I Am So Sorry

I'm afraid it's just not going to happen.

The Totally Sweet graduation announcements I WAS going to send...will not be sent. This post is part of my cleansing process to rid myself of the associated guilt.

I actually went so far as to design the grad announcements and to prepare them for printing...but then I never made it to Kinko's or the post office.

And now, the thought of doing graduation announcements AND birth announcements hurts my head.

So, here's a sketch of what you would have gotten 6 months ago had I ever taken those extra Kinko's/post office steps. ENJOY!


Cover:



Inside (sans layout):

Eliza and Matt are pleased to announce that they are
done with school for awhile.

Then follow the details, which most of you know.

Thanks for the memories!

P.S. I will send out birth announcements, I promise. Of course, there will need to be a birth first, but let's not get into that discussion just now.

School's Out, For . . . Ever?

Welp, I did it. Went ahead and turned in my absolute very last final papers of the quarter and of my master's degree, this momentous morning. 2 days before I had to, even! Happy June to me.

I was feeling so great about this that I air-conducted to "In the Hall of the Mountain King" in the car on the way to work. With style, too. Some of my fellow commuters got a cheap laugh, and I was filled with glee. So, good all around. I'd recommend it.

My friend Rachel said to me, "You don't ever have to go to school again, EVER! If you don't want to." And she's right. Because I don't have to.

But I probably will, someday. Maybe, maybe not. Who knows, really.

Pomp and Circumstance . . . Whatever That Means.

Matt graduated today, (which also happens to be my brother Noah's 19th birthday--a happy one to you, Noah) and I am so very proud of him. Three years ago, I could not envision us and what we'd be doing or where we'd be at this point (his graduation) and now I know.

A little background for the uninitiated: Matt and I got engaged a few short days after he got accepted to law school in August 2003. Although when I look back now I think, "Why would I EVER hesitate to marry this wonderful man??" at the time I had some hesitations. Give me a break, I was 20 and he was a graybeard of almost-26.

Anyway, so we had been doing the marriage-talk dance for a few months ("When two people . . . talk of marriage"--movie reference? anyone?), and he was having a hard time deciding what to do. He got accepted to a few other law schools, which would have put him in either California or Texas or D.C. In the end, he decided to stay in Utah--where I would be--although he hadn't gotten accepted to any Utah schools. That was a gamble, sort of. Call it a hunch, I guess, that he and I were M.F.E.O.

I was in California for the summer and he and I decided to go on a road trip together to and from New York. Or maybe we were going to fly to New York and drive back? I think the latter. Anyway his friend was at Cornell doing this internship thing or something and we were going to drive back with him. I remember my aunt Frances and uncle Dee came to visit my parents' house one day after we had decided to go on the trip, and they commended me on my adventurousness when I told them with relish about it. (I am such a road-trip freak.) "You have plenty of time to settle down...enjoy your youth...etc." At the time (early August?) thoughts of marriage were not at the forefront of my mind.

A few weeks after that conversation and the decision to do the road-trip thing, Matt got accepted to law school at the last minute and our trip was cancelled. ("I'm so glad that trip didn't happen," his mom commented, just today as we reminisced. We've had our share of those trips since, so I don't mind either way.) I drove up to Utah with my parents and my newly freshman sister, and we got engaged a week later, a few days after he started as a 1L and a few days before I started as a senior.

Now, almost 3 years later, he's done! A few more months of studying for the bar and he'll be a bona fide attorney, and we'll be east-coasters. Again, I am so proud of him for all of his hard work and marvel that we made it "this far." I know you "old-timers" will laugh at me for talking about "this far" at the tender age of 23, and I understand. It's both an end and a beginning. Who knows where we'll be and what we'll be doing three years from now?

I'll let you know when I find out.

I'm Just Wondering

I like to think that I'm decent at "enduring to the end."

Okay, maybe medium decent.

I'm not talking about big life trials here, I'm talking about the kind of short-term endurance where you're so behind schedule even you can't believe it, and the rest of the quarter (all 4 weeks, in my case) looms before you, not like an exciting path of intellectual discovery to culminate in a sense of accomplishment and pride, but like a very, very long checklist to culminate in...utter exhaustion, maybe.

Matt and I are in agreement: the time has come for both of us where the path is now the checklist. Because it's not only the end of the quarter or semester, it's graduation we're talking about. Who cares anymore?! (Fortunately he only has a few days left of this.)

