the Haley's comet: gratitude

Life Could Be a Dream (Within a Dream?)

12:36 PM

A Letter to My Elementary School

4:00 PM

Last week, my mom asked each of the kids in our family to write a letter for the staff and teachers at my old elementary school. My youngest brother is graduating from the 6th grade this year, and after 16 consecutive years, there will no longer be a Christensen child attending Del Rio Elementary.

Here is my letter.

To the wonderful staff and teachers at Del Rio Elementary:

It’s been a long long time since I was in elementary school, and I’ve met lots of people since then, but I still think that some of the best educational experiences I’ve ever had were at Del Rio.

I met two of my dearest friends at Del Rio and we all have very fond memories of elementary school.

We used to love map game, the ball wall, horse racing, kickball, tetherball, four square, and line tag. One of the best days ever was when we had a school soccer tournament against Centennial Elementary in 5^th grade. We totally won.

I remember in January of 1998 when it snowed like crazy and school was canceled for a few days. Even once school resumed again, there were still piles of snow out in the field and we’d play in it at recess.

I remember going from 3^rd grade to 4^th grade and worrying that waiting that extra few minutes for lunch or having an extra hour of school every day would be really really hard. It wasn't that hard.

I remember Incentive Parties and going to Rollerama or John’s Incredible Pizza or to see a movie if you had good behavior that quarter.

I remember loving and praying for fog delay days.

I remember Spirit Week and always needing to find a friend to dress up with me for Twin Day.

I remember taking field trips to Fort Tejon and Pioneer Village and Camp KEEP and the La Purisima Mission.

I remember collecting mulberry leaves from the tree at the very back edge of the field to feed to our classroom silkworms.

I remember Pause and Read and AR. When I was in 6^th grade, my AR goal was 80 points and I thought my head was going to explode.

I remember Little Caesars Pizza Day was the only day I ever wanted hot lunch. I think it was usually on a Thursday. And if you were chosen for lunch duty that day, your life was awesome.

Once I even got a Red Slip and thought my life was over. That was a hard day.

I remember building my state float in 4^th grade and building an emu out of paper mache in 5^th grade. I remember learning about Greek and Roman history in 6^th grade. I remember learning my times tables in 2^nd grade and learning about the pilgrims and Indians in 3^rd grade.

I remember loving when the older kids would come practice their oral language pieces for us in 3^rd grade, and then becoming one of those kids. When we won the county competition in 6^th grade with our Oral Language “Dream Team,” I thought I was on top of the world. A couple years ago, I got to be a timer for the District Oral Language Competition and had to laugh at how full circle my life had come.

I have lots of other memories from Del Rio, but those are some of my favorites. It’s hard to believe I’ve been away for so long, but at the risk of sounding cheesy, I will always cherish the time and friends and experiences I had there.

gratitude

True Beauty

3:04 PM

Bakersfield

Exciting News!

5:43 PM

BYU

I got Donny Osmond as a graduation present

6:53 PM

BYU

why I am not going to hate March this year

1:30 PM

BYU

so what. I'm a senior and have zero motivation to study during finals week.

3:10 PM

not to mention I've been a terrible blogger this semester. sooooorry.

but here's a very brief synopsis of all the things I'm grateful for this semester.

my house. complete with two fridges, a pull-up bar in the hallway, really hot floors (like, they practically burn your feet), darling roommates and pre-strung Christmas lights.
best friends who will go with you to see breaking dawn part 1 at midnight and then be disgusted with you afterwards.
a strange newfound love of being domestic. I've seriously baked SO much this semester.
sisters I can quote "She's the Man," strange talking cat YouTube videos and "Kid History" with aaaaaall day long.
my job at the Daily Universe. and Wednesday mornings when we get to test our Front Row Fanatics games.
this show. new found love. watch it. right now.
freshman boys that came back from their missions and aren't freshman anymore.
quaker cheddar snack mix. if you don't know what I'm talking about, look at B6 in any BYU snack vending machine. they've changed my life and I've eaten more of them this semester than probly any other snack food.
my pilates class. sooooooooo much fun and I love feeling good.
lots of friends from many places. as manifest at my Christmas party last weekend, I'm really really grateful for all of them.
parachute and coldplay. I listen to their new albums on repeat basically every day.
pinterest. nuff said. I'm addicted.
not having Friday class. :)
no snow yet!!!
roommates & best friends I can laugh and cry with, I can jump on their beds (or on them, if need be), I can reminisce with, I can get a phone call from because one of them got engaged and they don't want to tell the story till I get there, I can freak out to and know me better than anyone else, I can go bridesmaid dress shopping online with and have super high hopes only to come back to square one, I can be SO excited for bachelorette parties with in Vegas... mostly just wonderful girlfriends that I hope to be friends with forever.

