Hello? Hello? Is this thing on?

Oh hey blogosphere!

Sorry I abandoned you for a while there. I've been student teaching, trying to find a new car (ours finally died), doing graphic design, watching "Bielzy and Gottfried" at BYU-I, helping advertise and usher for Deep Love, and possibly developing lactose intolerance (I know I'm a hypochondriac, but this is for real--testing this week).

Anyway.

I don't really have too much to say now, I just wanted to let you know that I'm alive. OH, and that I won second place in the Idaho Falls Poetry Slam this weekend! It was an honor to be among so many great poets. And I'm excited to spend my $50 gift certificate to a used bookstore. And it made me even more excited about publishing my work this December.

So, I leave you with this delightful screenshot. Jacob and I were looking for this cartoon made in reference to a Ralph Waldo Emerson quote, and I just liked the "related" searched that came up.

Oh, and if you're in Utah next week, seriously, go see Deep Love. It will rock your world.

Texts Out of Context

I have a blog-friend who does a series called "Texts Out of Context." I thought it was a great idea, so I thought I'd join in the fun. Here are a few texts from my phone's inbox and outbox of late, with no accompanying explanations.


"Which hose?"

"Its a little...well there's a pelvic examination on stage."

"Thanks Uncle Susan!"
(a few seconds later)
"I mean Liz."

"Arrrrlright. Cabloon me bloomers and fiddle me anchors!"

"I bought some corn from a pirate the other day. It was only a buck an ear."

"You are like a gigantic party in the sky."

"I don't often remember my dreams, but when I do, I remember what the cartoon sheep said." 

"Totally. It's like being naked."

"How is student teaching? Are you teaching drama? Will I like being a teacher? HAVE I MADE A HUGE MISTAKE!?!?"

"I will send you something over the internets tonight when I get home from work that will take your mind off your stupid uterus."

"Win the lottery. Invent something. Rob a bank."

"Lorayne...why? Why are you awake?"

"Was I suffering from amnesia and lost inside an vast underground cavern with magical pokemon like creatures? Cause if so, we had the same dream! - Miss you too, Betty Lou."

"Hey! I love ya! Hope you're doing yoga!"

"Are you zombie walking even in your illness?"

"Ireland will never be free until I can marry my brother."

"Call me back! Or bring duct tape! Just to patch the hole so we can get home."

"Would you...kiss a moose?"

"We accept this proposition. With joy."

"I just used a big marker to grade their tests. Making those big slash marks made me feel a little better. Immature maybe. But it helped."

"Cause there aren't always cops around?"

"This is important. IS YOUR MOM IN TOWN?"

"Yes indeed. The child sleepeth."

"I might have. I don't remember the details. You always have the coolest dreams. Remember that one where sheep were singing about luggage?"

"Oh I am a simple cow living a simple life but sometimes I feel exploited."

Life as a hypochondriac

I have a tendency towards anxiety. I could go more deeply into this, but frankly, I'm not brave enough to address that on this blog, so I'll just address one facet of this anxiety.

I have two phobias. One is raccoons (bad experience on a Girl Scout camp-out), and the other is the majority of things that have to do with medicine.

I mean, I TAKE medicine. I'm actually pretty good in a first aid emergency situation. Blood doesn't bother me too much (at least not after being in Macbeth), and I have a decent knowledge of home remedies for the day-to-day ailment.

But now and then, this phobia takes a hold of me and I become an anxiety-ridden MESS. Here's what life is like for a hypochondriac.

You go home a little early from school/work, because you're not feeling well. In a moment of sickly boredom, you visit cnn.com and discover that there's been a massive meningitis outbreak in the U.S., with cases in Idaho. You are IMMEDIATELY CERTAIN that you have meningitis. Because, even though you only slept like 3 hours last night and that co-worker you spend all day with is still getting over a cold, you are sure that what you're experiencing can only be meningitis. Heck, your neck is even sore! It's been sore for days! Never mind the fact that you definitely slept funny and it's really more like your shoulders that are sore. YOU HAVE MENINGITIS. After tearfully panicking and realizing you don't even have a will written, you scroll down on the CNN news story and discover that it's a rare form of NON-CONTAGIOUS fungal meningitis that is linked to a contaminated batch of injectable steroids. You've never been injected with steroids.

