I did it!

That's right, I'm a college graduate.

Last of the Poems

So here is my last poem for the school year.  The assignment was to write dialogue in poetic form. 

Fallen Soldier

Will you stay with me until the end?
       I will stay, but there will be no end.
How can you be so sure when these trees
All around us have the life drained
From their broken limbs?
I can see the end and it's not far away.
Maybe it will be Elysium with its fields
Of gold, home to ancient heroes
Or Heaven with its soft beds where
The weary can rest their heads for a time.
I think either would be fine.
      I am sure it is Elysium that awaits
      Fallen soldiers whose only desire
      Is to forget the sound of thunder and fire.
Ah, yes, I can hear the breeze rustling through the wheat
Like the sound of the ocean heard from a distance.
I never thought anything could sound like
Home, but if home had sound it would be this.
       Tell me then, what do you see?
       What do you smell?
I smell bread baking in the oven
And a hint of spice like Christmas candles,
But I cannot see anything, not even your face.
       Then touch my face and see it with your hands.
       Remember my blues eyes and unshaved cheeks.
       Do you feel my stubble? My eyelashes? My nose?
Yes, I can feel it. But where is your hand?
I want your hand.
There. I felt alone for a moment—I know I felt
You, but I needed to know you felt me.
Please, squeeze my hand once more.
I like the pressure. I like knowing I'm still here.
       Where else would you be? Where would you go?
I don't know. Just not here.
       Feel me holding your hand? I am holding you here
       And I won't let go.

You may let go now.
      Why?
Because I can see the fields
Bending like waves in the wind. And the sun high
Above me in the sky. I can't feel the cold
Rocky ground anymore, only the warm breeze and soft
Pricks of the wheat on my hands. And the taste,
Oh how you should taste it, no more salt
And metal, it's sweet like fresh ice water.
      I wish I could see it, especially here among
      The broken trees and cracked rocks. I wish
      I could feel warmth on my skin and hear
      Soft breezes instead of lightening and earthquakes.
      I wish I could hold your hand to know I am
      The one not alone, but I can't. I can't
      Hear the velvety wind or taste the sweet water.
      I can't smell the bread through the smoke or
      Feel the pleasant wheat-pricks on my hand when all
      I have are cuts.
Then I shall save
You a spot where the river runs clear
And trees grow tall.
Is it strange
That I never felt more alive
Than here at the end?
      There is no end.

Pulled a Hermione

I had I nightmare that I got a D- in one of my classes.  It woke me up and kept me awake for an hour.  I'm pathetic

Yay! More Writing!

You guys are going to get sick of all the writing posts I am now doing.  But here's some more poems and a short story I just wrote.  Again, keep in mind these are rough drafts and have many revisions before they are actually presentable.

Four Images While Driving on the Freeway

Mountains Seen During a Setting Sun

These raised scars on Earth's surface
Painted black on an orange canvas
Are like paper dolls,
Flat and linked with nothing
Defining them except
For their clean cut silhouettes.
They rise, unconquerable,
Waiting for the sun to set
To blend the world
Into their own shadowy mass
Until we all have become inseparable in the night.

Living Fog

Cresting a ridge I look down into
Nothing.
The path in front of me
Has been swallowed by a white wall
Like Jonas and the whale.
If snow is earth's blanket
And dry summer heat its sauna,
Then this fog is its cold steam room.
Early light illuminates its outer boundaries—
Far off to my right it's born from the lake
Like steam rising from hot coals.
To my left it reaches up with
Sticky fingers to scale the mountain wall.
As I reach the swirling brink
I hold my breath as it pulls me in.

Window Message

My breath catches in the
Frigid air of my car.
The vents emit winterized gusts
As the engine begins
Its slow revival from overnight hibernation.
I turn my head to look disappointed
Out the frosty window
At the snow falling like ash.
My warm breath
Momentarily stains the glass
To reveal the previously invisible heart
I drew the morning before.
I smile at my childishness
And think that winter has one benefit:
Hidden window messages.

Sunlight Reflecting off the Ice of Frozen Lake
Yellow sunbeams pierce the low
Lying cloud cover of a January afternoon.
The shafts of light
Reflect off the crests
Of frozen waves
Caught at the pinnacle
Of their journey.
Their life is prolonged
By the mercy of winter.
But then clouds shift in a sudden wind
Closing the small sunwindow,
Plunging the lake
Into a flat, gray state.


If you watched So You Think You Can Dance last season, you will know where the inspiration for this story came from.


Sammy

It was the summer I turned twelve that Sammy came to live in the same foster home as me. He was two years younger, but we took to each other like peanut butter and chocolate. My parents died in a car crash when I was four, and with no relative willing to take me in I was put into the system to move from one home to the next. That was my fifth house, and even though I had gone through the transition five times, it never became easier to say goodbye. Not all the homes were bad, and when I left there was always at least one thing I came to miss. But Sammy, Sammy was the hardest to say goodbye to.

Two years before Sammy moved in, his mom ODed and his dad...well his dad was a mystery that even his mom didn't know the answer to. She got pregnant during her hallucinogenic phase and claimed Sammy was a modern day Jesus conceived by the imaginary man in her dreams. She, however, didn't get a religious following, just a trip to the county psych ward and a course in rehab.

Sammy was quiet, we all were at first, and he spent most of his time in his room. It wasn't until I invited him to come along to the canal with my friends and me to race paper boats, that I finally got him to open up. After that afternoon, I couldn't get the boy to shut up about the canal and boats and how much fun he had. Actually, I couldn't get him to shut up about anything. He would come into my room at night and sit on the floor and talk at me. Most the time I let him jabber away, but sometimes when I was really tired I would tell him to play the quiet game with me. He fell for it every time and in the morning I would find him on my floor having fallen asleep while still playing the game. I always felt guilty on those mornings because I realized he had something he wanted to tell me so badly that he waited in my room all night in hopes that I would talk first so that he could tell my his story.

That's what I loved most about Sammy: his innocence. For a boy who's seen more than most adults, he never lost his purity. I always hated how other people would call him slow in the sense of mentally handicapped when all he did was take his time. He thought through things, making sure that he understood it completely before moving in.

It was like the time I told him a joke over breakfast and he gave me a blank look before giving an obligatory laugh. It wasn't until we were riding our bikes later that day that I realized he was no longer beside me, and I looked back to see him rolling on the ground. At first I thought he was in pain, but as I got closer I could tell it was fits of laughter. Between his gasps for air, he told me he finally got the joke. His happiness at finally getting the joke had me holding my sides right along with him.

That was the best summer of my life. I became the big brother Sammy never had and he became the person I needed to protect no matter what. I didn't protect him out of some sense of obligation, but I did it because it was something I needed. Looking back, I now know I felt that way because I needed to be needed. All my life up to that point, I had been cared for out of charity, but with Sammy, I could be the one to care for him. I had a purpose when the rest of my life was out of my control. I became the Batman to his Robin.

It wasn't until the end of the summer that our relationship took a different turn. We were down by the canal again, like we did most days either catching crawdads or floating our boats or on the days we were lucky, using Chris' dad's four wheeler to tie a rope to it so that we could pull a tube along in the canal. One of us would drive down the dirt path lining the canal while another one of us would be pulled along in the tube. Sammy didn't know how to swim which was one of the main reasons I never let him ride in the tube when we managed to get the four wheeler. He hated being left out, but my protectiveness stopped me from letting him get in the tube. We never came away unscathed, and we always wore our wounds with honor.

This time, however, it was just Sammy and me down by the water, trying to skip rocks in a space too small for the rock to get more than one good bounce if we even got it to bounce at all against the current. It was one of those lazy days where it's better to do almost nothing than it is to do something, so Sammy and I just enjoyed one of the last free days of summer vacation.

I watched Sammy a lot that day, running up and down the small embankment trying to find the perfect skipping stone. When he found a particularly good one, he would call me over to verify that it was indeed a good skipping rock.

It was during one of times he was looking for a rock, that I saw him squat down right at the edge of the sharp slope into the water. He was stretching for a rock just outside his ten year old reach and in one agonizing second, I watched him lose his balance and fall head first into the water.

I stared, frozen, at the spot Sammy had occupied only a moment before. It only took an instant for my instincts to kick in and I started racing down the canal road. The current was faster that most people would guess, but I knew from hours of experience just how far and fast it could drag a small boy.

