But really, home is where Dan is. So I guess that's really all that matters.
Moving in less than a month! And then I can add LA to the list of the many towns I've lived in.
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
Home is wherever I'm with you
I recently decided that when people ask where I'm from, I'm just going to say Florida. Why? For one because it's much less complicated/awkward than saying "all over," and then having an awkward silence follow. But more because Florida is my favorite. It's beautiful. People I love live there. And I've never felt more like myself than when I lived there. Too bad I'm moving even further away. Sad life.
But really, home is where Dan is. So I guess that's really all that matters.
Moving in less than a month! And then I can add LA to the list of the many towns I've lived in.
But really, home is where Dan is. So I guess that's really all that matters.
Moving in less than a month! And then I can add LA to the list of the many towns I've lived in.
Friday, July 23, 2010
A rant
Read this article: Anti-mosque protests on the rise
"In Islam, a mosque means 'We have conquered this country,' " one man told a local CNN affiliate. "And where are they? They're in the center of Tennessee. They're going to say, 'We have conquered Tennessee.' "
Dear Man informing the CNN affiliate, where on earth did you get that idea? You have got to be kidding me. Is that what all the Christian churches in Africa meant, or even the Spanish missions in California and Mexico?
...Oh, wait. Those were EUROPEAN people conquering and forcing their religion upon the inconsequential natives. So that must have been ok. And the fact that they were using Christ's message of peace and goodwill towards your fellow man as an excuse for cheap slave labor is no biggie either.
Please do not misinterpret this as an attack on Christianity. I am Christian and I love being Christian. I just don't appreciate it when others misinterpret my religion and use it as an excuse to push their own agenda. Which I'm sure is how many muslims feel when fundamentalists and terrorists use their religion to further their own "jihads." Let's have a little history lesson, shall we?
Much of the intolerance and "hate" that some associate with Islam doesn't even come from the Koran. It comes from the Hadith which is supposedly things said by Mohammed, but it also contains many commentaries and opinions of leaders who came after. All these sayings and writings were collected two hundred years or so after Mohammed's death, so whose to say how accurate they are really. It is through these writings that Islamic law is born, along with the intolerance towards women and other religions. (And the Hadith has been torn apart by many Islamic feminists who claim the Hadith is simply a corruption of the peaceful teachings of the Koran that has been reified over the past 1,000 years.) There's plenty to be said on this subject, but if you're really interested in it, there's plenty more to be found on the internet. Just be sure you're getting your information from an unbiased source.
Another point I'd like to make is the real definition of the word jihad, which is thrown about by the media every now and then. Jihad means a struggle--it is a struggle for God to better society. You can see how this can be interpreted in many ways, and clearly it is. While some fundamentalist Muslims do believe that this is a call to war with other religions, many other Muslims believe this is an inward struggle with the self. And how different is that from the Christian's struggle to overcome the natural man?
So my question is, why are so many good, Christian people so quick to cast the first stone?
You can agree with this or not, but I believe that you shouldn't judge an entire people based off a few dangerous fanatics.
All men should be free to worship how, where, or what they may.
The amount of religious intolerance in this country sickens me.
"In Islam, a mosque means 'We have conquered this country,' " one man told a local CNN affiliate. "And where are they? They're in the center of Tennessee. They're going to say, 'We have conquered Tennessee.' "
Dear Man informing the CNN affiliate, where on earth did you get that idea? You have got to be kidding me. Is that what all the Christian churches in Africa meant, or even the Spanish missions in California and Mexico?
...Oh, wait. Those were EUROPEAN people conquering and forcing their religion upon the inconsequential natives. So that must have been ok. And the fact that they were using Christ's message of peace and goodwill towards your fellow man as an excuse for cheap slave labor is no biggie either.
Please do not misinterpret this as an attack on Christianity. I am Christian and I love being Christian. I just don't appreciate it when others misinterpret my religion and use it as an excuse to push their own agenda. Which I'm sure is how many muslims feel when fundamentalists and terrorists use their religion to further their own "jihads." Let's have a little history lesson, shall we?
