Wednesday, August 24, 2011

Love my dad

A text conversation:

9:36 AM
Me: "Are you at your office right now? I am on campus."

9:53 AM
Me: "Nevermind. I just wanted to say hi, but I am on my way home now. Puffed rice soon?"

10:04 AM
Dad: "I went looking 4 puffed rice just yesterday 4 u, but went to the wrong store. We'll make some soon ~ as brain food for college professors, u & me! --Dadster"

Monday, August 1, 2011

My dream as a TV writer

Whenever I think about my future, I fantasize about my dream job writing comedy sketches with Tina Fey.

I have a plan which includes mailing Tina one of my scripts in an official-looking envelope with the word CONFIDENTIAL stamped in red across it. That way, she won't think it's fan mail. She will open it and find an amazing idea for a sketch to do on 30 Rock.

Here is a brief description:

Season 6 Episode 1 Miss Anti-Beauty

Jenna proudly wins first place in The Shallow Awards which prompts Liz to run for a New York beauty pageant called The Anti- Beauty Pageant. What she thinks is a feminist event liberating women from the archaic practice of beauty pageants actually turns out to be a pageant for the most unattractive middle class women of New York. When Tracy lets slip that Liz is entering a pageant, Jenna jealously signs up for the pageant too. Meanwhile, Jack reconnects with his younger dog-loving self when he agrees to be the voice on an animated movie featuring a jack russell terrier and his chihuahua backup singers. What he doesn't realize is that he has been cast as the dog-hating cat villain who seeks to destroy the dog's rise to stardom. Upset by the casting, Jack tries to ruin the movie to show the director that he should be top dog.

I really am going to write this skit. It will be spectacular. And when Tina opens her CONFIDENTIAL official-looking envelope to find this script, she is going to laugh her bossypants off and call to offer me a permanent position on 30 Rock.

Sunday, July 31, 2011

I have no response to that.

Kids really do say the darndest things. But so do my 18-year-old freshmen:

Mary-Lou: "How can I avoid using the word 'boobs' in my paper so often?"
Me: "Well, you might consider using 'breast' instead."

Tania: "I need you to treat me like a kindergartener."
Me: "Okay. Stop braiding Mary-Lou's hair."

Gertrude: "I am getting a colonoscopy on Monday."
Me: "Thanks for letting me know..."

Marcus: "Well, you might know about transitions, but I've seen a double rainbow."
Me: "Those actually exist?"
Marcus: "I will testify of it."

Jeff: "What's the difference between the wealthiest and the 43rd wealthiest person in America?"
Me: "42 people."

Teresa: "I like Elizabethan spelling and grammar better. Can I write 'thee' instead of 'you?'"
Me: "No, thou shalt not be permitted to write in such outdated fashion."

Me: "Give yourself a reading score on a scale of 0 to 5."
Greg: "5. Or 12. Whichever."
Shannon: "6."
Albert: ""
Stephanie: ""

Sometimes I wonder if my students all get together and plan on taking turns saying absurd things in class. What I should really be asking myself is, "What am I doing that makes them feel comfortable saying these things out loud?"

Thursday, June 30, 2011

Christmas Card in July

Dear loved ones and casual perusers,

Seasons greetings from the Peterson! That's right--the Peterson, not the Petersons. You know how hard it can be to get everyone in the family to submit their paragraphs* (darn those teenage girls on facebook)! I hope all my friends and family are doing well not to sunburn as you enjoy the weather around this holiday season. I, for one, have been working on my paleness and accomplishing so much more this year:

Rebecca (24) has been particularly peppy this summer. After a lazy spring term of taking one class about something literary she can't remember now and watching three re-run seasons of Ugly Betty on netflix while eating leftover Easter chocolate in bed, she awoke from her lazy-coma and started teaching again.

And what a teaching experience it has been! She has only insulted a handful (95% of the class) of students' writing and only had to talk to one student for manifesting a crush on her (gifts of candy, flirty winks, excessive emails with links to Justin Bieber music videos--just kidding on one of those). She really feels like she's reaching these students.

Besides teaching at BYU, Rebecca has impressed everyone in her ward as a Sunday School teacher by making sure to line up a substitute for herself every time she has a "headache," which is on a rotating schedule of every other Sunday.

Rebecca's dating life is especially exciting. Her boyfriend of two years invites her over almost weekly when she's showered to watch a movie of her choice to which she promptly falls asleep and drools a little.

Reading has also been a big part of her summer accomplishments. She spends what seems to be endless hours but is actually only about 25 seconds reading at the library almost every word on the back of the nearest self-help book.

