Fashion Blog Prelim: Girl Scout patches.

If I had a fashion blog, I would have posted this the other day.
(I would've posted this earlier but I've been busy! So behind on blogging.)

A couple weeks ago I saw Tavi of Style Rookie collect Girl Scout patches to wear and I thought that were adorable! So I thought I'd get some together myself (which wasn't hard because I had my Girl Scout vests in my storage closet ha).










Close-up:


















However, I've come to the conclusion that I can't run a fashion blog because (a) I have a severely low-quality camera, (b) my room has poor lighting and I don't know how to find good lighting, and (c) I don't have anyone to take pictures of me. Oh, and (d) I don't have Photoshop on my laptop. So my "fashion blog pictures" end up looking like this:




















And those were such cute outfits, too. Bah.
Also, apparently I don't know how to work the blog format. Ech.


Maybe eventually, I'll have the required a-to-d items and I'll have my own fashion blog that lots of people follow and comment on and people will send me free shoes and skirts and stuff. Actually, B's already offered to be my photographer (c)...when we're living together...married... or maybe we'll just be next-door neighbors, convenient for my daily fashion blog entires. But for now I'll just sneak intermittent "fashion blog entries" on here. If you guys don't mind.

Almost Christmas Break

Ten hours of Buffalo Bill this weekend: Gonna have to wait.

Instead, I've finally cleaned my apartment and in the process got distracted with other fun things.

Like make this cute headband:

The secret is: Braided strips of scrap fabric, an idea from Kaitlin (who is pretty much the ideal roommate who isn't bothered by me staying up all night with the light on working on a paper and who miraculously wakes me up 50 minutes before my paper's due!), but actually from her bff Monica (who is one awesome girl who's getting married soon! and who has an awesome blog).






Plus I've been watching Psych on Netflix Instant. Love that show. Especially since Shawn used the phrase "fake dating" on the "Hollywood Homicide" episode. Baha!

The next episode was this gem "High Top Fade Out" on which Kenan Thompson and Jaleel White (Urkel!) were guest stars and SANG. Watch (and forgive the crappy quality, there weren't that many options online):




Fab. So much love.

The conversation after this scene is hilarious. If you have Netflix, go watch this episode immediately.

Can I just note how the Indian episode was followed by the Black episode? Just sayin. But I do like it. Maybe there's an Asian episode coming up later in the season?

Now I'm going to continue my lazy, procrastinatory Saturday with Psych and working on a certain Christmas present... which may or may not be for a certain boy.

A Collage of Modernism

A Letter.

You say it’s funny, it’s very funny. And it’s a lot of fun, too, to be in love. You say that in a way it’s an enjoyable feeling.

But I think it’s hell on earth.

For three years, or almost three years, I have never seen beyond you. I am sure I have never been in love in my life.

The trees were buzzing, and the grass…

The blossoms that were unusually luxurious and beautiful that summer…

The roses…

All trash, m’dear.

I could hear the water.

I had picked you up because of a vague sentimental idea that it would be nice to eat with some one.

But what was the scientific explanation (for one must be scientific in all things)?

Listen, don’t you ever get the feeling tha

t all your life is going by and you’re not taking advantage of it? Do you realize you’ve lived nearly half the time you have to live already?

One evening the panic was on me—that I could not feel.

It’s been a silly, silly dream, being unhappy.

I could hear the water.

There is a dignity in people; a solitude, even between husband and wife a gulf; and that one must respect.

But it is unsatisfactory, we agree, how little one knows people.

To love makes one solitary, I think.

How odd it is to know you and yet not know a single thing that had happened to you.

And between us… nothing happened.

I did not expect anything to happen…and I was entirely happy.

Perhaps we feel like that when we die and become a part of something entire, whether it is sun and air, or goodness and knowledge. At any rate, that is happiness; to be dissolved into something complete and great. When it comes to one, it comes as naturally as sleep.

