In Which I Am Alive

I'm really trying to break my addiction to xkcd. I really am. Promise. But today...I went to go check if there was a new comic up and I saw this one . And it hit me pretty hard. Thankfully, it doesn't apply to my life right now. But oh goodness does it remind me of how I felt all summer. Without going too much into the unnecessary, gory details, I will state that this summer was one of the darkest times of my life. I spent much of it feeling alone and broken, not knowing where to turn for comfort. I worried that I was doing something wrong. After all, they teach us that if we do all the right things, share our toys, and believe in ourselves, everything will work out hunky-dory, right? So if you hurt or you're scared or you're alone or you can't go a day without locking yourself in your room and bawling you must be making a mistake, right? But I couldn't figure out what I was doing wrong, and that made me mad. Every inspirational quote about the...

So when I was in junior high, I was forced every day to watch ChannelOne News, a news program oriented towards teenagers. The anchors were all young, hip individuals, meant to inspire us to care about current events. I had the names of all the anchors memorized, knew which ones were cute, which ones would be adorable together, and which ones seemed a little...less heterosexual than the others. So today I'm sitting in my boyfriend's front room doing my homework while his sister watches Katie Couric. And I overhear Miss Katie say, "Seth Doane has the story." And that name sounds so familiar. Why? Did this Seth used to be a Utah reporter? And suddenly I remember...Seth Doane was a ChannelOne reporter when I was a young'un. A ChannelOne reporter I had a massive crush on. I'm glad we were reunited.

Tomorrow.... I am going on an adventure! An adventure the likes of which I have never experienced! An adventure full of new experiences, below-zero temperatures, lots of food, and wonderful company. I'm a little bit terrified. But mostly thrilled. That is all.

Sometimes I run across things that are perfectly what I needed to hear and they make me happy. I thought I'd share just in case it's what you need to hear too. "Too often we want to be given answers to questions and problems that, if they were given in the manner we ask for them, would take away our agency and the blessings that come from reaching out to the Lord for answers and direction. Some think it would be nice to have "spiritual fortune cookies" we could open to find the answers to life's challenges. Wouldn't it be nice to have a labeled jar we could reach into for our answers? But that is not the way it is meant to be." Elder Robert D. Hales

I found... A new favorite blog today! Hooray! You should all look at it. Here is my current favorite post.

Once upon a time a few minutes ago, one of my facebook friends had a status with which I strongly disagreed. This fellow is a good friend of mine, and I thought I might be hurting our friendship by disagreeing, but my argumentative nature won the inner battle, and I composed a snarky and biting response. When I hit "Comment", instead of seeing my witty words appear under his status, I saw an error message from our good friends at Facebook Inc. "Oops, something went wrong. We're working on getting this fixed. Please try again later." A bit miffed, I tried again. "Oops, something went wrong!" said Facebook. I paused, reread my comment, and realized that I wasn't being fair to the writer. So I toned it down a bit, still retaining my sarcastic tone, but trying (and perhaps failing) to keep it civil. Resent the comment and... "Oops, something went wrong...." It was all starting to seem entirely too coincidental, so I closed the browser tab a...

Please read the following excerpt and then choose the best answer from the questions below. Dear BYU religion professors, Thank you for wording your tests in such an utterly confusing way. It really helps me focus on the exact wording and nitty gritty details of every verse instead of on the actual principles being taught. I'm so glad that you have your priorities in place. I know emulating the "simplicity that is in Christ" by actually asking straightforward questions would make your class far too easy to pass. Love, Karissa Is this letter-writer A) Sappily sincere? B) Quite fed up? C) Named Karissa? D) A BYU student? E) Happy that temple recommend questions are worded more clearly than religion test questions? F) Quite pleased with the religious education program at BYU? G) A and B only? H) B and C only? I) A, C, G and H only? J) All of the above except for C? K) B, C, D and E only? L) All of the above? M) None of the above? Answer: K.

Turns out I really suck at focusing on homework this weekend. That's about it.