Let's Put Things Into Perspective...

The universe sure has an interesting way with timing.

I'm not going to talk about what happened today in my life, but all I can say is that I am blessed. I know that lately, I've been kind of whiny over here in the blog world, and I definitely want to slap myself every time I realize that because honestly? I have gotten incredible opportunities and chances in my life. The reason behind saying the universe has interesting timing has to do with a couple of factors. The first one came yesterday when I read a quote in Reader's Digest (Just another example of how I'm actually an old person in disguise.) The quote was:
"If I don't ask 'Why me?' after my victories, I cannot ask 'Why me?' after my setbacks and disasters."

Of course when I read that, I was in the complete opposite mindset, but I remembered it later today. It's easy to ask "Why me?" when something bad happens, but "Why me?" does fit when you end up in a lucky situation.

The second part of the universe's bitchslap back into reality came right before I started my post tonight. Reading over some of the posts in my blogroll, I saw this post from Gingersnaps. If you read the whole thing, it's pretty much what I'm trying to convey right now... well, except the raw milk situation. Mainly the section that starts off saying "I'm really lucky". (Written much more eloquently than I could write. Geez, is eloquently even a word?)

Anywho. I know I'm lucky, and I know that I want to do something with my life. I know there are people out there who are as lucky as I am, yet would be happy asking for money for the rest of their lives, be lazy, or complain about everything that isn't tip top. You can find many of these people here.
For me, I want to be able to do everything that I'm capable of doing. I have working legs? Why not train for a marathon! I'm able to go to college? Why not strive for good grades so I'm able to have more opportunities?

Yeah, sometimes it's good to get a slap in the face from the universe because let's face it, you really don't want to be this person:

This... This just makes me nauseous.

People usually look at how they're blessed on holidays and such, but it's probably a good idea to think about it every once in awhile.

How is your life lucky or blessed?

Long Run Wins and Losses

It's only ten thirty, and I'm already starting to doze off. Geez I feel like an old person.

As you probably know by now from reading here, today was my long day run. Due to the fact that I've been having long runs that aren't so great, I've been terrified to even go on this run.
Despite all of that, I was given hopeful inspiration, and told myself over and over again not to worry. (Thanks for the advice, Kat!)

And you know what? I was able to run 19 miles nonstop today. It was AWESOME.

After everything was coming up my way, I was feeling pretty snazzy. A little sore, but no pain; decent pace...
...Then I ended up stabbing my foot.

As I was falling to the floor, all I could think was, "DAMNIT how is this going to screw up my running?!?!"
Yes, that's where my priorities are.

What happened was I was walking back inside from hot tubbing with my sister to the inside door. Our deck is very old you see, and because of this it's kind of falling apart. That includes the top parts of nails sticking out. Guess who drags their feet just a little bit?

I just want to be able to run... Bah.
And that's all I have to say. Yup.

What type of injury have you gotten to possibly prevent your exercise routine?

Fair Days, Making Decisions, and Rise of the Planet of the Apes

My body doesn't realize that Fridays are rest days. Apparently, neither does my mind.

The local county fair has been going on this week, and today was my day to go to it. I recruited two of my guy pals to come, and to hopefully recruit more people as well. It ended up only being us three, but it was still fun.
I like group things, what can I say?
Fairs... They're never really that exciting. Truthfully, you go in hopes of seeing people you know, and maybe looking at the silly animals. Wandering is what we did.
One of the qualities that seems to be missing from my age group is the ability to be able to make decisions. My two friends are not exceptions. Somehow, I ended up making every decision of the day, making my vision of myself a lot less dependent than I thought. I felt kind of like a wife or girlfriend dragging her boyfriend(s?) around while shopping. You know the image, right? We managed to go through everything the fair had to offer, including seeing a freakin' tiger.
Why was there a tiger there? I have no idea, but it was sweet.
And there was what we though was some mutated rabbit.

After going around to everything, we realized there wasn't anything else to do. So we left, ate a late lunch in town, went in a guitar store that Aaron wanted to poke around in, and saw Rise of the Planet of the Apes.

As for the verdict of the movie? It was pretty good, thought there was going to be more monkey battle mayhem. Still, good and entertaining. Strangely enough, there were a few parts where I was thinking:

"Ha, that's kind of funny. Wait, am I supposed to think that's funny? ...I actually think I'm supposed to think that's funny."

