Still Wandering

From Matthew Hall: The Minimalist's Guide to Cultivating Passion

From Auntie Cynthia: Can't Pick a College Major? Create One

A post of holiday pictures will come.. maybe when I'm done taking a nap.
IDK my BFF rose.

I'm just SHO thankful!

A loud "UGH" found it's way out of my mouth when I noticed the christmas lights shining through my apartment window and a snowman wreath hanging on my door. Oh Mandy, you cynical, cynical human, you. "UGH??" Really? Why not "Yay, I didn't have to buy any decorations this year!" Guess living with strangers has altered my attitude about the whole thing. I usually enjoy decorating for Christmas and I usually love spending time with roommates during Christmas break! But, I'm starting to dread sharing the break with my roommates and I shouldn't- they're nice enough girls. This is bad. Very bad. Especially since break is what? 3 weeks long? Double UGH.

I want there to be a drug I can take that forces me to do my homework. HA. I can never get myself to do it until lastlastlastlast minute. Which is a huge problem because I have a 10 page paper due December 6 and I haven't even read the instructions for it. The instructions were given weeks ago! Actually.. more like MONTHS ago! Ugh. The closer the due date comes, the more stressed out I am, and the more incapable I am of starting my paper. What a nasty cycle!

In honor of Thanksgiving and the need to be more positive about life, here are a few things I'm thankful for:

Important list:
family
best friends
old roommates
freedom
religion
health
food
work
clothes
shelter
transportation
THE SUN

Unimportant list:
amazon
wit
justin bieber .. and all the other ridiculous under-aged, over-paid pop artists
these reviews on itunes about a kesha song:

dancing
animal crackers
horrible engagement pictures
horrible profile pictures
sleep
really tall trees
old people
summer, fall, WINTER
like a G6
this urban dictionary definition of slizzard:swollen lymph nodes = NOT thyroid cancer
[^had a little scare over the break]
2 jobs
christmas break
not having to work the morning of black friday
junk food
free time
live music
blogs that list
good literature
the time and will to read good literature
good drivers
apple
art, specifically this:

by allison schulnik

pianos, banjos, violins

letters
my giraffe shaped possessions
the farm
music that reminds me of my dad
being warm
2/$1 midnight milkyways at smith's
movies that aren't scary
conversations with elicia:
the ability to avoid twilight fever
cheese: the quality of being too obviously sentimental
microwaves
kind strangers
good hygiene
college
layers
breakfast
good looking people

.. I could go on forever, so I'm just going to end there because, well, remember that paper I'm supposed to write? I've got a lot more to do than just that.

Arcade Fire VS Blondie

Do these sound similar to anyone else?
I cannot listen to one without thinking of the other.

VS

Waah

Megan, P, T, and I went to HP7PT1 at 1:30 Friday morning. SO GOOD. It makes me SO SAD to think there is only one part left until our adventure with Harry, Ron, and Hermione is over!@!!@@@!! [In both book and film. :( ]

Waah.

I wish Harry Potter would continue forever.

PS. I'm learning the banjo. Officially.

HP WHAT?

GOING TO SLC RIGHT NOW SO I CAN WATCH HP7pt1!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! YEAHOO.

Spoiler Alert!

I finally finished Mockingjay, after it's spent a partially read 2 months chillin' in my my house/apartment/car/backpack.


Peeta should have died and Katniss should have had happily ever after with Gale. What is wrong with the world of literature?? Really?

Who in their right mind would choose the cake decorator/baker over their best friend/SOUL MATE. Peeta is just... Bleh. And Gale is HAWT, and everything a girl [aka- me] could ever ask for.

Well, I mean, if he were real- he probably would be. HA.

Can I just list for you the 2 problems that lie within every book I've ever read?

1- The man I fall in love with NEVER wins.
2- Everybody always dies in the end. Always.

Which is just... miserable. It makes me cry about people that don't even exist. Why don't main characters ever get to live the remainder of their unwritten lives with at least one family member or friend?

GAHHH.

Maybe I should just write my own collection of books- one in which Gale and Captain Jack Elliot combine into one superhumanhearthrob5000 that actually survives the whole series- and wins in the end.

Block Pusher

Usually this tiny, frail Vietnamese lady comes into Curves while I'm working. Her name is To. Pronounced "toe". Well, that's how I pronounce it anyways... Ha. Who REALLY knows, right? Just kidding.

Anyways, I'm getting better at understanding her but she has this tremendous accent that is so hard to interpret most of the time, so I usually just nod and say "Oh yeah!" really enthusiastically. It took 2 or 3 conversations about her blood pressure before I realized that's what we were even talking about. It sounded like she was saying "block pusher"- and for all I know that could have been a real thing! .. Maybe. Ha.

At the beginning of this week when I asked her how her weekend was she proceeded to tell me about how she went to a big building around Provo with lots of animals inside. My first thought was that it was Cabelas, definitely Cabelas. So, I asked her.

