here, but only just a little.

i've been in ohio for a week and a half now. i already feel incredibly far removed from utah. i mean...was it really just a few days ago that i was going to finals and working in the newsroom and living in my own room and driving my car and making fires in my fireplace and driving up to slc to hang out and working in the theatre??

seems like a million years ago.

it's never the same when i come back here. i mean, there's a lot of the same people. it's fun to hang out with them and i always seem to make a few new friends when i come back. but somehow...everything is always a little different. i was here and then i left. there's a definite disconnect here. obviously i always know this will happen. it's still always kind of weird. things keep going after i leave. and i keep going after i go, too.

everytime i come here, i wonder if it will be the last time. sometimes it seems like it might be easier to leave and never come back. and yet...there's still a lot here.

everyone keeps asking. and honestly, i don't know.

so much has happened. so much i'm happy about and so much i'm angry about and so much that i'm confused about and so much that i just can't believe at all. so much. and it's only been a week.5. double weird that a week from right now...i'll be back in provo.

just thinking.

"Those who make happiness the chief objective of life are bound to fail, for happiness is a by-product rather than an end in itself."
-Elder Joseph B. Worthlin, November 1980

i never really thought about it like that.

practically christmas. omg.

nothing like christmas break to totally break any good habits you have formed over the course of a semester (such as eating and sleeping on a semi-regular basis) and turn you into something ridiculous and crazy that stays up late and works all the time and hangs out at other people's houses til the wee hours of the morning and lives out of a suitcase.

okay. i guess i always work a lot.

anyways, i would probably be lying if i said that i had even anticipated this "vacation" to be anything close to relaxing. between balancing a job, old friends, newer friends, family, my own personal time (for sleeping, running, or whatever) and everything else, there really isn't time to relax. at least when i get back, it will be a whole new slew of classes that i can fall behind in, instead of the ones i've already given up on in the past few months.

speaking of which, i'm thinking of getting a hobby. i won't be working nearly as much next semester and i will need to think of something to fill my time with. so far, i don't have any leads. but i'm working on it.

yay christmas tomorrow. glad i spent way more money than i had.

but if you can't spend too much money on the people you actually like in life, what's the point in saving it for dumb things for yourself for whatever else during the year? that's what i decided.

p.s. did i mention i had ridiculous layovers for the first time in my life this christmas? i spent an extra six hours in the salt lake airport (omg) plus a few more at o'hare. i guess everyone's got to pay their christmas layover dues sometime in their life...this happened to be my year. awesome.

it's official

if it's officially friday, i'm officially going to be in ohio tomorrow.

yay.

i played rock band for the first time tonight. i've played guitar hero before, but it's just not the same. it was tons of fun. then i drove back from slc and remembered how much i love driving and how fun it was to drive across the country a few months ago. i'll be flying back to ohio this time around but it was kind of nice to drive. there's something relaxing about being in total control of where you go and how fast you get there. but it's also nice to turn on the ipod and chill while the pilot takes you to ohio (hopefully...if it's not all snowstorming or something).

i keep meeting new people. i like it. it makes you wonder about reoccuring characters though. i think i've mentioned it before. and now...who knows. oh well.

new balance

this weekend was fun. i relaxed. i hung out with my friends. i went to spark. i met new people. i got to church on time even though i had to go by myself. i made brownies. i saw a run through of the new play i'm working on. i went to bed after 6am (on saturday night) and before 1am (last night) -- both pretty solid accomplishments and even more so since they were back-to-back nights. i didn't finish much of anything, but i figured out what i need to do so this week should go a little more smoothly after so much planning. this weekend seemed to balance itself out. and this morning i woke up nice and early even though i didn't have to. i think i'll go running before i get so busy. because, why not?

oh. and it snowed this weekend.

plus i'll be back in ohio in five days. wow.

in anticipation of the weekend

so it's friday. i realize that the past few weekends have shown my extreme lack of discipline when it comes to cracking down on the weekend. i would have to say that my productivity level for the last few weekends is hovering around 7%. not that my free-wheeling-weekend activities have made me turn in things late or anything that would make me do terribly in school. just that i think i could be more productive if i tried. so the big question is...will this weekend be different?

only time will tell.

in other news, i just got this program that changes my desktop background to different pictures every couple of minutes. it is super cool and i feel like a complete loser for being so excited. but for real. it is TOTALLY AWESOME.

plus i still want to see nick and norah's infinite playlist. is it even still in theatres? seems like movies just make their rounds to the theatres, then move off the screens without much recognition or anything. and then it takes FOREVER to come to dvd. frustrating. maybe by the time i get around to seeing it, i can just rent it. oh well. for whatever reason, i really really want to see it.

and by "whatever reason," i really mean michael cera.

finished.

so i finished writing that paper. it's actually pretty okay. i like writing, and i think i'm at least slightly good at it. for some reason, i just loathe the writing process. i just like to write.

i've become more political lately. i wrote about how obama faked his way into the presidency. not in a bad way...just in the way that he "acted" like a president wayyy better than mccain did (among his many many other fatal campaign flaws) and the american people perceived him to be a better candidate because of the way he portrayed himself in debates, interviews and other such events.

i wrote a similar paper last semester, about how politics is all about performing. only this other one was about how obama and hilary "performed their minority status" in their race to get the democratic nomination. and who performed it better? obama again. (i got a perfect score on that paper. not that i'm bragging, just that i'm awesome (at writing that one paper). only perfect grade in the entire class. yessss.)

