Re: The weather

Dear Mother Nature,

I would appreciate it if you would make up your mind on all the weather we have been having lately in Happy Valley. These ups and downs in temperature are doing murder to my skin.

Oh, and I would really like to drive home in my new car with the sun roof open, so don't make any sudden changes to the schedule in the next 24 hours, ok? Ok.

~Unfortunate Lilymaid

Painting pretty pictures

I really don't like the last few days of the school year. They're about as useless as the first few days of school but for different reasons. In my Writing about Literature class right now, we're watching presentations on papers for the next two class periods. I wouldn't go but our professor has given us high-school-ish sheets to fill out in order to rate the presenters. If this wasn't such a load of busy work I'd be more ok with it. I mean, sure, you want people to come. It wouldn't be fair for the people going last not to have an audience at all. But our teacher gives out grades without taking into consideration the views of the class. That's her prerogative, but I still resent the busy work.

Ok. Part of this is that I resent her as well. She flat out refuses to give me an A because she knows it's driving me crazy. She gave me an A- on my last presentation for heaven knows what reason (she only marked off two minor things out of about twenty different categories), and she gave Ms. "I'm going to rock around on my feet and keep my hands in my pockets and make no interesting claims" an A, and Ms. "I enjoy wandering through - oh look a butterfly - I don't know what I'm doing here" an A as well. So irritating.

Rant over. My point is entirely different. But I think I'm allowed to rant because no one really reads this thing anyway, right? Of course right.

Someone said something today in their presentation that really bothered me. Not in an "I'm offended, I'm going to resent you for the rest of my life" kind of way, more in a "no! That's not right," kind of way. She is writing her paper on My Name is Asher Lev by Chaim Potok. Asher, the main character, is a painter and a Jew. I won't go into all the details, you can (and should) read the book for yourself. One of the main conflicts in the book sits in what art is supposed to accomplish and whether it should be beautiful or not. Asher's mother Rivkeh tells him over and over again to paint something beautiful. "Paint pretty pictures, Asher." Over and over again she begs for him to paint something lovely.

But Asher feels like painting something that isn't necessarily beautiful. At least not by his mother's definition. He draws Stalin in a coffin. He paints his mother on a cross. He paints his mythic ancestor.

The only time he draws something "beautiful" - a brother and sister walking down the road together - he feels as though he's drawn a lie. He hates it.

The commentary that the presenter gave is that Asher can paint "pretty pictures" like his mother wants him to or he can paint the world realistically.

I've written on this before. Last Christmas after the "Scottish episode that shall not be named" (aka. the Robin Hood finale) I wrote about how I don't think that we should consider reality to be bad things. Now I want to expand on that.

I think about my reality. My reality starts between about seven-thirty and nine-thirty every day. I wake up and put on a robe over my pajamas and eat some cereal for breakfast. I watch the news for a while. The news isn't always positive. Rarely positive, really - I suppose this is why so many people associate "reality" with wars and starvation and crime rates. I get ready for school or work and walk to campus. On days when I go to work first I walk along a brick path south of campus that is lined with trees. I love this part of my walk. It is beautiful and gives me a chance to think and enjoy the view of the mountains without the general rush to get to classes. I go to my classes and spend time some of my friends. At night I do some homework, talk to my family, eat dinner and read for a while. It really isn't so bad. It's really great, actually.

People tell me that after I leave school I'll enter the "real world". So what is that supposed to mean? Well, it means I have to get a job. Yes. I understand that, thank you very much. It means I have to be responsible for myself and my finances. Well. . . ok. I was expecting that. Do I think it will be easy? No. It's a different challenge. But I don't expect to be unhappy. I don't expect everything to be to my liking, but I don't expect things to be horrible either. I want to be optimistic about my life. I want to make my world worth living in.

In other words, enduring to the end isn't suffering valiantly. Men are supposed to have joy, yes? "For God so loved the world." God loved the world. Not just the people in it, but the rest of it too.

Not that I promote a completely Pollyana-ish view on the world. There's something to be said for recognizing that the world isn't always fair or kind. I worry about people, for example, who think that BYU is a completely safe place. You have to be careful who you trust everywhere. That being said, I think you can be realistic about your life and be happy about it as well.

I need to refine these thoughts so that the next time I meet someone who says this, I can tell them to be a little more optimistic.

"I do believe it is tempests"

"This is one of the miracles of love: It gives a power of seeing through its own enchantments and yet not being disenchanted." ~A Grief Observed, C.S. Lewis

I've been thinking.

This is good, you say. A person ought to think. Especially a person who is (gasp) actually going to graduate from college in the next year. Sometimes I think people leave college so disillusioned by things that they no longer think and have simply wasted several thousand dollars and many hours of sleep.

I've been thinking about the different qualities of different characteristics. We had a lecture several eons ago in a British Lit class I took about how the opposite quality to a lie isn't truth, it's a different kind of lie. Take for example these extremes:

You are a blond-haired-blue-eyed Christian in Germany during World War II. Your next door neighbors have been your friends for many years. They happen to be Jewish. Rather than stand and watch them leave for the death camps, you decide to hide the family in your home until you can move them to a safer location. Some of the police come to your house and ask if you know what has happened to your neighbors. You tell the police you don't know. It's a lie.

You are about to marry a really great person. He/she asks you if you have ever had sex with another person before. You have, but you lie and say that you haven't.

Both of these are lies. According to my Book of Mormon teacher from a few years ago, you would probably go to hell for both because lying is a sin. But we don't hold them on the same plane because there are different levels of "lies". Telling your kid Santa exists is different than lying to a police officer, right?

I started thinking about this last night when I was reading my dose of Uncle Jack for the day. A Grief Observed is a seventy-some-odd page masterpiece of sub-conscious thought following the death of his wife. It's started me thinking about the way people sort of look out for each other and do humane things that - under definition - might be less so. Lying to someone to tell them they look better when they don't. Telling your future mother-in-law that you love her food if you don't. The lines are never as clear between "right" and "wrong" as we would like.

The part of that quote that I love so much is that it really allows for someone to love as God loves, mistakes and foibles and all. I think that's one of the biggest problems I see in people who want to plan elaborate dates, for example, and never take the time to be friends with someone. In the recent past I went out several times with someone who - while a really great guy - spent so much time trying to come up with creative activities that the date became the focus of the night and not the "I really want to get to know you" part. People jump right into dating someone before they take the time to become friends. Dating is such a joke, sometimes. It takes forever for a person to really be themself when there's so much pressure to have fun.

You need that time. To go through a period of disenchantment and then realize that you don't care.

Sound and Fury

I'm about to write on something that most people will probably not care about. It's a turn from what I normally take the time to say - stuff about movies or books or life as a college student. This is a little different.

From the beginning I'd like to make it clear that I am not representing the deaf or hearing communities. I'm just putting my thoughts down on a debate I've been having in my head for a while.

I'm in a Deaf Culture class right now. I've taken two years of sign and in order to get my language credit passed off, the University requires me to finish off with a semester studying deaf culture. BYU is unique in that all of the ASL teachers are deaf. It has provided me with a really unique learning experience and I'm glad that I've had the chance to learn sign. I think it is a beautiful language.

I've been struggling a bit with my 301 class, though. It frustrates me to go in a class and learn about how hearing people are "bad" or "oppressive" and to be deaf is "right" and "good" compared to being hearing.

Part of this frustration is warranted. The deaf world has been through the mill in the last hundred years. The fact is, there are more hearing people in the world than deaf people. 95% of deaf children have hearing parents, and most of those hearing parents haven't had exposure to the deaf world before. They don't know what to do. The hearing world literally revolves around sound. We know when to get up because of an alarm. We hear our phones ring or the doorbell. We know when to feed our children because we hear them cry. We know when to stop a lane change because someone honks at us. We know that something is wrong downstairs when we hear the sound of glass breaking. We have a literal obsession with recognizing sounds and understanding where they come from. For a hearing person with little exposure to the deaf way of life, the idea of living without sound is incomprehensible and frightening. Even now as I'm writing I've got my music on. The Beatles. What would life be like if I couldn't hear the Beatles? I would wager that nearly every student on campus would spontaneously explode if someone cut the cord between them and their iPod.