Your lower back has been sore for a little while, and stretching isn't helping, so you log on to that handy hypochondriac's nightmare WebMD.com. Have you ever visited this website? Don't. You'll panic. Even if you're NOT a hypochondriac. Anyway, you use the online "symptom checker," and discover that, besides indicating "muscle strain," pain in the lower back can also be a symptom of a ruptured organ (there are several to choose from), several varieties of cancer, and acute kidney failure. Noting that your urine wasn't the purest color the last time you went, you decide to research acute kidney failure a little further, and discover that apparently, acute kidney failure can happen with NO SYMPTOMS. So even if you're feeling totally fine, your kidneys could be failing at any point in time. Acutely.

Children's books like Madeline (wherein that French orphan girl gets appendicitis) and that one Curious George book wherein he swallows a puzzle piece? Those continue to haunt you well into your mid and late twenties. To this day, if I have a slight pain in my side, I think of that stupid orphan girl and her burst appendix.

Any throat pain is immediately a deadly form of strep, or tonsillitis. I actually have had tonsillitis before (remember this? and THIS monstrosity?) and survived it, so I really shouldn't worry. But that trip to the hospital during that episode was NOT something I'd care to repeat.

Anyway. I bring all of this up, because I'm totally getting sick. That meningitis thing up there happened to me today. My throat is KILLING me, but it's just red--no tonsiloliths or white strep patches. And I haven't been injected with steroids, so I'm pretty sure I'm safe from meningitis. I promised my cooperating teacher no sick days, AND tomorrow is the beginning of my unit, so I don't really have time to get sick.

So, like any good hypochondriac would do, I'm signing off to go gargle with Listerine/take vitamins/drink water/sleep/do yoga/take echinacea (how the heck to you spell that?!)/eat a spoonful of honey with cinnamon/eat toast/take a bath.

Wish me luck. 

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Chronically under-dressed

I have a friend who confessed once to the blog-o-sphere that she's chronically under-dressed. I remember reading that blog, admiring her wit, and moving on with my life.

However, now that I'm making a foray into the semi-professional world of education, where BYU-I and high school requirements request that I dress more professionally, I'm realizing that I might be chronically under-dressed as well.

I never really thought of this, although in retrospect, Sundays should have given me a clue. I spend every Sunday looking at my closet and trying to figure out what to wear...not necessarily because I'm very picky, but because I just don't own a lot of non-casual things.

Once jeans and t-shirts were out of the picture, I discovered that apparently that's what I've been wearing for the last few years. Without my standard jeans and Harry Potter/band t-shirts, I found that I have approximately 7 outfits to wear to school. I guess I could get more creative with the mixing and matching, but frankly, I AM picky.

I mean, 7 outfits is a decent amount, but when you consider the 5-day school week, that means that after about a week and a half, I have cycle through again. And as much as I would like to go out and buy a whole new wardrobe, our two-digit spending amount per week doesn't really permit it.

Which makes the Rexburg Clothing Swap one of the best ideas I've ever had.

(Okay, it wasn't JUST my idea. But I pushed for it to happen.) A friend owns a clothing boutique in town, and she offered to host the event. We made flyers telling people to bring their old clothes tagged at garage sale price, and that night, we spent the evening haggling, trading, and buying. Everyone gets a new wardrobe, and no one has to spend a lot of money. 

My wardrobe is now rounded out with the addition of 7 shirts, 2 pairs of pants, 2 skirts, 3 sweaters, and 1 blazer. The total cost? A little under $20. A third world solution to a first world problem.

Seriously, people. Organize a clothing swap. Our leftover clothing items were donated to the local Family Crisis Center. So we all got new clothes, saved money, reduced waste, reduced consumerism, donated to a good cause, and enjoyed one another's company. 

