Loosely Related

Surprise! I am blogging!

Today I took the bus home from school where I had been working/spending time outside of my house.  (Working from home starts to feel awfully prison-like when you have no car, but then I think any summer job starts to feel awfully prison-like).  Everyone on the bus got off at my stop, which always leaves me wondering about what a driver does with an empty bus.  I suppose the answer is that he keeps driving his normal route in his normal way, but I like to pretend that he dances across the bus and invites his friends to have a tea party with him on the bus or something to just completely abuse the bus driver authority.

A little woman who got off the bus with me was met by her husband waiting at the bus stop to walk home with her.  There was just something about it.  He was wearing socks with sandals and he took her backpack off her back and wore it for her.  And they met each other with huge smiles.

In other news, I had a dream last night that I was on some sort of reality show that took place at a camp where there were an equal number of boys and girls.  And every week one of the girls murdered one of the guys and whichever girl everyone thought did it had to go home.  We had this challenge where the girls had to kiss one of the guys, and this girl murdered the guy I kissed and I was really upset because I thought I was going to be sent home since he was the guy that I kissed.

Lastly, there are a lot of girls from my high school choir who are either recently married (including my beautiful best friend) or they are engaged.  It's like they put something in the water because the choir was small (about 26ish people half of which being girls) and 4-5 of the girls are married/engaged.

and those are my thoughts about love.

Picture:

Coming Clean

Here's the deal.  I don't like not telling you things, internet.  Because I told you when I was depressed and I told you when I failed midterms and I told you when I cried in my car all by myself listening to Coldplay.  So here it is, a big pile of throw-up of all the things I haven't been telling you.

I had a cancer scare (My first instinct was to capitalize cancer.  Ew.).  I mean, not really.  I have this enlarged lymph node in my neck.  When I went to the doctor they were like, oh that could be lymphoma.  I was like, it's not lymphoma, I've had it for about a year now, it's not lymphoma otherwise I would feel more cancerous than I currently do.  So one Cat Scan with intravenous stuff that makes you feel like you have to pee, two utra-sounds on my neck, like 7 blood samples, one out-patient procedure (biopsy), and five months later, I am now officially cancer-free.  And life returns to - oh wait this had no impact on my life except for being part of the reason I've made the trek home so often lately.  And now I have a lovely scar on my neck that sometimes really freaks me out. because I'm squeamish. 


Check.


Oh, I got a retail job part time.  I have never had a job like this before, and I never plan to do it again.  it's kind of a thing I want to do though, is have an entry-level, just-above-minimum-wage job.   Because I am old-fashioned, and I want to remember why I'm getting an education that frequently breaks my back.  And I always think of myself as one of humble beginnings and I can't take that too seriously if my first job was a cushy office deal that was handed to me.  Which it was, but now I know what actual humble beginnings are like just a teeeeeeny bit more.  (As I write this I have a look of disgust on my face because I have been blessed with so much and I sound redonkulous.)

Check.

I got a cold.  Not very exciting, but it's part of the reason why I haven't blogged.  I feel pretty normal as of today, but I've been in a fog since Saturday.

Check.

And lastly, I gave myself a bad bang cut last week.  There are two rules to a good self-bang cut.  1.  I have to think that I need a bang cut for at least a week before I do it.  and 2.  I can't be in a rush when I do it.  I think I broke both of the rules, and wait a minute YOU DON'T CARE.

Check.

Haha.  This whole blogging thing is great.  You don't care at all.  Maybe about the cancer thing you do, but that's probably the one that I cared about the least.

Well.  What do you do?


Picture?

17 chins at midnight at the library last night.  I might be failing all my classes.  I might be lacking any desire to change that.  These are just mights, only time will tell. 

