100th Post!

It's my 100th post on this blog! That's very exciting. And what better way to celebrate my 100th post than to post a literary wonder (I am an English major, after all; this is what I do for fun)?

This is a parody of Robert Herrick's poem "To Virgins, to Make Much of Time." It's the one that starts "Gather ye rosebuds while ye may..." Herrick was a Cavalier poet, and the Cavalier poets were all about seizing the day, taking advantage of your youth, having the time of your life, blah blah blah. It was typical for these poems to be directed to women. For an English assignment, we have to imitate some form of literature that we have been studying. In my imitation of Herrick's poem, the perspective is that of a woman speaking to a man.

To Bachelors, To Make Much of Time

Frequent yon health clubs while ye may
Old Time will soon come calling:
The strongest man who lifts today,
Ere long will be a-sprawling.

The stunning king of forests, the stag,
Whose horns have much dissuaded
Those cruel beasts, vixen and nag,
He’ll be left, fattened and faded.

And oh! That time when hair grows free,
Thou art glorious to behold.
But soon your heightened brow—you’ll see—
Will stand out brilliant and bold.

So do not stall, but use your time,
And give a maid a crystal:
For having lost but once your prime

You will remain a-single.

Wise Words

Albus Dumbledore: Words are, in my not so humble opinion, our most inexhaustible source of magic, capable of both inflicting injury and remedying it.

--From the movie "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2," based on the book Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling.

Harry Potter

Harry Potter is one of the best series. The movies are incredible and the books are AMAZING! I have seen every movie and read every book; I have loved every character as if they were my own best friends. I have literally grown up with the actors of the movies. And now it's over.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 was simply the best movie of the entire series. They stayed true to the book, and the cinematography was truly magnificent. It was just...amazing. Just go see it.

Knowledgebase Articles

BYU Independent Study is creating a Knowledgebase--which is basically a fancy way to say that we are pooling all of the knowledge of every worker at Independent Study and putting it all in one place. It's kind of like Wikipedia for BYU Independent Study. In order to make this knowledgebase work, we have a special team (of which I am a part) to write tons and tons of articles, addressing every single issue that any student anywhere may need help with. Ever. It's kind of mind-blowing to think of how many articles we will be writing in the next two months.

We've only been writing articles since last Friday, and already I want to shoot myself. Writing articles is not as fun as you would think it is. It is one of the most boring tasks that you could have at Independent Study, I'm just sure of it. I would rather be talking to an angry mother who's trying to get her son graduated by Friday, but the son has to submit his portfolio assignment, request the final two-way express, and by the way the only proctor in their area is not available to administer the test. That should tell you just how much I hate writing these articles.

I'm going to give you a little example of what goes through my mind as I sit down to write a Knowledgebase article.

"Ok, I'm at work, I'm kind of awake, and my computer has finally loaded all of my programs, so what should I do? How many calls are there? Oh, none. Well, I guess I'll get started on the articles...but maybe I've got some important email from my professors. I'll go check Yahoo first."

I go and check Yahoo, and delete the four Spam emails that have found their way into my inbox.

"Well, no pressing matters from school. Maybe there's something good in my Gmail account."

There's nothing in my Gmail account.

"I can't go to Facebook to 'check on my English class group', so I guess I can start working on the articles." (P.S. My English Lit class really does have a Facebook page that why have to contribute 500 words to per week)

I open the program where our Knowledgebase will live, I open the Google Doc that tells me what articles need to be written, and I open the Excel spreadsheet that has all the information for the article (there's a lot of windows open on my computer by this point).

Then I just sit for a while.

Deep breath. "I am going to write an article now. Come on, Ashley, claim one of the articles in the Google Doc." I claim an article. "Good girl, now open a new article page and get it over with."

Eventually, I write three articles. Then I go to get a drink of water. When I come back to my chair, I just look at my screen. If I wait long enough, my phone starts to ring.

"A call! Woohoo!" I close all the article-related windows and take the phone call. It only lasts three minutes.

"Ah, dang it. Now I have to write more articles. How long to I have to keep writing these articles?" I look at my clock and it's only 8:30. I work until 12.

"Well, that's no bueno. Let's get to it, I guess." I write one more article.

"I can't do this any more. Please don't make me write any more articles." I look at how many articles I've claimed. I've claimed four, and my teammate has written six.

"Ok, I'm going to write two more articles, and then I'll be good. That's as much as my teammate has written, so that'll be good, right?"

I write one article.

"I can't take it any more! Do I really want to be on Special Projects? I can tell my boss I don't want to be on the team any more. But this is great for a resume. But how many articles do I have to write? They aren't paying well enough to do this. But they are paying me."

I write one more article, and the cycle continues.

Ok, so that's a little exaggerated. But not by much.

On Saturday, I went to get my hair trimmed. It was going to be just a routine trim--well, probably more than routine because it has been a LONG time since I've had my hair trimmed (I'm embarrassed to admit how long it's been, in fact). I'm a poor student so of course I went to the hair school down the road. Anyway, the haircut did not go as planned.

I chopped off six inches. SIX. It's cute and everything, but it's very short. Much shorter than anticipated. It's almost-up-to-my-chin short.

I don't know if you can tell, but I'm having a weird complex about my new haircut. I like it, but at the same time, I really don't. Maybe I'll put up pictures. Maybe.

BBQ

My dad has been smoking meat for two days now.

It smells like summer at my house. It's one of the best smells in the entire world.

Spring

I just completed one of the best and worst terms of my university career. Half my time was incredibly awesome. The other half was incredibly bad. Let me start with the bad (that way we can end on a cheerful note).

My Spanish 339 (Intro to Spanish Lit) class was THE WORST class I have attended since I started going to BYU. I have never hated a class or a professor more in my entire life. And I swear I am not exaggerating. The professor was so condescending and unhelpful. I honestly dreaded going to class. The literature was ok, but I didn't understand anything I read. I would start reading a story or an essay, and I would be lost before I had finished the first paragraph. The only redeeming factor about this course was the poetry unit.

Thankfully, I had my English 318R (Writing Fiction) class to keep me sane. I have always loved my English classes, and this class served as a way to release all my frustrations with the previous class. I wrote some great stories. They were serious, they were sad, but they were great. I wish I could put some of them up here, but they ranged from 8 to 15 pages long. Maybe I can figure out how to put a link to a Google Doc on here...Anyways, I went to see my instructor for an end-of-the-year interview, and he told me that I could be a professional writer! It made me feel so good about my writing.

So, it turned out to be a bear of a term, but there were some good moments. Maybe the summer term will be better?