Much of the intolerance and "hate" that some associate with Islam doesn't even come from the Koran. It comes from the Hadith which is supposedly things said by Mohammed, but it also contains many commentaries and opinions of leaders who came after. All these sayings and writings were collected two hundred years or so after Mohammed's death, so whose to say how accurate they are really. It is through these writings that Islamic law is born, along with the intolerance towards women and other religions. (And the Hadith has been torn apart by many Islamic feminists who claim the Hadith is simply a corruption of the peaceful teachings of the Koran that has been reified over the past 1,000 years.) There's plenty to be said on this subject, but if you're really interested in it, there's plenty more to be found on the internet. Just be sure you're getting your information from an unbiased source.
Another point I'd like to make is the real definition of the word jihad, which is thrown about by the media every now and then. Jihad means a struggle--it is a struggle for God to better society. You can see how this can be interpreted in many ways, and clearly it is. While some fundamentalist Muslims do believe that this is a call to war with other religions, many other Muslims believe this is an inward struggle with the self. And how different is that from the Christian's struggle to overcome the natural man?
So my question is, why are so many good, Christian people so quick to cast the first stone?
You can agree with this or not, but I believe that you shouldn't judge an entire people based off a few dangerous fanatics.
All men should be free to worship how, where, or what they may.
The amount of religious intolerance in this country sickens me.
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
OhEmmGee
Lately, I've been missing my long hair. I don't regret cutting it short, and I like it short. ...I just miss the options of long hair, etc. (all the usual complaints after haircuts)...
BUT, today I came across a picture of Lily Allen (one of my style icons):
Yeah, we basically have the same haircut.
Needless to say, I'm back to loving my short hair.
BUT, today I came across a picture of Lily Allen (one of my style icons):
Needless to say, I'm back to loving my short hair.
Friday, July 16, 2010
My Latest Obsession...
And everyone else's from the looks of it:
The Old Spice Guy. (AKA Isaiah Mustafa). My romance with O.S.G. began while watching the Superbowl. Not being that great of a sports fan, the commercials were by far the most interesting part of that night. This commercial was perfect in every way: humor, an attractive half-naked black man holding tickets to that thing I love, and it was so quotable! Brilliant. There's are two more commercials now (that I've seen...), and if those aren't enough to suck up your spare time, O.S.G. also responds to comments on youtube, twitter, etc. via youtube videos. He even proposed to someone's girlfriend for them (ahh...cute!)
If you haven't met O.S.G. yet, or if you just need to listen to his deep, soothing voice one more time today, here are the commercials:
But, I am most definitely not the only one obsessed with O.S.G. In fact, I know he is making quite a splash among my peers here at BYU. Hence this commercial for the library:
I've never been so proud of being a Cougar in my life.
So, swan dive--into the best night of your LIFE. Even if that night may be spent at the library.
The Old Spice Guy. (AKA Isaiah Mustafa). My romance with O.S.G. began while watching the Superbowl. Not being that great of a sports fan, the commercials were by far the most interesting part of that night. This commercial was perfect in every way: humor, an attractive half-naked black man holding tickets to that thing I love, and it was so quotable! Brilliant. There's are two more commercials now (that I've seen...), and if those aren't enough to suck up your spare time, O.S.G. also responds to comments on youtube, twitter, etc. via youtube videos. He even proposed to someone's girlfriend for them (ahh...cute!)
If you haven't met O.S.G. yet, or if you just need to listen to his deep, soothing voice one more time today, here are the commercials:
But, I am most definitely not the only one obsessed with O.S.G. In fact, I know he is making quite a splash among my peers here at BYU. Hence this commercial for the library:
I've never been so proud of being a Cougar in my life.
So, swan dive--into the best night of your LIFE. Even if that night may be spent at the library.
Thursday, July 8, 2010
Pulling my Hair Out
So, I just spent a relaxing week on cruise ship, stopping in Mexican ports, trying new things, bonding with my in-laws, having the time of my life, all this great stuff.
I was hoping that I could just ease back into reality...
Of course, coming back home was a rude awakening. Here are some of the highlights (or lowlights, what have you) of my past few days back home:
As soon as I got home, I checked my e-mail. The sheer number in my inbox made me want to puke. When I was in high school, I would get so excited about having a new message in my inbox; it made me feel popular and wanted. Now, it's usually someone giving me one more thing to add to my to-do list: schoolwork, rent reminders, church assignments (narrowly avoided since I'm only here for a few more weeks), the nice admissions lady for the masters program I'm trying to get into, reminders from friends of things/promises I've made. Plus, all the lovely distractions of facebook notifications and online shopping subscriptions. I decided that perhaps I'd finish some papers I'd put off till the last minute (who wants to write a paper when you could be out in the sunshine?). I stayed up late, after Dan had gone to bed, trying to force my brain to articulate my thoughts into a page of Times New Roman size 12 font, single spaced. Multiple times.
