Time in a Bottle

I'll take a lifetime supply. I would also like the directions on the back to read:

Unscrew lid.

Enjoy 3 hours of additional time.

Please recycle.

I've realized recently that as time goes on, the faster it seems to move. I remember in Elementary school when we would have summer vacation and it would seem years long. Yet these last three months have disappeared in no time at all. Perhaps it is because as we age the proportion of any given time with the length of life we have enjoyed gets smaller and smaller. So the time seems to go faster and faster. Or maybe it's because when we get older and have more responsibilities we have more benchmarks of time. It goes quickly because we dread that deadline in late April, and thinking of the deadline makes us remember that we have a family function the week after that, and when we get home it's just in time for another deadline; and so on until all of a sudden you're anticipating the middle of September and letting your life race past you without so much as a tip of the hat.

It makes life just a little bit less meaningful. Slow down. Enjoy the weather. Enjoy your friends. Enjoy the sky and the landscape (or cityscape) around you. Think of others first. Stop dreading life. Reminisce.

Take chances! Make mistakes! Watch... the magic school bus?

Elementary my dear Watson!

So, there has been this mysterious smell roaming Provo. For those of you who don't remember I talked about the plague here. After some observations, a little bit of luck, and a whole lot of interpolation, I think I have discovered the source.

You see first, we know that the smell began in winter, presumably when the weather became colder. This deduction was reinforced when the smell disappeared as the weather became warmer. We also know that the smell seemed to originate from a location near our house--not on campus. However it became possible for there to be multiple sources because the various locations at which the scent was identified. People often identify this scent as being like smoke of the fire variety.

Based on the above, the only thing I can logically deduce is that the source is someones chimney. Or multiple people's chimneys. I suppose the only real mystery left is how on earth my hair is able to absorb smells that quickly!

WANTED: one guitarist, one drummer, and one... synthesizerist?

So Caresse and I are in a band called Mickey Rooney & the Ponies. Actually... we sort of are the band right now. We do the vocals... but we need a rest of the band. Frankly, a lyricist and a composer wouldn't hurt either for that matter. So far our song stylings include works such as:

• Breakfast at Tiffany's (the song our group was named for)
• The State Song (fifty nifty United States...)
• My Favorite Things
• Anything by the Spice Girls, or Heart... we don't really know why
• We can also do practically any theme song upon request
• And of course the perennial favorite: Celebration

The band name is non-negotiable--but if anyone is interested let us know! We'll be here all week!

So the really funny part is Caresse and I accidentily wrote essentially the same post... at the same time... but that's what makes us fun.

Upset? I'm not upset?!?

(number 1? Not really, since we lost to SDSU in the conference tournament[SDSU, really?] and have once again bowed out in the first round of the NCAA tournament)

This whole madness thing has actually added a dimension of joy to my March. In fact, March used to be my least favorite month of the year. It was just that ridiculously long stretch between midwinter break in February and spring break in mid April (Oh, good old high school, back when such wonders like spring break existed). The combination of the two turned March into this 7 week drought, free of vacations. I remember once upon a time I told a friend that I wasn't a big fan of March and she got all offended and wouldn't talk to me because that's when her birthday was. She wasn't grasping the whole "this actually doesn't have anything to do with you and was really supposed to be mildly entertaining" concept.

I don't mind March anymore now that I fill out brackets. Not only is it fun to play a game that I (frankly) am really bad at, but then you get to have something to talk about with complete strangers. I really like it when that happens. The cherry on top of this whole situation is that we make everyone at work fill one out. Somehow the first year we did this I got put in charge of keeping track of everyone, and the job sort of stuck. Now we get to go around badgering people into filling out brackets, even though just about everyone has no idea whats going on. I love the droves of people who put BYU winning it. Not that I don't love my team--I always have to give them the benefit of winning one game even when I know they will lose--but I am completely aware of the fact that despite multiple appearances, BYU hasn't won a single game in the NCAA tournament since 1993. Which despite my state of mind that still thinks it's 1999, '93 was sort of a while ago. For whatever reason I have this totally random bracket connection to Duke. I can't help but put them at least making the final four, if not farther, every year. And they always disappoint. But I just can't seem to say no!

