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.

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.

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).

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.

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.