Funny Mental Connections

Today I went with Uffish to her favorite little used book store--it's a lot of fun. I love the smell of old books, and new books, and all those sorts of things, so it was a pleasant visit for me. The smell and all the stacks remind me of home, and unpacking. My mom has tons of books. I haven't read them all, but I'm almost certain that she has. The smell makes me feel at home.

Another funny thing, they were playing this great Jazz music that was kind of slow and it made me want to dance. Not dance all by myself, but to sway quietly with someone else. Maybe I've just had dancing on my mind lately. In my Argentine history class we've been studying the Tango and it's cultural significance. We've been watching different people who do the tango, and it's such a passionate dance, and so full of life and expression--it makes me wish I actually knew how to dance with some real steps. Guess it's another thing to add to the "To-Do" list...eventually.

You Know You're Alone on a Friday When...

So it's Friday night, and I'm sitting in my wonderfully decorated room again, all by my lonesome, and it's just past 11:00. I've contemplated these times in the past little while, and I've compiled a list:

You Know You're Alone on a Friday When

• Well, you are all by yourself and it happens to be Friday.
• You think about what to do with the rest of your evening, and you decide that a rousing game of solitaire sounds like a rollicking romp through the lands of fun and enchantment
• You begin to wonder how you could create some "intoxicating verbal shimmer"
• You realize that if you go out and "pitch some woo" or even "make some hay" it might remedy your current financial situation, as long as you get your very own tower and a little Rumplestiltskin.
• You listen to your playlist that's entitled "Upbeat Love Stuffs"
• You invite girls on your floor to watch the movie "Girls Just Want to Have Fun" that you recently acquired for a whopping $2.50.
• You are 20 years old and an RA and live in DT, and therefore have the ability to have girls on your floor...but very little other social life.
  

You Realize You're Completely Alright With it When:

• You refuse trips to Park City so that you can spend some of the evening alone--quiet time...what a rarity in college!
• You win your first game of solitaire, and therefore feel no need to play any others--you're already a winner!
• You've learned to make money stretch, and you've decided that you're going to get your wisdom teeth extracted for free, and then you're going to get paid $150 to participate in an after surgery pain medication study...who needs to pitch woo?
• You sing along with every single one of the songs on your playlist, while using the dance moves you just acquired while watching "Girls Just Want to Have Fun"
• You really do enjoy the company of the girls on your floor, and you're glad that you're an RA--it's a pretty sweet deal.

Sounds like a pretty good place to be to me. Happy Friday All!

Sleep, It's After Dinner

You know what? According to the tracker thing I have on this blog, most people read it between about 3:00 and 4:00 in the morning--that's bad for you. As Uffish has been told, and restated: without sleep, you will die.

This is a lesson that I'm readily learning over, and over, and over...you get the picture. I can't understand why I've been an idiot for so long on this issue. Why don't I just go to bed at a reasonable hour?

When I first got to college, it was a matter of "feeling independent." I'd basically had a bedtime for most of my life. Up until the time I was 12, bedtime was about 7:30 or 8:00, except on nights where Ghostwriter was on, and then I was allowed to stay up until 8:30. When I turned 12, bedtime was moved to 9:00 in order to accomodate mutual on Wednesday nights. When I got into high school, I was generally in bed by about 11:00, and if I was ever up as late as 12:00 or 1:00 it was because I had a huge paper due the next day, or I had gotten caught up in reading a good book, and I just couldn't put it down. Those nights came about once a month...at the most. I get to college, and I've got classes later, (well, later than early morning seminary, which required us to leave the house by about 5:40), no one cares what time I go to bed, and my roommate stays up playing on her computer, talking to people etc. Suddenly, I'm a free and independant freshman, and even though I've got work in the morning at 5:00 cutting fruit, I'm going to show off how well I can survive by staying up until 3:00!

In the words of Napoleon Dynamite: "IDIOT!"

