sangria and salsa

tonight I did ... not my homework.

well I did most of it, but I still need to study for stats test that I have to take tomorrow. david was over and we were all doing our homework, but when they brought the (non-alcoholic) sangria and turned up the music, that was the end of it. carlos and I danced merengue, bachata, and salsa, and I kind of taught him cha-cha but I'd mostly forgotten  it. it was fun! I need to learn how to move my hips. david spilled the sangria seriously three times. once on our armchair, once on the carpet, and once on the rug. we laughed so so hard.

then we watched teenage mutant ninja turtles, the old eighties one. we watched it to appease david cause he gave avatar a chance so we had to give his movie a chance. it was ridiculous.

lots of work coming up for tomorrow til thursday. hopefully I won't be so tired that I can't study statistics cause I keep falling asleep, like today. wish me luck. and maybe some more sangria would be good.

journée chargée

today was so busy. it was not much like any normal relaxing sunday. 

I accompanied margaret on the piano in church today, so I was way nervous. I don't know what's up with me this past year, I've never had such bad nerves in my life. my foot was shaking uncontrollably, my hands were numb, I almost couldn't breathe. I've got to find a way to get this under control. it still sounded pretty good though, I only really messed up one part.

I was the chef today. we made sweet and sour chicken, green beans, and gingerbread cake. there wasn't enough time to make 4 packages of chicken before 3pm so I was super stressed out to get it done on time. but it turned out excellent, though a little late. everyone loved it and it tasted so good. that meal always reminds me of home.

then my home teachers came - gab le beau and jean le bizarre. turns out gab's not from geneva, just close to geneva, so he's really french, not swiss. he asked me where I learned french and was very surprised when I told him just high school. he told me I speak very well. hooray! that's the second extremely authentic french person (1 was mme thompson frenchness to the max) who's told me that. mme thompson thought I had lived in france. I wish.

then I went visiting teaching. pretty uneventful. my girls are in the german and japanese houses. then I went to a stake leadership meeting for my calling, ward music chair, with allison, who drove. the stake center is pretty far.

I came home and played the piano for probably 2 hours. oh how I love the piano. greg came into the common room while I was playing just to listen while he was reading. that was cool. after that we talked for quite awhile. he asked me for my number. first time that's ever happened to me. is that sad? we have a lot in common - I hope we get to know each other better.

then when I came in my door to go to bed (5.30 comes SO early) oceane and stephanie and annie and carlos were watching little miss sunshine and I can't NOT watch little miss sunshine. it was already mostly done though. my favorite part of that movie is when dwayne finds out that he's colorblind and can't fly planes, his life dream. it is so sad and paul dano acts so well, it's just absolutely heartbreaking. I really like his character. here's a quote of his from the movie that I love. *** foul language. don't read if you are easily offended or intend to subsequently question me about what I put on this blog. that's a general rule.***

"You know what?  Fuck beauty contests.  Life is one fucking beauty contest after another.  School, then college, then work ... Fuck that. And fuck the Air Force Academy.  If I want to fly, I'll find a way to fly.  You do what you love, and fuck the rest."

black and white

lydia from next door had a pre-birthday black and white party tonight. I sort of missed the dress-up memo until about fifteen minutes before it started, I was just going to wear my new to write love on her arms shirt (which got here today woohoo!!) but I ended up shaving my legs, painting my nails, putting on my black dress and heels and perfume and TADA black and white party here I come. I ended up dancing for the better part of the two and half hours I spent over there. I love dancing, even when no one else is, even when I've been doing it for a long time in heels. its so de-stressing.

work today was so long. I had three hours of training this morning and I was getting so fidgety and stiff by the end of it. the worst thing about work is that I get so bored that I get hungry and the only thing I can think about is food and the only thing that will distract me from the painful monotony of every fifteen minutes is eating. it's probably ... not very good for me. I'm taking off, or trying to get off, two saturdays in october, one to drive down with celesta to visit claire and jesse, and one for victoria's baptism and to be with my momma!! mom and dad and the little bros are coming out and I'm way excited to see all of them. I hope people will come through and pick up my shifts for me, cause I do it for them all the time.