it's not that i think these candidates are bad people. or even fake ones. they just know how to show certain parts of themselves to make them look best and that's why they win.

this reminds me of the anderson cooper lecture last month. he said that he always wondered why people wanted to be news anchors first, instead of being reporters or something else. he said something like, "it's like...why do you want to be a politician? why would you want to be a fake person when you could be a real one instead?" i thought that was funny. i don't think i'll ever be an anchor, but mostly because i'm pretty sure i'm terrible on camera. it's safer for me to hide behind a computer and produce or write stories where the american audience doesn't have to watch me. maybe someday though...

writing a paper.

i'm always slightly amazed by all the things that i get done that are not what i need to do.

let's just say that.

day five.

i started a facebook fast last week. it's been pretty fulfilling so far and after a while, i hardly notice it. i've never been a facebook fiend, but i always found myself looking at it when i knew i should have been doing other things. i tried to fool myself, saying that i was just browsing as i settled down for the night and collected my thoughts, but then i decided that i could just do without it for a while. so that's how it started.

it's been since last thursday. i feel pretty proud about it. i wonder about what's happening there without me, but at the same time...i don't really care. if anything super-important happens, i'll find out somehow.

i think i'll do it at least til this next thursday. that's the last day of classes, and if i can finish everything for my classes without stupid distractions like that, i'll be happy.

with that said, i love facebook. while it can be time-consuming and crazy, i definitely keep up with a lot of people through it, which is definitely nice. if i had the choice between never talking to people and sending messages via facebook every once in a while...i think it's way better to stay in touch. just...not this week. maybe next week, when i'm less stressed and busy.

time for class. we're doing an in-class final for the class i teach. everyone is surprised when i tell them i teach a class for byu...yes -- real undergraduate students come to my class and i teach them. no, i'm not the t.a. i'm the teacher. and i'm awesome.

i'm even bringing brownies to the final. what more could a class ask for?

we got a christmas tree!!

back home in ohio, we always had a fake tree. i guess i never really thought much about it, but emily really wanted a real tree for our house...so tonight we got one. this guy that andrew knows has a bit of land and there's some christmas trees there. so tonight after fhe, we loaded up in the truck and headed up to the mountains to begin our search.
















emily was super-excited to get a tree.
















it was really cold out, even though it's been super-nice weather lately (around 50's today in the afternoon). it was icy up there in the mountains and the path was steep and we slipped a lot. but finally...we found it. the perfect tree!!















andrew, our resident fire-fighter-slash-tree-chopper-down-er was sawwing away as i clung to the trunk for dear life to try to "steady it" so his job would be easier. i don't know how much help that was, but he said it was good and we got it down pretty quick. you can see me a little bit in that picture (black sweatshirt, white writing). then andrew carried the tree and me and emily slid down the mountain on our butts (since it was safer than walking...)




















we ended up having to trim it a bit when we got home since it's too big for upstairs living room but we still wanted it up there. it's huge. also awesome. hopefully it doesn't die before we get around to decorating it later this week. yay christmas!!!

this weekend

it's been...interesting.

got to hang out with some of the guys from freshman year today. that felt really old-school. it's weird when they all get back because...it's not like i've been sitting around doing nothing and waiting for them all to get home. don't get me wrong -- i am ecstatic to see all of them and hang out with them and see how the missions were and tell them about what i've been up to. but there's always something different. i've been alive for two whole years without them. sometimes that's a hard thing to think about.

hah. sometimes i wish i could see into the future -- see if this random most-of-the-day hangout turns back into a few years ago when i used to hang out with these guys all the time. it's different now though. everyone lives pretty far, at least more than just a few doors down like we're used to. not that that's insurmountable, just that it changes things. regardless of how it turns out, two years has definitely changed a lot.

i guess it's better not to know. i wonder what it would be like to know everything that was supposed to happen before it did. i imagine it would make things pretty anticlimactic. so i guess this is the way to go.

and then i got an ipod touch

thanksgiving break is almost over!!!

and guess what i've accomplished? next to nothing.

i refuse to accept total responsibility for this, though. how was i supposed to know that the library would close on wednesday before 6PM and that emily's family would come and we would hang out with them nonstop and i would spend all day thursday with the daniels family? so many things were just out of my control.

at least i have done some things. i've gone running a few times. i (finally) went to the library and got some really good books that i can work with now on my research projects. i went shopping with emily and hung out with her brothers and sister and collin and andrew and ruth and drew and jarom. and i've successfully ruined my sleeping habits once again. just when i started sleeping a decent amount on a semi-regular basis...thanksgiving happens. rrr. oh well.

well, it's been a good break. time to crack down -- go running one more time, shower and then work on homework for the rest of the day. fabulous.

in retrospect. thanks.

