I just went to this

*is spooked out*

This Link: I Like Everything About It

Extra bonus: if you look at some of the file names for the pictures, you can tell someone at the Telegraph website doesn't know much about Star Wars. It's called an Ewok!

The Mall: I Mostly Like It

I went to the mall today*, primarily to pay off my dress**, but of course I wandered around for at least two hours going into stores, leaving, going back, walking back and forth as is my custom. I really like the mall. I think this is partly because during most of my growing up years the mall was a few hours away, and I only had Wal-Mart and JC Penney during the inbetween times. Whatever it is, I still really like the mall and it's always a little bit exciting to go. But today I decided there are a few things that I don't really like, and even though these things can happen at other store-type places, I encounter them mostly at the mall. Let's review.

• Interested employees. I can appreciate employees when they ring me up or when they organize things in a pleasing fashion, but mostly I want them to leave me be. The worst place this can happen is at the underwear store. Is it just me or is it a little uncomfortable to have a stranger hovering about when you are rifling through the clearance underwears?

• The pushy booth workers. There's nothing better than someone just sitting at their kiosk reading a book and completely ignoring me. I don't want a new cell phone plan and I don't care about having fingernails with the sheen of a newly waxed floor. On the other hand, the Hickory Farms people may stop me as often as they please because I'm always in need of beef stick and smoked cheese.
  

I guess there wasn't much of a point for this blog. Just a few random things that caused me minor vexation for a few minutes. I still like the mall.

*I started this blog on Monday and finished it on Tuesday, so technically I should say yesterday.

** I would love to post pictures of the ensemble, but a certain Intended frequents this blog so you will have to wait until after August 15th.

A request

Dear roommate:

I know we haven't known each other long. Really, we don't know each other at all because you are never home and I'm never home. I'm always asleep in my saggy bed by the time you get home. I like being asleep. It's relaxing and a good thing to do in the night times. So when you come in in the wee hours of the morning and turn the light on, it really angers me in my half-awake, irrational state. I'd really like to get a little more uninterrupted sleep before your crazy alarm goes off with the singing and the sitar. Plus, I don't want to despise you because I don't even know you, but at 5:30 this morning I did feel a little twinge of loathing mixed with my vexation.

The hall light is your friend and mine.

Sincerely,
Me

Conquered: That's What I Am

Here's another blog post I don't really know how to start. Hmm.

I went to Disneyland last week. I got engaged. Now I'll tell you how it happened.

The day was Thursday, our first day at Disneyland. I had pretty strong suspicions that there was going to be a proposal while we were there. Nay, I should say strong certainties, though I wasn't sure what the ring status was. I gave D-Rew a little teasing during the day, asking him if he had everything and if he had any souvenirs for me. When we were on Soarin' in the mid-afternoon I went so far as to pat the side pocket of his shorts and lo and behold, there was a small box in there. Then I felt really bad for spoiling things a bit, since I don't ever *really* want to have surprises spoiled (even surprises I'm expecting). As it turned out, he wasn't sure I had felt the box so that was something.

Anyhoo, a little while later, back in Disneyland it was about dinner time and my family was discussing where we were going to eat. The plan was set and we were going to head over there but D-Rew suggested we take a walk first. So walk we did. We walked all the way over to Snow White's Wishing Well by the castle, seen here:

Okay, so you can't see the actual wishing well but we were standing by the railing anyway. There was a goodly number of people standing about just then and so we discussed the color of the water while they wandered away. Finally there were just a few people standing around and Mr. Graham said he did, in fact, have a souvenir for me. And then he pulled out a ring. A ring with a star and Mickey head with rhinestones. Nice, right? Classy. I gave it a few ooo's while I tried to figure out which finger I should put it on. Was it substitute for a real one? Was he just a dense boy? However could I tell for sure? I settled on the middle finger of my right hand for no particular reason. Nice.

But then he said he had something else for me. And then there was kneeling and hand holding and a box with a little sparkly thing for me inside. Words were said, words were said in reply and oh, just look at the reenactment pictures (they are highly accurate, besides our different clothes).


And then we were happy and took pictures of ourselves before getting some handy dandy tourists to take some for us. Here, look at both:

So...yes. That is how it happened, and it was lovely. And soon we shall be wed and that will also be lovely. I went to Disneyland almost exactly a year ago and it is funny how different things were on this trip. Life changes really fast sometimes, but luckily in this case it changed for the better. Is "better" the right word? That doesn't seem to quite cover it, but you know what I'm saying. And as another bonus, now my Mother need no longer despair at my life long lack of interest in marriage.

