learning

Sunday, February 8.

I was reading postsecrets this morning, and saw this one...



It made me stop a little and about this whole college thing I'm doing at the moment. Really, I don't doubt that this is exactly the right place for me to be right now, but it's kind of easy to get lost in this strange world here. It's easy to lose sight of the important things in life, the absolutely true things. As much freedom as is allowed here (as opposed to say, high school...), there are still a lot of people and ideas that will try to make you what they want you to be.

So I read this post card, and I began to think of what I've learned thus far. I've learned a lot academically, but most of all, I've learned a lot about humanity itself. It's hard to explain, but living among 30,000 other human beings has this way of magnifying things. Excitement is so much bigger, hate is so much bigger, pressure is so much bigger, and loneliness is so much bigger. Being here, I really identify with a lot of people, and I get this feeling of connectedness about the whole thing. It's like we're all in this together. Nobody knows exactly what we're doing with our lives, but we're trying, and we're trying together. So what have I learned? I have no idea. But I feel like I've been brought closer to the heart of humanity.

Love, Jennifer

thinking, thinking.

2/5/09

Well hello.

I have slacked and it has been pointed out to me. So this is my repentance, I suppose. Also, I kind of miss this because it used to mean more to me than it has recently. However, I have no more to say than ever before, so...yeah. Lol.

My life now consists of......lots of naps. LOTS of reading. The occasional social event. Driving people all over Salt Lake. It kind of reminds me of my sophomore year of high school, driving people everywhere, which I actually don't mind at all. It's strange to think this way, but I've finally moved out of my house in my mind. I'll be living in Midway during the summer, working and all, but that will probably be the last time. And when I think of being there, it's kind of like I'll just be staying there for a couple months until things begin again. BUT nobody likes to hear someone talk about themselves (themself is not a word.), so I'll try to move on. Haha.

Here's a thought I had the other day. I think people need opposition. Everyone always complains about the problems in their lives, but I think if removed, they would hate their existence as well. It's like...having a purpose I guess. If everyone had a perfect life, there would be no movement, and no struggle to get to a better place. People would feel purposeless. This is troubling to me. If this is true, do people unconsciously create barriers to happiness because they know it gives them a reason to live?

That is all.

Love, Jennifer

hmm.

Technology/The Internet/Facebook just sent me a strange message. It said, "Do something about yourself." What could this mean? Hmm.

*Promise: something better later.

Love, Jennifer

secrets

"And it is my hope that one day secrets will cease to exist. They not only trap us mentally, physically,and emotionally, but they also put a strain on everything and everyone around us; they prevent us from being ourselves, something neither you, the world or myself, can afford."

....from a guy speaking on a postsecret experience.


I wish.

Love, Jennifer

Resolutions

• Be fearless.
• Drink more water.
• Eat lots lots lots more vegetables.
• And less processed, fried, sugary, or otherwise unhealthy foods.
• Judge less.
• Allow myself and others opportunities.
  
• Be more open.
• Be less emotionally turbulent. (haha)
• Tell him every day. Make sure he knows.
• Take care of it. It's one of the most significant things in my life now.

Love, Jennifer

confessions

As part of my New Year's resolution this year, I'm trying to be more open. So to begin, my friends, here are some of my confessions :)

• I cannot pronounce this word---vinyl.
• Or---chipotle.
• I went to almost every Utes game this season, but the rules of football are still a mystery to me.
• I miss my month of vegetarianism.
• I compulsively lie sometimes.
• I am dreading this summer.

For now, that's all. Happy 2oo9.

Love, Jennifer

snowboarding.

So this will be quick since I have to leave in 4 minutes, but here goes what's been happening lately.

yesterday i hit up the canyons for my first day of snowboarding. it was so hard! berto warned me that my first day would be horrible because it was so frustrating, and he was definitely right. I spent like two hours on the bunny hill ( haha) just trying to figure out the whole thing, and I fell on my butt sooo many times. My left cheek is in pain today! haha.

don was with me and I feel horrible because I'm afraid I was mean to him. I was so frustrated and getting angry that I wasn't immediately getting it (irrational, i know). He tried to help but I wouldn't talk to him, and yet he didn't give up or get angry in return. Which reminds me why I love him.

