Finally...

..I remembered to go to this website on the appropriate day!

http://isitchristmas.com/

It was quite a triumph. :)

Unlike this morning, when I AGAIN lost to Dad at racquetball. Ah well, humility has to come in all shapes and sizes. ;)

The mind

Man, I had a post idea in my head for the last few days and then I came here and I lost it. It had to do with...something. Something I've been thinking about for a while...yup, gone.

I painted nails with my niece and her two friends today. It was SO FUN! I think I have a pretty fun collection of colors, but since most people just don't get excited about nail polish like I do, my collection is perhaps under-appreciated by the general populous. ;) So it was totally fun for me today when these 3 cute 10-year-olds dumped out my bag of polishes with gasps of delight, and all we heard for the next few minutes was, "GUYS!! Look at THIS one!" in excited voices. :) :) Loved it!

I feel like a) I want to write something meaningful and b) I don't want to be melodramatic, and I don't know how to balance the two at this moment, so I'll just sign off, and try again another time.

Blog out.

The gathering! The gathering!

Hail, hail, the gang's almost all here! Another part of the family arrived tonight, so we're only 6 people away from having the full crew in one place - woohoo! There's pretty much nothing I love more than having all these people that I love in the same place at the same time. It can be a little overwhelming in my parents' little house - too many people and too much craziness to absorb it all, or to carry on a real conversation :) , but I love love LOVE it!

And the thing I love next-most? How much we all love each other. :) It took 2 of my nieces (ages 10 and 4 1/2) a good...several...minutes to say good night and good-bye to each other tonight, even though they'll be living only 20 minutes apart for the next 2 weeks (instead of 2 states apart) and will pretty much see each other every day. The 4 1/2 year old said it would be just "SO HARD" to not be having a sleepover with her cousin that night, complete with the HUGEST pathetic eye roll you ever did see.

Yay love! Yay Christmas!

I think I need to be here more.

I need an outlet, a place to write and think and process, and I think this might be it. And my journal. And my prayers. But I hope that some of my thoughts are things to share, maybe to lift others, and certainly to help me be braver, so I think I'll put some of them here.

See you soon.

And so it begins.

Today I moved into the dorms (I know, right?) for the intensive summer Arabic program. Which, yes, I am doing for the second time. :) And here are the things that made my day:

• I can park my car in the parking lot right next to the dorm on weekends. Woohoo! That means that on Sunday mornings, in my Sunday clothes and the heat and humidity, I do NOT have to walk 15 minutes to the place where my car will be parked during the week. I can move it on Saturday and Sunday mornings for the next 2 months just go easy-peasy. Man, I'm so relieved; I was dreading that walk.
• I do not have a roommate! For the last month I have thought that I was going to have a roommate, seeing as how that's what the paperwork about housing for the program said, and I was kind of nervous and kind of worried and kind of just kind of dreading it. I mean, I haven't had a roommate since 2001. Yup, it's been a while. So this means I don't have to worry about keeping anyone else up with my light on, or being kept up by anyone else, or the whole "what if she was 19 years old and just really young and annoying" thing. Yay! It also means, however, that I don't have an automatic buddy/study partner, so I'll just have to be friendly and make friends. Le sigh. ;)
• I get to miss orientation tomorrow to go to church! I wouldn't be so excited about this except that in working things out with the program coordinator I found out that the orientation is mainly for people who don't live in this town, and, uh, I live in this town, so I would have been basically bored out of my mind anyway. 

Some of you may remember that when I did this program a couple of years ago, it was not the best experience for me. In fact, that program that summer was one of the toughest times I've had, ever. So, yeah, when I got the funding to do it again this year, I had a moment of panic and heart paralysis, and I thought, "OH. NO. This means I have to do the program again. WHAT was I thinking when I applied for that money?!" And I've felt quite a bit of angst about it since then. But tonight, after moving my stuff into the dorm, and making some friends at dinner, I felt pretty dang good about things. I have a placement test tomorrow, and then I'll find out what class I'll be in and what material I'll be covering. I haven't taken an Arabic class in more than a year, and one of the profs is thinking that I'll just pick up with the next class, after the one that I took a year ago, but I don't think so. We'll see.