-heavenly father! and big brother, jesus.
-family -- sisters, brother, parents, extended and such
-friends in ohio, utah, everywhere in between
-prophet, good church leaders
-theatre & broadcast mentors / teachers / professors
-santa, elves, reindeer
-frank warren (postsecret guy)
-roy raymond (the mastermind behind victoria's secret)
-justin timberlake
-anderson cooper
-james laurinaitis

this list should be longer. it is. but also in retrospect, making lists like this can be dumb. i'm thankful for things i like, things i enjoy, things i need, people in my life. that sort of thing typically goes unsaid. writing it out almost sounds wrong. i hate the hallmark-ization of everything.

important things

it's almost christmas!!

as of today, it is one month til christmas eve. that is SO CLOSE.

emily and i started putting up decorations a long time ago. like, at least a week ago. we have christmas lights all over most of the inside of our house and we decorated the downstairs tree with candy canes and stuff. also...there's christmas stations playing on the radio already!! i don't know when exactly they started, but they're on now so i can listen to christmas music ALL THE TIME. i don't remember being this excited for christmas in a long time. maybe it's because i've never really had anywhere to decorate and now i have this huge house and a real chimney for stockings and we're going to go chop down our own tree and it will be awesome.

and then i'll go to ohio. woo.

the elusive unknown

when you are far removed from something, i think it is really hard to predict how you will react when you are put in certain situations after being gone for so long.

i think this is going to be the case with a lot of things. i think that's a really vague way of saying it, but i don't know that there is a better way of doing it. time has a way of distorting reality; things become things they never were and you have to wonder what really is. or was. or what wasn't ever at all. plus, add to all of that an overactive imagination and a lot of time to mull things over. that makes for an interesting predicament.

seems like the best remedy is just to wait it out.
i am so very impatient.

...now what?

i didn't have to be at rehearsal tonight. or a performance. or a taping. or a meeting. i didn't have any homework that needed to be finished or chapters that needed to be read. no classes to prepare for, nothing to catch up on that absolutely needed to be done tonight. the three things standing between me and thanksgiving are a meeting with my advertising group tomorrow, teaching my class on monday and work on tuesday. oh, and a taping on saturday.

granted, there are tons of things that need to be done. and obviously, not doing anything productive over thanksgiving break will surely set me up for total failure come december, when everything is due. but for just one night, i didn't have any obligations.

and to be honest, i didn't really know what to do with myself.

what do you do when you don't have things to do all the time? i mean, i filled my time. i went christmas shopping with emily. made dinner. collin came over. watched the office. watched "definitely, maybe" with matt and andrew. it wasn't uneventful. it just feels like lots of things went undone.

something's missing. i should be stressing over something.

space case

it's been a strange semester for me for a lot of reasons. i'm probably (read: definitely) spreading myself too thin between everything and i've been getting sick / headaches a lot. cause and effect relationship? perhaps. but i've always been somewhat of a multitasker, and i would much rather be busy than bored, so i don't want to sound like i'm complaining. i wouldn't give up any of my alter lives, but sometimes weird things happen and it makes me wonder if i need a break.

like today. i had just dropped off cody (my awesome ex-home-teacher) at the hospital so they could put more plates and screws into his foot and was coming back to campus for a meeting. it was pretty bright out, but it's been really nice lately so that wasn't unusual. the weird thing was that i was walking...and i noticed myself open my eyes.

this doesn't sound so bad. having your eyes open is a pretty typical thing for people. the weird thing was that, since i had to open them, that meant that they were closed for some undisclosed amount of time. granted, i was still okay, still walking, still alive, so it must not have been for very long. but still. i didn't remember closing my eyes, since i usually don't when i'm trying to get from one place to another, but apparently i did.

maybeeee. i'm going crazy.

settle

things are finally starting to settle down. after tomorrow, i should be home free for the entire thanksgiving week.

except for how i have to do another lighting design. and teach my class. and catch up on a semester's worth of reading for advertising class. and put together my book and research things for houseboat honeymoon. and meet with like a bazillion people about college things. and finish my service project. and write that english paper.

maybe it's better that i'm just sticking around for thanksgiving.

oh. and i rearranged my room. it's warmer now, but i'm still getting used to it. maybe i'll make some pictures of it. it's roomier so i guess that's good. but now it's really nice outside lately. i think it got up to 60 or so today. that just figures.

"find your bliss."

guess what? yesterday i met anderson cooper.

this is his show.

he has a show on cnn (anderson cooper 360) and is one of very few real objective reporters and news people. he is totally awesome. he came to slc last night and i went up there with a few people from here and it was great. he talked about making a difference and finding the truth and reporting what matters and knowing the facts. he said to find your passion and define your voice and to always remember to just listen. also: "find your bliss." basically you have to find what you love and do it. and that's what i'm doing with things now. and it's great.



< -- check it.
we even took pictures together.












after hearing all his fabulous stories, though, i really want to go travel this summer. time to start saving up (again).

dance like everyone's watching

i don't watch a lot of tv. i like to, but usually i'm too busy to commit to a show and then i just get upset when i miss an episode and then i don't want to watch the next one until i see the one i missed and then it becomes a vicious cycle. but i was making dinner the other night and decided to flip channels while things boiled and i happened across "dancing with the stars." i had heard rave reviews about this particular show, so i watched it for a while. it was cool. apparently famous people learn how to do dances. and then they to them in front of lots of people and judges and people get voted off (thank you, reality tv, for keeping one thing constant amongst nearly all your shows) and then it's over.

i watched these people get up and do their thing and then be either ripped to shreds or generously complimented by the judges. i didn't see much difference between most of the dances, as far as technicality and precision is concerned (but then, i'm not really an expert dancer by any stretch of the imagination), but the judges did. and some dancers took risks and some dancers played it safe and sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn't but they all tried. every one of those dancers woke up that morning thinking, this is what it is going to take to win, and was very sure of themselves. because if you didn't plan the winning routine, what was the point of going on the show at all?

i think this must be true in real situations. i mean, no one gets dressed, looks in the mirror and says, eh. this'll probably be okay. i like to think that when people are acting or reading or just doing things in general that they are at least trying. because why be an actress or reporter or doctor or teacher (or anything, for that matter) if you don't think that you are awesome at it? you have to wake up every morning believing that you are going to give 100% and that it will be fabulous. otherwise, why bother?