So there is my first experience. It kind of sucked, but I will try again :) haha.

Love, Jennifer

free music sunday

Dear Blog Family,

Because I really love you all, and also because I have been seriously slacking in bloggage, I feel I should present you with a gift, so here it is. Free music time! In my adventures on the internet, the following list contains the most-worthwhile bunch of downloads I've found. Some of them are just nice while others are freaking awesome. ....oh, and they're free. (click the title for link)

Nine Inch Nails--The Slip
Hooray! Free full-album download from an artist. I was iffy about them at first for some reason, but it's actually really cool stuff. You might have to subscribe to their newsletter or something...I don't really remember...but it's definitely worth it.

P is for Panda Mix Tape: Vol. 1
Just click this link and all your wildest dreams will come true! Except really. I don't know what this thing is, but it's free, and it's kind of folk-y Jeb sort of music. It totally made my day when I found it. Be advised that the songs by "pasadena" are more in the country genre, but the rest rocks. Also, you'll probably need an amazon account to download them, and also this amazon downloader thing. both free and pretty easy. or at least I thought.

Badman, Has it Really Been 10 Years?Also from amazon. Also puzzlingly free and awesome. Still in the Jeb music genre. Still free. Another compilation of cool music....I hadn't heard of any of it, except for My Morning Jacket, but I found a lot of new stuff I like.

Deep Elm Sampler No. 8 "Bonfire of Trust"This one's from amazon again, and is released by a label called Deep Elm. More sweet stuff, so check it out.
That's all for now. If I stumble upon any more, I'll be sure to share the love. And hey, if you know of any yourself, link them in comments!

Love, Jeb

PS--If you're on Bebo, add "iTunes US" (or something like that) as a friend, and they give out a free playlist from iTunes every month. Sweet. Also, on iTunes they release about 2 or 3 tracks (sometimes good, sometimes crappy) and occasionally a music video for free every week. :)

infinite.

Perfect fall moment today. I stumbled upon this little tiny circle of trees off the side of the sidewalk, with a bench in the middle. The sunlight was streaming down through the branches and leaves were raining down. There was no way I could possibly resist it. Lying there on the bench, staring at nothing and smelling leaves and dirt and all kinds of other fall smells, I felt exactly what Charlie was talking about in the book "the perks of being a wallflower." I felt perfect. I felt content. I felt infinite.

Love, Jennifer

ice cream

Good deed of the day:
I was walking into the building, and there sits an ice cream sandwich in the wrapper, most likely melting. I thought of the janitor who would be really pissed off once it made an ice-creamy mess and he/she had to clean it up. so I definitely threw that thing away. Act of kindness? I'd say so. ha.

Love, Jennifer

excuse!

Guess who's already slacking? I am. I swear to you I have a legit reason though.

Last night I have these weird dreams where all these students are running down a hill. And I feel a wave of nausea but think to myself "i can just stick this out, I'll feel better," which makes me feel slightly better. Then a student runs by and says, "oh no you can't. you are definitely going to throw up. you are incredibly sick." and then I feel so nauseous again. I'm only half dreaming but I can't get out of this cycle and I can't think of anything besides this hill.

Finally I get up and go into the bathroom at like 4 in the morning. I'm just standing in front of the toilet feeling horrible, but nothing's happening, which is even more frustrating. Eventually I throw up but it doesn't make me feel that much better so I end up sitting on the floor of the dorm eating chunks of Morgan's bread (sorry...) and drinking some water.

That, apparently, is not helpful either because I end up waking up at 5:30 and throwing up again, this time it's worse. So note to self, don't eat anything else. That's about how I got to this point, still in bed because I feel too crappy to get up for any reason.

