The Realm of the Pachyderm

Thank you, Kelly. I'm pretty much obsessed with my own personal playlist now, since it's GREAT.

Alright, so, dig this. I've been working on Mason Williams' "Classical Gas" since my sophomore year of high school. That's, what...::mental math:: five years now? Wow. Anyway, so this has been an ongoing project for a couple of years now. This morning, I wanted to chart my progress thus far. I got Mr. Williams on my playlist, let it go, then played along with it to the very best of my ability.

I was very pleasantly surprised to find that I can play about half of it at his pace with little trouble.

Now, if you've heard this bad boy, you'll know that it's fast. I mean, it's kind of ridiculous. Admittedly, if I'd been practicing every day, I'd have mastered it by now. But, alas, I'm a busy little bee who plays whenever she has time, so it's taking a bit longer. But, the point is, it's coming!

Boy, I should really be in bed. I have a DISGUSTING week ahead of me...

• Monday:
  1. Spanish
  2. Student Development
  3. Directing
  4. Visiting Teaching
  5. Studying for New Testament test
  6. FHE
  7. Rehearsal for Liz's 336 project
  8. More homework
  9. Bed?
• Tuesday:
  1. Spanish
  2. Homework
  3. New Testament
  4. Rehearsal for MY 336 project
  5. Acting
  6. Swing Club? Probably not.
  7. Rehearsal for Liz's 336 project
  8. HOME...work
  9. Bed?
• Wednesday:
  1. Speed Reading Workshop
  2. Spanish
  3. Student Development
  4. Directing
  5. Study Group for New Testament test
  6. Creative Writing
  7. HOME...work
  8. Bed?
• Thursday:
  1. Spanish [BOCA...yikes!]
  2. New Testament test
  3. New Testament
  4. Rehearsal for MY 336 project
  5. Acting [Monologue day! AHHH!]
  6. Volunteer meeting
  7. HOME...work
  8. Bed?
• Friday:
  1. Spanish [Enrique Iglesias Day!]
  2. HOME!
  3. Conference Weekend in Salt Lake with John, Trina, and Melanie! WOOO!

So, yeah. I'm basically swamped. But, we’ll all have a good weekend [especially Grandma, since Boyfriend is coming to visit from Nebraska]. If anything else interesting should happen before then, I’m sure I’ll keep you posted.

Have a good week, kiddos :]

HOORAY.

Honestly, this semester, Fridays might just be the greatest things to ever happen to me. Would you like to know why?

I ONLY HAVE ONE CLASS, AND IT'S OVER AT 11 AM.

Yeah, that gets me pretty excited. That means I can procrastinate aaaaaaaalllllllll Thursday night [I wouldn't call it "procrastination" so much as "I'm too tired to kick myself into high gear with the Eytch-Dub"], then finish all my weekend homework on Friday afternoon, since there's nothing to do anyway. SCORE.

But, yeah, so there have been some interesting happenings around these parts as of late. For one, I found out that my uncle's second cousin is the President of Pakistan. Becca is excited beyond words...well, words other than, "I'M SO EXCITED FOR YOUR...UNCLE...AND YOU!"

I obviously take this in stride.

I've also been offered a calling in the ward [finally], so my Heathen Status has officially been lifted. Interestingly enough, it appears as though I'll be serving as a member of the Relief Society Enrichment Committee. Considering all the Enrichment Activites I've dipped out of, it'll be funny to see what I do...or don't bring to the table.

Lastly, I directed my first scene today for my directing project! That was intense, I don't really know what to do with myself when telling people what to do. It's something that'll come with time, I imagine. But yeah, it'll be good times.

This weekend, I'm going to "Dial M for Murder", a show which Grandma has been working on extensively since the beginning of the year. I'm expecting fountains of blood. Fountains, dangit.

I dunno. My brain is kind of fried, so I didn't have too too much to report at present. We shall see later this weekend, eh?

Throughout the year, I get on these musical soundtrack kicks [I'm aware how redundant that sounds]. It's generally a mix of "Les Miserables", "Phantom of the Opera", and "Little Shop of Horrors". Every time to time, "Joseph and The Amazing Technicolor Dream Coat" and "Jesus Christ Superstar" get thrown into the scuffle, but it's usually just the top three. I don't really know what it is, but something about the plight of the French in EVERY class of society [including those poor suffering opera stars who subject themselves to free voice lessons from creepy men in the ceiling] just seems to get my heart going.

