Let's be honest though, whose life isn't crazy these days?

So my awesome Christmas break has turned into a stress-fest... including drowning in paperwork and uncertainty, making stressful decisions and initiating a minor encounter between the car and a cement post... Ahem.

But the good news is there's a point to all (well, most) of this stress: finalizing documents for my internship at KSL and most recently... prepping to anchor the morning news at Classical 89!

I'll be on air Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays at 6:30, 7:30 and 8:30 AM (Yes, I have to get up very early... you're welcome, morning commuters.) You can tune in here.

The best part is I get paid to do it (Miserly student job pay, but hey, it's my first paid broadcasting gig!) and Classical 89 is a station I really like. My dad is so proud :)

So yeah, life is good, but I'm definitely ready for Friday to get here - then I really get an actual break, and we can focus on Christmas fun with my whole family!

Wow

It's been a while eh?

I've even started writing two or three posts in the past week, until I realized I had little to say. I'm kind of tired of school these days... and working on longer projects is tiring, so I've got no writing left in me. This weekend was great though. I am so grateful to be able to enter a grocery store and fill up a cart with food. All I have to do is grab it off the shelves and swipe a piece of plastic. Sometimes we don't realize how blessed we are. A girl in one of my classes made some comment about how she's a starving student and I was kind of annoyed. I mean yeah, she's probably not rolling in gold--neither am I--but she has nice clothes, a place to live, food to eat, a good EDUCATION, a brand new haircut... I hardly think we get to complain.

Sometimes I want to, but deep down I know how good I have it. My life is incredible. As stressful as it is to be in school and have a demanding schedule, as scary as it is to be making life-changing decisions for the future... what a wonderful life it is that I even get to make these choices. I have the awful dilemma of getting to chose between a career and having children. Or doing both.

In fact, we're living like kings right now. It really couldn't get much better. (Well, KSL could just decide to hire me straight out of school, that would be pretty awesome. Also, my dad could come for Christmas, that would be cool too. But hey, you can't have everything you dream of.)

Sigh.

But we did have a last hurrah barbecue last week:

aw, ketchup makes him happy

I have to take pictures of myself otherwise it's like I was never there

Look! A sunset!

Or I could make my husband take my picture.
And actually, this "pose" was totally accidental, believe it or not.
It must be my inner repressed fashion blogger.

On a completely unrelated note, I just watched a really good movie. Exam. The British accents probably don't hurt either... But in all seriousness, it's awesome. Go watch it.

Oh also, I learned in stake conference today that I was born to be a homemaker. Awesome. The worst part is that this came from a girl: all the members of the stake presidency gave spiritual, doctrinal talks, but this one girl went on and on about cleaning and decorating. Ugh.

And tomorrow I'm giving a mini presentation on euphemism and hyperbole. Because I NEVER use hyperbole inappropriately. Ever. Ha.

And for a last bit of Sunday night humor:

On the importance of keeping up on the news

I got burned by a current events pop quiz today... Never again.

So I've finally seriously committed to Google reader and added a few RSS feeds. I might have to move it around in the next few days, but this should do the trick... I hope. I am very grateful for modern technology: RSS feeds are a fantastic way to keep up with what's going on.

And I've mentioned this before, but World Crunch is a seriously awesome website. They are dedicated to translating a selection of news stories from around the world into English. Also, I kind of want to work for them.

Stroke of inspiration: that is a job a stay-at-home mom can do "fingers in ze nose" as my english teacher in France used to say. Ha ha. She had difficulty grasping the concept of transliteration versus translation... it's a french expression akin to "piece of cake."

Anyway. This article is interesting, from Le Monde -- a portrait of a Libyan rebel leader. And perhaps a  glimpse of what the future may hold.

Oh, and in case you were wondering, the audition went.... ok. I left at a perfectly reasonable hour, but the bus decided to not show up for another solid fifteen minutes so I ended up sprinting across campus and arriving late, red, frazzled and with my hair in a mess. Did I mention frazzled? I did fine, apart from my hair falling into my eyes every three seconds... Oh, and aforementioned pop quiz was part of the auditioning process... Yeah, should have expected that one. I'll have results before Monday HOLY CRAP I JUST CHECKED MY EMAIL.

