BREAKING NEWS

I have reached a record high of 21 pending friend requests.

Do I accept? Do I ignore?

I don't know you!

I know you but I don't want you on my news feed!

I can't ignore you because I don't want to hurt your feelings!

I can't accept you because I can't remember how we both know 38 mutual people!

So I just let them sit.

Hoping they will work themselves out.

Fight amongst yourselves my 21 potential friends. I will only accept the last 5 standing.

If only...

Katie

Two life updates for you:

1. I got my oil changed all by myself for the first time ever today. I think I was mostly nervous because I hate appearing girly in any way and not knowing how to navigate myself through a simple oil change definitely made me feel like a wussy little girl. The guys at Jiffy Lube were fantastically patient with me. They talked me through everything, didn't try and sell me too much weird extra stuff, and even washed my windows/vacuumed my car as an extra! The best part was when I was leaving and Steve followed me out to open the door of the building AND my car door for me. Thanks Steve! And Jiffy Lube!

2. I went to the career fair today. What the?? Career Fairs are for seniors who are fully prepared to take the next step in their life and take on the responsibility of a full-time job. At least I got the "senior" part down. As for the rest of it...

The good news is I chose a super illogical major. If you're one of those people who has a real plan for your life and expect to go places and make lots of money you've probably never heard of it. It's called "English" and if you tell someone that is your major this is exactly how the conversation will go:

Boy: "So Katie, what's your major?"

Me: "English!"

Boy: "Oh...so...what are you going to do with that? Like...teach?"

Me: "Nope."

Boy: "Oh...(this dumb girl doesn't realize that is the only career option she has) well..." (turns to hair-parted RM next to me who is simultaneously planning out his nightly homework schedule and asking an Elementary Ed. major out)..."What's your major Rob?"

Rob: "Pre-med (not an actual major but I want you to know I'm going to med school)"

Boy: "Oh no way, me too!" ('Lets-compare-test-scores-conversation' ensues)

Any guesses as to the only booth that actually had something to offer an English major like myself?

Yep. TEACH for America.

There's no getting out of it. I'm going to end up a teacher whether I want to or not.

So I have an interview with Teach for America in the morning.

Anyone know anything about it?

Seeing as how its my only shot, I could really use some advice.

Muchas gracias.

Katie

This post is long, but you can do it.

My favorite part of Saturdays when I was a little kid was mid-afternoon when my mom would come in and make us take a break from our game of HiHo! Cherry-o (we weren't allowed to have Giga Pets or Tamagotchi's, therefore forced to cope with non-digital board games) so we could tell her what treat we wanted from Lin's Market Place where we did all of our grocery shopping. (To this day I still call all grocery bags "Lin's bags.")

From this I learned the irrefutable idea that there are certain foods in life that are in all ways unattainable unless purchased by your mother for you on special occasions.

Martinelli's was one of these treats.

We waited allll year long for that sweet one week time period in late December when we got to share a bottle of sparkling cider between the six of us, once on Christmas Eve and once on New Years Eve, drinking from little white teacups my brothers should be embarrassed about in retrospect. We lived for those toasts and that sweet liquid that tasted exactly like apple juice, except magic apple juice with fizz and happiness and rainbows and butterflies and a dash of chemical X.

It wasn't until my sophomore year of college (yes, college) when I had to stay and work over Christmas break (curse you Brick Oven Restaurant) and spend New Year's in Provo by myself, that I had a major coming-of-age experience. I was wandering through Smith's, alone on December 31st, wallowing in their terrible playlist that includes playing "Glory of Love" every third song (curse you Peter Cetera), when the thought occured to me: "I bet other stores besides Lin's Market Place carry Martinelli's Apple Cider." My first reaction was to find a mom, ANY mom, who could verify this statement for me and, if so, purchase me a bottle. But it was then that I realized, "I bet I could...buy...a bottle...myself."
You know that line in the song Amazing Grace that your grandma always gets super emotional on and it goes "was blind, but now I see"?

Yeah. Totally. I get it.

This was a whole new world for me. I bought, not one, but three bottles of Martinelli's and drank nearly two of them by myself that night during my lonely extended-version LOTR marathon I had with myself (who needs a new years kiss when you have 12 hours of Aragorn?) The next day I started thinking about other things I never realized I could purchase on my own: chocolate milk, white bread, those little bottles of lemon juice shaped like a REAL lemon. The possibilites were endless. These were products that, in my own mind, had always been labeled "mom only" and I suddenly felt like I had won the big-kid lottery.

