Finals Fever

My roommate Stephanie has coined the phrase "Finals Fever" and I know what she's talking about.
I don't want to study today. And I especially don't want to write papers.

We're getting excessively silly around here these days. Dumb things are suddenly funny, and funny things are suddenly hilarious. And we complain about things much more loudly and long-winded-ly.

Stephanie is pretending to be Scottish at the moment. Tartan plaid scarf, you know?

Now she's a Kennedy.

I think I might go play in the snow. It's snowing.

I've spent the morning in my bed pretending to be motivated to get this paper done. Secret fact: I'm really about as unmotivated as possible.

I want to listen to Christmas music. And sing along. I think I might start singing without any real music in the background.

Yesterday I went on a wild goose chase for a Latin Christmas party.

Paul Newman and Robert Redford- Steph's possibly hottest combination alive. Or rather, dead and immortalized.

Ok. Enough nonsense. I'm going to go eat lunch. Or breakfast.

Spiders are like Boys- Icky yet Fascinating?

I feel like there are spiders on me. There aren't. I've checked. But I feel like they're there nonetheless.

Today was a really good day at work. I worked with just my boys- Mark, and Matthew and Joel and Benson. And so I had to pretend not to be super freaked out when a spider the size of a quarter (legs included) that was bright orange-red crawled onto me- yuck! But there were tons of spiders in that hedge, and I was basically sitting under the plants, so I probably had spiders all over me for a few hours.

Somehow, those nasty spiders are intriguing, though. They're really quite cool; the diversity between spiders is amazing. And the way they spin their webs and catch prey and even just the way they move is fascinating.

Spiders are like boys. Both are icky. And both are entirely fascinating. Lately I'm more inclined to think boys are a good thing, though. Mostly. Some of them are still pretty nasty- small and poisonous, petty and spiteful, forcing their venom out to destroy life and happiness. But that's the kind I'm trying to not think about. Most of the boys I know these days are fun, and nice and cheerful. And not venomous.

Realistically Thinking, Now...

Yesterday I wrote a life update. It was optimistic. Stepping down off of cloud 9, here's my life:

Finals are going to be super easy if all I want is to pass my classes. For A's? Well, that complicates things a bit. It might be impossible.

I have my Christmas music for choir down when I'm playing it alone. Get a choir singing behind me, though, and the whole world is thrown off balance. Yikes!

Really, it's a good job. Hardly any downsides that I ignored in my last post.

I think I've left one of my best friends with a bit of a broken heart by dating Mark. Maybe even two of my best friends. I can't tell. That's not enough reason to not be dating him, but I still feel sick and guilty about it all.

Life is hard. But I'm going to go live it, anyways. Love you all!

End-of-Semester Update

Fall semester 2008 is coming to an end, so I feel like I need to recap my life and all I've been up to.

I get to go home in a week and a half! But first I have to pass all of my classes, which could be a challenge. But not because my classes are hard- I've loved all of my them this semester. It'll be difficult because I am distracted and emotionally done with school. I really should focus hard, though. I need to do well next week.

I'm ward choir pianist. We have practice in 45 minutes or so, and I'm so ready. I've got those Christmas songs down pretty well. It's exciting.

I have a fabulous new job for next semester. I'll be moving to the BYU Greenhouses, which is super exciting because I can learn so many things there, and because Tegwyn (greenhouse manager) is super fun, but it's also sad. I'll miss my crew.

I've started dating Mark from my work crew. He's been one of my best friends for months, and so it's interesting to be dating him now. But interesting in a really good way.

Ok. Gotta go to choir. Love my life, though! It's great!

Communication

I've been thinking a lot about communication lately: why situations make communication more difficult, why we choose to communicate some things and not others, how things can be communicated without us intending for them to be, why some people are better communicators than others, how communication depends so much upon timing, how social conventions sometimes restrict effective communication, and what we can do to communicate effectively in spite of social barriers.

I'm in a Technical Communication class, and we've been doing presentations on research topics. I did mine yesterday, and I think it went pretty well, but I'm also quite sure that I talked too quickly and too quietly. Also, I probably said "um..." too many times. But it's hard to explain Carbon Sequestration well in only 8 minutes.

