Work

Some years ago, I can't remember when precisely, my father was talking about work. For those of you who know my father, or have heard me talk about him to the point that you think you know him, this is not an odd topic of conversation. My dad is a firm believer in hard work and has striven to ingrain this message in his children. I now relate the following story to evaluate his efforts:
In Relief Society on Sunday we were talking about work. I shared the thought that my father had two philosophies about work that surfaced several times through my life: 1) Hard work will cure almost any pain, and 2) You can work mad or you can work happy, but you still have to work. Some of the girls were obviously skeptical of this advice. But, the next day was FHE and we were going to play Volleyball. When I got to FHE I had a bit of a stomach ache (might have been the three gallons of cocoa I had) and I wasn't too excited about playing. But, I remembered what I had said the day before in Relief Society and I played anyway. Within twenty minutes, I had forgotten about the pain (which had, in fact, subsided) and the game became much more fun. My roommate Candy was aware of the pre-game stomach ache and about 30 minutes into the game she asked me if I was okay. I explained that I was feeling better. Another girl around us asked if I had been feeling ill. I explained that I had, but that I've been better since I started playing. She answered back by saying, "Wow. I guess your dad was right after all." This remark indicated to me that she hadn't believed the advice yesterday, but today, after seeing it in action, she came around to the idea of considering it. It's progress. :)
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Now that I have expressed how wonderful work is, I would like to clarify. Hard, manual labor is good; work that requires an abundance of how-to knowledge, a steady hand, and wearing scrubs is good; tedious, mind-power-necessitating, work is the root of all unhappiness in my life. :) I have found that I really don't mind manual labor (most of the time), but I really don't like busy work. Yes, I am talking about homework mostly. I don't like it! Give me a shovel and a ditch to dig or the anticubital region of someone's arm with rolling veins any day over some silly, illogical, fill-in-the-blank questions in Spanish. Just sayin'. :)
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"What doesn't kill you only makes you stronger."
or "What doesn't kill you makes you wish it had."
"Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day, teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime."
or "Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day, teach a man to fish and he'll have to buy a boat."
"God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference."
or
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Today's Featured Quote:
"God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to hide the bodies of those people I had to kill because they ticked me off."

A pleasant day of working to everyone. :)

The Answering Machine

"You have reached the voice mailbox of Amy Almost Melanie Elizabeth Henderson. I'm sorry I missed your call, but if you leave you name and number, and a brief message as your own risk, I'll return your call as soon as I feel like it. Thank you."

I would think that this message would be sufficient for any person of average intelligence to understand. But no. No, after I have painstakingly thought of a voicemail greeting that is not offensive, mostly professional, and still showcases my own personality amidst the essential elements of the greeting, the phone, in all its wisdom, sees fits to add:

"Record your message after the tone. To send a numeric page press 5. When you are finished recording you may hang up, or press one for more options. To leave a call back number press 3 now."

You would think that after more than ten years of this, we wouldn't need an annoying recording of a mechanical woman's voice telling us how to do it. And, if I may point out, the original home answering machines didn't have any such instructions after the recorded greeting. So, it seems that we're digressing. We started out not needing any instructions, and now we need instructions repeated just to say our name and phone number after a beep. You've got to love technology and the "progress" of society. :)

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Appropriately, here are some of my favorite answering machine messages:

1) "This is ______'s cell, and here's a rhyme for you. I guess that I'm not here right now, but you know what to do. You can call me back later, or leave a message too. So leave you're name and number and I'll get back to you."

2) "You have reached the _________ home. Do dah. Do dah. Leave a message at the tone. Oh do dah day. Might be gone all night, might be gone all day, but we'll call back when we get home. Oh do dah day.

3) "Hi this is ______. Either I can't come to the phone or I just don't want to talk to you, so leave a message."

4) "This is you-know-who. I am you-don't-know-where. Leave a you-know-what, you-know-when."

5) "We are the Borg. Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated. But we're not home right now. So, leave a message and we'll assimilate you later."

6) "Hello. I'm ______'s answering machine. What are you?"