Oh, and I also got this awesome green crushed velvet beaded skirt that someone said "looked like something a drama teacher would wear." I looked up, replied, "Man, I haven't worn something like that since the last time I organized a Ren Faire," and handed over a dollar. I'm gonna wear it to school this week.

Watch this!

Leonardo Da Vinci
I mean, come on. The guy was a GENIUS. You know how he wrote backwards? He actually didn't do that on purpose at first...he was dyslexic, and since he was an illegitimate child, he didn't have access to the education that would teach him otherwise. So in teaching himself to write, he wrote backwards.

Cracking the Color Code
I mentioned this documentary in passing once, but it deserves its own blurb. This fascinating documentary discusses how the brain and the eyes work to see color, the evolutionary and biological reasoning behind the ability to see color, how color is created, and what colors mean from a psychological standpoint.

The Secret Life of the Brain
Man, neuroscience is awesome. I cannot wait for science to figure out more about how this hunk of gray and white matter works. In the meantime, here's almost everything we know about the human brain in layman's terms in four and a half hours. The documentary discusses the human brain through five main stages: babyhood, childhood, teenage years, adult years, and elderly years.

Biology of Dads
Did you know that when a man becomes a father, his testosterone levels drop dramatically? A new dad has less testosterone in the first few months of his baby's life than he did before puberty. It's biology's way of protecting a newborn from the manly and possibly violent urges of men. This documentary covers some soft and hard science regarding the role of fathers in children's lives.

The Human Face
First of all, who wouldn't want to watch a documentary hosted by John Cleese? This four-part documentary covers some of the fascinating psychology and biology of human faces, including the nature of fame and recognition, the nature of "beauty," and how the face can be used to communicate (or lie). 

Secrets of Body Language
We've all heard that communication is way more nonverbal than verbal. Everything from posture to the "microexpressions" our faces make communicate something. This brief documentary addresses all the ways we can communicate without words and analyzes how famous historical figures used body language to their advantage, or disadvantage. 


* On an unrelated note, anyone else think that the guy to the left of the television in that picture up there looks like Lee Harvey Oswald?

Things Student Teaching Will Teach You

I've been doing my student teaching for a little over a month now, and I love it. I won't talk much about it here--respecting student privacy and all that--but there are a few key things I've learned that are worth sharing. 


1. Professional clothes take a little getting used to. If you're usually a jeans/t-shirt/cardigan type, like me.
2. You really do have to give instructions like, three times.
3. The ancient Romans were SERIOUSLY messed up people. I mean, brilliant, but...bloody.
4. Your bladder is stronger than you think.





Addendum: 
Several readers and family members have asked if I could share some of my experiences as a student teacher here on this blog, similar to the way I shared experiences as a Primary teacher. The sad answer is "no." In retrospect, I probably shouldn't have even posted the Primary kid stories without the permission of their parents. But I wasn't in a legally binding situation then. As a student teacher in a public school, I'm legally obligated and under contract (both with the school district and with BYU-Idaho) to respect student privacy, and by sharing stories in a public forum like this blog, I would be putting my teaching certification at risk. But even legal obligations aside, I'm becoming more and more aware of the power of the internet, and am becoming more careful about what I choose to publish. I've come to respect each of the students I work with enough to not want to publish stories about them. I am keeping a private journal of my experiences, so they are recorded, but sharing them in this forum is something I'll be avoiding.

Things I don't understand about Pinterest

Don't get me wrong, I love Pinterest. I spent years resisting it, certain it would be a black hole for my time. (I also have an unreasonable need to go against the crowd, so that was part of my resistance too.) But I finally gave in and got an account, and I was partly right. It IS a black hole for my time, but that black hole actually has a wormhole in it that leads to another dimension that's full of creativity and awesomeness!

But there are things on and about Pinterest that I just don't get.

#1. The constant tutorials for elaborate nail art. 

Exhibit A:

Pretty snazzy. But...who the heck has TIME?! Furthermore, even if you DID have the time, wouldn't you be CONSTANTLY worried about messing your nails up? Especially after spending, what, seven hours on them? And, who would REALLY see them? If your nails are complementing your outfit somehow, if someone is far enough away to see your whole outfit, they sure won't see the details on your nails.

