New discovery

 I learned today that reading poetry while on a machine at the gym totally works. It can be just as productive as listening to music while working out.

You know why?
meter. pacing. rhythm. beat.

You see? It's like the same as music. You just have to read it right. And when you do, it can push you to work out at a steady, fast pace.

Who knew I could survive without an iPod? Yay poetry.

The problem is finding lots of poetry with a quick enough pace. I'll have to search.

It's April, the second best month of the year.

Just some things of late:

1. New favorite music: Adam Lambert, almost the ENTIRE For Your Entertainment album. Except, I don't listen to the title track. It's, um, not uplifting. But the album is super fun. I actually like to listen to it while I do homework. Weird, I know. I never used to do that. But I love to now. "If I Had You" and "Pick You Up" are my favorite songs on the album. Except I really like "Aftermath" too.

2. I went to St. George this weekend. Dani came with me. :) She loves St. George now, and that makes me so so so so happy. Because I love St. George. And I want everyone I know to love it too. But while I was home, we had a picnic on the Sugar Loaf, went to the Art Festival, watched General Conference, celebrated both me and Elise's birthdays, celebrated Easter, showed Dani around St. George (yeah, I took her to the high school), went to Dairy Queen with Moe and Jen, and drew a picture of a pig for Elise to hang up in her bedroom while my sisters made headbands. It was a fabulous weekend of happiness and sunshine. And St. George. What could be better? Btw, Elise redecorated her room, and it looks AMAZING.  I'm so jealous of that's girl's decorating talents. She is so creative. Anyway.

3. Elise made me a shirt for my birthday that says, "I would've picked Duckie," on it. Pretty in Pink is one of my favorite movies, and Duckie is like my all-time favorite movie character. The girl, played by Molly Ringwald picks the dumb supposedly hot boy over Duckie, the sweet and quirky best friend. And well, I would've picked Duckie. And now I can declare that to the world when I wear my shirt.

4. My cousin Nicole is coming home from Hawaii to visit in May. We're going to set up the Harry Potter shrine and have a party. I'm SOOOOOOOO happy about that. I love that Harry boy. And Nicole. :) When I was home this weekend, and I showed Dani my room, I pulled out some of my old Harry Potter stuff. Dani thought I was a FREAK. I showed her my binder of editorials about Harry Potter that I printed off the internet and annotated in order to keep track of theories and devise my own. And then I showed her my character files. I have index cards with details of all the characters on them. She thought I was a weirdo and said she would have to re-think our friendship. haha. I told her that she had just underestimated my obsession. I mean you can only say, "yeah, I love Harry Potter" so many times, and people still just don't get it. It's funny, too, because while I was dating Josh I kept thinking, he just doesn't understand my obsessive nature... it'll be funny when he figures it out. Unfortunately or fortunately, I don't know which, he never figured it out.

5. I have two and a half weeks left of school. I am so utterly excited I can't even say. Summer is going to be relaxing and fantastic, and I will just get to lay out in the sun all day. Except for when I have to go to work.

6. Rachelle is graduating and moving out. That's going to be weird. Not living with her, I mean. I'll miss that girl.

7. Vanessa and Kennedy are coming home SO SOON. I am so sosososososo excited. I have to admit, I've been very much a failure at writing to them, but that doesn't mean that I don't love them! I do, I promise. Vanessa is coming home the 15th, and Kennedy the 21st. So like a week apart. That means that I'll have to go to St. George to homecoming TWO WEEKENDS in a row. I'm not sure how I feel about that, but it'll be all right. I do love St. George. The real problem is that it'll be right in the middle of finals. Oh, and I won't have money for gas. I'll just have to figure that one out.

8. I love reading books. I started a book blog at the beginning of the year. But it's private. And it only has like 6 posts on it. But it's super fun to write on. I can say whatever I want about books, and it doesn't matter. But I really do love reading. I had forgotten how much I loved it until this semester in my adolescent literature class. I have some new favorites: The Chocolate War, A Separate Peace, and Mr. and Mrs. Bo Jo Jones. Check 'em out. Read 'em. I do have to say, though, The Chocolate War is slightly controversial. I loved it. I read it in a day. But I was one of two students in my class who liked it. So beware, I guess. Rachelle liked it okay. She had some slight issues with it. Nothing big. But if you read it, make sure you let me know what you think. It's an interesting read.

