pregnant!

I haven't updated in forever--so here's a major update. I'm PREGNANT!! Our little Baby Doozit is due at the end of June. I'm officially 18 weeks along. I'm still flirting with morning sickness--I've actually lost 10 pounds since this whole thing started. But I'm sure it's all worth it. The worst thing is the Metro. On days I have to travel, I find myself wayyyyy sicker than on days I am home. At least that leaves me two days a week where I can kind of eat things sometimes.

If you ask Carl how we feel about the whole thing, he says "excited and terrified." But I'm afraid that's just him. I'm excited, and that's pretty much it. I was slightly terrified about that whole "birth" thing, which has admittedly sounded extremely painful, but I'm pretty sure I can handle it. And let's face it: Carl and I will be freaking awesome parents.

endings

Today marked the end of my second-to-last week at my current work. I'm pretty much heartbroken to leave. It's been fantastic. Even though what I personally do there isn't that awesome--fixing blackberries and plugging in computers and stuff--it's been good. I love everyone I work with.

It'll be sad to leave, but okay because I'll be back--I'll have to visit at least once a week for my new job, so at least I won't be completely removed from the scene. And in my new job, I'll get to actually write and be published and strategize and plan for the future and make a difference. And all I really want to do is make a difference.

figuring it all out.

Here is the deal.

I want a house.

Oh, I want a house very badly.

However, houses require money.

It's been interesting--over the past few months, I've made the subtle shift from the politics section of the bookstore to the business section. I've been reading up on everything. I think I could be a good entrepreneur, but I just don't know what to do with myself.

I have:
- my CD
- my calligraphy?
- my music/sightreading/piano/singing
- composition skills (music)
- writing skills, publication skills
- my knowledge of the environment, esp. DIRT (yay dirt)
- my...okay, knowledge of politics, current events, the Constitution
- my speed reading abilities

Hmm. Okay, that's all I can think of for now.

I'm working on writing a speed reading class. We'll see if it ever sells...

moving

Well, kids, we're moving. Moving back to Maryland where the grass is green and the tax rate has chased every millionaire out of the state. Exciting times. I've been packing all day. We'll be moving into my grandma's vacant house this coming week, and then moving back to MD around the 3rd of September.

FYI.

the creepiest thing. ever.

I've been meaning to blog this for over a week, but here goes.

My friends, sometimes creepy things happen. And I am about to tell you about one of those times.

Carl and I got back from MD about two full weeks ago. It was all jolly and good, of course, until we did the laundry.

Now, I will admit, I am a little obsessive compulsive about my laundry. Essentially EVERYTHING gets hung up on hangers and put in the closet, with the exception of, basically, socks. But, I can't just have my clothes on any old hanger: no, all hangers must be either plastic or crocheted over, because otherwise they leave those little hangermarks in the shoulders, you know? And those always make my heart frowny. :^[

So we were putting away the laundry, and I was hanging things up, and then, from out of my closet comes--



THE UGLIEST GREEN CROCHETED OVER HANGER IN THE WORLD!!!

At first I just furrowed my brow. "Carl, where did this come from?" I asked. I assumed it was a present or something. Sometimes people make those for me because they know of my OCD ways with that sort of thing.

Carl didn't know.

The hanger was old. It was looking a little raggedy, for sure. And so distinctive: bright green with a poufiness of random yarn coming off the intersection of all the wires. Kind of dirty. Obviously, this hanger had been places.

And Carl had never seen it before.

And neither had I.

And we'd just been out of town for a week.

When I was in Austria, I went to Girls' Camp with the stake there. I had my own personal translator and everything, LoL. But the girls tried to speak in English for me and the other internationals. And one night, they told this story that kept me awake at night for years, about a girl who didn't know that a cannibal was sleeping under her bed.

Luckily, we don't have a bedframe, so our mattress is right on the ground--crocheting cannibals was my first thought. I was glad to see that the culprit could not be sleeping under my bed.

