The Art of Texting

Before I ever had a cell phone, the concept of texting never made sense to me.  Why text when you could just call?  I still ask this question, but since then I've learned how useful texting can be.  Sometimes you're in situations where you can't talk, so texting is really the only option.  School, work, church (what?) are perfect examples of where texting is the better choice.

At one point my phone was considered high tech.  Like five years ago.

Texting is a major part of our lives whether we like it or not, and that's why people need to know how to do it right.  As ridiculous as it sounds, there is an art to texting.  There are hundreds of unwritten rules concerning texting, and I am going to attempt to write some of the down for humanity.  What can I say, I'm a saint.

 The Unwritten Rules of Texting...until now:

1. If you text someone and they don't respond, don't text them again.  Unless it's your mom, then none of these rules really matter.
2.  If someone calls you, don't text them back.  Use the same form of communication that they initiated the conversation.  Unless you're at work.  Or school.  Or church.
3.  Don't respond with "k."  It's annoying.
4.  Take the same amount of time to answer texts as the other person.  If they take 20 minutes to respond, don't text back right away.  It makes you seem desperate.
4.5  Having said that, don't be that person who takes forever to respond.  There are no excuses when it comes to technology. 
5.  Don't initiate a conversation with "what's up?"
6.  Don't ask someone on a date via text message.  Grow up and just call her.
7.  Don't break up with someone via text message.  Unless you initially asked her out by texting; she already knows you're a wuss.
8.  Avoid texting your parents if you want a response within the day.
9.  Texting is not instant messaging.  If you keep on texting me, I'll never be able to respond. 
10.  If you do start a conversation, you better respond to my answer.
11.  If you're texting someone and the conversation is going nowhere, let it die off.  You don't always have to officially say goodbye.
12.  If your text is so large that it has to send in over three messages, it's too long. 

The list could go on and on, but that's all I can think of right now.  But I'm not done.  No, there is still so much to talk about when it comes to texting.  This is fun.

Adults and texting
There are two extremes when it comes to the types of texting adults.  The first type is the equal to a thirteen year old girl.  they txt lyk this & shortn evry wrd possible & find ways 2 replace words with numbers.  Ok, that's exhausting.  It really doesn't cut down texting time, and it's simply obnoxious.  Most people don't use T9 anymore, so it's better to actually spell out the word and use punctuation.  If they don't text like a preteen on AIM, then they are extremely careful texters.  They use correct spelling, grammar, and punctuation.  Always.  It's basically like talking to a robot because they have no emotion.

Drunk texting
Ha, like I know anything about being drunk.  According to the movies, you probably texted inappropriate things to your ex, and looked really stupid doing it.  That's all I got.


Emoticons and exclamation points!!!!!!!!!
I'm not a huge fan of texting and this is mainly why.  I speak pretty bluntly in person, but if I were to text the same dialogue people would think I'm a freaking brat and meany face.  So in order to soften my texts I'm basically forced to use some sort of emoticon or exclamation point.  I hate smiley faces because they are dumb and don't even look like faces because I don't smile with my head tilted to the side like this :)  Nope, I smile like a normal human being.  Also, when guys use smileys I automatically think of them as very feminine.  Sorry, it just happens.  And don't even get me started on exclamation points.  An English Professor Who Must Not Be Named once taught that "Exclamation points are ugly, graphic, and addictive (just like porn)."  Ever since then, I've avoided exclamation points like the plague...or pornography.  This statement is totally true, but exclamation points are mostly just obnoxious.  If you're ending the majority of your sentences with exclamation points instead of periods, you're doing it wrong.  Plus, all I can imagine is the person excitedly telling me about non-exhilarating things!

Mass texts
They suck.  Don't send them to me.

Texting to avoid awkward situations
I really don't understand why people think that texting will fix awkward situations.  It doesn't.  Though sometimes when I realize that I'm walking in the wrong direction I'll look at my phone and then turn around.  Somehow I feel like that justifies my stupidity.  I also think it's really annoying when I'm hanging out with a group of friends someplace like a restaurant and everyone is on their phones.  First of all, no phones at the dinner table!  And second of all, you're already with friends, so stop texting other people!  Yes, I realize that I just used two exclamation points, but they were necessary to sound like an angry mother. 

Sarcasm
Another reason why I dislike texting is because I tend to be sarcastic, and sarcasm is all about voice inflection.  And if you didn't know, texting is not audible.  So basically I sound either really stupid or really mean. And then I have to use smileys.  CURSES.