9. Jen's baby is adorable, and Moe's is growing inside her. I love babies. And I love when my friends have them.

10. I finally saw Invictus in the dollar theater. I. loved. it. After like the first ten minutes, I turned to Dani and said, "I really like this movie." Cause I did. It was already super interesting, and I couldn't wait to watch the rest of it. It was a good one. Now I just have to see Blindside. I know, how in the world did I go so long without watching these movies?!??! I have no idea. Sports movies are like my fave.

11. Speaking of rugby, I love it now. Dani and I went to a rugby game last weekend, and it was SUPER COOL. Kind of scary because all players were getting in fights and stuff, but it was just so interesting! I kind of seemed like there were not rules. Like, players would punch each other and not even get in trouble! What kind of game is this?!? In Invictus they described it as "a barbarian game played by gentlemen." And football is "a gentlemen's game played by barbarians." Loved that. So, yeah, I just gotta find me a rugby player.

12. I'm in pretty much last place in my march madness competition. I was SOO winning at first... oh well. Maybe next year. Dumb upsets.

13. The color festival was last week. I love colors.

14. I found some new funny blogs to read. There is this one called the Daily Apple, and there is a random topic everyday to read interesting facts about. Like today, it was candy bars. I actually really like it. And if I read it everyday, then I'm bound to beat everyone at Trivial Pursuit and Jeopardy some time in my life. And that is the goal, right?

15. Did you hear about the people in Texas who are trying to take Thomas Jefferson out of history books? I'm not sure how valid that sentence is, it might not even be true. But we talked about it in on of my education classes, and I was shocked. And then there was something about it in the Daily Universe, which isn't exactly your most valid source. So I looked it up online, and all the reports were contradictory and confusing. So now I'm just hoping that good old TJ will stay in history textbooks forever, and everything will be back to normal. 'Cause we can't lose that guy.

16. I want a new build-a-bear. It'll be a koala named James Monroe. You know, the guy from the "Era of Good Feelings." Oh wait, that might have been James K. Polk. Oh well.

17. I need a hair cut.

18. There is a baseball game tomorrow. I'm going to it. Why? Because I love baseball games.

19. Did I already say I'm excited for summer?

20. I should go to bed now.

March Madness

I am obsessed. For the past three days, I have been obsessively keeping track of the scores and checking my bracket. And guess what. I am still tied for first place in my brother's bracket group. And day four is over. And I'm still on top. I am the master at March Madness.

I took a lot of hits, though. BYU. Kansas. Villanova. Georgetown. So much loss, misery, and pain. My potential score is super low now. Upsets. WHY, oh why!??! And poor BYU. I wish we wouldn't have lost. They would have played in Salt Lake last week. That would have been AMAZING. And poor Jimmer. Broken nose. That beautiful face, marred.

I LOVE MARCH MADNESS. And I want to win. But I just don't know if that is still possible.

Also, the round one BYU game was on Thursday morning, and I was at work. So.... I watched it in my office, on my computer, on a live feed. With head phones. And I switched the windows back and forth when people walked by, so I wouldn't get in trouble. These are the sorts of sacrifice a BYU/basketball/march madness fan must make. Risky business. Would have been awful to lose my job. AND, I had just recently asked my boss for a letter of recommendation...

Anyway

I am just really excited that I will be at BYU for another year, will be able to buy another year's worth of a sport's pass, and go to football and basketball games for another year. New quarterback. More Jimmer. What could possibly be better? I have no clue. I love BYU sports. LOVE them.

I want to Blog.

But I don't know what to blog about.

Let's talk about the uncertainty of the future.
Or about how much I don't want to do assignments for my English classes.
Or about how I wish I could just be taking Greek History, and that's all. Because I love it.
Or about how I can't decide how I feel about change. 

Random.
1. I am brutally honest. Major. Sometimes I say mean things on accident. So, sorry in advance.
2. I want a bike. A yellow one. And I'm going to call it Lightening Thief. Or Mr. Thief for short.
3. Duckie from "Pretty in Pink" is my secret crush. Favorite movie character ever. By far.
4. Paul got a blog. socalrpm.wordpress.com. Check it out.
5. I want to go to Washington again. I daydream about it every day. All day.

