sleeping lessons

generally i enjoy nature. but, i hate the birds that sit in the tree next to my window and start chirping away at 6am everyday. if i weren't so opposed to killing animals for sport i might borrow PC's roommate's gun to take care of the problem.

everybody's changing, but i don't feel the same

last week i turned over a new leaf. after the rather poor class attendance rates of late, i decided to see what it would be like to go to all of my classes in the same week. it took a lot of will power to make it to my 9am class on wednesday, but i attended every single lab, lecture, & small group session.
i also was a super-over-achiever at church. last week i attended FHE, institute, enrichment, a ward activity, & church. and i worked a 5 hour kitchen shift in a food kitchen in downtown Atlanta.
by the end of the week i was totally exhausted. going to all those classes & church things wore me out. so i decided to turn the leaf back over to where it was. i'm skipping class right now actually. its nice to be back to mediocrity.

wes anderson, part 2

i watched The Royal Tenenbaums on TV this morning before church (a good way to spend the Sabbath). if only it had been filmed in my house...

I like to dream yes, yes, right between my sound machine

last night i had a dream that my parents bought yet another house (i think they are collecting property). instead of a fancy new house they bought this weird old place. then wes anderson showed up & asked if he could film his next film in our new house. i was pretty stoked. the rest of my dream i kept trying to get ahold of PopularBloggingFriend so she could come over & meet wes. waking up was pretty depressing.

strange currencies

I met a few interesting people yesterday. The first was President Carter. I was standing in the lobby of my school talking to the TimeSucker. A bunch of men in suits got out of the elevator and walked over to us. Then I noticed that one of the men was Jimmy Carter. He said hello, shook our hands, & left. It was kinda random.

About 30 minutes later I was in the ladies loo before class. I heard a girl talking to another person, whom had a distinctly male voice. At first I thought "what is a guy doing in the ladies' loo?". Upon exiting my stall I quickly realized that the very masculine voice was coming from a tall blond lady. Apparently she is a transsexual who gives lectures at colleges & stuff about life as a transsexual. She seemed pretty cool.

I was pretty excited. I don't usually run into former presidents and transsexuals within the same hour. I guess Emory just brings people together.

Alles Gute zum Geburtstag

Today is my mother's 60th birthday. To celebrate such a significant milestone I sprung for a more expensive card then normal. It was really pretty & made by a paper company, Papyrus, whose symbol is the hummingbird. Unfortunately, there was a little slip of paper included with the card with the following message on it:

Legends say that hummingbirds float free of time, carrying our hopes for love, joy and celebration. The hummingbird's delicate grace reminds us that life is rich, beauty is everywhere, every personal connection has meaning and that laughter is life's sweetest creation.

someone was seriously paid to write that tripe. as lovely as the card was, i don't know if i can support this company anymore.

visiting friends

while i was in utah i saw a lot of people. when i visited some of my friends they told me about their woes - health problems, lack of suitors, crazy families & so on. with other friends we just talked about random fun stuff or i complained about my crazy family.

my favorite conversation was when i went to see the Manorexic. i walked into his room & promptly began commenting on things i found therein. after a few minutes he said, "is there anything else you want to mock before we go eat?" even though i was hungry, i found a few more things before we left. how could i resist when he makes it so easy?

a poster similar to the one on the Manorexic's wall. his is much larger & more complex though. for those of you who don't know already, it is a bunch of biochemical symbols. v. cool.

zion, vol.2

i spend my spring break in utah. my roommate's friends said "Utah?? Who goes to Utah for spring break?" answer: mormons.

my favorite thing about utah is all the mormons and the hilarity that they produce:

case 1) i pull up to the visitor's parking gate at BYU & tell the guy i'm not a student. he clearly thinks i'm lying since the car i'm driving has BYU parking passes in the windshield. i tell him the car isn't mine (technically this is true) and i don't even live in utah. he looks at me with pity & kindly says, "really? you should. utah is wonderful!".......yeah, no thanks. i've done my time.

case 2) i go to a class with ChurchGirl. we start with a prayer from the infamous PrayerWhisperer. i immediately knew it was her, even before ChurchGirl told me. class goes on with phrases such as "it is incumbent upon us" being thrown around like ultra-righteous golden nuggets of wisdom.

case 3) as i cross a street in front of temple square i run into an elder from my mission. this is not the first time this has happened to me in SLC - the great gathering place of all mormons.

blowin in the wind

well the excitement never ends in atlanta. i came home just in time for some excessive turbulence on the flight in & a few tornadoes blowing through the town. yay.

ain't sayin she's a gold digger

while i was in Utah i ate lunch with a friend who recently got married. she has also became a vegetarian. apparently her husband has a crazy vegan millionaire aunt who has promised $250,00 to any vegetarian in the family in her will. the same day my friend discovered this clause she also discovered an aversion to meat. funny how that happens.

the land of zion

I'm in Zion this week. It has been quite surreal. Here are a few things I've noticed:

1) people here are aggressively friendly. it is kinda scary
2) mountains are big
3) BYU is seriously the PDA capital of the world
4) there are a lot of mormons here, hence a lot of weird mormon movies and books
5) all the billboards are about buying a more impressive house or improving physical appearance

the life of a dedicated student

one of my friends here told me today that i skip class more than anyone else she knows. this semester i am scheduled to be in class for 18 hours every week. as of tuesday evening, i've been to 1.5 hours of class. tomorrow I have some tests & a presentation so I have to be in the classroom for at least 4.5 hours. total: 6 hours of class. i think 33% of the time is pretty good, personally.

things i've learned 4

1. Even when I have multiple exams, papers, and presentations due in the next 24 hours, I can still find time to watch at least 2 episodes of Arrested Development

2. My attention span when studying maxes out at about 20 minutes

3. The dreariness of making study sheets for epidemiology is greatly improved when you can use the abbreviation "F-up" in your notes

this post was organically grown

i've be accused of being an earth-loving hippie more than once. in some ways it is accurate: i religiously recycle (including going through my kitchen trash daily to remove recyclables my roommate has carelessly thrown away & saving all my junk till i take it school to recycle in the paper bins), i bring my own bag to the grocery store, i started a garden, i take public transport to school, i try to conserve water, & i try to buy truly eco-friendly products (my shower curtain is bio-degradable!)

but when i start feeling good about my granola-y life, i pay my Canadian friend a visit to remind myself of the truth. last night she & her husband hosted a pizza party in their completely 2nd hand furnished apartment. not only was the whole wheat dough and sauce homemade, so was the cheese. all the vegetables were from the farmers market, as were the spices. of course there was no meat b/c the meat industry destroys the environment. even the cornmeal for the bottom of the crust was from the mexican grocery store. the only thing not bought at the local market was the beer, which was bought at the local package store from the local brewery. (it was the best pizza i've ever had)

at the end of the night my fake dolce&gabbana purse and i drove off in my infinti pondering what a corporate sellout i am. earth-loving hippie? maybe someday i'll really reach that level. until then i will continue to search through my kitchen trash & admire my truly earth-loving friends.