the NR monster, as i like to call it

my entire school career has been one of negative reinforcement of my worst habit: procrastination. i have learned over the years that i can leave things til the last second, do them half as good as i could have, or otherwise submit subpar work and still get amazing grades at the end of the day. hate me if you will, but it's true. the NR-monster has struck again, which is why i'm bringing this up in the first place.

a few weeks ago, i had to turn in a book review for my one real class of the semester (middle eastern politics, in case you're wondering). i knew i had to read 2 books from the first day of class, but did i read the books in a nice leisurely fashion over the following 4 weeks like i should have? of course not! why would i? no, instead i left it until the last week before the book review was due, and in doing so, was only able to read one of the two books assigned. i read the short one. the one that i did not read was written by none other than my very own professor. he often refers to this book (in jest, partly) as "the holy word" and "the most important book, after the Qu'ran." yes, he takes this book very seriously. but i had heard rumors about this professor and how he does not actually read the work that he assigns his students to write. so with this in mind, i set forth on the saturday night before the review was due to write the book review, all the while nurturing the attitude, "why should i read his work if he won't read mine?" i know. i'm terrible. lucky for me, he wrote a very thorough introduction to the book and i was able to summarize the book in 2 pages and then make some serious arguments about the similarities and differences of the two books. what a wise man (haha).

so anyway, fast forward three weeks to this afternoon when he begins to pass back the work that we've handed in so far. there were two short summaries that he randomly assigned us for other stuff, both of which had a big plus sign at the top instead of a grade. can anyone explain to me what this means? no one in class knew either. is it like in kindergarten when you got a smiley face if you did really good? or it could be a crooked X. but what does THAT mean? X marks the spot? right on the mark? i don't know. anyway, that's just a side note. the real interesting thing to me was when i got my book review, it had an A-/A as the grade. he couldn't decide which it was, so he wrote both. it's a common malady among professors in my department. and while it wasn't the A+++++++++++++++ that i was hoping for (like ralphie) i'm back to square one. procrastination pays. and don't you forget it, kids.

the humor of my "job"

i know i'm technically unemployed, but i do have a lot of work to do being a TA. since it is fall break, i am of course up to my eyeballs in midterm exams to grade. and let me tell ya, i read some pretty funny things. here are some of my favorites:

• last semester in the international relations class, a guy wrote an entire argument about david hasselhoff was a good case for a non-zero-sum game (which is a conflict where both sides can win or lose stuff simultaneously) because he wants to date and there are lots of German women who would love to have him. he also brought in the international relations aspect by stating that david hasselhoff thinks his picture should be framed and hung at checkpoint charlie because he had more to do with the fall of the berlin wall (because of his very popular-in-germany-and-nowhere-else recording career) than any of the world leaders combined. that's actually mostly true. sad, i know. needless to say, the guy got full points. he actually really knew his stuff. and not just about david hasselhoff.
• the 1 paragraph rant about walmart coming to sugarhouse in the final for international relations. because walmart is the devil incarnate and is ruining the world with its cheap merchandise and skeezy business practices. apart from the rant, the guy did pretty good, so as i recall, he also got full points.
• now for the american government midterm, there are several questions that refer to lobbyists. this is just a general comment, but kids these days can spell to save their lives. i'm not kidding. here's my favorite spelling of lobbyist: lobbiest, which is in fact the superlative form of the word "lobb". here's an example of how it would be used in a sentence: the ball that he threw was the lobbiest of all of the balls on the playground. I'm not sure what that means, but you get the idea. (please feel free to share your very own definition of the word "lobbiest" in the comments section) it's also an example of how the utah accent is ruining the english language. i wrote that for julia's sake. and because it's partly true.

conflicted, torn, in denial, and kinda distraught

you know how sometimes there's something you really want to write about, but you never know who may be reading, so you can't write about it, just in case? i hate that.

speaking in abstracts doesn't work here. it's too obvious. besides, it might go something like this, "so say there's a girl named blarissa and another girl named bolivia. . ." 10 extra-cool points to anyone who knows what that's from. if enough people are curious, i might tell you later. especially if i'm the only one who knows. (come on, laura, i'm counting on you. i know you're reading.) anyway, i'm really glad i have good friends and roommates to whom i can vent. it's more one-on-one and risk-free when venting face to face instead of into cyberspace.

no more rhyming and i mean it!

good night.

a lesson learned

i know you are all dying to read the whole lobster story. and just to prove that i can to my bloggy teachers who showed me how to make a link to the story (thanks, you know who you are), here it is. i feel special.

headlines

this will be nowhere near as good as headlines on jay leno, so don't get your hopes up. i was just browsing msn and saw the following headline: Officials: Smuggler caught with 6 lobsters in his pants. if i knew how to create a link to that (anyone want to give me a lesson on that?), i would, because i'm sure you are all intrigued beyond imagination about the rest of the story. what intrigues me is the pants. what kind of pants was he wearing that could actually facilitate 6 lobsters? maybe he bought the pants so he could start on his next big business idea:

a tuesday serenade

as some of you know, the barenaked ladies is my favorite band of all time. they somehow manage to sing songs that aren't about love, which is a rare atribute these days. they recently put out a cd of children's songs, which are incredibly witty and clever, much like the rest of their work. so, i've decided to sing to you a song from that album that i've been singing in my head since before i woke up this morning. i don't know the title. i just know the words. just remember that it's a boy singing this song. (and all of the rest of them because there are, in fact, no ladies, barenaked or otherwise, that belong to the barenaked ladies)

i like my big sister,
but i don't want to wear her coat.
it may be black, it may fit perfect,
but you and i both know
it's a girl's coat.
i can handle some hand-me-downs,
but shirts and sandals are out of bounds.
books and games and stuff i don't mind.
but a coat
is over the line.

if you want, you can call me and i'll sing it for you.

autumnal splendor

i just really wanted to use some words that aren't used so often any more for the title of this post. but they're really good words. last week for ward prayer we went up big cottonwood canyon to silver lake, and it was gorgeous. here are some of my favorite pics from that.

here we go again with water as a reflective surface. i can't resist!
the my little pony had been rescued from the lake. it was still dripping wet. best picture of the night, according to a vote among friends.
this is my new home teacher dennis. he's pretty awesome. maybe the best home teacher i've had in a decade.
i really liked this picture of me. some things to notice: the curly hair (it took me an hour); my new cute sweater; the pieces of flair that i purchased to put on my purse strap so it looks less like a diaper bag and more like the really cool purse that it was in its first life before jake insisted that i return his guitar strap; and finally, the amazing colors of the leaves in the background.
sometimes pictures of strangers turn out the best.