Tuesday, October 28, 2008

23 days and counting....

The time is drawning near, and I'll be taking off for my mission soon. So how does a pre-mission dame like me spend her time, thoughts, and energy? So far, it has gone as follows....

Prepping for the Mission: As my departure date gets closer my brain has started to have crazy fits at an increasing rate. In the beginning--back in August when there was still plenty of time to get things done and still enjoy leisurely activities--the biggest brain tantrums were centered around an overwhelming feeling of inadequacy. My trail of thought ran a chaotic race of pointless circles inside my head. It would start asking me terrible things, like, "Well, geez, you grew up in the church, but do you really know the doctrine?" "You're just a silly girl, do you really think you can make a difference?" "Remember how you're probably the biggest homebody on campus? How are you going to survive 18 months without the constant contact of your family and friends in the valley?" In short, I could hear that creepy, scratchy voice--which is so iconic to me from the Joseph Smith movie at Temple Square--telling me, "You are a fool." (What an odd choice for the voice of Satan, btw. It sounds like the voice my brother Marty used to make when joking around.) Anywho, I've been reading "Preparation Precedes Power" by Randy Bott (BYU Mission Prep Instructor extraordinaire!) and it turns out that this is very typical of pre-missionaries. That's right, I'm normal. Eat that Satan. Of course Satan would be playing up on my fears--I'm the biggest scardy cat I know. I've just moved to my parent's house and I sleep in their basement. I can't go to sleep without the hall light on, I'm such a wimp. Of course, maybe if you saw their basement you would understand. There's a well in the food storage room. Yup, a real live well (not to be confused with whale-because that would be silly). Like, any day Samara from the ring could come crawling out of that thing with her wet black hair draped over her face, claiming that I only have 8 days to live! Yes, our basement is freaky. But back to the mission.... I would highly recommend Bott's book and prep class to anyone, young and old, even considering the mission. If you have little kids, I'd start spoon feeding them these nuggets of greatness. It is NEVER too early to start your preparation for the mission, and this books is clear and direct about what should and should NOT be done prior to qualifying for missionary service. So, hallelujah, I am not inadequate--just susceptible to feelings of discouragement that the adversary is dumping on me daily. Good news though: it turns out (in case you haven't figured this one out yet) that the Spirit converts people to the truth of the Gospel, not Evelyn. So, as long as I do all I can to prepare and learn and stick my heart out there in the work, God will make up for all of my many inadequacies and, hot dang, some pretty fantastic missionary work will happen!

Body Worlds Exhibit: I've never done the cadaver thing, but I remember that I thoroughly enjoyed dissecting pig fetuses and cow eyeballs back in 11th grade Biology (so lovingly dubbed "Biology for dummies" because, well, it was). Everyone who had a brain in my high school took AP Bio, except for Adrienne, Gladys, and I, because we were too lazy. And it gave us an excuse to invent things with duct tape, write man-hater poetry, write a book about Tommy the Molecule, and win the Science Fair that year with a project summoned up and slapped together the day before. The day we were assigned to dissect fish I was the only girl in my group. And, guess who slit that sucker open because all the jocks were about to vomit? Yes, me. It was just like gutting a fish, so no biggy. I thought it might get me brownie points with all the hot jocks, but it turns out they could spot a nerd even if she were in Bio for dummies. My delight with the trout's anatomy must have given me away. Sad day. Those jocks were good looking, even if they were mindless.
But, Body Worlds! How inspirational! What a beautiful collection of human bodies. I know that sounds weird, but you've got to see it to understand. It inspired me to take better care of my own body and to appreciate the God given health that I have been blessed with. Seriously, the more I learn about the intricate details of this life--biology, astronomy, meteorology, anatomy, etc.--the more I am convinced that not only is there a God, but that He has a brilliant mind and an exceptional eye for beauty. And we are His most prized work of art. Please take the time to see this exhibit as soon as you can. More info can be found about the Utah exhibit at http://www.theleonardo.org/bodyworlds/

