Sentimentality is my middle name!

I love the fall. It's getting a bit late for this post, but I can't let something minor like the changing of seasons stop me! Autumn to me is red, gold, orange. Leaves. Beautiful, bright, and large leaves. dark and crunchy leaves. an after-rain mush of moisture, mud, and leaves. (Leaves are obviously an integral part of this equation). Whether they be up above, lightly floating down, or in need of crunching below, they are simply amazing.


I have thoroughly enjoyed watching the transformation over the past several weeks, and was shocked to realize that I haven't documented this lovely change. Well, not too shocked. Remembering to charge batteries has been a bit much for me to think about as of late. But I did snap one on my cell phone. I LOVE technology for this very reason. And I was listening to music on it at the same time!


But I digress. Back to the pure beauty of nature. It makes me feel fresh, content, and sentimental. The sentimental has been getting to me more than anything since the last autumn I experienced was in Paris. I can't take credit for the picture below (taken in Paris) but it captures how I feel about this. To me, it conveys a melancholy longing but also serves as a reminder of cherished memories, of wonderful bygones. It is a beautiful thing, a memory. While not all memories may be lovely, we at least have the great ones from which we recall the best of times.


Oh gosh. My shuffle has tapped into this mood and is playing all things applicable. The one that always brings tears to my eyes, though, is Judy Garland singing "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas." Try it out. Seriously. I know you'll love it.


So please enjoy the seasons. Winter is going to be a difficult one for me, but it too will come and go. This year has gone by much too fast. Let's not let the other ones run amok too, when before we know it time is almost up and we still have yet to do all those things set aside for "someday." Make today someday. Love today! (even if it is snowing...)

Turning the Corner

So this is my pivotal semester. This is it! I'm in my fourth year at BYU, yet at times must still deny freshman status. I blame it on my youthful appearance and honestly, I leave about five minutes for makeup in the morning. So no fancy age-defining face coming from my direction. But as my CA high school psychology teacher wisely said, "You can either look old when you're young, or young when you're old. If you look old when you're young, then you're going to look even older when you're old. But if you look young when you're young, then you get to look young when you're old too."
I know, I know. I was stunned by the genius of this statement too. Mr. Curran had quite the way with words. And for the record, I'm pretty sure he was old(er). And even more so now...

But my point is that here I am in my fourth year of college. It doesn't get any more pivotal than this. I kind of made a huge decision that it's still a little difficult to wrap my head around. I know it's the right choice. If I were to completely re-evaluate my whole life, I would not have it go in any other direction. It's just hard to make that first step, to say yes, I am doing this. This is not only a good decision for some people to make, this is the best decision I can make right now. It's amazing to reflect on the past and see how we got to where we are. It's a process. I'm one of those people who doesn't particularly love change but dislikes doing the same thing for too long. Well, a paradoxical outlook equals a paradoxical life, right? What does that mean for the future? I'm not sure. I look at our country and have no idea what is in store. We're at a crossroads- me, you, the country, the whole world. All in the same position yet so far from each other. It's the ultimate inescapable paradox.

I must get some shut-eye, but I promise this is going somewhere. Just wait and see!

Relief Society :)

I feel at peace today. This tranquility will most likely not carry on through the rest of the week (one word: school), but at least there is today. I am just grateful for so much.

Today in church we had our first relief society meeting. It is comprised of half of the girls in the ward and I think it's going to be great this year! Everyone is sincerely intent on getting to know the others and creating unity within the group. I had the impression today of how thankful I am for such a strong network of women. And I was struck by the distinct contrast between men and women. Women are predisposed to nurturing, compassion, and the like. Not to say that men don't have that, but it just seems to be so prevalent among women. I think that's why it's so important to us to feel that we have deep friendships that involve mutual trust and care. That is what we live for! I don't know how men feel, I've never been a man, but girls find that to be incredibly important. That is why we care so much when we "fight" with other girls: we're emotionally invested in those relations.

Love Them Allergies

It's been a while, but guess what? I finally went to the allergist a few weeks ago! It was a very informative visit. I got to tell him about the whole jogging/hives incident and mentioned that I had eaten an hour before I went jogging, which was unusual. He asked excitedly, "What did you eat??" I laughed. My summertime dinners are never really planned out. They just kind of happen. "Well, I started out with celery and peanut butter. . ." I might as well have told him that I discovered the secret to black holes in the universe. He got so excited! He told me all about this allergist convention where they learned about a study of the exact same thing. Celery and jogging combination- not the best. So then I was tested. . .

So that's it- I'm allergic to celery! Semi-allergic, anyway. I eat it cooked and. . .nada. That's about as random as it gets, especially since most people don't think twice about it, and this summer it was my chosen vegetable.

Sometimes life deals the oddest hand. :)

My Country

I feel bad. I last wrote on Thursday (9/11), and I didn't say anything about the anniversary. But I did think about the many people affected by that tragedy on Thursday. To think how much has changed in seven years is unbelievable. There is so much I could say about that, but I wouldn't even know where to start. I love my country. It's not perfect, and it could definitely use some work, but it's mine. And I think many Americans would agree that they would like to build it up, to find strength in a nation which we love dearly. That may sound terribly idealistic, but what can I say? I'm an idealist. It may not be pragmatic, but it helps me remember why we're in this, what it is we're aspiring to become.

So...there you go. God bless the U.S.A.!

And also, I hope that things turn out okay in the aftermath of Hurricane Ike in Texas. Especially for my awesome brother and sister-in-law. I love you Brandon and Jenn!

