belated april post

ode to April: The Waste Land by T.S. Elliot

I. The Burial of the Dead

April is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.

goodbye April-welcome MAY!

also, if you want to read an amazing short story read "Becoming Hitler"

A week in review

Pros and cons to week 3/19-25.

Pros:

1. Finished my last final, at the last possible scheduled time (Wednesday from 8-10) during which I saw the longest line snaking away from the testing center to the HBLL...consequence of waiting until the 11th hour

2. Saw two movies at the dollar theater, both of which we totally worth 100 pennies and the two hours of my very disposable time (the movies were Shopaholic and He's Just Not That Into You)

3. Went to lunch with some old and dear friends and had a great raspberry salad

4. Went to a crepe party--and witnessed true guitar hero skills

5. Was privileged to attend my friends luncheon and wedding shower (perfect weather, perfect food, perfect people....sounds like an equation for a perfect life for them)

6. Sleeping in and naps became a daily duty

Cons:

1. Best friend moved out

2. 9 hours of school and 8 hours of GRE prep class start this Tuesday (aka, life ends...future still undecided)

3. Friends move away--making exciting plans for the summer. Mine are centered around cougar campus (not quite as appealing as Jerusalem, Huntington, DC or Texas)

4. Raining/snowing

5. exercising begins

Conclusion:

well pro's win with 6 so I guess it was a great week.

And a closing threat to BYU-

Becoming the center of my life has been a sneaky and difficult thing to master but you have done it well. I dare you to take more of my time this spring.....triple.dog.dare.you.

newspapers

Yesterday someone asked my how I knew about a book-I replied I had read about it in the newspaper. I read the newspaper everyday.

Dear newspapers,
I'm sorry that you're all going out of business. It's partially my fault because I don't pay for you and rob you of your informative, free, online news. Hopefully you don't all shut down, though Colorado and Seattle apparently couldn't handle the technological revolution. Goodluck with the recession though.

best,
Sarah

The girl then gave me a look like I was crazy. Ok, well here are my thoughts.

a. everyone should read the news--it all about the world around you and it really influences you.

b. you're more educated when you do

c. you can read about pirates (everytime i think about the pirates i laugh...it's way sad for the 200 captive people but it's just so bizarre and makes me feel like i'm in the 1700's)

d. you can join in peoples conversations

e. if actually affects your life

case in point: my parents computer as been SO slow this last month and we were going to have someone come and look at it but we hadn't yet. My dad was reading the newspaper, and there was a column about how explorer 8 makes computers that are more than two years old very slow. Hmmm....the solution to the computer problem. I uninstalled it and now i have fast access to the blogging world...and the new york times.

Thus, read the newspaper. Be informed....

Also: thanks to mandi and erica I listen to NPR's "wait wait...don't tell me" podcast every week and it's the funniest saterical commentary about the news. 60 minuets of laugh out loud fun.

nap time

Yesterday I walked into the library and saw a boy curled in fetal position under a desk. Welcome finals...I have waited for your arrival.

A Happening

Seemingly
Tempted.
Unkowningly
Determinded.
Youth

Quietly looking at gargantuan pictures of books (the embodiment of knowledge) I find myself in the titled honors room. This room is not for the honored at all but is a habitat for the future people who will create honors for themselves and their work. I begin to write. My own book, commonly termed a paper, becomes my focus. The consumption of time it demands parallels that of a book, but it would be a lie to call it such. So i sit, looking at the true books of exploration, determination, love, and fate....I embark. Sitting at the desk, books piled high, I prove myself as a student. The pages are filled and the paper is done. I submit it to the critic whose comments matter, my dad. He receives the document at 10:31 and begins. I wait. My feet, pattering in the puddles, lead me to his den, paneled with wood, in the ASB where I enter his office. He' s there, with his glasses, diligently critiquing and editing my paper. I take a seat across from his formidable table, in gratitude to not be on his opposing side, and wait. Finished, he looks up--gives me a very rare and highly valued compliment on my paper--and takes me to lunch.

Lunch is a conversation interrupted by our own laughter, both of us thinking that we are so funny. The topics vary from the ever present political ideals to the future and family. My mockery of youth, and his reminiscent stories full of advice make learners of both of us. I'm lucky to have a dad who is one of my best friends who likes to hang out with me during school, buy my lunch, laugh at my jokes, enjoy my work, has faith in my future, and cares.

Thanks dad

i suppose i'll go back to studying now..... i wish you all the best of luck on finals.

Checklists of life

They say if you want to be happy you have to try a little harder. They say if you don’t like the way things are you need to be more dedicated. They say if you want a different life you can get it but you need to be a different person, doing different things.

They suck.

I feel like I had a plan, a life plan that was going to be great. I was going to change the world, change people, be married, be leaving Utah on an adventure, and exploring ways to make this world work.

And here I sit, in the library, writing about how the combination of they and me has made me less happy about my life, and more aware of my inadequacies. There are the checklists in life, the pattern we create which we confidently generate in order to protect us from needing the advice of the ‘theys’. I am throwing the checklists away.

The checklist only makes us compare, covet and want things irrelevant to true happiness. The checklist makes me limit who I can date, and who I want to be around. The checklist demands my conversations be intellectual and not a reflection of who I am: a questioner. So for every checklist we made in young womens, college, and even the daily list of what I need to--I am throwing them out. Instead, my checklist will now be the truth of the gospel, the inspiration to help people, and the intrinsic nature of my being who knows, without stress and doubt, what makes me happy.

Goodbye checklist.

Papers

The e-mail came, wow. A note from the English Lit department. Listening to Nickle Creek, and thinking of myself as a doubting Thomas, I opened the letter. I had been chosen to present a paper at the BYU lit conference. Congratulations it said, and good luck. Open mouthed and ecstatic, I had decided that my career had begun. A shock...GREAT--i was off, my papers, my time, my thoughts, were worth something. Someone had read it; and cared. With this rush of confidence I wrote another, submitted it to a real presentation (not a collegiate one) with professors, the true 'intellects,' and waited. There, in the inbox was a small note from the Professor in charge. I opened the e-mail and, once again, it said that I was chosen to read and present my paper. The feeling of power, and success, made my feet come off the floor and swing--a physical manifestation of what my soul was doing. I had the conference presentation on my resume for graduate schools, I was going somewhere. Now on to being published...

Well, as with all acceptances, the day comes when you are expected to actually deliver. So, as i stepped into the oval, cramped room with a very limited amount of people, mostly the friends and family who would have come to anything, I realized what I was doing. I read the paper, and others read theirs, and it was over. All the excitement, all the fulfilled academic goals, were finished. And with that, I realized that I have never been more bored in my life. No truly, think of sitting in a room, staring at cardboard--not the interesting, worn, weathered, and story telling type of cardboard--but the new box from fedex, that is just a product of destroyed trees and commerce. So there you are in a room staring...at a box of cardboard. That's what the presentation was like. And it meant very little.

So now, as I sit thinking about a paper that I have to present to professors from different colleges, I can't help but think that what I will be doing is spending time on a paper that I'm not entirely convinced I believe in. Yet, the paper is so politically correct that it would be an injustice to not write about it during four year period where the democrats own e.v.e.r.y.o.n.e.

So I sit, contemplating on a lifestyle of professors who sit, discuss, and do very little to practically influence peoples lives and I am reminded that I am glad I am becoming a high school teacher.

Thanks to the friends/family that came and sat through a very boring moment in my life.