First weeks of class

I am officially back in school, and officially swamped with a bazillion things that need to be done all at once. Gahh. However, one of my New Years resolutions, yet again, is to blog at least once a week (and I missed out on most of January already). So...

In Sum:
I made the trek up to Rexburg and got moved into my apartment with help from my trusty, box-moving dad. (Thanks pop!) I have one of the same roommates as I had the last time I was up here (hi Jen!) which is FANTASTIC. I cannot stress enough how key having room mates who are on the same wavelength as yourself is when it comes to things like tidiness. It can effect the entire living experience. Seriously. Such a relief.

My classes: I am nerdily thrilled with the material I get to read and write about this semester. I'm taking Family Foundations (a religion class, which has The Family Proclamation as the basis for all of the material we cover), The Middle East (taught by a man who lived in the middle east for 7 years and has a deep love and respect for the culture and people there) Postmodernism (oh man!! This is contemporary fiction from 1965 up until the present. Our texts are books that have been on my to-read list for eons, so I am more than a little pumped to get into it) and Advanced Literary Criticism, which sounds scary and boring, but I assure you it is not. My teacher is from Boston and talks with a New Yawk accent, and during the first period alone we discussed Aristotle, Shakespeare, and Escher and how they relate to literature. Amazing. Also, he looks like Dustin Hoffman, so just being there is an entertaining experience. I also have Science 101, which has not proved utterly mind-numbing yet, so that's a good sign.

My life: I got called to be the 1st Counselor in Relief Society (a women's organization in our church) and wow. It takes up a lot of time, but apparently I had plenty of random time stored away in nooks and crannies that went unused over past semesters, because somehow I am finding time to fit it in. I also started work again this week. I am still unsure where all the hours I require in each week for work and study and service and class are going to come from, but so far I'm alive and kicking. I haven't even had to borrow Hermione Granger's time-turner yet. (I knew I could work a Harry Potter reference in there somewhere. High-five.)

Dear Bloggie,

Oh hello. I know I've been neglecting you over the past few weeks. Sorry. I've been busy working, but that is no excuse. I had a fantastic Christmas with my family and ate too many cookies and lots of fudge. I've taken the week off of work to pack, but I've mainly been watching Modern Family on Sidereel.com. It is hilarious. I love how little Manny is a 40 year old trapped in a 12 year old's body, and conversely, Phil is a 12 year old trapped in a 40 year old's body.



I've also been doing a great deal of thinking about all the organizing and packing I have to do over the next 6 days. Unfortunately, I usually get distracted and end up watching TV or painting my nails instead of doing anything productive. I go to Rexburg in 6 days, and am not yet frazzled by the prospect. I suppose I should start packing now so that I don't have an absolute unpreparedness-triggered moving panic attack come Monday morning.

Toodles,
Tami

Meet Anxiety Cat.

I came across this little fellow on memegenerator (a site on which I waste an embarrassing amount of time giggling quietly to myself) and it made me laugh so hard. It's like he is the absolute personification (or cat-ification?) of every ounce of social anxiety/shyness/OCD stress I have ever experienced. Enjoy.

Thunder thighs and my body image.

I saw a picture this week, a very recent one, of myself. Even though I've lost close to 40 pounds in the last year and a half (which, yay!), I still zeroed in on the one area of my body I've never been happy with, no matter how skinny I've been - my thighs. Oh, my thighs. They have always been hell-bent on constantly being large and jiggly.

As I stared at them in disgust, I had an epiphany. If I approach my appearance with an ever critical eye, I will never be thin enough. Or toned enough. Or cute enough. Or even tanned enough. No matter how supportive and complimentary people are towards me, if I lose the weight only in order to 'fix' myself, it will never be enough.

However, if I accept my body as it is right here and right now (jiggles, cellulite, whiteness and all), I have already won. Focusing on becoming healthier, as opposed to fixing what I perceive as defects, will be enough.

Hooray.

It's always darkest before the dawn.

Another post dedicated to an awesome new album that I must gush about to anyone who will listen. Because I love my music to the point of total nerddom. Deal. With. It.

Artist: Florence + The Machine
Album: Ceremonials
My thoughts: So beautiful. Quirky, happy, and occasionally mysterious. The arrangements and beats are brilliantly layered; each song feels like a unique little story. Just like with their last album, Lungs, there are certain songs on this record that make me so happy that while listening to it on the road, I get the urge to jump on top of my car and just start dancing in the middle of an intersection. (Don't worry, I haven't. Yet.) There are also a few tracks that are spooky that I haven't completely been won over by yet, but I know I will be. Because that is just how good these guys are.
Favorite Tracks: Shake It Out, Only If for a Night, All This and Heaven Too

*As a sidenote, there is one detail that pains me about Florence + The Machine. As a lover of music videos, I was really excited to check theirs out. When I heard that the Dog Days are Over video won an MTV music video award, I knew I had to watch it. So I did - and I was left wondering precisely when during the experience I dropped acid. Blue genie women in gold dresses and scary kabuki doll makeup? Check and check. Masked purple ninjas banging on some bongo drums? Why of course!
Seriously.
It's terrifying.
I really don't want to post the video here because it will freak you out and could make you hate their music, which would be tragic. So instead, here is a little screencap to illustrate my point:

Oh well.

It's mah birfday! and some random facts.

