12

when we'd talk about pregnancy, i used to joke with my roommates that my biggest fear was that my feet would grow. i'd heard about people whose feet grew a size bigger when they had a baby, and that did not sound great to me. my size-11 feet were already the bane of my existence. (for those of you small-footed friends, nobody sells shoes larger than size 10 except for payless and nordstrom. so basically i'm limited to payless.)

well, i found out yesterday while buying new running shoes that that nightmare came true. my feet are now size 12. almost bigger than that, even.

me: do you sell women's shoes in that size?
saleswoman: ummm, maybe we could special-order them for you? i've never seen any...

on the plus side, tommy and i can officially share shoes!

also, it's a good thing dane is so cute and worth these giant feet, or else i'd be really, really bummed about this.

happy face

sorry about all the depressing posts lately. or, i guess, they've just been less-than-enthusiastic, if anything. i'm all about enthusiasm again, because i'm (almost) officially on christmas break! i turned in my final paper on friday and just have to meet with my students tomorrow to return their papers, then submit their final grades, and make sure i've got next semester all planned and ready, and then i'm done! done! done!

i've really learned over the last year that i am VERY ready to be done with school. i was kind of done when i graduated from byu--very tired of school, but still looking forward to doing the master's. but now i absolutely KNOW that i don't want to do any more of it, and i think that's a very good thing to have figured out. three cheers for the process of elimination!

in other news, here are our upcoming plans for the next few weeks:

-this week: one day at the wizarding world of harry potter and one day at disney world

-next week: hawaii with my familia

-the week after: utah with tommy's familia

um, yes. we're going to hawaii and disney world within one week of each other. WE HAVE THE MOST RIDICULOUS LIFE. it must be our extravagant grad student stipends we're living off of.

taken right before we left provo.

i mean, i HAD to. because it is SO RIDICULOUS. and i love it.


i didn't even mean to be wearing my byu alumni shirt--it just happened that way. makes it even better.

domo arigato, mr. scott-o

hello, my name is alyse and i am an -aholic/addict.

i realized something this weekend: i have an addictive personality. i don't mean that my personality is so awesome that people get addicted to hanging out with me (although that's probably true HA); nope, i mean that i get addicted to things. easily. if i weren't mormon, i probably would be addicted to any number of illegal or illicit substances. maybe.

i've basically realized that there are two options for dealing with myself when i become RIDICULOUSLY OBSESSED with something, to the point where it's taking over my life and destroying my brain:
1. get rid of it so i can't do anything about it (ex: facebook).
2. overuse it until i can't stand it.

example a: my music selection.
i go through phases where i can only listen to ONE song or ONE cd for about two weeks (or months, whatever) until i get sick of it. just mention "the everglow" to camille and she will automatically start retching. and i don't think i have listened to that song since i was 17.

example b: seriouslysoblessed.
i read every. single. post. written on this blog over two (or three?) years in one week. i found it and had to read all of it. had to. haven't looked at it since.

example c: the office.
with tommy being gone this last week, i have done basically nothing else except watch the office. i have watched 3.5 seasons of the office in 6 days--and i thoroughly intend to finish the other season and a half this week. i'm okay with this for a few reasons: 1) there's only one more week of school and then i'm DONE for two whole months, 2) i really don't have anything else to do anyways, and 3) i know that once i've finished the last season, i won't want to watch the office for another two or three years.

so just letting you know what a ridiculously unproductive person i have been for the last four days. if there were an office rehab group, i might have to go to it.

come home soon tommy. clearly your wife needs you.


also. watch these: the two best scenes from the office over five seasons. take it from me. I SHOULD KNOW.

there are no words.

i'm used to being young--the last few years, all of my friends were born anywhere from a few months to five years before me. i'm the youngest of all of my old roommates and tommy is (almost) four years older than me (what a creeper, right?).

but last night, in my cooking class, i made a comment to my kitchenmates about being born in the late eighties. no big deal, right? i'm used to people around me saying, "late eighties! i was born in 1984! you're a baby!" i assumed everyone in the room was born in the eighties, or at least 1990, which isn't even that far from the eighties. (i've at least come to accept the fact that my sister is a college-aged student.)

at least, that was until this girl across the room turned to me and said, with COMPLETE AND UTTER ASTONISHMENT: "you were born in the eighties?"

i didn't know what to do. i said, "um. yes." what? along with the rest of byu students, right?

she said, "i was born in '92!"

