KICK 'EM IN THE SHINS

As a young child I would wake up in the morning and get ready for school.  As I left the front door my father would never say:

"Return with honor!"

and NEVER

"Remember who you are!"

or not even

"Make me proud!"

But,

"Kick em in the shins."


Yes.  That is my father.  The wisest man I know.  (No sarcasm on that one, folks.  I am serious.)

AND NOW
I am off to my first intramural soccer game.

And I say the same to you:

Kick 'em in the shins.

WHY YES, I AM OVERQUALIFIED

I have filled out so many applications for internships it is overwhelming.  I would rather have my toenails removed than repeat my resume once more.

Being a young one, I find it funny when I have to list my skills from my summer job in high school.  I worked minimum wage, you doofus.  A trained 1st grader could've probably done my job. 


Anyways, by this point I can target my inexperienced resume for any professional corporation.





PREVIOUS EMPLOYMENT: Courtesy Clerk. (More commonly known as "Grocery bagger") 


Skills:

• Optimally bag groceries in a way that maximizes the volume of the bag.
• Bag groceries with superior speed and agility.
• Manually maneuver a stack of up to 12 shopping carts from the parking lot into the store.
• Exhibit lightning-quick reflexes to catch any falling glass containers while stocking shelves.
• Engineer structurally sound cardboard displays for new shipments of ketchup 

Basically, I am superwoman.

Paper or plastic??

REJECTION

I am really good at saying no

when a boy, whom I am not interested in, asks me out 

when someone asks me if I like children

when someone tells me I should be a music major

when a guy wants to discuss politics on a date

And when the U.S. Navy asks me to fix their ships for them.

STICK IT TO THE MAN. 

*fist bump*

Yup.  The "top secret" internships didn't come in like I had hoped.  But a hard-hat-on-head and hammer-in-hand engineering job came up.  Can you picture a girl like me {for you strangers: blonde girl in a pencil skirt with stilettos} out in a naval ship yard maintaining ships?






Yeah. That's what I thought.

Before everyone gets the wrong idea, I was flattered by the offer, but don't think I would be very useful with a wrench.  I am more of a design/analysis/number crunching type person, ya know... or a....Ok fine. Nerd.

There. I said it.

ExxonMobil looks appealing to me.  Consider this: Last summer I was a part of a climate study and researched global warming.

 If things go my way, next summer I might be creating global warming and destroying the earth with drilling.

Again, stick it to the man.

HOW TO GET A DATE IN THE LIBRARY

I have refined this to a science.

Ok fine. I know.  I need to stop relating my social life to the subjects I am studying.

But hey, my theories prove true.

When selecting a table to study at in the library, one must:

1. Check the left hand. (Sorry, but this is BYU, folks.)
2. Check for good looks
3. Check the body language of the girl next to him (if the case may be, it might be his girlf)
4. Glance at the titles of his textbooks in order to make a decision on his intellectuality.
5. Yes, this can be considered profiling. Shoot me.

All within a matter of microseconds. This is tough work!

That isn't an exaggeration, either.  There are lots of guys, uh, "tables" to scope out.

Oh, and once you are seated, 

     6. Make sure your study area looks available and welcoming.

Does this barrier of books, TI-84 and MacBook look sexy?

That's what I thought.  I thought I was doing a great job of warding off my fellow male classmates.  Not particularly in the mood for dating....

Don't give me weird looks. 

 I don't have to take my own advice

 on date shopping in the HBLL.

Anyways. I "picked the right table" on accident.

An econ major.  (The barrier was made of my Econ 110 textboks)

I had to rip off a corner of my econ assignment to write down my number for him.

That's what you get for studying in the periodical section, folks.

DREAM INTERNSHIP

So, the STEM [science, technology, engineering, and math] career fair is this week and I am pretty stoked.

Boeing.

Lockheed Martin.

Northrop Grumman.

Pretty much the top dogs in the aeronautic industry will be there.

I even bought a cute blazer to wear with my slacks and heels.  I'll look sharp.
And so will my resume.