7) "You have reached _______'s answering machine. If you don't know what to do from here, chances are I won't want to talk to you anyway."

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"Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid." --Albert Einstein

"Thou shalt not scowl." --Brother Petersen

"If you see me comin' better step aside.

A lotta men didn't. A lotta men died.

One fist of iron, and the other a steel.

If the right one don't a-get you, then the left one will."

--Sixteen Tons :)

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Today's Featured Quote:

"The written word is all that stands between memory and oblivion. Without books as our anchors we are cast adrift, neither teaching nor learning. They are windows on the past, mirrors on the present, and prisms reflecting all possible futures. Books are lighthouses erected in the dark sea of time." --Gargoyles

Duck

When my dad was a little boy he had a stuffed turtle. His dad, however, told him that it was a duck. My dad, eventually, believed him and to this day the stuffed turtle (which he still has) is a duck.

Well, this last summer I really started liking ducks, uh, I mean, turtles. I got a turtle ring, and a turtle necklace, and I adopted every turtle I saw while snorkeling. But I'm a good mom and I let them go their own way. :) Anyway, this last Christmas break--not on Christmas, mind you--my grandma gave me a little stuffed, plush, green turtle. For one of the first times in my life I didn't have to think twice about a name. I named him Duck. :)

Eccentricities

Here is a list of my eccentricities that I am aware of:

1. Things have to be balanced. (i.e. You can have both shoes tied, or both shoes untied, but not one of each.)

2. Necklace chain clasps belong along the back of the neck. I will always be ready to help you put it in its proper place.

3. I am afraid of werewolves, and I have no idea why that fear has stayed with me and all the others left with puberty.

4. When I buy a beverage with a lid I like to pour said beverage into the lid and drink it in shots rather than from the bottle.

5. When sitting, I don't like having my feet touch the ground/floor.

6. The first three things I notice about people are: a) their shoes, b) their face [eyes, smile, etc.], and c) their veins. And yes, in that order.

7. Smells can change my mood almost instantly. Examples: rotting food will put me in a snarly mood and men's cologne will put me in a good mood.

8. My favorite features about myself are my eyes, my forearms, and my hands.

9. Leather is one of my favorite materials.

10. I believe that boots are the single most attractive kind of footwear in existence.

11. I obsess over things briefly and intensely and then I just like them forever.

12. I do not like to "pretend" to be worse off than I am. If I am worse off than before, fine; but I don't like to pretend.

13. Anyone standing taller than 6'3'' is immediately 25% more intimidating to me.

14. I do not like apple juice, and I don't usually like cranberry juice, but I love cran-apple juice.

15. I cannot wear socks that have holes in them.

16. Well fitting button down shirts with the top two buttons undone and the sleeves rolled up are extremely attractive.

17. I am easily distracted by my own reflection.

18. The color of my eyes depends on the color of my shirt.

19. I like odd numbers better than even numbers.

20. I like to practice my handwriting every once in a while and periodically change how I form certain letters and numbers.

21. Every morning, I brush my hair the same way: I start on the left side and work my way to the right. I have tried starting on the right before and it just made me squirm.

22. I am double jointed in my thumbs and toes, I can scream (and squeak) with my mouth shut, and I can wiggle my ears, twitch my nose, and shake my eyes.

23. I don't like frosting.

24. (For Lauren) "I have magical hair that glows when I sing."

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I just got thinking about the strange little things about me and I thought I'd share so that everyone else knows how strange I am too. :) (That is assuming of course that you didn't know already.)

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"A man thinks that by mouthing hard words he understands hard things." -Herman Melville

"'Henry have you made your peace with God?' 'I did not know we had ever quarreled, Aunt.'" -Henry David Thoreau

"If the stars should appear one night in a thousand years, how would men believe and adore." -Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Women are angels. If someone breaks our wings, we continue to fly...on broomsticks. We're flexible like that."

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Today's Featured Quote:

"One step short of crazy and what do you get?"

"Obsessed."

"Passionate."

