And now for the nervous waiting

26 September 2007, 7:34 pm by Giggles
Categories: Education

All of my application stuffs for the doctorate program at the University of Arizona are on their way. It should all be there before the end of this week. Unfortunately they won’t sit down to decide who they have room for till the middle of October. And then I have to wait for them to get back to me. So I’m looking at at least three weeks of nervous waiting to find out the verdict. Nervous waiting stinks. I’ll have to keep myself busy some how or the mail man will start to think I’m stalking him.

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My body clock

23 September 2007, 10:13 pm by Giggles
Categories: Education, Health

Yesterday was BYU’s homecoming game, which I went to and enjoyed every minute of, including the rain that fell for most of the second half and had me resembling a drowned rat when I got home because I rode my bike to the game. It was also very enjoyable because BYU won.

After the game I was talking with my mom on the phone about the game and BYU. Every year on the Saturday of homecoming week, BYU has a homecoming parade. While I attended BYU for four years, I never once saw the parade. My first two years at BYU the parade even went past my residence hall. All I would’ve had to do was step outside and I could’ve watched it. But I was never awake early enough. My body clock is not set for me to get up willingly early in the morning.

I had a conversation recently with someone about the settings of our body clocks. I mentioned that I get the best sleep of the whole year during my three months of summer when I can go to bed when I’m tired (three or four in the morning), and get up naturally eight hours later. Even if I manage to get eight hours of sleep during the school year, it isn’t as restful as the eight hours I get during the summer.

This person suggested that I gradually reset my body clock so that I get tired at ten. I don’t think they know what they are talking about. I’m twenty-nine. If going to school since I was five hasn’t reset my body clock, I really don’t know what will. I’ve been this way since I was born. I can force myself to go to sleep earlier during the school year. But give me just a couple of days where I set my own schedule, and I’m back to three or four in the morning, or later. In fact I seem to recall it only taking two days after I got home from my mission. And that was after spending 18 months going to bed at 10:30 and getting up at 6:30. My mission couldn’t even reset my clock.

So in short – BYU football games are great. And I have an odd sleep schedule and probably will till the day I die.

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Thoughts about my blog

20 September 2007, 9:21 pm by Giggles
Categories: Random, Science & Tech

From what I’ve read on other blogs, these lists of questions are called a meme, probably because they are about me. I pulled this one off of Laylabean‘s blog.

1. Do you promote your blog?

Some. I tell people about my website and my blog is a small, although growing, part of that. My web address is part of my profile on all the sites I’m registered on, so those people know I have it. I also use my website as a kind of appendix for my Christmas letters each year, where people can come get more details or look at pictures. And considering how hilarious one of my friends found my Christmas letter last year, it’s probably a good thing.

2. How often do you check hits?

I check my site’s statistics nightly. It’s really interesting to me to see how many countries visit my site, what they searched, what pages they looked at, and how long they stayed. I especially like it when people find my book section. Although I need to get busy reading more books.

3. Do you stick to one topic?

Yup. I stick to only those topics that I think about. And that’s pretty much the only thing my topics have in common.

4. Who knows that you have a blog?

The people on the message boards I frequent know. Friends know. Family knows. But most of the time it feels like I’m talking to myself because people mostly read and don’t comment much. But that’s okay. I’m a good conversationalist I think and I don’t get bored talking to myself.

5. How many blogs do you read?

A few. I check about half the ones in my blogroll regularly. I don’t read blogs of people I don’t really know.

6. Are you a fast reader?

For the most part.

7. Do you customize your blog or do anything technical?

I’ve done a few things. I haven’t taken the time to sit down and do what I want with it. I would like to either get a new theme with some more features I want, or figure out how to add those features to this theme (I like the sunflowers). But I haven’t done that yet.

8. Do you blog anonymously?

Nope. I do try to keep others more anonymous though.

9. To what extent do you censor yourself?

There are things I don’t say here just because I know this is a public forum and there is the possibility of people all over the world reading it. Most of the things that cross my mind do end up here though. But for the rest, that’s what a good old fashioned paper and pen journal is for.

10. The best thing about blogging?

I can be as random as I want.

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Ahoy, matey!

19 September 2007, 10:55 am by Giggles
Categories: Random

In the book Frindle by Andrew Clements, a fifth grade boy decides to invent a new word. It becomes a struggle between the students who like using the new word, and the teachers who think the old words are just fine.

Several years ago, two men decided to invent their own holiday. They declared September 19th to be International Talk Like a Pirate Day. In support of innovators such as them I say: Arrrr!

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History

11 September 2007, 10:48 am by Giggles
Categories: Musings

This morning on the radio they were playing clips from this day 6 years ago. I never heard those clips. I didn’t hear it happening when it happened. I had to wait till after work to really find out anything. I vividly remember everything about that day. Last night on the news they were saying how many elementary schools weren’t going to do anything about this day, but that it would simply be covered in US history classes.

The sixth graders this year were in kindergarten that year.

Only a handful of my kindergartners were even born then. It is history to them. It’s not part of their memory. And at their age, it happened at the same time as everything else in history.

I remember when the Berlin Wall came down. None of my students were alive then. That wall doesn’t mean anything to them. It makes me wonder what in history isn’t significant to me simply because I wasn’t there for it.

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It’s a sickness

8 September 2007, 10:29 pm by Giggles
Categories: Quilting/Sewing/Knitting/Crafting

While at the fabric store tonight I made a list of all the blankets and quilts that I have bought all the stuff for and/or started already, but haven’t finished.

I ended up with a list of 16.

And those are only the ones I could think of off the top of my head.

By the time I got home I had 17 on my list.

I couldn’t help myself though. I was able to get everything for the top of a real cute Halloween wall hanging quilt for $6. You just don’t get quilting supplies for that much.

The whole point of the list was to prove to myself that I shouldn’t buy the Halloween quilt stuff because I already had plenty of other quilts to be working on. Didn’t work though.

I’m afraid to list all the other sewing projects I have right now.

Several of the quilts/blankets on that list will be Christmas presents this year though, so that will cross a few of them off.

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Madeleine L’Engle, 1918-2007

7 September 2007, 10:16 pm by Giggles
Categories: Books

Madeleine L’Engle passed away yesterday. I remember reading A Wrinkle in Time when I was younger. But it was years later before I read more of her books. By then I was ready for them. A Wrinkle in Time had so much to think about in it. And I loved Many Waters. Authors such as her are few and far between these days. I need to pull out her books again.

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