kind of always interesting, just in different ways. Or, in the same ways but because of different things or people that make it feel like a whole new experience.

What I don't understand is why I can't get over it. I mean, this whole situation has just kind of sucked. The first month or so was fantastic, but as soon as I realized that even without thoughts of the military, things weren't going anywhere, I should have bolted. But no, I have estrogen and wear makeup, so I stuck around. Because I knew how awesome things could be, and because I actually felt really good about things and believed it was reciprocated. Whether it's truly "fear of commitment" that's keeping things like this is still questionable in my mind, even though the reasons do make total sense. And if it is true, then how unfair is it that I should have to miss out on something really great because of a mistake some stupid slut made a year ago? Yeah, not cool man, not cool.

Truth is, I'm pissed off. I'm hurt and angry, as if we had actually had a relationship. I mean, it was 4 months of nothing but knowing that we liked eachother, but even 4 months of nothing is still kind of something. And true, I don't have to cut it off. I don't have to pull away and distance myself and make myself get over him. But seriously. Holy crap. If I feel this crappy after only 4 months of nothing, how horrible would it be after 5 months? 6 months? How long would I let it go on? Yeah I am kind of a pushover. When I really want something to work, I stick around and try to make it work until there's absolute proof that it's NEVER going to work.

I've gone on a few dates. I've flirted with other guys who flirt right back. But I always feel kind of physically sick, with this really really strong feeling of wrong-ness. I don't want to flirt with anyone else, I don't want to go on dates with anyone else. And how freaking retarded is that? We're not even dating!!

I had a Y-Jacker today at work (someone who sits and listens in on your calls, it's a training method) and he was pretty cool. His name is Colby, he's from just up Provo Canyon. We got along pretty well. He's not really my type, so to speak, but still, cool people are cool people. Anyway, I guess we were flirting a bit, but I didn't really realize it until I went on break. Bumface McGee was sitting just a desk away, and the whole last hour of work, he didn't say anything and didn't turn around at all. He was doing his "I'm pissed but trying really hard not to show it" thing that he does whenever he's upset, because he usually refuses to show it. Now, as he had been in a great mood earlier, he was either pissed because of one of his calls, or he was being territorial. It's unlikely it was a phone call, because he rebounds really fast from those -- I mean he's been in inbound customer support for like 3 years.

Ugh. I'm just... I don't know. I'm trying to not care about it, but it's not working too well.

Anyway!!

Happy things:
-I got a 96% on my first French exam. Sweet!
-From October 1st until the end of December, we get "holiday pay" which is just $1.50 more per hour, given in two pay-outs: one in mid-November, the other at the end of December. Also SWEET! More money! It's like a temporary raise. Awesome.
-My fish totally rocks.
-I'm going to go see my sister in Denver soon. Not sure when exactly, but hopefully by the end of the month! I've been dying to go on a road trip, and I might as well to go Denver, right?
-My Lizbeth got engaged!! And she asked me to be Maid of Honor. So freaking awesome, I'm so happy about all of it. I got to go dress shopping with her and her mom tonight, it was so much fun. She's so incredibly gorgeous, and she looks BEAUTIFUL in the dress she picked out. And holy crap, her ring is gigantic and beautiful.
-I've finally been playing guitar more, and I think I'm getting better, slowly but surely. I love my guitar.
-My mom is almost a quarter through her mission -- yay! I miss her like crazy.
-Tomorrow is my day off -- but I think I'm going in anyway. I need the hours.
and last, but not least
-It's bedtime! YAAAY!

okay, hope that's been a satisfactory update for ya.

Good night, and good luck.

Light a match

2006-09-08T20:10:00.000-06:00

Apparently I'm a Conservative Democrat. According to the Blogthings test:" Frankly, the way most other Democrats behave embarasses you greatly.You pride yourself on a high level of morals, and you have a good grasp on right and wrong.It's likely you think America needs to get back to its conservative, Juedo-Christian values.Why aren't you a Republican then? Because you believe the goverment helps more than hurts."

Strangely accurate, for once.

So....school! I started school this week, and I'm loving it. This semester is going to be a lot of work, even though I technically only have 3 classes despite the 13 credit hours. My political science class is going to be especially killer, but also completely amazing. My professor is one of those "discussion" professors, where he asks questions to get you thinking, and then guides the discussion so we're learning the material, but kind of teaching ourselves. And with a topic like "international relations" that is kind of exactly what should be happening -- a really good class discussion guided in the right way, so we figure it out ourselves, and develop our own opinions on issues and our own viewpoints, not just spoon-fed Dr. Cooper's ideas. Even the giant textbook is fun to read. I mean seriously, isn't it supposed to be some kind of rule of thumb that textbooks are to be made as boring as humanly possible?? It's a rebel textbook. Maybe International Politics are more interesting than I thought! haha ;-)

Et le classe de francais est tres chouette aussi. Le prof parle en francais tout la fois, mais je comprende tout le chose! If only I could spell, and do accent marks in LJ. Anywho. I decided to take 101 and 102 as accelerated "block" courses as a refresher so that I could remember what the heck it was I learned 5 years ago in high school french. haha Je ne suis pas une pomme de terre!.....ok, peut-etre quelquefois. Mais, on sais, c'est bon. *le giggle*

(Translation: "And my french class is really cool too. My teacher speaks in french all the time, but I understand everything." and then, "I am not a potato!...okay, maybe sometimes. But, you know, that's cool.")

Qu'est-que c'est sur la flip chart?? Qui est Charlie Kroker?... Je t'aime, Eddie!

I don't want to end up just another page or two in your journal. I don't know how to help, or what I could do to make things better here. A lot of guys are reluctant to get in to relationships, even if they do actually really like the girl. Why is that? Is it fear of getting your heart broken? Is it laziness? Is it a sense of "I just don't have enough time"? Is it because of past bad experiences? If you simply want to be dating other people too, then date other people too! If this is going to turn out as a "Oh we hung out sometimes for a few months, but we're just friends" thing in the end, I wish I could just know that right now. If I'm right about you, then everything I am is exactly what you need. I'm not afraid of getting hurt, as long as it's not for some jack(ahem) reason. After all, relationships either end or they last forever. I don't require much time at all. I'm ridiculously different than all your psycho past experiences. If you don't want to talk some days, then that's 100% fine with me, I always have other things to do too and I need my own space too. You need to focus on school.. Well news flash, Walter Cronkite, so do I! We're in the same boat here, except that I'm not standing there with my fingers in my ears and my eyes closed going "LALALALALALA". It's going to turn out to be such a waste if you don't see that. Then again, maybe I'm completely wrong about you, and you'll turn out to be a rooster-teeth.

A lot of guys are reluctant to get into relationships in general. But for most of those guys, they get over it when they meet a girl they find to be worth jumping for anyway. Maybe I'm just not that girl for you. In the meantime, I'm sick of waiting around for you to decide whether or not you care enough about me to try to keep me.

p.s. I just found out that there's a big campaign going on right now to get the Kazoo dubbed as our National Instrument.

mission accomplished
do you feel regret breathing down your neck?
broken friendships in progress
do you ever wonder why your soul is ending?

light a match
use it to find your way through the dark

when the sun goes down emotions all come out, yeah
and your sapphire eyes keep staring at the glow
you're burning all your bridges down
you're burning all your bridges down

the future is pending
are you sending angels out or demons instead?
what goes around comes around
will you cross the lakes and rivers
that surround you?

light a match
use it to find your way in the dark..

Summer Obsession, Forever In Fall

2006-09-02T15:29:00.000-06:00

Okay, newfound love of Provo, Utah: Club Velour. Yeah yeah, it's not a "club" but it's this tiny little music venue right smack in downtown Provo, totally pwning the lame new management of Muse Music right next door. But I digress. Last night I went there with some friends, and it was basically AWESOME. Four bands played.. The first one was kind of crap. But the second two were freaking amazing, and I didn't stay for the last one cuz I heard they totally sucked and the third band was so amazing, I didn't wanna ruin the night. The first band I think was a last-minute stand in because The Bottom Line dropped out of the tour. Yeah, it was supposed to be The Bottom Line, then Forever In Fall, then The Summer Obsession. Oh man Pom-Pom. Forever In Fall and Summer Obsession were totally awesome. For Summer Obsession we were RIGHT up next to the stage. I might be wrong, but I'm pretty sure the drummer for Summer Obsession used to be the drummer for Good Charlotte.

Anyway. It was rock awesome sweet. And I got to hang out with ridiculously awesome people, and slurpees... And then the grand finish for the night, coming home and realizing that my room had been taken over by my step-mom's sister, and there was no where to sleep but the living room floor and I had no access to any pajamas. So I went to my sister's house for the night. :) Thanks, Bee!

ps, if you're in to the whole pop-punk-rock-alternative-with-a-great-beat kind of music, check out Forever In Fall and Summer Obsession. If you can't find them anywhere, go listen to them on MySpace. :)

Pizza, tada!!

2006-08-21T23:09:00.000-06:00

Something tempts me to say that it wasn't me that posted the last entry here. No, that was a very tired, very drunk version of Holly. Drunk in a non-alcohol-induced way, of course.

Anywho.

Moving out = bleh. But I'm done moving out of my apartment and almost done with unpacking, and the new living situation has promise. I will be doing a lot of running errands, and a lot of picking things and people up, but spending a lot of quality time with my dad, my stepmom, and my little sister. Just like last fall, except a more grown-up, Matt-less, wheat-free me. Oh yeah, I'm apparently allergic to wheat too, just like my sister. See, Jenna? Even my intestines think you're so cool they want to be like your intestines.

I've been in a somewhat vindictive mood the past few days in regards to the male species. I've become very "Ummm, yeah. Whatever." The effects have been quite interesting. Stay away long enough, act/be only mildly interested, and tada! you get 3 phone calls in one day, two of which were answered and about 10 minutes long, one of which resulted in an interesting voicemail. Now keep in mind, this is a situation that in the past 2 months, there have been maybe 5 phone calls made just to chat. Total. And then 3 in one day? Part of me says, "wtf mates?!?!?" and the other part says, "Muahahhahha." The evil cackle is definitely the majority. Majority rules.

So, in hopes of actually waking up and getting to work on time tomorrow, I'm going to go sleep on my big giant bed, on the newly fluffed 5-inch featherbed mattress topper with like 5 thick quilts on top of that, with a perfectly temperatured blanket on top of me, with literally 15 pillows around me. Oh, and a cat that comes and goes.

Promise indeed.
(can "temperatured" be a word, just for today?)

Best. Quote. Ever: in regards to a certain someone who shall remain bumface nameless, who walked in to the apartment with two boxes of Little Caesar's hot-n-ready pizza.. "Pizza, tada!! Hot and ready. Like my body."

So tired..

2006-08-19T00:30:00.000-06:00

..sooo tired...

moving out of the apartment this weekend. Sad panda.

But I totally won tonight, this time, muahahahahaha. You think you hold all the cards. But I've got a news flash, Han-Solo. You don't. *Maniacal laugh* I will find your buttons, I will find that secret you're trying to hide, and I won't let go. So there. We'll see who wins this one, my friend, just like we saw who won tonight. *laugh again*

If only I wasn't going to get my friend from the airport at 2:00 AM tonight... I would totally be asleep right now.

maybe i'll take a nap for an hour.

p.s. Don't be retarded just because of a past bad experience. Nothing happens the same twice. If you're going to be retarded, make it for a better, less LAME reason. That is all.

I'm your little secret

2006-07-26T23:58:00.000-06:00

I suppose it's been rather quiet on the LJ/Blog front of Holly's life. However, the quieter things are on the LJ/Blog front, the LESS quiet things are on the real-life front. haha

Meaning....life has been very, very full lately. Borderline crazy kind of full and busy. For the first time in the history of Holly's life.

Anyway. Life has been lots and lots of working, many hours of overtime.. lots of friend stuff, less drama between friends than normal, which is beautiful.. Lots of guy stuff, which is complicated, fun, confusing, wonderful, exhilerating, and i-want-to-rip-my-hair-out frustrating all at the same time. Overall, life has been great for the past couple months. :)

Work started out awful.. And I guess it's still technically awful. Customers can be horrendous pieces of decaying CRAP, but what can you do. haha I only make it to work every day because of my friends. Three people in particular. One is my awesome friend Dunia, who has gotten me through some tough times the past couple months. :) She's so cool. She's from Bolivia, and is slowly teaching me Spanish. haha She really is a purely sweet girl, and a great friend. The two other friends are guys, one of which I am "not dating" and the other is his friend, who is also my friend. The three of them help me get through work every day, hehe Also help me get some awesome overtime. Sweet!

I'm LOVING living in an apartment, out on my own -- my roommates are all severely awesome. Tara, I've known since I was like 7 years old. We planned living in the same apartment, this past winter. The other two roommates are Kerrie and Laura. They're both so sweet. And both very feisty! haha We all have so, so much fun together. I'm seriously SO lucky with my roommates -- I could have some horrible roomies, but I don't. We all vent our frustrations, and talk a lot, and have many late night fiestas. (See? There's that spanish coming in! haha juuust kidding.)

