NO lions or tigers or bears. Just birds.

24. Got to Tony's Grove and roast hot dogs
25.Visit Willow Park Zoo ✔
26.Mountain Bike

 
 In case you don't know, I'm not very good with animals. Okay, that's the understatement of the world. I lose dogs, kill fish, and forget to feed frogs causing them to feed on each other.

Going to Willow Park Zoo was of those things that everybody in Logan seems to have done...multiple times.  As a testament to how truly dull Logan can be, I've had the following conversation at least 6 times in the past year. 

RandomgirlImayormaynotlivewith: I'm bored.

Me: I'm not (because really, when do I get bored?)

RandomgirlImayormaynotlivewith: Oh good, I'm glad you're bored too. Let's go to Willow Park Zoo!

*Cue happy music with bunnies hopping in the background.*

Me: Animals are scary. And also, I don't want to be sued if I accidentally kill a common crow. Or suck up baby sea horses with a vacuum. 

I got away with this until this week when Andie and Kinsey visited me. They said, "Hey let's go to the Willow Park Zoo!" and I realized that it was on my college bucket list. So...I sucked it up and went. The only words are can use to describe the trip? Logan-esque.


I think that possibly, turtles could be an animal that I could put up with. Not like, mind you. Put up with. They are nice and slow and they live a long time. Also I couldn't kill them accidentally (at least not easily).

So maybe when I have kids, and they ask for a puppy, we'll compromise with a turtle. Maybe. I won't get their hopes up.




For the record, "Willow Park Zoo" should be renamed "Willow Park Bird Sanctuary...(with a bobcat and a raccoon. And a snow cone shack)" because SERIOUSLY. I can look out my apartment door and see a common raven. And a robin. Or I can go to Willow Park and see them for $2. Huh.

The exhibits are in this order: birdbirdbirdbirdbirdbird, monkey!, birdbirdbirdbirdbird, elk, bird, duck, duck, duck, duck, bird. 

Except, I did really like the eagle. It made me feel patriotic.



One pet that I will allow my children to have? Pet rocks. So convenient. They don't poop, AND even though they don't quite have the sensitive nature of other pets you can customize them.

Okay...despite the look on Shaun's face the trip really was fun. I promise. 

(Also, I am aware post makes me sound like the worst future mother ever. I may have to budge at some point and allow my kids to have a puppy. As long as it doesn't turn into a dog.)

Bad pictures, good life.

This picture took an hour to take

This makes me miss classes

So many books. So much time.

Just...don't ask. Because I don't know.

When french fries go moldy. Art, I guess?

I tried to be a secretary for 3 days. Fail. And I used at least $300 worth of sticky notes

Stupid. Trivial. Pursuit.

I'm going to talk about newspapers again

5. Visit Old Ephraim's Grave
6. Get an SPJ award ✔
7. Obtain True Aggie Status


I'll be truthful. Even though I tried to make my college bucket list at least a little realistic I figured there were some things that probably wouldn't happen. For example, given my recent experience with bad buffets I may never get Midnight Pizza at the Junction. At least not without a Walmart store worth of Pepto Bismol on hand. Getting an SPJ award  was one of those things I figured COULD happen, if I decided to write something semi-decent in  the next 3 years. A.k.a if it wasn't snowing in Logan (bahahaha!), the Gilmore Girls were not distracting me, and I wasn't trying to do something silly like succeed in school. 


So, March rolled around and I got an about the email about the awards. I could only enter articles that I had written in 2010, which left me with about 15 articles that were so boring that I probably fell asleep writing them. Not being one to give up an opportunity however, I did enter an article I wrote in fall It was a story about a woman dealing with her autistic son. Oh yes. And how she wrote a book about it. Despite my mediocre writing, this woman had a very touching story and it was one of the best interviews I did all year.  


Pick up the remote and fast forward to June. I am both shocked and slightly perturbed to find my name on the finalists list. Seriously? What are these people thinking? Did somebody threaten to take away their AP stylebooks if  I wasn't a nominee? I quickly go from shocked to happy, because really. These are big people. Who I will someday work for. Hopefully.  