In other communications, I've been thinking lately about how much things are said without the use of words. Why and how we communicate without speaking is fascinating to me. It's amazing how much is said in facial expressions and body language, and in the signals we give off that somehow are almost universally understood. It's the almost part that gets tricky, though. Because what if signals are read incorrectly, or not read at all? Considering the great difficulty that comes in these situations, it's a shock that we bother to use signals at all. Why don't we just say what's on our minds? Probably because, like it or not, sometimes honest communication is frowned upon in our society. Social conventions say that it's somehow better to use vague, confusing signs and expressions than to state outright what we are thinking or feeling. So much for valuing honesty... or maybe not. Maybe we rely on physical communication so much because of how easy it can be to lie with your lips. Expressions are often more reliable than words. As I exhibited earlier today, for instance, it's easy to deny something out loud, but much harder to keep your face from going bright red as the corners of your lips sneak upward into a smile. And so, deny as I might, those silly people could not be kept from the truth.

In spite of the confusion that comes from relying so heavily on signals, it sometimes works out that people read the right signs in the right way, and act on them to make life quite more than bearable!

Blogger's Block

So, I can't think of anything to write... I thought about writing a list of the things I'm grateful for, since it's Thanksgiving time. I thought about writing about the funny things I've noticed on the playlist I've been listening to this week. I thought about talking about Christmas time, since I've been starting to decorate and listening to carols. I thought about writing about the silliness I've been up to the past few days... but then I decided that I didn't really want to write about any of those things.

And so, I'm writing about all the things that I don't want to write about instead.

I really don't want to write about carbon sequestration. But I have to. I'm writing a research paper on that fabulous topic for my English 316 class. It's a pretty solid paper at the moment, but I don't like it at all. I know it's a good paper, but I don't feel like it's a piece of writing I can be proud of. Also, who even cares about carbon sequestration?

All in all, I don't want to write anything. I have an email I've been meaning to respond to, and don't want to write that either. My journal entries this week have been ridiculously short.

I need to go home. It's time for Christmas to be here already!

OK- enough rambling for now. Maybe the next time I write I'll be more positive, and have something to say!

The "L-word"

You all know the one I'm talking about. Four letters long, and in some situations the scariest thing you could possibly say. In other situations, rumor has it, it's heavenly.

L-O-V-E

Who knew a word could be so powerful?

I think I use this word too often. I love cornbread. I love driving my BYU Grounds truck. I love having a clean kitchen. I love my bed, and especially my pillow. I love, love, love... fill in the blanks.

The madness has got to stop! There are things in this world that I really do love, and feel good about giving that label to. I love my major. I love my roommates, my best friends, my family. I love reading my scriptures, and I love the Lord. I love a lot of very valid things. But I say that I love a lot of silly, irrelevant things.

I've been wondering about that word in relation to people lately. No one questions it when I say that I love my family, or my roommates or my visiting teachers or my female coworkers or neighbors or the girl I just met three and a half minutes ago when she took my order at a restaurant (hypothetically, of course). But when I want to tell my boys that I love them? Yikes, watch out!

I've decided that the use of the word "love" in my life is in need of some reform. I need to (1) use it less often for things that are silly and (2) use it more often for people who are important in my life regardless of whether they are male or female. I won't claim to love the restaurant girl, but I'm going to try not to shy away from letting my boys know that I love them.

The problem with "love" is that it means so many different things, especially between girls and boys. When I throw that word down, I could mean "I think you're fun to be with for now" (as in "haha- I'm a ditz and I love you! haha"). It could mean "I care for you at the same level that I care for my best girlfriends, and no one balks when I say I love them." Or it could mean that I've suddenly fallen head-over-heels in LOVE with one of my boys. And while that one is the least likely for me to be expressing, it's where people jump to when they jump to conclusions.

I told an ex-boyfriend that I loved him the other day, casually. We were chatting online, and he was about to sign out so I said "ttyl- love ya!" That really should be an ok thing to say, shouldn't it? Or when I went to visit my friend who recently broke his hand. I was about to leave, and said "Ok- promise to call me if you need anything. Remember- I love you." I think I might have freaked him out a little bit. I have a friend who often calls me on the phone to check up on me and make sure I had a good day. Up until now I have resisted the urge to say "Talk to you later- love you!" at the end of conversations, but maybe next time I won't. I think it every time, in the "I care for you and hope everything is going well in your life" sort of way. But with it always on my mind, one of these days it's going to slip out, so wouldn't it be better for me to make a conscious decision that it's an ok thing to say? That way it wouldn't surprise me when it came out. Either way, I think it would surprise him a bit too much.

So in conclusion: You're just not supposed to say "love you" to boys. It freaks them out a little. So... what? I never get to say it? Or I say it and freak them out. One or the other. This week I chose a bit of both- "love you"s to some of them, "uh... bye"s to others.

Either way, it's probably not true that I love applesauce. But I think I might go eat some before bed anyways!