I woke up early on Tuesday, because guess what, I hadn't finished all my papers/reading. Then it was time to leave for school. I get to my classroom, ten minutes before, and no one is there. I figure maybe I'm just earlier than everyone else, so I sit in the corner with a book and wait. Yeah, class starts and no one is there. Cool. Well, sometimes we meet at my teacher's house in Orem, so I figure maybe I'll head over there, just to check and see. As I'm walking down the hall, I see a girl in my class (hallelujah) and ask her if she knows where everyone is. She doesn't, because she missed all of last week too. Sooo we both head over to our professor's house, and once again, our class is nowhere to be found. We decide maybe it was cancelled and she forgot to send out an e-mail. No problem, that gives me time to finish my book for Wendesday. Except, being myself, I procrastinated, so once again, Dan had to go to bed without me while I worked on homework. And once again, I had to wake up early.
Fortunately my first class of the day was in the proper place at the proper time, so I was able to attend. All went pretty smoothly there. After that, I headed over to the library to do my reading for my next class. I look at the syllabus to check the reading for the quiz we had that day, which was longer than I thought. Also, I'd forgotten to write down on my list of things-to-do-on-the-cruise a project that was due within the hour. Awesome, right? Then I had to prioritize: in one hour, I needed to read 30 pages and take an online quiz and complete a project that required an interview with a married individual. I decided the project was probably worth more than one quiz, so skimmed the reading to get the answers on the study guide, and decided I'd just take a fall on the honesty question of "Did you do all the reading?" (which is worth half the points on the quiz...cool, I know). While I'm typing the answers up, the computer I'm using crashes. Perfect. So then I get to wait for it to reboot, retype all my answers, sign back into blackboard, take a 50 on a quiz I knew all the answers to, and now I'm left with 30 minutes to complete a project. By the time I finish, I'm already ten minutes late to class, and Blackboard won't let me submit my project. After another ten minutes of that, I e-mail the TA in frustration, but then Blackboard cooperates, so I have to e-mail the TA back and say never mind. Then I got to make my walk of shame to the front of the class and join the tail end of a small group discussion. Get home, more homework, make dinner in a rushed manner, more homework, decide that at least one night this week I'm going to bed at the same time as my husband, and fall asleep.
That brings us to today, where I have to wake up early to try (in vain) to finish the novel for my next class, and go to the mysterious disappearing class. As I'm walking from my car to the classroom, I run into the girl that I went on the wild goose chase with last time, and we laugh about how funny it would be if our class was missing again. Except when that happened again, it wasn't funny. We decided that maybe we should go up to our professor's office and see if she was there to do some explaining, she wasn't but we ran into her in the hallway. She said hi to both of us, and dived straight back into whatever intellectual conversation she was having. So we were left awkwardly standing in the hallway, wondering where she was going, if it would be creepy to follow her, and too shy to ask her what the heck was going on with class. We went back to the classroom to see if anyone was there, no bueno. We went back up to her office, and she had dissappeared again. Not knowing what else to do, we decided to go back home and e-mail her. I just got an e-mail back from her saying that now they're meeting in a conference room upstairs with the professor's offices. That's great, and she is one of my favorite professors, but she couldn't have sent out an e-mail about that? Now I've missed 2 weeks of class, and in summer term, that's like missing a month. So hopefully this doesn't totally and completely screw me over.
Meanwhile, I'm trying to decide whether or not I want to/should go to grad school, but need to make a decision quick before I miss all the deadlines for scholarships and admissions. I am FREAKING out here.
Sorry for all the complaining.
On the bright side, I've liked every book I've had to read this term, I only have one class tomorrow, and my family reunion is this weekend in St. George, which means my family will be here from Saturday until my graduation. Let's just hope I survive till then.
I was hoping that I could just ease back into reality...