We watched a movie yesterday in 301 about a family who has a deaf son. They focus so much on his inability to hear that they inhibit him from acquiring any knowledge at all. His mother says over and over that she just wants him to be able to talk and order his own food at a restaurant, etc. She says having a deaf son is like expecting a child with legs and getting one with fins instead.

But that's not quite right. He doesn't have fins. He still has legs. And expecting a deaf child to live like a hearing child is ridiculous. He can't hear.

Prior to watching that movie I'd wondered about what I would do if I had a deaf child, even though I do know sign and can communicate well enough. As an English person, I struggled with it, because there are some major drawbacks in deaf education at the moment. Public education made the mistake of throwing most deaf kids in with other handicapped children with mental disorders. Deaf children aren't stupid. They just need a bit of help. What's happened is that you have hearing parents desperate to teach their kids to talk, and by the time they learn sign later on in life (if they do) they're well behind in other subjects and can't have the independence their parents wanted for them in the first place. Most kids educated in ASL are well behind in English. They can't write or read as well. They can communicate perfectly, but they struggle to communicate with the outside world in a written way because ASL is not a written language. I decided that if I were to have (or adopt) a deaf child, I would stress importance in understanding English. Just as I would stress the importance of learning English in a child I adopted from China: to survive in America, to become truly educated, it is vital that you be able to present yourself well.

The trouble I have with this class is that the material is outdated and, in many ways, I see the deaf community as crippling themselves. The Gallaudet Revolution in the late 80s did great things for the deaf world, but it's still so close to the hearts in the leaders of the deaf community that they have trouble breaking out of the "oppressed" mindset, just as some members of the black community struggle because of Civil Rights movement backlash. Sure - there are people that genuinely do not understand the struggle and don't want to. But there are many people who would be willing to help if they knew what to do. Most of the materials we use in the class are outdated. I feel frustrated when I read long chapters in books about how hearing people are mean and it's all their fault that deaf people have a horrible life, etc. It makes me want to stand up in class and say "look - you don't need to tell me that it's better to use sign. I'm here! I'm trying. Tell it to that stupid mother trying to yell into the ear of her deaf son so that he could 'hear'-"

I have hope for the deaf world though. I have a feeling that the farther we move from the Deaf President Now campaign, the more willing people will be to come together. I think the study of deaf culture will expand and grow into something better. Right now, though, I struggle. It's not my fault I can hear. Blame the powers that be, if you want.

"If I weren't going to be a writer, I'd go to New York and pursue the stage..."

I looked at the date of my last post today and got a bit of a shock. January 21st? Goodness. In my defense my life has been busy and I haven't had much to write about, but still. Shouldn't I have a plethora of things to say all the time?

Which leads (somewhat roughly) into my topic for the day. A few weeks ago I sat down with one of my professors. He more or less tossed an imaginary gauntlet on the floor of his office and said something to the effect of: "Joni, you can be a professional writer if you want to be, but you'll have to work harder."

Well. If that didn't smack me back into place a bit.

When I was twelve I was determined to be a writer. I wrote little short stories all over the place, one of which was a twenty or so page epoch tale of a girl on the Oregon Trail complete with birth, death and (naturally) cholera. All the Oregon-Trail-Tale necessities. I remember very vividly telling my sixth grade teacher that one day I was going to be a real published author and that I would dedicate my first book to her. This enthusiasm for the idea of being a writer carried on into high school when I started writing a magical-realism book about a girl in Ireland. She lived in a house with a field of daffodils around it that drove the neighbors mad because they were just so conspicuous. My creative writing teacher told me over and over again that I ought to write professionally. I scorned the rest of the "kids" in my classes that wrote really horrible, sappy poetry. I managed to get published in a magazine. It was a good year.

Then, of course, I went to college. I took one creative writing class that I really didn't like because (a) I didn't have any inspiration to write and, (b) my professor's theory on how you write stories irritated me. I thought it was a load of poo.

I don't know that I've written anything in the creative department since then.

I'm starting to get a bit of that bug back, though. That urge to write something wonderful. In working with this professor on my writing, though, he was speaking specifically about being a professional essayist. Only I don't want to be a professional essayist.

This last statement has a bit of irony to it, really. What have I done the last three years that was anything but essaying? Journaling, I suppose, which is a form of essay. Personal narratives. Nothing creative. Why is that?

Well, I suppose that part of it is because I read a lot of crap. I've always wondered at how some authors manage to get published with the junk they write. It's such an impossible industry to break into and most of it is a load of really horrid writing that somehow manages to strike a literary (or imaginary) chord. Take Twilight for instance - the books are not well written (don't even try arguing with me on this), but they've been selling out all over the place. Nearly every teenage girl in the world has read them and/or made their boyfriends read them (why any high school boy would do that for a girlfriend, I don't know). Or maybe that example isn't fair. I'd use Harry Potter but everyone knows how that turns out too - another random, twist of fate chance that opens up an empire. But what of the great unknown books? There are some incredible storytellers out there that get completely overshadowed in the young adult fiction world by ripping yarns like . . . The Babysitter's Club. One of the reasons why I think I haven't written is because I don't want to write junk.

Then of course there's the fear that all I will have to say will have already been said by someone. Heaven forbid I steal from someone else. I need to be original!! But how can I be original when there have been billions of other stories told? Well, I can't. I don't know that there's any such thing as a truly original story when you pick off all the fluff. I just have to find a way to tell the same story in a new enough way that it tricks people. How do you do that?

Hindrance number three: I'm a historical purist. I don't want to write anything modern, but if I'm going to write something historical I want to make sure I do it well. And, while I'm at it - I don't much fancy setting anything in America either. I suppose the upside is that I would get to travel back to my beloved England for field research . . . maybe this isn't such a hindrance after all . . .

Another question, then - why did I have to grow up into a realistic sort of mindset that keeps pestering me by saying "chances are you'll fail, why even start"? What ever happened to that twelve year old inside me that said I would put my teacher's name on the dedication page of my first book and knew that eventually I would? Whatever happened to "the glory and the dream"?

So for now, I'm trying to come up with ideas. I still rather like the idea of that little story I was working on all that time ago. With a little refinement of course - maybe I can come up with some solid conflict and say something worth reading. Until then, though - it's definitely given me some things to think about. What is it about growing up that makes us so boring in how we dream? What's wrong with wanting something wonderful? Or is it just that our idea of "wonderful" shifts? Is that settling? Or is that just living "responsibly"?

Lessons I've learned

This last week has been kind of a whirlwind. There is so much to say that I've decided it's time for another list post. Aren't we excited? Wahoo!

1. There is 100% chance that if you walk into a Junior High in Orem right now, you will hear someone singing High School Musical. How do I know this? Because for the last week I have been doing my pre-English teaching program for half days at Canyon View. It's been an experience, I can tell you. Six in the morning does not agree with me. This rotten combination of being a teacher and a student and an employee every day from six until eleven at night is horrid. The teaching experience itself is fun enough, though (minus the continual references to Zac Efron). It reminds me of a line in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix during the first DA meeting. There's a line in the narration that says something to the effect of "it was strange to be issuing orders, but even more strange to be seeing them followed". Yup. That's about right.

2. Romeo and Juliet is the most irritating play in the world. For six hours of the last week in CVJH I watched Romeo and Juliet pop their clogs six times. Ugh. It's so irritating. What on earth does that play solve? I have never understood why people think it's so romantic. I prefer the end to the parody play Romeo, you Idiot. In the end of that play everyone dies. It's wonderful! Just kill them off! Get rid of them! It's convenient, isn't it? The end of that show? It ends like a Jane Austen novel. You don't ever find out what happens in the end. Does the friar get away with it? Do the Capulets and Montegues ever send each other Christmas cards? It's so lame. If and when I end up teaching Shakespeare in High School, I will not teach Romeo and Juliet if I can get away with it. At least not to hormonal, emotionally driven 14 year olds. Midsummer Night's Dream it is for me. I will say though, the best part about all of it was in the modern version (from 1996) when Juliet shoots herself. One of the girls jumped about five feet in the air, I'm not kidding. And then going around and looking at all the venn diagrams they've made comparing the two versions and seeing things like "This Juliet is HOTT!" and "Romeo looks like Zac Efron" (I'm telling you, those girls have an Efron radar).

