November Kills Things

Quick question. WHEN THE HECK DID IT BECOME NOVEMBER?! This is absolutely RIDICULOUS. The semester is over half over and I don't know where it slipped away to! Literally. It was just October. C'mon calendar, what are you doing...

November sucks. All the fun fall stuff is usually over, now that Halloween has passed. No more corn mazes, no more haunted houses, no more bobbing for apples, no more ghosts and spiderwebs and pumpkins. Much-anticipated Halloween is over, so that's a letdown. To make matters worse, all the leaves are gone too! So much for fall foliage - with all the wind and rain its all just GONE. Summer is dead, and now Fall is too, but we don't even get the good parts of winter yet! Everything is just bare and gray and dead. La ti dah, huh?

As long as we are ranting about November, let's talk about Halloween albums on facebook. Like clockwork, they're part of November. In and of themselves they're not a big deal, but there were about a billion and four uploaded today and they just make me angry. Really, world? When did we all get so uncreative? Every single one is the same. If I have to look at another album filled with pictures of red cups and drunken bumblebees pushed up against boys in sombreros I might puke.

Girls especially have gotten really uncreative for Halloween. Girls were all either a "police officer", a "superhero", a "cat", or a slut. (Oops wait, everyone wore the slut costume this year, pardon my oversight.) The cat one especially gets me. Black lingerie and a couple of skinny squiggles on your cheeks for whiskers hardly counts as "dressing up for Halloween", in my opinion. More like you're dressing down and disrespecting yourself, thereby giving other people license to disrespect you as well. When did wearing the tightest, shortest "clothes" in the world start passing for a "costume" for Halloween? And why do we all just go along with it? It just makes me sad for the human race. I wish Halloween was more than an excuse for getting wasted in someone's basement while wearing underwear. Not classy ladies. Not classy at all.

Guys are at least slightly more creative and not too many of them had to be sewn into their outfits... except for that one guy wearing a thong. Nice, pal. I'm sure you were super warm all weekend. You should be so proud of yourself. Your grandma would be thrilled, I'm sure. Again, super classy. Guy's outfits might not be tight, but they're usually just as inappropriate. Ugh. Sorry to be hating on Halloween so much, it just really rubs me the wrong way.

Before I get too carried away with myself, Halloween isn't all bad. There are genuinely some fun people who did a good job costuming themselves this year. I was a big fan of people who busted into my lecture on Friday dressed up as Mario Kart - um, can you say awesome? They even had balloons sticking to their backs and had a duel in front of the 350 people in class. THAT, my friends, is creativity. Getting together with group costumes were also cool, like the Wizard of Oz, the Harry Potter gang, the rainbow (everyone as a different color) and the Village People (see here)- CREATIVE. Way more fun. Some of my other favorites were people dressed up like Sims (they just had green diamonds attached to their heads like halos- it took me awhile, but I thought that was hilarious), Apples-To-Apples cards, and who knows what else. There was some creativity out there, don't get me wrong.

I just wish there were a few more "referee's" wearing pants instead of heels this weekend, and that I could say the majority of people on my campus were fun and creative for Halloween instead of skanky and stupid. I thought this was a University where we learned things, but apparently not. All we learn about are dumb things (that are probably made up) like phosphate groups and the Golgi Apparatus. Sometimes this city makes me really mad.

November has killed the trees and my morale. BUT! Some things to get excited for:
1) THANKSGIVING!!!! Turkey, here I come. mmmmmhmm yum.
2) Football, football, and more football!! If the Packers can start protecting Aaron Rodgers instead of letting him get pummeled a million times per game and cut back on penalties, this would make November more enjoyable, but I am liking where the season is going. Bring on more football, November
3) getting to wear sweaters
4) Um... is there anything else? This month is just heinous.

Let's go November. Show me what you got.

