My Cup Runneth Over

"And when the servant of the man of God was risen early, and gone forth, behold, an host compassed the city both with horses and chariots. And his servant said unto him, Alas, my master! how shall we do?

And he answered, Fear not: for they that be with us are more than they that be with them.

And Elisha prayed, and said, Lord, I pray thee, open his eyes, that he may see. And the Lord opened the eyes of the young man; and he saw: and, behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha." (2 Kings 6:15-17)

Kind notes, thoughtful emails, tasty treats, caring cards, countless phone calls, incessant availability, beautiful scarves, cheering countenances, big juicy apples, comforting and courage inducing words, Irish accents, exercise partners, pictures drawn, Mormon messages, many traveled miles, reassuring hugs, continuous support, endless prayers, and warm thoughts. I feel them, and they mean the world. My eyes are opened. You are the ministering angles. Thank you.

How does this happen?

These here crystal orbs are in actuality my contacts. Or were. I guess they still are, but they're not very functional anymore seeing as the one on the right has been hacked away at, missing large and slightly important chunks from the outer edge, sliced up like a slashed tire, and scratching gouges out of my eyeball. And also because they're now shriveled up in the basement of my trash can.

I can assure you, I have not razors on the inside of my eyelid, or mysterious bugs that thrive only on the shredding of contact lenses that live in my contact case, or little tiny men with little tiny scissors and favorite past times involving cutting edges off thin clear filaments inhabiting my house. I guess I can't tell you with 100% confidence, but I'm pretty sure I don't sleep walk into the bathroom with an exacto knife to carve away at the only thing that allows me to see with any kind of clarity, and I'd like to say I have good friends that generally don't sabotage my possessions that make my life more functional whilst I slumber. I'm pretty sure I blink like a normal person without any head banging or eyeball poking, and I have not been involved in any sort of eye karate chopping, razor blade throwing, or knife juggling action. Having all these accounted for, how else on earth does this possibly happen?

Aliens. Extra-terrestrials. It's the only explanation.

Negative Nancy

Whelp, it's been cute and fun and all, but I'm done pretending. I don't like dirty butter. I hate headaches. Dating is a drag. It annoys me when the toothpaste gets squeezed from the middle. Stubbing my toe makes me want to say bad words. Cold toilet seats ruin my life. Animals gross me out. I can't stand obnoxious PDA. Wet pant legs make me grumpy. I'm not looking forward to 2012. Most of all, I don't like grad school. Oh, and raisins are disgusting. There. I said it.

But I did just find a ticket to Dublin for $495. Now Ireland I like...

Just in case you were wondering...

...I do have a brain.

AND it's human.

My sole motivation at times.

I love this Mormon message. Sometimes it's the only thing that keeps me going. I love the prophets. I love the gospel. I love my Savior. Through him, I can be and do things beyond my physical capacity, things I know I could never do on my own. Through Him, all things are possible, for as President Thomas S. Monson says, "Whom the Lord calls, the Lord qualifies." This I'm learning. We can do this thing called life. Enjoy!

Keep your arms, legs, and cooties to yourself.

There I was, walking to school one day in the early morning, walking at the same pace as a fellow on the other side of the street. He first started out whistling, and my reactive thought was something along the lines of "it's way to early to be that happy." Then the whistling turned into something of a cough. A cough of the wet crackly sort. The kind in which you can perceive mucousy nasties threatening to emerge if any more gut is used behind the sputtering.

"Ew," was my next thought.

Pretty soon, a couple sneezes are being intermixed with such coughs. I couldn't bring myself to glance over, but I'm pretty sure I could see the germs projecting forward, emanating all kinds of ooze and bacteria even with a whole street separating us.

"Yuck," was the only thing occupying my brain.

Next thing I know my ears are being assaulted by the sounds of a nose sniffing in all kinds of garbly goop with great force, followed by a hefty attempted outward intestine flinging blow.

"Gross," permeated through my mind. I found myself subconsciously walking a bit faster.

Combining all 3 is a euphemism for toxicity, deadliness, contagion, and all things noxious. This is only something sweet nurturing mothers taking care of pure and innocent sickly children should have to experience. I'm not a mother, and he is no cute, unassuming child, and I wished he hadn't shared that experience with me. I could have done without that onslaught of my senses. Please, it'll be best for human-kind if you just stayed home tomorrow.

Please excuse my French.

Here's the thing. I can't tell you how many problems I've had with my data for my thesis up to this point. If something can go wrong, it most definitely will, and multiple times over. I can't tell you how many times I have ripped DVD recordings of sessions to the computer, or how many times I have exported videos to however many different formats. I can't tell you how much data has been lost because people don't know how to run technology (let's just say we learned to handpick our volunteers), or how many angry pop ups telling me I can't do what I'm trying to do I've had to figure out. I can't tell you how many times I've contacted our computer really literate genius to help me out of my latest bind. In fact, I'm pretty sure he tries to avoid me now. Most of all, I can't tell you how much stress and the number of headaches this has caused.

With that said, my latest and greatest thought process: "Theses" sounds a mighty lot like "feces." Working on my thesis is like working on, well, crap. I thus deem the striking similarity appropriate. a+b=c. Really the only simple thing about my thesis so far. Therefore, from here on out, I will only be working on my "fece."

But it's okay, because I just bought these shoes on a really great sale online. I next to never impulse buy. In fact, I'm really good at talking myself out of buying things. These splendors, however, I completely 100% bought on pure impulse, and it felt good.