Melt my Heart

I had the opposite of that moment I talked about the other day.  where everything felt right.  Instead, everything felt wrong.  I was walking through downtown Palo Alto which is a bizarre place.  It just seems to want so badly to not be  Palo Alto, but it is.  As a drunken man stumbled past me, I felt the seed of anxiety get planted somewhere deep in the pit of my stomach.  The opposite of awesome for me is anxious.  It is the worst emotion I can think of.
Anyways, I was almost back to my car, when a homeless man and I made eye contact.  Do you ever step on a grape when you're barefoot and halfway through you realize what you're doing, but at this point you can't help it and your doomed to have a smushed grape on your floor/foot?  Or you're driving sort of absent-mindedly and you realize the light is yellow, but you don't want to slam on your breaks so you go through, but as soon as your car has passed that threshold of the crosswalk line the light turns red and before you know it, you've broken the law?  As I made eye contact with this man, I realized I had somehow done wrong.  He looked into my eyes and he hated me.  I could have anticipated the words if I hadn't been hoping they wouldn't be said, but they came out of his mouth anyways, a loud, "F**k you."

1.  I think I look like a white trash Mom in this pic.  2.  This pic gets somewhat relevant, I promise. 

I spent Friday night babysitting, which is like paying me to eat cookies.  Literally, I was being paid to eat their food.  And watch their 3 1/2 year old little girl.  I'm not always the best with little girls, but in general little boys love me.  I just have more practice with them, I suppose. 
But we bonded, mostly over our knowledge of Disney princesses (girl was showing me up - she could differentiate between Flora Fauna and Merryweather from Sleeping Beauty) and our mutual enjoyment of dancing in the middle of living rooms to Vampire Weekend songs. 
An hour into it, she kept accidentally calling me Mama.  Which I suppose, meant she identified with me, liked my company, and saw me as an authority figure.  Two hours into it, she stopped playing, stared at me, and said, "I'm so glad to spend time with you."  It was very cute, and as one who does not spend much time in affectionate environments, it was sort of a surprise.  About three hours after she had met me, this little girl stopped again to tell me she loved me.  I hesitated for about half a second before I told her I loved her too. 


I am, in general, very stingy with giving my emotions out to others.  It takes me more than three hours to love someone, and much longer than that to tell them about it.  Negative emotions, which I am probably (wrongly) more liberal with, still take me a bit of time to develop.  I have never hated someone with one glance, which is probably a good thing, but I still think there's something to letting yourself feel.  I recently told me roommate that I had never cried over a boy.  She thought that was really weird.  Which I suppose it is.  I am more ready to give away my kisses than I am to give away my feelings. 
But in the moment, I realized that I love that little girl.  which says a lot to me about the ability of children to open hearts. 


I think I made all my points.  Gosh, I wish I were better at tying bows at the end of my posts, but I'm just going to leave you with that. 

I Want a Perfect Body

And I want a perfect soul.

If you really love something, then you treat well, I think.  I've heard that somewhere at least.  It sounds true enough to me, anyways.  Let's for a moment, except this as truth.
I've been thinking about how I treat my body.  Not very well.  I must not love it.  I think I should love it.  It's a gift.  It allows me to do anything.  It allows me to feel, and touch is my favorite of the senses.
I torture it sometimes.

When I wake up in the morning, I pick out an outfit and go into the bathroom.  I take off every scrap of clothes that I wore to sleep and do a full evaluation.  I shudder at the fullness of my hips and  the lumps on my thighs.  I suck in my stomach and try to press it in with my hands.  I begin the process of putting on my clothes.  I contort and twist my body into fitting into whatever items I have picked out.  Sometimes I wear sausage-casing-esque "shapewear" in order to make the bulges look smoother.  They're fine at first, but after hours of wear, my body begs to be freed.

Once I'm dressed, I begin the process of plastering colors on my face.  Mascara, eyeliner, foundation, powder, bronzer, eye shadow, sometimes blush and lip gloss.  When I was 13 my dad noted that mascara was Spanish for mask.  I think about that sometimes.

I fill it with junk.  Or what's worse, I eat raw vegetables for about 8 hours until my withdrawal-shaken body lashes out and I then eat way too much of whatever it begs for.  Usually sugar.  Sometimes potatoes.  My body has weird cravings for potato products lately.  After I do that, I think about how weak I am.  I am filled with regret.  I drove my body to want this, but yet I look at it so disapprovingly.

