That's the Spirit!

Last year I just couldn't get into Christmas that much.  I mean, it was to be expected, as it was my first Christmas after getting my marriage annulled.

This year, I am filled with the Christmas spirit.  I don't know if I feel extra excited because I wasn't excited last year, or if it's just more excitement than I've felt in a long time.  I suspect it's the first.  Still, I've made a bunch of Christmas gifts, and Christmas cards.

I made two other ones, but I already sent them out.  It is definitely time to enjoy the Christmas spirit!

Things I Get Up To

My main form of coping in a class where paying attention is vital.  If my hands are busy, then I can't be tempted to leave class.  And drawing is the one thing that doesn't take my mind away from the conversation at hand.  Too bad I'm not a better artist.  Still, it's fun.

It's Christmas!

My roommates have decorated our apartment; I brought a Christmas tree; we've all baked cookies; and Christmas music is playing.  I've been into the soul side of Christmas music this year.

Happy Christmas, everyone!

The Best Parts

Thanksgiving is possibly my favorite holiday of the year, because there isn't the stress of Christmas, but you still get the good food and family.  Here are some of the highlights of this year's Thanksgiving holiday.

Every year my Dad gets us a table at the live auction at the Christmas Tree Jubilee.  I love it, mainly because I get to dress up in a fancy dress, eat fabulous food, and watch a bunch of rich guys spend lots of money.

I make a killer apple pie.  It was gone in two days between three people.

I made this for my Mom awhile back, and she used it this holiday.  I always feel great satisfaction when I see something I made being used.

My Grandma Alice got sealed in the temple to my Grandpa Bill on Saturday.  It was a great thing to witness.  Not all the family is here, and I can't name everyone, but here's a family picture afterwards.

Ian and Megan, my cousins.

Megan and me.  She loves princesses.  I tell you, I don't know what I'd do if I had a kid as obsessed with princesses as she is.  I entertained her for an hour or so at Thanksgiving, and she was all about princesses.  I was much more comfortable when we got to card games and I Spy.

My uncle Jeff, Aunt Katherine, and their kids.

So, here's to a great kickoff to the holiday season!

It's All Part of My Life

Thanksgiving is great.  It gives me time to contemplate my life.  For instance, my brother brought home a season of The Big Bang Theory, and as I sat down and watched a bunch of episodes with him, I realized that I feel a lot like Penny.  This is partly because these types of guys are the only ones I ever get asked out by.  I laugh at the show, but then kind of get the oh, this is a bit like my life, and that's ridiculous thought.

So girls, if you're interested, these are the kinds of guys that you will find at BYU, especially in the sciences.

Want more of this funny stuff?  Check out the show.

Stand Up Against Hate

I grabbed a school newspaper yesterday to read about the new Natural History Museum, but as I turned the page to finish the article, I came across this.

It made me sick then, and it makes me sick now.  The last part is what really gets me.  If you're against LGBT hate like this, stand up against it.  I mean, do we really want to condone the words "Just as if we wouldn't want a child to grow up with a prostitute for a mother or a serial killer for a father, we shouldn't accept a lesbian, gay, or transgender parental model for young people"?  I sure won't just breeze past them.

Some of the kindest, best people I know are gay.  I would be happy to hear that they were parents.

Taylor Petty also states that "We must avoid, at all costs, letting children grow up in a home where horrible sins are modeled as acceptable."  By horrible sins Petty strictly means breaking the law of chastity.  If Petty is going to make that argument, Petty might as well start calling to take more than half the children of the world away from their parents.  Most people in the world today can say they've had sex out of wedlock, which is considered breaking the law of chastity.  

What Taylor petty has written is deplorable, but it is even more deplorable that a newspaper would choose to print this hate, especially my campus newspaper.  I am calling for a formal apology from the newspaper for this terrible choice that they've made.  I can accept that the Daily Universe is a very right wing, conservative newspaper, and chooses to print very conservative content.  However, there's a a large difference between conservatism and hate.  

The above letter is hate, and should not have been printed.  

Sure, there's some LGBT hate everywhere, but that doesn't mean newspapers should print it.  Printing such hate only encourages people to revile and bash people in the LGBT community.

If you're against what the Daily Universe did, as I am, then take a stand and let them know exactly what you think of their reprehensible choice to print this hate letter.

