My mom found my blog. Which is a good thing, since I started this as a way to keep my family updated about my life and keep friends in the loop. My life isn’t terribly interesting, but I figure if they get bored they can stop by and see how I’m doing, and realize that they actually have very interesting lives, and have nothing to be bored about.

I’ve got three weeks left of school! I’m panicked, as per usual. I’m actually quite excited for Fall term to begin. I’m taking some great classes and can’t wait to start painting again. I’ll be glad to be finished with the classes I’m in, even though I’m enjoying Modern Art History 350 with Heather Jensen. Now if I can just finish my annotated bibliography (I’d rather just do the paper), and remember all of my facts about post WWI art, I’ll be fine. What I’m actually panicked about is ORGB 300…. it’s just not sticking. I’ve got to take two tests before the 17th, and then another one on the 17th. I’ll be fine… deep breaths.

Work is going well… hectic, but busy, which is better than the lull times we get occasionally. I have to put together a portfolio to justify my position or something like that. We’re only vaguely bitter about it. In general we’re a pretty zen design office.

The real panic point in my life is that I’m about to be homeless. Yep. My contract with Westwood Apartments (don’t live there) is about to end, and I have no place to live. It’s great. Vanessa and I have been scouring the housing boards for pptl (potential places to live) and there is nothing that is in a good neighborhood and under $300. It’s horrific. BYU has a new policy about housing boundaries… students are required to live within a one mile radius of campus. While I understand the logic in this, and agree with it, it’s led to a financial crisis for all starving students. The housing market within this boundary has realized the nice situation they’re in, and have jacked up their prices. Moon Aparments (where I lived for 3 years) have gone from being shabby apartments with nice moderate prices to shabby apartments with ridiculous prices. In the meantime, genuinly nice apartments that are farther away from campus and not within the boundaries of BYU’s invisible line of honor are being forced to practically give away contracts.

Here’s our dilemma. Vanessa and I have lived farther away from campus, in nicer apartments… and it was terrible. The wards were full of flakes, and those were just the people that actually attended. The best student wards are the ones close to campus. I know it doesn’t sound like that big of a deal, but it’s huge. My parents actually sold their house, and built a new one – in the SAME CITY – but just slightly across town, to be in a different ward. The church may be true everywhere, but you just don’t want a flakey ward. So it may come to this: we’ll suck it up, and pay more for housing. Just like all other people that realize the true value of a sane ward.

If I take life by the minute, it’s wonderful… if I think in terms of weeks or even months, I get a little hyperventilatish.

Along with the rest of the world I saw Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest. And ah…. I loved it. I was grossed out, exhausted, and frazzled when I left the theater. But it was awesome. Can’t wait for the third one!

So, I’m not sick. But I sound like a man. My voice will not cooperate. I was supposed to start singing lessons this week, and due to said voice, had to postpone. I’m an alto — and I have no interest in being the next Pavarotti, thank you very much. (No offense to the great tenor, who is AMAZING — and I wish him all the best).

School is exhausting. I’m sick of it. I want to be graduated, already.

So I haven’t gotten sick all year. It’s July 7th, and I haven’t gotten sick. Well, it depends on how you classify what I have. If a sore throat, stuffed up nose, and headache are allergies, then I haven’t gotten sick this year.

Ha!

I need more sleep.

So my car needs a new fuel pump. And in the meantime it is not starting, and sitting in the parking lot of a friend… in NORTH OREM. Which given my current mobility, might as well be North Dakota.

I’m going to have to have it towed. It’s terrible, but I can’t complain too much. I mean, honestly. It’s a 16 year old car, everyone has car troubles, and it’s just a fact of life. That being said, it’s a pain in the neck.

I’ve had an amazingly boring weekend. But looking back, it wasn’t entirely unproductive. I got some good thinking done, quite a bit of rumination, and not a little contemplation completed.