This is not the peak of my body mistreatment.  In high school, hardly a day went by where I didn't skip meals.  Being hungry and then overly full seemed to be the regular.  And eating in front of people was always a struggle.  I went through a period of time where after binging, I would take laxatives in order to try and erase all the bad I just ate.  But then my body would just feel as sad as my mind did.

I don't always feed it so poorly.  But rarely do I let it move the way I should.  For most of my life exercising was admitting that my body was disgusting.  It was like saying - hey I am fat so I need to go to the gym.  Every invitation to do physical activity was perceived as a slight on my physical appearance.  And I grew to dislike it.  So, so much.

When people didn't like me, usually I blamed my body.  Let me clarify.  When boys didn't like me, I blamed my body.  I told myself that if I wore clothes that had a size with only one digit they would all like me.  That what separated me from the girls who had boys chasing them down was the number on the scale - and I hated my body all the more for it.  And that lead me to treat it worse.

At night, when I go to take a shower, I do a repeat of the morning's body check.  I stick out my belly to see how far it will go.  I get mad at my wrists and ankles and calves and shoulders and knees and thighs and cheeks for not having the decency to be small and feminine.

I'm not going to censor like I usually do and not post this.  Usually when I mention how I actually feel about my body, I am met with half-hearted attempts at telling me that I am actually beautiful and that I should own my body and that here's how I can be healthier and that my body is divine.  Sure, maybe all of those things are true.  But sometimes, its all I can do to not hate my body.  To simply just know that it is the way it is and not be mad at it.

Getting a Little Perspective

I really wanted some quiet on my Sunday.  Somewhere where I could just sit with my thoughts and enjoy a little down time.  Living in a dorm with over 300 people means I have basically forgotten what quiet sounds like.  

So I went to the balcony of one of the biggest classroom/auditoriums at my school.  I don't think it's supposed to be open on Sundays.  I even tried to be really quiet because I think there was some sort of janitor on the main floor for a while.  

It was really neat.  It's funny how I kind of hate living alone in the way that I do because I a rarely ever have people with me, and yet I still never really get alone time.  Time for just me to do what I want.  

I took this picture, and I don't know what I even pressed, but my camera made it take in black and white. I kind of like it:

The only thing I don't like is that you can't see all the empty seats on the main level.  There's something about being in an empty room that was meant to seat 200+ people that makes you pensive.  

I was trying for a while to write down a few of my more profound thoughts, but I decided they were just on the borderline of profound, but not enough.  Let's just say that my brain in the course of an hour can bounce from the rapture to vanilla bean to going to the beach to what I want to be when I grow up to the lady at work whose blog is fascinating in a hippie-ish way.  Not in that order, of course.  

I can't wait to see my Pops this week.  He's coming to visit me here in Stan-land.  And I can't wait to go home for the long weekend!  It will be such a party. Let's go to the beach!

The Only Thing

I don't like about this shirt is that it implies that I am only 50% awesome.

Oh and that it's actually my little brother's shirt.  But Marcus and I can share like ALL of our clothes.  It's kind of magic.

And isn't it really hard to blog without blogger?

I mean, I know that my brain is still here and that my computer is still here, but I have like 3 drafts of posts that basically have like a sentence each in them that are supposed to get me started.  And I kept thinking of things and then flipping to blogger and being completely unable to write them down in an easy way (never mind the fact that I could have typed them up somewhere else or used a paper and pen).  So blogger, I say to you: Booooooo. 

Which reminds me.  Someone in the google family has a similar sense of humor to the one that I have.  Hence this little gem:

Oh google chrome, I knew we were soul mates.  Every time things suck, I too say Boo. Also, can you even read that?  It says boo

OK, so let’s witty-gritty.  It’s like the nitty-gritty except it’s the part where I try to be witty.  Which is not to say that I succeed very often.  I would say about 80% of the time I end up thinking I posted is like when someone changes their facebook status to show that they bought a gallon of ice cream at Albertson’s – does anyone really care?

