Realizations

Every once in a while I realize things about myself that I didn't really know before.  Well I knew it but keep realizing new dimensions I suppose.  I get Bored.

Often.  I have brief, intense obsessions with things and then I am so bored I can't stand it.  Happens most often with food actually but really everything.  Today I realized that I am completely bored with my computer.  I've had it for a little over a year and a half and now I'm done.  I want a better one.  Or just a different one.  Granted this one has been annoying lately with its randomly turning off... but I'm pretty sure I shouldn't be bored with it yet.  How long is long enough to have a computer.... I am pretty sure it's somewhere along the lines of a couple years but I'm not sure.  I believe that perhaps I should be my own master and try harder to not be bored.  It is satisfying though to call someone a dipwad.

My second realization is that occassionally I have no control over the random thoughts that come into my head.  For instance, today I thought about the pondering I had as a child that the more keys you have, the more important you are.  I always thought that about my parents because I'm pretty sure my dad had about fifty keys on his keyring.  Today I added an eigth key to my keyring and started thinking about this again. And if I use virtually all the keys on a daily basis would that make me more or less important?  Now that I have this many keys though I'm pretty sure it doesn't make me more important it makes me more annoyed.  I have to carry all these keys around with me and in my pocket.  I hate keys in my pocket.  Lame.  See, no control over the incoming thoughts.

Instead of pondering civil rights

Just quickly some more pictures. For MLK day I decided I didn't need to go to work since I was out of school (although I went anyway later...) and instead spent the day with my ahmazing cousin Julie. She took to this sweet place called Kensington Park. Apparently Detroit metro area has like 17 of these "metroparks" which are just giant natural parks as far as I can tell. But this one is truly awesome, there were tons of lakes and miles and miles of trails and I decided that next Fall I definitely had to go back because just the sheer amount of trees is going to be beautiful. But this day was awesome because it was snowily overcast so it was just pure winter.

Um we saw wild turkeys. It was fascinating. Two of them started fighting and you just couldn't look away.

I was experimenting with the aperature preference feature on my cam

We saw this great tree, it looked like it was glowing. We just ignored the fact that it was probably dying...

Took my pic on this little outlook over a marsh...

There was some random tree that still had their leaves, kind of created a surreal image in the middle of bare trees

And with all the water around there were picturesque streams where you could see deer had been running through

And our last activity of the day was walking out on the frozen lake to take pictures. Julie kept stopping and saying "do you hear that? The ice is cracking!". When she took my picture (now my facebook profile pic) I told her I better not fall through and she responded that she'd give me a nice funeral if I did. Ha so glad we didn't fall through!!

Were I an administrator...

I would outlaw 3-day-a-week classes. And it's for actually more reasons than it's the most annoying thing to have classes three days a week and not have a three day weekend. Seriously though, not even teachers want to teach that many times a week. Trust me, I know many many teachers. But let's put that aside for the moment and look at this from a teacher/student/learning point of view. For a three credit hour class that is three days a week, the classes are 50 minutes long. This is such an awkward amount of time to teach. I have never had a 50 minute class that didn't seem rushed. Currently I am in a math class that is three days a week and it's not good. It's almost not worth it to go to class because it takes me longer to get to and from the class on the bus than I'm actually in class. Classes which are two days a week are an hour and twenty minutes long. It works out to the same amount of time but with two classes you can actually get into a topic and even (shock idea) have a disussion about the topic that is longer than two minutes. It all works out to the same time but I truly feel that if you only had classes twice a week which were longer people would learn better. So were I to be a university administrator - classes two days a week, not three.

Takin' the new Cam for a spin!

I'm sure at some point someone will get sick of all my pictures. But really I won't so....tough. You will take what I give you! Hahaha. So here are my adventures of today with my new camera. Today we investigate the use the 'landscape' scene mode. I took some self portraits but I wasn't centered in the pictures so the camera focused on the landscape no me......and I can fix that but it was really bright, really cold, and I look like I have black eyes so perhaps this was a blessing in disguise. Or even not so disguised : ).

So here we go. This first pic is of one of the bridges that crosses the Huron river at this point. There's actually like 10 that look like this but as I mentioned it was cold....

I love the wooden bridge look though. It fits so well into the landscape.

This pic is on the previous bridge. I was completely fascinated by the ice and this was one of the few points you could see through it. I was somewhat conflicted though. On the one hand I was fascinated by the ice but the other I was terrified of the bridge randomly collapsing and plunging me into icy cold water. My thoughts were something like "Whoa how cool. Please don't break creepy bridge. Oh man what would I do if it broke? This looks so awesome. Okay I need to get off this bridge."

I was wishing there was more snow on the trees but it's been a little warmer the past couple days. I still think it was so pretty though.

Around this park there are also like millions of wooden benches and I thought they looked so cute just looking over the water. There was one man just sitting in one but I felt weird photographing him.

I then trecked down to the bridge that takes cars across the river (there's a dam which is why it's incredibly wide here) because I loved the look of the rocks with the snow and ice around them.

