Friday, July 31, 2009

courage vs. courgeous

Yesterday at institute the teacher posed an interesting question: what is courage.
What came to my mind was: pushing forward and doing something despite fear and we started talking about fear and if its presence was necessary to have courage. I mean, if a person does something and has no fear while doing it-are they exhibiting courage? One might say that even if there is no immediate fear felt, as long as there is a possible negative outcome in doing something and you do it anyway it's a type of courage. I dunno...I would say that there needs to be a presence of fear-doesn't matter about the possible outcomes-if you're afraid (even if irrationally) and you go through with it-ur showing courage. Fear (anxiety/worry/stress etc.) is the key (in my mind).

Example: if you're not afraid of spiders and you see one and you smash it-you wouldn't think: wow i showed a lot of courage back there! you wouldn't even think of it-could the spider have somehow evaded you and bit you etc....well yea, the possibility of it was still there but it didn't worry you. But for me, it still takes courage for me to kill a spider.
That being said, is the definition of courage the same as "courageous"?
sorry if this is hard to follow-just letting my thoughts run here.

here's what came to mind: (based on my def. of courage above) it is totally possible to not exhibit courage and still do something courageous and it is possible to exhibit courage and do something the opposite of courageous.

Example A.) Hypothetically of course, let's say that someone runs into a burning building and saves a child. It's totally possible that this person did not exhibit courage- if they had no fear whatsoever, right? (forget how unlikely it is) like say...somehow they knew that they were not going to die/had no fear etc of the situation. Sure, the rest of us would assume wow-they have so much courage but we only assume that cause we know we would be afraid in that situaton ourselves. BUT this person wasn't afraid-didn't need courage. But this person DID do something courageous.
Example B.) Let's say some young punk gets into some gang and it's his first kill. He's scared/nervous-of reprecussions, whatever but he pulls himself together and does it. Now as much as I hate to say that he has courage-if ur going with the doing something despite fear definition then technically he showed courage. But was it courageous??? well of course all of us are yelling: no! why?
because he did something immoral. In order for an action to be labled "courageous" it has to be morally right- fear is not a requirement since we would all agree that that person who saved a child did something courageous but they weren't afraid/wasn't hard for them to do.

Wednesday, July 29, 2009

words of wisdom from the holiday

"Iris, in the movies we have leading ladies and we have the best friend. You, I can tell, are a leading lady, but for some reason you are behaving like the best friend. "
"You're supposed to be the leading lady in your own life"

This quote is speaking directly to me. I was the "best friend" in the group of my friends and I liked it-there was always some kind of cool drama going on and frankly their lives just seemed more interesting. I think I realized my problem when I caught myself thinking: I think I could enjoy being single for a long time as long as I had a good core group of friends...like i could just live through them etc. Obviously this is not the best plan to have and this next semester is really gonna have a lot of firsts in it-i can feel it.
For the first time I'm going out there without that core group of friends and for the first time i'm not going to try to scurry to find that core group and quickly hide in it, but really try to focus in on my life and what's happening in it-what i want to do and be and where i want to end up/taking control and stop living through other people. If friends happen to move away, get married, etc. i don't want to feel like suddenly my life is empty because my source of experience is gone-i need to get out there and experience for myself and start living it up and see where i end up. (it's just hard peeling yourself off the wall when you've been there for so long ;)

Tuesday, July 28, 2009

i'm psychic...if only i could use my powers for good and not evil...

