Samuel Johnson

Samuel Johnson is a writer from the 18th century. He wrote mainly about the follies of humankind and correcting them. Today I discovered that one of the follies he wrote about is idleness. To Johnson, idleness entails people who fill their time with meaningless tasks, talk and socialize to avoid being alone, and do nothing of value with their lives. Johnson admonishes these idle people to become productive. They are chastised and encouraged to do the very thing that they are avoiding and spend time alone in introspection.
WISE WORDS.
I hate introspection because I do not want to think about all of my shortcomings and ways to fix them. That requires effort!! But when thinking about improving myself seems like a challenge, that is when I realize that I most need introspection. bummer...... Basically, it the equivilant of the process required to get better when you are sick. You have to take the nasty, gag me, must have a glass of water next to you when you take it or you will puke medicine. I agree with Johnson one hundred percent. I hate it, but I agree. So, to eat my words, here is a little mini introspection I have been doing.

I stress wayyyy too much, and need to relax or I will have an aneurysm by my 23rd birthday.
I do not do enough journal writing. I know my memory is awful, so i need to write stuff down so that i do not lose it.
I do not tell my family that I love them enough. I am so far away that I get caught in the day to day and forget about them. I need to get better at having real conversations with my little sisters, and remembering to tell my family how much they mean to me.
I am mean!!! Really, I am. My favorite nickname for people is butt and a half. Haha, not good. I need to learn to say nice things! cause I am awful at it.
I feel like I do not study nearly as much as I should. I know I am trying my best, but I think my best can be a little better, if that makes sense at all.
I am really really really bad at sharing my talents. Really really really bad. Most people have no idea how much I love music and that I sing... gotta work on that one too.

OK.
Work on these things.
Ready, Go!

poetry

It has always been my way to hate poetry. i have disliked poetry with as strong a passion one can have for as long as i can remember. well. me being an english major and all, i have had to read more poetry this year than i ahve ever read in my life..... and you know what? my iron fist heart is starting to soften a little. i know i know, crazy right???!!!! I am getting the hang of analyzing poetry, and i like it so much more now that i can figure out what in the world they are trying to say to me!! i do not like poetry yet, but i dislike it less, which is a step up i think. thank goodness for patient teachers that deal with my slow learning in this area. without their help, i would still hate poetry. and that would be sad.

fish funerals

so, as an April fools joke, a friend got a hold of the key to our apartment and graced us with about 25 fish in our bathtub and sink. all fun and games right? wrong! we did not know what to do withour new houseguests, so we put them in a bucket and decided to keep them for a while and see what happens. well, my 2 roommates and I have become very attached to our little friends and named several of them, including Ricky and Lucy(the twins), Mater(because he swims backwards), creeper(because he looks like he has a mustache). jorge (because he was kinda brown looking), Clifford(because it is a cool name), and smallfry(because it is the smallest fish we have ever seen). well, we were going along just fine, when tragedy struck in our happy little home..... you know the end of Titanic when you see all the bodies floating and it grosses you out? that happened, in fish form. depressing. so now we have Mater, smallfry, and 3 fish with no names. we are trying our best to get over the deaths of our little friends, but it was really depressing having to have a mass fish funeral.

roommates

my roommates are my best friends. end of story. I love them with all my soul!! they complete me. one roommate is a friend that i have had for close to 6 years, so we are twins pretty much. the other roommate is a new edition to the family, but she fits like a custom made dress. she is gorgeous, and hilarious! the three of us finish each other's sentances, have a reunion after only going a few hours apart and are so sarcastic and weird together that we sound a little crazy to outsiders. i am pretty sure these two girls are stuck with me for life now that we are in college together. lucky them!!

grammar

I hate grammar, so being an English teacher is a bad decision right?
but, i love grammar. i love sentence structure, and commas, and clauses, and phrases, and all of that English nerd stuff. I have been told that i am a comma addict, and that i love prepositions. that is not a bad thing i don't think. I am the resident editor for all things among my friends. It can be overwhelming trying to write a paper of your own, and have 2 people asking you to edit their papers for them as well, but i am awful at saying no. I do not mind editing, it gives me a chance to learn about whavever they are writing about, and practice my grammar. now if only we still had spelling tests........

debating women

so, my British lit class just had a discussion on the debate of women , their roles, and their writing. we read different essays from men and women writing back and forth to each other. may i just say, those women could hold their own!! they are some of the funniest wittiest things i have ever read. those women have guts too! they are writing to men that believe them to be inferior, and they are cracking jokes about those men that they are trying to prove themselves too. i do not think i would have the guts to do that. they were bold and brave and stuck up for their right to write. i look up to those women. because of them, i have the ability to speak my mind and write what i want. they have paved the way for all women writers, and ladies, i think they deserve a tip of the hat from us for groundbreaking work they did, just so that they would write what they wanted.

the end is near

they year is drawing to a close, and (though you can't tell by the weather) spring is upon us. I have absolutely loved my first year here at BYU and I do not think I would have changed any of it. I have the best roommates a person could ask for, and we are going to live together next year. the only regret I have is making friends with a bunch of great guys that are leaving for 2 years. not really though. I have made friends, that oddly enough, are mostly guys, and mostly pre- mission. my roommates and i are going to have to start almost completely over next year. oh well. It is totally worth it considering all of them are going on missions, and are worthy to go on missions!! I love that they are all getting so excited about going. BYU has kicked my butt, but i do not think i would have enjoyed any other school nearly as much. the classes here have been so hard that they seem immopssible, but i have done them. this school has certainly taught me that i can do hard things. that is certain. i have also learned that learning together and teaching one another is much better than learning alone and trying to compete with everyone. so, now that the year is coming to an end, i think i am going to celebrate by melting my brain with some episodes of The Office, some laughs with my friends before they leave, and a little more studying. I think that is pretty do-able.