I wish I were Asian

Yesterday I caught a fly with my bare hands.

Cleaning/organizing my room takes a LONG time. Today I set up my vanity complete with mini perfumes on an old silver tray, a beautiful vintage telephone, delicate cream gloves, and a gold and teal metal box. It makes me feel like a old time movie star.

In my next life I want to be Asian. I'm not picky, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Filipino, even Indian. I think Asians are beautiful and wise and I like the way they dress.

I already have the hairstyle down exactly. And we watched The Karate Kid (the new one with Jaden Smith) last week and I have perfected my Chinese accent.

Tonight we happened upon the new TV show The Voice (which is lucky because I pretty much never watch TV) and I am sold. The singers are really, really good and I like the judges (including my girl Christina Aguilera).

I'm having way too much fun not working right now. I am currently reading The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers. I'm intrigued.

I am also taking a Deductive Logic class online, and I am convinced that everyone should take a logic class. They should teach it in high school, if not before. I think this would solve some of the world's problems. Perhaps I will amaze you with my logical genius later.

Down South, Baby

I feel exactly like a black man flying over a desert in a helicopter.

So I'm home. My family is crazy, it is fantastic (for the most part). I don't know what I am going to do with my summer, but I kind of love not knowing right now. I've ALWAYS planned out my life at least six months in advance, usually like, five years. Just living life every day is new, and I like it. My future is bright, and I actually trust myself not to mess it up so I'm not worrying. Also, I have no idea where I will be after next fall semester. But thats okay too.

My brother's old room was completely empty when I moved in and my sister mostly lives in my room now (she uses hers as a closet) so I decided to have another room for my favorite things too. On thursday I moved my desk, chair, bookshelf, and an old rocking chair into my brother's old room. The chair I found covered in pollen on our front porch so naturally I wiped it down and put new material over the seat. But thats all thats in the room. Mostly empty except my one place for writing (and doing my independent study class and scheming) and one place for reading all the books I've been wanting to get around to. Its my sanctuary. In addition to reading and writing, I really just want to paint (its so green here) and make ghetto music videos. And turn my swag on. ooooh.

What is there to do in Provo?

So I get this question a lot. Basic translation: what do you do for fun without drinking? Well folks, we use our imaginations.

Fun thing to do number 73: Coupon Hopping
Tonight my friend Jena noticed that she had an unusual amount of coupons at her disposal to local restaurants (one of them she had been telling me about pretty much everyday at work).  Examples: buy one get one free new Baskin Robbins ice cream flavor, free chips and queso at Chilis, and buy one get one bobas! (don't worry, we didn't know either). So we gathered a couple friends and began our coupon journey. We spent about two hours restaurant hopping and I was able to enjoy getting full, trying new things, and a few laughs all for about five bucks. One of the best parts was the Chili waiter's reaction to our shared entree among four people along with the free chips and queso. And especially when Jeff asked for a lemon in his water so that he could add sweet and low and make "lemonade." Our tip included two dollars (a very generous percentage), all the pennys in my wallet, and a punch card to the last place we went to. And then Jeff goes and pays the bill with a fifty! Talk about starving college students.

Bonus- We came back and watched all four episodes of this:

Waiting for Superman

What are you passionate about? Education. For those of you who are naive, its true, we face some serious educational issues right here in the good ole United Stated of America. Tonight my TFA internship team hosted a screening of the movie Waiting for Superman (http://www.waitingforsuperman.com/action/) It's a documentary but it doesn't feel like one. It's got some great facts and shows solid research, but it is also extremely inspiring. If you are not convinced to use at least some of your time to help confront this issue, you have no heart. This is real stuff people. And we can do something about it. I never wanted to be a teacher before this semester. I thought, "why learn all this stuff just to go back and teach it?" But it's a lot more than that. It might be cheesy and cliche, but it is about changing kids' lives. I am planning on devoting just two years to teaching (http://www.teachforamerica.org/), but I hope to make a difference.

If you can't be convinced to even give a couple years to teach (or if you are really terrible at it, but don't try to use this as an excuse), then at least get involved in the issues. For instance, teacher unions and tenure. Do your research, but man, these do not encourage teachers to be good at what they do. Get involved! Cut red tape! Don't let bad teachers ruin the education of American children! Do whatever you want, but at least be informed and do something about your findings.

Like I said, I've been sick

Oh Gilmore Girls, how I love you. I love how fast you talk and your witty banter. I love all the weird relationships and strange characters. I love the small town setting of Stars Hollow and Rory's cool college life at Yale. Speaking of Yale, I have been having a bit of Ivy League jealousy. Part of me wants the more challenging academics and the intelligent and purpose-driven student body. The other part of me is glad that I can miss two days of school and work and still feel like I can stay up blogging about Gilmore Girls instead of studying. And sometimes I really do like the Provo "bubble" with all of it's quirky people that my roommates and I have deemed "classics."

So graduate school then? How about Oxford?

A girl can dream, right?


In other news, I adore hats. Even though I rarely wear them, I can't resist trying on and buying hats.
This is proof: me, my roomie heather, hats, target, and cheesy smiles.

I bought one last weekend that kind of looked like this:

Except less fedora-y and more straw hat-ish. I wish men still wore top hats and women still wore ridiculous feathered hats. And gloves. And lipstick. I'm done.

I think I'm back

I've been sick for two days, I'm way behind in schoolwork, and its 11:23PM. So naturally, I feel the need to blog. Again. But this time it's not so secretive and unpersonable.

So I know you are all wondering what I mean by "The Uncommonplace Book." Well, Last year I took a comparative literature class (one of those classes you realize later was unnecessary, but you love anyway) and my professor introduced us to Michel de Montaigne, an influential french essayist. Apparently, back in the day lots of old men with nothing else to do would write in these notebooks called commonplace books (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commonplace_book). These books were full of little bits of wisdom, random notes, recipes, essays, quotes, etc. I realized I love commonplace books and I've been sporadically keeping one since my junior year of high school. This is when my English teacher made us pick a habit to aquire in 21 days (I was very adament that mine would be a positive one, not like Supersize Me), and so I started writing. Now I have like five notebooks full of random tidbits, and well, it's time to go cyber.

So why the UNcommonplace book?

1. I am embracing the rebel, nonconformist inside of me.
2. I would like to think I'm a bit uncommon
3. It's not in a notebook like common commonplace books, but on the internet.

Enjoy!