But that’s the whole point of this post.  The point is that blogs are such a weird concept.  I basically share a little piece of my world with some shapeless audience and pretend that you all are hanging on my every word (But aren’t you though?).  And you in turn decide to read it all, personal information and all, even if you don’t know me very well.  I know because I do it.  I read blogs of strangers.  They are (for the most part) somewhat famous on the internetz for the blogging skills, so it’s not that weird, but still, it’s pretty weird.  I know intimate details of the lives of women who live in New York, DC, Provo, and Arizona.  I have never met these women.  But I know the nicknames that they have for their husbands and a lot of the things that make them laugh.  Creepy?  In some ways yes, and in some ways it is actually quite awesome.  I feel connected with these women and I like it. 

I was trying to put into words why I blog recently because I was supposed to get other students to be interested in blogging at an activity fair at my school.  The thing is, I don’t even really like writing.  I think I like attention.  I like telling stories.  I like being able to put into words the new beliefs and ideas that I get about my life.  I try to do it often, because I think it makes my brain work better.  To have an entire infinity of people to bounce ideas off of. 

I also try not to do things that are easy.  Because most of the time I bore myself writing them.  Like posts that are like OMG listen to my cool cool life.  Or lists.  At the start of this blog I did a lot of lists because they were easy.  But not in a while.  They’re easy to write but boring to read.    Stories are better.  But since I suck at those, quips and anecdotes do.  And mostly I try to do things where my personality comes through.  So that I don’t sound like my life is perfect or that the things that I think are funny are actually the funniest things in the world (but f’reals, that spinach joke was hilarious ….. to me) or really anything where I come off as the awesomest (unless it is a reference to how I am the awesomest at life, because well, the obvious reason).  But at the same time, a blog is soooo narcissistic. 

I don’t know.  This post is already too long, but I can’t really tell because I wrote it in a word document instead of in blogger.  And I also don’t really know what I’m getting at except to say that blogging is weird but I like it.  Is that weird

Jambalaya

This post has nothing to do with jambalaya other than the fact that jambalaya kind of sounds like jumbly.  And my life is awfully jumbly right now.

Stanford is a weird place. It is a lot like all of my dreams coming true.  There is great weather and great people and great departments.  And I love it.  It's like tiramisu.  Delicious and refined and energizing and just a little bit too much but in that good way where you like the indulgence of it all.
It's also like success boot camp sometimes because a lot a lot of people think that money will lead to happiness.  I think that more often money leads to a desire for more money.  Catch-22, really (but not really).

All of the pictures that come from my webcam automatically go into a folder called Narcissism, because well, you know. But I can't be the only one who knows.   

Oh and also, Stanford is like one big question.  And that question is: What do you really want to do?
How am I supposed to know what I want to do?  I mean I know what I want to do today but also that involves laying in bed all day and watching movies (Let's be real, they are probably of the Disney variety) and then getting all dressed up so I can teleport to the party where all of my friends are dancing and they clap and yell, "Oh Shnaps!" at all the cool dance moves that we take turn doing.  And afterwards I teleport home and my family is playing a board game and the babies are being cute and everyone keeps saying, "that's racist" because Marcus said that he likes his chocolate milk really dark.

But here's the real thing.  It's that one of my eyes is significantly bigger than the other and I don't think I can pull off bold lipsticks and I almost don't hate the way my feet look.

Are you catching on to the feeling of jumbly-ness?

That picture reminds me of how I want to make the Gamboa family motto, "Well, at least I am having a good hair day."  Because while Gamboa's may be modest about many things, not hair.

Oh but just because I want to spend today doing the fun nonsense doesn't mean I will want to do it forever.  I mean I will also want to eat good food and eventually have my own man-friend and little monsters.  And I want to probably do something else.  Like put this $50,000 a year education to use and like enter the work field or whatevs.  Who knows how?  Oh wait, God knows.  Why won't he just let me in on the joke already?

How could you possibly not be tired of reading all of this jambalaya?  I'm practically tired of writing it , but then, wait no, I don't really get tired of telling people every third thought that pops into my head even though there is no sense of whatever that fancy word is that means that everything goes together somehow.  Stupid jumbly-brain and my inability to think of the words that fit in.