List Living Explained

Before I go any farther with things on this blog, I think I have a little explaining to do. I hemmed and hawed for awhile about what to name this, and while there is always room for improvement, the title of this blog is "Living By The List". Why, might you ask? Oh, let me tell you. Because I have a List.

I can't pin down exactly when it started. I'm guessing if I had to pick, I would say it started on the last day of 8th grade. Our principal took all us anxious, soon-to-be-high-schoolers to a cemetery near my grade school, made us sit down, and then did a little Professor. Keating re-enactment from the movie Dead Poet's Society (a movie that is definitely on one of my other Lists, my Top 10 Movies List). Later, when I found this was not a "Mr. Willie Original Teaching Moment", this passage from the film became really important to me and foundational for how I do things:

"We are food for worms, lads. Believe it or not, each and every one of us in this room is one day going to stop breathing, turn cold, and die. I would like you to peruse some of the faces from the past. You've walked by them many times but I don't think you've really looked at them.

They're not that different from you, are they? Same haircuts. Full of hormones, just like you. Invincible, just like you feel. The world is their oyster. They believe they are destined for great things, just like many of you. Their eyes are full of hope, just like you. Did they wait until it was too late to make from their lives even one iota of what they were capable? Because you see, gentlemen, these boys are now fertilizing daffodils.

If you listen real close, you can hear them whisper their legacy to you. Go on, lean in. Listen. Do you hear it?"

As the boys curiously lean in toward the glass case, Professor Keating whispers in their ears, "Car-pe. Car-pe. Carpe Diem. Seize the day, boys! MAKE YOUR LIVES EXTRAORDINARY!"

Inspirational, right? This Carpe Diem thing really held merit for me. Life is short - tomorrow you could easily, easily get hit by a bus. Or the world could end. You could get hit with a meteorite, contract a flesh eating bacteria, or even have a freak brain aneurysm and just drop dead. All the things on your List entitled "Do Tomorrow" would never get done, and how would you be remembered? Blame it on my weird morbidity, but always considering the "what if's" in life had a positive effect: it gave birth to the List.

I have a List of 250 Things To Do Before I Die. It's gradually evolving, and while I say I have 250 things on the list, only about 200 actually exist. There are slots for 250 - I keep thinking up new things to add - and to be honest, I have my work cut out for me.

It's a pretty idealistic List, but why have it any other way? We only get this life once. (Cliche', I know, yet true). God gave us Earth, and while sometimes it might kind of suck, it's also pretty amazingly incredible sometimes. Most times, actually. Why not? ( I hope you have the Hilary Duff song stuck in your head now... and if you don't, click here. I know its the shallowest, most cotton-candy thing in the world... but the girl has a point!)

As a prospective English major-type, I'm really into books. Paper. Words. I love it. I eat it up. Yum, literature. Therefore, there are two texts I live my life by: The Bible and my List. The Bible gives me so much - it gives me all the secrets to true happiness and contentment, tells me about Someone who loved me, Katie, enough to die for me so I get to go to heaven, and even gives me Lists of rules and guidelines to follow while I'm here on Earth! Hence: List Living. I'm trying to live by the Book, following His Lists for my life, all the while to Carpe Diem every day and fulfill my own List for as long as I'm alive in this world.

So! Here you go! This is The List. If you have any ideas for me to add that you don't see on here, let me know - I have 50 spots to fill. Also if you ever feel like helping me accomplish any of these goals, you have no idea how excited I would be to check one off with you! :)

250 Things To Do Before I Die
(in no particular order)

- = unaccomplished
x = accomplished
\ = technically accomplished, but I can do better