Recently.

1. I bought the Adam Lambert CD. A little sketch, but SO WORTH the $7.99 on iTunes.
2. I've been eating a lot of brownies for lunch.
3. BYU beat #1 ranked Pepperdine in men's volleyball yesterday. woot woot.
4. I want to go shopping. A lot. But I don't have any money.
5. I have to read "Mr. and Mrs. Bo Jo Jones" for my Adolescent Lit class. It's about a 16 year old girl who gets pregnant and then she marries the father- Bo Jo- who's 17. Kind of horrible and kind of fascinating. It was published in 1967, so don't worry, no dirty stuff. Plus, it's required reading.
6. I slept in until 11:30 today. Nice.
7. I dream of not waking up for church tomorrow- accidentally- and then driving to Temple Square and absorbing the North Visitor's Center instead.
8. I want sunshine.  boo snow.
9. I have eaten at In 'N Out twice in the last 3 days. YUM.
10. Me and Audrey finally went to see "Percy Jackson." I actually liked it. For a book turned movie deal. The two of us actually didn't remember the book that well, so it would've been hard to be disappointed.
11. When I took a nap the other day, I noticed the roof on my apartment building (I could see it out the window). There are big wooden slats that are SO long, three of them overlap somehow before one of them ends.
12. We added a new quote to the quote wall in our apartment. It's from me: "I live inside a build-a-bear world." You know, because everything is happy and you leave with something to snuggle with.
13. Michael Jackson still makes me very happy. I listened and sang to Dirty Diana the other day- best 3 minutes of the last 3 days of my life.
14. I like going to the gym. But it makes me tired.
15. Evan Lysacek is my hero. Such an attractive ice-skater man.
16. American Idol. Why don't I like you that much this year?! Something is wrong with me. But I'm working on it. And Ellen is not even funny on it. Rude.
17. WHY DOESN'T BYU HAVE  SPRING BREAK?


Anyway, sorry about the "I didn't blog for a whole month" thing. But have a lovely day.

Blogging Block. So. Life.

Warning: This post is super boring. It doesn't even have a point. So you don't have to read it. 

So. Blogging. This is only my second post this month. Which is weird, because I usually have at least a weekly post, or if happens to be December 2009, somehow I manage to post 11 times. Don't know how that happened. But now, I don't even know what to write about. And it's not that my last couple of weeks haven't been awesome and exciting and great, I just don't have anything to say. Which is weird for me, because I always have loads of things to say. In fact, most of the time, I have WAY TOO MUCH to say, and that leads to really, extra long posts that nobody but me wants to read. Yes, I do go back and read old posts quite often. Rachelle thinks that's weird.

So. School. Love/hate relationship. I came into this semester thinking that I was going to love my classes more than ever before. But honestly, it's really hard to love your classes when you a) don't do your homework, b) don't listen in class, c) don't do the assigned reading (most of the time) and d) do kind of poorly on 50% of the quizzes that you take. It's a problem. But not an unsolveable one. I've just been... distracted. That's all. I'll get back on the good student train soon, I think. Starting with tonight. It is a Friday night, and you know what I'm doing? Staying in and doing my homework. Or blogging, whichever one seems most important (you can see that my blog is winning that battle...).

So. Work. Love/hate relationship. I really do love my job. Promise. But lately, I've just been getting bored and so excited to get out of there at the end of the day. I think it's because I'm nearing the end of the first stage of a big project, and I'm a little uncertain about what is going to come next, how time consuming it will be, and how difficult and challenging it will be. Just a little nervous, and just a little bit lazy. Such is life. But Nellie Gubler and the St. George stuff is coming along quite nicely. Love the old wedding announcements. And the LOVE LETTERS. I've been reading love letters for the last 2 weeks, and they are super fun. Most are just normal and cute at the end, but some are SUPER SUPER SAPPY, and it's hilarious- I actually felt bad for the guy writing the sappiness. So fun to read, though.

