my favorite feature of my itouch...

...is that it reminds me of an etch-a-sketch.

=

because when i want it to switch screen views, i get to shake it!

i am aware if i wait a few moments after i turn it it'll re-orient itself,

but where's the fun in that??
:)

...o my mercy...i just realized -
my itouch has better sense of space right now than i do! Lollollollollollollol!...

guilty as charged

common indicators that i am unwell:

1) uncommon and extreme exhaustion
2) unable to function normally or consistantly
3) inability to focus or complete tasks
4) feeling helpless and overwhelmed
5) crying like a tragic little 5 yr old when i can't perform at my accustomed level

...according to the
emi-sick-o-meter,
and tonight's unpromising events,


i'm not recovered yet...

...and am still a danger to myself...

...which means i can't go to work tomorrow...



...and yes, i cried about it.

off to bed for another 12-14 hrs i guess...
goodnight.

causing a buzz...

i have a bee in my bonnett today

after my roommate pulled a classic stunt i saw daily while teaching workshops in brazil.

"my roommate is amazing." i told a visiting friend.

"it's true," she joked.

"it's really hard being as amazing as she is." i added

"seriously!" she returned, "and i'm not just beautiful, i'm also smart and wonderful!"

"it's a hard life when you're as wonderful as her!" i agreed

"yeah! i'm pretty wonderful!....

...well, you know, not really, of course,"

she corrected apologetically,

"i don't want to sound conceited..."

and there's where the bee comes in.

all joking aside,

WHAT do we think is wrong or evil or conceited about saying we're

fantastic, amazing, and wonderful??

i see it every day -

wonderful people who become embarassed or repentent for suggesting that they are, in any way, awesome.

WHERE did we get this rediculous idea that it's bad to say 'i'm fantastic'?!?

i think it comes from a classic

mis-internpretation of the scriptures + being overly hard on ourselves.

because the scriptures clearly condem mankind for the sin of

PRIDE

(see also Haughtiness, Hardheartnedness, Envy, Conceit, or Boasting).

"pride goeth before destruction!" (16:18)

"whosoever shall exalt himself shall be abased" (matt 23:12)

"polluted because of the pride of your heart" (morm 8:36)

and we assume that in order to NOT be condemned or destroyed or polluted in our hearts, we have to think very little of ourselves and our acheivements.

right?

WRONG!

"I (God) have said, Ye (us!) are gods;

and all of you are children of the most High!" (ps 82:6)

wow!

and how about when the Lord visited Moses? He tells him that,

"I am the Lord God Almighty, and Endless is my name, for I am without beginning of days or end of years...and behold, thou art my son."

so....if God is our Father and He is glorious, wonderful, divine, and amazing in every way then WE are, by default, also glorious, wonderful, divine, and amazing!

(are we perfect yet? NO - but did we inheret amazingness? YES!)

THAT IS A TRUTH!

so what on EARTH is bad or wrong about declaring something that is already an eternal truth??

this is where i draw the line between aknowledging truth and being lifted up in the pride of our hearts:

"i am holier than thou" (isa 65:5)

THIS is the difference i taught my students every week in brazil -

it is NOT shameful or wrong to say you are a great person!

what IS unkind and un-christ-like is to say, "i am BETTER than another child of God."

THAT is the pride we are warned against,

because saying we are better or deserve more than someone else

(who is also a divine child of God)

leads to contention, selfishness, fear, anger, violence, and general snobbery.

remember, satan loves to take sacred, precious things and make them a tool for unhappiness,

and loving ourselves is JUST as precious, sacred, and vital to our eternal happiness

and JUST as easily manipulated!

telling yourself you are wonderful is healthy and needful!

it's satan's twist of comparing that makes it prideful and destructive.

think about it, loving ourselves is important!

aren't we told to love our neighbors AS OURSELVES?

not less than we love ourselves (which is pride),

and NOT MORE than we love ourselves (which is abasing ourselves unjustly)!

so really, we aren't able to fulfill the second great commandment unless we love ourselves for the wonderful, divine, and amazing people we are first!

for how can we possibly love our neighbors as ourselves if we DON'T love ourselves to begin with?

every time we say

"i'm so stupid!"

or

"i'm a horrible person!"

or

"i'm so bad at this..."

or we deflect a compliment

we are telling our sweet little spirits that we don't, in fact, believe that we are the divine chidlren of God that we are.