3. I have a new-found appreciation for sisterhood. Sometimes (being the liberal arts/humanities student I am), I get into a mode of independence that seems kind of popular for college girls to take. But there really is something unique and wonderful about being a woman. We have the ability to pull together in a time of crisis that is rather remarkable. This last weekend I received a rather frantic phone call from a friend half desperate for someone to just be there for her. I rushed home and spent the next eight or so hours trying to help her out - turns out her fiance had broken up with her. Over a text message no less. Within minutes we had reinforcements called in and a whole group of girls asking what they could do to help. Chocolate and cookies and Kleenex were pulled out of the woodwork. Somewhere among the tears and tragedy I took a few moments to really appreciate how good girls are at pulling together and dropping everything to help out during an emotional crisis. Girls can be pretty irritating and petty, but when it comes down to it, we don't like to watch other people hurt.

4. I also have wonderful parents. I'm lucky enough to be friends with my parents. I don't know how they managed to foster that kind of relationship between us, but I'm glad they did. There is a really healthy balance between friend and parent that they both manage to switch through at the right moments. They take care of me and let me fall on my face and make sure I have what I need (and don't need, sometimes).

5. I'm still mad about the end of Robin Hood. For different ways now. The annoying thing about the BBC is that they don't handle things in the same way as most American networks. When something happens in American television that's a bit drastic, within the next three days there will be huge press releases and interviews with the stars and plenty of information given to the public about the hows and whys of whatever happened. It's wonderful. Unlike the BBC. They have been resolutely silent on all things finale. The only thing they've said at all has come in the form of a quietly circulated email responding to a random selection of people who sent letters of annoyance. The letter more or less says four things: a. We're sorry you don't like it. Robin loves Marian, we know. So we had to do something drastic. (non sequitor much?); b. Don't worry. Guy will feel very badly for what he has done (as if I care. If they killed Marian off because of GUY's character arch that's the worst excuse in the world. The show isn't about him, morons.); c. We killed her off to make room for other characters and storylines (because Marian has been so intrusive on those extra characters and storylines before. Oh. Wait. She's usually been at the center of the introduction of those new storylines and characters.); and d. We hope you'll still watch season three and many more years of Robin Hood (yes. They said years. In the plural. Obviously they haven't noticed that they've already successfully massacred their own story. They really are that oblivious). In brighter news, I finally managed to get a friend of mine to return my season one on DVD. I've decided something: season one is the only real season. Season two is fine until episode seven. At this point, Marian is in the woods, people are happy. The rest of the season is like fan fiction. I'll skip to the parts that are good and worth watching, and assume that the last two episodes are a bunch of (insert appropriate expletive here). I've actually given the last episode a name. It is now fondly known as "the Scottish Apocrypha that shall not be named". Work that one out for yourself.

6. I started writing this about five hours ago. I stopped to do laundry and shower and eat something that might be called lunch and do nothing at all productive. I've been in sweats all day. I spent three hours watching television and I really hate most television. So much for being productive on the holiday.

7. I saw Juno this weekend. I highly recommend it. My favorite line was "Because doctors are sadists who think they're God and like to watch lesser people suffer". (or something like that). It's the first time in a long time I've been to a movie that genuinely took me by surprise with the humor.

8. I'm still working on that piece from England with all the journal entries that I posted on here earlier. It's getting better. I have no idea what I'm going to do with it, though. I mean, I'm enjoying writing it. It's been a long time since I've written something that consumed me so much. But there is absolutely zero market for young-adult travel writing, and who the heck would want to read about my trip anyway? I mean, I don't think I'm a horrible writer. I find myself semi-entertaining most of the time (it's because I don't sleep and everything is funnier when you haven't slept). But who would want to waste that much time reading something I've done? I don't know. But I don't feel like giving up on it yet, so I'm going to keep forging ahead. If you hear of anyone who is interested in starting a market for travel writing, let me know. Then maybe when I'm famous people will pay to send me around the world so I can write about it! Gah. That would be the coolest job EVER.

Love Actually Is (Or, why I'm holding out for happily ever after)

Hey look, it's 2008. Madness, I tell you!

This Christmas my incredibly wonderful mother bought me Love Actually. I highly recommend the movie. This isn't a movie review so I won't go into detail, suffice it to say that the movie follows several different people (who are all connected through friendship/family) in their different stages of love at Christmastime in London. You've got a twelve year old who falls in love with a classmate after his mother's death and a marriage falling apart because of an affair and a couple who fall in love without speaking the same language at all, and others. It's brilliant. It's funny and touching in turns. (And it's set primarily in London which, knowing me, is a HUGE bonus). At the very beginning of the film, you see the phrase "Love Actually is all around", and then the last two words fade off for a second so the phrase turns into "Love Actually is", and then it turns into "Love Actually" as the title of the movie. I'll come back to this in a second. Hang on to your trousers.

The last two episodes of Robin Hood came out this last weekend as well. Now, none of you (that I know of?) watch the show, so I'm not assuming spoilers here, but stop reading now if you care.
I don't want to go into two seasons worth of plot development to tell you why the ending irritated me so much. There are many levels as to why, much of which aren't relevant to this entry. I've geared these responses en masse to the BBC and amongst many forums to spread the word on how moronic the ending was. I'll make it brief. Last season, the writers had Marian stabbed by Guy of Gisborne (the Sheriff of Nottingham's evil leather-clad right hand man). She is "dead", but pulls a Juliet and they find out that she was only drugged by some hemlock by a mean-spirited physician. Some quick surgery later, she's back to life and reunited with her love. All is right with the world and the outlaws get a Newsie-like screen shot at the end of the season to celebrate their victory. Fast forward to last Saturday night, a year after last season ended, and the same scenario presents itself again. The writers have managed to apparate all of the outlaws and Marian and the Sheriff and Guy to the Holy Land between episodes twelve and thirteen (don't ask) and Marian, after hiding her love for Robin from Guy (who also crushes on her) taunts him with declarations of love for Robin. He stabs her with a sword in his anger at the betrayal, and Marian dies on the sand with Robin next to her after they do some quick impromptu wedding vows. Two of the outlaws end up deciding to stay behind in the Holy Land, and Robin and his reduced band of three merry men walk back to Nottingham (or apparate, I suppose). No happy ending. No reassurance that things are good. (Keep in mind, Americans- this is aired during the family hour of BBC television. It's a show mothers watch with their children because it's clean and bloodless and funny).

Reactions to this have been fairly universal - nearly everyone is furious that the BBC would kill off Marian. Aside from the particularly horrible way of doing it, most comments include something to the effect of: "It's Marian! You can't have Robin without Marian." There are a few (very very few) comments from people saying that they liked the reality of the ending because life doesn't always churn out happy endings for people, but (as I said) most people have pretty adamantly declared that they don't care how Marian comes back (re-write the last two episodes, have it all be a dream/hallucination/whatever), but she'd better come back or they won't be watching the next series. I'm fairly sure that I'm one of them. Who wants to watch a bunch of boys run around sword fighting for some huge cause when you can't narrow it down to one specific reason? Watching Robin do ground control in Nottingham isn't nearly as urgent if there isn't the promise of marrying his girl at the end.

Ok. So one more shift, bear with me. The point is coming.

I saw Enchanted tonight with my mom and sister and a friend of mine. I was a little hesitant to see it at first - so much sugar in a film tends to make me feel rather sick, but I thought the movie was rather clever in the end. It was cheesy, of course, but it also made fun of itself so it wasn't so hard to swallow. It's about a girl named Giselle from a fairy tale who falls through a well into New York City after being pushed by an evil stepmother. She's found in the middle of her search for her prince by Robert - a single father who works (I think?) as a divorce attorney and (as a result), believes that marriages aren't happy, necessarily - they're just successful if they last long enough for the couple to die still married. The ever optimistic Giselle disagrees (obviously) and continues to look for romance and a happily ever after.

So what does all this have to do with what's on my mind? I think the conclusion will probably be kind of short. I'm defending romance. It's something I kind of cower from sometimes. The idea of some guy singing me a song or writing me a poem to show me affection makes me feel all embarrassed, but in the end - what's wrong with it? If that's what brings a bit of extra excitement to a relationship, is it so bad?