I hated you: I loved you.

My gift is my watch: I give it to you not that you may remember time, but that you might forget it now and then for a moment and not spend all your breath trying to conquer it. because no battle is ever won he said. They are not even fought. The field only reveals to man his own folly and despair, and victory is an illusion of philosophers and fools.

It might be possible that the world itself

is without meaning.

I couldn’t hear the water.

This is a collage I constructed out of lines from three different modernist texts, as a break-up letter, or maybe just a letter, to/from/about modernism/love.

Anyone recognize what novels these are drawing from?

I'm pretty sure I want to focus on American modernist (and post-modern?) literature for my PhD.

Why do I love modernism so much?

Maybe it's the lyricism of the prose by such modernist heavyweights as Woolf and Faukner.

Maybe I'm drawn to, can relate to, am heartbroken and uplifted by the themes of isolation, insularity, inability to communicate, the paradoxes of human relationships, the search for meaning and non-meaning and the self-inflicted loneliness that perpetuates.

Maybe it's because I know how love can make you lonely.

And maybe reading and writing about it helps me grapple with that.

link

PS. Ready for winter to hit.

On the Vice of Napping

Leonardo da Vinci: "O you who sleep, what is sleep? Sleep resembles death. Oh, why not let your work be such that after death you acquire immortality, rather than during life you make yourself like unto the hapless dead by sleeping."

Touché, Leonardo. Touché.

Sketch #2

I have green apples in my canvas bag, and since I am preparing for my post-apocalyptic journey into Reality, I also have hand sanitizer and anti-serpentine spray although it's unclear as to whether it repels snakes or repairs windy shapes. The landscape is barren, a desert, and there is a homeless man scatting, his spit furious and suspended, and a headless tuxedo is walking toward me, and a frothy skeletally malformed dog-sized elephant struggles against the stone egg that looms over us all like a corpulent mother over her misbehaving toddler. Maybe I should spray the crooked creature, I think, maybe I can heal his scoliosis or at least protect it from the St. Exuperyian boa that must be lurking around here somewhere. I find a dry bowl of Cheerios in my bag and I throw some in my mouth. They are stale. I eat them anyway. I never apologize.

Fun Facts

To celebrate this week's all-nighter for my English 363 take-home midterm... and my enjoyment of a literature conference on campus, my amazing Writing Center friends, and my English-infused life in general... I just thought I'd take a break to share some English-nerdy Fun Facts/Observations.

1 Ezra Pound, the iconically elitist High Modernist poet, looks like a douchier version of Joseph Gordon-Levitt.









2 Fire!!, the black literary journal of the Harlem Renaissance that was started by major players in the movement like Wallace Thurman, Zora Neal Hurston, and Langston Hughes, only lasted one issue. Sales were terrible, and the stacks and stacks of unwanted copies were stored in a basement. These copies were all burned in a fire (allegedly).

















3 Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Robert Browning were the Beyonce and Jay-Z of Victorian poets.






XIV.
If thou must love me, let it be for nought
Except for love's sake only. Do not say
'I love her for her smile---her look---her way
Of speaking gently,---for a trick of thought
That falls in well with mine, and certes brought
A sense of pleasant ease on such a day'---
For these things in themselves, Belovèd, may
Be changed, or change for thee,---and love, so wrought,
May be unwrought so. Neither love me for
Thine own dear pity's wiping my cheeks dry,---
A creature might forget to weep, who bore
Thy comfort long, and lose thy love thereby!
But love me for love's sake, that evermore
Thou mayst love on, through love's eternity.
--from Sonnets from the Portuguese, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, 1850


Hit me like a ray of sun
Burning through my darkest night
You're the only one that I want
Think I'm addicted to your light
I swore I'd never fall again
But this don't even feel like falling
Gravity can't begin to pull me back to the ground again

It's like I've been awakened
Every rule I had you breakin'
It's the risk that I'm taking
I'm never gonna shut you out

Everywhere I'm looking now
I'm surrounded by your embrace
Baby, I can see your halo
You know you're my saving grace
You're everything I need and more
It's written all over your face
Baby, I can feel your halo
I pray it won't fade away
-from "Halo," Beyonce, 2008

I'm featured

I'm on someone's blog! Thanks, shoes.

