Tuesday, April 19, 2005

RANT AND RAVE!!!!!!!

I’m mad. I’m mad at everyone in the whole world. I’m mad at everyone and everything in the whole world. I’m mad at all the bracelets and the TV’s and the hockey sticks and the carports and the books in the whole world. Oh, wait I forgot to mention this week. I’M ESPECIALLY MAD AT THIS STUPID WEEK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
For those who wish to be uplifted, please stop reading now. I need to rant and rave for a moment, and vent all my frustrations in verbal form. I’ll be better eventually, I just need to let this anger out.
First of all, I’m broke. That’s probably the most pressing issue at the moment. I owe a substantially larger amount of money than I make. And there’s no one else to blame, which makes it worse.
Second of all, my room is currently extremely messy, but I can’t put any of it away because it needs to be packed. But I can’t pack anything until Saturday, when I have time and boxes. We have to be out of here by 4pm on Saturday, but we can’t get in to our new place until April 30, so in the meantime, we have to drag all of our stuff over to Greenbrier, store it in the upper lounge, live out of suitcases for a week (which I despise), then move all of our stuff out of the upper lounge and into our apartment.
I try to give myself something to look forward to as a relief, but when I start to think about finally getting all settled into Greenbrier and all that, I get really scared. I really don’t know how the people dynamic is going to work out. I shouldn’t worry, but I can’t help it.
I was up until the wee small hours of the morning just laying in bed and worrying. So on top of everything, I’m going on very little sleep, and the beautiful morning I woke up to was deceiving…it is now raining.
Oh, yeah, and I forgot to mention finals and clean-checks and good-byes. I hate good-byes. Oh, yeah and job-hunting.
As you can imagine, I am ready to tear out my hair. I want to scream at the top of my lungs, change my name, hotwire a van, and drive across the country to where I don’t have to worry about any of this and start all over again. I’ll pawn my jewelry to buy a guitar and sit on city corners and sing songs about social reform and hope that people give me money.
Then I’ll return to civilized life and say that all of it was a social science experiment and then someone will hear about it and give be a $23 billion dollar scholarship for life because of my pioneering efforts in identifying with the under-privileged.
Okay, time to return to reality. I think I’ll shave my legs. That always gives me a clearer, newer outlook on life.

Saturday, April 2, 2005

CARPE DIEM!

I seem to go through stages with this blog. I go almost entire months without touching it, and then I write everyday for an entire week or so. And so I continue now...
Well, life seems to be slowly settling back into normalcy. Normalcy in and of itself has an ever-changing definition, so I guess I should make this comment clearer by saying that I'm getting used to the changes that have occured the last couple of weeks and those changes are now becoming the norm.
Is anyone else, however, kinda thrown off by Daylight Savings? Or a lot thrown off? I most assuredly am. Granted, my sleep patterns haven't been quite regular this weekend. Let me tell you my adventures...
It all started last night at approximately 11pm. Lexis and Emily and I decided to bake things. It's become sort of a weekend tradition to do that...stay up until the wee small hours of the morning engaged in the most glorious of culinary endeavors. So began one of the funnest nights in the world...

11pm
Lexis and Emily and I made 2 dozen whole-wheat applesauce muffins, several batches each of 2 different kinds of cookies, and 1 pan of Strawberry-banana Jello (which said pan of Jello I ate almost entirely by myself). All of this cooking took place in the upper lounge, and it also involved jamming on the guitars and dancing to big band and latin music. And Savage Garden, too.

2:30am
Lexis and I decide to have a slumber party and watch a movie and sleep in the upper lounge. We clean up baking stuff and gather bedding and get ready for bed. Which was a little bit of a waste of time, because...

3:00am
In making a delivery of healing, comforting cookies to our neighbors in Apt 461, Lex, Emily and I end up staying and talking with Katie and Mattie about everything from medical problems to the challenges and advantages of living in a predominately LDS community.

4:30am
Emily had the inclination to go to bed finally, although I can't imagine why, because me and Lex were still somehow wide-awake and so we decided to watch a movie like we planned anyway. We submitted ourselves to the LDS version of "Pride and Prejudice," which was actually kind of enjoyable in a mindless, 5 o clock in the morning kind of way.

