my life according to buzzfeed quizzes

Sometimes I wonder if I should be doing more productive things with my free time, but then I think naaaah. And then I take another quiz.

So, without further ado, here is a summary of my life and personality according to wise, wonderful, always reliable universe of Buzzfeed quizzes:

1. Which Jane Austen hero is your soulmate? 

Mr. George Knightly (I was hoping for Wentworth, but alas)

2. Which Jane Austen heroine are you? 

Anne Elliot (I am most pleased) 

3. Which American president are you?

Andrew Jackson 

4. What is your patronus?

Horse

5. What should you give up for Lent? 

Caffeine (I don't actually drink caffeine, except for the occasional Dr. Pepper to keep me awake when I'm driving to and from work. So this probably means I should give up NOTHING for Lent. Actually, I really should give up Buzzfeed.) 

6. What kind of ghost will you be? 

White Lady (a vengeful spirit who haunts a lighthouse by a rocky cliff? Okay, sure, that sound good.)

7. What kind of cat are you? 

Indoor cat (this seems like a copout. Aren't there a lot of cats who are technically indoor cats? But if you mean introvert, then yes, that would be accurate.)

8. Which Jurassic Park character are you?

The sassy velociraptor (yes, please)

9. Which period in history do you really belong in? 

Imperial China (hmmm.)

10. Which character from Shakespeare are you?

BEATRICE from Much Ado. (YESYESYES)

11. Which philosopher are you?

Nietzsche (hehe)

12. Which Joss Whedon character are you?

Kaylie from Firefly. I like her, and they describe her as an "adorable badass." I'm okay with that.

13. Which strong female character are you?

Princess Leia (love)

14. Which fandom do you actually belong in?

Whedonverse (I love this. I mean, the Tolkien universe is always appealing to me, but I'm pretty sure Joss Whedon gets my heart)

15. Which Hogwarts House do you actually belong in?
Ravenclaw

16. Which Harry Potter character are you?

Dumbledore (okay?)

17. Which Doctor Who companion are you?

Clara Oswin Oswald (I really like Clara. They do need to spend a lot more time developing her character, but overall, she rocks my socks off)

18. Which dream home should you live in?

A beach house in Bali (yes, I'm on board with that one!)

19. What city should you actually live in?
Cape Town, South Africa (this conflicts with #18, but I'm okay with two houses.)

20. Which Disney hero is your true love?
Flynn Rider

21. Which Disney princess are you?
Belle

22. Which European country should you actually live in?
Sweden (three houses?!)

23. Which career should you have?
Writer (MFA Creative Writing degree in hand--now where's my money??)


I'm sure there are more, but let's call it a day. 

And now you know the true me. 

2013 in retrospect: body woes

It's been a few days since I posted about my decision to spend January reflecting on the previous year before I move on with my 2014 resolutions and such. So I started with my 2013 list of favorite books, which was an easy-peasy post (if there's anything I can reflect on, it's books). Other things are less fun to think/write about. Like my body. One of the biggest woes I had in 2013 was a growing animosity for my body and, because it's one of the hardest things for me to talk about, I'd love to get it out of the way and out of my system early in the month.

It's probably better to start this with a general history of this issue in my life. So this post will probably be more of a 2013andbefore reflection, but we'll see where I end up. Thank you for indulging me. 

I should start by saying that I've had body image issues for almost my entire life. I realize that I'm not alone in this. Everyone has at least one thing about their body they'd like to change, right? And I know that it's possible to acknowledge my body's faults while still being comfortable in my own skin––but for me, that's much, much easier said than done. 

To start off, I have this weirdly vivid memory of when I went to visit my friend who was working at a dress shop in the local mall (we were in high school). It was a slow day in the store, so she was picking out dresses for me to try on and we were having a little fashion show. As I was showing off the dresses, she mentioned that she was envious of my curves, because she was so stick straight. I was completely shocked. I could not wrap my head around the fact that someone who was that skinny would ever want to be curvy. I wasn't overweight, but my hips and thighs had always bothered me, and I remember being really confused. I was always envious of her body type––what business did she have being envious of mine? 

I thought that an "ideal" body type existed, and because I did not have this body type, I was unhappy with my body. My body was not good enough; therefore, I was not good enough. The shame I felt for my body colored my whole perception of who I was and what I was worth. As a teenager (and even into the first couple years of my twenties), I held back in so many areas of my life, and I see now that my tendency to hold back was directly linked to my distorted body image. I was an academic underachiever of sorts in high school... okay, I was a straight A student, but I never really pushed myself. I know I could have worked a lot harder than I did. Also, I loved to sing, and had a decent voice, but I never had the confidence to excel vocally. I did audition for a couple musicals in high school, and I made call-backs both times, but when I suddenly had to sing in front of other students who were, in my opinion, beautiful songbirds, I froze. I sang with the intensity and pitch of a dying mouse, and I was stuck in the ensemble playing Random Nurse 15 in South Pacific and Random Cockney Street Woman in My Fair Lady. 

In my early twenties, I made a sort of uneasy truce with my body. I was still not satisfied with my shape, but I started realizing that I could still be a worthwhile, excellent person without being the perfect size (this is not rocket science, folks, but believe me, it can be a hard thing to accept). I took better care of my body and was, overall, more happy with myself. I went on an LDS mission and learned that not only was I capable of doing really hard things, I actually enjoyed it. I started having health problems on my mission, but thankfully was able to serve a full 18 months, and I came home with a determination to take better care of my body. Also, when I came home I realized the enormous amount of self confidence that goes along with academic achievement, so I started pushing myself in school. Things were going better. 

Aaaand then this little thing called grad school came along. It was, thus far, the pinnacle of my academic achievement, and I am so proud of what I achieved in my master's program. It was one of the best and hardest things I have ever accomplished. But grad school was not great on my body. That is, I was not kind to my body while I was in grad school. I basically threw healthy eating and exercising to the wind and put 100% of myself into my program. Winter 2013 (January to April) was the last semester of my program. I was teaching classes, taking classes, working on my thesis, and really loving it. 

I know that my body had been screaming TAKE A BREAK AND TAKE CARE OF ME for a while, but I was too busy and going too fast to notice or care. All of the sudden, I went from going 100 miles an hour to standing still, and my lack of caring for my body caught up to me. I gained weight, which I hated, but what was worse was the depression that came along with it. I knew I had to start taking better care of myself, and I really tried, but my body seemed determine to punish me for my negligence by being sluggish and refusing to lose weight. As a result, I wallowed and cried and locked myself in my room with books and Netflix streaming. 

When I did make attempts at interacting socially with others, it was really really hard. A few friends from grad school and I decided to spend the weekend in Capitol Reef, and I was so excited to see everyone, but dreading it at the same time. I actually cried when I left my house, partially because I was stressed, and partially because I felt pathetic for still not having a job, and partially being I so wanted to be 30 pounds lighter than I was. When I actually got there, I felt a whole lot better, and I had such a lovely time being around my kind, supportive friends, but I still struggled, feeling distant and cut off. I realized that part of my problem was that I was internalizing my troubles instead of seeking help from others, but I just couldn't get myself to say anything. I couldn't vocalize what I was feeling. 

