i am drowning in children's literature and spanish. but neither of those things are really disappointing.

today started off pretty happy, and kept on going decently, and then i ended up chopping up my bangs in the bathroom after work. i am not sure how i feel about this decision except for that it was a good break from school work.

things are happy lately. wonderful God. encouraging news. sweet little gifts. sweater vests and espanol.

i got bored and cleaned the whole house yesterday, which was weird because i was, hello, completely exhausted from working my hardest at school and life all day. i have gotten used to working and going to classes everyday as best as i can. i just think that if i have a moment to stop and sit down then it will suddenly overwhelm me, so i keep moving, moving on through. i feel like i am just passing through this very strange time period and i will soon be out of it, looking around at the leaves growing green on the trees, and wondering how i got there. it is a season of run on sentences. and run-on everything else. my manager announced to us today that she is not coming back to work after her maternity leave. i am excited for her but also a little nervous because of that big of a change.

so lately what has been happening, to bring me back to the real world, is that i spend all of the moments that i am in motion--walking across campus, on the bus or in my car, cleaning--listening to this american life. i have been catching up on old episodes and i love every single one. it is refreshing to hear other people's fears, romances, dreams, and even their thoughts on the economy, occasionally. i wish i had ira glass's job most of the days of my life. i guess i should just start asking more questions of our members at work. everyone has at least one interesting story to tell. i'm sure of it.

"you are what michael jackson was trying to look like."
-philip hahn, trying to reassure izzy about her nose.

sunday night i sat down on the couch to watch a movie or two, and ended up watching five movies, with people coming in and out for the movies of their choosing. it was so relaxing not to deal with delinquent loans or spanish projects for once. and then on my presidents day i got my car registered. so i guess the weekend was worth it, but i wish that it was so much longer.

i have a lot more to say, but i've been trying to write that for a few days and nothing has been working out. my heart is oddly heavy right now.

i take my thoughts back about little boys, and sentiments made of paper, because spencer showed this to me last night after i got home from house church:



i am really happy this week. i'll write more about it later, but i get to go meet my mom for lunch. fun!

"I thought all the good ones were gone, you're here to tell me I was wrong."
-a song lyric text I received this morning

My Valentine's Day really wasn't so bad, and probably what helped was a holiday-themed Spanish class. The professor wore a red and pink argyle sweater vest, which makes me think he is just a little bit sentimental. Which is funny, because I never really cared about Valentines except for getting a lot of chocolate at school. I made some cute cards this year though, and I would love to put of a picture of the one I made for Spenc except that he probably already threw it away. Things made out of paper are lost on little boys.

I guess it's more of a tradition here to have an extravagant celebration though, and so for dinner we made crab and lobster. I am not used to the sophistication of that and it made me feel like maybe I should've had someone with me who I truly cared about....who was in a suit.

The semester is flying by. Fly.ing. Not so much time anymore until it is March and I am believing in the sunshine, that it will stick around longer for me.

i was on the outside, i was lookin' in

what is happening to me is that i am not sleeping enough, again. i am reinstating my love affair with coffee and other warm drinks. also i am taking the bus much more often, to avoid possibly falling asleep and hitting someone. or really, i am taking it because i would rather someone else do all of my driving for me. all of this leads to an amount of time reading books that i didn't really think is possible, but that is also necessary for all of my classes this semester. i just finished the jungle books, which was super exciting, but now i am being tempted into not going to school anymore and just living in the woods. this would be fine except for that it is cold outside right now.

i am not learning much more of spanish than i did in middle school. i feel like this is a repeat of ninth grade, except that we are allowed to learn the words cerveza and vino. i am learning much more about interest rates though (and how they're all incredibly low, yikes), and IRAs, and other miscellaneous bits of professional world information. i don't really feel like this is a good trade off.

weekend, soon. the harder the weeks are, the faster they seem to go by. i am alright with this.

"Is this song supposed to make me depressed?"

-Spencer, as I was listening to Explosions in the Sky today

My weekend was spent mostly on my feet, except for the long period of time on Friday that Emma and I sat around and watched tv. We also made some really cute valentines, which I haven't done since I was in elementary school. I am excited to give them out even if I don't care much about the holiday.

Collin, Tony, Chris, and their friend Aaron came up on Saturday, so I spent that afternoon doing what I do every time I am with Collin: running around the city and debating where we are and aren't supposed to be. Mostly I assume everything is a no, such as: abandoned restaurants, tops of trains, and fire escapes. He thinks all of these are a yes, and so we draw a line in the middle and only do half of the things. This time? Abandoned restaurant. Anyways, I got really excited about color and photographs again, and I cannot wait for it to be warm so that I can create more.

Super Bowl was good. It is sad to think that football is gone now that I finally have Sundays off, but soon it will be time for hiking, biking, and road trips. It is time to get active again because I am always at an extreme of exhausted or too energetic. There are places that I dream of going but most of them feel like a little bit of home. Salt Lake is home to me but there is also the crispness of the Oregon home and the humid warmth of Midwestern Michigan home. I always hope to be back in both of these places.

No work complaints today, except that Monday was terrible and I had to stay late because of taking my first outage. But the thunder and the snow was cool to watch, and Bobby and I talked a bit about tattoos (which makes me remember that he is a human).