Anyway, mainly I'm just happy that I'm feeling pretty comfortable. I am going to get a priesthood blessing tomorrow, and that will be a good comfort and strength, but I'm SO relieved to be feeling so good. I know that my attitude last time I did this program made a HUGE (negative) impact on me and my learning and my overall experience in the program, and I am DETERMINED not to sabotage myself again that way.

In other news, this dorm bed will be the 8th different bed that I have slept in in the past three weeks. So even though it's not "home," it will be nice to feel more settled and less living-out-of-a-suitcase-ish than the last three weeks. Of course, I did spend the last three weeks seeing my ENTIRE family, so the consistency of the upcoming 2 months in the dorms doesn't actually compare. At all. But whatever. :)

Good night, friends!

Yup.

http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=1495

Jobs

So I applied for a job today. It's a fulltime staff job at my university, with the people that I worked with last year for my halftime TA job. I don't know what my chances are of getting it, and I won't be devastated if I don't get it, but I had some interesting thoughts as I prepared my cover letter and CV, so I thought I'd share.

Ten days ago I applied for a half-time student job with an organization that I've never done any work with at the university. I updated my CV and tweaked it for the position, and wrote a cover letter for that job. Since I don't know anyone there, and they don't know me, I felt like I really needed my CV and cover letter to represent the scope of what I have done and can do and will do for them. With today's application, though, it felt really different. I mean, these people know me! They worked with me for a whole school year and a summer, about 11 months total, and they know how my personality fits with the other staff, and they have a pretty good idea of how I would fulfill some of the job responsibilities (it's a brand new position, and some of the tasks are very close to the tasks I had as a TA there). And that doesn't mean that I don't want my CV and cover letter to still represent me (and yes, I did tweak my CV and write a new cover letter), but it means they are less important. Right?! ...or something...

If I don't get chosen for the parttime job, I can always say, "they just don't know me and what a great job I would do!" But with this staff position, I feel a bit more like I'm actually putting myself on the line - um, they DO know me, and my work, so if they don't pick me, what does that mean?? Man, I'm not even on the job market yet, and already I'm feeling like that must be an emotionally brutal process!

I feel a bit sheepish about this, given how low the stakes are for me right now. It's very possible that I'll look back on this at some future point when I AM on the job market and just laugh and laugh. But this is how I feel right now, so there you go.

And now to bed. I've had 2 events per night for so many nights now that it felt really refreshing tonight to just (skip tonight's second event - sorry S and V!- and) come right home after YW.

Well...hi there :)

So it's been a while since I've posted. Yup. Had my birthday, did the first half of my pilot study (aww crap I KNEW there was something I was supposed to get done today...), went to the temple a couple of times (including today - hoorah!), what else?

I'm still looking for funding for next year, although this week I was offered something that I'm currently considering a back-up option. But as my sister reminded me, "hey - your worst case scenario just got better!" :)

My dearly beloved roommate of the last almost-two years has decided that she's moving west, closer to her family, so I'm on the lookout for someone with whom to split the rent. Still hoping that Elise gets a job in my town...

So remember when I was in charge of that student symposium two years ago? Well, it came around again this year, and in the spirit of this...

...hi friends. :)

 (And call me vain if you want, but there aren't a ton of pictures of me that I like, but I looked at these and thought, "Hey! I get to be her!" and that was a fun moment for me. :) )

Wisdom from a 3-year-old

Most of the times, over the last few years, when I have been unhappy or upset, it has usually been as a result of feeling hurt. Tonight, feeling a bit unhappy when I got home, I realized that I WASN'T feeling hurt, just sad. And somehow, as funny as it sounds, even to me, that was a welcome change.

And I was glancing over the bulletin boards in my room, rereading sweet and loving and funny notes that I have gotten from loved ones, and which I hang up in my room for just such times as this, and I read this one from my little niece Casey, big sister to the world's most adorable twin babies. Sometime last year she dictated the following to her mother, and sent it to me, embellished with butterfly stickers and a butterfly drawing:

Dear Aunt Margaret,
I love you. What's wrong? Thank you for that postcard you gave me.
I like to watch movies. My favorite movie is Clifford.
I  love to play games. I love to run. I love to go outside. I love to play dress-up.