- 1. Go skydiving (I cannot, cannot wait)
\ 2. Hike a mountain (I've hiked bunches of them on family trips and such, but part of me wants to climb something intense - like Mt. Kilamanjaro. Something. So this one is only half accomplished)
X 3. Get my driver's license (accomplished August of 2006. I got 14 points taken off for hitting the curb)
- 4. Drive a motorcycle
X 5. Shoot a gun (March 2009. Thanks to David from Morristown, TN! What a great birthday present)
- 6. Go hunting
- 7. Go on a hot air balloon ride
X 8. Go whitewater rafting (June 2006. Class 4 rapids I think)
\ 9. Go waterskiing (I used to do this all the time as a kid, but my good friend Justin took me waterskiing a couple of times this semester and I COULDN'T GET UP TO SAVE MY LIFE! So I need to work on this)
- 10. Go downhill skiing
- 11. Go ice skating while holding MITTENED hands (The mittens are the most important part. Holding hands romantically with mittens while ice skating)
- 12. Write a book and publish it (This is one of the most important ones)
- 13. Learn guitar
- 14. Perform at a coffeeshop (Either: singing, playing guitar, doing a poetry reading, etc. Basically I want to be like Phoebe from Friends)
- 15. Try out for American Idol
X 16. Sing a solo in church (6th Grade. St. Pauls. "Though I May Speak With Bravest Fire" - I had a verse haha)
- 17. Tell someone I have feelings for them (To their face. I can say it in print. Just not to their face, ever. So scary, you know?)
- 18. Ride on a camel ( preferably not at a zoo, in Egypt or something)
- 19. Ride on an elephant ( again, in India or somewhere exotic... maybe could settle for a circus but would prefer not to)
- 20. Ride in a racecar (like a NASCAR car)
X 21. Jump on a moving tractor(June Dairy Breakfast, June 2009)
- 22. (secret)
- 23. Have one child - experience giving birth
- 24. Be a foster parent (not forever, but kids really need good homes. Bad things happen. I want to help)
- 25. Be completely blind for a day (They did this once in a National Geographic experiment)
- 26. Fast for 3 days (literally, eat absolutely no food. I don't think I can do that even for one day)
- 27. Sit in one spot for a whole day, sunup to sundown and observe the world
- 28. Go skinny dipping
X 29. Smoke a cigar (May 2009! Thanks West Virginia Trip - specifically Brian Joers)
X 30. Get a severe haircut (May 2009. That was short)
- 31. Go on a cruise
- 32. Visit the Lourve museum (Man I love museums)
- 33. Fall in love
- 34. Go cliff-diving
- 35. Go cow-tipping
- 36. Climb to the top of AG hall (On the UW Campus...there is a fire escape the whole way up the back)
- 37. Have a typical awkward date kiss in a movie theater
\ 38. Be on TV (I've been on the news three times but I'm angling for a reality or game show)
- 39. Be in a movie
- 40. Experience being drunk (Post 21... I just want to know what that feels like. Once. Then I'm good. Because God says not to do it, and its usually a good idea to listen to Him)
- 41. Get a tattoo
- 42. Speak up in a large lecture hall (preferably by saying something profound, but asking a question would work too)
- 43. Go to office hours (I've just never gone. I don't know why. Probably because I hate asking questions)
- 44. Kiss in the rain
X 45. Climb a tall tree by myself (May 2009. Great stress reliever)
- 46. Kayak in the ocean
- 47. Go to Alaska
- 48. See the pyramids in Egypt
- 49. Visit Israel
- 50. See the opera house in Sydney, Australia
X 51. Crash a wedding (Stevens Point, July 2009. Congrats Steve and Jen, or whatever your names were...)