PS: We've been engaged since March 21st. Did you know I've had a life goal to be secretly engaged? (I didn't know how I was going to do that when I didn't want to get married, but you know. Whatever.)

PS #2: If you want to read this story from a different perspective, you can check out Drew's account here.

May: It Was Big

I'm really not even sure how to begin this post. May was one of the more eventful months in recent history, probably the most eventful since I last did the graduation thing at BYU in 2006. At any rate, I've been putting this post off for a while now, but I'm leaving for Disneyland tomorrow and I know I'll want to post about that as soon as I walk back in the door. So I have to do this post now. You know? Hmm. Well let's get to it.

I finished classes, as you all know. A few days later about half my family came to town and we picked up this fellow at the airport. More on the termination of our long-distance affair to come...I should say termination of the long distance aspect, since the affair part is still in full swing.


A few days later, I graduated. It was great, though a bit sad as these kind of conclusions often are. I think this one is still kind of sinking in, and it will probably still be sinking in until a) the fall, when I am not in school and/or b) my degree gets me a job. But it was good, and it was nice to have my family around to fawn over me and take me to dinner. My last graduation was a little overshadowed by other, less pleasant circumstances and so this one seemed even more celebratory. Also, Drew got me a pink Shuffle and I named it Miranda. I suspect this was all a ploy to get me to use iTunes. To sum up: graduation=fun and good.


This is maybe one of my favorite candid pictures ever. It's a caption contest waiting to happen!

So that was graduation. It was fun. This was also my last weekend in Bloomington. Maybe I was little crazy to have this idea to graduate and move in the same weekend, along with having family about. Still, it all worked out, and William and Marissa were so helpful in carrying anything and everything I put in their hands out to the cars.

In the end, it was sad to say goodbye to Bloomington. I never planned on really settling in there, since I knew I'd only be there for 2 years at the most. I just wanted to get in and get out without forming any serious attachments. But confound it all, it happened anyway. So, my list of people to miss just got a lot longer, but life goes on in this way, I suppose. One of the very best things about Facebook is that it makes it so much easier to stay in touch with people. So, thank you, Facebook.

So then it was back to Rolla, where we stayed from Sunday night until Friday morning. It was nice visit, though it went by so fast I forgot half of the things I meant to do/pack. I also got a cold on Thursday and was pretty much out of it all that day, but la dee dah, it was a nice place to stop for a bit. We saw fish, ate delicious foods, played some Lego Star Wars, petted the kitties, Drew showed off his mad puzzle skills and I, for one, stared around at all my belongings in awe. On Thursday night we put a portion of these belongings into trusty little Leeloo, and headed off on Friday morning. Oh, by "we" I mean myself and Drew.



The roadtrip to Utah was pretty uneventful. No bad weather, no mishaps, just rolling hills/flat plains/moutainous mountain scenery and roadkill. We stopped at two little diners in an effort to find one of those magical local places with food like unto perfection. While we did get some good food, we also got this rather wretched Milky Way pie in the middle of Kansas:


The texture was weird and gelatinous, it didn't taste like a Milky Way and it was just kind of goopy. Also, there was a ridiculous amount of unnecessary meringue on the top. It didn't even look pretty! Then again, once you've had Slice of Pie, every other storebought pie is bound to be a disappointment.

So now here I am, back in Utah, right where I never thought I would be again. I still feel pretty transitory, since I don't have a place to live or a job and all my things are in piles and boxes. Still, hopefully I will soon have both of those things and clothes on hangers to boot. Pretty much everything is still sinking in: no more school, no more trips to MCPL, no more permanent living in Missouri, no more webcamming (phew), etc. etc. But so far, so very good and I have survived my transplanting with only a wee bit of trauma.

Oh, and did I mention I'm going to Disneyland this week?

The End of Days

School days, that is. At approximately 2:45 AM today I finished my last assignment.* Last week my last class was scheduled for Friday afternoon, and it was going to be with my favorite SLIS professor. My very first class was with him so it seemed like such a lovely way to bookend my graduate experience. I was guaranteed to have a great last class with doodling, funny things from M. and probably some good librarianish information to boot. But it was not to be! On Thursday afternoon he sent an e-mail that said he was cancelling class for health reasons.