So, my apologies. Good deed for today: I would really like to use the bathroom, being sick and all, but C is in the shower with some guy, so I've been leaving them alone. Seriously though, this is a really long shower.

Love, Jennifer

spread the love

Alright, so here's my new idea. Each day I'm going to blog and tell you about one act of kindness I've done. First of all, this is a good idea because random acts of kindness are great for everyone! And second, maybe now I'll start blogging on a regular basis, which I've totally been slacking at lately.

Today I was sitting in my Anthropology class. And it's a lecture. For the most part I've actually been pretty interested in all of it so far, but at this point it kind of feels like a repeat of stuff I've already heard, and it can get really boring. I was sitting there, mostly asleep, when I heard the girl next to me say "there's a spider on your back!" Yeah, I woke up pretty quickly. And I saw the guy right in front of me with a spider on his back, and it freaked me out, so I took my pen and flicked it away. Crisis over---the guy thanked me, and again when we were leaving class. And I felt pretty good about this whole thing, and came up with the blog/acts of kindness idea. So there you have it.

Love, Jennifer

garden state.

Last night I watched Garden State with Natalie, Britta, and Berto. It was a nice movie, but one quote stuck out to me.

"You know that point in your life when you realize that the house that you grew up in isn't really your home anymore? All of the sudden even though you have some place where you can put your stuff that idea of home is gone. You'll see when you move out it just sort of happens one day one day and it's just gone. And you can never get it back. It's like you get homesick for a place that doesn't exist."

It was kind of this weird moment where I was like, "whoa. I think that's me." I don't feel like I really live in my parents' house anymore, but I'm not really sure if I live in salt lake either. And the more I think about it, instead of gaining more of myself by going to college, it's like I've lost the old person. And now I'm trying to pick up the significant pieces and make myself. It's....bewildering. I don't know who to be because I don't know what's important. After 3+ years of trying to figure this out, you'd think I'd have an answer. I don't. I can't even remember who I was when I left.

Love, Jennifer

My list.

M was telling me yesterday about one of the books she is reading in a class, where the author writes these lists of things every now and then. Just....lists. lol. And then M told me about how her class spent the day creating lists and reading them to each other. All of this made me want a list of my own, so here it is.

Things I shouldn't like, but do.

• Drinking water that tastes just a little bit chlorine-y. It only happens occasionally, depending on where I fill my bottle, but when I get some I love it. It's almost addictive.
• Taking a nice hot shower, then in the last fifteen seconds, turning the water cold. It's really shocking and like Ahhhhhhhhhh! Why!? but I enjoy it.
• Wearing a swim cap. (guess what--I started trying to actually swim again. crazy, i know) It makes me look so goofy, but I love feeling like I have a bald head, hahaha
• This really weird rubbery smell that saturates the bike room. I'm guessing it's the smell of bike tires. But I like it.
• Freaking myself out. For instance, whenever I'm somewhere driving or walking around and I don't see people for a few minutes, I imagine that I am the last person on earth after some horrible disaster. It gives me the creepiest feeling, but I do it all the time, haha.

Well I think that's a good list for now. :)

Love, Jennifer

life in pictures

To be honest, I have no idea where to start. But here is my life in photos for the past couple (or few) weeks...


This is me (my feet...) riding in my new (really cool!) friend Bronzson's hippie van. This thing is sick. Taylor's in shotgun and Alex is sitting on the bed in the back next to me. We drive around burning incense and listening to chili peppers or 311. Good times.

Here is Taylor reading to Bronzson and I at Sam Wellers bookstore. Alex is somewhere making sausages fall off walls or looking at books of tattoos.

