A New Year

The time of year has come at last. Yes my friends it is time for the New Year's Resolutions. Feel free to skip this post, if it were on your blog, I just might...just kidding!!!!!!! I actually love reading people's resolutions... I think they tell you a lot about a person.

Okay here they are:

1. Work on not being such a dork.
2. Go to class and do my homework so I don't fail at life.
3. Learn to cook something that requires actual cooking.
4. Find somewhere that offers facebook detox.
5. Stop blowing money on itunes.
6. Stop getting so many dang parking tickets.
7. Get enough culture to not be entertained by reality tv.

So there they are. Interpret what it means about me, and then bug me about them during the next year. If I become extremely poor from paying boatloads of parking tickets or paying to get my car back from being towed, or if I start getting fat because I can't cook and just sit in my apartment on facebook, you now are permitted to call me out on them. hooray!

So tell me...what are your best resolutions for this year?

I don't want Christmas Break to end

not ever.

I am having a mid-winter crisis

It's snowing outside. A lot.
For the most part, I like snow, and I can get over the coldness and scraping the windshield, but the snow is causing me a great amount of anxiety in one major area of my life.

My shoes.

High heels + snow = bad idea. I am aware of that fact, and have come to realize, that unless you have a good five hours to move the distance of one provo city block, it is impossible to wear heels when there is snow and ice all around. The only problem with this is that now 95% of my shoe collection is unwearable, and the other options are...well see for yourself.

Exhibit A: The Finnish Rain Boot


These are actually very cute, and I do always get compliments on them when I wear them, but I don't care who you are, you can't just wear rain boots every day of the week. Plus due to the finnish flower pattern that they are graced with, they don't really match that many things—and I am pretty good at talking myself into believing something matches.

Exhibit B: The Black Tennis Shoe.


Interesting fact: I remember where every single pair of shoes I own came from. I could tell you when I bought it, in most cases how much it cost, and what I bought to wear with them. However, I have no memory of ever buying these shoes. I couldn't tell you what store they were from, when I bought them, or even what I bought them for. That should tell you something about my opinion of them. Also, they are about as waterproof as a pair of socks, and so wearing them in the winter always just ends with me having wet, cold feet. Plus they are not cute. Not even a little bit. Why do I still own these?

Exhibit C: The Nikes


These shoes are good for running and going to the gym. I will die before I wear them anywhere else.

Exhibit D: The Moon Boots


These are somewhere at my house, I have no idea where, and so far, I have not had any desire to go look. Plus my mom calls me Napoleon whenever I wear them.

Exhibit E: Flip Flops


I would rather not have to loose any of my toes to frost bite thank you.

Exhibit F: The Gladiator Sandals


Fact: I have yet to meet a single person who actually likes these shoes. Plenty of people have said they are "unusual" which is code for "ugly" and plenty of people have said "I like them for you" which is code for "I would never, ever, under any circumstances wear those," but no one actually just likes them. This is the story of my life people. I love them, and I will wear them until they wear out, just try and stop me. Also, not such a great idea for the snow.

Exhibit G: The Campbells soup shoes.


These are actually awesome. I got them at a yard sale in Sun Valley for $20, I've seen them sold for $300. Unfortunately unless you wear those little invisi-socks, which do a good job at being invisible whenever I need to find them, they just look tacky. Also, refer to matching problem mentioned in Exhibit A.

You see my dilemma. I have been thriving off of the soup shoes, finnish boots, and socks that call themselves shoes, for some time now, which means that I basically never match anymore. The other day Chelsea and I went shopping to buy some boots for me, but it is just so hard, when all the shoes that I actually want are calling to me but I must turn them away and buy some that I only semi want. I did manage to get a pair of boots that I must admit, are pretty cute, but I still think I look weird when I wear them.

*sigh* the trials I endure.

Finals

Not being in class makes me feel like I am already on break, and even though I know that I still have to take all my finals, it would seem that the horrible stress monster missed that memo and has left on vacation, leaving me alone. hooray!!! I have taken three of my six finals so far, and maybe it's just the lack of Mr. Monster's presence, but they have basically been the best finals ever. 

Let me explain.