As I ran I looked for two things: the first, of course, was Sammy who managed to reach the surface every ten feet or so; the second, a stick I could use to reach out to him as he floated past.

Even now, 25 years later, I don't remember how I managed to pull Sammy out of the water. All I remember was the absolute terror in Sammy's voice as he yelled out my name, Rick, before he lost his air and slipped under the water once again. I also remember after I pulled him out of the water as we lay panting on the road. Both of us were in tears that mixed with the murky water dripping from our bodies. Needing to know Sammy was truly safe, I pulled him close to me just to feel his warmth and the shaky rise and fall of his chest. He clung to me probably to remind himself that he was alive.

It was during our embrace that I made a promise that has stuck with me to this day when all other childhood promises have faded away. In the lull between realizing he's not dead and the fear that he could have died, I whispered to Sammy, “I will never let you drown.” I don't know if I ever broke that promise.

I was the first to be transferred out of the house and Sammy left soon after. I don't know where he went, and all that I have left of him now are my memories and an old picture of the two of us of my twelfth birthday sitting right here on my work desk.

I still think about him often, probably more often than I should for someone who was in my life at such a young age and for only a short while. I think about that summer and the canal and the nights he fell asleep on my floor, and I can't help but wonder what ever happened to Samuel Theodore Lovehearst. He would hate me for things his full name, but it's hard to picture a grown man still being called Sammy.

“Mr. Reynolds?” A knock at my office door brings me out of my revery. “You wanted me to remind you when it was 5:30.”

I smile. “Thanks, Josh. I'm sure my wife will be grateful one of us got me to the restaurant on time.”

Josh gisve a quick laugh and a small, you're welcome, before exiting the office.

I start gathering my things and before I leave, I give one last glance at the picture that's been on my desk for the past thirteen years. I don't know why, I always feel a little guilty when I turn my office light off and plunge the picture into darkness. Maybe I have a little bit of Amish superstition in me that a picture captures the soul; I don't want Sammy's soul to be in the dark. I laugh, I guess I'm still protecting him even now.

It's a short walking from my office building to the subway. I like taking the subway because it gives me time to think and saves a lot of money not having to get a cab or trying to park in the city. Also, it conveniently stops just a block from my apartment. You can't beat that.

I follow my normal path to the station, not really thinking about anything or paying close attention to what I was doing except to avoid large, stationary objects. It is in this near daze that I feel someone slam into my left shoulder. I loose my balance and stumble slightly before I right myself and can see who I ran into.

At first, I thought it was a short man, but I can see that he is actually quite tall, just hunched over with his head tucked down and shoulder pulled up as if he is trying to hide his head inside his body. The next thing I notice is his bedraggled state. Obviously homeless or extremely poor, his clothes have holes in them and the knit hat he's wearing has broken strings sticking out that with one good tug, the entire thing could unravel.

He, too, lost his balance for the collision, but since I gained mine more quickly, I reach out to help steady him. I think I startle him because he pulls away from my grasp, throwing himself more off balance catching his heel on a step and falling into a door.

I take a quick step towards him and squat down to make sure he is alright. It is when I am down at eye level that he looks at me for the first time. Our eyes meet and I feel my heart stop for a single beat and then begin to race. I know those eyes. I have seen them every day on my desk, staring at me from the face of a ten year old boy. When you look someone in the eye for that long, you don't forget what they look like. But I second guess myself, thinking it is my imagination playing games on my since I had been thinking about Sammy only a short while ago. For proof I search for the scar he got one afternoon while riding bikes when he caught his tire on the curb and flew head first into the concrete. It had taken almost a month for the scab to heal above his eye, leaving a scar only a ten year old could be proud of. When I look ove the man's right eye I can see the scar faded over the years and hidden under a thin layer of dirt, but it's till there, nonetheless.

“Sammy?!” I whisper before I can stop myself.

He looks at me then. I mean really looks, as if he is trying to remove the layers of years from my face. I can tell he's working on who I am and I don't want to rush him. He hated being rushed as a kid. If he couldn't figure something out, he'd ask and I know that that still holds true now.

It takes him a while, but I know right when he figures out who I am because his eyes get and and his mouth opens slightly. “Rick?” He says.

I break into a smile and before I can think about my reaction, my body leans towards his trying to pull him into a hug. Before I can touch him, Sammy hunkers back into his shell and scoots as far into the doorway as he can get.

That's when I realize that he is not as happy to see me as I am to see him. The years have obviously been hard on him, and have probably destroyed him more than anything else could. He had needed a protector as a boy and he had found one in me for a short while, but in the end I couldn't save him. I look at his face; it's tired as if all that's left in him is his innate reaction to breathe—not even the will to breathe, just the automatic response that keeps his body alive. I think back to that little boy gasping for air as I pulled him out of the water. He's no longer gasping. He's already drowned.

As I take in Sammy's state, he watches me right back. Not with interest or even indifference, though. Indifference take a willful choice. Sammy is watching me like he would a speeding subway—like its easier to let me just pass by him without trying to bring me into focus.

“Sammy,” I say, trying to bring him out of his strange daze.

It works and his eyes slowly move up my face to catch my own. Oh how I wished to see those eyes again in person, and now that I have I wish I hadn't. When I first saw them I knew who they belonged to, but now I can tell they are not the Sammy's I knew. The one's I knew lit up at sailing paper boats down the canal. These though, these haven't been lit in years.

My heart arches at seeing what has become and I can't help but feel a need to protect him once again. This time not from bullies or strong currents, but from himself. He is my little brother in all the ways that count and I can't let him stay like this.

I stand up, towering over him. “Come on, Sammy.” I nearly command him as I bend down to grab his arm. He tries to shy away again, but this time I don't let him. I pull him to his feet so that we can look at each other eye to eye. “You're coming home with me. You need a place to stay and a good meal and I am not going to leave you on the streets to starve.”

I don't know why, but something changes in him as I speak—he no longer has a blank look on his face. He becomes angry. No, not angry, furious like he wants to hit me, and I am actually scared he might do it. I drop his arm and take a step back and as I do, his fury changes just as suddenly as it came. He's cold now, dangerously cold. Heat and fire may consume, but they can be extinguished. Cold swallows someone whole, burrowing down into their core. You can't get rid of cold, and in an instant I know I cannot save him. He won't let me.

His all to familiar eyes stay locked on mine, and even though he has changed so completely to be almost unrecognizable, I can still tell he is working through a thought just like he did as a kid. It only takes him a few moments to settle his mind and before he speaks, I know these are going to be the last words I will ever hear from him.

“You should have let me drown.” He spits at me. With that fatal sentence I know that I have broken my promise to him, and through my own grief I can see it breaks the little bit of strength he had been able to muster. All emotion leaves his face except the tired which has come back. His shoulders slump and his head drops while he leans against the wall and gently slides to the ground. I watch him for one moment before I step over his protruding legs and walk down the subway station stairs.

Preposterous poem

So I had to write another poem for my class but this one was crazy.  He gave us 18 sentences that told us what to write and we had to use all of them within the poem.  It was an exercise in learning to write something a little strange.  Here is the prompt
1. Mention your worst fear.
2. Express a truth or a paradox.
3. Egregiously misquote a philosopher that has been dead at least a century.
4. Use an idiomatic phrase in a foreign language.  Translate it.
5. Put a pre 1960s movie star and your hometown in the same metaphor.
6. Put words beginning with q, z, and x in one sentence.
7. Mention an urban legend you once believed was true.
8. Describe your sadness using the vocabulary of your mother's or father's occupation.
9. Mention the Chinese year in which you were born.
10. Use synaesthesia in a noticeable way.
11. Ask a question only God could answer.
12. Quote a piece of graffiti.
13. Answer the question from 11 in a predictable way.
14. Answer the question again, this time quoting an animal
15. Apologize sincerely.
16. Mention what you would do if you were a minor god and had special powers.
17. Mention a happy memory.
18 Give good advice that masquerades as nonsense.

So that is the prompt and here is the poem.  Each of the numbers in the poem correlates with the topic above.