for some reason, i thought of the old adage, "dance like no one's watching." surely this is encouragement for people to come out of their shell and experiment with new things and not be worried about alternative consequences. and yet...you have to be whatever kind of awesome you want while still being the best. and typically it's other people who decide what "best" is and you have to impress them. so, i guess you just have to be aware (and wary) of that.

thanks, world, for setting expectations that need to be met and exceeded in order for anyone to get by. also for not voting me off (yet).

better than the dryer.

when i rearranged my room a while ago, i decided to put my dresser over the only vent in the room. was this a stupid idea? maybe. surely that would block the flow of air and make me colder in the winter and warmer in the summer. luckily i wasn't here for the hottest part of the summer, but now that it might be getting colder i started second guessing myself. should i move my dresser? there's not really any other place in the room where it would look good unless i moved absolutely everything else. seems like quite the dilemma, right?

well, i am no longer concerned about this. my room is plenty warm at night and here's the best part: my clothes are warm when i put them on!! i didn't really think that this would happen, but when i reached in one of my drawers and pulled out a warm t-shirt, it was like right out of the dryer, but without having to walk downstairs. awesome.

although now i'm starting to wonder if this might be a fire hazard? nah.

the orange juice effect

when i was in elementary school, i had sleepovers with some of my bffs in the neighborhood. we would party hard all night, play games, go hot tubbing, and then sleep in late the next morning. breakfast was always different, but for some reason i remember having a lot of orange juice. this was kind of unusual because as i was growing up, i was never big on oj. for whatever reason, i just wasn't a huge fan and that's just how it was.

one day, all us crazy girls woke up, brushed our teeth and then started fixing breakfast. as we drank our orange juice, it tasted SO BAD. i was like, "dude what is the deal with your orange juice?" and one of my friends replied matter-of-factly, "oh. that's the orange juice effect."

apparently the orange juice effect occurs when you have some minty taste in your mouth and then you drink orange juice, making it taste terrible in comparison. i didn't really understand it, but figured that's just how it was.

today, i had orange juice (i am an oj fiend now...after being sick for a few weeks solid, i now drink the kids oj with tons of extra vitamins and stuff like my life depends on it. it's SO GOOD) for breakfast. and it tasted really bad and i was wondering why. and then i realized that i had only just recently brushed my teeth...making the orange juice effect the culprit of my poorly tasting breakfast beverage. suddenly, i had a flashback to my elementary school years and ran upstairs to google "orange juice effect." it was time to figure out the science behind it.

the only problem is that...it's not real. it never occurred to me that this so-called "effect" would not really exist at all. and it's kind of sad in a way. i mean, maybe there have been studies about eating and drinking things after brushing your teeth and how it messes with your perception of how it tastes, but still. the "orange juice effect" is a fraud.

sad.

tech week

omg. it's finally almost over.

it's been a long week and our show is practically ready to open. notwithstanding the various technical glitches and the half-hour long scene changes, everyone seems optimistic about opening next week.

my opinion? ticket sales will be high. with about 15 actors constantly busying themselves with tasks and objectives and overlapping lines for over two hours solid, no one will be able to understand it all the first time around and will be forced to come back for a second time. revenue will double. what an ingenious idea.

this play was written by one of my friends who used to go to byu. every time i think about how cool it must be to write a play, i think about how insanely, ridiculously hard it must be also, and that is a definite deterrent. i think i'll stick to news scripts and lighting designs, thanks.

new president time

it's that time again. time for a new president -- obama.

it'll be an interesting couple of years from here on out. not that the last few have been smooth sailing or anything, but still. the country needed a face-lift and we got it. what'll REALLY be interesting to watch is the democratic president, after he picks some new supreme court justices and has the congressional majority...

no word yet on prop 8, but we'll see how that goes in the morning. for now...it's massive headache time.

rrr. tech week is always headaches.

goop / after today

i officially have the coolest brother ever. he is ten and he just made his own blog!! when i was ten, i probably knew how to play oregon trail on the computer at school. that was about it. but, technology, man. these kids know more about it than i ever will. and i'm not even old yet.

* * * * *

one of my top favorite movies is "a goofy movie." one of the first songs in it is "after today," about how all the kids can't wait for school to be over so they can have summer vacation. after today...the election will be over. yay. we'll have a new president (in january) and we can stop being so DRAMA about politics all the time.

and we can go back to being drama about everything else. omg.

things i'm probably better at than austin / instinctive stupidity

-hula hooping
-jump roping
-floor directing (?)
-spanish
-sarcasm
-push ups
-sports trivia
-conversational silence
-yogilates
-finding countries on a map

* * * * *

i seem to constantly do things that i know are stupid, but for some reason, i am practically obligated to do them anyways. i almost don't even stop to think about it -- i just do it. and later, i look back and think about how dumb it was. so far that is the theme for the week.

what a stellar beginning for what is going to be the most stressful week of the semester.

alligator vs. bear / coming up next

today i heard something. i don't remember it exactly, but it was something along the lines of: "in a fight between a grizzly bear and an alligator, the terrain determines the victor." the person saying it said it was an old chinese proverb, but i think people say that when they don't remember where they heard it. either way, i thought it was interesting.

i guess the moral is that if you want to win at [whatever], it's easier if you are on your own turf. i don't know what kind of implications that has on my life, but i think that it probably fits somewhere.

although, if i was to get in on this nature-fight, i would probably chose to be a t-rex. a dinosaur would totally own the bear AND the alligator.