The Brief Penguin Handbook, except not in the slightest

Oh my goodness. Time, time, where has it gone? School started eight days ago and I've been running to and fro since. If I'm not in work or classes, I am studying (or at the very least should be!). Efficiency and time well spent is of the utmost importance, and I am still working on that (obviously, as I'm taking time to write this before delving into the Odyssey!). But enough of the parenthetical sidenotes. Let me relate something I read that changed my life just today.

"Life is like some crazy machine that is always going either too slow or too fast. From the cradle to the grave we alternate between the Sargasso Sea and the rapids, forever either becalmed or stormtossed. It seemed to Maud, as she looked across the dinner-table in order to make sure for the twentieth time that it really was George Bevan who sat opposite her, that, after months in which nothing whatever had happened, she was now living through a period when everything was happening at once. Life, from being a broken-down machine, had suddenly begun to race."
-From A Damsel in Distress by P.G. Wodehouse

I sat down at the table, opened my book that I was oh so close to finishing before starting school, and saw my life strung out in words on the pages before me. How perfectly this passage describes the bridge between summertime and the ever-growing load that is school in the fall. This fall will be great, don't get me wrong, but it will also be a lot of work. Rome wasn't built in a day. No really, it wasn't. More like several hundred years, as I'm learning in my Roman history class!!

So that's a little update on school life, but as for the end of the summer, let me just say that it was amazing! The weekend before last I went to Liberty Land with Alyse, Jocelyn, and their mom and sister. I'm not going to lie- I loved the roller coaster. And little boats from which you soak your friends. It was great! The next day I floated down the Provo River with Alyse, Jocelyn, and a few guys. That was when I discovered that I have an indescribable magnetism to the scraggly growth on the sides of rivers. Who knew? Rapids only aid in that regard, unfortunately. Don't worry, we survived, even during the two hours following the river when we discovered Jordan's keys had been unceremoniously swallowed up by the raging waters. Why oh why? But it was kind of fun, hanging out and realizing how useless cell phones are in an emergency if they're all locked in the car. Why, you ask? I mean, besides the fact that you can't actually use the cellphones? Well just tell me how many phone numbers YOU now know off the top of your head and get back to me! Mine is a slightly helpless generation. But we're working on it :)

I have so much more to say, so I will be back!

Also, why the title? I dislike naming things, and when I tapped the title bar it came up with the penguin handbook. If you're not in college, you might not know that that is actually a book on writing citation. It's lovely. And it's on sale for twenty bucks. Come on, you know you want it!

Thoughts on a splendid day.

Today was a fun day. (Well, minus certain work hours of a certain job which is certainly not that other job). I started, rather continued a journey to find my true career potential, got a couple of books from the library (yay!) I had some trouble over the last few weeks finding a book, and was rather disappointed by one I had been particularly excited about. But just coming back from vacation, full of lake/riverside reading, I am prepared to be busy rediscovering the beauty of reading this and that. Before fall nonsense sets in, anyway.

Anyway, Jana, Laura, Chris and I also longboarded down the canyon tonight. Twice! Rather they longboarded and I scooted along on Jana's Razor. (I prefer to have a strong grip on whatever is moving me along). I felt a bit like a little sister, tagging along with the big kids and trying to join in on all the fun. Jana, Laura, and Chris have all gotten to be pretty good at longboarding, so I really was trailing behind most of the time. Being pretty much a pro at the Razor, everything was amazing and went off without a hitch. Ahem. Come on guys, you know me better than that! Actually, 95% of the time I was completely in control, showing that razor who was boss. Ha! And I had gone down the canyon once before: no problema. But...at the end of tonight's runs, I was going down the hill too fast for the parking lot turnoff. Rather than think of any number of other methods for stopping (don't suppose you've ever tried a Razor brake on a slope- impossible), I decided to jump and run which had been quite successful in the past. Not so all the time. I'm a bit scraped up all over, although my left knee got the brunt of it. But it's just a scrape, not a limp, so I think it'll be juuuust fine.

After that, Jana, Laura, and I tried out a new pizzeria in Orem that we had all heard a few somethings about. Best part of it? The bathroom to which I made a beeline so that I could clean up a little from the Razor experience. Hey, it was a really cool bathroom! I liked the sink. (wooden, I think?) Very modern- in a good way. We thought the food was alright but too pricey. Maybe a little less style, a little more emphasis on food? Perhaps burnt pizza crust is not such a good idea. Perhaps. But I have to give the place credit for its atmosphere. That was great!

Then, when I got back to the apartment, I decided to practice for this musical number my mom, sister, and I are working on. The mother/daughters trio is reunited! My mom and sister play the violin, and I play the piano, so my mom loves finding pieces for us to play together. This, of course, happened much more before I moved out a few years ago. My mom always "chokes up" and says that it's her dream for us to all play together. You'd think the idea had never crossed our minds, much less the actual reality. But Chelsea and I appease her and it's nice to have another excuse to work on a neglected pastime. Practicing and sightreading at my grandma's house this past week must have loosened up my fingers because some of my pieces from high school flowed more smoothly than it's been in a long time. And when you're a slightly discouraged and practice-lacking pianist, that is huge. It reminds me why I love the piano and music in general. It's a type of expression that is simply irreplaceable. Someone could play a piece uniformly, but it is when she really brings emotion into it that the music can be moving and provoke meaningful, individualistic responses from the audience and the performer herself. That's why some songs make you smile, cry, get pumped up, or feel...anything. I love that. It's beautiful.

On that note, bonne nuit!