A Plea to the Potato Museum

Dear Idaho Potato Museum,

This weekend, my best friend and I took a "roadtrip" from Salt Lake to Rexburg to attend a friend's mission farewell. While on the freeway nearing Blackfoot, we saw a sign for a "Potato Museum". We were enthralled with the grand opportunity to become enlightened on some of the enriching culture of Idaho, and so quickly detoured from our route, throwing all thoughts of itinerary to the wind.

Get out of my mind!

So with everyone moving away at the end of the semester and all my guy friends going on missions, it feels like everyone I know has vanished off the face of the earth. To avoid that awful hole-in-your-stomach feeling, I've come up with a few ways to keep yourself from missing people! It works with friends, acquaintances, crushes, and even pets. So whether it's your best friend moving to Timbuktu or beloved Goldie passing away after a long fishy life (about 14 days), use these tips to stop the weeping as the plane takes off and the fish transcends the porcelain throne to his watery grave.

Goodbye, Mr. Fish. You were a good fish. You never ran away from home or anything.  :(

One year older and wiser, too

Well, that's it. My freshman year of college is over. I decided to figure out if I've learned anything at all the past nine months... And I realized I've learned a LOT (surprising, I know). So here's a hodgepodge list of stuff that's been crammed into my brain since September. 

Cinnamon Challenge

The cinnamon challenge.


I reacted even worse. So basically, the cinnamon challenge is the most horrible decision ever. Step into my shoes and see.

Confidence Booster Shot

I feel like I may have done a post like this before, but my friend is in desperate need of some advice. (How embarrassing, right?) So just for you, here are some quick, fast, and easy ways to dispel doubt from your mind. Just bear in mind, all of these treatments must be applied in moderation, or you will be oozing so much confidence from your body that you will frighten away any and all potential pals, playmates, or partners.

Some things, like grilled cheese sandwiches, are good when they ooze. Others are not. Like confidence. Or zits.

I'm starving!

Over the weekend, I did a media fast for my communications class. Basically, for three days, you "abstain from all forms of electronic media". This includes telephones, cell phones, radios, TVs, computers, and any other communications device powered by electricity. This means that for 72 hours, I was unable to communicate with anyone besides face-to-face contact. It was especially heartrending because my roommates and best friend went out of town for President's Day. Also, it was my Grandma's birthday and I couldn't call. To occupy myself during this media apocalypse, I kept a handwritten captain's log of my pain and suffering (at least for the first 24 hours), and now here it is for your time-wasting enjoyment.

Friday, February 17.

12:01 a.m. It has begun. The time of judgment is nigh at hand. Power down all devices.

1:09 a.m. Already breaking the rules. Turn phone on to text my mother and remind her that if she doesn't hear from me the next three days, I'm not dead. Power down all devices, for real this time.

8:04 a.m. Wake up from a dream about using my computer. Literally drooling. Disgustingly addicted.

Awopierjvkla;*&YAhfk

You know that moment when you pulled an all-nighter and you were fine becuase you were doing stuff but then you sat down to watch Hulu and then all of a sudden you're like falling aslepe...? This is that moment. I an also leaving all the typos in this post because I am took tired to fix it. (Haha, good luck, suckers.)

^ You trying to read this pots with its innumerable typos.

A friend in need is a friend indeed.

"A friend in need is a friend indeed". I've never really been sure what this saying meant. But it's about friends, and friends in need. Which makes me think about how I have no friends. I am a friend in need.... to myself. I am going to be my very own best friend. And here are the ways, straight from wiki*, that I will utilize to increase my happiness.

1. "Be active". They say exercise releases endorphins into your brain that make you happy. But in my case, the pain from an asthma attack will take my mind off the emotional sorrow and loneliness. Also, hopefully if I work out I'll become more attractive, therefore more desirable, and then maybe people will like me.

Or I'll just die.

Intense Individual Research

I once got accused of "Facebook stalking" certain attractive members of the opposite sex. I replied, "I'm not stalking. I'm conducting intense individual research". Okay, I didn't actually reply, because I was looking at the 600 pictures on their profile... But I would have said that. Research is much more professional and socially acceptable than stalking. But in case you are interested, there are some really great ways to... research people.

1. Facebook's new timeline thing. You can literally see a person's entire life. Perfect for studying an individual's past relationships, occupations, life events, and literally everything. The funniest thing to do to freak people out is whilst chatting with them, go onto their timeline and "like" their birth, then immediately log off.

Clean up, clean up, everybody everywhere...

Yesterday in our dorm, something terrible happened. Something awful, dreadful, utterly unpleasant, and ridiculously repulsive. It was the most dreaded day in a college student's life... Cleaning checks!

Cleaning checks are just that: your RA checks that your apartment is clean. You are assigned jobs to clean your dorm, you all do them, and then the RA comes and makes sure you did them. It's like being audited on your living space. It's stressful. Plus, you have to clean up after other people. (It does balance out, because they're also cleaning up after you, but still.)

I think I'm still in denial.

Here at BYU, finals are quickly approaching. I have exactly 8 days until my first final. Everyone around me seems to have slipped into some sort of studying hyperdrive mode, yet here I am, frivolously typing away. I feel like I'm addicted to not worrying. So, I'm going to set up a 12-step program for myself to get over it this dysfunctional and addictive behavior.

