Big News!!

This just in!!  Katie may not be completely crazy after all!! Remember this?  Yeah, the tricolor antelope with night vision?  We know where that stemmed from.  Although, to be fair, we don't know where the tricolor thing came from.  Please, sit back, and enjoy.

Happy Anniversary!

Today is the one year anniversary of our first blog post.  In addition, it is also our 100th post on the blog!

Where were we one year ago?  Same ridiculous behavior, different place.

Finals Week Craft Winter 2011

Finals Week Shenanigans

Finals Week Movie Night

Finals week this year looks a little something like this:

We have couches now.  Sometimes we push them together and call it a couch boat. 

Not much has changed, except for where and with whom we spend our time.  It's been a crazy year and a fun ride.  I was supposed to write this post because I wrote the first one last year, but I'm panicking under the pressure to write something emotional and clever and touching and funny, and I honestly can't think of anything other than the lyrics to a Ke$ha song right now.  So I'm just going to publish this and call it good.  It's been real.  Real what?  Only time will tell.

Marina can read my mind better than I can. I'm not sure if I should be worried or not. Probably.

So, there's something you need to know about me:  I think in colors and pictures.  This makes for some odd conversations sometimes.  Such as, when I was trying to describe a guy in our ward to one of my roommates, and the only way I could think of to distinguish him was, "he just exudes the color red.  All the time.  He just has a very maroon feel to him."  Believe it or not, this statement was met with several concerns about my sanity level, and they still didn't know who I was trying to describe.  Yeah....words is hard, guys.  :/

So, once upon a time, Marina played a song she liked while we were both in our room.

*skip forward about a month*

Me: Marina, what was that one song you played that one time?

Marina: uh.... Can you think of the tune or any of the lyrics or the main message of the song or what it was about?

Me: Nope.

But after thinking for a while, I was able to come up with three hints.  1) It was sung by a woman.  2) It may or may not contain the words "dog" and "mom."  3) It reminds me of the color yellow.

Really, the third hint made no sense to anyone but me (weird, I know), and no, I was not thinking of the song "Yellow" by Coldplay.  Or "Nothin' but a Hound Dog" or "Bohemian Rhapsody." The second hint was unsure.  I didn't actually know if the song contained those words.  So really, the first hint was the only one that was even somewhat helpful.
 
So we did the only rational thing: we played every song Marina had played on itunes from the last 3 months that was sung by a woman.  Surprisingly, this only took a few hours.  I didn't immediately recognize any of them as "The Song," but we found one that I thought might maybe sorta kinda was it. Emphasis on the maybe.

*skip forward a week or two*

I was playing the "Maybe Song" with Marina around.  She commented on what a shame it was that we didn't know for sure what "The Song" was.  That would have been the coolest detective moment ever.  Like on Psych, when they figure out the crime with almost no evidence.  Except, we literally had no evidence.  So cooler than Psych, if that's even possible.  We might even have to crack open a celebratory pineapple if we ever figured it out.

Since we had played every song she had on itunes, she mentioned offhandedly that it might have been a song she had just randomly played off of youtube or something.

"GASP!!" *Marina runs out of the room with an excited scurry*

She comes back and plays this song, which, by the way, is "THE SONG."

It's sung by a woman, and it totally has the words "dog" and "mother" in it!  :D

The moral of the story is, don't even think about thinking something you wouldn't want Marina to think you're thinking.  I think.  Or, the moral of the story is, if you ever have a thought, but aren't sure what that thought is, ask Marina.  She'll take your crazy hints and make sense of them.  Even if the hints make no sense at all.  We still don't know what's up with the color yellow.  Come on, reader.  Doesn't this song just bleed yellow to you?  No?  ....oh.  :(

Hot feet. The opposite of cold feet.

Marina's family is full of good people.  They think of her often.  Many times, they randomly send her money.  Other times, they randomly send her other things.  Like entire sets of dishes--plates, saucers, more different large plates, and bowls.  Oh, and teacups.  What dish set would be complete without 10 teacups?  None, I tell you!  Although Marina was graciously accepting of the two ton gift, a small problem arose.  And by small, I mean, you know.  Not so small.  We have a little less than 0 space in our kitchen cupboards (plus, come on Marina's family.  If we didn't already have dishes by now, we would have been eating like cavemen for months.  Cut us some slack.  We only did that for a few weeks).  Where were we going to put the mass amounts of dishes that had fallen into our possession?  Who knows?

But if you know us, you know that we are innovative human beings.  We found a small space on the shelf above our cupboards where we could stack all the dishes.  So we began.  The shelf, as I mentioned, is above the cupboards.  Aka, it's high.  And we are not at all high.  In height or drugs.  Which is unfortunate.  So in order to get the dishes up there, I climbed barefoot onto the counter and stood on the stove while Marina handed me the many dishes that were soon to call that shelf home.

All was going well, and we were very proud of ourselves for being so brilliant.  *Enter Tim, our FHE dad.*  We obviously don't go to FHE enough, or he would know to expect sights like this from us.  Let's be honest, standing on the stove is not the weirdest thing any of us has done.  Or the most dangerous.  One time Katie set a piece of paper on fire and then proceeded to carry it directly to the trashcan, which happened to be full of flammable materials.  Good thing the rest of us were able to put that fire out before it started, or we might have had an amazing blog post plus a less amazing law suit.  But I digress.

Tim began to stare up at us, with a mix of sheer amazement and concern.  He offered us a step stool in an effort to get me off the stove, but we were content and politely declined.  We continued using our amazing assembly line skills, until I heard Tim say, "Is the stove on?"

Without turning to face him, I looked at Marina and said, "Yeah, could you turn that off now?  It's getting kind of uncomfortable."  Tim's face was priceless.

I think I'm only good at thinking of one-liners when I'm being judgmental.  Keep that in mind.  If I'm ever able to think of a funny one-liner right when it's needed, you're being judged.  Or I'm just extraordinarily witty that day.  You decide.  Do what your heart tells you.

"Make Everyone Twins."

You know how some people write down thoughts they have in the night, so as to not lose what might possibly be a great idea or dream?  I write down thoughts I have in the day, forget about them, then find them months later and am entirely baffled.

"Tricolor antelope with night vision."
"And it's stretchy, so I'll never have to buy a new one!"
"3 Thurs u"

What do these mean?  How do we know that antelopes have night vision?  Is there a party Thursday at 3 that I'm going to miss?  Serious stuff.  I am increasingly giving up on the hope that one day my mind will make sense and I won't confuse myself.  The older I get, the less likely that seems.

The Men Won't Be Able To Get Their Hands Off... Our Hands?

Real life conversation between Sara and myself.  Real life stuff happening right here.

I'm not entirely sure, but this might be the reason we're single.  Because we don't yet have handerpants.  And in case you're wondering, here's some information on how you can order six pairs for yourself:

I think my favorite part is the tagline: "your hands never need to go commando again!"

Quietly Disruptive Saints

Sometimes, we aren't the most engaged people in Sunday School.  We fall asleep, we play games on our kindles, we doodle and write various notes to each other.  But at least we find ways to entertain ourselves without disrupting others, right?  It's the thought that counts....  Ok, not my best excuse, just roll with it.  Today, Katie and Marina and I wrote a story together to keep us awake.  We each wrote one word and then passed it the the next person.  I started with "Dear," and then Marina went, and then Katie.  I tell you this so if you see a particularly strange or concerning word, you can use your math and pattern skills to determine which of us is the culprit.  Or, you know, not.  That would be an incredible waste of your time.  Go make us some cupcakes instead.


