Photofintesis!!

My seventh graders were adorable today. That's because the good, funny ones (mostly boys) came to class and the obnoxious drama-causing girls skipped. And because my co-teacher came. She helps a lot to calm them down.

Ms. N: What response is this plant showing?
MB: Photofintesis!!
(Correct answer: phototropism)

TC, after coming back from the bathroom: "I went to the bathroom. I didn't wash my hands. [Sticks his hands in a bucket of sand behind my desk.] In my country, we wash our hands with sand." (This kid is home-grown Miami.)

KG: "If we pour enough water on the sun, and put it out, will it kill all the plants?"

I am a person too

Anyone need a mail order bride? I need to get out of this vat of soul poison.




Weirdest post ever? Perhaps? I might delete it in a few hours.

Thank you Beethoven, thank you Rossini

These songs allay my stress:

1. Für Elise
2. Largo al factotum (I am serious! I have reasons. Weird video though.)

Whining. Sorry.

Sunday night thoughts that are more connected than they appear to be:

1. I feel as though my life since June 2009 has been a study in human fallibility.
2. I tire of making mistakes.
3. I think LDS YSA need to become more proficient in and comfortable with taking social risks. And when I say social, I mostly mean dating.
4. If I am ever to work with small people again, I want them to be my own.
5. The clothes I design in my head are way better looking than anything I can buy.
6. I need to go on a spending moratorium.
7. Someone told me tonight it is very unlike me to be unhappy with my life. This person was right.
8. I believe place is far more important to happiness than most people think it is.
9. Maybe I am not as strong/creative/resilient/productive as I always believed I was.
10. One of the saddest things to me about singlehooddom is that I feel like some of my awesomeness is converted to some sort of deadweight loss, like if no one is there to appreciate it, it goes wasted.
11. Statements 9 and 10 contradict one another.
12. It is about to get reeeeeally hot in Miami. Like nuclear holocaust hot.

Concluding thought: There is a GBH quote on my mirror that says something like "I have come to realize that if we complain about life, it is because we are thinking only of ourselves." I mostly agree, but only mostly.  I don't want to talk about "you can choose to be happy in whatever situation you are in" because I am of the "if you don't like the situation you are in, change it" philosophy, not the "just be happy where you are" philosophy. I believe that my level of satisfaction of life influences many people, so if I complain about life as it is right now, it is partly because I don't have time to be there for people or to spontaneously serve people. I don't like that how full and exhausting my work and grad school schedule is inhibits me from living generously. I can't support people by attending their activities or commit to giving people rides or cleaning the chapel or taking a friend out for a treat if they had a bad day. I don't think that is entirely selfish to lament these things. I am not myself. I never want to be this busy or this emotionally/physically/spiritually leached ever again! My commitment to TforA is serious but really does it have crowd out everything else? 

I feel frustrated.

There, Sav. Does putting it on the Internet make you feel better???

Help me pick out my bridesmaid dress.

Urgent!!!!!!!!!!!!! :)

I need to pick out a bridesmaid dress. Which one should I buy? (Which one would look best on me?) The dress will be the Kunzite (pink) fabric. I am excited about getting something I wouldn't normally buy. (Sorry, not going to steal their images, so you'll have to go to the link.) I will wear chunky turquoise jewelry/accessories.

My first preference, but I don't like that it's something I would wear anyway:

http://www.shabbyapple.com/p-587-julie-and-romeo.aspx

Second preference, but I think it might be unflattering:

http://www.shabbyapple.com/p-592-anne-and-andy.aspx

Third preference, but I think it may not completely cover toward the bottom corners of the neckline. And I'm not sure it would look good on me.

http://www.shabbyapple.com/p-586-jack-and-jill.aspx

Really like this one too:

http://www.shabbyapple.com/p-589-cleo-and-antony.aspx

fragments of No. 2 pencil: a metaphor?

This day is hilarious. There are about 6 weeks of school left in M-D County, which of course means that this is the effectual end of the year. I have zero pencils left for school supply-barren students and reeeeeeeeeeally don't want to buy more because the pencils I buy are nomadic by nature. Or perhaps they are wood-and-graphite magicians skilled in the art of disappearing.