throwback thursday

well, you know

you say you want a revolution

well, you know

we all want to change the world

you tell me that it's evolution

well, you know

we all want to change the world

but when you talk about destruction

don't you know that you can count me out

don't you know it's gonna be all right

all right, all right

you say you'll change the constitution

well, you know

we all want to change your heads

you tell me it's the institution

well, you know

you better free your mind instead

all I can tell is brother you have to wait

don't you know it's gonna be all right

all right, all right

Je croise en l’homme, en dépit de l’homme. Je crois en son avenir, en dépit du mal qu’il s’est infligé à lui-même. Je crois en la valeur des mots. Il dépend de nous qu’ils deviennent véhicules de haine ou porteurs de tendresse et de compréhension. -- Elie Wiesel

vraiment beau

friendships are already starting to happen and it makes me happy.

I'm still dropping the ball in regards to school. maybe if I used my planner I wouldn't keep forgetting things. how's that for a novel idea?

I went star-gazing with oceane, david, stephanie, annie, and carlos last night, and again tonight but minus stephanie. I still didn't see a shooting star, but it was wonderful anyway. we lay down on the top of this amazing hill and the wind is fantastic. cold but fantastic. we came back and drank martinelli's and played uno, only two games, and the second lasted for seriously an hour. I'm not sure why we kept playing a single game for that long. I guess it's just fun being with each other. 

gab is my home teacher. he is beautiful. really. he's the rf for one of the boy's dorms and hails from geneva. I don't have any hopes, I just like to look at him, and listen, cause he tells good stories. kryn is also quite good-looking  and interesting to talk to, but he doesn't really seem interested. that's cool, but he doesn't seem interested in pursuing any friendships either. he's just not around often enough to try to get to know him better.

life is mostly picking up. I really like my roommates. I really like our ward and the french house. but there are people around me, friends, whose lives are just abysmal right now. they're going through a lot, but I don't know how else I can be there for them other than try to spend my time with them when I can and empathize as best I can. I guess I'll just keep on trying.

P's

Pan's Labyrinth
not at all what I expected. I'm not sure what I expected, but nobody really told me the premise of the plot before. it was more violent and generally disturbing. it was much less about the labyrinth (or more, if the labyrinth is life) and more about the overarching plot. I guess that makes sense, but I just thought it was about a journey through a maze. some of the fantastical effects looked too fantastic, too digital. the ending was incredibly poignant. the music was haunting.

the Pianist
I finally sat down to watch it yesterday evening, in the mindset and ready. it was incredible. I'd built it up to be pretty much the best film ever made, but it had flaws. the editing was a bit choppy, which took brody's incredible performance that made it so real and made you remember that it's a film and he's acting. but there's not much choice when you have to show the passage of time. I think they could have shown his love of music more. I felt it, but that's cause I really do feel it. non-musicians would have missed it, I think, or would not have understood.

the first half was harder to watch than the second - the ghetto, the separation of wladek from his family, the wanton killing. to see everything in life, every bit of sanity, taken away. about midway I took a break to go put my laundry in the dryer. as I walked out of my apartment, I realized that my fingers were tingling, disembodied, and I had to breathe carefully to contain the emotion. the second half was the story of hiding and starvation. you watch brody literally wasting away until his hands are held misshapen, he works his mouth like an old man without teeth, and his spindly stick legs will barely let him walk. straight from unrecognizable baseness to well-dressed, clean-shaven piano playing. how quickly life is taken away and sometimes given back.

when it was over, I went and played chopin for an hour. it was painful.

the Prestige
it was so awesome. I can't stop thinking about it. it's a modern hitchcockian thriller, a work of genius construction. I can't give anything away, but everything came together in the end and not until the end. it was very sad, but very powerful. I could watch it again right now, less than twelve hours later. I seriously cannot describe in words the awesomeness of this movie. go watch it. I'm still trying to get my head around it. know this: obsession will ruin your life.

