By the time I get my pictures on, I'm so sick of Blogger that I want to say nothing else. I hope you enjoy these pics as much as I enjoyed my summer.
Monday, September 1, 2008
Looking back
By the time I get my pictures on, I'm so sick of Blogger that I want to say nothing else. I hope you enjoy these pics as much as I enjoyed my summer.
Saturday, August 30, 2008
p.s.
I don't really look down on people who shop at the bookstore. I have been worried that some readers might take me seriously.
Friday, August 29, 2008
The BYU Bookstore
I've never felt okay about purchasing clothes at the bookstore. Yes, it is a matter of pride. Yes, I look down on people who do buy clothes at the bookstore. (Don't worry if you are one of them because I will never know, and thus only look down on you generally and not specifically. This has interesting ramifications, since you now know that I look down on you and I don't. Strange.) Even though I have forbidden myself from buying clothes there, I sometimes walk through the clothes section wistfully fingering shirts and scanning the shoe collection*. On these occasions, I find myself wondering if the other shoppers think I'm actually shopping there, instead of just checking things out. Kind of like scoping the competition.
Why? Why do I feel this way? Even as a freshman, I instictively felt that buying clothes at the bookstore was something one did not do if one wanted to maintain one's oh-tres-cool role in the BYU cosmos. (Fun fact: did you know that the definition of cosmos is not simply a universe, but an ordered or harmonious universe? Making it the perfect word to describe BYU, Thank you dictionary.com for making me smarter one word at a time.) It has nothing to do with the styles of the clothes--ah! Suddenly I know why, and as a reader you should know that this is breaking news type of personal discovery, not some manufactured artificial realization. So here goes: 1. deep down I always pictured the buyers for the bookstore as older, out of touch mormon women who were making purchases based on what their daughters were into; 2. I didn't want to conform to the BYU sanctioned look, thinking that what they buy to sell must be what they hope we will wear....
At least my irrationality is never a surprise to me, having been diagnosed with irrational fears by complete strangers in the past.
*Here I reveal my hypocrisy. Once I bought a pair of magenta slip-ons from the bookstore because they were $15 and I'm a sucker for deals and I was going far away from BYU for the summer...incidentally I mixed up which hand was which and threw my shoes away promptly upon purchase because I thought they were the empty shoebox. Which act put me in the hilarious position of having to fetch my bookstore apparel out of a metal-lidded garbage can. Yuck.
Why? Why do I feel this way? Even as a freshman, I instictively felt that buying clothes at the bookstore was something one did not do if one wanted to maintain one's oh-tres-cool role in the BYU cosmos. (Fun fact: did you know that the definition of cosmos is not simply a universe, but an ordered or harmonious universe? Making it the perfect word to describe BYU, Thank you dictionary.com for making me smarter one word at a time.) It has nothing to do with the styles of the clothes--ah! Suddenly I know why, and as a reader you should know that this is breaking news type of personal discovery, not some manufactured artificial realization. So here goes: 1. deep down I always pictured the buyers for the bookstore as older, out of touch mormon women who were making purchases based on what their daughters were into; 2. I didn't want to conform to the BYU sanctioned look, thinking that what they buy to sell must be what they hope we will wear....
At least my irrationality is never a surprise to me, having been diagnosed with irrational fears by complete strangers in the past.
*Here I reveal my hypocrisy. Once I bought a pair of magenta slip-ons from the bookstore because they were $15 and I'm a sucker for deals and I was going far away from BYU for the summer...incidentally I mixed up which hand was which and threw my shoes away promptly upon purchase because I thought they were the empty shoebox. Which act put me in the hilarious position of having to fetch my bookstore apparel out of a metal-lidded garbage can. Yuck.
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
Reunited and it feels so good, ooh
I'm back at the BY and not a big fan of the pastelly "Charlie goes to Candy Mountain" background on the computer screens. There is a little pamphlet next to my computer entitled, "Answers to Common Questions." I would love to flip the page and find:
1. Yes
2. No
3. About an hour
4. The restroom is right around the corner
So the pamphlet I am envisioning slightly resembles a magic eight ball. Weird.
Do you ever wonder if you are boring? Like not on occasion, not when you haven't had enough sleep, not when you aren't reading enough books--but in your core, in your personality line-up, coming before bossy and after boastful. Perhaps being boring could count as a legitimate personal disadvantage, for which you could get a life handicap like in golf. I often wonder if I am boring (this is not a solicitation for comments on how non-boring I am, (Marie being most likely to respond with such), and in fact such comments are not allowed (note the bossiness)), and the thought doesn't really make me upset which is proof that it might be true.
I have always believed that boredom is a lens people put over their eyes--not a quality inherent in a subject or lesson, but since this belief doesn't allow me to be a boring person, I'm forced to give it up. Boredom is back on the menu.
When I was wondering about the me being boring thing, I remembered a recent dinner where I won the last portion of Kobe beef for having the best embarrassing moment. So maybe I'm not a boring person, just an embarrassing person.
Cheers.
ps I'm on an unexpected break right now in my job training, and I have the sneaking suspicion that my comrades are all using their break time to be productive and create brilliant lesson plans (things that boring people are happily excused from just by nature of incapability) while I piddle around on my blog.
1. Yes
2. No
3. About an hour
4. The restroom is right around the corner
So the pamphlet I am envisioning slightly resembles a magic eight ball. Weird.
Do you ever wonder if you are boring? Like not on occasion, not when you haven't had enough sleep, not when you aren't reading enough books--but in your core, in your personality line-up, coming before bossy and after boastful. Perhaps being boring could count as a legitimate personal disadvantage, for which you could get a life handicap like in golf. I often wonder if I am boring (this is not a solicitation for comments on how non-boring I am, (Marie being most likely to respond with such), and in fact such comments are not allowed (note the bossiness)), and the thought doesn't really make me upset which is proof that it might be true.
