Carla's blog

I have a professor whose good friend is dying of ALS. I suppose that's a little redundant to say, since it's a fatal disease - everyone who has ALS dies from it, unless another tragedy occurs on top of it all. But I digress. This woman, Carla, has a blog (www.carlamuses.blogspot.com) that she's kept since 2006, about a year before her diagnosis - and it's attracted quite a following. I don't agree with all of her postings or her opinions, but overall the blog is inspirational - and many parts of it are very moving. She now has only a few months to live.

My sweet teacher knows very little about computers, and was concerned that at Carla's passing the blog would disappear into the void of cyberspace, or that after not being used for a while it would be taken down and never be seen again. She seemed so upset about it that I had to do something, even though I knew that blogs don't vanish the moment their owners die. Besides, what if the unlikely event happened that blogspot.com went down? Then Carla's words would be lost forever. Mine too, come to think about it. But mine aren't nearly as poignant or thought-provoking. Unlike Carla, I don't have what could be called a cult following.

So I decided to put Carla's blog into print form, and give it to my professor as a gift. I knew that having her friend's words forever accessible would mean a lot to her, and for days after coming up with the idea I had dreams about the look on my teacher's face when I handed her the book entitled "Carla Muses", and about the tears of joy that I hoped would well up in her eyes. I've only seen her cry once. I set to work copying and pasting each of Carla's blog entries into Microsoft Word, and adding the comments (most posts had more than 10, and many had 20 or more comments. I told you she had a following.). I hadn't anticipated quite the volume of work it was going to be! In the end, I had over 350 pages of text. But I really enjoyed doing it.

I haven't given the gift to my professor yet; our schedules haven't meshed lately and so we haven't been able to meet since the holidays. But I'll post her reaction when I do. This post was actually meant to be a different story; Carla's blog is background information that leads into the intended tale. Now that I've taken the "introduction" and turned it into a full-length post, the rest of the story will have to wait until tomorrow. It involves a phone, a crutch, and an overdramatic woman who should never try her hand at professional acting.

Oh the suspense.

35lbs of Fury

My husband and I finally gave in and for Christmas, we got each other a Wii. We have really been enjoying it. It came with Wii Sports, which includes the exciting games golf, bowling, tennis, baseball, and boxing.

We brought the Wii to Utah for Christmas, to share with the whole family. Scott and I decided to try boxing; everyone wanted to watch us duke it out. The suggestion was made that if we could use Wii boxing to diffuse any arguments between us; we know, however, that would make it much worse. Only friendly boxing rounds are allowed.

My sister-in-law, Laura, brought her dog Charlie to Utah and we've all enjoyed having him. His greatest strength, and greatest weakness, is his protectiveness. He generally likes women better than men, but would probably give his life for Laura. Strangers aren't allowed near the house, and it only takes a small sudden movement in Laura's direction to set Charlie off.

But the other day, during the boxing match, Charlie's protectiveness shifted to me and his anger turned on my husband. As soon as the punching began, so did the barking. Now it must be known that we were standing next to each other but facing forward, looking at our characters on the tv screen. But it didn't matter to Charlie, who went nuts and threw his entire 35lb self at Scott, barking furiously. I suppose he thought that Scott was attacking me; this idea was supremely upsetting. For the rest of the night, Charlie wouldn't go near him.

I don't think Charlie has fully recovered from the trauma yet.

Still an Overachiever

The class wasn't difficult. Too much reading for a fundamentals class, but not hard. Theatre History/Script Analysis (a new class that combined 2 old ones) was more of a nuisance than anything else, filled with Freshman that made stupid comments in class and complained. About. Everything.

Not that I'm complaining, mind you.

Everything was worth 10% of the grade except for the final project (worth 20%). Both the final exam and the midterm were each 10% of the grade. At the end of class, I had received perfect grades on everything except for quizzes (overall grade of 94) and a presentation I gave (97). I had more than an 88 in the class, without the final exam. Knowing that I only needed less than a 20 on the final exam to get an A, I was confident that all it would take is showing up and blindly guessing to get it.

So I did something new for me. I failed it. On purpose.

I did study, but only for 3 hours. Max. I decided that it wasn't worth my time during finals week to really put forth the effort or stress over it. I studied other things, worked my butt off at my job, and even relaxed a little. I know, what a concept.

The nice thing about this is that I went into the final yesterday afternoon with not a drop of stress in me over it. The only anxiety I felt was to start the exam so I could finish it as quickly as possible and get out of there. When I got the test, I scanned it briefly. I answered 1 of 5 short answer questions, answered 2 of 3 extra credit questions, and then began at the beginning. If I knew the answer right away, without having to think about it, I answered it. Otherwise I skipped it. The matching sections I put a little bit of effort into. But even some of those I skipped. Then I counted them all up, assuming I had gotten them right if I had answered them, and came up with a number of about 50. So I stopped there. That was plenty high of a score to keep my A, even if in my haste I had accidentally circled the wrong answer on a few that I knew. I turned it in and walked out (and then kind of freaked out later that I had just failed an exam on purpose). I needed about a 15 percent, and I got about a 50.

I'm still an overachiever.

When one cannot breathe, one cannot eat.

I'm in the first mainstage show of the season at the University of Maryland - The Dead, based on the short story by James Joyce by the same name. It's called a musical, but is really a play that happens to have music. This is a subtle, but very important difference. It takes place in January of 1904 in Dublin, and the majority of the show is a Christmas party. The best part is we all get to speak in Irish accents!