Monday, July 27, 2009

That which I lack is:

A.) Self Control
B.) patience with slow drivers
C.) a regulated sleep schedule
D.) proper table manners.
E.) all the above




ANSWER:DING DING DING DING E! did I mention no self control???
sheesh! so I'm watchin Gilmore Girls online and every week they remove three old episdoes and put in three new episodes and I just barely watched the seventh season and had never watched the earlier stuff so it naturally started over with the first season. So I'm hooked. It's Monday night and I have already watched the three new episodes for this week. All in one fell (sp?) swoop so that's it. no, of course i didn't space them out throughout my week so i'd have a lil highlight to look forward to, no! i sit down like the gilmore girls junkie that i am and scarfed them all up at once (yea, i used scarf). so now i have to drudge through the rest of this week to wait for the next three episodes that i will invariably scarf down next Monday too.


but seriously, to this day i'm still not sure about putting the spoon on the outside or the knife and do it differently everytime figuring some of the times it's right.

Saturday, July 25, 2009




my SWEET shirt (not sweat shirt 8)

Friday, July 24, 2009

move like a butterfly, sting like a bee.

Something I've realized slowly but surely over the past seven months is I'm socially off-kilter at the moment. At least, from how I normally am-not that i'm the premiere example of social normality by any means. I know that I'm an introvert and at times I don't feel like putting forth the effort to flit from person to person being all bubbly-not that I don't feel happy and warm to all just....i'm not a social butterfly. I'm a social... penguin.
No, I'm not cold, but I hear that they pick a mate and stick with them for life-don't change up like most other animals, anyway, so i'm more like that-i get my core group, my comfort zone, and stick with them. Anywho, I know people talk about how people can be kind of weird when they get back from a mission (socially speaking). I'm not saying i'm the awkward rm, it's just...i've realized that it seems I feel more comfortable chatting it up with people way older than me than people my own age now. Then again, it's hard to really test this out because I'm kind of socially isolated at the moment and have been so maybe that's it....it's just....i dunno.

On the mission we rarely spoke with people our own age on a regular basis-to be honest we were actually always talking wtih grandmas and middle aged people. So I sort of adopted social habits that older people would appreciate-i'm good at finding interest in things that, prolly before the mission i would have been bored with fairly quickly. Now, I can listen to people's life stories etc. and genuinely be engaged in it. The only thing being, people my age don't talk like that-it's a total diff ball game and I guess I'm just out of practice or something.

I mean, socializing can't be something you forget can it? Like riding a bike I would think....ya know,...talking being kind of up there.
It's just something I noticed while driving the other day (that's when I do most of my noticing/realizing). I just seem to feel more at ease when talking to slightly older people-i'm not talking about grandmas etc but ya know, 30s etc. Which is funny cause i'm sure all these older people are thinking-this is just some kid, but with people my age i'm thinking what do i talk about? (of course all my friends are excluded from all of this).
I'm sure it's just the fact that I've been home, out of regular social circles after REALLY being out of reg. social circles and i'll normal...fy...upon returning to said circles.
see? not awkward at all.

(p.s. could you feel the warm homey feel of this entry? i thought so, yea, it was written on my laptop which for the moment is running fine.)

Thursday, July 23, 2009

life in technicolor

what a random couple of days...newsflash (though that would mean it's something new and sudden which it isn't) my laptop is STILL not fixed-thus the lull in blogging.

So my boss and his wife had coldplay tickets but couldn't go at the last minute and gave them to me. So me and sara went with her sisters and brother in law to the coldplay concert last night. it....was......AWESOME!

I've always liked coldplay just never got very actively into it, but man can they put on a great show! They sounded great, great energy on stage-their lights were amazing and they had lots of stuff to interact with the audience like: millions of paper butterflies shooting out ALL over-so cool, big yellow balls bouncing around the audience during "yellow" and they actually came out in the audience on these lil cement blocked off areas to give those of us in the back a better view. i have videos of them running right past us it was so cool. Anyways, it was just a really fun night-they only cussed like twice, good music, and headaches galore afterwards. I'll post videos and pics as soon as i can. I also got a sweet shirt that was a....*cough* just as much as if i actually paid myself to be there but it's super long, fitted and cool design so whatever. If any of you get a chance to see them in concert i highly urge you to go.
O yea! and they totally gave out free cds to everyone (only 9 songs but still!) who does that?! crazy nice rich musicians, that's who.

