You should know something about me...

I balance.
Not literally.
Well, sometimes literally.
Everything about me is balanced.
I’m neither right- nor left-winged.
I’m used to the cold. I’m used to the heat.
I was born in the east, now live in the west.
My last name starts at the end of the alphabet.
My first name starts near the beginning of the alphabet.

I don’t apologize for being neurotic about the details.
(After all, the details are what separate good from great.)
I get chills when I figure out what makes someone tick.
I am moved by good music and great photography.
I’m creatively inclined,  I’m strategically talented.
I actually do care what other people think.
I learn new things as often as I can.
I stay up late. Too late.
I balance.

There's no place like home

I'm not entirely sure what I want to say, which is odd because most of the times I blog, I do it because I think of something I think is interesting, look around me to see that no one is around, so I tell everyone instead. (And of course by "everyone" I mean those (lucky?) few who actually read this.

So I don't deal with change very well. On my mission whenever I was moved to a new area I went through mini bouts of depression (just feeling down, not really depression) for anywhere from a day to almost a week. I always got over it though once I remembered that the Lord's work is great everywhere. (Although definitely harder in some places...)

And then sometimes I just ignore the situation and hope I will get used to the idea of the change over time without getting down. So far this has been how I've dealt with my whole strange family situation over the past few months. Maybe I'll talk about it more in the future. For now it is sufficient to know that things will work out well, but it will probably be just under 3 years until that is true.

Today was, bar none, the most productive day I've had all semester. I woke up at 8:30 (early-ish for me) and graded about 110 papers. Then I started making the book for my media class presentation. By 1:40 I was in the adlab making videos for my account management presentation, which took me until about 6:30. So I was basically going straight from 8:30am to 6:30pm. The sad thing is this is probably how many of you spend most of your days, and you're thinking "that's the most productive you've been this year? Wow, I'll trade lives with you any day!"

That's alright.

K I'm rambling, so I'm going to bed so I can go to church. I haven't gotten to take the sacrament in 2 weeks (general conference weekend, then a friend's baby blessing that took place at the same time as sacrament meeting. I can definitely feel a difference, and can't wait for sacrament meeting tomorrow.

Weird how we (I?) take things for granted so often.

Oh yeah, and how do you like new look of my blog?

Garbage

So BYU's L'Oreal Brandstorm team went to good ol' NYC to blow away the other schools in the National L'Oreal Brandstorm competition.

Unfortunately the world has gone to trash. The challenge: to create a new line of men's beauty product through Diesel. BYU's product line "Immortal" only got 2nd place to NYU's line "Foreplay." That's right, foreplay. It's a product that is basically a cologne/perfume for your not-so-public parts.

Everyone at the competition said BYU had the best presentation. Diesel was sold on NYU's willingness to push the limit. Now, I wasn't there and couldn't really say anything definitively, but from what I've heard (from a biased group, of course, but still...) it sounds like Diesel overlooked a lot of things from BYU's team simply because NYU dared to go where they did.

Gross. On the positive side, I heard that NYU's business school's dean told the NYU team he hoped BYU's team wouldn't walk out on their presentation because it was so raunchy.

Diesel is a gross brand anyway. I learned that first hand while preparing my own case study/product line a few months ago.

Why today was a good day

1. I actually got a lot done in the time I was at school from 7:30am to 3:30pm. I gave the Sierra-West presentation (practice round 2) (wow, that was today? I guess technically it was yesterday, but it feels like 2 or 3 days ago already...). I worked a bit on the MTV account, we came up with a few rad ideas for the Boy Scouts account, then we spent another 2 1/2 hours working on our Sierra-West presentation. It's getting pretty good.
2. Our (Brandon Tholen's and my) tenacity, doggedness, persistence, and indefatigability helped us get the house we have been fighting for (and had almost given up on). And yes, I just used the thesaurus on the word "tenacity" and wrote down a bunch of synonyms. My browser doesn't recognize "indefatigability."
3. I went running for the first time in a couple of weeks. I'm way out of shape, but it still felt good.
4. I went on a date for the first time in a couple of weeks. I'm way out of practice, but it still felt good :) Hoping to find another date for Friday's ballroom dance performance...
5. I paid a bill and went grocery shopping. (And saw one of the most beautiful girls I've ever seen while shopping. I've seen her a few times on campus and she takes my breath away.) Oh yeah, and girl's who shop at Smith's are hotter than girls who shop at Macey's. Just sayin'. I got to compare today because I went to both.

Housing debacle

A group of us (Brandon, Josh, Jonathan, Bryan, Matt, Tyler, and I) were looking for a place we could all stay. We found a place (which to my understanding is pretty nice, unfortunately I haven't seen it yet) right next door ( a house) which would be great. Then we found out the current owner decided to sell it, and the people who were buying it wanted to make it into women's housing instead.

Then we found out that BYU wanted to make it into women's housing in order to get rid of the (crappy) reputation of the Hollywood house. Brandon Tholen and I began preparing for an epic battle of wills, testimonies, and probably not fists. We got our current bishop and our (hopefully) future bishop to strap on the whole 9 yards of ammo, ready to fight for our entry into the house.

Apparently it only took a few precise shots by our sharpshooter, Bishop Henley (can you tell I've played too much Modern Warfare 2 lately?) to soften the hearts (or convince BYU?) of the soon-to-be owners to let us stay there.

If they try anything we've got literally 14 people as references, 3 of whom are ecclesiastical leaders with the ward's and stake's interest in mind.

Score one for networking. Boo-ya.

'Nuff said

"Man is the causer, though nearly always unconsciously, of his own circumstances and that whilst aiming at a good end, he is continually frustrating its accomplishment by encouraging thoughts and desires which cannot possibly harmonize with that end." - James Allen.

