sd cards & other novelties

Blessed BYU-Idaho gave us a whole week off for Thanksgiving. I definitely needed it. Every time I tried to do homework I fell asleep. (You would too if you had to read Herman Melville!) Needless to say I did not get anything done. That's okay, though. I had a productive day today, and I'll be working my butt off the rest of the week. It will feel good, though, to have actually accomplished something after a week-long absence from accomplishing anything.

Thanksgiving was wonderful. I took two naps! Any day with two naps is incredible. We ate with Heather, Becca, Brandon, Calvin, Larry, Vicki, Barry, Lara, and Mason. Nicole was also there, but I don't consider her a guest anymore. She's there as often as I am. :) We had a wonderful dinner, and went to bed too late for our 2:00 wake-up calls. Okay, I'll be honest. I didn't get up until 2:30. We were out the door by 3:00 Friday morning for our 8-hour shopping trip. I was able to get presents for my nieces and nephews, which was a great accomplishment for me.

On Saturday we decorated for Christmas. And when I say we, I mean Mom and Stephanie. I attempted to do my homework, but I got lost somewhere between Facebook (the devil's most cruel time-waster), the BYU/Utah State football game, and YouTube videos. I did help Stephanie put lights on the downstairs tree while watching the football game--BYU won, if you were wondering--and the two of us put all the ornaments on it on Sunday. The pictures I took for this post are of the upstairs tree, mom's village, and the downstairs tree, respectively.

This brings me to my nifty SD card. My phone has a little chip that you put in an SD card, which goes right in the SD slot on my computer, and I moved all the pictures and videos from my phone to my computer. It's ingenious, really.

Nicole and I drove back to Idaho yesterday. I'm not ready to be back in the loosest sense, but I'm trying to look forward to my nice, long break after the last three weeks of the semester. I can make it! ...Right? I guess we'll see if I can pass my classes and submit my dear Carmen for publishing.

goodbye, farewell, and amen

I finally finished all eleven seasons of M*A*S*H last night. I had already seen many of the episodes on TV, but I bought the entire show on DVD over a year ago and have been watching it little by little. I watched all the episodes in order. Now I'm going to work on the bonus material. I also have the movie, but it's rated R, so I'm opting out of that one. It really is my favorite show.

cloud cover

Here is a poem I wrote awhile ago, but I thought I'd share it since I don't think I've ever shared it before. It's pretty cheesy, but maybe looking at this poem I wrote at the beginning of my college career and comparing it with more recent stuff will show that maybe I have made a little progress in my writing.

Cloud Cover

Oh, how blissful

kisses on the cheeks from clouds.

Are they heaven's tears?

Heavens no!

Kisses that bring life to the green

carpet that covers the earth.

The clouds roll in, stormy they seem.

but they are only bearing the gift of life

to God's creations.

Pooling together, streaming down the streets,

splashing and running.

When will it stop? When will the sun break?

Oh, the beauty of endless clouds.

They will not be defeated so easily.

Here to block the heat of day

from farmers' necks and little girls' cheeks.

Yellow slickers and orange rain pants,

blue umbrellas and red galoshes.

A playground of such brightness

that no sun can create.

Screams of delight as little once prance.

Mothers and teachers welcome the moment

when the outdoor smells are drawn in,

when it's soup and cocoa and homemade bread.

Not heaven's tears.

No, they're kisses instead.

save me

Here is my latest poem. I actually have one that I wrote before this called, "Anya Sees the Gulf of Mexico," but that poem is still under construction. I'll post it once I've finished it.

The assignment was to write about a phobia or anxiety using understatement. Of course you all know that my list of phobias and anxieties is never-ending, so I picked the first phobia I remember having. The picture I selected for this poem made me sick to look at. I hope you enjoy.

Save Me

Button eyes, fuzzy down,

bright green wings,
a small red head,

and a peach face.

A beautiful creature

made by the hand of God.

Once an egg

and now a live thing.

Her tiny talons

aren't really that sharp,

and her smooth beak is blunted

a little bit.

She searches the house,

scavenging for food.

It's what she was born to do;

to feed her babies.

A small child plays

with paper dolls

that have been chewed on the edges

by the clever little beak.

The bird calls

when she has found

her little piece of prey

in the living room.

Screams, but not very loud,

and a mother runs to find

the source

and to comfort the child.

The ear doesn't bleed much,

and Chewy is put back in her cage

to think about her naughty

deed that she is sure to try again tomorrow.

carmen

Most of you know that I've been working on a novel for seven years. I am not used to calling it that. It's always just been "my project," but I am learning that I need to call it what it is. For one of my creative writing classes this semester, my final project is to submit a work for publishing, and I decided that I'm ready to be done with Carmen. I've been tweaking her for so long that I wouldn't just finish it, and the time has come for me to move on.