* * * * *

the next few days are going to be really exciting!! whether we like it or not, we are making history here, people. somewhere between our gaping holes in the ozone layer, unusual presidential nominees and unfailing economic uncertainty -- there's history in the making.

cool.

LAC x 2

1. los angeles clippers

as i watched the opening game between the two l.a. teams on wednesday, i thought: who really said, "well, we have the lakers...but something's missing. a sub-par nba team? the clippers? oh yeah, we'll take them. perfect! our city is complete." come on. really? they have only had one winning season in the last fifteen (they've lost the first 3 games of the season so far this year) and let's be real -- as much as i despise the lakers, they can't compete with them.

and i realize that this is perhaps a necessary evil. i've asked around, and apparently nba teams go where the money is at. and there is definitely money to be found in l.a. but still. i wish they would go somewhere that is lacking in the pro sports department. like vegas.

2. live and active cultures

if you didn't know, there's live and active cultures in yogurt. if you are not aware of this, it's probably because you can't read, since they print it on the label of every package of yogurt that was ever made. after learning this at a young age, i made the conscious decision to never eat anything that was alive and could therefore crawl through my insides before being digested (?? if they didn't somehow escape or something!!). so i didn't eat yogurt. this was circa age 8 or 9.

now i am in college and i'm (arguably) smarter than i was in elementary school. i have started eating yogurt just this year and i love it. my favorite flavor is strawberry orange sunrise and it tastes like awesome.

* * * * *

oh. here's a story. i was eating yogurt today for breakfast. emily walks past me, rummages around in her cupboard for a while and pulls out a handful of chocolate donuts. as she is eating them, she turns to me. says: "you know eating yogurt makes you fat, right?"

haha.

houseboat honeymoon

so i'm working on this play, right? to be fair, i am working not for money, but for class credit...the last theatre class that i need to take before i am done with this major (besides the portfolio class that i'm enrolled in but don't go to because of working at the daily news...) and it's my "capstone" lighting design. somehow, this is supposed to mean that it is not terrible, since i have learned lots of things about theatre and lighting during my byu career. while this may or may not end up being the case with this particular show, the most painful part of my design process finished today -- the lighting focus.

overall, lighting is a multi-part thing. first you gotta do research: about your play, where and when it takes place, etc. then you need to make a light plot and say what lights you want to use and what colors and what designs you want in your templates. then (today) you have to focus them all to the place on the stage where you want them to be and make sure it doesn't look like crap. technically, you have already worked it all out in your mind and it's just a matter of doing it in real life. except for how now there's a massive three-story boat in between you and the lights you're trying to get to. sweet. that was today.

well, now it's over and hopefully it's all downhill from here. we'll set levels on monday and tech week starts tuesday. this show will tech all next week and half of the week after...and then i'm free to do whatever i want besides be required to be at the play. woo. excitement.

it's weird to think this will be my last real theatre thing. i mean, i still work for the theatre department (two departments in the theatre, actually, if you count the fact that i teach a beginning theatre class at byu) and i've promised a few friends to help with lighting for their directing projects. however...i'm basically done.

i was always so proud of myself when i came here because i already KNEW what i wanted to do in college and i wouldn't be switching majors all during it to try to figure out what i wanted to be when i grow up. little did i know, i would stick with theatre and then find something else to do after, thus prolonging my provo experience another year or so. but who's complaining? not me. i love theatre and i love the news. now i can have the option of doing both. simultaneously. yesss.

now that i think about it, it's sort of funny that i picked two occupations that are a total time suck. not in a bad way -- they just both require lots of time and effort and energy. but i like to be busy so it works out.

yessssssssssss

the jazz won their first regular season game tonight. yay!

top ten (only) good things about utah:

10. nice scenery
9. lots of fun things to do outside if you like that sort of thing / own a tent
8. fewest number of walmart stores per capita in the nation (.081 per 100,000 people)
7. david archuletta
6. temples temples temples. they're everywhere!
5. the olympics were here a really long time ago
4. free redbox movies on monday nights
3. they shot the high school musical movies here
2. i'm here. duh.
1. utah jazz -- omg.

i'm real.

you ever wonder if your life is really happening? after seeing "the truman show" at the ripe age of eleven, i have always questioned existence in a weird way. of course i've traveled across the country numerous times, both on airplane and on the road, so surely i'm not living on some crazy island that is only a mile or two across. and i've never seen cameras hidden around my life capturing my every move, but that's probably mostly because my life is just not that interesting.

in fact, that is the reasoning that i hold (probably stupidly) when i make many of my choices and formulate opinions about certain things. i'm not afraid of heights (like climbing on ladders / genies / across the really-really-high grid in the light lab) because i'm positive that i'm not going to fall off of anything. my life is just not interesting enough for me to sustain any sort of injury. it's the same reason i don't get my hopes up about little things that could be awesome...because they won't happen. bad reasoning? maybe. but that's how i see it. it's real enough for me.

granted, there are exceptions. i got into the broadcast major (surely through some sort of miracle). i live in a sweet house with a roommate that i don't hate. i own a car that i love (xox lex). i won goo goo dolls concert tickets once. i live a pretty decent life...nothing too incredibly terribly awesome, but nothing too miserably awfully crushing either. overall pretty regular i guess. can't complain about that.

election day(-ish)

tonight i filled out my absentee ballot and i'll be shipping it out tomorrow. i'm from ohio so my vote counts (yay). who did i vote for? ha. not telling.


