Online Shopping

So, I've become a fan of online shopping since I've moved to Rexburg and there aren't that many places to shop. I mean there's a few places, just not the places that I want (Target, Old Navy, etc). I really don't end up buying much (I'm broke!) but I love just looking at clothes online. I have a MAJOR pet peeve with reviews on items. Yes they can be helpful, but most of the time it's just people complaining. A lot of times it's over something stupid. For example, this lady on Old Navy (she triggered this rant) admitted that she was very short and so the medium of a certain shirt covered half her butt. Hello, did you just hear yourself? That is not something against Old Navy, especially because they provide more detailed fit information than a lot of places (they give an exact measurement of how long shirts are and where it normally should hit, and sometimes tell if it runs large or small). Not to mention, that it's not Old Navy's fault if you get the wrong size. I saw tons of complaints on there about "It's too big, this shirt sucks!" Then return it and get a different size! Seriously! The lady that triggered this rant also said "I wish they at least offered petite sizes". So on Old Navy's website, when you put your mouse to click on "Women" the drop down menu has two options: Petite (5'4'' and under) and Tall (5'10'' and up). To get the middle sizes you just click on "Women". You seriously can't miss the drop down menu on the website. Anyway, I wish that when people posted reviews such as these, they would realize what they're saying, and only criticize it if there is actually something wrong with the product (bad quality or something) or observations "Hey, I ordered my normal size from here and it's too big so you might want to order a size down" or "The fabric's thin, make sure to expect to wear a shirt underneath". Those things are not things wrong with a product and therefore people shouldn't throw tantrums over them. If I were to order the wrong size, I'd return it. Old Navy didn't MAKE me buy that size, I did. It's no one's fault, it's just a mistake.

Yeesh! Glad I got that out!

Excitement!

So I recently became re-excited for next semester! I think a huge part of it is that my biostatistics class, no matter how that turns out, will finally be over! I'm hoping that I don't have to retake it. So far, I'm almost half way through the study guide for the final, and I'm understanding everything (and noticing mistakes that online course development made, because I understand the concepts now!) If I get 100% on all parts of my biostatistics final, my grade will go from a 76% to an 82%. Dramatic improvement if you ask me. I'm hoping that if I do understand everything, that the questions won't be stupid, because if they are, then my teacher won't care and won't do anything about it and all my hard work will be down the toilet (hey sounds like this class through the whole semester, it IS a pattern).

Wow, that was a long tangent; back to the main point. I'm more excited for my classes this upcoming semester too! Neurobiology= hello, this is what my major is all about!!! I'm so excited, and I've already had the teacher before, Bro. Eckersell, and he's way awesome!! General Microbiology= excited for a new learning experience. So, we've talked about microorganisms and other things that you can't readily see in my other classes, and it's so hard to understand because I can't look at it. I do well with anatomy because I happen to have owned the study guide for almost 20 years now ;). This coming semester, I will be able to look at bacteria and protozoans and all that other stuff that seemed so abstract and I couldn't understand!!! I'm way excited!!! General Chemistry=not looking TOO bad. I looked over the course description, and it looks like I'm set until midterm, because I recognize all those concepts from my 1 semester of chemistry in high school. I'm not generally a chemistry person, it's the whole "I can't see how atoms interact with one another" thing. College Algebra=not bad at all. I took pre-calculus in high school. And so you ask "But pre-calculus covers college algebra, why ever would you take college algebra?" Because that's the only way they'll let me take my 3 chemistry classes and therefore I can graduate. They didn't want my pre-calculus even though it was a college level class, I didn't pay for the credit. I'm not that miffed about it, it shouldn't be too bad. New Testament= religion class. Duh. Easy. New Testament also happens to be the only year of seminary I attended so I have more background with that one than with the other religion classes I've taken.

So I've got rockin classes, that although will require much studying and focus on my part, are going to be awesome. Then I've got three awesome friends that I'm living with next semester. Finally, the end to random roommates, please tell me why I didn't think of this sooner??? Although in some cases random roommates have turned out to be good friends (love ya Alex[andria]) and in others things weren't disastrous, I'd much rather room with people that care about me (friends anyone?) that I already get along with, and it's already there. Not that things are going to be perfect, they NEVER are, but it'll be easier and better for sure.

Also, warmer weather. Things are always much better when the weather is warmer. I get so sleepy and sometimes cranky when it's overcast or raining or extremely windy. I love the sun. End of story.