The more I thought about this hanger, the more creeped out I became. It's not like you can exactly forget a hanger like that. I'm not sure it's even possible to forget a hanger like that, with its stringy, dirtied green yarn. Hiding in your closet, waiting for the perfect moment to strike.

And here's the thing: I cleaned out every closet when we moved in, myself. It wasn't that long ago. And I'm obsessed with using the correct hangers for all my clothes. I KNOW I would have noticed something like that.

And yet, it was hiding out in my clothes like it had always been there.

True or false: there are only a few ways for certain items to end up in certain places. Yes, I suppose according to the Heisenberg Principle there is some sort of chance that the hanger randomly materialized in between my dress pants and my T-shirt collection. But I also suppose it's a little more likely that someone put that hanger there--which, in a decent world, only Carl or I would be putting hangers there. But if neither of us put that hanger there... then how did it get there??

Oh wow. Just writing about that hanger is creeping me out all over again.

If you have a theory about how the crap such a creepy hanger got to be in my closet, you can post it in the comments. Because seriously, I can only think of two options (materialization, and crocheting cannibals).

vending machine emergencies

Haven't been on for a while. I've been busy.

Today I went to the vending machines and for the first time saw a sign that said in the case of vending machine emergencies outside of normal office hours, you should call campus police.

I didn't even know vending machine emergencies could exist.

You learn something new every day.

wha...?

I'm just sitting here minding my own business.

A few minutes ago, some lady came past me, yawning. I looked up, made eye contact, and smiled--something I usually try to do.

I was amazed when she started talking to me. I didn't think she was talking to me at first, but yep, it was me.

"I'm so tired!" she said. "But it's still morning. I have a right to be tired." Brief pause. "I was just up so late trying to find my card! You know. My card." Pause. "Good thing I live where I do. Cleaning checks, you know. You know. I have to go to an appointment."

She kept on talking. I couldn't take it. Eventually she left, and as she was leaving she passed some other girl and started talking to her.

This lady did mention something about Medicaid during the conversation, so I'm guessing there was a good reason for our strange moment.

And yet, I'm still a little weirded out.

Oh well.

"female impressionism"

I was looking at this thing right now on gay celebrities (I NEED TO STOP FOCUSING ON RANDOM TRIVIA AND DO SOMETHING PRODUCTIVE WITH MY LIFE), and there was a caption on one of the guys saying that he was a "New York female impressionist."

Of course, my first thought was that he was a painter. He was, indeed, holding a painting in the picture of him.

But then the rest of the caption talked about how he was beaten and stuff for being gay and how he was dressed. And that's when I realized that being a "female impressionist" has nothing to do with actually being female or being an impressionist.

It has everything to do, apparently, with being a drag queen.

The news media... is so strange. "Female impressionism?" At least they could pick a phrase that doesn't come hand in hand with images of Renoir and Manet. O.o;;

UPDATE: A real female impressionist.

home stretch.

School is almost over. The freedom is so close, I can almost taste it, except not really, because you can't really taste freedom, can you.

This week is stressful.

TO DO:
- finish amazing hard Soils midterm
- take O Chem quiz
- take O Chem midterm
- finish 12-page research paper
- give oral presentation (after I come up with a presentation)
- Pesticide Olympics
- Tea Party meetings every night at 5 pm in the Kennedy Center (you should come!)
- keep up to date on current events
- Soils quiz
- Inferno stuff
- write critique of someone else's 12-page paper

Hmm. And probably other things too.

Well. Life's okay. Oh yeah, I have to apply for a job. Oh well.

So anyway. Sorry if I'm lame this week.

