In Honor of Autumn....

I re-awaken my blog with a random poem that I made up this morning while waiting for my grammar class to begin.

I call it:

"The Ode to Autumn"

O! Hateful Fall that breaks my heart
You taste too much of winter's chill,
Those bleeding winds - your fingers - here
They creep in through my window's sill.

O! That I could rip your pages -
The calender obey my will!

"This is a Call...A Call out to You"

Wow, I have tons of news to add here! I think I'll go in a numerical list, that way I might get everything.

1. The title of the blog is from a song by this awesome Christian rock band that I'm recently interested in. They're called "Thousand Foot Krutch." At first there was just one song that I stumbled on that I loved, but lately I've found some others that are pretty cool too. So...just thought I'd share that. You should go listen to them. "Breathe You In" is my favorite song.

2. I recently got some good school news. First, I got a scholarship for next year. $1000 just for having good grades and such, which made me feel pretty special. Also, the other day I got a letter from the Education department and I have been officially accepted into SUU's Secondary Education Program! Hooray! I'm one step closer to being a teacher. :) Also, in the envelope was the results from my CAAP test. I passed them all (math was a worry spot!) and I even got a pretty little certificate from the ACT people saying that I had Exemplary scores on the writing and reading segments. So, that all made me happy.

3. My spring break was way fun this year. I decided that it would be good for me to have an "Official Collegic Spring Break" - but not with the whole get-drunk-in-Cancun thing. So Kirstin and I went to hang out at Beth's parents' house in St. George for the first part of the week. We watched movies and painted each other's nails and generally hung out and chilled. Then on Monday the three of us drove down to Las Vegas and went window shopping. In theory, we were supposed to get Kirstin a swimming suit and me some church shoes but we never did get around to those... But we did have a great deal of fun, especially during the ride back to St. George. Beth hadn't slept well the night before so about a third of the way she stopped and I took over. The exciting thing was the fifteen miles of curving canyon that was narrowed down to one lane - or half a lane as the cones had been blown over in parts. But we made it safe and it was all good.

Tuesday morning Kirstin and I loaded ourselves into the car (Poor Beth had to work during the week! We missed her lots! D: ) and headed southwest. We ended up stopping for lunch in a cool 50s-style dinner just over the border of California that had lots of cool memorabilia before driving the rest of the way to Anaheim. The rest of the night we walked around the street our hotel was on. There was a pretty cool outdoor shopping center that we found.

Wednesday we weent to Huntington Beach. It was gorgeous and I had tons of fun frockling in the waves. We ate lunch at the Macaroni Grill and spent the rest of the day enjoying the air and resting up for tomorrow. While I was in California, I was understandably a bit nervous since I had heard how crazy the drivers were. But once I was in it, I just knuckled down and decided to enjoy it. With the windows down and a constant sea breeze, I was just fine with the understanding that all the cars on the road wanted to kill me. Once I got past that, it was great. And I got to make lots and lots of U-turns, which I actually kinda miss. My roommate thinks that I just want to be a California driver, and I think she may be right. I did have a little bit too much fun driving down the highway.

Thursday we packed up and checked out of the hotel. We spent most of the morning in the Ontario Hills mall. It was so big that there was an entire circus in one corner of the first of the eight parking lots. We did more window shopping and while we were there picked up a gift for Beth and one for her parents. Me and Kirstin also got Build-A-Bear bunnies to commemorate our trip. We caught lunch and then we drove as far as Prim before taking a rest. We got in late to St. George. We figure that in the last week we've spent about 20 hours in the car with me driving for 17 of it.

Friday we, now including Beth, went shopping around St. George. deciding the bunnies weren't enough, we got snugglies with Beth too. Mine is a wolf. :) Then we went to Petsmart to look at their betas since Kirstin's died last week. While we were there we saw some kittties that had been brought in by one of the shelters. In a stroke of brilliance, Kirstin thought to ask Kassiday, our landlord, if we were allowed to keep pets in the backyard, if not in the house. He said "yes!" To make a long story short, I am now the caretaker of a gorgeous little cat named Smokee and Beth has a dog named Orion.

