"Do something each day that scares you"

Well, I have decided to take Elenore Roosevelt's advice and do something each day that scares me. Well, maybe not every day... Possibly 3 times a week. I don't scare too easily, but I guess I will just try and doing random things that I haven't done before. Yesterday: I went somewhere all by myself. I know that sounds weird, but I like a good security blanket to go to things with, but I went alone and I met new people. Today: I pierced my ears! After 27 years of fear, I did it! $10 later I have 2 new holes in my ears! Whoot! Anyone have any suggestions?

MUPPETS

Today is March 20, 2012 and today is the day that the Muppet's movie came out. Yes. I own it. How could I not!?!

My Petites Madeleines....

I am really excited for this weekend! I am going out of town with some of my best friends to just have fun. With a birthday looming in the near future I feel a little nostalgic, once again...

I am sitting at work, just waiting for the change of shift that will happen in 16 minutes. This is the part of my night when I just sit and watch a movie, or read or just think. I have already done a personal planning session for tomorrow's events, I have talked to all the people riding in my car about when I will pick them up and I have spent some time doing a little catch up reading. This is when I decided to check my email one last time. I remembered that I needed to respond to an email and I did a search for it in my inbox. Three emails popped up, one being a reminder for a FLSR FHE (Foreign Language Housing "family" home evening) activity in Provo... That email dating back to my most recent life in Provo was a "Petit Madeleine" that caused much refection to the last few silent moments of my shift.

During the summer semester I spent at BYU I was introduced to a lot of wonderful philosophies that I hadn't studied before, one being Proust..

"She sent for one of those squat, plump little cakes called "petites madeleines," which look as though they had been moulded in the fluted valve of a scallop shell. And soon, mechanically, dispirited after a dreary day with the prospect of a depressing morrow, I raised to my lips a spoonful of the tea in which I had soaked a morsel of the cake. No sooner had the warm liquid mixed with the crumbs touched my palate than a shudder ran through me and I stopped, intent upon the extraordinary thing that was happening to me. An exquisite pleasure had invaded my senses, something isolated, detached, with no suggestion of its origin. And at once the vicissitudes of life had become indifferent to me, its disasters innocuous, its brevity illusory - this new sensation having had on me the effect which love has of filling me with a precious essence; or rather this essence was not in me it was me. I had ceased now to feel mediocre, contingent, mortal. Whence could it have come to me, this all-powerful joy? I sensed that it was connected with the taste of the tea and the cake, but that it infinitely transcended those savours, could, no, indeed, be of the same nature. Whence did it come? What did it mean? How could I seize and apprehend it?... And suddenly the memory revealed itself. The taste was that of the little piece of madeleine which on Sunday mornings at Combray (because on those mornings I did not go out before mass), when I went to say good morning to her in her bedroom , my aunt Léonie used to give me, dipping it first in her own cup of tea or tisane. The sight of the little madeleine had recalled nothing to my mind before I tasted it; perhaps because I had so often seen such things in the meantime, without tasting them, on the trays in pastry-cooks' windows, that their image had dissociated itself from those Combray days to take its place among others more recent; perhaps because of those memories, so long abandoned and put out of mind, nothing now survived, everything was scattered; the shapes of things, including that of the little scallop-shell of pastry, so richly sensual under its severe, religious folds, were either obliterated or had been so long dormant as to have lost the power of expansion which would have allowed them to resume their place in my consciousness. But when from a long-distant past nothing subsists, after the people are dead, after the things are broken and scattered, taste and smell alone, more fragile but more enduring, more unsubstantial, more persistent, more faithful, remain poised a long time, like souls, remembering, waiting, hoping, amid the ruins of all the rest; and bear unflinchingly, in the tiny and almost impalpable drop of their essence, the vast structure of recollection."

If you read French, find this is French! I have a copy I can scan and send, it is great... For English readers Go here for the full text.

Sometimes I have those little "cookie" moments that can just transport me to a different place. A place that I loved, but didn't fully appreciate until it was over, now that the moments have past, the summer has ended and the people have been scattered from China, to the Middle East to Cedar City, Utah. Now I appreciate and long for it, my soul is "remembering, waiting, hoping, amid the ruins of all the rest; and bear unflinchingly, in the tiny and almost impalpable drop of their essence, the vast structure of recollection."

pros and cons

A week off... 7 days of not going into work, no processing forms and no paperwork. Not all bad! But... not all good

Pros:
- relaxing and regrouping
- spending time with family and friends
- catching up on Grey's Anatomy
- corresponding with people that I miss
- taking a good look at my life
- Time to make new goals
- time to play with the puppy
- getting to make dinner and eat dinner with the fam
- sleeping in and never hearing that horrid alarm

Cons:
* loosing my routine
* wasting hours of by life on netflix, pintrest and facebook
* overwhelming myself with to do lists
* watching myself turn into frump girl
* only wearing my PJs all day
* major guilt from realizing that there are people I love that I haven't talked to in months
* the looming darkness of the end of the vacation
* you try telling teens to wake up on time and do chores after they have been on vaca for 8 days
* Catching up on Grey's
* I can't believe the addiction is back!

Maybe a week off is too long... but it sure was needed!

Update

Well, I the other day I ran into good friends who live in New York but were visiting family in Cedar and it came to my knowledge that I haven't told anyone where I am, what I am doing or how it is going.

I don't have a ton of time because I am at work but I have a few minutes to say...

-I live in Cedar

-I work at a private boarding school, the same one from before

-I LOVED Provo with all my heart, met some of my best friends there and learned a ton

-I have been applying for jobs, not to run away from my work or my hometown, but to start a new adventure

-Conference rocked my socks but because of sessions and mission reunions, I was not able to stop by to see friends.

That is all. I will up date again in 5 months :)

**NEW FAVORITE MOVIE**

Sometimes I fall in love with a movie... and I want to watch it over and over... Some of you may remember the 2 months of me watching only Everything's illuminated at the first of the year... Well, it happened again today! Thank you Netflicks Instant Streaming!

This movie is wholesome (nothing even borderline inappropriate at all!) It is a wonderful story full of family values and a look at different cultures. I love it!! I know that I am an independent film lover, but I promise, this one isn't weird....

And once you fall in love with Arranged, go give Everything's Illuminated a chance.

FINALS

Finals are never fun, but this week has been very interesting.

I randomly ran into a guy from the FLSR who just happened to be thinking about me this morning when he read an article by Camus that kinda changed my paper for the better... Thank you James!


Jared refused to let me quit... That in itself deserves an award

My roommates and 2 of our honorary (jeff and Paul) had raqulette last night... enough said!

I have an oral exam and a paper to finish today...

I have 2 finals tomorrow...

Then I am done. It will be sad to leave the FLSR because I love it so much... It will be good to work again... It will be sad to have an end to this era... But exciting to see what happens in the next.