Socially Prohibited Facebook Statuses

Do you ever go to type a status on facebook, get halfway through, and then realize that:
1)You actually don't want all of your "friends" reading about your personal life,
2)You don't want to sound crazy,
3)Someone that prompted the status might read it and be offended or figure out that it is about them (this is the most common reason for me),
4)This sounds way more emo than I meant (and I am not sitting here asking to be comforted/for compliments),
5)You don't want creepers that you somehow became friends with commenting on it,
6)My mom is friends with me on facebook (sorry mom), or
7)It really isn't that funny to anyone else.

So I decided to make a list of all the statuses that I have wanted to post, but haven't. Feel free to add your own.

• Man, that date was awkward!
• I'm lonely.
• Boys are dumb. Especially *fill in blank* (I have some sense of social rules still. Or maybe more than one name...)
• I think I am going to drop out of school and form a nudist nun colony that lives in cardboard boxes. Seriously.
• He finally asked me out, and now I just have to convince him to do it again. Best date EVER.
• I have forgotten to eat almost all day today. Oops.
• I just failed that test. bummer. :(
• I love Physics!
• Please. If I am annoying, tell me. Being rude isn't really getting you anywhere. If it isn't me, tell me!

 (Wow. Reading back over it, mostly they have to do with dating in some way or another. Lesson learned: most statuses regarding dating are socially prohibited because they make you sound desperate or the guy will read it later).

Soundtrack

There are so many things I want to blog about. My brain is full of thinkings that need to be expressed. But you will get those later when I have more time. For now I think I will share the songs that I can't seem to stay away from recently. Some of them I listen to over and over again, not getting tired of them. You know how music seems to capture a mood in a way that words just can't? Yeah, that's what I'm trying to do.
First of all, I have listened to All Will Be Well by the Gabe Dixon Band. I have listened to this three times in a row. Besides the piano, I can't really explain why I love this song so much. Maybe you'll understand anyway. The music video isn't amazing, but that doesn't matter.
I know everyone loves this song, but the next one is Just the Way You Are by Bruno Mars. It could melt any girl's heart. :)
I think the next one was just a phase, but still it was enough to make it onto the list. Terrified by Katharine McPhee.
I also had a The Only Exception by Paramore phase (don't worry, I'm not really into the rest of her music. Just this song. The rest is a little too emo punk rockish for me). It grew on me.
A song I have loved forever is Gravity by Sara Bareilles. Music videos are just weird and distracting a lot, but I still adore this song. One of my absolute favorites.
Sometimes I really love Regina Spektor, as weird as she is. A good example is Eet, but one that really made me think with its weirdness in a way I had to digest to like is Laughing With.
Trying to think of more songs to post, about a bajillion came to mind. But they all fit in the category "I like the style of this song, so I listen to it with everything else, but I actually don't really love it enough by itself". So I won't post those. But I just love songs that are chill, acoustic, maybe with piano. Someday my music tastes will change (again) and I will look at these songs and laugh at myself, but I don't care. :)
P.S. A song that has been helping me relax when I'm stressed, and just go to work. Love it. So much. River Flows In You by Yiruma.

YouTube it Up

I feel like all of my posts are too serious. I need some silly ones once in a while. So I am going to share with you some of my favorite YouTube videos - definitely the logical thing to do.

Marcel the Shell


Red Strip Beer-  Large Headed Friend


Boys Will Be Girls


The Lawrence Welk Show


Time Hawkins - Aging Rockstars


PreBlessed Food


Jellyfish


Top 60 Ghetto Black names


and it wouldn't be complete without
The Bed Intruder Song


(Most of those are made by people with a million other connected funny videos - especially Julian Smith, SNL, Red Stripe Beer, and Tim Hawkins. So if you want to waste your entire day, you can find more stuff by them.)
Enjoy!

Grace

Recently a lot of events and circumstances in my life have been hard, or perhaps just my definition of hard. They weren't anything out of the norm, and they really don't sound that difficult, but they were and they are. The hardest part was that I was trying absolutely as hard as I could to be good and make the right decisions. I was doing all the right things, or doing my very best at doing all the right things. But no matter how hard I tried, I always fell short, and my imperfections were rubbed into my face. I tried to be humble about it, to react in the face of trial the way I am supposed to - you know, the sunday school answers - but sincerely. It didn't seem to help.
As I was struggling with my imperfections - not with the gospel, just with myself - heaven opened. I went to church and everything was tailored exactly to fit me. All the testimonies born were perfect. But the winner was in Relief Society. The lesson was on Grace.
Grace isn't something I have really thought about much before. It isn't really emphasized in our religion - we talk more about the being saved by works part, forgetting that both are important. Obviously we talk about the saving power of the atonement a lot, but I guess I didn't really understand the idea of grace. The teacher opened the lesson with three scenarios where a person needs to find the value of grace in their life. The last one was "the girl who is doing everything she can, and trying her very hardest, but still falls short and never feels good enough". Obviously I burst into tears at the very beginning of the lesson. No hope for preventing sobbing for the rest of it.
The first place we turn to learn more about what grace is is in the Bible Dictionary. Here are some of my very favorite snippets:
"The main idea of the word is divine means of help or strength, given through the bounteous mercy and love of Jesus Christ."
"It is likewise through the grace of the Lord that individuals, though faith in the atonement of Jesus Christ and repentance of their sins, receive strength and assistance to do good works that they otherwise would not be able to maintain if left to their own means."
"This grace is an enabling power that allows men and women to lay hold on eternal life and exaltation after they have expended their own best efforts."
"Divine grace is needed by every soul..."
I was just overwhelmed. Heavenly Father sent that lesson just for me. Well, and a couple of the other girls I saw bawling their eyes out with me. I just needed to hear that - Christ won't just top off my cup at the end, he will help me fill it all along the way. He strengthens me, fills in for me, and recognizes my true effort. "I am a great sinner and Christ is a Great Savior". I can do all things through his grace.
So our bathroom mirror now reads,
"Grace is an Enabling Power
Have you used it Today?"

