what if their story were my story?

For I was an hungred, and ye gave me no meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me no drink:

I was a stranger, and ye took me not in: naked, and ye clothed me not: sick, and in prison, and ye visited me not.

Then shall they also answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, or athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister unto thee?

Then shall he answer them, saying, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me.

Matthew 25:42-45

"if you try to break a glass ceiling, you'd better be prepared to get cut"

I keep forgetting for a half second and then I remember and feel my stomach drop all over again because we elected Donald Trump president of the United States.

My visceral reaction to the news has surprised me. It feels personal, because I relate to Hillary Clinton, in that she's worked for a long time to try and succeed in a male-dominated field and has often been held to a different standard because she's a woman. I think a lot of my ambitious female friends feel the same, and therefore this defeat feels like a personal rejection of the "nasty" women we aspire to be.

Part of the depth of my reaction is probably from the shock. I really expected America to resoundingly renounce That Monster with his groping and sexual assault bragging but we didn't. Instead, we implicitly endorsed his misogynist, hateful views and propelled him straight to the Oval Office. You can grab em by whatever you want because they're women [not people] and we just don't care. His deplorable treatment of women wasn't enough for us to get over Hillary's emails or Hillary's potential Supreme Court nominees or whatever it was that you thought was so important that we elect an accused rapist instead.

You can keep all your unity and acceptance and blah blah blah to yourself for now because I'm livid. And I'm allowing myself to indulge in that for a little bit until I figure out how to shape this rage into something more productive than this blog post and a bunch of retweets.

If you have ideas, I'm all ears.

(title quote from this article)

mmmmm nutella

This is what is wrong with America:

3 million dollar lawsuit because of an idiot who didn't know Nutella wasn't healthy. 

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

irrational

Dear MacBook,

You suck, and I want my powerpoint presentation and two papers back because they are due in two days.

-Katie

this was typed with a lot of restraint

People who question why people would "want to ingest all those chemicals in coke" make me want to inform them that actually, everything you ingest is made of chemicals.

I would also like to inform those who justify drinking raw milk by saying people have been doing it for 1,000s of years that before pasteurization the average life expectancy was somewhere around 40 years.

Vaccines do not cause autism.

Genetically modified food will not kill you.

The end.

we got ourselves allied with the wrong moving company. heh, heh.

I feel very materialistic right now, but you know what, I want my stuff back. All the things we put in the moving truck, all of our furniture, the rest of my clothes (dress shoes! where did you go?), our kitchen gadgets, office supplies/printer, my books,* our tv, even our welcome mats! I want them all to fill our very empty and echo-y house.
And we were supposed to get them at the very latest by next week, July 25th. Instead, we will not be getting anything until August 2nd at the earliest! HELLO. The entire reason we packed up and left Provo and our families and friends so early in the summer was so our stuff could get here and we could unpack everything and get everything set up before Aaron starts med school. Now we're going to have like 3 days to do that in the best case scenario.

We want some compensation here, Allied. And you do not seem concerned at all that the actual arrival date of our things is at least OVER A WEEK later than the date we originally got. We are concerned, and we are freaking ticked.

The end.

*I've been reading Sense and Sensibility out of the beautiful 7 novel by Jane Austen collection my parents gave me for Christmas. I love me some Pride and Prejudice, but I can't get into this book at all. I am neither entertained nor intellectually stimulated by it. And I want our five boxes of books to get here so I can read about something else besides so and so's social engagements and frolics in the English countryside. Jane Austen lovers-defend?


OOohh, I'm feeling choleric today.

not to brag, but

my little brother is a rock star.

For reals.

He plays drums in the band Marina and Some Boys

featuring...Marina...and some boys.

They are incredibly talented and adorable (he's on the far left).



And they got robbed this weekend by two severely musically challenged bands.

Dear Battle of the Bands judges,

Were you even LISTENING to ***** band?! Or were you too distracted by their guitarist's ill-fitting True Religion jeans and the choreographed head banging?! (HAIROGRAPHY? KILL YOURSELF!) Did the fact that they have a gig at the Velour next week (who's paying to see them? you ought to if you'd like to listen to some rhythm-less, melody-less, harmony-less crap for an hour) CLOUD YOUR JUDGMENT or was it all of the smoke and mirrors (literally on the smoke, they blew it right out of their mouths...slightly satanic/we wish we were dragons?) that left us with zero substance??? Or how about the utterly lackluster performance by Seinfeld obsessed *****? Really? How could you fail to notice their complete lack of synchronization in one of my favorite Relient K songs?! Their drummer was totally off, not to mention the singer's boring and out of tune voice! "Be My Escape" left us all wanting to escape right out of the auditorium!

I really hope that next time you decide to judge a music competition, you actually bother to listen to the bands.

Sincerely,

Katie

Side note: Readers, they might still have a chance to be the wild card in the state battle of the bands if they upload one of their songs and enough people vote for them. Should they decide to do so, I'm going to beg and plead with you with all my heart to vote. They really deserve this.

Anyway, I hope your Saturday night was thoroughly less enraging than mine. Bon weekend!

I lost the invincible summer somewhere in the last few hours.

I do not know what to think, I don't know what to do, I don't know how to act.
I don't believe that I've ever driven away sobbing from a competition. I am so tempted to cut my losses right now, walk away and be done forever. I have wasted so much time, so much of my parents' money, so much effort, and for what? To not make it past the quarterfinal in a single event while I watch all of my teammates dance the final?

No thanks.

Maybe it is time to be a chemist.

