well.

As I was waking up on Monday, and eating my toast, Erik Ainge was becoming a multi-millionaire.

I find this horrifically unfair. In the grand scheme of things, I don't find it justifiable to get a seven figure salary for throwing a ball. Personally, I think one's salary should reflect the impact it has on our world.

football player = amusement = $500 dollars. Right?

teacher = educating future leaders, broadening minds, expanding horizons, etc. = 1,000,000

And I'm not being biased because I: a) have teacher parents or b) am dating an education major.

I just think that makes more sense.

Anyway, I digress. Instead of getting all bitter, I'm going to take joy in my simple pleasures. Here are some things that have recently made me very content:
I bought some crocs. I gave into the ultimate uber Oregon trend, and I couldn't be happier.
This isn't sheep poop. I am done with that. These, are chocolate covered peanuts and they are my new favorite sin. I would pick a handful of these over Erik Ainge any day.

Speaking of sheep poop, I finally got my paycheck today, and am now 178 dollars richer. That also makes me happy. No matter that Erik is making that while taking a wee; I refuse to let that get me down.

Ah, music. Lately, I've been listening to a lot of new stuff, and my two favorites are:

Mushaboom - Fiest. Just try having a bad day after listening to this. Seriously.
Love Song - Sara Bareilles. Quite possibly the most realistic love song I've heard in a while, which is ironic, because it's about how if this dude loves her enough, he doesn't need a freakin' love song to begin with.

Along with music, comes YouTube. I have decided to not completely kill my computer by cramming it with music, and the loss of my own music library has been assuaged greatly by this little video website.
And last, but certainly not least, there's Evan. No one has better withstood my terrible bouts of stress and insanity (and repeated playings of Mushaboom).Erik may have a lot of money now, but he will probably spend it on super sweat-proof socks and jockstraps, while I get to spend my days walking in amazing shoes, eating chocolate covered peanuts while listening to music, and getting truly fantastic hugs from a boy named Evan. So take that, Mr. Ainge.

cinco!

5 images that I love that aren't from family photo albums and such:

I love this because there is such feeling behind it. It was such a monumental time in history, and this guy was really celebrating. The fun part is that no one knows who these two people are. After this awesome moment, they both went on their separate ways and the photographer never got a chance to ask.

This captured me the first time I saw it and still am captivated by this photo every time I see it. It's a simple portrait, but it just says so much.
I love Diego Rivera paintings, because they bring out the beauty of Latin American culture. The vibrant colors, the people, the themes in his paintings are all very true and presented beautifully.
Any images from Santorini, Greece absolutely make me get over my fear of flying and make me wish I could hop on a plane and go live there forever.

Okay, so this isn't the exact image, but I do really admire wildlife photographers. They wait for hours to catch a single moment in order to remind us that there are other amazing creatures sharing this planet with us. If I had the money and could go back in time four years, I'd major in Photography and do this. Yep.

5 years ago I was: A junior in high school? My senior friends were all graduating and I was so horribly jealous of them. It also was probably my best high school year, minus the car accident, but that taught me a lot too.

5 months ago: I was in California celebrating Christmas Eve with various family members. Of course, this was the first year that it EVER snowed on Christmas Day, and I was wearing a t-shirt. Pffft.

5 minutes ago: I was picking out music from YouTube, because it was my turn. I couldn't choose between Shakira, Bach, or the TeddyBears. It's a tough choice.

5 things on my "to-do" list:

1. pick up my paycheck, because I sure as heck did not freeze my a$ off for nothing.
2. turn in my resume and cover letter to a possible job
3. cross my fingers until I hear back about the job
4. vacuum. We have dust cougars, that have devoured the dust bunnies.
5. look up events for Mom's Weekend.