The best part is researching the companies so I will be able to conversation-alize with the reps.

GUESS WHAT I FOUND OUT??

Most internships I am looking at require security clearances--

TOP SECRET ones.

I thought they only used that term in cartoons and movies.  

Oh no. 

I could be working on a confidential project this summer.

For the U.S. Government.  

I hope I get a "top secret" internship. 

WAY cool.

TIPS FOR OPTIMIZING DATING

All I need to know about 

maximizing my dating 

can be explained 

by simple

principles of economics.

Consider a situation where someone is trying to decide whether or not to continue dating their significant other...  There are a few questions one might want to ponder before executing an action.

1. Is there anything more to be gained from the relationship? (Is there more you can learn about the other person? Is there more you can learn from the other person? )

2. Would you still find it worth your time to continue dating said person?

If you say yes, continue dating.  You haven't maxed out in benefit. If you say no, then you should either break up with the person or marry them because the cost of dating said person has outweighed the benefits. 

So simple. I heart economics.

But then the individual always says:

"But I have invested so much in (insert name here)!"

or in more common
 young adult language:

"But we are such good friends
and have spent so much time together!"

To that, economics has yet another simple answer:

Sunk costs are irrelevant.

Translation: that which was spent in the past is nonrecoverable and can never affect marginal cost benefit analysis.  Or, in three words: History is bunk.

And that is the cold-hearted, hard-nosed, 

economical truth.

Author's note:  I don't wholeheartedly believe this.  Simply put, this principle is monumental in helping girls understand how their business-minded ex could justify dumping them like that [snap fingers]...

Girl, I've only got one thing to say to ya: an economist's analytical skills are WHACK. 

BAD OMENS

You know it is a bad day 

when 

77.77% 

(or 7/9 = 0.7777) 

of your fruit snacks 

for breakfast 

are grape. 

Blech.

{I want to get in touch with the people responsible for the quality control statistics in the production line at General Mills©} 

TOO CUTE TO HANDLE

I am in love. 

Thank you Bakerella!!!!

It might be hard to tell by the picture..but it is cake dipped cleverly in chocolate.

(dye white dipping chocolate yellow and pink)

I made TONS....

I can't get over them. So. Cute.

Directions:

1. Bake cake according to directions and crumble it up in a bowl

2. Mix frosting with cake in until you can form balls with the cake crumbs

3. Freeze cake balls for easy handling

4. Use small paper baking cups (they look like miniature cupcake liners) and fill 1/2 way with dipping chocolate

5. Press the frozen cake ball into the chocolate filled cups

6. Let harden and remove paper.

7. Dunk tops into more dipping chocolate.

8. Immediately decorate with sprinkles of your choice.

I will slowly transform into a domestic goddess like my mother.  

Just you wait.

MY LIFE IN GRAPHICAL FORM

One day I was having a hard day in my calculus class last semester.  My good friend Scott drew a nice pick-me-up picture for me in my notes that went somewhat of the following:



This is your life:

NOT THIS:

Or this....

AND NOT THIS....

But THIS:

And you happen to be at the point (0,1).

{It only gets better from here....}

Q: WHY DOES MEXICAN COKE TASTE SO MUCH BETTER?

A: Because it is made with real cane sugar. (cheer!)  

We use corn syrup. (boo!)

(doesn't that just sound so...American? 
I think they are going to make rockets out of corn pretty soon...)

Well that begs the question: 

 Why don't we make Coke with real cane sugar, too?  

Are Americans just slow on the draw?

Three words: 

No Free Trade.

You see, we don't have the resources to grow sugar cane here.  (Except for a few farms in Louisiana...)  So we have to trade for it.  BUT our brilliant government puts down restrictions*. Like tariffs. (Boo!)

We could get sugar for 14 cents a pound, but the tariff increases it to 24 cents a pound.  That is too expensive for our Coca Cola Corporation.  See why we revert to good ol' corn syrup?  We are suffering here!