Well, that's everything the Peterson has been up to! I just can't believe how the summer is flying by. Sometimes it seems like the construction workers and sprinkler attacks and mosquitos will last forever, but it's already slipping away. Here's to hoping your summer season goes just sizzlingly!

This is the best picture taken of me this year.

*Family members are welcome to submit their paragraphs in the comments section of this post. Please try not to brag, Blake.

Tuesday, May 31, 2011

That Dreaded Phrase

Ever since I started this blog, I have made sure to post at least once a month. Well, today is the last day of May, so here is a post I constantly have stewing:

There is a certain phrase that makes me wince. I hear it in testimony meetings at church, in conversations as I walk across Brigham Square, and in my own living room. I have even heard the phrase come out of my own mouth. And I wince every time.

What is the phrase, you ask?

"Here at BYU"

"...especially here at BYU"
"you see [x] all the time here at BYU"
"we never worry about [x] here at BYU"

I don't know, the phrase "here at BYU" seems to assume so much about our community. It expects us to conform to a general, well-known trend even if we don't identify with it.

Sorry to bring it up; now that it's been pointed out, you will hear it everywhere--especially here at BYU.

Tuesday, April 19, 2011

That Little Disney Miracle

Because I am so responsible, I went to Disneyland during BYU's reading days. I know what you are thinking... But I just HAD to, okay?

So here is something that happened when I was throwing all academic caution to the wind:

We stayed at Courtney and Meredith's aunt's house who lives half an hour away from Disneyland. The night before we went to the park, I woke up at 1 AM and had to run to the bathroom so I could puke up my dinner consumed 7 hours earlier.

I threw up twice and was shaking with full-body chills: the flu. I got the flu the night before Disneyland.

"That has got to be a whole lot of bad karma built up," I said.

Meredith brought me a blanket and I pathetically fell asleep while sitting on the bathroom floor. I threw up again and went back to the girls' sleeping room. We talked about how I would stay home in the morning and just have to come back to California later this year to use my already-purchased ticket. Too bad.

And here's the little miracle:

When I woke up again at 6:30 AM, I felt perfectly fine. I ate some toast and nothing came up. So I went! I rode the Peter Pan ride. I screamed my head off on Tower of Terror. I walked around the parks for 14 hours straight and sprayed on layer after layer of sunscreen (everywhere except my forgotten eyelids which are now bright pink and peeling). It was magical, and I was mysteriously and miraculously well enough to experience it.

So it turns out, that's actually some dang good karma. Or, as I said on the way to the park,

"It's a Disney miracle!"

Sunday, April 10, 2011

Things I am okay admitting

This is how I rank the loves in my life:

1. Jimmer. Noquestionlovelovelove.

2. Liz Lemon/Tina Fey

3. breakfast meats (sausage, bacon, etc)

4. Kyle

5. Korean potatoes from Sam Hawk's

6. my family and friends

7. books

8. The rest of the BYU basketball team

9. Hunger Games the movie 2012

10. blanket forts

11. the Talby experience

...

254. Public speaking

255. canned chicken

256. being corrected

257. posturing

...

562. Being attacked by someone in the shower a la Psycho

563. indie kids

564. gimmicks

Wednesday, April 6, 2011

Because, well, if you think about it

Maybe it's not cool to admit (because grad students are notorious for griping about stress and the solitary nature of their intellectual pursuits waaaaaah), but...

"I am kind of loving grad school right now,"

she says as she doffs her blazer and settles into hours of reading over Pope.

...Okay, I wore flannel today. And I watched Scott Pilgrim instead of reading 18th-century-ites.

You see that? Grad school isn't what you think it will be with the reading and the leather patches and other such n such. But it's better.

This is what I love about it:

I love my mentorship and mentors, the department that pays for me to visit campuses and present creative essays at conferences, the practically free education I get to read and think about things I am passionate about, the teaching experience the university gives me, the friends in my program that are smarties and funnies, and the opportunity for creative pursuits.

I also love the word "cohort." And being a part of one too, but really that is just a side note to my love for the word.

Year one of Operation: Pretend-Like-I-Know-What-I-Am-Doing is almost at a close. And it's going by too quickly.
I feel like this is one of those elementary school line-ups on picture day. Except I am not the second shortest anymore (the shortest was the sole asian in my class every year who was too-fittingly named Amanda Short. Boy, the kids had fun with that one).

Wednesday, March 30, 2011

On Happy Moments

My happiest moment of 2011

was at the mustache party

when I was somehow put in charge

of disorienting everyone

in the game of pin-the-mustache-on-casimir-pulaski

and you politely asked me,

whilst blindfolded,

to spin you,

so I took hold of your shoulders

and, spinning spinning,

I joyously turned you

in circle after circle

until you wandered away

with confused and infectious laughter.

