Halfway to Crazy!

This is what my brains look like right now. I will survive this test, right?

I hate hating... and lots of other things

Feelings suck. I am a creature of logic and decisions—a scientist who thrives on facts, reason, and consistency. Emotion, by its very nature, is opposite of everything I function best on. Unstable, unpredictable, frustrating, and volatile—emotion is something I can’t control, and therefore it is something that frightens me. I think my biggest complaint with feelings and emotion is that they complicate decisions after I have carefully made them. Decisions are something I take very seriously, I make them after lots of thought, time, and preparation and I almost never go back on a decision after I finally make it. Emotions, on the other hand, jump in and try to bamboozle every logical thought I can come up with. It is extremely frustrating.

Fear, for example, usually results in one of two reactions—either I go into a frenzy of uncontrolled activity or I am virtually paralyzed into inactivity even when my path is set before me. It tangles my thoughts and blows up any challenges until that is all I can see. Fear is not something I can control. I know logically that fear is a vice—a burden even; but still I can’t seem to dump it when it enters my head. Like a parasite, it eats away at my determination and composure while tainting the world around me into something I cannot face with poise. I am a happy kid, but I am scared to death of a year of internships. I think it’s the huge unknown and the idea of leaving everyone and everything I have come to love about Spokane behind forever. This smallish fear soon mushrooms into something I don’t know how to handle. It opens an endless pit of what-ifs and why-nots and by the end I am a homeless old maid of eighty seven with no friends, no skills, and an unexplained fungal infection all over my left cheekbone. Bottom line—I hate being afraid.

Fear, however, isn’t the only emotion that drives me crazy, though I think it is certainly one of the worst. Guilt is another one that drives me a more than a little bit batty. Guilt is admittedly a good motivator, but it is also a festering acid that distorts my own view of myself. I think the worst part of guilt is that I sometimes have a nasty habit of imposing its cankerous presence without appropriate stimulus. I invite guilt when I haven’t done anything wrong which is stupid (yet another emotion I am far too familiar and disgusted with). This is especially true when others are involved. Even if I do my best to do everything logically and in the best way I know how I find myself full of guilt when those I care about are hurt, whether or not it is my fault. Again, I can often recognize that guilt is yet another unnecessary, unhelpful, and unwanted emotion, but I am yet to master the art of purging said emotion from my system. I can distract myself with music, scriptures, or homework, but guilt ekes back in like a toxin until I find some way to deal with it. Again, some guilt is both necessary and essential in helping me to be more of the person I hope to be someday, but all the same, I wish it was an emotion I can control and harness better to work for me instead of against me so stinking often.

Unfortunately, the list doesn’t end with fear and guilt. Sadness, homesickness, anger, frustration, inadequacy, and exhaustion are all emotions that get in my way and try to warble my reason. If I am being completely honest with myself I am a little nervous about attraction as well. Attraction, it may be argued, is not actually an emotion, but it is certainly a nasty force that usurps control in my otherwise carefully controlled mental system. Excitement and anxiety too, can alter my thought process, causing me to make decisions like writing on my blog instead of studying for my test or playing the piano like I had scheduled to do. Haha and that makes me feel shame—yet another abhorrent emotion.

I guess my point is that while I know logically emotions are a wonderful necessary part of the human experience, they are also annoying and I wish I had better control over them.

Independence Day!

Wow. What an amazing country we live in! I know I take for granted the huge blessings in my life, so it is nice every now and then to sit down and contemplate just how blessed I am. I, a woman with no outstanding talent or aptitude, am allowed to be educated, trained, and then practice in the field of my choice. I am able to live where I want, move when I want, dress how I want, and vote as I see fit. Best of all, I am able to believe whatever I want--I am encouraged to put my trust in God and seek the truth. It is a beautiful thing. Yesterday as I watched the fireworks explode across the sky in brilliant fires of purples, reds, and greens I was reminded again that this priceless gift, like so many others in my life, came at a great cost to men, women, and families I will never know. It came because good men did good things in hard situations. Because people stood by their principles when it was neither convenient nor logical to do so. It came because God needed this land to restore His gospel and He made the impossible happen so that could take place. It is true that we have our problems. Hungry men with cardboard signs, a national debt so big I can't even begin to conceptualize it, and lingering racism and hatred all testify of that. Still, I cannot think of any place I would rather live. This is, after all, the promised land.

Fireworks

The fire burning in the sky
that glitters in the smoky dusk
and blinks and cracks and fades away
calls out earnestly to us.

For once the fire, whistles, and booms
were not for entertainment plied
but snarling after men and boys
fields painted red and thousands died.

“And now,” they boom, “your turn has come
Freedom’s banner is yours to wave
that the world may know forevermore
here is still the home of the brave.”

“But how can I?” is my return,
“For I am raw and young and weak
what can I ever do for you?
Surely it isn’t me you seek!”

But loud and clear peals the report,
and deep down in my heart I hear
to fight for liberty and love
Is duty for all who now live here.

So in my struggling sapling state
I make a promise to the sky
I’m not brave like my fathers were,
but I too will fight till I die.

And when the blaze fades in the night
the cheering crowd is rained in dust
I smile at the sudden dark
and whisper, “in God will I trust.”

How to Hawk a Loogie

First of all, yes, I am suppose to be studying. That, of course is not new so no worries. In other news, I have decided today that there is far too much information available to the world at large. For example, while running down a busy street on mile five I was reminded that among the many skills I lack, I do not have the knowledge nor the ability to remove the phlegm that works its way from my sinus cavities, down the back of my throat and sticks like peanut butter over the little hole that is ideally reserved for transferring air to the suffering lungs of said masochistic runner. Instead of turning my head and sending the projectile into the grass like a cool looking runner I stand on the sidewalk like an idiot doing my best to scrape the goop off my tongue as it dribbles down my chin and the cars and people passing by speculate who the sad spectacle might be.

