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!"

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

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).