Because then I can get out of it exactly what I put in. The right answer is the right answer. I either know it or I don't. I don't have to worry about someone else's opinion. I don't have to worry if my hair, makeup, fake tan, costuming, etc etc etc are good enough. I don't have to watch myself crash and burn. I don't have to come up with some euphemism as an answer when people ask me how it went. (real answer: Basically it was the worst competition I've ever had and oh, I don't think I want to continue competing. fake answer: It just wasn't my best.) How embarrassing is it to walk around with the evidence of being a ballroom dancer, the nails, the fake tan, and have nothing to show for it? I can explain away one bad event, I can explain away two, but all three? How many flukes do I get?

I left the competition with the dance still in me. I wasn't even tired, except emotionally from crying. I think that was the saddest part.

Is this a message? Am I supposed to be done, stop taking lessons, sell my dresses and never look back?

Sounds like a pretty good option right now.
Peace out ballroom. I dislike you too.

Some things you can't take back

So the Supreme Court ruled that child rape cannot be punishable by death because [rape and other crimes] "may be as devastating in their harm, as here, but 'in terms of moral depravity and of the injury to the person and to the public,' they cannot be compared to murder in their 'severity and irrevocability."'

Right. Because rape isn't irrevocable at all. Why don't you tell that to the eight year old girl who lost her virginity to her step-father? She wishes she had been murdered. Rape destroys people. It rips away something so precious that it can never be replaced. You can't get your virginity back! And to lose it before you're twelve to someone who is supposed to protect you and love you is unspeakably horrific. I...I don't like to make statements like this, but child rapists do not deserve to live. The damage they cause is worse than death. Justice Kennedy says, "the death penalty should not be expanded to instances where the victim's life was not taken." Life not taken?! I would hazard a guess that those who've been raped feel exactly like their life has been taken from them. Not physically, but emotionally. How can you trust anyone? How can you keep going through the motions of everyday life when something like that is eating you up inside?
I'm sorry (actually you know what, I'm not), but I do not agree with the Supreme Court at all in this case.
Doesn't each state decide whether they use the death penalty or not? Why didn't I get to vote on this? And also, isn't the court of a conservative majority now? What the heck happened?

GAH. It just makes me so angry. Glenn Beck was talking about this subject this week on his radio show and a lady called in who had been raped by three different family members. She tried to commit suicide six times. SIX TIMES. Oh, but rape's not "severe" at all.

I echo Rep. Pete Schneider-"When are you going to have the courage to stand up for what's right for all of the people — but especially the children under 12 that have been brutally raped by monsters?"

(all quotes from the Deseret News article "Court bans death penalty for child rape")

Vent and Tag

Before I fill out the little survey thing Suzy tagged me for, I must vent immediately about "So You Think You Can Dance." (oh, this is such a lovely preview for the months to come.)

I. Can. Not. Believe. There. Is. Not. A. Single. Ballroom. Guy. In. The. Top. Twenty.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
GAHHHh I'm so disappointed. Granted, there are some fabulous contemporary and hiphop guys, but come on, we're not going to get a single decent samba, rhumba, samba, chacha, paso, or jive this season from the guys! That makes me so angry! It's all up to Chelsie to represent ballroom now...

Anyway, on to the survey:
A. The rules of the game are posted at the beginning.
B. Each player answers the questions about themselves.
C. At the end of the game the player tags 5 people, then goes to their blogs and leaves them a comment letting them know they've been tagged and asking them to read your blog.

Where were you 10 years ago: It was a year after I'd moved here, and I was just starting to settle in...I think that was when I started taking dance in Jaylee's basement too.

Five things (that were) on my to-do list today:
1. Go to work. (check)
2. Watch "So You Think You Can Dance." (checkish...will watchall of it again with Jody and Kim later)
3. Put away clothes. (should go do that right now)
4. Mail a check to Andrea.
5. Get "Freakonomics" from the library (done, I even finished reading it this afternoon, I'd highly recommended if you want something intellingent and entertaining to read.)

Five snacks I enjoy:
1. yoplait light harvest peach yogurt
2. those swiss miss 3 layer chocolate puddings
3. pretzels with pink frosting (yay Bowen girls!)
4. fruit and nut granola bars
5. croissants

What would I do if I were suddenly a billionaire: Go to France for a month. Pay for my parents' home and buy one of my own. Furnish my newly purchased house with Pottery Barn furniture. Buy ballroom costumes, fly pros out for lessons every week, and get new shoes, lots of new shoes (ballroom, that is).

Four of my bad habits:
1. Like Suzy, I also have to check my blog, facebook, email, and all of my friends' blogs before I can get anything done on a computer.
2. blowing bubbles when I chew gum
3. cracking my knuckles
4. whining about things...like SYTYCD....or plane tickets...sorry girls :)

Five jobs that I have had:
1. Research assistant!!! Yeah!!!
2. Sales associate at Macy's
3. Nanny
4. Dance teacher
5. Babysitter

Five things people don't know about me:
(some of these might be repeats from my multiple secrets posts...I'll try to come up with something original...)
1. I have scoliosis and as a result one of my legs is longer than the other. And it also makes my hips slightly asymmetrical, hehe.
2. I don't really like excessively muscley guys. Ew.
3. I just got new favorite baby names from "Freakonomics." They are Ansel, Asher, and Liam for a boy, and Quinn and Pascale for a girl.
4. I love going to art museums. Sometimes I walk through the performing arts building just to look at the mini exhibits they have set up in the lobby.
5. I love flying. I don't even mind airports or sitting on airplanes for extended periods of time (granted, the farthest I've flown is to NYC/DC, so you know...I've yet to really experience a 12 hour flight or anything).


5 people I'm tagging
1. Amanda (haha now you're double tagged)
2. Alyssa
3. Jody
4. Ashlan
5. Ashley