My Music: Rise from the Bottom

I haven't done "My Music" posts in a while, because how could any other song compete with a song I had listened to 25 times?  So I did something uncharacteristic (and a little morally hinky):  I reset the plays for any song I had listened to over 10 times.  That was maybe a month or two ago, so here is my current "Top 25 Most Played" list:

1. "I Want To Be Your One Night Stand" - Jeremy Messersmith (referred to hereafter as J. Mess, because he's on here a Lot)
2. "Scientists" - J. Mess
3. "Bridges" - J. Mess
4. "Ghost" - J. Mess
5. "Someday, Someone" - J. Mess
6. "Skeleton Song" - Kate Nash
7. "the zombie song" - Stephanie Mabey
8. "Across the Universe" - Fiona Apple
9. "21 Guns" - Original Broadway Cast of American Idiot
10. "You'll Only Break His Heart" - J. Mess
11. "A Girl, a Boy, and a Graveyard" - J. Mess
12. "We Get On" - Kate Nash
13. "Merry Happy" - Kate Nash
14. "For The First Time In Forever" - Frozen Soundtrack
15. "Little Talks" - Of Monsters And Men
16. "Wuthering Heights" - The Puppini Sisters
17. "Bring On the Wonder" - Sarah McLachlan
18. "Burn" - Ellie Goulding
19. "Falling Slowly" - Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova
20. "My Love" - Irie Love
21. "Death Bed Salesman" - J. Mess
22. "Tomorrow" - J. Mess
23. "Tourniquet" - J. Mess
24. "Sigh No More" - Maurissa Tancharoen and Jed Whedon (from Joss Whedon's Much Ado soundtrack)
25. "Cathedrals" - Jump Little Children

In some ways, this is like a jump into the past, as a lot of these songs are ones I haven't listened to in some time, which is fun, but also kind of bittersweet.  Also, if Jeremy Messersmith collected royalties based on my iTunes, he'd be so rich right now.

Honey Bee-YU, or (Very) Small and Simple Things

I went to BYU.  I really liked it.  Being a BYU student was a pretty good experience (probably because the aspects of my personality that I would have had to hide at BYU hadn't developed yet), but being a BYU Alumna, on the other hand, is a different story.

Every so often, on a Friday night around 7:00 pm (because somehow they know I have no life?), some perky returned missionary named Tyler (they're all named Tyler), calls me up on the phone, asks me about my life, tells me about the new developments at BYU, and then asks me for money.  Recently, I've decided to loosen my purse-strings a tiny bit and donate.  They do have a new anatomy lab, and I can support that, and I figured, maybe if I gave them enough cash they would finally acknowledge that my life is cool enough to get a two-line blurb in the "What are the Alumni up to?" section in BYU Magazine.*  This last time, I gave them some money, and I got this lovely card signed by Cecil O. Samuelson's printer:

This is out of focus, but whatever.  It's scriptures (of course).

It was nice enough from the front of the card.  But here's what the card said on the inside:

Keeping with the tradition of assuming people can't read things from photographs of printed words, here's the text of the second paragraph:

"In fact, your gift is much like the contribution the honeybee makes to its beehive.  Over its short lifetime a single honeybee contributes one-twelfth of one teaspoon of honey to its hive.  Because the bees work together and depend on each other, work that would be overwhelming for a few becomes lighter, and the results are astounding."

Um...what?  They could have just been like, "thanks for your donation; it was nice of you; here's a receipt for when you do your taxes," but comparing my donation to minuscule volumes of bee spit?  They should have just been a little more direct, for example:

Dear Alexandra,

Thank you for your small contribution to Brigham Young University.  We just wanted to acknowledge how small your contribution really was.  So small that a poor scholarship kid had to buy a used American Heritage textbook.  If you want some additional perspective, here's what the Marriots gave last week:  [large sum].  They're having another wing of a classroom building named after them.  You wouldn't even get one of the dodgy Cluff Building bathroom stalls named after you with what you gave us.  Nonetheless, we wanted to express our appreciation by sending you this thank-you card that cost only slightly less to design, print, and mail than the wee amount that you donated.  Someone will be calling you again shortly at a very inconvenient time asking for more of your mere pennies. 

Sincerely,

Not even the current President of BYU because that guy only signs cards going to high rollers. 

Again, I liked BYU, and I would go there again.  I just wouldn't graduate.



*They still haven't.  Apparently spending a year identifying the remains of missing American Heroes before going on to get my freaking doctorate isn't as news-worthy as having my eighth kid or publishing a book about upholstery. 