Even though she got my name wrong, it's still pretty flattering.

http://wearingitonmysleeves.blogspot.com/2010/10/student-street-style.html

Sketch #1

Through the melting glass panes she watched the dark torrents silencing the field, her skin prickling with anticipation, her hands were cold, frighteningly cold, and clammy, and she kept watching, the vengeful clouds holding something back, she knew it, she was waiting for it, wanting it, dreading it, she was expecting it, she knew she—

CRASH

and she gasped, not because of the sound—she was deaf—but because the sudden attack of light almost made her hear it.

It will not be 500 words but

Problem: How can I become a writer if I don't write?
Solution: a. Plagiarize. b. Write.

Every day, I will post something written creatively. It will not be poetry. It will be fictional. It may or may not be plagiarized.

I'm starting tomorrow. I will be sure to appreciate all the feedback I can get! Please be critical but not mean.

Also, I'd appreciate any suggestions for a pseudonym.

How to forget to feel

I wish I could remember what it feels like to...

...go through an entire day without needing a nap.

source.

...have my fingertips tingling with creativity electricity

creating new worlds.

source.

...discover something true and frightening through a dream

What would my Jungian mandala look like?

...be half a whole.

I found that I loved you afraid better than I had ever loved you fearless, and in that moment we grew up, and shut the gates of Eden behind us, and our empire was at an end." (Willa Cather, "The Treasure of Far Island")

But.

I sure do like how it feels to be sole.
[sole, individual, whole, soul, free, me.]

source, source

Going to California

I want to go to Disneyland to disappear.

Source

Saturday (Un)Productivity

Today:

So instead of getting my homework done,

or working on my honors thesis proposal,

1) I went to Spark Lounge with this beautiful girl for a reading by Pat Madden about his book Quotidiana because the essay genre is so, so great. (Seriously, his "Mea Culpa" was so much more interesting/hilarious than the fiction and poetry representatives there.)

2) And then I listened to Shakira's "She Wolf" about 30 times (not embedded because it's so explicit. Watch at your own discretion) and Taio Cruz's "Break Your Heart" also about 30 times (see below) and David Guetta's "Sexy B****" (the video for which which I won't even give you the link to because you shouldn't even watch it. What is with music videos being "acceptably" pornographic?? Not cool.)

Watch this though.

THESE SONGS ARE SO CATCHY I CAN'T EVEN HANDLE IT.

3) And then my new favorite best friend Erin came over with a delicious marble cupcake from the Sweet Tooth Fairy where she works now and I shared my delicious banana bread with her (Thanks to Kaitlin's grandma for the recipe!). And I offered Erin my tips on wooing cute boys because of my obvious and thorough expertise.

Erin and me at a daaance party

B and me with Sweet Tooth Fairy cupcakes at Park City

So I wasn't quite as productive today as I had planned. But I did 4) study GRE vocab with Emily (abstemious? moderate in appetite. obstreperous? noisy and difficult to control. done.) and I 5) finally did laundry and cleaned my room!

So I have a lot of work to get done tomorrow but oh well! It was a good day. :)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

[The plenitude (read: abundance) of hyperlinks in this post is to compensate for the dearth (read: shortage) of pictures I took today. Boo.]

Up next: The long-anticipated french (not capitalized) toast breakfast tomorrow. Will take pictures, don't worry.