Hmph

Whenever I tell a couple that I'm happy for them when they get into a relationship, engaged, or married, I feel a twinge of guilt somewhere in the back of my mind because I know I'm not being completely honest with them.  A part of me is extremely jealous.

When I take the time to examine this part of my thought process, I feel extremely upset about it, because by being jealous, that means I'm rooting for the relationship to fail simply because I don't have one.  What right do I have to deny another person happiness, especially if I'm friends with that person?

I've asked myself that a lot lately.

Not to say that I don't really, truly mean it when I tell a couple I'm happy they're engaged.  I was truly happy to hear my friend Kim Welch was engaged to Victor Doroghian.  And I was really happy when my friend Jen Weston got married to Nick Taylor.

Still, the more likely response is a smile and a "I'm so happy for you!" But in reality I'm thinking, that makes me so depressed.  Go be blissfully happy somewhere not around me.  When someone has lost in love, I'm much better able to deal with that.  I can handle sad people.  Not that I want people to lose in love all the time, but I don't really like to see other people succeeding in love when I can't get a date to save my life.

Most of the time it really doesn't matter to me that no guys want to date me, but surges of new relationships, engagements, and marriages throw me into a broody mood.

And I thought I'd share that broody mood with everyone today, because I felt like it needed to be said, or I was going to go insane.

The Truth of it All

At least, it's my dream.

The Real Superman

I'll never look at a man in a Superman t-shirt the same way again.

The Annual Carve

Every year my best friend Megan and I get together and carve pumpkins.  This is the first year in a long time we've been able to carve outside!  We were so happy it wasn't ridiculously cold and snowing.  My dad manned the camera this time round.  

HAAY #13

If you want to know what makes him even more HAAY worthy, watch this music video.  He plays EVERY instrument in this song.

Yes, I'm Ready For This

I was up late last night.  Later than I planned.  I got done talking with my friend Megan at 11.  I was up talking with my friend Courtney Carter (from my Arabic class) until nearly two.  So I stayed up and registered for classes, and told myself I could get up at 6:30 and get my homework done.

HAHAHAHAHA

I didn't get up until ten to nine.  So, I thought, It's one of those days.  I shouldn't even bother to get out of bed.  Then the other me came into the picture, and I thought, Come on.  Are you really that lame?  You look at what you have to do today, and see that you didn't do the stuff that needed to be done before class, and you're not going to go and face the consequences of your actions?  You wimp.  I find that when I talk to myself like that it sometimes works to get me out of bed, and it worked today.  I enjoyed dance, and then went home to prepare for other classes.

I got my Honors homework done, but I still had (and have) just over a hundred pages to read out of Great Expectations.  Crap, I'm going to be late, was the next thought, and then I thought, I'll go anyway.  I was going to be late to class, and I knew it, but not that late, so I went.  And instead of going to class, I ran into my friend Hilary in the JFSB and ended up talking to her for a half an hour.

So, instead of going to class extremely late, I went over to the JKB to talk* to Courtney some more before my Arabic class.  I did a little Arabic homework, too.  Arabic was fun, as always.

And, we won our first Ultimate Frisbee game ever.  And it is the single elimination tournament, so it's awesome that we won.

My friend Jenessa is coming back from New York tonight, so I'm going to be fantastically happy tomorrow to see her.

I really need to take a camera to Arabic class and take pictures of all the people in my class sometime.

I have five midterms in four days next week.  Horrible.  I was panicking earlier, but now I'm pretty chill.  I'm pretty chill about a lot of stuff today that I was worried about yesterday.

In two months, I may or may not post something phenomenal.

!ان شاء الله

Until then, well, you'll just have to wait.



*I talked to both Megan and Courtney about the same thing, and I'm going to talk to Jenessa about it too.  The same possibly phenomenal thing.  I'll know in two months.  No need to let everyone know until then.

Ready, Set, November 3

I'm so excited for this show to start up again.

Why?  Because of how the last season ended.

This was actually the second to last episode, but it really felt like the season finale.

And here's what I'm looking forward to!