"Was it called Cabelas?" She paused and looked at me so confused, said "no, no, no..", then started telling me how there were fish inside. "Oh yeah! Were there fishing poles?" Same amount of confusion- "no, no..". I continued to ask her if it was even a store, if there were camping supplies, clothes, etc. Turns out- yep- she bought a coat there. So, I asked her again "Was it called Cabelas?" and she said "No, I find out for you."

Okay, okay.

A morning or two later, having completely forgotten about the conversation- I'm in the circuit talking with all the ladies and To comes in. Upon greeting her she says "here- something for you", reaches into her pocket and pulls out a tiny scrap of paper and hands it to me.

Guess what was written on it.





HAAAAA.

(:

REALLY?

There are 4 employees at work: One is having Thanksgiving two weeks early with her side of the family and her husband. One is originally from here- SO, her family lives in town- WHICH MEANS she probably doesn't even HAVE to travel. One, the manager, has a full-on family of her own. Husband, kids, and whatnot, no more than 30 minutes away from place of employment. [Yeah, that seems like a lot but, she drives that distance every day for work anyways.]

Now... every happy holiday experience I could know and love is at least an hour+ away. Every. Single. One. No husband, no local family, nada.

And I have to open on BLACK FRIDAY?
At 6 am?

REALLY?

And I'm working by myself, no less.

If it's a one person job the manager should do it! She gets paid more than me anyway.

PLUS, I had to work Halloween night.

NOT FAIR.

Music Is Better For Me Anyway

Last Friday I decided I was going to limit my spending to $50/week.
[For everything, except gasoline.]


I've got $2 to last me until Monday.

Ahhhhh..


Why do I feel like buying CD's is more important that buying food?

The Type Of Thing I Should Keep To Myself

Often times, I feel the need to eat a second breakfast. Reason being that when I work early- I end up grabbing something quick and eating it in the car on the way there so after 2 - 4 hours has passed- I'm ready to go home and have a real breakfast- breakfast numero dos.

This morning I made German Pancakes. Which are SO good and SO easy:
Mix 3 Eggs, 1/2 cup milk, 1/2 cup flour, and 1/4 tsp salt. Place a wedge of butter in the pan, place pan in oven, once wedge is melted- pour mixture in pan. Cook at 400 F until the whole thing looks like a big hilly monster with nice golden-brown edges.


The recipe I use/posted is 1.5 person sized, it's usually doubled which turns out a lot hillier and cooler looking than mine.



For a few months/weeks recently [I don't know which- seemed like months] our dishwasher was broken. It made our dishes situation a little more crazy than normal, or that's what I thought. Unfortunately though, our dishwasher has been fixed for a week or so and the problem persists.

My roommates rarely keep up with their dishes! That's annoying because:

A) it forces me to continue hand-washing my dishes in order to save myself from becoming their slave and doing 30 of their dishes for every 2 of mine. [Plus, I figure if I do my own dishes 100% of the time, 100% separately from the other roommates- I can't be blamed as part of the problem when I'm caught complaining.]

B) because their dishes pile up in the sink, which creates a situation where there is no room to wash new dishes [which forces me to empty the left side onto the right side making their ridiculous lack of dish-washing even harder to ignore].

This morning I came home and the dishes were all done and kitchen cleaned. What a nice feeling. This made me determined to fix the problem. Easing into the subject I asked one of the sisters if she did the dishes. Nope, it wasn't her. I figured that was the case [I have a theory about who ends up doing the dishes], but I was using the situation to work my way into saying something like- "Ohhh, that was a huge mess. We all really need to be more helpful and take care of our own dishes."

Unfortunately, before I could say anything except "oh", she looked at me and said "the dishes are probably in the dishwasher." But with chilling attitude like you can't explain over blogger. [Maybe she's not a morning person, maybe listening to Death Cab's Plans album puts her in a bad mood, maybe she just doesn't like me. IDK.] Anyways, that caught me off guard A) because there was so much attitude and b) because it just didn't make sense. Besides the cupboard and the dishwasher, where would the dishes be? Maybe because they weren't in the sink [like they usually are] she thought maybe I didn't know where to find them? Or maybe she just figured that because the dishwasher was dirty that meant the dishes weren't done. HONEY, once the dishes actually make the dishwasher- they are basically done. Really.

After our short exchange of words she went into her bedroom. [Which is pretty normal behavior for our apartment- spending lots and lots of time in your room.] A few minutes later, she walked through the family room and out the front door muttering a cold, obligatory, last second "bye". In response I yelled "See ya!" and as the door shut I whispered "whore". Uh-oh. I couldn't help it! Ha. When someone has an uncalled for negative attitude it just rubs me the wrong way like nobody's business. [I blame the inappropriate name usage on previous roommates.]

I might be a horrible person forever, despite my efforts to do better. Today I'm not taking responsibility for it though because of the forced honesty experiment for my class.