Oh, and little nerd bombers who decide to get the girl by raising humungoid Venus Fly Traps. Poor kids.

Stepping away from that for a moment, I'd like to impart on the anxious world a discovery I made on Friday...actually, let's revise that statement. I'd like to impart on the anxious world THREE discoveries I made on Friday:

1. In my apartment, Becca does the majority of baking/creating delicious confections, with Nadin coming in at a close second, Grandma clinching the third spot, and Yours Truly coming in dead last. However, I would say that after my exciting Friday afternoon that I'm going to start encroaching on Grandma's coveted third place position.
   
   You see, Grandma has an inordinately large bag of Tootie Fruities [basically Western Family's answer to a certain toucan's staple foodstuff]. She decided that since there was no way she was going to even make a dent in this bag in this life or the one to come that it would be more intelligent to turn it into cereal bars. Once the idea was planted in my head, I was getting massively excited for someone to get to making them, as they sounded pretty dang good!
   
   Two weeks later, the bars still don't exist and I'm beginning to wonder why anyone would bring up something so delicious just to dangle it in front of my imagination without delivering any real results. So, stepping up to the plate this empty Friday afternoon, I find a recipe online and go to work.
   
   One double boiler and a lot of butter, marshmallows, and "Fruit Loops" later, a pan of cereal bars has materialized. If they aren't the most bangin' dessert I've had in at least a month...well, they just are. Srsly.
   
2. For some reason or other, Nadin discovered perhaps the greatest website we've been granted access to on the extremely sensitive BYU network: Hulu.com. Oh. My. Word. It has free episodes of shows at the viewing disposal of the public, which is awesome...but that holds no candle to the website's crowning feature: FREE FULL LENGTH MOVIES. ON THE INTERNET. FOR ME TO WATCH. WHENEVER I WANT. Discovery of Discoveries, baby.
   
3. My last and final discovery of the weekend was definitely not as felicitous as the other two. After exulting over the greatness of Hulu for a little while, I thought I'd delve into my first legit free movie on the Internet. Now, the main contenders in my mind came down to "Jumanji" and "When A Stranger Calls". Maybe you can explain the thought process to me after this point, since I still can't quite understand what I was thinking:
   
   Gwennifer: "Well, 'Jumanji' has been one of my favorite movies since childhood. It's got a great story, awesome special effects, likeable characters--OK, 'WHEN A STRANGER CALLS' IT IS!"
   
   Honestly, it's like being given the choice between "Fiddler on the Roof" and "Carrie" and STILL picking the latter [Hey, how funny would the movie have been if they had combined the two? "Fiddler on the Carrie"? "Carrie, we shun you from normal teenage society because of TRADITION! Now, stop killing your classmates and get ready for the Sabbath!"]
   
   So, I went ahead and watched "When A Stranger Calls". You know something? I'm still weeping internally for the hour and 45 minutes I will never get back from "Hello? Hello? Stop calling me, I'm only 16 years old in this big expensive house with two defenseless children, what could you possibly want from me!?" Honestly, it's now an official contender for a spot on the list of "The Worst Movies I or Anyone Else has EVER Seen". Discovery: that movie was terrible.

Well, I should probably take off to do good things on the Sabbath, like read the lessons for church in a few hours. Have a good church day, kiddos!

<[Fiddler on the Carrie]3

That's what I feel like every time I put my brain back into my quivering head after sitting in my Directing class. I feel as if it's my brain, only infused with all the greatness that has come from George Nelson's mouth for the last two hours. Honestly, sitting in that class makes me fight back the urge to let the obvious wrong impulses come spewing forth, then chastise myself for thinking any natural impulse is wrong.

Thinking back on my high school theatre experience, I realize that the only thing mediocre high school theatre can offer you is the realization that putting together a show is really fun. Now, don't get me wrong, I consider that extremely important. I think every member of a company is entitled to have fun while working on a show. I just mean that I never got any inkling of what actual theatre was about while I was in high school. I thought it was all a matter of natural talent, that getting into the mind of a character was based soley on voice inflection and instinctive movement. Ihad no IDEA how much farther you have to delve into a piece to even begin to understand it.

