In Protest

There is something about text messaging that is starting to bother me. That's not true, it's been bothering me for a while. It's the total lack of human to human interaction. Yes, I know, there is obviously someone on the other end of the phone reading/sending the message, but it's so bloody impersonal.

A lot of people like that. "Texting" (p.s. that's an icky word which adds to the tally in the negative collumn) allows a person to delay their response a bit, make sure what they reply is well phrased, witty and not something that will leave them with a foot sort of taste in their mouth. In other words, it makes it really easy to cheat.

Of course, in today's world of technology, there's not much opportunity to practice actually having a conversation. Perhaps text messaging is just our way of compensating for our lack of ability to express ourselves in real time.

In any case, there's something to be said about actually talking to people. Granted, I'd much rather talk to someone in person than on the phone, but I'd rather hear a voice than see an abreviated, impersonal message. That being said, I'm protesting the texted world! I'm just not going to do it. Perhaps I'll have a message to reply with when I get a message, but there will be no more conversations! I refuse to turn in to one of those people who only communicate via text, and hopefully some of those people will learn how to speak again.... They will have to if they want to talk to me. So, if you want to contact me, call. If I don't answer, leave a message and I'll call you back. We must fight the universal isolation we all seem to be drifting toward.

Huzzah for Learnin'

School has started again. Right now, I'm trying my best to be enthused. So far it's working, but who knows for how long. I have an interesting class load though. This is it (because I know you're all just DYING to know what I'm taking):

World Religion In this class we're going to look at the 5 "most important" religions of the world. Hinuism, Buddhism, Taoism, Christianity and Islam. The focus is going to be on what the believers of these beliefs actually believe. Not on what they do.

Writing 2010 This is a basic "writing in college" class that I swear I took at Fort Lewis but the writing department doesn't believe me. Oh well, the teacher seems neat and it will be a good review (cuz I totally completely forgot how to write).

Begining French Part Deux I think this is pretty self-explanatory

Ballroom Dance Slacker class #1

Swing Dance Slacker class #2



It's great, isn't it. I have no classes on Friday, but on Thursdays I go from 9:40 to 3:20 straight through with no breaks whatsoever. I haven't quite figured out how I will eat lunch tomorrow, but I suppose I'll manage. I have a feeling that food is overrated anyway.

Adventures in Kamas

Yesterday I went adventuring. It wasn't meant to be adventurous so much as just snow-shoeing up in the Uinta Mts, but it didn't work out that way.

Snow-shoeing, some might say, is an adventure in and of itself. This may be true, especially when you're going with Jacob and he tries to knock snow on your head every time you pass under a tree. Really though, it's just snow-shoeing. It was a lot of fun. Not the best conditions - a little cloudy and a bit windy and the snow was deep fresh powder. Would have been perfect for skiing.

When we got back to the car the adventure really began. Someone (me) accidentally left the lights on so the car wouldn't start. Of course we were up in the mountains so there was no cell phone reception. So we had to depend on the kindness of strangers. We flagged down the next truck that went by. The guy didn't have cables (to jump the car) but he offered to give us a ride into town where we could call someone at least. So we rode back to Kamas with this really nice family that just moved to Francis from CA to get away from everything, well, Californian.

The Cali family dropped us off at a gas station and I called Dad. He said that we should ask at the gas station if they had a truck or something they could send up to jump the car. If they didn't have something, he (Dad) would come up but in that case we would be stranded in Kamas for about 2 hrs.

As a side note, those who don't know, Kamas is more or less a three block town. This is actually a recent development, I can remember when it was a one block town. It now has two stop lights. When I was little, it only had one stop sign. Anyway, despite it's tripling in size in the last 13 yrs or so, it's not a very entertaining town. They have an antique store and two restaraunts.... maybe a cafe somewhere. Not a lot to do if you're stranded there.

Because the gas station clerk didn't look very nice and the station itself didn't look like it would have anything to do with tow trucks, Jacob and I decided we might to better to ask at the Auto-parts store accross the street. They didn't have anything but a random guy standing in line offered to go get his truck and take us up if we would just wait 10 minutes. So we rode back up to the car with this guy who drives a logging truck (or something) and has lived in Kamas his entire life. The car started no problem with help from his truck's battery.