And then this jewel:

Last night I went on a hike with Mommy. I was scared. Next time, when we go on a hike together, don't be scared. Everybody on the hike - me, you, daddy, the babies, me! Okay?
I love you!
Love,
Casey

And I'm struggling to describe how those last few lines touch me, and have touched me pretty much every time I have read them. Somehow, encouragement not to be scared, to take EVERYBODY on the hike, to let HER experience help me with my fears, and the little "Okay?" at the end...I have no words.

So tonight I say to her, "Okay, Casey! Let's go on a hike, and we can all go, you, me, daddy, the babies, you (can we bring your mommy, too? I like her), and we won't be scared. Okay? OKAY!" :)

Wrong!!

So my sister reminded us all recently that "The first rule of children's artwork is 'DON'T GUESS WHAT IT IS, ask them to tell you about it,'" but sometimes the guessing backfires BOTH ways...my 9-year-old niece and I were making shapes with my BuckyBall magnets, and I made a shape and she was guessing:

"Is it a car?"

"No."

"Is it a mouse doing the splits?"

Uhhh...

I mean, those 2 items are PRACTICALLY the same thing, so I can understand her confusion.

So I'm not a good artist, but my artwork is...versatile? Leaves plenty of scope for the imagination? is open for interpretation?

It was supposed to be a frog.

Whatever.

The only "fun" thing about "fun size" candy bars

...is that I feel less guilty eating more than one of them than I would if they were full-sized. And eating more candy is more "fun," right?

Happy day-after-Halloween, friends. :)

You know that thing it says on the side of the box of nasal decongestants about how you shouldn't take more than 6 doses within 24 hours?

Well, they'd better mean it.

Because if they DON'T mean it, and I've been sitting here all stuffed up, even WITH the approved dosage, and I could have been taking MORE decongestants...

I'm gonna be ticked.

The end.

</whine>

On a happier note, today at a garage sale I found the perfect night stand, just what I've been looking for. And it was $3. Woohoo!

I totally don't have my dad's permission to post this on my blog.

But he and my mom are going to Paris tomorrow, and we already know how I feel about my parents, or my possessions, taking trips to places that I want to go.

And so, without further ado, or permission from my dad, I give you...the email he sent to my sisters and me entitled "Resurrecting my French." (I should mention that he was fluent in both French and Spanish as a young person, and continues to be fluent in Spanish also as an older person, but not as fluent in French. Hence the need to "resurrect" the French.)

And now, ladies and gentlemen, my father:
 

For the last couple of weeks I've been immersing myself in French for almost 2 hours per day.

I remember how we heartless children used to make fun of my father, listening to his Berlitz records late at night, and never getting anywhere. 

"Un."

"Un!"

"Deux."

"Deux!"

So ashamed.  As busy as he was - coming home at night and working on that.  We were wretched.

If you cast your bitter herbs on the water, they return to you.  Or verbs.

I got some intermediate/advanced CDs and work on them walking to and from the train and on the train.  The guy says something in English.  Pause.  Girl says it in French.  Pause.  In French again.  Pause.  Then the guy on a new phrase.  So I use the pauses to try to figure out how to say it, then correct myself, and work on pronunciation. 

Two hours a day of this is pretty intense.  I'll look for them.  Cram some of this down their charming oh-so-competent "sur le pont d´Avignon" throats.

Ruining Spanish - sometimes a French word or pronounciation intrudes.  And French phrases and conjugations keep flitting through the brood-o-sphere.  And dreams.

The verbs are the worst.  Je suis.  Tu est.  Il est.  Elle est.

The whole language nothing but insane labyrinth of verbs.  Doing things to or by a few innocent nouns.  Subjunctive.  Passe compose.  Conditional.  Darn it all.

Thank heaven for the occasional cognate.  [My mom] woke up Sunday absolutely bushed after Saturday's excesses.  "Je vois que tu est tres poupée."  Yes!  I can do this!

The nightmares.  In my dreams it still doth haunt me.  The prehistoric jungle with gigantic insane reptilian birds verbing their way through the dense miasma of eons-old wreckage and decay.  Purple.  Greenish orange.  Brownish blue. That's just the birds.  Snatching out your liver.  Ma fois!