Poor Carl had to stay up until 9 pm last night writing a paper, and then he had to wake up at 2:30 or so to finish it. My poor man. And we have to be on campus today until basically 6 pm. Yay being on campus for 14 hours straight!!! WOOT!!!!!

x.x;

Lesch-Nyhan thoughts

Yesterday I went in the Bookstore. I was checking out this non-fiction book I don't know the name of, by the guy who wrote The Hot Zone. The last chapter was on something called the self-cannibals. So I read it, always being intrigued by anything that sounds that strange.

These self-cannibals are victims of a hereditary disease called Lesch-Nyhan disease. It's a sex-linked disease, which means it's carried on the X chromosome, much like hemophilia. Women don't get it, because they typically have another X chromosome to take over from the defective one; men do get it, because they only have one X (and one Y, remember?). They don't have a functional copy to erase the effects of the defunct X.

This disease intrigues me very much. You can tell if a child has it because right off they will urinate orange sand. Yes--urinate orange sand. It's from a buildup of uric acid in their blood. Lesch-Nyhan is basically the suppression of a particular enzyme that keeps uric acid levels manageable. Because of this, up until recently Lesch-Nyhan people would die of gout and kidney failure by typically the age of four. Now, most Lesch-Nyhans die around age 20, though some live much longer.

But the amazing thing about this disease is that the physical aspects of the problem are hardly the most devastating. And not only that--this other aspect of the disease has apparently no genetic marker. And sufferers of Lesch-Nyhan have the same exact brain structure as typical, non-Lesch-Nyhan people.

Lesch-Nyhan people are self-inflictors. Self-saboteurs. They compulsively destroy their own lives--even as they cry out for help. A picture in the book I was reading showed a boy who had chewed off both of his lips, and his own hands had torn out his palate bones one by one. These people bite off their own fingers, even as they scream for restraints. They beg for people to tie their hands to chairs. One man I read about used a fork to hack off his own nose--in a restaurant. As he screamed for people to stop him.

And this behavior is not limited to physical self-sabotage. These people are the cruelest to people they love most. You can tell a Lesch-Nyhan person loves you because they will never say a kind word to you. You can tell a Lesch-Nyhan person hates you because they will be extra sweet to you. If you ask a Lesch-Nyhan person what they want to do, they will tell you the exact opposite of what they actually want.

This is called a behavioral phenotype. It is amazing to me because I cannot fathom a disease that could sidetrack the most basic of human instincts: self-interest. I am incredulous at the concept of a disease that would cause a person's body to harm itself. And even more, I am amazed at the concept of a disease that would make a person compulsively lie to prevent his own happiness.

This particular disease is troubling to me. I wouldn't say my faith is shaken, but I had never contemplated the idea of a behavioral phenotype--a set of behaviors genetically predetermined that simply cannot be sidetracked. The mere existence of this sort of disorder is a strong argument for the third tenet of Darwinism, the one that repulses me to the core. The one stating that people cannot make choices, because our genetics predetermine everything about us. The one claiming that people are no better than animals, destined to evolve in the same way. The one that says that free agency is a mere delusion.

Because if there is such thing as a behavioral phenotype, who is to say that anyone truly has free agency?

If everyone's behavior is determined by his or her genetics, then there really cannot be responsibility. I remember this one time in an elevator, my own genetically-mutated brother reached out and grabbed some random girl's boob. Awkward. We tried to pry his hand off her boob (awkward!!!), and when it was over, no one thought worse of my brother, not even that girl whose boob it was, because we all recognized that James has no real control over his own behavior. You can't hold someone accountable for something they didn't choose.

Do you see what the issue is here?

I just have to wonder, how many of my obsessions are manifestations of my own behavioral phenotype? Arguably, all my actions are. Arguably, every choice anyone makes is really only a manifestation of predetermined genetic makeup.

And yet, if this is true, then what is the meaning of life?

Weird.

So anyway, I guess I'll come back to this post later. Anyone else find themselves bizarrely affected by the knowledge of this disease's existence?

Miss America Story.

So, I have had limited contact with Miss America contestants--to my knowledge I have only known five--but is it just me, or are they all exactly the same? Only one I have met is not totally... exemplified, shall we say, in this story.

