i can do hard things

So a friend of mine asked me if I could alter her pants because it was too big around her hips. I've never done this type of altering before. I knew in theory how to do it, but i've never done it before. So with that I told her I'd try, but hopefully just the theory of it would help me out.

They turned out perfectly.

And I got paid to do alterations--do you know how wierd that is? I guess I could make a career out of my sewing skills. :)

Firebolt

This made me laugh. Divine Comedy is hilarious!

I Can't Believe It

I'm actually buying something from ModCloth! I've been swooning over this suit for ages, and I'm using some of my birthday money to get it. I'm sooooo excited to have a cute swimsuit that I can hang out at the pool in all summer long.

And it has polka-dots :)

Speaking about Parachute

This song is beautiful. He is beautiful. I totally forgot how good this band is.

I Don't Need a Parachute

I love Ingrid's hair. And I like the song though it is so different than her normal music.

Frills and Flounces and Ruffles. Oh My!

So for an early birthday present/end of the school year/rocking my finals sort of present I bought myself this book.

I got home last week and saw the package sitting on my table and I ripped the box open and immediately started to devour the pictures/info. All I want now is to design a big dress and make it. My only problem is I have no where to where a big frilly dress too. Sad day. But I may just make one anyway.

Blessed

I feel so very, very blessed. I know that Heavenly Father answers prayers. I have a roof over my head, food in my belly, and I was able to find a job--within a week after my old job closed. I'll be working at Veg Prep at my university--basically chopping up vegetables and prepping hot entrees and other salads for catering. I was so worried that I wouldn't find a job before I left for Disney World this fall for my internship, but I'm so glad that I was blessed.

This Thing We Call the Internet

So I haven't got on the internet since Saturday simply because my computer wasn't on and I was too lazy to turn it on. Getting on this morning I checked my email to find my inbox flooded (normally I stay on top of it and it's never bad at all), my facebook account hacked from Singapore (don't worry, facebook froze my account until I verified that I am who I am--after a very large questionaire and a password change, I'm fine), and a job interview from one of the places I applied too (good thing I can stop by today sometime, but that means I have to go back to my apartment to change into something more interview appropiate, my t-shirt and jeans that I'm wearing just won't cut it). Isn't crazy that you can disappear from the cyber world for 3 days and already I'm so behind on all of my stuff. Oh well.

On a happier note: the royal wedding is this weekend and all of my roommates are getting up at 4:30 in the morning to watch it. Doesn't that sound like fun?

Celebration!

I just got a half tuition scholarship for next year! Woot!

Because I Love Beautiful Things

I went to talk to the head costume designer today about being a costume designer. I've been thinking about changing my major lately and I've been playing around with the idea of being a costume designer. She said that chances are I would have to get a masters degree to really go far in the field, but the job is fairly marketable though doesn't pay really well. She gave me some things to do this summer in the costume shop at my university for some experience. But then she asked me a question to help in my indecisiveness: Can you imagine doing anything else?

If I love it enough I can make it work, right? I honestly can't really think of anything that would make me happier. I don't want to sit behind a desk all day, writing and editing papers, as was my original life plan. I want to go out there and create things. But I'm scared. Scared of going against what I've wanted for so long -- though I don't know if I want it anymore. Scared of putting myself and my designs out there and being shut down. Scared of the lack of stability that, if I don't play my cards right, can happen. Scared of the acting classes that I'll have to take as part of the major. Scared of doing anything else.

I'm glad for my eight month long break so I can figure my life out.

Like Loaded Guns

Because I've been a slacker on my blog lately, I'm continuing the tradition by just posting some music that I've been loving lately. Nothing much more.





(This music video is so strange but the song is so fantastic)

It's a Matter of Beauty

The Lady of Shalott, John William Waterhouse, 1888

I was studying this painting tonight as my British Lit class talked about Pre-Raphaelite poetry. I think it's pretty beautiful. The mix of the christian themes and the pagan themes, mixing of earthiness with heaven, mixing realism and legend. The bright colors and patterns, the sensuality as a rejection of Victorian prudishness. Looking back at Shakespeare, at Keats, at King Arthur, at the Bible because the painters world was filled with smoke stacks and gray horizons and the wish to avoid the realistic world though its full of realistic details. Beautiful.

