Would you rather

Would you rather have the ability to fly, or the ability to read people's minds?

Would you rather be able to stop time while you sleep, or never have to do laundry?

Would you rather have armpit sweat that was ridiculously odorous but not staining, or have odorless armpit sweat that horribly stained your clothes none-the-less?

Would you rather love someone who hates you or hate someone who loves you?


Would you rather be wearing a swimsuit in Antarctica or a snowsuit in the Sahara?

Would you rather have endless winter or endless summer?

Would you rather be blind or deaf?

Would you rather have a beautiful house and ugly car or an ugly house and a beautiful car?

Coming back

I spent the past 5 or so days in Kansas with Matthew. Kansas looks a lot like Minnesota. And Matthew is just fabulous. Basically... it was a great trip. I miss that boy.

Let me paint a picture. My mom and Nathan pick me and Jonathan up from the airport. We wrestle with inordinate (is that even a word? I feel like I may have made it up) amounts of traffic coming home, but finally we pull into the driveway, where my dad is standing on the porch next to next to Aaron, Ryan and Andrew, and Andrew is standing in front and holding his trumpet. As we get out of the car, Andrew starts playing some sort of fanfare. Yes, a trumpet fanfare. And then we hug everyone like 5 times. And then we walk into the house, where Ryan and Andrew (I think) decorated the entryway with streamers and signs that said stuff like "you dude and dudette rock" and "we missed you guys" and then "welcome bake home" which was above a plate of cookies. get it... get it...??

And Nathan still adores me. SUCCESS! And Andrew thinks I should just not work and play with him all day. I woudn't be opposed to that idea.

I have not unpacked yet. Nor do I have any desire at this time to really unpack. I slept in until 12:30 today. Don't judge, I'm just making up from a semester's worth of sleep deprivation.

I just bought my plane ticket to Paris. It's actually a pretty sweet deal. My parents helped me out a little bit. They had some frequent flyer miles, about 30,000, and apparently there is some sort of promotion going on with Northwest right now where if you tranfer miles to someone else's account, the miles double. And with those 30,000 now turned 60,000 miles, I have enough to get a flight. I'm just paying my parents the cost of the transfer, which is significantly less than just buying a flight would be. So now, everything is in place, there should be nothing left in my way between me and France.

Sunny D

Today is so gorgeous! I just do not want to study for finals. I just want to be outside in the beautiful warm weather with Matthew, and not stress about my last exams.

Last Saturday Matthew and I went on a scooter ride, up around the base of the mountain a little ways away, around where all the rich people live. At one spot we just decided to get off and climb around in the mountain. And we climbed around for a while, and then went down into a canyon and a stream. It was fabulous.

My roommates are packing up and leaving. Even though I'm glad that school is done, and that large stress is gone for a while, it does make me super sad to see Christina's half of our bedroom empty, and my friends gone.

Decisions

Nothing is as constant as change. I am discovering more and more how incredibly accurate that statement really is. I feel, especially recently, like my best laid plans are all too often shifted and switched and rearranged. Lets take my plans for this spring, for example.

First, the I-don't-know-exactly-what-I'm-doing-with-my-life-this-spring thing.
Then, the I'm-so-broke-I-need-to-go-home-to-save-money thing. I'll work at the bakery again. I've sworn to myself that I'm not working there again, but... well I can handle anything for 2 months.
Then the NO-NO-NO-I-can't-go-home-I-don't-like-going-home thing. I'll just stay in Provo and work. Get a job.
Then actually looking for a job. Early morning custodial? Yeah baby.
Then, the oh-wait-I-could-get-an-actually-good-job-in-Minnesota. And save money. And see the fam.
So I'm guess I'm going home? Uh, ok.

So I make the final decision. I'm going home. It's for sure. Then, the other day, I get an email from the Dietetics department about being a grader for independent study Nutrition 100 classes this summer. Because I was one of the most consistent graders this year, they offered the job to me first. They OFFERED a job. I can't do it, because I'm going home. And I'm going home to hopefully a better job, but still, the fact that I got offered a job and can't take it is a little, can I say, frustrating.

France-ness

I am so excited I can hardly sit still. I just want to do jumping jacks and cartwheels and dance.

I got officially accepted and placed for my internship in France today. It's a service internship, and I am going to be working for an organization called les petits freres des pauvres. I am going to be in...
...
...
...

PARIS!

So I'll be there from the end of June to the end of August.

I'm seriously just totally, so completely blissfully excited. I've had a perpetual silly grin on my face all day.

I kinda did want to go to a different city, because I have lived in Paris for 3 months before, but what the heck I'm going to be in France, Paris is freaking beautiful and I love it.

And to make this situation even better, I am going to be there with Kate, and we will be living together in an old apartment somewhere in Paris.

France is beautiful. I realize some don't have an adequate appreciation for the amazing-ness of this place. Educate yourselves:

France

Great architecture

Amazing culinary experiences

Castles up the wazoo

And the most beautiful language in the world.

Don't even try to tell me otherwise, or even think about denying it. I will smite you.

Girls only want boyfriends who have great skills

I am amazed by the lack of competent writers, even in college. I'm a grader for Nutrition 100, and currently am grading a bunch of short papers for that class. It is sometimes a rather frustrating process. As a grader, there is a specific rubric of things to look for, what I can and should take points off for, etc. So sometimes a paper won't really have grammatical errors and the actual content of the paper is fine, so I am obliged to give a pretty high score, even though the writing is absolutely atrocious. The caliber of the paper is something I would expect from a high school student. But I'm not really supposed to mark them down because "the quality of writing in this paper is greatly lacking." I'm not saying that I am the goddess of writing, or anything near to it, but based on the number of papers that I've read in the past few days exhibiting this sad characteristic, I feel like I am witnessing a crisis of epidemic proportions.

La pluie

J'eprouve le besoin d'ecrire en francais ce soir.

Aujourd'hui etait un de ces jours ou le monde etait beau.
Il vent,
il faisait frais,
comme c'est enfin printemps,
les arbres deviennent en fleurs,
et finallement,
il a plu.

Comme c'est magnifique la pluie.

Ca fait propre le monde,
cela apporte de la paix,
de la tranquilite,
une pause de la stresse de la journee.

On voit la vie comme elle est vraiment
sans pollution
sans obscurite
mais jolie, plein d'espoir
et d'amour
les choses qui valent la peine.
les choses qui ne sont pas assez importantes que je croyais.

La pluie est comme un bain qui enleve tous les fardeaux et qui rend le monde plus clair.

Je voudrais que la pluis ne s'arrete pas encore.
Je voudrais que cet etat d'esprit ne cesse jamais.