There used to be this one guy who worked here that did a statistical analysis of the last decades' tournaments to find where the upsets happen. In theory, there should be 8 or 9 in round 1, abour 4 in the next round, and then 1 in each of the next rounds. This has been a tried and true method for many of my co workers. Others rely on the mascot theory. Another glorious TEC lab tradition is that of me making Jake's bracket for him. Every year. And he always wins. Every year. You'd think I would learn, eh? My favorite part of this whole little game is that it gives me something to do at work. Frankly, I get bored at work a lot. So for these wonderful three weeks, I can come into work, check to see whats happened since the last time I checked, and update everyone's brackets for them. I think its fun, even if no one else does.

It was kind of funny. This year when I was trying print out brackets I just wasn't paying attention and I kept accidentily printing out the wrong year's brackets. And not just printing them, but passing them out to everyone at work. Three times. I should have felt stupid, but I got over feeling stupid about things like that years ago--now they're just entertaining!

Enjoy the madness!

Love love love

Like this...

There are all kinds of love. I'm not talking courtly love--which for all intents and purposes doesn't exist anymore. I mean friendship. Love withers without friendship and friendship can blossom into love. Friendship is (forgive the pun) the heart of love.

For me my friends are some of the most important things in my life. When I'm away from my family, those dear friends of mine become my family. I know some people find me unapproachable and difficult to know, and that makes sense. I often agree with them. I think of my heart as concentric circles, each with their own wall. The outermost wall is probably pretty average. It's relatively easy to see me and make assumptions. But even a good acquaintance has to make it inside the next wall. It's considerably higher and more intimidating. The people who find themselves here are usually the ones that I meet in wards and classes, we find each other incredibly entertaining and convenient and when the situation ends we never see each other again. I'm really bad at keeping in touch with people, always have been. The last wall can look impossible. Usually the people who find themselves in there are family, people who I have known well for an extended period of time (like, years), or in some rare cases--people who excel at reading me and pulled a Reagan.* For me, most of these dear friends are as close as family. Once someone finds their way into the inner circle of my heart, it will be just as hard to get out again. I am fiercely protective and unwaveringly loyal to this small group. Just because I don't always agree with things that they do doesn't mean I wouldn't do anything for them. I am also terribly wary of people who try and wedge themselves in. The surest way to make an enemy of me is to brutally injure a dear friend. I tend to get angry at these people far more easily than the ones who do harm to me. Of course, generally as soon as my friend tells me they've forgiven the person--I tend to get over my anger very quickly. I really don't like feeling mad, and I guess it just isn't in me to hate people :). Oh the secrets you blog readers discover about me.

I was talking to one of these dear friends of mine today, and had one of those inner epiphanies as I tried to explain something to him. I have always been almost overly empathic. I love it because it really helps me to relate to people because I can almost feel the same thing they feel. When they are in pain, I feel it; and when they feel joy I share in that too. He told me that it was one of my gifts, and that it would bring me to love others more. I have never thought of it as a gift before, and I really appreciated the sentiment.

I suppose the whole wall analogy is sort of a moot point with this audience. If you know me well enough to be reading my blog you're at least a close acquaintance, if not a dear friend or family. Perhaps this will simply help you to understand how I work better. There are few things I look for more in a relationship that a feeling of understanding.

There are few things I love more than dear friends.

*For those who didn't get rather obscure reference: "Mr. Gorbachev--tear down this wall"

Maybe she's born with it...

I want to talk about self-esteem. Believe it or not--it isn't something that everyone has.

Last night I was talking to one of my good friends in the drafting lab. Now first, you have to understand something about her. This girl is gorgeous. Like, I mean stunning. We're talking when she was in my class last semester I was intimidated by her just being there. Now we're really good friends and she's still beautiful--I'm just not afraid of her anymore:) So she is always saying things like that she doesn't date much, or that guys aren't interested in her etc. I can never understand why. Not only is she really pretty, but she is super fun--and absolutely hilarious.

So we were talking about how neither one of us really date that much. And she shared something about a past almost-relationship. She told me the same worries that I always have but try really hard to not think. She explained that she always thinks that the reason she isn't dating anyone--or this one guy in particular--is because she wasn't smart enough, pretty enough, skinny enough, funny enough, and so on. I had to stop her because I think she is one of the most gorgeous people I have ever known. So I told her what I wrote earlier about her being so pretty that I was intimidated by her and so on. She started crying and we talked about past failed almost-relationships. Heck, she even got to hear about the saga. Luckily there was no one else in the building for this heart to heart.