I didn't shell out $40 to go to the ceremony, partially because that's a two weeks worth of tortillas and black beans (pretty much what I'm living off of) and also because I had a hot date at the Brigham Young Park.  


When I log onto Facebook later, I have like a million (or three) messages congratulating me. I guess I took 1st in Division C Medical/Science reporting.


Hello? I am not a scientist. Or a doctor. That's why I'm getting a degree in print journalism a.k.a "a degree to nowhere". Plus, I like to write about people strumming guitars and feeding the homeless and sometimes puppies. Use the word blood and I WILL get dizzy.

Despite this, I am so grateful.All those wee hours of the morning with my Dr. Pepper in one hand and a pencil in the other really did pay off. Things like this convince me that maybe, just maybe, I'll be able to NOT work in a call center someday.   


Hey, I'm a winner. And also, The Statesman is a winner because we are took 2nd place overall for our division. I work with some seriously talented people. 


And now I'm thinking about pizza...

If only I had known these things when I had glasses and zits.

I used to laugh at my parental figures when they said things like:

"Someday, you'll understand."

"You'll know what I go through when you have kids of your own."

"Just wait until you're married, with a house, a dog you don't like, and a dozen children."

Rolling in stupidity, I would force my eyes into the back of my head and groan. Because apparently that's a knee jerk reaction at 15 years old. They would give me the look, you know the "we should lock this child in a room until she's 25", and I would walk away, enlarged ego and all.

Nearly 5 years later, I have come to a frightening conclusion.

I KNOW NOTHING.

and...

Even if I get married, have 19 children and 37 pets, I will still know NOTHING.

Because I am not my parents. They are soooooo much smarter than me. 

It's kind of a humbling thought. Seeing as though Mom day has passed, and Pop's day is Sunday, I've been thinking a lot about my these people who have put up with me for so long. They've taught me everything I know, and then some. So now, I'll share.


1. You really don't need to share.

Remember these? There was a cute little boy named Logan in my 1st grade class. He let me use his Mr. Sketch markers that smelled like rotting fruit. Pretty soon markers turned into spelling tests and spelling tests turned into water bottles. I don't remember my mother's face when I casually told her that I was drinking out of some other kid's water bottle, but I'm sure it looked about like THIS. There are a thousand worse things I could have done, but my family doesn't like germs. Nobody really LIKES germs, but we're slight germaphobes. I learned fast. When other girls would share hair brushes, fake blush, and gum I stayed far away. I still remember this mutual night when I was probably 13 years old. There were two girls sharing a sucker, and the germaphobe in me wanted to yank the sugar grown substance from between their teeth and send them to a dentist to get their  mouths sanitized. Nasty.

2. Tip. And when in doubt, tip more. 
"Most waiters and waitresses don't even make minimum wage," they would tell me over and over. I can't count the number of times I would see my father slip a large bill on the table as we were leaving. It's just something you do.

3. The cool kids will work at McDonald's someday.
Okay, not all of the cool kids are going to have careers in fast food. I'm sure some will be CEOs and world famous athletes too. But really...I had to learn really fast that there were only two opinions of me that mattered. God's and mine. Once I figured that out, the self-esteem thing was a breeze.

4.When hungry, eat your rice; when tired, close your eyes. Fools may laugh at me, but wise men will know what I mean.-Lin-Chi
Too much of anything makes that thing a lot less valuable. I try to be cautious with my time. It took me until college to realize how much "me" time I needed. In high school, if I ever honestly needed a day of school off I would ask my Mom. She always let me make the choice. I think that if she had put her foot down, there would have been a lot more sluffing. Or sleeping in my car. 


5. Go to bed before midnight
At school when my friends were discovering their ability to stay up all night, I was asleep. Not because I couldn't pull an all-nighter, but because I didn't want to. Not having a curfew in high school taught me a lot faster than having one. Not that I suggest that to most teenagers, but I was an odd ball. I realized that if you stayed out until 3:00 a.m., you could expect a really big headache when you had to get up at 7:00 for work. I admit, I slept through some momentous events this year. But...for the most part I wasn't tired. How many college students can say that?

6. Don't buy it.
That furby. The Hello Kitty handbag. That $35 Hollister shirt. Lunch hour at the Crazy Buffet. Before I buy anything, I have a nice little discussion with myself. I give it the test.