Now, in the words of the immortal Bill Cosby..."I told you that story to tell you this one."

Because yesterday I discovered yet another of these forbidden foods.

Baked beans. Pork and Beans. Whatever you would like to call them, I am obsessed with them, and I don't remember ever eating them oustide of an actual picnic or barbecue. But there I was yesterday, walking down the Latin Foods aisle and at the very end, I saw them.

Ironically, the giant can I purchased bore a striking resemblance to the giant can I have in my pantry back home that reads "First Place" on the front.

This can was my winnings from the 5th grade pork-and-bean-eating contest in which I ate 1,114 more beans than any other 5th grader and got to take home the grand prize of this giant container full of even more pork and even more beans.

It's too bad I didn't know back then what I know now, which is that I could have just gone and purchased that exact same can of Pork and Beans for $1.47 at my local grocery story and avoided the whole issue of being called "beanie" by every boy in my fifth grade class for the whole month of November. Live and learn I guess.

All I know is I get to eat Pork and Beans for lunch all week.

Purchased without my mother.

Growing up is the best.

Katie

PHOENIX.

I saw the band Phoenix play last night in Salt Lake City with my friend Andrew.

Not only did we get a late start out of Provo (caused by him having an evening class, but mostly caused by me needed to finish the season premier of "Bones,") but there was also a HUGE crash on I-15 and then parking was rather difficult once we got to the venue, so we ended up missing the first 3 or 4 songs of Phoenix and the opening band (Neon Indian) entirely.


This really wasn't as terrible as we imagined because we still got to enjoy some fantastic tunes and didn't have to deal with the whole "I love this but I'm so sick of standing" dilemma. We were there the perfect amount of time to just get a good dose of an excellent band who played one of the most fantastic encore's.

And they are French. Hot.

We topped the night off at my favorite restaurant "Denny's."

You think I'm kidding but I'm not.

I love Denny's.

This might be based on nostalgia more than on the quality of the food but I did have some rather tasty Biscuits and Gravy and a Quesadilla that Andrew so kindly pointed out I could have made at home for a much cheaper price.

Jokes on you Andrew,

I ran out of Tortillas on Wednesday.

Katie

R&R

I took the afternoon off yesterday.

I feel like I have been going non-stop for the past 3 weeks and last night was the first weeknight I haven't had work or really anything to do in a while.

So...I bailed on all of my homework and painted away the afternoon.

(finished product to come later)

I'm pretty sure this break from life was absolutely necessary after supervising Intramural GIRLS flag football for four hours the night before.

Is it so terrible that I get embarrassed for my gender from time to time?

Let me share with you some quotes from some of the girls last night and then maybe you won't judge me so much.

#1. "So...what exactly does it mean to NOT hit someone?"

#2. "Come on girls! We've just got to run down the shot clock!"

(wrong sport dear.)

#3. "Well...you just look...and see who has the ball...and run after them!"

#4. Me: "You have to have at least four people on the line of scrimage."

Girl: "What's the line of scrimage?"

Me: "It's the spot where you are snapping the ball from."

Girl: ".....What's snapping the ball?"

#5. Me: "You are allowed multiple passes behind the line of scrimage."

Same girl: "What's the line of scrimage?"

Me: "Didn't we just go over this?"

I really should just tape some of these games for when I have children.

Nothing could whip a person into shape faster than the threat of four hours of women's flag football.

Note to my boss Phil: I swear, I'll be good.

Just don't make me do it again.

Katie

Note to self:

1. Talking about how funny something is immediately makes it not funny at all anymore. But telling someone that them talking about how funny something is that was really funny before makes it really not funny anymore is somewhat (or really) offensive.

Or whatever.

2. There should be an 11:00 p.m. deadline for making bets with your roommates. After that point you aren't in your right mindset and you may make decisions you will later (or instantly) regret.

3. Playing heads-up-seven-up on the front lawn of a busy street with a big group of young adults does not help the whole "Mormons are a Cult" issue.

whoops.

Katie

Highlights from my 20 mile run this morning...

1. Waking up at 4:41 a.m. Getting a text at 5:03 a.m. from Jordan saying we should sleep another hour. Getting a text at 5:13 a.m. from Jordan saying we should not sleep another hour. Too bad I already ate a whole breakfast by that point.

