Life's funny.

Sometimes it plays little tricks on you. Like when you think you're all grown up and you realize you're not. Or when you think you're not grown up and you realize you are.

That happened to me this morning. In case you didn't know, Ryan and I are bunking at my mom and dad's for a couple weeks because we had to be out of our apartment but, you know, have to go to class for another week.

Today we watched conference and I momentarily reverted back to my childhood — I ate potato chips and played MarioKart. Both were delicious. I thought I was getting another shot at being at little girl in my parents' house.

Then we helped my dad move things into my room. They've been painting and recarpeting and giving the whole house a little makeover (I'd post pictures, but my camera cord is waiting for us in Provo, along with 98 percent of our belongings). My room is now bright yellow with thicker carpet and looks so much nicer than the beige/beige combination I had growing up.

Suddenly, I wished I had painted my bedroom when I lived at home and still had walls I could paint. Mom kept asking me to, but I never did, mostly because it wasn't that important to me. Today, I looked at the back of a decoration I'd had on my wall for years and realized that I could have easily made more of them. I could have painted and made decorations and made my bed and made the whole thing really beautiful.

Oh, how I wish I had a wall I could paint now!

I guess it's one of those little tricks life plays on you. I started out this morning thinking I was a little kid. But I'm realizing that the desire to make a beautiful home and paint and decorate and CREATE has been in me all along. I just never nurtured it — until now.

Which (I think) means I'm
growing up.

Happiest Place on Earth

One week from today, I will officially be a college grad.

Thank you, thank you. * bow *

You might be thinking to yourself, "Bre, you've graduated from college. What are you gonna do next?!"

Answer: "I'm going to Disneyland!"

Seriously. We are. Even though I've been (cough, cough, ahem) lots of times, Ryan has never been. He insists he has, but he was 1, so he doesn't remember and that doesn't count. We're really excited to get out of Idaho and get a little sun in the golden state. And, we'll get to see Ryan's sister Camille. And, best of all right now, it gives us something to look forward to during finals.

Couldn't be happier.

Twenty-two

Birthdays are funny things.

I was thinking today about one of my favorite short stories, "Eleven" by Sandra Cisneros. I love this passage: 

"What they don’t understand about birthdays and what they never tell you is that when you’re eleven, you’re also ten, and nine, and eight, and seven, and six, and five, and four, and three, and two, and one. And when you wake up on your eleventh birthday you expect to feel eleven, but you don’t. ... You feel like you’re still ten. And you are—underneath the year that makes you eleven.

Like some days you might say something stupid, and that’s the part of you that’s still ten. Or maybe some days you might need to sit on your mama’s lap because you’re scared, and that’s the part of you that’s five. And maybe one day when you’re all grown up maybe you will need to cry like if you’re three, and that’s okay. That’s what I tell Mama when she’s sad and needs to cry. Maybe she’s feeling three."

I can relate to the little girl in the story today. The only difference is that today I'm 22, not 11, so that gives me twice as many years to swift through when I act a certain way. And I'm figuring out the the more years you have layered under your age, the more complicated your actions get.


Sometimes, I get nervous to graduate because I don't know what's coming next, and that's the part of me that's still 18. Sometimes, I see Ryan and I get butterflies and don't know what to say, and that's the part of me that's still 13. Sometimes I drive like I'm 16, and I still feel like a 6-year-old playing house. 


Today I went to Primary with my niece and I did the actions to the songs. That's the part of me that's still 7. Right now I'm procrastinating my homework like I'm 17. 


I really feel like I'm still 21. And I am — underneath the year that makes me 22.

What I live for

I know no one likes a grammar-Nazi schoolmarm. But I still kind of love finding grammatical (our punctuational) mistakes  in writing that completely change a sentence's meaning. Case in point — this question on my assignment today:

How do side effects of Paxil effect consumers buying potential? 

I didn't know that consumers could buy potential. Where can I find some? And how much does it cost? 

Yes, that made me laugh. Yes, I thought I was clever when I spotted it. Yes, I spotted the wrong "effect," too, for anyone else who noticed.
And yes, I'm a TOTAL nerd.

Everything I need to know I learned at Falls Valley

Blame it on my pending graduation, but I've waxed a bit philosophical about my education lately. Mostly, I've remembered Falls Valley Elementary School and the priceless lessons I learned as a little girl.

Last week, I was in the testing center painstakingly filling out my Scantron sheet. I always fill out the bubbles with obnoxious precision — I can't bring myself to mark them with light dots, and I find it equally annoying whether I go outside the line or fail to fill the entire circle. Why do I do that?

And then, I remembered. A long-stored memory pushed its way to the front of my mind with all the speed I wished the answers to my test questions could muster. I remembered sitting in Mrs. Holcomb's second grade classroom — the one that opened up to the coat room and also Mrs. Pickett's classroom on the south side. Mrs. Holcomb always had the date written on the board in numbers/dashes form (you know, 3-16-10), and I would always write "95" at the end of the date. I couldn't wait to be in 96. I thought the number 5 looked fat.

But the thing I remembered at that  moment in the testing center had nothing to do with fat numbers or coat rooms. I remembered Mrs. Holcomb teaching us how to fill out bubble sheets for our big Iowa Basics test.

She put three bad examples on the board. In one, the circle was filled, but too light. In the next, the circle was filled, but the mark spilled over the edge. The last showed a bubble incompletely filled, and Mrs. Holcomb explained that the computer might not read these marks properly. I decided right then  to never miss a question on a test like this because of something as silly as inappropriately filled Scantron bubbles.

So there I was, 15 years later, in the testing center at BYU-Idaho one month prior to receiving my bachelor's degree, and I was filling in the bubbles with ridiculously diligent accuracy. I'm sure I learned a lot of other things in my second grade class that I use every day — double-digit addition, for example — but most of those lessons apparently didn't take as well as that bubble-filling lecture. If I missed any questions on that test (or any other I've taken since '95), it wasn't because the bubbles were improperly marked.

Thank you, Mrs. Holcomb.

The rest of the story

You know how I didn't vote for "Marc" because "I don't even know Marc"?

Yeah, he definitely won the election.

Shows what I know.

The Secret

What's the best part of SRC elections week? Color-coded, Times New Roman-ed "campaign badges" that look like name tags? Being assaulted in the Manwaring Center? Poorly Photoshopped campaign posters?

None of the above.  Answer: Awkward moments

I thought I had the best idea ever: vote early, and you are home free through the whole week. That way, you have an infallible excuse to rush past all the fliers pushed at you. Platform-pushing campaigners can't argue with "I already voted!"
It's not fool-proof, though. I tried it on Monday, and instead of out-smarting all the lobbyists, I just found myself in a really, really awkward situation.

CAMPAIGNER GUY TO UNSUSPECTING FRESHMEN GIRLS: Hey! Did you vote already?
GIRLS: No. Are you running?
ME: (laughing at their naivity.)
CAMPAINGER GUY TO ME A COUPLE SECONDS LATER: Hey! Did you vote yet?
ME: (feeling pretty smart) Yep! Sorry.
CAMPAIGNER: Did you vote for Marc?

I don't even know Marc. And I don't know this guy, either. But you can't just say "No," because that's rude. In my search for words, I inadvertently managed to say something even ruder.

ME: I ... don't ... think I know you.
CAMPAIGNER: All right ... see ya later.

And of course I've seen him twice. It must be a law of the universe that the people who witness your most embarrassing moments haunt you. At least till campaign week is over.

Happy voting!