Okay, I have a question for all of you [3 people] who may or may not read this.. So, i'm sort of "not dating" someone (meaning, it's been established we like eachother, and we go on dates, and hang out, and cuddle sometimes, and neither of us are dating anyone else, it's just not "official") . Okay, so we're "not dating", but more "dating" than "not", and he pulls me aside at work -- it's rare I actually see him much outside of work due to conflicting schedules -- and says, very awkwardly, "I just wanted to tell you.. My sister asked me for a favor. She wants me to go on a double date with her on Saturday.." and mentions that his sister has hopes that he and her friend will end up getting together.. I said something along the lines of "Well, it's fine.. We're not like, officially together, so you really don't owe me anything." He said, "I know, I just wanted to tell you.. I know I'd feel really weird if I like, went to a movie with my buddies, and saw you and [one of his friends] there, or something.."

So, confusing and frustrating and cool at the same time. Confusing because okay, he's going on a double date with some girl I don't know, so I don't know if there's competition or not. Frustrating because if I knew where "we" stand, then I tootally wouldn't care at all about him going on a double date with his sister and some girl I don't know. And cool because he told me, which means he feels like he owes it to me to let me know, and also to let me know he'd feel awkward with me going on dates with other guys, which means it's more than just like "friends with occasional benefits", that he feels at least somewhat territorial, which means he MIGHT at some point maybe actually want to be in some sort of relationship. Confusing because I don't know if I'm reading him right at ALL, even though I'm not usually too horribly off on my readings. Frustrating because this would all be so much simpler if he'd just give up and say "Oh just be my girlfriend already" haha..

Anyway.. my question is this. His friend, who actually has become my friend too since before I knew they were actually good friends, wants to hang out. He said specifically "as friends" wanting to go see a movie or something. I really want to go see a movie on Saturday, and since the "not dating" guy is busy already, would it be really terrible for me to go see a movie with his friend? Strictly as friends, even, and maybe even bring along one of my roommates. Arg! Frustrating! I don't want to mess this whole thing up with the "not dating" guy before there's even something (which is ridiculous, cuz it's been 2months since we established we like eachother, and he kissed me, and we're still "not dating") but I want to hang out with the friend, cuz he's a really awesome guy and I'd really like to get to know him better and have him as a friend. I mean, seriously. I can see how it could be looked at as very petty, IF i treated it like "okay so you're going on a date, i'm gonna go on a date too! with your friend, that you specifically mentioned! HA!" Except it totally wouldn't be like that.

Gaahhh. I would tend to say, "Man, I'm gonna be friends with who I'm gonna be friends with." But I don't want to hurt him. Gah. What to do?

Anyway. Alas, I really need to get to bed. It's almost midnight, and I have work tomorrow. Hopefully I'll actually wake up to go in to work. lol

I'm tired of being your little secret.

The sky glows
I see it shining with my eyes closed
I hear your warnings but we both know
I'm gonna look at it again

Don't wait, Don't wait
The road is now a sudden sea
And suddenly, you're deep enough
To lay your armor down
To lay your armor down
To lay your armor down
-Dashboard

Saving money..

2006-06-20T15:20:00.000-06:00

Just in case you can't really read it, check today's comic (6/20) on www.comics.com/pearls ... Yeah. Like my Zero Comments trend?... hehe

Maybe that's because I never post anything! Woohoo! :)

Slivers, friends, and misconceptions

2006-06-01T17:08:00.000-06:00

It's been a good week so far. Work wasn't quite so enjoyable last week, due to certain people and certain events, buut it's become fun again. A few people in my training class all decided that we wanted to take advantage of the 1 hour lunch breaks we still get this last week of training, and go out every day for lunch. Tuesday we went to Panda Express, yesterday was this really amazing mexican restaurant called Mama Chiu's, and today we went to Arby's. haha It has really been SO much fun. Today's lunch was...haha...definitely the most, um, interesting one so far.. Let's just say, I'll never look at Cingular's "Customer Rules" the same, ever ever ever again. :-)

It's amazing how wrong you can be about some people. Sometimes, people you initially think are really great people turn out to be total slime.. and sometimes, people you initially think are totally annoying jerks turn out to be pretty nice, and a lot of fun to be around. Not necessarily saying that the scumbags are totally awful people overall, because they can still have their own good qualities.. And vice-versa, the other type can still have their annoying, jerk-ish ways as well. I've made a couple unlikely friends this week.

ps.. I got a SLVR! And it's fully amazing. That is all.

Over and over again

2006-05-28T17:30:00.000-06:00

Getting burned over and over again really gets old. Seriously. Refrickendiculous.

Updates to come later. lol

Two roads

2006-05-13T10:57:00.000-06:00

Hmm.

Last night turned out to be a lot different than I thought it was going to be. Since I'd always thought it was basically one big silly joke type of thing, I thought actually carrying out the whole date idea was going to end up being kinda awkward. But no deal there. haha I actually had a ton of fun, and had a couple realizations about some things. Not to mention a really good conversation, which is always good for the soul.

Today we're having a bridal shower for one of my roommates who's getting married next month. hehe I'm kinda sad she'll be leaving, because she's a really awesome roommate and I've only just started to get to know her.. But it's okay I suppose. ;-)

moving on..

One of Robert Frost's poems has been running through my head today. My thoughts right now are kind of vague and philosophical, and I'll just get frustrated if I try to type them out. Instead I'm just going to post the poem, because it does just as good a job.

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

- Robert Frost

There are two roads in front of me right now. One would be a little bit wild and fascinating, and the other would be safe and dependable.. In the poem, he chose the safe way. "Knowing how way leads on to way".. Whichever way I take will lead me to another choice.

I guess it's a good thing I don't really have to choose anything today. :)

Well I guess I should..

2006-05-12T17:57:00.000-06:00

Okay okay.. You win. Here I go!

Yeah, life basically rocks right now. :) I have a job that I'm absolutely loving so far (although that has more to do with the people than subject material, although that's pretty cool too) and I'm in this awesome apartment with 3 other girls that are so amazingly fun. I'm getting lots done, meeting new people, having some silly fun in the guy area, I'm doing some exercising, stepping out of my shy shell to discover some new areas of life, and just all-around being independent happy Hoddie. I have this big sense of contentment and fulfillment right now. It's been that way for a few days, ever since I made a yummy steak dinner all by myself in my apartment. :-D

Life is good.

So my job.. I'm now working at Convergys, on the Cingular project. For those of you who aren't a nerd like me and have no idea what I'm talking about.. (hah..) I'm gonna be a Customer Support girl, basically. We'll be doing support for people who have Cingular plans through the companies they work for, cuz Cingular does a discount thing for business clients. So basically, it'll be business people calling in with questions about billing, or wanting upgrades or downgrades on their service, or adding people to accounts, or buying equipment, etc. I've heard the people are generally pretty nice, or at least reasonable. :-) I started training on Monday, which goes for 4-5 weeks. The first four weeks are class, then the last week is "nesting" which really just means you start on the call floor, but with little mother birds watching and helping. hehe

I'm excited for the 3G technology to start getting widely used and cheap. :)

Holy crap. I'm so ticked. I've been updating for a freaking HOUR about this guy in my training class and it all freaking got DELETED between when I pressed "Publish Post" and when it finished. GAAHH. Now I don't have time to do it again, cuz I'm going on a date soon. Grr. Oh well. Maybe I'll do it again tomorrow. lol

Remember me when you're back at school

2006-03-31T09:40:00.000-07:00

Look, another post! And only 2 days later!

I realized yesterday that it's been probably about 6 years since the last time I had a period of longer than a few weeks that I didn't "like" anybody. "Like" like.. whether it be just a dumb little crush, or something much stronger. And for the past couple months, I haven't really "liked" anybody, haven't had that kinda girly "OMG he's so cute" thing. Which is really weird, for me. It's not like I'm all that guy-crazy.. There's just always somebody I'm really interested in. So it's pretty crazy that right now and for the past couple months, I am a 100% crush-free Hoddie. And frankly, I don't WANT to "like" anybody. haha I dunno, it's kinda nice just being me, without thinking about guy issues or wanting to look presentable for any other reason than because I feel like it. I think after having two pretty intense relationships in a row, with messy endings, I'm ready to just kind of coast and enjoy life how it is now. Yay for being single! In other news... I've decided, of course, against telling my boss(es) to go suck a wall. $800-ish is nice, especially since I realized today that my $319 for apartment deposit stuff hasn't come out yet. haha

But man, it's soo hard to actually GO to work, and then to actually STAY at work. But I've pretty much decided that these last couple weeks are just gonna be chill out weeks. I'm ONLY going to be writing letters and doing F2s. Well, I have to get out Robin's mailer next week, but I've already done all the time-consuming parts of that, besides the copying of the 14-page questionnaire (fuuun) and filling out the Delivery Confirmation slips with the names and addresses. But good news, I don't think the mailer is very huge. Less than 100, I believe. Yay, good times.

Okay, so I'm probably gonna need to get a new battery for my iPod kinda soon-ish. The charge doesn't last quite as long. It's still pretty long, but usually only 5-ish hours, as long as the equalizer isn't on. Maybe 6. But the problem = they don't make iPod Minis anymore. *shakes fist* stupid Nano! lol hummmm....

19 DAYS. I can make it 19 days. That's 2 days less than 3 weeks.

Alas....I should probably get back to work....

I worked my butt off for this?

2006-03-29T07:23:00.000-07:00

Have you ever been royally screwed over by someone you've given an unbelievable amount of time and energy for? Yeah. It's fun.

I've been killing myself working 60+ hours a week for this dang research study, for 12 weeks straight. Minus last week, since I only worked Monday-Wednesday and 2 hours on Thursday, I only got 40 hours for last week. (Yeah, in 3 days I worked 40 hours, jerks.) I've been doing everything that the other ladies 1) don't want to do and 2) don't have time to do. I'm not just a stupid temp, dang it! So yesterday I talked to Gale on the phone, and she asked me when my last day of work would be. As we were getting off the phone, she said "Well, work as much as you want to until you leave." Okay, to me, that indicates that I could actually "work as much as I want to" which means to keep working as much as I can, getting as much done as possible, in however many hours that takes. Then in the afternoon she sent out an email saying, "There will be no overtime for temps or Kelly Service employees. Any overtime by staff" -- that means Jan and Robin -- "must be approved by Dr. Horton." etc etc. um.... ??? So apparently "work as much as you want" translates to "We think you're stealing our money and not working, so you can't work overtime anymore or be fraudulant." Since that makes a whole crapload of sense.

So now there's a choice. Do I say, "Well, thanks for the good times, but please take this job and shove it." or do I work my measely little 40 hours the next 3 weeks? There's SO much I get done in those extra 20+ hours. They just have no idea. I kind of want to say, "Yeah, thanks, but no thanks" and after this week just be done with them.. but then again, I'd feel really bad for Jan and Robin. They are gonna be overwhelmed enough without me doing what I do when I leave, but for me to just up and be done, they'd probably freak out. It'd be $860 I wouldn't get, cuz for 40 hours I take home $433...stupid taxes. But having my last two weeks here work-free is highly appealing. After having SO much fun last weekend, it's really hard to go back to work anyway. Plus, it's not like Gale or Dr. Fishman would care if I quit working 2 weeks earlier than planned. The only ones it'd affect would be Jan and Robin. I'm just fed up. Bah.

I'll probably stay on. At least for this week and next week. Maybe I'll take off that last week, and settle with making it back to Utah with about $1700 in my bank account and my car only half paid off.

Anyway, this past weekend/trip to NC was amazingly awesome. I've lost motivation to write more at the moment though.. I'm still ticked about all that other stuff up there. *shakes fist*

Mystery

2006-03-21T20:37:00.000-07:00

.....why isn't my other post showing up?? *shakes fist* I republished my whole blog twice!...

maybe this'll do it. psh!

Just leaving

2006-03-21T07:08:00.000-07:00

Wow. Things were pretty crazy dramatic there for a while.. but I think they're finally settled down for good now. I hope. :)

I can't believe how unbelievably ready I am to go back. Every minute makes my muscles more restless and I feel like any second now I'm just going to start running, and never stop until I'm back where I belong. My mom is leaving MD for a year and a half, and the only thing left tying me here will be the few friends I still have here, mainly Steph.

I feel like I've done a lot of growing up over the past few months. There are a lot of things I feel like I'm ready to do now. I've spent so much time just thinking about what I want to do and the steps I'd need to take, but it was just thinking. I never took that first step. It's time to move on now, really. No more of this "I want to..." or "I wish..." or "That'd be awesome." Got that? :-pBut this is why I'm so antsy. I can't do any of those things here, I'm just stuck in this liquid phase of being unbelievably ready to pounce, but not having legs to do it. It's time to go. I'm so impatient for something to start. At least I'll get a break this weekend -- I'm going to NC. Hello Spring Break! haha I'm so excited. And when I get back, I'll only have 3 weeks left, and 3 weeks isn't all that bad.

