Um, okay...

So if you have multiple bumper stickers on your car, and one of them says:

Friends don't let friends vote Republican.

...and another says:

Buckle up! It makes it harder for the aliens to suck you out of your car.

...then you should know that the latter makes it hard for me to take the former, or really anything about you, seriously.

Just so you know.

Sean Voyage

So yesterday marked the departure of a good friend. He finished his Master's degree and left town, moving on to life as a, um, grown up?, with, you know, a "real job."

He has certainly left his mark on those of us who knew him here, if not for his good heart, good work ethic, and cheerful attitude, then certainly for lines like this:

"It's really hard to hide things under the bathroom signs at the State Capitol Building."

He would know.

We'll miss you, Sean.

This really touched me today.

http://itswhatmakesmeme.blogspot.com/2010/03/worst.html

It's about the daughter of a friend of a friend of mine, and I wonder--how often does that happen with us and our Heavenly Father? How often are we in the middle of a trial, and He's trying to help us, with all the resources available to Him, and He KNOWS He CAN help us, and we struggle and cry, "I can't breathe!" as we gasp, frantically for air? And then, eventually, finally, desperately, we listen, and we hear, and we breathe His healing, and we are OK, as He knew we would be.

Maybe the lesson is:

Struggle less; listen, hear, and BREATHE more.

You might be in the south if...

A friend of mine recently got back from a trip to Tennessee. This is an ACTUAL PHOTOGRAPH she took down there.


And that's all I have to say about that.

Delivery!!

I received these in the mail yesterday...


Hee hee!!!! knee-high, awesome colors, super soft, and accompanied by a hilarious note from my dear aunt, and the best part is...

They're...


That means I can wear them with ANYTHING!!

And oh baby, I plan to. :)

Thanks, Aunt Cathy!!!

Happy summer vacation!

So it's been a week now.

heehee

To celebrate my freedom from classes I have...

• read a good stack of books--fun books, not school books, just to clarify ;)
  
• watched a few movies
• stayed up WAY too late too many nights
• submitted a research proposal that got turned down :(
• found out about 2 As in classes from last semester :)

... and decided to maybe move to CA for the summer???

How's your summer going so far?

I just...

...turned in my last paper of the semester. It was the right length, and I had a topic. And sources. And on the way to print it out and turn it in it occurred to me that I might not have actually SAID anything in it.

Oh well.

And I called several members of my family to celebrate and none of them answered.

I feel like spending a lot of money.

Those two facts are not related.

I think.

Check these out!

Something to inspire you:

http://www.hopefullymormon.blogspot.com/

Something to cheer you up, and other people, too:

http://operationbeautiful.com/

A way to make a difference:

http://tippingbucket.org/

Current status--updated:
--> Arabic final--over. Ugly, but over. I only left 2 blanks. :)
--> 4 pg essay--done. Ugly, and I'm kind of embarrassed that I turned it in like that, but done.
--> 10 pg paper--done. I think it was actually pretty ok. :)
--> 7 pg paper due in 20 hrs--have some sources. Topic? not so sure.
--> Blog--updated. Sigh. :P

Happy finals to you, too.

It just got louder in the library (people JUST getting out of bed, or lunch time??) so I turned up the volume on my Pandora. Think it'll help?

Ugh ugh ugh ugh

Current status:
--> Arabic final in 23 hrs--not ready
--> 4 pg essay due in 27 hrs--at 3 pgs, but too many more sections to write, will need to trim a lot
--> 10 pg paper due in 27 hrs--umm...have sources, and outline...
--> 7 pg paper due in 3 days--eep. Maybe have topic? maybe a few sources?
--> Blog--updated. At least I have my priorities in the right place. :P

send help

P.S. One possible reason that my status is as stated above.
P.P.S. The aforementioned reason has to do with the CONTENT of the comic, not the fact that I am reading the archives of an online comic while my finals are in such a sorry state...
P.P.P.S. send help

He's right.