^do it. darfur matters.

i worked for a "national political strategy, campaign management, and public relations consulting firm" over the summer while i was in ohio and it was eye-opening, to say the least. politics are like theatre: everyone plays their part and tries to be the best. big promises, high stakes, there's a lot to gain or be lost over people's uninformed opinions.

i had been following most of the races for ohio at least a little closely and was familiar with most of the people that i selected and issues that i voted for or against. however, there were some that i hadn't heard of -- and i'm sure that's the case with many voters. they pick whoever has a cooler name or who is running for their particular party and that is the end of it. although absentee voting is seen as being better in the eyes of the political candidates (since the people who went out of their way to request to vote have an obvious desire to make their voice heard, as opposed to those who somehow end up in a local elementary school gymnasium on the first tuesday in november), i wonder if there are statistics about just what percentage of americans are actually aware of what they are doing when they select their candidates.

well, if people are just picking candidates haphazardly, then maybe we will get what we deserve. random leaders with cool names? a total overhaul of everyone who was already in office? who knows.

now i get to sit back and watch the fireworks fly for the next week.

...and wonder what the future of the united states holds when "these guys" are the best our nation has to offer as far as vitally important leadership positions are concerned.

blast from the past / really, tennessee?? really?

recurring characters are one of my top favorite things. especially after some lengthy hiatus or major dilemma, it's always sort of comforting to see a familiar face. there's something incredible about thinking that someone was gone forever and then finding out that you are wrong in the best way possible. i don't mind being wrong. i'd prefer to be right all the time, but when my misconceptions end with spontaneous revivals of all the right sorts, i can't help but enjoy it.

the irony of time, part 2: after a while, it seems to bring stuff back.

* * * * *

Assassination plot targeting Obama disrupted

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The ATF says it has broken up a plot to assassinate Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama and shoot or decapitate 102 black people in a Tennessee murder spree.

really, tennessee? really? geez.

here's what is boggling my mind though. i got an email alert from the columbus dispatch (my hometown in ohio's newspaper) like a minute after they cracked this story open. it's on the front page of bbc.com and cnn mentioned it briefly. even the washington post had a little something about it. but i had to really dig through the new york times to find an article about it. i realize that crazy white supremacists are nothing to brag about, but it's sort of a big deal. you've got to tell the news, whether it's sunny skies or raining bullets.

dear new york times: you're still one of my favs. but you've got to be honest with me when i want to know things. from anna.

in all seriousness though, these two guys are literally kids, 18 and 20 years old. both of them are younger than me. scary.

life's little orchestrations

there's something indescribable about being a part of something big. because by yourself, you're not much. but when you get together with a bunch of other people and actually come up with something, it's huge.

eons ago, i used to be in an orchestra-type-band-deal-thing. you know, high school. you played instruments and everyone had different parts but somehow (magically) if you followed the conductor, it turned out like awesome. and the past few days as i've worked on the opera, watching the orchestra has reminded me of that.

the thing about band was that i didn't do it because i was great at it (although i was) or because i really liked it (although i didn't mind it). i did it because that is where a lot of my people were. that's where i had interactions and relationships and connections and friendships. without any of that, it wouldn't have been the same. also i would have quit.

i think that's why i thrive when i work on things like theatre and the news. because alone, maybe there will only be lights or only a news script or only not quite enough. but when a lot of people do things that they are good at and work together, it becomes something big. and i love it. because being with people means something. it means you're not alone.

obviously, music is not something i do too much with now. i stopped after high school and have undoubtedly lost any skill i had with instruments or intonation or rhythm. but it's something that i will always appreciate. and i'll probably always feel at least a little bit nostalgic when i hear life's little orchestrations. and that's all i have to say about that.

"as if you could kill time without injuring eternity."

-henry david thoreau

time keeps on going. i used to wish it would stop for sometimes. for whatever reason, things would be going so well that i would want to make time wait for me to enjoy it before continuing on to whatever mess was bound to happen afterward. that seems so juvenile and stupid. no one can make time stop. and even if you could, wouldn't that totally ruin everything?

the best part of time is that it keeps going even when you're not there. people in egypt and australia are going about life and doing their thing regardless of what i am doing here. i am essentially inconsequential in their minds. and that could be sad...but it's really not. the weird thing happens when you lead a double life like i do -- half in one place and half in another. and when you're somewhere, there you are. and when you're not, it's like you never were there at all. or at least it seems that way sometimes. it's one of those two-sided things that is awesome and terrible at the same time.

i used to hate my double life. it's hard. and yet...it's not stopping anytime soon. i'm not graduating in april and i'll be in provo at least another year.