Recording my Music: I've said I was going to do this for about a year now, but I am a slackerpants and have never made the effort to do it. Fortunately for me and my lack of assertion, my friend Matt Shaw is taking a recording class and is using the music that I have cooked up, with the additional solo guitar genius of Tim Shaw to put a little lovin' together in the Y studio here on BYU campus. It'll be great to have my stuff nicely recorded before I take off on my mission and forget it all. People have asked me if I will continue to write music while I am serving my mission. I could, I guess, but I imagine myself being very happy in the mission field, with next to zero heartbreak (I'm banking on that--since I've been dished out way too many servings of heartbreak in the past few years), and my best music is all sad and angsty and melancholy. I'm not sure how a happy, spirited song would go over with my bluesy style. It might sound lame--and I will not write lame sauce music. I'll leave that to the experts.

Zion National Park: I decided to have one last outing with my favoritest Rebeccahead. We shimmied on down to Zion's this week and did some stellar hiking. After scrambling up to the top of Angel's Landing, making a sand angel, feeding the critters they specifically ask you not to (how could we resist? They are so darn cute!), and stumbling back down with sandy feet and stinky pits, we decided it would be a good idea to jump in the river and refresh ourselves. Needless to say, the October water was freezing. Every time I jumped in my mind would freeze, I would get dizzy spells, and nearly pass out as the river's gently flow pushed my up onto a safe mossy rock. We decided to stop before we passed out and hiked back down to the buses while we watched our freckly skin morph into patches of red, white, purple and blue. Attempting to salvage my outer limbs, which were at this point smurf blue, I stuck my half frozen hands into my stinky pits. Ah, warmth! However, when I pulled them out of my pits, I realized that the pressure from my arms has pushed all blood out of my hands and now instead of blue, they were starch white. It took a good twenty minutes on the bus until I started to feel the tingling sensation of life in my digits again, and another hour by the campfire before I felt like a normal human being with normal and functioning hands. The next morning our muscles were sore in a peculiar way. We suspect that the lactic acid mulling around in our muscles from our exertion during the Angel's Landing Hike hardened prematurely when our bodies were exposed to the cold water. It could be completely incorrect, but it remains our fierce suspicion. But! ask me if it was worth the jump from the red rock cliff; if it was worth the herd of gawking German tourists snapping photos at the rare species of crazy American females (Rebecca and I) jumping Geronimo-style into the water; if it was worth the thrilling sensation of taking a risk and doing that Carpe Diem thing that I recommend to almost every person I know. And I say to you, "Heck, yes!" a million times over.

Cleansing Diet: So, now that I have returned from Zion alive and well, and have consequently given my adorable metabolism and extra boost (really, I adore it, and I freakin' deserve to! I've worked hard for this sucker), I am now starting my scheduled cleansing diet. It's a three day program, so no big deal, right? I am a wonder women in embryo! I can do anything...well, I can do anything for three days! (It's good to start somewhere.) Most days, when I am an inactive office worker/slave/bum, I can get by on nearly nothing, and I typically do. Daily office w/s/b diet consists of grapefruit juice, granola, Sobe, and chocolate. However, when my metabolism acts up I turn into a carnivorous raging beast! I go on dates in triple fold in order to satiate my hunger (boys are a beautiful source of protein-packed meals, and I adore them anyway). But, now I have a dilemma. My metabolism is in its prime beastly state and I am stuck with this cleanse business for three days. Be strong, I tell myself. But I am on hour 4 of 72 and I am having hallucinations of peanut m&ms and pizza. Must. Be. Strong. My mad love affair with chocolate will just have to wait until Friday. Oh, unrequited love is always the worst!

Friday, October 17, 2008

This.Week's.Favorites

Favorite things of the week: I stole this sucker from Adrienne, and she made it up all by her little self. She's so creative, and I'm such a boring copy cat. I think that's why we make the best sort of best friends. I just leech everything off of her and leave her feeling gratified. :) I do love my Adi-pooh.

Breakfast-Half of a Hershey's chocolate bar while speeding to the Temple this morning. There's nothing like a nice healthy serving of chocolate to get you going in the morning!