So here I am, more than six months after graduating, still in the same body slump. Body image issues on top of general depression on top of looking for a job and deciding what in the world I want to do with my life = one herculean rut. I have a feeling that I'll come back to this rut in later posts, because I want to think a little more about depression and about what I want to do with my life, but for now, I want to wrap up by going back to where I started (somewhat).

I know "they say" you should love your body no matter what size or shape you are, but to be perfectly honest, I'm afraid that the happier I am with my body, the less I will be motivated to be healthier and lose weight. I know that's a harmful mindset, but sometimes you know things and still don't believe them. Isn't that the worst? When someone wise tells you something wise and all you can say is "I know, I know," but that really doesn't change anything? All I can say is knowing something is different than believing it, and just because I know I am a worthwhile, excellent person, doesn't mean I always believe it. 

As I read through this post, I find it unimaginable that I'm still fighting the same battle I fought back when my friend told me she was envious of my curves. Why is this still a problem? 

My mind keeps coming back to part of the Sylvia Plath quote I have posted on my blog: "The worst enemy to creativity is self-doubt." I believe that the impulse to create things is something innately human––and creativity extends much farther than just the arts. We all have the ability to create moments (perfect moments, even), and if what Plath says is true, self-doubt is what hinders our creativity the most. There are enough hard things in life, why make it harder for ourselves? If I could make peace with my body instead of constantly tearing myself down, how much more could I accomplish? 

How much more could I create? 

challenge: most influential books of my life

One of my dear friends, Shaina, challenged me to come up with a top ten list of the best/most influential books in my life, and I can't help but make an attempt. It's really hard, though. First of all, I've got to figure out what "influential" means in this context. I'm thinking of books that have evoked the strongest emotions, books that have really stayed with me, that were revolutionary in some way. Books I think about a lot. Also, books that have influenced my own writing.

Also, I'm finding it impossible to come up with only ten, so I've broken it up into two lists: most groundbreaking FICTION and most groundbreaking NONFICTION (sorry, poetry and drama. you haven't made it yet).

Here goes:

Top Ten Fiction (in no particular order):

1. Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte
2. Persuasion, Jane Austen
3. Gilead, Marilynne Robinson
4. Mrs. Dalloway, Virginia Woolf
5. Fairy Tales of the Brother Grimm
6. Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte
7. Anne of Green Gables, LM Montgomery
8. The Princess Bride, William Goldman
9. Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad
10. Little Women, Louisa May Alcott
Bonus: The Bell Jar, Sylvia Plath

Top Ten Nonfiction (in no particular order):

1. The Art of the Personal Essay, ed. Phillip Lopate
2. Essays of Elia, Charles Lamb
3. Dreamthorp, Alexander Smith
4. Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, Annie Dillard
5. Leaping, Brian Doyle
6. Words of the Grey Wind, Chris Arthur
7. Quotidiana, Patrick Madden
8. The Things They Carried, Tim O'Brien
9. On Tremendous Trifles, GK Chesterton
10. The Wet Collection, Joni Tevis
Bonus: At Large and at Small: Familiar Essays, Anne Fadiman


(I know, I know, I totally cheated with the bonuses. So, combining the lists and including the bonuses, this is the Top 22 Most Influential Books of My Life. Ah well.)

2013 in retrospect: overview and books

Rather than feeling the typical celebratory, forward-thinking attitude that a new year brings, I find myself feeling reflective. I find myself wanting to look back before I look forward (perhaps this is inspired by Charles Lamb's marvelous essay, "New Year's Eve," which you should absolutely read if you haven't already).

2013 was a big year for me, in more ways than one. It was thrilling, fulfilling, frustrating, and depressing in turn. I experienced some of my highest highs and lowest lows, and I think it would be wrong of me to close the door on everything I experienced without some recorded meditation. So, I've decided to devote the month of January to looking back at 2013. Usually, the beginning of January is spent making goals; instead, I want to spend January internalizing the previous year, and then I will move forward at the beginning of February with resolutions and the like. My only goal for January is to blog. I start teaching at SUU next week (still haven't written a syllabus), and I expect that the first month of teaching will be busy, finding my way around and getting used to a new campus, new students, and mostly getting back into a teaching mode. BUT I'd like to blog my way through, here a little and there a little, despite being busy.

Anyway, my first item of reflection is books. I read around fifty books in 2013 (a number that I'd like to increase this year, but I'll make that goal later), some of them fantastic and life altering, others disappointing and dull. Here are my favorites:

Best Books I Read in 2013 (in no particular order):

1. At Large and at Small: Familiar Essays, Anne Fadiman: This collection embodies so much of what I love about essays: they meander, reflect, inform and transform. She inspects ordinary topics and makes them fascinating. She is also witty and so much more intelligent than I could ever be.

2. The Poisonwood Bible, Barbara Kingsolver: This book broke my heart, then broke it again and again. It was tragic and haunting and beautiful all at the same time. Oh, and Kingsolver's prose is TO DIE FOR GORGEOUS.

3. The Fault in Our Stars, John Green: There are so many YA books that are absolute trash (I suppose that's true of most genres), but I love a good YA novel. I wept in this book. Shamelessly.

4. The Mysterious Benedict Society, Trenton Lee Stewart (the second YA novel on this list): You know the feeling of reading a book with ideas and characters that are utterly tired and predictable? Like a painfully derivative RomCom? This book was the exact opposite, and it was refreshing. The concept, plot, and characters of this novel are unique and fresh, and it was so much fun to read. The second book in the series is less successful, but still fun, and I have yet to read the third.

5. Three Men in a Boat (To Say Nothing of the Dog), Jerome K. Jerome: Hilarious. Jerome's essays are delightful, so much so that I was apprehensive about reading his fiction (I didn't want to be disappointed), but this book was laughoutloud funny from the very first page.

6. Hyperbole and a Half, Allie Brosh: Some may not see the purpose of buying the book, because most of the chapters also appear on Allie's blog, but after reading it, I did not regret buying it one bit. I laughed (harder and more frequently than I did in #5) because it is so darn funny, and I cried because parts of it are so fetching tragic. Allie Brosh is relatable and outlandish and incredibly talented.

7. Things That Are, Amy Leach: This collection of essays makes the natural world seem magical and fantastical. I had the privilege of hearing Leach read from this book and also workshopping one of my essays with her, and it was wonderful. Check out her bluegrass readings online, and you will see how delightful and quirky she is. Love love love.

8. Moby Dick, Herman Melville: This novel is a dream. I love essays, and I love fiction, and this book manages to be both. I took my merry time reading it because I didn't want to rush––I wanted to relish in Melville's seductive prose. I admit, at times I wanted more narrative, but in the end, I was won over. Take a gander at mobydickbigread.com, and listen to Tilda Swinton's reading of Chapter One and Benedict Cumberbatch's reading of Chapter 58.