A few students don't have pencils for the test my advanced classes are taking in order to qualify for the honors earth-space course next year. A search of my desk produced a black two-headed pencil (someone had sharpened both ends) and just the eraser part of another one, still nestled in its metal cradle. The two students I gave them to--one needing a pencil; the other, and eraser--found receiving these items just as hilarious as I did giving them out. What? It doesn't sound funny? I promise, it was, especially against the seriousness of the test.

Series: In My Next Profession, second installment

 4.20.10: Economist of the economic development interest.

4.21.10: Heart surgeon. It's the most fascinating organ. Besides the brain, I guess.

4.22.10: NPR foreign correspondent.

Series: In My Next Profession, first installment

4.14.10: School board member. Like being a judge but no law school and you get to be on local radio once a month.

4.15.10: Astronaut. Manned missions to Mars planned for mid-2030's.

I think I'm going to love this book.

 Is Leo Tolstoy my Russian Charles Dickens? 


Anna Karenina, Part 1, Chapter 3

Stepan Arkadyevitch had not chosen his political opinions or his
views; these political opinions and views had come to him of
themselves, just as he did not choose the shapes of his hat and
coat, but simply took those that were being worn. And for him,
living in a certain society--owing to the need, ordinarily
developed at years of discretion, for some degree of mental
activity--to have views was just as indispensable as to have a
hat. If there was a reason for his preferring liberal to
conservative views, which were held also by many of his circle,
it arose not from his considering liberalism more rational, but
from its being in closer accordance with his manner of life. The
liberal party said that in Russia everything is wrong, and
certainly Stepan Arkadyevitch had many debts and was decidedly
short of money. The liberal party said that marriage is an
institution quite out of date, and that it needs reconstruction;
and family life certainly afforded Stepan Arkadyevitch little
gratification, and forced him into lying and hypocrisy, which was
so repulsive to his nature. The liberal party said, or rather
allowed it to be understood, that religion is only a curb to keep
in check the barbarous classes of the people; and Stepan
Arkadyevitch could not get through even a short service without
his legs aching from standing up, and could never make out what
was the object of all the terrible and high-flown language about
another world when life might be so very amusing in this world.
And with all this, Stepan Arkadyevitch, who liked a joke, was
fond of puzzling a plain man by saying that if he prided himself
on his origin, he ought not to stop at Rurik and disown the first
founder of his family--the monkey. And so Liberalism had become
a habit of Stepan Arkadyevitch's, and he liked his newspaper, as
he did his cigar after dinner, for the slight fog it diffused in
his brain.

because I have a little red notebook to fill

ฉันจะไป ประเทศไทยฤดูร้อนนี้
C̄hạn ca pị pratheṣ̄thịy vdū r̂xn nī̂


and


Saya juga melawat Malaysia. Teman saya dan saya akan pada bulan Julai.

Here's some help. http://translate.google.com/#th|en| and http://translate.google.com/#ms|en|

"I'm not interested in having personal dramas on my mission"

An excerpt from my mission journal that my friend and I just laughed out loud about:

20 September 2007

I'm not really interested in having personal dramas on my mission. This is annoying to have in my journal but I have to get it out. Last night Elder S. during nightly reporting goes "Sister Nilsen...you're cool." I go: "why?" ...blah blah...eventually he says "sometimes you make me happy. Sometimes you make me sad. Honestly I think you're really annoying. Then you make me laugh. I want to be friends. I don't want to hold a grudge. Then you do something and you're just cool. You and I are just different. You have a different way of doing things. You annoy me." And I'm thinking--you're just my district leader. I'm not here to "make you happy." I'm not interested in analyzing the strength of our relationship, as I would do with a boyfriend or companion. So I said "Elder S. you're not my boyfriend," trying to explain that, which I think was one of those times when I annoy him :) and he thought I meant that he likes me, and he covered the phone and repeated it to his companion, so I spoke to Elder J. to help me with the communication... my purpose in writing this down is to avoid calling Sister G. or Elder S.L. My companion wasn't too interested nor adept in discussing it. I don't care whether he appreciates my personality and he sounded too dramatic. "You make me happy." Ew.