- 52. Visit all 50 states (I still need Oregon, Arizona, Louisiana, Alaska, and Hawaii)
- 53. Sail a boat on Lake Michigan
- 54. In New York City, attend either the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade or see the ball drop in Times Square
- 55. Kiss a stranger
X 56. Go to the ballet (December 2004. The Nutcracker)
- 57. See the Amazon river
- 58. VISIT ENGLAND (lots of sub-goals here: see Big Ben, the Tower London, palace guard, Cantebury, Stonehenge, the Globe Theater, etc. and etc. and etc... I want to study abroad there so badly!)
- 59. Get a street named after me
- 60. Go backpacking somewhere
- 61. Get proposed to fantastically
- 62. Write a legitimate song and get it recorded by someone (I write a lot of songs, actually)
- 63. Have a candlelit dinner
- 64. Graduate college
- 65. Build a legitimate fort (none of these wussy blanket creations. I'm thinking in a tree)
- 66. Design OR personalize my own house (windowseats are kind of a must)
- 67. Learn some other language besides Spanish
- 68. Own a car
- 69. Own a dog (name him/her NUTMEG)
- 70. Learn how to play the harp
- 71. Grow out my fingernails so that they are feminine
- 72. LEARN HOW TO WHISTLE
- 73. Run something (like a 5K... maybe a marathon)
- 74. Visit Rome during Holy Week
- 75. Experience an eclipse
- 76. Paint a room
- 77. Effectively give blood (I've tried... 4 times. No dice. Slow pulses and hidden veins suck)
- 78. Donate plasma
- 79. Go hangliding
- 80. Surf in the ocean
- 81. Learn how to burp on command (even though I hate burping)
- 82. Go streaking
- 83. See the Grand Canyon
- 84. See Niagara Falls
- 85. Go to Paris (THE EFFIEL TOWER)
- 86. Eat gelato in Italy
- 87. See the Sistene Chapel
- 88. See Norte Dame (take a picture posing like a hunchback)
X 89. Buy bright red lipstick (October 2007)
X 90. Get asked on a date (April 2008)
- 91. Dance on a bar
- 92. Get kicked out of somewhere
- 93. Go to a Packer Game
- 94. Never wear orthopedic shoes (This will be the last thing checked off - so I won't finish this List until I die. Bummer, eh?)
- 95. Sew an article of clothing that I can wear
X 96. Throw someone a surprise birthday party (Ashley Sankey, April 2009)
- 97. Fly a kite on the beach
- 98. Get serenaded from my bedroom window
- 99. Make a HUGE sandcastle (requirement of at least 4 feet)
- 100. Fly a plane
- 101. Experience weightlessness
X 102. Eat a six scoop ice cream cone (May 2007)
X 103. Get a manicure (September 2006)
- 104. Live through a really dangerous storm
- 105. Break a limb doing something cool
- 106. Learn how to rollerblade decently
- 107. Sleep outside with nothing - just me and the ground
- 108. Go fishing in the dark (like in that one country song)
- 109. Attempt to beat a world record
-110. Ride on an ATV
- 111. Go snowmobiling
- 112. Go snorkeling
- 113. Go on a carnival date (cotton candy, the guy wins you a teddy bear, cuddling on the Ferris Wheel, you get the picture)
- 114. Go on a carriage ride through a city
- 115. Be part of a band
- 116. Shake hands with the current President
- 117. (secret)
- 118. Pierce something ridiculous
- 119. Be a maid of honor
- 120. Go clubbing
- 121. Ride horses through open fields (Not a trail ride – I want to gallop)
- 122. Live with natives - like in Brazil (just for like a day)
- 123. Build something out of wood (like a coffee table. Or a bookshelf)
- 124. Get flowers delivered
- 125. (secret)
- 126. Wait until I'm 21 to start drinking