Dear Prudence,

Don't forget about th'Alamo!  Everyone will kill small indigenous Irish elephants, unless Batdog viciously intervenes.  Should the battle prove lasting, gather all bears.  They always attack enemies, hurling hula hoops toward medium sweaters, bursting bubbles, and cinderblocks.  Luckily, bears are very susceptible to brainwashing.  Unluckily, they tend to have short-term attention spans.  It seems that you only benefit if you curl Elizabeth's limbs.  Weird.  Though dolphins inevitably revolt, bears are essentially victims of the dolphins.  Grotesque conspiracies arise due to widespread elephantitis.  Sick specimens are transported due to contaminated blood.  Avoid drinking unbleached blood.  It causes telekinesis, but also leprosy.  When hallucinations end, grab your compass.  North is bad.  Run East, but only if bears limp with elephantitis.  The sunrise signals safety.  Roll left if moss grows under walrus graves.  Roll backwards determinedly.  Don't jump diagonally, else incite the wrath of superhuman children.  They smell like rotten rutabagas and mushrooms, beating acidic pulp into orange sippy-cups.  Obviously bears enjoy pulp-free OJ, thus superhuman children torture them with forced pulpy OJ.  Luckily children aren't able to escape if there are cookies.  Trapping them is simple, especially when oreo's are available.  Remember to remember the Alamo.

Love,
The Hunchbacks.

Because we just can't do anything the normal way.

There are lots of quirks to living in an apartment. One of the most classic of these is having disruptive neighbors. Plenty of people have resorted to banging on the ceiling with a broomstick to get their above-neighbors to stop stomping around. We actually witnessed this in our neighbors' apartment today when we went Visiting Teaching. We of course, don't have this problem. That would be much too mainstream. We did, however, go to visit our upstairs neighbors today.

Another trial of apartment living is lots of things that only sort of work. One example of this is the ceiling light in Sara and my bedroom. There are three light bulbs in it, and the number of lights that actually work tend to rotate. At first we thought it was just random, but finally, we figured out the pattern. Our light bulbs tended to flicker on when our upstairs neighbors walk right above it. We can actually hear the footsteps, immediately followed by magically more light.

Usually, this isn't much of a problem, and we tend to have at least two of the light bulbs shining, making the lighting level fairly tolerable. However. today, we had been going on twenty-four hours with only one working light, and it was getting depressing. So, finally, we decided to take matters into our own hands.

Not half an hour after witnessing our regular neighbors' struggle with their overly loud upstairs neighbors, we set out on our quest. Despite having no idea who it was that lived above us, we located their apartment, knocked on the door, and asked if they would do us a really weird favor. Their first assumption was that we were going to ask them to stop walking on the floor above our room, but that wasn't it at all. To looks of increasing astonishment, we explained our situation, and asked that they please stomp really hard on the floor above our ceiling light. They seemed skeptical of this plan, but we quickly called Katie and asked her to report our progress. Just as they began to believe that this couldn't possibly work, Katie announced a flicker. "HARDER!" we admonished. Soon there was more than one girl literally jumping up and down on the floor just above our bedroom. Katie began to be alarmed by the noise. But finally, to our relief, another light bulb flicked on. We shouted out our victory, graciously thanked our still slightly bewildered neighbors, and continued on our way. They did, however, tell us to let them know if we ever had problems again.

I'm pretty sure there's a lesson in here somewhere. Maybe it's "Know Your Neighbor" or maybe it's "Your life will be funnier if you ask your neighbors to be more disruptive than they currently are." Or maybe it's "Take a closer look into the apartment appliances before you sign a contract." You be the judge.

We Have That Kind of Friendship.

I'm sitting here, trying to explain a schedule to Sara.  She's a little confused, so I reword it a little (probably making it more complicated... that's how I do.) and try to explain it again.  She stares at me and says "Oh, okay." And goes back to her computer

A minute later, she looks up again and says "I don't really get it.  The 'oh' was for sympathy."

Yeah, we're in college.

Work- It's dangerous.

I suppose that people who are employed in a typically dangerous line of work might come home with things like "shark-bites" or "infectious diseases." I'm sure that's very traumatizing for them and whatnot, but hey, at least they get a good story out of it. Provided that they survive the experience, I suppose. I, on the other hand, am routinely injured at work in what is possibly both the most painful and the most unexciting way imaginable. I get papercuts. ALL the time. And while, usually, I think I average about one or two a week, I think I was assaulted by paper twelve times today at least.

Sometimes, I branch out a little into the realms of "cardboard cuts" or "plastic cuts," which are, believe it or not, worse. It's not unusual, at work, for someone to cry out in pain, and leave their machine to go get a band-aid out of the first aid kit. In fact, several months ago we ran out of band-aids, and I don't think they've been restocked yet. Today, I stopped an entire assembly line (I have a magical work stopping button) when I began to bleed profusely.

Let this be a lesson to you, kids. Don't work. Or, at least, choose a line of work where you can at least be hurt in an interesting way, and garner the proper sympathy.

Matt Is the Best.

I have all sorts of problems with my computer.  I'm pro at picking up viruses and malware. It's probably all of those "You're the 1,000,000,000th Visitor" notices I keep clicking on.  The flashing banners get me every time, darn them.  Since my fields of specialty don't extend past Facebook stalking, hoarding candy corn, and making a fool of myself in public, I leave technology to technology people.

Enter my friend Matt.  I took my computer to his apartment last week and left it there with a vague "something is wrong, please fix it."  I picked it up a few hours later with high hopes.  Matt said he cleaned several viruses off and handed it over.

When I got home, I realized what he really spent three hours doing.  Messing with my settings.

I thought I was crazy at first, because computers don't talk.  Well now mine does.  Every time I turn it on, off, open a new window, open a new tab, click a link, etc., my computer reminds me that I shouldn't trust Matt with my computer every again.  It alerts me to system changes with a kindly "Matt is the best."

Sometimes, if I leave my computer alone for a while, it reminds me anyway.  Just to keep me on my toes.  It might be the best thing that's happened to my computer, and I kind of lovehate it.  For now, anyway.

Eat All the Food!

So Katie and I are in a cooking class together.  Yes I realize many of you might be laughing about this, thinking, "Seriously? You're in college and you're choosing to take a cooking class?" (or maybe that's just my mother thinking that).  But let me point a few things out.
1. This is my only class on Fridays.  All I do is cook and eat delicious food for 3 hours.
2. We get a free meal every Friday.  We usually stuff ourselves to the point where I don't even really need dinner, so it's basically two meals at this point.
3.  Since we are the last class on Fridays, we get all of the food that they have to throw out.  So I get even more free food!!
4. We get delicious recipes out of this as well.
5. We get to rock out to Rebecca Black's "Friday" every week.

Ya I know, the last point doesn't get me either.  But the first four are great ones!  While we're cooking, we love to sneak food.  We're hungry, poor college students!  We can't help it!  Our favorites are the batters....This is a problem.  There is a rule against eating batter.  How rude!!  No worries readers; we found a solution! We said, "Smerf it!"