'Nuff said.

To-do List

So I seriously have the worst memory of anyone I know. I'm not sure what brings it on. Sometimes I feel like I'm very smart in some ways, and very dumb in others, and when it comes to remembering things, I definitely fall on the dumber side...

So I make lists. Except when I forget to. And then sometimes I forget to look at the lists.

• Find housing for Fall/Winter of next year
• Figure out my schedule and what classes to take in order to boost my GPA as much as possible
• Make sure I have something substantial to do this Summer
• Find somewhere to volunteer regularly
• Get back in to doing things in the AdLab
• Learn SEO (work with LeadGenix?) and see if my idea for an NPO could work...
• Get involved in some other program where I can gain leadership skills
• Get a job -or- see if I can get the bulk sales thing going to make some side cash while I attempt to stay sane doing everything else above.

The funny thing is I know I can do it all, but fear of failure stops me.

No more.

Unmotivation

A quick note about the following: it is one of my least favorite things about myself, so I feel a bit vulnerable writing this.

I haven't felt as unmotivated in a long time as I do today. It's a constant battle I always seem to have to fight, but at some point or another, I always seem to have days where I'm just not motivated at all.

Things that propel my unmotivation:

• Everyone else seems to be better at everything that is useful. I am not really excellent at anything.
• I struggle to find things that interest me. I just don't care about anything. Actually, what I should say is that I feel like I don't care about anything. Disinterest plagues me.
• I'm forgetful. The more I forget to do, the more I feel like I am unreliable. The more unreliable I feel I am, the less interest I have in doing anything because I feel like I will just fail.
• I feel like the things I learn in my classes are the "easy way out." Maybe (hopefully) all that really means is that I understand principles of advertising/marketing naturally, and that I'll be good at it for however long I actually am in that field. At the same time, I just feel like other people are learning much more sophisticated things in their majors, and it makes me feel less educated. But I'm not interested in those other things enough to actually study them.
• I'm lazy. It seems like I have no problem going out and getting my errands done, but I cannot, for the life of me, get anything else that I should be getting done, done.

I keep thinking about what my Comms 230 professor said about being a scholar vs. being a student, and I can't help but realize that I'm just a student. I can't bring myself to care enough about something to learn about it in my spare time. Nor can I bring myself to do my homework because I want to be better prepared for the world. Nor have I been able to search for/apply for internships or get involved the way I know I should be.

That's all for now. I just needed to get my thoughts written out. Hopefully my next post about my personal theme for 2010 will be more optimistic/less depressing.

Yes, Dear, King of Queens, and Everybody Loves Raymond

are the same shows!

Men are irresponsible, thoughtless, lazy pacifists.

Women are controlling, nagging dictators.

There is no compromise, no serious discussion, very few kinds acts, way too much bickering.

Unfortunately, I think these shows are popular because too many people think it is "so true."

Some lines from the shows:

"What keeps me from cheating on you?"

"I will DIVORCE you."

I could keep going on, but it depresses me a little bit.

My own (500) Days of Summer input

Inspired by Virginia's post about this movie, I thought I would add my own random, probably poorly-thought-out thoughts.

I sincerely hope that when the narrator at the end was saying that Tom Hansen had learned that there was no such thing as fate and destiny, that he wasn't being sarcastic.

Okay, I take that back. What I should say is I'm disappointed that the narrator was being sarcastic when he said "Tom had finally learned that there are no miracles. There's no such thing as fate. Nothing is meant to be. He knew. He was sure of it now..."

Granted, it flows well with the theme of the movie. I just don't agree with it. (Well, except the miracles part, but not in the context they're talking about). There really is no such thing as fate or a "meant to be." If you feel you love someone and they don't love you back, I don't believe it means that s/he just wasn't the one. Because there is no "one."

It was an interesting conversation with a guy down the hall who said he doesn't believe in praying to find out if a certain person is the right person to be with. I thought about that for a long time, and finally came to believe that he's right. I would rather pray to say that I had made a choice and felt good about it. Free agency still applies in love and marriage.

I loved how real the movie was! It really wasn't a chick flick love story inundating me with cliché lines and expectations that were unrealistically met:

1) Why is it so many people have those dreams about losing a tooth, falling, being in a tornado, etc.? Weird.

2) We don't just use first impressions to judge people. We often judge before we even meet people, before we give them a chance. Like when Tom heard from his friend that Summer was a prude (paraphrased). Then he's all "why is it pretty girls feel like they can treat other people like crap" (Also paraphrased).

3) Or when she said she had a good weekend. I'm sure I'm not the only one who has read way too deep into things. Can I get an amen?

4) We use a selective memory. "Next time you look back, I really think you should look again."

5) Getting invited to a party by someone you like will rarely turn out the way you expect. More than once I've been invited to a party by someone I liked only to find myself surrounded by a bunch of her friends that I don't know, talking to a few strangers for awhile before I realize how stupid I was to fall for the old "come to my party" trick again, and leaving.

Anyway, I'm sure there's a bunch more I could say, but it's technically Christmas and Santa still hasn't come because I'm still awake, so.... yeah. Goodnight!

Things like this remind me how I'm not excellent at anything

I mean, it's great that people can get so good at something. It renews my faith in people's persistence, even if it's in little things like yo-yo tricks.

But then I remember that although I'm pretty good at a lot of things, I'm not GREAT at anything!

I guess the easy way out is to say I'm great at being okay at a lot of things. But that doesn't count.

This is someone I know's brother. I would call her a friend, but we only hung out once. She plays hockey though, so she's got to be pretty awesome, right?