So that was my adventure. The people up in Kamas sure are nice.

Happy 2006

It is officially next year! Yay! Last night I went to a couple of parties, got a little drunk and had a general good time. Today I've done more or less nothing. I feel I have gotten the year off to a good start.

We All Go a Little Mad Sometimes

I walked to work today. It's a nice walk, only about 20 min so it's not going to kill me to walk there, work on my feet for a few hours and then walk back. Unless, like today, it's raining when I leave. Ok, so the rain didn't kill me. It really wasn't all that bad. I had a coat - a pea coat that will probably still be wet tomorrow. My hair was soaked, but I was mostly dry. Still, it was Raining! May I remind you people that it IS December. Right after Chrismas shouldn't it be snowing? Especially in Utah where our license plates say "greatest snow on earth." I'm starting to not believe our darling prez when he says global warming doesn't exist.... Cuz I totally believe everything he says....

In other new, Christmas was good. Now it's over. Work is boring again. Actually, that's a lie. I worked today and it wasn't too terribly not busy. We had a lot of returns. I feel stuffed, at too much, but that's what holidays are for. Now it's time to relax for a few months. Yay.

I have a date on Tuesday.

My cynical-ex-boyfriend, Todd is getting married. He doesn't seem to have time to talk to me anymore. I'm a little unhappy with him. I don't care if he wants to marry the little blonde, BYU co-ed, but I don't like him ignoring me. I'm right now giving him the benefit of the doubt and saying that he's probably been too busy witht he holidays and being engaged and he'll talk to me when things slow down. We'll see. I wonder if he reads this. If you do, Todd, call me or e-mail me or something!

Jacob is back from his mission

Brad is getting married it two weeks

I'm not entirely sure I've mentioned either of those two here before. Oh well

This has been an update on my life. Truly random thoughts from me, the center of the universe. Do you realize I've been doing this blog thingy for almost a year now. Isn't that neat. Yes, yes it is. You (all my readers fictitious or otherwise) are totally impressed with my coolness!!!

Yippee Skippee

I just finished my last final! YAY! Now all I have to stress about are my grades, which will be posted sometime between now and next semester. I already know my French grade (B+, not bad) but all the rest are still to come. I think I will not worry about them. After all, at this point there's nothing I can do about it.

I feel really good right now. Finals are done, I don't have to buy anything more for christmas presents, I don't have to work until 3 so I can go back to bed. Life is good.

PAUSE

It's getting to be that time of year. I know that the radio started playing Christmas music as soon as halloween was over (WTF is up with that anyway?) and most stores had their red and greed decorations up around the same time. I've been wrapping presents in paper covered in santas and snowmen for a few weeks now too. But I refuse to aknowlege Christamas anytime before Thanksgiving. Now I'm down to my last Turkey Sandwich and there's only one piece of pie left over, I can say it's begining to feel a lot like Christmas. But it's still freakin' early!

It's also nearing the end of the term. This means, burnout, finals and cramming in everything that has been put off till the last minute. The last minute is NOW! Last week I went to three Jazz concerts for my Jazz class. I've had all semester to do this, I had to have it done by Wed. I went to the first one the Sunday prior. So school has gotten crazy. The Toystore has started Holiday hours so I'm workin until 9:30 now instead of 7:30 and I also have a shift on Sunday. Shoppers are getting more needy too. Everyone needs stuff wrapped, they want certain items that we might be out of and they want them NOW. The store is making something like $3,000 a day. Life is hectic. And I have to shop for presents to give people. Thanks to Amazon.com I'm mostly done with that. I just have a couple more people to buy for and I think I'll probably do that at work.

The point of this blog (in as much as it has a point at all) is to say that my life has gone insane. And Christmas is still a month away. It's only going to get worse and then in January it's going to come to a screeching halt. That is, until classes start again.

