Shine Bright

The past couple nights of the full moon have been quite the sight. In case you didn't notice, the moon seemed extra bright, like a huge lighthouse in the sky lighting our way here on Earth. Friday night it was at its brightest and it was amazing. I have a fascination with the moon and never get tired of learning about it and seeing what it can do. I'm actually quite fascinated with this entire world, planet, universe that we have and how beautiful and amazing it is. I love being reminded that God has a plan and made all of this for us.

Why I Haven't Been Blogging

Two reasons:
1. I'm taking five classes and working full-time. So when I get done with eight hours of work, I go to school for three or four hours. When I get home, which is late since I don't have a car and thence have to take a bus, a train, and another bus (none of which run on my schedule), I don't have much time and am pretty tired.
2. Lost. My newest obsession. The little time that I have left before having to hit the sack at night goes to watching Season 4 and 5 before Season 6 premieres on Tuesday. Go ahead and watch just one episode--I dare you to not get immediately hooked.

So there you have it. I guess I'm also doing homework, but that is mostly saved for the weekend, when I have actual free time. I should actually be doing some reading right now before class, but I felt like my blog was being neglected and I didn't want to be a neglectful host. Because really, I love my blog. I will be showing it some more love this weekend, although I do have a lot of homework and ten more episodes of Lost....

A Classy Guy

In case any of you missed Conan's last Tonight Show last night, here's the really good stuff from the episode. (I scoured the internet for a better copy of this, like from Hulu or NBC, but they didn't have this as one of their highlights, so you get this video of it instead, which is actually fairly decent.)

I'm With CoCo

I'm taking sides--I'm with CoCo.

The past week's announcements, offers, and rejections came to a close today as NBC and Conan officially signed a deal to end his run on The Tonight Show. This makes me a little sad (as sad as one can be about people they've never met). I know what it feels like to be told you're the one, then when things aren't quite what you imagine you get dumped for the person who was there before you. It sucks. It sucks even more to have it played out in the public eye.

I truly think Conan got the shaft in the deal. Before this, I was a Jay fan and a Conan fan. While I was initially sad to see Jay go (especially when he was on top) I eventually got over it. I welcomed Conan at the earlier time and even got excited for Jimmy Fallon at Late Nite. And Jay. Well, I maybe caught a few snippets, but it was never appointment television (but which executive actually thought it would be?!--Bad choice NBC!). I don't make an appointment to watch Conan either, because it's past my bedtime when I have work and school, but in the summer or any other time I'm up at that time (which will be tonight and tomorrow to watch the end of Conan's wonderful run) I would definitely tune in.

When Jay returns in March, I don't think I'll watch. Something about the way things happened kinda changed my view of him. I'm not watching late night anyway, so it's not like anyone will notice my non-viewing. But I'll know that I'm sticking by Conan and the really bum deal he got. At least Jimmy Fallon's got to be pretty happy about things.

Great Television

I've been catching up on some television series that I never watched in their initial runs. First it was Mad Men, which just finished up its third season, seasons one and two that I got from the library. This show is a critics darling, has earned numerous awards (most recently a Golden Globe for Best Drama), and is on many Best-of lists. While I do enjoy it, sometimes it's hard to watch, as women in the 60's were treated as so much less than their male counterparts. Also, the show is a slow-burn type of show; for anyone expecting lots of action, this is not your show. It takes episodes, and sometimes entire seasons, for something to play out, which I think is more true to life.

Don Draper, played by Jon Hamm, is the star of the show, but sometimes it's hard to root for him when he's cheating on his wife....multiple times with multiple women. I'm most intrigued by the women on the show--Peggy Olson to be specific. She's a girl who wants to make it in a man's world, and at the end of season 2 she had this awesome scene with Pete that knocked the socks off of me. Watch it here, since it can't be embedded. Wow! Now that's great television. That scene is so wonderful, with no music or sound to manipulate the audience's feelings, just the actors showing real emotion.

And just this past weekend I rediscovered Lost, a show that I had watched during its first season but lost interest after that. I was always sort of aware of what was going on, and I even caught the end of Season 5. Saturday I had a marathon viewing experience which included The Constant. I could tell you about what's happening, but honestly, I'm even confused sometimes. Just watch this clip. Wow! Now that's great television. The actors are so great in this. I was brought to tears while watching it.

Last week there was this on How I Met Your Mother. Pure happiness and euphoria.

Social Interaction

Last night my friend Cat and I went to a friend's for a Soup Party. Many people were invited and many people showed up. I always feel a bit awkward in big social gatherings where I don't know a lot of the people; it's hard for me to just jump into conversation or start one with someone I don't know. Some people are great at this but I am not. So with Cat there as my security blanket (and I for her) we spent a good part of the evening sitting on a crowded couch talking with each other. This isn't bad, but probably not the best way to meet other people. But again, big crowds is not really where I feel comfortable and would much rather have a very small group where I can not feel like I'm competing with other people for talk time.