9. Wide Sargasso Sea, Jean Rhys: Jane Eyre is one of my all-time favorites, so it's surprising that I hadn't heard about Wide Sargasso Sea before this year. I love how fragmented and imaginative this novel is, and I love the idea of fleshing out a character that is so little explored in the original text. I'm looking forward to reading Jane Eyre again to see how this book affects my reading of it.

10: Birdology, Sy Montgomery: A collection of personal essays about Montgomery's interactions with birds. What could be more delightful? Both informative and charming. Read it.

11. The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald: I reveled in how deliciously depressing this book is. Give me a great melancholy book with doomed characters and I'm a happy girl (weird, I know––don't judge).


BONUS: Most Disappointing Books I Read in 2013:

1. The Haunted Mesa, Louis L'Amour: I really REALLY did not want this book to turn sci-fi/fantasy halfway through. I wanted it to stay a creepy ghost story steeped in Native American legend and myth, not a gateway to a different dimension. I felt like it was such a cop-out. Blech.

2. Kidnapped, Robert Louis Stevenson: I feel blasphemous putting RL Stevenson anywhere near a Most Disappointing list, because I love his essays with all my heart, and I love Treasure Island. But this book just did not do it for me. I was bored through the entire second half. Maybe I wasn't in the mood?

3. Seven Pleasures: Essays on Ordinary Happiness, Willard Spiegelman: I really wanted this book to be great. That title! Taking pleasure in the ordinary! It sounded so wonderful. But I found Spiegelman's essays dull and a bit lackluster. Also, as a narrator he came off as pompous and a bit too self-satisfied. Alas.


(Note: I really love even numbers, and I am uncomfortable with the fact that both of my lists end in odd numbers. Should I indulge in my obsessive compulsive tendencies and add one more book to each list? Yes, yes I should. Without further ado:

Another Best Book:

12. Cold Comfort Farm, Stella Gibbons: Witty, charming, cheeky.

Another Disappointing Book:

4. A Study in Scarlet, Arthur Conan Doyle: What's with the weird Utah tangent? Seemed so out of place. I love Doyle's other Sherlock stories, but this one wasn't his best.

The end.)

"baby, it's cold outside" is quite disturbing.

I've had thoughts lately about certain Christmas songs. If you'll take a gander at my previous post, you will see that I generally spend a lot of time thinking about Christmas music. You might say too much time and, if you did, you might be right, but I've accepted it. Moving on.

Let me start out with a few stanzas from the popular holiday tune, "Baby, It's Cold Outside":

Woman: I really can't stay
Man: Baby, it's cold outside
Woman: I've got to go away
Man: Baby, it's cold outside...

Woman: My mother will start to worry
Man: Beautiful, what's your hurry?
Woman: Father will be pacing the floor
Man: Listen to the fireplace roar
Woman: So really I'd better scurry
Man: Beautiful, please don't hurry
Women: Maybe just a half a drink more
Man: Put some records on while I pour

Woman: The neighbors might think
Man: Baby, it's bad out there
Woman: Say, what's in this drink?


Say, what? "What's in this drink?"??!

Now, I may be reading this wrong, but I'm pretty sure a guy just slipped some drugs into this girl's drink. She notices. And yet she stays?? On what planet does that make sense?

Of course, I might also be compelled by his argument. I don't love the cold, and I always avoid being cold if at all possible, so if it really were blizzarding outside, I would seriously consider accepting his offer. If it were truly dangerous outside, he could simply be concerned about her health and well-being. But then HE PUTS SOMETHING IN HER DRINK. Good heavens, lady, do you think this guy is drugging you so you two can play another round of Monopoly or watch Mickey's Christmas Carol? A clue: NO.

Seriously, though, this song is like a precursor to date rape.

You will notice that I put "Baby, It's Cold Outside" (the Zooey Deschanel/Leon Redbone version) on this year's Official Christmas Playlist, but the more and more I listen to it, the more disturbing it becomes. On top of that, Leon Redbone sounds like he's twice Zooey's age (TRUTH: he was born in 1949, and she was born in 1980). Yikes. A big yikes.

Of course, this is not the only problematic Christmas song. I could go on about the drunk grandmother who gets run down by a reindeer because she's wandering outside alone on Christmas Eve (elder abuse!) or that Santa Claus watches children while they sleep (voyeurism?!), but I'll save that for another day, perhaps, or not write about it at all.

sometimes i obsess about christmas music

Every year (well, for the past couple of years at least), right before Thanksgiving, I spend a ridiculous amount of time creating my Official Christmas Playlist, a compilation of the Christmas songs I will listen to obsessively for the entire month of December. I have a lot of Christmas music in my iTunes library, and I enjoy putting my master holiday list on shuffle, but this list is special because it includes only the BEST (none of that Feliz Navidad garbage).

I am particularly proud of this year's compilation. I spent time not only selecting songs but also arranging them so each song flows naturally into the next. (I told you I obsessed over it.)

So without further chatter, here is my 2013 Official Christmas Playlist:

1. Deck the Halls, Mannheim Steamroller
2. I Saw Three Ships, Sufjan Stevens
3. It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year, Amy Grant
4. The First Noel/Mary Mary, Sarah McLachlan
5. Carol of the Bells, Celtic Woman
6. Carol of the Bells, Mannheim Steamroller
7. O Come, O Come, Emmanuel, The Piano Guys
8. Pachelbel's Canon in D Major, Vienna Boys' Choir
9. God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen, Joshua Bell with Alison Krauss
10. Coventry Carol, Jenny Oaks Baker
11. What Child Is This?, Kristin Chenoweth
12. Blue Christmas, Big Bad Voodoo Daddy
13. No Christmas for Me, Zee Avi
14. Frosty the Snowman, Zee Avi
15. Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, Jack Johnson
16. Santa Baby, Eartha Kitt
17. Baby, It's Cold Outside, Zooey Deschanel and Leon Redbone
18. White Christmas, Michael Buble and Shania Twain
19. Walking in a Winter Wonderland, Big Bad Voodoo Daddy
20. Jingle Bells, Bing Crosby with The Andrews Sisters
21. Nutcracker Medley, Joshua Bell with Straight No Chaser
22. Auld Lang Syne, Pink Martini

For your listening convenience, I've uploaded a Spotify version of the playlist straight to my blog (see right). The songs are a bit mixed up and there are two songs that wouldn't play on Spotify, but at least you get the idea.

Also, just for fun, here's a holiday hedgehog.




Merry Christmas!

new ideas, new goals

I'm encouraged to know that despite all the work I did in grad school, I still have the desire to write things. Here are some essay ideas I've been throwing around in my head:

1. Diving horses: when I was a young one, I saw a delightfully cheesy movie called Wild Hearts Can't Be Broken, which is about a runaway teen who gets into diving horses. Interesting concept, rendered more interesting by the fact that diving horses WAS A REAL THING. Oh yes. Performers would ride a horse to the top of a tall platform (as high as 60 feet), and they would dive into a pool of water. Sound intriguing, and dangerous to the health of both horse and rider. The act was popular in Buffalo Bill-type shows. A few years ago some people wanted to reinvent it, but PETA got involved. The whole thing would make a marvelous essay, and I intend to write it.