This is Sigur Ros! I went to the concert with Morgan and our floormate Erin, who also has excellent taste in music. It was soooooooo fantastic. I've never heard anything more beautiful in my life!
This is at Oktoberfest, which was on Thursday. Haha. Those are men playing bells and accordions and some swiss horns and stuff. It reminded me of Swiss Days in midway, actually....and also I got a free hotdog. Hooray!
This is just mysterious. Last week, these appeared ALL OVER campus overnight. I'm pretty sure it's paint made from flour and water, but the school still got pissed cause they had to clean them up. On my way to class one morning, I counted like 70 of them, just on the route I was walking. There were probably hundreds of them all over, and the crazy thing is, no one knows what it means. Morgan and I think it may be some sort of social experiment or possibly someone is trying to get someone to propose to them or something. Who knows. Crazy though.


So that's my life as of now. I am happy. I hope you are too.

Love, Jennifer

This doesn't work.

Ineffective ways to write an essay:

• Put it off until the night before it's due.
• Watch one (or more) episodes of the Office for creative influence.
• Invite friends over of any kind.
• Check your email.
• Write a blog.

Love, Jennifer

So...

Here is a hard lesson.

Everything matters. All of it. Even the stuff you think doesn't, it does.

Love, Jennifer

don't even read this.

So here is how my day went...

Woke up, writing class, eat, IT class.
....................................................................................
That was a lot of nothing.

Printed some stuff for classes, more boring than it sounds.

Listened to lots and lots of 30-second music clips, discovered Fleet Foxes. Wanted to contact people, didn't.

Left the dorm, which was starting to feel claustrophobic. Walked to the trax station to go somewhere, then left after sitting for a couple minutes cause I didn't even have anywhere i wanted to go.

Walked back up campus to the druggie grove, laid in the grass and achieved a state of semi-sleep. Woke up and felt funny. Walked up to Chapel Glen and fell asleep on the grass with Alexia and Sarah.

Woke up later after they left and went to the HC. Ate food. Wanted to contact more people again, still didn't.

Came back, endured fire drill. Now typing this. Now leaving. haha.

Such a boring day.

Love, Jennifer

kidneys

Here is a thought from an essay I read in my writing class. M and I discussed this, and I've been thinking about it a lot...

"After learning that thousands of people with failing kidneys die each year while waiting for a transplant, he contacted a Philadelphia hospital and donated one of his kidneys to a complete stranger.
...he says that the chances of dying as a result of donating a kidney are about one in four thousand. For him this implies that to withhold a kidney from someone who would otherwise die means valuing one's own life at four thousand times that of a stranger, a ratio Kravinsky considers 'obscene.'"

From "What Should a Billionaire Give?" by Peter Singer


So that's a big enough concept to keep one occupied for a bit of time considering. I know I have. Anyway, that's all for now.

All the love I could possibly give,
Jennifer

This Big Picture

I woke up about an hour ago, which I was actually thankful for today because I was having the most horrible dream. I dreamt that the school year was over, and my parents were here picking me up to go home for the summer. Except everyone else got to stay here at school. I've got to say, I haven't felt such extreme sadness and despair in a long time! Anyway, I tell you this, because it might help to explain how I feel about this place, although I have only been here for three weeks.

I love it's newness, which still hasn't worn off, and I love meeting so many new, great people. To be honest, it's been extremely difficult staying true to the things I thought were unmovable in my life. It's hard to be different. Specifically, it's a challenge to be LDS. Pretty much everyone I've met have been genuinely good people, but not all of them have the same moral code as I do. Sometimes the general vibe I get is, If you're a Mormon, why don't you just go to BYU? Good question. I've asked myself that as well, but I honestly have no answer. It just never seemed right, whereas the U really did. Anyway, I've been spending my days trying to navigate this new life, thinking of questions I don't immediately have the answer to. I have been trying to figure them out, however. (A couple of you can attest to this!)

My point is, I love this school. I am loving a school that doesn't necessarily love me back. For once I am a religious minority! But it does accept me. But I think that soon I will figure out who I really am, and how I fit into this big picture.

That's my thought for today. I was happy to wake up.

Love, Jennifer