Reasons Why July Was Pretty Fly

Again, apologies for the lame rhyme, but I couldn't help it.  Incidentally, I once dated this guy who would give me a dollar anytime I used the word "fly" or some other lame slang adjective ("dope," maybe?) in public.  I didn't take advantage of that as much as I should have.  Oh well, live and learn, I guess.

Anyway, back to July being good:

7/1:  I went to Toscanini's (a delicious ice cream place in Cambridge) for a friend's going-away shindig, and I ate Grape Nuts flavored ice cream (it was delicious, trust me).  Also I marveled at how late I was staying up on a school night.

7/3:  I made a ton of delicious muffins and it rained spectacularly.

7/4:  I went to an Independence Day breakfast at JM's house and then I rented a Rug Doctor to clean my couch (you should have seen the color of the water afterwards) and felt really good about all of my efforts.

7/5:  I defrosted my freezer and found five dollars (on the street...not in the freezer).

7/7:  I went to Tri-Ward Home Evening for the first time in ages.  We played that game where there's a water balloon and you catch it in towels.  It was actually fun.

7/11:  Some friends and I got together for a burger outing at Burger Dive in Somerville.  I walked across the Mystic River to get there (more accurately, I walked across a bridge over the Mystic River) and it was beautiful.  Burger Night was great as well--it was a great group of people and many laughs and many dipping sauces were had.

7/12:  I went swimming at the public outdoor pool in Brookline.  It was great and refreshing.  Then I got frozen custard in the middle of a really long walk.  I ended up walking a total of over 7.5 miles that day.

7/13:  John Ratzenberger (aka Cliff Clavin) was at church for some reason.  My inner child-raised-on-TV exploded a little bit.  Then Germany won the World Cup and I won a bet (though the party against whom I won got a fairly decent consolation prize in my admitting that I actually got excited about a sporting event).  I stayed up too late this night.

7/14:  Weird Al Yankovic started releasing a million new music videos (and by a million, I mean eight).  They were fantastic.  "Word Crimes" is my favorite.  I also stayed up too late again.

7/18:  I gave my NIH grant proposal a title and a budget and it became an official administrative thing!

7/19:  I bought a cake stand at a secondhand shop in Allston for five dollars (this is exciting because before that I had been serving my cakes on dinner plates like some kind of Philistine).  Then I ate a Lobster Roll for the first time.  It probably wasn't a spectacular lobster roll from any famous lobster roll place, but I just wanted to say that I've eaten one.

7/21-7/25:  I went to the gym every day this week.  I am awesome.  (Although I only went to the gym one day of the week before and one day of the week after, but I blame a weird foot pain on the latter week being a slacker week).

7/25:  I participated in the first half of a "Ladies Night" which consisted of getting frozen custard with a bunch of ladies from my ward.  Apparently we were very apparently Mormon, because a woman came up to us and asked if we were a group of Mormons.

7/26:  After living in my apartment for nearly a year, I finally organized all of my sheet music.  I ate Thai food at Basil Rice with JM.  It was delicious.

7/27:  It was Sunday.  Post-church Munch and Mingle was the most delicious fresh fruit I had eaten in a while.  I probably ate too much of it.

7/31:  I FINISHED MY GRANT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (Cue celebratory music and happy dancing.)  I celebrated by eating Panda Express and spending money on bargain cookbooks.  One of which is a Kosher Holiday Baking Book.  I'm not even Jewish but I'm really excited about the over 45 Passover recipes.

Even if the rest of the month had been total crap, the fact that my grant is turned in and I no longer have to think about it just makes the month.  After the Panda Express eating and the book buying, I packed my stuff to go home for the weekend.  I'm writing this in Pennsylvania right now.  I'm thinking that August is going to be pretty good as well.

Restaurant Review: Basil Rice

My first Social Saturday was touch-and-go in that I almost didn't do anything with anyone, but I succeeded in the end!  I was much overdue for some girl talk with my friend JM, so I invited her to try a new restaurant* with me:  Basil Rice Asian Street Food.