Music- You can make fun of me all you want, because if I weren't me, I'd make fun of me. Best iTunes purchase of the week?*gulp* Jesse McCartney's latest album "Departure." Yeah, yeah, just go ahead and laugh, but this kid's got some potential! He's like a little baby version of JT. It's pretty precious. Best song? "Leavin'"

Clothing-My aunt Debbie let me borrow a sweet blouse she wore when she was in college. It's a vintage red quarter sleeve beauty with pleats down the front middle and an off centered collar. I feel so stankin' classy.

Drink-Passionfruit drink from Se Llama Peru. I can always count on my Rick outings for new tasty discoveries.

Deal-10% off of all shoes purchased for the mission (even if they're frumpy/boring shoes). Being a missionary (or pre-missionary, in my case) in Utah rocks! Everyone loves to give you sweet deals. I don't know why anyone would complain about being called to the Provo, UT mission.

Moment-Falling off of the curb south of campus, while trying to look like an adorable/creative child in a college student's body. I am so graceful.

Saying- "You, Me, Pumpkins and Carving Knives. Let's do it." -Katie Geilman in reference to Jack Handy's quote, “Sometimes when I feel like killing someone, I do a little trick to calm myself down. I'll go over to the person's house and ring the doorbell. When the person comes to the door, I'm gone, but you know what I've left on the porch? A jack-o-lantern with a knife stuck in the side of its head with a note that says 'You.'"

Political-Joe the Plumber...SNL style. It's good to know Joe has a nice shoe box to sleep in at night. :)

TV- The Office: "Wanna go out?" -Micheal to Holly.



School- It will be over next week! Please pray for me! I need to ace a Spanish test next week and this little white girl needs all the help she can get.

Smell- Fructis Garnier Hairspray. I kid you not, I could successfully use this stuff as perfume. My hair smells so darn attractive. I would date it if I could, but unfortunately I have a mission to attend to....

Social- Temple and lunch date this morning with Sarah Ray.

Possession- Micro-fishnet tights = Conservative hotness. Mmm boy!

Monday, October 13, 2008

The Waiting Game

pas·sion
[pash-uhn] -noun
  1. any powerful or compelling emotion or feeling, as love or hate.
  2. a strong or extravagant fondness, enthusiasm, or desire for anything: a passion for music.
  3. the object of such a fondness or desire.
  4. an outburst of strong emotion or feeling.


I'm wiggin' out a little. Ok, I lied. I'm wiggin' out a lot. I'm hanging out in the twilight zone. (And no, I don't mean the one in the BYU bookstore. I'm talking about the one with the groovy theme song. You know it. The one that goes do DO do do, do DO do do.) I stand back with my jaw on the floor, amazed by the way my life is starting to sound like a broken record. (A cool broken record though--like the one you would mix into a P. Diddy song.) Can I just play it back for ya?

As of December 15th 2006 my one and only shining passion was England. I sold my maroon Honda, Accord and my soul to pay for the England and Literature Study Abroad program. Nothing sounded as appealing as backpacking through the UK with a bunch of lit/creative writing junkies. And I mean nothing! My typical passions faded into the background.
School and Classes? "Who cares?" I thought, "I'll soon be reading Wordsworth over his grave and frolicking through the Moors that inspired Emily Bronte to birth that gorgeous and odious fellow Heathcliff!" (My heart still goes out to you Heathcliff. You are my one and only fictional crush. *sigh*)
Work? It was only the means to an end. The more I worked, the more chocolate and pashminas I could buy in the UK. I still can't believe that I swept floors in that hair salon for so many boring hours.
Boys? They were lame sauce. Like lumpy, moldy gravy type lame sauce too. Not even the lame sauce that is worth straining through the lame with your teeth to get to the tasty sauce. I ignored them and decided to only respond to them when they offered food. I had to pinch all my pennies for this trip and free food was the only economical option, clearly.
Chocolate? I figured it was silly to waste any time/calories on the waxy American crap when Cadburry was faithfully waiting for me across the pond.
Music? Everything revolved around finding the perfect playlist for my iPod. My trip to England was to be perfect, and that meant that it needed the perfect soundtrack. All other singers who were not folk, Brittish or John Mayer (because he trumps everything, even England) became worthless to me.
Snowboarding? Expensive...but still a necessary/guilty pleasure. I guess I didn't exactly give this sucker up. I had to buffen up my quads somehow for all the insane hiking that would go on in England--right?