and I'm grateful for a million other things too. but I do have a test to take at some point today and I probly should study at some point today.

ughhhhh.

life is grand, though. seriously. <3

BYU

there was a day I was insanely domestic?

9:35 PM

there was a very literate girl, thank you very much.

12:10 PM

apparently I'm really sposed to read this. I've seen it posted on 3 different blogs I follow.

apparently you are too. thanks for stopping in today :)

"You Should Date An Illiterate Girl"
By Charles Warnke

Date a girl who doesn’t read. Find her in the weary squalor of a Midwestern bar. Find her in the smoke, drunken sweat, and varicolored light of an upscale nightclub. Wherever you find her, find her smiling. Make sure that it lingers when the people that are talking to her look away. Engage her with unsentimental trivialities. Use pick-up lines and laugh inwardly. Take her outside when the night overstays its welcome. Ignore the palpable weight of fatigue. Kiss her in the rain under the weak glow of a streetlamp because you’ve seen it in film. Remark at its lack of significance. Take her to your apartment.

Let the anxious contract you’ve unwittingly written evolve slowly and uncomfortably into a relationship. Find shared interests and common ground like sushi, and folk music. Build an impenetrable bastion upon that ground. Make it sacred. Retreat into it every time the air gets stale, or the evenings get long. Talk about nothing of significance. Do little thinking. Let the months pass unnoticed. Ask her to move in. Let her decorate. Get into fights about inconsequential things like how the shower curtain needs to be closed so that it doesn’t collect mold. Let a year pass unnoticed.

Begin to notice.

Figure that you should probably get married because you will have wasted a lot of time otherwise. Take her to dinner on the forty-fifth floor at a restaurant far beyond your means. Make sure there is a beautiful view of the city.

Sheepishly ask a waiter to bring her a glass of champagne with a modest ring in it. When she notices, propose to her with all of the enthusiasm and sincerity you can muster. Do not be overly concerned if you feel your heart leap through a pane of sheet glass. For that matter, do not be overly concerned if you cannot feel it at all. If there is applause, let it stagnate. If she cries, smile as if you’ve never been happier. If she doesn’t, smile all the same.

Let the years pass unnoticed. Get a career, not a job. Buy a house. Have two striking children. Try to raise them well. Fail, frequently. Lapse into a bored indifference. Lapse into an indifferent sadness. Have a mid-life crisis. Grow old. Wonder at your lack of achievement. Feel sometimes contented, but mostly vacant and ethereal. Feel, during walks, as if you might never return, or as if you might blow away on the wind. Contract a terminal illness. Die, but only after you observe that the girl who didn’t read never made your heart oscillate with any significant passion, that no one will write the story of your lives, and that she will die, too, with only a mild and tempered regret that nothing ever came of her capacity to love.

Do those things, dammit, because nothing sucks worse than a girl who reads. Do it, I say, because a life in purgatory is better than a life in hell. Do it, because a girl who reads possesses a vocabulary that can describe that amorphous discontent as a life unfulfilled—a vocabulary that parses the innate beauty of the world and makes it an accessible necessity instead of an alien wonder. A girl who reads lays claim to a vocabulary that distinguishes between the specious and soulless rhetoric of someone who cannot love her, and the inarticulate desperation of someone who loves her too much. A vocabulary, dammit, that makes my vacuous sophistry a cheap trick.

Do it, because a girl who reads understands syntax. Literature has taught her that moments of tenderness come in sporadic but knowable intervals. A girl who reads knows that life is not planar; she knows, and rightly demands, that the ebb comes along with the flow of disappointment. A girl who has read up on her syntax senses the irregular pauses—the hesitation of breath—endemic to a lie. A girl who reads perceives the difference between a parenthetical moment of anger and the entrenched habits of someone whose bitter cynicism will run on, run on well past any point of reason, or purpose, run on far after she has packed a suitcase and said a reluctant goodbye and she has decided that I am an ellipsis and not a period. Syntax that knows the rhythm and cadence of a life well lived.

