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.

i am also hungry. maybe that's why i'm so cranky.

When I was in high school, I took a lot of AP classes. I also did a bunch of distance learning classes, earning college credit. I came to college with 42 hours of credit already earned. If I had known this was going to cost me $2500, maybe I would've thought twice about being an overachiever.

To qualify for a government education grant, you have to meet certain requirements, including being below 180 credit hours. I think the point of that is to stop handing out money to people who just sit in college forever, taking classes but not making any progress toward graduation. And that makes sense to me. But I have not been in college forever. I graduated in 8 semesters and one term (which is much fewer than many people). There was only 1 semester I took less than 15 credit hours. I was on the ballroom dance team. I had a French minor. I was a freaking chemistry major!

I am just frustrated. Silly me, thinking I should try to learn as much as possible and do as much as possible in school. Should've dropped the French minor like my advisor told me. (not. I loved my French classes.)

grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

i just can't take any more transcription initiation factors.

Sometimes, it is really hard to concentrate when I'm studying biochemistry because I just feel like I'm looking at a craft catalog the entire time.

Evidence:

If that doesn't just scream ribbon explosion, I don't know what does.

(figures of proteins. which ones, I don't know, which is probably why I'm going to fail my biochem final tomorrow)

time to start drawing death to the textbook doodles

Really? How many times am I going to incorrectly add -5 and 3? And after how many tries on the same six problems can I just give up, get a bad score, and go to bed?

Ah yes, about 3 tries ago. Awesome. Good freaking night.

Mrs. Jensen, I still remember it

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll.
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul. 


-William Ernest Henley

nope nope nope

My hair color gives me away before I even open my mouth.*

Thinking this makes me feel immediately better. Maybe if I package all of my fears into little short sentences I can hide them under the bed of this Ibis hotel and forget about the fact that I am still not even at the half way mark.

Here I am in Toulouse, with a suitcase I can’t lift and mascara that won’t stop running.

Take me home. Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeease.

*French people, besides never straightening their hair, also never dye it blonde. and there are very few natural blondes here.

?

Am I so wrong to believe it's not necessary for me to feel like I have to "fight for my life" (a la "Her Morning Elegance) every single day? It would be nice, just once, just one day this stupid, miserable, torturous semester to go to bed knowing that I did all I could and I can sleep in peace.

I stayed up all night minus the two hours I feel asleep on the couch writing my paper and therefore am allowed to wax overdramatic. I don't believe there are many things more depressing than seeing your unslept in bed the next morning.

The paper is still not finished.

no comment

Sun been down for days
A pretty flower in a vase
A slipper by the fireplace
A cello lying in its case

Soon she's down the stairs
Her morning elegance she wears
The sound of water makes her dream
Awoken by a cloud of steam
She pours a daydream in a cup
A spoon of sugar sweetens up

And she fights for her life
As she puts on her coat
And she fights for her life on the train
She looks at the rain
As it pours
And she fights for her life
As she goes in a store
With a thought she has caught
By a thread
She pays for the bread
And she goes...
Nobody knows

curse my lack of foresight for not wearing waterproof mascara

Today is one of those days when I feel very small and ask myself what I was thinking when I declared this major.

Too hard, too hard, too hard.

the most human color

and so we pick ourselves up and cling to the hope that we can do this.

my internship application is all complete, letters of recommendation and all, and for today, i'm trying to accept that as enough.

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.

vous ne risquez pas d'être un légume

Sometimes it feels like French is a private club for members who are either from there or served missions there, and I will never gain membership. I take the classes, I read the Book of Mormon in French, I talk with my mom, but this is not enough. This will not make me fluent. And I keep ignoring that and pushing it aside, but one day it will become very embarrassing for me to say I was a French minor and yet can't carry on a thoughtful conversation with someone. (I mean, I could carry on a conversation about food, or airports, or families, or school subjects, or house-related things "la chaise est verte!", but anything that actually matters? describing situations and events? politics? religion? okay, actually I've upped my gospel vocab a lot by reading scriptures in French, but I couldn't bear my testimony or anything. Maybe. Have yet to try.)

Usually I assuage my concerns with the desperate hope that one day I will get to France and I will stay there for a while and I will become fluent if it kills me! And usually I'm fine after I think that to myself.

But every so often reality is shoved in my face in my inability to understand French tourists in San Francisco and I want to cry. It's impractical, it's expensive, and what exactly would I do? I don't think my language skills are where they should be for an internship, I travel with the ballroom team at the same time as all the French study abroads, and I really don't have anyplace to go.

I'm sorry, I didn't mean for this post to be one long whiny rant. I'm a little discouraged.
Don't take me too seriously. After all is said and done I still believe it will all happen. Somehow.

I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

let me vaguely explain

This is why I sometimes hate dance:

You put so much of yourself into what you do. It's an art, right? And you use it as an outlet to express yourself, so when you get rejected, it SUCKS. And it really, really hurts (ex: post about sytycd auditions/dance year of '08 that I ended up deleting because it was so bitter and sad and...meh).
And it's all so subjective and political. If you don't know the right people, forget about it. If you don't have the right look, if you're not skinny enough, if you're not considered "righteous" enough, etc, too bad. It seems like this goes for alllll the companies here.

Dance is such a freaking rollercoaster! GAhhhhhhhhh. I can't even remember all of the times that I've ended up crying at stupid competitions. Sometimes they're happy tears, like nationals '08 when we made the amateur latin semi. Sometimes they're not, like at the California Open in '06 (?) when we were the only ones not to make the next cut. I sat there watching everyone else dance the quarter (yeah, way pathetic) with tears streaming down my face. So stupid! It's just a competition. But when you spend so much time and money and energy on it, it becomes a lot more.

Too much too much too much.
It's all one giant game of chess.

EDIT: Thanks for all of the uber nice comments guys! I love you all. However, this post wasn't actually written about me. For once, I'm actually liking where I stand with dance right now. This was for my little sister, whom I love very, very dearly and who is an absolutely beautiful dancer who seems to have hit a string of bad luck. Bec, I'm so so so sorry.

Isn't she stunning?

it's a song on rockband

Sometimes, I really hate my college's dance program. Like today.
More details when I can think straight...?

anti markovnikov this!

PA9EWINAFNACI#9OARYGHAHHG
LSKALHVIACHALDHFHAHFAWIGAS
ERHGB'A'B'AO9IHGNAIDSCH;AKHF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!