Monday, July 20, 2009

random smiles

so i'm not sure why but this new owl city song on my playlist is making me smiley-shrug, i mean it's a cool enough song but not exactly the deepest meaningful song, but whatever-i'll take the smile. Also, smiling from this guy that my boss works with-he called and needed help figuring out how to save an article from the internet and i'm sure he'll call back any minute wanting to know how to attach it to an email. Technologically impaired people make me smile-it's cute, and makes me feel better about my technological skills but I already foresee myself asking my five year old grandchild to show me how to do something on the computer.

So get this, Saturday night it rained, but it didnt' stop there, it lightening...ed....a lot.... it was great, tho there could have been more thundering but it's ok- it was prolly just really rusty and it'll take it a few tries to get back in the full swing of things.

So at first I was starting to wonder where my boss could possibly be but then i realized-this is bar exam week, major crunch time, yikes....remind me to never be a lawyer and if i happen to marry one-to marry one who has already successfully completed the bar exam for every state.

OOO! i forgot. so we watched this forever strong movie-your typical sports movie but about Rugby which i am randomly really getting into lately-what a cool brutal sport. too bad it's never on tv when i'm watching but anyway, a really good movie-it's about the highland, utah highschool rugby team who were and are like amazing. check it out.
Speaking of checking out, i really wanna see a star is born with judy garland.

off to smile more randomly

Friday, July 17, 2009

technology 978,395 Whitney: 0

so i was on my laptop yesterday and all the sudden it starts freaking out saying i have all of these trojan horses and viruses etc. and as it turns out it was a lie trying to make me buy this certain type of anti-virus software. So we are
"working" on it because the software that i do have on my laptop couldn't fix whatever was causing it-money well spent. sigh.
i saw the new harry potter movie today- it was pretty good, i liked it. I think normally i'd be gushing over it but am in a "meh" mood in general but I think i'll go berzerk over it once i get in that mood. Really well done though. Except I didn't really like Ginny and Harry together-i don't know what it was...just....something annoyed me there and I don't know why cause I loved it in the books...maybe the acting...highly possible...o well.

It rained today...........................finally 8)

and i HATE net nanny-it's retarded and highly too sensitive (yea, i'm on the home computer) and it wont' let me look at my friends' blogs because of "intimate apparel" there were pics of people in swim suits!!! COME ON!!!

Monday, July 13, 2009

lovable nuts

Today was good. Not that something amazing happened but looking back on it for some reason it makes me smile. I spent some time with my fav girls. Learned that the shrew is the most extreme predator (this is over sharks, crocodiles, polar bears....ya.....i know....). After work me and the parental unit hit up carrabas thanks to a gift certificate we got from some friends-who we actually spent game night with last night which was way fun. I like the fact that since our numbers are dwindling and soon will be completely dwindled- mom and dad go outside the family to have a good time now-strengthen friendships etc. It's healthy, I like it, it's good. One interesting topic of discussion last night: micro-expressions. yea, apparently people have micro expressions when they are lying or trying to hide the fact that they are thinking something different than they're trying to portray etc. quote of the night: "yea i caught that micro-expression dad" (after i gave a bogus answer for scategories and it was pretty macro actually).
anywho....shrug, i'm finding that my parents eccentricities are becoming more amusing, enjoyable, and cherished by me as i get older. Not that they're total nut-jobs, just the lil yea...eccentric parts of ourselves that separate us from others. It's just fun because I have a lot of theirs down and can call them out on them and we can laugh about it.
Just sometimes I can look at my dad and it's so fun to watch his facial expressions because sometimes-depending on what's going on around him-i can totally tell what he's thinking and it's not necessarily something someone else could guess but just cause i know him and some of his quirks i can guess.
for example-if there is anything going on that is germy near him-something small and he has to be in contact with it-i know his lil germaphobic self is hurting (which is why he NEVER uses public restrooms, touches handrails, etc.)Also, he's not a big lover of huge crowds which...well i share with him-i'm much more a intimate group type person. I know 99.9% of the time if I ask where are you goin i'll get the answer-crazy, ya wanna come?
Kids need to embrace their parents' lil quirks and allow for them because someday we'll get display all the quirks we've gained over a lifetime