Stream of Consciousness

3. “It's better to have lost love
Than never to have lost at all.”
4. Meine fünfköpfinge Familie—
6. My zany five-headed family, questions
Tennyson because of their xenophobia
Of all things British.
7. Good thing Bigfoot isn't British;
Pictures of his beastly body
Litter my parents house
And until I was 21, I believed
He was real. Now that I know
The truth, my greatest fear
1. Became frying alive
In a lava pit. At least volcanic mountains,
Unlike Bigfoot, are avoidable.
9. But in the end, I would rather
Fry than freeze. I think
I got my hatred for cold
From the snake whose cold blooded nature
Filled the year I was born.
8. When I see snow on the epidermis of earth,
I feel anesthitized on a metal slab
Waiting for the defibrillation of my heart
To begin so I can warm my body
With each systolic pump.
But until the sun comes out, I remain
On bypass—cold and alone.
10. The frigidness of winter tastes
like iron just removed from a freezer.
16. If I were Aeolus, I would keep the
Southern winds moving north at all times.
5. They would come blowing, constantly and sweetly
Like the breezes in South Jordan or the soft
breath of Audrey Hepburn singing.
11. If Audrey Hepburn tried to sing in space
Would she really be singing even if she created no sound?
12. Or who watches the watchman?
13. No one watches the watchmen
And Audrey creates no music in the universe's vacuum.
14. However, the song bird says that the power of music
Is not in the creation of sound,
But in the way it can make us feel, even unsung.
2. The bird's theory may be right
For if the more we come to understand science
The more we realize that we don't understand science,
Then who's to say Audrey couldn't create music in space?
17. I had a dream once,
A dream that I was weightless like in space,
And the earth, far below me,
Had let me be free from its strangling bonds.
18. The choice to fly or fall was my own.
I could crash into mountains
Or touch the soft dew of clouds.
For those who also broke from Earth,
I should warn you that the
Choice to fall or crash is no choice at all.
15. Since I have now finished
This preposterous poem, I
Politely apologize for the
Bit about Bigfoot.
I beg your pardon
If I swayed your faith,
And to please forgive my unbelief.

I hope you got a good laugh and enjoyed it.  It was rather hard to write, but definitely entertaining having to come up with some crazy sentences.  My favorite part was using the parent's profession lingo.  The end.

Monday Torture

This was my monday.  Woke up at 6:30 and got ready for the day.  Got to school at 8 and started reading the short story one girl wrote for my class at 9.  Critiqued it.  9-10 I had my short story class.  10-11 I had mission prep.  11-11:15 meeting with a teaching on revising some work.  11:15-12:45 studied for test.  12:45-1 worked on a test handed out in mission prep.  1-2 went to english class.  2-2:15 finished studying for test.  2:15-2:30 took test and got a 97% (yeah, I'm just that amazing that I can finish a 100 problem test in 15 and pass with a 97).  Went home after test.  2:30-3 ate lunch and relaxed.  3-4 started planning a poem and doing research for it.  4-5 couldn't keep my eyes open any so I took a nap.  5-8 worked on that dang poem.  8-11:30 wrote 6 pages of my 12 page paper.  11:30-11:45 took a shower.  11:45 took quiz on Blackboard (got 100%).  Midnight: writing a blog post.

And this is why I hate mondays.  To bad tomorrow won't be much better.  Here is my list for tuesday of things I need to get done.

1. Read chapter in floral design book
2. Floral design class were a test will be handed out on the chapter I just read
3. Finish revising my poem because its horrible right now
4. Go to poetry class and turn said poem in
5. Run to Barnes and Noble to find cookbooks or stuff written about cookbooks for my paper
6. Hopefully get Tricia and Whitney to call me back so I can interview them (wink wink)
7. Finish my 12 page paper up (I'm taking advantage of the key word of a rough draft...it is going to be mightly rough)
8. Read and critique short stories for class on wednesday
9. Study for GRE
10. Study for floral design test (it is harder than you think)
11. Breathe

Wednesday cannot come soon enough.

Goodnight

My Writing

Because my dad complained about not being able to read any of my writing, I'm going to post the two assignments I just turned in.  One is for my short story class and the other is my prose poem for my poetry class.  The prose poem is taking 5 objects from my life and writing about them without connecting them...fyi.

Narcolepsy

Linda stood on the edge of a cliff watching the waves burst against the rocks far below her feet. It felt like she had been here before—this same cliff with the same purpose to jump. The feeling of deja vu was overwhelming, making her want to take that step all the more. She had to escape this lie of a life. She shook her head, no, it’s not this life that's the lie, but her dreams. That was the problem, her dreams were far more real than her waking life and it scared her.

It had been three terrible nights since she had slept, and she knew it was the sleep deprivation that led her to this point, but she couldn't bring herself to care enough step back and go home.

The dreams started about a year ago, but they weren't nightmares in the literal sense of the word. In truth, they were the type of dreams that left her curled up under her blankets after her alarm went off, hoping that she could finish the story before having to get ready for the day. She would savor the dream during her waking hours, counting down the time until she could fall back asleep to continue from where she left off.

It was her in the dreams, in everything except name. It was her face, her body, and her memories, but all rolled into a life she never lived under the alias of Sarah. What made her love the dreams so much was the fact that it wasn't her life. In her imagination she had a daughter and a husband, things that she had always wanted as Linda but never had. So she would sleep, and live in a life that held more love and fulfillment than she had while awake.

None of her dreams repeated, tending to go in chronological, and in many of them, nothing really happened except mundane activities like cooking and cleaning. However, it wasn't those dreams that drove her to the sea, but the ones with David. He was the husband of her dreams, not just her dream husband. He was everything she had ever wanted, bad habits and all, and even though she had made him up, she loved him completely. Linda knew how crazy it was to love a fantasy, but the more she dreamed about her and him, the more he became ingrained in her heart and never left her mind during the daylight hours.

For the first couple of months of the dreams, they had mainly consisted of her and David when they met and started dating. She was around twenty-five in the dreams, and like any twenty something year old girl, she was boy crazy and smitten over the sweet, attractive guy she met in the coffee shop. David got her number and called her the next day to take her out, and it wasn't long after that they became serious in their relationship. Although they were just dreams in Linda's mind, every time David held her hand she could feel her heart beat faster. Every time he kissed her, she could hear herself give a soft moan in her sleep. He was far more than a dream in the way he made her react even in her unconscious mind. What he did to her was real, and the only reason she would wake was to sleep once more and feel him near her. The dreams became so powerful she found no reason to leave them.

For the next six months Linda rarely left her bed. She quit her job and lived only on the money she managed to put away in savings, never leaving her house except to buy desperately needed groceries. In those months, her dreams became her reality consuming everything.

Her love for him grew and one night as she dreamed, she found herself walking through a small park after one of their dates. It was a clear night with only a few stars poking through the tree tops and a soft breeze cooling off the night pleasantly. It was there, under an oak, that he proposed to her. She woke to tears wetting her pillow with her hand stretched out as if waiting for a ring to be slipped on her finger, and her mouth forming the word “yes.” As it sunk in that he wasn't really there, she curled in on herself, turning the once joyful tears into acute longing. If only she could see him immediately again, things wouldn't feel so bad, but she knew sleep was impossible for a while so she wept silently for things that were never hers to begin with.

While the next six months continued, so did her and David's romance. They were married in a small white church with only their family members present, and when she put the ring on his finger, she knew that he was the one she would love forever. She never wanted him to forget how much she loved him, so on the inside of his ring she had “LYFE” engraved in a beautiful cursive script. It meant “love you forever,” a saying they told each other often. Linda knew how cheesy it was to engrave his ring, but she felt it better to be over sentimental than have him ever question her love.

But everything changed one terrible night when Linda dreamt of having her baby girl. It was then that she truly comprehended how out of hand her life had become. When she woke the next morning after having dreamt of giving birth to her daughter, she found herself completely drained of strength while cradling one of her quilts in her arms as if it was a baby. The absolute feeling of loss at seeing only fabric broke her when nothing else could, and she realized that it would be better never sleep again than dream of something she would never have but wanted a thousand times more than the life had.

It was at that point when she started to keep herself awake by whatever means necessary; whether by exercising late into the night, drinking caffeinated drinks, or by watching what her mom called “test fest” movies that were loud enough to make sleep impossible, she would go one sleepless night after another. But when her body would finally succumb to sleep, she would dream of David and their house and their daughter, and every morning when she would wake she hated herself for wanting so desperately what wasn't real.