note to a boy

I've been through some rough times lately, wondering if you're really out there somewhere. I'm okay with not meeting you yet, not even for awhile yet, but I'm not okay with you not existing. today I wore skinny jeans and my favorite white top and ballet flats, and I'm telling you, I was pretty dang cute. can you see me? if I'd met you today, I would have totally knocked you out. but tonight, after I washed my face and brushed my teeth, I took a look in the mirror and guess what? I was still pretty. it makes me so happy to be at home in my own skin. and I smiled in the mirror and looked myself in the eyes, and I was me and I was happy to be alive. and then I thought of you and I knew that one day we'd be brushing our teeth together. and that when you would tell me that I'm beautiful, I would know that you didn't just say it because that's what you're supposed to do, but because you really believed it. I just wanted to tell you that there's still a lot of things I'm working on becoming before I meet you, but myself is not one of them. there's a lot to improve, but who I am now is who I will be then, because that's the most beautiful part of me. "our hearts are heavy and light. we laugh and scream and sing. our hearts are heavy and light." but they're ours. mine's still waiting.

text + photo

this is my first time using photoshop ever.
it was ... frustrating.

more like this

the thing I hate most about college is that there's always fun things to do when you should be doing other things. last year, I often chose the fun things. this year I'm trying to be a good student. but not being social makes me feel out of the loop and guilty for not getting out there and making better friends. I don't know what to do about it.

I'm following a blog called Take Out Photo, it's one of my french professor's. he does monthly specials, tutorials I guess, on photo design. so, as soon as I get me some access to photoshop (shouldn't be too hard, I work in the computer labs) I'll be posting my contributions to the monthly specials. so stay tuned. this month is: text + photo

today was an awful day. I missed the bus twice, didn't get a project done at the quality level that I wanted to, fell asleep in two classes, had a discouraging dance class, had to walk home in the scorching heat with a backpack that's killing me (I need to get a new one), sweating grotesquely. and I mean grotesquely. I talked to my mom but she couldn't understand anything I was saying, as usual. and when I got home, someone was already in the shower. I felt like crying.

I hope tomorrow is better, but I'm not counting on it. I work six hours and have to wake up at 5.30. why can't it be the weekend yet?

life should be more like this.

amanda's texts are hard to read

today me and amanda had a furious text messaging argument. seriously, I would be trying to answer her, tapping away as fast as I could, only to be interrupted by the arrival of two more messages. it was just as bad as a real-life argument except worse, because when we're talking face to face I can't see the rampant miss-spellings. then finally, she just called me and we could really argue. it was wonderful - I love arguing, it's so enjoyable. I love the feeling of triumphant logic, it's so fulfilling.

so we were arguing about medicine and medical care. if I am in serious condition, yeah I'll get some help, but usually I even refuse basic medicine and just suck it up and wait it out. I take advil and sudafed and that's about it. except for my acne medication. which is what took us to acutane . amanda says both that I should drop all medicinal regimen and go back to simple, basic treatment and that I should go to the other extreme and take acutane, the most powerful acne drug ever invented ever. you know, the one that liquifies babies, triggers depression, causes spontaneous nosebleeds and removes the outer layer of your face. yeah, that one. 

not that I have a baby to liquify or anything, but I am not going to put something that toxic into my body. who knows what it's doing to the rest of my internal organs? also, I know it doesn't cause depression in everybody who takes it, but I have a genetic history of depression and triggered depression. I know what depression can do to a person, and I am not about to take risks with my mental health. that is not something I want to have to struggle with every day of my life. 