2. Book buying: I've actually had this one marinating for a year or so. I'm interested by the of owning books as well as reading them––I have multiple copies of my favorite books, and I'm completely seduced by beautiful book covers. This essay would dive into my habit (obsession?) of book buying, and hopefully make some sort of complaint about ebooks and such. Not that I'm completely opposed to ebooks, but I do have qualms.

3. London nostalgia: I've been craving my favorite city lately. I'm not as traveled as I would love to be, but I don't see any places dethroning this one anytime soon. I may write about St. Paul's (that gorgeous, glorious building), or Borough Market, or even Jack the Ripper. I also need to write more about Charles and Mary Lamb.


Also, I wanted to record a few goals that I've been trying to set for myself lately. School has robbed me of a lot of good habits and other things I had previously established, so I'm hoping to return to some sort of normalcy. I realized that I've written about goals recently, and probably the same goals, so I don't want to be redundant, but I'm rewriting them for my benefit. Indulge me one more time:

1. SLEEP. And not just sleep, but at appropriate hours. I'm writing this blog post at 4:45am, which is completely ridiculous, but it demonstrates my inability to go to bed at night. I'd like to go to bed around midnight and have around 8 hours of sleep. This is going to be a tough one.

2. Take care of my body. This is big. I want to exercise (4-5 days a week) and eat healthier foods (less sugar). I suppose I could include sleep here as well. I don't want to think about health in terms of pounds or clothing size, but I do want to measure it according to how I feel. I want to regain some of the confidence I've lost the past couple of years.

3. Less media: In school, I tried desperately to find distractions, mindnumbing things to give my brain a break after writing and reading and grading and lesson planning. This led to a lot of TV watching and internet surfing. Don't get me wrong––I'm still going to be faithful to Doctor Who, Downton, Sherlock, and a couple others, but I want to make any TV time I take be (what I consider to be) worth it. And as far as internet goes, I don't get sucked into Facebook or Pinterest much, but I have been wasting so much time on Buzzfeed. It's a black hole, a delightful black hole, so don't get sucked in, people. Approach with caution.

4. Spirituality: Attend temple regularly, have more meaningful scripture study and prayer, and try not to complain about boring Relief Society or Sunday School meetings.


Slow and steady, folks. At some point I have to decide what I want to do with the rest of my life, but that's for another post.

*deep sigh of relief* and folk music

I must say, it feels nice to have passed my thesis defense.

I worried about it for so long (perhaps worried too much), but it ended up being grand. In the middle of my defense, I had a very clear realization: I was enjoying it. And then I remembered that I'm in a master's program because I love writing and I love studying writing. I love reading good books and learning from my brilliant professors and fellow students (who are also brilliant). So it wasn't that strange that I enjoyed my defense. I'm always worried because sometimes I have a hard time articulating my thoughts, but I must have made at least a small measure of sense, and for that I was grateful. 

Now if I can take another deep breath, I'll make it through the rest of my revisions and grading and be done with this semester. Which will be great. Except...

I'm actually really sad that this chapter of my life is coming to a close. Maybe it's just that I don't know what in the world I'm going to do next, or maybe it's because I'm sad to say goodbye to so many wonderful people that I'm blessed to see almost every day. I'm thankful for writing workshops and lunch dates having so many people around who sympathize with my plight because they are going through the same exact thing. That camaraderie is so difficult to find. So for all of those reasons, it will be hard to say goodbye when I leave Provo.

I guess I'm not leaving just yet, so I shouldn't get too choked up here. 

And now that I've waxed (super) cheesy, I'll end by saying that I've rediscovered my love of folk music/bluegrass. Here are a few samples from The Wailin' Jennys: 

easter/home

         

i love magical things, like a blooming forsythia plant and

hiding easter eggs in the backyard for nephews and a niece. 

such spring things! 

also, i love to be home for the weekend.

where the weather is a little warmer, and there are kids and sisters and 

parents and kitties around to remind me that there is life

    outside of grad school.

I

 superhero ashton (we made him work for his eggs!)

 gavs

 millie lee

will 

also, here's merlin enjoying the watermelon

he threw it up an hour later -_-

i love him anyway

WARMTH

hallelujah, praise the sun.

we've had a few really warm days this year in provo, but paige and i sat outside on the grass for awhile today, so it finally, legitimately feels like spring.

and flowers are slowly starting to open up around town, and the snow on the mountains is melting away...

i really really hope we don't have another snow day.

i just want it to get warmer and warmer and for summer to come already, because once summer is here, i will have already defended my thesis, graded ALL THE PAPERS, and graduated.

also, i will have to decide what i want to do next in my life. let's not thing about that right now.

let's just think about the SUN.

amen

on not having a phone

When I lost my phone last Friday, I panicked a lot less than I thought I would.

Don't get me wrong, the thought of spending $whoknowshowmuch to get my phone replaced makes me want to cry, or vomit, or both; but overall, I'm not distraught.

Part of me likes the idea of not having a phone––it's an attractive thought, not being readily accessible to other people.

Not that I don't like other people. I love (most...okay, some) people.

Also, not that I don't have three email addresses and a Facebook account anyway (three?! really, though, it's ridiculous).

But the same part of me that likes not having a phone also likes the idea of escaping to a remote cabin in the woods without internet, television, or cell phone coverage. And just reading.

I don't want this to turn into a "boo on technology" post.

Because I love playing Bejeweled Diamond Mine, watching Project Runway, and spending way too much time on Buzzfeed.

But on occasion, it's nice to have break from these things.

I think next time I want a break, though, I'll shut my phone off instead of losing it.

Smarter move.

thoughts on faith and the definition of it

I haven't posted in a few months, but I've had some thoughts buzzing around in my head lately, and if there's anything I've learned thus far in my master's program, it's to write down what's in my head. So here goes:

A week ago, I was in Boston attending the AWP Conference (creative writing/teaching), and I attended a panel entitled "I and Thou: The Dangers of the Self in Writing about Religion" that was quite enlightening in a few different ways. The first panelist, Jeremy Jones, spoke about the disconnect between the literal and the figurative in religious writing, that sometimes we rely too much on cliches and phrases we've heard over and over again, and that sometimes when we can't express something in fresh or new language, we've likely not thought about or internalized the concept sufficiently. Which is an interesting thought––how many times have we heard the words "charity," "faith," or "hope" and actually been able to express what those things are without relying on borrowed language? There's a difference between the thing (say, a dog) and what we call that thing (the word "dog"), and that what we call something is not the thing itself, but our representation of it. We have to understand concepts and things by naming them, but we need to spend time learning to express and relay those concepts as we understand them rather than relying solely on other people's definitions. Or something like that.

Also, he quoted Kenneth Burke's idea that there are four realms of words:

1. Words for the natural (tree, flower, dog, mountain)
2. Words for the socio-political (justice, government, monarchy)
3. Words about words (grammar, etymology)
4. Words about the supernatural/spiritual 

Kenneth Burke basically said that the fourth realm of words has to rely on words from other spheres for us to understand it. So when we hear a story or analogy (like President Uchtdorf's airplane metaphors), it helps us better understand the spiritual thing because we are borrowing language from the other realms. Or something like that. 