Marie Antoinette.  "Qu'ils mangeant du brioche."  A precursor to the tumbrils, the guillotine.  Charles, a peasant, hauled to the scaffold for disobeying her.  "Je n'aurai pas du ne pas y en avoir mangé du brioche.  Avoir.  Chouette."  "I shouldn´t have not eaten the cake."  J'ai.  Tu as.  Il a.  Elle a.

me te se nous vous

le la les

lui leur

y

en

Accents!

Darnit darnit darnit.

Gloria en excelsis les neuf inmortels.

Halleluja!

Amen! 

And to that I say also - amen! :) And also - bon voyage! :)

I took a walk on the wild side...

You know those tags on your hair dryer / curling iron / straightening iron that warn you not to electrocute yourself or your small children by licking / using while in the tub / dropping in the toilet?

Last week I cut those tags off my hair dryer AND my straightening iron.

Oh yes I did.

I feel happy :)

I just had a flash of feeling really happy, and thought I'd share. :) I'm working hard at and enjoying my new  project assistantship for this year, my coworkers are pleasant people, I'm working toward identifying a dissertation adviser and a topic, I've been getting enough sleep and still getting my work done - it's all good. :)

How are you??

See you on Saturday?

Just a quick note for any of you who might be heading toward the Hill Cumorah this weekend...my family reunion is there, so I'll be there and would LOVE to see you! Our festivities will begin with a big dinner at the Hill on Saturday night, so please call me or text me and come find us and eat and say hi! :)

A reminder

I was driving home from Mutual just now, giggling over how funny my dear friend Pam, our YW secretary, is, and I was struck, like I would have stopped in my tracks if I hadn't been driving :) , by the realization that I've been really HAPPY lately. Not just giddy cheerfulness, and not that I don't have my moments of stress over work and Arabic and school and laundry and groceries, but there's been an underlying level of lasting-feeling happiness and peace lately, for at least the last couple of weeks, and especially for the last couple of days, and I'm really humbled and grateful for that, and glad for the nudge to recognize it.

I think at least part of it has to do with the time I've spent with our youth - we had stake youth conference 2 Saturdays ago, and then ward youth conference the next Tues-Wed, so that was 3 full days in a 5-day span that I spent in close proximity with our awesome youth. It was so fun and uplifting to be with them! They're so funny and fun and GOOD. I went to a baptism this last Saturday, and one of the missionaries said while bearing his testimony that he's a better person for having known this new convert, and I was struck then by the thought that THAT was how to describe how I felt about the time I've gotten to spend with the youth these last few weeks - I am a better person because of the time I've gotten to spend with them and around them. They are GOOD people. They talk about and love the gospel, they serve each other and include each other, they are helpful and generally cheerful. Just good folk to be around.

And then yesterday was our ward 4th of July party, and I was reminded of the friends of all ages that I have in my ward, and how much I enjoy them. Oh wow I laughed so hard with Pam, and the YW (and leaders) ROCKED the YM (and leaders) in a tug-o-war, and I made friends with two new young couples that just moved in.

And also - one of our youth confided in me about a member of the opposite sex (teehee! didn't you LOVE being a teenager?!), and while I did NOT start the spontaneous water fight of the 10-yrs-old-and-younger crowd, I WAS the main target and DID get completely soaked (and did some soaking of my own as well, thankyouverymuch). :) And, people? If those last two items don't make a person feel like she's "arrived," I'm not quite sure what will. ;)

It's just been some really good times lately, and some good spiritual growth, and some good development of friendships of all shapes and sizes, and I'm grateful that my Heavenly Father saw fit to hit me with a 2x4 tonight and point out that - HEY! YOU'RE HAPPY! - because I sure wouldn't want to have missed this. :)

Distilled truth

Last night I was hanging out at my friend Teresa's house after a meeting, and I was maybe a little bit teasing her 12-yr-old son, and suddenly he said, "you'd be a perfect aunt."

To which I responded, "Yes, yes, I am." :)

Nope.

Actual conversation I just had with my sister:

Her: I want to tell you one more thing. Did I already tell you this?
[pause]
Her: You don't know yet.
Me: Nope.

Heehee! :) And that's how we roll. :)

Breakfast: Of champions.

My coworker saw me eating cold cereal and milk at my desk this morning, and we had a little chat about the importance of breakfast, during which he said:

Breakfast is important. It's so important that I don't mind doing it 3 or 4 times a day.

And oh, he does.