Will this item....

a) End up shoved in the back of the closet
b)Not look good on me, because really. Only 1% of people in the world have hips that small.
c)Require Pepto-Bismal

If you have picked a, b, or c, run away.

My parents are fountains of knowledge, Seriously.

sniffles

I am functionally ill person. In some ways, having a cold is worse than having the flu. If you have the flu, people stay a million miles away from you while you sit in front of the TV and watch reruns of Saved by the Bell. When you have a cold, people actually expect you to buck up and do something. Yesterday, after the longest eight hour shift of my life, I came home and passed out on my bed, not to be moved for two hours.

After waking up, I walked downstairs meaning to clean the tornado we call a kitchen/living room. It took me so much energy to get down the stairs that I had to sit down on the couch and rest for a few minutes. Okay...another hour. Needless to say, I didn't do any cleaning.

 By some miracle, I dragged myself to the temple. It was a definite refresher from a gross/tissue filled day. I got back from the temple, only to throw myself on the couch with a quart of orange juice. Three minutes later, Mitch knocked on my door. Besides my family, there are precisely three boys who have seen me at a 10 on the gross scale. Last night, I was a high 9.

Congratulations Mitch, congratulations. May the image be burned in your mind forever.

That's pretty much all I wanted to say.

I like my house. I like my hair. I like my haircuts. But I don't like call centers.

It is 12:52.
It is 12:52 and my stomach is growling.
It is 12:52 and my stomach is growling and I am at working (kind of)
It is 12:52 and my stomach is growling and I am at working (kind of) and remembering that I should really eat lunch more often.

For one week, I have been completely exhausted. Like fall on my face while walking, fall asleep during phone calls, can't carry on a coherent conversation exhausted. It has delayed my marathon training because all the sudden my soft bed seems wayyyyy more appealing than running to Smithfield. Every once in a while I go through stages where my body decides (without my permission) that it needs a new schedule. Here's to hoping that this is simply a stage. With an end in sight.

My parents don't love my decision to run 26 miles. Something to do with that little thing called atrial septal defect. I promised I would be careful. They said I should visit the cardiologist. Since that went so well last time...

My average week has become a giant blur of phone calls, press releases, and editing. I like it. I like my morning walks to work. I like that Logan smells really good in the morning. I like midnight food runs with Mitch and Derek. I like that the library is silent. You just don't get that during the school year.

I don't like call centers, but that's another story.

A finally visited the Statesman office a few days ago. I shouldn't say finally, because it's only been a month (even though it feels like a year). I sat at my computer where Chelsey had left me a great note leaving me custody of Rif-Raf, the stuffed giraffe.  I got a little scared sitting that empty, Mac-lined room. Well, not so much scared as intimidated. Yes, me. The girl who scares the living daylights out of the opposite sex. The girl who bites of way more than she can chew and then succeeds. Most of the time.

 I'm already ready for the school year to start. I miss my classes and homework and learning. I miss goofy, flirtations nights in the library. I miss late night roommate chats. Despite this, I think I'll need the next 2.5 months to completely digest where what direction my life is heading in. I feel under-qualified, unprepared, and slightly misplaced. I'd like to clarify, it's not a bad thing. I appreciate being thrown off balance. It keeps me on my feet, ironically. There's just a lingering fear that I'm going to fail and end up sitting at a call center, being hit on by random men the rest of my life.

A few weeks ago, I told my parents that I'm a 19 year-old with the mind of a 26 year-old and the heart of a 3 year-old.

Nobody knows how true this statement is. 

The next three years hold a world of potential. (Hopefully) I'll be a degree-holding adult. The possibility of  being married is suddenly...more real. I could be a returned missionary. I could a world traveler. I could be a master in the art of kickboxing (hahahahahahahaha. okay. not really).


The point of this overdrawn post is this: I can do really hard things. Even under-qualified as I am








 

Photoshoot

Today at work I got paid to play with a camera. I've been a wanna-be photographer since I was a little kid. I'm not even a novice, but I love the feeling of a camera in my hands. They're better in hi-res. Promise.

Two guys just chattin' via window. Love it.

Half way there

Oh...and the song of my weekend.