6:30am
The movie gets done and we look out the window to see the very first faint streaks of light coming. Still not tired AT ALL, we decide to climb the hill to the Ricks building and watch the sunrise. Barefoot and wrapped up in our comforters, we hiked up the hill to the Ricks, and on the way had one of the creepiest experiences in the world. Please note that it was only faintly light outside and it was very windy and the entire campus seemed completely deserted. Approximately 2 thirds of the way up, we hear this weird faint yowly howling noise. We looked around, quite perplexed, and thought it was someone calling to us or something. Right then, this enormous crow, cawing menacingly and very loudly, swooped down a few feet away from our heads. A crow was dive-bombing us! Fearing for our lives, Alexis threw her arms around me and we stood huddled together and frozen in fear while the crow circled above us. Alexis asked me something finally, but I didn't answer because I had just seen what was making the weird noise. Alexis said "Liz?" and I just stared ahead and whispered "Cats!" There, about 20 feet in front of us, were 2 cats--2 BLACK cats, I might add--that were on the verge of a fight. Both stood staring eachother down, every hair on their bodies raised and howling at eachother. It was SO CREEPY. Picture it...gray, dim sky, a strong wind bending the trees, a completely deserted campus, 2 black cats fighting in front of us and above us the crow continued to caw and circle and occasionally swoop down near us. *Shiver* We finally decided that the only logical course of action was to turn these creepy creatures' tool against them...use fear to our own advantage. We were creeped out, yes, but little did they know that we held the ace. Little did they expect us to take a deep breath each, start yelling in gibberish, and break into a mad run! Which is what we did. I'm not sure what it was, but it was just bizarre to us that all these weird elements combined to create this Salem Witch Trials atmosphere.
Anyway, things were much calmer after that. We each sat on a rock about 30 feet away from eachother and just watched as it slowly got lighter and the streaks of orange and yellow in the east became stronger, and as the lights in the city turned off a few at a time as the day got nearer. It was so peaceful and beautiful, and we sat there for a good half hour. Not talking, just watching and feeling and thinking. It was a wonderful way to start a Sunday. Walking back, Alexis suggested that we do that every Sunday...wake up and watch the sunrise, to which I replied "We didn't wake up!" But point taken, and we decided it is a lovely way to start the day, but too tiring to do more than once a week.

7:15am
We head back home and talk for a while longer, and although we still weren't really sleepy (and I'm really wondering WHY), we decided we should try and get a little sleep. It was strange, though...it was like "Well, I'm going to see if I can catch 4 winks in the 2 hours before conference starts." And we did.

It was also the night that we lose an hour of sleep due to Daylight Savings, so my poor internal clock said "What the flip are you doing to me!?" and made up for it with a sudden rush of sleepiness at roughly 8:00 this morning. So I slept on and off from 8:00am to 4:30pm today. In between sessions, of course. (Ah heck, who'm I kidding? I woke up at the start of each session with every intention of watching and/or listening attentively, but I didn't make it very far in without dozing off.)
Well, I know that if anything's ever going to make sense to me again, I'd better go to bed now and just look forward to tomorrow. To end on a little bit deeper note, I should like to conclude with the insightful words of Alexis Kragenbrink, for whom a lack of sleep inspires particularly good writing.

"Have you ever had the experience where you stay up all night and into the morning and finally come to the hour at which point you can't determine what you did "yesterday" versus "today"? I certainly have, and I will let you know that it's worth it. This one particular time I did it and had the most epiphanical (yes, made up, but I like it) and majestic experience. I...realized that [this close friend] and I were the experiences of the night personified. We are at the point in our lives where we are trying to determine whether we're still in the realm of "yesterday" or if we've moved on to the time known as "today." To this friend, I say it's "today." I say that she and I let go of last night andopen our hearts and minds to a new and glorious day, full of new opportunities, dreams, loves, and challenges. It is now 8 o'clock in the morning, and I hear this friend snoring, only twenty minutes after our return home from this grand adventure...Don't hesitate. Join with me, now, friend. Let's get out of bed, get dressed, grab some whole-wheat applesauce muffins, and run gregariously into the arms of this new day that are stretched out before us."

A little ole fairy tale

In her organizing of stuff in our room, Alexis came across a story I had written her one boring day in math class. I have decided to share it with all of you.