It's times like this that make me realize that theatre is so not even a cake major. Considering all the abstractions you have to deal with in Directing, my brain is tying knots in itself trying to sort through everything. Trying to incorporate the theme you've chosen to highlight throughout the entirety of a production, then coming up with a production concept isn't something concrete that you can simply plug into an equation. The way theatre speaks to an audience is different for every single person there. Every director approaches a play differently, each with different ideas to bring to the table and directions that they want to take it.

So, yeah, I'm kind of blown. But, it's cool. I don't think I've ever been this fascinated by anything before in my entire existence. Well, the gospel, but nothing else beside that.

Alright, I can stop musing. Let's talk about something else...

Ah, I know! This weekend provided a cornucopia of inspiration in the film making department! On Friday, Nadin, Becca, and I decided we really wanted to make a movie. So, we tentatively created the groundwork for a story, but that great vortex known as "The Office" sucked us in so completely that we [at this point including Grandma] watched that for five hours before heading to Commando [well, excluding Becca, she went to a party to meet boys]. Our little video didn't actually come into existence until Saturday night when we REALLY didn't have anything to do.

The basic premise was that Nadin is a girl at BYU spending her Saturday night making soup. Unbeknowst to her, her bored roommate has nothing better to do than pop out from corners to scare her [this dummy would be Me]. After sufficiently scaring her, then trying to improve her soup, she decides to poison the soup to rid me from her life. Considering Becca was also in this video AND ate some of the soup, she should die too, right? WRONG. Her whole purpose was to inform me that she wasn't poisoned simply because. So, I die on the table as Nadin withholds information about the antidote, Grandma shares a clever anecdote, and Becca keeps denying being poisoned.

Coincidentally, this was Becca's first ever directing/editing project! It turned out quite nicely :]

Then, on Sunday night, something miraculous happened. I decided that I really wanted to make a video too! With no prior planning, I picked up my camera and filmed a series of short scenarios involving a clip of Imogen Heap's song "Hide and Seek" being played over and over again. I'll post it later when I'm back home. It won't make a lot of sense unless you've seen my spoof of the SNL skit "Dear Sister", which was a spoof of some episode of The OC. Therefore, most humans on planet Earth will probably not understand why it is that my video is so dang funny.

Ok, I've got to go yet another story for my Creative Writing class, one I received merely an hour before the class, I might add. I'll post my video later. Until then...

P.S. Here it is!

Now, I pass this establishment every day on the bus, but I've still yet to figure out what genius up at Corporate figured the good people of the United States wanted to shake things up by eating in a pit. Looking for some insight, I turned to my roommate, Becca:

Gwennifer: Why did anyone think telling people to eat in a pit would be a good plan? There's nothing appetizing about a pit!

Becca: I don't really know...but they have really good pitas.

Gwennifer: You know what that's like? That would be like opening a restaurant called THE STEAK DUNGEON.

So, good readers, in order to keep the tradition of poorly named locations that just aren't conducive to eating, I am making it my life's ambition to open a restaurant called The Steak Dungeon.

Speaking of consumption anomalies in Provo, it has also come to my attention that are about 1,000 places surrounding campus dedicated to--YOGURT. Where did the yogurt fad emerge from? Search me. All I know is that I'm now surrounded by freak havens like

and

In closing, I wanted to leave you with a video that I'm going to dedicate to my father's ankles and to Thatcher's newly formed fear of my cats: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qit3ALTelOo

And, no, this one isn't a RickRoll, I promise.

<[Later]3

That means I'll finally have time to do LAUNDRY! HECK YEAH.

You know your life has come to somewhat of a standstill when this is the highlight of the week. Clean socks and underwear are simply the keys to my heart.

But, yeah, so I just took a quiz online for my New Testament class. Now, in said class, the professor told us multiple times that the gospel of John begins in the PRE-EXISTANCE. So, when the question came up on the quiz, I was only too quick to punch that in as my answer. But, lo and behold, when I get my results back, what should greet me on question #2 but a big fat "LOOK WHO DOESN'T KNOW THE BIBLE! WHAT KIND OF JACK MORMON ARE YOU?!"