This was taken by our lab partner.  That behind us is our sink: the only safe zone in the lab.  We both suddenly ducked down and started licking this delicious chocolate frosting off of the beaters.  A couple people saw us (luckily none were the teacher or strict TA's).  We got some weird looks, but I think they were just jealous they didn't think of it first.

The awkward trials of being accidentally funny

Apparently, I said something funny a few days ago.  Katie swears by it.  But she can't remember what it was.  However, even though none of us can remember me being funny, I have been pressured into remembering it and then writing a blog post about it.  It's possibly the most stressful thing I've ever been through.  I try to dig through my memory for something funny I might have said 3.6 days ago, but I just can't recall it.  Every once and a while I'll say something that I think might be it, but then I look at Katie and she makes no response, or worse, gives a pity laugh.  I'm patronized by the idea that I might have said something amusing that might have changed my entire life for the better and perhaps could have made me money and fame and gotten me several boyfriends, but I just can't remember it.  Also, apparently that one sentence (thought, word, idea?) that I sputtered out 3.6 days ago used up all my funny.  Sorry guys.  I can only be funny when I'm about to go into a memory lapse, apparently.  And that memory lapse also affects my roommates.

Maybe that funny phrase was actually a magic spell, and it makes whomever hears it forget what I said.  Pretty useless, admittedly, unless your goal is to make several people crazy trying to figure out what it is that I said, including myself.  I'm pretty sure if I figure out how to harness this superpower, I could be president of the world.  Or something.  Because I could say something stupid that would make people stop voting for me, but then they would just forget what I said and just remember that I was funny.  Success.  I'm gonna have to practice this.

...

What kind of bear has no teeth?

A gummy bear!

....Yeah, I don't think that was it.  *sigh*

Puftina the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Woman

Once upon a time I signed on to sell concessions at football games. This seemed like a good idea at the time. That time was summer. I worked the last game yesterday night, when it was distinctly not summer. In fact, the high was 36 degrees, and the low was 17. And part of the time it was actually snowing. The solution? Wear every article of clothing that I own, and some that Sara owns.  Here's me beforehand:

And here's everything that I wore and/or packed for the game:

But not the bed sheet.  Don't be ridiculous.

The sad part is that when I got there I put on most of the things in the bag.  And zipped up the jacket.  And wore two hoods.  And wrapped a scarf around most of my face.  I think I was wearing eight layers in total, and it was still a little cold.  But, at last count, I still have all of my fingers and toes, so I'm putting it down in the success book.  Imagine that I ended this with a picture of me coming in the door, wearing everything, clutching a cup of hot chocolate, and covered in about an inch of snow.

Foot In Mouth Disease.

I celebrated unofficial "Ugly Sweater Day" on campus yesterday.  On my way to my first class, I passed a girl wearing a borderline ugly/ironic American flag sweater.  I was booking it to class and clearly high off endorphins.   As I passed her, I stopped and shouted "Hey, ugly sweater day?"

No.  She was just wearing it.

I mumbled an obligatory "Oh... well I like it?" and ran away.  I really hope I didn't ruin the sweater for her.  Thank goodness there are 30,000 students here.  Although by Murphy's Law, she will be joining me when I go abroad next semester.  And possibly be my roommate.  That's kind of how my life works.

I'm good at breaking and entering. Or others are just bad at locking doors.

Our building, good ol' Glenwood Number 4, is the furthest one from campus.  It's so far!  Once I even get to the Glenwood parking lot I have to walk past 3 buildings just to get to ours.  Sometimes my subconscience gets impatient, and I become sure it can't be that far.  So I unconsciously turn into the third building and go into the matching apartment there.  The first time this happened was during the first week of school.  We were still unpacking, and there were boxes and dishes and misc. items all over the kitchen. We all left that morning vowing that we would organize when we got home.  Well, when I walked into the apartment after school, everything was clean and tidy, and there was even a vase of flowers on the kitchen table!  I froze, thinking to myself, "Wow!  My roommates have been busy!  I wonder who got the flowers!"  As I continued to walk through the entry way, however, something felt off.  The couches were in different spots, and the decorations that we had haphazardly put on the wall that morning had disappeared.  That's when it hit me.  This was not the apartment I was looking for.  I quickly exited that apartment and shut the door, then walked out of the building like nothing had happened.  When I finally got to our building and entered our real apartment, there were the boxes and dishes and a distinct absence of flowers in a vase.  Home, sweet home.

This has happened numerous times since then.  You would think that I would learn that we live in building 4.  Actually, no, let's be real here.  I'll never learn that, but you would think that the owners of the apartment I keep walking into would learn to lock their door.  I've met them now, they're very nice.  They were pretty convincing when they pretended to understand why I can't figure out where I live, even after 3 months.  I'm sure we'll soon be on first name basis, and then they can give all my information to the psych ward and have them come pick me up.  They know where I live and everything.  So, if one day I just up and disappear, I'm either at the matching apartment one building over, or in the psych ward.  Either way, please come get me.

Wow dad, your Alzheimers has really gotten bad!

We think we are hilarious.  Sometimes I'll relate our stories to a member of my family; I can barely get the story out due to laughing so hard.  Our antics our met with silence and occasionally a courtesy laugh.  Every now and then I get lucky and can get actual laughs.  That's when I know we've scored; we've been validated.  As this only happens every now and then, there's a small part of us that hates those people who are naturally hilarious.  Mostly it's respect, but jealousy is definitely in there.  We wish we could be that funny on cue.

There's one person we know who we can't hate, even though he fits the funny person profile perfectly.  We love him too much.  His name is Ian.  He was the RA of the boys hall we were paired up with last year.  Since we moved, we don't see him anymore (which is rather depressing).  One day on Facebook, Ian posted about how he needed to borrow some racquetball equipment.  Being the lovely person that I am, I told him he could use mine.  A day or so later I receive this wonderful voicemail from him:

Ian: "Hey Jessie. How's it going?  It is Ian.  I just want to thank you for letting me use your racquetball racket.  I'm actually using it for a date on Saturday morning.  So if things go well, I'll name my first daughter Jessie "Smerfson".  Then one day in the future, she'll ask me, 'Dad.  Why am I named Jessie?' And I'll tell her, 'Well Jessie, I actually don't... I actually don't remember anymore.' And she'll be like, 'Wow dad, your Alzheimers has really gotten bad.'  Sorry I couldn't say that without cracking up."

You see why we love this kid? I listened to this voicemail on the way home class.  I had to control my peals of laughter seen as how I was around random people and did not want to look psychotic.  As soon as Katie arrived home, I played it for her.  Repeat with Sara and Marina.  The only reason we could hear the rest of the message is because pillows were near by that we could shove our faces into.  All of us loved it.  It still remains saved on my phone.  Every now and then, we pull it up just so we can listen to it again.  Our dream, maybe with some practice, is that we can be on the same playing field as these type of people.

I think I'm actually becoming clumsier as I get older.

Recently, my life has been sort of complicated. I've gone from being mostly unemployed, to somehow having three jobs. It's manageable, most of the time, and it will be back down to one in the fairly forseeable future. For now though, one of the jobs I'm working is in the snack bar of the campus bowling alley. The truly pitiful thing is that I like working in fast food, and this is the one I've quit and am just working until my two weeks notice runs out. The good news is that I'm getting better at it, and I hardly burned myself at all today, while my first day on the job resulted in at least three burns. I may have done something worse though.