- 127. Stage a protest for/against something
- 128. Save someone's life dramatically
X 129. Eat sushi (kind of accomplished in January 2009, but truly accomplished in October 2009)
- 130. Eat caviar
- 131. Live to see age 50
- 132. See Mt. Everest (I don't need to climb it, just see it)
- 133. Go on an African safari
- 134. Visit Hong Kong
- 135. See the Great Wall of China
- 136. Attend the Olympics (for extra credit I could attempt to win a medal in something... curling maybe?)
X 137. Buy sassy underwear (March 2007)
- 138. Play one song on the piano well
- 139. Do the splits (post age 14)
X 140. Hold a snake (July 2009 - Soko!)
- 141. See Michael Buble' in concert
X 142. Get my name in the newspaper (April 2004)
- 143. Swim (or float) in the Dead Sea
- 144. Set foot in every continent (Antarctica is optional)
- 145. (secret)
- 146. Read the whole Bible through at least once
- 147. Go to Cancun
- 148. Go to New Zealand
X 149. Go to the symphony (October 2009)
- 150. Go to a WWE match OR a monster truck show (something very blue collar)
- 151. Take my kids to National Parks (like my parents did with me!)
- 152. Meet 5 celebrities (I got 3 down: Matt Thiessen, Phil Vassar, and Kenny Rodgers. 2 to go)
- 153. Sneak backstage something
- 154. Go to one insanely glamorous party (with celebrities, where they hand out $500 gift bags)
- 155. Visit Hollywood
- 156. Go to Boston
- 157. Visit where Martin Luther nailed the 95 theses to that church door
- 158. Eat Belgian chocolate in Belgium (optional - meet a Belgian chocolateer)
- 159. Watch someone die (morbid, but before I die I want to see what it looks like...)
- 160. Set someone up (marriage, preferably, but dating would be acceptable)
- 161. Visit the Jelly Belly Factory
- 162. Eat at Hooters
- 163. Watch TV for 24 hours straight
- 164. Play guitar/sing on a streetcorner (half hour time minimum)
- 165. Eat at one incredibly nice restaurant like the Waldorf-Astoria
- 166. Go to Moscow
- 167. Watch my kid(s) get married
- 168. Spend St. Patrick's day in Ireland
- 169. Obtain a meaningful profession
- 170. Date someone foreign (this one is sort of optional... if it doesn't happen I won't be crushed)
- 171. Watch the sun rise on frozen Lake Mendota with Ashley Sankey
- 172. Hold hands for real romantically (with someone I actually like... I highly enjoy hand-holding)
- 173. Start a fire literally just with sticks
- 174. Raft down the Mississippi (like in Huckleberry Finn)
- 175. Be on a luge/bobsled (Just one ride)
X 176. Go to prom (May 2008)
X 177. Graduate high school (June 2008)
X 178. Go to a hookah bar (September 2009)
X 179. Go on the highest rollercoaster in America (May 2009)
X 180. Go to Disneyworld AND Disneyland (June 2001 and March 2008)
- 181. Visit Norway - the Fatherland
- 182. (secret)
- 183. Don't dye my hair until age 30
- 184. Prank call someone GOOD
- 185. Squeeze out a whole tube of toothpaste
- 186. Pull the fire alarm/use a fire extinguisher
- 187. Sing kareoke in a kareoke bar
- 188. Ride on the subway
X 189. Give someone my number (WTL, April 2009)
- 190. Eat a raw egg
- 191. Implied, but get married
X 192. Go tanning (April 2009)
- 193. Do the Polar Plunge in Milwaukee
X 194. Shave someone's head (July 2009 - Thanks Andrew!)
- 195. Get a shoutout or 2nd Chance in the Badger Herald (The student newspaper)
- 196. Be a "regular" somewhere
- 197. (secret)
X 198. Go to a "real" party (October 2009)
- 199. Slide down a banister
X 200. Visit the State Capitol (September 2009)
- 201. Skateboard at a skate park