The dreams she once craved turned into personal nightmares that scared her more than any dream about an ax murderer could. It was a fear of forgetting who she was. It was fear of not being able to tell what was real anymore. And it was a fear of wanting a life that wasn’t her own.

As Linda stood on the edge, she thought back to the last dream she had—the one that was the direct cause for her being on the cliff.

She had struggled against sleep for almost 56 hours before her eyes finally lost the fight. That night she dreamt of David and her huddled in bed. He was holding so tight against his chest that it hurt, but it wasn't close enough to smother the emotional pain eating her away. Earlier that day they had found out their daughter, Peyton, had been struck by a car and died when she escaped from her teacher's hand and run across the street. In an instant they lost part of themselves, and they were left trying to find some anchor to hold on to that wasn't there. And as David held her, gently rocking her back and forth, he whispered in her ear over and over again as if trying to convince her as well as himself, “We'll get through this. We have to get through this. I love you.” But she never said anything back, just wept and wished to forget.

Linda had woken up shaking out of control. She knew there was no chance she would ever go back to that dream world now, so she forced herself to stay awake longer than she ever managed before. In her hollow, sleepless daze, she drove to the cliff and got out of the car to do the only thing she could think of to escape her dreams.

The wind started to pick up and the sun had finally set turning the cloud covered sky a dark foreboding blue. It was now or never, she thought, and took the step forward welcoming the rocks below.



A middle-aged man walked quickly through the empty halls as a page for Dr. Robinson came over the intercom. He stopped outside room 258 and watched as Dr. Grant finished up with the woman sedated on the bed.

“How is she?” He asked the doctor when he closed the door.

“She's doing alright, all things considered. We found her standing on a chair today, but couldn't get her down before she jumped. She had a rough landing and fell into a table and ended up with a few bruises, but, thankfully, nothing more serious.”

The man shook his head, “How many times has she tried that now?”

“A dozen or so. It's strange though, usually right before we find her on a chair, or table, or her bed, she has her really bad days, but after she jumps something changes and she becomes calm. Everything about her seems to relax and the only real issue we face is her Linda persona.”

He winced at the mention of Linda. It was a name his wife had always loved because she felt it had more personality than Sarah, her own name. But after their daughter's death, she had retreated into herself taking on the identity of Linda who never had to face the loss of a child. It hurt every time he saw her, and she stared passed him without any recognition even though they had been married for ten years.

He remained quiet for a while before asking Dr. Grant the question that had been on his mind for a while, “Does she ever say my name?”

The doctor looked at him as if he knew his pain. “I'm sorry, David, but she doesn't talk much anymore. But in her sleep she frequently mumbles the word 'life.' I don't know if that is significant to you or not, but it's something that her mind obviously finds important enough to repeat it.”

A sad smile touched David's mouth as he twisted his wedding ring where “LYFE” was etched on the band.
 
 

Prose Poem

Hammers and Strings

Silent, motionless the ivory awaits my fingers to bring forth the music it was meant to make. A grandfather among children, this hundred year old instrument shows its age in the broken bench and out of tune keys, but like a good bottle of wine, it has only gotten better through time. I've seen it differently through the stages of my life: a mystery, a toy, a hassle, a friend. I may have been the one to touch the keys, but they have touched me right back; and I can't help but wonder, how many other people have felt this way in the past century?

Swim Suit

It is my favorite one because of its eccentricity. The fabric looks like the rainbow of color when oil rests on water, or the sheen on the outside of a bubble. I found it on the clearance rack because no one would buy it, but I fell in love with it immediately and wore to every practice for a year. Now seven years old, it hangs in tatters in my closet. I still use it for drag, sometimes, even though the straps have stretched out leaving it baggy in the most uncomfortable places.

Pineapple Plant

I named it Samson because in six months I was going to chop its top off and eat it. I felt it was the best thing I ever bought until a month and a half later it decided to die. The stem shriveled up and the fruit toppled over filling by room with a sickening sweet decaying smell, but I didn't have the heart to throw it away. I think it knew my plans, so it died before I could take a knife to it. Maybe next time I'll call it Delilah.

Zune

You are my life, my muse, my second love. Your music filled the silence, the space between each shuddering breath, the void in my life caused by the slow but destructive burning of my first love, my family. You took my sorrow and painted it in lyrics, then played new songs with new words helping me see through other people's poetry that my first love had not been lost but risen from the ashes: a phoenix.

Quilt My Mom Made Me


Blue, like the water I lived in for ten years. But the flannel is not just one shade of blue, water is never just one shade. There are greens and purples mixed in showing the ever changing personality of water. The fabric shows more than just the color of water, it also shows the shapes water forms like the piece with waves, or the one containing bubbles, or the one that reminds me of swirling currents in open water. But my favorite looks like the calm, ice green of the ocean in the Caribbean—like the photo I took while at the Grand Caymans of the bay. It is this dry water in the comfort of my room that combines my two favorite worlds: the pool and my bed.


Hope you liked them daddy :)

Yawning

In procrastination in studying for my floral design test, I've decided to write a blog post.  Yeah, I rock at life.

Yesterday I had to give a talk in church.  I can tell when I get nervous cause my hands freeze and I start yawning like crazy.  I mean it's kinda ridiculous.  It wasn't until the olympics when announcers were talking about Apolo Ohno and his yawns that I realized I did the same thing.  Before every race in swimming, I would start yawning to the point my eyes would start watering and it would make me sick to my stomach.  I think it's a psychologcial thing where I try to calm myself down so I slow my breathing and which causes me to yawn...or something like that.  But anyway, I was at church and there I was yawning through the announcements about the girl in my ward you committed suicide (I know, it's sad) and I felt awful but I couldn't stop.  And then I yawned through the first girl's entire talk.  Great example I am.

You know how everyone comments on how when someone yawns we all have to yawn.  Yeah well, I guess that is true for looking at people yawn in pictures.  I've been trying to find good yawning pictures for this post (and if I can't add any besides the girl one, I'm sorry but the blog is being stupid and not letting me) and I can't stop yawning.  Everytime I see one, I pratically dislocate my jaw.  It is actually quite sore at the moment. 

My favorite thing about the picture below this paragraph is the amish/Abraham Lincoln guy in the background yawning.  It's like playing the game "Which of these is not like the other."  Well, I found him.  I think its the hat that sets him apart.  Or maybe the crazy beard.  Whatever it is, he's rocking it!

Stop Telling Me What To Do

I have this problem where I absolutely hate being told what to do.  I'm okay with teachers telling me to do things and employers are right there with them.  But as soon as you put me in a situation where my peers feel like they have the right to tell me what to do, it makes me want to rip out there hypocritical throats.

Que roommates.  My roommates are nice enough.  We don't have too many outrageous grievances against each other, but last week one of them decided to make a chore wheel thing without telling two of us and only told the other cause its her best friend.  Cleaning the apartment is a good idea, don't get me wrong, but deciding for others on what they are going to do pisses me off more than anything.  The apartment stayed clean except the occasional build up of dishes but then one of us usually caved and did them.  For all intents and purposes, we really didn't have a problem.

Because of this wonderful chore chart, I was stuck doing the dishes this week.  If there is anything I hate more than being told what to do, it's having to clean up other people's messes.  Are you really to lazy to rinse off your own plate and stick it in the dishwasher?  And look how 95% of those dishes aren't even mine.  So I would start the dishwasher and I was usually busy when it was done rinsing so I didn't put them away immediately.  Que roommates again, especially one, who would come up to my in that sweet, I'm telling you to unload the dishwasher but it a question form and say, "Will you unload the dishwasher when you have a chance, please?"  GAHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Gag me now.  Why don't you clean off the counters like you were supposed to?  Oh wait, I cleaned them off for you cause they were so disgusting I didn't want to prepare my food on them and you weren't there for me to complain to about failing in your easy task.