So there I was, minding my own business, innocently cooking fries for a customer's order, like a good little food service minion. While I waited for them to cook, I decided to wipe down the counter next to them. This was going fairly well, order was being restored and whatnot, when suddenly, a terrible thing happened. I managed to take our lovely timer, which keeps track of all the things that are being cooked, and beeps at us when it's time to take them out, and knock it into the vat of boiling oil on top of the french fries.
<-- Visual Aid

At first, I just froze for a moment. I really had no idea what to do from here, but I was pretty sure that electronic devices do not belong in boiling vats of oil. After a moment, I had the presence of mind to at least pull the fry basket out of the oil, and call for my supervisor's help. We used tongs to retrieve the poor timer, no one was burned, and everything remained more or less intact. And after I spent about ten minutes removing the oil from the timer, the back of the timer, and the batteries which had fallen out on impact, (side note: Do batteries explode if left exposed to burning oil?) I put the device back together, and wonder of wonders: It still worked. More or less. All of the times had to be reset, and, as we later discovered, it no longer beeped properly. But that probably had more to do with something that needed to be reset than it did with my apparent subconscious need to murder electronic devices. Right?

So anyways, the incident passed, and after my shift I ordered a corn-dog from my snack bar (because you try cooking and serving food for four hours and not slowly becoming starving). When my coworker served it to me, it was fairly overcooked, and she said "Sorry if it's crunchy. The timer didn't go off." The jury's still out: innocent mistake or passive-aggressive revenge?

Things I Hate.

The following list is a collection of things I have found distaste for since coming back to school.

1. People who ride their bike handless.
2. People who hold hands in public.
3. People who have relationships.
4. People who make up their own harmonies to hymns at church.
5. People who can go for long, healthy jogs in the mid-day heat.
6. People who don't ever not speak in double negatives (Marina, that's directed at you).

I could smerf on for ages, but I would like to be thought of as a charitable and kindly person.  So I'll stop before things get crazy.  And if you examine items 1-5 closely, you'll notice a general trend.  Go ahead and read the items again, but add "because I can't" after each sentence.  Maybe then my distaste will be easier to understand.  Or maybe you'll just feel sorry for me that I live a lonely non-athletic life.  Either way I'd probably hate you a little bit.

Hold the Carrot

In the middle of our adventures this morning, Jamba Juice called.  They asked us to please never ever ever (like ever) apply for a job there.  In fact, I think we could get them to pay us to NOT work there!  Why you ask?  Great question.

Last night, we had an Avatar: The Last Airbender marathon with some friends who had never seen it.  It's a wonderful show and if you haven't seen it, you'll love it.  Anyways, as most marathons go, this was a call for major amounts of junk food.  We did not skimp.  Double stuffed Oreos, donuts, two bags of chips, jelly beans, 3 bags of popcorn, and a tube of cookie dough.  Unfortunately, a better part of the food was eaten that night.  Katie and I stayed up even later after this watching a chick flick.  We woke up this morning wondering what to have for breakfast.

After so much junk food, we were so sick to our stomachs and overloaded on sugar that even Pinterest's deliciously sugary recipes had no appeal.  That's when you know it's bad! We have recently acquired a blender and thought it would be a fantastic idea to make a smoothie!  We thought we would throw in all sorts of healthy things such as an apple, strawberries, yogurt, and juice.  Having seen my parents my make an extremely healthy smoothie everyday for years, I thought, "hey! why not throw in some of their ingredients!  You can't even taste the carrots they put in!"  I just received some free carrots from our cooking class so we pulled them out.  I grabbed the biggest one thinking the bigger, the healthier!  Can't go wrong with that right....wrong. very wrong.

We threw the massive carrot in and cranked that puppy up!  Excited to taste our masterpiece, we grabbed a spoon and tried it out.  Note to the audience: carrots have a very dominant flavor.  It tasted heavily of carrots!  This is not how we imagined our delicious fruit smoothie turning out.  What else could we do but add in more ingredients to make up for the taste!  Lots and lots of strawberries were added and a splash of juice. Repeat.  No matter how many more ingredients were added, it still had a slight taste of carrot we could not shake.  We finally cut our losses and gave up at the point when our blender was full.  We could not repeat anymore.  That smoothie was about as smerfed up as it would get.  All in all, it was still pretty decent!  Although we might have just been saying that to make ourselves feel better...please just let us believe the former.

what not to do in the grocery store

there I was, happy as can be. grocery shopping. FOOD. you know when you're with your friends, nothing that would normally "embarrass" you really matters? well this time it did. tired of the same old toast and jam, one of my best friends, rachel, and i decided that enough was enough and that we needed actual food. we went to the local "smith's" grocery store to get all the essentials: greek yogurt, lettuce, and dark chocolate almond milk. we were in the vegetable isle when rachel told me she was going to get her bread. i was like, "ok! i'm staying right here and NOT MOVING!" not even 5 seconds later, i was like "hmm i need celery", so i took the cart and started running towards the celery while leaning on the cart. suddenly, i felt a sensation i had never felt before. i thought i was flying. the excitement died immediately when i realized what was happening. i leaned too far on the empty cart and it was tipping over and taking me down with it. all of the sudden, i found myself on my knees with the cart flipped up and pointing to the ceiling. i was in complete shock about what just happened, looked around, and i literally rolled myself into a circle of about 12 people who were all silently staring at me as i kneeled on the ground with a hypnotized look on my face. a woman quickly rushed to help me up and pick up my cart. she asked me if i was alright, but all i remember is saying "thank you so much" with glazed over eyes. i couldn't believe that rachel didn't see that. i was so embarrassed. i wanted to crawl into a pit and cry. she came back with her bread, confused at why everyone was staring at me and whispering. i explained what had just taken place and just like i would have been, she was surprised that that all happened in about a minute. if she was there, i wouldn't have felt as bad. it's official, never let your friend leave your side. not even for a minute because this can happen to you...if you're like me and get yourself into these situations seriously 4 times a day on average. 2 if i'm lucky, but let's get real here. i'm not.

My Growing Mind Control Powers

I don't know if any of you knew this about me, but I'm actually a superhero. Or something. I always suspected that I was psychic, but only recently have I begun to discover the true extent of my powers. I, it turns out, have the ability to magically implant the song of my choosing into the head of anyone around me (or at least all of my roommates). Additionally, by pure psychic prowess, I convinced about a third of my self-defense class to do jazz hands every time an annoying alarm went off. (It went off approximately every fifteen seconds, for like twenty minutes.) My song-implanting powers are especially potent when used on Sara, and are truly devastating when applied to the song "Some Nights" by Fun. In fact, I've advanced to the point where I don't have to play it or sing it at all. I just have to look at her the right way. I'm still working on how I can use this ability to completely take over her mind and force her to do my bidding, but if you have any suggestions, I'd love to hear them.

The Story of Why I'm Not Allowed to Go Back to the Library. Like, Ever.

There are two places in the library where I study.

1. The periodicals, my favorite place on campus.  Open, well lit, lots of windows, some trees (real ones, I kid you not), and plenty of space.