So instead of my last lovely class with M., my Tuesday class became my last class and I had spent that class Facebooking and not paying attention to presentations. That was my last academic experience? Not a note taken? Not a single doodle drawn? All I have to show for it is a few photo comments on Facebook and chat records. Sad. I feel a little incomplete about it still. Where's my closure? I guess I will get that on Saturday afternoon when I get to wear my $80 rented robes and get a yellow (yellow! *grumble*) tassel. I'm sure I'll blog again about the conclusion to my long affair with the academic world when I have pictures of myself as an official librarian, but it seemed like I should mark these occasions too. Well, as Norrington would say, consider them marked.

*My emotions on that project are a little mixed...I'm glad it's done and I'm relieved that I don't have to act like I care about it anymore. I'm also a little peeved at myself not realizing part of it was supposed to be done and turned in a few weeks ago...d'oh!.** A few years ago I think I would have cried when I figured that out, but I seem to have matured. Or something.

** In my defense, this date was not on the syllabus or anywhere else, except a form that I didn't even need to fill out or anything.

Countdowns: I Like Them

I have a lot of countdowns going at the moment, but my favorite is thus: 7 days until this is no longer necessary.

Now time to work on the homework countdown...

Lucky: That's What I Am

Last night on Facebook I changed my status to say that I'm the luckiest girl in the world. People seemed to interpret this (understandably) as a reflection of my current romantical status. That is true, but it's actually not what I had in mind when I wrote that status. I will enlighten you all now, since it is a pretty good resolution.

For my web design class we've been making websites for a client all semester. Mine was mostly together on Sunday night, and I was just going to add some things on Monday afternoon before class, when we were all going to show our websites to the class. But sometime in those hours before class the whole site kind of fell apart and it looked like garbage. So I sat there and cried to myself and emoticon cried to Drew and decided to skip class and lose 5% of my grade. I did get it all back together and nice looking after about 2 hours, but class was over. Sad. But! As it turns out the SLIS server was down just during class and no one could present and class was cancelled! And now we're just doing all the reviewing and commenting of each other's sites online! Magical! I really couldn't believe my good luck.

I have been feeling pretty lucky lately. Here are some reasons why:

• I found the entire second season of Battlestar Galactica for $35. Normally it is sold in halves for that price. SCORE.
  
• I passed the website along to my client last night and she raved about it. I do believe the phrase she used was that she "kind of loves my guts."
• I'm almost done with school for good! Less than two weeks to go.
  
• I'm going to Disneyland next month! I predict it will be the BDTE.
• I have three kinds of delicious cheese in my fridge. Gouda is so gooda.
  
• I found jeans at Kohl's that were on sale and in my size. Needless to say, I bought them.
  
• Hugh Jackman made a movie for me and it comes out next week.
  
• I came to work today and got a mini cheesecake.
  
• There are flowers everywhere!

If I were a really irritating and inexplicably popular blogger, I might say something about being seriously so blessed. Instead I will say I am the luckiest girl in the world. There are a number of things coming up in the next couple weeks that I'm really not looking forward to, but that's okay. Life is good.

Shoes: I Like 'Em

Instead of writing a long post all about the end of my academic career, website trauma, impending packing, travels, make outs, etc. I decided to blog about shoes. Who doesn't love shoes? Okay, I will rephrase that--what girl doesn't love shoes? I can only think of one and she doesn't read this blog so we'll just set her aside for now. I went to Target last weekend with my delightful sister and while in the shoe section I just had to try on some of the loveliest ones I could find.

I'll admit that wearing those fringey boots was kind of fun and I would love to have them for the next time I dress up as a cowboy. Side note: it was a lot of work to get my one foot into them all the way. Can you tell I didn't bother with the other? Also, part of me has always wanted a pair of wellies, but I don't think they'd be as useful in the dry dryness of Utah (*weep*). And aren't those last bootie things so vile? On the up side you can see my new flip flops from Old Navy.

The moral of this story: all shoes are good fun, even the ugly ones.

The Days: They Do Indeed Pass

I have one of these:


They're called boyfriend pillows. I don't know why that is because my pillow is really nothing at all like:

I want my boyfriend pillow. 13 more days.

Oh You: I Loved You So

Some of you faithful blog readers are aware of certain recent developments in the life and times of myself. Some of you have been there to see the process, some of you have even been experiencing the same thing. I feel like I need to recognize this event, officially, on my blog.