The equation of DEATH

2006-03-02T19:16:00.000-07:00

Man, this sucks. A week ago, I didn't really have much to think about or to worry about. Now, there are like a dozen huge decisions all trying to kill me at the same time. Sorry guys, I can only be killed once at a time, so you're just gonna have to take turns, okay? Geez! These hatchet-weidling decisions are so inconsiderate. I don't know what to do about anything anymore.

Live with my sister or my best friend?
Sell my car or not sell my car?
Europe or no Europe?
Anything and everything related to school?
BAH.

So I got my hair highlighted today. It looks cool, lol I was looking in the mirror a few minutes ago while washing my hands, and for a second I looked like Avril Lavigne, which is fairly insane if you've ever seen me. lol Anyway. The girl who did my hair was really cool. She did highlights and low-lights, and my mom thinks the highlights are too white-ish and the low-lights are too red-ish..and yeah they kind of are, but every time I get highlights, it always seems to not good at first, but then after a couple shampoo sessions, some of the color strips out and it's where it should be. And even if that doesn't happen, I think it looks cool. :) Jackie (the girl who did the stuff) said I look better with lighter hair, and I happen to agree.

Anyway. My mom awesomely gave me a gift card as a huge random early birthday surprise for the hair stuff, and when I got home there were these two little soft fuzzy animals from the Disney Store on my bed. So freakin cute! lol :) I think she's trying to get blog time.. Well, man, she's earned it. You know, for the gift card and the fuzzy soft stuffed animals. That whole "giving me life" thing, yeah, I guess that was pretty nice of her too. ;-)

This week has just NOT been a productive week for me. Tomorrow's gonna be a good long work day, hopefully, but Saturday I need to clean my room and do extra running and put my bed back together and try to organize things and pick stuff to put into a box to ship out to Utah, AND I'm going to see the high school play that night, possibly with an old friend. So Saturday will be a good day, but tres busy. Not much allowance for 10 hours of work, if I'm to get all those other things done too!

Tried to come up with a title....but I got nothin.

2006-03-01T20:01:00.000-07:00

I am very quickly falling way, way behind in the "number of posts" of Plato's Understudy vs. Behind These Hazel Eyes. I don't know why that's my blog's title, my eyes aren't even hazel. I guess I just really like the song. lol

It seems like every day I say, "I can't believe it's already (fill in the date)". It seems to be working out that time seems to go faster when I think that way. lol Anyway, the point is, I can't believe it's March already. I love March.. just the name of the month is happy. When I think of March, I think of when flowers start to come out. I think of sunshine and grass and budding leaves on trees, and cherry blossom trees that bloom before any of the other trees. Plus, March has my birthday, which is kinda cool too, I suppose. lol

This week it's been difficult to keep working as hard as before. I'm gonna have to seriously bust my butt the next 3 days to get up to 60 hours. I've only got 31 so far, lol soo yeah.

I really, really want to go to Europe with Jenna and some people from her ballroom team.. but I just don't think I'm gonna be able to do it. I've been thinking about selling my car and getting something cheaper, but I drove my car again today and realized I love it too much. lol I've been working too hard to just give it up. I don't want to still be paying it off 3 years from now, either.. and the $3,000 it would cost to go to Europe for 10 days would put a verrrry substantial dent in the rest of my car stuff. I talked to my mom about all this yesterday, and she said right now probably isn't the best time for my "first Europe experience" and heck, she's probably right, as mothers usually are. But I want to go SO badly.. like, it makes me want to cry when I think about how real the opportunity is, and that I might just pass it up. If there was some magical way to pay my car off, pay for tuition and books and rent and costs of getting back out to Utah, AND go to Europe, then I'd be totally all up ons. *beats head on the wall* I wish I was getting paid for two full-time jobs like Jenna is, and I wish I didn't have to worry about debt on my car or school, cuz then I'd definitely be able to go.

Gah.

I'm really moody today.. I want a fluffy dog or cat that'd come lay next to me and make me feel all better. lol I'm such a sap.

I need to finish my stuff for BYU and get it sent back, ASAP. And, I need to print out the housing stuff and send it to Liz, ASAP. lots of things to do here pretty quickly, aaaand I haven't gotten 'em done yet.

I did, however, do my "running" and proceeded to eat a bowl of Kix my mom got me and skim-deluxe milk. It was pretty much amazing. lol :)

And with that, I bid you adieu.

Beep bop boop badeedadee

2006-02-27T17:54:00.000-07:00

Yeah, I really don't have anything to post about. lol

So my room seems to blow up occasionally. I keep it really (mostly) clean and organized, and then suddenly I look and it has exploded again. And thus repeats the process. Right now it's in the state of post-explosion. I think maybe my two stuffed animals are the culprits.

I talked on the phone yesterday for a total of almost 3 hours. That's pretty much insane for me. lol And I talked to my dad, my stepmom, Emily, and 3 of the old roommates (Katie, Laura, and Tessa), and Nick. Crazy stuff, right there. lol

Yeah, that's all I got today.. :)

'Bye!

I wish I could come up with clever titles like Bee does.

2006-02-22T19:45:00.000-07:00

When I created this blog, it was with the mindset that I was going to write whatever I wanted to, with no apologies or justifications for what I was saying or how things may come across. But, with this blog, and my LiveJournal, I think I've somehow gotten too many people reading them. True, there are things I want feedback on, and it's so simple to post it on here or LJ for some people to see, to read, to respond. And I really, really like reading other people's posts, too. However, I've dug myself into a hole with both of these. I know I should still post whatever I want to, with no apologies or justifications.. but my conscience is saying "Sssh, don't write about that" because I don't want to offend people, or get myself into any more ruts than I'm already in. So, I don't know.

I guess this whole thing has been my impetus for writing in my real, paper journal again. Last night I wrote 7 pages, lol.. :) Before a few days ago, I hadn't written since September 6th. There was lots and lots to catch up on, let me tell you.. I'd forgotten the freedom of writing without the thought of someone reading this right away. True, writing about myself and my life in my journal is kind of in the hopes that some child or grandchild or great-grandchild might find it amusing or helpful or cathartic or any way useful or just good reading.. But that's years and years from now. Not right here, right now, I post and you read kind of thing.

So..yeah.. . that's basically all.. lol Besides the fact that I hate taxes. C'est la vie. hehe

If butterflies are free to fly, why do they fly away?

2006-02-17T18:07:00.000-07:00

I'm never gonna catch up with Jenna's 120 posts. lol

My mood is a little mellow tonight. Thoughtful, I guess. Maybe it's due to being tired, or maybe it's PMS, but whatever it is, I'm a little lonely the past couple of days. I'm not sure what started it off. Maybe it was seeing a picture in which the place I should have been was taken up by a different addition to the Chix and realizing that man, I'm missing everything. Right now, this age in life is where everything starts happening. Things are just now starting to get interesting for everyone, even if they think it's boring or just dumb drama or whatever..and I'm missing it all. I'm not there to see it. And right now, I've been away from that for so long that there's going to be inescapable awkwardness when I try to put myself back in that picture again. The awkwardness is gonna kill me.. I don't want to feel that separation from the people I love. I'm sick of slipping away from people, and of letting people slip away from me. It's all been due to my choices, though. I slipped away from my MD friends by leaving here and going to Utah, and being as lax as I am about keeping in contact with people.. And I slipped away from my old roommates by living with my Dad last fall. But, I had to...right? I didn't have the money to pay for rent, and I wanted to get to know my family there, and I needed to regain some of my senses from the hardness of Freshman year. I also slipped away from them by never getting over there to see them.. I wanted to. But I spent all my time with Matt. I had a great time with him, and I was really happy with him. But now, that's over. And I don't know if we'll really ever be friends like we were before. As much as he says that he's okay with it and wants me to stay in his life, even if it's only as friends..and as much as I say that I really want to be his friend.. I just don't know if it's ever gonna feel the same again. I have somehow managed to keep a friendship with Liz, and with Steph, probably the work of angels or something. lol But still, there's something lacking even there. I don't know.

I just can't wait to get somewhere that I can make some friends, people to spend time with and cry with and laugh with and make inside jokes and steal eachothers' clothes and... wait, this is sounding awfully like a sister. ;-) I miss my sisters.. and I miss friends who used to feel like sisters.

I'm going to visit my cousin in North Carolina at the end of March. I haven't seen her in over 6 years, since my grandma's funeral right after my family moved to Maryland. My favorite cousin, one of my favorite people in the world, the only person I ever felt like truly liked me for who I was when I was young, and I haven't seen her in 6 years.

Well, maybe I'll be able to change. I need to change. I need to finally learn how to hang on to the people I care about.. and how to become the kind of person that other people want to hang on to, too.

I break things

2006-02-14T18:47:00.000-07:00

I really do wish I could change things. I wish that I could make myself feel a certain way, but I just don't believe that's how love should go. Yeah, you have to work at it, and it's not just something that magically falls into your lap. But, sometimes love slips away and you just can't get it back, and right now in life, there has to come a point where enough is enough. He's such a sweetheart, and he's my best friend. Why can't I love him like I should?

I made another car payment today, woohoo. And I'm sending in my taxes tomorrow, freakin $1200. *shakes fist* I hope Mitt Romney DOES run for President.

I should go to the library again. I adore reading.. Does anyone have any suggestions as to what book(s) I should look up? I'm open to ANY new ideas.

*sigh* Happy Valentine's Day. I'm gonna go look at my undeserved daisies and think.

I broke most of Mama’s dishes
She banned me from the kitchen when I was a kid
I tore Daddy’s truck to pieces
Left it in a heap that no mechanic could fix
You don’t believe me I can see you laughin’
But trust me I’m an accident waiting here to happen

Cause I break things
Anything I touch
I just get around and then I’m bound to tear ‘em up
Yeah, I make things
Snap and fall apart
So if you wanna hold me boy, you’d better watch your heart
Cause I break things

**edit** My dad just called me to tell me Happy Valentine's Day and that he loves me. :-) Every time we talk, he says how he's so excited for me to come back and live with them again. That they're keeping my room "as uncluttered as possible" or something. hehe Oh man... Leave it to a daddy to call and make you smile when you're feelin pretty crappy about yourself. This whole "having a relationship" with my dad finally, after 18 years, is feeling pretty good. :-)

Now, I'm going to go look at my undeserved daisies and smile cuz they're pretty and daisies are pretty much my favorite flower. :-)

Yesterdays all boxed up

2006-02-12T13:40:00.000-07:00

I live in a fairy tale world, I think. Not in actuality, but inside my head. I think I've created a certain way I want my life to go, how I want to feel and be treated and what I want to do. I think this is so much the case that I'm not quite sure how to handle things in reality. That I'm not really sure if people really can be quite as happy as they seem to be, whether in movies or pictures or books or song lyrics or even someone else's real life. What exactly should I do about that? Should I find one kind of reality and just stay there, or should I keep trying until I perhaps find exactly what I'm looking for? I worry about wasting time that way, but I worry about what I might do if I don't chase after what I really want.

I've had the "I love him more than he loves me" thing, and I've also had the "he loves me more than I love him" thing. What I need is equality, meet-in-the-middle, chasing eachother running in circles kind of thing. The balance needs to come out even, I can't have it heavier on one side anymore.

Maybe I dwell in the world of stories, books, and movies because I'm too scared I'll never find what I see there.

ps, download Sheryl Crow - Always On Your Side. it's really good:

Well they say that love is in the air, never is it clear
How to pull it close and make it stay
If butterflies are free to fly, why do they fly away?
Leavin' me to carry on and wonder why
Was it you that kept me wondering through this life
When you know that I was always on your side

I work, I sleep..

2006-02-08T13:58:00.000-07:00

Look look, a new post!

I feel like I never really have a whole lot to post about. Life is fairly monotonous. I work, and I sleep, and I read, and I eat, and I sleep some more.. But then again, once I start thinking about it, my life actually isn't quite as boring as that.

I work. What I do for work isn't quite what other 18-year-olds are doing. I don't work at a restaurant doing waitressing, I don't work at a clothes store hoping for commissions. I don't have to wait until Saturday night to find out what my schedule's going to be for the next week. Yeah, I work full-time (and overtime, as much as I can) at Johns Hopkins, with the duties of a full-blown Research Associate. On Sunday my mom and I drove up to Philadelphia and I attended a Barnett International training class for Clinical Research Coordinators. Holy crap, I learned SO much, and I get a fancy certificate and a big chip for my resume game. I took the train home, and by the way, the Philly 30th Street train station is old-timey awesome, with a really high ceiling and cool columns and disgusting food. It's great.

I sleep... a lot. lol I was thinking today, I should start a slogan campaign. It'd be "I'd Rather Be Sleeping." You know.. like the "I Am Loved" slogan thing. Or, more like the "S*** Happens" thing.. Or, for anyone at BYU, the "Not Funny" thing. I could make T-shirts and bumper stickers and pillowcases and binders and all kinds of stuff. I could put different pictures of different scenarios, like being at school, at work, in a zoo, in space...whatever. Lots of things. And the picture would show something very not fun, and it'd just say, "I'd rather be sleeping."
hmm. Maybe I should sell my idea to a mattress company.