2. Starting my run off at a whopping 43 degrees. Sweet.

3. Rachel screaming "MORNING!" at every person we pass because she doesn't realize her Ipod is on so loud.

4. Me screaming "RACHEL! STOP YELLING!" every time we pass someone and her not being able to hear me because her Ipod was on so blasted loud.

Those poor people on the trail with us.

5. Being so starving and only having enough change on me for a 35 cent Lindor Truffle at the gas station. (I went with milk chocolate)

6. Getting lost at mile 11 and having to call my roommate for directions because I ran an extra half mile in the wrong direction.

7. Finding out that the trail was closed from mile 16-19 and having to scout out an alternate route. I tried to take a picture of the detour sign for proof that my bad luck is really that far-reaching, but the camera on my phone is so low quality that I'm convinced they use it to take pictures for paranormal shows when they want photos of ghosts and strange indiscernible objects.

8. Hitting such a wall the last mile that I told myself I could run past 16 more telephone poles after which point I probably would have tried to strangle myself on one of the wires had I not been too exhausted to lift my arms high enough to reach my throat. Also Jordan showed up with the car and picked me up.

9. Finishing.

The good news here: the next time I have to run 20 miles, I get to run 6 more on top of it.

Death is inevitable.

Katie

Katie's Guide to Life: Part 1

Facebook should be the ultimate indicator of when it is okay to get engaged.

It's really a simple process.

Follow me kids and I'll show you in 3 easy steps how to stop all your friends mom's from whispering behind your back about your irrationally quick engagement and the ultimate doom to your rushed marriage.

Step 1: Think about getting married. (A logical step. So logical, in fact, that it often seems to get overlooked.) Then, get on facebook and head over to your profile page.

Step 2: Check out your profile pictures, recent pictures, wall comments, statuses (stati?),mutual friends, etc.

Step 3: Ask yourself these questions: Do I have one or two profile pictures with the potential recipient of my pending proposal? (by golly I just created a tongue twister) Do we have a solid amount of mutual friends? A few wall comments from each other that appear on the first page of our profiles? Pictures with each other that go at least three albums back?

If the answer to these questions is yes...Great. Proceed. You have my blessing.

Mazel tov.

Here are some facebook red flags that are fairly good indicators you should hold off on popping the question:

1. They are not friends with your brothers, sisters, parents, roommates, life-long best friends, that weird high school friend or anyone who is even remotely connected to you. (Exception: Grandparents. Anyone being facebook friends with grandparents is weird.)

2. It still says on your "recent news" that you are "now friends with (insert significant other here)". You know that joke where you write on someone's wall and say "Oh look...we're facebook friends, guess that means we're real friends now! ha. ha. ha. ha." Well, that just doesn't work with fiance's.

3. If you aren't tagged in a single picture with them, but your profile picture before last is with your most recent ex. How ticked will your fiance be when all the girls in your ward get on to facebook-stalk your recent engagement and they all think you're marrying the girl two pictures back? I'll tell you how ticked: WAY.

You may think it's silly to care what people are going to think about your facebook when you get engaged, but lets be honest, its a legitimate concern. No matter what you tell yourself, they are going to look, and judge, and you will care. Please, its facebook.

Which is why I have provided this lovely guide to avoiding this problem.

And you can trust me on this. My roommates and I are top notch facebook stalkers.

You're welcome.

Katie

This one is for you Emily Wade...

This week I figured out my life plan.

This was accomplished by meeting with, first, my 419 Creative Writing professor, and then with my humanities advisement counselor.

When everything was said and done I called my mom to tell her about my big plans and she said,

"Katie, your life sounds pretty exciting. Do you like it?"

I laughed, "Yes mom. I like my life."

"Yeah..." she said, "I would like it too."

I think the purpose of moms is to have at least one person who thinks your life is exciting.

So, I guess I could give you the details about my new life plan, but I'm a perpetual plan-changer and who knows what will/will not play out. I can, however, give you a few hints: it has a lot to do with graduating in April, and grad school applications. Cool.

In the meantime, my life lately has gone a little something like this:

1. Running out of dishes and eating dinner off of tupperware/pan lids. I mean, sure dishes aren't actually disposable, and sure we could have just washed some plates. But we're in college. What do you expect of us? We don't even have moms that live with us.

2. Having Oktoberfest/Bratwurst and Sauerkraut parties on Labor Day.

Confession: my new favorite food is Bratwurst and Sauerkraut on a roll with some good German mustard. (Don't worry Taco's. I'm sure this is just a phase and I'll be back to eating you twice a day in no time at all.)