My brother-in-law, that is.

See, his wife, my sister, likes to share with the family the cute things her kids say.

She wrote:

"[Four-year-old daughter] just asked me, 'Mom, have you ever noticed some babies just have one hair?'

We were reading Horton the Elephant (one of [four-year-old daughter]'s favorites). On the last page she piped up, 'We don't have elephant birds around here.'"

And because I am always interested in both sharing my knowledge of flora and fauna and gaining new knowledge, I responded:

"No, I believe they are native to Argentina, and are a close relative of the feral chicken. Right, Dad?"

And my esteemed father, also always oh-so-willing to share his, ahem, extensive knowledge, wrote back:

"Margaret, of course, is right.

It´s that old saw about opposites attracting.

Moonlit nights - soft background music - and chickens and elephants just find each other irresistible.
Generally, it is culinarily irresistible - feral chickens have a tremendous, gigantic, enormous weakness for elephant steaks.

But sometimes, in the springtime, the hens fall for the big guys in a serious way."

And then my bro-in-law:

"You people are all totally, irrevocably, certifiably insane.

It's so good to fit in."

And he's right. :)

Don't hide your light...

So I have a paper due in 4 hrs and 49 minutes, and oh, it'll be done by then. :)

But I just saw a guy from the class for which that paper is due, and we were talking about the presentation of our papers, which will be in class tonight, and how we have a very limited amount of time to present, and I made a crack about how "I talk so fast that I can fit 20 minutes of content into 1o minutes" and he agreed, and then he said the following (he's a native speaker of English, btw):

You know, you should take pride in the fact that you are one of very few native English speakers that I have a hard time understanding...not all the time, just sometimes.

Um, really? I should take pride in that?! I'll have to think about that...

But under the circumstances, with only 10 minutes to present some pretty interesting material, I'll just be grateful for this "talent" and move on with life. :)

The end of a streak

Today is the first time in one month that I have worn a hoodie in public. And yes, it has a little something to do with this item of clothing that I got for my birthday one month ago. But I still felt it was worth noting. :)

And also - remember this presentation? Well it was today, and we got a few laughs. :) And then leaving class, a classmate not in my group muttered to me, "Congratulations. Yours is DEFINITELY going to be the best one." And another student, who is in that guy's group, said, "I resent that lack of confidence in our abilities!" And the first guy said, "it's not going to be better than THAT!" :) heehee

Pondering on my fingernails (don't you?!)

So at the potluck last night my friend H complimented me on my brown (freshly-applied) nail polish, and while I thanked her and told her how much I, also, enjoy my chocolate-colored fingernails, I also pointed out the spot that had gotten chipped-already, gol-dern-it!, and her sweet, spontaneous response was:

"You don't need to show me your imperfections. I like you anyway."

Thanks, H, I needed that right then. And not just about my nails. :)

And speaking of my nails, as I sit here considering the next step in the preparation of a paper that is due Wednesday and the presentation of said paper, for which I have to do a trial run in front of one of my classmates in 1 hr and 30 min (and the # of Powerpoint slides I have right now = 0), I find myself filing my nails as an aid to concentration. I was doing this in my lab several years ago, and a dear friend commented on it, and I said, "filing my nails helps me think," in response to which he simply looked again at my nails, which were fairly long at the time, implying, because I don't think he would have said it aloud, that there must not be much thinking going on, if they were that long. :) Well guess what, Jeff? They're short now!! :P

Do we think my prof would allow me to use that as evidence that I did put at least some thought into this paper?!

Sigh

Al-hijab

I just spent all day with a group from my Arabic class, filming our final presentation. We did a TV morning news show, and one of the parts I wrote and recorded was a (spoof) commercial for hijab. We thought we were very clever, even if we couldn't get all our jokes to go smoothly into Arabic. :)

So if you show up in our class on Tuesday, you might see a little of this...