So, I've got to get back to relearning my biostatistics class before my final...and get off here before I start another rant about that class...

Release...

So I've just had a talk with a roommate of mine that I haven't exactly gotten along with throughout the semester. I could never pin down a specific problem, but things always seemed tense I guess. She just came and talked to me about things that have been going on all semester. Basically, I have been doing stuff and not doing stuff that I haven't even been aware of that has made her think that I'm a terrible person! When she told me I thought about it, and I realized that it was all true. It was stuff that I never even thought about. For example, when we drive to church, I have been walking way ahead of her and my other roommate. I sort of realized this, because I'm naturally a fast walker, but to her it made it seem like I didn't want to be seen with her or something. This totally makes sense, but I didn't even realize it until she pointed it out. She also pointed out that I haven't said thank you for things that she's done for me, namely giving me rides to church. There's absolutely no excuse for that one. I didn't realize I wasn't doing it, but I definitely should have. There's other stuff too, but basically I feel bad that all this tension came down to some small things that if I had noticed I was doing, I could have fixed them and we would have had a much more pleasant semester. I've racked my brain sometimes trying to figure it out, what it is that I could be doing wrong. All this time, I had no idea...I'm glad she ended up saying something to me though, so at least I can fix it for what's left of the semester. I can understand why she would not have said something though, because they seem like such small things, but the small things add up, especially over time. I probably would have reacted in a similar way. I'm mainly posting this to kind of clear my head, because when someone approaches you in a certain way asking to talk to you and you get that gut wrenching feeling with a side of fear? That's kind of what I'm trying to release right now...It just goes to show that I am once again being reminded of things that I need to do better. I really should show appreciation more. It doesn't really do anyone any good if I'm the only one that knows that I'm appreciative of something.

Imperfection

I just read this really cool blog post about perfection and how everyone is obsessed with being perfect, when in reality, none of us are perfect. People are making themselves sick with worry and doing drastic things and stressing themselves out because they can't achieve perfection. We know that it's not achievable now, but we still make ourselves sick over achieving it. It's crazy that we expect others around us to be perfect and we expect ourselves to be perfect ALL THE TIME. The guy who wrote the post challenged everyone who read it to post their imperfections and to live with them and to decide to choose happiness in spite of them. I want to do that. I was so jazzed up and now I'm realizing this is a lot harder than I thought...I am a very negative person in general. I have very negative and cynical thoughts. I actively try to work on these, especially the negative thoughts towards other people. I criticize people so much inside my head. I know that the things I say are mean, which is why I don't say them out loud. I am having trouble forgiving myself fully for things I've done in the past. I am self centered. I realize that ultimately, we always have our own self interests in the forefront of our minds, but I don't like the amount of self centeredness I have sometimes. I won't even get into my looks that much because it can be such a touchy subject. I don't like them a lot of the time, and about 98% of the time I don't feel beautiful. I can try really hard, but it never seems to be enough. I fear becoming arrogant. I've been told my whole life how smart I am, and I think that having that drilled in my head is a good thing because it helps me to challenge myself, but at the same time I think it can make me arrogant.

I'm starting to not like this guy's idea about sharing our imperfections after all. It's kind of making me more down on myself than anything. I still think he had a good point that we obsess over perfection too much.

I'm Jen...AND I'M IMPERFECT!

Religion

So this is something that's come up in my mind a few times. Having changed religion, the subject of all religions interests me. I like to know what other churches believed. In the mall I had a lot of people hand me pamphlets about their various churches and I liked reading them to see what they believed. I would always hand them a piece of paper with www.mormon.org on it too. I figured it's a good opportunity! And although there are other religions that have different symbols and beliefs and things that are sacred to them that are different from ours, I still feel a need to respect those. For example, at my place of work over the summer, we started selling rosaries (just for more info on rosaries). People would typically wear the ones that we were selling which, I've always been taught (I used to be Catholic) is sacrilegious. This kind of ticked me off a bit because you use rosaries to pray with and it's just not right to wear them. Even though I'm not Catholic anymore, it still upset me that someone would wear them when they mean so much to a lot of people. I just think that we can do better to respect those of other religions by not assuming that we know what they believe and actually trying to find out. We can be careful to be respectful of others beliefs even if others aren't respectful of ours. It's what Christ would do.