5 recent pieces of mail:

1. Women's Health
2. Smithsonian Magazine
3. National Geographic...we subscribe to a lot of things, don't we?
4. Bed,Bath, and Beyond catalog, which tempted me to buy things I don't need
5. Corvallis Newsletter

5 things I would do if I became a billionaire:

1. pay off school
2. buy my parents a house
3. buy us a house
4. get a puppy...shoot, puppies!
5. invest

5 of my bad habits:

1. biting my nails
2. not biting my tongue when I should
3. addiction to refined starches
4. being disorganized
5. I don't often call people back

5 good memories:

1. any summer day in my old house
2. Ev and I's first kiss
3. First time we said, "I love you."
4. The moment I knew my dad would pull through
5. going on junk food binges with my mom

5 places I've lived:

1. Mexicali, Mexico
2. Lake Oswego, Oregon
3. Aloha, Oregon
4. Hillsboro, Oregon
5. North Plains, Oregon

5 songs I love:

1. Over the Rainbow - Israel Kamakawiwo'ole
2. Yesterday - The Beatles
3. These are the Days - Van Morrison
4. The Seasons - Tchaikovsky
5. Lullaby - Josh Groban

5 jobs I've had:

1. Conservation Intern at the Oregon Zoo
2. General floor drone at Old Navy
3. Sheep wrangler
4. college food maker/milkshake extraordinaire
5. camp counseler for Camp Adams/raging hormone child wrangler

5 books I love:

1. The Time Traveler's Wife
2. The Namesake
3. The Giver
4. Life of Pi
5. Marley and Me

5 things that are out of place around my house:

really? just five?

1. the shoes that should be lined up inside my closet but are actually...well, they're everywhere
2. my backpack that is next to my bed
3. my spanish notes that currently reside in the kitchen
4. my socks that, like my shoes, are everywhere. I personally think they are trying to escape.
5. The 5 tons of newspaper that are in our "mystery corner" or our apartment. We really have nothing to do with this space, so naturally, we fill it with recyclables.

5 things I love to eat:

1. tortilla chips
2. french bread
3. really cold baby carrots
4. almonds
5. chocolate. duh.

5 people (non-blood related) who have had a positive impact in my life:

1. Evan - he is my hero.
2. Mr. Beals - amazing teacher that I want to clone so that my kids can learn from him
3. Lani Roberts - OSU professor who helped make me proud to say I'm me.
4. David Shepherdson - Oregon Zoo mentor. I want his job.
5. Loren Chavarria - OSU professor who is the embodiment of a strong, successful hispanic woman

I tag: Carl, Evan, Asia, and anyone else that feels like it. :)

ding dong, the hair is gone!

So, I was sick of having long hair. It was time for a haircut. I had been growing it since probably Christmas break and basically, it was working really well to blend me right in with the sheep I was working with.

Now that that is over, and I will be around human beings more, I decided to check out a new hairdresser. She had been recommended by a friend that has curly hair as well, which is so incredibly important. 99% of the time, I'll walk into a haircut appointment, and the moment I take my hair out of the ponytail, the hairdresser will gasp audibly, then say something along the lines of, "Oh. You have a lot of hair..." the she'll dare to reach and touch it, as if maybe I am playing a big joke and glued on extra curly, coarse hair to the curly, coarse hair I already have. When she realizes that it's not a joke, they usually repeat, "well...you have a lot of hair."

As if I didn't know that. As if I don't own a mirror and see that my hair has the consistency to that of a Shetland pony mated with a lion.

So I was ecstatic to hear this hairdresser exclaim, "you have a ton of hair...but I can't wait to play with it!!"

Sweet! She took the time to ask me what I wanted, and she gave me her opinion, which I took as valid, because she has curly hair as well. And, for the first time, I didn't have to ask her to thin it, as she thought of it all on her own! She gets curly hair!! I was amazed.

So, after about an hour and a half, and what she called, "close to heart surgery" difficulty, I ended up with:She even took the time to straighten it, which I would liken to building the pyramids or climbing Mt. Everest with one hand, blindfolded.

This is what it looks like now, in it's natural, curly state:



The smile says it all. I have finally found an awesome hairdresser, and I vow right now that I'll follow her wherever she may go. Even the Arctic.

a farmer's life for me?

I remember stumbling home after my last day of work at the sheep center on Saturday afternoon, utterly exhausted, soaked with mud, slush, and an assortment of sheep bodily fluids. I had herded, chased, wrestled, fed, and been abused by at least 400 ewes and their lambs for the last 23 hours. When I wasn't at the barn, I was sleeping. I got a minor case of frostbite on at least 6 fingers from sorting sheep for 2 hours straight in a hailstorm.

