it shall soon come to pass that it wilst become twenty-five years since the time of my birth, thus leaving such little time before it wilst become thirty years from the time of my birth. and this shall be my list of things i shall accomplish before that wretched and miserable day.
30 things to do before i'm 30
1. dye my hair blonde
2. own all seasons of the cosby show
3. live alone without any other people
4. visit all those people in ha-WA-ii
5. run a mile without dying
6. learn to play chess
7. go on a cruise
8. stop biting my nails
9. invent something
10. see topgun
11. take my picture in times []
12. taste edible gold
13. finish that stupid cross stitch project i started in 7th grade
14. read anna karenina
15. go to a music concert
16. own all brand new socks at some one point
17. learn spanish
18. own a fancy camera and actually take pictures (do this before 11)
19. do a backflip
20. play the cello
21. take a cooking class
22. give more to charity than i can afford
23. get my teeth whitened
24. learn to surf or sail
25. get my portrait painted--and like it
26. build/re-do a piece of furniture
27. buy and learn the ukulele
28. learn to ride
29. MACHU PICCHU
30.
you may have noticed 30 is missing...so it's up to you. what should my #30 thing to do before i turn 30 be? please leave your suggestions and be creative! thanks!
p.s. i'm totally going to finish my list before lisa finishes hers--forcryingloudout.blogspot.com
Saturday, February 21, 2009
Friday, February 20, 2009
according to time magazine...
94--number of convicted sex offenders in the czech republic castrated in the past decade despite protests from human-rights groups
feb 23, 2009 issue
feb 23, 2009 issue
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
another nail in the coffin
so tonight i went with my 13-year-old sister, becca, to new beginnings (a young women's thing). please note that becca is THIRTEEN years old. did i mention that becca is 13? so after it was over we were sitting there eating dessert and a member of the young women's presidency (it's a new ward so they don't know everyone) came up and said "so are you rebecca's mom?" i replied, "nope, sister." she quickly tried to recover by saying "oh, you're definitely too young to be becca's mom." TOO LAAAATE.
for crying loud out. becca was born when i was TWELVE years old. i was younger than she is now. do i really look that old? i am turning 25 in a couple weeks. do i really look old enough to have a thirteen year old daughter? depressing.
25 ways you can tell you're turning 25
1. the thing you're most looking forward to is the drop in your car insurance
2. you start lying about your age
3. you think the new music on the radio is garbage
4. you start analyzing every aspect of your life
5. people begin addressing you as sir/ma'am
6. you wonder if you should begin using those anti-aging products you see in commercials
7. you remember meeting someone four years ago who was 25 and thinking they were insanely old and now. . .
8. you want to feel "all put together" like an adult. . . but you don't
9. social pressure really starts to lose its effect
10. you've started a blog
11. you make sure someone knows your funeral instructions
12. they start playing the songs you listened to in high school on the oldie's station
13. you worry about turning 30
14. you worry about turning 40
15. spending the evening home alone watching a dvd sounds pretty appealing
16. you can no longer pull an all-nighter without feeling sick
17. concealer doesn't go as far as it used to
18. you start recognizing symptoms of alzheimer's in yourself
19. making goals and life plans consumes your thoughts
20-24. lists with more than ten points bore you
25. you get mistaken for your TEENAGE SIBLING'S PARENT!
for crying loud out. becca was born when i was TWELVE years old. i was younger than she is now. do i really look that old? i am turning 25 in a couple weeks. do i really look old enough to have a thirteen year old daughter? depressing.
25 ways you can tell you're turning 25
1. the thing you're most looking forward to is the drop in your car insurance
2. you start lying about your age
3. you think the new music on the radio is garbage
4. you start analyzing every aspect of your life
5. people begin addressing you as sir/ma'am
6. you wonder if you should begin using those anti-aging products you see in commercials
7. you remember meeting someone four years ago who was 25 and thinking they were insanely old and now. . .
8. you want to feel "all put together" like an adult. . . but you don't
9. social pressure really starts to lose its effect
10. you've started a blog
11. you make sure someone knows your funeral instructions
12. they start playing the songs you listened to in high school on the oldie's station
13. you worry about turning 30
14. you worry about turning 40
15. spending the evening home alone watching a dvd sounds pretty appealing
16. you can no longer pull an all-nighter without feeling sick
17. concealer doesn't go as far as it used to
18. you start recognizing symptoms of alzheimer's in yourself
19. making goals and life plans consumes your thoughts
20-24. lists with more than ten points bore you
25. you get mistaken for your TEENAGE SIBLING'S PARENT!
