i had a bad afternoon
and a coworker who isn't a particularly close friend -
we've hung out a couple times
but we're not, you know, super close -
bought me a beer and welcomed me into her group of friends
and that little act of kindness meant
everything.
i'm a firm believer that a little kindness goes a long long way
and tonight was proof of that.
Monday, June 11, 2012
Saturday, June 9, 2012
Thursday, June 7, 2012
don't mess with elementary school teachers
Rebecca: remember when mom and i had to explain to you what a mammal is
me: shut up
i knew it had milk and bones
that is all i knew
what was i confusing it with?
Rebecca: dolphins
were confusing to you
me: can you see my confusion?
Rebecca: no
because i went to college
me: shut up
i knew it had milk and bones
that is all i knew
what was i confusing it with?
Rebecca: dolphins
were confusing to you
me: can you see my confusion?
Rebecca: no
because i went to college
my fault
as you've probably figured, my fault was this:
women couldn't vote in 1896!
black americans couldn't really vote!
ahhhhhhhh!
(good work, dad!)
take my number (17 million) and divide it in half (8.5 million) for all the ladies who couldn't vote...then take off maybe 500,000 or a million black voters who were suppressed, and we're very close to the 7 million people who voted for mckinley and i really DID know what i was talking about! (small victory.)
i restrained myself and didn't pull a HUGE NERD MOMENT and tell the trivia announcer that we weren't really so dumb as to think it was 17 million, we were just dumb enough to forget when women gained suffrage.
however, i am writing about this over the course of several days on my blog, so perhaps i had my huge nerd moment anyway.
women couldn't vote in 1896!
black americans couldn't really vote!
ahhhhhhhh!
(good work, dad!)
take my number (17 million) and divide it in half (8.5 million) for all the ladies who couldn't vote...then take off maybe 500,000 or a million black voters who were suppressed, and we're very close to the 7 million people who voted for mckinley and i really DID know what i was talking about! (small victory.)
i restrained myself and didn't pull a HUGE NERD MOMENT and tell the trivia announcer that we weren't really so dumb as to think it was 17 million, we were just dumb enough to forget when women gained suffrage.
however, i am writing about this over the course of several days on my blog, so perhaps i had my huge nerd moment anyway.
Wednesday, June 6, 2012
trivia fail
the answer: mckinley! (nice work, bill!) we knew it couldn't be teddy roosevelt (who succeeded mckinley but was too young), and then taft and wilson didn't feel right either. so we went to backwards to mckinley. victory!
this left us tied for second place! the tie-breaker: how many popular votes did mckinley win in the election of 1896?
we had one minute to come up with an answer.
we (i) said 17 million. my logic: the doubling time of the population is 50-60 years, i think. 60 million people voted for obama. that makes 30 million voting for the winner of the 1950 election...15 million in the 1900 election...somehow 17 million sounded right.
the answer was 7 million. 7! horrors! the other team said 1 million, so they were closer and won.
enormous frowny face. we were NOT EVEN VERY CLOSE AT ALL.
30 seconds later i realized the error in my logic about how many people would have voted for mckinley. where was my fault, readers?
this left us tied for second place! the tie-breaker: how many popular votes did mckinley win in the election of 1896?
we had one minute to come up with an answer.
we (i) said 17 million. my logic: the doubling time of the population is 50-60 years, i think. 60 million people voted for obama. that makes 30 million voting for the winner of the 1950 election...15 million in the 1900 election...somehow 17 million sounded right.
the answer was 7 million. 7! horrors! the other team said 1 million, so they were closer and won.
enormous frowny face. we were NOT EVEN VERY CLOSE AT ALL.
30 seconds later i realized the error in my logic about how many people would have voted for mckinley. where was my fault, readers?
Tuesday, June 5, 2012
what i'm listening to right now
after listening to it only once, i am already IN LOVE with brandi carlile's new album, bear creek, but i mean, OF COURSE. i bought it this morning without previewing any tracks because people! this is brandi carlile! i love her voice, her band, the songwriting. obviously i need to own the new album the day it comes out.
this will not be the last you hear about this album on this here blog.
brandi carlile, "100":
this will not be the last you hear about this album on this here blog.
brandi carlile, "100":
trivia success!
final question at trivia tonight: who was the last (most recent) us president who had fought in the civil war?
we did some intense figuring and got it right! answer to come tomorrow. if you want, guess in the comments (no cheating)!
we did some intense figuring and got it right! answer to come tomorrow. if you want, guess in the comments (no cheating)!
Monday, June 4, 2012
oh, i will totally be seeing this movie (click "watch now" to watch the preview).
reasons why:
1. set in north carolina
2. looks hilarious
3. i heart politics
4. will most definitely be playing at the liberty theater in downtown north wilkesboro, as it stars zach galifianakis, wilkes central high graduate. this will make it easy to see, as the local movie theater* in my hometown normally only shows PG-rated movies that i don't want to see...but they showed the hangover 2 in honor of their hometown star. if they will show the hangover 2, they will show this movie.