THE STORY

So this chick I'm working with for the Tea Party movement has her eyes set on being Miss America. She's running for Miss Provo this year. Anyway, we were trying to increase membership in the Tea Party movement. And as she went through her list of friends to invite them to the movement, she just kept on this running commentary: "Oh, this guy will hate me. Oh, this person will hate me. Oh, this person will hate me..." over and over until she'd invited 200 people.

"Allie," she said, "I just made 200 people hate me!"

So I go to her Facebook page and she only has like 204 friends. Which means I have approximately 4.5x as many friends.

"Don't worry about it. I made 500 people hate me this morning," I said.

She stopped talking.

Until then I needed her email for the group. She started spelling out something, and then she was like, "! Just kidding! I can't put that one up! I don't want people to know how old I am!" And so I deleted it. She waited. "I'm only nineteen," she said. "I mean, that's really, really young."

And then she kept saying that. Different variations, over and over.

So I finally said, "No worries. I understand. I was 16 when I started here, and I just turned twenty."

She stopped talking.

:O)

Here's the thing: if you really care about not letting people know how old you are, YOU DON'T EVER BRING IT UP. When you really care about the prejudice and random crap people put you through for being young, you avoid the situation at all costs. You would NEVER ever ever put your birthyear in your email, and if you had an email like that, you would just let it die out. Never touch it again. You would not be telling your greatest secret to everyone on the street.

Oh, Miss America contestants... when will you learn?

licenced.

Maybe I spelled that wrong. "License" is one of those words that I can never remember how to spell (lisense? license? licence? wtf?), along with that horribly annoying word, exercise (exercize? excersize? exersize? wtf?).

I took my Pesticide Application exam at the Dept of Agriculture yesterday. Here is the dumb thing:

There are three tests. One of them, Private, is open-note and you can look at anything you want as you take the test. The other is Commercial. That one, you can't look at anything except what they give you. It's the same exact test, just one way you can basically cheat, and the other way you can't.

Well, I showed up with no notes, and took the test. Private. Because I am retarded. I had to take it closed-note and I didn't even get the licence that lets me work for hire with pesticide.

And beyond that--even though it was closed note, I took the tests in 1/4 of the time they usually take, and I got over 15 points more than I needed to pass.

So, I've been beating myself up on that one. I should just go back and retake it for a commercial license.

Last night we had a meeting about the upcoming Tea Parties. I always get so angry at those things, and then I just feel so helpless I just cry. Lame. Somehow I need to figure out what I can do that involves more than getting into arguments with idiots on facebook.

eh.

I'll be honest--just blogging for the sake of blogging this morning.

The burn's okay. Looks progressively more disgusting as it heals. Carl has been an angel helping me take care of it.

I turned in most of my application to the Utah County Water Conservancy District yesterday. I have to get them my transcripts today. I really hope I get the job. It's $32/hour ($60k/year), and beyond the pay, it sounds fantastic. It combines labwork with teaching with research. I would keep vats of invasive species for study; check the drinking water of Utah County for drinkability; and teach lessons on drinking water quality. The facility is beyond fabulous. And it would make enough money for Carl to be a full-time writer starting out.

Today is our three-month anniversary.

Um. Tea Party meeting tonight, 7 pm W241 Tanner. That will be exciting.

I have nothing else to say, really. Sorry.

Actually I lied. Dropped SW yesterday. THe end.

burned.

While baking yesterday, a pan slipped out of my hand, fresh from the 360-degree oven. Slashed into my left arm, on the underside of it, by my bicep. Immediately skin start peeling off.

We couldn't rinse it under water, on account of that there were no sinks where I could shove my entire left torso, so we had to go find a giant sprayer to cool it. The water temperature would swing from being really warm to really cold.