...which is a lie :) and none of us out there think lying is good, right?

right!

so stop!

i encourage everyone to say at least

3 wonderful things to themselves every morning

and then refrain from using self-destructive language throughout the day.

make a plan to change your knee-jerk tendencies to call yourself

"stupid" "horrible" "lame" or whatever

to something more accurate,

like

"i have room to improve!"

"i'm getting better every day!"

"i learn from my mistakes!"

"i am wonderful even tho i'm imperfect!"

if you need help in the beginning, call me and i will TELL you how amazing you are as often as you need! :)

because we are DIVINE

and we ALL deserve that kind of treatment!

Buzzzzzzbzzzzzzzzzzzzbzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzbzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz...

is your bonnett buzzing yet?

Final Jeopardy: "labyrinthitis!"...

contestant #1: ...what is "an uncontrollable desire to watch David Bowie all day?!"

alex: i'm sorry, that is incorrect.


contestant #2: ...how about, what is "an unnatural compulsion to dance around in tight leggings and 80's eyeshadow with a slew of muppet minions?!"


alex: not correct either, i'm afraid. contestant #3, what is your guess?



contestant #3: ...um...what is "the sensation felt when one is falling into a goblin king's domain?!"


alex: oooh, so very close! however, still incorrect!





and the correct answer is!:

*what is "an ear disorder that involves irritation and swelling of the inner ear"


causing symptoms such as:
*Abnormal sensation of movement (Vertigo)
*Difficulty focusing the eyes due to involuntary eye movements
*Dizziness
*Loss of hearing in one ear
*Loss of balance
*Nausea and vomiting
and
*Ringing or other noises in the ears (tinnitus)


sounds fun, huh?!

it's especially fun to come down with during class so you end up on the floor in the hallway of the tanner building!
to add a little spice, make sure you have student EMTs arrive on the scene to tell you you're as healthy as a horse and they have no clue why your world is upside-down and your eyes keep rolling around in your head.
but if you want to make this moment even better, have people (like well-meaning classmates and BYU EMTs) try to move you against your will, because this will result in violent and involuntary fits of panic and hyperventilation because your body can't orient itself! YES!! :D

(please note, the reason why THIS method of getting sick is so much fun is because you will have the gleeful satisfaction of watching the students rushing by stare at you in horror for fear that deamons are about to leap out of your skull and eat them! :D SO fun!)

to top off your awesomely fun afternoon of coming down with labyrinthitis, spend at least 3 hours at BYU urgent care, desperately needing to relieve your bladder but unable to even lift your head without assistance, exhausted/sick from the walls moving around you, and lacking sufficient fluids in your veins for the regular nurses to be able to draw your blood - it is only a perfect afternoon if they have to try twice and only get it when the INFANT-vein-specialist comes in with the butterfly needle! :)

thanks to everyone who has helped me since thursday afternoon when i contracted the stupidest illness i've yet experienced -

my classmates, gianina who went to urgent care with me and drove me home, the EMTs, the cute nurses, my home teacher, my grumpy doctor, tyler who assisted sara in getting me up the stairs, my AMAZING ROOMMATES, my wonderful parents who both came to see me, my cute friends in the ward for stopping by, sending me flowers (evann!) and dropping off muffins (nice girl i don't know!), jana and dan, my WONDERFUL ROOMMATES, katie, my COMPLETELY SWEET and HELPFUL roommates, and, did i mention my roommates? :) and last of all, a HUGE thank you goes out to Evan Lysacek, who inspired me during my time of trial.

"if evan lysacek can win the gold, then I CAN BRUSH MY TEETH!!"

why i can't watch the olympics...

cause i get sucked in, that's why!

i get emotionally involved!

i become easily moved by a perfect flip on a half-pipe, a solid landing, or a flawlessly executed triple-lutz!

i find myself holding my breath, white-knuckled, glued to the TV, desperately willing my hopes of success and happiness on these people who i don't know and aren't from my country.

and lastly, because no one but equally passionate people enjoy watching it with me since i yell at the TV, groan audibly when someone falls, and clap enthusiastically after amazing performances. :)

God bless the Olympics! :D

the results are in!...

according to our very scientific poll, we have discovered that the majority of the people i know (at least, among the 8 who read my blog and voted) are words of affirmation people! :D

here's the break-down:

Words of Affirmation: 5 votes (62%!)
Sevice: 0 votes (0%)
Quality Time: 3 votes (37%)
Physical Touch: 0 votes (0%)
Gifts: 0 votes (0%)

for those of you who don't know what any of this means, the theory behind it comes from a book by Gary Chapman called The Five Love Languages.

in essence, his book argues that we each speak an emotional love language that is as real and different from other emotional languages as spoken languages are from each other, such as Chinese, German, and English.

