stop spleening me

thanksgiving break

2009-11-25T23:13:00.001-07:00

I'm still drowning.

why is it that I cannot find peace?
sometimes I can find it within myself
but only sometimes
and then I re-emerge
and it slips away

things are not supposed to be this hard.
and if they are ...
well, someone forgot to tell me.

my feminist club

2009-11-25T23:09:00.000-07:00

so, the Daily Universe (BYU student newspaper) didn't publish my editorial about saving the BYU Women's Research Institute. well, I guess the editorial was more a concern about the effects the elimination of the WRI will have on students, as well as advice to discuss the issue moderately. and they didn't publish any editorial written by the many many female students who wrote in. they published this, written by a male student:

"It is morally wrong for us to question the judgment of our inspired leaders. Stop crying about the loss of your feminist club. Men seem to be doing perfectly fine without one."

unfortunately, like so many BYU editorials, this man was not trying to be funny or sarcastic. he was trying to get me riled up. and oh did he succeed ...

I don't even want to get into all of this. I have too much to say about this issue. I will just keep it short and simple.

1) I believe the leaders of this university are inspired. but they are not gods. it is my job as an involved citizen of this campus to express my concerns. I don't really expect them to change their minds, but I would be negligent if I didn't raise my voice. and utterly irresponsible if I took every word handed down to me without questioning it in a healthy way. I am not a robot.

2) the WRI is not a feminist club. it is an institution that promotes and houses research centered on women and encourages women to research. it is a critical contribution to important scholarship. also, I certainly wish we had a feminist club. I would join. but this is not it.

3) real men would welcome a feminist club. real men appreciate and encourage powerhouse women. real men want an educated and capable woman. cowards fear the influence of intelligent women - as they should. all men should be feminists - the education and equality of individual women will solve the world's problems.

rant over.

skills update

2009-11-22T13:53:00.000-07:00

skills I would like to have someday:

~~guitar~~ sort of
photography
calligraphy
~~poetry~~
~~sketching~~
sign language
rock climbing
~~killing spiders~~
keeping plants alive other than cacti
folding paper cranes and turning them into mobiles
lying to keep a surprise a secret
~~listening to a political debate without saying anything~~
hang-gliding
bird-watching
kissing

hey! making progress

après tout

2009-11-18T12:19:00.001-07:00

et si je me trompe ?

exprès –

en fait, j’ignore la vérité

ça peut être toi ?

je ne sais pas

c’est tout dans l’imagination ?

pas moi

je vive entre peur et foi

peur trop vrai

qui m’enlève ma paix

je peux imaginer

maintes choses

qui peindraient ma vie toute en rose

mais enfin

tu es mon destin ?

tu sais, je n’ai aucune idée

je tends la main

mais vois de loin

que tu n’es plus

l’un au dessus

je mens

mais quoi de neuf ?

après tout

music-ness

2009-11-17T20:14:00.001-07:00

La Roux - Bullet Proof from serkan söğüt on Vimeo.

utah gratitude

2009-11-17T00:07:00.000-07:00

today's gratitude post is all about utah, because I don't appreciate it enough. though it's a lot easier to appreciate when I know I won't be here anymore pretty soon.

+ utah sky blue. it is incredible. and I've never seen such a vivid blue anywhere else.
+ spoon me frozen yogurt deliciousness
+ proximity to great hiking
+ proximity to the church's center - it really is awesome to be at conference in person etc.
+ proximity to grandpa and celesta & co.
+ being where my dad grew up and where he loves
+ the full moon that comes up over the edge of the mountain and makes everything glow
+ being so close to the temple
+ meeting the friends I live(d) with and love
+ driving in the canyon
+ walking to school in the morning (when it's not too cold)
+ my favorite bus driver
+ being close to claire when she lived in salt lake
+ sangria senorial
+ becoming even more of myself (not that I credit utah with that, but it has hosted many a transformation and for that I must be grateful)

it's a great place. I will be happy and sad to leave. bittersweet is always the order of the day. I am a master of such emotions. anyway, today's utah gratefulness has drawn to a close.

your fellow fellow

2009-11-16T21:19:00.000-07:00

I have yet to turn in an essay to my writing fellow for my humanities class. It was due a week ago. When she returned the papers to the class today, she handed me a letter that said, "Where is your paper young lady?" signed Your Fellow Fellow (we fellows love to say that) with a couple sheets of THIS attached. I laughed out loud in class as I read it. Maybe this is something only writing fellows-ish people appreciate, but I had to share.

Every year, English teachers from across America can submit their collections of actual analogies and metaphors found in high school essays.