Well I think that's about enough for one post.  Welcome to ten minutes of jumbly-brain.  I hope you enjoyed your ride.  At this point, we are unable to give refunds if you are not satisfied with your experience.  Good day. 

On Living Alone...

I'm trying to balance out my serious posts with posts like my last one, where I complain about being sick and just gush over hot celebrities who help me feel better.  Hopefully this one will be somewhere in between those two extremes.

So for the last 8 weeks, and for 8 more weeks, due to some unfortunate circumstances, I have been / will be living alone.  The idea of living alone is pretty much radically different from the reality of it.  At least for me it was.

Partly because it was unexpected, and partly because I've never lived alone before, the first couple of weeks were downright depressing.  I crawled up in my own world of isolation and I didn't like it, but I didn't know what to do to change.  So I did weird things to try and shake myself up into normal life.  But that didn't work out very well.

What I learned was that what you do when you're by yourself says a lot about myself.  And i didn't like the version of myself that came out in those first couple of weeks.

But also, living alone is scary.  There's no one for you to take care of, and there's no one to take care of you. If you were kidnapped in your sleep no one could really be sure of it for at least a few days.  I have this theory that people aren't meant to live alone.  Nor are they meant to live in hyper-social places like dorms where all of your private life is now public.  And if you want to be alone, or if some weird depressional urge has you being alone, then you still get to hear everyone around you being social and having fun and singing along to Rebecca Black's stupid stupid song.
Those first few weeks were definitely the worst of both worlds.

So I tried to inject myself with the fun things that I used to do when I wasn't so depressed.  In stead of being lonely all the time, I was just alone.  I picked up fun things that I still do.

Let's pretend that "imagine what life would be like married to Mr. Incredible" 

time is not something I actually engage in.

Like one girl dance parties.

And fashion shows.
And turning my room into a work-out room.
And it's ok that you don't want to put on clothes after the shower time. (oops that one was supposed to be a secret)
And thinking time with Mo-tab.
And play with make-up time.
And sit on the floor to do your homework time.
And Disney sing-along time.

Mad props to Henry David Thoreau, man.

My very own Walden Pond?

But f'reals, it's been pretty enlightening.  I've learned about what I like and what I don't and what I do when left to my own devices and how to have fun with myself and how to be comfortable with just myself.

But I'm also seriously ready to move into a house again.

Why does anyone have children anyways?

I'm going to attempt a serious blog post here.  Because I have serious things on my mind and I sort of like it when other people post serious things.

I'm taking this writing class with the very general topic of happiness.  We have to choose one topic for the next ten weeks to write about and do presentations on, as long as we can tie it to happiness somehow.  I'm writing about the Disney brand, but that's besides the point.
My teacher wanted to get the creative juices flowing, so she made us read a billion different articles to try and inspire us.  We somehow came to the topic of families, and specifically having children.  We discussed how study after study shows that having children does not increase happiness at all.  My professor went on a rant about how people know that having children will make them more tired, less financially stable, more stressed, more emotionally tired, more pressed for time and yet they stupidly continue to have children.  How in the old days having children served an economic function, because you could get your kids to help you with the work on the farm.  But now, the roles have reversed and parents are, in essence, slaves to their children.

I bit my tongue.  It was the second day of class, and I didn't want my teacher to hate me just yet, so I just let all the words pass by me.

Let me explain:  My Freshman year of college, after my very first term, my oldest sister was really pregnant, and my mom couldn't be there to help my sister out during the first few days of Preston's life because he kept playing tricks on all of us even from the womb.  My other sister was out of the country, and Adri didn't want to be without feminine help while in labor.  So I went.  Me.  18-year-old, knowing nothing about the miracle of birth (I was 5 when my youngest brother was born) and all, I went.  And I try not to be too weird about this, but that day changed my life.  I didn't really realize it then, but thinking back on that day I remember the rush of emotions that ranged from worry and almost panic (He was almost born without a doctor in the room) to discomfort to the most instant and complete sense of love that I have ever felt.  I'm not just talking about the love that I had for the baby, even though Preston means a whole lot to me.  I'm also talking about watching my sister and brother-in-law and the love they had for their new baby and for each other.  It was something I will never be able to adequately describe and something that I hope everyone gets the opportunity to someday experience.

