The Task to Improve

I haven't posted on my personal blog for a while because I've been so busy with my school blog, but I've decided anew that I want to work on my marriage, on myself, and on my work habits. I got the inspiration for this particular blog post by reading my classmate Bri's blog about how she maintains her marriage. That post is full of great advice, and I recommend everyone to read it.

Before I went to church this Sunday, a couple of experiences prepared my heart to begin this process of improvement. After a frustrating experience at the DMV that could have cost us thousands of dollars (because of UVU's state residency requirements. Neal will be attending UVU in the fall), I was completely devastated and despondent. Neal tried to convince me that maybe I couldn't always have things my way. I had tried my best, and the rest was in God's hands. It wasn't exactly what I wanted to hear at the moment (this is why I need to be improving, I guess), but that experience kept my mind open for similar advice that I got from a friend in my editing class.

I saw Aaron with his head down on his desk. He was catching a few winks of sleep during the class break. I asked him how his newborn baby was, and we chatted about spring term. Aaron told me that he was going through the double pressures of spring term only so he could graduate faster. He had a new baby girl and a wife that needed to be supported, so he was taking all the classes he could manage so that he could more quickly obtain a salaried job. In the meantime, he told me, he was working two part-time jobs just to put the food on the table.

"School., two jobs, and a newborn baby?" I said. "I don't know how you do it."

He replied simply, "It's called relying on Jesus."

Bear in mind that Aaron also finishes all his homework well ahead of class, something I regularly fail to do. This advice combined with the thorough heart softening I had received with my own husband served as the perfect preparation for church on Sunday.

During Sunday School, the first counselor announced that we would be having a surprise combined Relief Society / Elders Quorum meeting. The guest speakers were Brother and Sister Smith, who had recently returned from serving in the Marshall Islands Mission. Brother Smith gave a brilliant metaphor for how we must approach life. He told us about when he and our bishop went out snowmobiling together, and how the only way to make it up the snow-covered mountain was to always keep your thumb pressed down on the throttle. If you were to get scared, release your grip, the snowmobile would topple over backwards because of the steep slope, and you would get seriously hurt. The idea struck me that this was what I needed to do.

I've always had a problem with keeping up my momentum. If I get on the computer in the middle of my homework assignments, I just lose all motivation to do them and wind up procrastinating until the last possible moment. But today I've decided differently. Here are the things that I'm going to be most working on:

1. Gospel study: 100 percent for 100 days. Apparently this program has been emphasized in my ward and I knew nothing about it. It's really simple: do everything you're supposed to do consistently until it becomes a lifelong habit. This means personal and family scripture study and prayer, at least monthly visits to the temple, consistent family home evenings and date nights, and daily reminders of love and affection for your spouse. Neal has agreed heartily to this task, and I'm excited to see our relationship improve as we draw closer to the Savior and to ourselves.

2. Cleaning the house. Also when I was in Relief Society, I grabbed a chore list for daily, weekly, monthly, and seasonal tasks that would keep our house in better order. Being tidy has also been a long struggle for me, and I've adapted these chores to fit our household. As much as neither Neal nor I am used to this consistent cleaning, I've gotten him to agree, at least to see how it works out. I'm really hoping that we can maintain the drive here because I don't want to live in filth.

3. Doing my homework well and on time. This, for me, is where "keeping my thumb on the throttle" really comes into play. As I said before, I have a huge procrastination problem, so it really comes down to treating my homework like the job that it is and doing it with my best effort and as much attention as I can muster. I hope that keeping on top of my schoolwork will leave more time for me to spend with Neal.

In conclusion, wish me luck. I have a lot of work to do.

Maybe

Maybe in a few years, I can start following blogs of my generation of friends. I have a list of blogs from people I know that I visit pretty frequently, but not many of these are people that I talk to on a regular basis. We greet each other in the hallways when we see each other and that kind of thing.

I do follow my friend Lee's satirical blog and Breckyn's blog about discovering poetry. But other than that, I'm really much more concerned with looking at pictures of babies. As clichéd as the everyday life blogs are, I am starting to like them. I like reading about people having normal lives because I can see some kind of goal to reach for. Maybe someday I can be a full-fledged adult. I'm almost there, I think, but I just need to get my work ethic in line.