Oh, and the other day I made wontons.  Yummy!  Well I left some dishes out after I finished cooking but I was just in the living room doing homework and eating the wontons and had every intention of washing those dishes before I went into my room for the night.  The two roommates who had made the chart came into the apartment, and as they did, I let them know that they shouldn't worry about the kitchen, I was going to finish cleaning it once I got my poem written for class.  Five minutes later, one of them said, "I understand that you like making big meals, but could you please not leave the kitchen looking like this for the next week?"  Seriously!?  I haven't left my dishes out after one of my meals...ever.  It might take me until later that night to clean them, but that is usually because I want to finish my homework first.  I got a little snippy and told her what I said when she had first walked in but in a more snide way.  I then put in my headphones and ignored them.  Later that night she apologized to me and said she was pmsing...sorry, not an excuse. 

Chore wheels are good and all, but I feel like they shouldn't be exclusive, as in that one person is the only one that does their one chore.  I'm sorry, it never works out.  Sometimes you're gone or busy and can't do it for a day.  Does that mean it doesn't get done?  So sarah went home for the weekend, is no one going to take the garbage out for three days as we wait for her to get back?  So what, Kat didn't want to sweep today so I have to suffer by walking all over the crumbs on the kitchen floor?  No, I get my lazy butt into the closet, pick up the broom and sweep the dang floor.  Just like how I was gone all day today at work and somebody could have unloaded the dishwasher, but no, they were to busy not doing their own chores and had to ask me to unload it at 11 pm so they could not load their dishes into it.  Get over yourself and help.  If you have a free minute, do something.  Don't just complain about it and wait for someone else you to bail you out.

Moral of this story, I can hardly wait until I have my own place.

p.s. Be grateful I held my tongue.  I had many choice words I wanted to use...many of them where 4 letters.

Saturday Fun

Other than working at 6 am and BYU losing, Saturday was fun/funny.

Well as I was about to leave work, a boy I work with asked if I could go get his phone charger out of his car because he couldn't leave.  I said yes and he told me his car was the only blue Taurus in the parking lot and handed me the keys.  I walked out and saw a light blue Taurus and started pushing the unlock button as I walked up to the car.  Since the door was unlocked, I opened it up and started looking around.  I found it really strange that a boy I thought had just graduated high school had two kids (there were two car seats).  I continued to look around and saw a jacket that didn't look like he would wear and a box full pampers diapers.  And all through the searching I found no charger.  Confused, I tried the key on one of the doors and found it didn't fit.  I realized then that this "only" blue Taurus in the parking was not his.  Quickly leaving the car and hoping nobody saw me snooping around in it, I walked around the parking lot again and saw a dark blue Taurus.  This time the key worked and there was a charger and no pampers.  Hopefully the person whose car I got into didn't notice I moved their mess around.  And they should really lock their car up...just saying.

Although BYU lost last night, going to the game was almost worth it.  I happened to be in the section Mountain America sponsored so I got a bunch of free stuff.  I got a t-shirt, a BYU visor, a Y sticker for my car, and a cool bag with all the stuff in it.  Also, even though my dad did not see me, I was on tv.  Yeah, I'm just that famous.

Also while at the game, I was walking to my seat and saw a stand for boiled peanuts.  AHHHHH!!!  If you know my family, we love ourselves some boiled peanuts.  My mom grew up in the south and raised us on boiled peanuts.  They are fantastic.  So back to the story, I had to get some because football and boiled peanuts just go have to go together in my mind.  Even though the game was a complete bust, I savored every moment of those amazing boiled peanuts.  My parents were jealous, but they shouldn't be too jealous cause they just left on a cruise to the Mediterranean without me.

So yeah, that's my update.  Aufwiedersehen.

Reasons why I love college

1) It's not high school.  Anything that's not high school is awesome!
2) Party at 2 am...bring it on
3) Friends, friends, and more friends
4) I get to choose my own schedule
5) After choosing that schedule, I go to campus and see the high schoolers are already in school and I leave campus while they're still in class.  The poor suckers.
6) Being out of class by 2 at the latest every day?  Yes please.
7) Meet random guys in cougar eat and find out that your roommates know them and they are actually good friends.  Yay for small worlds.
8) College diet = a bag of chips and brownie mix
9) Canceled classes...none of this "I'll find you a substitute teacher so they can teach you absolutely nothing" crap.  It's more along of the lines of "go catch up on sleep and do homework before you get distracted by the night life."
10) Floral design, writing poetry, and writing fiction as available classes.  Need I say more.  Next stop, under water basket weaving.
11) Smart, attractive guys
12) Boredom is a rare occurrence
13) Spontaneous road trips to St. George, Vegas, and California are incouraged
14) FOOTBALL!!!!!!!!!!!!
15) Basking in the sunlight on top of the JFSB while studying.  Most the time not studying...just basking
16) BYU ice cream...heaven in my freezer
17) For Janna, closing small asian men in the elevator doors (on accident)
18) Having the "turn papers in by midnight and its not late" option.  Or even better the "if you can slip it under my office door before I get in in the morning I have no way of knowing if you got it in by midnight" option.
19) Being an English major where finals are mainly read-your-papers-outloud-and-eat-lots-of-food time
20) And the most important...having 2 Jamba Juices on campus. 

Life is grand :)

Back in the Saddle Again

Yep, I'm back at college.  Just had my first pasta roni dinner :).  The end.

AR Strikes Again

I can't help myself.  I just have to do this.  You know Anonymous Roommate (AR) that I mentioned back in my earlier posts.  Well she strikes again (thank goodness we're not roommates anymore though).  She posts all her blogs postings on facebook, and being me, I have to read everything that pops up on my news feed.  When I saw that she had written a post about writing up a legal form for her roommates, I couldn't help but read it to remind myself why I hated her so much.  I will now take excerpts from that amazing blog post.

"For the past three years, I have put up with a whole lot of crap from various roommates.


Don't get me wrong, I've also had a lot of fun with the two Canadians, two Norwegians, one Brazilian and three Americans I've been grouped with but heavens-to-Betsy, can we not all be grown-ups?

How hard can it be to throw away that empty Ramen Noodle package?
To actually take out the trash just once in your life?
Do we not know what a dumpster looks like?
Is it really that difficult to sweep the kitchen floor every so often?
Let alone dream of mopping?

Realize, these were all internal musings. Not once did I lash out upon coming home to a trashed apartment, cleaning it up without a word and then being greeted with a "Thanks for cleaning up, hun. You are just too sweet."

Well ya know what Bucko!?!

If you were really grateful for my services you would've cleaned up after yourself the next time just to save me the trouble.

or the NEXT time.
or the NEXT TIME."

Excerpts of legal form:

"Responsibilities


Each Roommate is responsible for the following:

(a) to comply with all obligations imposed by applicable provisions of the building and housing codes materially affecting health and safety of those occupying the Premises, as well as the Premises itself;

(b) to keep the Premises immaculately clean and in good condition;

(c) to dispose of all solid and semi-solid refuse in a safe and clean manner
(d) to use all electrical, plumbing, sanitary, heating, ventilating, time traveling, air conditioning, and other facilities and appliances in a reasonable manner;

(e) to not intentionally or negligently destroy, deface, damage, impair or remove a part of the Premises or knowingly allow any person to do so;

(f) to conduct herself in a manner that will not disturb the other Roommates or occupants of neighboring properties, excusing special occasions.

5. Groceries and Meal Preparation

please note the following provisions:

(a) the fridge distribution of shelves shall be as follows: top shelf- communal, for all tall beverages/food items, middle & bottoms shelves- split into four equal sections relative to number of roommates, crisper drawer- reserved for all fruits & vegetables, door- communal, for all condiments and sauces.

(b) the top of the fridge will be reserved for cereal boxes and other dry goods as deemed necessary. Any such empty boxes left purposefully with the others will be removed and burnt in effigy.

Cleaning

special requirements:

(a) the microwave must be wiped down, both inside and out, frequently and thoroughly. To prevent large amounts of spillage/popage, food items that are known to be explosive can and must be covered with a paper towel during cook time dang it.

(b) due to its age and materials used, the kitchen floor must be swept and mopped frequently. Preferably a minimum of once each week.

(c) crumbs are strictly forbidden. Roommates must do everything within their power to reduce the appearance of such on both countertops and floors. Proper dishcloth instruction will be provided if experience is limited.

(d) chairs must be returned to perfect alignment under table when no longer being sat upon. If not followed perfectly and with all exactness, guilty parties are invited to sit on the floor.

Borrowing

items left in communal areas, such as DVDs, books, CDs, etc., may be borrowed upon given notice to the owner of said item(s).