The point of that story is not that I think the miracle of children is awesome.  It's not even that I think the studies are wrong.  The point of the story is that I decided, after that point in my life, that I wanted to fill my life with as much love as possible.  That my new life's goal is to love as many people as I can get this heart of mine to love, and to be surrounded by people who love me.

So maybe children do make you unhappy.  I know they do sometimes.  I also know that they make you happy sometimes.  I can't really say for sure which there is more of because I have never had children of my own.  (Though I love my nephews so much that I feel like they belong to me a little bit).  But I do know, that nothing ever, in my entire life of 20 years and half of a Stanford education and various jobs and relationships and friends, none of it, has ever brought me as much love as the love I remember in that room almost a year and a half ago.  Love like that has nothing to do with someone being forced to work for someone else.  And every time I think back to that day, or to those two little boys, I can't even believe how much I love my family.

Love lasts much longer than happiness anyways.

Three.

"Genevieve, please tell me the significance of the number three for you right now.  Oh please, oh please, oh please."

Well interwebz, because you are basically begging me, I will tell you why this post is titled, "Three".

In the last month, I have made no less than 3 decisions late at night because I have wanted to make a change in my life.  Decisions that I thought, "What's keeping me from doing that?"  and then took the plunge and went for.

Decision Numero Uno:
Changing My Name.  Or at least changing the name that I use to refer to myself. The most permanent of the the three decisions.

Decision B:
Rearranging my room.  My room has undergone some pretty drastic changes in the last week or so.  I know without a reference the following pic doesn't really show change, but it does show how huge my room feels now.

And when your entire living situation is about 20 square feet, that feels pretty huge.  Also notice how my desk keeps me trapped against the wall.  I like it because it forces me to stay back there and do work, but I still have an entry/exit path.  I call it my Cave of Wonder.

and finally
Decision Number 3:
I cut my own bangs into straight across bangs.  The idea popped into my head at about 11:45, and after consulting my brother (who does so many crazy things to his hair that of course he was going to tell me to go for it), I did it.  The whole thing was over and done with (including me washing and then restyling my bangs) by about 12:30.  Pic on fb the next morning (social media addict, I know).

So why do I do it?

I don't know.  I used to be so the opposite of impulsive.  Plan plan plan, stan.  But now I think of all these things, and I think that there is nothing stopping me from doing them, and I just do them.  I take trips across the country and I take classes on web design and negotiation and ebonics, and I read about what life would be like managing a restaurant.  Maybe I still plan, but now I just plan to be impulsive.  Or, because it is impossible to plant to be impulsive, I plan to do things I want, just because I can and I think they'd be good for me.


Maybe I'll grow out of it, but hopefully I won't.

What's in a Name?

Remember how I told you that Gigi isn't my real name.  Well, I've been thinking a lot about that.  Almost every time I tell people that my real name is actually Genevieve, they say something about what a pretty name that is.

And I've always agreed.  I didn't really pick the nickname Gigi.  People have been calling my Gigi since before I can remember.  Which is not to say that Gigi is not a great name.  It's French, and cutesy, and even a little flirty.  And it's done me well in my life.  I got into Stanford with the name Gigi.

But I always pictured myself growing up to be Genevieve.  Which is why I'm going to start introducing myself as Genevieve. Which is not to say that I am going to force you all to call me Genevieve and never say Gigi again.  I'm even going to keep this blog titled the way it is.

So even though it caused controversy, I want to change my name.  I don't dislike Gigi, I just kind of want to be Genevieve now.

I'm still the same girl, after all.

Legit Blog

This is officially a legit blog.

Know how I know?  I got tagged in one of those blog-it-forward do-hickeys by one of my oldest friends, Brooke.  (Could I say that my siblings are my oldest friends?  I've known them the longest, but I've only really been friends with them for like 7-ish years.  Weird.)