I walked in my front door, and kicked off my very caked with who knows what boots. Then, as I walked toward the shower, I literally peeled off my jeans, long johns, fleece, sweatshirt, and two shirts, finishing off with the three pairs of socks that had barely kept my toes from freezing off.

As I stood in the almost unbearably hot water, trying to convince the blood in my body that yes, my fingers were worth saving, I realized something:

I would miss being out there.

And, I do. As far as grueling jobs go, this is the most demanding one I've ever had. But there was something about being surrounded by such a beautiful landscape that seemed to put my whole self at ease. I remember one morning especially well: I had been sent out to fetch about 240 sheep from a steep, one-acre long hill. I trudged up there, my boots rapidly getting bogged down by the thick mud, and as I rounded around the flock, I paused to look around. It was absolutely beautiful. I was surrounded by soft rolling hills, dotted with these ancient looking trees, and farther, were purplish mountains that were capped with pines and snow. As I started to move the sheep down the hill, it started snowing lightly, and even though I ended up soaked from the tip of my nose down, I don't think I will ever forget how positively silent it was, save for my breaths, and the light footfall of the sheep. I felt so at peace out there. I felt at peace even in the barn, which was drafty and 37 degrees on a good day. After feeding all the sheep, I would sit back and just take it all in. The sweet smell of alfafa, the sounds of lambs playing, the birds that nested in the rafters. It was a very satisfying feeling and I couldn't help thinking that if I could, I'd do this for the rest of my life.

Maybe, a while from now, I'll get tired of the rushed, structured urban life that we're all expected to live, and go find that peace again.

hrm.

I, for the last three years, have been wondering what the purpose of finals is. Well, beside stressing us out and asking us to regurgitate what's been told to us for the last ten weeks. Do professors need that sort of assurance? Did my students learn? Are the going to leave my class with my priceless knowledge?

I can pretty much vouch for the fact that no, I won't. I'll just walk away.

And it's because they are asking me to cram in ten weeks worth of stuff, and write it back down again exactly like I did the first time around. They are not asking me to think about the stuff and analyze what it may mean in the grand scheme of things, which I think would help it become more than just another string of words for me to spew out when asked.

I think that's the problem with education lately. I have gone through who knows how many classes, and I can honestly say that I would be hard-pressed to recall anything horribly specific past the date of the last exam.

Shouldn't the goal of educators be for their students to retain information given to them? I feel like a parrot, not a scholar. I will repeat whatever you say as long as you give me a biscuit, I mean, a grade.

There have been a few classes that I have come away with feeling like I learned something. Where the professor stared at us when we gave a practiced answer, and said, "Okay, but what does that mean?" I can still remember the concepts of those classes, and I can apply those concepts to things outside the parameters of an essay or multiple choice question.

And of course, as soon as that is asked, there is the one person who asks if they will get extra credit if they put their own opinion in an answer.

All the cheesy ads for Oregon State say that once you are done, you will have a quality education (and a very large, but now useless unless its halloween, wardrobe consisting of orange and black clothes). But what does that mean? That one was able to repeat enough things enough times in order to get a degree? If you were to ask a new graduate, what could they tell you?

"What did you learn a year ago?"
"Not sure, but I guess I passed, because now I have this nifty degree!"

Great.

Well, I have to get going. I have a final in about an hour.

"I am a nice human..."

This morning I had bad, evil, mean thoughts about the guy who was power washing the sidewalk right outside my bedroom window. I am a light sleeper, and it seemed to me, anyway, that this guy knew exactly when I was falling back asleep so that he could crank his power washing thingy to full blast. So two hours of my morning went like this:

RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.....

Me: sweet, I can sleep again

rrrrRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!

*cue evil thoughts*

In all honesty, I think humans are the only things that have to remind ourselves to be decent.

Every time this dude did this, I had to make an effort to remind myself that this guy probably doesn't want to be waking me up, that this is his job, and he has to eat too, and who knows how heavy that power washer is. I had to remind myself that I was being mean, and that even at a very early time in the morning, I am a nice person.

Despite my reasoning, I still ended up with less than the optimal amount of sleep, and I wondered if any other thing in the animal kingdom every does this.