Matt FINALLY got his call. He's going to Guatemala City! Very awesome. :)

Anyway..that pretty much sums it up for me..

CC: My heart@confused.com

2006-01-27T19:37:00.000-07:00

I hate not knowing what to do. Or, rather, I hate knowing what I have to do, and having two ways I could do it, and having no idea which way I should go. I don't know which way is gonna be the worst. I need to talk to someone about all this, but I'm not really sure who there is. I've talked to my mom a bit about it, and what she said is probably right, as usual. But it doesn't hurt to get a second opinion, right? Curse me for not keeping people informed! lol

I've been watching movies looking at a lot of pictures lately that show people with a certain kind of happiness. And I've been reading through old journals, and realizing life keeps going in a big circle. I want to step out of that circle, thank you very much.. lol :)

In other news, I'm making beacoup de bucks this week. :) Hooray for 20 hours of overtime! And hooray with trying it again next week, too! lol and, hooray for going to the doctor on Monday!

Lookie lookie

2006-01-23T17:59:00.000-07:00

lookie lookie, I'm updating. sort of.

So, I have absolutely no motivation to write about anything that's happening. But I'll try anyway. lol Well... I've been working a lot. big surprise, huh? lol I probably would have done 12 hours today, but I'm just too tired. Matt came out last week. We had some fun. We went to D.C., New York City, Ocean City, the Inner Harbor, plus did some other stuff like going to see a couple of movies at Loew's, going out with Stepherz and Mike, driving around randomly, and oh yeah.. with me working almost 40 hours too, somewhere in there. lol :)

Confession: I like Lindsay Lohan's new CD. I don't like her, but I like the CD. And I admire the fact that she wrote/co-wrote most of the songs on her CD that aren't covers. lol

It's finally starting to get a little bit colder. You'd think it was Spring, with temperatures in the 60's last week. Craziness.

I need some direction.

Oh, and I'm finally making an appointment tomorrow to go see a doctor hopefully this week. Gotta figure out what's going on, etc etc. :)

Lucy, you've got some 'splaining to do.

Candida?

Bah. Sorry Jenna, this post has absolutely no meat. I trust you'll forgive me. hehe

This is an outrage.

2006-01-07T15:41:00.000-07:00

Does it tick anyone else off that there hasn't been any word from The Brothers Chaps (ie, anything on Homestarrunner.com) in over a MONTH? Honestly! Where has all the joy in life gone??

Ho-hum..

2005-12-22T06:49:00.000-07:00

I have a car. It's flippin' sweet. :)

Anyway, I'm back in MD now, until April. It's kinda crazy how fast last semester went. I didn't do so well, academically, but whatever. I'm not really sure what I'm going to do about college.

I put up blue christmas lights around my room. I think I'm going to leave them there after Christmas. They're pretty cool.

Wow...all motivation to update just left me completely. Hmmm... Well, I'm going to see Wicked tonight in DC with my mom, and tomorrow is the day before the day before Christmas. I'll maybe update then. hehe

SNOW!

2005-12-04T13:54:00.000-07:00

A most excellent day was had yesterday out of what could have potentially been a very horrible day. :-) First of all, I have to say that I love my new camera. Second of all, I have to say that I love craft shopping, and I love snow, and I love Christmastime, and I love Christmas music, and driving around in the snow with someone I trust with my life.

However, I don't love what I have to do with the results of my craft shopping (ie, my final/presentation for Student Development... who really cares if I study effectively or not? honestly, people!)

Anyway. I'm going to go eat some lunch, and then come back and write some more to the newest Re: email that shall be sent hopefully sometime today. :) <4.

And <3's to everyone else.

Red ribbons

2005-12-01T09:12:00.000-07:00

You know, BYU isn't really quite what people think it is. Today I was walking in the WILK (the student center) and was handed a ribbon for World AIDS Awareness Day. Yay for BYU being cool like that.

Fight AIDS!

ps, Jenna has 100 posts. this makes my 73rd post. dang, i'm lagging!

Rather waste some time with you

2005-11-29T16:02:00.000-07:00

Yeah yeah yeah, they say "What goes up must come down" and I guess what goes down must come up..eventually. hehe Things are better now.

In 2 hours, I will officially only have 3 more days of class left. I totally forgot about this project I have to do for my final in Student Development (due next week....hmm...) so I guess I gotta get crackin' on that one. Can't school just be over? Alas, woe is me..at least when I'm at school. Everything else is pretty good. Mainly because......

SNOW!!!
I'm a big fan, if you couldn't tell. I'm sitting here with a scarf around my neck and hot chocolate in one of my hands (occasionally, when i'm not typing.)

The trip to Denver was good, especially considering how not-good it could potentially have been. I don't think that's the best standard to judge things by, but it works for now I guess. Getting home Sunday night was lovely, especially the not-surprise visitor who showed up at around 8:30. I swear, if that's how it was after only like 4 full days, I don't even want to imagine what it's going to be like after 2 years. Man....

Due to ridiculous high levels of sleepiness, I should probably end this post before I type something I'll regret later and be too lazy to delete. Adieu.

Edit.

2005-11-15T17:16:00.000-07:00

And it all crashes and burns.

She will rise again!

2005-11-15T10:51:00.000-07:00

Okay okay okay okay okay. I'm a slacker at updating this thing. I'm even worse with my paper journal, since it takes even longer to write in there...cuz writing with a pen takes SO much longer than typing. Hmm. Alas.

Anyway. Life has been pretty good lately. :-) Although, if it weren't for happiness in certain parts of my life, I'd probably be majorly depressed -- considering how badly I'm doing in school this semester. It's not like I'm not trying at all. Basically all I've done this semester is study and hang out with Matt. Sometimes both at the same time. But I still haven't gotten above a 70% on any test so far, in any of my classes (except for online D&C -- I got an 84% or so. hmm. but that doesn't count.) I love my classes, and I love learning, but I hate college. I hate this whole "Oh look, you thought you studied enough for this test, and you thought you did really well, but really you did pretty dang crappy and you will fail at everything in your life." Woohoo! lol Oh well. I'm taking next semester off, and maybe while I'm out there, I'll think of something to do to deal with all of this.

One of my teachers said, "Well maybe this nursing thing just isn't the right thing for you to do." Perhaps. But what else will get me a good place in research? I mean, besides some crazy science major or a like a Family Relations major. Not happening.

I'm both really excited for and really dreading this winter. It'll be good to be away from school, and it'll be good to see Steph and maybe one or two other people I'm still friends with who are still in the state of Maryland, but I LOVE Utah in the winter, and I hate MD in the winter. And I'll be in MD for my birthday, and that's gonna kinda suck. And, Matt... He's gonna come out to visit, and I'm gonna come back to UT for a couple of weeks before he goes on his big 2-year adventures in wonderland. But I'll miss him. And my family. And my Bee.

Gosh, you'd think I was going somewhere in the North Pole, not expecting to come back alive. hahaha Anyway. I'm gonna stop being so morbid.

So, Denver road trip was way major fun. 'Nuff said. :) Going to Denver again next Wednesday, and I don't have school at all next week. And Harry Potter comes out this weekend, and Rent comes out next week, and then it's all downhill from there. In a good way.

Okay Bee, I hope this satisfies your blog-update-desire for a little bit. :) Adieu!

Hidden Lucky Charms

2005-10-18T19:44:00.000-06:00

The secret, hidden meanings behind Lucky Charms(TM) cereal.

Hearts, stars, and horseshoes. Clovers and blue moons. Pots of gold, and rainbows, and the red balloons.

Hearts = Emotions. Love.
Stars = mystery, beauty, magnificence. Far away.
Horseshoes = luck.
Clovers and blue moons = Extremely rare. In fact, arguably only exist in fairy tales.
Pots of gold = blessings, riches.
Rainbows = beauty which comes after the storm.
Red balloons = Floating, soaring.

Lucky Charms(TM) cereal. What does it stand for? Love is mysterious and just out of reach, but maybe with enough luck, you'll find that special clover and be blessed with more happiness than you could ever imagine, more beautiful after the gloom of heartbreak. It will set you free and send your heart soaring above the rest. All packaged neatly with a sugar-coating.

Purchase now for a low $2.99 at your local grocery dealer.

Thank you AP English. Thank you Mrs. Plank for teaching me that "a duck is never just a duck" and allowing me to reach into the simple sugary view of delicious Lucky Charms cereal and uncovering the true meanings and subliminal propoganda. lol.

So many variables

2005-10-18T07:24:00.000-06:00

I was doing the whole thinking thing the other day, I realized that yeah, I pretty much don't know anything about anything anymore. What's the point of all these things that happen? What was the point of the 3 years i spent on Ryan? And now this new situation.. he's going on his mission soon, and he'll be gone for 2 years. maybe by that time i'll be....who knows. So what's the point of me falling so deep for him, and what's the point in his loving me for so long? Maybe....maybe it really doesn't matter if we know what the point is. Maybe all that matters is that we've grown up a little bit, we've seen something new in ourselves. and maybe we even were happy for a moment. Maybe God's got the rest covered.

And maybe it's not that I still love Ryan. Maybe it's that I'm still in love with how I felt with him. I loved the way I loved him, the way he loved me, the way we worked together and just, how the whole situation felt. Even when it wasn't the best, I still loved everything about him, and about our relationship. I'm so desperate to feel exactly THAT again. I want that again, so badly. But it's not happening with this new situation. Maybe the reason I think I don't love him like he loves me is because I don't love him like I loved Ryan. But, love is different for every person. Every situation. He is SO different from Ryan, in every way imaginable. He doesn't really have any of the things I loved about Ryan. But then again, he has things that Ryan never had. For instance, he loves me in a way that Ryan never did. He'll go to any length to make my day better, and he's so patient and unbelievably understanding. He really knows me. In that fairy-tale-only-in-your-dreams kind of way. And you know what? I know him too, just as well as he knows me. Inside and out, through and through.

*sigh* Or maybe none of it matters at all.

creepy.

2005-10-03T09:16:00.000-06:00

Holly took the free ColorQuiz.com personality test!

"Wants interesting and exciting things to happen. A..."

Click here to read the rest of the results.

Whoops

2005-09-28T11:06:00.000-06:00

Hello dear Blogger, I'm sorry I've neglected you so much for 18 days. I hope you'll be able to forgive me.

So, a lot has happened in the past couple of weeks. Some things have been wonderful, some extremely confusing, and some not so fun. It's been very Bee-less, which is very unfortunate and I miss my sister. *sniff* But, in other news, I've had an epiphany and I'm not so lonely anymore, and my pissed-off meter is showing lower levels as of late. I'll be leaving here in about 20 minutes to go to the doctor, whose office is down in Provo and I don't really know how to get there. Woohoo, good times. :)

School is absolutely kicking my trash. lol

Take your best shot

2005-09-10T19:34:00.000-06:00

I quite enjoy working out. :-D
If all goes according to plan.. in 4 months, I will be a different-looking person with a brand-spakin "new" crap car. And, I'm going to be able to kick any other girl's trash at the bench press. Muahahaha.

ka-ching!

Apathy and entropy

2005-09-07T21:14:00.000-06:00

Three posts in one day. But this one isn't a normal post.

There are four different responses to the Hurricane and the effects.
one: "The government is crap and is utterly at fault for how bad this is."
two: "Disaster?"
three: "We need help! Help!"
and four: "How can I help? I'll do it."

Which one do you fall under? Are you sitting on your butt being angry and thinking that Bush is a horrible president? Do you really think that's constructive? Or are you praying for those people affected? Are you learning, reading, watching everything about what's going on, so you can actually make an EDUCATED opinion on the government's current state of affairs? Are you donating to the cause?

Are you more fully appreciating life and how lucky, how blessed you are?

There's a painter who's an evacuee from New Orleans, recently arrived in Salt Lake. The people setting up at Camp Andrew (i think that's the name of it) were setting up a day care spot. Before he had even gotten the chance to lay down and sleep, he'd already volunteered to help paint the day care walls. There's a similar situation with a plumber. There were some problems, because the Base hasn't been used in a while, and this plumber saw there was a problem, and asked if he could help. He said, "I'm somewhere safe, I have a bed tonight. Now, give me somewhere I can be of service."

If people who've lost everything can refrain from sitting around criticising the government, then the rest of us young and stupid kids can, too. Come on guys. Don't boycott gas -- carpool. Do you honestly believe President Bush is all-powerful, and therefore deserves all this blame? And do you really think it does any good, all the stuff you're saying? We don't need terrorists to tear our country apart -- we do fine on our own.

Come on. Be proud of who you are, where you live, and what it stands for. Help this country heal. Don't shout it further to pieces.

sorry guys, this is just all really getting to me. I wish people could see how all that is more destructive than Katrina herself.