5.1 each Roommate shall be responsible for buying her own groceries. No Roommate shall borrow food from another Roommate without her prior consent unless pure unadulterated stealth and deceit are to be utilized. Each Roommate will be allocated separate storage space for her groceries. Each Roommate will prepare her own meals and is responsible for clean-up of the kitchen for her meal preparation immediately following said meal or upon conclusion of any and all get-together 

6.1 the Roommates shall be equally responsible for the costs of cleaning supplies and household items such as paper towels, toilet paper, cleaning supplies, trash bags, light bulbs and other similar items.

6.2 the Roommates shall share equally the responsibility for cleaning and maintaining the Premises, including dusting vacuuming, emptying trash, mopping andwaxing floors, cleaning bathrooms and kitchen.

8.2 under no circumstances are certain mischievous persons to enter any other roommate’s room in efforts to destroy the organizational perfection."

Can you see why she drove Janna and me NUTS?  This girl was absolutely psycho!  About the whole cleaning up after you make your food, well she truly does mean immediately.  I would make my dinner and then go into the living room and watch a show while I ate it.  Before the show was even over, or before I had even finished my dinner, she had gone into the kitchen and cleaned it.  I literally was on the verge of throwing her crap out (and let me tell you it was crap and a whole lot of it) the window.  Janna and I talked about it on more than one occasion.  She needs some intense therapy.

I just want to ask her if she realizes that the common denominator in her roommate problem is herself.  How can you not get along with one of your 12 or so roommates?  She was bound to like one of them, statistically speaking, unless she was the one alienating them and was a little out of sync with the rest of the normal-non-ocd part of the population.  Let me tell you, it's hard to live with Mr. Clean personified with an oxymoronic quality of being a  pack rat.  AR, this blog goes out to you and your intense need for psycho therapy!

Samson and Delilah

This is my Pineapple, Samson.  I thought I would make his name big because he's just that Awesome!!!!!!!  Samson and I have been together for 2 weeks now and it has been the best two weeks of my life.  Samson will be ready to eat in 4-6 months and I can hardly wait until we get to play Samson and Delilah where I get to cut his top off.  Yeah that's all.  I'll probably blog about him later as he grows up and gets close to his feeding me time.

New Blog

So my mom told to start a new blog about my life as a dyslexic. Well I have done just that and have titled it Letters of a Dyslexic. You should totally check it out at lettersofadyslexic.blogspot.com. The end.

Whitney and Kellen

Last friday, my best friend Whitney said "yes" to time and all eternity to the boy of her dreams, Kellbell (aka Kellen Hansen). Now here's Whit's story.

From the beginning of college, Whit has had three major relationships. The first I'm going to call Bob the Sports Aficionado. Now Bob was beefy, tall, a weird shaped head, and was way to interested in football. Don't get me wrong, football is great. But Bob got his kicks off watching the reruns of the reruns of football games he wasn't interested in. This, sadly, is all I can say about Bob's character. He liked sports more than Whitney. Not a good sign. Through great encouragement of Janna and myself, Whitney finally dumped him around Thanksgiving of her senior year.

By the Spring of her senior year, Whit had started in on her second relationship of her college career. We will call this boy just Boy. If you know what his real name is you'll understand the nickname. Boy was a little clingy. He loved Whitney, but she never reciprocated the feelings. He was a far step up from Bob by actually getting to know Whit and doing things that she liked. Boy enjoyed fishing, camping, shooting ducks, hunting, and being a Man (capital M) in a boy's body. He was opposite of Bob...somewhat short, skinny, and grey teeth (I'm sorry Whit and the World, teeth are a big deal to me and his I literally couldn't look past). Boy, needless to say, flopped. Whit once again dumped him (actually she dumped him multiple times...he still didn't get it and wanted to marry her. Again, not a good sign) not because he felt to little for her like Bob did, but because he felt way to much.

During all this time, Whit had been applying to med schools. She had gotten in to several and was wait listed on another. By the summer, she had set her sights on a school in California. She had her down payment already done and was looking for apartments when she got a call from a school in Wisconsin. They told her they wanted her but could not fit her in to the class starting in 2009 but she was definitely in in the class starting the next year. Even though she was wait listed for 2009, she quickly changed her mind and decided to go to Wisconsin instead. Things worked out her way, and she got the call that she would be starting med school that fall.

In August, she moved to Wisconsin with no outlook of future husbands or boyfriends. She had her mind focused on one thing: graduate med school. But as the holidays started to draw near, the boys in her ward had different plans for her. One boy in particular was adamant that they date, but nothing really came from his attempts. However, another boy had his eye on her from across the church and one day finally got the courage up to ask her out. This starry eyed, love rising in his chest guy was Kellen.

With great determination to date Whit, he asked her out on one of the best first dates she's ever had. It was love at first radio tuning when he switched to Country music without a moments hesitation. Whit loves Country.

I come in to this story in December, when Whit, twitterpatted from the prospect of the relationship with Kellen tells me all the stories of their budding love on the way to pick up a christmas gift for her parents. The two things that sealed the deal with Kellen were 1) when he kissed her for the first time (Kellen, don't be mad she told me the story). He took her face, without hesitation, and planted an amazing kiss on her lips. He literally swept her off her feet when he took control and left no awkward moment of who goes left and who goes right which happened to be exactly what Whit loved. 2) He understood her need for time and space when she was taking her finals. He asked her if he could come over, make her dinner, clean up, and leave. He did this and left even when she wanted him to stay because he knew she had studying to do. This boy was fantastic! As Whitney told me these stories, I knew he was the one probably before she did. I could see how happy she was with him when the other guys she had been with had made her so miserable. Whit was in love long before she admitted it to herself or Kellen.

I followed closely their relationship from beginning to the beginning of eternity with each other. When she called up to tell me she was engaged, I thought she was playing a joke on me because of how calmly she said it. Personally, I would be squealing incoherently in the phone if I was engaged but Whit does not squeal often. Mainly only when she gets sprayed by cold Provo River water.

So there Whit was, engaged to a boy who wasn't obsessed with sports or the great outdoors, but was obsessed with her (in a cute, romantic way. Not in a creepy, over the top way). Who knew that Wisconsin would bring her more than an M.D., but the love of her life when personally, I thought it wouldn't happen for a long time. She knew where to be in order to find Kellen, and when he left for a trip to Vegas, she knew that she never wanted to be apart from him again. Whit is normally slow to become attached, but I always told her she would know when the right person came along. And she knew with Kellen that he was the one. She didn't have to wait ten months like she did with Bob to find out that he did not love her when she loved him, or be in the reverse relationship where she did not love Boy like he loved her. It was a relationship where love was on both sides and no waiting for the other to feel as they do. But the important thing...he has nice teeth.

So on June 18th, 2010 Whitney became Mrs. Hansen. I have to admit, on the car ride home from the reception center, I cried my eyes out as the radio played Breakeven by The Script. It was exciting to see her come out of the temple with Kellen, eternally wed and the happiest I have seen her. That day, I got to be apart of her family and her wedding. I was there from the beginning of the day to the end of the reception helping and watching as I was there for her on the best day of her life. She was beautiful and he was handsome and dang they make a cute couple.

The last thing that Whit and I got to do before she walked out of the reception center to begin her life with Kellen was throw the bouquet. I was helping her with her get out of her dress and ready to leave and her Mom came in to also help. It was at this time that we realized she hadn't thrown the bouquet and so Jackie made the suggestion that she throw it to me while we were in the Bride's Room. So I caught the bouquet and said goodbye to Whit.

Although one chapter of Whitney's life is over, another one has begun. A chapter of love, family, home, and a life with the best friend she will ever have. The friend who will share her ups and downs. The one who will give support and need support from her. The person who will love her unconditionally and bring joy to her life every day by just being in it.

He gave her butterflies.

Update

Well it's been both an eventful and uneventful month. There have been ups and downs. Happiness and great sadness. It's been a time for prayers and a time for answered prayers. In other words, just another month in the life of Katie.

