Oh boy...I just feel like writing a random blog of all the things going through my noggin'. So here goes:
Why do colleges (or OSU, at least) call the week before finals week "dead week"? Supposedly there used to be no classes, and proffessors are not supposed to present any new material. HA! What a joke! This term has been crazy beyond belief, and this past week has been triple the insanity. Fourteen large assignments due this week alone. I'm not talking reading quizes or homework sets (which for my physics take about five or six hours at least), but full blown research, synthesis, or laboratory reports. And I'm only in four classes! But those four classes add up to eighteen credit hours.
Speaking of credit hours...I am on track to graduate next spring! It's ridiculous, exciting, and kind of frightening. I actually have to start deciding if I want to go to grad school, or look for a job, and where and SOON! Oh my gosh! I can't even think about not being in school! I haven't been not in school since I was four...almost seventeen years ago!
But, I do have a way of working, going to grad school AND staying in my beloved Corvallis! OSU's masters program in Soil Science is amazing, and is a really good choice of grad school, the EPA office is a five minute walk from campus, and they are always willing to take in undergrads and grads for internships and eventually jobs. As much as i piss and moan about the government, working for the EPA could be very fulfilling, and stable! I toured their site today and learned about their asymmetrical warming studies that are amazing and ground-breaking. I would love to be part of that team!
First thing's first, though, finals next week. I only have three, so that's not too bad, although on Wednesday I have one at 7am and one at 8pm. It'll be a very long day. But then after finals I am going to be spending a week with some soil professors and grad students (turns out I am the only undergrad going) in the channeled scablands! It is like the grand canyon of the northwest, yet almost no one has heard of them! They were carved out by multiple cataclismic floods from the breakdown of the glacial lake Missoula. It is amazing and completely unique.
This summer should be fun. I'm staying in Corvallis with my room-mate, and our soon-to-be additional room-mate from high school. She just got back from nearly two years at a bible school in Costa Rica. That will be fun. I'm also going to be working full time at the greenhouse, which is fine with me! It really is a wonderful job, it gets a litle tedious and methodical, but it's a great job, and since Prof. Carrington was just awarded a national recognition, I feel proud to be on his team!

That's all the jabbing i can do for now! Take care all!

PS, I'm not sure what happened to the font on my last post, it's all messed up, sorry.

LIVE LOVE LAUGH

There are some days when life is crystal clear and I really realize how fortunate I am to be who I am, and to be truly ALIVE. Not just in the sense that I have a pulse, a temperature, and functioning senses.
Today I will delve into my life philosophy, as it has developed substantially within the last, oh, six or seven months. Here we go:

• Live for the journey. Life isn't always, and usually isn't, about the destination. I believe that how you get where you are speaks volumes more than where you are. That means meeting turbulence with grace, and looking trouble in the eye. Handling adversity with understanding, gentleness, and patience. Learning to leave unnecessary thought and actions alone, and moving on.
  
• Worry Less. This one is hard for me, but I am trying. Things will get done whether you worry or not. It really is a useless, and destructive habit. I don't mean that slacking off and letting duties go undone, just not getting overly anxious about things outside of your control. Yeah, this one is a real toughie for me, though.
• Appreciate everyone for who they are. That includes ones self. Not everyone clicks with everyone else, cool. That adds to the interest in this world. Instead of getting frustrated with others, just realize that they have come along a different path, and that they have a different life history to pull from. If everyone agreed, progress would be impossible! Beauty arises from friendly disagreement.
• Choose your Battles Wisely and Carefully. No one can do everything, and no one can know everything about anything. Choose to be passionate about a few things and put your all into those things, instead of spreading your time and effort thinly across multiple causes. It is the fairest thing to do for everything and everyone in your life.
  
• Finally, Flirt with Yourself in the Mirror!!!! This sounds absurd, silly, and petty, but I have found it is essential to feeling confident and happy each and every day. Knowing that who I see in the mirror matches the person i am feeling inside that day helps me feel powerful and ready to take charge of the day.
  

TAG (not of the talented and gifted type)

My dear sister, Shauna, tagged me, and I like surveys and quizzes and the like, so here goes:


Four Things You Might/Might Not Want To Know About Me!
1) I used to have REALLY ticklish feet. I still do, but I used to not be able to wear socks because the seams were unbearable on my toes. It drove my family nuts
2) I absolutely cannot stand the sound of nails on chalk boards. It makes me gag...yes, the sound makes me gag.
3) I have really crooked fingers. Ask Shauna about why...
4) Acrylic fabric makes me cry. I think I'm allergic to it.