All in all, it has been an amazing week. And I am very grateful for all the cool things that I can do. And I love my kitty! He's so snuggly and he purrs all the time. It means I will have a bit more difficulty locating housing, but I am willing to make that sacrifice. Well, you certainly got a long post out of me this time!
~Kinsey

Ah...relief

Midterms are finally over! Not that I had any exams, but I had a paper and a project that were causing me a great deal of stress. And now they are finished. I only wish that my back stopped hurting, along with my leg. My back is just all sorts of tense and sore but the back of my leg is all bruised up because of the demon chair at my work which thought it would be fun to eat me.

But my project is pretty awesome. For my educator's technology class we had to put together a video about the curriculum topic we had chosen. I've been doing stuff about sentence diagramming(I know, I know, not anyone else's favorite subject) but the video is awesome. I took a bunch of music videos and put their lyrics on top of the video. You can watch it on youtube. The link is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ocgUUEUNaUo Yep. So, watch my video, I'm going to go get myself some dinner...

"Just a little change...Small to say the least..."

Hello Universe!

I'd like you to meet Kinsey 9.07.20. This latest version comes with new improved Attitude and extra Energy Stores! Check it out! She cleans! She cooks! She refuses to complain about her co-workers anymore! Unlike the 9.07.10, the Kinsey 9.07.20 plans ahead for her papers and does the laundry before she is out of clean pants! She eats her vegetables and has redefined snack food to mean bananas and oranges...(granted, chocolate is still on the list of acceptable foods, we're going for an update, not a new processing unit!)

But!

Above all, Kinsey has determined herself to be happy. This means, she won't sulk, or get anxiety, and certainly not emote. She can still be sad, and angry, and hungry - all those healthy emotions, but she won't punish herself anymore with grudges and pity parties.


And what does she have to say for herself?



"Hi. It's good to see you."

Which came first the Chicken or the Egg?

Well, today it was the egg.

It's been awhile since I updated, or at least a lot has happened in the interregnum. I went back-roading, I got sick, went to see my family, got my computer fixed, (Thanks Kira and Paul!) wrote an epic little paper...It was all very exciting. Except for the getting sick part because I'm still dealing with that.

Yes, I am feeling very sickly. I think it is strep and I may just have to brave Cedar City health care to see, because if it is strep... Getting rheumatic fever and dying just isn't one of my new year's resolutions. So today I made myself egg drop soup for early dinner before work and then ate chicken and rice after work because it sounded really good. And I did the dishes. It made me feel so accomplished that I endevoured to post to my blog. And now I'm gonna knuckle down and go read some Baudelaire. Wish me luck!

You Know it's an Odd Day When Mettallica and Mussorgsky are Both in Your AI-Generated Playlist.

There's this awesome online radio called Pandora.com - you give them a song or artist you like and then they generate a playlist for you. As you rate songs, they broaden or narrow the selection they draw from to play for you. It's really awesome and this week I'm listening to a channel they created based on the Finnish cellist trio, Apocalyptica. Say that three times fast.

Anyways, these last weeks have been kinda strange, but not more so than any other month in my life, I suppose. My computer has been sick recently. I finally got the new adapter in the mail and next thing I know I've got at least two trojans mucking around on my hard drive. So I run lots of scans and mostly try to avoid using my laptop until I can get my daddy to look at it when I go home next weekend; which I am very excited for, it will be my first time home since Christmas!

On Facebook recently, the newest thing going around is to write a list of 25 random things about you. I decided to do it, and since I'm somewhat brain-dead at the moment, I'm just going to copy it in here and pretend that I've written a lovely long blog for the total 5 people that read this. O.o

My list of twenty-five, well considered, yet random things about me.

1. I share the same initials as my little sister.

2. When I was six I invented an imaginary friend because I thought I'd be weird if I didn't. (You see how well the pre-emptive strike worked).

3. When all is said and done, I agree that the most delicious thing in the world is a cool drink of water on a very hot day.

