blogging instead of playing spider solitaire.

Hi, I'm going to tell you a little about how my life is going right now. Not that you asked.

I'm in limbo again. Actually, I've been stuck in limbo for a pretty significant amount of time. Neither here nor there, waiting for this or that to finally happen. Recently I've been waiting for news on whether or not I'll be getting a very important scholarship for the program in London, and it makes me anxious. I've been back from New York for a month now and time is flying, but I'm finding myself growing bored again. The excitement of the last two weeks of my trip, coming back and visiting with family and friends in Salt Lake, Kamas and Provo were exhausting and I was totally grateful for the chance to chill out and babysit a kitty in a cute apartment and have time again to think. Well, it's been a week and I'm bored.

I watch a lot of tv these days, and I noticed tonight when I was spending some time with friends that television is all I talk about. While I watch tv I knit. I just finished a hat that is much smaller than I was expecting to be, so maybe I'll try to sell it as a children's hat. Today I started a shawl with some $20 golden yarn that I bought in New York and I worry it won't be as pretty as I had hoped. Yesterday my little sister came over and I took some gorgeous pictures of her modeling some recent projects.

Guys, my sister is beautiful.

I've also been baking pies. After watching the entire 2 seasons of Pushing Daisies in the last week I have an uncontrollable desire to bake delicious pies. So far they have been perfection. Perfect crust, perfect filling. I'm in love with my pies. So far I've only made banana cream and a berry pie, but I plan on getting some more fruit and experimenting.

Not to brag, but I make a perfectly tender and flaky crust. And this berry pie was a divine conglomeration of three distinct berry flavors, all tied together with a little sugar on the flaky crust. Those were my sister's words, not mine.

Let's see... Oh, I also recently finished editing a 90 page thesis and got paid a little for it. I wish I could get more jobs like that. Anyone need an editor?

On another note, I've been feeling a little lonely lately, missing my Provo peeps and the new friendships I made in New York that never had the chance to develop to their full potential. I miss Alexis and Liz and Andy. I hope I can be friends with them again some day. I was lonely when I was in New York, and these people totally made my time there worth it. Tonight I spent time with three of my most favorite people, and I realize what joy friends bring me in my life, and I love the thought that I have no idea how many wonderful people I am set to encounter in my lifetime and how they will change and shape me and my existence on this earth.

Well, I think that is all for the night. Thanks, Internet, for listening. You're great.

Austen-loving werewolves, vampires and wedding receptions

I had a tremendous day today. I just got home at 11:00 pm and I've been out of my house since 7:30. But these are my favorite kind of days and I feel great. I had class at 8:00 today and I didn't fall asleep, and then I did student interviews and ran some errands until I taught at 11:00. This is the first lab day of the semester and I loved my first section. They were happy, enthusiastic, talkative and got really into the movie clips I showed. The best part was a lovely young man, tall, dark and totally beautiful, who got so excited about Pride and Prejudice and told me that his favorite version of it was the BBC one. I couldn't help but laugh to myself at this Jacob from Twilight lookalike who loved Pride and Prejudice. I wonder how many 19 year olds girls in my class are in love with him already. The second section was meh. They didn't talk, they didn't laugh at my jokes, which made me go a little too far in trying to get a reaction and probably caused me to freaked them out a little. Plus I was tired from already talking non stop for the previous two hours, and I didn't want to do it all over again. And in this class instead of a beautiful earnest young man who loves Pride and Prejudice I have a snarky smartass to contend with. Joy.

After class a friend came and got me and we went to a matinee of Daybreakers. I loved it. It was dark (like film noir dark) and scary and beautiful and bloody. The blood was gorgeous and there was just enough of it. I'm so excited that there is finally a movie that really explores the logical end of the vampire myth: what would happen if the Cullens turned everyone into a vampire? How could a world run by vampires sustain itself without a steady supply of blood? What happens when vampires stop becoming hunters and start mass producing blood? Buffy of course explored this a little in the episode when Cordelia wished Buffy had never come to Sunnydale and the whole town was run by vampires. The movie actually reminded me a lot of this episode. Anyway, it also fully explores the conventions of the genre and adds logical embellishments. When the vampires are stabbed in the heart they explode! And when they are in the sun, they don't effing sparkle, they die a horrible fiery death. I felt like this sunshine thing was really emphatic actually, and it's even there in the title. I also loved how Ethan Hawke's character's name was Edward. HA. He was way hotter than that other Edward, partly because he genuinely loved humans, but mostly because he wasnt an asshole. I adored this movie. It had everything I could want: proper character development, beautiful cinematography, the right amount of blood and gore, exploding vampires and pure, simple awesomeness.