Four jobs I've held:
1) Retail at An Equine Addiction
2) Sales girl at Oregon Leather
3) Training horses/teaching riding
4) Greenhouse assistant and research aid for OSU's renowned Carrington lab

Four movies I could watch over and over:
The Notebook
Gattaca
Momento
Moulin Rouge

Places I've lived (in order):
Eugene, Oregon (Fairfield)
Eugene, Oregon (Lorane)
Corvallis, Oregon (on campus)
Corvallis, Oregon (off campus)

Four TV shows I like:
What Not to Wear
America's Next Top Model
Deadliest Catch
Cash Cab

Four favorite foods:
Chili
Chicken
Cheese
Salmon

Where I would rather be:
I wish it were two weeks from today, I will be camping in Bend and going to the Modest Mouse concert :)

Hiking, bakpacking and camping

I appreciate manicured nails, Cosmo mags, little black dresses and other stereotypically girly things, but more than anything else, I find so much peace and become quite centered in the untamed, pristine woods, grasslands, or mountains. I love being surrounded by something so much larger and grander than perception allows me to grasp. Being out where there is little if any evidence of human alteration is what really resets me and makes everything in life come into a clear, crisp focus. I hate to sound snobbish, but I think I enjoy camping for a completely different set of reasons than most people do. To me it is not just a time to take the RV, TV, beer and chairs to the outdoors and create an outdoor house. While that can be fun with family and friends, true camping to me is the most sensitive spiritual experience to be had. When you leave behind all the non-essentials, take only the bare minimum, go into the woods without a plan of where you will end up, and have the intent of being intimate with the Earth itself, that is when spiritual things will happen. I don't want to sound all new-age hoity-toity, but it is how I like to experience nature.
Hiking is also great with select others. I sound like such a selective snob! But when hiking, it is of utmost importance to me that whomever I am hiking with also understands the deep meaning of each tree, every stone, and can appreciate the beauty of the natural world sprawling before us and walk upon the land with intent and reverence.
I guess to me, pristine nature is like a temple or church. So when i see people disrespecting nature; littering, ruining flora for no purposeful reason, taunting fauna, and acing like they own th land; it is analogous to a devoted Christian seeing their church, with all the symbols of Christ and God, in flames with bystanders pointing and giggling at the smoke.
To me the outdoors are not to be tamed or conquered. Whoever tries is like Don Quiote jousting with the windmills. Nature is to be cherished, we are the stewards of the land, not the owners.
This summer I plan on taking as many camping, hiking and backpacking trips around the pacific northwest as I can between work and a few summer courses. So if you have a true reverence for nature and want to go on some outdoor adventures with nature and myself, let me know, good camping company is hard to come by!

Collections

Over the years I have had many odd collections. Breyers were huge for ages (and I still cannot part with a few of them, actually), and there were pound puppies, of course. Then there were lizards (sand-filled, hand-made from beads, and plastic) and pogs. Oh man, I wish pogs were still around! Those were super fun. I remember playing pogs with my sister and her friend, Sara and then going out to jump on the trampoline. Enough on that tangent!
More recently I began a marble collection. They are fascinating to me and I really like the vintage-y feel of them. And my most recent collection is.............FUNKY VINTAGE WINE GLASSES! I don't know if it's truly a collection yet, as I only have one so far. But I am hoping to get a good collection, no two the same, so at my future fun parties, everyone will know whose glass is whose. I am just enamored by the sophistication of some of the old wine glasses I see in antique shoppes and think thy are so unique. Plus, I like how when you flick really good quality crystal, it resonates so crisply. So, that is my new collection in case you were wondering.

What an odd day it was.

Some days looks can get you a lot. I usually don't consider myself very attractive, I'm sort of awkward, not stereotypically beautiful. But today I felt really good about myself, really confident with my personality and felt like I could conquer anything that came up. So, that confidence must have had some sort of a radiant effect, I don't recall opening any doors for myself (except at my apartment), I was offered a cut in the line at the bank by a gentleman in front of me, and then came the video store. I had a gift certificate there I needed to use, so I went in and asked if they had a certain movie for sale and I was just overlooking it. They did not have one for sale, but the clerk pulled one out of circulation for me, then said to go pick out four more movies and he'd only charge me for two! Looking back, I really should have said no, but I am poor, and enjoy movies, so I accepted the offer. I don't know if it's just coincidence or if my being confident really had that much impact on how others treated me, but it was an exceptional day!

Long TIme, no Blog!

I have gotten some complaints about my lack of blog activity, so for all you whiners, here is a random blog! I hope you all are happy.
I don't really know what to write about, so I will do a list of random things that make me giddy, happy, exhillirated, or the like:

• bubble wrap
• jeans that actually fit and are long enough
• freshly plucked eyebrows
• the smell of campfires
• big, open fields surrounded by forests
• track jackets
• rich humic soils
• peeling oranges in one peel
• steel drums
• music by Bob Marley and the Wailers
• music by Hootie and the Blowfish
• music by Dave Mathews Band
• music in general
• wildflowers
• the smell and taste of coconut
• driving with friends when it's sunny out
• aviator sunglasses
• chunky, tribal-esque bracelets
• little black dresses
• the magic bullet blender
• north face jackets
• hiking
• the smell of fresh cut hay, especially fescue or alfalfa
• bucking hay
• getting done at the barn in the summer just as the sun is setting
• hammocks
• laying down with sleeping horses
• examining the exquisite musculature of horses
• clavicles
  
• tee-shirts and scarves
• knee-high boots and elbow length gloves
• smiling strangers
• swings
• long philosophical chats
• yerba mate
  

This list could go on and on and on, but alas, I will save some more for a part two!