"If we speak only our primary language and encounter someone else who speaks only his or her primary language, which is different from ours, our communication will be limited. We must rely on pointing, grunting, drawing pictures, or acting our ideas. We can communicate, but it is awkward...If we are to communicate effectively across cultural lines, we must learn the language of those with whom we wish to communicate.
In the area of love, it is similar. Your emotional love language and the language of your spouse may be as different at Chinese from English. No matter how hard you try to express love in English, if your spouse understands only Chinese, you will never understand how to love each other." (Ch 1)

the five languages between which we try to communicate, if you hadn't guessed, are the five categories in the poll - words of affirmation, serivce, quality time, physical touch, and gifts!

i, personally, am a words of affirmation person! i love to be congratulated, praised, encouraged, consoled, and adored through words. if you want to make me smile, write me a note, send me a text, or tell me in person that you think i look nice today, or that i'm a great person, or that you think i have excellent taste. seriously, i will melt all over the floor with joy! :)

my wordy nature also means that if you do something nice for me or if i just love yer face, most likely i will TELL you so and gush about it for a while - possibly even to the point where those of you who aren't word-people might wonder if i'm still being sincere. i am. i love to tell people how amazing they are. i promise i try to 'speak' other languages too by doing service, spending time with people with my phone off, etc, but my knee-jerk reaction will be to gush. :)

now, my father, who is a prince among men, is a gift person! when i realized this, my world finally made sense! when i do well in school, or perform in a show, or do something he wants to reward and love me for, i get taken out to dinner, flowers on closing night, or a box of chocolate! where i would expect/desire praise, i receive gifts. this used to confuse me, but now that i know he speaks through gifts, it is SO much easier to recognize when my father is saying 'i love you, i'm proud of you, i think you are wonderful' even when he isn't saying it out loud. :) and on the flip-side, it helps me to know how to love him best, since words don't have the impact on him that they would on me!

'ok...nice to know...why is this important to me?' you might ask. well, aside from the priviledge of knowing what makes me tick, i'm sharing this post because i personally believe that understanding which kind of love you speak helps people three-fold:

1) you can request to be loved the way you appreciate it most (yes, we need to be taught/teach how best to love each other!)
2) you will be able to see and make a plan to learn which kinds of love are more foreign to you
3) you will be more capable of recognizing the different ways people try to show their love to you outside of your language (when you do, you'll see that there is love coming at us CONSTANTLY, we just often don't see it for what it is!)

...and we could all use a little more of that, couldn't we? :)

so there you go - love is a many spendid thing as are the different languages and dialects within it that we speak! now go out there, figure out what makes YOU tick, and make someone's day by telling them you care in THEIR language! ;)

happiness *this weekend* is...

...going door-to-door with valentine's for everyone in your ward!
...teaching my roommates about things i love - namely eyeshadow and guitars
...singing with a group of people in the middle of the day for no reason
...fresh, warm laundry...mmm!....
...cleaning someone else's house!
...having little prayers and concerns answered
...having a dance-party in your car where you all sing into inatimate objects
...seeing someone cry because they are laughing so hard!!
...having a sinus infection so i don't have to smell things like rotten milk as they're poured down the drain!
...having a secret ;)
...having someone play with my hair...jooooy!....
...knowing i don't have classes tomorrow (so, with the holiday and my no-class-friday, that made a 5-day-weekend!...tho i still had work...) :)
...knowing what a cartouche is and getting a prize for it
...catching up on my fb pics ;)
...seeing my dad spoil my mother with sweet reminders of his love over valentine's day weekend! <3
...staying up until the wee hours of the morning talking with people i love
...having people say they love my clock :D
...raman with eggs and carrots! yummmm...
...seeing people i love grow and succeed!
...embarassing my roommates who taught me how to say, "kiss please!" in japanese by shouting it energetically everywhere i go ;)
...seeing how much i've grown :)
...being treated like a lady
...my nephew!
...when people comment on my pics or tell me how much they love them :D
...making/sharing/eating brazilian food :D
...getting caroled to by Michael Buble and a barbershop trio for valentine's day!

o mercy, i could go on! so many happy things happened over my holiday weekend! let's leave it here for now and say life is wonderful, the weekend was delightful, and im grateful for the little things that make my life a joy! :D

evicted...

this week our little dept of Risk Management was evicted from our happy little home in the Thomas House.

for those of you who don't know where this slice of heaven is located, take a look directly south of the Marriott center. the cute little house nestled on the crest of the hill is our joyful residence!