Feng Shui Part One

So I am in a History and Philosophy of Science with an Emphasis on Biology class (super long title, I know. They don't offer a physics one, so all the teaching majors have to take the biology one. lame.).
A major part of our grade in the class is a paper and group presentation on a pseudoscience.

Pseudoscience: a methodology, belief, or practice that is claimed to be scientific, or that is made to appear to be scientific, but which does not adhere to an appropriate scientific methodology (thank you wikipedia).

Our ideas at first were well witching (or well divining), medical magnets, acupuncture, and Feng Shui. The list slowly was narrowed down as we addressed acupuncture and well witching in class, and another group picked medical magnets (anyone reading this, please don't be offended if you believe in medical magnets. All I am claiming on that is that it isn't exactly science, not that it doesn't work. And if you are still offended, don't be. I'm not worth getting offended over.) And then we started getting excited about Feng Shui.
For those of you who are like me, you won't already know what that means. For those who know all about it, bear with me (or even correct me) while I attempt to explain it. Basically it is a Chinese tradition of interior decorating (which they probably would be offended to have it be grouped with) that is supposed to improve the qi (the energy flow, circulation of life energy) of your room, making you happier, better rested, and basically improves all parts of your life. It uses the ideas of yin and yang, and tells you what will hurt your qi. Furniture and wall decor have to be done in a certain way as to not hurt your qi. Some of it is intuitive like, clutter is bad for your qi, but some of it I would have never thought of.
Anyway, I have to write a seven page paper about it by Thursday, so I have a lot of research left to do. But, as part of my project, I am going to Feng Shui my room!!! Lizzy, my roommate, is excited too. It will be hard to find things for our prosperity corner (we need purple, black, green, and money in that corner - definitely don't have purple, black, green, OR money.) And we might be lacking in the relationship corner (I guess family pictures can go there). But it will be fun. And I might find out that that is a totally westernized version of Feng Shui anyway, and not need a prosperity or relationship corner (I'm sure that almost anything we find will be a westernized version considering I can't read Chinese). But it will be fun. :)
I will update you later with pictures about what I learned and what I did, because it will be fun. And we will see if I sleep better, study better, and feel better afterward. :)

Printer Fiasco Turned Victory

Recently I bought a printer. Exciting, I know. Front page news.
 But really, I was excited. It was an HP Officejet 4680 - an all-in-one.

It prints wirelessly, scans, copies, faxes, and walks the dog. Except maybe the walking the dog part. With my dad's coupons and some serious haggling, I bought the brand-new printer, ink refill, and a two year warranty for $36. Not bad, if I must say so myself.
Then I brought it home. It was supposed to be an easy set up, but for some reason my computer didn't like the software. It didn't even recognize the driver disk as software, and I had to look through the files on it to find a setup button. After struggling with it for a long time, and inviting over one of my computer friends, we got it mostly set up, and started to set up the wireless part (the part that sold me).
My printer printed out its own report card. The right column was full of "PASS"es, and one big, fat, ugly "FAIL". I had bought a faulty printer. The wireless didn't work. It even knew that it didn't work. Ugh. It could print with a USB cable, but what is the point of a wireless printer that can't print wirelessly?
A couple of days later I gave up and called HP's 1-800 number. And I know for a fact that the guy I was talking to was from India, or somewhere very like that. He was friendly, but we had....some difficulties communicating.
"Yes! A as in alpha!!!"
Anyway, after over a half an hour on the phone, he was convinced that my printer was not working. He told me that they could send me a new one and that I could mail my old one back to them, with prepaid shipping. I was fine with that. A minute later he changed his mind. "um, I thought of something better. What if we just emailed you a coupon for $139 to our website to buy a new printer?" I was like, "Yes!" And I would get to keep my old printer, which worked just fine besides the not wireless part. Sweet! "Okay. If you don't get the email within a couple of days, call this number, and enter this extension." Nice.
Well, it didn't come. Of course it couldn't be that easy.
And then "Jessica" (also Indian, from the sound of it) left a message on my phone for me to call her back.
Long story short, Jessica was from an entirely different branch and just needed my info for the records. Then someone else called me to make sure I was happy with the coupon - which still hadn't come. After more miscommunication,
"Yes! A as in alpha! T as in tom!!!!"
they got my name and email address right.
And now I have a shiney new printer, the HP Photosmart D110a.

With $139 I was able to buy ink and a warranty as well. What a relief to have that all over. Willie got the old printer, and the wireless (along with the nifty ePrint feature - I can email print jobs to my printer from anywhere) works on this one. Whew.
In the end I think I was just paid for the frustration, but I am happy with how it ended. Score on my part. I'm sure Willie isn't too disappointed either. :)

Catchin' Up

I recently had a friend get after me for not updating my blog so let it reach the top of my to-do list. After all we know how much I love blogging. :)
I decided that instead of doing all the updaters, stories, and thoughts in one post I will split it up. It will be more exciting that way. Are you excited? I am. So look for it - a bunch of unconnected, maybe short, maybe long but definitely April posts. Ready...Set...Apostrophe!