Correction.

2005-09-07T18:41:00.000-06:00

I just took this little test thing for Student Development. It's kind of a personality/preference test, but a good one. Not like those lame ones on tickle.com or whatever. Here are my results, typed directly from the packet...

Clearly more introverted than extraverted
Slightly higher in sensing than intuition
Moderately higher in feeling than thinking
Slightly higher in judging than perceiving

My Type: ISFJ.
Common characteristics associated with the type:
Quiet, friendly, responsible, and conscientious. Committed and steady in meeting their obligations. Thorough, painstaking, and accurate. Loyal, considerate, notice and remember specifics about people who are important to them, concerned with how others feel. Strive to create an orderly and harmonious environment at work and at home.

So, yeah. Good times.

My sarcastic hero

2005-09-07T17:09:00.000-06:00

Yup. Definitely no motivation to update. Alas.

Yay for getting a lot accomplished and still wasting tons of time. I'm going to really like this semester of 2-days-a-week-of-school thing. I'm not so much going to like the smelling like formaldehyde (or however it's spelled) ie, dead bodies. But I suppose I'll get over it. lol I got 4 out of 5 on my first Anatomy quiz. Hooray. That class is going to kick my trash.

Alias season 4 DVD comes out next month. Hmm.. I miss watching Daria. Her witty monotone sarcasm was much appreciated by moi. I wonder if they have the season DVDs, because I would totally buy one. Or two. [Edit] I found a place has all 65 episodes of Daria, plus the pilot and the movie Is It College Yet? for $65 with free shipping. That's like, a dollar an episode, and a free movie. Should I?

Two hours at the gym last night. Again tonight? Maybe not 2 hours. But at least one. Yay for trying to lose weight the "healthy way" and consequently getting in shape and strengthening my stupid bad lungs and preventing chronic diseases and decreasing my stupid anxiety problems (supposedly) and not causing permanent damage to my already screwed up ankles. Yay! And yay for having a friend to gym-it-up with. Woot.

Apart from that, I don't have many thoughts for today. I started applying for a job today, I took Beefy to lunch for his birthday, and my brain hurts. lol :)

Your eyes tell the story

2005-08-25T22:22:00.000-06:00

"Eventful" isn't really an accurate description of the last two weeks.. Neither are "insane" or "freakin-hectic-and-can-i-get-a-chance-to-breathe?!?!"....but that last one comes close. lol :-) But I am very excited to be able to go to bed at a decent hour tonight! woot.

Freshman Orientation started today.. I decided to be a Y-Group Leader, which means I'm one of them guys in the green that show all the freshies around the school. Woot. But it's fun, I'm partners with a friend, Nick, who has probably spent more time sleeping at my house/van in the last 24 hours than he has at his apartment. Today was killer -- we had to be at the Marriott Center at 6:30 this morning for check-in.. but I had to come early and stop by the HFAC (which opens at 6 -- thank goodness) to use the internet and send some work stuff to mi madre. But the day was good, and my little group is so cute. The girls are..well, they're definitely typical freshman girls. But they're cute. And Nick and I are having a blast...and I love Johnny! He's so awesome! lol I don't know why, but he's my favorite of our kids.

Anyway. I can feel the motivation slipping away. This is bad. I remembered all the crapload of work my mom has Fed-Ex'd me and I'll be getting tomorrow...and have to have done by Monday. And I wanted to go to Playfair tomorrow night (part of Orientation) which I suppose won't happen if I don't want to work on Sunday. *sigh* oh well. It's needed money, right?

I'm sick of getting angry, and I hate this paradox of not wanting any help in the form that helpful help would come, but not being able to get over it myself.

ps, Jenna rocks.

Drama, drama, drama. but not today.

2005-08-18T07:36:00.000-06:00

Man, I'm tired. lol Alas.

It's been a good few days. I've spent a lot of time with my nieces, with even a little bit of playing time squeezed in. Like yesterday I met up with Katie and we went to lunch, walked around the mall getting applications (and a new pair of shoes for me) and then my sister, my mom and I went to this fantastically cheesy play at BYU and then to dinner. It was some durn good food.

And once again, I started updating with every intention of making a meaningful addition to this lovely blog....but that desire has fled. Hmm.

When the light was just right

2005-08-14T09:04:00.000-06:00

It happened -- I'm in Utah. It feels really odd that I'm not going back until Christmas. Like, it still feels like I'm on vacation and I'll be going back to Maryland in a week or two, perhaps because all my stuff is still in my suitcases. hehe :)

I must say, I love my family. And I love my Bee. Hence why I came early. But my mom doesn't seem to much like the two of my guy friends that I've introduced her to over the past couple of days... Which is somewhat understandable, but still kinda sad. Oh well.

Well, when I started this entry, I felt like updating, yet now I really don't. So I'll just leave you at that.

Take your cat and leave my sweater

2005-08-01T22:47:00.000-06:00

It has recently been brought to my attention by my new little Irish friend, Pat, that "girls only go for the (ahem) jerks." My argument is simple. If it seems that girls only go for the jerks, then that means that you only go for girls that go for jerks. Yes, some girls are stupid and masochistic, don't care much about what the guy feels, or even what she herself feels, but those girls are few and far-between. Although there are indeed many exceptions, most girls want romance, adventure, excitement, and affection. They want a guy to have enough strength and courage to be traditional. Girls don't want to feel like they're doing all the work to get a relationship going, and they don't want a guy who sits back and hopes the right girl will happen to walk into his path. They want a guy who's confident and secure with himself. Girls want the ones who'll bring a flower to her work, or call at night, or surprise her with a simple note in the mailbox, or under a windshield wiper. Unfortunately, most of the guys who fit with all those characteristics usually turn out to be total pricks in the end. Besides, "going for the good guy" won't get you anywhere anyway. Things will start out great, you'll be happy and there'll be romance and smiles, but before you know it, he'll be denouncing his emotional side in favor of detatchment and apathy, and all the apparent glory that ensues. So bring any girl a mix of the "good guys" and "the pricks" met in the middle, with all the good attributes of each, and I promise, she'd fall for him no matter what.

*steps off soapbox*

le sigh. Random rants are somewhat taxing, ya know? ;-) juuuust kidding.

Okay, okay!

2005-07-29T21:13:00.000-06:00

I suppose that Jenna's gonna cut off my right foot if I don't update soon. So I'd better do it quick! ;-) hehe i love you Bee.

you know, my livejournal entires are always so much different than these ones. if you want to read my other one, it's livejournal.com/~trueprudency so there ya go.

So, it seems like an external source describes my current situation FAR better than I could. kudos to colorgenics.com for today's update, an extraordinarily (and creepy) accurate description of me, right now....

You have always longed for tenderness, love and a sensitivity of feeling into which you would like to blend. You are a very gentle warm person and responsive to 'All things bright and beautiful'. This personifies a caring person, a person who 'needs' and indeed 'needs to be needed'.

The way things are you are under considerable stress and you feel that there is little hope of matters righting themselves. Everyone about you seems to aggravate the problem even more. You feel that at this time you need to be alone and you are right - move back and give yourself a chance to breathe.

You are trying to break away from the mundane existence that you have been experiencing of late. You have many high hopes and ideals but you are concerned whether circumstances will allow you to realize these ambitions. You want to spread your wings - to broaden your fields of activities - but you are concerned that your dreams are just that - 'dreams' which are not realistic. It concerns you that you are not thinking clearly at this time - what you need is to get away from it all, to give you time to think. A short vacation could well restore your confidence.

You are presently experiencing excessive stress as a result of self-restraint. You act and think differently from the common herd and you want to be liked and admired for yourself and to associate with people who feel and act as you do. Because of this need to be self-reliant and to break away from mediocrity, you are finding this situation most uncomfortable and you are experiencing considerable anxiety - perhaps even more than you feel the capacity to cope with. You need to find a 'soul mate', someone whose standards are as high as your own - but where? Keep on searching... The situation is uncomfortable and you would like to break away from it, but you refuse to compromise with your opinions. You are unable to resolve the situation because you are continually postponing the making of necessary decisions. You are stubborn but this is no deterrent to a happy life, so why drop your standards. Think positively, everything will work out. It has worked out successfully for you in the past and it will again in the future.

The tensions and stresses that you have experienced of late have been the result of trying to cope with conditions which are really beyond your capabilities. You feel completely inadequate to cope with the situation and you would like nothing better to escape from it all and to be able to relax in a problem and pressure free environment where you can do your thing

So, yeah. there you have it. But, things really aren't bad, just a little stressful. I'm ready for a change of scenery, because after 3 years, there isn't much that DOESNT bring back a now-painful memory. What an ironic quagmyre, one which we shall worry about after another night's sleep.

Your brain gets smart but your head gets dumb

2005-07-18T17:05:00.000-06:00

And after a while you learn
that you're not like everyone else, and never will be. and that boys will never grow out of cat-calling repectable girls, making them feel like absolute dirt. and that everything you've thought for a long time could have always been a misconception, from stolen forks to ice cream fights and beyond. And you learn to try to not be depressed when you see that friend of yours smoking, and the next day look into the face of an old woman or man who has lung cancer, from smoking. and that you are called "uptight" for having values, and actually sticking to them (what a novel idea). and only those who you are born to, born with, live with, are the ones who will stay. And you learn that the mindless haze is easier, but that you don't know how to learn to shut off your emotions to become numb, cold, detached like all the rest.

And then, suddenly, you learn that all you've learned can be forgotten with a smile from a stranger, or a bunny in the front yard, or that perfectly blue sky that fills you up like ice-cold water on a hot summer day.

And that Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is freakin awesome!.....and, SO FRUSTRATING!!! aaaaarrrggggg! if you've read it, you know what i mean. :-p :-D hehe..

Confucious says..

2005-07-09T21:37:00.000-06:00

On Saturday your inner demons will start rearing their ugly heads. You have been broken-hearted for some time, and by now you're starting to feel resentful. Take care not to burn too many bridges; be patient - all's well that ends well may come to have a special meaning to you.

I suppose it must be pretty dang easy to come up with a "horroscope" that will hit home with at least a third of the population that reads it. Because, after all, one third will be currently in blissful taken-ness, one third will actually be the targeted broken-hearted and resentful, and then the other third will also be so, but will have other things to do than care about a few sentences from some crackpot writer who is in serious need of a different day job.

My awesome towel has been sabatoged by my awesome face wash! :( I guess the medicine in my facewash has something that can bleach things, something that was conspicuously missing from the box, resulting in my awesome soft teal towel having icky bleached spots. *sigh* alas.

Gosh, I love Saturdays. I did whatever the heck I felt like. It was awesome. :-) I was looking around at the movie trailers on Apple's website, and I saw one for a movie called "Supercross" that comes out on August 19th. If there was ever a movie that by its title alone would make anybody see it, then "Supercross" is a movie that by its title alone, Matty will be seeing. I'm guessing. ;-)

By the way, wtf is up with half the people I know getting married/engaged this summer???

GRRAAWWRRRRRR. ahem.

2005-07-07T19:40:00.000-06:00

So this may be kind of a rambling entry. There are a whole lot of things going through my head, and it's driving me kinda nuts, and I want to write them all down but when you write something down, someone will always find it and read it, no matter how you try to prevent it.

There's a hurricaine in the Carribean. It's going to hit right where Fernando is.

What does it really mean when someone "can't handle big emotions right now" ?? I mean, what the heck is that all about? If you don't have time to feel, if you can't handle loving, or being loved in return, then what's the whole point of any of this? No, what's really meant is "can't handle big emotions for you right now" and as much as I don't want to let go, as much as I can't let go, I won't fall in step with all the others chasing after you. They're not even in sight, because your back is turned and you left your heart back at home, neatly tucked away. I miss you, I still love you, and I think you're full of crap.

I saw Batman again today.
"It's what you do that defines you."
"Maybe someday, when Gotham doesn't need Batman anymore, maybe then I'll see him again."

www.colorgenics.com says:

You are seeking an affectionate relationship, offering fulfillment and happiness. You are capable of powerful emotional enthusiasm. Deep down, you are a kind loving person, always helpful and willing to adapt yourself if necessary to realize the bond of affection that you desire. But you need the same consideration and understanding from others and it is this need that will sometimes hold you back... so let go, trust and you may pleasantly surprised at what happens.

Being impulsive and irritable, your desires and needs are paramount. You do things with insufficient thought - with little regard to the consequences that may follow. As a consequence of this attitude, you may be experiencing stress and conflict.

Conditions are rather confusing at this time. You would like to involved with a particular person or a particular situation but you are holding back. You find it difficult to make a decision.

You are trying to prove yourself - not only to yourself but also to everyone around you. There is much that you would like to say and do but the situation warrants self-restraint and that is the last thing that you have on your mind. It would seem that you have an unsatisfied need to ally yourself with others whose standards are as high as your own. You want to be different - to stand out from the crowd. This is subjecting you to considerable stress but you tend to stick to your attitudes despite lack of appreciation. Of course, you are finding the situation uncomfortable and would like nothing better but to break away from it but you don't like the idea of compromise. Your main problem is that you are unable to resolve the situation because you continually postpone making the necessary decisions. You feel that if you make the wrong choice this would lead to such opposition that you would not be able to command the esteem of others. It is essential that those around you are prepared to comply with your wishes.