Aaaandnnddd... I just want to read good books and hang out with people all the time. That's all I want! I don't want to read stupid online articles from the English Journal for all my English teaching classes. They are boring and pointless, and let's face it, the goal isn't to teach English ANYWAY! I'm just so annoyed about having to buy textbooks and then only using them for 1/4 of the class reading assignments. HEY. English teaching department. FIX THIS.

I am wanting to be a teacher less and less. Mostly I just want to be a wife and PTA mom. But I still want to go to library school and be an archivist. I would just love doing that for my life- after my kids (whenever they and a husband choose to come along--obviously in reverse order) are grown up and everything and I get bored with cleaning, scrapbooking, shopping, playing kid games, blogging and cooking all day.

So that's it. A boring post. Hopefully this will get me thinking about blogging again, and the good idea train will come back around the bend. But if not, this was at least an update on my life.

And by the way, Percy Jackson comes out soon. February 5.

My Current Playlist

So, for the past two years, my music listening has been devoted almost entirely to Michael Jackson. There have been some obsessive peaks and some lulls, but most of the time, the song I want to listen to when I get on the computer or need to pick some laundry-folding music was written and/or recorded by the one and only. I had a Beat It phase, a phase of the whole Bad album, a Dangerous phase, Man in the Mirror, Dirty Diana, Earth Song, Jackson 5 phase, The Jacksons phase, a phase of collaborations with people like Stevie Wonder and Paul McCartney-- I even had phases for similar types of music that didn't feature Michael- like Prince, Janet Jackson and other Motown artists like Marvin Gaye, the Supremes, the Temptations, Smokey, and Stevie. It has just been never ending.

BUT, I am currently in a lull. Michael has been gone for six months now, and I am slowly moving on. Don't think I'm forgetting about him, though. I'm still the number one fan in Provo. And I'm still going to buy the DVD of "This Is It" at midnight when it comes out on January 26.

But there is proof of this movement in my current playlist of "have to listen to all the time" songs. I mean, check out the variety!!! This is totally a new thing for me.

They are as follows (keep in mind, I would definitely recommend any of these. But you may have to find the clean version)
1. Bigger, The Backstreet Boys
2. Shattered, The Backstreet Boys
3. Cold Case Love, Rihanna
4. Firebomb, Rihanna
5. Crawl, Chris Brown
6. So Cold, Chris Brown
7. Time for Miracles, Adam Lambert
8. Empire State of Mind, Jay-Z featuring Alicia Keys (look for the clean one)
9. Call the Man, Celine Dion (an old classic!)
10. He Could Be The One, Hannah Montana
11. Party in the USA, Miley Cyrus (It's taken a long time for this one to get old!)
12. Wait For You, Elliot Yamin
13. Fifteen, Taylor Swift (yeah, I NEVER thought she would be on my playlist, but I kind of think this girl is AWESOME.)
14. Unbelievable, Craig David
15. Touch My Hand, David Archuleta
16. Down, Jay Sean
17. Whatcha Say, Jason DeRulo
18. Knocks You Down, Keri Hilson feat. Ne-Yo and Kanye (get the clean one!)
19. Run This Town, Jay-Z feat. Kanye and Rihanna (it's this one, specifically, that requires a clean version. Be careful.)

Below is a phase of songs I JUST RECENTLY got over. This marks the end of all the phases I'm talking about above.

1. Purple Rain, Prince
2. When Doves Cry, Prince
3. Escapade, Janet Jackson (LOVED THIS SONG.)
4. Miss You Much, Janet Jackson
5. Blame it on the Boogie, The Jacksons
6. Cheater, Michael Jackson
7. This Place Hotel, The Jacksons
8. The entirety of the "Off the Wall" album, Michael Jackson- particularly the song, "Girlfriend" (written by Paul McCartney for Michael) This album literally got me through finals. We made it through some tough times together...
9. This Is It, Michael Jackson. (So emotional!!)

You can all now clap your hands for me. I'm expanding my music-listening. It's great news, really. Just don't think that I like Michael any less, because that kind of betrayal is NOT going to happen. But seriously, good good songs on this list. Look them up. I'm particularly into the new Rihanna ones at the top. And the new Backstreet Boys CD. I love those guys.

By the way, Happy Christmas, Happy New Year, Happy back to school, and everything like that. I've been MIA for a while, but I'm back on the blog. YAY.