PS. I want to do some series on here, but I don't know what I want to do yet. Let's be honest. My life isn't that interesting. Anyone want to read about how nerdy English stuff? Like how the Brownings were the Beyonce and Jay-Z of English poets? Or a creative writing series, like with short snippets of what I write? What about fun pop culture facts? Like how Modest Mouse (who will be here on July 8 for the Twilight concert series!!!) got their band name from a Virginia Woolf story or the newest Lady Gaga updates? Like this:

SIGH. Always more than I can handle.

I'll sleep on it.

Today, in Numbers:

After 2.5 hours of Aristotle

and 2 papercuts (on the same spot on my hand dang it.)

and 5 bowls of Frosted Flakes

and 1 dishwasher load,

I'm finally chiseling down my honors thesis into a more focused direction.

Hooray!

Oh Faulkner. You slay me.

And Frosted Flakes, you fatten me right up.

Just in time for summer.

Just don't ask me how many pages I have written so far on my actual proposal. Oops.

I know you were waiting for this...

More Gaga videos!

Don't even pretend like you're not gonna watch them. Because you are. And you're gonna love them. Seriously.

1) University of Oregon :

I wish I could be cool enough to be in an all-male a capella group performing Gaga songs.

2) America's Favorite Dance Crew :

These guys are SO.GOOD! And they really captured Gaga's essence, I think.

(PS. They won this round on the show!)

3) Troops in Afghanistan :

I'm pretty sure this is for reals.

And if I were to make a potentially non-PC, not-that-funny joke here, I'd say something like Sure don't need to ask or tell here! But I won't.

All this Gaga just makes me want to go daaaancing. Any takers? :)

(Thanks to Jimmy, Pica, and Trav for sharing these links with me!)

Letters from the LRC

Dear boy sitting at the computer across from me,

Forgive me for accientally playing footsie with you. Repeatedly. I just like to slouch.

Dear sadly inept library administration,

Please come to your senses and realize that this congested, ventless, non-air-conditioned room is full of 300 constantly buzzing eletric boxes spewing heat. Your solution of placing two fans in the back cools down the room as much as an ice cube would in a closed oven.

Dear whoever on campus is in charge of computer lab availability,

Why are there not more Macs on campus? Don't you want me to be able to do my homework? I'd appreciate it if you could fix this Mac shortage asap.




Dear creative nonfiction class,

The selections I will read tomorrow from my essays will not be very eloquent or witty or interesting. But I will bring warm cinnamon rolls, so please make me feel brilliant and original and hilarious.

Plus, some post-it advice:

Today,

I finished the crossword puzzle.

I stayed on campus and did homework for three hours more than I had to just to skip FHE that was being held at my apartment.

I had productive conversations with quite a few, quite intelligent individuals about what I hope will end up being my honors thesis.

I learned the word somnolent : "of a kind likely to induce sleep, a somnolent sermon" or "inclined to or heavy with sleep, drowsy."


So today, I'm feeling pretty good. But after running on 3.5 hours of sleep, I'm also feeling pretty somnolent. Glad I'm not feeling frazzled and chomped anymore, like this.

chomp-chompin' on tulle. source.

Why can't I figure this out.

Does my awareness, fostered by my English studies, of both the inadequacy and power of words make me any better or worse off at truly communicating with others?

Does it at least make me more critical or aware of my ineptitude?

Is it possible that there will just be people with whom it will always be impossible to truly communicate?

Why can't I fix it?

Can any of these questions be productive?

Will I ever be able to remove the shards of lightbulb glass and black pepper from my keyboard?

Can anyone answer my questions?

Well, for now, I have a date with my down comforter, legs bare of Sunday tights, and hopefully some wordless dreams.

photo source via here

Holy Holi?

I had mixed feelings about the Festival of Colors the day of, but I think I've come to terms with it now.

On one hand, we have

(1) dumb kids mindlessly taking part of an actually meaningful religious ritual, who don't care to/bother to really understand, thereby appreciate, thereby respect this different culture.