Trying Again

I just re-read that first blog posting and, as usual, I am completely horrified at how juvenile it sounds. I have a love/hate relationship with re-reading things I write - I love to see how much I hate it, typically. :) Every day I feel so different than the day before, its hard to learn who I really am or what I really think about things in life. I wrote that last post in February, and already I hardly know the girl that wrote that. What is it now, October? February, March... that's 9 months ago already. NINE MONTHS! So very many things have changed since then. As they always do. But these nine months have been especially speedy with the whole change factor- My whole world feels like someone pressed the "fast forward" button on the video that is my life, then walked into the kitchen for a snack and forgot that the VCR was racing ahead. If I listed all the changes the last nine months have brought you would probably have to sit here for at least 20 years, reading them all. You'd also probably laugh your butt off, but don't worry, I won't do that to you. :)



I think it's time to start blogging again. (Not that I ever really started before... ha one post hardly counts, agreed?) I'm going to try again. In those last 9 months, I tried to do a lot of things. Some things succeeded magnificently and others totally flopped, but when life flops out on you, you just have to pick everything up and try again. That's how Edison made a lightbulb, right? And think about the book "The Little Engine That Could". (Haha, its one of my favorites) He had to try a lot of times to get up that mountain, and he eventually did. We might all struggle with things, but one of these days we're going to get up that mountain, just you wait and see. I'll get over the mountain of starting a blog and maybe some things that are mountains in my life as well, eh? "I think I can, I think I can..."

Everything Changes

So this is my first blog post of my life. whoot. I dunno how I feel about this whole thing - "blogging" and all. I'm an aspiring writer and I therefore obviously love to write... and I like to write most about myself. I was working on this book for awhile that was basically a dramatization of my life, but I've since given up on it. Maybe I'll let you read it sometime. Nevertheless, blogging seems perfect for me then... I get to write about myself and you get to just sit back and read all about my trivial life. My Poli Sci professor from last semester said that blogging was the next "new frontier" and that pretty soon everyone would have one - kind of like Facebook, I guess - so I decided to hop on this.

Blogging is such a new thing. Well, maybe not NEW. People have been doing it for awhile. But it's really new to me. All of a sudden, all my friends have been asking me "hey, did you read my blog?" to which I of course answered "no, what in the world is this?" I didn't think many people had a blog... and to be honest, I kind of thought they were only for selfish people so they could broadcast their lives to other people without having to actually interact with them... and yet here I sit, joining in the selfish blogfest phenomenon. A lot of things change.

Speaking of change, I was sitting in my astronomy class today and someone asked about why Pulto isn't a planet anymore, and I quite frankly wanted to know too. I thought that was so mean of the astronomy community - how DARE you make little, lonely Pluto believe it is a planet for I don't even know how many year and then BAM, they strip Pluto of his title (Pluto definitely seems like a boy and not a girl to you, am I right? Neptune could maybe be a girl, Uranus is definitely a guy, c'mon now... Jupiter is a boy, Saturn seems like a girl, and Mars is a boy. Venus is a girl, Mercury, hmmm.... Mercury is a boy I suppose. That's kind of a toughie because it's little so it could be feminine... whatever. And I don't know about the Earth - everyone says Earth is like "Mother Nature" and all that crap so I guess it should be womanly, but I think Earth is neutral. Totally neutral. Wow, how was THAT for a random aside? Anyways, back to poor poor Pluto...) But the way my TA described it was that if we classified Pluto as a planet, we just created a new telescope that would also make like 30 other things planets and that would be super difficult to remember. So I suppose stripping Pluto of his title was necessary, but I think we ought to give him like an "Honorary Planet" distinction of some type.

Other things are changing, so rapidly. As a friend of mine reminded me today, Brett Favre is retiring for realsies this time. For REAL. (You have to understand I am a tried-and-true Packer's fan, and so I have a lot of emotions connected to this issue.) Hanging up the cleats, shrugging off the beloved #4 jersey and throwing his feet up on a plush couch somewhere, Brett Favre is really done with football. What is happening to the world? 10 years ago Pluto was a planet, Brett Favre was a football god instead of a washed up hero who doesn't know when to quit, America wasn't in a war on terror, Titanic was a smash hit (I watched that this weekend - that is a top-notch movie!), my mom didn't have cancer, and I was a mere 4th grader. Oh how things change!

Yikes that was kind of a downer first post... but you can't blame me because its Monday. I'm allowed to be kind-of a downer. I'll try and think of something far more upbeat for next time...