Anyway, with all of that, I wanted to say that I've been thinking a lot about faith lately. What exactly does it mean to have faith? How is faith different than trust? hope? I've been trying to articulate, for me, what faith means, and I've been trying to express it for myself instead of relying on someone else's words. It's easy to say, "faith is belief in something that you can't see," but what does that mean for me? What does it feel like? How can I explain it and my understanding of it without being cliche? If faith is the word we use to name the concept, what is the actual concept? 

Sometimes I feel like the father in Mark 9:24 begging Jesus to heal his son, and in response to Jesus' question, "do you have faith?" he says, "I believe" and follows that up with "help thou my unbelief." He was willing to recognize that his belief might not have been sufficient on its own, but that he needed Jesus' help to have faith. Maybe my quest to understand what faith is will  help me to have more faith. 

As a last thought, I've been thinking a bit about Peter, one of apostles who I think is a bit misunderstood. In Matthew 14, Jesus approaches the apostles' boat, walking on the water. When they realized who it was, Peter almost immediately jumps out of the boat, attempting to walk on the water to reach Jesus. This is the part that everyone focuses on: Peter starts concentrating more on the tumultuous water rather than focusing on Jesus, and he begins to sink; Jesus catches him and says, "Oh thou of little faith; wherefore didst thou doubt?" What strikes me most in this story, though, is not that Peter loses faith, but that he is the only one to jump out of the boat. Although his faith is not perfect, he is willing to try. He needs the Savior's help, just as the father did, but at least he was willing to try. So the willingness to try has something to do with faith. 

So many nuances––where to start? 

goals and failures and choosing a favorite color

well, i hate to start out by saying that i've mostly failed in my goals the last couple of weeks, but alas, it is true. i guess it depends on your definition of failure, though––after all, i am blogging, and i have written a few things (not every day, unfortunately), but i've just not been as consistent as i want to be. and i continue to waver in the attention i pay to spirituality. but, i realize that failure is sometimes the first step in success, as they say, so i'm hoping that this coming week will be better in a few different ways.

the past couple of weeks have been heinous. i've had some sort of cloud hanging over my head, and in spite of the fact that i'm working hard i feel like i'm getting nothing done. i was rejected for an internship i was hoping to get, spent an entire saturday up to my neck in literary theory, and overall i feel like i'm barely treading water. i've been informed that the first semester of the second year of grad school is particularly stressful, so i'm hoping and praying that i'll live through the semester, with some energy to reach my goals.

there is one thing i am grateful for, however: good people. i am blessed with a circle of good people around me––good friends––who continue to be supportive and encouraging. friends and family have been the one to keep be on board these last couple of weeks. i send my love to them!

there is one other thing that i'm grateful for: today. i've always been selfish with my sundays, mostly refusing to do schoolwork or anything unpleasant because i need at least one day to be free of what i deal with the other six days. (this makes it sound like i dread the things i do during the week, which isn't true. i do let the stress get to me, though, and it becomes harder to be motivated about what i do. i guess that's why i need sundays: to keep me going throughout the rest of the week.) after church today, my friend paige and i went to utah lake to sit in the warm weather (unusually warm for mid-october, which is also a blessing), and it was so relaxing that i felt at least partially renewed. the sun was bright, and the sunshine made the ducks' feathers glow unpredictably bright, and the mountains were so colorful from the fall colors. it was delightful. i love the colors of fall. even though fall signals the impending cold, i still love it because everything is so bright before getting bleak during the winter. i have some lovely pictures, and i'll post them next time.

thinking of color made me think of a small dilemma i've been having the last several years. it's nothing too traumatic, but it still makes me feel a little uneasy. the dilemma is this: i don't know what my favorite color is. i have pet colors, and i love colors in general, but it seems like the answer to the question what is your favorite color? is part of a person's identity, and not knowing what color is my favorite is like missing a piece of myself. a little overdramatic? maybe. probably. but i'm still thinking about it.

for a long time, red was my favorite color. i don't know why, but red was it. did it have something to do with ruby red slippers? maybe. did it have something to do with strawberries and raspberries, which are two of my favorite fruits? maybe. i really don't know, and i have to wonder if red was just the first color that popped into my mind when someone asked me what my favorite color was. does that mean it was really my favorite color? not necessarily. it probably just meant that i had seen a red car that i really liked earlier that day, or that or that i saw a picture of a celebrity with bright red lipstick i admired, or something like that. whatever the reason, it stuck for a while. i owned a red laptop until it bit the dust; i painted a red accent wall in my room; i gravitated towards red clothing; i loved red flowers. eventually, though, i grew out of red. i realized that i was telling people that my favorite color was red just because it was what i had told people for years.

and then i had an color identity crisis. a lot of people really identify with a certain color more than any other color, and all of the sudden i didn't know my color. did that mean i didn't really know myself? i have always loved colors, but all of the sudden, to choose one color out of the whole spectrum that was my favorite gave me mild mental anxiety.

i tried on blue for a while. when i was a missionary, i had a companion who loved blue––i mean really loved blue. 90% of her clothing was blue, down to bright blue ballet flats that she reserved for important meetings. i realized then that i also had a lot of blue clothing. did that mean that blue was it? i do love the nuances of blue––the color of the horizon at twilight, the color of the clear ocean, the color of sapphires, the color of a turquoise stone. blue is soothing and calming where red was bold and powerful. but something about blue just didn't sit quite right with me. i mean, there's nothing wrong with blue––i just couldn't ever say it was my favorite.

i also tried yellow out. cheery yellow, uplifting yellow. not too bright of a yellow, though––more like milky yellow than sun-at-high-noon yellow. yellow is a good color. i love yellow.

but it's not my favorite.

lately, i have gravitated towards green. i now have a green laptop case and keyboard cover. i love the color of grass in the summer and the color of granny smith apples. i love the color of avocado (the inside, not the outside), and i love the color of the english countryside and scottish highlands. green is earthy, goes well with brown (which i also enjoy) and, when paired with red, is the color of christmas (which is my favorite holiday––no indecision there). but is green really my favorite? it's the color of the year, but i don't know how long my infatuation will last.

after thinking about it, i am inclined to believe that loving color in general rather than one specific color might be a good thing, and might indicate a willingness to be adaptable and try new things. then again, one can still have a favorite color whilst loving color in general. there's probably not a solution to this dilemma, but i have to explore it anyway.

what is your favorite color? has it always been your favorite?

music and goals

this was one of those weeks. you know, what of those weeks––so much to do, too little sleep, too little motivation. sometimes i have superweeks when i get everything done with room for sherlock and cupcakes, but this past week, i tried to fit everything in and it just didn't work. sleep is always the first to go, even though i know that when i get enough sleep i have more motivation AND energy. when will i learn? 

i have decided a few things lately, though. made a few goals. and here they are:

1. blog. if you'll take a look at the dates of my blog posts, you'll notice the huge gap between posts, especially when i started school. this may just seem like something else to put on my to-do list, but i really do enjoy blogging. it gives me an outlet, so instead of wasting time on facebook, i'm actually writing things. and that goes along with my next goal:

2. write things every day. "things" is intentionally vague, but i've realized lately that if i'm at all serious about this writing thing, it's got to be consistant. if there's anything i've learned in my grad program so far, it's that writing is hard, and if i'm going to ever be successful, i'll have to work my tail off. lately i've  loved listening to and reading writer interviews, because i like to hear what other writers have done to be successful. one of the common threads, of course, is daily writing. it makes perfect sense, but it's one of those things that is difficult even though it's common sense. so i'm going to write at least something every day. 