4. I have almost an entire week worth of music on my computer. If I started singing now, I may run out of songs I know by the time February is over...maybe.

5. I drive a white Ford Mustang (because my daddy loves me lots) and I refer to it as "Pony."

6. The very first time I heard the story of the Trojan war, it sounded, strangely enough, like I had heard it before and I am ridiculously fascinated with it.

7. My roommate has decided I have an "Oedipus complex" (in the true sense rather than the confused ideas of Freud) because, like Troy, I am ridiculously fascinated by the King of Corinth's story and I try to reference it at any academic opportunity.

8. I celebrate half-birthdays by having a treat and singing half of the birthday song. "Happy Birthday to you. Happy Birthday to you..."

9. I currently have a notebook that I drag around with me and write stuff in. It's strange, for the first time in my life, I actually prefer writing to reading, and do more of it.

10. One of my favorite sounds in the world is that of studded snow tires on pavement because it means that it's a warm enough winter that I'm driving with the windows down.

11. Until this past fall, I hadn't actually seen any of the Lord of the Rings movies all the way through. After a week-long extended edition marathon, I now include them in my list of movies that I'm always willing to watch.

12. I tend to name my appliances and some of my furniture. For example, my computer's name is Kaz and I have an air freshener known as Demon.

14. Though I dislike having cold feet, I don't like wearing socks because my preferred feet position is with my big toes intertwined. Yeah, I know, it's weird.

15. My hair is the longest it has ever been and it makes me a lot happier than dead cuticles has any right to.

16. I laugh every time I see/hear any of the following: rainbows, java, mustard, and Shane West.

17. I like crack ships. If you know what I mean, you are also guilty of the love. If you don't, don't worry, I'm not talking drugs.

18. Considering how much I enjoy thinking and problem solving, I've never really liked mysteries.

19. The best compliment I've received this past year has been a perfect score I recived from a professor I truly admire. (The paper was about Oedipus, which just goes to prove #7).

20. I have an unhealthy fascination with pirates.

21. Half of the things I think and say fall under one of three categories: song lyrics, movie quotes, and inside jokes.

22. Some days I wonder how I managed to bypass being diagnosed.

23. Apparently, I talk in my sleep. and sing. and even howl on occasion.

24. There was no number thirteen on this list.

25. My blog. Pretty sure, that's one of the most random things about me.

26. That and my brain.

I need you to hear me

What a week. No, not even that what a weekend.

I’m still in the process of figuring out just what has been going on with my classes and such and trying to get back in the groove of things after Christmas break and on Saturday the cord to my laptop up and bit the dust. And since my laptop’s battery has been kaput for months my laptop is just a pretty paperweight until I get the new one in the mail.

Not really a deadly situation, or even one that would faze someone that isn’t so nerdy as I am. Then this morning, I lost my cell phone. It had fallen out of my pocket at some point of the parking lot apparently but I was more than a little bit stressed digging through my stuff to find it. Thankfully, my roommate called it and someone had turned it in to a Lost and Found on campus. But in that two, three hour gap when it was lost I came to a couple of conclusions.

We say we are so happy to live in a wireless society, that every day technology is advancing so quickly that we have more freedom than ever. I’m here to tell you that that is a lie. I’m pretty well shackled to my technology. And it’s not just me; everyone around me is just as attached. Sitting in class, I listened as my instructor directed us to log-on to our eLearning class platform. He showed us where the new assignments were and then proceeded to begin the day’s lecture. I sat there the entire time thinking to myself, “How am I going to get this done?” As quietly as I could, I started multi-tasking, checking homework assignments for other classes, still quietly panicking that I didn’t have enough time. For a moment I contemplated calling my work and asking to be rescheduled to the weekend until I remembered my phone was gone.

What a wake-up call for me. I don’t know how to fulfill the responsibilities in my life without this technology that I’ve taken so for granted. For a little while, I was unreachable and it sorta scared me. My over-productive imagination began churning out scenarios where I had to be reached, and no one could find me.