*Sigh*

Things I got done Saturday:
A week's worth of Modern English Usage homework
A Presentation for Arabic
Arabic Vocab memorized and quiz taken
More Arabic homework
Tires rotated
Oil changed
Eyebrows waxed
Birthday presents purchased
Dance practice


And I still feel like I didn't do anything Saturday, because of the workload I see before me, like having a 490 page book read by Thursday.  Here goes nothing...

HAAY #12

I went to the dollar theater with my friends Jenessa and James (from my arabic class) to see Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2.  It was fun.  It got me thinking.  I haven't done a HAAY recently, and I really think that what with no fall break and midterms, I need one.

This Guy

So, to understand the significance of this post, you have to know a bit about last week.  My birthday was last week.  On Sunday.  That was a good day.  The next day wasn't.  I went to get my driver's license in the morning, because you can't renew your driver's license early when you turn 21, for obvious reasons.  It was Columbus Day.  Can't get a new license.  So I drive back to school on an expired license.  And then I met with my group for my group midterm in my Honors class, and I was broody because I was the only one that could answer every question, and that I missed FHE (some of my friends in my group I only see at FHE, so yeah, broodiness).

Tuesday.  I find out that I lost my student ID card.  I think I will be able to find it somewhere, so I don't get a new one.  I skip my last class because I'm feeling particularly broody, and then think, well, I might as well go get my license.  I get to the place they tell you to go on the website.  That isn't the place to get your license.  I finally get to the little community bank thing that has the drivers license renewal place on the second floor.  I get in there, start filling out the forms, and they say, "We're not serving anyone else.  We usually stop serving people at 4:30."  Well then, why don't you lock your doors at 4:30 so no one else comes in????

I was upset, not just because of that, but because occasionally I have really bad memory days.  So, I cried, and then went and got myself calmed down by driving around and buying something.  Hell if I remember what it was.

Wednesday was meh.  I did poorly on a plurals test in my Arabic class and wanted to cry.  I had a speaking appointment afterwards, and wanted to run and hide, not because I didn't do well in the appointment (my partner and I always do well) but because when I was leaving, I went to slide my chair in, and the top of my chair pulled off.  I fixed it, but that didn't stop me from being uber embarrassed by the look my teacher gave me as he said, "Chelsea!"

Thursday, and I still can't find my ID card.  I feel a little stupid about being broody over it because my friend Courtney lost her laptop (she still hasn't found it, poor girl).  I have a midterm, so by the time I get done with my midterm I just wanted to go to bed.  I didn't get homework done for the rest of the week for my Arabic class.  Sad day.

Friday was okay, but that's probably because I don't really remember what happened.  Oh yeah.  I got a new ID card because I couldn't find it, and I played DDR with my roommate Kelsey.  That was good, because I feel like I'm better friends with her now.  Roommate bonding time.

Now for what you've all been waiting for.  This Monday wasn't looking so hot.  I woke up and seriously debated if I wanted to get out of bed.  I STILL hadn't done my Arabic homework.  I decided I had to get up and go to school.  Good call.

My teacher in my Arabic class asked us what we did on the weekend, and the answers that came from the guys about girls made me laugh so hard I almost cried.  And my teacher just kept feeding off of their funny comments (made funny because they didn't know what they were saying in Arabic).  I laughed so hard I forgot why I was sad.  So here's to a great teacher, who makes me laugh at least once almost every day in class.

Ustaaz Yusuf Nielsen (Professor Joseph Nielsen. . . picture commandeered from facebook)

Bam.  I got you all on here, reading this, thinking that I've found someone special (and a couple of you are still thinking, 'Well, maybe you have") and it's all about a teacher.  The power of advertising, people.  The power of advertising.

We're All Just A Little Bit Racist

I went to a photo scavenger hunt a few weeks ago for FHE.  I made a new friend.  Tommy Crompton.  There were a bunch of fun photos we had to take, and one of them was to take a picture with two people of a different ethnicity.  Tommy and I were asking people on campus if they were of a different ethnicity, and when Tommy asked a guy that passed us, the guy said, "You're so racist!"

I asked Tommy, "Did you hear what he just called you?"

He replied in the affirmative.

I sang, "We're all just a little bit racist. . ."

And he knew the song, and finished the line!  It made my night.  We went around campus singing this.