The idea for Carmen came to me in high school. I first started writing her one Sunday in a sacrament meeting when I was having a difficult time concentrating. Rather than writing the story chronologically, I wrote different sections at different times, and eventually I had all these little pieces of a story that I then put together. Now that I have the whole story down in sequential order, I'm in the editing process.

I would tell more about my baby, but I'm not quite ready to share more than this. I hope that soon I will be able to show it rather than just talk about it.

tale of two poems

In one of my two creative writing classes I have been writing poetry. I have two that I would like to share. The first is from an assignment in which I had to interview someone 75 or older and write a poem about them. I decided to interview Grammy, and I had a wonderful time talking with her. She gave me a lot of information, which made the assignment much easier. The second assignment was done in class today. We picked 3-5 cards that had words and images written on them. One said "amulet," one said "size," one said "archetypal helper," one said "river", and one was a picture of hands. Anyway, I had to write a poem connecting the objects/words. It was not an easy task for the half hour we were given, but I came up with something, and that is the second poem.

Dancing

The lights blaze and the music pounds
from the nickelodeon.
I'm just a young girl who works
in the Chocolate Shop in Bisbee, North Dakota.
I dance with Harold,
a sister and brother.
We dance all night. A nickel per song,
and we dance until every song has been played.

Dad doesn't drink these days
He doesn't argue, doesn't beat up Mom.
These are the sweetest days.
We're happy.
I'm happy.
I dance.

In the morning I go to school,
the only school in Bisbee,
and I jump and dance with the rest of the cheerleaders,
"Bisbee can do what Cando can't do,
Cando can't do what Bisbee can do,
Yea Bisbee!"

Harry is in the Navy, Blanche lives with Marv.
When they come back home they refuse
to stay in a small town for long.
Mom won't live without her children.
And so we move
to Renton, Washington.

It's less than glamorous.
We live in a tent.
No bathroom. No running water. No electricity.
Worse than the primitive farm in Bisbee.
The cold seeps through the thin canvas
That shelters us from the weather.
I cannot get warm.

I start at Renton High School,
and we move to a new home.
Floors, walls, and ceilings.
Three small bedrooms,
a table and chairs and beds.
Pots of food are left by the previous tenants.
Feces on the walls.
But it is luxurious to us,
very different from our tent.

Mom buys her beauty shop, a beautiful
small shop in Skyway
next to a barber shop.
But Dad comes home drunk
and Mom has to hide us so he can't
beat us like he beats her.
He stabs her in the rib with a butcher's knife
and she files for divorce.

We do not live in fear after a time.
He's not coming back.
We live. We work. We host parties.
We dance.

The Amulet

The river widens at some points
And thins out at others,
But all the points still fade
Into the vast horizon.
It beckons me, calls me, pulls me
In with more force
Than I can stand.

Come to the amulet, it says.
The amulet knows all.
It will give you peace.
It will make you rejoice.

I walk, slowly at first,
Along the river’s bank.
Perhaps I am traveling a great distance,
But perhaps not at all.
The horizon never seems to get any closer.

I see a man beside the river,
A man who searches for water but cannot
Find the rush of the liquid before him.
“Here,” I say, dipping
My hands into the river.
“Drink, and be renewed.”
The old man drinks,
But once he has had his fill
He leaves without uttering
A word of thanks.

I feel the power of the amulet
Again calling me.
The river calls me.
It shows me the way.
But once I reach the river’s end
I only find a crystal lake.
No amulet, just my own reflection
Staring back at me.

unorganized

This semester is already almost half over. I can't believe how fast the time has past. Between trips home to Utah and going to classes (a much more difficult task than it sounds), I feel like I'm always incredibly unorganized. One look at my desk shows you how crazy my life has been. I haven't looked at my planner in a few weeks. I've been, to use a cliche that I hate, "flying by the seat of my pants." But I am still breathing. I am still living. My roommates are great. Every night we have apartment prayer, and that has become a great bonding time as we laugh and joke about the day and then calm down enough to pray. Sometimes it's difficult to settle down once we've started laughing. I am no longer the oldest girl in my apartment. NaDene and Monica recently returned from missions. They were companions, and together they bring a lot of life to the apartment. Clarissa and Izzy were in the apartment with me last semester, and they are both sweet girls. Emily is also really nice, though she is not often at the apartment because she has a boyfriend. Together, we all balance each other out, and we have yet to have any big conflicts. I really couldn't ask to be with a better group of roommates.