This is me

Since I got my orange laptop cover at Christmas, it's been my goal to make it look as me as possible. Thus far I seem to be succeeding.

As if a ridiculously orange cover wasn't me enough . . . It's a somewhat eclectic mix, one that I love quite a bit. Whenever I get new stickers, as I did yesterday, I get more excited than I probably should. Yesterday's additions include Rodeo Arcade & Maker.

By far the all-time favorite sticker though is my media pass from the Real Salt Lake home opener earlier this year. One other person on campus has one of those; her name is Taylor and we're journalism BFFs so we covered the game together. The day we went to that game was the day I finally knew without a shadow of a doubt that I wanted to write sports.

Every sticker on here means something to me and represents a little of who I am. Well, except for the random green one. I don't know where I found it even but I thought it looked cool. It's by no means a comprehensive representation of who I am but I like to think people can look at it and learn at least a little bit about my personality. Hopefully they wouldn't think that's all I am, though. When people fail to imagine each other complexly we get into all kinds of trouble.

As I mentioned yesterday I did indeed spend my evening reading The Fault In Our Stars. I read it all. Cover to cover. It was wonderful. I forgot how intense and thought-provoking it was. Though I knew exactly what was going to happen, some of it felt as raw and intriguing as the first time I read it back in January. My favorite part of reading again was probably annotating. I have this weird aversion to writing in books so I use Post-It notes instead. It was probably more brilliant this time around than it was before.

It probably makes things a little inconvenient for others if they borrow my books but such is life.

Last YouTube video I watched: On Leaving [I strongly encourage you watch this video. It's especially worth your time]

My name is Anna and I love "Say Yes To The Dress"

It's true. You can even ask Lorraine and Becca, though I guarantee they're lying if they say my name isn't Anna.

As I write this I'm taking a break from checking BYU football headlines & watching another episode of this crazy show. What an odd combination: college football and wedding dresses.

Way back when in the fall of 2010, Lorraine and I were beginning our sophomore year of college. Somewhere along the way that year she pulled me into Say Yes To The Dress. I don't know how it happened or why it happened but it did. I don't particularly like dress shopping in general and I've never been the kind of girl to plan her dream wedding or even to admire dresses. (Here's a list of things I currently know about my future wedding dress: 1) it will have pockets. That's all. I need pockets. The rest I can figure out later.) There is something strangely intriguing about that show, though. Lorraine and I will lounge on the couch for hours at night watching episode after episode when we can.

When people hear how much I like that show, especially when they already know how much I love sports and generally less-girly things, it confuses them, and rightfully so. I remember in a religion class this past junior year the professor always had us talk amongst ourselves for a few minutes at the beginning of class and then share what we've learned about each other. One morning it was my turn to share w/ the kid I was talking to. The topic that day had been guilty/dark secrets. I chose mine to be that I love Say Yes To The Dress. My classmates thought it was quite a funny mix of interests. It was the second class I'd had w/ this particular professor and he knew my personality fairly well and that I wanted to be a sports journalist. So when he learned that I love a show all about choosing wedding dresses of course he laughed but he was also understanding; his oldest daughter, who is a young teenager, feels the same way I do about sports and Say Yes To The Dress.

That show just doesn't fit w/ my fashion personality, or so you would think. (I still don't get how it does, honestly.) I dress comfortably in jeans and t-shirts about 98% of the time. My preferred footwear includes Birkenstocks, Chacos, Sanuks, and obnoxiously bright sneakers. I have no problems matching my Birks w/ wool socks, especially in the dead of winter, a style a lot of people find to be a little, well, ridiculous. Even when I do dress up nice or fancier I still dress as relaxed as I possibly can. Most of my dresses are made of cotton and very summery, and almost all of them, if not all of them, can be matched w/ bright colored shirts, tights, and cardigans. I love stripes and especially plaid. Either a baseball cap or a beanie is a must on a day-to-day basis; and if I don't have a hat, it's all about my black and neon yellow sunglasses. If I had the money, I'd shop at REI a lot more often. Okay, and I'll be totally honest, if I could, I'd probably stay in soccer shorts and stuff like Brewers t-shirts all the time.

Basically, my fashion sense is all over the place. And I'm pretty sure everything I described above adds up to someone who should not like a show about purchasing ridiculously expensive wedding dresses. But people really are greater than the sum of their parts so it works.

I mean, given the choice between watching basically any sporting event or Say Yes To The Dress I'd most definitely still choose sports. I'm not that crazy.