Monday, February 2, 2009
monkeys, bananas, and princesses
when i was in the fifth grade i went to a birthday party for a girl in my class. i didn't arrive early or anything, but we were still waiting for people to arrive before the festivities could begin and a couple girls were playing a video game. i grew up in a house where we didn't have video games and i never really had any interest in them whatsoever, so when one of the girls handed me the game controller i handed it to someone else. she played for awhile but when she finished she asked who wanted to play next and somehow i was nominated for the position. i told them i didn't know how to play but they put the controller in my hands and left, and suddenly i was struggling through a maze that quickly became the only video game i have ever played.
now, i've played the wii and guitar hero in the last few years, but i don't consider those actual video games. a video game by my definition has a controller with a bunch of buttons and a cord leading back to the console. you know, regular old nintendo-playstation type games. so. back to the story.
this game might have been a mario game. i'm not really sure, but i remember a character and i remember something about trying to get to a princess, which for some reason reminds me of a mario game. i might be crazy though. like i said, no video game experience. there were monkeys. that i remember. they were the bad guys. and there were also bananas. i don't actually remember the role of these bananas though. possibly they gave you extra points. possibly they made you slip and fall. who knows. it was along time ago.
what i do remember is that this video game consisted of me moving a character (maybe mario, maybe someone else) from screen to screen in an attempt to get to a place i couldn't see or visualize or even begin to comprehend while simultaneously trying to dodge evil monkeys. this proved too difficult a task for me as no one had explained how the controller worked. i only knew the arrow buttons, as even the evil monkeys probably could have figured that out. i moved my guy forward and when a monkey would appear i would send my guy running in the opposite direction. this worked for a few seconds cause the monkeys paced back and forth a few times before coming after him. but eventually they always walked into my guy, causing him to fall off the screen and lose one of his very limited number of lives. i played a couple times, experimenting with different buttons, and i did learn how to make him jump. up and down. very useful. but in the end i never made it past the second screen. i never got to see where i was going which, as evidenced by the fact that i'm even writing about this, has haunted me to this day. i am a person who needs closure and in my mind my little mario is still hanging out on the first screen running away from the monkeys and getting nowhere.
i do remember this for another reason though. i think, at some level, this game has come to represent how i feel about life. some part of me feels like i'm the one who is running back and forth and jumping up and down, out of breath and not getting anywhere. another part of me feels like i'm still sitting there, pressing random combinations of buttons, and growing frustrated because i have no idea what i'm doing and why the heck didn't someone tell me how to get past the monkeys! there's a princess in there somewhere but i have no idea where she is and finding her is proving to be impossible because i can't even get past the first few steps of the game. big sigh.
if i played the game today, i'd probably be able to figure out, after much jabbing of buttons, how to jump forward and over the monkeys. i'd probably even pass the first few levels. but then i'd get bored and quit and the game would take on a whole new meaning for me. it'd probably haunt me because i'm a quitter and can never stick to my goals. probably video games can be likened to many aspects of life. but i wouldn't really know. i only ever played the one. and i didn't even like it.
now, i've played the wii and guitar hero in the last few years, but i don't consider those actual video games. a video game by my definition has a controller with a bunch of buttons and a cord leading back to the console. you know, regular old nintendo-playstation type games. so. back to the story.
this game might have been a mario game. i'm not really sure, but i remember a character and i remember something about trying to get to a princess, which for some reason reminds me of a mario game. i might be crazy though. like i said, no video game experience. there were monkeys. that i remember. they were the bad guys. and there were also bananas. i don't actually remember the role of these bananas though. possibly they gave you extra points. possibly they made you slip and fall. who knows. it was along time ago.
what i do remember is that this video game consisted of me moving a character (maybe mario, maybe someone else) from screen to screen in an attempt to get to a place i couldn't see or visualize or even begin to comprehend while simultaneously trying to dodge evil monkeys. this proved too difficult a task for me as no one had explained how the controller worked. i only knew the arrow buttons, as even the evil monkeys probably could have figured that out. i moved my guy forward and when a monkey would appear i would send my guy running in the opposite direction. this worked for a few seconds cause the monkeys paced back and forth a few times before coming after him. but eventually they always walked into my guy, causing him to fall off the screen and lose one of his very limited number of lives. i played a couple times, experimenting with different buttons, and i did learn how to make him jump. up and down. very useful. but in the end i never made it past the second screen. i never got to see where i was going which, as evidenced by the fact that i'm even writing about this, has haunted me to this day. i am a person who needs closure and in my mind my little mario is still hanging out on the first screen running away from the monkeys and getting nowhere.