NINETEEN NINETY-TWO, people. my little brother was born in 1992 and he's a junior in high school. what's going on here? and SHE was the one making ME feel out of place. there were no words.

so this was the only response i could come up with: "what the heck are you doing in college?"

choir people

yesterday, while sitting with university chorale in the marriott center before the devotional, the girl next to me turned to me and asked,

"do they ever play any sports in here?"

yes, she did. annddd she was serious.

junk email

here's a confession: i HATE junk email. junk email meaning any email that isn't actually meant for me; it's a forward or an ad. whether it comes from payless shoes or a relative. i just don't like having random things unnecessarily cluttering up my inbox. and it makes me a mean and horrible person, like i'm about to prove to you.

the worst offender at sending out junk email is the editing department. i get at least six emails a day from them with worthless unpaid editing internships and offers from random ladies who wrote their own "pseudo-electro-psycho-fantasy vampire novel" and will offer "experience" to any student who will edit it for free. phyllis daniel, the editing department secretary, whose name appears as the sender of all of these emails, has long been on my "delete immediately" list.

but today was the last straw. phyllis got a bit email trigger happy this morning. she sent out her average three or four morning internship emails, accompanied by another email advertising a random indian man who is coming to speak on campus. an event that has nothing to do with editing, just a random lecture by a random, probably very intelligent and nice but not-interesting-to-me guy.

that was it.

so i responded saying this (it's unedited, so you can see how spiteful i am over such unimportant things):

"Why are we receiving this information? This has nothing to do with the editing minor and therefore should not be sent to us by the editing department. I feel like this is an abuse of power to be able to send out so many unimportant emails."

a few minutes later, she emailed me this back:

"I am sorry, I thought it would be something that might be interesting to you. I can take you off the email list if you would like."

whoa--phyllis is actually a person! and she was reasonable! i immediately felt like a bad and horrible person for questioning her authority to send out useless, unimportant emails to all the editing minors. i just said back:

"That would actually be great. Thank you."


and then six minutes later she sent me another two emails about more useless editing internships. i stopped feeling bad.

and, wow.

okay, another post in the same day, but.

i just went and applied for graduation (!!) and do you know what they told me?

i have to pay $15 to receive my diploma.

are you SERIOUS? i mean, it's only $15, but AFTER FOUR YEARS AND OVER 150 CREDITS AND THOUSANDS OF HOURS AND DOLLARS I DON'T GET THAT STINKING PIECE OF PAPER FOR FREE? BYU, are you serious? couldn't they have taken those $15 out of one of the our tuition payments? that's just the most ridiculous thing i have ever heard.

i can't believe that. i am appalled, and almost tempted not to pay it in protest. but yeah, after four years and almost 150 credits and thousands of hours and dollars i want that stinking piece of paper.

pimpleface.

so tommy and i have been volunteering at the boy's and girl's club for the last few weeks. we go on different afternoons, so we're not actually there at the same time. (lest you think better of us than we deserve, we started going so that we can get our free disneyland passes. but we have enjoyed it.) it's kind of sad, because you can tell a lot of them have pretty rough home lives. most of their time at the club is spent running around, and everything is always on the brink of chaos. a lot of the kids are really cute, though, which makes up for the horrible ones.

one kid in particular, though, drives me crazy. this is a typical conversation that i hold with trevor, every time i go in:

alyse: hey, trevor.
trevor: you're weird! pimpleface!
alyse: wow, thanks, trevor.
trevor: you're weird! pimpleface!
alyse: okay, well, do you have any homework i can help you with?
trevor: you're weird! pimpleface!
alyse: oooohkay. i'm going to go help someone else.
trevor: you're weird! pimpleface!

and i, although i KNOW i don't have any pimples on my face, suddenly feel as self-conscious as a seventh grader.

funny how a nine-year-old can do that to you.