Time for random snapshots of Amy's life!
Yes, I know I have yet to post pics of my room. It's slowly coming together. I finally fixed my waterbed - draining and refilling one of the water bladders last night, after adjusting its position so it actually lay flat (thanks to Caryn for her help with that). Also, I put away a box of stuff I had yet to unpack from my parents - and I filed some stuff I had crammed under my bed. What's left: file stuff crammed in my nightstand, put up the rest of my pics, get a family pic to put up, sort my nick-nacks on my dresser and other places. Someday soon I might take pics and post them, whether my room is completely ready or not...
I won a Pay It Forward contest, which I think is a fun thing I'm going to try. I won over at my friend Jess' blog. Who will win? I'm kind of excited to see who it is...below are the rules, in quotes.
"The details + the rules:
1. Be one of the first THREE bloggers to leave a comment on this post, which then entitles you to a handmade item from me - something crafty or yummy, who knows?!
2. Winners must post this challenge on their own blog, meaning that you will Pay It Forward, creating a handmade gift -anything!- for the first THREE bloggers who leave a comment on YOUR post about this giveaway!
3. The gift that you send to your 3 friends can be from any price range and you have 365 days to make/ship your item. This means you should be willing to maintain your blog at least until you receive your gift and have shipped your gifts. And, remember: It’s the spirit and the thought that count!
4. When you receive your gift, please feel free to blog about it! If you are not one of the top three commenters on this post, you can still play along."
I've always assumed that once you get to a certain age, you've got balance all worked out. Now, I realize that you have to adjust when you get married and have children and such, but I thought living on your own was living on your own, regardless of what you were doing. But living on my own without having school is completely different from having school. I now have no time in the day to do things, but several compressed hours from 6-11ish. It's funny - if I cram my night with things to do and accomplish a lot, I feel cheated of my night and exhausted, but if I stay home all night I feel lazy. I guess it's a constant battle no matter your age or marital status. Joy. :)
I'm now a co-author of a blog my brother Brandon started called "Things We Learned From Lost Last Night". It's fun stuff - although, I don't usually think of theories on my own. I talk with Brandon about questions I have and craft them from there, kind of. I've only done one post so far, and it wasn't about a theory, so we'll see how that sorts out.
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Monday, February 9, 2009
The Bachelor
I was watching bits and pieces of The Bachelor with my roomies - mostly watching 5 minutes here and there as I made my way around the house.
And all of a sudden, I was thinking, "Why am I watching something I see every day and saw at BYU-Idaho every day?"
I never really felt the weight of the statistic - that states there are more men than women until everyone turns 18, and then there are more women - until I went to BYU-Idaho. I'm told there are actually more men there than women, but many of those men are married. I never got exact numbers.
I was in a ward (66th!) that was an entire apartment complex put together - 8 guy apartments and 16 or so girl apartments. As you can probably imagine, this led to many-a-contest for male affection, and I'm told this was the way it was for most wards at BYU-I: there was "The Ward Desirable" that pretty much got hit on in every modest, BYU-I way possible. Oh the egos of formerly humble men that got inflated to ridiculous proportions because they made rounds on Sunday nights to every girl apartment and received mounds of baked goods.
Oh, the scene of catty women fawning over a male who takes what he can get because, heck, why not? Granted, the rating is taken down a notch because of the gospel and such, but once I started thinking about it, the comparison was still eerie. Thousands of BYU-I students play out episodes of The Bachelor without even knowing it! It doesn't get much better in the "real world," either, after you graduate. Oh, single's wards.
Is there any other reality show that pretty much shows us what we see every day? Why the heck is The Bachelor still popular? Maybe because women think it's nice to see it happening to someone else. I was thinking that a truly original reality show with things that didn't happen all that often in real life would be The Bachelorette, with lots of men fighting over the same woman, but I guess it ran and bombed a few years back.
And all of a sudden, I was thinking, "Why am I watching something I see every day and saw at BYU-Idaho every day?"
I never really felt the weight of the statistic - that states there are more men than women until everyone turns 18, and then there are more women - until I went to BYU-Idaho. I'm told there are actually more men there than women, but many of those men are married. I never got exact numbers.
I was in a ward (66th!) that was an entire apartment complex put together - 8 guy apartments and 16 or so girl apartments. As you can probably imagine, this led to many-a-contest for male affection, and I'm told this was the way it was for most wards at BYU-I: there was "The Ward Desirable" that pretty much got hit on in every modest, BYU-I way possible. Oh the egos of formerly humble men that got inflated to ridiculous proportions because they made rounds on Sunday nights to every girl apartment and received mounds of baked goods.
Oh, the scene of catty women fawning over a male who takes what he can get because, heck, why not? Granted, the rating is taken down a notch because of the gospel and such, but once I started thinking about it, the comparison was still eerie. Thousands of BYU-I students play out episodes of The Bachelor without even knowing it! It doesn't get much better in the "real world," either, after you graduate. Oh, single's wards.