Friday, July 10, 2009

I would just like to point out my hit from spain over on the map (if it's not there by the time you look at this it means it's been over 24 hrs since you've looked at my blog....what's wrong with you? It just warms my heart when someone from outside the U.S. hits up my blog-makes me feel connected. Though, i'm sure they accidently misspelled something and were thoroughly confused and trying to figure out what this thing was.
I spent some time in spain-very nice, I would like to go back some day....it's cool and historical like the rest of europe and yet is a bit warmer than other places cause they have that spanish flair-basically it's got the fun culture, food, etc of the spanish minus the third world conditions of some places in south america. Not to be dissing South America (i'm sure half of the people who read this served a mission there)-it's just that I would feel like I wouldn't want to go without someone who is a native or someone that served a mission there or something, i don't think it would be as tourist friendly as spain.

Today for lunch I made a taco but instead of using sour cream I used BBQ sauce-it was AMAZING! dang, i'm sad I didn't think of this earlier (note to self: get some KRAFT brand BBQ sauce-it's finger lickin' good.)

Thursday, July 9, 2009

mixed feelings

Once again the ending of my day compensated for the rest of it. Actually it was a really good day-played with the girls all day long, tho ended on a slightly sour note but i'm sure everything will be back to normal tomorrow. Learned some disturbing news about a friend-one of those situations where you have NO idea what to say and nothing you could say would really fix or do much, and last night i finally found on byu.edu where to find out about scholarships. Get this, I got a scholarship for Spring....um...thanks, wasn't enrolled but didn't get one for the fall. Nothing has changed since I've left-same grades, same everything. So yea, i'm just frustrated because I didn't think that going on a mission would lose me my scholarship-i thought deferring secured that. I've written them about it but in the end, they just give it to all those who qualify in order that the applications were received until the funds run out. I guess more applied/or not as much money to give away? I dunno, it made me mad, I won't lie. I was kind of counting on that. I mean, luckily I received that scholarship from members in my stake and maybe that's why i received it=to compensate for this, but if I had gotten the half tuition scholarship i could have made the other stretch so much further. It just increases the stress over finances just a bit more-i'll still be ok, but I really need to get a job.

So anyway, what compensated for today- I got a wedding invitation from my trainer-she's russian but now living in america or will be after july 25th. I'm way happy for her. Then I got this movie I had bought online: "Ponette" a french movie that is soooo good. It was the first international movie I saw at BYU that they show free in the swkt-way cool. There's a few other things i want but I think i'll hold off now that that scholarship fell through. Also, I got a way cute shirt from the university of kentucky from heath and ben-who are moving out there this summer.

yea for compensation-i'm a fan.