I finally got a job and Home Depot and I'm enjoying it. I get to tell people how to garden and what flowers are awesome. I try to avoid the lawn mowers, weed wackers, grills, and chain saws, and I have to say, I'm the better for it. The guys in the department can handle the manly stuff while I handle the vegetables and pink flowers, and it works perfectly. They come to me when needing to know about plants and I go to them for everything else. Plants make me happy and I can honestly say that I've made other people happy because of what I know. Thanks mom for teaching me everything you know about gardening...it's saving my butt.

My friend, Josh, gets home in a couple of weeks from his mission. I'm excited to see him again. Actually, his homecoming is exactly one month from today. Hopefully I can get off work to go to St. George and see him.

M*A*S*H, how do I love thee, let me count the ways. I have watched 8 out of 11 seasons (in the past couple of weeks) and I'm still as entertained as I was when I first started watching it 6 years ago. I love the wit and word play in it

Janna's little sister just passed away this week from renal cell carcinoma. She was diagnosed with it almost a year ago and it had already spread to her stomach and lungs by the time the found it. They only gave her a few to live but she held on for a year. I only met her once, but knowing what she faced at the age of 12, I know she was strong. The funeral was today and I'm sad that I was unable to go to it. However, Whitney and her parents were able to make it to Oregon. I'm glad Janna had some friends there to support her.

Well that was a brief update on my life over the past few weeks. Good night world. Hopefully tomorrow the sun will shine a little brighter on the grey in the world.

Why!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!

Why do electronics hate me? Two weeks ago my MP3 player decided to crap out on me and then today my phone decided to get stuck on the left button and so all it does is scroll through all my stuff. Really?! At least I can call and recieve calls but that is it (good thing my dad renews his contract in a month so I get a new phone then). Supposedly bad things come in threes...I'm afraid to find out what the next thing is.

Midnight Adventure

What does two girls who don't want to do homework or go to sleep lead to?...a midnight excursion lasting two hours longer than expected.



Janna and I decided that we were going to go creep on a boy (aka...do a drive by of his house) because we had nothing else to do (which is a lie because we both had homework but didn't want to do it). This little adventure started at around 11pm and it was just going to to be a 10 minute trip. However, on the way home, I decided I wasn't ready to go to sleep so I said we should go for a little drive. This "little" drive took us down state street and as we passed In n' Out we both decided we wanted some, but we would get it on the way back. We drove down state a ways and then turned around to go get our food.

While in the drive through, we saw a gorgeous guy working inside and we just sat there and smiled and waved at him. He never saw because his back was turned but we still tried anyways. We ended up getting animal style fries (one of the best things ever!) and a strawberry shake and we just sat in the parking lot and at it. Yummy food at midnight is awesome.

After the food I started being annoying in the parking lot, driving really fast and then slamming on my breaks whenever I got to a speed bump. We went through the lot three or so times doing this and whenever I saw someone, we would start yelling out the windows making really weird sounds. They just looked at us funny...they just didn't get our sense of humor, poor souls.

On the way back to the apartment, Janna wanted to go to Y Mountain and spy on the people making out there. I was easily persuaded and so we started heading up in the general direction. Since neither of us knew the exact way to get there, we managed to take every road we could find that seemed to head up hill in the general direction of the Y. A half our later we found it and spied through the steamy windows. There were some intense make out sessions going on and made us laugh. We also found some people in strange situations...as in the guy was sitting in the back seat but with no visible evidence of the girl...hmmm. Scandalous! Haha!

After we got sick of watching other people make out, we headed back towards campus and we decided to be annoying like freshman. This means we drove around Wyview and Helamen Halls and screamed/made weird noises to anyone we passed. I'm almost positive that they were judging us. How rude!

I think the best part of the night came when we went into the stadium parking lot and drove around doing doughnuts. So much room to play!!! There was a couple sitting in this tower thing that was in the middle of the parking lot and I started driving circles around it while Janna yelled out the window. I wish I knew what there reaction was because we were really obnoxious.

When we finally made it back to the apartment after 1 am, we went to our separate rooms. I laid in bed for about 20 minutes but I couldn't fall asleep and I got up to see if Janna's light was still on. Thankfully it was, so I went into her room and we started looking at engagement rings on ebay from the most expensive to least. There was a 6 million dollar ring. I think it was 18 carats or something. We just looked at the rings for about a half hour until we both got tired, and that was the midnight excursion. I think Janna and I were a little stressed and we needed an outlet. It was perfect!

Professor Umbridge

Pretty sure I have a bonafide Professor Umbridge as one of my teachers.

For one of our assignments in my class, we were to read Lincoln's second inaugural address and then imitate his style in our own paper. He used a bunch of passive voice to reduce blame on the South or the North and to help heal the difference between the two. We were supposed to do the same thing but in a hypothetical situation. I wrote about the Cold War and what would happen if it hadn't ended. I wrote a speech that could potentially have been given at some conference and how it called for the people to put away their difference and fix the problem that had plagued them for decades. Like I said...completely hypothetical.

My friend Gabriel wrote about the second coming and what Christ would say about the descenting 1/3. He wrote the speech as if Christ said he would forgive everyone because of his love for mankind and that we all are brothers and sisters. Gabe did not believe Christ would forgive the descenting third, he just wrote about "healing the wounds" like our teacher wanted us to. When we got our papers back, our teacher gave him a C because she couldn't look past his doctrinal errors. She told him that he used the passive voice correctly, but she couldn't give him a fair grade because he was incorrect. Ghaaa...she is so annoying. He just had a conference with her today and she changed her mind about why he got a C and said he had "unclear sentences" and not doctrinal errors. Seriously? She was just covering her butt so that he didn't have a fight he could put up against her. She also told him he had to re-write another one of his papers for who knows what reason. I peer reviewed that paper and it was exactly what she wanted. I got mine back and I got an A on it and I can tell you that Gabe's was as good or better than mine. She just hates him and is vendictive. There was nothing wrong with either of his papers, but for some reason she has a chip on her shoulder and is taking it out on him.

Evil...nazi...lady!

Why do the worst teachers get tenure? A slap on the wrist won't teach them how to be good teachers. They need a real punishment for treating students unfairly.

Last Semester Awesomeness

So I decided I wanted to play my last semester as an undergrad so I decided to take floral design, mission prep from supposedly the coolest (and easiest) teacher on campus, a poetry class, and a writing fiction class. So excited! I have my senior capstone class, also, but I really have no idea what its about (the section heading says it "Feast of Foodways in Life and Literature." Yeah...that's descriptive). I signed up for it because it was the easiest teacher out of the bunch and I figured I want an easy A and to be able to not be stressed during my senior year cause that's how I roll. Yay for only taking 14 credits!

Das ist alles.

Disappointment

Today, when my alarm went off, I got really mad at myself for setting my alarm on a Saturday. I quickly turned it off and rolled over. A few seconds later I decided to make sure it was Saturday, and to my great disappointment I found out it was Tuesday. Worst moment of my life. You know you're burned out when you start thinking the second day of the week is the weekend. Can you tell I'm ready for summer vacation?

Holi Krishna

It's that time of year again. You know the one...when thousands of college students get together to party up Hindu style. I went to the Festival of Colors two years ago and I swear there was maybe 2000 or 3000 people total. However, this year there was 20,000 that came. Ridiculous! but amazingly sweet at the same time.

So lets start out the story of this amazing day. It began by me not having anyone to go to the Festival with. Janna wasn't going to go because her sisters were in town, and that threw me off because we had been planning to go together. I eventually texted my freshman roommate, Ari, and I ended up going with her and her friends.

I'm going to skip forward past the meeting up and driving to the festival because nothing really happened except meeting up and driving. On the walk up to the temple, some random drunk guy walked up to me, Ari, and Ari's roommate Jordan and started talking to us. This guy was super wasted and was saying the strangest things. About a half mile later he ran off and started to talk to someone else. He friend who was with him walked over to us and apologized saying, "I'm sorry about my friend, he's a little intoxicated." No, really?

When we finally got to the temple, I saw some friends and I went to talk to them. On my way back to my group, I started walking around this small roped off area. When I say small, I mean it was a small circle with stakes about a foot high connected by a rope. As I walked around it, a guy started walking towards me. I tried to move a little out of his way, but I managed to catch my foot on one of the stakes causing me to trip (does this surprise anyone that know me? I think not). Since the guy was about a foot away from me, I tripped right into him. It would have been cool if he caught me but I managed to just stand there as I slid down his entire body. I'm not even lying about the sliding. My hands started at his shoulders and ended at his feet. Awesome. I just knelt on the ground and laughed and felt embarrassed for about a minute. All he did was look down at me and asked if I was alright. I said I was because I didn't want to tell him I was actually in a lot of pain after landing on rocks with my knee. I walked off laughing and in a lot of pain, but the pain was worth it because it was so funny.