In college my mantra during finals was, "I'll get it done." That's how I comforted myself when the tasks piled up because I knew no matter what, I would get it done. Hester and I would say to each other, "You can do anything for four weeks/three weeks/one week." The thought that I wouldn't pass a class just didn't occur to me. It might come down to zero hours of sleep and burning the midnight oil and all of that, but then it would all be over.

My problem now is that I'm a little tired of it! I feel like I've already graduated! Only 2 classes this quarter, neither of which are very interesting to me, one a bewildering 5-crediter where I made the mistake of listening to the professor when she told us the assignment due dates were more like "suggestions." Now I have 5 papers left to write for it instead of the 2 I should have, according to the "suggested" timeline.

And this time instead of doggedly checking things off, I'm wondering....Will I get it done????



I will...right?

It Would Take an Acrobat, and I've Already Tried All That

In 6 hours I'm gettin' on a plane, and going to Seattle, and then 24 hours later I'm gettin' on another plane, and coming back.

And that, my friends, is the last time I expect to find myself in the lovely SeaTac Airport for a long, long time. Maybe ever. (I will be back in Seattle in June, but we're driving.)

I'm sort of happy about that, and sort of sad. Happy because I really don't like to fly; happy because in 8 weeks, I'll be a-graduated; sad because Seattle is so beautiful and I have made so many friends there; sad because this means I really will have to get a job.

I am looking forward to patronizing my favorite S-Town consignment store, The Buffalo Exchange. Yeah, that's right. Secondhand all the way.

See ya, SeaTac.

Weekend Update

1) General conference was amazing and will merit a later post (I'll try for this week, before the enthusiasm wanes) on tolerance, forgiveness, agency, how much I miss Elder Maxwell, and how much I love President Hinckley.

1.5) And speaking of LOVE, did anyone else LOVE that Elder Wood's talk? Never heard of him but his thoughts on peacemaking and understanding in "a world prone to giving and taking offense" spoke to me.Guess I'll talk about that in my Later Conference Post. And a million other things, if I remember them.

2) Guster was fun. This marked my 6th time seeing them in 4 years . . . I think I need to cut back. I don't need to cut back on seeing my Hannah and Mandy, though. Love those kids.



3) My portfolio (for graduation, which is 2 months away!) is due April 10th. Not thinking about much else in the school arena these days. And, I've finally figured out CSS. Sort of.

4) I will NEVER stop loving Betsy and Joe.

5) I actually watched "Weekend Update" last night--first time I've watched any portion of a new SNL in about 10 years and will probably be the last. Yeah, it was That Lame.

6) I am so happy today. It's a good feeling.

7) I need to go before Matt catches me blogging when I'm supposed to be doing homework. Don't tell.

Music | The Kissaway - Mates of State
Love | Everything

One Hundred and Fifty-two INSIGHTS into My SOUL

Matt sent me a few articles today that he knew I would enjoy.

He knew that I would enjoy Desperate Feminist Wives, because this topic is truly dear to my heart and is something that I have been musing upon for a long time now. One reason that I feel a little sheepish admitting my musings is that it is such a cliché to be torn between feminist ideals and traditional wifey ideals.

I have always known this. Which is why it was a surprise to me that after blithely insisting to myself, my husband, and everyone I knew upon jumping straight into grad school and deliberately postponing motherhood, traditional wifey ideals would creep into my head before my desire for a professional career had ebbed.

Because, after all, that's such a cliché.

One of my favorite professors in college taught me about Alice Walker and other womanist writers. I can still picture him delivering his apt and completely sincere summary of womanism: "I don't want to break through the glass ceiling. I just want to get through the day."

I have so much to say on this topic.

I'll have to save it for another day.



Also, Matt knew that I would enjoy And the Oscar Goes to...Petticoats! Because this topic (fashion...er, costumes) is also dear to my heart.

Maybe not so dear as the first.

But pretty dear.

A penny for your own thoughts on this. Bonus pennies if you get the title reference.

Ignoring Responsibility, Embracing the Weekend; Or: Avocados Are Delicious

I always pronounced "avocado" "ah-vocado," but recently I started pronouncing it "aa-vocado" ("aa" as in "cat"). I don't know why this mattered enough for me to write a sentence about it. Except that I Love Avocados, and everything associated with them. I just can't get enough. Every sandwich I ever make or buy for the rest of my life (with the exception of PB&J), I want avocado in.