Unfortunately, I have a hard time focusing, so if I need to study hardcore, I can't stay in the periodicals.  There are too many people and far too many loud librarians who think loudly refilling the printers with paper is an hourly task.  In such conditions, I peace out and head upstairs to my second study spot.

2. The carrels on the opposite side of the south elevator on the fifth floor.  There are just two, they face a wall, and they are very hard to find.  Seriously, you go around a corner, then around another corner, then around another corner to find this little nook.  There is even a window to gaze out of when I feel stir crazy.  The big problem?  There is no local outlet.

Luckily, I'm a problem solver.  There is an outlet about fifteen feet away, and if one doesn't mind disturbing the tranquility of the fifth floor, you can shove the carrel over to sit by an outlet.

One lovely Tuesday, in an attempt to get into study mode, I went to the fifth floor and started to set up camp.  I started pushing the desk to an outlet when everything went smerfishly awry.

One of the legs of the desk broke.
(In my defense, I'm pretty sure that thing was structurally unsound before I got there!)

So there I was, panickily holding up a desk that was getting heavier by the second, with no idea what to do.  And the longer I stood there, the more hysterically funny the situation got.  Do other people get into these situations?  Seriously.  I was just standing, supporting the desk, trying so hard not to burst into laughter, doing my best to look completely innocent whenever someone came near.

Although the leg was precariously loose and threatening to snap, I managed to wrangle the desk back into a moderately reasonable position against the wall.  As soon as I was convinced it wouldn't fall over, I high tailed it out of there and have since resolved to avoid the fifth floor

I'm still trying to decide if I should a) never speak of this again, b) leave an anonymous note for the library staff about the broken carrel, c) show up in a carpenter's disguise (complete with mustache and toolbelt) and attempt to casually fix the problem on my own, or d) break the other legs (in for a penny, in for a pound).  

S"NERF"ING ADVENTURES

So, today, we went crazy.  But that's normal here.  We went a special kind of crazy today.  Our roommate Jessica came with two nerf guns (one with a laser to help you aim... so cool!) so we've been randomly attacking people throughout the semester.  But today, the flame within us grew to a forest fire.  We began to desire something more.  A full out war, instead of just sporadic battles.  So we all went out and did the practical thing: bought all the nerf guns we could afford!!!  Which, albeit, was not many, but now we all have one.  We defended the decision with the fact that these guns would probably come in handy if ever a zombie apocalypse were to occur.  At least, they couldn't hurt.  I am the proud owner of TWO nerf guns.  Be afraid, cuz I've been practicing my aim.

See?  Aim at Marina:  Check! 

Aim at the camera: Check!

And lastly, aim at the ceiling: Check!  I'm good at this.

We plan on attacking any unsuspecting intruders.  Or non-intruders.  If you walk anywhere near the vicinity of our building, watch your back.  Or don't, and then you can be blissfully unaware of what is sneaking up behind you.  Mwahaha....

I Love My Mom.

Really, I do.  My momma is pretty great.  When she's not teaching high schoolers, baking pies, or feeding the homeless, she's giving me dating advice.

Through Facebook.

girls are gross

Don't be alarmed, I live in a new, nice, and clean apartment now. I guess i never uploaded this one...

i will admit to being pretty nasty once and a while, but i am completely serious when i say that the girls that lived in our apartment before us were really nasty. as mentioned in an earlier post, the carpet looked like a ja-poo-zi overflowed on it, there were hand prints on the ceiling... just use your imagination with the rest. i mean really. it was like they weren't girls, and they were actually crippled grizzly bears with machine guns as arms and octopus tentacles trying to cook stir fry, while babysitting a legion of toddlers that were all trying to make themselves peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, while standing on their heads, and playing the popular board game, "Monopoly".

 there were hand prints and random smudges all over the walls, doors... the ceiling... i honestly think that one of the girls was eating a pizza and the other was putting on her foundation and they ran out of napkins and towels and were like, *said in a valley girl lisp* "i have an idea! let's just wipe our hands on the walls and ceiling! that'll work just as good, if not better." and they proceeded to do it.  today, i decided that i would be a nice roommate to rachel and vacuum her room since she's been saying that she needs to do that, so i did. it looked fine, but not up to my standards. the carpet had clearly not been edged in a LONG time. to my dismay, i found that we do not own an edger. i thought about going to the dorms and just borrowing their's for the evening, but i just wasn't vibing it. instead, i got on my hands and knees and used my hands to edge. oh. my. gosh. i edged the whole room because i got a little ocd about it and ended up with a dust bunny larger than my fist! ewww. i was in such a "spring cleaning" mood that i edged the hallway and my room as well, since i don't want my allergies to pay me a visit like they usually do around this time of the year. the bunny got significantly bigger. i contemplated going to the trash can and taking a picture of it, but i tied up the bag that it was in. just know that it was the size of a real bunny. bigger than this one.

i might have also gotten a little carried away and cleaned the hair out of her carpet. the discovery i made was priceless. (i found 2 pennies and an earring! but that's not what i'm talking about.) i immediately related it to what we learned in our old physical science class that i actually enjoyed very much. the law of superposition. i began to smerf the carpet with my hands and found that i could pull up the hair. the top layer was all light blonde, rachel's. the harder i brushed, i got deeper and pulled some light brown hair. it must have been the girl before rachel. finally i brushed even harder and pulled up dark brown hairs, the girl twice before rachel. it was pretty gross, but quite interesting at the same time. instead of looking like layers of different colored sedimentary rock, it was layers of different colored hair.
after countless clorox wipes and many hard worked hours, liters of sweat and 3 t-shirt changes, the apartment is starting to look great! i must admit that i am happy with how it's coming. people, when you move, please leave your apartment clean. PLEASE.

BYU Addictive Substances

We take what we can get.  And we abuse it heavily.  At the moment, all of us have an incredibly unhealthy obsession with this song:

Skip to 1:59.  Trust me.

The effects are borderline inappropriate.  It's like Ecstasy, but you won't get kicked out of school for listening to it.  Musical Ecstasy.  Yes.

Join us...... It's fun..... You know you want to...... Live a little..... YOLO.

Random Pics for Y'all

Drunken Escapades, Pt. 2

A few days later, the drunk girl called me. I had to call her phone to find it, so presumably she misdialed off the incoming call list. I got a call from a number I didn't recognize and answered, with hopes that it was a job calling to hire me.

Me: "Hello?"
Drunk girl (clearly drunk again): "...it was Travis.  I... I paid my [expletive] bills!"
Me: Confused silence
Drunk girl: "I had so many [expletive] bills!  There was the [expletive] DirecTV bill and I [expletive] paid it."
Me: Awkward silence
Drunk girl: "So... so don't [expletive] worry!"

Then the call ended.  What have I done?  Does this mean I can add drunken confidant(e?) to my resume?  Cause I think that would be kickin'.  Maybe I would have finally been hired to the job at a bakery downtown I really wanted to work at.  Does drunken confidant(e) not add a little spice to a resume?  Tell me I'm wrong if I'm wrong, but I think this will really help me in the professional world.

The moral of the story is that I am never going to do nice things for anyone, ever again.

How my self-defense training almost came in handy really prematurely. Sort of. Work with me here.