(2) another example of Western appropriation/romanticization/orientalism of an Eastern tradition (I think I saw "cultural rape" or another phrase akin to it used to describe this at some point)

But then again, consider that

(1) the whole idea behind Holi to begin with is carnival-esque in that it's all about stripping social distinction and forgetting imposed "rules" like that, so not following the "rules" and just throwing powder at everyone willy-nilly is in line with the spirit of Holi

(2) the founders of the Spanish Fork Hare Krishna temple, Caru Das Adhikary and his wife, are white and from California (at least most recently before they came to Utah), so how culturally authentic is this Holi anyway?

However, at one point the emcee? moderator? leader? the guy with the mic directing the color-throwing did make a comment about how yes, this is a great, colorful, fun event that photographers LOVE and get tons of cool pictures from, but he wanted to remind us that thereis deeper significance behind it all.

But let's be honest.

Most of the people were only there to take fun pictures. They were only there because it's fun to throw powder at people and to get powder thrown at you. They were only there for mindless senseless fun. The VAST majority, I would say were like this. Plus I saw a total of 4.5 brown (read: non-white, non-Mormon) people at Holi: 4.5 people who were actually culturally entitled to be part of the festival. I suppose most of the other tens of thousands who were there were content with being ignorant to the cultural richness behind it all.

So I guess I'm still torn after all.

Although I did, incidentally, get some cool pictures. Don't judge me please.

Was this just nonsensical rambling to you? Have any comments or criticisms?

My Secret Revealed

While dropping half my onion chunks and sauerkraut strands off my

J-Dawg the other day, I admitted to my friend Joel my secret ambition to become a successful (read: widely read and generously sponsored) blogger. He wisely gave me a few tips.

Joel's Guide to Becoming

a Successful Blogger

1) Be a cute (or bangin?) indie chick.

2) Be married (preferably to an equally indie husband).

3) Have a perfect life (preferably living in an apartment in a trendy major city)

4*) Own a dog.

See the following examples:

A Cup of Jo

pretty/married/writer for Glamour/NYC/no dog but pregnant

Rockstar Diaries

cute and SUPER indie/married/stylist freelancer/DC/dog named Kingsley

Bleubird Vintage

bangin and also SUPER indie/married with 2 kids + pregnant/designer and vintage collector for her own vintage-inspired store

Color Me Katie

cute and artsy-hipster/lives with boyfriend (close enough)/freelance photographer and street artist/Brooklyn/cat named Moo (also close enough)

Did I/Joel miss anything?

I suppose it's a reasonable how-to list.

I'll get started I guess.

Any suggestions for what dog to get?

*Bonus

Onslaught

Seriously people.

Can somebody explain to me how an utter tiredness of life can full develop in a matter of mere hours?

I've had my share of Scottish indie bands and chills and sleep and eggplant and modern sadness and empathy and not knowing how to communicate but trying to anyway. I can't help but feel entitled to more.

A cripple walks amongst you, all you tired human beings

He's got all the things a cripple has: not two working arms and legs

And vital parts fall from his system and dissolve in Scottish rain

Vitally he doesn't miss them, he's too [messed] up to care

Well, this is how we do things now

This is how the modern stay scared

So I cut out all the good stuff

I cut off my foot to spite my leg

Is that you in front of me,

Coming back for even more of exactly the same?

You must be a masochist

To love a modern leper on his last leg.

"To love makes one solitary, she thought."

Mrs. Dalloway, Virginia Woolf

I am: the Subatu Saboteur!

This is how I spend my weekends:

Well, at least that's what I was up to two weekends ago.

I presented at the BYU Writing Tutors Conference

2010 Area Meeting of the Rocky Mountain Tutoring Centers Peer Tutoring Conference

(seriously, how much more impressive and resume-worthy is that name).

Chloe, Lauren, and I talked about the importance of sabotaging Subatus (read: suggestion-based-tutorials).

