The Beginning of the End: A New Way of Life

Today is the first day of my last semester at BYU-Idaho, and I feel great. I'm ashamed to admit I was feeling rather pessimistic about coming back to school after Christmas, but now that I'm here, I'm actually looking forward to it. I've set some new goals for the year, and (thanks to Natalie) I'm calling them my "New Way of Life." I have some significant changes I want to make that will hopefully contribute a healthier, happier me.

I began the day feeling proud of myself for sticking to my "New Way of Life" schedule. I actually woke up at seven o'clock and went to the gym before class today. I'll pause now to give myself a pat on the back.

...

My first class was Rhetorical Studies, which sounds like it's going to be a lot like Advanced Research and Literary Analysis, except I'll be creating a magazine instead of a literary journal, and my articles get to be a lot shorter. I sat in quiet contentment as the rest of the class squirmed in their seats and asked nervous questions. "I totally got this," I thought to myself. "One research paper and seven 500 word articles? Piece of cake after last semester."

There's no way it can be more difficult anyway.

Last night, I got an email about i-Comm, a practicum program that offers "real world" experience for people interested in Broadcasting, Journalism, Public Relations, Advertising, etc. The email specifically mentioned copy editors, and since I'm considering an editing career, I thought I'd check out the class today. So now I'm officially an i-Comm copy editor for The Scroll, and I'm actually pretty excited for it. I only have to put in three to five hours of work per week besides class time, and I can do it whenever I have the time. Tomorrow I'm going to the i-Comm office to be trained. I can also write articles for The Scroll, which I think I will, mostly so I can say I've been published on my resume, but also just for the heck of it. I might as well try it out while I can. I kind of wish I would have known about this sooner. Oh, well. I'm doing it now!

Look at me! I'm on my way to success!

Hello, New Year. Nice to Meet You.

I have a few things on my mind right now, and I'm not sure why I'm about to post them on the internet. Sometimes I'm not even sure why I have a blog at all. I'm generally a pretty private person and keep a lot of things to myself. Anyway, here's a look inside my very cluttered mind. Enjoy.

• I don't want to go back to school on Monday. I know Laura would tell me to be positive and make it a great semester, and I'll see what I can do, but I don't want to face the winter or my classes. Three 400 level Writing classes? What have I done to myself? The good new is all my classes are either in the Smith or the Spori. No more hiking to the Hinckley and Ricks Buildings for me!
• I want to combat the media's influence on young women. I want to help girls feel powerful and achieve great things. I'm looking into different programs and trying to find a way to get involved.
• My little dog leaped halfway across the table and nearly ate my face today. I screamed. It was simultaneously hilarious and terrifying.
• I wish I would have gotten involved in more extracurricular activities.
• I don't like feeling left behind.
• Starting the first day of the semester, I'm going to be a healthier person. I'm not going to eat junk food all the time, and I'm going to create an exercise schedule and stick to it. I want to be like my grandpa--still running around and beating my grandkids at ping pong when I'm 74,
• I kind of have a little bit of a crush. It kind of took me by surprise, actually. He doesn't know, and it will probably stay that way because I'm still 14 when it comes to guys.
• I really want to get a dalmatian, but I have to wait until I have a place for it and time to take care of it.
• Skidmark, my golden brown '87 Honda Accord, is gone. I'm excited to go car shopping in the summer!
• I think I would rather move to San Francisco than get a church magazine internship, but I'm still planning on applying.
• I'm going to be 25 this year. Nigga what?
• I don't feel like sleeping right now.

Chucky Versus Supermodelquins

Does anyone else hate the Old Navy mannequin commercials? In case you need a refresher:



These commercials creep me out! Isn't a mannequin essentially a life-size doll? And when you think of creepy dolls, who comes to mind? Chucky, anyone? Not that I've ever seen Child's Play, but seeing his face was enough to scar me for life.

http://www.kollectablekaos.com.au/images/14in-Bride-of-chucky.jpg

Not that when I see one of these commercials, I automatically think of Chucky, but I think that's why they creep me out. But even if I didn't find them creepy, I would still find them obnoxious.