Do enjoy last year's winners:

1. Her face was a perfect oval, like a circle that had its two sides gently compressed by a Thigh Master.

2. His thoughts tumbled in his head, making and breaking alliances like underpants in a dryer without Cling Free.

3. He spoke with the wisdom that can only come from experience, like a guy who went blind because he looked at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it and now goes around the country speaking at high schools about the dangers of looking at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it.

4. She grew on him like she was a colony of E. Coli, and he was room-temperature Canadian beef.

5. She had a deep, throaty, genuine laugh, like that sound a dog makes just before it throws up.

6. He was as tall as a six-foot, three-inch tree.

7. The revelation that his marriage of 30 years had disintegrated because of his wife's infidelity came as a rude shock, like a surcharge at a formerly surcharge-free ATM machine.

8. The little boat gently drifted across the pond exactly the way a bowling ball wouldn't.

9. McBride fell 12 stores, hitting the pavement like a Hefty bag filled with vegetables soup.

10. From the attic came an unearthly howl. The whole scene had an eerie, surreal quality, like when you're on vacation in another city and Jeopardy comes on at 7:00 p.m. Instead of 7:30.

11. The hailstones leaped from the pavement, just like maggots when you fry them in hot grease.

12. John and Mary had never met. They were like two hummingbirds who had also never met.

13. He fell for her like his heart was a mob informant, and she was the East River.

14. Even in his last years, Granddad had a mind like a steel trap, only one that had been left out so long, it had rusted shut.

15. Shots rang out, as shots are wont to do.

16. The plan was simple, like my brother-in-law Phil. But unlike Phil, this plan just might work.

17. He was as lame as a duck. Not the metaphorical lame duck, either, but a real duck that was actually lame, maybe from stepping on a land mine or something.

18. The ballerina rose gracefully en pointe and extended one slender leg behind her, like a dog at a fire hydrant.

19. He was deeply in love. When she spoke, he thought he heard bells, as if she were a garbage truck backing up.

20. It was an American tradition, like fathers chasing kids around with power tools.

espoir et paix

2009-11-14T21:12:00.001-07:00

"par la patience, et par la consolation que donnent les Écritures, nous possédions l'espérance." Romans 15.4

"vous devez marcher résolument, avec constance dans le Christ, ayant une espérance d'une pureté parfaite et l'amour de Dieu et de tous les hommes." 2 Nephi 31.20

"... vous espérez en des choses qui ne sont pas vues, qui sont vraies." Alma 32.21

" et a cause de la douceur et de l'humilité de coeur vient la visitation du Saint-Esprit, lequel Consolateur remplit d'espérance et d'amour parfait, amour qui subsiste par la diligence dans la prière." Moroni 8.26

"il ne demeure pas dans des temples qui ne sont pas saints."

"diligents a garder en tout temps les commandements de Dieu."

"acquiers la paix intérieure et des milliers autour de toi seront sauves." Saint Seraphin de Sarov

cahier de reconnaissance

2009-11-12T22:26:00.000-07:00

the first of a few gratitude posts leading up to thanksgiving because 1) I love thanksgiving and 2) I write these down anyway and it's a good thing to share. I started keeping track of gratitudes last winter semester when the going got tough and the only way to put a positive spin on it was to make myself think of 10 good things at the end of the day. then I was in paris and didn't need a pick me up. then I was in toulouse and I did - and since there was no oceane to report to there, I took to writing it down. back in america, I let things slide again until now, when the going's tougher than ever and something needed to be done.

they're not always just straight up blessings, they're just things that make me happy and therefore grateful.

so here are some excerpts from my gratitude notebook

things from toulouse:
- the bishop remembered my name
- I ate taboule with figs in it and it was delicious
- Jacqueline and I do the bise x4 instead of x2
- I wore my bohemian tunic and the old ladies like it
- I ate a banana
- wander-walked
- the mission president's son looks like michael douglas
- lady at the internet cafe didn't make me pay
- cantaloupe
- playing the ukelele
- singing at church
- coldplay - we never change - "I want to live in a wooden house"
- long talks with benjamin and how he's taught me things about myself after a week that I'd not realized my whole life
- saxaphone jazz on the garonne
- goodbye bise from florence

things from this week:
- stephan says I have french hippie style
- still no snowfall in the valley
- where the wild things are
- yoga with the enrichment group
- I ate breakfast
- cassi thought my outfit was really cute today
- got a care package from charlie
- I made the guys at work laugh
- lots of comments on my blog

caring sharing every little thing that we are wearing

2009-11-12T17:33:00.000-07:00

this post is about my sister claire

because I love her

so much

11.11

2009-11-11T19:06:00.000-07:00

today is november 11th

and therefore 11/11

so ... double wishing power!