Wednesday, July 8, 2009

Peeved

so i'm a lil irked at the moment. mainly it's two-fold:
1.) while my boss was in the bathroom his cell phone rang and normally- don't know if I should do this-but I always answer it, figuring that I can get a message to him faster than him checking the voice mail and human contact is better than getting the machine all the time. So anywho, I answered: "blankety blank's office" and this person wasn't a customer-just a business associate. It took the guy about 4 minutes with me explaining that my boss wasn't near his phone which is why i answered for him to realize that he did in fact call so and so's cell phone (as if my intro wasn't clear enough). I mean, I can understand it would be weird to call someone have someone else answer when it's a cell but he knows he uses this for business and I answered SO AND SO'S office.
Then he asks me: "did you say blank (the company's name) or blankety blank's office?" I answered: "blankety blank's office" and he kind of goes "hmmm...i'm just trying to figure out why you wouldn't say "blank" (the company's name) by this point i'm quickly losing patience and don't want to get into details like: heck, i dunno, when i first started working i was explained to answer the phone that way-and frankly i don't care, if they're calling this number they know they're calling blank. ARGH! who the heck are you?! I'm not working for you, and it's none of your business. Sheesh, the next time he calls I should answer and say "thank you for calling BLANK, Blankety Blank's office only really annoyingly and then say "oh so and so? is that you?! did you like how i answered the phone this time? phew."
hmph....of course i was all professional and saying "sir" when i wanted to be saying...idiot, but anywho. it didn't help when my boss called him back and I hear him telling him: oh she's working before she heads back to school etc. and then something like: i'll be sure to pass on your compliments- or something like that (obviously i know that whatever the guy was saying was prolly sarcastic and rude) and then my boss just was chuckling but not saying anything-prolly cause i was in the room. I won't lie i was fuming.
I could do so much in the office-i really could. I mean, everything that is given me to do I do it quickly but I don't want to seem like a nag asking: what do i do now, what do i do now, but at the same time i don't want them to think i'm just sitting there lazy and trying to avoid working-heck, i'm just trying to pass the time until he needs me again. I would love it if I was hammering stuff out with him all day long-i wouldn't feel like such a bum.
But, I figure-he's the boss, he knows what he needs and he's not shy-if he wanted me to be doing something particular or needed my help he would tell me right? I mean, I hope so. Hopefully they're happy with my work and not thinking i'm worthless, and this is all in my head.
anywho....whew, that vent has been growing for awhile now.

The second thing, which already i'm cooling off about is I bought this AV plug thing so I could plug my ipod into my car and it was only 13 bucks so i thought-sweet!
I get home and go to plug it in and there was no lil plug hole in my console area like in the picture-what the heck?! How am I supposed to plug it in then?! maybe there is a special one that plugs in the...i dunno what you call it but ya know, it looks like the cigarette lighter thing only it's not-you can put a special cell phone charger in there etc. Hopefully they have adapters that can plug into that thing cause there is no lil headphones-type hole to be seen anywhere...o well, i'll just return it whenever i happen to be at walmart again.

In brighter news I bought "Ponette" figuring it would only get more expensive and the seller bumped it up to expedited shipping for free-score.

now to relax and watch practical magic...

Tuesday, July 7, 2009

Who challenges you?

"i lie, i pretend til i'm almost certain-it's a beautiful world".

Good Will Hunting quote:

Sean: Do you have a soul mate?
Will: Define that.
Sean: Someone you can relate to, someone who opens things up for you.
Will: Sure, I got plenty.
Sean: Well, name them.
Will: Shakespeare, Nietzsche, Frost, O'Conner...
Sean: Well that's great. They're all dead.
Will: Not to me, they're not.
Sean: You can't have a lot of dialogue with them.
Will: Not without a heater and some serious smelling salts

That's the trick...finding someone who "opens things up for you", who challenges you in a good way-who takes your thoughts and builds on them, gives and takes-preferably more giving than taking. that excites you and inspires you-not in a cheesy/cliche kind of way but in that they inspire new thought, ideas, help you see something in a new way etc.
That shouldn't be hard to find right?

So I discovered tonight that I have a very vocal stomach. I babysit a girl named greta. She's always laying on me or trying to knock me over etc I tried to explain to her about "bubbles" and now before she goes to get on me she says- "i wanna be in your bubble". well...at least the concept wasn't completely lost.

so anyway, we were laying...lying...(which is it?) on the floor and she had her head on my stomach and she kept saying that I was hungry-that my stomach was growling which I knew I wasn't and couldn't really feel it doing it. But then I started paying attention and focusing in on that part of the body-feeling etc and I began to notice lil gurgles or lil i don't even know what you call it but yea-lil movements goin' on. shrug, i don't really know what this means or how I feel about it-it's just weird.