I got it!!! 

(I think I can allow myself a few extra exclamation points right now.)

I got it!!

I got it!!!!

This is one of those days where this blog is rather appropriately named. My last semester of school is going to rock.

On the art of reading teleprompters

My husband knows me too well. Now, when he does something very husband-worthy, after he's had his moment to bask in the pride of being such a great husband he asks me: "are you going to blog about this?"

Ha ha

So, because he really is awesome, here is the latest feat:

He knows I really, really want to anchor the newscast this semester. It's my last semester, I think I've got what it takes, and I want it bad. So last night I read him a bunch of scripts out loud as practice. Tonight, when I got home, he had prepared a little "exercise" to help get me ready for the audition:

He had found a YouTube video of a teleprompter so I could practice reading the real way. (People, reading from a teleprompter is not as easy as it sounds! And after a summer of not doing it, I wanted to get back in the groove, you know?)

Anyway, it was an awesome idea, and now I'm all ready for that audition tomorrow. Wish  me luck!



And because I need to rant just a little bit... There are fifteen million girls trying out, and about three guys. But of course, they like having a male/female anchor duo, right? So... guys just have it too easy. I feel like I'm in ballroom all over again. Ugh.

A while... and a rant (but a rave first)

It's been a while since I've blogged, but I've just been working and enjoying life with my husband before school starts, bringing with it the inevitable end of life as we know it. That, and trying to make major life decisions that don't result in our being haunted by the ghost of Spencer W Kimball. It's so good to be back and be settled in. I love our new apartment, and our neighborhood. South of Center Street was... kind of ghetto, I'll just say that. Now when we go on walks there are gorgeous, ancient trees to give us shade with little children playing in sprinklers, lovely little homes and a perfect park right next door. And my sewing corner is now in our bedroom which gets gorgeous sunlight in the evening, so I have my own corner of heaven. This really is the ideal place to end our time at BYU. I'm sad now that it seems so close: it's been a good life here in happy valley. Did I mention we now have amazingly fast internet? I love it!

So here's a funny story. The other day I saw this girl who looked vaguely familiar. I remember thinking how overdressed she looked (massive heels, too many bracelets, an overly sophisticated hairdo...) The image of a little girl that got into her mother's closet came to mind. Later this week I realized she was a friend of a friend on Facebook and I remembered how I knew her. Minimal Facebook-stalking later and ta-daa, she has a blog. But it gets better: it's a fashion blog. And here's the thing: there were a lot of nice outfits and all, but it just felt... overdone. And there was a "shop" page were she sold old clothes she didn't want anymore. What?

All of this to say: I'm not quite sure what to make of all these so-called fashion bloggers. I follow a few that I like, but I get the impression that these days everybody and their dog is a fashion blogger and writes "what I wore Wednesday" articles and "outfit posts". Meh. You have to have a killer sense of style to venture into that... and an interesting personality. (Also, how are student newlyweds affording an entire bookcase-full of designer shoes? It kind of screams credit card debt--not cute.) For example, I love this girl because she's just really funny. Not taking yourself too seriously is important, especially if you're launching yourself into something as... well, artificial, as fashion blogging.

I'm not a fashion hater; in fact, I really enjoy getting dressed up. I even blog about it every once in a while. But I have little sympathy for fashion victims. There's a problem when what you wear gets in the way of "you." The whole point of wearing clothing (well, apart from covering your nakedness) is to look good, right? But when you're overly trendy or your accessories get in the way of your mobility... you just look like you're trying too hard. I still remember these wise words from a girl in my freshman dorm: "I want the clothes to make me look good, not the other way around."

By now you're probably thinking "how do you get away with being such a style snob?" No credentials, but I do have a trump card: my country basically invented fashion (and after a summer in Paris, I can tell you that middle-aged french women are the classiest ladies ever). I also spent a good amount of my teenage years learning from trial and error. I'd show you photographic proof, but I'm pretty sure my parents were too ashamed of me because we mysteriously have very few pictures from my teenage years...