Okay, not gonna lie, I'm a bit bored.  I'm at that stage in the holidays where you mope around in your jammies til 2pm (if you ever change out of them), check your email & facebook, watch tv, go check email and facebook again, repeat...  

But sometimes it's nice to be bored.  To actually live life at an, er, livable pace.  I barely know what to do with myself when I'm not frantically scurrying to finish projects.

However, to fill my time, I've been researching cameras.  My dad got me a camera for Christmas.  I haven't told him this, and tell me if you think this is horrible, but I want to trade it in for an SLR digital camera.  You know, one with all the manual snooty photographer settings.  The one he got me was very nice and generous, but I've been wanting the SLR type for a long time and would love to take a beginning photography course and try my hand at it.  On the other hand, I wonder if this, too, is a phase that will pass and if I'll regret switching the light, nimble Canon Elph for a clunky one pounder.  But just imagine the pics I could take with that beast--I could blow them up and hang them on my wall and maybe even enter them in photography competitions.  That would be awesome.  So my geeking-out tendencies are reaching dangerously high levels, what with all the free time and beautiful technology we all know and lust after.

But the very best part of Christmas, of course, was not all the stuff.  My very favorite part was Shawn telling me what a special Christmas we had made it for him, how it was one of his best Christmases yet.  : )

Merry Christmas and happy holidays, everyone!

Hope you all have a wonderful day and know you are deeply loved and appreciated.

I love the feeling of Christmas; this sense of giving and goodwill to all.  :)

I feel this sense of fullness, happiness, and content.  We have no holes but the ones we fabricate.  Life is worth living.  Deep connections with anyone are still possible and of utmost necessity.  It is misguided beliefs that separate us from others.  Those beliefs start in the mind and must also end in the mind.  This is what will cure society of all its ills and enable us, together, to move on.  We must no longer allow ideas to unnecessarily separate us from others.  When we see the deep goodness shining out of people everywhere, we are One.  We must attune our vision to this shining goodness by quieting our hearts and minds.  Love for all humankind is truly the answer.  

We have no more holes, no more brokenness, if we believe we are whole.

Songs that have "Rocked My World," lol : )

You know those songs that get stuck playing over and over on iTunes? The ones you feel like the sheer weight of life and the atmosphere will immediately crush you if you do not play this song at this very moment? These are my songs:

Beach Boys "God Only Knows"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BC_UILNwWrc

Blue October "Calling You" 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OsvoTkx1mQY
and "Hates Me"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gOziJi-1hHE

Black Kids "I'm Not Gonna Teach Your Boyfriend How to Dance"
http://www.myspace.com/blackkidsrock (#4)

Bright Eyes "Oh, You Are the Roots"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gOziJi-1hHE

Damien Rice "Accidental Babies" 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5SZShwyAPk
and "Blower's Daughter"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UHPTHP4dihA

Death Cab for Cutie "I Will Follow You Into the Dark" (good video!)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wNIS0cuDOMw
and "I Will Possess Your Heart" (good video!)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pq-yP7mb8UE

Hinder "Better Than Me"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mr4VEbt4zSw

Howie Day "Collide (Acoustic Version)"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTz7rhommHI

James Blunt "You're Beautiful"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Y7WDWP8WMs

Katy Perry "I Kissed A Girl" 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tAp9BKosZXs
and "Ur So Gay" (HILARIOUS video!)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tWbLkXhGEmo

Maroon 5 "She Will Be Loved" 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C8IQlax-egE
and "Goodnight Goodnight"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a5aW0M_Ujmw

Oasis "Wonderwall"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-7UnmoTK9bQ

Rascal Flatts "What Hurts the Most" 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h8iWEktQhg0
and "Fast Cars and Freedom" 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hDE-MMDCyeA
and "Then I Did"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uqzmj-ncEkc

Switchfoot "Stars
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g_Fj7wbc3Zc

We were only seven.  You were a sandy-haired, dimple-faced boy who never lost his smile on that base in North Carolina.  I remember riding with your family to Tennessee, the two of us in the back seat of the minivan.  Your sister glared at us, crammed in the middle seat between suitcases, my mom, and an oversized stuffed bear.  I can't believe we subjected our families to solid hours of laughing, sticking our feet in each others' faces, you joking about taking a piss out the window.  Your dad's face turned red, and Mom swears she saw a little steam shoot out his ears.  

After you moved, the years have been silent between us, but I have wondered about you.  For years I kept that giant, white Michael Bear you gave me with the blue bow tie, until it got lost in a move, or worse, my dad threw it away.  I've always reminisced on what it would be like to meet you again.  Did you drop out of high school?  Become a rock star?  Graduate from Harvard Law School with honors?  Get married?  The absence of your story has intrigued me, haunted me almost.  I've never found anyone who can make me laugh like you did.  I wonder if it's still true.  I wonder where my Michael Bear is.