i do remember this for another reason though. i think, at some level, this game has come to represent how i feel about life. some part of me feels like i'm the one who is running back and forth and jumping up and down, out of breath and not getting anywhere. another part of me feels like i'm still sitting there, pressing random combinations of buttons, and growing frustrated because i have no idea what i'm doing and why the heck didn't someone tell me how to get past the monkeys! there's a princess in there somewhere but i have no idea where she is and finding her is proving to be impossible because i can't even get past the first few steps of the game. big sigh.
if i played the game today, i'd probably be able to figure out, after much jabbing of buttons, how to jump forward and over the monkeys. i'd probably even pass the first few levels. but then i'd get bored and quit and the game would take on a whole new meaning for me. it'd probably haunt me because i'm a quitter and can never stick to my goals. probably video games can be likened to many aspects of life. but i wouldn't really know. i only ever played the one. and i didn't even like it.
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
freddy y joel's muy cupcakery
there's a recession....economic hardtimes....poor economy....blah blah blah. i'm tired of hearing about it. i'm tired of thinking about it. and i'm tired of it constantly affecting everyone's thought processes. it's so narcissistic. what about everyone else? all we think about it ourselves. how selfish. so i propose we quit worrying about our own economy and start helping out someone else's. hey, what goes around comes around, right?
so joel stein writes a column for time magazine every week. if i could i would post a link to last weeks column, but it's just impossible, so i'll summarize it. there's this nonprofit website, kiva.org, where you can give small loans to third world entrepreneurs. so stein donates $25 to a baker in nicaragua. now for a normal person, this would pretty much be the end of the deal. but stein decides he has some suggestions for this baker to help his business. he calls kiva and has a volunteer go down to the 'little mango bakery' and translate for him via cellphone. stein suggests a name change for the bakery, to be named after stein himself and that freddy (the baker) should focus on cupcakes over empanadas. freddy is amazingly cooperative and accepts the name change but includes his own name. he even agrees to try selling cupcakes. freddy even suggests they try selling the cupcakes to the local grocery stores. stein also discovers that the cupcakes will be transported by bicycle because freddy can't afford a car. he has to pay for a new floor and roof for his bakery. so they get off the phone and this is where i think the story gets interesting. stein still isn't done. he has more ideas for his new baker friend. he calls a woman who co-owns a famous cupcake business in california. he tells her all about freddy's bakery and asks if she's thought about taking her business global. she tells him that in the future they would be excited about opening their cupcake stores worldwide, but that it's a more likely to happen in the very distant future seeing as they don't yet have six stores in the states. but this woman apparently decides to humor him, or is really just a kind soul. to quote stein, "so sprinkles (this woman's cupcake store) agreed to give Freddy y Joel's $750 and a strawberry-cupcake recipe in exchange for regular reports on sales of that cupcake as well as a list of our three best-selling flavors. We agreed not to open a Freddy y Joel's in California, and in return Sprinkles would stay out of our section of Managua".
now i admit that the tone of this article is humorous and many elements to this story could be fictional. but i think that the basic story is true. it is, after all, time magazine. freddy now has a lot more money for his business and all it cost joel was $25 and one phone call. anyway, i think that's pretty impressive. if you're interested in reading the actual article let me know and i'll send it to you. in the meantime, check out kiva.org, and see what you can do to reach out and help someone else's economy. you never know, you just might end up helping yourself too.
so joel stein writes a column for time magazine every week. if i could i would post a link to last weeks column, but it's just impossible, so i'll summarize it. there's this nonprofit website, kiva.org, where you can give small loans to third world entrepreneurs. so stein donates $25 to a baker in nicaragua. now for a normal person, this would pretty much be the end of the deal. but stein decides he has some suggestions for this baker to help his business. he calls kiva and has a volunteer go down to the 'little mango bakery' and translate for him via cellphone. stein suggests a name change for the bakery, to be named after stein himself and that freddy (the baker) should focus on cupcakes over empanadas. freddy is amazingly cooperative and accepts the name change but includes his own name. he even agrees to try selling cupcakes. freddy even suggests they try selling the cupcakes to the local grocery stores. stein also discovers that the cupcakes will be transported by bicycle because freddy can't afford a car. he has to pay for a new floor and roof for his bakery. so they get off the phone and this is where i think the story gets interesting. stein still isn't done. he has more ideas for his new baker friend. he calls a woman who co-owns a famous cupcake business in california. he tells her all about freddy's bakery and asks if she's thought about taking her business global. she tells him that in the future they would be excited about opening their cupcake stores worldwide, but that it's a more likely to happen in the very distant future seeing as they don't yet have six stores in the states. but this woman apparently decides to humor him, or is really just a kind soul. to quote stein, "so sprinkles (this woman's cupcake store) agreed to give Freddy y Joel's $750 and a strawberry-cupcake recipe in exchange for regular reports on sales of that cupcake as well as a list of our three best-selling flavors. We agreed not to open a Freddy y Joel's in California, and in return Sprinkles would stay out of our section of Managua".