You would like to be respected and valued for yourself and this can only be achieved from within a close and harmonious relationship.

hmmm...

Healing

2005-07-02T11:40:00.000-06:00

After a while you learn
the subtle difference
between
holding a hand
and chaining a soul
and you learn that love
doesn't mean leaning
and company doesn't
always mean security.

And you begin to learn
that kisses aren't contracts
and presents aren't promises
and you begin to accept
your defeats
with your head up and
your eyes ahead
with the grace of a woman
not the grief of a child

and you learn
to build all your roads on today
because tomorrow's ground is
too uncertain for plans
and futures have a way of
falling down in mid-flight.

after a while you learn
that even sunshine burns
if you get too much
so you plant your own garden
& decorate your own soul
instead of waiting
for someone to bring you
flowers.

and you learn
that you really can endure
and you keep learning
with every goodbye
you learn.

h.b.

Sweet like a kiss, sharp as a razor blade

2005-07-02T11:20:00.000-06:00

Wow, that was sure fast. It was only the night before last that I finally cleared everything up with Ryan, and I already have a date tonight. How crazy?? Yep. very crazy. Of course, it's a blind date, and I'm kinda scared, but it's a double date with a good friend. We're going to the Inner Harbor. I think this is the first date (that's actually been called an official "date") I've been on since.. oh, about a year ago. Good times.

I can't believe it's already July! :-) I'm excited to get back to Utah. I've been emailing back and forth with my little sister Emily, and holy crap she's so cute. And I miss my dad and step mom so much. And my Bee, of course! I'm SO excited, because Matty will still be in town when I get back, and Sarah and the girls will be there too, and my mom's gonna be out for Education Week, and Nick wants to take me out sometime soon after I get back, maybe boating on the 20th, and, and, and, yeah. :)

Things are looking up. My mom said the other day that it's easier to go up when you're starting from the bottom, and is actually quite hard to start in mid-air and go up. That was really interesting. So, no more of this "Just when you think you've hit rock bottom, it drills a ten-foot hole in itself" junk.

And Ashley and Christine are back from Hawaii. Hooray!

And I got a new awesome straightener. I need to get my hair cut.

Aaaand, I have 52 hours of work this week. :) I love overtime.

Now I'm gonna go do my whole jogging deal, and then un-gross-ify myself.

L'amour...c'est pour les foux.

2005-06-28T17:26:00.000-06:00

It's raining right now. You know, one of those summer storms where the clouds glum around all day, and then suddenly release all they've been holding back in the form of big, soft raindrops that soak you through in seconds. Life is like that, kinda.

Last night I found out why exactly things have felt wrong, like there was some piece of the puzzle that was hidden on the floor. And I found what was on that puzzle piece, too. I feel like such a fool.
when the truth came out, were you the last to know?

"Creativity is letting yourself make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep." -Samuel Adams

What color is your box?

Bring me down

2005-06-25T15:37:00.000-06:00

So I've been working a lot on the things that people have brought to my attention... Working on being a real person. On talking about things, about real things that mean something to me. But I'm so scared, because I find myself really not caring about a lot of things. I'm starting to be cynical about people, which I never have been. I have to catch myself to keep from saying mean things about people, which is something I've hardly ever had a problem with. I find myself thinking I'm never going to be able to let go of the last 3 years, and move on to someone new. Most of all, I'm scared because I don't want to. I miss him so freaking much, and i hate feeling this way... I feel like in the movie Hitch, where Albert is saying how he's okay with being miserable if it means he's still connected to her. But then again, I find myself starting to want to go away, and not have any friends.

It's like, as I'm trying to break down the walls around me, the floor is falling out from under my feet. I'm trying not to fall, and I'm trying not to cling ever more tightly to those walls to keep myself up, because I know that doing that will never do any good.. But it's so hard, guys. I don't know where to go when there is nothing around me, and nothing below me. I feel kind of like Wyle E. Coyote, when he's chasing the road runner, and he goes over the cliff but hasn't yet realized that he's in mid-air, just before he falls.

What do I do?

Toy soldier

2005-06-21T19:04:00.000-06:00

Vacations are so cool. At least this one has been very, very cool.

alright alright alright, let me recap a little. I don't know if I've updated since I saw Batman Begins, buuut.. holy CRAP it's awesome!! whoo, it's so cool. Christian Bale is freakin awesome. I used to have the biggest crush on him, back in the days of Newsies and Little Women, and now he's a human super hero. :) I still need to go see it again. I was supposed to go see it again with someone on Friday, but, well that didn't work out. Anyway. Saturday was pretty cool, I went to two friends' graduation parties. I can't believe time is going by so fast. Actually, no, I can. And that fact makes me very happy. Cuz the faster time goes, the faster tomorrow is today.

And that brings me to Sunday, which is when my mom and I came up here to New Jersey. Thus, here I am, sitting at a super swank hotel called The Westin, sleeping on heavenly beds and going to NEW YORK tomorrow. :) Cross your fingers for me, hope that we can get tickets to see WICKED!

Woot.

There, happy Bee? hehe :)

I have a friend, his name is lonely

2005-06-14T20:45:00.000-06:00

Absense makes the heart grow stronger. :)

"Relationships are for people who are waiting for something better to happen."

Interesting quote from "Hitch" that stuck out to me. Spoken by the anti-guy truly cynical character, who nonetheless attracts a very good, very handsome, very sweet and thoughtful guy. Ironic? I believe so.

you've outgrown me now, i suppose.. i loved you before you were superman. then, you were only beginning to spread your wings. but, alas, "a bird may love a fish, signore, but where would they live?" you're too good for me now. you deserve better than all i have to give.

In other news, it's hot. The end.

Today I threw your memory away

2005-06-07T20:23:00.000-06:00

People don't have any faith anymore. We don't have faith in other people. When something gets messed up, or when people get in our way, we automatically assume it's because they're stupid, or they're somehow out to ruin our plans (or even our lives). Why is it that when someone pulls into a lane right in front of you, cutting you off, that ti's just automatically assumed that person is crazy or retarded? Why, if someone messed up on a task they're given, are they put down on the "bad" list? Can't it be that the "crazy" driver is having a bad day, and has just gotten some bad news, or maybe just didn't see you? Or, when the person who is serving your food forgets to bring something to your table, why do people get so mad? Why can't we remember patience? Why don't we decide to assume the best about people rather than the worst? You never know what's going to happen to you, or who you're accidentally going to cut off on the highway, or which one of those "idiots" you're going to meet one day. It only brings us down to think that people are inherently bad. To put down someone we've never even met. Why in the world do we do that, anyway? Where did we learn it? Yeah, one person may actually be a stupid or crazy driver. Yeah, one person might actually be acting dangerously. But that's no excuse to dig ourselves into a big deep fatal pit of cynicism. There's someone out there who's suffering because of all the hate in the air. There's someone trying to stay happy, trying to keep smiling at that sad looking stranger, who's being brought down by your ignorant disapproval of that same sad stranger.

What about friendship, yeah what about friends?
You said the whole world was against you
And it all had to end
What about love? What about family?
What about all that you had to live for?
What if the world were a little more perfect?
Would you stop crying, would you take the leap?
Now what if the world were a little more perfect,
Would you open your eyes
And blink again for me?

It's not really that hard to be happy.

Pppttthhhbbbb

2005-06-01T21:00:00.000-06:00

Yesterday your fingers held mine
Yesterday I’d laugh every time
you’d speak
But today all I want is sleep
Cause, you see,
There’s a picture on my desk
Of the way things used to be
And there’s a letter in the drawer
Saying you’d stay here forever
That we’d last till tomorrow
But that was all yesterday
And yesterday has slipped out the back door
Now what today is for
Is waiting till I don’t love you anymore.

I'm sick of this... I'm ready for it to be over. This whole "slow motion devastation" thing is starting to get under my skin. I'm going to do something about it. Tomorrow. My blankets will be a little more lonely, my face not so shaded, and my bottom drawer a little less full, cuz that's how it's going to have to be. I don't know what's happened, or why, but it seems that yesterday has slipped out the back door. You do whatever you want to. Next week, I'm not gonna cry.

When the world sucks, that's when you stomp your feet and scream, "Go away, sucky world!" like a 3-year-old having a tantrum. Beautiful.

Whew, now that that's out of my system.......wait, I really don't have anything else to write about. lol YAY for having no life! :) I ran for 45 minutes straight today, that's exciting.. Well, it was just jogging, really, but so what? It rocks. I got 10 hours of overtime for last week. And, ladies and gents, (or, perhaps just one lady and one gent), The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants is not only a great book, but it has been turned into a great movie with a great soundtrack. I'm going to go fall asleep to said soundtrack, and not Dishwalla. Dishwalla shall be done with until further notice......."until I wake up." Yes, until I wake up.

Adieu.

Like all the good things, I ain't never comin' back!

2005-05-25T17:18:00.000-06:00

Woot. I FINALLY got my ATM card for my new bank account. Hooray for being able to access my money! Woot.

I have bad days lately.. But today wasn't oneof those day. Today was a good day. I got a lot done at work, and I organized all the extra office supplies above Jan's desk, and I got a whole lot of stuff ready for a big project that I'm going to be working on later this week or next week.. And I started moving files to the new set of shelves....and cut my finger pretty badly. hehe Don't you love when you cut yourself and dont' realize it until you look down and see blood everywhere? Yeah, that's kinda fun. After work, my mom and I ate at KFC. hehe, it was so silly. We ended up having to wait forever, because the chicken breasts were cooking and all, but we had a lot of fun just being silly. Some ladies from church are coming over tonight for a meeting with my mom, and I'm probably gonna take the car and just go driving, which is something I've been looking forward to for a long time. I need a driving buddy. Someone who I can just pick up when I'm in these moods, and just have them with me, not having to talk or anything. Just cruising, listening to the radio, with no pretenses and no worries and no awkwardness, and without me feeling like I need to make conversation. I wish Laura or Matt were here. Course, I don't think Laura would like the roads I'd go driving on, and I don't think Matt would be too happy about the music I'd be listening to on the radio. silly Matt with his heavy metal music. He's leaving pretty soon, for two years. It's a good thing Laura isn't leaving for two years, and that none of the other Chix are leaving either. Or else I'd be all alone! And that would be tres sad.

Anyway. I've decided I owe an apology to all two or three people who may read my blog every now and then. I say a lot of things in here that I don't really mean, and a lot of really depressing things, and although I know that it's my prerogative to write whatever the heck I feel like, I feel guilty that I subject others to the idiotic angst that is sometimes quite proliferate here. Take this as a disclaimer, if you will.

And on that note, I shall leave you with some lyrics from an exciting, self-uplifting song by Montgomery Gentry.

This ain't no give it time, "I'm hurt, but maybe we can work it out"
Won't be no champagne, red rose, romance, second chance
This is gone, gone, gone..

Gone like a freight-train, gone like yesterday
Gone like a soldier in the civil war, bang bang
Gone like a '59 Cadillac
Like all the good things that ain't never coming back
She's gone, gone, gone
She's gone!

Long gone, done me wrong
Never comin' back, my baby's gone
Lonely at home, sittin' all alone,
She's packed her bags and now she's gone
Never comin' back, she's gone
No no never, no no never, no never comin' back

My momma made cookies, and I am now the proud eater of a hot, fresh-baked chocolate chip cookie.

Type A vs Type Me

2005-05-22T19:03:00.000-06:00

I need to shower. I'm all dirty and sweaty.

I realized something today.. There are lots of different kinds of people in this world. (no, that wasn't what i realized.) There are the kinds of people who when they leave a room, people follow them, simply because to not be in the same room is torture. That's the kind of person that can walk away without fear of never being able to walk back again. They know they can do better than heartbreak, because they've already done better. They don't give up on themselves. That kind of person isn't lightly given up. They are the kind of people that songs are written about. They're confident because of the place they have in the world, and happy because they can run and someone will come after them to bring them back to where they're wanted. They always know what to say, and inspire others to be better. They are respected, followed, loved, and admired, and never have to feel this way. There is always someone out there waiting for them.
I've never been that kind of person. I'm the person who's left behind, in order to chase that other kind of person. I'm the one waiting to make someone smile. I won't be the one to run after you, with my face to your back, but if you turned around, I'd meet you in the middle. People feed the line that you can make a difference by just being "who you are". Yes, if you're type A person. If you're type Me, then being who you are gets nothing but once every other weekend and an empty message machine. You can't make a difference if you're not different. You can't change lives if your life is unremarkable.