So. What really matters over the holidays? Well, besides family togetherness and gratitude for our bounteous blessings, I submit that for students, what matters is the ability to ignore what you don't want to face. Bonny started a thread on our family blog awhile ago about ignoring older siblings when they tease you. And then, actually, I watched a re-run the other day of Everybody Loves Raymond during which Deb and Marie duked it out over whether instructing children to "ignore" teasers really works. The consensus was--not usually. It's just too hard to ignore those meanies.

However, I have developed an uncanny ability to ignore responsibility and embrace any welcome distraction--the four-day weekend, in this case. I've always been pretty good at ignoring school-related responsibility. I worked pretty hard the weekend before Thanksgiving (while BYU was losing miserably to the U) on a group project that was due on Wednesday. I wrote myself a long list of school things to do over the holiday weekend, seeing as there are less than 2 weeks left of fall quarter, and I have completed exactly 1 of 10 assignments, and have completed exactly 0 pages of a final paper--assignments and paper are all due December 9th.

Because I had finished the group project, I felt a sense of accomplishment and was easily able to ignore said assignments and paper. December 9th...that's DAYS away.

Instead, this was the Weekend of Gratitude, Movie-Watching, and Other Good Things. Hannah, Matt, and I spent a quality weekend sleeping in, running (well, I went running), staring at the silver screen, and ignoring school responsibilities. It was great.

What did we watch? Oh, nothing much...(in alphabetical order, in keeping with my library training)










School can wait. What matters is that I can ignore it for now.

Combining Against Me

You may remember a week or so ago when I lamented the passing of my hard drive on my work PC.

Mostly I was worried about a few school things I had saved on there. I made a list shortly thereafter of things that I need to have for my portfolio (what I'm doing instead of a thesis; basically a Web site of all my professional/scholarly achievements in the past 2 years). I was feeling rather relieved that almost everything I needed was safe on my computer at home. Then I told myself, "Better back up what I have on that hard drive so this doesn't happen for real."

Last Saturday, I believe, was the last time I used our desktop. Days went by and I only used my laptop and my work computers. Tonight I came down to the basement to get on the desktop and do some homework (due tonight). I logged in to my username. Lo,

and yes,

BEHOLD,

my username's entire desktop was wiped clean. I checked "My Documents." Empty. "My Pictures" are still there, but no other documents.

Panic.

Then I remembered, "Oh yes, that's right. I saved everything in folders on the desktop for easier access." Only idiots do that, but, well.

I feel like one of the five foolish virgins.

Matt's desktop seems intact. My program files all seem intact, although the FTP program I use for Web publishing is all screwed up and it looks like I have to re-register, although it's been over a year and I have no idea how to set that thing up.

And to top it all off, I can't find the stupid computer-support thing that has the customer service number and PIN I need to talk to somebody at Microsoft or...whatever company made this piece of junk.

NOT that they'd HELP at ALL, because since when have they???

This is one reason that Mac people are Mac people. Maybe it's coincidental, but my iMac at work has never given me an OUNCE of trouble, although I'm always having issues with every PC I've ever met.

Right now I feel as though "earth and hell [are] combin[ing] against" me.

I'm sorry for being such a downer. I think I'm going to go read the list of things I like and see if it cheers me up.

At least Desperate Housewives is on in an hour.

Although I still haven't done the homework I originally came down here to do.

At least I still have some pumpkin cookie dough in the fridge. Maybe I'll go pop that in the oven.

I need solace!!

Where are you, solace??

WHERE ARE YOU, desktop?!?!

I’ll Let You Be My Chaperone at the Halfway Home

As of today, I am exactly halfway done with my LIS degree.

This is a very exciting point in an otherwise less-than-exciting summer. It means that I’ve completed 32 credits and have 32 left. 31 left, technically, because the requirement is 63. Today, actually, I finished a block class (Research Methods), which I have been feverishly working on for the past 5 weeks, that earned me 4 credits. I have 2 more classes that will last until August 19th. Then I’ll have 6 weeks off, and I get to buy myself Felicity: Senior Year (I’m all about ridiculous, materialistic rewards), and then once I get through fall, winter, and spring, I’m done!

Haha. It sounds like a lot, but it’s really not that bad. Once summer is over, all I'll have left are 6 more classes: Information Systems, Architecture & Retrieval; Information in Social Context; Management of Information Organizations; Collection Development; Government Publications; and Information Literacy. And 40 hours of directed fieldwork. And a portfolio (my preferred alternative to the thesis option--ugh). And then...

