thursdays.

it has become the most stressful day of the week. although i only have two classes, i also have to have a story idea for the friday news show to present at the daily meeting. today is only the second story meeting, but already i'm terrified.

last week, the "meeting" consisted of everyone giving their story ideas, only to have each one shot down by the news director. talk about a rough start. and now i'm scared that i will never have a good story, and when i do think i have an interesting idea -- i start second guessing myself and everything goes to pieces. i don't even know what to do.

except make phone calls, i guess. see if provo is really as dangerous as i'm hoping so that i can make a story out of it.

everything's changing.

it's weird to think about. but nothing is the way that it was before, whether it be years ago, months ago, weeks or days past, even yesterday. everything is always different. sure, there are some things that stay the same, but they are few and far between.

mostly. things are always changing.

and when nothing ever stays the same, there's not much you can count on. except for knowing that it'll always be different.

yeah okay.

it's been a crazy weekend. went to salt lake twice (once for the adele / james morrison concert, again for the jazz / cavs game), was home hardly at all and got practically nothing done.

this seems to be a trend in my weekends.

i took a nap today. i think that sunday naps are probably the best things there ever were. makes me want to sleep for days (which is probably not good) but also i love them. and i think that if you fill your life only with things that you love, then you're doing pretty alright.

if i filled my life with only things that i loved, i would be sleeping a lot. also there would be a lot of books. and running shoes. and strawberry orange sunrise yogurt. and maps. and black and white pictures. and movies. and hot showers. and pj pants. and pancakes. life would be pretty full.

* * * * *

i think everyone is a little lactose intolerant. i mean, it's not a personalized hypothesis that is based on my own scientific research...but i think it's pretty accurate. just some people can handle more than others. i think it might also be hereditary, but i'm not sure. science is so beyond me sometimes.

zoning out

lately, i've noticed myself thinking a little too much. is that possible? i mean, obviously we're all always thinking. it's just a matter of what you are thinking about and when.

like yesterday. i was driving down state street, thinking about the story i'm working on this week, and suddenly nothing looked familiar. i wondered if i had gone too far, but i knew that road so well that i would have ended up at the mall in that case. then i really started wondering if i had turned onto another road or something crazy like that. nothing sounded right. a few seconds later, i realized i was indeed on a familiar stretch of road and that i am just crazy. maybe i momentarily forgot? i don't know. but it's started to happen a lot lately.

i'll be in class and i will be thinking about something and then suddenly i hear the professsor talking and i wonder how long i have been not-listening. it's kind of a not-good thing. my mind is just wandering. i've got a lot to think about...but still. crazy.

hello, america.

it was cool to watch the inauguration today. i don't think i've ever watched the big speech before. in fact, i wonder why i didn't watch it last year. probably because i was at school.

wow. how did i not watch the inauguration last time around? how is it that at a high school, we were not forced to pause classes for a few minutes and watch our president say a few words about the future of our country? or four years before that, when i was in 8th grade...that surely seems old enough to understand the magnitude of a new president's first speech.

i hope schools today stopped for a minute. because, whether you like it or not, this is history. regardless of who you voted for two months ago, you have a new president. and he's going to be a big part of how everything in life goes for the next few years, at the very least.

haha. and the benediction was kind of awesome. i didn't realize you could crack jokes during a prayer, but apparently you can.

so...go america. here's to (ever) getting out of recession, ending these ridiculous wars and going back to being an awesome world power.

in and out.

let's be honest. although i've never seen it, i would imagine that my brain isn't too gigantic. there are always things that i mean to do but tend to forget about, facts that i used to be able to retain but lately am at a loss when i try to recall. i'm not entirely sure how brains work, but there must be some sort of brain flow process, allowing you to process and retain certain information, while at the same time erasing other less-vital facts and ideas. this happens on a daily basis. from the day i was born until the day i die, i will be simultaneously remembering and forgetting things at an alarmingly astounding rate.

as i'm writing this, i'm anticipating completing my weekend reading assignments. and yet...when i read any earlier than very-close-to-right-before-class-starts, i've found that i forget things hardcore and am unable to remember what i read (even if i did all the reading). perhaps it's because sometimes i don't really care to remember what i'm reading, so my brain puts this new information in the "just barely care" file, which gets dumped out every few hours. i wonder if this is a conscious decision or if i will just be that way forever.

it's science. i don't pretend to understand it.

* * * * *

oh. and i bought a book today. "the tipping point," by malcolm gladwell. i'd been meaning to read it and i finally decided to just go out and get it. yay. i love new books.

also on the list for today: new year's resolutions. some may argue that halfway into january is not a good time to be beginning something like this, but i beg to differ. while most people are waxing and waning over their overly ambitious goals and ideals for the new year, i have been spending the last few weeks thinking about what i really want to accomplish this year and creating my own list of ideas. i won't write them here, but i think i'm more likely to go through with them now that many people have already given up on their resolutions. life is better when you make up your own rules anyways. so happy new years / mlk day.

my favorite country in africa: cameroon

i forgot to buy a book yesterday. but i did get a lot of other stuff done. my room is finally live-in-able and things have a place and i'm FINALLY unpacked and happy.

and i have a map of the world. and it's awesome.

i took a class a few years ago and the professor made us memorize all the countries in the entire world. it was like the hardest thing ever. i mean, the americas are not so bad. australia is pretty basic. somehow, though europe was the hardest for me. africa came really easily and i can still pick each country in africa out on the map. it's kind of cool. plus when you look at something that big and you see how little you are in comparison, it makes you think.

there's more out there than just me. so much more.

and now i want to go see it.

tomorrow though...i'm buying a book.

"what day is it?"

this is the first thought that pops into my head as my too-tired brain struggles to remember where i left my phone / alarm clock / whatever-i-had-set-to-wake-me-up so that i can turn it off. it's the question of questions because i wake up at different times every day for classes or work or even if i don't have much to do that day, since otherwise i would surely sleep the day away.

the next question that fills my mind shortly thereafter: "can i change the alarm and sleep a little bit longer before i actually have to get up?"

the answer is almost invariably yes.

today it is saturday. it is the first day in weeks that i have absolutely nothing planned. i need to do laundry and i want to buy a book. that is everything that is on the radar for the entire day.

today will be awesome.