3. Attending BYU football games.

If you want to talk about the Air Force game with me I hope you seeing it going somewhere along the lines of renting our clothes and rubbing ashes on ourselves. Nothing like some good old biblical mourning to dull the pain of that kind of loss.

(I'm sticking to my claim that we let them win, considering it was September 11th and everything. I mean, half their crowd was dressed in camoflauge. What kind of jerks do you think we are?)

Go America.
and cougar football.

4. Double rainbow all the way.

This was pretty cool to see. Almost made me want to buy the remix.

There have also been large amounts of homework/work intermixed in here. As much as I love both those things I have neglected to take a picture of doing either of them so you're just going to have to believe me.

Sorry I've been so slow with the posts lately. My cousin Emily has committed me to doing better this week. Because when life gets busy, blogging should always be on the top of my priority list.

Blogging: part of my life plan.

Secrets out.

Katie

I need to tell you a story:

Today in my Literature & Film class my professor went around the room and had all 54 of us say our names. Just once. He then proceeded to talk to us for a few minutes, then went again around the room and named perfectly, without missing a beat, every single student in that classroom.

We were all speechless.

One girl raised her hand and asked him how he did it, what sort of memorization tools he had learn and utilized to pull off a feat like that.

And do you know what he said?

Motivation.

"I simply have a deep, deep desire to know each of you personally," he said, "and I want to do that so badly, that I just...remember. I don't think there's really any other way to do it."

Of course, being an English teacher, he said it with much more eloquence than my attempted quote there, but still...beautiful.

If every teacher I had cared that much, I'd probably have passed Spanish 101 sophomore year.

(or maybe if I had just gone to class. whoops.)

The sad part in all of this is, I just had to look up HIS name to write it in here.

Just shows you how much I really have to learn from him.

Thank you Professor Steven Walker.

You've made me want to do better.

Katie

Marathon Training Inc.

I ran almost 14 miles yesterday.
The goal was 13 but I got lost and ran a bit more than expected.
The last three miles were what I would like to refer to as "killer" and I really had to mentally push myself through them. The plus side to this was that I just watched the new Karate Kid earlier this week and got to pretend that a bearded version of Jackie Chan would be really dissappointed in me if I didn't beat up a bunch of little asian boys.

I mean if I didn't keep running.

Another game I played with myself while I was running was thinking of all my pet peeves. Fourteen miles gives you a lot of thinking time, especially if you are slow as I am. And I swear there is always a dumb question on those little surveys they make you fill out when you get into a new class or ward about your "biggest pet peeve" and I never know what to put.

So I've compiled a list of what I think are my top 3. For future reference:

1. The way words are painted on roads. I know this picture is backwards but if I were to be riding towards this I would read the words "Lane Bike." What the heck is a lane bike? I just don't understand the thought process behind this. We read top to bottom. They paint the words bottom to top. Illogical. Do they imagine some struggling biker coming along, face glued to the road, and thinking "biiiikkke...okay..okay...what's next...lane! bike lane! Got it!"

Nope. It says Lane Bike.

And that doesn't mean anything.

2. Turning on the car and the song starts playing in the middle. I personally believe that songs were written to be played from beginning to end. Now, this isn't to say that I don't change songs like mad when songs come on I don't like (drives my brother Jordan crazy) but when it comes to some good ol' bonafide and respectable tunes, starting in the middle just 'aint gonna cut it.

3. Comments like this on facebook pictures:
"Oh my gosh Britney! You are sooooo pretty I hate you! SERIOUSLY!!!! Stop making it so hard for the rest of us to date hot boyz!! You are so GORGeous that every hot boy wants you and we all HATE you for it! OMG, you suck! loves!!!!!"

Britney's resulting thought process: "What? You hate me? I suck? I'm confused. Also I haven't had a boyfriend since 6th grade. Also this is my family picture from when I was 14. Loves? People say that?"

These kinds of comment's severe spouting of bi-polar tween phrases does nothing but give me a headache and make me embarrassed for my gender. It has the same effect on Britney.

I often get comments like this on really hot pictures of me. Like this one. (Sorry Erin.) And I'm like, omg, don't hate me, hate Erin. Those santa clause earrings I got in my stocking last Christmas get her all the boyz. She sucks.

Okay, okay, so they might not get her ALL the boys. But they sure did get her ONE boy. :)

Something that isn't a pet peeve of mine: My best friend/cousin getting engaged!

Congrats Erin & Broc! So happy for you!

Katie