I’ll be done.

And Matt will be too. Next come jobs. That’s a whole other issue. For now I’m focusing on the fact that I’m halfway done. And feeling good about it.

I realize the boringness of this post. But I felt I had to commemorate the occasion in some way.

Weekend update

Sorry I haven't really blogged in a while, save the occasional photo of my nieces and complaint about whistlers. Here's what's happened in the past week or so...

-Went to Seattle for a couple of days as part of my attempt to get a master's degree in library and information science from the University of Washington (due to an appalling lack of LIS schools in the great state of Utah). That was an explanation for some of you who have expressed confusion about my frequent Seattle-going.

-Contracted food poisoning my first day there, vomited more than I care to admit (although to give you the full picture, I stayed in a B&B with a common bathroom for the whole floor. Nothing like barfing in a stall!), spent the remainder of my time in Seattle lying in bed, physically unable to walk, and wanting to die. I've had food poisoning once before (curse you, Cannon Center salad bar ranch dressing), but it was more of a barf-once-and-we're-over-it. This was more of a "What if I die and nobody finds out for days?", actually prompting me in my delirium to remove the "Do Not Disturb" sign on my hotel door, so that in the event of my death at least Housekeeping would find out the following morning. Not kidding.

-The death feelings only lasted about a day, and I did make it through my flight back to SLC without resorting to the barf bag, but I continued to snack only on bread, bananas and applesauce for about 4 days after that. I'm telling you, food poisoning is brutal. Do not attempt to eat refrigerated and reheated sesame seed chicken & garlic chow mein bought from a convenience store. It will seriously cramp your style.

-So, that was a round-trip ticket and hotel stay basically wasted, but whatever, my professors were really cool about my missing classes. Now I have a quarter of 11 credits to look forward to, while I continue to work full time. It's actually not bad--I'm taking a cataloguing class, a reference services class, and a class I'm still not sure why is required, "Instruction Strategies for Information Professionals." So learning how to teach people to use the library, I guess. Basically. I'm doing okay so far, but I'm completely lost in the cataloguing class. Ask me about metadata or extensible markup language. No clue.

-My parents, my brother Noah, and my sister Hannah came to visit last weekend. It was quite fun! Parents and Noah live in California, so I don't see them much. Also, for my birthday my parents gave me a beautiful, wonderful "Granny apple green" spring coat. The kind of coat that you continue to wear when you get home from work at night, because you just can't bear to take it off. The kind of coat that you're sure everyone's envious of (either that or they're thinking, "Hm, that's green, all right").

-Saw "Fever Pitch" last night. It was so cute and funny and I love Drew Barrymore and Jimmy Fallon now, and their clothes (well, their characters' clothes). Truly. I fully endorse it. There were a few questionable jokes but not nearly as bad as you might expect from the Farrelly brothers (makers of "Dumb & Dumber," "Kingpin," and "There's Something about Mary"). Go see it if you like the Red Sox and/or romantic comedies.

-And now...I'm going to pick up Matt from the blue & white game. Yes, that's right, we're in Provo. And we're going to hang out with Hannah and Hester tonight. And I've been eating real food for 3 days now. And I'm wearing my apple green coat. And I'm done with my homework, at least for today. How sweet it is.

Things you should know

1. I’m done with school for exactly 2 more weeks. I’m very happy about this. Granted, after March 31st I might turn into a crazy person--I’m making the switch to full-time work and full-time school--but whatever. I kinda like bragging about it, for now, anyway. Like I’m all capable or something. We’ll see how I feel once the quarter starts and my life slips into bedlam.

2. U2 tickets for their SLC stop go on sale Monday, as you may already know. Why can’t they just stoop to corporate sponsorship? I’ll gladly stare at a Pepsi banner all night long if it shaves a few bucks off my ticket. Is that a horrible, horrible, sellout thing to admit?

3. I forgot to blog about this, at least here. I’M FAMOUS! Haha. Hopefully that link still works.

4. Matt and I are going to Park City tonight to SHOP! My FAVORITE THING EVER! If I could shop all the time, I would be eternally content. I’m pretty sure that for me, money can buy happiness when it comes to new clothes. That’s the honest truth. And it doesn’t have to be extravagant. Bad day at work? Nothing a little Markdown Madness at Old Navy can’t fix.

And...that’s about it.

Sorry. My life isn’t very exciting right now.

Music: Brand New Colony - The Postal Service