Human beings are so vain and dependent on one another. Oh sure, I’ve ignored calls before – delayed replying to emails until the problem has been otherwise resolved, but that option was taken away. I couldn’t cut or draw new lines of communication because my ability to do so was taken away.

And I’m so possessive of it! The other day I laughed at a web-sticker that said “I like my computer, my friends live in it.” The disgusting thing is that in the past two days I’ve felt lonely. Ridiculous, my friends have been kind in aiding me with checking email and stuff on their computers, but it’s just that: it’s their computers, not mine. In science-fiction we see the warnings about future societies that meld with their media, becoming cyborgs and superhuman computers with artificial intelligence when really it’s not that far off, culturally.

Half-an-hour ago, I logged onto this computer at the school’s library. First thing I did, was pull my headphones out of my pocket and plug them in. It was ten minutes before I even thought to turn on any music, but there the cord was: hanging from my ear and securely plugged into the tower, like some strange umbilical cord.

What am I trying to say? I’m not certain, but all morning uncomfortable thoughts have been rolling around in my brain, demanding that I express them. Crazy thing? I’ve listened, and now I’m passing them onto you, another communication line built; this one a safety line until I can repair the others. But what’s more desperate – my making this available to you or the hope that you feel the same?

Coffebeans and Magic Wands

Halfway through the first week of the semester and I already know that it will be an awesome one. And for me the hardest one since Junior year of high school. Which is actually kind of funny because I'm only taking 14.5 credit hours rather than my usual twenty or so. My classes are all shaping up to be interesting and my professors are pretty cool.

But the thing is the homework load. For my continental European literature class we have about four or five hours of reading (at my pace) to do a week. For Visual Genres we have a huge stack of books and a long list of movies to see. Plus there's a wiki that the class is building - which sounds way cool, but knowing me I will spend way too much time on it. My Technology for Instructors class is not in fact Overhead Projections 101 - today we messed around in Photoshop - a program that I am developing a beautiful love-hate relationship with. I'm kinda loving it - but it hates me. That class we are building an entire online portfolio demonstrating our ability to figure out technology. And I suppose at some point I will have to figure out what my German professor is actually saying when he starts rattling off foreign at me.

But it should definitely be an interesting semester if nothing else. I had this vague idea about asking for more hours at work - but I'm kinda glad to only be working two shifts a week with these mountains shaping up around me.

On the subject of school, (I know, I just changed subjects, but I'm changing it back for my own devious purposes), we started reading Voltaire's Candide this week and I am... Well, I feel a lot of different things about it. It's certainly something that I think many people should read. It's considered a satire and in that way it's absolutely brilliant. Throughout it I went from laughing my head off to wanting to throw up because of the way in which very tragic things were talked of.

The title character Candide is thrown from his home when the master of the house catches the young man kissing his daughter. From there Candide endures all sorts of horrible things, all of which are couched in such terms that you cannot help but laugh, even as you are sickened by the notion. The worst is the polite excuses for the atrocities of war.  Everything is well because it is all exactly how things are supposed to be.  

So I was going to continue that thought and...I'm not.  But really, you should read Voltaire, he's cool.  

So There's This Thing Called Blogging...

What can I say?  I decided to give it a try.  My sister's got one.  My roommate's got one.  My professor has one.  Why not me?  I'm not really sure what this is gonna look like.  Though the pretty template maker called it something...Minima dark?

That was a joke.

(This is the point where you all slap your foreheads and say, "Kinsey, Kinsey, Kinsey."  Ready?  Ok now slap...good.  Very nice.  Now, all together: "Kinsey, Kinsey, Kinsey."  Wonderful.  You guys are great.)

Face slapping aside, I truly am not certain how this will turn out.  What does one do with a blog anyways?  Just blog?  Like...blather-log?  I like it.  This will be my blather log.  Not a banana-log.  Not even a bunny-log, but a blather-log.  

So I blather on my log.  And then I post it on facebook, email friends and family, and voila:

I'm a blogger.

I sense a whole new world opening up before me.

Do you feel it?