Once upon a time, typically referred to as my freshman year, I worked selling concessions at BYU football games. This was fairly successful, definitely the most fun job I've ever had, so I figured I would do it again this year. And so I am. Apart from the fact that I became a class ditcher before school even really started, this went off without a snag. So I show up at the game, receive my fancy official hat and apron, and go to check in. The man asks me if I'm a cash handler. I figure, I work the cash register, therefore I handle cash. Right? Right. So I tell him yes, in a slightly unsure, questioning manner. He checks the list, and confirms, yes I am. So then, without warning, he points out my station on the map, and then tells me to head to the police station/ office thingy to pick up the money. I give him a blank, slightly panicked look. He sends me on my merry way.

So, lugging my enormous backpack, (I didn't have time to go home after class) with a million things in my pockets, clutching my apron and hat, and holding my paper map in front of me like a sad, sad tourist, I amble off in the general direction I was pointed. I actually found it without much difficulty, though I did have to walk through several rooms full of cops and security people. I reach the office, and tell them that I need money, apparently. They are unable to find me on their list, but they give me the money anyway. Make of that what you will. By this point I'd figured out that I was almost certainly not really a cash handler, but they'd already given me official forms and stuff at the front, so I figured it was probably too late to do anything about it. So they pack me up with 900 dollars worth of change and stuff for my station, and I move on to the next leg of my journey. You would think that the hard part would not be over. You would be wrong.

After ten or fifteen minutes of wandering around attempting to follow my map, I concluded that I was almost definitely lost. And I was lost with 900 dollars of possibly slightly stolen money, which made it both funnier and a lot more panic inducing. I started asking various stations if they knew where I was going. Some admitted that they had no clue, others pointed me in a general direction. Several of these instructions conflicted. It took probably another ten minutes before I finally reached the stand I was supposed to be working at. I then happily handed over my pouch of money and moved on to more important matters. Like counting churros, and stuff. Yes, ladies and gentleman, I have finally sorted out my priorities.

Life Lessons or My Ongoing Career as a Shoulder Devil

On the fourth of July, I woke up at three in the morning, and proceeded to spend the entire day traveling from California to Windham, Maine. Yep, I sure know how to enjoy a good holiday. I'm here to help my Grandpa pack up his house, since he's planning to move in a few months. My Grandma, who can be lovingly referred to as a pack rat of alarming proportions, died a few years ago, leaving him with a large house filled to the brim with stuff. It's a two-story, four bedroom house with many closets, an enormous craft room, four rooms worth of garage in the basement, and an additional large shed with an attic on top of that.

At this point, you may be thinking, "Wow that would be a lot of stuff, how could he have gone this long without going through at least some of it?" And you would be absolutely right. He did. Along with many assorted relatives, he has gone through and gotten rid of a bunch of stuff. And then they did it again. And possibly again after that; I'm a little fuzzy on the details. So there couldn't be that much stuff left, right? Wrong.

This is where the life lesson comes in. I definitely have a bit of the pack-rat gene in me. I like to have all my stuff with me, packing frequently bring me to the brink of a nervous breakdown. My belongings are currently spread out across three states, and that's kind of stressing me out. BUT, today may mark a turning point in my attitude towards stuff. Despite my best intentions, I've already accumulated a few things to squeeze into my small suitcase. And you may be thinking "Oh, that's not so bad, surely you want some things to remember your Grandma by." And I have those things. Lots of them. And so does everyone else in the family, because we've already gone through it several times. And yet, new "treasures" continue to be found. Things that have been offered to me today include: many handkerchiefs, (side note: Why would anybody want a hankie? Gross.) many pairs of fancy gloves, a relief society manual, enormously large hair clips, a long braid made out of real hair, a vase I may or may not have given to my grandmother many years ago, really old stickers, and some 12+ year old gum. (Okay, that last one may have been a joke.) And that's just the beginning.

The big winner, however, isn't even for me, it's for my parents. It's a quilt, which means that yes, I will be toting a large blanket through airport security and multiple flights in addition to everything else I brought. Not only that, but it's possibly the most depressing quilt I can imagine. Years ago, when my Grandma was sick, my ward got together and made a quilt for her with a bunch of people signing squares. Most of them say "Get well soon." Who wouldn't want that back, right?

The shoulder devil in me came out today when, well into the garage sale, we discovered even more boxes in the garage to go through. Keep in mind that these boxes had not been opened at all since my grandparents moved out here in 2000. Now surely, anything you've gone without for twelve years can't be terribly important, right? You could almost certainly toss it all and never look back, right? Ahahahaha. Wrong. We went through all of the boxes, and there were lots of them, and lots of them were big. Contents ranged from old bowling trophies to a whole box of hankies to a faceless mannequin head. The best, however, were the boxes filled with papers, which naturally had to be gone through individually. Sitting out in the baking sun (I'm really not cut out for humidity) I watched and advocated the trash pile as my aunt went through page after page of (really dusty and sometimes spider-ey) junk, searching for family history treasures. And apparently she found some.

The attitude was summarized best later in the day when a different aunt came across an old plate commemorating my Grandma's first marriage. "More dishes?", she said. "Oh, well I have to keep this." (she also arrived by airplane) Really? You have to? Now, it's not like I don't understand the appreciation of family history, or even that objects can hold sentimental value (although I think most of those were picked through long ago). But there's gotta be a point where it becomes to much. I agree that some heirlooms are cool, and have already been in the family for ages. But does that mean that we keep them forever? And that the next generation keeps all of them, plus everything that was important to us? It gets ridiculous pretty quickly (and it was already pretty ridiculous.)

Anyway the moral of the story is that the computer age is a beautiful thing, stuff is overrated, and hopefully I learned to let go a little today. I'll let you know how it works out.

P.S. They sold the only lamps in the room where I'm staying. This doesn't really work into the story, but it's pretty depressing anyways.

Drunken Escapades, Pt. 1

But don't worry, they're not my drunken escapades.

One night on my way home from work I decided to take a detour through the sketchy part of Pocatello (aren't they all?), when I passed a car pulled over to the side of the road.  After much internal debate, I turned around and went back to see if I could help them with anything (despite the fact that the only useful thing I might be able to provide is a cell phone with internet capabilities- my car knowledge is seriously limited).

The car had stalled, and the two girls who were driving it needed some gas.  I offered to drive them down the road to the gas station about half a mile away to fill a can with gas.  This is where things started to go downhill.  One of the girls asked me to push her car to the gas station... with my car.  Well that was definitely a solid negatory.  I talked them into riding in my car to and from the gas station, after which, I would take off.

I have had very little experience with alcohol, so I didn't realize exactly what I had gotten myself into until we were on the way to the gas station, and I started paying attention to what was going on.  One of the girls was moderately sober, but the other was very intoxicated.

Much thanks to my daddy, I had an empty gas can in my trunk for emergencies.  We filled up and then filled their car.  I waited to make sure their car would start and I could go home with a clear conscience.  If only things were that easy.  The car didn't start.  I pulled up next to them to see what was going on, and patiently waited at their side while they got into a drunken argument about what to do.  They decided to push the car out of the road and walk home.  So they started pulling valuables out of the car.

That was the point at which a cop pulled up from the other direction. DrunkenPants (hereby known as DP)  panicked and immediately got into my car while the more able minded girl tried to explain the situation.  The police officer asked us to get out of the road and moved on.