So now you have to sit through 15 facts about me.  Oh and they're supposed to be interesting?  That's just too much.

1. I've worn flip-flops basically ever day since the 9th grade, even though I'm terribly self-conscious about my ugly feet.  Rain or shine.  Also, Sundays don't count because I wear high heels.  
2. Gigi isn't even my real name.  (Haha I sound like a spy.) My name is Genevieve.  My initials are G.G. which sort of evolved into Gigi.  
3. In general, I'm pretty self-conscious physically, except when it comes to my hair.  I have really good hair.  Even on fat days.  
4. Someone once told me that my biggest skill is the ability to get things done.  Which is by no means what I wanted to hear, but it's probably true.  
5. Almost all of the life goals or expectations that I had set for myself in high school have changed since then.  Though that's not really too weird when you're convinced as a 16 yr-old that you will die old, crazy, and alone, with only your dogs to keep you company.  
6. I've never been in love.  Or really anything close, actually.  
7. I like to think of myself as being very self-sufficient and independent.  
8. I like to sing in the shower.  LOUD.  And I'm pretty sure my entire dorm hates me for it. 
9. I'll tell you most anything about me if I think you won't judge me for it.  Or unless it's still fresh.  
10. I've watched a Disney movie at least once a month (more like once a week)  since about my junior year of high school.  I know a lot of words to a lot of songs.  
11. I'm really bad when you put me in front of an audience.  Which I know is the wrong attitude to take on that, but I can't really help it.  
12. One time I did a back handspring.  
13. I have a terrible habit of carrying my cell phone in my ... in the front of my shirt.  Which gets awkward sometimes.  
14. I like the sound of the word geranium.  
15. I am at the same time shy and loud.  If I know around half the people in a group, I will be loud, but any less and I will be like shy mcgee.  But if you talk to me for like half an hour I will probably get louder and louder.  

Ok, so ... even though they might probably won't do it (and I wouldn't be offended), I tag McCall, Jacie, and Meagan.  

Some Reasons I am not Angsty Right Now

Even though I have been angsty a lot lately.  (But that's all changing)

• The wonderful Kelsey had a birthday on Thursday.  I love her so much, and it was sooo fun to celebrate with her.  Pic:

• The weather.  Did you know that I suffer from SAD?  It's Seasonal Affective Disorder, and it means that I get depressed in the winter time.  Yes, I am a California girl wuss.  But this is keeping my body from realizing that it's winter right now.  Thank you California.  
• Blogging got me a job!  Well ... Kinda.  Blogging and my superior people skills.  Like making jokes in interviews.  No but f'real, the people at the Stanford Alumni Association wanted someone who was adept with social media and it's marketing uses.  AKA, I uses the interweb and I gotz me a job.  
• I'm taking an Ebonics class.  Which is incredibly interesting to study, and which makes for great conversation.  I come back with interesting facts and phrases all the time.  This is a book I use to study, along with another picture which I don't find offensive in the least bit:

• It's February.  Meaning my birthday is coming up.  Also meaning this is week 5 of the quarter.  Also meaning I'm taking a girlfriend's road trip to LA soon.  Meaning it's practically March, and then I get to go travel the east coast.  
• I decided I don't like being stressed.  And I decided I'm just going to work really hard and then not set any grade requirements for myself.  So if I work my bee-hind off this whole quarter and get C's in all of my classes, it will suck, but I will be okay with it (eventually).  So whatevs
• I finally blogged for TUSB, which I have been meaning to do for literally 2 weeks.  
• Also, I remembered not to take life so seriously.  Like is it really the end of the world if I don't get a really legit job this summer and I end up doing office work again.  And I decided that if I'm not having fun in my music theory class then that's stupid, because I love music a lot.  And that should apply to everything basically.  
• Also, I discovered good music.  Like Mumford and Sons and Brandi Carlile and Rod Stewart (mostly joking there), and Bon Iver.

So I'm happy.  And I'm fixin to stay that way.  