*there is only one movie theater in my county, and it only shows 2 (usually bad) movies at a time. to see other movies, one must drive 45 minutes, and that is lame. come on liberty theater! show the campaign!!
reasons why:
1. set in north carolina
2. looks hilarious
3. i heart politics
4. will most definitely be playing at the liberty theater in downtown north wilkesboro, as it stars zach galifianakis, wilkes central high graduate. this will make it easy to see, as the local movie theater* in my hometown normally only shows PG-rated movies that i don't want to see...but they showed the hangover 2 in honor of their hometown star. if they will show the hangover 2, they will show this movie.
*there is only one movie theater in my county, and it only shows 2 (usually bad) movies at a time. to see other movies, one must drive 45 minutes, and that is lame. come on liberty theater! show the campaign!!
Sunday, June 3, 2012
this weekend was a moving weekend! mom and dad came into town and we helped thomas and lindsey move into their new house on saturday...and then on sunday friends came over to help me move most of my belongings. but i'm not moving to new york until august! to help explain, here's my summer timeline:
june 9-17 - salt lake city to grade the AP government exam
june 21-july 31 - england!
1st weekend in august - denver for mike's 30th birthday
then: i move home to north carolina with my parents
august 31 - i move into my dorm room at columbia!
this weekend was the only weekend my parents could come down to help me move, so we packed up all my furniture (i'll be sleeping in our guest room for the next couple weeks) and most of my belongings - what i have left will (hopefully) fit into my car when i drive myself home in NC in august.
sad empty bedroom with lots of dust in places where furniture used to be:
i tend to get really sad about moves - pit-in-my-stomach sad about leaving a place. i'm making this move so slowly, though, that so far i'm doing okay. the reality will set in at some point, of course...
(in other news, let's discuss how i kind of wish i could sit in front of my tv for the entirety of the olympics and just watch all the awesome events. I LOVE THE OLYMPICS. instead, i'll be working/playing, which is pretty awesome, too. and i'll be in england for the first four days of the olympics! so that will be pretty bad ass, too, even if i'll have to work a lot and my access to a tv will be unreliable.)
Friday, June 1, 2012
may: 14 & 15
this month my reading ranged from classy to trashy.
nightwoods, by charles frazier (classy. charles frazier wrote cold mountain and thirteen moons, both amazing books, and this is his newest. i bought it for mom for christmas and then promptly asked to borrow it...oops. i did let her read it first! i love frazier's books because they're set in the mountains of north carolina and because he has such a beautiful way with words. and awesome plot lines. this one revolves around a murder and mute twins, and i spent about 50 pages reading frantically because A Bad Thing was about to happen and i had to know if it was REALLY going to happen. but if you've read cold mountain you know he's not afraid to let bad things happen. this is a great book - i'd highly recommend it! - though the way frazier tells stories leaves you confused for a while until all the pieces come together. so be prepared for a little bit of confusion.)
fifty shades of grey, by e.l. james (trashy. i can't even believe i'm admitting to reading this book. i read it for my book club! this is my excuse! that is all i will say. shortest book review ever.)
nightwoods, by charles frazier (classy. charles frazier wrote cold mountain and thirteen moons, both amazing books, and this is his newest. i bought it for mom for christmas and then promptly asked to borrow it...oops. i did let her read it first! i love frazier's books because they're set in the mountains of north carolina and because he has such a beautiful way with words. and awesome plot lines. this one revolves around a murder and mute twins, and i spent about 50 pages reading frantically because A Bad Thing was about to happen and i had to know if it was REALLY going to happen. but if you've read cold mountain you know he's not afraid to let bad things happen. this is a great book - i'd highly recommend it! - though the way frazier tells stories leaves you confused for a while until all the pieces come together. so be prepared for a little bit of confusion.)
fifty shades of grey, by e.l. james (trashy. i can't even believe i'm admitting to reading this book. i read it for my book club! this is my excuse! that is all i will say. shortest book review ever.)
Thursday, May 31, 2012
what i'm listening to right now
of monsters and men: "little talks":
i heard this on the radio! yay for 92.9 dave fm!
(this is a bizarre video, but also kind of cool...and they are icelandic, so i will allow it.)
i am dancing around my apartment to this song as i pack up my belongings. eek! moving season!
i heard this on the radio! yay for 92.9 dave fm!
(this is a bizarre video, but also kind of cool...and they are icelandic, so i will allow it.)
i am dancing around my apartment to this song as i pack up my belongings. eek! moving season!