The Fairy Who Couldn’t Sing
By Elisabeth Whittaker

Once upon a time, there was a young fairy named Amelia. Amelia was a very sad young fairy because she couldn’t sing. It’s a well-known fact that all fairies have beautiful singing voices, to lull flowers to sleep with and to bring stars out from behind the clouds. But try as she might, Amelia just couldn’t sing. When she tried to sing lullabies to the flowers, they shriveled up in disgust. When she tried to call the stars out, they raised their shrill voices in protest and hurled themselves out of their beds in the sky. It was very depressing.
One night, Amelia sat crying on a mossy rock. All the other fairies hated her and she had just killed a beautiful daisy with her tone-deaf warbling. As she sat crying, two of her tears fell into the moss and from it up sprang a porcupine in a fluffy lavender dress.
“Why are you crying, Amelia?” the porcupine asked.
Amelia looked up in surprise. “Who are you?” she said.
“Why, I’m your Porcupine Godmother!” the porcupine replied. My name is Florinda.
It’s common knowledge that all children, unbeknownst to their parents, have a Fairy Godmother. What is slightly less well-known is that fairies themselves don’t have Fairy Godmothers, but Porcupine Godmothers instead. But back to our story…
“Oh, Florinda, I’m so depressed!” Amelia sobbed. “All the other fairies have beautiful singing voices and I can’t tell a harmonica from a bullfrog!”
“There, there,” Florinda said. “I’m sure you can sing beautifully!”
Amelia merely shook her head, and great tears rolled down her cheeks.
“Come now,” said Florinda. “You’re imagining things! Come, dearie, let’s hear it. Let’s hear that lovely little fairy voice!”
Amelia sniffed twice and took a deep breath. “Jeremiah was a bullfrog!” she began.
Florinda covered her ears.
“Was a good friend of mine!” Ameila sang.
The grass nearby turned brown and started to shrivel.
“I never understood a single word he said…” Amelia warbled.
Somewhere in the distance a dog howled along.
“But I helped him drink his wine! I’m singing—“
At that moment, Florinda clapped her paws over Amelia’s mouth. In the river nearby, a few fish floated to the surface.
“There’s only one thing that can help you,” Florinda said as she took her paws away from Amelia’s mouth.
“What’s that?” Amelia asked.
“Ben and Jerry’s New York Double-Fudge Chink Chocolate Ice-cream!” Florinda replied.
Amelia looked at her skeptically. “Will that help me sing better?” she asked.
“No,” Florinda replied. “But it’s the only thing that can cheer you up when you’re that hopeless!” And with that, Florinda disappeared in a cloud of purple and blue smoke.
“Oh!” Amelia cried, and stomped her little fairy foot in frustration.
Tap.
Amelia looked down. Her small fairy shoes were made of sparkling silver, and they made a satisfying “click” on the rock.
Tap. Tap. Amelia stepped again.
Tap. Tap. Shuffle-shuffle-flap-stomp-kick. Amelia’s shoes tapped out a rhythm on the rock. She spun and kicked and swayed her hips.
Shuffle-shuffle-stomp-stomp-stomp! The floating fish gasped and swam back underwater.
Flap. Flap. Flap-flap-tap! The brown grass greened and perked back up.
Tappety-tappety-tappety-kick-stomp-twirl! The flowers lifted their wilting heads and the stars peeked out from behind the clouds to see what was going on.
Stomp-stomp-stomp. Flap-shuffle-stomp! “I’m dancing!” Amelia cried.
The other fairies peered out from behind leaves and underneath flowers to watch Amelia dance. They began clapping their hands and tapping their feet. A few even whistled.
Amelia was overjoyed. Perhaps she couldn’t sing, but she could dance! She’d never felt happier in her life.
Well, that night was the beginning for Amelia, and the rest is history. Amelia went on to become one of the most successful tap-dancers of modern fairy culture, and the schools that she opened during her career are still training little fairy feet today.
So when you see the stars come out, or when you glance at the flowers nodding their heads, think of those little silver shoes tapping, and a little fairy named Amelia, who couldn’t carry a tune to save her life.

THE END

Metaphorically re-aligning mirrors (not a bad band name, that...)

