Friday, February 24, 2012

I'm on a roll!!!!!


Alright.  Enough foolishness.  

But yes!  I'm on a roll!  Check it out!!  2 blog posts with less than 3 months in-between!!  Yayyyy!!

And this post is going to be about one of my many obsessions so bear with me and don't shun me after this post plz kthnx.

So........................................................

















I'M


KIND OF


REALLY


SUPER


VERY MUCH SO


EXTREMELY


OBSESSED!!!!


OMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMG!!!!!!!!!!!

................................are you still there?

Ok.

Yeah, I have become obsessed with System of a Down.  Yes, I know I'm like 10 years late.  Probably more like 15 years late.  But I never get anything when it's popular.  I'm still haunted by those cool pencil boxes or planner things with the stickers in them that everyone had in 4th grade and I never got until 5th grade, and then it wasn't even cool anymore.  And not to mention my sketchers....yeah....

But I digress.

So if you live within probably 5 miles of me, call me on a regular basis, or chat with me on g-chat, I have probably oozed my obsession all over you with long rants of their amazingness with about an average of 10-12 video links of their music videos.  

And, yes, you're welcome for that.  

Ever since I youtube-ed "BYOB" because it's on guitar hero, I have been hooked. 
And i mean HOOKED. (yes I AM having fun with the text sizes.  Thanks for noticing.)  
I have never experienced anything like that ever before.  

I would listen to them during work. 

I would listen to them on my i-pod to and from the bus stop.  I actually had a "playlist" on there with just the 6 songs I had from them.  And I would cycle through them over and over and over again because if I listened to the rest of my ipod shuffled like I normally do, I would just skip EVERY SINGLE SONG until 
I got one of theirs again.

I would go to bed and just watch their music videos.  I would watch the videos with the lyrics on them so I could learn them and look up their meanings.
  
I wikipedia'd all of the band members and saw the other bands they formed...and watched those videos.

I looked at their live videos...and found out they pretty much suck live...so I decided to listen to their album tracks only!

Yeah.  Basically, this is what I looked like every day:




And I don't know exactly what it is.  I mean their songs seem like they're either super crazy and awesome or super beautiful and awesome.  Yes, I have won awards for my descriptive skills, in case you were wondering. 

One of the things I've noticed I loooove with the main singer Serj Tankian sings to the side with his eyes closed as such:


And his voice is amaaaaazing.  It has this tone that's just so hypnotizing and addicting.  I.  LOVE.  IT. 

So I know you probably won't listen to them, but if you're interested, here are the videos I am obsessed with:

Chop Suey - My absolute favorite song of theirs





Toxicity



Aerials - can totally play this one on guitar



Hypnotize 
(notice the singing with eyes closed and head to the side...mmmm)



Lonely Day - probably my least favorite, but still good



B.Y.O.B - hardesttttt song on guitar hero



Question - beauuutiful



Sugar - super awesomely crazy song



So yes.  I'm obsessed.  And criticize all you want, but you're just in denial of the heroin-like effect this has on your bloodstream that elevates you to a superior life of musical enlightenment, and I won't change my mind anyway.  

System of a Down, I salute you.  


ISN'T IT SO FUN TO OBSESS!??!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?  Yes it is.  A lot.  Very much. 


Right on. 



Saturday, February 18, 2012

Tri-monthly Entry!!

If you were wondering, "has it really been since October since Stephanie has updated her blog???",  you'd be correct oh devout reader, you.  I suck at coming up with things to write on here and when I do come up with something maybe worth reading, I am lazy and forget to post it.

HOWEVER!!

The combination of a full pot of mate, early shift with nothing to do, and incentive to update since everyone else is, I have yet again written a blog post that is probably not very interesting but it gives me a chance to pretend like I have awesome writing skiillzzzzz.

And with the inspiration from Katie' blog and hyperboleandahalf, I spent my shift time drawing pictures for your entertainment...and my short attention span.

SO

This will just be an update of my life and random things I'm thinking so enjoy.

CHEMISTRY

Hate it.  Absolutely useless subject that is made to make everyone's lives miserable, especially mine.  And yes, blah blah blah real life contributions and jobs and keeping everyone from dying of lead poisoning, blah blah blah ---- I hate it.

And I tend to have this thing where I hate things I'm bad at.  And I'm bad at it.  Mostly because I don't go to class...kind of a struggle in college of mine...BUT it's also useless and stupid.  I know you're thinking to yourself, "Wow!  These are very valid arguments with lots of well-thought-out explanations and reasoning behind them" and I tell you, reader, that your point is meaningless since Chemistry doesn't need reasoning to be stupid.  IT. JUST. IS.