now i admit that the tone of this article is humorous and many elements to this story could be fictional. but i think that the basic story is true. it is, after all, time magazine. freddy now has a lot more money for his business and all it cost joel was $25 and one phone call. anyway, i think that's pretty impressive. if you're interested in reading the actual article let me know and i'll send it to you. in the meantime, check out kiva.org, and see what you can do to reach out and help someone else's economy. you never know, you just might end up helping yourself too.
Monday, January 5, 2009
beating sarah to the punch
this last week sarah flew in from utah to visit me. yay!! it was a pretty awesome week, if i may say so myself. and i'd like to tell you all about it. but that would take way too long, so i'll just briefly describe it. on wednesday sarah, a couple friends and i went up to st. paul to the science museum. we spent the day getting exhausted and touching surfaces that children had spit and snotted on. a plus side to it being winter is the fact that i always have my gloves with me. i was pretty successful at not touching anything without them. the only problem was that the touch computer screens didn't register my gloved hand. i tried to steer clear of those as best i could. we also watched the omnitheater movie which is the least fun one i've seen to date. it was about the effort to restore the lake sturgeon (very endangered and horribly ugly) to the great lakes. my favorite part of the film was when they "egged" (in relation to "milking" a cow) a 120 year old fish. i never knew that one fish could have so many eggs in it. totally gross. why do people eat caviar again? yeah. it was a really fun day and i think everyone learned something new. but i think the highlight of the day was the subway restaurant. we left the museum with the idea of getting food somewhere on the drive home. we had completely forgotten however that it was new year's eve and that even 24-hour mcdonalds had closed at 6pm. so after stopping a few places and discovering this problem we headed home even though we were starving. halfway back we drove through this dinky town which happened to have a subway with a huge OPEN sign on it. we pulled up thinking they must have forgotten to turn off their sign, but no, they were actually open. food, glorious food. i do believe it was the best subway i have ever eaten.
on thursday we went to lisa's house across the mississippi river and sat in her hot tub. it was quite lovely, except when the wind blew (i don't think sarah believed us when we told her that if your hair freezes it can break off) and also when we had to run from the hot tub back to her house. but luckily that wasn't too often and the run inside was only like 20 seconds. on friday my older sister gave us a tour of the Mayo Clinic which was actually pretty interesting. she showed us the labs where all the tests are done. it was pretty cool because it was somewhere that i had never really visualized before. we also had to walk several miles and i think we were all pretty exhausted. we went extreme bowling that night. while i scored less than 50 points in the first game, my 13 year old sister got 4 strikes in a row. i must have missed out on the good bowling gene.
on saturday we went up the the mall of america. we first went to the aquarium underneath the mall. the coolest part was petting the stingray (plural) and sharks. we stayed for quite awhile trying to touch all the sharks so i think everyone really enjoyed it. then we went shopping. and shopping. and shopping. it took us much longer than we had predicted to shop the entire mall. we were more than exhausted but i also discovered one of my new favorite stores: Martin & Osa. it's named for a very famous and adventurous couple in the early part of the 20th century. i might just read their book. i also learned that abercrombie has five different stores under four different names. they all have the same clothes, strong cologne smell, and excessively loud music though, so i'm not sure of the need for such stores, but i guess teenagers will buy anything. we also learned that the girls who work at hollister aren't allowed to wear makeup, which sounds sexist to me, although i can't quite specify how exactly. after we FINALLY finished shopping we rode the rides in the amusement park located in the middle of the mall. it was fun and all, but one of the rides was extremely painful. it also made me crazy dizzy and i don't like being reminded of how old i am getting. i really think the highlight for everyone was petting the sharks. it sounds strange but it was really relaxing and enjoyable. i have also decided that i would like an arabian bamboo shark for a pet. they were quite friendly and they really enjoyed being petted. i'm going to have to find out if regular people are allowed to own one of them.