sir reginald

2009-11-10T23:54:00.000-07:00

the writing fellows have a discussion board on blackboard in which there are some useful forums as well as a miscellaneous posting spot that changes every now and then. things such as - cheese, what to do in the event of a raptor attack on campus, what to name the dinosaur in the writing fellows office - are featured. well, I decided to get my hands dirty and let the wit and humor flow, and here's what I say in regards to naming the dinosaur. this post won me the writing fellows weekly email blackboard shout-out, of which I claim eternal fame and glory.

ahem.

sir reginald

I'm all for naming pets very dignified, incongruent names.
and since our dinosaur is most definitely a friendly dinosaur, I think we should go for a dignified pet name.
in the style of oscar wilde.
for example:
arnold
arthur
oliver
vincent
sebastian
linus
jasper
basil
george
walter
lawrence

... and the like.
the dignity of these names is debatable.
I think I'll put in a personal vote for jasper.

katy (she who holds much writing fellows weekly email power) has dubbed the dinosaur - sir reginald.

just not good enough

2009-11-10T23:37:00.000-07:00

things that make me a perfectionist (a by the book technically I really am I'm not just making this up but probably need to fix some of this perfectionist):

- list of "should's" and "have to's"
- don't want to do things because I'm afraid of failure
- pressure to earn others' approval
- must be the best or 'perfect' in tasks
- leads to procrastination until I have time to do it 'perfectly'
- I measure myself against my own standards

- there is no in between - I am all good or all bad

well, here's the deal.
how is this affecting my life? -- BADLY
how is this affecting the way I feel about myself? -- BADLY

what can I do about this?
well, yes, that is the question, isn't it?

you tell me.

pets

2009-11-09T09:20:00.004-07:00

the african pygmy hedgehog

one for me

the miniature pig

one for carolyn

the fennec fox

and one for claire and jesse

lie. make that two apiece. they all get depressed when they live alone.
and the hedgehog self-mutilates when it doesn't have enough space.

hey-o

2009-11-08T21:14:00.003-07:00

it's all in the family

2009-11-08T21:01:00.005-07:00

umm

I think me and john are absolute twinners

I look more like him than I look like any of my sisters

I didn't ever realize this until oceane pointed it out

I was wondering why this picture looked so deja vu ...

self portrait

2009-11-06T13:22:00.001-07:00

this is the self-portrait I mentioned earlier. again, it probably looks not much like me, but I don't care. here's the original, and then I'm having some fun messing around with it digitally. when I get something interesting pulled together, I'll put it up.

7h30ish

2009-11-06T13:16:00.001-07:00

listening to andy sing

scrambling for a sketch

no better way to pass an evening

guess what?

2009-11-06T12:24:00.000-07:00

You've been acting awful tough lately
Smoking a lot of cigarettes lately
But inside, you're just a little baby
It's okay to say you've got a weak spot
You don't always have to be on top
Better to be hated than love, love, loved for what you're not

You're vulnerable, you're vulnerable
You are not a robot
You're loveable, so loveable
But you're just troubled

Guess what? I'm not a robot, a robot
Guess what? I'm not a robot, a robot

You've been hanging with the unloved kids
Who you never really liked and you never trusted
But you are so magnetic, you pick up all the pins
Never committing to anything
You don't pick up the phone when it ring, ring, rings
Don't be so pathetic, just open up and sing

I'm vulnerable, I'm vulnerable
I am not a robot
You're loveable, so loveable
But you're just troubled

Guess what? I'm not a robot, a robot
Guess what? I'm not a robot, a robot

Can you teach me how to feel real?
Can you turn my power on?
Well, let the drum beat drop

Guess what? I'm not a robot
Guess what? I'm not a robot

Guess what? I'm not a robot, a robot
Guess what? I'm not a robot, a robot
Guess what? I'm not a robot, a robot
Guess what? I'm not a robot, a robot

(art by me,

lyrics by marina and the diamonds)

not a love poem - oct 27th

2009-11-05T11:33:00.005-07:00

this is not a love poem.

this is a poem about cheesecake

an itty-bitty one with a strawberry on top

that I placed very carefully

in your fridge

like that grape juice I got you

that one time.

this is a poem about meaningless movies

that we sat through together

bubbles of anxiety

pretending we weren't guessing

what the other was thinking

every other minute.

this is a poem about monopoly

and speedy-quick die rolls

that saved me

and my railroad conglomerate

from brutal taxation

once upon a party.

this is a poem about salad

and how much of it you ate

incredulous

at my little plate

plenty for my nervous little stomach

that day.

this is a poem about poems

that I wrote and sent

and you absorbed in all their

sweet and delicate

heart-soul glory

every now and then.

this is a poem about me and you.

but it is not a love poem.

no. it is not.

thanks, leo

don't go

2009-11-05T11:17:00.006-07:00

I’m waiting here as long as it takes

or until you tell me to go home

I have made up my mind and it makes

me so sure and so scared of it all

as if the present weren’t hard enough

I’m tangled in my unknown future

and I’m trying so hard to be tough

in the face of taunting facelessness

no one to turn to, I turn to you

knowing you’re not going to answer

at least I'm not letting the hope through

the cloud cover I obscure you with

what would you think if you really knew

all I would give for you if I could?

perhaps you’ve already seen right through

what poor guise I’ve cobbled together

you’re taking it slow

but I just need to know

please dear, don’t go.