Well, not quite so eloquently, but it said I should reread John chapter one. The way I figure this happened was either the teacher has NO IDEA what she's teaching [not likely...well, not very likely] or she thought she'd pull a fast one on us because she's the one making up the quizzes. The possibility that I'm wrong in this situation is simply not an option.

Ugh, that bothers me. Let's move on to something else. Oh, idea! Let's talk about something I like to call GRANDMA'S NIGHTLY PHONE-A-THONS.

Over the summer, Grandma went back home and got herself a boyfriend. Now, I condone boyfriends heartily, what with the whole "multiply and replenish the earth" hovering above our heads. Unfortunately for poor Grandma's breaking heart, she had to leave Boyfriend at home when she came back to big bad BYU. So, in order to keep this LDR from tumbling onto the rocks faster than a styrofoam boulder with an inexplicable love of a whip-totting Harrison Ford, they talk on the phone every night...for at least TWO HOURS. Since she coops herself up in her room for these exchanges, it's not as if this encroaches on my life in any way. The only problem I have with this arrangement is...

Gwennifer: [Thinking to herself] Boy, I haven't seen Grandma all day! I sure hope she had a great day at school! Why don't I go ask her about it!? [Knocks on her door innocently]

Grandma: WHAT DO YOU WANT!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?

Gwennifer: [Heartbroken] I just wanted...to...see how your day was...I think I'll just go cry instead...

As you can see, my kindhearted gesture of friendship is met only by rage and "Misters before Sisters" syndrome. Such is the life of a single girl at BYU, the only place in contention with the RLDS settlement for the coveted "Most Marriages performed in a Day" award.

Well, as fun as this has been, I should run along. I have...well, some homework that needs finishing.

Take it easy, kiddos.

My favorite kinds of parties are the ones that have those bowls of insanity known merely "Party Mix", when a more fitting name like "Ecclectic Foodsnack of Unstoppable Options" would be entirely aproppriate. Today's entry is going to be kind of like party mix, only without so much party and salt.

The first thing I want to put out there is the teenage "Religion Hopping" phenomenon. I know that tons of kids my age didn't have the opportunity to be born into a certain religion, and there are lots more on top of that that don't like the religion they were born into. The fact that I was born into the LDS church and remain faithful and active is something I consider to be rather outside the norm [at least outside of Mormon culture, anyway].

So, the rest of the youth of America [I don't want to speak for the world] have three options:

1. They reach a point in their lives where they know something is missing, at which point they seek religion to fill the void.
2. They couldn't care less about religion, so they leave it alone entirely.
3. In order to make a good showing for their friends, they do a little research, find out which religion sounds the "coolest", then tell people they practice that faith for a few months until the "Oooh"s and "Ahhh"s subside.

The third is what really bothers me. Maybe it's been this way for the past few generations, but I feel like Buddhism was the "cool" thing to be practicing when I was in high school. All the kids who wanted to sound mystical and in touch with a universe that they can't even begin to comprehend would don the loose term of "Buddhist" on their "Religious Views" on Facebook. Now, I think it would have been wrong to call people out on their charades; afterall, couldn't they really have experienced a religious affirmation? But, 9 times out of ten, the newest "emmisary of Buddha" would just tell people she became Buddhist so people would think she wasn't completely off her rocker for still obsessing over an ex-boyfriend who was no longer a part of her life. Another soul who had been "enlightened by Buddha" was the gay boy who felt that being Buddhist would add to his artistic image, as image is oh-so-important when you want to become a photographer.

Again, perhaps I'm judging too harshly. I just feel like religions shouldn't be like clubs that you go to for two weeks, then ditch so you can try something else out. Religion isn't about image or how popular you'll be for claiming affiliation. Religion is a deeply personal choice about how you choose to worship, not something to be flaunted like something new and shiny. This could be thrown back in my face in the form of the zealous missionary work that all members are encouraged to engage in, but it's not as if I've ever entered a room with my nose in the air and informing everyone that I'm Mormon, only to drop the facade a couple of weeks later. When it's something that's a part of you, there isn't this need to tell everyone, "LOOK! I'M BALANCED! I HAVE RELIGION NOW, AND IT'S A COOL ONE!"

Ack, let's talk about something else...how about how my bank account keeps locking me out?