I had a fantastic birthday yesterday. I was even given the gift of an extra hour of sleep by the universe (thank you daylight savings time! I forgive you for being an unnecessary annoyance to the modern world). My sister Jackie came down to Utah for the weekend, and so my entire family was together. It was awesome. We had presents, cake, and crepe paper decorations (an old family tradition that was supposed to die out once we were no longer little kids, but has endured).

So I am now 26. I am fully loving it, but personally accepting the inevitability of aging is a new development. When I hit 25, I had this inexplicable wave of horror wash over me when I realized that I was only 5 years away from being 30. That just seemed so....old. However, just because I am not precisely where I imagined I would be in my late 20's, I am entirely who I want to be. I think that matters more than the fact that I haven't yet reached the milestones that I expected I would have by now.

So, in honor of self-acceptance, here are 5 little-known (or quirky) things about me:

1. I swear too much, even though it's often just under my breath. I know I ought to stop because it's not ladylike and it's getting out of control. For example: The other day, I was exiting the 7-11 in Kaysville after getting a nice big fountain drink of Dr. Pepper. The door slammed my arm as I was walking through on my way out, and it hurt like the dickens. For a horrible moment I was in danger of losing my 32 oz fountain drink all over myself so i mumbled, "ohsh*t!" under my breath. Apparently it wasn't as quiet as I thought it was, because some dude looked up and stared at me the whole way out to my car. I'm sorry I offended your delicate sensibilities, young man, but you were wearing a backwards hat and didn't look like you were full of high society social norms.

2. Most of my wardrobe looks more like it belongs to a 13-year-old than a 26-year-old. It's mostly because I just like tee shirts and sneakers, ok? And also, because I have a secret desire to be on TLC's What not to Wear. I have literally imagined the things that Clinton Kelly would say to me while flinging all my crew neck graphic tees into the garbage can.

3. I am not ambidextrous when flipping off idiot drivers. (another habit I need to quit)

4. When I am at work and extremely bored between surveys, I play the alphabet game in my head. The alphabet game goes like this: Think of a fairly specific category, and then think of a word or name from that category for each letter of the alphabet. The other day, I chose 'first names of characters that appear in books I own.' (Aberforth, Bella, Carlton, Diana... etc) It is a fabulous way to make the day go by quickly.

5. I was a shamelessly compulsive liar up until I was about 7 or 8 years old, when I apparently grew a conscience. For instance: I once told my best friend in the second grade that we had 'lost' my younger sister at the mall. (We hadn't.) I wove the story very dramatically and was apparently very convincing because that afternoon, my friend's very concerned mother called my house to ask my mom if they had found my younger sibling. Busted.

concert review: MCR & Blink 182

So, I went to a concert last month. It was super fun, and therefore deserves a post. I am just really behind on blogging. In sum:

I went with my great friends Robyn and Megan.


It was not the best live show I've ever been to, but I still had a blast because I was with my besties. However, I probably won't be going to a Blink 182 concert again (Oh, yea, by the way - the bands were Blink 182 and My Chemical Romance). Because even though Travis killed it on the drums (it sounded like no animal with less than 8 arms could have done all that crazy stuff), and even though their songs were catchy as ever, they have a REALLY VULGAR stage act. Like, tasteless. I shouldn't have been shocked, because Meg, who had been to their shows before tried to warn me. "Uh, Tami, are you sure? Blink kind of... swears a lot at concerts."
"Meh! That's ok. I don't listen to lyrics that much anyways."

The problem is, you really don't get a sense of how crude they are when you buy their music edited - which I do. And having it blared through an awesomely loud sound system doesn't really give you much of a choice in how much you notice. So, their act was an eye-opening experience. Yikes. It was also a little bit sad, because aging rock stars with receding hairlines are depressing. (I'm sorry, Mark Hoppus. But you seriously are going bald.)

But now, we will talk about My *cough cough secret husbands* Chemical Romance. They are who I really went to see. They are those tiny, tiny blue and purple lights on stage wayyyyy behind me:


I had assumed that Blink and MCR would be co-headlining, and would each take turns as the main attractions. Instead MCR opened and did a short, 45-minute set. Wahhhhh. Their sound system and stage set up wasn't as cool as Blink's, since they weren't the headliners - but they still sounded amazing. They are one of my favorite bands, and they didn't disappoint. I would do it all over again to see them perform. Their music is so personal and piercing. It tears my little heart out and I love it. They played a beautiful rock set full of my faves including Helena, I'm not Okay, Cancer, Na Na Na, and their arrangements were slightly different and more dramatic and instrumental than their studio albums. It was very theatrical.

In short, we had a great time. Also, we saw lots of people with fascinatingly ugly hair. Like this young lad:



I felt his hair needed to be documented, but I was torn between getting close enough to snap a good picture without being noticed, or getting too close and risking getting poked with his spikes if I angered him.

Dear Autumn,

You are a great season. One of my favorites. Bright yellow leaves, the introduction to the holiday season, and feeling so cozy in my car with the heater blasting - all of those are fabulous. However, I wish that you would last longer - or how about you stick around all the way through til Spring? You lasted only a week or two this year, you fickle minx.

Here's the thing. Your little sister, Winter, is heinous. I hate her more than the Grinch hated Christmas. In fact, I sort of turn into the Grinch once Christmas passes, and the snow and sleet and ice are left behind but are no longer nostalgic and festive. They're just cold. Painfully so, especially once I've moved down to Idaho. And then I start to lose my mind a little bit, and-oh-my-gosh-it's-April-why-is-it-still-snowing....ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh


Please, see what you can do about it.
Love, Tami