Last YouTube video I watched: The Middle East, Blood (Live)

Exciting fall plans

So today I set up an interview for a job in the library on campus. It's going to be on Thursday afternoon. I return to Utah Thursday morning. This will be an interesting interview, that's for sure. I'm sure doing interviews on little sleep always end well, right? I'm excited about the possibility to work in the library, though. I think that would solidify my nerdiness forever, as if I needed more help with that.

Other things that will make fall semester great are as follows:

-A hopefully decent football team.

-Road tripping to California w/ Becca for her birthday (CAN YOU SAY DISNEYLAND?!)

-Becca teaching me how to properly drive stick. She might be more excited about this than I am.

-Longboarding down the canyon. I've missed my longboard a great deal this summer. Literally the last day I was in Utah I went w/ my roommate Stacy and our friends Stopher and Joe. It was the perfect way to end spring term but only made me sadder to leave my board behind. Also, I'll most definitely be getting some shave ice w/ Stoph after a longboarding session. It's now a must.

-Living w/ 3 awesome roommates. For the first time ever I know all the people I'm living with and it's going to be wonderful. We all get along in such a great way. It's basically magical.

It's a shame this post couldn't be longer but on account of how it's one minute to midnight I best be ending it here.

Last YouTube video I watched: Instagram - The Musical

Nothing to call my own

I just got back from playing tennis. It was fun, but I was having an off day. As much as I wanted to play, and I really did a lot, I didn't ever feel quite there.

All I managed to do well was think. I spent the morning thinking about how I'm not actually good at any single sport. I love sports, both watching and playing them. But I am legitimately not good at any of them. The only reason I keep playing is because it's fun and I like to, which should be enough and almost always is. I've always known this about myself, that I don't have a sport to call my own, but for some reason today it really didn't sit right with me. I think a lot of people are under the impression that because I love sports so much I must be, like, really good at them. Or at least really good at one of them. This is not the case.

You know how everyone has at least one thing they're just really good at? Yeah, I literally do not have one of those things. I'm not even kidding. I just do a lot of stuff in a generally good way, above mediocrity and possibly above average, but I have no one talent. Today I wanted my one thing to be tennis.

I've lived the last four or five years of my life with the secret mantra of "Fake it till you make it." It took all I had today not to curse up a storm. But instead I pretended it was all fun and good and that I was frustrated only because I wasn't playing well. And it's not like you can stop in the middle of a game and say, "Hey friend, I'm just not feeling it today. How about we talk instead?" That's not how these things work.

The worst part about all of this is that I should be enjoying the long weekend. I should be enjoying the fact that I had a great birthday, one so relaxing. Just yesterday I wrote how I was more relaxed than I had been in months. Not even a day later, I'm completely frustrated. Of all the feelings to feel, why did it have to be sadness? 

“Sad is not something I like to be. I’d choose angry or bored or lonely or sick or stabbed-repeatedly-in-the-kneecap-with-toothpicks over Sad. Being sad makes me feel… pathetic? Or needy? Or like I’m a burden to the people I spend enough time around for them to be obligated to care? I know it’s irrational to feel guilty for talking about my human emotions in the place where I… write about my human emotions, but there it is. I’m sad and I regret being sad and whdoihadnfjenbfjwe whatever.” -Hayley G. Hoover

I'm going to get something to eat and listen to The Head And The Heart and hope I somehow find the way to choose happiness today. Because whatever I'm feeling right now? It sucks.

Last YouTube video I watched: Thoughts from Place: Los Angeles after the Earthquake

Things I've written

I have been published in my school's newspaper FIVE whole times and online SIX times now. I'm pretty legit, I know. So the purpose of this post is to link to each of those articles because I know you're all very interested in reading about swimming/diving and gymnastics. You're especially interested if you don't go to this university. Don't pretend you aren't. I realize these aren't very timely anymore, but I've been a busy person so tracking down all these links and such wasn't at the top of my list. I'll try to be more prompt in the future.

This was my first ever story: Swim and dive teams start new year strong

And here are the rest in the order I wrote them:

Gymnasts ready to go for 2012

Cougars fall to Wolfpack in season opener

Swim and dive teams excited to compete in Colorado

Cougars experience mixed results in Colorado

Gymnasts hope to rebound against Southern Utah

So there you have it.

If those aren't really areas of interest for you . . . Well, I'll see what I can do by way of writing on some different topics.

Last YouTube video I watched: Dope Zebra