Jill's Fault

I've never done one of these on a blog before, so here it is.

4 TV Shows I like to watch:
1. The Office
2. The Olympics
3. American Idol
4. NCIS? Honestly don't watch anything but the Office.

4 things I'm passionate about:
1. Cheese
2. Muse
3. "unimportant things" as one friend told me
4. Being better, helping others be better

4 words or phrases I say often:
1. Seriously
2. Honestly
3. Ridiculously
4. Basically

4 things I have learned from the past:
1. one inch really is a mile
2. you don't have to keep everything you love with you to keep loving it
3. let it go...you don't need it
4. There is a purpose in suffering

4 places I would love to go:
1. New York
2. Germany
3. Sweden
4. Switzerland

4 things I did yesterday:
1. Went to class
2. applied for jobs
3. watched HP2
4. scrapbooked

4 things I am looking forward to this year:
1. NULC
2. Muse Concert
3. Graduating
4. Getting a real job, having a real life, maybe?

4 things I love about winter:
1. clean snow
2. sledding
3. being in Rexburg and knowing that I'm in pretty much the coldest place on earth
4. not being hot

4 things on my wish list: (AKA my Birthday is next week)
1. Lord of the Rings Extended DVDs (movies are always at the top...)
2. Anne of Green Gables on DVD
3. a career
4. to sell my screenplay!

4 people I tag:
1. Brynn
2. Stephanie
3. Alyssa
4. Camilla (I don't know who reads my blog, really)

I know I text, but I can still hate it.

I just want to say that this is officially my biggest pet peeve:
People who can only talk about their personal thoughts and feelings over texting (or Facebook messaging) and can't hold a conversation longer than three sentences in person.

A friend of mine who is on a mission really wanted me to get to know his best friend from home, so we started talking over Facebook and eventually started texting (I trusted the missionary that he wouldn't introduce me to a creeper, plus I'm also friends with the missionary's sister who is also very very close to this kid). This past weekend, he came to Rexburg to hang out with the sister and me.

He got here at about 9 a.m. on Saturday, but the sister is going to Paul Mitchell Hair Academy and has school from 9-5 on Saturdays. So I had to spend all that time with him, without ever having met him before.

I didn't think it was going to be a big deal; we had had interesting enough conversations already, what would be the difference?

I spent 8 hours talking to myself in his presence, minus the 90ish minutes I spent donating plasma while he ran some errands.

When we finally were able to hang out with the sister, he still never talked while I was present. If I left, then came back, he'd stop cold in the middle of their conversation.


However, the moment he left Rexburg, he began texting me as though we were close friends.


This is a social illness. And it is unacceptable.


The following are acceptable reasons to text:

• Clarifying meeting time/circumstances with someone
• Announcing a party/reminding of a party
• A quick check in with someone, hopefully accompanied by the promise of a future phone call/letter/visit
• Something reminded you of someone and you want to tell them before you forget
• You're not sure if a person is available to talk and you want to find out
• Asking a simple question that can be answered quickly

The following are unnacceptable reasons:

• Asking a complex, thought provoking question that will lead to a deep conversation
• Getting to know someone
• Expressing love and devotion (unless it is commonly expressed in other ways as well, then a text of this nature can just be a pleasant surprise)
• Figuring out details of a situation that are complicated and will require a lot of attention
• Any text conversation that lasts several hours
• Arguing
• Asking someone out
• Breaking up with someone

I think there are some circumstances when this can be bent, for example, if someone is at work and they are the only person you can talk to about a certain situation, but obviously they can't answer the phone. That's about the only exception (and is not an exception to the asking out or breaking up, or even arguing rules).

I like talking to people. Some of my most cherished memories involve having conversations with people until 6 a.m. Not texting conversations. If you text me after 2 a.m. and wake me up repeatedly, I will curse you to death.

Stadium Singing

Before I get to the point of this blog, I just want to point out my awkward moment of the night. My roommate and her fiance were just standing behind me saying goodnight and speaking Spanish to each other (they both served Spanish speaking missions). I'm pretty sure she was telling him not to kiss her so much cause I was there. Haha.

Ok anyway, I just wanted to say: Only at BYU-Idaho would you find hundreds of students gathered in negative degree weather, outside underneath the the bleachers at the football stadium, to sing hymns for half an hour.

I love my school.

THE PEKING ACROBATS!!!!!!!!!

Tonight I saw the Peking Acrobats perform.

Can I firstly just say I am so grateful to be going to a school where I get incredible opportunities like this.

Secondly, can I say that the show was literally and absolutely the most unbelieveable thing I've ever seen.

Where to start describing? How to try? Is it even worth trying?

The first ridiculously amazing thing was two girls lying on their backs with their feet in the air, spinning and flipping large porcelain vases with their feet. Then they switched to a table and an umbrella, spinning them with their toes.

Later, a girl stood on ballet point on top of another acrobat's head.

One girl balanced a pyramid of 26 filled cups on her nose and climbed up two ladders, one foot on each, that were on opposite ends of a teeter-toter.

And one man stacked 8 or 10 chairs on top of 4 wine bottles, then balanced on his hand on top of them. He was about 2 feet from the ceiling. Then he tipped the first chair on a diagonal and balanced on his hands again. Then he tipped it at a more dangerous angle and balanced on just one hand.

So you might be able to tell that I have no brain left because the acrobats blew it away. It is splattered on the back of my skull.

I seriously, seriously, strongly admonish everyone to seek out an opportunity to see the Peking Acrobats.

The Chemistry of Food

So today I had three interesting experiences with food.

1) I went to donate plasma today, and for the second time this week I was rejected due to a low hematocrit (iron) level. I'm anemic. The girl at the clinic said I should eat a tuna sandwich the day before every time I go to donate. I hate tuna. SO MUCH. So I will be researching other iron-rich foods.

2) This past Saturday an apartment in another girl's complex caught fire. They were making onion rings and some oil spilled on the burner. These girls clearly didn't learn about grease fires at girls' camp like I did. They used the fire extinguisher which made the fire instantly much bigger. Only their kitchen burned, but they can non longer live in their apartment. Today, my roommate was sauteing some onions and spilled some oil on the burner. Fortunately I write for the school newspaper and therefore actually read it, so I remembered the story of the other girls, and according to my availability heuristic, remembered what I learned at girls' camp: that you are supposed to toss baking soda on grease fires. So I did. And the fire instantly vanished.

3) I was reading in my social psych book tonight about self-control. Your brain uses glucose to exert self-control, and if your glucose store is depleted you will no longer be able to maintain control. This is why often if you are put in a stressful situation in which you must use self-control, later you find yourself losing control in another area, most likely eating junk food. So tonight I am supposed to go play soccer with my ward team...that my ex-boyfriend is on. Fortunately, my roommate just made orange cinnamon rolls. :)