Plus, if you've seen one of the two original Planet of the Apes movies (which you should anyway before you see this movie), you'll see two homages to the films before. One is extremely obvious, which is the classic line from the original, the other you see and simply smirk at.

Oh, and before I did any fair-ing today, I stopped by Market of Choice to pick up a few things... including some fancy cheese. Hopefully that will see the light of day soon.

On a final note, I've just got to say one more thing about apes. Orangutans are my favorite ape ever. I think it's because 1. They are orange, and I dig orange; 2. They have flat faces which I didn't think I cared about but then I realized I apparently have a thing for animals with flat faces. And the biggest one 3. They remind me of Buddhas. They are the Buddhas of the apes.

Are you the decisive one in your group, or are you the wishy washy one?

Lending A Voice

One of my favorite games to play when watching animated shows is guess that voice actor. Most people wouldn't find voice actors interesting, but I love being able to recognize them. Sure, sometimes I don't know the actor's actual name, but I recognize the voice from other things. When there's a voice actor I really like though, I learn their name.
Two voice actors I think are awesome? Billy West and John Di Maggio.
Yeah, they're both from Futurama, but they've been featured on so many different things, it's crazy. Like Billy West is the voice of Doug too. And a bunch of other cartoons from your childhood. If you heard it, you'd probably recognize it.

Voice acting would be one of the most fun jobs ever (wow, valley girl talk much?), but how on earth would you get into that profession? Really, I don't know. I think one of the only ways seems to be that you have to be a normal actor nowadays.

It's way later than I wanted to get this written. Ah well. I hope that everyone has a lovely night!

What off the wall career do you think would be fun?

Bakin' Bread

There's something that I've been keeping from the blog world, and it's that my bread obsession has grown to an all new high. I have a problem.

On my adventure Borders awhile ago, I happened to also buy one other item. Here is what I bought:

Yes. A big ol' cookbook of bread. Only bread, like a bread bible. And no, I didn't buy it all willy-nilly. I thought long and hard about if I really wanted to buy a bread book.

I made my first loaf from this book last Friday, and have currently made three different loaves in the last five days. (They were before I had a boatload of homework, and one today). Like I said, it's a bit of a big thing. Instead of having English muffins in the morning, I've been using toast. 'Tis delish!
Also, I've been waiting until one loaf is (mostly) gone. Half of the Banana bread went to my cousins, so that went fast, and the other loaf was munched at quite a bit on my long run day.

So it turns out, I can bake bread. I'm not so great at cooking, but I can live off of bread, right?
Bread, eggs, craisins, veggies, and peanut butter... sounds about right.

It's time for me to rush off to bed. Ta ta!

Have you ever baked bread? What's your favorite kind?

Dealing With Other People's Problems

Throughout my life, I've seen relatives act tougher when they're at their weakest, despite everyone else pointing out the obvious. The best example of this would be my grandma. She's gotten sick before, and ever while everyone else worries about her health, she brushes it aside. Does she worry? I don't know, I'm not in her head but I do know that she tries to make whatever problem she has not look like such a  big deal.
I know my mom does that, and I do too. Not as bad as my grandma, but it still can be pretty bad. Which leads me to ask: Why is it that we get so worked up about our family members getting sick/injured/etc, but when it comes to us we tell everyone not to worry?
I think maybe it's because we think about all of the other problems that our family members have to deal with themselves. If they're worrying about me, who's going to solve their problems?
Or not. I dunno. I'm tired, and continuously working on BS homework assignments.

This new Spanish teacher is awful.

Spanish 203: Bring on the Homework

It's August? Did I miss something? No, that's just how time rolls ain't it? Yeah...

As I've mentioned many times before, today was the start of the last part of summer Spanish. It's a good thing for sure.
One of the changes that has happened is now there's a new professor. For the last two terms, I had a professor who was quite nice. She didn't really give us homework except for big projects, and it was very relaxed. This term? I'm a little worried. Mondays and Wednesdays are my more relaxed days because I don't have work.
I've been working on homework for most of the afternoon. I don't have that same time tomorrow. It's a little worrisome.
Three weeks though? Ah, I can make it.

I think that's one of the things that makes me the most excited about actual work though, you know? You don't get homework. Oh sure, there are jobs where you have to take work home with you, there's no denying that. However, you're getting paid to complete that work right? Probably would make homework more enjoyable if you were getting paid to do it.

What's something that makes work better than school to you? What's something that makes school better than work to you?