3. sleep at night. i have to be specific with this one, because i tend to stay up until the wee hours of the morning and plan on taking a nap the next day to make up for lost sleep. i always end up feeling discombobulated, even though i like taking naps. i need to sleep at night, and work during the day. this isn't a novel idea, so i ask myself once again, why is it so darn hard? 

4. don't forget my spiritual self. i'm always frustrated at how quickly scripture study and prayer and temple attendance slips when i'm in school. scripture study becomes scripture skimming, prayer becomes a list instead of a conversation, and the temple becomes a distant friend. but recognition is the first step in improvement! 

there are, of course, many more goals i could set, like exercise and healthy eating, but i'm going to try on focus on a few at a time. and i hope that because i'm recording these goals i'll be more likely to keep them. that's how goals work, right? in theory, i suppose. 

meanwhile, i wanted to share a few songs that i've been a little obsessed with lately. on the soundtrack to my life, these have been on repeat:

her morning elegance, by oren lavie (this is such a fantastic music video, too)

bang bang (my baby shot me down), nancy sinatra (in this clip, it accompanies a dance that is equally fantastic)

splendor in the grass, pink martini

speaking to the dead

I had a nice conversation with Charles Lamb yesterday. Well, to be honest, it was with his gravestone, but his remains were there, so it might as well have been true.

Let's see. Allow me to back up for a mo ("mo" being "moment," a Britishism that I fully intend to incorporate into my daily vocabulary. Moving on). For those of you who don't know, I'm in England this summer, not to be an annoying tourist, but to be an annoying student researcher. I'm reading my way through the canonical writers of my genre––the personal essay. I've covered quite a bit of ground so far, but all the way back in May I started with Charles Lamb, who is considered by many to be the father of the English personal essay (with Michel de Montaigne as the father of the essay in general. But he was French, so of course we needed an English forefather as well). Anyway, because of his reputation, I started off my British adventure by reading a couple of his essay collections, Essays of Elia and The Last Essays of Elia (Elia being his pseudonym), and although I've moved through nearly a dozen essayists this summer since Lamb, I keep coming back to him.

Quite literally, in fact. Last week I visited one of Lamb's former homes in London, which happily still stands today. Steeling my courage and suppressing my shy nature, I knocked on the door to see if I could persuade the current resident to show me around. Luckily, a nice woman named Julia opened the door and happily obliged. The house was tall and narrow with fantastically creaky staircases, and the view from the very top floor, as Julia informed me, still looked similar to what Lamb would have seen as he and his spinster sister Mary looked out the window, because the architecture at the street level had changed more than the top levels of the homes on the street. Yesterday I traveled to Edmonton Green, which is in North London, and is also where Lamb lived until he died. Lamb's Cottage, which also still stands, had a lovely exterior, but unfortunately the locked front iron gates stopped me from accosting the current residents. Oh, bother. So I moved on to St. Anne's church, just right up the street, where Lamb and his sister Mary were buried.

It took me awhile to find the gravestone, as it was a pretty well-occupied churchyard cemetery and many of the gravestones were worn enough to make the text indistinguishable. After a few goings-over, I found it, and sat down to have a small chat. At first I felt odd talking to a gravestone, but after eating a granola bar and chatting for a minute, we were old friends. You see, his writing is so endearing––not that he was singularly good natured, because he definitely had a crotchety streak (although not as much as his pal Hazlitt), but because his essays portray both the amiable and crotchety sides of his character so well that the reader (at least this reader) instantly feels like a friend and confidant. His faults, those that he frankly exposed to the reader, make him infinitely more real and interesting. Because we humans aren't really attracted to people who are perfect––we want to be friends with those people who are as messy and moody as we are.

Anyway, we had a good talk. I even picked a few flowers around the churchyard to set on his grave (I'm not sure if it's unlucky to pick flowers off another man's grave, but for crying out loud, one guy had an entire lilac bush growing around his tomb. I just took one).

I think that the best literature, whether it be nonfiction, fiction, poetry, drama, whatever, is the kind of literature that makes us want to know the writer (even if it's just because he/she is so wildly crazy that you can't help but imagine what a riot he/she would be in person). I don't know if anyone has thought, after reading a really lame, trashy book, "I really want to meet [insert name of trashy romance novelist]." When I read something truly fascinating or strange or witty, I really just want to sit down with the writers and ask them what in the world was going through their brains when they wrote said story/essay/poem. So the reason why I wanted to sit down and have a chat with Charles Lamb is that I was wishing I really could sit down with him and see if he was as great as I think he is, and see what kind of a brain produced writing that people still love.

And that's my two cents for the day.

Pictures to follow.

in defense of pigeons

Ahem. It has come to my attention that I am part of a small minority when I say I like pigeons; and, in fact, many people hate the creatures, to the extent that committing crimes against them has become acceptable. I myself have laughed at how easily the nervous creatures panic and take flight, and how a small stamp of the foot sends them into a frenzy, but for one to kick them as a cur would kick a dog, or rejoice to see a dead pigeon––my conscience compels me to intervene on behalf of these birds. I must say, it seems rather unfair to me the merciless vendetta that some people have against this poor species. That one should take pleasure in giving them pain is horrifying indeed. What have they done to merit such loathing? And why, in this blessed world so full of wickedness and crime, would one waste hatred on so unassuming a species? 

Pigeons are actually smart little birds––and, you know, there may be a thing or two one could learn from these good fowls. For one, I was interested to learn that pigeons, those feral creatures scattered about London and other cities, actually mate for life. There is always something tender I feel whenever I hear of another species in the animal kingdom that mates for life. Emperor penguins, for example: while the husbands sit freezing in the arctic winds, warming the egg containing penguin junior, they wait faithfully for mum to return home from the great hunt. Such loyal creatures! Pigeon fathers also share the nesting duties, taking turns warming and protecting the nest from harm, so maybe shared fatherly duties comes hand-in-hand with mating-for-life-ness. Mating for life is a characteristic that seems to have fallen out of fashion with humanity. As people go through spouses like milk (keep it till it sours, then throw it out!), we really should turn to the birds and learn from their faithfulness. I can't imagine a pair of pigeons filing for divorce; they don't seem to suffer from humanity's current marital disease: irreconcilable differences. No leaving Jennifer Anniston when Angelina Jolie is hotter––pigeons have infinitely better sense than Brad Pitt. They are clever, really, and resourceful, I might add. City pigeons know exactly where to swarm to––the heavily trafficked touristy spots where a person is likely to leave a crumb or two of crumpets and cake for the birds to snatch up. They gladly accept what humanity discards.