Tuesday, May 29, 2012
i've changed my blog title!
i hadn't loved "a passing fancy," and since i've been blogging for almost three years it clearly isn't a passing fancy any more. and it's a little cliche. ugh.
to explain how i got to this new title, i'm going to excerpt a portion of the speech i gave to the seniors and their parents few weeks ago in my role as twelfth grade dean of students. during the final week of school, the parents hold a senior dinner for the students and their families, and invite the head of school, principal, twelfth grade dean, and a faculty member specially chosen by the students to speak. here's what i said:
Tonight I want to talk a little bit about friendship as you leave high school to go your separate ways in the world.
C.S. Lewis, most famous as the author of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, said this: “Friendship is the greatest of worldly goods. Certainly to me it is the chief happiness of life. If I had to give a piece of advice to a young man about a place to live, I think I should say, 'Sacrifice almost everything to live where you can be near your friends.' I know I am very fortunate in that respect. ”
For the last 1, 2, 10, 19 years you have lived near your friends. Some of you will continue to live near your friends as you attend the same college or a college in the same town. I have lived in the same town as my friends for the last 7 years, and I, like you, will depart this town in August for a new adventure, leaving friends behind. I have loved this C.S. Lewis quote for a long time; I have several close friends who are almost like family, and I agree with Lewis that friendship is one of the most important things in my life. One of the scariest things about moving is leaving my friends.
C.S. Lewis says, “sacrifice almost everything to live where you can be near your friends.” There is a time for this in your life, certainly, but I would say to C.S. Lewis that he’s wrong. We can’t restrain ourselves that way. Lewis very famously met with his friends (including J.R.R. Tolkien, the author of The Lord of the Rings) – he met with his friends every Thursday evening for 20 years. When I move away – and you move away – we will certainly miss those rituals we had with our friends – whether we had a standing Thursday night together talking about literature, as Lewis did, or whether our ritual was going to Blimpie’s for lunch on Fridays. But if you “sacrifice almost everything to live where you can be near your friends,” you sacrifice a great deal. You get the Blimpie’s sandwich with your friend on Fridays, but you may never become the person you are meant to be if you don’t leave your comfort zone, meet new people, listen to new ideas, see new parts of the world.
Helen Keller famously wrote, "Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing." So how do we balance this – the daring adventure with the advice to live near our friends? I would argue that Lewis’s quote doesn’t hold true in a world with cell phones with unlimited calling plans, affordable airfare, skype, and Words With Friends. We don’t have to sacrifice everything to live near our friends – we can find other ways to connect with them. That is my advice for you. I hope you do allow yourself a daring adventure, picking a roommate you don’t know, taking classes in areas that interest you, joining clubs and organizations that help you meet new and interesting people. Your best friend from high school will always answer your phone call when you get home at the end of the day.
Make the most of your daring adventure.
friends, i love you all. thanks for reading, and thanks even more for being a part of my life.
i hadn't loved "a passing fancy," and since i've been blogging for almost three years it clearly isn't a passing fancy any more. and it's a little cliche. ugh.
to explain how i got to this new title, i'm going to excerpt a portion of the speech i gave to the seniors and their parents few weeks ago in my role as twelfth grade dean of students. during the final week of school, the parents hold a senior dinner for the students and their families, and invite the head of school, principal, twelfth grade dean, and a faculty member specially chosen by the students to speak. here's what i said:
Tonight I want to talk a little bit about friendship as you leave high school to go your separate ways in the world.
C.S. Lewis, most famous as the author of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, said this: “Friendship is the greatest of worldly goods. Certainly to me it is the chief happiness of life. If I had to give a piece of advice to a young man about a place to live, I think I should say, 'Sacrifice almost everything to live where you can be near your friends.' I know I am very fortunate in that respect. ”
For the last 1, 2, 10, 19 years you have lived near your friends. Some of you will continue to live near your friends as you attend the same college or a college in the same town. I have lived in the same town as my friends for the last 7 years, and I, like you, will depart this town in August for a new adventure, leaving friends behind. I have loved this C.S. Lewis quote for a long time; I have several close friends who are almost like family, and I agree with Lewis that friendship is one of the most important things in my life. One of the scariest things about moving is leaving my friends.
C.S. Lewis says, “sacrifice almost everything to live where you can be near your friends.” There is a time for this in your life, certainly, but I would say to C.S. Lewis that he’s wrong. We can’t restrain ourselves that way. Lewis very famously met with his friends (including J.R.R. Tolkien, the author of The Lord of the Rings) – he met with his friends every Thursday evening for 20 years. When I move away – and you move away – we will certainly miss those rituals we had with our friends – whether we had a standing Thursday night together talking about literature, as Lewis did, or whether our ritual was going to Blimpie’s for lunch on Fridays. But if you “sacrifice almost everything to live where you can be near your friends,” you sacrifice a great deal. You get the Blimpie’s sandwich with your friend on Fridays, but you may never become the person you are meant to be if you don’t leave your comfort zone, meet new people, listen to new ideas, see new parts of the world.
