my word: 04

vanguard van·guard [van-gahrd]
–noun
1. the foremost division or the front part of an army; advance guard; van.
2. the forefront in any movement, field, activity, or the like.
3. the leaders of any intellectual or political movement.

juno soundtrack.

although i haven't seen it, the soundtrack is phenomenal. i may be the last to realize because i have yet to see the film, but it's a good one--especially the little something from cat power. look around here.

better.

came across this cute stuff at poppytalk today.

air.

oh my. look what's arriving soon. can't believe it. a new soul. you better watch this. (love this song too.)

happy monday(s).

heart golden-rod. 

bo. thanks em. 

pheebs said it just right: it's january. why is january just the pits? i was about to express this to an acquaintance last night when he stole the words right out of my mouth: january is like 31 mondays. it's terrible. 

i'm back in p-town and spirits are looking up. hope your weekend was as heartwarming as mine. 

mental images:

• snow shovelers on campus. 
• dixie state college basketball game. dorms. college life elsewhere. 
• vista of em + jim stepping out of itty-bitty toy plane. 
• hundreds of freshman bypassing the crosswalk, adding an extra 5 minutes to their walk out of sheer obedience to the stake president. 

where summer spends it's winter.

photo.

today,

read this.
distrubing. no?
visit the lovely marta's lovely sister.

have been rushed home by a willing brother. thank you. love home. love the sun. feels like an entire semester since i've been here. but it's only been one week. how strange. planning to visit + shop + quilt + bank + soak in the rays + search.

today,

be home.

karl.

happy birthday to you, karl. 

"i have been asked what I mean by my word of honor. i will tell you. place me behind prison walls-- ever so high, ever so thick, reaching ever so far into the ground - there is a possibility that in some way or another i will escape; but stand me on a floor and draw a chalk line around me and have me give my word of honor never to cross it. can I get out of the circle? no. never! i would die first."

- karl g. maeser

self discovery: 06

replacement image.

mental image: soup from the twilight zone that i take to a picnic table, where i open up the steam-releasing lid and scorching liquid falls through the table's constructional wholes and onto my knee. while most will wait til spring or summer to eat outside again, my daily routine goes uninterrupted as i need nothing but the burning of my tongue to protect me from the chill.

i used to hate soup. but for someone reason, i've changed my ways. i can't go a day without it. i love love love soup. forgive me all who tried to talk sense into me. i have reconciled now.

my word: 03

glut [gluht]
–verb
1. to feed or fill to satiety; sate:
2. to feed or fill to excess; cloy.
3. to eat to satiety or to excess.
–noun
6. a full supply.

day 3.

photo. 

today, i would have taken pictures of:

• me in my bunched-puffed-burnt orange parka from campworld. am i really the most lucky princess to get my dad's camping coat in place of the one i lack. 
• crowds of people in swollen coats and mittens, huddled under umbrellas, walking on icy pathways. the snowstorm arrived as i woke up, fulfilling the prophecy of last night's warm temperature. 
• the bench seat of a white, chrysler mini-van whose driver offered me a ride amid the blizzard. just like the one i wept for when my parents sold it. 
• statue of a family with snow-caps on top. literally. they had big tall hats of snow on their heads. i stopped and laughed out loud, trying to decide if it was the prank of a student, or just the comical stylings of mother nature herself. 

same classes as day 1 today. except:

2 pm: dance 130 - dance aerobics
now, i have to take a bunch of p.e. credits to graduate. if you know me in person, you know i'm the most athletic person you and i both know. if you don't know me in person, i must supplement here that the previous sentence was sarcastic. simply put, i was reluctant to do anything involving physical activity. i was scared to death (again with my recurring middle school, insecurity nightmares). but it was so fun. the instructor is new zealand-ese and reminds me a lot of these guys. he highly encourages water bottles, partnering up, grunts, yeah!'s, woo's, and the like.

4 pm: communications 101 - the media of mass communications
loved this class. it's going to be way less boring than i thought. hooray. aside from some annoying assignments, i'm excited for this class.

my other classes were great too. so excited to be learning: the 5 big questions for government. the declaration of independence. the constitution. the contradictions of the 2. what journalists do. what journalists care about. what to be careful for. types of communication. models of communication. + much more.

reading this tonight, kindles the same {question} in me. i am compelled + required + encouraged + even excited to remember what i'm learning, that i'm afraid i won't remember anything else. most of what i observe, i remember in my head, and privately smile to satisfy my own self aggrandizement. but what will i remember. will it be important? my thoughts + her words have brought me to this conclusion: my memory is my most valuable possession.

what i will remember from today: snow snow snow. tragedy. fiery chicken + wild rice soup outside. wearing dad's orange coat with no shame + no cold. intruding roommate's boyfriends. you.

day 2.

photo

9:30 am: economics 110 - economics + public policy 

#1 most failed class at byu. yikes. i really like economics, but boy am i scared. the tests are multiple choice, options a thru k. and it's economics. my teacher has an infamous reputation at byu, but i like him. i know he's a stickler, but he also seems genuinely excited to teach, and for us to learn.

that was pretty much the extent of my day. ha. comical. i only have that one class on tuesday and thursday. but i was slightly productive in studying, talking to family, and standing in bookstore lines.

i just have to keep reminding myself that i am excited. excited to be learning + moving forward + for a recently engaged friend from high school + to just be american. grateful for storms, because it turns the atmosphere pleasantly warm right before a big one hits. 

today, would have taken a picture of: 

• two adjacent trash cans, one overflowing, one empty. 
  
• being shooed away from a film shoot.
  
• thousands of students lined up to devour ice cream sundaes for karl's birthday. 
  