Again I was just fascinated with how the ice looked. Looking at how the ice formed is like just sitting watching water rush by and how the little eddies and currents form; completely mesmorizing.

In the fall when Abbey came I took a picture of this same spot with all the fall colors. I like the symmetry of seasons and the new tradition I just created for myself.

You may have noticed that I haven't taken pictures of people with my camera... Well here's one. Again we had some issues with the point of focus : ) But I'm working on that and meanwhile that one part of my hair it focused on looks amazing right?!

Fail.

I discovered something today that perhaps I have always known and just couldn't admit.

There is no dignified way on earth to eat popcorn.

Let me run down what happens for you. First you can't just eat a kernel at a time, that makes you someone I would make fun of. So basically you're eating 4-6 kernels. So that's a pretty good amount for all your fingers to hold. And you're trying to shove that in your mouth, which is in itself totally attractive. Mouth open wide shoving your fingers into it. Then it happens. A little piece breaks off and you can feel it falling out. You can't just let it go so you move your lips not unlike a camel does when it's eating. Well that never works so you're also trying to suck the piece back in. And the wind going through the popcorn makes a sound eerily like slurping soup. And you still can't save the popcorn. The seemingly harmless piece is falling and you think to yourself "ah well it's just a little piece". And then it goes down your shirt. They all do. No matter what shirt you're wearing.

So there you are, mouth wide open with four fingers stuffed in with your lips moving like a camels, making a highly appetizing slurping noise and you just got popcorn down your shirt.

You're done.

Fail.

You just have to move on because there's no saving your pride now.

So what do you do?

You go back for another handful.

Because let's face it, buttered popcorn if taken with time between doses is right up there with manna from heaven.

Maybe this is why we only eat this stuff in dark theaters where no one can see you obviously digging for things in your shirt/bra.

My efforts into Photography

I don't know if I mentioned it before....but I really love to take pictures. Since my decision to procure a fantastically nice camera I have become even more into it. Until I got my camera I was priviledged to use my Papa Bear's nice camera. That's where most the pictures from Thanksgiving and Christmas came from. But then I got MY camera!! My most favorite gift/purchase this Christmas was my new Nikon DSLR. I'm pretty sure I could gush about it but I really shouldn't because I'm still learning all about it. So the pictures my not be so awesome yet. But they'll improve I promise. But in the mean time I just have to show off some of the ones I've taken.

My most favorite thing about Christmas decorations are the lights. Really in any form. I could drive around for hours just looking at lights. But the best lights are the ones that light up my Christmas tree. I love sitting with all the other lights in the house off and just the tree on and watch how the light goes off the ornaments. So this year I wanted to take some pictures of it.

I love pictures where one point is in focus and the other points are not so I'm especially fond of this pic. I also love the look of the pearls that my momma always puts on the tree.

The gold sparkly is so pretty in the lights.

And this one just looks like candy which I also adore : ).

As a treat for actually finishing my finals I bought myself my favorite flowers. Lilies. These ones were perfect because they happened to be pink and I couldn't resist taking a picture of them.

I thought this one was pretty. It captured the color well and I love the look of the wood behind it.

This is tag that I got on my Christmas present from Abbey and I thought we should take a picture to remember even more.

And with the end of these pictures so ends my year. I do know it's past New Years but I've just now caught up. And I will also stop talking about Christmas now. But I won't stop taking pictures : ).

New Year's Restitutions

I think that the word restitution can be used interchangeably here. Well to a certain extent.... We make New Year's resolutions to make ourselves better right? So in a way it's restitution for things we haven't done as well as we could have, either for ourselves or for others. Anyway, I was looking back at the resolutions I made last year and sadly I only wrote down two (well on my blog for the public anyway). They were to do well in school and to be more social. I'm pretty happy to report that I accomplished both. I could have done better in school this past semester but I did try really hard so I'm going to count that. And I've actually been a lot more social since I moved to Michigan. I suppose it was a little bit out of necessity but the result was really good and I've been able to meet a lot more people and make many more friends. Joy!

This year I don't really know what resolutions I want to make for myself. I could say that I haven't thought about it very much but I really have and I just don't know what I'd like to do differently this year. Or maybe it's nothing I want to admit to myself.......
*thinking*
Well we'll just go with what I have I guess : ).

First, this year I want to not have regrets about school. I mean this in that I don't want to look back and think that there was more I could have done. Of course I'd like to do well but most of all I don't want to think I could have done more. Everything else I can deal with.

Second, I want to live in the present. If you've read the Shack then you know what I'm talking about. I don't want to worry so much about the future or dwell on the past. I want to be happy in the moment I'm in. I think that this will help a lot in making Michigan a place that I'm happy at and hopefully help me not miss my family so much.

Third, with all the craziness that I know will come from school and work and church, I don't want to forget about the things I love doing. These things include reading, working out, playing soccer, watching movies, and so many others.

And last, I want to USE the amazing camera that I just got to document all the fun I have with the amazing people in my life. I don't think there's been a year where I thought I took enough pictures so I'm going to work towards that goal!

I hope your restitutions are amazing and that you'll help me keep mine : ).