Is there any other reality show that pretty much shows us what we see every day? Why the heck is The Bachelor still popular? Maybe because women think it's nice to see it happening to someone else. I was thinking that a truly original reality show with things that didn't happen all that often in real life would be The Bachelorette, with lots of men fighting over the same woman, but I guess it ran and bombed a few years back.
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
Church talkers should go straight to...
Maybe I'm obsessed with this, or maybe I can't think of anything else to blog about, but I'm going to blog about the church talkers who sat behind me on Sunday. Or did I sit in front of them?
We got there about two minutes early and I randomly picked out a row, about midway between the pulpit and the back. I thought that was pretty safe, and the other time I'd been to the ward it had been pretty silent and pleasant and we had been in about the same place.
I kind of listened to the conversation of the two guys behind me, talking about one guy's date and how it was okay, and they talked 'til like 3 in the morning, but she's too high maintenance. I'm not gonna lie - I eavesdropped like a bandit. Do bandits eavesdrop? Well, I was and now they do.
And then the meeting began.
And they kept talking.
And talking.
And talking.
Now, I can't say I'm not guilty of talking in church - who isn't? - but I NEVER hold an entire whispered conversation. I have held an entire note conversation, however.
So, there they went, going on and on about something (I could no longer hear intelligible words at this point), and I did the whole act of turning my head several times, looking at them surreptitiously every five minutes or so. I then turned around and said, "Shhhh," while I was smiling, trying to not come off as the quiet police but wanting them to be quiet and kind of not caring all the same.
Then, near the end of the meeting, with more and more anger bottling up inside of me, I snapped. Kind of.
I spun around, and, still trying to keep my cool, said, "Could you be quiet? It's kind of rude to talk right now." Then I smiled - but I'm sure it was rather strained and came out rather maniacal. I don't know that I would want to see what that smile looked like.
They gave me that look like, "Stay cool, sister." And resumed their conversation about five minutes later.
Here are the thoughts that went through my head:
"I wish they would be quiet."
"I shouldn't judge them, but they're kind of interrupting the whole meeting. Not the whole meeting - I'm exaggerating. But I'm sure they're bothering more people than just me."
"Maybe if I were more righteous I could ignore them and focus on the meeting."
"I need to have charity."
"I don't want them to think I'm the quiet police, but I'm not supposed to care what people think about me if I'm doing righteous things. But is it righteous to tell someone to be quiet? Is that charitable? Do I have charity for these talkers? No." *say a little prayer to be more charitable and have Heavenly Father forgive me for being so angry in church.
Dah.
Moral of the story? Sit in the front row.
We got there about two minutes early and I randomly picked out a row, about midway between the pulpit and the back. I thought that was pretty safe, and the other time I'd been to the ward it had been pretty silent and pleasant and we had been in about the same place.
I kind of listened to the conversation of the two guys behind me, talking about one guy's date and how it was okay, and they talked 'til like 3 in the morning, but she's too high maintenance. I'm not gonna lie - I eavesdropped like a bandit. Do bandits eavesdrop? Well, I was and now they do.
And then the meeting began.
And they kept talking.
And talking.
And talking.
Now, I can't say I'm not guilty of talking in church - who isn't? - but I NEVER hold an entire whispered conversation. I have held an entire note conversation, however.
So, there they went, going on and on about something (I could no longer hear intelligible words at this point), and I did the whole act of turning my head several times, looking at them surreptitiously every five minutes or so. I then turned around and said, "Shhhh," while I was smiling, trying to not come off as the quiet police but wanting them to be quiet and kind of not caring all the same.
Then, near the end of the meeting, with more and more anger bottling up inside of me, I snapped. Kind of.
I spun around, and, still trying to keep my cool, said, "Could you be quiet? It's kind of rude to talk right now." Then I smiled - but I'm sure it was rather strained and came out rather maniacal. I don't know that I would want to see what that smile looked like.
They gave me that look like, "Stay cool, sister." And resumed their conversation about five minutes later.
Here are the thoughts that went through my head:
"I wish they would be quiet."
"I shouldn't judge them, but they're kind of interrupting the whole meeting. Not the whole meeting - I'm exaggerating. But I'm sure they're bothering more people than just me."
"Maybe if I were more righteous I could ignore them and focus on the meeting."
"I need to have charity."
"I don't want them to think I'm the quiet police, but I'm not supposed to care what people think about me if I'm doing righteous things. But is it righteous to tell someone to be quiet? Is that charitable? Do I have charity for these talkers? No." *say a little prayer to be more charitable and have Heavenly Father forgive me for being so angry in church.
Dah.
Moral of the story? Sit in the front row.
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