Story Part Deux

One sunny day, Joanna's neighbor came over to borrow a cup of sugar. Joanna's neighbor was a beetle named Gweneth. As Gweneth was leaving she said to Joanna: "Have you met the new neighbor across the street?" Joanna shook her head. Gweneth said: "His name is Marvin, apparently he's a monkey. I don't know what a monkey thinks he's doing here living among the slimy and crawly, but then again, beetles don't really talk do they? So I guess anything can happen here." Joanna nodded to Gweneth quickly shut the door. A feeling of dread cept over her and she started to shake. Every worm knows that where there are monkeys there can only be bananas. Joanna was going to have to face her most terrifying fear!

Tune in next time for the exciting conclusion to our story. Same worm place, same worm channel.

All Hallows Eve

I love halloween. This year I dressed up as Jem. Very few people seem to know who Jem is. Jem! was a cartoon in the 80's about Jem and the Holograms (her rock band). Jem herself wore a lot of pink and had magic earings. Anyway, my costume kicked. That is all.

Jem! is truly outrageous

Die Villian Die

This is just a random rant of mine. X96 has a segment on their morning show once a week during which they list things that they (and listeners who bother e-mailling them) think "must go." Things that just bug the crap out of them. Really it's just an excuse to complain about things that nobody really wants to do anyting about. So, because I can and because I feel like ranting, Here is my own personal list of Things That Must Go

1. Blanket Text Messages. I have a friend (he shall remain unnamed here) who send a message to everyone in his phone whenever he gets bored. It's stupid. The message is always the same "what's up" and it's annoying. I wouldn't mind if he actually wanted to know what was up, but he never does. It's uber lame.

2. Speaking of text messages, Forwarded Text Messages. It's spam for the phone! All those annoying "pass this on or your foot will unluckily rot off" e-mail type forwards have made their way into the cell phone realm. As if the e-mails weren't annoying enough.

3. People Who Advertise in My Comments Space. If you don't know what I'm talking about, look at the comments for the entry right before this. I didn't manage to delete the crap about private road construction before someone commented. I have deleted other messages left as comments on other postings. If you're going to advertise on my blog (that few people read) you should at least pay me for it.

That's actually all I can think of to complain about right now. I guess I'm more content with the world than I thought. Notice how they're all technological? I should become amish and then my life would be perfect, right?

ZzZzZzZzZzZz

I'm in the union building right now and there's a girl sleeping on a couch near me. She's snoring REALLY loudly. I just thought I would share that because if someone else were here we'd probably be laughing about it.

Arches

What an awesome weekend. I went down to Arches National Park with my parents and some of their friends/coworkers. We had the group site at the campground so all 14 persons there had a nice place to pitch their tent. Arches is a lovely place, really - not my favorite park, but lovely. The geography is gorgeous, breathtaking, majestic. Really, if it wasn't so touristy and ... I almost want to say trendy, but that's more just the aura of Moab in which the park basks.

So what we did: After my class on Friday we drove down so we got to the campground around 4:00. After we set up the tent and unpacked some stuff my parents went on a little hike that started somewhere in the campground and went around to a bunch of arches. I heard it was really pretty. I decided to stay around camp and climb some rocks. There was one chimney in particular that I was determined to get up. It was probably too narrow for a sane person, but you know me. My first attempt I got maybe a quarter of the way up and got stuck. The second time I was successful, but it was not easy. This little crack in the rock was maybe a foot wide. That's not much when you're trying to squeeze more than just a skeleton through it. About half way up I rested and held myself in place just by flexing my glutes. In a situaton like that, it's not much good trying to use your legs, because you can't bend them so they're useless, so I basically pulled myself up with my arms. When I couldn't go up anymore I decided that I would go down the other side. It started out wider and therefore easier, but then it went more narrow that my way up. I ended up "walking" my way down above the crack (where it was a bit wider). By walking I mean I had my feet on one rock face and my back on another so I would step with my feet and then push up with my shoulders and upper arms so my back could catch up with my feet. By the time I got back on normal ground, I had worked every muscle in my body- I know because they were all sore the next day.