Beyond that (and probably more serious than that) - we live in a pretty pessimistic world. Look at the responses to Robin Hood and the attitude of Robert from Enchanted: reality isn't a happily ever after, so suck it up and face disappointment. But you know what? I don't need television and movies to tell me that life doesn't always work out. And I don't want to be disappointed in the life I have. I don't anticipate my life being happy all the time, but I don't want to expect misery either. That's what bothers me about Robin Hood. Now all Robin is really living for is death so that after he dies he can be with Marian. But what about life? I want to be happy now. I want to believe that my so-called "happily ever after" can exist now too. I don't want to live with a "happily after (insert event here)" mentality. If we don't have hope for joy in this life, then what are we living for?

Love actually is. It exists. It's the promise of some dreams coming true if we live through nightmares. It's what pushes us forward. Optimism is what keeps us moving, not this so-called "reality/that's life" mentality that prevails in society now. And since when did 'reality' always constitute the horrible parts of life? My reality includes many good things too. Many miracles.

So that's my message to all the nay-sayers in the forums or on the news or whatever other venue we find them in. Life isn't always happy. Relationships don't always work out. Sometimes things fall apart. But not all the time. There is always a hope for something wonderful, and if we don't keep that hope, then we probably deserve what's coming to us.

This is also why I really loathed the end of Robin Hood this season. Because people know that life isn't always happy without the help of the writers of the show. We know that. It's beaten over our heads every day. We don't need another addition to the pessimism pile. Let the outlaw win his lady. Especially in a show geared for families and children.

A Study of Contrasts

I'm going to give you a bit of warning. This post has the potential to enter some cheese. I'm struggling to find a way to say what I want to say that doesn't come across as overly sentimental or over reaching for profoundness. We'll see how it works out.

Tonight we all gathered with some family friends to enjoy dinner and talking and singing carols among other things. It was wonderful. My extended family includes so many wonderful people I'm not related to by blood. Looking around at everyone, I felt very blessed to have all of my family healthy and safe and happy this time of year. Especially because of what happened later tonight after we had finished eating dinner. We got word that a family in our stake discovered that their little baby has leukemia this afternoon and had to drive to a hospital a few hours away that is better equipped to treat him in an ambulance. Their boy is about three - things aren't really looking good.

What a contrast to my Christmas Eve. I made it safely home while thousands of people are stranded in airports all over the country because of horrible weather. I have family and friends that are safe and happy and well. I will wake up tomorrow morning and spend the day in my pajamas while this family spends their day in a hospital - if things go well. That just kills me. It makes me feel so sick.

I'm not sure how this next thought connects, but bear with me. One of my favorite Christmas songs is "What Child is This". The tune is haunting because of the major/minor chord shifts, but I'm not up on music theory so I'm not going to get into it. Really, there are only a few versions of this song I really appreciate because (unfortunately) in most versions of the song, the artists cut out the second and third chorus and just sing the first one three times. As far as Christmas songs go, that's the one that sums up the whole Christmas message to me. It's a study of the life of the Savior, really. The words tell of his birth and crucifixion - and end with a mother singing her baby a lullaby. The single most important event that ever occurred in the history of the earth - and it's contrasted with this image of a mother putting her baby to sleep. It's beautiful. It's a child and a mother together on Christmas. It happens all over the globe every year.

I suppose, then, this is my way of wishing all of you (wherever you are, and if there even are any of you) a Merry Christmas. I hope that your families are safe and well, and I hope that the spirit of the Savior will be with you.

(See? I told you it would be cheesy.)

Comedic Hyperbole

So we've come to the end of another semester at the Y, and with finals week ahead of me (and some major procrastination tonight as I decide not to study in utter rebellion), I've decided to make a list of things that would be preferable to finals week. (Note the potential sarcasm typhoon approaching).

1. Living with Delores Umbridge
2. Being locked in a room with Freddy Krueger
3. All the laughter in the world sounding like Sponge Bob's laugh.
4. Nails on a chalk board
5. The chorus to "Yellow Submarine" as a continual soundtrack to my life
6. Taking a Blast-Ended Skrewt for a walk.
7. A friendly cup of tea with Darth Vader
8. Kissing a boy with a combo of onion/garlic/booger/vomit breath (I'm assuming this one)
9. Having the "My Heart Will Go On" song play every time I see PDA on campus
10. Poison Ivy underwear
11. A cross-country road trip in July in a car without air conditioning or a radio, and only an awkward home teacher for company (and we would probably break down in Pine Bluffs, Wyoming. Haven't heard of it? No one else has either).
12. Being forced to watch "Charly" or any other rubbish/sappy movie for any amount of time (short or long).
13. Listening to my Bishop's chastity talk every Sunday in church.
14. Living with Frodo Baggins while under influence of the ring.
15. Having the voice in my head sound like a combination Dobby/Gollum/Smeagol
16. Having to listen to that boy in my English class who finds himself more clever than he really is project any louder than he already does.
17. Being forced to read any more descriptions in Twilight of how beautiful Edward is. Whine whine whine.
18. Every theater in Utah only performing Romeo and Juliet.
19. Hiking across the moors for eternity with Heathcliffe, Rochester, Willoughby, David Copperfield and every other stupid/brooding/angsty/slimey hero
20. Barney. Anything.


That being said, I am very happy to be done with my classes this semester and am definitely looking forward to a week at home with my dog, a pile of movies, and a stack of books to work through. It's going to be fabulous.

An ode to my pale face

I was walking to my History (ugh) class today after dance and saw a rather well known sight around this campus: a girl who looks like she's been attacked by an orange.

It isn't really unique to BYU. Girls everywhere have been obsessed with fake bronzer forever in an attempt to look like they've just come back from a week at the beach (though anyone who goes to the beach legitimately comes back not looking orange). Unfortunately, most of these girls end up looking like they've gotten in the way of some poorly applied stage make-up. It's thick and circular and looks a bit like a mask on a face instead of make-up. This girl that I saw literally had about a half an inch of space at the top of her forehead revealing her naturally pale skin between her hair line and where the bronzer picked up. It's disgusting. Another girl I know regularly has a ring of orangy-stuff that stops around her jaw line. Every time I see her I want to run up and at least attempt to rub the stuff in but no one has ever bothered to tell her, apparently. As it is this campus is covered with orange faced-pale necked girls thinking that it looks decent. They're probably the same girls who think that mini-skirts and leggings are acceptable clothing (either in the modesty or attractiveness camp, take your pick). They probably get along well with all the boys walking through the snow in board shorts and flip flops 21 days before Christmas. Dressing for summer won't make it come faster!

This presents two problems: nasty orange unnatural faces that just look stupid, or a herd of females who never learned the purpose of make-up and never had a mother kind enough to show them how (or maybe it goes farther back than that). As far as I'm concerned, the make up I wear is just to even out skin tone and maybe enhance a feature or two - a bit of eye shadow, for example, to make my eyes look a bit bluer. But I don't want to look clownish. It's horrendous!

So this is my thanks to my mother who took the time to teach me how to pick the right foundation color, a plea to all girls on campus thinking that fake sun will make the real sun suddenly banish winter from Utah county (it won't. deal with it), and a hug for my pale skin that I am proud of. In fact, I spend a lot of time in the summer making sure that my skin doesn't get tanned. (Granted, I don't really tan well, I burn, but all the same). It is just further proof that I should have been born in another era.

Sending Glares

Do you ever have days when you just want to be frustrated because you can? Today is one of those days for me. My day hasn't been particularly bad, there have just been a series of events today that make me want to glare. So here it goes.

A glare for the man in the back of the library auditorium I'm sitting in right now who took away my cookie. I have to have something to keep me awake during this lecture...

A glare for whoever it was that thought it would be good to make me give up my chance to sleep in for once this Saturday. I am very angry about this.

A glare for my pillow. I need a new one. It doesn't support my neck which gives me upper back problems.

A glare because I want to watch North and South but I've loaned it out.

A glare because if I had North and South I wouldn't be able to justify watching it because of all the homework I've been skipping.

A glare for seeing people you don't want to see.

A glare for not seeing people you do want to see.

Two glares for the history department for wasting another hour of my life.


I suppose I should probably end on something positive?

A grin for almost being done with the semester.

A grin for the weekend.

Several grins for a new episode of Robin Hood to look forward to.