...at least, it WAS...

due to an unfortunate crunching of numbers, our university discovered it had too much square footage for the number of depts it has,
so something had to go.

and when i say "go," i mean, demolished.
and when i say "something," i mean our Thomas House. :(

so this last week was spent moving our dept out of heaven and into...

...the fletcher.

*duh duh DUN!!*

(best irony? the SAFETY Dept is now located in THE most structurally unsound building on our ENTIRE campus! yep! now, why is it that our safe structure is being torn down and not this place held together by duct-tape is beyond me...but i digress!...)

in the midst of my woe, i sighed to my roommate about what a hassle it is to move.

"o, i know what you mean," she comiserated, "our dept moved a little while ago and it was a nightmare! luckily," she added, "it meant we got to move out of our old place. o man, that building was AWFUL! ugh, dirty, old, smelly!...i hope they moved us out to tear it down."

"which building were you in?"

"the fletcher."

...i had, and still have, nothing else to say.

funny funny find...

as i was looking for a suitable "top ten" image for my latest post, i found this and just had to share it :)

top ten...

i moved 2 weeks ago,
and here are the top ten things i love about my new place!...


10) everyone has a day to care for dishes and we actually DO it!

9) enormous, loud dogs who attack the fence behind my parking spot every morning because they enjoy scaring the pants off of me.

8) i can leave my apt at 7:50 am and still make it to work on time!
(that is...until we move to the Fletcher...)

7) not only do my throw pillows MATCH the apt,
but my roommates loved them! perfect!

6) there is a quote board

5) the quote board is funny

4) my bed is tall - i mean, REALLY tall - as in,
i need to use my chair to hop up onto it!

3) everyone in the ward lives less than 60 seconds from eachother

2) i have a dinner group and the food is as amazing as the people!


...and the number one thing i love so far about my new home?!?...


1) my freaking hilarious and wonderful roommates!
(added bonus: i live with a brazilian :) yes!)

and please note, these are only ten things - i haven't even touched on the brazilian-style shower, the open-borrowing-policy of jewelry, the fact that i've learned to sleep with a blindfold, the "A Man is Not a Financial Plan" sticker on our door, or that there is a complex lounge with a pool table!

basically, life is good! :)

february manifesto

cliche, i know, but it's feb now, so the blog will be be-decked with

hearts and love-affiliated themes! :)

because, guess what?...

i am a fan of valentine's day!

yes, i am.

even inspite of how commercialized and awkward it can be,

as well as the fact that i have spent every feb 14th of my life single (minus one),

i am a big fan.

i love seeing people give eachother cheesy, mushy and overly-romantic gifts.

i revel in the fact that people like my parents, who have been married for over 30 years, are still completely in love and like being cute with eachother and are

willing to be silly for eachother on our traditional love-day!

they know their love goes beyond a sparkly-red valentine or roses, but they do it anyway because they know it will make their spouse giggle.

valentine's day, in my opinion, should never be taken seriously -

whether you're dating or married -

it should be a day full of light-hearted laughter, chocolate, mushy thank-yous

and inside jokes between you and your loved one

that make you both smile and appreciate eachother more. :D

in essence, they should be a cheesier magnification

of what you already express daily,

if not hourly!,

to the one who you care for.

(if your thank-yous and affection only come once a year,

something is very wrong)

basically, i love seeing people love eachother!

and i'm not just talking about romantic love either - this includes friends, roomates, and siblings who do fun things for eachother just to make that person's day brighter.

i know all this playful appreciation can/should be done without a holiday -

but i also see nothing wrong with an extra-fun-reminder day either!

so please forgive me if i refuse to celebrate this

frilly-red-and-pink holiday by calling it

"singles awareness day" or by dressing in black.

i celebrate love and all the wonderful blessings i reap from it!

"to love another person is to see the face of God"

-Les Miserables