Then, for the first time ever, I had to fill out an accident report, since the burn was so long (5 inches) and 2nd degree. They apparently have to file some sort of thing that says what they'll change in the future so it won't happen again. I told them, I just lost my balance. CONFLICT! I don't know what they finally put down but I hope it doesn't make baking weird.

Then a SM took me to the Bookstore to buy a burn bandage, which they didn't have. So instead she helped me down to the locker room where I tried to change--changing your shirt when you have a giant burn on your arm is so lame.

Well, then the EMTs called, searching for me in all the bathrooms in the Wilk. Only I was in the locker room in the basement, which you need a secret code to get into. So we had to go back upstairs for them to treat it.

At this point, Carl decided that for once he would buy lunch at the Cougareat, and just as he got to the front of the line, my friend C came up to ring up his order. She recognized him and told him I had been burned and where to find me. He came rushing, and was apparently really worried when he saw the 9 EMTs in the fishbowl office, all crowding around me.

The EMTs gave me a burn bandage and wrapped me up, and then they all wanted to practice on me random things, like taking my blood pressure, and looking at my pupils, and whatever. Apparently they have a test on EMT-ing this week and wanted some practice.

So anyway, once upon a time, I got a giant burn on my arm, and all these EMTs came to the Cougareat and I filled out an accident report. It was exciting, and now my arm hurts. The end.

another post about my dumb job

Just thought this was funny.

Just took a personality/career test. It told me I should either be a political analyst or.....




a cook.


Ah, baking....


[i r o n y]

my dumb job

1. I took the opening shift for Thursday mornings, because the Thursday baker quit. I also work Thursday afternoons. I just miss for one hour, so I can go to class. Some other chick comes in to cover the ovens.

I always knew I was a fast baker, but this is ridiculous.

On MWF, baking typically ends from 3:30-5 pm. On TTh, baking has typically ended around 2-3:30 (I bake afternoons on TTh).

Today, I opened and closed, and I ended at noon.

Exactly noon.

When I am not hampered by slow bakers, I can finish the baking in under 6 hours. Honestly, from 6-9:30, I finished 4 entire racks of bread, and we only had 5 to start with. The next baker wasn't quite done with the last rack when I got back 1.5 hours later. According to what I had already done, if I had kept up that speed, I could have organized over 1,000 cookies and baked the entire last rack in that amount of time.

I'm bugged because if I can bake so fast, it means I get fewer hours. Which to me means I should get a raise. I can do the baking that would normally take over 10 hours in under six. To get the money I would need to get per hour based on how fast I am, I would need a $3.32 raise. According to my calculations, anyway--and since I dropped math when I was 15, my count may be dubious. But I think it's right.

Gah. Need a raise.

what is going on?

So, I'm pretty much really confused.

Something is going on and I have no control in it at all.

I made it up through the final final interview for TFA, and they turned me down. Then, well-- well--

My professor asked me to come and meet with him about the grad school position I applied for. So I went. He had me sit down, and told me that I didn't get in--but the reason he wanted to tell me this in person was because of what a great candidate I was. Of all the applicants, I and the girl selected were the top two. They debated for a long time over who would get the position. In the end, the one deciding factor was the other girl's experience with sage or something. Dr. G told me that the next time he had a project come up, he would email me. And he told me that my "packet" was impressive enough that I should be able to get in anywhere that I would ever want to.

And he told me that even though I didn't take the GRE, my academic achievements were significant enough that he was 100% positive I would have scores "above and beyond" what would be necessary for anyone's program.

I was really excited at the time that he would think that of me--and now I'm a little confused. Now what do I do? No TFA, no grad school for me or Carl, no plan, no nothing.

Oh, and here is a funny tale. I got my Civ paper back, and I had an original A on the paper, and then the TA scratched it out and gave me a B because it "wasn't unique." So I had my actual teacher reread it, and he gave it an A+ and had only great things to say about it, and actually offered me the TA position for next year over it. Even though I didn't even read the book I wrote the paper on, I just read a lot of Wikipedia and used the index to find quotes. But he really liked my paper.

