morbid.

i have a morbid imagination. it stinks.

it's not rational. usually i think of these things when my mind is at its least busy, such as when i was in my ninth grade science class or, more recently, driving to and from school. it's awful--sometimes i'll get so worked up about it i'll be teary-eyed with fear of my imaginings coming true.

the most common one is that i always imagine getting a phone call from an unrecognizable number and hearing 911 tell me that [insert loved one here] is in the hospital after a horrible car crash.

sometimes i'll imagine someone breaking into our apartment when i'm alone and having to stave them off with nothing but our extra-heavy frying pans.

one time i watched this freak-documentary thing about people who did horrible things while they sleepwalked, like killing their family members, and didn't remember it in the morning. that gives me a lot of morbid-imagination time.

i'm always slightly nervous being in the bathroom when the shower curtain is closed, because what if someone is hiding behind it?

seriously. what is wrong with me?

the LION KING

we went and saw the lion king at the dpac (durham performing arts center) last night. goodness, it was fun. the play is so colorful and . . . big. i want to be IN it.

this was my favorite new song from the play. apparently it's in the lion king 2, but i don't remember that movie at all. but it's so good!

(and my glory, how can i have missed the HUGE gospel applications in this story? jeez. the whole rafiki/reflection thing? this "he lives in me" song? i can't wait to hear a sacrament meeting talk incorporating this someday.)

good things as of late

-having clean sheets on our bed (thank you tommy)

-taking an evening bath, which makes me a lot less cranky

-listening to huckleberry finn as i drive back and forth to school

-being done with my all-day saturday workshops for class (i had two of them. what a waste of time.)

-visiting all of our new sunbeams and getting to know them and their parents this weekend

-watching seven brides for seven brothers with tommy (one of his favorites) and now having "BLESS YOUR BEAUTIFUL HIDE!" ringing in my mind constantly

and...

-the teacher i TA for said i was "fantastic!" at leading class discussion. apparently i have hope for being a teacher yet.

some days you just need a reminder of the good things, you know?

i heretofore declare

that henceforth nobody is allowed to write checks in line at the grocery store to pay for their food.

GET A DEBIT CARD.

have i mentioned?

the next big thing we're thinking about in the leininger household is a trip to visit two of our favorite countries:

can you guess?

why yes. this summer we are planning on traveling to iceland and denmark for a few weeks.

why, you ask?

why not, we ask?

okay, there's more reason behind it than that. lindsay and travis, and mayah, asher, leif, and joel (tommy's sister and fam) are moving to denmark in august for a two-year stay. tommy conveniently speaks the language, lived in copenhagen, and loves the country, so we volunteered to go along and help them out with their four little ones and their international move. and we figured that we couldn't go that close to iceland without actually going there. i might get kicked out of the myres family if we didn't go. (have i mentioned how we love iceland? oh yes. i have.)

we figured that even though we don't really have the money now, we'll never have the money. so we're going to go while we have the time and enjoy ourselves. and we are so excited!

embracing mediocrity

i'm in a bunch of classes with phd students. it's funny to listen to them and hear how stressed they are, saying "what is free time, anyways?" and trying to schedule their comprehensive exams and write their dissertations all at the same time. they wonder about how they're going to publish and be accepted to conferences and how that will help them get the jobs they want at a top-tier research university.

meanwhile, i'm sitting there, feeling pretty good about myself. because although i don't know what job i want after i graduate, i don't really care. i have passed the point where my grades matter. if i present at a conference (like i will be in february--but it's just at my school, so nothing very interesting) then it's an extra bonus, not something to worry about or stress over. i figure that i'll teach freshman writing after i graduate--and i don't even care if i don't get a full-time position like everyone in my program stresses about. DON'T EVEN CARE!

i've never really been in the position where i wasn't trying as hard as the next person to do well. or where i didn't have goals that were at least as high as theirs (at least, academically). but that's where i am now.

and i kind of like it. i am fully satisfied with graduating with as good of grades as i can get and doing nothing spectacular in the field of rhetoric and composition before or after i graduate.

i think i've come a long way.



but, p.s. my classes are looking far more promising than last semester. i am very much more happy about this semester. great news!

also, i'm learning html, and css, and xml, and a billion other languages and things (that i don't know what they're called) for a class this semester. can you tell? cue the hopefully many changes on this blog so i can practice my newfound skillz.

song of the week

blinded by the light by mannfred mann's earth band.