The time has come
To move ahead
And find what waits for me

There's gotta be something more
Gotta be more than this
I need a little less hard time
I need a little more bliss
I'm gonna take my chances
Taking a chance I might
Find what I'm looking for
There's gotta be something more

Firewall on the heart

2005-05-20T20:17:00.000-06:00

This post is just for you, Jenna. Really. (just kidding. hehe)

Does anyone know if Microsoft can program a firewall for your heart, so the bad stuff can't get in? Wait, Microsoft sucks. It better be something else. Matt would say Linux. There, just for you, Matty.

This is another one of my bipolar days. I'm pissed off, and I'm sad. I'm seriously debating whether or not to rant, leave some cryptic (or not so cryptic) song lyrics/(not so)original poetry, lie about what a great week it's been, say how excited I am to not be dressing up tomorrow night (sarcasm) or just to not write about anything at all.

I'll go for door # 2.....

I remember when I was in third or fourth grade, my class went to the library one day to learn about the Dewey Decimal System. The librarian took advantage of the time she had to read us a book. We were still at the age that if someone read a book out loud, it was a very short book, usually read after the sun went down. So about halfway through the book, I got bored and stopped listening. Especially when this old lady started crying for absolutely no apparent reason.
And then a little while ago, I came across the book again. I wanted to have a copy, but since I'm cheap and poor, I found it on the internet instead. No cute pictures, but the words are still the same. I read it again tonight. It is so much different now. The words mean something totally new. Perhaps it's simply because I understand them a little better. I have felt what it describes, I've been through what it talks about. In another ten years, I know I'll feel the story even deeper than I do now.

http://www.mit.edu/people/adorai/seuss/seussboy.html

I'm so scared and excited for my friends that are going off to college in the fall. I'm scared that they'll play Humpty Dumpty, because the wall you sit on while you're in high school can be quite high indeed, and can have quite a devastating fall. I'm excited because they'll be climbing their own mountains. They'll surpass their wildest dreams. And if they don't (for sometimes you won't) then that's okay too, because life isn't about doing great things, or creating great masterpieces, or changing the world.. It's about simply doing things. It's about creating, no matter how great or small the masterpiece. You live, you learn, you love, you fall, and you get back up again, and it doesn't matter if your heart is broken.. or if your plans for you don't turn out the way you wanted. "Flowers fade, the fruits of summer fade" but they give way to bright, beautiful colors of Autumn. Yes, you have to endure several weeks of gross and gloomy weather in the meantime, but so what? If there's one thing that's constant, it's that time will always keep moving. God stays in control of things, whether you like it that way or not.

So bring me that horizon. Bring me that mountain. Or whatever.

And I miss Kris and Bee. :(

Mientes tan bien

2005-05-14T22:26:00.000-06:00

Yeah, I never liked you anyway.

Empty chairs at all the tables

2005-05-14T11:16:00.000-06:00

Due to my bipolarness, now I feel bad about my last entry. I was tired and moody and mad at so many different people, and different situations, and how much the various situations suck, and I'm pissed at myself for not being okay with the suckiness. This is exactly why I don't speak, especially when I'm emotional. Because I say all kinds of stupid nonsensical things that I don't entirely mean.

I made a cute box this morning. :)

Moments never die until they're forgotten

2005-05-13T19:52:00.000-06:00

I get very bipolar. One day I'm happy, more or less content with the way things are.. and the next, I'm totally pissed off and just want to scream at somebody. Or, everybody

I won't be the one to chase you
but at the same time you're the heart I call home
I'm always stuck with these emotions
And the more I try to feel the less I'm whole
My tears are turning into time I've wasted tryin to find
The reason for goodbye.....
..honestly tell me that it's over
And I'll be the first to go

It's been 3 weeks. If you wanted to talk to me, you would call me. If you wanted to see me, you would drive the 2 miles and come over. If you wanted anything to do with me, you wouldn't be ignoring me right now and spending your time doing things you don't even enjoy. Like a fairy tale where it works out in the end, can I wake up, find you lying here again? Then I come back down, then I fade back in, and then I realize.. it's just what might have been. You've become something different. You've smothered the good, true person I once knew, and replaced that person with a craving, distinerested coldness. You can't deal with emotion right now. Well, then don't be surprised when emotion can't deal with YOU. You'll wake up and realize you dream me while you're sleeping after all. I'm sick. Your mistress, this time you're wasting, this numbness you've adopted, they'll all fail you. The more you try to push it away, the more you tell yourself you dont' care, the harder it pulls at you. You're looking. You're searching. You keep holding your breath while you're trying to breathe. You're going to suffocate soon, and you know it. You're just scared. I'm sick of this dry rain. I don't want to care what happens next fall. I don't want to die inside thinking of all the things you'll walk into wide-eyed, experience feeling exhilerated, and leave feeling empty.

What are you running from?

trapped within yourself, the lies
you tell so you can hide
from what you really want.
Your eyes, a window to your heart
Your smile, a fixed piece
of the silly show you're making
the silly part you're playing
Heart breaker,
You know you want more
The heart you're breaking is yours.

You are anxious

2005-05-12T20:07:00.000-06:00

I have been strongly reprimanded for not posting in here, so allow me to refer you to for more info on the..ahem.. wonder that is miss Holly Bradford.

Anyway. enough with the pleasantries. So, I've been home for almost 3 weeks, and I've seen NO ONE. I'm a big fat loser, as it has occured to me. I realized it's a month into summer, and I've had no summer at all, and probably wont have any summer cuz I have no friends. woot.

Listen to the whales. They know what's best.

The whales tell me to go to sleep. Geez, they really DO know what's best. So, a bientot!

The wizard and I

2005-05-02T17:43:00.000-06:00

Jenna -- I don't know, yours sounded pretty close. Mine, however......

Your Birthdate: March 17

Your birth on the 17th day of the month suggests that you are very lucky financially, because this date indicates a solid business sense.

Although you are probably very honest and ethical, this birthday enables you to be shrewd and successful in the world of business and commercial enterprise.

You have excellent organizational, managerial, and administrative capabilities enabling you to handle large projects and significant amounts of money with relative ease.

You are ambitious and highly goal-oriented, although you may be better at starting projects than you are at finishing them.

A sensitivity in your nature, often repressed below the surface of awareness, makes it hard to give or receive affection.

What Does Your Birth Date Mean?

very lucky financially? kinda, i suppose, as of late, what with jobs that i wouldn't have were it not for my mom. solid business sense? i think not. excellent with handling large projects? i can barely handle teeny tiny projects! i guess i'm better at handling big things than I am with small things, but.. hmmmm... and it's DEFINITELY not hard for me to give affection!.. hehe anyway, just thought it was interesting. :)

Like a handprint on my heart

2005-04-29T22:08:00.000-06:00

Today was a pretty good day. I noticed something on the way to drop something off with my mom, something off a road I've been on thousands of times, and never noticed before. It's just one little tree, but it made me so happy. It's amazing how one small thing can make (or break...) a good day. After work, my mom and I did some shopping, which was cool. We finally got a frame for my bed, which I'll be putting together tomorrow (woot) and so that's fun. Aaand, I got a couple much-needed tanktops/undershirts. Yay. And then I was gonna hang out with Meryem but didn't end up doing that...which made me sad but we'll hang out sometime next week. So Ryan came over for a bit, and helped me move some boxes downstairs to our little storage room and we chatted for a while. It was cool. I always forget how much that kid takes on himself. There's so much he never talks about anymore, though. I miss the Ryan I used to know, but I suppose I need to start getting to know the new one, if we're gonna stay friends. That's the cool thing about growing up -- you get to know a whole TON of different people... even if it's just the same people you've known forever. But you change, and they change, and sometimes you lose friends to the people they become (or the person you've become), but sometimes you get to have a brand new friend with all the same memories.
But sometimes you wish things didn't have to be just memories.

Goodnight..

2005-04-27T20:30:00.000-06:00

Why am I so scared and upset? I've known for two years that things would turn out this way. "Dreams are for rookies," in the immortal words of Disney's Hercules. You're too fixated on the things that aren't going to matter to you in a few years, and it's changing how you think, how you act, how you speak, who you are. I can't be what you need me to be, and you won't be what I need you to be. So why am I so scared and upset?

My heart can't possibly break
when it wasn't even whole to start with..

So breathe, just breathe..

2005-04-26T21:17:00.000-06:00

So, I'm home. Or, at least, I'm here in Maryland. I don't think I really know what "home" means anymore. One thing/place/person used to feel like "home," but things change when you're not looking. Colors change in autumn while you're sleeping, when it's cold at night. Lives change while you're not in them. The world keeps spinning even when you're floating above it, or sinking deep into it. I miss feeling at home. I don't know when home will happen again.

Work starts much sooner than I would like. I'll be making quite a bit more money than I've ever made in my life... but life is starting to cost money. lol I'll be glad when the next four years are over.

I wish some things didn't have to change. Or, I wish that I could make myself feel okay about things changing. To not randomly burst into tears while driving past old memories.

I need to sing again. Singing makes me happy. :) And happiness is good...and much needed.

"Cause you can't jump the track
We're like cars on a cable and life's like an hourglass glued to the table,
No one can find the rewind button, girl
So just cradle your head in your hands.
And breathe, just breathe, whoa breathe...
just breathe"

...what about the fast forward button?... hehe :)

My give-a-darn's busted.

2005-04-22T09:59:00.000-06:00

I'm tired of being at this point. I'm tired of wondering, of being afraid to talk simply because I'm scared of the reply. I don't need to know what's going to happen, but I do need to know what's going on. I don't want to live in a world of questions anymore, a world of make believe..the world where Holly says, "I like to think things are this way, so of course they really are, and I can pretend that it's this way for as long as I want." Distance brings comfort, no matter what they teach you in fairy tales. 'Tis not better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all, because lost love was just wasted time. The only love worth wasting time on is the one that won't be lost. I want to enjoy the things I used to enjoy. There's not as much laughter anymore... but that's going to change. To the world of bad-ness: you suck, and shall go away.

Every so often, we long to steal
To the land of what-might-have-been
But that doesn't soften the ache we feel
When reality sets back in
-wicked

In other news... Sahara is a freakin awesome fun movie. Katie now spends almost all of her time on ldschat.com and went on a date last night with a guy she met there. She got all huffy mad at me for not talking as much as she wanted me to, for "not telling her anything", and yet I had to force her to tell me about her date she was so excited about.

The girls are pulling away... It's like I already don't exist. Next year's going to be fun.

The Mars Volta is coming to Utah tonight... I want to go. But, alas, sold out.

I'm tired.. lots of packing to do.. boxes to find, Jamba to buy, junk to toss, family to see... who knows. :( i'm gonna miss my sissie.

Moments never die

2005-04-19T21:01:00.000-06:00

So I've been doing a lot of thinking lately. I know, I know....those things are bad for you... but one can't really help it at such a time as now.

I'm having a really hard time figuring out why I don't want to be in college. It could be that I liked high school an abnormal amount, or maybe I'm just not a college person. Some people aren't... but that's not acceptable in today's world. All people have to have either 12 years of college or be really really rich to be considered a human being worthy of consideration. I don't know what I'm going to do next fall. I have to be a full time student somewhere during the fall, for insurance purposes. But I just don't know if I'm going to be coming back to BYU or not. Then again, if I do, then I'm going to do the DisneyWorld internship next winter, which would be really cool. aaaaand, yeah. I think I'd miss my sister too much if I didn't come home.

I really need to bite the bullet and quit this. It's not doing anyone any good, and nothing is going to end up the way I've always planned/wanted. But I guess I'll see soon enough.

Four days. That's all... four days and then I'll be home. Hooray!! :) I'll have friends! hehe

Well, I suppose I should go study for my two last finals. Adieu!

Some thoughts...

2005-04-08T10:48:00.000-06:00

Never be afraid to stand up for what you believe in. People notice you, respect you, and you never know whose life you might change just by being true to yourself.

They say "No one is perfect until you fall in love with them". But I have come to disagree, in a way. Maybe being in love with someone is knowing all their faults, all their imperfections, and by knowing them you love them all the more. You love them, not despite of everything, but because of everything. You love them because you know, deep in your soul, that all of the little things that may be imperfect don't matter in the long run, and you know your life without their imperfect self is empty and lonely. They may be imperfect, but they're perfect for you.

Never promise someone that you will never hurt them, and never expect someone to promise they will never hurt you. It's impossible. Go into relationships knowing you WILL be hurt at one point, be prepared, understand that everyone makes mistakes, and give unconditional love anyway. Without pain, we would never grow. Grow, and cry, and heal, and love.

A perfect kiss is not perfect because of the circumstances surrounding it, no matter what you might have heard from Cinderella or Sleeping Beauty. It is perfect because it's his lips and your lips, his breath and your breath, his soul and your soul, intermingled to make one perfect being, and right then, all time stands still and you can live for eternity in this one perfect moment.

Defying gravity

2005-04-06T00:05:00.000-06:00

It’s just you
It’s just me
Here, now
My head on your chest
Gentle and still.
Eyes closed
Softly breathing
Dreaming together.
Nothing spoken
Yet so much said.
Impossible love
When eyes open
But right now
It’s just you.
And it’s just me.
Here, forever
Now.
Moments never die until they're forgotten
Dreams never sleep until they're deserted
Forever here now
Because moments never die until they're forgotten
Nothing is forgotten.