I have always believed that boredom is a lens people put over their eyes--not a quality inherent in a subject or lesson, but since this belief doesn't allow me to be a boring person, I'm forced to give it up. Boredom is back on the menu.
When I was wondering about the me being boring thing, I remembered a recent dinner where I won the last portion of Kobe beef for having the best embarrassing moment. So maybe I'm not a boring person, just an embarrassing person.
Cheers.
ps I'm on an unexpected break right now in my job training, and I have the sneaking suspicion that my comrades are all using their break time to be productive and create brilliant lesson plans (things that boring people are happily excused from just by nature of incapability) while I piddle around on my blog.
Monday, July 21, 2008
on age
"You can't teach an old dog new tricks--because it's illegal." --Michael Scott
I know I've already posted this quotation on my blog, but given today's subject I thought you'd forgive me a repeat. Plus, when is Michael Scott a bad idea?
What is age anyway but the day you get sent to earth, and yet it rules so many things: who gets to tell whom what is right and wrong, who gets to sit on public buses and who ought to stand...it's just a succession of numbers with maturity levels attached. At 8 you're accountable, at 18 you can vote, at 24-- you can work at scout camp.
We categorize ourselves in many ways (the old and young or the smart and dumb or the man and woman) so that we are each a string of adjectives, depending on which side of the binary we fall. We love distinguishing ourselves and establishing social rank however we can. If we didn't have numbers we'd come up with another way to name age, I'm sure.
Birthdays get me thinking this way. And funerals. And spending afternoons with my sister's children who are so small against the earth, with hearts bigger than mouths to express it. ! I have to go of a sudden. Finish the rest on your own.
I know I've already posted this quotation on my blog, but given today's subject I thought you'd forgive me a repeat. Plus, when is Michael Scott a bad idea?
What is age anyway but the day you get sent to earth, and yet it rules so many things: who gets to tell whom what is right and wrong, who gets to sit on public buses and who ought to stand...it's just a succession of numbers with maturity levels attached. At 8 you're accountable, at 18 you can vote, at 24-- you can work at scout camp.
We categorize ourselves in many ways (the old and young or the smart and dumb or the man and woman) so that we are each a string of adjectives, depending on which side of the binary we fall. We love distinguishing ourselves and establishing social rank however we can. If we didn't have numbers we'd come up with another way to name age, I'm sure.
Birthdays get me thinking this way. And funerals. And spending afternoons with my sister's children who are so small against the earth, with hearts bigger than mouths to express it. ! I have to go of a sudden. Finish the rest on your own.
Sunday, July 13, 2008
Not you! I don't even know you people!
Does anyone read this any more? You who do, you faithful, I salute you. It's another one of those disparate thought days, so prepare to do do some jumping.
There are many things I am sure I could find (camelback, nail polish remover, headband, bike stand, checkbook, etc. etc. etc.) if I was willing to look hard, and by hard I mean at all. As a friend once told me, "I am not a digger." Show yourself or be forgotten. This means I can never store things deep--just one layer--which means I will need a ridiculous amount of storage space. That will be quite costly.
I forgot how distracting home is, where the bathroom is right next to the kitchen is right next to the laundry all in one nice building. I put some toast in today and decided to shave my legs, just for the convenience of it. My toast burned, which reminds me, my straightener is plugged in upstairs.... At camp, going to the bathroom takes foresight and planning. I most likely need to take my water bottle because I will want to go straight to the dining hall after and it would be silly to backtrack to my tent.
About what I am doing: taking "boy scouts" on mountain bike rides. Video games have destroyed the young generation. Working up a sweat on the Wi does not count as exercise. It's all very sad.
Pictured below is the number one threat to my summer paycheck, which at the Hoback Market costs a hefty $4.50. This is what I use to chase down the mounds of processed food I consume each day(hotdogschickennuggetstetonmcmuffinssteakpotatopearlschipscookiescookiescookieschipscinnamontoastersyumyumyumbelievable).
.
Do you know how lovely Jackson is in the summertime? A choice moment: coming up over the ridge on the Munger Mountain trail into a field of balsam root right at sunset with the Tetons at my back.
Outside is the new in, people.
There are many things I am sure I could find (camelback, nail polish remover, headband, bike stand, checkbook, etc. etc. etc.) if I was willing to look hard, and by hard I mean at all. As a friend once told me, "I am not a digger." Show yourself or be forgotten. This means I can never store things deep--just one layer--which means I will need a ridiculous amount of storage space. That will be quite costly.
I forgot how distracting home is, where the bathroom is right next to the kitchen is right next to the laundry all in one nice building. I put some toast in today and decided to shave my legs, just for the convenience of it. My toast burned, which reminds me, my straightener is plugged in upstairs.... At camp, going to the bathroom takes foresight and planning. I most likely need to take my water bottle because I will want to go straight to the dining hall after and it would be silly to backtrack to my tent.
About what I am doing: taking "boy scouts" on mountain bike rides. Video games have destroyed the young generation. Working up a sweat on the Wi does not count as exercise. It's all very sad.
Pictured below is the number one threat to my summer paycheck, which at the Hoback Market costs a hefty $4.50. This is what I use to chase down the mounds of processed food I consume each day(hotdogschickennuggetstetonmcmuffinssteakpotatopearlschipscookiescookiescookieschipscinnamontoastersyumyumyumbelievable).
.
Do you know how lovely Jackson is in the summertime? A choice moment: coming up over the ridge on the Munger Mountain trail into a field of balsam root right at sunset with the Tetons at my back.
Outside is the new in, people.
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