Final #1 Aerobic Dance

Last Wednesday, at 10:55 am I was innocently sitting at work in the Benson building, when I received a call from Chelsea who informed me that our final was closing in five minutes. 'WHAT?!?!' I thought, 'I haven't even studied at all, I thought it wasn't even open until next week!' So in an effort to not fail aerobic dance I literally ran over to the testing center and got my card swiped exactly 45 seconds before 11 o'clock. As I sat down I felt a little panicky, Chelsea had been talking to a girl from our class who had gotten something around 70. No way would I ever be able to show my face again on BYU campus if I failed an aerobic dance final, or even got something lower than an A in a half credit exercise class! Fortunately for me, I am just so very brainy, that I whizzed through that 70 question test in less than 15 minutes, and got a 94%. You may all address me as Genius from now on.

Alright, alright. So maybe this final never had any teeth anyway, I took step aerobics twice in high school and this was basically the exact same thing. You are still free to call me Genius though. But still, no studying=no stress and good grade=happiness. An excellent final if I do say so myself.

Final #2 French 201

This final, unlike marshmallowy soft aerobic dance, did have teeth. Large, sharp, flesh-ripping teeth (wait, I'm confused, am I talking about the french faculty or my final? Just kidding Viva la France! ) Anyway, I did study a little for this test, though probably not as much as I should have. I would say that I was about a 7.5 on the 1-10 ready scale, but the time came this afternoon, and ready or not I had to go take it. And so I did. I am pleased to report that it was definitely the most enjoyable final I have taken in my young life. It was really quite a picnic.

Some people use the phrase "It was quite a picnic" to explain how easy and enjoyable an activity was for them. Do not be misled, I am not using this term because the French Faculty Test Writers decided to look deep within the cockles of their hearts where they found a small bit of warmth and joy that caused them to write an easy test, because they didn't. Please, not even Christmas brings miracles like that. No, I decided to use that phrase because my french test was literally a picnic. Chelsea brought a fair-sized box full of assorted cookies that her mother sent her, and I brought my hot chocolate maker with tea-cups and saucers. We plugged it into the wall, added some water from a water bottle, hot chocolate powder, and then snacked away for the next three hours that it took us to finish. (yeah, three hours) My teacher now officially thinks we are insane, but really, what else is new. Plus, he graded our written part of the test while we were there, and I did pretty darn well for a 7.5 ranking if I do say so myself. 

Final #3 Pattern Making

Ah, this class caused me more more anxiety that I had anticipated, but even though it was the least enjoyable of my finals, it wasn't something from the underworld. For this class we have two finals one that we took last friday, and one that we will take next friday (at five o'clock grumble grumble) The one that I took already was for flat pattern making, where we were we were given some measurements and then had to use them (and the technique that was supposed to be stored in our brains) to draft a basic pattern piece for a skirt and a sleeve. Flat pattern is not my specialty and after reading the instructions I knew that I was going to have to fudge the technique a little, so in went the ipod, on came Batman's soundtrack and out came a basic skirt sloper that, looked pretty close to what it was supposed to. And if it was wrong, it's only going to be by like 1/8 of an inch anyway. The second part that we had to do, was not quite so pleasant. The instructions were something along the lines of, "make a pattern and facing for a sailor collar, that has a 5/8" button on the extension." I could not for the life of me remember what the heck a sailor collar looked like in the front. I spent several minutes trying to envision every sailor in every movie I had ever seen, and eventually did remember what it was that I was supposed to be creating, but then I had to figure out how the hay day to put buttons on it. I was pretty close to falling into the depths of despair, but let me just tell you, trying to imagine buttons on a sailor collar could keep anyone happy. Let me describe what it would look like to you. Hideous. Ridiculous. Ridicule worthy. Yes that is basically it. So I kind of just laughed my way through that bit, and even if it was horrible, it is over now, and I don't ever have to do it again, so HA!

So yes, so far not so bad. But now I do actually have to go study, so I will say au revoir!

Snow

Things I love about snow:

1. It is beautiful.

2. I don't care what sunshine state you are from, it just makes the Christmas season better.

3. It makes everything so quiet.

4. When the snowflakes fly up and over your car as you are driving.

5. Winter fashion.

6. Skiing, even though my skills are still a little sketchy.

7. Making forts.

8. Looking out large windows and seeing it fall. 

9. Looking at snowflakes when they land on your coat.

10. When it covers everything and you can't see where the grass meets the sidewalk. 

11. Being the first one to walk in it.

Things I do not love about snow:

1. Cold.

2. Scraping my windshield.

3. Those horrible heart stopping moments when you tell your car to break but it doesn't.

4. Cold

5. Getting snow in your car every time you open the door.

6. Cold

7. The footwear it requires

8. Slippery ground. Even if I was wearing police boots with half inch rubber tread, I would still be afraid of slipping.

9. That it can never snow enough for Provo City School District to call a snow day. 

10. Trees dumping snow on your head

It looks like even with reasons 1, 4, and 6, on the negative list, I still have more things that I like about snow :) Looks like it's a keeper. 