In her panic, DP dropped her phone on the pavement.  But wasn't able to comprehend what I was saying and insisted I call her phone while she drunkenly searched my car.  Meanwhile, Girl 2 started checking their car for her phone, which she was unable to find.  Then, DP confided to me that she had Girl 2's phone and insisted we weren't going anywhere until Girl 2 returned her phone and made me promise not to tell G2.

I found the phone on the pavement, where I knew it was going to be, and returned it to DP, who then returned G2's phone.  At this point, DP begged me to walk them home.  Even though their house was across the street.  So I accompanied them across the street.  And by "accompanied," I mean I navigated DP up and down the curbs and stairs with several "step up here" and "step down here" whilst half dragging her.

The best part was how they thanked me once we were finally inside- with shots.  They insisted I join them in taking shots, and when I politely declined, they asked if I wanted to watch them take shots.  Surprisingly, I passed on the second offer as well.

Such lovely folks in Pocatello.  I really think I bonded with those girls that night.  They also invited me to their garage sale the next morning.  I should probably look them up on Facebook or something, I sense a lasting relationship in the works.

Dance shoes off the Black Market

Yes.  So sketch.

So, here are my new character shoes for folk dance:

**Disclaimer: These are not actually my legs.  I found them on the internet.  I love the internet.... I claim no right to these legs.  No copyright infringement was intended.  The right to these legs remains with the owner, whoever she (or I guess it could be a really strange 'he') may be**

I finally got them today after procrastinating and somehow getting away with not having them last year.... but I finally did have to get them.  $56.  Guys, I have a somewhat expensive hobby.  But that's not even the worst part.  The worst part was going to get them.

So, folk dance is pretty political, in that you can't even try out for the higher level teams unless you have the right shoes.  Not just character shoes, the right character shoes.  But no one is allowed to tell you where to get them.  If they were to tell you a certain store that sold the right character shoes, then other places could sue BYU and say that they are favoring that store.  So, legally, they aren't allowed to tell you who sells them.  The politically correct answer when faced with the question is, "oh, you know, you just get them around..."  You have to know who to ask--who is exempt from the law, and can give you this secret information. 

I ended up finding out where they were sold through a friend who had been on one of the top teams.  You'll never guess where you go to get them.  A tuxedo shop.  Of course, right?  It's a small shop--and I mean really small.  The shop is tucked in the corner of a shared business complex with a tiny sign.  It's owned by the head of the folk dance department's husband.  But technically he's not allowed to sell them, so he keeps them in the back room.  And when you buy them, you have to use cash or check--no credit card.  Too many legal issues. 

So here's how it went down.  I kept my ears open for mentions of people who might have access to valuable information.  I would track those people down and hope for a more specific answer than the usual "oh, you just find them around..."  Eventually I was able to get the name "Perfectly Suited by Garth."  Then the trouble was finding it.  I went down University Avenue until I was around the right place, and went into an old salon/tattoo shop.  Some one noticed me and said, "Nice weather we're having, isn't it?"  I answered, "Yes, but I always carry an umbrella."  Apparently those were the secret words, because then they told me to go down the hall to the back of the store and enter the second door on my right after knocking four times in quick succession.  I did so, and an old man let me in.  "I'm assuming you're not here to buy a tux," he said.  I then told him I was there to buy dance shoes, and he took me into the back room of his already "back room" shop.  I tried on the shoes, found some that fit, and then paid for them in cash.  As I left, I had the strange sensation that I had better keep a look out for cops, but without looking too guilty.  I was smuggling drugs guys.  Or something like that.  Dance shoes off of the Black Market.  Sketch.

Ornithophobia.

My sister works at a fast food restaurant in town.  It's a little drive in with the best fries in town.  It's also a little drive in with the most annoying pigeon infestation in town.  Pigeons get into the roof and nest.  You would never know unless you go into the bathroom, where it's quieter.  If it's the right time of year, you'll hear the incessant little chirps of a million baby pigeons.

One of her coworkers decided to take the matter into his own hands a few weeks ago.  He got one of the baby pigeons out of the roof and put it in a box outside the restaurant.  He claimed he was going to take it home and kill it.  My sister, animal whisperer, protested and decided to bring the bird home until she could find someone else to take care of it.

We kept it in the garage at first.  Just for a few days, until the pigeon grew out feathers and could fly on its own, at which time, she would release it into the "wild."

A few days turned into a few weeks, as pigeons don't actually grow that fast.  In that time, my dad secretly started bonding with the pigeon... he's a gentle soul.  He took the pigeon out of the cage we kept it in and started petting it and cuddling with it sometimes.  Needless to say, by the time the pigeon actually was old enough to leave, he was attached to us.  My brother even named him.

By the time Archibald T. Chirps had enough feathers to smerf the coop, he was part of the family.  One of my siblings even made him a Facebook page (does it get much more official than that?).  That was about the time we learned that pigeons are not dynamic animals.  They settle in where they are raised and won't be moved.  Our multiple attempts to forcibly relocate him were unsuccessful- someone would drop him off away from our house, and about half an hour later he would be back.

What's worse though, is that Mr. Chirps decided he is the kind of family pet that should live inside.  On multiple occasions, he has made his way INSIDE our house, much to my horror.  My sister quickly shooed him out while trying to calm my frantic screams.  Turns out I'm terrified of birds (add it to the list).  But really, the thought of a pigeon breaking into your home and making itself comfortable is frightening. It's enough to give anyone the heebie-jeebies.

Wish us luck, hopefully the bad weather will drive Mr. Chirps away.  Until then, avoid the deck.  It's his territory now.

Mmm Digestives.

I have the largest room in my house.  Bigger than my parents.  This makes it a sort of dumping grounds.  No room in the store room?  Put it in Katie's room.  No room in the other store room?  Put it under Katie's bed.  No room in the under stairs storage closet thing?  Put it in Katie's closet.  I try to be a good sport about it (minus one very angry incident that I would not like to rehash.  Jessie and Sara can tell you all about how mad and bratty I was though.), because I have a room big enough to house a small African village.

For nearly two years now, I've had a package of caramel "Digestives" sitting on my chest of drawers.  My sister, Anna, left them there one Christmas, and I always assumed they were some weird baking ingredient or something, and presumed she would eventually reclaim them.  I should know better, I've had a ten pound block of melting chocolate in my closet for two and a half years now.  So these "digestives" have just been sitting.  Untouched.  For years.

Flash back to my self discoveries post in which I went on a reading binge.  One of those books was a British book in which she ate "digestives".  Context led me to realize "digestives" are also known in the US as... cookies!!  I still didn't put it together until this morning, when I was lying in bed really hungry and too tired to go all the way upstairs for food.  Those strange "digestives" on my dresser are potentially delicious, albeit very old, cookies!

They're all gone now.  I ripped the strange packaging open in seconds and smerfed those bad boys in like ten minutes because I was so hungry and they were so weird- but the kind of weird that has you eating more to see if they're still weird.  I guess what I'm trying to say here is that I clearly have not changed at all since last school year.  No patience, no sense of restraint.  It's cool, it generally gets me into some wonderfully strange predicaments.  Now I'm off to clean all the "digestive" crumbs off my bed.  And by clean, I mean I'll eat the big ones and brush the rest off to the carpet.

P.S.  I'm not sure why I keep quoting "digestives," except that I'm so baffled that anyone would call a cookie a "digestive."