So I'm catching up on it, though, and it's going better and life is not over as I previously thought...

Funny how struggles in school would be one of my buttons that, if pushed, would all but kill me, huh?

I mean even though obviously I am supposed to be perfect and good at everything and get everything right the first time and be able to wake up at 7am everyday and get straight A's and work 21 hours, I still don't get it 100% of the time.  What's up with that??  That also goes for being athletic and actually waking up at 6am to go running before school, having the perfect diet, perfect self-esteem, sense of humor, fashion, scripture-study and prayer habits, and everything else that seems so highly expected and so easily attainable here at the lovely Brigham Young University.

That's not too much to expect is it?  Yeah? Yeah.  And you wonder why like 95% of LDS women take anti-depressants.  Luckily when I meet God face-to-face at the pearly gates, 90% of that list isn't what I would call - deal-breakers.

ANYWHOOO!

So the other infuriating part of my life is my lovely job. And let me just say, I am grateful for my job, especially because I get to work at home and it pays more than pretty much any other job on campus and it's very convenient and nice.  I know there are millions of unemployed people struggling to feed their families that would kill for this job and I am grateful for it.  It's very nice.

But now that I got that out of the way, I reserve the right to complain the crap out of it next so don't judge me and brace yourself.

I already wrote a post all about my job (quite hilarious, I thought), but I'll just give you a recap of what it is I do.  I am a cap dispatcher for Alexandria Yellow Cab (which, honestly, is like the best-rated cab company in the area and it's great!).  So I receive calls to a phone connected to my computer and I get the customer's information and dispatch a cab to them.  So yeah, pretty simple.

BUT

What I hate is sitting on my butt for 8 hours cooped up in my room talking to people who either sound like their asleep, angry or chewing 5,000 pieces of gum.  And especially when I start out my shift either stressed or just pissy, talking to people who ALWAYS seem to have an attitude that I'm doing something wrong and am incompetent, doesn't help.

And then they complain to me that their cab isn't there (even though I entered everything right) and they expect me to respond:

"Oh yes!  I'm terribly sorry ma'am, that is completely my fault and totally under my control!  The fact that you didn't pick up the phone when the cab called you or that you expect to get to the airport to get your flight in 10 mins is completely my fault!  I appreciate you bringing this to my attention because, as a generally slow and incompetent person, I tend to mess it up all the time.  So let me help you out even though you're yelling all sorts of swear words at me and I'll be sure to have a positive attitude and get you your cab in the next 10 seconds.  Would you like some fries with that??  Terrific.  Have a great day!!"

Yeah, no.

So for 21 hours a week of my life, I basically sit in my room like this...


With a general facial expression of this...


And and inner anger like this...


And by now you might be thinking, "Geez...this girl is so negative and depressing and depressED.  What's wrong with her??"

Well I say to you, oh observant one, "SHUT THE %&$^ UP"

HA Jk.

I vent very passionately, but I am happy pretty much 90% of the time.  My life is quite great and I have little to complain about................................(minus the above)


And now I leave you with a System of a Down music video: a recent obsession that could on and on about, but I won't put you through that...and the caffeine's wearing off so I'm tired.

So when i first discovered them (yes, I know I'm like 10 years late...), I listened to about 7 songs over and over and over and over and over again.  It was like CRACK listening to them.  I had never experienced that before so, obviously, I obsessed.  And it was FUNNNNN!  I mean their songs seem to be either like crazy and A.D.D and AWESOME or really beautiful to listen to and just GOOOOOOD to listen to.  SOOOO GOOOD TO HEEARRR ITTT.  So this obsession went on for a long time...and still is.

So when I think I'm pretty much over them, (meaning I only listen to them 10 times a day in stead of my usual thousand,) I go to youtube and branch out and listen to a couple of their other songs that I didn't really consider.

Holy crap I'm hooked again.

So here's one of them.  It's called "Question".  I just love the harmony and the music video is pretty awesome.  So feel free to enjoy.  Or not if you're afraid of letting this heroin of music sink into your bloodstream and hook you forever into a life of eternal musical bliss and ecstasy, but you know whatever.

So enjoy!


Right on.

Monday, October 17, 2011

Faith

This is an assignment for my Mission Prep class where we just needed to pick a gospel topic and write about it, with some sources from the scriptures.  I chose faith and thought I would just share what I wrote.  Feel free to post your own opinions and comments and what not!  