Sanity and Psychology

(This must be read as a rant: fast, with pauses only to breathe, and lots of emoting facial expressions) ;)

Once in a while I start to doubt my sanity. I'm sure it happens to lots of people. Every so often I'm sure we wake up from a day dream or stop suddenly in the middle of a task and realize that this scene looks an awful lot like something out of A Beautiful Mind and we start to question whether or not the person standing next to us is real and whether or not that emotional outburst was warranted.

Psychology is an interesting field. Not only do I find it fascinating, but I also find it useful and applicable to my life. I have learned things that have helped me better understand myself and that will probably lead me to continue to better understand myself and others in the future. My psychology classes put my mind at ease when it comes to days when I just don't understand myself. I know lots of people who have those days. They are the kind of days where you throw ping-pong paddles at your cousins' husbands because they won and you don't really know why you did it but you feel bad and then you run off and cry in a closet somewhere until you work up enough courage to find and tell your mom who tells you to apologize and you do but it's still weird to be around your cousin's husband for the rest of the evening. We've all had days like this. Maybe we don't all throw ping-pong paddles or markers at people or go around bonking people on the head, but maybe we say things we don't mean, or do things we might not otherwise have done.

I am a human being. Blast. More about that later. Psychiatrists make me nauseous . They could take a perfectly normal human being and turn them into a basket case just by talking to them. It's not that what they're saying isn't true, but they make it sound like you're the only one with a problem and that it's weird and "not normal." This is a lie. You are not the only one with a problem and it is normal. There are certain chemicals and reactions in the human brain that are triggered by intense situations and other stimuli. Our reactions as humans may be different one from another, but that doesn't mean that they're not still just reactions. This same thing happens in my non-fiction class. It's not that what my professor is saying is wrong, it's just that she lathers it with too much fluff and psychedelia that she makes it seem wrong. My fiction teacher could say the exact same thing but the way he says it makes me believe it, apply it, and move on. Such should be the world of psychiatry. Patients should come in, tell their problems, and the shrinks should explain to them what is going on in their brain and how to fix it. Here is an example: Instead of saying "you're feeling this way because you never loved your mother and your father told you were a loser, so you need to pay me another hundred dollars for another hour to talk it out" they would say "these feelings are being displaced from other things in your life that are bothering you, so you need to figure out what is really bothering you and stop that at the source so that what you are feeling now will stop." Wow! What a difference that makes! I said the exact same thing without causing turmoil or labeling anyone! I'm a genius. Einstein would be proud.

The only thing I will commend psychiatrists on is their encouragement of talking. We learned just the other day in my psychology class that talking about what you're feeling is helpful to your mental health. If you suppress feelings it's like stopping up a river: the water may not go down that path you stopped up anymore, but it will go somewhere. Talking is a great way to release emotions: it's a means of catharsis that's helpful. Catharsis (or blowing off steam) by exercise or listening to loud music--or whatever your coping strategy--is good, but it's still like putting up a dam: it just pushes the water somewhere else.

Not that any of this matters to anyone but me right now, but I just thought that maybe someone else might also benefit from the fruits of my Psychology class. I am a human being and I have issues. Or as my parents would say: Issue. But after much deliberation (and given the fact that I am no longer in the heat of my moody moment) I have come to the thoughtful and somewhat obvious conclusion that I come to after every such episode: I am human, I am female, and I am just fine. :)

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Insanity is hereditary: I get it from my kids.

Weird is relative.

Normal is just the average of all the weirdos.

Sometimes I feel like I'm diagonally parked in a parallel universe.

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Today's Featured Quote:

Time is natures way of keeping everything from happening at once.

Disney

On Tuesday I informed my Fiction professor, shortly before class, that I wasn't feeling well and might be leaving class early. He then informed me that I was not allowed in his classroom that day; that I must go home and sleep and feel better. Thank you Dr. P. Well, I took half of his instructions: I went home...eventually. I went shopping for food first. Then I came home, ate dinner, did what homework was absolutely necessary for the next day, and then I played the piano for a little while. But the highlight of my day, and possibly my week, came at around nine thirty Tuesday evening.