I actually don't know the words that well, since I hadn't heard the song in a long time, but I had fun, and he put up with my terrible singing.  He's got a good voice.  Turns out Avenue Q is Tommy's favorite musical.  It caught me off guard, because I had previously just thought that he was into sports, and wouldn't know that kind of stuff.  Just goes to show, never judge a book by it's cover.  The more I talk to him, the more I'm finding out we have a lot to talk about.  I've loved that.  It is nice to have someone in my FHE group who I can speak to.  It makes me want to go to FHE.

See, I do have stuff to blog about, I just don't do it as often as I used to.  Maybe I'll designate Sundays for blogging.

Update on Resolutions 9

It is hard for me to remember to post about the stuff I have accomplished right now.  I suppose that's a good thing.  It means I'm wrapped up in life.  Most of the goals I wanted accomplished are done anyway, so I'll just mention the books I read and leave it at that.  I really recommend both to everyone (well, those who aren't afraid of the f word every now and then.  Some of the best literature tends to have a little of that).

Take the Cannoli by Sarah Vowell*

and

Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut

*Yes, I read a lot of Sarah Vowell.  She informs me and makes me laugh, and I love that.

Where've You Been?

All over the place, just not online for pleasure much.  Four to five hours of Arabic a day will do that to you, on top of all your other homework.  When I get done with all the stuff that requires a computer to do, I generally hop off and read for fun.  That is, when I'm not just going to bed.  So, my life has been:

Get up

Go to School

Do Homework

Go to Bed

Occasionally there's an ultimate frisbee game or a random friend visit in there.  Otherwise, that's pretty much my entire life.

I did go to my cousin's daughter's third birthday party, though.  They live in Bluffdale now, so it's easier to go visit.  I think I'll have to go visit for sure next month.  I found the time to make Tajsha a little trick or treat bag.

A cute little Frankenstein's Monster, if I do say so myself.

Here's some of the pictures of the party:

J.J. and Junior

Tajsha is so excited to open presents.  Backpack was the hit of the day.

Dora!

Junior and Me.

Cake time!

But Junior wants a banana.

Update on Resolutions 8

So, I started school this last week, and I'm hoping not to be overwhelmed.  I noticed that I have almost all my expected accomplished goals accomplished.  That feels good.  So, it's ridiculously short for the last month, but here's the update.

3.  I'm taking a Country Swing Dance class.

20.  I read All Just Glass by Amelia Atwater-Rhodes and Tinkers by Paul Harding.

HAAY # 11

In times of panic because of homework overload, it's already time for another HAAY.

In Ol' New York

I was watching Robin Hood, and then Netflix went down.  So, as promised, here's New York.  First off, the skyline is beautiful.  This was taken from the Empire State Building, which has a better view than Top of the Rock at the Rockafeller Center.

After we checked into the hotel, we went to go get food, and then to drop off Dylan to see

Meanwhile, my Mom, Dad, and I checked out Times Square.  Our hotel overlooked it.  Times Square is quite the media overload.

We also went around to a few stores.  I got some new stuff at the Levis store, and Who A U.  To say that Saks Fifth Avenue was a little bit too expensive would be an understatement.  I need to either get rich, or marry rich, because I really want the $2000 pair of Jimmy Choos I picked up.  We went to the M&Ms store.  It was pretty cool.  Three floors worth of all things M&M.  

A $3000 jacket

We went to a Yankees game (they lost to the Rays 5 to 1, with four of those runs coming off of solo home runs) and three plays: The Sister Act, The Follies, and Anything Goes.  My favorite was probably Anything Goes, with Sister Act running it a close second.  We went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, too, but my brother wouldn't let us take pictures there.  We did take pictures at the Museum of Natural History, though.

Some rather rare meteorite.  I don't quite remember where it came from, but it is metal.

We rode the subway just about everywhere.  That was convenient, because taking a taxi is expensive.

My brother didn't want to come with us to breakfast and then to the Statue of Liberty on the last day we were there.  He preferred to sleep in before the flight.  We didn't go on a tour of the Statue or anything, we just looked at it by the ferry.  I got my picture taken with a guy dressed up like the Statue of Liberty, though.

So, there's plenty more pictures, but this post is getting kind of long.  Posts might follow detailing some stuff, but I kind of doubt it.  We had lots of fun, though.  Six days in New York went really fast.  You need more than a week to see all of New York.