Wednesday, February 23, 2011

That Emerson is just a bowl full of fortune cookies

Today, in aphorism:

Pass or do not pass. There is no stepping-on-my-heels for three blocks straight, mister.

How do I love thee? Let me count the number of BYU basketball games you take me to.

I heard a fly buzz when I dried my pyre of laundry.

Good and bad are but names that I assign to people who ring doorbells vs. just walk right in.

Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, but today I ate a polish dog for lunch. That is why it is called the present.

Tuesday, February 22, 2011

CAPPED OFF

I am now officially, and curiously, what you might call "capped off."

As unbelievable as it sounds, I have been thinking in all caps for the past month. The once-gentle voice I use when I am thinking to myself somehow upgraded to booming I-told-you-it-was-better-at-the-IMAX surround sound. In other words, I thought in ALL CAPS.

Allow me to recap these loud conversations with myself:

When I brush my teeth in the morning with my extra soft brush toothbrush I think, GOSH, I HOPE MY GUMS DON'T RECEDE ANY FURTHER.

As I hurry up to campus in my navy pencil skirt with gray tights, I think, SORRY FEET-- THESE NEW SHOES ARE TOO PRETTY NOT TO WEAR TODAY.

While my mentor talks about taking his daughters to the Justin Bieber movie this weekend, I think, I KIND OF REALLY WANT TO SEE THAT MOVIE WHEN IT COMES TO THE DOLLAR THEATER. IF I'M BORED.

But some magic happened over the weekend:

I ate a pork taco at Los Hermanos,

saw a Cougarette concert,

had a massively girly sleepover,

flipped three fluffy pancakes,

engineered an enviable blanket fort,

cheered as Jimmer put up some shots,

played mini croquet,

bought shirts and jeans in Park City,

watched 4 episodes of The Office,

danced at a President's Day party,

gave a spiritual thought,

read a novella,


AND STOPPED THINKING IN CAPS!

That's right; I did all these things in a normal indoor thinking voice. Caps off to me!

Monday, February 14, 2011

Cupid, I think you missed one


Flower man
: "Do you know [girl] in #4?"

Me: "Yeah. I mean, sort of. She's my neighbor."

Flower man: "Do you think you could sign for her flowers and keep them in your apartment until she comes home?"

Me: "Oh, um, sure."

Me (signing clipboard and joking): "Wow, there's nothing as depressing as signing for another woman's flowers."

Flower man (handing over flowers and being serious): "Try being the deliverer of other people's love."

Did he just--? Snarky flower man!

Tuesday, February 1, 2011

Rooting for the home team

A few days ago, a friend on facebook posted a status that asked,

"Why is it that we are so afraid of making mistakes?"

And for the first time ever, I had an optimistic answer to this question. Normally I chalk it up to the psychological nagging that we each have to be perfect or to fulfill self-made or societal expectations. But this time I thought,

"because we like ourselves. Deep down, we are rooting for the person we have known first and forever, and that we think is a pretty alright person. We are rooting for our success because we sympathize with ourselves."

Thursday, January 27, 2011

A fairly frequent conversation

Kyle: "Have you been eating lately?"

Me: "What do you mean? Yeah, I'm eating."

Kyle: "Did you eat lunch today?"

Me: "Yeah! I ate a whole box of Macaroni and Cheese by myself. Why?"

Kyle: "I am just checking. A healthy Rebecca is a happy Rebecca. And a happy Rebecca is a happy Kyle."

Pub-lick Spee-king

Something horrible is going on in the world.

It’s called public speaking.

When I had to give a talk a couple weeks ago, I spent hours stressing over what I would say and how I would say it. When I had to teach class on Monday to 42 sophomores about Coleridge’s poems “Kubla Khan” and “Pantisocracy,” I barely slept the night before.

Since when has this been the case?

Did those years of vocal performance, acting, and giving school presentations have absolutely no payoff? What about last semester when I taught a class of college freshmen, or my Sunday school class from the book of Isaiah? What about that speech and debate festival I went to in high school where I dramatically read Sylvia Plath poems to a panel of judges? No? Nothing?!

In place of the smooth confidence I donned in a previous life, I have this nervous imagination. The night or even the hour before I have to speak in public, I fantasize about running away. I throw my notes on the ground, get in the car, and simply drive away. Whoever is depending on me will just have to scramble around because I am on my way out of the state with no luggage and no guilt for leaving. Only an open can of coke in the cup holder. I look ahead to a new destination where nobody asks me about the meter of cryptic English poetry. Usually it’s Disneyland.

But what really happens is this:

I stand up with my notes in hand and just start talking, eying the clock.