So much for my happy ending

2005-04-04T16:00:00.000-06:00

I won't be a punching bag anymore, not for you and not for me. I'm starting from scratch. It's time I stood on my own, time to start healing the damage that you and I have both inflicted on me. I won't be the person I'm starting to become.

I've realized again that it's not going to work. It's not going to come true. I think I've been let go of... and it's time for me to let go too. Maybe.. arg. lol

Holly, what's wrong with you? Why do you put these hard things off? Do you think that someone's going to waltz in with Scotch tape and put all the pieces together just right? No one's going to make these things better. It will all be okay, eventually.. you just need to bite the freakin bullet.

I've finalized my decision to leave the Six Chicks and not live at the apartment next year. I don't know where I'm going to live, or if I'm going to be able keep at least four of them as friends.
Hey, oh well. I've started from scratch before, haven't I? I can do it again.

To my future: Bring it.

(the thing with the saying "all good things come to an end" is that all BAD things come to an end too.. it's just that the bad things come to an end much slower than the good.)

Once again

2005-03-26T11:11:00.000-07:00

I just have to say, I love my sister with all of my heart! She always watches out for me. She always makes sure I have friends, even if it means sharing her own friends. Not only does she not mind if her kid sister tags along, she invites me along. She's saved my life a number of times, and she is one of my very very favoritest people in the whole wide world. She's gonna be famous. :)

Happy Easter tomorrow!

In this world, there's real and make-believe

2005-03-23T21:15:00.000-07:00

Steve Lynes died on Monday night from head injuries. He was in my ward. We had a memorial service for him today. He was such a great guy. His parents are so strong and amazing, especially his mom. Bishop Peterson read us a letter she'd written him to read to us. I'm certain he's so happy now, and that he's close by.

Fought with Katie right after about something nice I did for someone that she refused to participate in, even after 20 minutes of begging. And the worst part is, the only thing I could think the whole way through the service was how I would absolutely NOT be able to handle it if anything happened to her. She doesn't know what it's like to be CONSTANTLY terrified that you're going to come home and find your roommate, who's practically a sister, dead on the floor.

:( Please, let me get out of here tomorrow.

Sweet 18

2005-03-17T17:46:00.000-07:00

Kiss me, I'm LEGAL!

hehe.. yay, now I can go to clubs and stuff. w00t. and, it's been a GREAT day. For details, go to my livejournal. And if you don't know what my livejournal link is... maybe there's a reason. ;-) Hehe, juust kidding. I'm lazy, so I'm not gonna put in a link. So just ask me, if you want to know. :)

Much love!

Races that aren't fair

2005-03-15T12:31:00.000-07:00

So this is about the third time within the past few days that I've gone to update my blog, then got distracted and didn't actually finish. We'll see if I actually finish today!

Yay, my birthday is in two days. That's exciting, mostly. lol I'll finally be 18, and won't have to have my parents sign things anymore. (Yeah, now that I'm almost a sophomore in college, I can be considered an "adult"... well, legally anyway.)

I've been worrying about money lately. I'm still debating over whether or not to join the business venture... because I don't know if it will actually turn out to be profitable for me. I don't think I could really actually get people to sign up under me, and then it would just be $250 that I spent for nothing. I'm also worrying about next year. I really think I can save up enough money to cover rent and food... but what if my mom does what she's thinking about and decides to leave Johns Hopkins to move out here? I'll still get half tuition, but I'll also still have that extra $820 per semester to pay. I'm planning on having a job.. But I want to be able to live next year. I don't want to be stuck at home all the time because I have no money and no means of doing anything. Unless I find some super rich guy to take me out all the time.. ;-) hehe juuuust kidding. Anyway. lol I've deviated. So I guess the point is, I should have enough, which is important. But I want more than enough, so I can live a college student's fun life. lol

Anyway. Let's see, what else can I ramble on uselessly about for the next 13 minutes before going to class?... Well, Katie says she has some surprise thing for me today. She won't tell me what it is, but we're leaving at 4:30 for it, and Quinky's coming with us. I'm quite curious to see what it's going to be. She won't stop talking about it, but also won't tell me. lol so, it's interesting. :)

Tomorrow, I have quite a bit to do.. I have to do my Calculus homework, go to class, do my lab, take/fail my Chem test.. Not to mention start my Chem homework that's due Friday, and start HEPE quizzes. Alright. Good times.... not. But hey, the light of tomorrow is that' it's ALIAS DAY! Woot. That's the best day of the week.

Okay, that's enough. I'm done with my obligatory update for now. Fare thee well..

Good song: Avion - "When I Breathe"

And I don't want to be the first to call to show that I still care
'Cause every time we speak I fall apart
You know you've got me there

[Chorus:]
But time will make it all feel better
Like salve upon a wound you soon won't see
Time will erase the scars I've weathered
But as for now it only hurts
When I breathe

And I don't want to be the one you love cause no one else is there
I was never good as runner-up in races that aren't fair

What a conundrum

2005-03-07T00:19:00.000-07:00

So, I haven't really updated since it turned March. I can't believe it's actually March. How did that happen?? My birthday is in 10 days. Ryan is coming in 23 days. I have 5 1/2 weeks of class left, and then finals, then I go home for the whole summer. YAY. Okay, so on to business.

Observations:
-I am actually in fact slightly to moderately antisocial, but not in a bad "i hate people" kind of way.
-Gaining weight when I'm trying to lose weight is somewhat inevitable
-My appetite goes on vacation during season changes. ie, it's turning into Spring, so my appetite has packed and gone to Cancun for a week or two..
-Time does in fact pass, no matter what. And although the little choices you make in the meantime do matter somewhat, in reality daily crap really doesn't matter one single bit. What's the use in getting all huffed up about stuff?
-The main reason I'm doing so badly this semester is because I'm around people too much. I need to spend more time alone.

Extended version of last observation:
-When I was at home during high school, I was almost always alone. I didn't really get to see other people my age very much, because I was a dufus with no car or social life. lol but anyway, I did really well in that situation. I got things done. I could concentrate for long enough to be useful to myself. I didn't have to deal with anybody else's crap unless I wanted to (usually). Here at college, however, I'm CONSTANTLY with people. Even when I'm on campus in the library somewhere, I always see somebody I know. And if I'm not with somebody I know, then I'm always looking for someone. When I'm at home, then I'm always expecting Katie to come home (if she's not home) or she'll be sleeping or wanting to hang out. Then there are the other 4 of us, (Emily, Tessa, Quinky, Laura) that I always want to hang out with. Granted, Laura's going home on Tuesday so that "takes care" of that. I need to be alone. I need to have somewhere I can go easily where I can completely isolate myself.

Possible solution to problem:
-Move into Laura's empty room when she leaves, for the rest of the semester.

Problems with above solution:
-Katie.
-Katie.
-Katie.

Possible outcomes:
-Katie would get very bitter, and possibly get either:
a) more depressed, or
b) more distant towards me.
Neither of which are desirable in the least.

Question:
So, what should I do? What's best for me is to move out. But I'm not the only one in the equation. I know the obvious answer is the whole "self-preservation first" thing, but... It's not quite that simple with my roommate. The situation is...delicate.

Oh goodness. What to do, what to do... I hate this, really.

In other news!.... I can't wait for Ryan to get out here. I miss him so much. And I'm coming down with a cold. Woot.

Change Your Mind

2005-03-01T23:10:00.000-07:00

Sister Hazel - Change Your Mind
Hey, Hey
Did you ever think
There might be another way
To just feel better,
Just feel better about today

Oh no-
If you never want to have
To turn and go away
You might feel better,
Might feel better if you stay

[Pre-chorus]
Yeah yeah
I bet you haven't heard
A word I've said
Yeah yeah
If you've had enough
Of all your tryin'
Just give up
The state of mind you're in:

[Chorus]
If you want to be somebody else,
If you're tired of fighting battles with yourself
If you want to be somebody else
Change your mind...

Hey hey-
Have you ever danced in the rain
Or thanked the sun
Just for shining- just for shining
O'er the sea?
Oh no- take it all in
The world's a show
And yeah, you look much better,
Look much better when you glow

[Pre-chorus/chorus]

Hey hey-
what ya say
We both go and seize the day
'cause what's your hurry
what's your hurry anyway

You know, other people will ALWAYS let you down. You can't be number 1 on someone else's list until you're Number 1 on your own list. Other people's lists can change. Yours can only change if you allow it to be that way. YOU are the only one who has a say in how you feel. You own your actions, your feelings, your voice, your mouth, your body. You have the tools to survive, to be close to others, to be productive, to make sense and order out of the world of people and things outside of you. Only YOU. No one else can make you happy. No one else can give you the comfort, the security, the companionship that you need. If you keep looking outside, all you'll find are a whole lot of dead ends. Disappointments. More tears. More heartache. Maybe you don't think you know how to find it within yourself. Maybe you don't know how to just LET yourself be happy. Well, you'll figure it out. You're going to have to. So start now.

One moment can take it all away

2005-02-26T15:14:00.000-07:00

So I officially suck at college. I am definitely going to be on academic probation after this semester. As of this week (hopefully), I am getting involved in a new business that's potentially going to pay me really well, and I really hope everything goes well..because I don't know how I'm ever going to get anywhere with college. Maybe I can be like Bill Gates and quit college, and still become a millionaire. Woot.

I had alcohol for the first time in my life on Saturday. I just about cried my eyes out in the middle of a restaurant with people I didn't know... I went with Katie up to her house, and we went to dinner at Chilli's with her parents and her cousins.. and Katie ordered a VIRGIN margarita, but apparently our waiter didn't hear her say "virgin" the two times she said it loudly. Anyway, so the drinks come, and i was all excited and I asked for a drink.. but she was like "I have to have the first drink!" So she takes a huge mouthful and I immediately take a little one, and my first thought was "Wow, this tastes different than I remember Margaritas tasting..." Then it turned into "Holy crap, what is that awful aftertaste?" And apparently Katie had the same thoughts, and she swallowed before me, and she said "Is this virgin?" And the waiter was like "Uhh...no.." And she was like "WELL IT'S SUPPOSED TO BE!" ..... Oh my gosh.. I can't even tell you how upset I was. Yeah yeah, it was an accident, whatever.. but one stupid sip ruined one of my very few lifetime goals: to never, ever have had ANY alcohol. Our waiter took it away and brought one that was actually virgin, but.. If it had just been me and katie and her parents, I probably would have bawled my eyes out.

Anyway.. other than that, the weekend was pretty good. (Wait, no, that's a lie..) But I did get to play with puppies and go hot tubbing. So, I guess that evens out the three classes I'm failing (getting Ds) in. Woot!

....I think maybe I lied before when I said I'm not depressed..

Oh l'amour

2005-02-23T00:13:00.000-07:00

So, the past few days have been really good. Friday night I went with Katie&Co. up to Katie's house to see her puppies. Holy cow, they're SOO cute! Anyway, in that process, we got to watch two great movies, eat really good food, ride in/drive a Viper (yes, a Viper), got pocket knives and precious gems.. and played with incredibly cute and cuddly puppies. The rest of the long weekend was good, too. Sunday was good, overall. I got to see some people I haven't seen in a long time, at a friend's farewell I went to with Liz and her boyfriend. Monday was really good.. Tessa, Emily, me, and Quincy borrowed Quink's brother's car and went to Provo Town mall to see Hitch. GREAT movie, by the way.. I highly suggest it. Then we ate in the food court, went to Vicky's (hehe) etc etc.. We came home, slept for a while, then me and Em and Tessa went out to hang out with Em's friend Kyle. We watched Blue Streak and went bowling.. (my two lowest bowling scores ever. woot!) Then today I was a total and complete bum, and I loved every minute of it. As always. lol

Katie and I watched Where The Heart Is tonight. I don't know why, but sometimes I wish I had grown up in the South.

My Katie might apply for a Disneyworld internship. She wants me to do it with her. I think it would be SO much fun... my friend Hayley is there right now. I probably wouldn't apply for a character position, but rather one in the performance section.... I think it would be fun, but I don't know if I want to do it... It probably wouldn't happen anyway. hehe

Anyway. What else? Ryan and Steph are both going to come out and visit me. I'm SO excited. Ryan's coming on March 30th. It's so soon! This semester seems to be going by so fast. I definitely like it that way... I can't wait until this summer. It might be boring, I'll probably be working all the time, and barely be able to see my friends... but I don't care. College is killing me, and I need a break. I need time to get my focus back, to figure things out. I'm not really looking forward to how hot and humid it is back east, or the fact that we're living with other people, but I don't care about that either. I'm going to miss my girls like crazy, plus the few other friends I have out here, but I'm just so anxious to go back. And I think I know the reason... A hug, anytime I want it. A pond in the rain, 20+ mosquito bites. Off-roading. Stupid movies. So much...