We had light and sound effects, costume changes, and led interesting (we hope) conversations about tutoring approaches with tutors from the Writing Center, FHSS lab, and the Writing Fellows.

And now I know how to spell sabotage.

Thanks to Kylie for taking the pictures!

PS: Check out the Writing Center Podcast! Where else can you listen to episodes about latrinalia (bathroom graffiti), Grammar Nazis, and blogging? Newest episode: Valentine's day Love/Hate poetry.

Quotidiana?

I'm in a writing nonfiction class this semester, and we've been focusing a lot on finding the extraordinary in the everyday mundane. I feel like blogging about my life would accomplish just that. And I mean real blogging. Not once-a-month blogging about random things, but talking about seemingly boring things about my life blogging. Let's try this out.

For dinner the other night I made tonkatsu for me and B [B = boy. Or Brian.] They're breaded pork chops and I presented it all pretty on top of cabbage and tomatoes and it was delicious.

B tried to thank me for dinner but it was kind of awkward.

Oh well. He's cute anyway.

Next step in this blogging business: get a better camera. And learn Photoshop.

Holes

Life Lesson of the Week:

Do not wear chunky rings when you're wearing fishnets and you pee an average of 3 times an hour.

Pretty holes

Unpretty holes

-7 years

me: Look! i bought a whole thing of peanuts! I just added 7 years to my life! I just bought seven years of life!

boy: Yeah, but only if you bought unsalted peanuts. Honey roasted ones won't do that.

me: . . . But they're so good!

Maybe I'll live at least 5 years longer now.

I've had J Dawgs burps for three hours.

I had lunch at J Dawgs with my freshman roommate today! I love catching up with her and I love that she was my roommate (her not judging me for my expletive-laced language, her not worrying about me when I randomly didn't come home on the weekends, and her wire basket contraption around our fridge.)

You really get to know someone when you live in an cement-walled, eight-foot-wide cubicle.

She's a friend who I can not see for months but then when we see each other we'll pick up right where we left off.

I just realized I don't think I have ANY pictures of us together anymore since they were on my computer when the hard drive died on me and I lost everything on it a couple of years ago.

And then later I ran into some other girls from my freshman dorm, and my goodness they are just two of the most Beautiful people I know. The kind of girls who are so kind and brilliant and creative and funny and pretty that they make me damn jealous and make me want to hate them but I can't because they emanate too much goodness that I just want them to like me.

Oh, and apparently someone else on campus has stolen my identity except for she's a TA for a rock climbing class. Who knew? Identity theft is not a joke!

And some of my favorite people I know from freshman year are coming home from their missions this year!

Goodness, two years go by fast.

Where we're headed

iss da truf.

IMO

I'm in the middle of having a debate with a friend about opinions.

He thinks that "everyone has an opinion on everything."

Now, I respect him very much, but I argue that that's not true. I think it's an idealistic view on the average level of intelligence of people. A lot of people actually don't have much going on upstairs [or at least much informed, critical thinking] and/or are not opinionated enough to form opinions on even simple things.

And I don't mean that in a rude/condescending way. I think it's okay to not have an opinion on everything.


Any opinions?

My Valentine...

...made dinner [shrimp and lemon-butter sauce and rice]

and dessert [chocolate mousse parfait]

and there were candles and music and words and some l-word-mushiness that I will not admit to in public.

...and I watched a documentary about Pollock and The Man aspect of the modern art world [Who the #$&% Is Jackson Pollock?] and some mogul skiing and figure skating.

...made me happy.

It's all minutiae.

I used the word minutiae completely wrong in a tutorial the other day.

And the student knew it, too.

I realized my gaffe as soon as I said it, but the kid immediately asked with a mocking smile, "Minutiae?"

In fact, I had meant the exact opposite of the word, but my brain got confused.

Dang it.

Trying to hold on to this...

I was starting to get into this kind of mood until about twenty minutes ago...




I'm trying to let it fill me.