Does a lion whose sleep has been disturbed by zebras think: Hey, they're probably nice zebras who didn't mean to wake me. They're probably hungry and the grass here is pretty decent...

No, the lion doesn't. The lion goes out and eats them and then resumes the nap on a full stomach, to boot.

I guess I can't really think of cannibalism as a viable option for resolving my annoyance today. I guess I can look at the bright side of things and think that instead of sleeping, I got some homework done, which I probably would have otherwise put off until...well, now.

Anyway, I'm sorry this is such a useless, bitter-sounding post. I am really a nice person.

won't you be my neighbor?

You know, growing up (as if I'm old and wise at the ripe old age of 21) I always watched movies and shows where everybody knew their neighbors. The characters would emerge from their house in the mornings to pick up the paper, and for some reason, there was always a neighbor watering their lawn. They would look up and wave, smiling grandly, and say, "Hey there, main character! How is that project of yours coming along?"

"Oh, *chuckles* you know how those things can go, Fred!" And then the main character would walk back inside with a sense of belonging.

It always seemed too good to be true, and the longer I live at my apartment complex, the more I realize that hollywood is, in fact, full of lies.

I don't know my neighbors personally, and from my initial impression of most of them, I don't want to. You may remember me mentioning one in my valentine's day post, saying that I might try to be nice to him, for holiday's sake. That didn't happen, by the way. He irked me so much the next day that I threw that good idea out the window.

Anyway, here they are:

1. The Shrew
He got this name from the mere fact that he never emerges from his apartment, unless it is to run out really quickly, drop his trash in front of his front door, then literally slam the door shut. He doesn't seem to realize that the trashcan is actually 30 feet away, and instead, his stinky garbage sits in everybody's way, especially ours, since we have to pass by it on the way in or out of the complex. We don't all want to know how many boxes of Tostino's Pizza Rolls you had this week, buddy. When we have run into him, he gives us a look that plainly displays his inferior view of us and quite possibly the whole world. I tried to be nice to him on Valentine's day, but couldn't do it.

2. Bad Parking Girl
This girl's car is obviously so in love with mine that it must park itself 4 inches from my driver's side door everyday. She must indulge her car's love affair with mine, and I'm sure that it brings her great pleasure to watch me wedge myself between the two cars and try to open my door without leaving a sizable dent in hers. Also, we think she has super powers, or at least, bionic hearing, because she used to have these detachable magnet signs on her car, and one day, Evan and I joked about removing them. The next day, they were locked inside of her car, and she glared at us when we went to check the mail. Hmmmm.

3. Cigar Guy
Technically, this guy is my favorite, and sadly, he moved away last year. Anyway, right around dinner time, we'd always see this guy standing at the curb of the complex, peacefully smoking a cigar. To add effect, he did it under the one street lamp, and it gave the whole evening a film noir kind of feel. While I don't mean to condone smoking on any level, it seemed to fit this guy, and his cigars always smelled kind of good. We miss you, Cigar Guy.

4. The Screamers
This is a newlywed couple that lives downstairs, and apparently, the honeymoon stage is over. Over and dead.

5. Abstinence Girl
This is the person who has the space to the right of us, and all we really know about her is that she has a giant bumper sticker on her car that reads "I have lived with abstinence and have no regrets!!!" This is great, and kudos to her. The confusing part, however, is that she wears the most provocative clothes I have ever seen. We're talking super short skirts, and cleavage abounding shirts. Way to send mixed signals.


I can only imagine what our neighbors think of us, and what nicknames we have earned. I know that it probably wasn't the wisest idea to live on the top floor when we are both verifiable klutzes and drop just about everything, the sound of which I know reverberates through the floors of the complex. Also, Evan has a subwoofer that is the size of a small pony, and it can send some booms through the county, much less the complex. And the coup de gras of this whole thing is that we are both complete nightowls and are prone to laughing fits at 2am. Hm.

So, I know we're not the ideal neighbors. Maybe we haven't learned enough about being neighbors to belong in a Pleasantville type place just yet. Maybe freak-filled apartment complexes like this are a training ground or something.

All I know is that we're not moving anytime soon. :)