Nervous to Blog

I don't know if other bloggers feel this way, but sometimes I feel like I don't have enough witty things to say to create an entire blog post so then I go forever without blogging.  I'm sure I can always dig up something though, it's just a matter of seeing things in the right lens.
Here are some random shtuffs:

• This is the view from out my window:

Meaning I get woken up by construction sounds ALL THE TIME!  Lucky me.  

• For Spring Break I will look a little bit like this with K-Trone!

Because we're going to New York, Boston, and Washington D.C. all in one week.  Meaning tourism.  And tons of it.  Though maybe not with fanny packs though.  

• If I thought I was busy last quarter, I know I am busy this quarter.  I feel stressed out most of the time. Which is okay for now.  But really I like to be busy because when I finally get on top of all of my stuff I enjoy soo much being on top of everything.  Which I am still figuring out how to do, but I will let you know when I get there.  Let me just give you a slice of it.  Everyone at Stanford figures out what they're going to do during the summer during like the month of January.  Meaning on top of looking for an on-campus job, I am applying for internships, and fellowships, and trying to decide where I should live this summer.  And trying (and kind of failing, hence the 9 pm blog post on a Saturday night) to have a social life.  Aghh :)
• I love my classes.  My hardest classes are Econ, which I love, and Music Theory, which I look stupid in regularly because they put me in an advanced section next to people who have perfect pitch.  Which I simply cannot compete with.  Also, I really want to minor in music now.  Also, there's an Ebonics class (technically it's called Modern African American Vernacular English), an intro to Computers class (stay tuned for blog revamping and a personal website based off of this knowledge in the future), and a group piano lesson class, which I also love, but which is more relaxing than stressful.  
• Okay those last two were wordy.  So I am recently obsessed with this band, which actually really surprised me.  
• And just to throw in another picture, here's one of me and my favorite roommate from last quarter sometime :)

Something Witty About New Years

Big Events for me in 2010:

• I didn't live in my parents house for 88% of the year (yeah I did the math.)
• I was converted to babies
• I lived in Provo for a summer (I feel like every Mormon who is college-aged has to do this.)
• I got in my first car accident
• I became sure of my major. (ECON!!)
• I learned what it's like to live with someone you are not related to and really enjoy it. (PODO!)
• I drove more miles than I ever have before.  And most of them alone.  

Hopefully, 2011 will bring:

• A version of me that actually exercises
• A job that actually relates to my career interests (once I figure those out)
• Me preparing to go on a mission?
• Steady Finances (goal: spend as little as possible except on gifts for others)
• Happiness.  and Sadness.  and New Experiences.  and Growth. Barrels of it.  

Sooo...

This year is brand sparkling new.  Don't return it the same way.  

Three Ways to Make A Friend

The other day I heard about three ways to make a friend.  

1. Give someone a compliment.
2. Tell someone a secret.
3. Tell someone something embarrassing.

I'm going to try and be better friends with you guys:

• Embarrassing: I am really squeamish.  I got a bloody nose in the shower the other day, and I didn't realize it until I actually tasted the blood.  It easily added 15 minutes to my total shower time.  Also, google image searching squeamish was just about the worst idea of my life, but I did find this comic:

• Secret: I have like an anti-temper.  So when things happen to me that should make me angry, instead I get "upset" and mostly just uncomfortable.  I don't like to let people see that they have affected me so I let things mull later on.  Which is a terrible habit.  

• Embarrassing: I'm kind of baby-obsessed.  Which is really really funny because all through high school I was the girl who didn't want to hold the baby and who couldn't get into babysitting or hanging out with little kids.  I got voted most likely to have 8 kids in high school and it was really ironic.  Mostly I was just a well-known Mormon girl and, well, you know the stereotype.  But now I want tons of babies.  But maybe when I have one of my own, I'll want to slow down a little.  

• Compliment:  I love when people think I'm interesting.  I love when people think that what I feel matters, and when it's clear that they spent a couple minutes of their day thinking about me.  I don't have too many people who think about my feelings if I'm not there to remind them that I have them.  So thank you, thank you, thank you for reading this post and for thinking about me for a couple minutes of your day.