Yesterday seven of us decided it was a good idea to get up at 5:30 and hike to Delicate Arch for sunset. It was actually quite fun, but you're not going to see me awake that early again for a very long time. After returning to camp and breakfasting, my parents and I decided to hike down Courthouse Wash. Good idea if you want to get away from people (we didn't see a single other hiker the entire way) and are up for an adventure. Bad idea if you want an actual trail (who hikes on trails anyway?) or if you have a problem with quicksand and fighting your way through thick groves of willow and tamarisk. It was not too bad for the first 3/4 of the way, but then it got impossible. We were pushing through thick vegitation and going around in circles. By the end of it we were tired and frustrated. I didn't NOT enjoy it, but I wouldn't exactly say it was fun. Definately an adventure and certainly interesting. The wash itself is very pretty in an atypical way. You don't have the majestic canyon wall hovering several hundred feet over your head (typical Arches scenery). The wash is much more open. It's full of trees and, in a few spots, there were really beautiful waterfalls and neat little swimming holes.

Last night, after we recovered from our adventure, the whole lot of us (14 that is) had dinner at the Moab Brewery. Good beer, good food, good company. Of course beer+hiking all day+ getting up at 5:30 = exhaustion. I was asleep by 11:30 and I have never slept so well on a camping trip.

This morning we packed up, putzed around the windows area of the park and then drove home. One of the best parts of camping is getting home and taking a shower. Those are the best showers ever- after being sweaty and dusty and dirty for days it's so nice to get really clean.

I'll post some pics after they're uploaded from the cameras.

Homecoming

This week is homecoming week at the U. Nobody knew about it. I read all about it in the Cronicle (the campus paper) yesterday and that was the first time I've heard of it. According to the article, in the past homecoming was a week that really brought current students and alumni together for on campus events and the U suddenly became less of a commuter campus. This year, poor planning has left many students totally ignorant of the events, half of which (including homecoming dance) are off campus. There are no banners around campus. I think I remember seeing a flyer on a bulletin board covered in flyers. The only reason I know that it's homecoming week is because I read the article in the Cronicle about how much is being overlooked this year. I myself am not going to any events. The only thing I'd be remotely interested in is the homecoming dance on Friday. It's being held at Trolley Square, $10 a head. I'm going camping instead. Darn. I'm thinking it's probably ok though, because not many people are likely to go so I shouldn't miss much.

That's all for now. I'll have the next installment of Joanna the Worm as soon as I am bored enough.

Story:

Once upon a time in a kingdom far far away there lived a very pretty worm named Joanna. Joanna was like any other worm in most ways. She crawled through dirt and ate whatever it is that worms eat. The thing that made Joanna unique was that she had an abnormal dislike of bananas. She could not bring herself to go withing several miles of a banana, or a banana peel or banana bread or banana muffins or dancing bananas or singing bananas or banana phones or banana bunches or anna banana (her third cousin four times removed on her mother's side). Even the mere utterence of the word "banana" made her dry heave in as much as worms can dry heave. Fortunately for Joanna, her kingdom was very cold so there weren't a lot of bananas about. Once in a while someone would throw a banana peel in a compost heap nearby causing much pain for Joanna, but that didn't happen often.

To Be Continued.....

Big Ass Show

Every year X96 a "local independent" radio station puts on a Big Ass Show. It's kind of like the Warped Tour only much smaller and usually more emo. It was today, I went, it was awesome. We didn't stay for all the bands- we left before Story of the Year, Our Lady Peace and The Used- but the ones we were there for rocked.

First one we saw was Morning Wood. It was the only chick (lead) band there. After that we sawKasibain, they were ok. Arrakis got bopped in the nose by some nasty little fat goth moshers. Then we sat at the edge of the crowd for Hawthorn Heights (not a big fan of them).

Then we saw 30 Seconds to Mars that was wicked good. Jared Leto is so freakin' hot. The music was good, the energy was good, the crowd was good. They were the best band we saw today. After them we got some food. The plan was then to see Rise Against, but they were missing two band mates and were doing an all acoustic performance. I love Rise Against, I saw them last time they came here, but they're much better plugged in. They sucked with just the two acoutic guitars, so we walked off. Next was The Bravery. They rocked.