A grin for almost being caught up with my English homework.

A smirk for managing a good grade on a History assignment even though I only spent an hour on it, proving once again that my writing skills are superior to everyone. (I'm only partly kidding).

A grin for Thursday closing shifts at work.

A grin for pie night last night with my friends which was SO much fun (and so good. I'm in love with whoever made the apple).

Aaannd...a grin for solitare on my computer. It passes time quite nicely.

Some late night updates

There are times when writing is a really wonderful distraction. It will have to be right now. I'm feeling sick and won't be able to sleep for a little bit. As a result I decided it was time for a bit of change in the blogesphere. I've had the same background since I started this thing (I think) and I still had my little Harry Potter 7 predictions tab and I never uploaded a picture!. So. I have done so. I have officially added a picture of me in Warwick this summer. The caption is in reference to The Lady of Shalott and the quote from Anne of Green Gables, where my blog got its name in the first place. A tad bit cliche, I suppose. Every female at BYU who ever saw (or read) Anne of Green Gables says that they are fans but they're all wrong. Trust me on this one. My life is ridiculously Anne-ish and anyone who thinks they have me beat needs to speak with the 25 or so girls I went to England with this summer. They will all back me up. Or my mother. Who would also back me up (but she's a bit more biased). I take great pride in the imaginary kinship I have with Maud.

I've been reading her journals lately and I've been having a really marvelous time of it. I love how her word choice leaves a reader knowing exactly when she is being sarcastic or funny or sadistic on purpose or for effect. It's wonderful. I just finished a section during her one year (only one! I'm so jealous) of teachers college. It was hilarious because (apparently) some things will never change. She writes about waking up late for classes or playing jokes on professors and going through classroom management classes at Prince of Wales College in Charlottetown, PEI-all things that I have done/will do.

What is unfortunate about all this is that I know where her story ends. It's horrible. The road to the publication of Anne was long and ended up landing her in a nasty business deal with L.C. Page Co. that forced her into writing several sequels in the series that she didn't want to write. She ended up with a husband later in life who was bound to fits of depression and misery that rubbed off onto her to the point where she stopped writing anything in the months leading to her death in 1942. The stress and tragedy of World War I had been bad enough-World War II was more than she could handle. Such a sad life, in the end. Such a high price to pay for publication. It makes me wonder what she would think of the popularity of her book now. was popular enough when it was first published but now the series is embedded permanently in the ranks of the classics. She'd probably think it was a bit of a joke. I wonder at what she would think of all that's happened to PEI in the touristy realm. I suppose I am lucky in that sense-I don't really feel altogether attached to a single place. I feel more or less convinced that I could be happy anywhere (though I might need a bit more convincing if the place didn't have much season variation. I love the change of season).

I'm going to try and sleep. We'll see how it works out.

A List to Ward off Boredom

1. I sort of got this idea from Heather's blog (there's a link on the side bar).
2. Only I'm not going to attempt 100 on my list. I think I'll just go until I feel like stopping.
3. I'm listening to a very angry song by Regina Spektor
4. Which goes along nicely with my still hacked off mood over my blasted history test
5. I should be reading The Moonstone for my English class. Instead I've put it next to my computer. I think it's taunting me.
6. I probably spend more time writing than I should.
7. I actually have many things I need to do. Like go buy food and catch up on History readings, but I don't want to do those because then it feels like giving in to this professor and I'd rather just spite him. Even though I doubt he cares much whether I do his busy work or not.
8. I am usually the only one home any more because my roommates are all out with fiance's or visiting family during the weekends.
9. I mostly like it, but I don't have much of a social life so it makes me feel kind of guilty and like I should go intrude on some other group of apartments and make them adopt me or something.
10. I am deliberately skipping an Iowa reunion party to avoid seeing a few people I don't want to see.
11. That makes me happy.
12. I get really annoyed when people sound surprised at when I tell them I'm not dating anyone.
13. I get even more annoyed when they assume that if I can't go do something it's because I have plans with a boy.
14. I get even more more annoyed when their response to either one of the above is "but you're so cute"! As if that should solve all dating problems. Forgive me for wanting company of a guy who actually wants to be with me for more reasons than how I look.
15. I find it slightly creepy when girls say "If I were a boy I'd date you!"
16. I take great pleasure in my ability to quote large sections of every movie on my shelf.
17. My shelf is actually the bottom part of my closet because my real shelf is covered with books and other various trinkets.
18. I should probably get rid of some of those trinkets because they just clutter things up, but I am also a pack rat.
19. I'm not as bad with pack-ratting as my old roommate Sarah, who came home from her honeymoon yesterday and proceeded to dump a bunch of her trash into our recently emptied trash can. Now I have to take out her trash. Again.
20. I get really annoyed with people who leave lights on.
21. I got that from my dad.
22. I have a National Geographic calender from two years ago still. I save it because it has so many great pictures in it. I change the picture every few days.
23. Most of the movies on my closet 'shelf' are either books turned into movies or Englishy-type movies.
24. I have a guilty love of Gilmore Girls
25. It actually makes me really happy when people compare me to Rory Gilmore, mostly because I always wanted to look like her in High School and when people started telling me I did it gave me a bit of an ego.
26. I'm still slightly ticked off at the Hale for not calling me back for Christmas Carol this year. I deserved it.
27. Robin Hood Wednesdays are my favorite days of the week because I get to hang out with some of my friends.
28. I want to go home for Christmas, but I'm not really looking forward to it, mostly because my room isn't my room any more, and I think I'll probably die a little when I see how different everything is. I don't like thinking of myself as a guest with my family, but I guess that's sort of how it is now.
29. I'm a wimp. A complete wimp.
30. I hate practical jokes. I don't like playing them, but I really don't like being the brunt of them.
31. I think I should have been born in a different era. Preferably in England. But not too early. The Industrial Revolution would have sucked.
32. I still have a morbid fascination with the Titanic.
33. I also have a morbid fascination with the obituaries
34. But I only read the obituaries for people who look like they've died too young. I'm not sure why.
35. I still feel bad for liking to visit my mom's family more than my dad's when I was younger. I think it's because my mom's side of the family did things like go to movies. Playing old board games with my dad's family didn't quite cut it for me.
36. But I still love my dad's family.
37. If I could write like anyone it would be Lucy Maud Montgomery. Something about the way she writes is just comfortable.
38. I don't want to write anything remarkable. I don't want to say anything really profound. I'd rather just write a good story that people can enjoy.
39. With the exception of two people, I rarely stay in touch with people if they move away/move on in life. Those two people know who they are.
40. I own three different versions of Pride and Prejudice on DVD.
41. But my favorite movie I own is North and South.
42. I really want to start reading Harry Potter again from book one through the end but I won't let myself do it until I've finished reading Return of the King.
43. Return of the King has been in reading limbo for months now because school keeps getting in the way.
44. I think Eowyn is probably my favorite example of a woman in literature ever. Mostly because I love that she finds balance between being a warrior and fighting for what she wants, but is also gentle and good and a strong woman. I think that's really admirable.
45. I still wish Peter Pan would materialize and teach me how to fly.
46. I think it's annoying that my younger siblings will get cell phones and cars and things for all of high school, when I didn't get a cell phone until after I'd graduated and only got a car for half of my senior year.
47. I'm especially bitter about this because my brother doesn't take care of the car like I did, and also has a driving record much worse than mine.
48. Two weeks ago I was in the car with two different people who both got pulled over.
49. Both of them got off their tickets though. I think I'm a good luck charm.
50. This is a better homework-avoider than solitare.
51. Which I got addicted to last year.
52. I miss my dog probably more than anyone in my family.
53. I don't know if that's true. I miss them all. But Schatzie's pretty sweet.
54. When I'm old I want to be like my grandparents. I think they're amazing.
55. I interviewed them recently for another stupid history assignment-only I don't care if I fail this one because of some stupid reason, I got to know my grandpa a little more. I didn't know all that information about him. It was really cool.
56. I want to graduate. Really really bad.
57. When I graduate I want to go to England. Really really bad.
58. I don't know why America hasn't picked up on the good chocolate train. Cadbury kicks Hershey trash.
59. To my dying day I will say that Mars Bars are better than Milky Ways even though they are more or less the same, simply because one of them is British and one of them is not.
60. I've never really felt much patriotism to the US. Not that I don't like it here, I just don't have any real attachment to the country.
61. And I don't feel guilty about that.
62. If Hillary is elected I am going to think very seriously about jumping the border. Canada is a nice place to live, no?
63. I would never want to live anywhere where there wasn't snow.
64. Especially California or Texas.
65. I wish that all BYU students who complain about the weather would migrate south for the winter and leave the rest of us be. Or just go to school in Long Beach. I'm not picky.
66. I get annoyed when people say prayers that give thanks for being at 'the Lord's University'. Not that I don't like BYU but that's a little egotistical in a prayer, don't you think?
67. I was a cheerleader for two years in high school, even though I really hated my school. I just did it for the sport.
68. I don't like having to defend myself when people find out I was a cheerleader. While I did it I really enjoyed it.
69. I do like when people say that I'm classy, though. Because that's the kind of person I want to be.
70. I really love Turkish Delight. I think it's divine.
71. I have a pair of bright pink slippers that are a real talking point whenever I wear them.
72. I also have some pink pajamas and a pink robe, but I really don't like the color pink all that much.
73. I wish girls still wore nightgowns. I think they're comfortable.
74. I have a huge fear of vomit.
75. I am hungry.