• the miraculous pair of mittens i found in the box labeled grandma's gloves + purses. among gold + gaudy handbags + opera glasses, were the marvel of brown yarn, complexly knitted, double {phospholipid} bilayer that keep my hands on fire. 
  

january.

to me, january means:

high school musical
black nail polish
arby's curly fries

so it goes.

i was off tv for a while. i completely quit. good for me. but i'm back on the wagon. or off the wagon. which is it? either way, lost returns in t minus 23 days. can't wait.

college: semester 2: day 1

thank you meg.

9 am: political science 110 - american politics + government
i think i'm going to adore this class. (wishing i could take poli sci 101 - current events, but won't work with my schedule!) my teacher was about 3 feet tall. not really, but he was really short. i found myself excited about the things i knew from american heritage (the class i loved so much i decided, for now, i want to be a teaching assistant for it, which inspired my taking this class.), but still wishing i could spout factual information more readily. i could answer, without thinking, exactly where in the constitution displays a structure to balance between tyranny + anarchy, law + freedom, virtue + self-interest. then i thought, do i need a phd for that?

10 am: communications 211 - news writing
a pre-requisite for my major. appears it will be much easier than i thought. except for one haunting word: the benchmark. this is the article that must be written in a finite amount of time that your professor and lab assistant give a score, which determines your fate. not really, just whether you get into the major or not. i'm excited.

in reexamining my life though, this is a class epitomic of the epiphanic time when i realized journalism was a profession. never before had it occurred to me. i didn't so much as dream as i did fathom what it would be like to learn how to write the news. i treasure these fantastical specifics that are now real. definitely better extramentally.

12 pm: religion 122 - book of mormon 2
my book of mormon 1 class had about 20 people in it. this one has about 200. how paltry i feel. contains some good friends worth getting to know better, about half my ward, and a girl i spent a great deal of time with in the american heritage review room who is both hilarious + kind, and told an unsettling story in class today about getting chased up the great wall by a china woman with a cane.

summary: college round 2. am having the usual and all-too-familiar homesickness after time with family. who all keep reminding me i didn't want to go home to begin with. a friend e-mailed me today. she said it perfectly:

it is just a weird time of life, and you tend to feel a lot of pressure to make something useful of yourself, and pick a career you will love, and you have this funny sense of not knowing how your life is going to eventuate and just waiting for it to do something

lately i am feeling more like a late bloomer than ever. i feel like i've just entered 7th grade and trying to figure out--pardon the phrase---who i am. i guess i'm saying that i'm not quite as confident as i was in round 1. which is just fine with me. for now. what i'm not fine with is a loss of fascination + enthusiasm. perhaps i shall recover from my numbness to the college scene after the sting of being home wears off.

my word: 02

myriad myr·i·ad [mir-ee-uhd]
–noun
1. a very great or indefinitely great number of persons or things.
–adjective
3. of an indefinitely great number; innumerable
4. having innumerable phases, aspects, variations

loosen up.

um. are you kidding me? thank you karamea for this wonderful link. you all will drool over these tights, among other things.

oh my word.

i'm constantly flipping through my thesaurus to see what brilliant diction i can next jot down. and i always do find such wonderful words. but i always have a fear of forgetting them (and a rightful fear, at that! for i hardly ever remember what they mean, let alone use them.) so i'm implementing another new years resolution. hooray. but the catch is i'm roping you into it too.

every day there will appear a new word and it's meaning. you and i must use the word at least once in that day. won't it be fun? today's word:

recitude rec·ti·tude [rek-ti-tood, -tyood]
–noun
1. rightness of principle or conduct; moral virtue: the rectitude of her motives.
2. correctness: rectitude of judgment.

missing.

my sister gave me a set of 4 darling mugs at the beginning of the semester. being the gracious roommate i am, i allowed for k + a to use my mugs for hot chocolate whenever they would like. after returning home from thanksgiving, there were only 3 left. how this could be, i have no clues.

i kept having dreams that my mug returned to me. coming back to me. places where i hadn't looked. i always woke up willing to search, but always disappointed. the more people i've told, the more i've been tormented. 'look in the closet,' {they'd} say. sure enough. there was my mug. i couldn't have been happier than having found my mug. but as i returned it to its place in the cupboard, i found that it was not the fourth, but the third mug. how mean. college is brutal.

if you see it. please do let me know.

2 weeks.

what i did for 2 weeks.

saw this and this.

watched way too much of him and them.

clean.

the wedding was one of the best days of my life. i'm so happy for them both. family + friends surrounding. half of whom ask me what year of high school i'm in. the other half proclaiming in a threatening whisper 'you're next!'

one sad thing at the wedding, though. i misplaced my camera. i can't find it anywhere. could it be karma? everyone all night was telling me, 'your camera is on the table there dear.' and 'don't forget your camera!' just as the vases were emptied and the ribbon spooled up, i was sure i put it in my purse. until, no. it's somewhere, i just don't know where. i feel as if a part of me has died. {from.} it's strange though. i'm trying not to be over dramatic, but i just feel pure heartache every time my mind returns to that small box of silver. it is my best friend + sole companion. everywhere i go. my life shall be woefully wanting from this point on. and so shall this blog. i'm sorry.

got packed + unpacked all in a day. and took a bath tonight. i haven't taken one for probably 6 years at least. i'm not one for new years resolutions, but every person should resolve to take more baths. scrunch yourself into your {in my case, tiny} tub and immerse your ears, just to listen to the beat of your own heart.

as i stepped out of the bath and into my brand new towels, i noticed that unlike my old familiar yellow ones, these brown towels leave a mark of exactly where you dried off. imprinted residue of wetness exactly where i touched to my face. not sure why this stopped me. everywhere, things snag me. {by.}

epic sentences keep running through my head, as if i'm writing a soap opera or a dramatic play for the theater. i don't know why i feel so introspective. and retrospective.