(don't worry, for those of you who don't know the lyrics, it says "revved up like a deuce," not what you think it says.)

there is a long kind of random section but that just makes you appreciate the really good parts, right?

we're just a little bit obsessed over here.


blinded by the light!

missionaries

for a few years of my life, i LIVED for missionary letters.

the first wave of missionaries to go was after my freshman year, when all my best friends left to various parts of the country and world for two years. all the men, anyways. we would write them and talk about them and miss them and occasionally receive letters in return and see their weekly emails. all four of us living in club 887 would check the mail as early as possible, run to see which of us got letters. because those letters were reminders of happy times we'd had and assurances of good times to come--but also because missionaries can and do say things that regular people don't say every day. things like "i truly believe . . . " and "i testify that . . . " which would be corny and somewhat obnoxious in an everyday conversation with a regular person--but are serious and heartfelt in a letter from a missionary.

a few years later, those very girls i lived with left on missions. my roommates, my confidants, my social circle, my best friends--i needed them and i needed to talk to them. but letters were all we had--and so the process started all over again. writing faithfully, and hopefully checking the mail and being uplifted and taught through their letters.

but now all those ladies are home. and i haven't gotten any missionary mail for a while.

but when we got back from break and picked up our month's worth of mail, there were letters from two fantastic sister missionaries for me: one from my cousin jolysa sedgwick (in colorado springs), and one from my dear friend miss emilie wong (currently in malaysia, in the picture above). and once again, i was thoroughly impressed and thrilled by love and knowledge and spirit and unabashed testimony missionaries have.

they are awesome. and i am PROUD of them. proud to be associated with them and to get mail from them. just like i've been proud of all those other missionaries who i would write and who would write me.

because not having served a mission, i love hearing those oh-so-missionary thoughts and testimonies. they help me remember to be better and to try and be more like them.

now i'll go write them back.

one good thing about going to school in north carolina

the forecast says snow, so they cancel school.

it hasn't even actually snowed yet today.

can you imagine that happening in provo?

it would have been nice if they had said something about it before i'd already driven into raleigh . . . but who am i to complain about two cancelled classes?

chivalry

last night i woke up at 4:05 and was wide awake. just sitting there, letting my mind buzz around and get over the very stressful near-nightmare that had woken me up. (it involved a shoot-out with some mafia-looking men and hiding in a barn, trying to protect bethany from them and waiting for them to find us.)

and i decided this:

i'm okay if chivalry is dead.

i don't want men to get my door for me everywhere i go. believe it or not, i am capable of doing it myself, and so are all the other able-bodied women out there. unless i'm carrying a huge stack of books or a very jell-y jello salad, i don't mind getting the door and i don't think a man is rude if he opens the door for himself and walks through first. not that i'm ungrateful when someone DOES open the door for me . . . it's just not necessary, you see?

one time we were with a couple that felt differently. the man would open the door for the girl when she got in the car (which is all well and good . . . tommy does the same for me) but then she would wait in the car while he walked all the way around the car to open the door for her when they were getting out. and that just seems a bit excessive to me. do people really do that?

the one date i ever went on with someone who wanted to do that, i got out of the car (not knowing his chivalrous intentions) and he made me GET BACK INTO THE CAR so he could open my door for me.

seriously.

so i'm okay if chivalry is . . . decrepit and aged. it's nice to have it sometimes, but an excess of it is just as annoying as none at all.

(i don't know why i thought so much about this at 4 am.)

but i eventually fell back to sleep.

firsts

well, we got back from california on friday--but not until after we had a few firsts. you'd think after living in california almost my whole life i'd not have such an easy time finding first things to do. but it wasn't really a problem.

we spent new years with a few of my favorite cousins and some best friends. we usually do new years with the myres, but never yet with kev and sarah--it was lovely.

we rode on the giant orange balloon at the o.c. great park--which didn't exist back when i lived at home. i finally got around to it and it was awesome.

most importantly, we went to solvang, CA--the danish settlement/town that's about three hours away from irvine. we thought we should go, what with our family's recently found danish heritage, tommy's mission in denmark, and tommy's and my hopefully impending trip to denmark this summer. tommy got to practice his danish and my dad bought some ridiculous magnets proclaiming his danish pride.

hans christian anderson: denmark's best-known hero.

AND on the way to solvang, we drove past this excellent store.

of course, they sold ostrich and emu eggs. and we bought one. and ate it. that was a definite first.

last but not least, we did fondue. not a first--we usually do it around (or on) new years at our house. but it was one of the most important things that cole wanted us to do with him while we were in california.

by the end of our trip, we were expecting to be tired of being away and ready to get back to real life--and we WERE, but not nearly so ready as we thought we would be. but ready or not, here school comes!

slacker

yeah, i know i've been slacking on the whole blogging thing the last little while, but i'm on vacation. give me a break.

when i'm hanging out with people like this, why would i want to spend my time blogging?

in case the pictures don't give it away, we left lovely cold utah and came to lovely warm california and spent a great new years with cousins, siblings, and friends. i didn't get any of the pictures we took of tommy's whole family together (they're all on the family computer in ogden) but they had all nine kids together for a few short days over the christmas break, and it was a blast.

we love our families. but it will also be good to go home to north carolina on friday and get back to real life, real schedules, and real stress (maybe).

but i'll keep slacking on real blogging until after we get back.