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!

Dear Blog Readers,

I am sorry to inform you that for the next two weeks I will not be updating very often. 

I'm going to be a little busy.

*sigh* If only. Unfortunately, my real plans look a little closer to this:

Have a good week for me. 

Sincerely,

Alexis Hales

Alexis and The Pearl

Once upon a time there was a girl named Alexis who drove a PT Cruiser named The Pearl. The Pearl was a good little car. Other than his slight attitude problem that sometimes caused him to direct snarky comments at his wonderful, glamorous owner, he and Alexis got along quite nicely.

One day, as Alexis was driving around Provo, her car started to beep at her. At first she worried, but then she saw it was only the gas light, so she ignored it continued driving, the gas light is no reason to fret.

"Um, are you going to do something about that?" asked The Pearl.

"Why on earth would I?" glamorous Alexis replied. 

If it had been possible for The Pearl to roll his eyes in disgust, he would have. Unfortunately he doesn't have any eyes, and his headlights were stationary, so instead he just decided to be snarky. "Fool! Didn't that horrible auto class that you had to take in high school teach you anything? Cars need gas to run!"

Alexis rolled her eyes, just because she could, and then answered, "I don't really remember much other than being forced to wear those grease monkey jumpsuits and safety goggles."

"Fool!" answered The Pearl, "Do you really feel the desire to let me die on the side of the road and be forced to call someone to bring some fuel to revive me?"

"Stop calling me fool. I am your master, and no I wouldn't want to call someone. I would just leave you there to rot. I've about had enough of your attitude anyway."

Rather than eat some humble pie, The Pearl decided to dish a threat. "If you let me die I'm taking the pirate medallion, key and Mickey Mouse antenna decoration with me."

"You wouldn't..."

"Try me."

Alexis tried to keep her poker face on, but that last threat had hit a soft spot. She winced and then discretely changed her course to head in the general direction of a gas station. "Oh my gosh, I don't even know why you are worried about it, I am way too lucky to run out of gas."

"Give me fuel or I will die on you on purpose." The Pearl threatened, "And you are not even very lucky. I would think that all your parking tickets would have taught you that."

"I prefer to believe that one of BYU's parking police is madly in love with me and stalks me wherever I go." 

It was then that Alexis' rather snarky vehicle decided it was time to play all his cards, and brought up one of Alexis' secret deep dark fears. "What if you are driving up a steep hill with no shoulder and you run out of gas? What will you do then?"

"Blast." said Alexis. She knew she was beat. 

As Alexis and The Pearl pulled into the Stadium Chevron Alexis was pleased to note that gas now only costs $1.68. "Hooray!" she said, "gas is cheap cheap cheap again!"

"Hooray!" said The Pearl, "now you can afford to buy premium!" 

"Not on your life." replied Alexis, "I'm not feeding you liquid gold. We're going for regular."

"Let me have the good stuff or I will be mean to you!" demanded The Pearl.

"I'm sure I'll get over it." sassed Alexis, as she stepped from the nice warm interior of her car out into the frigid wind of December. 'Brrrr' she thought. 'The Pearl had better be grateful, I'll probably catch hypothermia out here waiting for him to drink his fill.' It was then that Alexis had the brilliant idea to sit inside her car while waiting for it to fill up. She attempted to open the passenger door, but to her dismay, she discovered that it was locked. 'Silly silly.' she thought, 'I will go sit in the drivers seat I guess.' but then she looked through the window and saw that that door was locked as well. She reached in her pockets to whip out her keys, but came up with only half a movie ticket, a nickel and a gum wrapper. It was then that she spotted the keys sitting serenely on the dashboard.

'Crap.' Thought Alexis.

She slowly walked up to The Pearl and pressed her face on the glass. "Let me in." she demanded.

"Nope." replied The Pearl rather smugly. "I told you I wanted Premium."