Anyway, I finally decided I had had enough of these talking mannequins, so last night I decided to send Old Navy a quick email, which read:

I just wanted to tell you that the Old Navy mannequin commercials are creepy and diminish any desire I have to shop there. Thought you should know.


I got a reply today:


Dear oldnavy.com Customer,

Thank you for sharing your concerns with us regarding our Supermodelquins advertising campaign.  We take feedback like yours very seriously and were so sorry to hear that you found this campaign to be objectionable.

Old Navy advertisements are intended to reflect a shopping experience that is fun for the whole family and we apologize if you found our ads to be offensive in any way.

We've shared your comments with the Old Navy marketing team and our advertising agency so they can be taken into consideration when developing future advertising campaigns.

Again, thanks for bringing your concerns to our attention.  We hope you will continue to let us know how we are doing.

Sincerely,

Linda
Customer Service Consultant


Haha! It feels good to know that my opinion counts, and that I can save the world by tearing down one bad commercial at a time! I think I'm going to start speaking my mind more often. 

By the way, if you are interested in purchasing your very own collectible Chucky, click on the link below his picture.

Guns in the Library

I'm on the second floor--the quiet floor--of the library, and there's this guy sitting two desks down from me playing some sort of war game on his laptop. He has it turned up loud enough so I can hear it through his headphones. Thank you for making me a part of this.

I'm working on my ten-page research paper. Wish me luck!

Peace.

Organized Stupidity

I know I said I wasn't going to post everyday anymore, but so far I can't seem to stop.

I just wanted to take a moment to express my distaste for group projects. I was part of a really lame group presentation today in my Family Interactions class. I tried to tell them our class activity wouldn't work, but people don't seem to hear me in these groups! I'm also in a group for my Religion and Society class, and we have to write a ten page paper to go along with our presentation. There are five of us, so it would make sense to break the paper into sections and have each person write two pages, right? Well, one girl agreed with this suggestion, but the self-designated voice of the group insisted on writing the paper journal entry style, and she and another girl were going to write it. The rest of us had our own assignments--they asked me to edit the video we were going to make in the next couple days. After we filmed it, the same girl who was so adamant about how we wrote this paper, decided she wanted to edit the video. When I asked her what she wanted me to do instead, she said she and the other writer would send me what they had written, and I could finish off the paper. Well, I got their email today--they sent me a little over a page. I am in the middle of writing a ten-page research paper for an English class, which means it actually needs to be good. Do they honestly expect me to write nine pages on my own before Tuesday? Fat chance: that's all I have to say.

P.S. Now this guy in yet another group failed to post his edit online by midnight, so now the whole group suffers. Way too much group work for one semester! Curse you, BYU-I Learning Model!

I Just Found the Weirdest Video

I went on YouTube for a specific purpose that I am too exhausted to recall. Instead I clicked on this weird-looking video.



Back to homework...

Hooray, December!

Well, I made it through National Blog Posting Month, so now I don't have to worry about posting every day anymore, which is fine because most of my posts probably went unread anyway. And I didn't win any of the prizes, so I will probably never do that again. I'm not creative enough to post daily. Mostly, I just had to finish it because I started it.  Goodbye, NaBloPoMo! Goodbye forever!

I started Weight Watchers yesterday. I know I'm not fat. My roommate Natalie is doing it, and I have this terrible habit of eating everything in sight while I'm procrastinating homework. I'm hoping Weight Watchers will help me control my appetite enough so I can make it through a year of school without gaining weight. If you don't know how it works, it actually makes a lot of sense. Everything you eat is assigned a number of points based on its calorie, fiber, and fat content. You are alloted a certain amount of points each day. So you can eat what ever you want as long as you don't go over your points. And whatever points you don't use during the week, you can use to reward yourself with a tasty treat on the weekend. I realize it's only been a couple days, but I like that I don't feel like I'm making a huge change. I think I am just more conscious of portion sizes. For instance, I eat a normal serving of mac and cheese rather than devour half the box. Also, since I've committed myself, I don't crave an entire pan of brownies, which happens more often than you would think. It's funny how it just took a few numbers to help me control my appetite.

By the way, most of you said you would not date someone with baby hands. You're all shallow, and so am I.

Now to finish that ten-page research paper...