Yes, it's true. Battlestar Galactica is officially over, as of March 20th. I've loved it long and now it's left me and joined the illustrious ranks of Firefly and Veronica Mars as shows I love that are gone sooner than I would have liked. I'm not going to tell you all my thoughts on the show's end because there are several of you that haven't finished it (or haven't started it, yet) and I don't want to spoil it for anyone. So instead I'll just ramble off a few things I love about this show.

I started watching it for this fine fellow. (Hi, Jamie Bamber! I still love you best as Archie.) And oh, it was so worth it. I have decided I don't really get into sci-fi too much unless it's like SCI-FI with space ships and the future (or the ancient future ala Star Wars). <--random aside There are a lot of reasons to love BSG and I can't really go into them because of spoilers. I will just sum it up with: characters, one of my favorite relationships ever, space battles, exploding things, awesome things, intrigue, drama, pretty music, lots of !!!! moments and other stuff.

Here are some things I will miss about the Battlestar Galactica experience: eating drumsticks, flailing and hollering at the TV, discussing the latest developments with my kith and kin, trying to explain it to Ferskner and, mostly, having that hour to look forward to on Fridays. There are basically only two things I will not miss: having it turn scandalous while my Mom is in the room and having to wait 10 months between halves of the seasons.


Oh Battlestar, I miss you already.

A Few Things

I haven't been blogging very much lately...let's change that, shall we? Here is a little meme type thing for your blog-reading pleasure.

One picture, one poem, one song, one quote, one item of clothing, one place and one Disney princess.

One picture.

Still one of my favorite movie posters. Just another reason why Prisoner of Azkaban is the best.

One poem.

Pile the bodies high at Austerlitz and Waterloo.
Shovel them under and let me work--
I am the grass; I cover all.

And pile them high at Gettysburg
And pile them high at Ypres and Verdun.
Shovel them under and let me work.
Two years, ten years, and the passengers ask the conductor:
What place is this?
Where are we now?

I am the grass.
Let me work.

--Carl Sandburg, "Grass"

One song.



One quote.

"It is not our part to master all the tides of the world, but to do what is in us for the succour of those years wherein we are set, uprooting the evil in the fields that we know, so that those who live after may have clean earth to till. What weather they shall have is not ours to rule."

--Gandalf, The Return of the King

One item of clothing.

From RocknSocks

One place.

I just finished reading Persuasion so is it any wonder Bath sprang to mind?

One Disney Princess.

Belle! She was always my favorite, which is not so surprising since Beauty and the Beast is still my favorite Disney movie. She's a bookworm--how could I not relate and admire? Also, she has good taste in men. Hah.

Spring Break: I Hardly Knew You

It was a long 68-day wait, but I finally went to Utah this past Friday the 13th to pay my man a visit. You know how they say anticipation is half the pleasure of a thing? Well, I think I would have enjoyed the trip just as much without all the time to anticipate it so take that, Anne Shirley.

Instead of just throwing random pictures and anecdotes at you lovely readers, I am giving you a handy top ten list. I may or may not have stolen this idea from my lovely man.

10: A Wedding! A Wedding!
We stopped in Salt Lake on the way back from Logan to check out my friend Jaime's wedding reception. It was delightful in many ways and included some very tasty eclairs. Speaking of eclairs, the father of the bride told a guy at our table that I made all the food. We thought this fellow knew it was a joke, but...somewhere there is a guy thinking I made every food item at that reception.

9: Shamrock Shuffle!
Things started off with a bang in Logan where we did a chilly 5K. Silly me, I forgot to pack my running pants in my excitement over new running capris.* And yes, his Mum ran it too and she totally beat me. At least I was capable enough to beat his Grandma, but she's still way more hardcore than me.



8: What the pho?
We ate pho (or fawm, if you prefer) at the Saigon Noodle House. It was very tasty and noodle-ly. I tried eating it with chopsticks, but apparently I can only eat things like cupcakes with chopsticks. Drew showed off his chopstick skills and I used a fork, as you see here.


7: School!
Technically we were at BYU together already, but it was more fun to do it knowingly. I hung out in the hall and fell asleep on the grass (hello, sunburn) while Drew was in class and then we made out on the grass like all those other BYU couples. OK, just kidding about the making out. Just replace "made out" with "ate bagels and read the newspaper."