Located at 479 Harvard Street in Brookline, Basil Rice occupies the spot left vacant by the now-closed Pita Pit.**  You almost wouldn't even notice that it was there, but people should take notice.  We went in at 5:30, and it wasn't crowded at all.  The staff was wonderfully friendly and seemed very excited to serve us.  The menu is mostly Thai-style food (there's a lot of Basil and Rice on the menu...go figure), but there's a wide variety of dishes to choose from.  JM ordered the Pork Wonton Noodle Soup (8) and I ordered the Beef Basil Fried Rice (9).  Both dishes came out in a reasonable amount of time.  Also, the server brought us both big cups of water, which I certainly appreciated., as the rice was quite spicy.  It was almost too spicy for my taste, but I powered through because it was delicious.  It was garnished with fresh cucumber, which offset the spiciness quite well.  The portion was quite large, and I'm looking forward to eating my leftovers tomorrow.  JM was very satisfied with her choice of soup, as well.  After dinner I got myself an order of Mango Sticky Rice (6) to go, and it was heavenly--and I don't even like mangoes all that much.

This place is great and it's in a super convenient location near Coolidge Corner.  Moreover, it's cheap (they're doing a 20% discount until August 14th) and they deliver!  So give this place your business (and feel free to invite me to come with you)!    


*This is the first time I ever went to a restaurant during its opening weekend.  I felt very sophisticated.
**I regret never going to Pita Pit before it closed.  It would have been some good Provo nostalgia.  Hence my jumping on Basil Rice opening weekend--can't miss out on these opportunities.  

A New Experiment: Social Saturdays

So...this might come as a shock, but I'm an introvert.

Okay, fine, it's not a shock.

This was actually something that I didn't realize for a long time.  I would start feeling really miserable at social activities and just think "oh, I'm shy," or "everyone here is just clearly beneath me and that's why I'm not having any fun," but then I actually realized what introversion meant and all of a sudden, everything started making so much sense.

One of the things that sucks about being an introvert is that church on Sundays is EXHAUSTING.  Sometimes its so bad that after church I have to lock myself away in my room and not talk to anyone for hours.

I think I figured out why (or at least part of why) Sundays are so hard.  It's because on Saturdays I don't do anything.  I mean, I do things; I wake up too early, clean a bunch of crap, maybe run some errands, and then go for a long walk before watching Hulu and going to bed too early.  So other than a phone call to my mom and maybe some small talk with a store clerk, I really have no human contact, so talking to people on Sundays is the equivalent of running a marathon after several weeks of sitting on the couch and doing nothing.

Exhausting.

However, I did notice that on Sundays following a Saturday where I actually did stuff, it was not so bad.  So I'm going to put this to the test.  I will test the central hypothesis that socializing on Saturdays makes socializing on Sundays less exhausting.  The rationale for this is that, should my hypothesis be proven correct, I will become happier and more pleasant to be around because I will learn how to condition myself to social situations.*  So what I'm going to do is this:  do something with someone or a small group of someones every Saturday and see how it makes Sundays feel.  

On a related note, anyone want to do anything fun next Saturday?

*Okay, clearly grant-writing has started to seep into my blogging.

Dating Post #4: It Takes a Village...Actually, No, It Does Not.

After a number of posts in which I claimed to be a firm authority on all things related to Mormon dating, I had a minor freak-out when I suspected that I might, in fact, be a huge fraud.  I had this entire thesis that dating is not a difficult or stressful thing, and yet...  Would I have to retract all of my dating posts?  Make a public statement that I actually knew nothing and we were all up a creek and it was anyone's guess whether we'd just die alone?

But I took a second to think it over.  Why is dating, which has been happening forever, and Mormon dating, which has been happening since that one day Joseph Smith made eyes at Emma Hale while he was carrying a shovel* so stressful?  I think I figured out the reason:  Other Humans.

Other people, especially single Mormons, love to talk about couples--who's dating, who went on a date, who just broke up.  Gossip is no virtue, to be sure, but if it just ended at the gossip, it might be fine, but it continues to meddling.  From the giving of unsolicited (and often poorly-founded) advice to people on the verge of relationships to the hounding of the newly-broken-up, people have this desire to involve themselves in other people's love lives.

I've been reading a lot of Jane Austen lately.  My favorite Austen is Emma.  I think it's very relatable to Mormons because Highbury is basically one big singles' ward full of busybodies.  Think about it:

• Emma gives bad relationship advice to Harriet, leading Harriet to get heartbroken.  Multiple times.
• Mrs. Weston and the Coles speculate whether Mr. Knightley and Jane are an item.
• Emma and Frank gossip about the relationship between Jane and Mr. Dixon

Clearly, Frank and Jane had the right idea with the secret dating.  Sure, everyone talked about it afterwards, and maybe Frank wasn't the best secret boyfriend, but at least their relationship had a chance to develop before all of England had to throw in their tuppence.**  I love this line from Mr. Knightley's response to the speculation about him and Jane:  "[Cole] gave me a quiet hint; I told him he was mistaken; he asked my pardon, and said no more.  Cole does not want to be wiser or wittier than his neighbours."