It was too late to start a movie (for me) but it was too early to go to bed. So, I went on Youtube.com and found a whole collection of old Disney Short Animated Films. All of them were less than twenty minutes, most of them were musical, and a considerable portion of them were narrated by Sterling Holloway. Needless to say: Amazing night in the heart of good fun, awesome music, and fond memories. I must do this more often. :)

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For those of you who would like to reminisce with me, here are the names of the shorts that I watched (all are available on Youtube):

Peter and the Wolf

Lambert the Sheepish Lion

Paul Bunyan

Golaith II

Ferdinand the Bull

Willie the Operatic Whale

They are all pretty much amazing. :)

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"Sometimes the right path, is not the easiest one." Grandmother Willow, Pocahontas

"A flower that blooms in adversity is the most rare and beautiful of all." Emperor, Mulan

"Giving up is for rookies." Phil, Hercules

"The past can hurt, but the way I see if you can either run from it, or learn from it." -Rafiki, Lion King

"Get with the beat!" Baloo, Jungle Book

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Today's Featured Quote:

"Let's say God puts two people on Earth and they are lucky enough to find one another. But one of them gets hit by lightning. Well then what? Is that it? Or, perchance, you meet someone new and marry all over again. Is that the person you're supposed to be with or was it the first? And if so, when the two of them were walking side by side were they both the one for you and you just happened to meet the first one first or, was the second one supposed to be first? And is everything just chance or are some things meant to be?" -Prince Henry, Ever After

Me Time

In the last few weeks I have been working on finding a balance in my life between school, other outside activities (Debate mostly), and time for myself to do the things I'm interested in. The piano that now sits at the end of my bed is one of the things that fit into the last category. Another thing is my new "Belle-mode" on campus where I read books while walking between classes (this one perks a surprising amount of interest in people who walk by--especially professors). Both of these have been great ways for me to achieve some balance in my life between all of the necessities in my schedule. But, I have found, yet, another outlet for my energy every Monday and Wednesday at 1 o'clock after institute: pool. There is a billiard table located in the Institute building, and right after my institute class, before I go to Debate at 2:30, the table is vacant. Well, not anymore.

I have officially established a reputation with the receptionist who loans out the supplies. She expects me now. It's wonderful. I have the whole room to myself. It's quiet; perfect for gauging the sound of my break with every new game I start. Even having only done it for three days I am starting to see drastic improvements. My aim is improving, my control is much better, and I put more balls in the side pockets than all the corner pockets combined. I have now made a new goal on my life's "to-do list:" have the ability to hustle a pool table. In the short amount of time I've spent practicing thus far, I have had to rely quite heavily on luck. I will admit that although I try to be patient with the game I play against myself, I often become irritate and just aim for the nearest ball to the cue ball and hit it with as much force as I can. Every time I have done this a ball has gone into a pocket somewhere, several times two balls will go in, and once three balls were put away with this "angry" hit. I need to stop being rewarded for these careless hits or I might never improve. But in the words of my father: "I'd rather be lucky than good any day." Amen. :)

Either way, I'm glad that I have another form of "Me Time."

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P.S. About the Belle-mode: if you ever want people to pay attention to you, walk around in with your nose in a book. Everyone will immediately want to know what you're reading that is so fascinating that you can't stop to walk from place to place. You will instantly be popular. Your professors will also want to know what you're reading; possibly even to the point of distracting you so that you will become irritated by them stealing the book off your desk while you're not looking to read the back of the book so that they can judge you on your choice of literature outside of their classroom. But that's only a possibility. :)

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"With a dreamy, far off look, and her nose stuck in a book; what a puzzle to the rest of us is Belle." -Beauty and the Beast

"Writers sometimes seem brightly colored and fascinating, but really those are just nature's way of warning you off. We're like tropical toads. Oh so pretty! Want to touch the toady! Except: poisonous skin that kills with one touch. Beware of writer." -Chuck Wendig

"If I fret over tomorrow, I have little joy today." -Llonio [Taran Wanderer by Lloyd Alexander]

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Today's Featured Quote:

"Happily ever after? I don't think that's quite what you meant. But one way or another, I rather think I will." -Cimorene [Dealing with Dragons by Patricia C. Wrede]