I can't for the life of me figure out what's going on in that department. Honestly, I sit down to my computer, meticulously pecking out the password to my account so I don't type something wrong, then BAM! YOU'RE LOCKED OUT, LOSER! CALL TOWER AND SPEND THE NEXT 30 MINUTES OF YOUR LIFE TRYING TO GET THIS SORTED OUT FOR THE SECOND DAY IN A ROW!

Honestly, I know I'm careful, so either I'm having minute digital epilepsy, causing me to hit the wrong keys so slightly that I don't even notice, or something is disturbingly and annoyingly wrong in the system.

Bonny, as my sister, I suggest you hop on that. Anyway, I'm off to a Saturday full of...something. We'll see.

Have a good one, kids :]

School.

I'm starting school.

In a handful of hours.

As it is, one of my roommates [who, from this point in time, shall be known as Grandma] doesn't particularly enjoy riding the bus by herself. She is also a Time Nazi, so while I don't have class until 10, she wants to catch the 8:12 bus in order to be early to her class at 9. Honestly, if I weren't such a big fan of Grandma, I'd call her a ninny. I'll probably catch a few Z's in the library until I have to go to class. Whoopee.

Right now, while I should be sleeping, I'm listening to "Apologize" by OneRepublic with my room roommate [who, from this point in time, shall be known as Nadin]. This is a pretty standard pattern; we both stay up much later than is healthy, only to oversleep, wake up five minutes before class starts, then gangbust out of the apartment like it's our job. We're so cool.

Before now, however, my other and final roommate [who, from this point in time, shall be known as Becca] was introducing me to "krumping". You see, she wants me to make a music video to some Jonas Brothers song [barf], which I am extremely tempted to simply...not. However, I figured that both parties could be satisfied if she were to make a video to the song "Handlebars" by Flobots; if she agreed to do this, I would make the Jonas Brothers video. Due to the rather aggressive nature of the song I selected, Becca wanted to find some "krumpers" for the video.

If you're wondering, "Geez, Gwennifer, what the mess is krumping?", then be my guest to Google it. More power to ya, friends.

Anyway, I'm all moved in and relatively excited for classes to begin. It has been an extremely eventful last couple of days indeed. After waking up at the ungodly hour of six on Sunday morning, we hiked over to Reagan and put me on an 8:25 flight. Upon deciding that I was going to drop $8 on a movie that I was determined to stay awake through, I only caught the first 10 and last five minutes of "The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian". Shame, really. Great nap, though.

After landing in Denver, I got some Panda Express [love] and fangoriously devoured most of it while waiting for my short hop to Salt Lake. I took a little on the plane with me, which was almost thrown away while I was napping by a little old man who wanted to keep the plane tidy. Feeling that my orange chicken was in danger, I snapped up and blustered, "I'M NOT FINISHED YET!" Very slick of me.

Once I arrived in SLC, my Aunt Mimi picked me up. From there, we drove into Salt Lake in order to find Nadin's aunt's house so that she could follow us back to campus. First, she told us the house was on 900 West; only after we arrived did we find out that she meant 900 East. 18 blocks later, we've found the house and Nadin is following. Because my aunt and cousin hadn't gotten to take the sacrement, we went to their testimony meeting. After only sleeping about 45 minutes the night before, I was ZONKED. Seriously, I was about to pass out.

Figuring we'd all kind of had a long time, Mimi decided to bouce out of church after sacrement meeting. From there, we went to her house to retrieve the rest of my things. Once we acquired my veritable 600 pounds of stuff, we finally arrived at Wyview. We got our keys, then lugged all of our crudsicles up three flights of stairs. Post-lug, Mimi treated us to dinner at the newly redone Cannon Center. It was basically off the chain.

After dinner, we parted ways with Mimi and finally reunited ourselves with Grandma and Becca. After much hugging and all that jazz, we lazed around until ward prayer. Post-prayerdom, we hunkered down to watch "Penelope". If you haven't seen it...it's certainly...well, something...

Eventually, all of our crud got unpacked. We're now settled. HOOray.

Today, books were bought, groceries obtained, Rock Band played, a barbeque attended, old friends visited, "Juno" watched, Commando planned, dishes done, and beans. Oh, the beans.

That's all for now, sports fans. I'll have more as more happens, and I certainly promise plenty of stories about Grandma, Nadin, and Becca in the future.

GO COUGARS.