As Cat and I were getting ready to the end the night, I decided to make an attempt to talk to a girl that I saw just standing in a corner not talking to anyone. Making small talk with strangers is not my forte, but I tried. We talked for a little before I felt awkward and Cat walked over to help me out. When it was clear the conversation was over, Cat left me to get a drink of water and I was left standing by myself, feeling a bit awkward. There was a boy standing next to me, and we both sort of just looked over at each other, and he introduced himself.

And then I felt less awkward. I feel like I can present myself really well when it's just one-on-one, and we had a nice, funny conversation about some llamas his roommate used to have that he once helped cut the toenails of. It was going great (and I was even wondering if he'd ask for my number) when I inadvertently made eye contact with a guy who was passing. Apparently this is party code for "Come over and talk to me." I was not aware of this, as I'm not a party type of person.

Well he introduced himself and started talking, and talking, and talking. And all of a sudden I was stuck between two boys, wishing one would stop talking so I could continue talking with the other. I tried including the first boy in the conversation, but it was hard as the second guy was talking a lot. I tried turning my body to the first boy so he would know I wasn't trying to cut him loose as the other boy kept talking.

In the end, I'm not really sure what happened. Somehow the scene was broken up and I left without talking to first guy again. I never know what to do in these situations, and I'm sad to say that I left with a little bit of regret. But I also felt good for going to a party and meeting two new people, people that happened to be guys.

I've been thinking a lot about dating lately, probably thanks to my friend Jeff and his post about dating and his last words--you only need to be successful once. No matter how many crappy dates you go on or how many you don't, you only need for there to be one good one. My friend Tamara, who got married to one of her good ones today, can attest to that after going on 31 Dates in 31 days. It can happen. With just a little bit of effort, it just takes one.

Cat and I had our thoughts of doing a similar dating project. We even started a blog. It has sadly been sitting in it's same form since August. No dates or set ups. Cat and I realized last night that we are not well-connected enough people to really do it. So really, if any of you readers know of anyone, I'm welcome to set ups and blind dates. Just putting it out there. Because all it takes is one successful date.

School....again

Hey, everyone, just to let you know that if I don't post as frequently as normal (although, what's normal? Some people post three times a day and others three times a month) it's because I'm taking five classes AND working full-time. Yeah, I'm crazy, just like my profile "About Me" says (even if I don't live in New York City anymore). So while I'd love to tell you why I'm going to school and taking five classes and working and what I'm going to school for, I need to turn off this thing called a laptop that connects me to the internet that wastes all my time, because I need to do some reading for class tomorrow. Until soon, hopefully.

Happy Birthday Rachel!

My cousin Rachel turns 27 today! We spent a year together at Snow College, where we had tons of fun playing games, running, walking to Walmart, clay pigeon shooting, avoiding marriage, commiserating about pimples, visiting Grandma, watching (and recording) Buffy, studying for tests, and playing pranks. Now she's a wife and mother and still totally awesome.

Happy Birthday Rach!

(I wish I had a scanner so I could post some old-school pics of us at Snow...)

Productivity

This morning, following on the heels of helping one of my roommates pack all her stuff in a Budget Truck, my other roommate and I took on the task of cleaning our fridge. With four people sharing a kind of small fridge, it tends to get overcrowded with condiments, salad dressings, and other things you only need/use once. And at one point, some hot fudge got spilled and ran down under the bottom drawers and created a nice little hard pool. So we went through all the old condiments and salad dressing and threw out anything that was past expiration. We threw out things that we were pretty sure belonged to girls who had lived here three roommates ago. We took out all the shelves and cleaned them with hot soapy water.

Winter is the perfect time to clean out the fridge, as our garage is so cold that all our perishables sat out there for a few hours without perishing. When the fridge was cleaned and everything put back in, it looked like a brand-new fridge! Ah, the joys of being productive.

Not wanting to lose momentum, I found the energy to clean the long-overdue bathroom, sweep the floor and stairs, and take out the trash. Tomorrow we hope to rearrange the spare bedroom downstairs to make it more conducive to watching movies and hanging out.

All in all it was a productive day, cleaning, ordering school books, playing Wii. And it felt good.

Take A Leap

Leap Year, the RomCom with Amy Adams, as a woman on a mission to propose to her boyfriend on Leap Day, and Matthew Goode, as Declan, the local who offers to help the woman get to Dublin, opened today. And like the good chick flick-er that I am I made a date with my sister to check it out opening night. When I came across the trailer a couple months ago, I wanted to see it for pretty much one reason: Matthew Goode and his scruffy beard. Seriously.