I guess what triggered this is I found a brochure from a Seventh Day Adventist Church that we got in the mail torn up outside my door (I have a weird roommate who likes to tear things up and leave it around the house, probably to tick me off). It was a brochure about a conference they were holding to educate people about Christianity and Islam and the connections between the two faiths. I love when I see inter-faith things like this, I think it's so cool! It kind of made me mad to see that she tore it up, because this conference probably means a lot to those at that Seventh Day Adventist church, and I realize it's not as important as rosary beads or anything else, but it still irks me for some reason. I guess it seems like if I gave someone a pass along card and just saw them rip it up and throw it away right after I gave it to them.

I don't know, maybe I'm just weird or overly sensitive...

27 days...

I'm so ready to be away from 2 of the people I'm living with! They walk around here acting like they own the place (which yes they live here, but they're not in charge). For this entire week, they've started watching REALLY loud movies in the middle of the night! What the crap freaks??? I've been trying to be understanding of the fact you miss your significant others, but I'm done! There's no excuse for this especially since all you do is scream at them over stupid stuff. Seriously, they pick fights over the stupidest things like not texting back within the minute or not speaking proper English! If you love them so much, stop screaming at them, and stop disrupting my sleep by watching your loud movies! And the loud obnoxious talking, screaming...ugh! I try to be a considerate person in general when it comes to the people I live with, why can't I get the same in return! I watched a movie loudly once while living here, because they were screaming so loud I couldn't hear the movie, so I turned it up until I could hear it which was pretty loud! There' s no one here to drown out, so WHY???? Rant over.

I like getting things out...

even if they are completely mundane. I think this blogging thing is going to happen more often. It's somewhat therapeutic. Things are a little better on the family front aka nothing has been broken or stolen and no one has been threatened today. This may sound ridiculous, but it's something that I think could happen with the people that I used to call my family. There's something wrong with them. There's a lot of things about them that make them seem inhuman to me. It's something I want to understand simply because the only person I've seen that's more inhuman is the BTK killer on some news clip. I'm not sure why they are the way they are, I just wish they would stop harassing my parents, especially my mom. I wish they would just leave us alone like we plan to do with them.

There was a luau for Get Connected tonight. I won a hula hoop contest while there, woot! Maybe I should put "mad hula hooping skills" on my resume. Who knows? It was fun, not too exciting, but there was free pizza. I'm a little disappointed that I didn't win the pineapple with sunglasses, but I will get over it. I think the only reason I wanted it was because the pineapple was wearing sunglasses. I really like whimsical things.

I'm really tired, yet I know I won't be able to get to sleep because I have this urge to want my homework to be finished without actually doing it. Anyone catch my drift? I hate having it hang over my head, but I'm too tired to think enough to actually do it...

I also think I'm in love with red velvet cake. I am usually able to resist the desserts in the crossroads, but I go in there to buy a Jones soda (Blue raspberry lemonade or something, I may be in love with those too), and I kept telling myself out loud as I passed the dessert table "keep walking, keep walking, keep walking..." and then I looked back at the beautiful red velvet cupcake. The last one and it had a giant swirl of cream cheese frosting on it. I suppose I'm lucky I got the cupcake and that I wasn't turned into a pillar of salt (Lot's wife looking back? "That's not a pillar of salt, that's my wife!"-Lot). That was a joke. I hope I wouldn't get turned into a pillar of salt for eating a cupcake...I suppose cupcakes would be a lot less desirable then...

I like that this post had a mix of serious and not as serious in it. It's normally serious with me on here, but I swear I'm not boring!

Scriptures and thoughts.

I have had some turmoil going on in my family life as recently as tonight. Certain members of my family have been causing great pain to my mother, who is one of the most wonderful women I know fyi. She is a great example of Christ like love to everyone around her. She is always looking to help people. She always puts everyone else before herself. I love her very much, and I am very angry with those that have caused her pain just because they know how to. I have also been studying the Liberty Jail sections of the Doctrine and Covenants, and have a few choice scriptures for those special people in my life that purposely hurt my mom for doing the right thing:

"And they who do charge thee with transgression, their hope shall be blasted, and their prospects shall melt away as the hoar frost melteth before the burning rays of the rising sun;

And also that God hath set his hand and seal to change the times and seasons, and to blind their minds, that they may not understand his marvelous workings; that he may prove them also and take them in their own craftiness;

Also because their hearts are corrupted, and the things which they are willing to bring upon others, and love to have others suffer, may come upon themselves to the very uttermost;

That they may be disappointed also, and their hopes may be cut off;

And not many years hence, that they and their posterity shall be swept from under heaven, saith God, that not one of them is left to stand by the wall.