I really do want to go all natural, or more natural, or a little bit natural, in regards to my acne, but I'm just too scared to do it right now. I've probably tried more than ten different skin care regimens, and when I say tried I mean given a good year of trying, and they've all stopped working. my face would be the worst it's ever been and I could not imagine it being any worse, but every time it gets far worse. if I've found something that works for me for now, I'm not going to stop. you can say all you like what works for you and what I shouldn't be doing with my skin, you can spout and spout, but I'm not going to give you the time of day until your face has looked as bad as mine has. until you've felt as awful as I have. cause I've heard it all already.

man, this got all depressing. the argument wasn't all heavy and poetic, it was actually pretty fun. 

to all people everywhere

I wanted to post this yesterday, but I didn't have the articulation in me until today.

9/11 was an indescribably awful event. I remember being scared. I remember watching the collapse on tv. I remember people with dried blood on their dust-coated, dumb-founded faces. I remember the pentagon a smoldering quadrilateral ruin. in my city. my world. 

but the anniversary of 9/11 is only a solemn and important day of remembrance for me because it happened in my sphere of memory. 

I do not remember world war 2, but both my grandpas were in it. all of my great-uncles were in military service. all of them have their now-faded, browning military portraits with starched shirts and cocked hats and sacred personality beaming out of their eyes, their smiles, the way they square their shoulders. it's hard to believe that none of them died. but 50 million people did. 15 million soldiers, 20 million russians, 6 millions jews, 4 million poles. I can hardly conceptualize 3 thousand people, let alone millions upon millions.

I do not remember the civil war, but it's incredible how close the connections are of living human memory. my mother's grandfather was born at that time, his father was in the war. that's only three generations. the battle of gettysburg alone had in four days almost the same number of casualties as the entire vietnam war.

every human life is precious, every violent, unjust death lamented. but it is hard for me to categorize 9/11 or the war in iraq with the more drastically disastrous events of human history. I cannot feel that americans were wronged without acknowledging millions of rwandans. japanese. jews. chinese. vietnamese. bosnians. afghans. iraqis. and that's just recent history.

all war is horrific. all people living under its shadow robbed of the humanity that they inherently deserve as members of the human race, this world family. humanity is the essence of life. and those who have butchered their own humanity, the perpetrators, have not only obliterated their own, they have unjustly stolen what belongs to others. can you murder without actually taking a life? absolutely.

every young soldier in every war has the dear angelic face of my love. every woman starving to feed her children is my mother. every girl who has lived through the absolute hell of rape is my sister, my best friend. every orphaned child who saw his mother raped or tortured or father beaten or shot is my baby. they are my family and I love them and I can't just sit here for the rest of my life with my food and house and family and education. with my opportunities. "the world" needs lawyers, lobbyists, stock brokers, "professionals". what the world really needs is people. because people love. 

I can't save the world, but I sure as hell am going to try.

from the archives ... ahem... notebook

It's been years, but my pen is inching towards me across my desk, like the piano that sends vibrations up the stairs to itch my idle fingers. Words bounce off each other in the jumble of thoughts and emotions in my head, battling to take precedence over the now. My lids are quick to close in a moment of mental drifting and I look at the clock, incredulous at my own stupidity -- I will feel it in the morning -- but still I can't force my fingers to stop doing my thinking for me, my feeling. Prodigy, prodigious, progeny, profligate, prose. I don't know what's driving the pen anymore, or me for that matter. Maybe just a dire need for strawberries and sleep. A search for sanity. No choice but to settle with sleep. In the vast solitude of neither sense nor skill, a soft descent into the calm chaos of my night. Night that will edge into a musty dawn long before I have exhausted the haven of abstraction.

thoughts on sarah palin

In a recent comment to the New York Times, Alaska delegate Bill Noll had this to say about Sarah Palin and her recent family turbulence: "If this doesn't resonate with every woman in America, I'll eat my hat."

Dear Bill, get ready to eat your hat.

the following are my favorite excerpts from a blog brought to my attention by ben.

As a woman, I do not blindly support women first. I do not believe any woman will do. I believe that it is the rare individual who can lead this country. I want someone exceptional. I want someone smarter than I am, more judicious than I am, and more knowledgeable. I look forward to the day when that person happens to also be female. Until then, I do not support promoting a woman just because of her gender.