1. Admit that I am powerless over my addiction--that my life has become unmanageable.

Alright, alright. I admit it. My life is horribly, awfully, twistedly unmanageable. I can't handle it anymore. I can't even open a can of Chef Boyardee Ravioli without breaking down into tears, because I am addicted to contentment. I am addicted to complacency!

Life... Is so... Hard... My lace hankie and the delicate rivulets of mascara flowing down my cheeks show you how truly burdensome this can of ravioli is to my life...

I mustache you a question...

A moustache [muhs-tash, muh-stash] is facial hair grown on the outer surface of the upper lip. It may or may not be accompanied by a type of beard, a facial hair styler grown and cropped to cover most of the lower half of the face.

The mustache, or moustache if you're British, is the perturbing paradox of man. Theoretically, the mustache adds an air of class and finesse to any schlub in a tuxedo. Truly, however, the mustache is a detriment to any and all men, no matter how angelic their clean-shaven baby face is.

Look. Even Brad Pitt can't pull it off, and apparently he's "dreamy". All it does is make him look like some 50-year-old taxi driver.

Bucket List

If you go to the Creamery a lot, you may have a bunch of 3 gallon buckets sitting around your apartment. There are many things that you can use these buckets for, and here are nine of my personal favorites, complete with disgracefully disproportionate photoshop pictures.

Zumba! Because we ate too much.

Two days ago was Thanksgiving. I ate and ate and ate... And gained six pounds. So last night, Julie and I decided that since we are the only ones at home, we would work out a little bit. We looked up some Zumba videos on Youtube...

We felt like the girls in the white pants, but I'm pretty sure we actually looked like the lady in the background in the red T-shirt. Which is why we made sure the blinds were closed. (Look at her around 2:35... That's us.)

We died a little bit, and sweat a lot. But it's okay, because sweat is just fat crying. And there was some fat left over from Thanksgiving that needed to cry. (Holiday leftovers are not always a good thing.)

Weapons of Mass Distraction

Naked puppies! There, now I have your attention. Have you noticed how easy it is to get distracted? It's like, I get online to do my homework, and the next thing you know, I'm pinning an adorable puppy on Facebook. How does this happen? I'm not sure. But, here are some ways to get more distracted. Because it wasn't easy enough before.

1. Pinterest. For those of you who haven't heard of it, it sounds really dumb when you explain it. Basically you scroll through little pictures and you can like them or repin them on your boards. It's solely a time waster. The bad thing is, it gives you other things to distract yourself with. Like new hairdos. Or cookies!

Sleepytime

Sleep [sleep] to take the rest afforded by a suspension of voluntary bodily functions and the natural suspension, complete or partial, of consciousness; cease being awake. Synonyms: nap, doze, dream, snooze. Antonyms: waking, consciousness, college.

Here I am, writing a post in the middle of the night. The epitome of college, right? Staying up late, passing out from exhaustion in the wee hours of the morning, and then waking up twenty minutes before your first class. E'ery day of my life. You'd think I'd just go to bed earlier. Nah. There's too much to do! Also, I'm rarely tired at a normal "bedtime".

College= (High school) * 1,000,000,000,000,000,000

I have been talking to a few of my friends recently who are still in high school, and I realized something. I did not like high school. I managed to have a fun time with extracurriculars and friends, but school as a whole was dreadful, despite some enjoyable classes. By the end of senior year, I was SO ready for college. And now that I'm here, it is AWWEEESSSOMMMMEEEEE.... Here are some reasons why.

1. The schedule.

First of all, the daily schedule. In high school, you were required to be at school, in a desk, for 7 hours every day. My high school was from 7:30 AM to 2:10 PM. That is a looooong time. In college, you don't have that. You get to pick how many classes a day you take, and at what time you take them. So if you don't want to have class until 1:30 on Tuesdays and Thursdays, you don't! And if you only want to have two classes on Fridays, you do!

Ridiculicism: The new era of photography

This post will teach you how to take a good picture, like the lovely picture at left. Or maybe even better, since I took that picture and I'm not even a professional. But here are some guidelines that will ensure a professional photograph every time.

1. Get a camera.

Perhaps the most overlooked of all steps, number one is possibly the most important. When selecting a camera, make sure you choose the best quality camera that you can afford. And never go look at cameras that you can't afford, or you'll drool all over them and break them and go into debt to pay for them, and then a tornado will hit your house and take off your roof and you won't even be able to fix it because all your money went to pay for a camera that you can't even use.

Entertaining yourself in Provo

I have gotten very good at entertaining myself, since my roommate Shantel is constantly on dates. And as you know, she is my life. So when she is gone, I have no life. This happens just about every night. Not kidding; last Sunday it was like "Oh, where did Shantel go? Oh, she's over at some guy's apartment making some crepes or something? Oh." She'll go out with a guy and I sit in my room, on the floor, staring at the wall. The roles are never reversed. Because I have been on one date the entire time I've been here. And she was there too. I guess in a way this is good, because it means I won't be getting married in December, contrary to popular BYU stereotype. But at the same time, it means I never eat. Besides canned food and ramen.

Dynamic Human Architecture

...I'm not even sure what to say about this. Yep, that's me. Laying in a parking lot. I am "planking".

"Dynamic human architecture" is merely a formal term for "planking". And "planking" is merely a formal term for "laying on random objects because you're bored".