There. I got 3/4ths of the way to 100. That's probably more than anyone who actually reads this really wanted to know about me.

A list of Grievances

This is written in response to a test I took recently for a class I should not have to take, and is written as a means of catharsis. It is directed particularly to the BYU History department, my professor, and whichever TA graded my test.

1. It is absurd that you (the BYU History Department) are making me re-take four classes and not accepting my AP credit. My AP US/European History teachers would successfully kick the man currently lecturing to me into the ground. I should not be forced to waste my time in classes that are too simple when I could be moving on to something interesting. It is a waste of my time and money.

2. When a professor puts a point value on a question, it is ridiculous to change the point value after the test has been taken. If a question is listed as 3 points, I will give a 3 point answer. Doubling the point value is unfair and slightly dishonest and changes the way I answer a question.

3. If the average on your test is a 72% for a Gen Ed, then we have a problem.

4. Ask the question you mean to ask on the essays. If you want me to use certain names/terms/angles in my writing, then tell me. If a prompt is as broad as "Describe how the Enlightenment affected civilization between 1640 and 1810", then you should not expect me to read your mind without further clarification. If the real question is "describe the specific ideas of the enlightenment as presented by Locke, Diderot, Montesquieu, etc", then let me know. If not, then expect me to narrow my essay down in a way that suits me (and still answers the question).

4a. In other words, ask the question you want answered.

5. Riddle me this, Batman: Where is the logic in an assignment for a European History class that calls for an interview with someone who lived through an event in history? Logic would tell you that in a class such as this one with a group of 95% American students, most of them will probably interview an American. This presents a problem in a European history class. Even if a student chooses to write about a world event (WWII, for example), they will be doing it from an American angle. This is history that the class has not (theoretically) covered. Lame.

6. There are many more words I would like to say, but they would likely take my blog into R rated territory, and we don't want that, do we? Best keep it clean.

Sincerely,

An enraged History Minor who is thoroughly disillusioned with BYU's History department and their lackies.

To whom it may concern...

The Readers' Forum in the Daily Universe is the best thing on earth sometimes. It makes me so happy. It really does. People at this University are insane and the Readers' Forum is where all of the insane people live. It's brilliant. I love it.

Take today for example in a letter entitled "New convert's shock"

"Halloween time can be fun, no doubt (costume parties, candy, friends, etc.), but what's up with BYU's dark Halloween paraphernalia? I wonder if God's got the Celestial Kingdom decked out with scenes of dead decaying humans, witches, witch havens, magic potions, sorcery, skulls, brews and haunted skeletons? But BYU seems pretty at home with it this year.

Maybe God will even include Satan in masterminding Heaven's scariest haunted house - full of vile, sick and unimaginable horrors like "The Haunted Forest" promoted on the front-page of BYU's newspaper last week.

Isaiah 5:20-"Abhor that which is evil; cleave to that which is good."

Think I'm taking this a little too seriously? I dare you to research the truth for yourself. Read (and here the author lists many many scriptures to prove a point)...and then if you're real brave, research Halloween's actual roots. There's nothing "light," pure or holy about it.

Imagine Brigham Young and Joseph Smith visiting the BYU Bookstore, along with its large life-size wicked witch along with her wicked paraphernalia -presumably leftover human sacrifices.

Last time I checked, God wasn't real pleased with a witch (Exodus 22:18). So either God's saints have had their head in the sand a little too long or in their Harry Potter books - one or the other.

Don't believe a word I'm saying until you prayerfully review above sources."

For full coverage of this issue please follow this link to the Daily Universe website.

Oh goodness. Just when I thought my day couldn't get worse, someone made it infinitely better. I love my school! People here are so amazing. I feel like I am standing in the center of a web of bigots and liberals and people who get offended by everything or nothing or think that a date means marriage or don't date because men are dogs or women are clingy and I love the Readers' Forum!

I think this article more or less speaks for itself, but if I were to write a response to this well meaning student who is playing on every obnoxiousness...this is what I would say:

1. Leave your new convert status out of this. It has nothing to do with your argument, and it creates a bid for sympathy that is absurd. I understand frustration from converts who don't quite understand "Mormon culture" but Halloween shouldn't be new to you in or out of the church (unless you've been making friends with that sand).

2. Quoting scripture to defend yourself in this argument is not very sound, particularly because the meanings about these scriptures and the meaning of dressing up on Halloween are completely different. Last I checked, the bookstore wasn't trying to get people involved in human sacrifice...they're just decorating. If you're going to avoid the "appearance of evil" to an extreme that far, then you'll have to lock yourself in your room and close your eyes. Calm down. And look up the context of the scriptures before you quote them. Not to mention the etymology of words.

3. I'll pull an argument as lame as most of yours: President Hinckley wore a Halloween tie at his devotional last year when he spoke on Halloween.

4. Don't pull the 'origins of Halloween' argument. It's not well researched. And if that's the argument you're going to pull, look up the origins of Christmas too. (Here's a hint: your search could start with the word Pagan).

5. I'm pretty sure Joseph Smith and Brigham Young wouldn't have freaked about some decorations. They had bigger things to worry about. Like extremists.

6. Here's another shallow argument from me: Deseret Book stocks Harry Potter books. And Halloween books.

7. Did this author try to compare BYU to the Celestial Kingdom on earth (with flaws)? Goodness...I love BYU but if this is the Celestial Kingdom then I don't have much to look forward to. Except an eternity of Police Beats and Readers' Forum articles!

8. I'm pretty sure that most kids who dress up for Halloween probably have no idea what real witchcraft is. Heck, I'm pretty sure the author doesn't know what real witchcraft is. I'm also pretty sure that most kids who dress up like ghosts/witches/vampires/sorcerers etc. don't all become devil worshipers.

All this being said, I hope you all have an excellent Halloween being evil and massacring children with cleavers. I know I will.

The Mostly-Imagined Real Wanderings of a Kindred Soul Abroad

For my post-study abroad writing class we're all working on essays. My project has turned into a kind of beast but I'm rather proud of it so far. I'm taking every day of the trip and picking one moment from the day or one image of the day or one scene of the day that is particularly strong in my head and writing just that one image. I've got my journals and photos and letters from the trip for help. So far I'm about 15 days in (more than 40 to go) and I'm at 13 pages. Yes. It's going to be a beast! So what I thought I'd do is send some of these (shorter) entries out into the void. They're rather rough, but I'm hoping that in a more refined state they might actually appeal to an audience outside of myself and those who went on the trip who can appreciate it for sake of the trip. So I now present my ramblings...

27 April 2007-En-Route between Edinburgh and Glasgow

I’ve always wanted to ride on a train. Not the dinky ones at amusement parks but a real train. There’s something so much more romantic about traveling by train than by plane or by car, because no one does it any more. Trains are for Victorian “Gibson Girls” with their puffed sleeves and showy good looks and pompadour hair and students going to school for magic or something and I’m in love with this train. A little disappointed, though. I wanted my own little sliding door compartment, not an industrial bit of every day transport full of businessmen just going to work.