on sunday we went to church, watched a couple movies and then sarah flew away, back to warm weathered utah. fortunately and unfortunately it was really warm while sarah was here, usually between -10 and 10 above. she didn't get to experience the insane cold that we oftentimes get to feel. oh well, maybe next time.
on thursday we went to lisa's house across the mississippi river and sat in her hot tub. it was quite lovely, except when the wind blew (i don't think sarah believed us when we told her that if your hair freezes it can break off) and also when we had to run from the hot tub back to her house. but luckily that wasn't too often and the run inside was only like 20 seconds. on friday my older sister gave us a tour of the Mayo Clinic which was actually pretty interesting. she showed us the labs where all the tests are done. it was pretty cool because it was somewhere that i had never really visualized before. we also had to walk several miles and i think we were all pretty exhausted. we went extreme bowling that night. while i scored less than 50 points in the first game, my 13 year old sister got 4 strikes in a row. i must have missed out on the good bowling gene.
on saturday we went up the the mall of america. we first went to the aquarium underneath the mall. the coolest part was petting the stingray (plural) and sharks. we stayed for quite awhile trying to touch all the sharks so i think everyone really enjoyed it. then we went shopping. and shopping. and shopping. it took us much longer than we had predicted to shop the entire mall. we were more than exhausted but i also discovered one of my new favorite stores: Martin & Osa. it's named for a very famous and adventurous couple in the early part of the 20th century. i might just read their book. i also learned that abercrombie has five different stores under four different names. they all have the same clothes, strong cologne smell, and excessively loud music though, so i'm not sure of the need for such stores, but i guess teenagers will buy anything. we also learned that the girls who work at hollister aren't allowed to wear makeup, which sounds sexist to me, although i can't quite specify how exactly. after we FINALLY finished shopping we rode the rides in the amusement park located in the middle of the mall. it was fun and all, but one of the rides was extremely painful. it also made me crazy dizzy and i don't like being reminded of how old i am getting. i really think the highlight for everyone was petting the sharks. it sounds strange but it was really relaxing and enjoyable. i have also decided that i would like an arabian bamboo shark for a pet. they were quite friendly and they really enjoyed being petted. i'm going to have to find out if regular people are allowed to own one of them.
on sunday we went to church, watched a couple movies and then sarah flew away, back to warm weathered utah. fortunately and unfortunately it was really warm while sarah was here, usually between -10 and 10 above. she didn't get to experience the insane cold that we oftentimes get to feel. oh well, maybe next time.
Sunday, December 21, 2008
christmas shopping
congratulate me, i am done with my christmas shopping. my original goal was to be finished shopping by dec 1. of course this goal was not met. i once again practiced a fun pastime i learned on the mission: making goals that are so outlandish they will never be reached. but i just got online to buy my very last gift. i've been following the price for more than a month now and i finally bought it. i am done done done with my christmas shopping. by dec 21. excellent. actually, this is something i need to work on in real life. because it's for christmas and it's for other people, i kept working on my goal until it was finished. however with normal goals, if i don't make them by my deadline, i completely give up and drop that goal. i don't know why this is exactly. i guess i'm just a give-upper. next year i plan on putting a lot less time and effort into buying gifts because the gifts i've given so far this year (after TONS of thoughtful contemplation by the way) have not been very appreciated. so i guess i'm giving up on that too. sad isn't it?
i have only two life goals, neither of which are completed. they are as follows:
1) own all the seasons of The Cosby Show on dvd.
2) have my own apartment.
i am actually pretty close to accomplishing this first one. not because of any effort on my part though. last year for christmas my sister and my parents bought me season 1-6. only 2 seasons to go. sweet! and since i'm currently living with my parents, i am not even close to my second goal. and really, i'm not actively working on either of these goals. hmm. it's probably better that i don't own all eight seasons, because if i did i would have accomplished one of my life goals and feel validated and end up living with my parents till i'm 40.
3) don't live with my parents until i'm 40.
i have only two life goals, neither of which are completed. they are as follows:
1) own all the seasons of The Cosby Show on dvd.
2) have my own apartment.
i am actually pretty close to accomplishing this first one. not because of any effort on my part though. last year for christmas my sister and my parents bought me season 1-6. only 2 seasons to go. sweet! and since i'm currently living with my parents, i am not even close to my second goal. and really, i'm not actively working on either of these goals. hmm. it's probably better that i don't own all eight seasons, because if i did i would have accomplished one of my life goals and feel validated and end up living with my parents till i'm 40.
3) don't live with my parents until i'm 40.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)