After them, we were all very tired and felt like our arms were going to fall off. Funny how that happens at a concert. You get close enough to the stage and you either use all you muscles keeping people from collapsing your rib cage or you are unable to put your arms down. Good times.

Poetry Gods

If anyone reading this does not know who Billy Collins is, you should. Unless you have no reason to. He is, in my humble opinion, the greatest poet alive. He served two terms as the national poet lauriet and is simply brilliant. I met him on Saturday (yay!)

Billy Collins was at the main library on Saturday for a reading. I was so excited when I heard about it. Of course I went down. His reading changed much of the general feeling of a lot of his poetry. He has a brilliant sense of humor and it comes through much stronger when he reads his poes rather than when one just sees them on the page. It was, in a word, awesome.

After the reading he signed books. Of course, I had him sign mine. As often happens at these things, he chatted with me a bit when I got up to the table. I was so incredibly star struck. Isn't that odd? How much of a nerd am I that I get so giddy about meeting an old, bald, poet. I was seriously experiencing the kind of mania that normal girls would get if they met Brad Pitt or Jonny Depp or their favorite boy band (gag me with a spatula). Needless to say, it was super exciting and I'm still a little euphoric about it.

WTF mate!!

Last night I spent $40 on gas. Forty Fucking Dollars!!! What the hell is up with that? I'm never driving again. Or at least not often. I actually have only been driving a few times a week lately. I take the bus to school and usually walk to work (I can take the bus there too if I want). Gas prices are rediculous though, it's unbelievable.

Back in the System

It was back to school for me Wednesday. I'm taking a whole bunch of general ed classes. By a whole bunch, I mean four. I'm taking Begining French, American Civilizations, Absurd Theater and Survey of Jazz. All of them are pretty neat except American Civ has the potential to be extrememly boring. It's a basic history class that more or less everyone has to take. History is not my strongest subject, but sometimes I find it interesting. The Professor explained that we would be focusing on politics and economics. Not excited.

Working on my French homework last night I discovered that speaking it makes my head ache. It's like trying to speak out of my frontal lobe. I may be doing something wrong but that's the only way I can make myself say things correctly. I'm excited to be learning French though, it's something I've kinda wanted to do for a while.

In other news, I worked all day today. The owner's 9 yr old daughter came in with a bunch of her friends about an hour and a half before we closed. She tried to fire Derek, the assistant manager. She failed miserably, it was a little funny. She is an absolute demon though. Don't like her one little bit.

Blood will Get Blood

Our monkey president decided to grace the great state of Utah with his presence today. Being the patriot that I am, I went down town to protest with (as the radio tells me) about 3,000 others. That's a pretty good turn out considering I live in one of the reddest states in the union. So all those people were locked in a "free speach zone" bedecked in their old hippie attire, carrying signs, listening to speaches or harrassing drivers. Our wonderful SLC mayor showed up as well and spoke a very moving speach. I'm glad I voted for him.

I was glad to see so many people out to fight against the war and they lies of the current administration. I was also struck by the futility of it all. the "free speach zones" set aside for such protests are far away from anywhere they would really do any good. Mr Bush didn't even drive by Pioneer Park. That really scares me, actually. In theory the whole right to free speach should apply everywhere in the USA, right? But isolating people with "radically liberal" opinions seems to me to be blotting out that whole part of the constitution. Yes there were three thousand people there, but the president, the person who was the cause of the whole demonstration, could easily be totally oblivious.

We only stayed for about an hour and a half. When we were walking back to the car, we happened to see G.W. himself (and his enourage) drive past. There were a few people with signs returning to their vehicles, like us, and others who simply gave the tinted windows of the limo dirty looks or obscene gestures. As it past us, we saw the president waving happily as a trained monkey. He is so totally oblivious.

One final bit of politics. For anyone who still reads this and would like to be just a little political, there is an anti-war rally on Sept 24. There are marches and rallies being held all over the country. In dear old Salt Lake people are meeting at 11am at Pioneer Park and marching to the county building. I'm thinking I'm going to go.