Last year I got to be a little better...a very little. I would be up until about 12:00 or 1:00 talking to friends on the internet, and depending on how those talks went, I'd do one of two things--option one would be to start my homework after I got off, option two would be to go on a night walk with some of those friends until about 3:00 in the morning, and then come home, crash, wake up late the next morning, do some homework, and then go to class.

Guys, this is also a stupid idea.

I got a little better with that even, in doing my homework while talking to friends, and getting more stuff accomplished--walking less around Provo with friends who needed to talk for one reason or another...all better ideas. Moderation is key. Towards the end of the year, I was even getting to bed by about 2:00 on a regular basis, and I was committed to doing better that summer. Afterall, don't people who live in apartments go to bed earlier? I mean, I was sure that staying up untill all sorts of odd hours was purely a result of living in the dorms...right?

Wrong.

I moved into an apartment with Uffish and my sister, and three other awesome roommates. For a few nights at the beginning I was doing really well with getting to bed earlier, and getting enough sleep before going to classes at 8:00 the next morning, and all that jazz. I did not, however, continue in this pattern. Both Uffish and our friend who was living with us in our room--all of us--we all stayed up until all kinds of odd hours of the night. A big difference between them and myself though, was that they didn't have 8:00 classes...again, another stupid move. Then I started working from 10:00 pm to 6:00 am on the weekends, and from 8:oo pm-12:00 am each weeknight, and I was working about 40 hours a week, and taking classes full-time, and not sleeping when I was at home because my roommates were such great fun.

This is also bad for you.

At the beginning of this semester, I was committed to going to bed on time, sleeping like I needed to, when I needed to, and then being nicer to my body in general. This year, was going to be my year. It all worked well and good for about 3 weeks--I was in bed by midnight, and then getting up for classes and not being too tired...it was great! Then I got a bunch of the other RA's addicted to 24...and we stayed up until about 1:00 (sometimes later) to watch them for awhile. Even though we're now finished with the first 4 seasons, I still find myself stuck in the bad habit of staying up too late for no real good reason.

I've decided this should change. I am now setting a bedtime for myself on the weekdays. I'd like it to be 11:00, but I think I'm going to have to start with 11:30, just so that I can be asleep by then. Hopefully, I'll work down from there. Notable exceptions include being on duty, which goes from 8:00-12:00. Weekends, I think I should try to be in bed by like...2:00 at the latest, at least on a regular basis. Hopefully, setting this goal for myself will equal greater health, happiness, and all that jazz. I just researched some sites about sleeping, and they tell me that I'm doing a good thing. Check it out

Basically--all you 3:00-4:00 people need to go to bed, there's nothing on my blog that you won't be able to read in the morning after you've gotten a good night's sleep, and you'll be able to sleep better anyway. I promise, it's better for you, and maybe even better for everyone else around you too...

Thanksgiving is a Holiday Too.

One of my sad pet peeves is the fact that, insofar as marketing goes, Thanksgiving is no longer a holiday. The stores are decorated with about 4 holidays. Starting in September it's Halloween, around the middle of October it becomes Christmas, halfway through January it's Valentines Day, and sometime mid-June it becomes The Fourth of July. Then the stores are decorated with a multitude of other things--back to school, 'hooray it's summer' and the like.

What's wrong with Thanksgiving?

I know, I know. It's a holiday to celebrate food and pilgrims and corn and the like...But it's also fundamentally about being grateful--can't we celebrate gratitude...Even just a little?

You know what else bugs me? Those creepy carolers in the display window of the BYU bookstore. Scary...That's what they are. No one's mouth should ever naturally go into the shape of a over-streched rubber-band and then remain in that position as their head rotates mechanically from left to right...right to left...On a timed metronomic schedule. Also, those giant Santa Claus figures that sing carols and dance around--those things creep me out. I can handle my dad's huge blow-up Frosty doll that sits about 8 feet tall on our front lawn...But moving carolers and Santa Claus' don't do it for me.