So, I don't know. My professors have always been really impressed with me, which has been nice, but... I mean, I have no idea what's going on. If I were really that cool, I would probably have figured out what to do with myself for after graduation.

Wtf.

The Roses of Success

I have been missing this song! Here are the lyrics:

Every bursted bubble has a glory!
Each abysmal failure makes a point!
Every glowing path that goes astray,
Shows you how to find a better way.
So every time you stumble never grumble.
Next time you'll bumble even less!
For up from the ashes, up from the ashes, grow the roses of success!
Grow the roses!
Grow the roses!
Grow the roses of success!
Oh yes!
Grow the roses!
Those rosy roses!
From the ashes of disaster grow the roses of success!


For every big mistake you make be grateful!
Here, here!
That mistake you'll never make again!
No sir!
Every shiny dream that fades and dies,
Generates the steam for two more tries!
There's magic in the wake of a fiasco!
Correct!
It gives you that chance to second guess!
Oh yes!
Then up from the ashes, up from the ashes grow the roses of success!
Grow the roses!
Grow the roses!
Grow the roses of success!
Grow the roses!
Those rosy roses!
From the ashes of disaster grow the roses of success!


Disaster didn't stymie Louis Pasteur!
No sir!
Edison took years to see the light!
Right!
Alexander Graham knew failure well; he took a lot of knocks to ring that
bell!
So when it gets distressing it's a blessing!
Onward and upward you must press!
Yes, Yes!
Till up from the ashes, up from the ashes grow the roses of success.

me procrastinating.

The Plant and Wildlife Science department at BYU is interesting. Several of the professors don't have graduate degrees. They're just old poor farmery guys who are amazing at soil science.

My boss, Dr. Hopkins, is a genius. He was recently in the NYT because of a new slow-release N fertilizer he's working on. I've helped him with the research. He's a really cool guy.

He told me the other day, being Friday, that if I wanted to go to grad school, I should.

Now, I hate school, but I think grad school might be okay because

1. I would be paid to go.
2. It's only 2 years.
3. It would be 100% Life Science, none of this wack "English 315" crizzap.

So, since I'm a month past the deadline, I have the next two hours to throw together an entire graduate application. Exciting!

Ah!


PS. LoL. There's this chick on FB who used to be in my Relief Society, and she always likes to write mean things about my posts on Obama. Today she wrote that I am "so annoying" and that I should "stop being such a hater."

To which I really have to ask: why not just unfriend me? Am I super missing something here? LoL.

fear not

I am way less emo today than I was yesterday.

I hate school, but oh well! I was just offered a new job, and I'm checking to see if there are any community management positions around, because I know I'm qualified for them. My last class is offered in the evening in Spring, so I could potentially have a full-time job.

In the depths of my depression yesterday, I went to the BYU Bookstore to look at the book The Survivor's Club. I had never read it. And I still haven't, but it was really interesting to read about what makes a person survive or die.

For example, it was previously believed that people would die after having assumed a body temperature of 95 degrees F. One man, "Professor Popsicle," took it upon himself to disprove this idea. He has submerged himself in frozen water for hours, he has injected freezing water into his veins. He has proved that people can survive at the body temperature of 88 degrees F. What this means is that people in frozen water don't die from hypothermia; they die from fear and giving up. They essentially let themselves drown.

Yesterday I was ready to let myself drown.

Today, I am saying: W/E SUCKAAZZ!!

Because, that is the correct answer. I'm cooler than school anyway. Right? (Don't answer that.)

Also, my prof just emailed me and said that even though I missed the GRE, he would pull some strings to see if they'd accept my app for grad school anyway. I could have a full-time assistantship with the Plant and Wildlife Science Department studying the life cycle of farmed Wyoming big sage! Woot! Woot!

Perhaps life is okay after all.