But I’m saved. A lady in a uniform comes down the aisle asking passengers if they want ‘anything off the trolley’ and I am put right back into my contented state. Do I want anything off the trolley?! Do I ever want anything off that trolley! This is my chance! To do something quintessentially British! In Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone Harry goes out to the trolley of the Hogwarts Express wanting to buy a Mars bar. Granted, he gets magical candy that tastes like bogies, but I can’t ask for everything all at once. Thus, in honor of that boy-wizard friend, I proudly hand over my 60p and munch on the English equivalent of a Milky Way. Romance has been satisfied.

I try not to stare too much at the people on the train, but it’s hard because of the family with kids next to me. There are two boys playing with some kind of fantasy card game (Pokemon? I don’t know the difference. I should, I have brothers) and another little baby just starting to blabber a few words. All three of those boys are speaking with little hobbity Scottish accents. Two days in a row my anti-tourist campaign is shattered because I can’t pretend that I’m not totally entertained by these kids and completely envious of the life they lead. A life that is more or less exactly like mine but with the coveted Scottish accent attached to it, thus making it about a trillion times cooler. Theoretically, obtaining a Scottish or English accent of some kind would be my key to casting off the burden of tourism. I look British enough thanks to my ancestors. If I don’t say anything no one will no the difference, but I bought the Mars Bar so my birds have flown on this train. I wonder if the couple thought I was foreign before I spoke.

30 April 2007-Coach to Wasdale

I have fallen in love. Madly in love. With a biscuit. Not just any biscuit, though. Oh no. This is the most incredible biscuit in the world. Biscuit, biscuit, biscuit. It’s even fun to say. Anyone in the world who has tasted Scottish shortbread would have to agree with me or be utterly insane. Shortbread is brilliant because the full flavor takes you by surprise after you suck on the little cookie morsels for a little while. There’s a splash of buttery goodness and a twist of sugar and I don’t know what else but I can’t stop eating them. It’s such a half-guilty pleasure. I think somewhere in my psyche I imagine that everyone on the coach can see how many of these little shortbread fingers I’ve eaten and they’re all criticizing me for it. Earlier I was sharing with the girls closest to me, but they’ve all had their fill by now and I’m still peckish. So when I decide I want another one I kind of duck to the side with my forehead resting on the window and my body shielding the box. Then I slowly pull the box open. The hard part is pulling the plastic cookie-tray out because that makes noise when you reach through the plastic wrapper of the plastic holder. Then, one cookie after another, I indulge my way through about a quarter of the box. That’s the amazing and terrifying part of the power of a good shortbread cookie: once you start eating them it’s hard to resist another. And another. Eight or so fingers of shortbread later, I am content.

3 May 2007-Helvelyn

Do you know what happens when a gaggle of hot, sweaty, tired girls get together and hike a mountain all day and then find a pool of deserted, inviting, seductive water in the middle of a valley? I do. Some kind of time and space warp occurs and every girl there is transformed into a desert traveler who has not seen water in years. Clothes fly everywhere, screaming ensues, water flies, and there’s giggling. Lots and lots of giggling.

Not from me. I like my clothes where they are, thanks. And I don’t like hiking wet so I’m not about to jump in clothed either. Or even partially clothed. The water is cold. And dirty. And there are probably fish somewhere in there. Leeches. The Loch Ness monster. No no . . . ground is safer. I turn away from the splashing, riotous crew of mermaids to continue on my quest towards ruining the landscape. My colored pencils are out again and having a marvelous time forgetting about depth perception and shading. I have one hand around my waist to keep my shirt firmly in place, lest some knavish sprite come and take my by surprise and toss me in with the rest of the herd.

One by one our modest group of girls starts to give in at various levels of embarrassment and nakedness. Some keep their knickers on, others opt for something less clothed. I opt for clothes. I have no desire to jump in. It isn’t even so much the naked part of all this that bothers me. I’ve been in theater for years. Dressing and undressing in front of girls (or boys) isn’t exactly new. I’m comfortable enough with myself. I don’t think I’m ugly. It’s everyone else that makes me nervous. What if they aren’t comfortable with me observing them? Everyone’s so different. Rolls here and there, in and out of their underwear, swimming in the water, only sitting on the bank . . . they’re all different kinds of druidy goddesses of the earth and if I go over there I will stare. Not to be pornographic, just to wonder at how people can be so different, I suppose. To look at their bodies and think about mine and what it means to be short with long fingers and brown hair and blue eyes and round and flat and whatever else I am.

22 May 2007-Portsmouth

There are some days on the year when I simply cannot be responsible. Today is one of those days. I am surrounded by history. Naval museums are everywhere. The HMS Victory is planted in the middle of some concrete for people to tour. I could, theoretically, learn hundreds of new facts about British Naval history . . . or I could turn into a five year old and spend the entire afternoon prancing around ships for sake of goofy pictures and end the day in a ball pit at a children’s play place in a restaurant. Which is precisely what I do.

Evelyn and I are quite giddy when we see the empty play set. “Do you think-“ “Would they kick us out-“ “Is there an age limit-“ we half run through the exhibit on ship building and knot tying to the back of the restaurant where a deserted play place stands in all of it’s welcoming glory. A kind of ghostly music is echoing off of the padded walls and plastic slides, calling me forward. Who am I to resist fate? Every sailor knows what happens when you resist fate. Ask Odysseus. I either give in to the temptation in my rightful mind or get sucked in and turn into some kind of monster. Evelyn and I look at each other. The gauntlet is dropped. We race to drop our bags and grab our cameras and rip off our shoes (not necessarily in that order). “You take pictures of me, and I’ll get pictures of you!” “Ok!” Run, run, run-up, crawl through the tube (were they always this small?), climb up the ladder (mind your head!), stop for a picture (I love being five!)! In and out and up and pause (flash), go and switch places and your turn and bury me in the balls, and take that picture again my eyes are closed and I am definitely too big for that but I’m going to try it anyway and go through those ropes and slide on that zip line and this play place is the most incredible thing I think I’ve ever seen. One day when I’m old and overly responsible I may look back on my tryst through plastic-ball world as an opportunity lost and mourn that I could have toured many grand historical monuments but . . . well never mind. I won’t regret this.

24 May 2007- Fox Inn-Lulworth Cove

It has been a long day. Up at four in the morning. Be angry about being up at such an un-godly hour. Coach to Stonehenge. Admire Stonehenge. Take pictures with Stonehenge. Coach to Stourhead. Search frantically for Pride and Prejudice filming location where Elizabeth rejects Darcy in the new movie. Take 800 pictures of (and with) Pride and Prejudice filming location in various states of emotional discomfort and longing over Darcy. Coach to Marnhull church. Walk to Tess’ Cottage. Hike to Milton Abbey. Get lost alone in Milton Abbey. Sing songs alone in Milton Abbey while everyone else is being responsible and not lost. Drive with John who has found the lost wandering me to the Inn (get lost twice. His fault, not mine). Discover that I’m sharing a room with Liz which is happy. Discover that the room we’re sharing does not involve hauling luggage up stairs which is also happy. Discover that the room we’re sharing contains several very big fluffy pillows and the room provides tea. Brilliant.

Time to tell the staff of the inn what I want for dinner so that they can have what everyone wants. The options are chicken, vegetarian lasagna, a soup and trout. Brilliant again. I am in the southern part of England, now is the perfect chance to try nice fish since I’m too cheap to buy it for dinner elsewhere! I can let the program pay for my fish! I sign up for trout.

Dinner goes well. Good food, good friends, good talk through the starters. Then the main course starts to arrive. I wait with eager anticipation and several appropriate sea-shanties running through my head until placed before me is Captain Ahab. Captain Ahab is my dinner. He (I’m assuming his gender. I’m not up on fish anatomy) is fully scaled and still in tact with eyes and scales and tail and fins.

If I had a cleaver I would be able to quote A Christmas Story. (He’s smiling at me! Chop). But Captain Ahab isn’t smiling at me. He is accusing me. I don’t have the heart to eat him while he watches. It’s a little indecent. I take some of my left over salad and put it over his eyes. May he rest in peace.

Captain Ahab is completely disgusting and without flavor in revenge.