That, ladies and gentlemen, was a really terrible review of the film, but I'm just so excited about it now. I definitely plan on writing a proper paper about it sometime in the near future.

After the movie I came back home, changed, my mom came and picked me up and we went to my cousin's wedding reception. It was lovely, and the family was wonderful, truly the opposite of what I expected. I got to see cousins, aunts and uncles and my grandparents, and they were all just lovely. (Honestly I'm glad there was no booze at the reception, otherwise it might have been a whole different story). It gave me hope for my own possible wedding someday. They rented this greenhouse park thing with plants everywhere, little stone paths and tables tucked away in corners. Very simple, little decorating required, and interesting enough to keep guests from leaving early. That was a good idea. I'm so happy my little cousin got married, and I loved seeing her family. They really all love each other and they are really wonderful people, and it makes me appreciate my own family as well as my extended family. I'm proud of them, who they are and what they've accomplished.

I took the bus back home from Sandy, which took an excrutiating hour to get to Provo, but it was a good time to think about stuff, about family and love and who I am, where I came came from and where I want to be. Now I'm exhausted and excited for bed and for the long weekend.

On Friday my mom came and picked me up and we went to my grandparents' house in Tabiona. That's two hours North-East of Provo. It was a nice time, but weird. My grandma has Alzheimer's and its in its early stages, so she's still quite lucid. The sad thing was that she was not herself. The even sadder thing was that I liked her better. All my life she scared me a little. She had control of every person and every situation and she would manipulate the room to her liking. She would manipulate lives to her liking as well, and I blame many of my mom's and uncles' problems on her. Now she's just a sweet little old lady. She's kind of like a child, which is hard, but she's always happy. I'm sad that Patsy is gone, because I always saw a bit of her in me and even though she made me uncomfortable I was never really scared of her like I think other people were. I wouldn't let her manipulate me. My sister and I loved to be mean to her. We used to lock her in the outhouse when we lived on the ranch. It was all good fun, and I was certain that she would some day get back at us in a very evil way. I don't know if she has, and I don't know if she can now.

Patsy's gone. On the other hand I have a nice, happy, funny little grandma that I enjoyed being around. And who knows how long that will last?

I expect you'll be seeing much more of me on your rss feeds

I need to practice my writing, and so I'm making a goal to blog every single day. I'm hoping the practice will help me as I work on my thesis, write a proposal for a PhD program to which I'm applying and write personal statements for the other PhD applications I'm doing.

Since I'm thinking today about my writing I thought I'd write about one of my favorite people who happens to be a really incredible writer. I have two amazing and intelligent sisters who are my best friends, and each relate to totally different parts of my personality. I'll probably write a whole post about my little sister some day, but today I want to talk about my older sister.

She is a writer and always has been. I mean always. She wrote out her first stories when she was five and has been telling me stories for as long as I can remember. She is talented, and I am jealous every single day of her talent. She writes fiction primarily, but when I read her scholarly work I always enjoy how imaginatively she makes her points. Sometimes I send her paragraphs I am working on for something and she takes my stilted and awkward phrases and rearranges them into something that flows and makes sense. I don't know how she does it and I can't imagine I will ever reach her skill level, but her work will always be what I strive to emulate.

I don't know what I would do without my older sister. Because she's a writer I can always find her on the internet, and so she becomes the person that I turn to most. She never fails to encourage me, and she always has time and attention to help me with a problem. She listens to me and gives me good advise and makes me feel capable and intelligent, even when I'm certain that I'm not. My sister and I share experiences that formed who we are and we will always be able to relate to each other in a way that we can't relate to anyone else. This is what makes me happy, and I am so glad that I have her around to help me figure out this whole PhD mess. If I get in to anything, it'll be because of her kind encouragement.