P.P.S. To Anna- I'm not sorry.  I would do it again.

Francesca.

GREAT NEWS, EVERYONE- WALMART HAS A SALE ON RAZORS.

BETTER... THEY'RE SELLING PINK RAZORS!

For only $30, we could buy Jorge a girlfriend!!!!!

Marina and I decided she would be named Francesca.  She and Jorge would be best friends/soul mates for ever and always.  They would smerf together all day, every day.  All in favor, mail us $1.  Then I'll bum $30 off my parents, and we'll be good to go!

Many things have happened since I've last blogged. Good and bad, but mainly just embarrassing. For example: 

• I managed to blow $1,000 in one week. Still hurts me when I think about it. At least it was on important things. Deposit & last month's rent on my apartment, sign up for a class, and buy some nice work clothes.
• Well I drove from Provo, UT to San Diego, CA in 2 hours less than usual. My average speed was... well let's just say I really wanted to get home and not be driving, and I may have exceeded the 80 mph speed limit...by a lot
• We created a new game where we dropped ice cream from the 3rd story in our apartment complex and caught it in our mouths at the ground floor 
• I found a younger version of my dad and went on a date with him. It was only a little awkward when I already knew everything about him -because i'm convinced that my dad built a time machine and did this to me as a joke- and kept accidentally calling him dad. It's fine though. I later realized that I left him with a six digit number.
• Met a guy named Mike Byrd, but somehow got it into my mind that his last name was Hawk and kept referring to him as Mike Hawk.
• Yesterday, I was at my BJJ class flirting it up with my instructor because he's funny and quite aesthetically pleasing. Left class feeling good about myself, right? Well that was before I full on ran into the door frame in front of some woman on the phone and then fell down the stairs. Yeah two different accidents in 2 minutes. I felt it was only appropriate to tweet this: #justfelldownthestairs; #hotstuffrightthurr. All I have to say is, "thug life". 
• Oh! I got someone to tap out by smothering them with my thighs! I was sparring with a friend, got her head between my thighs and choked her until she tapped. Needless to say, I now go by "thunder thighs".
• I found out that I indeed have somewhat of a phobia against dead birds. We found this out the hard way when I shuttered and then swerved out of the way just to avoid a dead bird. Any other animal is fine. I don't care, but birds. Biiirrrrdddsss *said with the utmost disgust.
• I went to the gym last night and saw a girl who looked like one of my friends that I haven't seen for a while, and awkwardly made eye contact 4 times. Turns out it wasn't her. She left the sauna pretty fast, but joke was on her, I followed her out. hahahaha
• I picked up my younger brother from boy scout camp and purposely addressed him by the wrong name, tricking him into thinking that I forgot his real name. hahah

Oh so many things have happened. Many more embarrassing things, but I won't blog about them. They'll just stay in my head forever, slowly killing me a little inside every time I think of them. Life is so amazing though! More to come!

Deuces 

The Bathroom.

Now of course it wasn't anything like this.
The monster was yellow.

Sometime this week, I realized that in the last nine weeks I've been working at this call center, every time I use the bathroom on the main level, I always go to the exact same stall.  Don't ask me why, I can't explain it.

When I noticed the tendency for the middle stall, I decided to smerf things up.  I went a different stall... and found some sketchy toilet paper on the handle.  So I went back to the safe, standard stall.

The next day, I tried to break routine again by going to a third stall.  Nothing was wrong with the toilet, but it felt all wrong. I actually felt claustrophobic, and became convinced that the stall was smaller than the usual stall.  Then I counted the number of tiles across the front of both stalls and compared- exactly the same.

That was when I realized I was standing in a public bathroom, staring at the floor in front of the stalls, silently counting the tiles with my feet.  And looking like a nutter.  Business like usual.

Self Discoveries.

This summer, I've taken up employment at a local call center.  During my long days of training, I came to several conclusions while I was supposed to be learning how to engage, be empathetic, and listen.  Yes, I recognize the irony in not listening to a lesson about listening.  But if I'm being honest, I feel like I have a pretty good grasp on customer management- pretend to be interested and above all else, don't ever tell the customer he/she is an idiot.  Even if he/she is potentially the dumbest person I've ever smerfed with in my life.

But I digress.

The following are very important life lessons I will remember always.

1. Long nails give me the heeby jeebies.  Maybe it's because I played piano for a very long time, and the importance of having consistently short nails was ingrained to me in third grade when my piano teacher would not allow me to continue playing until I cut my nails, washed my hands, and was thoroughly lectured on the negative effects long nails have on performance.  One of my coworkers has freakishly long nails, and every time I see them, I shudder and all I can think of is the disturbing picture I saw in a Guinness world records book once of the longest nails in the world.  Am I alone here?  Long nails are the worst.  
2. I have very little patience.  We played twenty questions as a bonding experience one of my first days, and I was interested for the first three questions or so.  Then I lost all hope and spent the rest of the game calculating how much money I was being paid per minute to listen to my coworkers try to identify a taco in twenty questions or less, completely tuned out.  Which brings me to my next point.
3. I have a breaking point when it comes to learning new material, after which I am decidedly done.  I am unable to continue paying attention, and I zone out.  I quickly realized if I sat at the back of the room and leaned in to my cubicle, it looked like I was just following the lecture on my computer, and my instructor was not able to see anything I was doing.  That is how I read upwards of a dozen books in three weeks of training.
4. According to my instructor, adding "mundo" to the end of any word basically makes it Spanish.  True storymundo.

As a bonus, I found this on my second day.  What a great indicator of my time as an inbound phone technical specialist.  Smurf this, indeed.

Awwww, Yeah!

I'm back.  It's been a long month of non-posting, but I have about seven inspirational stories that might make for very rambly, very confusing blog posts.  One of them might make some actual sense.  Don't quote me on that.

Since it's bothering me that the text I've written doesn't extend to the bottom of the picture, I'm going to include my latest favorite joke to fill up room.

What do you call a fake noodle?
Impasta!

Cheers, y'all.  See you later this week!

A Tribute.

During finals week, I almost quite literally lived in the library.  I was at the library by at least 11 every morning and stayed until it closed at 2.  Obviously, I had lunch breaks, DrawSomething breaks, dinner breaks, napping breaks and exam-taking breaks, but I was basically in the library all day, every day.  So when I came home with Jessie on Wednesday night/Thursday morning to find my door locked, I was really mad.  Really mad.  Sara and I taped a magnet over the doorjamb so the door couldn't lock.  With complete trust in the magnet, neither of us carried our keys anywhere.  So here I was, locked out at 2 AM, still needing to be ready for my most important exam in less than six hours.  Jessie, who carries her keys with her, got into her room and found this on her bed:

Although Jessie and I were tempted to keep fifteen mini M&M tubes to ourselves and tell Sara and Marina (who were not present) that there were only four total, we reluctantly divvied them up fairly.

 With the following note from Ashley, addressed "to: The Smerfs"

While she was in her room finding this, I was grumpily making my way down the hall to Ashley's room, where I would have to wake her up and ask her to open my room for me.  Once I found out that it was just a loving joke, I felt so bad about how bitter I was, and immediately decided that Ashley is amazing.  True story.  And this time, when I say true story... I mean it!

Ashley- you rock.  You were a great, very patient RA, we smerf you with ALL of our hearts, and we will miss you muchly next year!