Last weekend I was talking to another dear friend about the self esteem issue and how we don't have any. This girl is so marvelously outgoing, risky and daring in her social life that it seems nearly impossible to think that she has problems with her self esteem. Especially because she is always so good about making me feel good. And yet the things she does to keep herself from "getting hurt" are terribly reminiscent of this one's issues.

It's interesting how even the people that we assume would never have problems with the way they feel about themselves, are having problems. Maybe they're just better at hiding it. The problem, I would like to say, is associated to one's relationship to their Father in Heaven. But my dear friend has an incredibly intimate relationship with Him. And it's not exactly like the two of us are strangers--but I struggle.

Somehow that innate boldness we have as small children seems to evaporate when we reach adolescence. That whole being unsure of ourselves thing. Does it happen when we first have a failed relationship with the opposite gender? When does it start? Or, better question, when does it end?

So I know that I am a daughter of God. And that that should be all I need. But I guess the struggle sometimes is knowing that is should be enough and still floundering. I can always come up for reasons why mine isn't where I feel like it should be; but I don't know if those are the real reasons or just smokescreens because I can't solve the root of the problem--whatever it is.

The sun is shining, the tank is clean...

Today has been wonderful. I had the most stressful week ever last week, and looking at my planner, this one was going to be even worse.

I spent the weekend in Idaho. I saw my niece get blessed. She is absolutely adorable in my calm objective opinion. I got to spend time with my sister and brother in law. My parents flew in and picked me up, so it was really good to spend time with them just talking in the car. I always learn all kinds of things when I'm riding in cars. I also got to play with my nephew Josh. He is almost 21 months now and still as cute as ever. He finally got around to calling me Eminie. But hey, Aunt Stephanie is a hard thing to say. Heck. It's a mouthfull even for me! It was pretty adorable. In fact, the only bad thing about the weekend (other than of course missing my roommates :) ) was that the kid gave me cold. Well, or it could have been my Dad. Either way. I got sick. At least my brain isn't fuzzy anymore--just a naggy cough that gets worse the more I talk. I would post some pictures from the weekend but I don't have any. I'll have to wait for Julie to post them on photobucket. Josh was pretty funny. Especially when the little tyrant decided I needed to sit in the diaper box and dad needed to push me around the living room. I was laughing so hard I was barely standing, meanwhile the kid just has his hands upraised going, "why do you think this is funny?" What a wonderful little boy.

So I got back monday afternoon instead of sunday night because my sister gave me a sob story about wanting to see us longer. I caved, because lets face it--I would do the same thing in her place. So I got back to a brand new couch! It is fabulous. Our old one is broken so they finally replaced it. It's chocolate brown, microsuede, and appears to be very nappable. Lovely. And this means we have a totally burnable couch. So we called our friend from last year (of bonfire fame) and told him we had a couch to burn and thought of him. He told us that he already had three ready to go and when they we're going to burn them he'd let us know. Oh sammy sam sam.

So I went through my regular stuff and wrote up a schedule of my assignments for the coming week. I thought I was going to die. I went to my bidding and estimating class (which has a huge project due thursday I wasn't able to start yet) and at the start of class a girl raises her hand and asks greg when the project is due. Because the syllabus says thursday, but when he gave it to us last tuesday he said we had two weeks, which would mean next tuesday it would be due. He just sort of stared at us for a minute and then the whole class hops in with back up info trying to convince him. We continued in friendly banter for the next few minutes (thats the great thing about upper level classes when everyone is on a first name basis with the professor) including things like him telling us that he tells his children the syllabus is a contract; to which we replied that we didn't sign anything. He also said that if he extended, we'd just work on it on monday. Some kid pipes up saying yeah, well, we're just going to work on it wednesday. Greg just stares at us for a minute and we sit anxiously. Finally he just says that it's due tuesday. We applauded. I don't think I have felt that relieved in a very long time. Because now I can just do my normal semi-stressful schedule during the week, and work on my quantity take-off all day saturday.

wonderful.

And the weather today was fantastic. It was the epitome of march for me. The high was in the mid 60's (yes, that's a six) and there was this fabulous strong wind, not breeze--wind, that is only acceptable during march... or while sailing. The sun was shining. It was wonderful. The only thing that could have made it a better march day is a track meet. Because I will always associate that weather with sitting out and waiting for my race. And then the cherry on top of today is I went for ice cream with one of my very best guy friends. He makes me happy and I'm glad he's my friend.