BECAUSE I GOT ACCEPTED TO THE BROADCAST JOURNALISM MAJOR!!!!

i have never been so happy in my entire life. finally, things are starting to seem like they are going the way they should. finally, things are starting to fit. finally, i am okay. at least for the most part.

finally.

and you know what the best part is? no regrets.

try again

i've never been much of a fan of second chances. not that i'm one to hold a grudge (too much effort) or stay angry for long about anything (waste of energy). it's just...that's life. you only live once. you get a chance. and if you blow it, you don't get to stop, rewind and start again. obviously because of the balance of justice / mercy / etc. there are exceptions to this. but overall, you get one shot. and you have to try not to eff it up.

i don't like revising papers. i don't like rewriting / rereading / redoing / really. i like to think that i can do a semi-decent job at things the first time around and let that stand for itself. and of course i've been forced to re-everything because of classes or what have you and it always helps. but i still don't like it. that's just me.

so now. decisions. options. choices. plans? failures? chances?

only one way to find out.

one of those nights

it seems like it's always the nights when i have a lot to do that i find myself totally distracted and unable to concentrate.

what's up with that?

finally: sleep

so last night i had a sleepover party with my roommate. we watched episodes of the oc until the wee hours of the morning and slept til noon on our awesome couch and now my back is totally tangled. effing hurts. just wanted to complain about it.

in one of my classes this semester (i don't really remember which one, but there's notes for it in my notebook), we learned about how people learn. as humans, we make spiderwebs of meaning and create our "world" where things are connected to other things and through these relations and associations, we learn to understand what we believe to be reality. sometimes things get tangled and it's hard to see what is real and what is something we have constructed to be real.

i think that's deeper than i wanted to go. my back is tangled and it hurts. also i love the oc. that's all.

so, i think my classes were cancelled today...

...but i'm not entirely sure. i have two classes on thursdays: my performance in broadcast class and this "honors" english class (which i hate). a long long time ago my broadcast teacher was like, yeah we were going to have a speaker in class on [today] but they can't come so we won't have class. and i skipped my english class on tuesday but today we were supposed to meet with our museum groups instead of having actual class or something and i emailed this girl in my class and she said we weren't really meeting at all. so...i didn't go to either of my classes today. also i slept for most of the day.

i would say that i've had bad sleeping habits lately, but the word "habit" would make it sound as if there was some sort of pattern and that is not the case. let's count the hours of sleep i've had the last few nights:

sunday night: one.5 hours
monday night: no hours : /
tuesday night: three hours
wednesday night: ELEVEN hours

and let's be honest. the only reason i got so much sleep is because my body shut off and refused to do anything more but be half-dead under the covers of my too-comfortable bed. so if i had class today, i would have missed them anyways. oh well. i'm trying to get back on track with sleeping / eating / etc on a regular basis. so far, not so good. but No Big Deal, right? hah.

and in case i sound elitist for dissing on my english class, it's really just hard to believe that students are of "honors" caliber when some of them think the biggest societal problems are not the economic crisis or global warming or genocide in africa or the upcoming elections or the war on terror. no, no. not so. when the professor asked what the biggest problem we face is, one brave girl responded, "well...people talk on their cell phones a lot when they're driving. and...they text too. that's bad."

i rest my case.

No Big Deal

sometimes life can be downright exasperating. i haven't really said a lot about it because it's getting to the point where when awful things DON'T happen, i'm slightly surprised. i heard about something this weekend that all but crushed my stupid little girl-heart and then i found out i didn't get into the broadcast major (which i knew was going to happen -- i already have another major and am capable of graduating in april after a solid four years of college, a feat that many people can't say they were able to do) and i've been stressing hard-core about my final lighting design for "houseboat honeymoon" (which was due monday) and i have been too busy to sleep or have friends or do anything i want or need to do and a random slew of other terrible things that have really been getting me down lately. but you know what?

No Big Deal.

who even cares? i finished my design and it's (hopefully) going to be okay / stellar. i still will graduate with a minor in communications and i emailed the people at asu admissions to see about grad school (they responded within the hour -- that's a good sign, right?) and i still get to floor direct with my fabulous anchors who make an otherwise-totally-peon-job seem like awesome. i'm not dead. i'm still waking up and breathing and i have all my arms and legs and am somehow making it through life at college in this god-forsaken town (just kidding) and things will be okay.

maybe not now. but no one ever said this "life" thing was supposed to be easy.

i've got to stop letting dumb things get to me so bad. i'm practically ready to go out into the real world and for whatever reason, i still worry about stupid people and things that shouldn't matter. time to re-evaluate. set goals? (do people do that?) and finally...just be happy. it could be worse, right?

hah. ironically, that's exactly what i said last week before everything went straight to the crapper. *exasperation*

oh well. time for a comeback.

mixed emotions / cowboy bebop

last sunday i met some people named mike (well, only just two) and then hung out with my friend matt. he introduced me to a tv show called cowboy bebop. he has the series and we started watching it. it takes place in the future and there are these "cowboy" bounty hunters and they travel around the universe (yay space travel) and find bad people and capture them. i was surprised to really like it. we only watched the first few episodes but it got me thinking. there were almost always new villains for each episode and then you didn't hear much about them ever again. and obviously, they were not the point of the show, just a way and means in giving the main characters something to do. but then i was wondering: what happens to those people?

it's sad, but even for me, there's lots of people like that. from the guy i met at the a-cafe this summer who wanted a serious relationship after ten minutes to the members of the improv troupe who were in my modern class that i dropped...there are always people who don't quite make the "main character" cut in my life. many will never even be reoccuring characters but are just here and gone, making their cameo appearance briefly before moving on to whatever else is next. there's always the surprise re-emergences of people you never thought you'd see again and the people who you wish to see but only continue to exist in the flashbacks. and even if you think that someone had come-back status, some performances only prove to be lackluster versions of what they should have been. would it have been better if they never returned at all? who knows.

but, regardless, life goes on. with or without you.

last night

"dial m for murder" is over tonight. yay. here's a list of things that i don't remember anymore because of this show:

*what a free evening is when i'm not required to be at the theatre
*what it feels like to go to class prepared and having done the homework
*what more than five consecutive hours of sleep is like
*what a social life is
*what not having a fatty headache is
*what a meal that is not cereal tastes like
*what it's like to watch a regularly scheduled program live (when it airs)
*any semblance of sanity that i pretended to have before

well, i'll miss the show. a little bit. lucky for me, "houseboat honeymoon" is starting wicked soon. plus, i'll be working on the opera this week and striking "dial m" and helping with "dancing at lughnasa" so it's not like i'll be bored. as if i thought i'd ever get a break.

overall i'm stressin', just in general. sometimes the most indifferent things in life can be the hardest.

well, i'm exasperated.

i am so incredibly mortified right now. remember that live lab that i did on wednesday? one of the anchors that i floor direct for saw it. OMG.

as if it wasn't enough for me to read too fast, be too short, have all my hair falling in front of my face and look stupidly at the wrong cameras in front of a few people in my class. someone who actually anchors in real life had to see it. wow. obviously he tried to be nice and say i did okay, but really. if it's not blatantly obvious that i've not taken a broadcast class (except for 275 and this one now) just by talking to me, this was surely a dead giveaway.

well. that was embarrassing. plus, we're supposed to be finding out if we made it into the major sometime really really soon and i'm basically a wreck over it. the odds are against me, since, as of the end of this semester, i have already completed another major (theatre arts, lighting design emphasis) and why would i need another one? maybe because i love working in the newsroom and want have a real job someday? not that theatre doesn't count as a real job. i've worked for the theatre the last few years and it's been really fun, but for whatever reason i just can't see myself doing it for my entire life. and then i fell into the news and now i want to do it. too little, too late? we'll find out soon enough. they said we should know by sometime today (!) but for sure by wednesday. i think i might die before they tell me.

add to that the pressure of completing my design for "houseboat honeymoon" by monday and finishing up "dial m for murder" and "homecoming spectacular" this weekend and you've got a pile of nerves that is unable to focus or be productive at all. me. awesome.

and my body hates me. i've been sick for like two weeks now. i haven't had more than six consecutive hours of sleep in about a month and i eat cereal and soy milk for two out of three meals every day. and i'm too tired and busy to work out much at all so it's starting to get ridiculous. hopefully after this week, life will cool off and i will be able to not-die. there are few things i want in life. i would be content with balance. in no particular order, all i want is:

-school-theatre-news-church-homework-friends-running-sleep-

any sort of balance that isn't totally off-balance would do fine. and each category definitely gets bigger and more intricate, but at the basis of my life, that is all i want to have time for.

time to stop complaing about it and start working on it. ready, go.

adventures in reading

so today we had our first live lab for "performance in broadcast" class. i figured it wouldn't be too hard because, seriously. all anchors do is read, right?

how very wrong i was.

anchors do more than read. they ALSO have to know what cameras to look into. and there's four to choose from. surely, this would be an easy task when you have a floor director who is telling you where to look, but all we had was other class members, not all of which really knew how to relay messages like that. oh well. it was fun / exciting / new / i'll be doing it every week so i'll have to get used to it. i'm not incredibly comfortable with the idea of being on camera, but it sure beats being on a stage with a live audience critiquing your every move. although others may be judging, the camera doesn't chastize you. yay for that.

also i had to sit on a phone book while i was anchoring. i'm just too short. whatever. it was fun anyways. the end.

truth hurts.

alright. so let's be honest.

this blog was bred from contempt.

and jealousy. and hatred. and a lot of other mean-spirited emotions. and that's the truth. here's why: i work for the daily news. i love working there (duh) and it's fun because, as the floor director, i'm sort of halfway between the anchors and news director / producer / etc. the anchors are fun and the people in the control room make for interesting conversation so i get to do a lot of listening, which i really like. you can learn a lot from listening. i get to hear a lot and i'm not really required to say anything, so...no pressure, right? it's cool.

so yesterday the anchors were talking about how they have blogs and how totally awesome they are. did they ask me if i had one? no. but i sort of imagined how it would have gone if they had:

"oh, hey, anna, do you have a blog?"

"yeah."

"oh, hey, where is it so we could read it and see how cool it is?"

[[embarrassed staring at the floor]] "umm..." [[totally mortified]] "i'm not telling."

because honestly. you can't just let people read your diary. that would be terrible. and scary. especially since these people are exponentially cooler than i am. so i'm glad they didn't ask. but then i thought that someday (?) if i ever become cool enough for them to talk to me, i should have a readable blog. so here i am. and i like it so far. obviously no one is reading this now, but someday, maybe someday, someone will. and they will be like, wow. anna is like that. and i will be like, of course.

anna is like that.

i guess i am starting a blog. i mean, i already have one, but here is one that can be read by other humans. the first one is more like a diary, and this one will be more like...a notebook. red. with spirals. and not so secret.

if you should happen upon my online "diary," all the more power to you. you know embarrassing details from my life and you can savor their sweet sweet flavor. but for the rest, this will be all you know.

i will try to not disappoint.

really this is here more for me than anything else. i need to write. without requirements, stipulations or grammar. and why not put it somewhere that people can see? because what are words anyways if there is no one to read them? i will give the opportunity at least.

i am like that.

since this is the first entry, i will unlock the secret of my blog: "like that."

it's from maroon 5's song, "sunday morning." it's part of it. a small part. but my favorite part. the best two words of my favorite song. somehow, perfectly describing everything that encompasses the details of my life. like magic. if you haven't heard this song, you are missing out.

find out what you are missing.

cool. so here is me. listen up.