6: Get LOST!
I have been hearing about this LOST club for months on end. They eat gummi bears and sticky rice and cookies! They have t-shirts and assigned characters! And finally I got to be there and it was just as good as I had been told. Gummi bears, red velvet cupcakes and yes, I got myself a shirt with my character name on it (Juliet).

5: A birthday! A birthday!
So far we have been apart for all the important dates (aside from New Year's) so it was nice of spring break to include his birthday on Monday. We may have missed Thanksgiving, Christmas and Valentine's, but dang it, we got a birthday. The celebrations included Hmong egg rolls, a delectable chocolate cake and my first outing of laser tag. I hit the birthday boy 10 times, which did wonders for my score.

4. Going forth!
One of the best things about proximity is that you get to do things. Together. In the same place. I mean it was fun and all watching movies at the same time in different states, but this was much better. We went to many exciting places like Wal-Mart, the gym, Borders, Bajio and locations in general. Did I mention the Bean Museum? It was very exciting and we took a lot of pictures there (we had a goal of taking more pictures).

3: Various and sundry peoples!
I finally got to meet some of the people I have heard about (and corresponded with) for many months. Plus I got to get better acquainted with people I met only briefly in November. Unfortunately I have this problem where anytime I leave my primary base of operations I'm tired all the time and need 10 hours of sleep. I..did not ever get 10 hours but hopefully I wasn't *too* lifeless and dull. Anyway, it was great meeting more of Drew's friends and family and then shooting some of them at laser tag. Speaking of which, can I play the Wii?


2: All manner of togetherness!
OK, so maybe this one is kind of similar to #4, but it's totally more encompassing. Watching movies and TV, eating meals, driving about, taking walks, conversating...all of these things were great because we got to do them together for once. No webcams required. Even when I thought I was going to die of suffocation in the gym's steam room it was okay because I was trapped in there with my favorite and my best.

1: Other forms of togetherness!
Some things you really just can't do with a webcam. Like this:


Only ## days to go!

*Except I totally did pack those pants as I discovered days later.

Breathe in Some More Art

I said I was going to do a follow-up art post and by golly, I meant it. Now that I have all of my images in front of me I don't know how I shall choose my favorites! Perhaps this will just have to become more of a regular feature. Anyhoodle, let's look at some art!




Don't you just love Roman sculpture? I can never get enough of this guy (Augustus). His breastplate! His left leg! That drapery! And don't you just love how his ears stick out a bit? A good bit of sculpture just blows my mind all to pieces.










Desolation, by Thomas Cole as part of his "Course of the Empire" series (all of which are good). I have a lot of love for a good landscape and Thomas Cole is brilliant. I just love American art, don't you? It's probably my favorite American thing, besides hot dogs. Just kidding.





The Incredulity of St. Thomas. I'm partly including this because one can never look at too much Caravaggio and partly as a treat for you LOST fans.
I really wish we had some Caravaggio in LDS churches.








Light of the World, by Holman Hunt. I don't care much for Hunt on the whole, but this may be my very favorite painting of Christ in the whole of this world. Isn't the lighting just so soft and lovely? (Side note: I spotted this in a parlor in Jeeves and Wooster episode)











St. Sebastian Attended by St. Irene, by de la Tour. For some reason I never got into de la Tour while in school. Maybe I just didn't see the right painting or maybe I was too distracted by Caravaggio's and Bernini's in-your-face drama. At any rate, I ran into this one in a journal* recently and it's just gorgeous, isn't it? It's so still and so well lit. It looks so real and yet not at the same time. Oh, and there's an arrow in St. Sebastian.





Ah, the Colosseum. Can I even say how much I love this building? Just look at it! This was in fact the picture I was referring to in my last post. I'm a sucker for a blue and yellow color scheme, but also it's just a fantastic picture. This is my favorite piece (piece?) of architecture for so many reasons, but suffice it to say if there were no Colosseum, I may not have a degree in art history now. Such is my love and such is its draw for me.

I decided in the course of picking pictures for this post that the next art post will be devoted to illustrators. It was just too impossible to pick one or two this time. There is so much beautiful art in the world! How can one blog ever contain it?!

* I wish I could say I subscribe to the leading art journals, but really I just get my hands on them occasionally at work. Then I flip around and write down all the names of paintings that catch my eye. Such is my continuing art education.

PS: Vote in the poll! Let your voice be heard! Anonymously!