Birthday Reflections

The best part of birthdays is being reminded of all the great people in your life. Today I am grateful for these people, but somehow I never seem to be able to express this, or at least not to the extent I would like. To put it more eloquently and philosophically, "Compared with that good-will I bear my friend, the benefit it is in my power to render him seems small." (Emerson) Thanks everyone for making today a fabulous birthday.

Now here are some pictures from the the celebration of my two decades. (I am aware that 20 is not old, but being able to measure my age in decades makes me feel old. Not complaining though, I'm very happy to be officially out of the teenage years.)

Here are four of my five roommates out for dinner at CPK: Ainsley, Sally, Whitney, and Becky.

This is the fabulous hamburger cake made by Ainsley, enjoyed and admired by all. I wanted to have a giant hamburger that looked like a cake, but that wasn't really doable so Ainsley made this for me instead. The most important thing? It was delicious.


And here are some people who came to eat the cake






Thanks to all, apologies to those who were not included in the blog pictures. You are still appreciated.

BYU Top Ten

For quite some time now I've been working on a list of the top reasons I enjoy being at BYU. It wasn't easy, I thought about giving up at 3 but I finally found a way to get it done, plus two. So here it is, Top Twelve Reasons BYU Isn't Really Completely All That Bad!

#12 - When you write the name of your school, you only have to write three letters.

#11 - You don’t have to worry about your roommate asking you to leave so she can get some ‘alone time’ with her boyfriend, she only asks that you type a little quieter so she can read her scriptures.

#10 - You don’t have to deal with wasted college students being stupid/weird/inappropriate. You get to deal with a bunch of college students being stupid/weird/inappropriate because that’s just who they are, and no amount of coffee or sleep will solve these hangovers.

#9 - You say the word Hell and 90% of the students are either scared of you or label you as a sinner, or both. Why is this a good thing? You've immediately found the 10% of students who are potential friends.

#8 - Volunteering to say the prayer at the beginning of class is a good way to get out of saying anything else through the entire class. If you didn't read or do the homework, say the prayer!

#7 - Again with prayer...you know when you walk into the testing center praying that your test is easy, you've got at least ten other classmates praying for the same thing, thus the chances that the big guy is on your side increase ten-fold.

#6 - You've get nearly 13 million members of the church paying for part of your education through tithing.

#5 - It's really easy to find. Once you see the mountain with the big cement Y stuck in the middle of it, then keep walking until you find yourself in a strange land completely devoid of caffeine. If that doesn't work, don't stress, remember 'The World is Our Campus', it's impossible to escape no matter where you are.

#4 - Every football game day you get to be a resident of the international community known as 'Cougar Town'. You don't even need a passport!

#3 - You get to experience what earth life would have been like under Satan's plan. Once you’re in, your agency is out. It’s good I guess, they want you to leave BYU with a strengthened appreciation for Christ. Nothing will make you more grateful that Lucifer got the boot.

#2 – You find peace from the confusion and confrontation of politics because you suddenly understand that the Republicans will be the ones in power during the Millennium. Bar-Who O-What-ma?

And the number one reason BYU is just not that bad....

#1 - You get to witness, up close and personal, the despair that ensues on the day when residents of Cougar Town everywhere realize their team's 'quest for perfection' is over. Last Thursday was that day thanks to TCU, and it was sweet. It's a gift that just keeps on giving, we got to re-live it a little bit yesterday when the first BCS Standings came out and Utah was at #11, TCU at #14, and BYU....#21. That is why, if for no other reason, I like being at BYU.

There's No Place Like Home

We're a little over a month in to school down here Provo, so I don't think I can put off the back-to-school posts any longer. Turns out Provo isn't quite the awful center of the twisted zoobie universe I thought it was. Or maybe it is. If so, my apartment here has managed to remain a haven of sanity in the sea of self-righteousness. That is largely due to fabulous roommates, however a post about them will have to wait as I have yet to take any blog-worthy pictures of them. (Apparently post-shower towel shots are not eligible for blog posts) But for now, a short photo tour of the place itself will have to suffice...

This is the kitchen. Smallish, but the only real space problem we have had thus far is fitting all of our college-student-microwaveable-frozen foods in the freezer. Clearly our refrigerator was made before well-balanced frozen meals became numerous, cheap, and delicious. Or maybe this fridge was not made to hold a week's worth of meals for each of six girls.

This is the living room. We call the couch on the left 'the Whitney couch' because somehow she always seems to end up laying across it, always, while the rest of us make do with the other couch and the Love Sac. Other than that, the living room is the biggest reason we are grateful to be done with the dorms.This is our remote. Do you even have to ask why this picture was blog-worthy? This impossible-to-lose and completely sick remote was purchased by roommate Sally. She gets major props for this.

This is one side of my room. I thought about cleaning it up before snapping some blog pics but I decided it would be better to show it for what it is...and this is it 98% of the time.

The desk is clearly not functional space, neither is the floor as it is typically covered by various items, and so I use my bed as an all-purpose study and sleep surface. Unfortunately there is a fine line between studying and sleeping, I love Philosophy but sometimes it's a real snooze.

What is it about Fall that is so appealing? It would seem that Fall should be the most repulsive of seasons. After all, Fall is essentially a dying time. The vegetation, the fun, the free time, almost every aspect of the life that came in Spring, and peaked in Summer, withers and dies in the months of September, October, and November. So what is it? My theory is that by the end of Spring and Summer we are just ready to be done with the frolicking and the happy. I suppose I can only speak for myself, perhaps I am just a grump, but I am a realist. I am a person who likes to wear brown and black wherever possible. I am a person who likes, at times, to hole up in my room and avoid the sunshine and the people who seem to exude it. So, I like Fall because it brings people out of the clouds, they've got to get back inside and get back to work. I like the 'darker' seasons because the obnoxious springy and summery happiness is contained indoors and out of my face, by structure and schedules, work and weather. The Fall brings a different kind of happy, not loud and exuberant, but rather content and serene. Nature is on it's deathbed in Fall, and it is dying a calm, cool, and collected death.

Note: Picture taken by me last November in Central Park.