I’ll eat you up I love you so.

art by leo espinosa

stuff I found out:

2009-11-03T20:32:00.000-07:00

- provided I've gotten enough sleep to wake up, I actually work much better in the morning than at night. night just feels like quitting time.
- milk really does make a cold get worse. but I love milk! I love it so much!
- forgetting to eat because you're busy is a vicious cycle. your stomach gets smaller and you get less and less of an appetite.
- I can sleep anytime anywhere, but I'll usually nap lightly. but. that's a big but. but if there's no light on, I will never wake up. never. nope. not ever.
- I am a connoisseur of many things, most notably: tartes aux citrons, pens, and any given season of H&M merchandise. I am also a connoisseur of skechers shoes, but that is TOTALLY AGAINST MY WILL.

today's message is brought to you by:

little gandhis

the first day of my life

2009-11-02T22:40:00.004-07:00

lyrics:

This is the first day of my life

I swear I was born right in the doorway

I went out in the rain

Suddenly everything changed

They're spreading blankets on the beach

Yours is the first face that I saw

I think I was blind before I met you

Now I don't know where I am

I don't know where I've been

But I know where I want to go

And so I thought I'd let you know

That these things take forever

I especially am slow

But I realize that I need you

And I wondered if I could come home

Remember the time you drove all night

Just to meet me in the morning

And I thought it was strange

You said everything changed
You felt as if you'd just woke up

And you said "this is the first day of my life

I'm glad I didn't die before I met you

But now I don't care
I could go anywhere with you

And I'd probably be happy"

So if you want to be with me

With these things there's no telling

We just have to wait and see

Besides maybe this time is different

I mean I really think you like me

-- bright eyes, i'm wide awake it's morning

story of my life

2009-11-01T16:19:00.006-07:00

blogger is being silly. it won't let me upload any pictures and my google analytics isn't registering, so my meter's been running 0 hits for the last two weeks, which I know cannot possibly be true. when I have time to fix it, I will fix it, if anything can be done.

so thursday night I couldn't sleep. I don't know what was going on - I never have trouble sleeping. but I only got 2 and a half hours of sleep. also I hadn't eaten in about 20 hours the next day and I wasn't even hungry. it was very strange. then, friday night, I was sleeping on the couch so oceane and her sister amandine, who was visiting, could sleep in the same room. but I had to wait til curfew then to be able to sleep. then the fire alarm goes off twice and we had to wait outside in the cold ... long story short, I didn't get to bed til 3.30 in the morning. so I got enough sleep that night, but it wasn't very restful because I was so behind, you know what I mean? I got some more good sleep last night, plus the extra hour from daylight savings time, but I'm still on the catch-up :(

I did laundry - huzzah! - and took out winter clothes and tried on other clothes. happy happy day, I can fit into things again that I couldn't wear at the beginning of the semester. I gained about 10 pounds in france and I've lost it all and a bit more, which is very happy indeed. now I just need to start exercising and eating better and I can lose even more. this loss was mostly a transition back to a normal diet as opposed to my diet in france. stress has probably had an impact, too.

I did some drawing the other night, a self-portrait of sorts that I'm pretty pleased with, especially since I wasn't actually looking at myself at all while I did it. it might or might not actually look like me, but that's besides the point.

I went to sunday dinner at celesta's, which was fun, and then had a long talk with her in the car, like we usually do when she drops me off. but now it's late late late (or way early) and I have to write a paper :( blegh story of my life and I am not even kidding. story of my life.

october 9th

2009-10-26T22:38:00.004-06:00

bees float in and out of the trashcan

and my line of vision

moving sluggishly through the ether-air

around my head

like the cloud clusters that inch

across the gradient shade sky

-- lazily

words float in and out of my mind

like the shoe-sound conversation

that approaches and fades

in diagonals

around my half-shade bench

vantage point

-- apart

the world so stark and out of reach

eludes the scrabbling clutches

of my reaching fingertips

and over-dramatized words

that ooze inadequacy and excess

over the canvas of my vision

-- lost