awesome.

(stole this from your blog, alexandra. it was too good. thanks for sharing.)

this picture is better than all the news recently. i think i'm going to send it to grandpa murphy... he'll appreciate it.

watching obama last night, i realized--it's been 10 years since september 11th. ten years and osama has been out there this whole time.

wow.

bill bryson, my hero

is it kind of weird that i really like the man above? i know he's wayyyy too old for me, but doesn't he just look jolly? (kind of santa claus-ish, right?)

about once a year i rediscover bill bryson and dig up another book of his i want to read. i am currently working my way through my sixth book by him: at home: a short history of private life.

the thing that really strikes me about his books--all of them that i've read--is that if i were a creative writer, if i could write books for fun and to sell, i would want to write books like his. they are the only type i can imagine myself doing (because i'm all self-centered and all i can do is write about myself and things that interest me. no, really). i've read several travel/memoir books by him and several trivia/fact/history books by him, and i love them both. i just LOVE how he turns the most seemingly boring facts into incredibly interesting stories. and i wish i could do that too. i also just finished a walk in the woods and really loved that too.

i also wish i could just sit and finish the book in one sitting, but i have that 20-page paper to finish. but hey! it's due tomorrow, and then i will be free, free, free to read (and blog) to my heart's content. (don't be too excited . . .)

DELTA IS THE DEVIL

i don't cry very often. i don't remember the last time i cried out of rage (oh wait, it was probably sometime during my teenage angst-y years). but last night, delta airlines made me cry. out of rage. pure rage.

it was the last straw. never mind the fact that they lost my account a year or so ago. literally, lost it. never mind that those thousands of miles i'd had accumulated (from going to china, for example) just disappeared and they wouldn't add them back on, despite my desperate pleas and hours on the phone. never mind that the incredibly intelligent incompetents had my last name spelled "murthy" for months, which meant i could never EVER put my skymiles number onto any flight i took with delta. i can't even explain to you how mind-bogglingly STUPID they have been.

no, last night was the last straw. for probably the twenty-fifth time, i had to call them and ask them to help me put my skymiles number on my flight for me, since the computer was not recognizing it as matching up with my name (even though i have since changed my last name with them). and after an hour of being on hold, being transferred four different times, and listening to them "working on it" ("hmmm, it doesn't seem to be matching up. that's weird. are you sure your name is laura alyse leininger?"), they said it was impossible to fix and i was going to have to go on the flight without my skymiles number.

so i yelled at the unhelpful woman (it was very satisfying), hung up, threw the phone, and burst into tears. tommy and i planned out making a delta voodoo doll, and then burning delta in effigy and sending them a picture of it. and posting it on their facebook wall every day so everyone else can see it too.

and then i called again this morning and lo and behold, 15 minutes later, they fixed it.

I HATE DELTA. I HATE DELTA. I HATE DELTA. and i haven't ruled out the voodoo doll.

blah blah blog

i'm feeling a little bit blah towards this blog this month. mostly because i have other (school) writing projects i'm having to work on and it sucks the creativity out of my brain, so i have no idea what i should blog about. i don't have any good pictures to share or anything fun to report, and i won't again until probably the second week of may when tommy and i are both done with our semesters and we start going on our hundreds of trips planned this summer.

okay, that is pretty fun. i'll share that with you. we both got jobs for the summer and they are both, happily, flexible and irresponsible enough that we can take whatever trips we want (and believe me, we want). so far this summer, we've planned:

-camping/touristing in charleston, SC

-two separate weeks in d.c. with lindsay and travis

-(possibly) a trip to CA in june (using frequent flyer miles)

-denmark and iceland (!!)

-48 hours in CA for camille's wedding

and surprisingly, that kind of takes up our whole summer with one trip about every other week. phew.

we are just lucky people. we know. most people have things like JOBS and RESPONSIBILITIES that keep them tied down (blah). so we're going to take advantage of this freedom we have while it lasts!

but anyways. that's all i have to share. maybe once i turn in my final paper (!) i will be more blog-o-rific once again.

only 3 weeks left.

this semester is almost over (pain, pain, pain), and i'm already thinking about the next one.

i found out last week when my class that i'll be teaching (!) is: 9:00 a.m. MTThF.

this semester, my earliest class is at 3:40. i've gotten into the habit of sleeping in (just until 8, usually. come on!) and hanging out in my pjs all morning, then going to exercise around noon, and then finally getting ready and going to campus for my evening classes. i'm sitting right now on my bed, in my pajamas, working on a paper. it's been actually really nice.

so when i heard i have to teach a 9:oo a.m. class four days a week, i was not happy. i even threw a temper tantrum. including throwing some (unbreakable) things on the ground. and punching the keyboard of my computer (whoops).

then i went and took a bath and tried to come up with some positive things about having to leave the house at 8am every day:

1. getting up early will be good for me.

2. i'll have a lot of time on campus to make myself be extra productive.

3. i can have office hours in between my classes so that i don't have to come early to another class to wait futilely for students to come meet with me.

4. we can leave early on thursday to go to camille's wedding in august and i only have to miss the second day of class instead of the first.

i've got such a good attitude. i'm trying really hard to grow up.

oh, freshmen.

i'm grading 21 papers this week from the unit i taught in the english 101 class i'm TAing for this semester.

and i've already gotten FIVE papers with too-big spacing, too-wide margins, and too-ridiculously-extra-large headers.

and i mean, OKAY, of course i've done it too. i won't lie. especially when i was a freshman.

but how the heck could you not know that it is TOTALLY OBVIOUS? and it really makes me want to automatically give your paper a C-? do you really think you're going to get away with it?

GRRRRRRRRRRRRR.

the worst thing is that the paper is only supposed to be four pages long. four. while i'm working on two twenty-page papers for the end of the semester. (sorry for not being super sympathetic to your whining, freshmen.)

a list of good things

my life is usually organized into lists. i really like making them. on valentine's day, i made a list of all of our valentine's days we've had together and what we've done--there have been four of them, imagine that! but there are a lot of things i am happy about in my simple and boring life right now. i feel very content nowadays. and this is why:

1. hitting snooze on the alarm for an hour and a half because neither tommy or i want to get up, and neither tommy or i have to get up for anything.

2. buying a pint of ben and jerry's to celebrate (instead of to make us feel better about a bad day).

3. checking things off my to-do list in a leisurely and non-stressed manner.

4. making homemade pizza (including the dough!). and having tons left over to snack on for days.

5. baking treats when we really shouldn't. and eating a whole 9x13 between the two of us. in a day and a half. wow.

6. having a date planned for a friday night.

7. lounging around in my pjs all morning (but really i am working at some points of the morning) and then exercising in the early afternoon before i head to school.

8. going to the temple with tommy and getting to look over and watch him struggle to stay awake (every time. it's very endearing).

9. looking forward to general conference this weekend and having the first session be at noon!

10. only having four weeks left of classes before the end of the semester. (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

11. planning exciting plans for the summer (but i can't share them until we know about our potential job situations!). making plans ALWAYS can make me happy.

12. finding this picture on my computer:

the tanner face and i. after we went to EFY in 2004. wow, it's been a while. thank goodness i scanned this picture for all of posterity to see us looking so great.