Now many distrust city pigeons because they are mistaken for disease-carrying pests. In all actuality, pigeons have very good immune systems and aren't liable to transmit bird flu or other such diseases because they themselves don't carry the diseases. There are one or two diseases that one may contract from handling pigeons, but mostly from their dropppings (which, let's face it, we don't exactly scrape off the pavement and use as ice-cream toppers). As far as disease-carrying goes, you're one hundred times MORE likely to contract a disease from human contact than you are from pigeon contact. Think about the thousands of diseases which we pass around in our shaking hands and hugging and kissing––we thoughtlessly and shamelessly spread our germs, while shrieking at the sight of a pigeon, who is in reality a safer companion than another human. You might as well walk around with a surgical mask and gloves, for all you're concerned, and that would be no way to live.

But if you persist in arguing against the birds, yes, I do concede that there are pigeon populations in some big cities, leading to property damage and pollution from their droppings. But you can hardly blame them for that––they're only in cities in such great numbers because of us! Yes, the truth of the matter is that city pigeons are just descendants from domesticated pigeons gone feral. If we hadn't domesticated pigeons, the little problems they cause would never have existed. But doesn't a decent population of cooing, twittering pigeons just make a city? Think of a large city––London, or New York––and imagine it without pigeons. Wouldn't the streets be too solemn, too dull without our feathered friends?

But back to what we can learn from pigeons. Pigeons have an undeniably incredible sense of direction. Pigeons could fly thousands of miles and always be able to fly home. Drop a pigeon in the middle of the pacific blindfolded and it would know exactly where to go to get back home. We can't explain it, but we accept it and certainly trust it, which is why pigeons we have used them throughout time as carriers. Our militaries have trusted pigeons with vital information across enemy lines, and they have consistently fulfilled their duties and saved human lives with their faithfulness. G.I. Joe, for example, was a carrier pigeon who saved thousands of soldiers during WWII. In October 1943, the British were making advances on Colvi Veccia, a German-held Italian town. The Brits ordered an aerial attack of the town but were soon afterwards able to break through German lines and take up positions in the city. With a half-hour until the aerial attack, the soldiers in the city hurriedly tied a message to G.I. Joe's leg, telling headquarters to call off the attack to prevent thousands of British troops in the city from being killed by their own bombers. G.I. Joe flew 20 miles in 20 minutes and they were able to cancel the attack just as the bombers were taxiing up the runways.  Cher Ami was another heroic pigeon, during WWI, and delivered another life-saving mission despite being shot out of the sky by German troops. The bird arrived having been shot through the breast, blinded, and with a leg hanging by a tendon, but he delivered his message.

So for their loyalty and faithfulness, I appeal to your humanity and ask you to reconsider your opinion of these our feathered friends, and next time you go to kick a pigeon, remember how many lives its ancestor saved, and spare the poor bird a bit of pain. 

tea and cake london

I saw this book at Waterstone's a couple of weeks ago and decided I HAD TO HAVE IT. It has a long list of tearooms, cafes, bakeries, and patisseries where one can enjoy the sweet of London. I was positively drooling over it in the bookstore, and the moment I brought it home Ari and I decided to have tea and cake Fridays here in London and go to as many of these little places as possible. So I'll share with you a few of our finds!

I have to preface this by saying that I'm obviously not a food photographer, so you'll just have to assume that the food looks about ten times as good as it does in the picture. Okay, this first photo is a slice of lemon loaf and a walnut brownie from the Hummingbird Bakery. The brownie was marvelously chocolatey, rich, and speckled with walnuts––that was my first pick, of course. The lemon loaf, though, was surprisingly delicious. I'm not usually one to go straight for lemon-flavored sweets (sometimes they can just be too sweet), but this lemon bread was delightful. They also had some beautifully-decorated cupcakes that looked fantastic. I'll have to remember that if there's a round two.

This slice of heaven was from Peggy Porschen. This is the Glorious Victoria layer cake, which is vanilla bean cake with a layer of vanilla bean buttercream and a layer of raspberry jam. It was really, really good, and wasn't too sweet, despite what it might sound like. This is a trend I've been noticing––so far, the desserts here in London have been less sweet than desserts in the States. I really like it. I think Americans get a little crazy with the sugar, but Brits seem to show a little more restraint in that regard. Oh, and Ari got the hot chocolate, which was exceptionally frothy. 

This past week we went to Lanka and got hot chocolate, a flapjack, and a white chocolate raspberry mousse cake. I'll load the pictures later, but let me just say that the hot chocolate was SUPERB. So far, the best hot chocolate I've had here has been from Lanka and Caffe Nero. The flapjack was a sort of glorified granola bar, and it was okay, but not my favorite. The whitechocolateraspberrymoussecake was absolutely to die for. Seriously, it was amazing.

I'm going to have to get creative on my food adjectives here, as you can tell.

That's all for now!

about the queen and other things

 Question: Who in the world would stand outside in the drizzling rain and freezing cold for hours on end to see the Queen of England float by on a big boat? First of all, me, that's who, along with thousands and THOUSANDS of British people braving the weather to celebrate their Queen. The Queen's Diamond Jubilee was quite the affair, so naturally a 1,000-boat flotilla was necessary. My friends and I arrived hours early, and still were barely able to see for the crowds of delighted drunk people waving the Union Jack as they awaited Her Majesty. Smiles and drinks were passed around freely as the crowd cheered, and momentarily everyone forgot how cold and rainy it was when the royal family passed by (emphasis on momentarily, though).

This is one of the only clear shots I got during the flotilla. I had to elbow a few nice old ladies out of the way and step on some toes, but all in the name of a good photo, right? (I think I must have gotten a drop of water or something on my camera lens, as you can tell from the dot in the middle of the picture. Or maybe it was just an overenthusiastic grey cloud.) Anyway, I have to say that I'm glad I went to the flotilla because I can check that off my list of "things to do once and never again." It was neat to see all the boats and neat to see how much the British really love Queen Elizabeth.

 This was the grand boat of the royal family, and if you squint really hard you can see the Queen (she's the cream-colored dot on top). (Oh, and don't mind the grey-haired ponytail man. He's in several of my pictures.) At this point in the flotilla, I had been standing for several hours in the cold, and I thought, "this is really what I came here to see? A cream-colored dot on top a red boat?" It was a bit of a disillusioning moment, but I'm sure it was due to the weather more than it was to the view.

But on to my favorite part of the Diamond Jubilee celebration: a tea party hosted by my ward's Relief Society. We drank cinnamon apple tea and ate delicious treats like scones, tarts, little cakes and sandwiches. We sang all five verses of God Save the Queen (I didn't know there were five. It's a long one!) The British sisters sang the national anthem, and two older ladies who remembered the coronation told us about the grand event. Actually, one old lady stood up and recited the history of the kings and queens of England (an abridged version––took about 15 minutes), ending with the coronation of Elizabeth II, where she went into great detail about the ceremony. It was quite impressive (her memory, that is).