#2. The constant note to "Pin now, read later." 

Because A) isn't that what everyone does ANYWAY? Does anyone really NOT pin something because they don't want to read it RIGHT NOW? B) This seems like a "selling point" on your pins. Which doesn't make ANY sense because you won't make money or anything if more people pin your pins. And if you DO make money on your pins, like, if it directs you to your blog or something, why are you telling people to NOT read it right now? C) If I am going to read the pin right now, what's it to you? Are you trying to do me a favor by telling me when to read this pin?

#3. The fact that things like this get perpetuated: 

What? What? FIRST OF ALL, the fact that the trite saying keeps getting attributed to Shakespeare is alone reason enough for dismay and confusion. But the smug "Yes, it is by Shakespeare, it's from Hamlet" is even worse. In a snarky reply to the above comments, someone added a line that IS from Hamlet, Act 2, Scene 2: "But, look, where sadly the poor wretch comes reading." *sigh*

Okay. Back to pinning.

Things Found in Books

Short post today. 

I love "found things." Scraps of paper intrigue me. The other day I found a note tucked into one of my own books, speculating on what would happen if birds slept around more. (Which is a really good question, although I don't know how much birds actually sleep around already.) Other things found in books lately:

A pedigree chart for Adolf Hitler (in a book of monologues)
Pro-wrestler trading cards (in a book of trivial knowledge)
Business card for an "Erotic Party" consultant (in a copy of "The Dogs of Babel")


Glorious fabulous realities. 

Past lists

Found these two lists in the backlog of drafts. Thought they were worth sharing. 

Winter 2012 highlights

Listening to music and painting during scene painting class.

Giggling with the cast of Enchanted April when things went wrong.

Jamming with Dave and Jacob and sometimes Camilla.

Playing with baby Kaitlynn in the mornings, and her joy at eating.

Talking with Kyrie, Camilla, and Dave for hours over Olive Garden one Saturday night.

Laying in bed with Jacob and watching the Beatles Anthology during the weekends.

Running around at the Dry Farms in the moonlight and the snow, freezing our butts off and falling over every few seconds.

Sitting on the roof outside our bedroom window the few times it was warm enough.

Cuddling with Jacob on lazy Sunday mornings before church. 

The fact that it wasn't super snowy miserable all semester. 

San Francisco August 2012 Trip highlights

Five hours in a science museum with Jacob.

Talking genealogy with Opa and Oma, sifting through records and learning German vocabulary.

Everyone reading together in the living room in Fremont.

Watching Jacob eat the best mango curry he's ever had in San Francisco.

Family get-togethers with hot dogs, rolls, German talking and laughing.

Pic-nic-ing on a river and wading in the water.

Riding a motorboat really fast, pretending to be Harry Potter riding Buckbeak over the lake at Hogwarts.

Naps in our little attic bedroom in a cabin at Lake Tahoe, listening to the rain on the tin roof.

Stargazing with Jacob on the lawn of the Lake Tahoe cabin, talking about books and watching bats fly over.

Scattergories in the evening with parents and grandparents.

Rafting a river, which included getting marooned on a rock under a bridge (and un-marooning ourselves), and being randomly applauded by a small group of people on the shore for having an umbrella.

German tempers. Enough said. (Occasionally exacerbated by hearing loss.)

Walking with Jacob through pinewood neighborhoods of charming cabins and imagining our futures.

Nearly dying of chocolate-covered raisin overdose.

Listening to Steely Dan with Mom, Ray and Jacob as we drove around Emerald Bay.

Good times. 

Three conversations

Reasons to love being a Whittaker. These chat conversations happened during a group Skype on Saturday:

Talking about how dad raised us well, to not feel limited by our gender:

 Talking about a woman who approached Isha at church about her feminist views:

   

And my favorite; talking about camel ride excursions from cruise ships: 

I like being a Chapman, but I'm glad I was raised a Whittaker.

December itinerary

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No Christmas presents necessary this year. This will do me just fine.

(Now please bless that things will calm down in the Middle East and North Africa. These are some pretty incredible treasures.)