Faith
Many people talk about faith in the gospel of Christ and how it is important in order to live a happy life.  What I think people don’t realize is how it is the basic foundation of the gospel and without it, everything is obsolete. 
“Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” (Heb. 11:1)  Faith is belief something that cannot be seen.  It is taking the words heard on Sunday from leaders and having faith in the gospel to apply it to our lives.  It is following commandments given, even when you do not necessarily understand or agree, because you know that God knows all and loves you.  It is living in a world full of tangible things and dedicating your life to that which is intangible and cannot be seen with the human eye. 
When you have faith in Christ and in God’s plan for you, the gospel and the commandments given to you all make sense.  You are given that eternal perspective and that perspective makes everything else fall into place.  You know God’s plan and you see what will keep you from Him and what will bring you closer to Him.  Ultimate, perfect faith gives you power to live the teachings of the gospel without fail.  Because we are human and are in a fallen state faced to deal with our natural man, this perfect faith is not constant or even attainable at the moment.  While we live in a world filled with temptations that are right in our faces, ready to give us temporary pleasure and having our natural man crave that while being at war with our spiritual self, it is inevitable that mistakes will be made and that our faith will waver.  When that desperate father brought his possessed boy to Christ begging him to heal him, Christ told him, “If thou canst believe, all things are possible.”  The father replied back in tears “Lord, I believe.  Help thou mine unbelief.”  And then Christ healed his son. (Mark 9:23-24)  Christ understands that we are human and striving for perfection and thus has great mercy on us.  He knows that our faith is not always the strongest and provides us with support so that we may grow our faith and believe in Him because “If thou canst believe, all things are possible.”
            There are many things that Christ has given us that we must actually do to increase our faith, because “faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone.” (James 2:17)  If we pray to Him to have faith, He will bless us.  Christ said, “Whatsoever things ye shall ask the Father in my name, which is good, in faith believing that ye shall receive, behold, it shall be done unto you.” (Moroni 7:26)  Obedience to the commandments that God has given us also increases our faith.  As we live the gospel and see the blessings coming into our lives from it, it strengthens our faith and becomes easier to follow the commandments.  He has given us them for a reason, for us to have the greatest happiness in our lives and to return back to Him.  Study of the scriptures is also very important because the lessons of the prophets of old have great worth and have been brought forth in our time to be a strength and support to us in these last days.  All of these works help strengthen our faith in Christ, but all of it starts with a desire.  If someone does not desire to have faith, it will not grow.  All the things above already take a certain amount of faith to do, especially when expecting results and blessings from God.  He has said “I, the Lord, am bound when ye do what I say…” (D&C 82:10) but to do the things which He says, it takes faith and a desire for faith. 
            God loves every one of us.  He put us on this earth knowing how imperfect we would be and how quick to forget of His gospel we would be.  He knew we would grow as we developed our faith in Him, being on the other side of the veil with no remembrance of our lives before.  As we desire and work with that desire for faith, we will receive blessings from the Lord and have the strength to follow His commandments so we can be clean to live with Him again, just as He has planned for us.   

Monday, June 27, 2011

Le Update...

So I haven't written in a while.  This always happens.  I get a temporary burst of creativity and then nothing for months.  You'd think I'd have lots of posts since I have to sit at my stupid computer for 8 hours at a time for my job, right?  Nope. I guess the extent of my thoughts during work are "Please kill me, please kill me, please kill me.  Shoot, I have 7.5 hours to go...oh I'm out of diet mountain dew."


So I thought that I would give an update...for the grand total of...3 of you that read this...that might be optimistic.  Irregardless, here we go.


I'm not in school right now so I'm just working.  I quit my job as a custodian at BYU campus and now work as a cab dispatcher for a cab company in Alexandria, Virginia.  Yeah I know.  Weird huh?  Here I am sitting in Utah getting calls from people who need cabs on the other side of the country and they expect me to know the area like I live there.  So I sit there for 8 hours answering the phone.  (Yeah, I know I said I didn't have much to write about work.  I guess that was a lie.  I have A LOT to write.  It's all I do pretty much.)  So I answer the phone the same way millions of times a day.  I'm getting so used to it that I kind of slur the words now so people can't understand me.  So I have to repeat it.  Again.  And Again.  It's annoying.


By the way, what's with all the people in Alexandria, Virginia that talk like they have a loaf of bread in their mouths?  This is basically how it goes.


Me: "Thank you for holding, can I get your pickup address please?"
Them: "asd;lfams;flah;asja;sl..."
Me: ".....sorry can you say that again please?"
Them: "ASD;FLASMD;FLAHSDFOAIDJF;LASDMF;ALDHF;ALSHGPOAIJ;SLDFJA!!!!!!"
Me: "....ok...can you spell that for me please?"
Them: "WHAT?? A;SFDLKFHA;SDLFJA;SDFDA;SLD.....OK.ASDLFA;SDFA FEESALSF;LAFIADF;AJD"


And then before I shoot my head off, I transfer them to my dispatcher - the manager guy- because he speaks loaf-of-bread-in-foreigner's-mouth language.