Of course, coming back home was a rude awakening. Here are some of the highlights (or lowlights, what have you) of my past few days back home:
As soon as I got home, I checked my e-mail. The sheer number in my inbox made me want to puke. When I was in high school, I would get so excited about having a new message in my inbox; it made me feel popular and wanted. Now, it's usually someone giving me one more thing to add to my to-do list: schoolwork, rent reminders, church assignments (narrowly avoided since I'm only here for a few more weeks), the nice admissions lady for the masters program I'm trying to get into, reminders from friends of things/promises I've made. Plus, all the lovely distractions of facebook notifications and online shopping subscriptions. I decided that perhaps I'd finish some papers I'd put off till the last minute (who wants to write a paper when you could be out in the sunshine?). I stayed up late, after Dan had gone to bed, trying to force my brain to articulate my thoughts into a page of Times New Roman size 12 font, single spaced. Multiple times.
I woke up early on Tuesday, because guess what, I hadn't finished all my papers/reading. Then it was time to leave for school. I get to my classroom, ten minutes before, and no one is there. I figure maybe I'm just earlier than everyone else, so I sit in the corner with a book and wait. Yeah, class starts and no one is there. Cool. Well, sometimes we meet at my teacher's house in Orem, so I figure maybe I'll head over there, just to check and see. As I'm walking down the hall, I see a girl in my class (hallelujah) and ask her if she knows where everyone is. She doesn't, because she missed all of last week too. Sooo we both head over to our professor's house, and once again, our class is nowhere to be found. We decide maybe it was cancelled and she forgot to send out an e-mail. No problem, that gives me time to finish my book for Wendesday. Except, being myself, I procrastinated, so once again, Dan had to go to bed without me while I worked on homework. And once again, I had to wake up early.
Fortunately my first class of the day was in the proper place at the proper time, so I was able to attend. All went pretty smoothly there. After that, I headed over to the library to do my reading for my next class. I look at the syllabus to check the reading for the quiz we had that day, which was longer than I thought. Also, I'd forgotten to write down on my list of things-to-do-on-the-cruise a project that was due within the hour. Awesome, right? Then I had to prioritize: in one hour, I needed to read 30 pages and take an online quiz and complete a project that required an interview with a married individual. I decided the project was probably worth more than one quiz, so skimmed the reading to get the answers on the study guide, and decided I'd just take a fall on the honesty question of "Did you do all the reading?" (which is worth half the points on the quiz...cool, I know). While I'm typing the answers up, the computer I'm using crashes. Perfect. So then I get to wait for it to reboot, retype all my answers, sign back into blackboard, take a 50 on a quiz I knew all the answers to, and now I'm left with 30 minutes to complete a project. By the time I finish, I'm already ten minutes late to class, and Blackboard won't let me submit my project. After another ten minutes of that, I e-mail the TA in frustration, but then Blackboard cooperates, so I have to e-mail the TA back and say never mind. Then I got to make my walk of shame to the front of the class and join the tail end of a small group discussion. Get home, more homework, make dinner in a rushed manner, more homework, decide that at least one night this week I'm going to bed at the same time as my husband, and fall asleep.
That brings us to today, where I have to wake up early to try (in vain) to finish the novel for my next class, and go to the mysterious disappearing class. As I'm walking from my car to the classroom, I run into the girl that I went on the wild goose chase with last time, and we laugh about how funny it would be if our class was missing again. Except when that happened again, it wasn't funny. We decided that maybe we should go up to our professor's office and see if she was there to do some explaining, she wasn't but we ran into her in the hallway. She said hi to both of us, and dived straight back into whatever intellectual conversation she was having. So we were left awkwardly standing in the hallway, wondering where she was going, if it would be creepy to follow her, and too shy to ask her what the heck was going on with class. We went back to the classroom to see if anyone was there, no bueno. We went back up to her office, and she had dissappeared again. Not knowing what else to do, we decided to go back home and e-mail her. I just got an e-mail back from her saying that now they're meeting in a conference room upstairs with the professor's offices. That's great, and she is one of my favorite professors, but she couldn't have sent out an e-mail about that? Now I've missed 2 weeks of class, and in summer term, that's like missing a month. So hopefully this doesn't totally and completely screw me over.
Meanwhile, I'm trying to decide whether or not I want to/should go to grad school, but need to make a decision quick before I miss all the deadlines for scholarships and admissions. I am FREAKING out here.
Sorry for all the complaining.
On the bright side, I've liked every book I've had to read this term, I only have one class tomorrow, and my family reunion is this weekend in St. George, which means my family will be here from Saturday until my graduation. Let's just hope I survive till then.
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