If you checked out the trailer, let me tell you two things: one, Amy Adams' character is a lot less shallow than she comes across in the trailer; and two, seeing the trailer means you've pretty much seen the movie--the entire plotline and story is literally right there in that two minute trailer, plus all the funniest parts of the movie. I hate it when trailers do this; they are meant to entice you to see a movie, not make seeing the movie moot.

I had high hopes for this movie, but sadly, it didn't quite live up to them. I know that in a RomCom, it's customary for the couple to be thrown together and spend the movie not realizing that they love each other. In Leap Year, there comes a point when in real life, the gentleman would not continue on with the woman (although, if this happened to me in real life and the gentleman looked like Matthew Goode, I'd go with it). Also, the woman is on her way to propose to her boyfriend of four years, and in their scant scenes together, Anna and Jeremy actually seem to be a normal couple who love each other; so her falling for a complete stranger in two days seems a bit of a stretch. But this is not real life. It's a movie, so belief is suspended for a little while.

So even if I felt like the leads didn't have a lot of chemistry, and that the plot was very predictable and cliche, and for some reason I find Amy Adams to be a little annoying, it was still a decent RomCom. And really, how bad can a movie be when you have a bearded, messy-haired (yeah, I clearly have a type, as evidenced by my love for John Keats as well) Matthew Goode in it, looking very good in a peacoat, flannel shirt and cords. Yep, that's my critical analysis of the film.

Time and Transportation

Tonight, as I am gearing up for classes starting next week and needing a way to get to them on time from work, I went up to Brigham City to check out a car I was thinking of purchasing. It was an '87 Honda Accord with 253,000 miles on it going for the bargain price of $500. Ever since my friend Gina bought a car (that she still uses) for $500 dollars as a way of not going into debt, I have made it my goal since returning to Utah to buy a car for the same amount. Tonight's option looked promising, but in the end I just didn't feel right about it. Not that the car wasn't a good deal for it's price, but because I need to wait (my ever-going life lesson to learn patience) until I'm more secure in my job and could spend a few extra hundred dollars on a car. So instead my money will go towards books for the coming semester (which surprisingly and sadly isn't much less than the price of the car). I mean, I've been getting around pretty good without a car for awhile now, and figure that one more month can't be that bad.

Ten years ago, as I turned sixteen and was in need of a car for my important activities, my dad bought me an '87 Toyota Camry with 217,000 miles on it for $3000. I got to thinking that ten years later I was trying to buy a similar type car and was only going to pay $500. Wow, how ten years changes things.

As I boarded FrontRunner in Ogden and said goodbye to my dad, I still felt good about my decision to not take the car. Did I still feel that way as it took me two hours, to the minute, as I boarded the 7:16-leaving train and walked in my front door at 9:16, to get home when if I had bought the car I could've been home at 8? Well, yes. For the most part. When you take public transportation to get around the most valuable things it costs is time. So even though I could've been home much sooner, I felt good knowing I was using UTA (because the buses are going to run regardless of whether I'm on them or not) and saving the planet. And I was able to finish my book, The Age of Innocence, which I loved, and was grateful to have the time on the train to finish. Reading and public transportation are two things I love.

Happy Birthday Elliett!

My darling niece Elliett turned 7 New Year's Eve. New Year's Day we had cake, ice cream, and presents at my mom's home to celebrate.

In addition to celebrating Elliett's turning one year older (of which she told me she definitely felt like a seven-year-old) we celebrated her first lost tooth! She lost her front tooth on her birthday as Snow White (she had a Princess-themed birthday party) was painting her face!

A Low-Key New Year's Eve

Besides having to go into work on a day off to get some samples out for end-of-quarter numbers, I had no plans for New Year's Eve. Sometimes it seems like a silly holiday, because regardless of whether you stay up late to watch the ball drop in Times Square, go to a party with a bunch of friends/strangers, get really drunk, or go to bed at ten, the New Year will come and the next day will be a new year. To quote Ted from How I Met Your Mother (who I sometimes think is me but a boy), New Year's Eve always looks great on tv but in reality it sucks and is always just a big let down (I scoured youtube for a clip of this but couldn't find one, so you'll just have to take my word for it; or, better yet, borrow my season 1 DVDs and you can see for yourself how hilarious it is). You always feel like you should have some sort of plans and yet it never turns out as fun as you hoped/expected it to be.

So this year, not wanting to go to a party and have to endure idle small chat with people I'd never see again, or try to find that perfect evening, I decided to embrace Ted's attitude and be
ultra low-key. I grabbed a burger and fries at Smashburger to go, then came home and settled into Season 2 of Mad Men that I got from the library. I didn't even know when midnight hit.