Rehearsals began last Tuesday. We worked almost entirely on music for the first 2 days, with some jig practice thrown in. On the 3rd day, we added my bodhran (Irish drum), and it sounds awesome. That same day the costume shop gave us our corsets. Trying to sing when I could hardly breathe was quite the feat! (Eating is tough as well - no wonder those Victorian women ate like birds!) I never knew that my waist could ever get that small - it's rather disgusting. When I touch my thumbs in the back, there is only about a 3-inch gap between my middle fingers around the front. And I haven't even been cinched up as tight as it can go yet. Though my ribs now feel very bruised (I wore the blasted thing for 4 hours on Friday night and 6 hours on Saturday), I'm glad for the chance to practice with the corset now instead of having to wait until dress rehearsal.

Watch for pictures! Coming soon. :)

PS. Name the quoted movie? Anyone?

Update

My computer arrived, but shut down 5 minutes after I turned it on. It's been sent back to the repair shop again. I'm going crazy...

Frustrated

December 2008: It's finals time, and my laptop begins to have problems. It shuts itself down randomly, sometimes when I'm working on it and sometimes when it is sitting untouched. I take to saving my work every 10 seconds.

Early January 2009: I jump through all the hoops to get my laptop sent into the repair center (luckily it's still under warranty). I miss my computer greatly.

Wednesday, 14 Jan 2009
4:30 pm:
I arrive home from a 3-day to visit family in Massachusetts. On my front door, I find a notice informing me that a package arrived for me, and the final delivery attempt was made at 12:56 that afternoon. I call UPS, input my tracking number, and am told that the box will be held at the customer center for 5 days after the final delivery attempt. I decide to pick up the box first thing in the morning.
7pm:
I recieve a phone call from UPS, and a computer voice tells me that my box will be delivered to my house the following day. I think this is strange, because the paper on my front door said that the "final delivery attempt" was already made. I phone UPS and input my tracking number again, and get the same information as that afternoon: 12:56 pm was the final attempt, and the box will be held for 5 days.

Thursday, 15 Jan 2009
8:20am
I call UPS again just to see what they say, input my tracking number, and to my surprise, am told that they tried to deliver my package at 8:53pm the previous evening (during which time I was at home, enjoying a quiet movie). I phone back and talk to a real person this time, explaining to her the mixed messages I'm getting. All I want to know is where my box is. She assures me that it's at the customer center, waiting to be picked up.
9am
I drive 20 minutes out to Laurel, and hand over my delivery notice. The box is nowhere to be found. The woman at the desk figures the driver must not have turned the package in the night before, which means that it's still on the truck. Perhaps it will be delivered today, she tells me. Since I recieved a phone call the night before to that effect, I figure that it's likely. I go home, and Scott and I take turns running errands so that one of us is home all day. No box.

Friday, 16 Jan 2009
8:30am
I call the UPS customer center and ask if they would look for my box so that I won't have to drive all the way out to Laurel only to be disappointed again. The woman can't find it. She asks for my phone number and promises to look in all the wrong places (since the box obviously isn't in the right place) and call me back. She finally calls back with the good news that the package had been found.

The bad news? The box contains only my power cord.
Oh laptop, where are you?

At Least I Didn't Catch it on Fire

I cooked my first Thanksgiving turkey today! I realized during dinner that I should have taken a picture of the (perfectly browned) bird as proof, but I didn't.

Just know that it was beautiful.

A Little Advice

A little bit of advice to anyone who is asked to give a talk at church:

DON'T tell us the entire story of how you came to be standing at the pulpit. We don't want to know on which day of the week which bishopric member called to assign you a topic, how you pretended to not be home, or how you procrastinated and had to write the talk early Sunday morning. We especially do not want to hear any jokes about how much you don't want to be giving your talk right now.

1.) They're not funny.
2.) We don't care.

Learning a New Skill

I don't draw. Like, really, I don't draw. I took an art class in the 6th? 8th? grade, but other than that I draw only stick figures. I need a compass to get a decent circle, and a ruler unless I want my straight line to look like a sine wave. My sister is an absolutely AMAZING artist (I think she's as good as Audrey, and that's saying something!), but I certainly didn't inherit any artistic genes from her. And for all the time we spent together as kids (even sharing a bedroom most of my childhood), none of her talent rubbed off on me. I didn't get her singing voice either...*sigh*

But now I have to learn to draw, though I've been scared of it for years. I'm too much of a perfectionist to learn something as difficult as drawing - I don't like having to erase things and start over. I want it to be right the first time! But I'm in a lighting design class, and we're exploring the way light hits certain objects and where the shadows fall. In other words, value range. We've been drawing with charcoal - both black on white and white on black (I think the second is harder). I'm embarrassed to show my first class assignment, but here's the second one. I'm mostly pleased with it, and I should be - I spent 12 hours trying to get it right. I finally just had to say enough is enough! This wasn't even an officially graded assignment - I don't want to think about how long it will take me to do my final project!!!

A Better Win

On a brighter note, BYU beat UCLA 59-0 tonight! How fabulous. The Cougars played brilliantly; Max Hall was on point (en pointe? Audrey, help?)! Austin Collie caught an amazing 10 passes - and he was not open for a single one of those. Matched by Dennis Pitta and Harvey Unga, Collie scored 2 touchdowns. Backup RB Wayne Latu ran a 7th in, and Mitch Payne (brother of the fantastic Matt Payne) kicked a field goal. I couldn't have asked for a better game, especially after what happened last week. Go Cougars!!!


Ps. I did not say anything insulting about UCLA. Please take note of that.