This assumption relieves Senator McCain and his supporters of the burden of viewing women as thinking, sentient beings fully equal to men. Instead of an acknowledgment of equality, John McCain's choice is pandering of the cheapest and most obvious kind and has cost him the respect of women across the globe. Obviously, the man is threatened by strong, capable women with proven credentials or he'd have chosen one of the many thoroughly qualified women representing his party in Washington.

It is our duty to question her and judge her, not on her parenting or family, but on her intellect, knowledge, experience, and viewpoint.

It is easy to use the epithet of elitist when those you oppose are in fact, more highly qualified and far better educated than you are.

I don't doubt her sincerity. As a lifetime member of the National Rifle Association, she doesn't just support killing animals from helicopters, she does it herself. She doesn't just talk about increasing the use of fossil fuels but puts a coal-burning power plant in her own small town. She doesn't just echo McCain's pledge to criminalize abortion by overturning Roe vs. Wade, she says that if one of her daughters were impregnated by rape or incest, she should bear the child. She not only opposes reproductive freedom as a human right but implies that it dictates abortion, without saying that it also protects the right to have a child.

American women ... finally have support on a national stage from male leaders who know that women can't be equal outside the home until men are equal in it. Barack Obama and Joe Biden are campaigning on their belief that men should be, can be and want to be at home for their children.

amen.

before this, I didn't prefer mccain, but I respected him. I was probably going to vote for obama, but I was still willing to give the conservatives a chance. well, this has tipped the scales and if I'm not mistaken, I'm not the only moderate woman's vote he's lost. not by far.

ergo

I love learning. 

I have also recently discovered a life philosophy that I'd like to try out.

therefore, I am actually considering not graduating in three years.

(fun as it would be to graduate the same time as my mom)

"All genres are essentially the same until the end,

so you don't know which one you're inhabiting until you reach the end."

I'm tired of trying to know the end. 

I'm okay with just trying to experience the now.

jesus is even better than thoreau

I had to read the whole book of mark for my new testament class today, cause the class just covers the gospels, so we start with getting the whole picture of jesus's ministry. I'm really excited about this class, about the insights I'm going to get just from studying the gospels. I haven't read much of anything other than the book of mormon for awhile now, and I think I really miss other scripture.

from this reading I have discovered that jesus was a freaking genius! I mean, not only is he amazing in every other way, he's a master of logic and language. I think I'm more attuned to it right now cause I've been reading walden, but he is so wonderfully profound. and so sassy. 

and I was really impressed by his love for the individual. he gave of himself constantly for others, even those who didn't really believe him, they just wanted a miracle. and he gave it to them because he loved them and wanted to help them. when he healed the man with palsy that they lowered through the roof, first he forgave him of his sins. and if you think about it, his sins were already forgiven. I see those words as a loving reassurance, of jesus giving a soul peace. 

also, when the crazy possessed man who broke his chains and cut himself up with rocks came to him, jesus asked the name, not the name of the man, but the name of the spirit possessing him (cause it was the evil spirit that came and bowed before him, asking him not to send him away). jesus knew that spirit. that spirit was a brother. and he felt sadness for him who had so destroyed his hopes for eternal progression or remote happiness.

the message of christ and most, if not all, religion is love and peace. whatever disagreements religions have, we should focus more on that. all religion is based on faith. so we have faith in the reality of different truths. okay. but we also believe that the fruits of those truths, no matter what truths they are, are love and peace. so let's stop arguing about the details and get to it.

blank

we're the same but we're so different

I don't know what to say

I'm not sure if I know you

or if it's all in my head.

am I putting up walls

or tearing them down?

or is it the same thing?

I wish I could be like you

so open, clear, and free

I'm fishing for feelings

but all I feel is distance

and I try to face your freedom

but it's hard to look you in the eyes

are they reaching, searching?

or is it just wishful thinking?

I've read your words, heard your voice

are you thinking them now?

or do you reserve them for others

more interesting, more charming?

I'm doing my best

but I'm just drawing a

blank.