I want to take all these classes that have me do lots of reading, like at least 7 books per class in some cases. But the way I handle my weekends right now isn't going to cut it. Maybe I should stop going to bed late. Maybe I should ban myself from the computer all day. Maybe I should stop writing bad mind-dump blog posts.

I keep hoping that every step forward will get my habits there, too. Maybe having this job that actually challenges my skills will motivate me to improve other aspects of my life. Maybe I just have to genuinely want it. One of my coworkers told me that when she was about six years old, she decided that she wanted to type like grown-ups without looking at her fingers when she was typing. She now types over 100 words per minute. I can hear her clacking away all morning at work, and it's legitimately impressive.

Maybe not as impressive, but I typed most of this blog looking neither at my fingers NOR THE SCREEN. Just lying in bed with my head on the pillow, looking up periodically so that I don't embarrass myself with a bad misspelling.

It's late and I'm tired. I don't know what I'm talking about right now. Sleep!

Sans Snark, Peut-Etre?

Good news, big news, happy news: I'm going to be starting as an editor at the Religious Studies Center at the end of April, hopefully working there until I graduate. I am fairly sure this can springboard me to an internship at Deseret Book not this summer but next and then give me a fighting chance at a good editing career. One thing that concerns me, though: Why is it that "popular" editors seem obligated to be snarky?

See examples (some of which I think are hilarious but that I should still consider in thinking about this):

http://slushpilehell.tumblr.com/
We pull this up frequently during Leading Edge. Sometimes has great stuff, but can be underwhelming.

http://loveyourcopyeditor.blogspot.com/
Perhaps the most attitude-ridden editor on the internet. The stuff she posts is hilarious, but I often find myself feeling guilty laughing at the creations of others. They put work into it, and it crushes my soul a little bit to find so much enjoyment out of deriding their words. This blogger is pretty open about how snobby she is, even calling the kids at NYU she teaches editing to her future Snoots (which of course reminds me of one of my favorite essays about English usage, "Tense Present"). Compare her witticisms to this blog, however:

http://terriblywrite.wordpress.com/
I can't stand this woman. At least, I assume it's a woman. From the multiple posts she has out daily, it appears that she spends all day in the parts of the internet where the literati dare not tread, waiting to jump on meaningless typos published by Yahoo! Shine. Really, it's a website about celebrity hairstyles. That's just petty.

So, I guess my point is that I don't really want to be like that. I want to be a more compassionate, sensitive editor. I want to understand the people behind the work, even if the work isn't very good. This might be a tad idealistic, but I think we all need a little of that to keep us on track.

New York?

Deciding to major in English is not career suicide, but it's a major leap into the unknown concerning jobs, companies, and salaries. I'm encroaching on my junior year at BYU, and I have some options that I've been considering:

1. Try to get a local job in Utah right out of graduation (not necessarily in publishing, which is the career dream) until Neal graduates, and then see what happens.
2. Apply to BYU for an English MA in a couple years, and then apply for jobs afterward, hoping that Neal's done with his degree by then.
3. Acknowledge that I might need some marketable skills, so apply for something like the law school, spend 3 years there, and then apply for jobs.

Of all of these, I'm the most hesitant about number 1. There aren't a lot of publishing jobs around here, and I don't want to do much more receptionist work in the meantime while I could be still going to college around when Neal is. I guess the main problem is that on-campus jobs kick you out when you graduate. Sigh.

But even with getting more degrees here, there's the issue that most of the jobs I want are in New York. Dirty, crowded, scary, big-city New York. But as soon as I consider living there, I feel so much more comfortable about my potential job market.

So, no conclusions yet, but several possible outlines.