Get this: Those Louisiana sugar cane farmers? Think they live the life of a modest farmer? Think again.  Try a yearly income of  $1 MILLION. I am switching from engineering to farming.

So, uh, what dwindling sugar cane farming industry are we trying to "preserve" here?  

That's what I thought.

You should really be booing now.
[ Boo squared! ( = boo!^2   = BOOOO!) ]

Ok, so if we took the tariff off, the overwhelming supply of sugar probably would wipe out the Louisiana farmers.  But that's ok.  Our economy would actually be better off as a whole. And they wouldn't be out of a job, they would just relocate...to....ya know....corn farming....

I hear that the industry is absolutely booming. 

(cheer!)

*Economists are still baffled as to why our government does this.  It doesn't make economical sense.  

I HATE BORSCHT.*

List #6

I hate borscht because...

1. It turns my hands purple from all of the beets.
2. It takes two years to cut up all of the vegetables required.
3. It tastes like red water.
4. I am incapable of making it.
5. I could tie-dye purple shirts in a vat of it because of all the cabbage/beets. Gag me.
6. I hate borscht.

It was bad. No pictures today.

*Overdramatization

FAIL/WIN

8:00

EXPECTATION: Woke up at 7:00 a.m. and skipped breakfast in order to turn in my homework before class started at 8:00.

REALITY: My hair looked great, but I missed the first half of the 3 minute pop quiz in class. That's ok--not like I knew how to solve the problem anyways...

Fail.

9:00

EXPECTATION: I understood all that was presented in the math review for my physics class.

REALITY: I forgot my iClicker, thus forfeiting another quiz score, when I actually knew the answers this time.

Fail.

10:00

EXPECTATION: Well, following the pattern of my morning, not much.

REALITY:  Answered the multi-step matrix problem (with no algebra errors in over 12 steps!!) on the board in front of the whole class. And got a compliment from my professor.

Fail.

WIN!

{Glad you showed up today, Luck. You slept in on me.}

I DON'T DO PANCAKES

My mother can't make Jell-O

I can't make pancakes.

Life isn't fair.

I mean, for reals.

Exhibit A:

C'mon spatula! Get under there! Think SKINNY...

Exhibit B:

I forgot the formula for the area of a circle as I was pouring batter.

Exhibit C:

Uh.....yeah.

And I forgot to mention the discoloration:

Chocolate milk. Yeah. Bad idea.

Recipe for disaster:

1/2 to 1.5 cups (?) of tap water 

1 Box of Aunt Jemima's Pancake mix 

A dump of Western Family chocolate milk mix

A crappy spatula

And a girl who can't flip a pancake

SHA-ZAM!!

Stay tuned. Tomorrow I am making a labor-intensive Russian soup {Borscht} that I have never tried before so I don't know what it is supposed to taste like.


Anyone want to have dinner with me?

I AM A SYNESTHETE.

Yep. That's right.  Only 1 in a 1000 can claim that title. I barely discovered that my thought processes are not normal--and there is a name for it.

Synesthesia: A condition in which normally separate senses are not separate. Sight may mingle with sound, taste with touch, etc. The senses are cross-wired. For example, when a digit-color synesthete sees or just thinks of a number, the number appears with a color film over it. A given number's color never changes; it appears every time with the number. 

{P.S. It rhymes with "anesthesia" if you were wondering}

There are different kinds{some people see colors with musical tones, taste a certain food when they say a word, or experience pain when they view and injury}, but I associate colors with text.  When someone tells me a phone number, or a day of the week, I see that particular set of characters in certain colors.  Here are some examples....

1    2   3    4   5    6    7    8    9   

Wednesday

                 Tuesday

                            Thursday

A   B   C

Call me crazy...but I didn't pick the colors.  Notice that 6,9, and 8 are very similar.  I often confuse these numbers in my head.  

I use this often to memorize things efficiently.

I hope this makes me a genius--all that has been discovered is that these people often display autism, left/right confusion, and tend to be directionally challenged. { Oh, and it tends to run in the family. }

Google it. you know you want to.