"I hate you"Alexis muttered. She then decided to call someone to come bring her spare keys. Unfortunately, the previous inventory of her pockets had not included her cell phone so it looked like she was going to have to ask the station attendant to use theirs. 

This turned out not to be such a fantastic idea. The poor gas station attendant lady who was wearing a lot more eye shadow than Alexis thought was necessary, was on her first day on the job, and when Alexis told her of her plight she looked horrified. Had she done something wrong that had led this patron to lock her keys in her car? Would she be sued? Would she be fired? These questions all ran across Ms. Eyeshadow's face as she contemplated her doom that had come to her in the form of a BYU co-ed at risk for hypothermia. Alexis reassured her that she just needed to call her mom and so Ms. Eyeshadow made an attempt to hand her the gas station's phone. Uh oh, the cord wouldn't reach! Had she done something wrong that prevented the cord from being long enough? Would she be sued? Would she be fired? Again the fear raced across her face and Alexis knew that if she presented one more unsolvable problem, Ms. Eyeshadow would end up in cardiac arrest. She knew she had to phrase her next question carefully. "Is there another phone I could use perchance?" she asked barley daring to peek at the woman. Fortunately there was, and Alexis used it. 

After ten minutes of people passing the phone around, Alexis' mom finally got on the line, and said that she would be there in a moment. A moment in the language of Alexis' family, turned out to be more like 20 minutes. It was during this waiting time that Alexis had the privilege of meeting the rest of Ms. Eyeshadow's family. The very small, junk food filled room that had previously held only Alexis, Ms. Eyeshadow, and a rather large amount of awkward silence, was soon filled with a clan of several rambunctious children and their supervisor, Ms. Eyeshadow's brother. 

"Hey mommy! Why are you here all alone?" asked clan member number one.

"This is a job that only needs one person." Ms. E responded. 'yeah.'  thought Alexis, 'but and a standby with a defibrillator might not be such a terrible idea.' 

"It's because it is such a small room." Replied the long-haired-lacking-in-personal-hygiene-brother. "And besides, she isn't here all alone, this girl is here too." he added flicking his hair in Alexis' direction. Then he asked, "Are you waiting to pay?"

"Oh someone else is here!" shouted clan member number two, "I didn't even see her standing there! Maybe she is a vampire!" (what?)

"Maybe she's a ghost who haunts the gas station" said clan member number three, feeling the need to add her two cents.

"Ummm, no, my keys got locked in my car and I am waiting for the spares to show up." Alexis muttered, not quite sure who she was directing her answer to. 

"What car is it?" Asked the long-haired brother. "I could break into it if you want me to." 

Alexis considered this option for about .076 seconds and then politely responded with a "No thanks, my mom is already bringing my extra keys." She kept the part in which she asked where he learned how to break into cars, to herself. After the clan members received prepackaged bags of sugar, Alexis was about to decide that maybe the exterior elements and hypothermia, were not such a bad option after all. Fortunately for her, it was at this very moment, that her mother arrived to save the day. 

Alexis walked back to The Pearl and unlocked the doors. "I will sell you for scrap if you ever do that again." she said.

The Pearl just smirked. "I love you too."

P.S.

As I read over my last post, I come to the conclusion that even though most of the time I am laid back and relatively not too stressed, I do suffer from brief bouts of it.

The only problem with this is that I tend to blog during the outbreaks.

So, since I know you were all horribly worried about me having to actually do some homework and *gasp!* study... you will be pleased to know that I have been sucking it up quite nicely and hardly even stressing over it. I'm even almost not despising every minute that I remain cursed under the rule of my business class group project. Almost. 

Something that made me very happy today is Mati's blog entitled I Laughed. It is the greatest story of all time. I have a link to her blog Violet Hill over on the side and you should go read it right now. It really is quite a hoot.

If I had a Genie I Would Wish...

Not for an infinite amount of money.

Not for world peace.

Not for the ability to fly.

Not to have a photographic memory,

or to have James Franco ask me on a date. 

I would wish to skip the next three weeks. 

But...since I seem to have mislaid my genie somewhere, it looks like I'm just going to have to tough it out. Ahhhhh, but I really don't want to. I don't want to take anymore french tests, or make any more muslin patterns, and I want to be DONE with my cursed business class. But I must keep on truckin, because people do hard things all the time, and even though I wish I was, I am no exception to the rule. 

So a note to everyone. For the next three weeks when I complain to you, tell me to suck it up. It's for my own good. :(