The Library Can Feel Like a Dungeon

So last Saturday I was doing research and the book I needed was in Special Collections. If you've never been to Special Collections, let me tell you--it's pretty different. You fill out all of this paperwork and they lock, yes lock, you in a room with only a few scraps of paper and a pencil. I stayed there for two hours going over this book called The Dungeon of the Heart: Human Isolation and the American Novel. So there I was, by myself (everyone else was at Saturday's basketball game), locked in a room, reading a depressing book on isolationism in the bowels of the library.

Ironic, isn't it?

And the book was from the 1960's, not that old at all. I don't know why it was even in Special Collections.

Reading

Since my life is being swarmed with papers and reading assignments right now, I just thought I'd post on everything that I'm reading.





I'm also reading other various pieces from Christina Rosetti, Edgar Allen Poe, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Frederick Douglas, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Lord Alfred Tennyson, and Robert Browning.

Pure Love

To be perfectly honest I haven't thought a lot about Valentines Day this year. I guess it has a lot to do with the fact that I don't have a Valentine and the fact that I've never had a Valentine. The day just doesn't hold any meaning. But I was in my yoga class today and we were talking about love and how really Valentines Day was just a day to celebrate charity--the pure love of Christ. As we went through our yoga practice my instructor kept on telling us that we need to open up more and love ourselves because only then we can love others as much as Christ loved them.

We need to give ourself permission to accept our faults and our weaknesses and to realize that we have them and love ourselves enough to work through them. We also need to recognize our strengths. And not just solely what strengths and weaknesses my body has as I know i can't quite move or stretch as other people can. It's also how balanced we are in our emotional, spiritual, and social lives. I need to give myself permission to love more freely and accept my weaknesses.

This is why I love yoga. I get to focus on what's good and bad about me, reflect on what I need to work on. I love that I feel so free afterwards--my body is limber and flexible and I can conquer the world. I get to focus on my relationship with others and my relationship with myself and my relationship with my Savior.

After class a girl then said that for this Valentines Day she was going to have Christ as her Valentine.

I think I'd like that too.

Swoon-Worthy

So I decided that I am very bad. In my British Literature class last week a girl gave a presentation on Emma (since it was the book we just finished) and showed a clip from the new 2009 Emma. Since she pulled it up on youtube, I saw that the entire four hour long movie was online. I wanted to go the library that very night and plug my headphones in and watch it, but I finished my George Herbert paper instead. Then I edited, studied for a test, did everything I was supposed to. But I watched it today. And I should have been working on my paper on Keats and Coleridge and the nature of a poet. No regrets though.
It was beautiful.



I do have to say that the men in this movie were especially swoon-worthy.
Mr. Knightly:




And Mr. Churchill


Did you notice that Frank Churchill was also Frederick Hale off of North and South?

I'll Follow You

I love this song. For some reason it reminds me of Tangled. Don't ask me why. I don't know. It just does.

Caught in the Crowd

We listened to this song today in my theater class while we were talking about visual elements and writing visual analysis. But I think I just fell in love with the song.

Redemption

I forgot to take pictures yesterday and today, though I did wear a skirt all day long. Anyway. I just wanted to share this poem that I'm writing a paper on. I love this poem. It makes me so incredibly happy. It's just so beautiful.

Redemption
By George Herbert

Having been tenant long to a rich Lord,
Not thriving, I resolvèd to be bold,
And make a suit unto him to afford
A new small-rented lease and cancel th'old.
In Heaven at his manor I him sought.
They told me there that he was lately gone
About some land which he had dearly bought
Long since on earth, to take possession,
I straight returned, and knowing his great birth,
Sought him accordingly in great resorts,
In cities, theaters, gardens, parks, and courts.
At length I heard a ragged noise and mirth
Of thieves and murderers; there I him espied,
Who straight "Your suit is granted," said, and died.

Fifth Day

I Love This Song

This song makes me happy.

Fourth Day

Third Day

Second Day

Yes, I'm in the library. At the end of a snowy cold day (which accounts for the flatness of my hair). And no one saw me take these pictures, though the periodicals are packed :). I'm just that good.

How to Embed a YouTube Video

Maybe I'm just stupid, but I didn't know how to do this before last week.

First Day

Day one of wearing a dress every day this week