Why I think Twilight is a piece of crap, OR The blog post in which an ingnorant person analyzes love

Most of that title is for effect. I'll explain:

In the last year or so, Stephanie Meyer's book Twilight has taken the girly world over. Ask nearly anyone about it and they'll do a string of things immediately. First; they'll profess undying love for a vampire. Second; they'll say that they don't normally read vampire books but this one is different. Third; they'll demand that you read the book, and (maybe fourth), proceed to give away almost the entire plot. So here's my analysis.

I read the first two and about half of the third in the series. Plot wise, the books are fairly interesting. I'm not usually one for popular teen fiction but a few of my friends told me I had to read them, so I picked them up. I actually enjoyed most of the first one. Granted, the book isn't very well written in some respects. It could use a serious edit. By the 800th description of how beautiful the hero was I wanted to chuck something heavy at the heroine, but other than a few quibbles it wasn't so bad. I didn't regret buying it. It was a nice distraction in the pre-Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows mindset I had.

Then I read New Moon (the second book in the series) and part of Eclipse (the third) and realized that nothing had really happened. The interesting part about the first book for me was that the main character (Bella) seemed to have taken a risk. But after the initial risk in the first book, none of the characters seemed to change. It was pointless. The author stopped taking chances. It was so predictable and safe. The book could have gone down a route similar to Tuck Everlasting for instance, only it would have been (or could have been) even more significant because the age of the heroine has been upped about eight years. Rather than have a ten year old decide it isn't worth it to live forever, you have an immature eighteen year old consider for about half a second what the consequences of immortality as a vampire would be. Every time she considers it she throws the thought aside because she is so in love. Only I didn't believe it. Aside from the semi-interesting plot line, I never bought the story after a while. Edward was too good. I don't care how bloody beautiful he is or how noble he is, I'd be annoyed out of my mind by him if I really knew him. Seriously? He plays the piano. He wrote her a lullaby. He half stalks her. He is so darn over protective it's absurd. He never sweats. He has a nice car. Snore. I don't want a guy that perfect. It'd be obnoxious.

Going back to the love they supposedly have for each other, I buy their love about as much as I buy the love of Romeo and Juliet. Not at all. I'm sorry. It's just a little too surface for me. Whenever they see each other there will be some mad, gasping, clinging make out session. Maybe I'm just feeling particularly 'anti-touch' at the moment because I have three engaged roommates, but whatever Edward's and Bella's relationship is, it isn't one of love. It has no substance. Nothing to really fall back on outside of that fire they have during the books. If love is glue, then they've got a lot of glue but no paper to glue together.

And you know what? I don't think love is, or should be passionate all the time. What is a book like this teaching girls about the nature of love? I've heard girls say that Edward ruined other men for them. Ugh. How disgusting and superficial. This book would, if read in a certain way, teach girls that the Beatles were right when they said 'all you need is love'.

So here's what I think about love. You can all feel free to mock me if I ever turn into the person I despise one day, but from careful self analysis and in thinking about the relationships I've observed (fictional and otherwise), I know what kind of love I'm looking for.

You know the first day you realize the seasons have changed? When you wake up one morning and see that the leaves on the trees have turned red, or you have that first snowstorm? The first day you hear birds again or the day you pull out your shorts? That's the image I have in mind. I don't think romance has to be irrational and stupid. I think love is more like Darcy puts it in Pride and Prejudice-it comes on you slowly until one day you realize it, but you're already in the middle of it. It isn't like a movie with an orchestra-it's the day you realize that spring is back. It isn't that it hasn't been coming, it's that you finally register that it's back. You see the signs coming until the day you see it for what it is. It isn't new or unfamiliar because we've all been there before. We've all loved before. I think people expect love to be something grand or unfamiliar but it isn't. There's joy in it, of course-but there is also a comfortable kind of peace. I don't want fireworks. I want the crisp air of a fall morning. Something that feels so comfortable it's like curling up on a couch in your favorite pair of sweats.

So apparently...

I blog like a boy. I found the Gender Genie and decided to check a few of my blog posts out, and they all (with only one exception) came back as male. Hmm. Interesting. Maybe I'll check out some of my fiction later and see what happens then. It's pretty funny though-this thing is supposed to be accurate. But then- My Heritage (that website that tells you your celebrity look-alike) is supposed to be accurate too but they give such random assortments as Anna Popplewell and Rachel Weiz to Gabriel Batistuda and Edward Teller. Yeah. I don't think that's exactly accurate...

The internet is a funny little place.

What I did during Education Week...

The following are two little spats of England-style writing I did during Education Week-prepare yourself for nonsense. These are unedited stream-of-thought writing experiments.

22 August:

I'm ditching out on a class which is probably not a good sign since school hasn't started yet. I took one look at the crowded classroom and had a few thoughts consisting of "no way", "too many people" and "fire hazard". That would have been an interesting theory to test. Run into the room and yell fire. Instead I decided to do something else and now I'm writing nonsense on a piece of paper that was supposed to be filled with the key to getting my spiritual life back in order and my hand is cramped and I'm frustrated because I can't hand-write nearly as fast as I can type and this was so much easier (if more romantic?) than when I wrote on my computer, but for all that my cramped and awful writing is hardly romantic either. So there it is. I am solution-less. (What was the problem?)

Campus is a surreal kind of place this time of year. Normally this spot is crowded with people studying or making out or talking with friends only now it's just me and a mother with her two girls and none of us is studying or making out.

I just stopped. I killed my groove. I started staring off and thinking about unpacking and buying groceries since I have no food and how the JFSB courtyard is supposed to resemble the cloisters of places like Christ Church or Westminster and it kind of does only not enough to be a sanctuary and just enough to make me homesick (even though England is only my imaginary home now). If I ever go back it will probably only be for a few days or maybe two weeks but never for much longer and certainly not forever which makes me sad because I will never hike those moors again and all I want to do right now is pull my hair back, grab and apple when the hostel cafeteria staff lady isn't looking and hike 18 miles or so on the Pennine Way with 30 of the best people on this earth. England is all I can think about and dream about and it makes my writing redundant and my life unsatisfactory and I miss England. This cloister-knock off isn't English. It needs grass instead of stone, for one thing. And the table I'm sitting at shaded by an umbrella will have to go. Only stone benches. The fountain can stay but it will need to be less modern-arty and more Baroque. All the offices and classes need medieval-izing as well. All these trees in stone planters are way out (it's a little horrifying to think about). No. No-this place is nice but the vending machines don't have Cadbury and my purse has quarters and dimes in it and I have make-up on and I'm not in England any more and the trip I worked for and dreamed about and anticipated is gone in the blink of an eye. Two months ago today, actually, I was on an airplane. Absurd. I relate all the days now to what I was doing in England at the time. Life is supposed to be greener on the other side, but in this case it actually is.

August 23rd

I heard two girls in the Wilk today using very fake British accents and it made me mad. Considering that I could hardly claim to be an authority on all things British (though heaven knows I've tried), particularly with accents, I probably shouldn't talk but they were fake and I was offended and my thought was "I could do better". Pride. And there really is a difference between the movement and action and gesture habits between Brits and Americans. Something less of a strut and more poise...or maybe a different kind of strut (because there is definitely still a strut).

See. It's all I write about. I swear it's not all I think about-I think about many things. But turning on my writing brain seems to generate my England brain on auto pilot and once I start it's the death of me. I wish I could rewind and do it again. But it won't do to dwell on it. From where I sit now I won't ever get my fill of England. Unless I moved there and got a job and had to pay taxes and things-but I won't go back in the way I did and that hurts almost more than the thought of going back. Two weeks isn't enough! And the odds of really living there aren't really great. Maybe I'll go to grad school there.

I found out today that after two years my parents are dismantling my room and painting it and giving it to my younger brother. I think I'd have been alright with it if it had been my sister. She belongs to a room of girlish little dreams and goals and ambitions but now those dreams are being painted over and Wendy has officially been kicked out of the nursery. That part of my life is being packed away into boxes. I don't know if I even want to go home for Christmas because my room-my beloved room with the beautiful window and canopied bed-won't ever be mine again. It will have dirty moldy towels on the floors and footballs in the corners.

I knew it!

You Belong in the UK

Blimey! A little proper, a little saucy. You're so witty and charming... No one notices your curry breath

What English Speaking Country Are You?