Saturday, July 4, 2009

"Oooooo!.....shiny!"




I went with mom to see the terra cotta warrior exhibit at the natural science history museum. It was way cool to see them having learned about them in Asian Humanities classes at school. It's always interesting to think of the different ancient cultures and how they all tried to prepare themselves for death-the egyptians, this chinese emperor-burying things that would hopefully come with them to the other side. It just goes to show that most people realize somewhere deep down that we need to do something in order to be ok on the other side...they just couldn't think of any other way to prepare other than worldly material things which sadly enough for them is worthless after this. I think most people-deep down- realize or feel that there is something after this. that there is a point to all of this life, and if they don't they've either lied to themselves or been lied to for long enough, or they just want to take away responsibility for their actions. But the fact of the matter is only through the fullness of the gospel of Jesus Christ can you be ready for the next, but the coolest part-it helps now. today. You don't have to wait til death to receive the benefits. And the saddest part, the majority of people don't realize what they're missing, at least not concretely. Cue the missionaries!

We also saw a diamond exhibit (thus my title) but it reminds me of whenever we were on visa trips and the elders would laugh at me for excited reaction to things-basically high squeals of delight. It was funny though, the only part that I really thought was cool was on this seal from russia that said for love and fatherland on it and I could read it and understand it. Sure it was all sparkly....shrug, i guess i'm not the girl that looks hungrily at jewels etc. Is it cool-sure, when you think of how far it came from in the earth's mantle to get here and it's really strong etc. but it only has as much worth as you give it. In the end it's just a rock.


fireworks are going off in our neighborhood (so much for the ban) and it smells like rotten eggs now.
So apparently North Korea tested some more missiles today-no coincidence i'm sure. I won't even got started on that whole situation because I don't understand it. It really is amazing how much good or evil one man can do that will affect millions of people.
In other news, I just learned (yea i'm a lil slow) that apparently we have more oil than the entire middle east under the rockies but we can't get at it because of the environmentalists. Now don't get me wrong, I love nature and am all for preserving it/etc. but there has to be a way to get that resource with as little negative impact on the environment as possible. Sorry, but I firmly believe that all of the resources on this planet were given to us for our use. Now that doesn't mean that we should just destroy everything and make the earth look like something from those stark futuristic movies. We need to be wise stewards over the resources that God has given us on the earth, but this would greatly help our country and stop sending millions of dollars over seas. I dunno, sheesh what an entry- happy birthday America.

Friday, July 3, 2009

totally am in love with the last two songs of my playlist-check em' out! Also, got everything is illuminated soundtrack-woohoo! it's so russian...
also, got good ol' Kenneth (russian dictionary) and 555 russian verbs book. May the remembering commence!

Thursday, July 2, 2009

In a Heart Beat




did you guys ever see this show?! it was back in the day on the disney channel about these highschool kids who were also volunteer paramedics. I just found some episodes on line and i'm so excited! ok,ok, so i only watched cause of that cute guy-i dont' know his name, but u know the one, the one who is in x-men.

simply proof of his good driving

World: meet my boyfriend: Kirill




I know what you all are thinking: whoa...he wears a lot of black, but he really has a fun personality. He is russian so I can keep brushed up the rest of my life and he has lots of talents such as:

1. being able to get through ANY kind of traffic really quickly.
2. he's a perfect shot which is perfect for when we go.....hunting.
3. he's quite the athlete
4. he's very clean-never leaves any traces that he was there
5. he has an amazing attention to detail
I mean, yea his job keeps him away a lot-he's so dedicated! but every now and then he'll get some real time off to relax.
yep, he's def the strong silent type.

I can really pick em' huh?!

(seriously he's my absolute FAV "bad guy"-though he's not really bad, in the bourne series and i was quite conflicted when i couldn't figure out who i wanted to win: him or matt damon.)