meanings.

assuming i am going to live a regular-sized life, i had a 1/5-life-crisis this week. i bought fake french manicured fingernails at target. and i glued them on with super glue. and i clicked and pointed and did all the things i did the last time i had them on at age 13. 

i am remembering that time  at age 13 when i had those french manicured fingernails from a vietnamese woman at hotnails across from the bloomington wal-mart.  i can't remember why i got them, but i remember what happened when i did. my violin teacher was furious. probably more with my mom than with me.  in all fairness, i would have been furious. when my violin students showed up to lessons with the slightest nail growth i cut them right then and there. so she was justified in being displeased that i had a french manicure. as i recall the experience, i recall that my getting a french manicure prompted a string of events that led to my new violin teacher. bonnie + jamie. whom i think the absolute world of.  aside from my own family, they had the largest role in shaping who i am today.  my whole outlook on life; if i have their goodness and wisdom in mind, i can approach any life situation with success.  so i am grateful for that $35 set of french-manicured fingernails. best decision i ever made.  

but yes. i went to target for the dan in real life soundtrack (which i love). and they didn't have it. so i roamed around for about an hour and half, and finally found myself at the real life french nail kit. and paid $5.84 for it. i rushed home to get them on. (i guess i should tell you that there is a touch screen on the cash register at work, and the buttons are extremely hard to push...so i think i thought they would help to push the buttons). and i put them on and played around like a little 13-year-old. i absolutely loved them until i started to hate them. how foolish.  i lasted all of 24 hours and have cut mine back and painted them candy apple red.  more me i guess. 

i am finding it harder to make friends than i did when i began fall and winter semesters.  i think 18-19 year old college freshman at byu just make friends easily. clinging on to each other because we are terribly homesick and want to have 'the experience.' and really, what do we have to lose? there is no outside of your comfort zone because you have no comfort zone. you have to create it.  but now, as i am surrounded by olders, and am no longer a freshman, i have a comfort zone. and it is comfortable. i would say it is becoming more and more comfortable every day.  i guess there's something about being young.  i will not allow these inhibitions to last long. i promise myself that. 

with the exception of last week (april 20 - 27), this past week has been one of the longest of my life. just settling in really. doing a lot of nothing. which is foreign to me, not because i am an innate busy bee or because i 'always have to be doing something.'  normally, though, i sign myself up for more than i should.  but this spring, i am currently signed up for much less than i am able. so i have been doing a lot of nothing.  in fact, i have been doing enough nothing to get myself to start doing something. i am going to do something. 

i am going to set goals. 

read books that have been sitting on my shelf for a long time. 

make friends. 

shop less.

start enlisting myself in causes. organized, goal-oriented, make a difference causes.

one thing i forgot to tell you last week was something parker taught me. i asked for his opinion on whether to stay, he said he thought i would regret not staying more than staying. in other words, the regrets here are less than the regrets at home.  which i agreed with.  he also told me that the happiest people are people who don't think about their opportunity costs. (an opportunity cost is your best foregone alternative). live in the decision you made and be happy about it.  

a lot of bloggers use the word 'inspiration' frequently. i'm sure i did when i started my blog, and i might still, i'm not sure. but i think it is slightly overused. now, however, i want to share with you some things that have been truly inspiring me. 

elder nelson's talk i attended tonight. 

which made me ever grateful for this cd. this requiem by mack wilberg and the motab is some of the most beautiful music i have ever heard. i think (though i can't be sure) that even if you didn't like really classical and obscur-ish music, you would still love this.  if you are in the right mindset. i get chills and tears every time i turn it on. 

this video jamie sent me. watch until the end. 

my parents.  i am so grateful for the complements i receive from all of you on my writing.  you know it is my joy and ambition to write, so thank you. it means a lot.  but it comes as sort of an unsurprising surprise to me because i have been surrounded by it since day 1. my parents are so smart and honest. i am such a product of their teachings that it is difficult for me to claim any part of me as my own. a fact that i adore. so thanks. 

talking to my dad, he sent me this article.  you need to read it. he also shared with me this wonderful quote that sums up my new resolutions for ending the nothingness that has been my spring so far:

Meaning is not something you stumble across, like the answer to a riddle or the prize in a treasure hunt. Meaning is something you build into your life. You build it out of your own past, out of your affections and loyalties, out of the experience of humankind as it is passed on to you, out of your own talent and understanding, out of the things you believe in, out of the things and people you love, out of the values for which you are willing to sacrifice something. The ingredients are there. You are the only one who can put them together into that unique pattern that will be your life. Let it be a life that has dignity and meaning for you. If it does, then the particular balance of success or failure is of less account.

- john gardner