Like the savvy student (if not the sophisticated spitter) that I am I determined to do my research to delve deeper into the subject. Urbandictionary.com describes this action this way: hawk a loogie--to suck in nasal material into the throat and then push into the mouth to make it material available to spit out. A more medical definition also available online includes the following, this time spelled "how to hock a loogie": The combined sound of snorting hard a paranasal tubercular sinus oyster from nose to back of throat then adjusting position by teasing it around the soft palate prior to firing forcefully from mouth. Upon further investigation I found fifteen videos on youtube, almost three thousand step by step directions on google, and even discovered that there is a South Park character named Loogie. The point, however, is that I can now gain enough information on any given subject (say, how to hawk a loogie) that without any skill or ability whatsoever I can be educated to way beyond any sensible level--almost enough to be called an expert without any real life experience. Isn't that ridiculous? Well, rather than harp on or educate myself further in useless subjects I think I will try and get some real-life experience with forcefully expectorating excess mucus and phlegm before it succeeds in cutting off my oxygen supply.

Lost Again. Grr.

I love driving--always have. My dad would say I'm not very good at it--that I'm a little too impulsive, that I lack a little common sense, and that I'm not quite as cautious as I probably should be. That being said, I love driving. That being said, I am absolutely terrible at following directions. I get lost so often that often when I call home in the middle of the day mom asks where I'm at so she can look me up on mapquest and find the best directions to where I need to go. I get so mixed up and turned around, but as my frustration levels rise my sense of direction (if it's even possible) gets even worse and I am even more lost than before--this time with even less patience. So I drive faster, with even less caution, going farther with even less care than I had before.

For example, today I was looking for an apartment complex for visiting teaching--not a single apartment mind you, but an entire complex. It was one I had been to several times, and I was of course running late, so rather than look up directions like I usually do I decided to just go for it. Like I said, I have been there several times so I figured I could just get there. I almost don't even need to say it, but I got lost. Really lost. What should have been a 10-15 minute drive turned into a thirty minute excursion where I ended up in a neighboring city and had to completely reschedule our appointment for later that day. How one loses an entire complex I am still not sure.

I feel sometimes like life can be like that when we aren't careful. Having such a fun time getting wherever we are going that we don't care too much about where exactly that is or the path we are taking to get there. Frustrating all around, I suppose.

Easter

This year I prepared for Easter by reading about the last days of Savior’s life as close to the corresponding days as I could figure—something I hadn’t done before. It turned out to be an extremely spiritual experience. I felt closer to Him than I have in the past, not just because the season is so focused on Him but because I felt like I spent more time with Him as He prepared for His destiny. I felt a little bit of guilt as He asked His disciples if they couldn’t wait up for Him. How many of His messages and requests have I inadvertently ignored? How many times has He had to give me the same instruction and I didn’t follow it? How many times have my actions told Him and others that I denied knowing Him like Peter did? I felt His love as He washed His disciples’ feet and told them to love and serve one another. I felt His love for Mary as He spoke her name—how must she have felt?

More than anything though, studying the atonement this way made it more significant. I often wonder what I was doing as a Spirit while the atonement was taking place. I’ve always pictured the whole hosts of heaven watching in overwhelming gratitude, helplessness and apprehension as that the most significant of all events unfolded. I wonder if I felt guilt for the sins I hadn’t even committed yet as I watched my beloved Savior’s pain as he paid for them. He is my Savior. Christ suffered all for me and my family and everyone I will ever meet. His love is perfect and endless, His character bright and unvarnished. He is the ultimate example in every aspect. His love for me is something I will never be able to earn; His love for others is something I will never be able to perfectly emulate.

How grateful I am for my testimony of Him that forms my actions, beliefs, dreams, and behaviors. If there is anything good about me at all, it can all be tied back to Him and His gospel. He loves me. This is something I still can’t really wrap my head around—that a being such as He could love someone like me, but I know He does because I feel it. I feel it when I read His words, when I hold a child, when I admire His creations, when I try and follow His words. And I felt it 2 weeks ago on the anniversary of His triumph over death and sin.

Top reasons why chocolate is better than men

1- Chocolate treats me the same no matter what shape I am in.
2- I’m yet to meet a chocolate piece I didn’t like. Unfortunately the same can’t be said for men.
3- I don’t feel the need to dress up or get pretty for a date with chocolate.
4- Chocolate always seems to want me.
5- I always seem to want chocolate.
6- Chocolate doesn’t play games. It is what it is, it always tastes like I want it to, and it never makes me guess what is going on.
7- It seems like chocolate can read my mind. If I want to eat it, it is there for me to eat. If I don’t want to deal with it, it leaves me alone.
8- Chocolate is never racist or offensive. It loves all colors : )
9- I have never waited for chocolate to call. Not once.
10- Chocolate doesn’t care if I shave my legs or not.
11- I can enjoy chocolate in whatever form I wish--cookie, drink, ice cream topping, pure, etc.
12- Chocolate never wants to have DTRs.
13- Chocolate doesn't care if I admire other abdominal pieces.
14- Chocolate is consistent. Thank goodness for preservatives.
15- Chocolate doesn't prefer my sister or use me to get to her. It likes me just the way I am.

This is just a joke, used to kill time and avoid homework. All the same, I LOVE chocolate! Yay! (PS- I do like men and think they are wonderful, just in case there is any... offense or question haha).