Date a girl who doesn’t read because the girl who reads knows the importance of plot. She can trace out the demarcations of a prologue and the sharp ridges of a climax. She feels them in her skin. The girl who reads will be patient with an intermission and expedite a denouement. But of all things, the girl who reads knows most the ineluctable significance of an end. She is comfortable with them. She has bid farewell to a thousand heroes with only a twinge of sadness.

Don’t date a girl who reads because girls who read are the storytellers. You with the Joyce, you with the Nabokov, you with the Woolf. You there in the library, on the platform of the metro, you in the corner of the café, you in the window of your room. You, who make my life so god damned difficult. The girl who reads has spun out the account of her life and it is bursting with meaning. She insists that her narratives are rich, her supporting cast colorful, and her typeface bold. You, the girl who reads, make me want to be everything that I am not. But I am weak and I will fail you, because you have dreamed, properly, of someone who is better than I am. You will not accept the life that I told of at the beginning of this piece. You will accept nothing less than passion, and perfection, and a life worthy of being storied. So out with you, girl who reads. Take the next southbound train and take your Hemingway with you. I hate you. I really, really, really hate you.

things that make me happy

2:30 PM

bad days

There was "Up", mummified moms and a tsunami in Japan

12:46 PM

BYU

There IS Life After Brandon Davies

12:49 PM

when I got on Twitter this morning, the phrases “Brandon Davies” & “Honor Code” were trending topics number 4 and 5.

that’s a big deal.

since this is my school everyone’s talking about, and I live the honor code too, here’s my take on everything that’s happened.

first of all, BYU’s official honor code statement goes as follows:

“As a matter of personal commitment, faculty, administration, staff, and students of Brigham Young University, Brigham Young University—Hawaii, Brigham Young University—Idaho, and LDS Business College seek to demonstrate in daily living on and off campus those moral virtues encompassed in the gospel of Jesus Christ, and will:

· Be honest

· Live a chaste and virtuous life

· Obey the law and all campus policies

· Use clean language

· Respect others

· Abstain from alcoholic beverages, tobacco, tea, coffee, and substance abuse

· Participate regularly in church services

· Observe the Dress and Grooming Standards

· Encourage others in their commitment to comply with the Honor Code”

we also have rules about visiting hours and student residences {no members of the opposite sex in the apartment after midnight, no co-ed housing for un-married students}, dress and grooming {clean shaven guys; no tank tops, short shorts, leggings as pants for ladies}, academic honesty {no cheating. obviously.}, and homosexual behavior {just to be clear, behavior, not attraction or feelings. that’s a whole different discussion for another day when I’m feeling brave and controversial.}

for the entire BYU honor code, go here.

sound super crazy? it’s not.

{and for the record, BYU isn’t the only school with an honor code…}

sure, my weekends don’t consist of parties or alcohol or sex or lots of other things that go on at other universities, but I don’t want them to. I was raised a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints {Mormon}, and I want to be surrounded by people with my same standards. BYU is really one of the only places where I get that. and I love it.

I’m not brainwashed, I’m just not a fan of immorality, drugs, alcohol and such. I don’t agree with those kinds of activities, but I’m not judging people that do go to other schools or participate in those kinds of things. I personally just don’t want to be a part of it.

and I promise it is possible to have TONS of fun without alcohol. call us immature. call us naïve. we have fun in our own way, and we don’t kill our brain cells.

anyone that thinks otherwise can go read about our Decathlon of Love or any of my other posts from last summer.

so Davies. cost us a number one seed? maybe. cost us a chance at the Final Four? we’ll see. despite our loss last night, I think we have a stellar team, a great contender for Player of the Year and an honest BYU student who came forward with his honor code violation and got suspended from the basketball team for it.

that takes some serious guts. and I certainly don’t hate Davies for it. I’m disappointed in his stupidity, because he knew the honor code AND the consequences when he came to this school. but I genuinely think he’s probably disappointed, too.

my favorite article on the whole thing. thank you, mr. canzano. thank you for understanding.

whew.

any questions?