After we got our chalk (aka colored cornstarch) we went into the big old crowd and started playing and talking with people we ran into at the festival. At one point, the announcer asked us all to sit down for some reason. There were two boys in front of Ari, Jordan, me and Ari and Jordan started drawing hearts on their backs. Both of the guys were mightily attractive. I think the guy in this picture had a little crush on Ari because he whipped out his iphone and added her on facebook immediately so that he could be tagged in the picture. After they left, we just ended waiting in a group until the countdown happened when we could finally "officially" throw the chalk.

The announcer guy finally announced we were about to start the countdown but he was retarded and started at 20. Who starts counting at 20? And he counted so slow. Here is a video of my group. You can tell people got annoyed with the 20 seconds and started throwing really early. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lEHlTM83Grg I was in the group that started throwing around the seven second mark and I got absolutely plastered (not in the drunk sense cause I'm a good girl :D ). The guy that is in the this photo was literally six inches from me, and the other people who are invisible in the pink dust were no more than a foot. It was insane how much powder there was. I'm pretty sure I will have purple snot for the next week.

After the throwing, we hung out at the temple for a little while just taking pictures and talking for about 45 minutes. We got bored because everyone ran out of chalk and so we headed back home. We hitched a ride in the back of a friends truck to our car so that we didn't have to walk a mile or so even though it would have been faster.

On the car ride back, we took the Center Street exit and there was car full of boys in front of us. One of the guys wrote his number down on an envelope and kept on pressing it to the window. When we pulled up behind him in the left hand turn lane, he put the envelope back up but the paper folded down and we couldn't read it. We kept on yelling at them to fix it but they didn't understand us. Right after we turned, however, the car they pulled over into the next lane and started driving next to us. The driver took the envelope and started handing it through the window as Andrea, one of Ari's roommate's friends, reached over and grabbed in while we were on state street. We slowed down traffic and almost came to a dead stop in the middle of the road, but we got the number and that's all that matters. Andrea immediately called it and the guys invited us over for a party later that night.

Before we went over to the guys' place, we went out to eat at In n' Out for dinner and eventually got cleaned up. I went over to Ari's apartment so we could all head out together and while I was waiting for the girls to finish getting cleaned up, Ari's friend Alan came over just to hang for a little while. He and I got to talking and I found out he's in a couple of bands. He was with us at the festival so I have a couple of pictures of him...he was kinda cool. He was cute in an Indie type of way, but he is a super skinny white boy...but for some reason I'm okay with that. And p.s., he's awesome on the guitar, just sayin'.

So over at the boys house, wow. It was so much fun. There were 7 girls and 9 guys. Jared, Jordan, Jay, Graham, Mark, Brian, Nick, Kyle, and Christian (yes mom, I remembered all of their names. Be proud of me. And don't worry to much about us going over to random boys' house...please. We were safe. I actually knew one of them because he's the older brother of a boy I work with and Ari also knew one from one of her classes).

I ended up talking to Mark most of the night. He was nice but a little strange in an overly friendly way. Jared, Jordan, and Graham were beautiful. Pretty sure I crushed on Graham a lot. Anyway, back to Mark. Mark and I ended up talking and he leaned over and asked me what I thought of the dynamics in the room. What he meant was he wanted me to analyze the boy-girl relationships forming. I was right back in the place I'm always in when I meet guys. I observe and tell things how they are. So I went around the entire room and gave my view on every guy there. Mark was suprised that I nailed every single one on the head. For some odd reason I can read people and situations really well and that's why I've always been the "go to" girl. Graham in one of those guys that is good looking and can get numbers but has no follow through when he receives said numbers. Christian is really open and great conversationalist even though english is a second language since he's from Paraguay. Mark is happy-go lucky and like to make friends and goof off. Kyle is the smooth mover and always has a plan of attack when he wants to pick up a girl (it worked because Andrea was wrapped around his fingure by the end of the night.). Nick wants a girlfriend but he can be a little heavy handed with his flirting, but he is super friendly and open. I can go on, but I think you get the picture. We stayed at their place until a little after two and Ari managed to come away with two numbers (Christian's and Jordan's and she didn't even talk to Christian). How that girl does it I will never know.

So that was my adventure at the Festival of Colors. And here are some more cool pictures from it.

What Do You Love?

Dinner with Janna

On Friday night Janna and I decided we wanted to make a real dinner instead of instant whatever that we had in our cabinets. I got out a recipe book and we looked through the entire thing until we found stuffed Manicotti. Mmmmm...it looked so good. We decided that's what we wanted...mainly because it went well with french bread and Janna really wanted french bread (somehow whenever one of us makes french bread we eat pretty much the entire thing in one sitting. We disgust ourselves when we do that).

Janna and I went out to Macy's for the ingredients and while we were there we joked around about seeing the beautiful men we love cause last time we saw Sexy Skyler (the most gorgeous guy in our ward from last year) and we got a hug from him. That was a good night and dang he smelled good. It was hard not to go back for a second sniff after he hugged me. I digress, so back to the story, Janna and were at Macy's and we got the things we needed and then some. We got brownie mix, ice cream, I got doughnut holes (they looked so good and they called to me), and we got the ever present french bread. As we were leaving the store, a boy that I have a crush on (John L.) walked in. We got to see our beautiful men! I was so excited. Macy's is definitely the place to go.

When we got home, we started to make our manicotti and it turned out wonderful. We had a salad, the bread, and the manicotti for our dinner (and 40 doughnut holes and half a bag Sweet Tart jelly beans for our appetizer...but we'll just ignore that part of the dinner) and it was so yummy.

Here are some pictures from the meal.

Janna and me with our delicious food. We won't mention how Janna looks like a goober.

The main part of our dinner :)

The Bread and Manicotti

Waxology Continued

So after that wonderful night full of wax, I'm still feeling the repercussions to this day. As Janna and I scraped the wax off the stove from my shattered candle, we put the wax in a cup to save it because it was my favorite scented candle and I didn't want to lose it.

Well a few days ago I decided to melt it down (using a candle warmer, not the stove) so that I could put it into a glass jar. Everything was going great, but the way the cup was shaped it couldn't heat the wax at the top and so it never melted all the way. I thought I would help it out by pushing the unmelted wax nearer to the bottom. Well, I accidentally pushed a hole through it and as I was pushing it down, the liquid wax decided to squirt out of the hole and get all over my counter. Great!

I left for school after that and hoped by the time I got back it would be done melting so I could transfer it; however, that plan backfired when I got home and the top had cooled again and the bottom was melted. GRRRRR!!!!!!!! I was so mad. So I left the candle on praying it would eventually melt but by 1 a.m. it was still unmelted and I was fed up with it. So right after I got out the shower (and I mean right after. I still had my towel on), I decided I was going to transfer the wax melted or not. I went to the kitchen (still in my towel) and got out a jar of Prego that I had almost finished. I decided to put the last of the sauce into a plastic container so I could use the jar for my wax. As I was transferring the sauce over, it got stuck at the bottom just like Ketchup always seems to do. I was smacking the bottom and shaking it and nothing would come out. Finally, I gave it one good shake and it exploded. Somehow it missed the entire bowl and the counter, and managed to land all over me, the floor and my towel. It was so gross. So I had to clean all that up, and me up, and finish putting the sauce into the container.

After I rinsed out the jar, I took it back to my room to put the wax in it (again, still with my tomato sauce towel around me). I again poked a hole in the top of the wax so that I could pore the liquid stuff out. At first, while I was poring it was working beautifully, and then it was not. The hole somehow got bigger and somehow popped and wax went everywhere. All over me, the counter, my towel, and the floor but not in the jar. So now I have a towel covered in tomato sauce with wax on top of it sealing it in, a floor covered in wax (I cleaned it up as much as I could without getting down and dirty with it) and a counter covered with little spots of wax.

Maybe that night of mayhem wasn't worth it? I'm starting to think that now.

And for your entertainment...a picture of my towel.