Cursed are all those that shall lift up the heel against mine anointed, saith the Lord, and cry they have sinned when they have not sinned before me, saith the Lord, but have done that which was meet in mine eyes, and which I commanded them.

But those who cry transgression do it because they are servants of sin, and are the children of disobedience themselves.

And those who swear falsely against my servants, that they might bring them into bondage and death--

Wo unto them; because they have offended my little ones they shall be severed from the ordinances of mine house...

Wo unto all those that discomfort my people, and drive, and murder, and testify against them, saith the Lord of Hosts; a generation of vipers shall not escape the damnation of hell.

Behold, mine eyes see and know all their works, and I have in reserve a swift judgment in the season thereof, for them all;

For there is a time appointed for every man, according as his works shall be...

How long can rolling waters remain impure? What power shall stay the heavens? As well might man stretch forth his puny arm to stop the Missouri river in its decreed course, or to turn it up stream, as to hinder the Almighty from pouring down knowledge from heaven upon the heads of the Latter-day Saints."

Doctrine and Covenants 12-33

Sorry, that's a lot. These scriptures have helped me to feel a lot better and to strengthen my testimony that although hard times come through, Heavenly Father is looking out for His children. One day, everyone will be judged according to their works by God the Father. Some will be pleased and others will be kicking themselves. Whatever happens though, it's in God's hands, and that's very comforting. I know that God lives and that Christ is our Savior. I know that the scriptures are true, the Book of Mormon, the Doctrine and Covenants, the Pearl of Great Price, and the correctly translated Holy Bible. It feels so good to type that. I don't bear testimony as often as I should. I'm glad I got the opportunity to in my blog. First step, right?

Anger...

I am about ready to punch someone...specifically my roommate who can't control her VOLUME!!! Yeesh, NO you are not a ghetto rap star diva, SO SHUT UP!!! Insensitive, yes! I was referring to me by the way. I might be being insensitive, but at this point I DON'T CARE!!! Am I the only one around here who realizes that the walls are thin...How dare I want to be in my own apartment...

I am better now. Normally, I would be annoyed at that sort of behavior, but it's my stressing out that made me actually angry. Yeesh, I just have to keep reminding myself that life is supposed to be difficult.

I am so mentally exhausted right now. I think my brain needs a deep lobe massage or something.

It's always people!

People fascinate and frustrate me so much! So I realized that everything that I'm interested in (Literature, health related topics, psychology, sociology, etc) all goes back to people. I'm fascinated by humans. I always want to know more! Which is why I get frustrated with people because I will never be able to fully understand people! I've been thinking about my family tonight and I have a few things to say. One, I love my parents so much. They get on my nerves whenever I am home for too long, but it still doesn't change the fact that I love them. I figure they still love me and believe in me after all the grief that I've caused them (I've thought about it, and having only one kid can be scary, because if one's messed up for life, then there's no one else) and they're still here supporting me, loving me, and caring about me. I am 99% sure that was a fragment. Anyway, I've also come to realize I can sort out who I can consider family by figuring out who really cares about me. I've had some family members act like they care about me and I think I believed them simply because I wanted to. I've realized that they don't care and some of them in fact hate me. I have that type of personality where a lot of people hate me or at least get frustrated easily with me. I think the ones that make me the most mad are the ones that have told me they cared when really they are apathetic. They really only care about themselves. Or those that feel obligated to stay in contact with you, but really don't want to or don't care. I guess what really gets me is that I care a lot about them, even though they really don't care about me. I am genuinely interested in the lives of people in my family, but some of them don't care about me, or at least don't show it. I've always wondered if it's because I'm adopted. I don't think it is, but I used to think so. I can kind of tell that I'm a little different from the rest of my family. I wonder if they notice it too.

So do I stop caring about those that don't care about me? I don't think I can. You only have one family. Why do so many people take families for granted? Be thankful for your families even if there are rough times. There will always be rough times. I'm going to say it again: you only get one family! Don't hesitate to let those that you love know that you love them. Life's short, who knows what will happen?