Time Shmime

I spent some time sweet-sweet relaxing today and destroying my blog. Too much time. I'll admit- I don't feel good about spending hours changing silly blog formats around. It's something I unintentionally ended up doing in efforts to soak up my paperless, responsibility-less day. Yup, my assignment is done and despite all the worry that my procrastinated paper might not be up to par, finally turning it in felt so good. Honestly, just handing off that 8 sheeted bundle I felt as if a huge burden had been lifted from me. ..Phrasing the experience like that sounds like I'm talking about repentance or something- Yup children, don't procrastinate that one either because 9 solid hours at the library the night before judgment probably won't provide much healing of the soul.

That's what it took to complete 7/8 of my paper- special Amanda/library bonding time from 3pm-midnight. I like to think that I wouldn't have left the project until Sunday evening had my computer continued to work [instead of freezing and terminating my Saturdays work efforts] and had I not needed to fit a drive down to SLC somewhere in there too [so I could attend an 8am meeting at Southtowne mall the next morning]. BTW- Who does that? Who holds a mandatory staff meeting on a Sunday morning, an hour and forty-five minutes away from the work location? [It was a regional meeting, so it would have been more inconvenient for everyone else to travel to Logan, but still.]

For one of my classes I'm supposed to be 100% honest for two days. [It didn't seem like a hard thing to do until I had to drive the speed limit. That has been the worst. REALLY. People, myself included, hate people who drive the speed limit!] Anyways, so before I publish post- I need to admit something. After I wrote about healthy eating habits a few days ago, I went straight to the store with one item of purchase in mind- Zebra Cakes. Embarrassing. Everyone knows those things are just striped octagons of Crisco. I bought a box and ate the whole thing within 24 hours. Can you believe that? If I die unexpectedly, that'll be the cause. Bleck. I should probably just eat 4 boxes [20 double packs], get sick and throw them up. That would cure me of the urge to eat them all the time. Or ever again for that matter.

Writing

I've got an 8-10 page paper due on Monday. And instead of using the last month and a half I've been given to do it, I've decided to wait until the weekend right before. Surprise.

Every time I think about writing my whole mind freaks out and shoots into a million different totally random and out of control sentences, thoughts, ideas, everything's that in no way relate to each other and cannot possibly be written down. It's so frustrating. Writing, or the idea of it, puts me into some sort of coma where all I can do is drink warm beverages and ..goof around on blogger. Bleh.

Does anyone else ever click 'Next Blog'? It's the best! I highly recommend it. I've become quite the creep lately, reading blog after blog. There are so many LDS blogs, it's shocking. Even more shocking though- there are tons and tons of blogs about different plant and animal species. Yeah.

On my quest to find life's itinerary, I've decided to leave the country. A few friends of mine are going on a volunteer venture and for a moment there I had decided to go with, I still might. But, it got me looking into study abroad programs. I'd be excited to participate in either opportunity, but deadlines for everything are coming up soon and I've no idea which to choose! Considering that I have no direction and I'm a third year in college, I should probably save my credits for completing a major, but at the same time- you can go on a study abroad for service learning experience or just to learn the countries language and culture. That sounds like the best. Doesn't that sound like the best?

After the purchase of my first ipod [a 4GB] ...and after the purchase of my second ipod [a 30GB], the phrase "go big or go home" really started to mean something to me. If I had just bought the 180GB in the first place, instead of being a wuss, I would have saved myself pain-in-the-neck itunes transfers, the inconvenience of not having enough space when I needed it, and most importantly--- money. I would have saved myself a lot of money.

I can relate this to most things in my life- whether it's really necessary or just provides justification, I'm not really sure sometimes. In this case, going to Central America would be the 4GB nano- it does not cut it, by so much does it not cut it. I do not need any 4GB's in my life. Going to South America would be the 30GB. Exceptionally better than the 4 GB, it would provide experience and would be cheaper than most places, as far as program and flight are concerned. It'd be cheaper, but not cheap. If I'm going to spend that much money to go there, why not 180GB it?

I've been dying to go to Africa for some time now and if a little extra will get me there, that might just be where I'll go.

We'll see.

PS. I think I've given up on wearing real clothes. Leggings+shirt is the most dressed I can get myself lately. Also, I've been eating healthier- no more boxes of zebra cakes or bags of Baby Ruths for me. [Ugh, saying that makes me really want some of either.] That picture up top is a meal I made myself- a real meal. One that wasn't nachos or taco soup. Oh.. and one last thing- I flooded my bathroom today. Yikes. I guess I should make sure the shower curtain runs off into the showering area.

THIS IS WHAT ELECTIONS DO TO ME.

I'm content with the election results and don't have much more to say except- I need to go out and take the political bumper sticker off my car. Yup, I have one of those. Eek. And I've once again become an avid listener of Glenn Beck. Bet you're excited about that, eh?

Judge me if you want.

PS. Post about the Sufjan concert coming soon.