To top it all off, we took a quiz about Her Royal Majesty, which I promptly failed. But I wrote down the answers, so for your pleasure, here's a list of facts you will never need to know about Queen Elizabeth:

1. She acceded to the throne in February of 1952
2. She was in Kenya when she heard about her father's death (the King)
3. She was thirteen when she first met the Duke of Edinburgh (Phillip), who was later to be her husband
4. She and Phillip have been married 64 years
5. His nickname for her is "cabbage"
6. The Queen's official birthday is in June, but her real birthday is in April
7. Her first corgi's name was Susan
8. Willow, Holly, and Monty are the names of the Queen's current corgis
9. Winston Churchill was the Prime Minister when she was coronated
10. She wore Victoria's diamond necklace for her coronation
11. She has nine thrones
12. She's the fortieth monarch since William the Conquerer
13. She wears black while visiting the Vatican
14. She wears the Diamond Diadem to and from the State Opening of Parliament
15. She has her ears pierced
16. She wears blue more than any other color
17. She has eight grandchildren
18. She's 5'4"
19. She has never worn jeans (crazy, right??)
20. She doesn't carry any form of personal identification

goal: best reading spots in london

When I read for long periods of time, I tend to get tired of reading in the same spot, so I bounce around every hour or so (or if I'm really fidgety, every 30 minutes or so) and find new spots to settle down in. Now when I'm in Provo, this usually means I go from the couch to the floor to my bed and maybe to campus (where I'll go from the carrels to right outside the carrels to the JFSB etc etc). In London, I've decided to create a master list of the best places to read, so I can bounce around the city and see all there is to see with a book in my hand.

With the blustery, cold, rainy, and altogether uncooperative weather in London thus far, I've had to find indoor locations and save the parks and gardens for later on in the summer (when it will hopefully warm up a bit). [aside: the side of me that loves sunshine and weather above 90 degrees is wilting away.] Anyway, here's a start to my list:

1. Notes Music Coffee is a small coffee shop just off Trafalgar Square. I'd read online that it was a good spot to go, and because of the cold weather I'm determined to find the best cup of hot chocolate in London. So coffee shops it is. Notes Music Coffee makes a mean cup of hot chocolate: it's frothy, not too sweet, and comes out with a lovely design drizzled into the foam. I don't know how they do it; all I know is that it looked as good as it tasted. They also have a fantastic fruit scone. But the food, though important, was not the primary reason I was there. I was there for about 45 minutes, leisurely sipping hot chocolate eating my fruit scone with blueberry jam, and reading Charles Lamb. NMC isn't the quietest place to read, but sometimes I like to read in a semi-noisy place to read because it forces me to concentrate on what I'm reading. There were a couple of people who were, like me, reading, but many of the people there were chatting with friends. They were playing Ella Fitzgerald in the background, and had a fantastic light fixture hanging above the long wooden slab tables. I can only handle reading in a noisy crowd for so long, so I skipped off to find another spot.

Assessment: great place to read if you don't mind the crowd. I was there during lunch hour, though, so I might try again at a not-so-busy time of day. Good hot chocolate, good scones, good music.

2. I didn't have to go very far to find a quiet spot. St Martin's in the Fields church is almost next door to Notes Music Coffee, and as I passed by, I realized that a church would probably be a perfect place to settle down for a bit. I was right. Architecturally speaking, St Martin's is an impressive structure, especially from the outside. The inside is more understated, though, and except for the carved, vaulted ceilings, it's quite simple and plain. Also, the windows are very interesting: there's no stained glass, only paneled glass. The east window, behind the altar, is the same simple paneled glass, but it's designed to look like the image of a cross reflected on the water, so the steel framework is warped and bent around in the shape of a cross, but more of an understated cross. It's very unusual, and I really loved it. I didn't want to be disrespectfully snapping pictures, but you should look it up online.

That's all aside from the point. I was there to read, so I sat down and pulled out my book. There was a string quartet in the church rehearsing for an upcoming Vivaldi concert (it was actually that evening), so I read whilst basking in the glorious silence of the crowd and the glorious music of the instruments. It was perfect, and I took a moment to thank heaven for beautiful music, beautiful churches, and beautiful reverence. I read there for almost two hours, and when I left I was reluctant to get up.

So far, those have been my two favorite spots. Maybe another day I'll tell you about my worst spot. But today, only the best.

odd occurrence on the london underground

I have to say, the public transportation system is one of my favorite things about London. Is that strange? I love that each tube stop is different, from the colorful mosaic tiles in the Tottenham Court Road station to the thousands of tiny Sherlocks in the Baker Street station to the sleek grey simplicity of the Westminster station. I love that you can find the stylish business types sitting next to the goths, or the hipsters, or the ever-present tourists. I don't always love them individually, but collectively they really are fascinating; they remind me that no matter who you are–rich, poor, whatever–you still need to get around somehow. And the overwhelming number of people who choose the tube to get from point A to point B makes the ride interesting.

Of course, when you have that many people coming together, there are bound to be tiffs. Take today, for example, when Ari and I were coming home from Southampton, and at the very last leg of our hourandahalf journey back to London, a disturbance threw a wrench in the typically eventless tube ride. We were technically in the London overground, not the underground, but it's pretty much the same thing.  Anyway, allow me to relate the experience:

Our train was at a routine stop, and a large crowd was still trying to get in when the doors started closing. Enter The Jerk. The Jerk was a tall man in a business suit, with a scarf wrapped tightly around his neck. He was probably around 6'3", with pale skin, almost-black hair, high cheekbones, and a sardonic smile. He entered the train, narrowly missing the closing doors, and yelled at the Tired Train Operator to not close the doors so quickly, as there was still a number of people coming on board. Tired Train Operator was a black man, medium build, probably 5'10", his hair braided into cornrows. He looked worn out. After The Jerk yelled at him, the two men had some sort of heated verbal exchange that I only heard bits of. It ended with The Jerk accusing TTO of abusive behavior and TTO demanding that TJ leave the train so they could sort the problem out so the train could proceed on its journey. They were at a standstill: TJ refusing to get off the train, and TTO refusing to start the train until he did. Enter Level-Headed Man. I didn't get a good look at LHM, but I remember that he was also in a business suit and had a neatly-trimmed beard. He started talking to TJ, calmly saying that everyone was tired and anxious after a long day's work, and that everyone should let the matter drop so the train could move on its way. The standstill continued for a while, as TJ continued to argue with TTO, and TTO stubbornly but calmly waiting for the man to get off the train. LHM finally got out of the train and spoke to TTO, and I heard nothing of their exchange. By this time, the other passengers onboard started to murmur and a few called out to TJ to get off the train already. Enter Autistic Child, who was in the train and starting to get angry with his mother, nervously and anxiously proclaiming that they should NOT have taken the tube. AC's mother called out to the men, saying that she had an autistic child who didn't handle waiting very well. He was getting really upset, and everyone around TJ started to urge him off the train, and he finally stepped off, spoke with TTO for a brief moment, got back on the train, and in less than a minute, the doors closed and the train squealed as it picked up speed, and we moved away from the platform. No one in our car said a word, and silence hung awkwardly, heavily, and oppressively in the air, until the next stop, when Ari and I exited the train, wide-eyed and relieved.