Let us not want to be wiser or wittier than our neighbors.  Here are my helpful hints on how to do this:

• On giving advice:  Don't.  Okay, that's hasty.  No, actually, it's not.  Don't give advice.  Because really, why are you doing it?  In twenty years, will whether or not two people decided to date each other matter to you?  Are you really that concerned with the happiness of two random people in your ward?  Probably not, which means you're probably doing it so you can take some of the credit for whatever happens.  But what if someone asks for your advice?***  Then, sure, give it.  But realize that you are not one of the two people involved, and therefore you don't know everything.
• On people getting together:  Did you see two people holding hands once?  Yes?  Was it in public?  No?  Could there be a chance that the entire world doesn't know about it yet?  Yes?  Could there be a chance that that is on purpose?  Yes?  Should you tell other people about it?  (Say it with me, now,) NO!!!!  At the very least, wait for the official press release (aka, when they sit together in church).  
• On existing couples:  Unless you're have some sort of...um...ahem...arrangement with a couple, you are not part of that couple.  By all means, like them, think they're cute when you see them together, invite them to fun little brunches, but don't keep track of them like they're mating pairs of endangered bull trout or something.****  Like I said before, people have been dating forever.  It's not really that interesting.  Now, if every time they kissed one of them turned neon green and started levitating, that would be interesting, and please, write a report for Nature or something.*****  
• On people breaking up:  See above, re: you don't know everything.  But I liked X and Y together so much and they need to get back together and I want to make it happen and let everyone know that it was all because of meeeeeeeeeee!  No.  Stop.  Maybe there's a tiny, tiny chance that if you meddled they'd get back together and everything would be fine, but the more likely outcome is that, for whatever reason, one or both members of the former couple will end up feeling even worse about things than they did in the first place.  So console, eat ice cream, have angry dance parties, but don't meddle.       

Maybe this is one of my harsher dating posts, but really, the meddling and the gossip has got to stop.  It's making something which should be fun and wonderful and simple a lot harder and terrifying than it should be.  If you won't hearken to my words, listen to the Fresh Prince:

*That's what happened in the movie, at least.
**Because it's Britain.
***By reading this blog, I'm assuming that you're asking me for advice.
****This is not a hypothetical thing.  People actually have lists.
*****Because this is just the kind of crap that Nature is into.  That and Machiavellian yeast and stuff.

Life as of Late: July 2014

This should really be called a Boring Life Update Post, but as I said before, I don't want to make people automatically assume I'm going to be boring.  But sweet heck, it's been pretty boring.

• I'll start with the least boring thing first.  I went to the wedding of one of my best friends a few weeks ago.  It was beautiful.  It was also the first wedding I've ever gone to.  Turns out, I cry at weddings.
  
• I crocheted a giant afghan as a wedding gift for this friend.  Crocheting giant afghans in the summer is not super fun.  Also, I strained my rhomboid because I'm the type of person that gets shoulder injuries from yarn crafts.
• I also picked up a date at that wedding!  Not in a trashy "Wedding Crashers" kind of way, but in the way that the groom's little brother needed to be entertained for the weekend so we went kayaking and ate pizza.  I'm still going to count it as a Hallmark Twenty-Something Experience.  Also, it puts me ahead of schedule on my Twelve Dates per Year goal.
• This is where it stops being interesting.  Much of my life has been dominated by writing an NIH Individual Predoctoral Award.  Grant-writing is really fun, if you're the type of person who doesn't understand English and therefore doesn't know what "fun" means.  It's due at the end of this month, but it's actually starting to look like a real grant, and therefore I am optimistic that it will go well.  And even if it doesn't, there are always more funding cycles in the sea.
• I'm auditing a Functional Anatomy class in the Physical Therapy department at school.  It's kind of weird to be in a class and not have to worry about a grade.  Although I fully expect to have nightmares about the fact that there was an exam today that I didn't take.
• When I'm not grant-writing or attending classes for fun and not credit, I am at the gym, because I've turned into one of those people who exercises all the time and actually enjoys it.  Even planks are becoming fun and not at all hard (unlike my abs, which are like steel).
• The Fourth of July happened.  I celebrated my independence by renting a Rug Doctor and cleaning my couch.  I also defrosted my freezer.  I am awesome and not at all lame.
  

I think that's about everything.  As I said, it's been a pretty boring July.  I hope that once August happens and my grant is turned in I will start doing fun things again.  Perhaps I'll even write another dating post.