Planning Classes and Vacation

I slept awfully last night. I feel like I woke up about six times during the night (Neal confirms that I was tossing and turning pretty frequently), and I got out of bed under the hazy impression that the cat had done something horrendous to the floor and that Neal was injured. Neither was true, and Neal tried to put me back to bed for another hour or so to no avail. It was 5:00 A.M., and there was no way I was getting back to sleep. To consolidate an entire morning of giddy loopiness, I'll just say that I was singing this on and off all morning: 

Which is, you know, a little embarrassing.

But BYU also posted the Fall 2011 class schedule! I've been waiting for this with more anticipation than you would think possible. I've been checking daily for at least the past two weeks. Picked out my next set of English classes, structured them around my editing class, and called it a morning. Forecast: Myth, Legend, and Folklore; Shakespeare; American Literary History; British Literature from 1900-1950; fiction editing; and some career figuring-out class for humanities majors. Registration on March 29. Cool. But I'll be even happier when I have most of my major requirements out of the way and can just take fun electives.

Something I've been telling my coworkers a lot about is how I'm beating BYU's academic calendar and giving myself a spring break this year. I will be taking all my finals on Saturday, April 16th, the first day of finals. For those who are wondering if I'm crazy, I reply that BYU had three out of four of my exams scheduled for that day. I might as well just take grammar in the testing center that morning until I have finals from 11-2, 2:30-5:30, and 8-11.

But in effect, I get a vacation! Neal and I have been talking about it, and I'm leaning toward Zion National Park and the Grand Canyon. I haven't been on much of a vacation for over five years, so I'm really looking forward to it. I told Neal in my stupor that I "wanted to ride the mules," but maybe he'll take my planning more seriously now that I'm a bit more cogent. Fingers crossed.

Waiting...

I'm staying home sick today to recover from the cold that I got from Neal, to clean the house and reclaim it from the cat, to read about Steinbeck's first marriage and write an essay afterward, and to refresh Neal's admissions decision page all day long.

For high school seniors, these decisions are exciting. One of my graduating senior friends posted that she got accepted to BYU Provo, and over fifty friends digitally celebrated with her. Transfer decisions haven't been sent out yet. I'm still pressing F5 every few minutes. The application status still reads "complete."

Even when I am at work, I'll log onto my account and go to the BYU online directory. I'll search for Neal's name to see if BYU has hidden his decision in this part of their labyrinthine site. A maze I learned how to navigate when I was a senior. When no matching results show up, I search for my friend Frankie's name. She's a shoo-in to get into the school--I know it. Her name doesn't come up either, so my doubts are quelled for a while. Refresh again. Still "complete."

Sometimes I'll reread the confirmation email that Neal got when he turned in his application. Did I miss some detail? Might they wait until March to send the decision? The standard email template tells me "four weeks after the final application date." So that's February 28th. Or is it March 1st? Refresh. "Complete."

No matter what the decision is, I hope it comes soon.

New Semester and Newlywedhood

Neal and I are finally living together now. No more driving home at midnight to wake up at six the next morning. No more feeling like a wanderer between apartments. I have a permanent place to live now, and I couldn't be much happier. The caveat being that warm whether would improve my mood no matter how happy I am. Is it spring yet?

We spent time in California over Christmas break to visit family, get married and have the reception. Everything came together in the end after everything--the ceremony was beautiful, the reception was wonderful, and I got to stand around in a big poofy dress that I might not ever wear again. It is being stored in one of our closets along with the petticoat, and veil, the tiara, and Neal's shirt that got smudged with my makeup when he hugged me before the ceremony.

Other update: we have a cat now. Her full name is Tzeitel Nightfighter (the name of the first daughter from Fiddler on the Roof and a slightly altered version of a freeway exit we saw when driving back from Carmel), but we've taken to calling her Chubbers. For a while, we thought that the cat was too fat to even jump up on the bed. She's learned how to now, but the nickname has stuck.

I feel like I should be writing more about how I felt before, during, and after the ceremony and how I'm feeling now, but I don't know how disclosing I can be on a blog. I'm happy. Very happy. I love Neal very much. It's one of the biggest solaces I have to know that after a 12-hour day on campus, I can come home to Neal and laugh, be held, and sleep. I think I'll leave it there, but do know that I love my husband and the life we're living.