So where do I sit now while I am watching the clock tick tock tick tock and counting the days until I report? Passionless.

Classes? I have two more weeks until the end of the block, baby! I've exponentially lost interest as each week has flown by. Why would I want to do homework when I could do more exciting mission related stuff like applying for my visa, shopping for frumpy clothes, and studying up on Preach My Gospel?
Work? I sure do love working for Jon Mott and know that I will miss it. Wow, I can't believe that I've been doing this techy stuff for three years now. If I'm not a computer pro now, I don't know when I'll ever be.
Boys? Ok, can I just put out a word of advice to any women out there in the LDS world who are struggling to swipe dates? GET YOUR MISSION PAPERS! You don't even have to go (although I would recommend it, because a) you get to serve the Lord 100%, b) you receive mega blessings and if you don't believe me than just read my previous post, and c) if you serve now you will return when I do, and we could be friends and maybe even roommates and I would still have friends when I get back from the mish) but at least get those suckers in your hands. Once you have them, the boys will come in legion. Maybe they won't be the type of boys you really want, because most likely they're commitmentphobes, but they can at least serve as guinea pigs until you get the swing of things down with the dating game. As soon as your confidence level has peaked with the pigs, you can move onto the major leagues. *Shoulder shrug* Or, you could really serve that mission, because gee, wouldn't it be neat if you were called to my mission and if you could serve as my companion? I know it's far fetched, but still, it would be neat.
So did this method work for me? Well, I don't know if that's information I'd share on a public blog, so you can fill in the blank yourself. Tee hee.
Chocolate? I've been nervously hogging down Hershey's chocolate bars for the past few days, but only because they've been the only thing around. Becca and crew had a failed campfire last week and the smores did not happen, which means that I was left with 8 chocolate bars. What would you do if 8 innocent chocolate bars were smiling up at you from your tupperware pantry box? I would eat them/have eaten them. However, I am still very much looking forward to Cadburry! It is the bestest chocolate in the whole wide world! And I'm pretty sure that I gained 10lbs that I can attribute soley to the giant Cadbury bars John Bennion would bring to us from Tesco. I sure am glad that the old "chocolate causes acne" legend has been debunked, because mmmm boy! Do I love chocolate! Only 39 days until my mad affair with Cadbury can begin!
Music? I kid you not, I feel guilty buying anything on iTunes that is not mission worthy. I've even been neglecting John Mayer. John freakin' Mayer!!! I feel like I've been infected with this strange pre-mission disease. Nothing is worth laying down greenbacks for that does not talk of God/gospel/etc. Even Janice Kapp Perry is starting to sound appealing....and I'm totally kidding, because I would never go that far. *Puke.* Lately I have bought 3 (three) different renditions of "Jesus Christ the Apple Tree", have been considering investing in BYU Men's Chorus's Greatest Hits (if that actually exists), and am deeply coveting Jordan's collection of Mindy Gledhill's music. Shoot, I haven't even felt like playing my own music lately. My little Yamaha c-40 has started to collect dust.
Snowboarding? I've almost forgotten what this is. It seems like it's been forevertime since I've hit those silver slopes. I'm hoping that we'll get some good powder before I leave so I can board one last time. However, I also have the looming fear in my head that I'd break a leg while boarding and then I'd have to wait to serve and consequently get sent somewhere else--somewhere else that is not England. :( I don't know if it's worth the risk.

Did anyone else feel this way before their mission? Please, console me, tell me I'm normal, and that everything will be alright. Until then I will continue to bang my head on this desk here and count down the days.

38 and seven eighths...

38 and three quarters...

38 and one half...