Not to be harsh or anything, I love people from foreign countries.  If anyone should be welcoming and loving to these people, it's the girl who lived in Mexico for 12 years of her life.  But so help me if I have another person yell at me for not understanding their horrible accent I am going to build giant stone walls around this country myself with enforced Rosetta Stone English kits nailed all around them.  I am glad to take the time to listen to you and try to figure out what you're saying but if you yell at me, my patience/respect for you/swearing restraint goes down exponentially.


Anyway.


So while I'm dealing with that crap, I try to to distract myself with movies or shows to watch or even books to read!  Gasp!  I know Mom!!  You should be so proud!!  But the problem is that there is very little time in between calls.  I think the longest time I've had in between calls was probably 5 minutes and it wasn't even really worth it because I spent the whole time trying to see if my phone was broken because that never happens.  Ok...that might be an exaggeration but that's certainly how it feels.  So yeah.  It'll take me about the whole 8 hours to get through a whole movie.  No wonder my perception of movies lately has been that they are really slow and that they just drag...


Ok so that's probably enough about my stupid job.  It makes me irritated just thinking about it and I don't want to pass that along to you unsuspecting readers and I'm officially off my shift now so I want to go out into the world.


But I'll leave you with a video I came across lately and have shown it to many people around me because I find it hilarious.  So enjoy.  Or don't.  Whatever.  I find it hilarious.


Don't judge me.




Right on.

Sunday, February 13, 2011

I Feel like Play Dough

So I was having a talk with my roommates today and all of the sudden we got on deep topics and my brain was sufficiently tired by the end of the conversation.  We ended up talking about who we are, what we are like and who influences us.  It is an interesting thing to ask yourself.  What are you like?  Who has influenced you most in your life?  We were talking about how we are either too emotional or not emotional enough or how we are driven by some things and have no motivation for other things.  Why is that?  We came to the conclusion that by observing and interacting with others we are constantly being influenced and molded by others.

I've thought about this.  I feel like sometimes I'm not emotional enough and I wish I were more extreme sometimes.  I sometimes feel like I'm too neutral and don't react enough to things.  Granted, I really like that about myself sometimes, but it gets boring after a while.  We were talking about how we were as teenagers and I said that I never got into really big arguments with my parents or anything.  In fact, I don't think I've ever really yelled at anyone since I was really young and annoying.  I have never reallTey fought with anyone, never punched anyone in the face, never had that extreme experience.  What made me like that?  Why was I not the emotional teenager who was rebellious and fought with her parents a lot?  I got along great with my parents!  (Not regretting that at all, I love it.  I'm just wondering why).

So I'm interested!  Tell me if you so desire!  What are you like and who do you think has influenced you most in your life?  Who has molded you into the unique piece of play dough that you are today?

Right on.

Thursday, February 10, 2011

Taylor Swift and I are buddies




I got a guitar for Christmas and I've been practicing.  This still has a lot of improvement left and I sort of forget the lyrics sometimes because I wasn't looking at them, but this is how it is so far.
I'm awesome...is basically what this post is about.

Oh yeah and I said "hope you enjoyed it" before it got cut off.  Just FYI.

Enjoy!

Right on.

Tuesday, February 8, 2011

Another Temporary Burst...

Hello the grand total of 2 followers and 42 page viewers!  Yup. I checked.

I am starting my blog up again!  I know I always get a burst about this time of year for some reason and it doesn't last very long but I'm going to try to make it last.  So...yeah.

Welcome!  I have a new design for my blog.  Before it was all red with my mexico flag picture on it but I decided to change things up a it.  I wanted it to look more...professional?  I don't know. Anyways.  So this is my blog.  The Viva Mexico is due to the fact that I lived in Mexico for 12 years of my life so I grew up there and it's basically my home, for any viewers who don't know me.  I'm a little creeped out, but I guess I can give you that information and still be safe...I hope.  Also I laugh at pretty much anything so if you're creating a tv ad and you want to know if the general public will think it's funny, don't ask me because I'm a little more generous than people in the world.  They're just more boring.  That's what I tell myself anyway.

Speaking of funny tv ads, I am severely disappointed in the Super Bowl commercials this year.  There were probably 2 or 3 that I thought were funny (I know.  It's surprising.) but the rest were just like regular boring commercials!  Doritos got it down with 2 of them and then the kid darth vader was just adorable.  But the rest did not even bring out a chuckle.  Ok, maybe a little but it wasn't as good as some of the others.

On that note, I feel like this has gotten a little random so I'm going to end with a random bit.

Have you heard?  Huh.  I thought that everyone has heard that...


Right on.