Helen Keller famously wrote, "Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing." So how do we balance this – the daring adventure with the advice to live near our friends? I would argue that Lewis’s quote doesn’t hold true in a world with cell phones with unlimited calling plans, affordable airfare, skype, and Words With Friends. We don’t have to sacrifice everything to live near our friends – we can find other ways to connect with them. That is my advice for you. I hope you do allow yourself a daring adventure, picking a roommate you don’t know, taking classes in areas that interest you, joining clubs and organizations that help you meet new and interesting people. Your best friend from high school will always answer your phone call when you get home at the end of the day.
Make the most of your daring adventure.
this has been a really interesting year - applying for school as the seniors applied for schools, hearing back as they did, worrying about financial aid, taking "college days" to visit schools. more than ever, i felt like i understood what my students were going through as they prepared for one of the biggest transitions (yet) of their lives.
friday was my last day of work - it's summer! - and it seemed an appropriate time for the blog to reflect the changes in my life.
in addition, this video is bad ass and you should watch it.
friday was my last day of work - it's summer! - and it seemed an appropriate time for the blog to reflect the changes in my life.
in addition, this video is bad ass and you should watch it.
friends, i love you all. thanks for reading, and thanks even more for being a part of my life.
Monday, May 28, 2012
you know you're back in atlanta when...
1. all you can see is green as the plane lands. i love the beauty of the trees everywhere in this "city in the forest"!
2. the shuttle bus driver who takes you back to the parking lot where you've parked your car holds an overtly racist conversation with the other passenger. UGH.
1. all you can see is green as the plane lands. i love the beauty of the trees everywhere in this "city in the forest"!
2. the shuttle bus driver who takes you back to the parking lot where you've parked your car holds an overtly racist conversation with the other passenger. UGH.
Friday, May 25, 2012
last weekend i saw the best exotic marigold hotel, which is a really good movie with an incredible cast, and my friends and i decided that we want to move into a hotel together and just hang out. this would be an awesome life.
we were 100% the youngest people in the movie theater, and it was a funny anthropological experiment to see what parts the older people laughed at.
midway through the movie i leaned over and said, "let's get indian food for dinner!" you will feel the same way, so write that into your plans.
i have two friends who love the same kinds of movies as me - independent and foreign films - and two of us are moving this summer - one to DC and me to new york. our mini film club is breaking up. this makes me SAD. ugh. i hate goodbyes.
speaking of goodbyes...it's my last day of work at my school. DOUBLE UGH. new adventures are fun, but endings are not.
Thursday, May 24, 2012
Wednesday, May 23, 2012
what i'm listening to right now
"twilight," by the weepies:
(another bizarre homemade music video. i would like to host a seminar for people who make their own music videos called "don't do literal illustrations of the lyrics with pictures you found on the internet.")
i love the voices of the two singers in this band, and i love the way this song SOUNDS.
(another bizarre homemade music video. i would like to host a seminar for people who make their own music videos called "don't do literal illustrations of the lyrics with pictures you found on the internet.")
i love the voices of the two singers in this band, and i love the way this song SOUNDS.
Tuesday, May 22, 2012
reality check
aaaaaaaaand the reality of moving to new york city is hitting me. i found out today that i got on campus housing at columbia, which is great. it is furnished, so i can move minimal things up there - crucial, as i have no desire to move my whole life up to new york for just a year. the building i was assigned to is around the corner from school (literally), which will be so wonderful - a 3 minute commute by foot instead of a 15 minute commute by car! i am SO EXCITED ABOUT THAT. i'll be paying $1,000 a month, which by new york city standards is pretty awesome. but (reality check time), i'll be living in 109 square feet.
that is not a typo.
i'm sure some of you have closets bigger than that.
it's a "suite" - i have my own room and share a bathroom and kitchen with five other girls.
this should be interesting.
but the other option is: find my own housing - sure to be more expensive, sure to be unfurnished, sure to be farther away. so! 109 square foot dorm room it is! the room looks out on the "courtyard," not the street, so hopefully that means the noise level will be minimal. it's on the second floor, so i can hop up the stairs instead of waiting for an elevator.
i can do anything for a year. right?
that is not a typo.
i'm sure some of you have closets bigger than that.
it's a "suite" - i have my own room and share a bathroom and kitchen with five other girls.
this should be interesting.
but the other option is: find my own housing - sure to be more expensive, sure to be unfurnished, sure to be farther away. so! 109 square foot dorm room it is! the room looks out on the "courtyard," not the street, so hopefully that means the noise level will be minimal. it's on the second floor, so i can hop up the stairs instead of waiting for an elevator.
i can do anything for a year. right?
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