Britt waxes poetic on Amazon.com

I'm definitely writing Amazon.com book reviews instead of studying for finals.  : p

And may I state that this is only further evidence of my boundless and obsessive love for Amazon.com?  

I mean, Amazon.com would be the perfect guy.  Always available, day or night.  Always delivers precisely what you want.  Committed to your satisfaction.  No strings attached.  You want funny?  He's got it.  You want sympathy?  Got it.  Kinky?  Got that, too (although the downer is the 4-day wait, although even that can be diminished, for a price).  Quick, convenient, always reliable.  He loves you just as much in your jammies as in your finest formal wear.  He doesn't give a shit whether you wear your makeup.  I kind of want to marry Amazon.com.

This blog is a bit too entertaining.  Helicopter noises.  Oh god.  (It's around the third page of previous posts.  Be warned!  Things I never wanted to know about the private lives of men.  : p  )

One book that has made me positively laugh out loud on more than one occasion is Possible Side Effects by Augusten Burroughs.  You know, the guy who wrote Running with Scissors.  I totally want to be friends with him in real life.

Mostly I've been happy lately, trying to enjoy the simple pleasures in life and trying to stay sane amidst finals; a daunting task!  It helps having puppies that love to curl up and sleep in my lap.  : )

Totally puked last night at 3am.  I knew there's a reason why I never eat fungus!  : s  So, don't go and buy fungus just because you read glowing reviews about it on someone's blog.

One of my deaf ed. friends made me pretzel/hershey's kiss/m&m's today as a Christmas treat.  I'm embarrassed to say I've already eaten the whole baggie!  I usually don't eat anything all in one sitting--it is one of my HOLY RULES WHICH ALWAYS MUST BE OBEYED OR THOU SHALT BE SPANKED WITH A WET NOODLE; I don't know what came over me.  Stress makes a girl do weird things.  : s  

Shawn made dinner tonight and after we had finished eating the burritos, he informed me that the ground beef substitute was, in essence, a FUNGUS.  I don't know how something could look and taste that much like ground beef and be 85% fungus.

Lulu is getting spayed Tuesday the 23rd.  I feel really weird about it.  On some level, I feel like it is a waste and that there should be more little Lulus brightening people's lives.  And I worry how she'll hold up.  Chihuahua's don't always do so great with anesthesia.  But I know that spayed dogs generally live longer and healthier lives.  It is probably for the best.  But I feel so weird about it.  

And I really want cats.  Can someone get me a girl Siamese and a boy Maine Coon for Christmas?  If I'm not careful, I'll have a whole friggin' menagerie one day soon.  : )  Did I mention I'd love a parrot?

But life is not about getting all these things.  Although, I will admit I have an overwhelming drive to always improve my life.  Sometimes that energy can be good and brings about positive changes in my life.  But I wonder why I have this obsession with always changing things?  I partially blame Christianity for teaching that we always have to improve ourselves.  These days I strongly believe that people organically grow and change, but that it's unhealthy to think that you're broken or always need changing.  I like to think that what some people consider to be mistakes are really critical lessons along life's path.  Granted, sometimes we need to change.  If someone abuses alcohol or treats people poorly, they should probably work on changing.  But I think most people are generally good-hearted and are "perfect" in and of themselves.  We laugh and we cry and we fight and we sing; we're humanity.  Beautiful, painful, emotion-filled humanity.  There's nothing broken about being you.  

Awesome Poetry

I just discovered James Galvin today, and already I love him.  : )

http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/19945

http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/16572

Lovely poem by Margaret Atwood

Variation on the Word Sleep

Which side of your brain dominates?

http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,2198 5,22556281-661,00.html

I'm right brain dominant, surprise, surprise!

"A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step." ~Confucius

This quote is so empowering to me.  When in college, one often feels that she has so far to go.  Literally thousands of hours spent in white concrete boxes, wondering why you're here.  But it's good to remember there's a purpose behind all this and soon my cage door will be opened and I will be free.  

Looking back on that first step into college, I see that I'm such a different person than I was 4 1/2 years ago.  I'm not so timid, no longer religious, more in tune with myself, more easily able to express myself and my personality, better at making and being friends, infinitely happier.  Even though it has been a rough road with depression, sucky guys, no guys, disillusionment with religion and life, multiple changes in career paths, and pain from leaving dear friends, life has shown me many delights along the way as well.  I've made the most wonderful friends a girl could ask for, met a fabulous guy who has taught me so much, travelled exotic places, embraced my inner artist, let my hair down a little. And, deep inside, I know I'm such a stronger, happier, vibrant person because of it.  College has helped me find me, whoever that may be.