I would like to steal some insightful words out of the mouth of my good friend Willie Ziebell to begin this blog. He put it into the clearest words, and I don’t know any other way to describe my present state of being. “Let me preface this by saying it’s been a strange week. You know what it’s like to climb into your car after someone else has been driving it, right? The entire freakin’ week’s been like that. Everything just doesn’t fit right. Seat’s too far forward, it’s at the wrong angle, and the steering wheel chaffs against your legs uncomfortably. Let’s not forget having to re-align all the mirrors. Metaphorically speaking, of course. So, if I promised to call you this weekend and I didn’t, it’s because my steering wheel was chaffing, metaphorically.” I have no other explanation or reasoning for the weirdness of this week, except for the fact that I'm 19.
I've discovered that being 19 is, at least for me, quite the adventure. To employ the use of another metaphor, it's like having a favorite shirt suddenly shrink in the wash and it doesn't fit you like it used to. It's tighter here than it usually is, looser there, at a funny angle over there. So you have to readjust everything and compensate with a different sweater or something. My life is a shrunken shirt. Oprah says you should redesign yourself every 5 years. Due to the ever-changing circumstances in my life, I'm urged to redesign myself approximately 5 times PER year. It's a little tiring, but more exciting than anything else.
One thing contributing to my slight disconcertedness is the fact that there has actually been a measurable increase in the hormones buzzing around this campus. I should have seen it coming, but everyone around here suddenly got either engaged or gained a significant other! So weird! Welcome to spring at BYU-Idaho. Check it out, here's a list of all those who are currently in the following categories:

ENGAGED:
Brady
Andrew
Claire
Bonnie
Aleisha
Grant
Matt
Rachel

GAINED A SIGNIFICANT OTHER:
Alexis (I think)
Brant
JD
Melissa
Rachel
Scott (related to the "I think")
Mattie (?)
Neil (?)
Ryan
Kara

I always thought it was just a funny cliche to laugh about "spring" at a church school, but au contraire. IT IS COMPLETELY 100% TRUE. There are couples every-flippin-where you go. Those without significant others around here make up the single (no pun intended) largest body of the most sexually frustrated people on the planet. Come to think of it, those WITH significant others should still be just as sexually frustrated as those without, but I'm not going to attempt figuring that one out.
(Allow me to interrupt you with a tangent, Liz. Oh, go right ahead, Liz. Thank you, Liz. I would simply like to state that I greatly enjoy the Jamie Collum album I'm listening to at the moment. There you are, carry on, Liz. Excellent point, Liz, and thank you. Oh no, thank YOU.)
By way of announcement, after much prayer, thought, fasting, and talking, I've made my plans for this summer. I am living here in Rexburg with some friends and working my bum off to make as much moolah as I possibly can.
By way of another announcement, "OUR TOWN" OPENS NEXT WEEK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! That's so soon. This show seemed to have gone by faster than any other show I've ever been in throughout my entire career. (I thought about saying "throughout my life" but "career" sounded much cooler and much more proffesional.) It's also been one of the most fulfilling experiences of this year. I've learned so much, playing Mrs. Webb, and I know the learning process is far from over. I've also made some wonderful new friends in the cast. Allow me a moment of indulgence to gush about all the fabulous people I know. Lizzy, also known as Elizabeth, B, or "Shannon" is one of the funnest, most caring people I've ever known. She's so individual, and so madly in love with the theatre that she pours herself into whatever she does for it. Jesse Thorsen is another friend I've made, which is strange, because we go way back to the Medford and Central Point Stake dance days. He went to North High, and got off his mission about a year ago. So we've been hanging out in Medford Singles Ward for quite awhile, but never became very good friends until doing this show together. I thought he hated me for the longest time, but I've come to discover that Jesse Thorsen is one of the most opinionated people on the face of the planet, but I can't help but love him for it. It's just who he is, take it or leave it. He has enough redeeming qualities to endear him to me. Steven Beckman, who for the longest time I mentally called "Rick Moranis" is the most flirtatious preemie I've ever met, but also funny, considerate, and a fun guy to talk to. Add another Jason to the list, but put this one on the top, because Jason Kramer is one of the greatest people on the face of the earth! I can't even express my anger at the fact that we all just got to know this kid and he's going to be in the Brazil MTC next month. Jason is one of the funniest, most intelligent, witty and spontaneous people I've ever met, and everyone adores him. And rightly so.
I'd also like to add that I'm wearing the largest wig in theatrical history for this show. Those of you who will see this show won't recognize me. You know how Anne's hair is in "Anne of Avonlea"? Just large, and poofy, and all piled up on top of her head. That's what my wig looks like. And it's red.
I've just now decided to go for a walk. I love you all, and good night!