Over-analyzing texts
Notice how the word "anal" is part of analyzing.  Freaking out about text messages usually only occurs in the dating sphere of your life.  I'm not going to read and reread texts from my mom if I think she sounded annoyed or mad.  She's stuck with me for life, so why worry?  No, text paranoia applies almost exclusively to people you like or may potentially date.  Texts can be so obscure you'll go crazy trying to process all the different ways you read it.  As much as I hate smiley faces and exclamation points, they are crucial to how I read a message.  And if he doesn't use them I start to panic.  He sounds so distant and cold.  He hates me.  Yep, he thinks I'm a crazy freakazoid.  That's it, I'm not texting him again.  And that's my thought process.  Waiting for texts is the worst, but it's something that must be done.  I'd rather go insane waiting for a text than be that annoying girl.  What really sucks about waiting for an important text is when your phone goes off and it's not from that significant other.  It doesn't matter if it's from your sister, friend, or cat--you want to throw your phone in their face.  I'm sure that's a normal reaction. 




I just think it's weird that I use my phone for texting more than actually talking.  It's like reverse technology.  But I mostly just dislike texting because I'm too lazy.  #firstworldproblems

My mom is better than yours

This is the first Mother's Day that I'm not home to celebrate with my mom.  So I decided that a blog post dedicated to her would be a suitable Mother's Day gift.  That's thoughtful, right?

I'm pretty sure most people consider their mom as one of their biggest role models.  Our moms carried our slimy and pruny bodies in their stomachs for nine months and then raised us to adulthood.  That alone deserves a lot of credit.  And though my mom is my biggest role model, it's not just because she raised and nurtured me, it's because she's one of the best people I know. 

Don't worry, these are not her shoes.

Do you remember that time in your life when you started to see adults not merely as grown ups, but as people?  And once you realized that they were just older versions of yourself, you saw all of their faults and flaws?  I remember going through this experience, and it really affected me.  I found myself disappointed in many adults that I had once thought admirable.  I understood that adults couldn't be perfect, but even so, I felt like they could be more mature.  Looking back, I'm pretty sure I had such high expectations of adults was because of my mom.  Up until that point, I had assumed that adults didn't gossip because I had never heard my mom speak ill of anyone.  I started to compare my mom to other adults and it soon became evident that she is an exceptional person.

My mom helped me and Lily look a little more like legit pioneers.  My dad wasn't very convincing.

I'm not writing this to brag about my mom, even though that's basically all I've done so far.  I'm not comparing my mom to yours either, because I'm sure your moms are amazing.  But I'm pretty sure my mom is better than yours. 

I also don't have squinty asian eyes thanks to my mom.

My mom is extremely level-headed and practical.  Everything she does is just smart.  She doesn't get caught up on things like other women might, and for that I'm grateful.  Because sometimes women are annoying.  And when I say sometimes, I mean a lot of the time.

Since I've left home and gone to college I've started to notice things that I picked up from my mom.  When I go shopping I check the tags to see if the clothing is made of polyester or some other synthetic material, I buy the next size up if it fits in the store and it's 100% cotton; I still buy Grape Nuts and shredded wheat for cereal, and I have to eat at least one vegetable with dinner (or a poor substitute for dinner). 

Oh, and my mom is probably prettier than yours.  But remember, I'm not bragging or anything.

My mom is a spiritual beast and a convert to the church.  I read her journal when she was a teenager and newly baptized.  Basically, she was very spiritually mature for her age.  But she's always been mature.  I think I talked about this already...

I spent a lot of time with my mom through childhood because I was home schooled.  She was my teacher till fourth grade, and taught me how to read, write, add, subtract, and tried to teach me about fractions.  Key word: tried.  She was a good teacher, but I wasn't a very driven student.  My mom read to us for hours and because of that my sisters and I love reading.  But seriously.  Jenai used to wake up at 5am to read before she started her school work.  She also dressed up as a book worm for Halloween once.  We were interesting kids.

We wuv her.

I could go on, but I'm not going to.  I have to post this before I leave for work in a few minutes.  Speaking of procrastination, that is one practice I did not learn from my mom.

Happy Mother's Day, Mom.  I LOVE YOU!

scary movies

I like to think that I'm a brave and strong person.  I don't freak out and squeal when I see a spider, I don't pee myself when I'm on a roller coaster (though I occasionally black out), and I'm not afraid of heights.  I'm pretty cool and composed for most situations, but that all goes down the toilet when I watch a scary movie.  I hate scary movies.  I hate them.  They are the worst.  Every time I watch a scary movie I promise myself that that will be the absolute LAST horror movie I will ever watch.  But then peer pressure by my so called "friends" happens and I find myself watching yet another scary movie against my will.

Once I realize that I will be watching a scary movie I have to mentally prepare myself.  This includes repeating encouraging phrases out loud like "I'm going to die,"  "I hate you all," "Why am I doing this," and "I'm never going to sleep."  Then I grab a pillow and hold it as a shield to protect me from all the scary parts during the movie.  

This is my face during the opening credits.

This is my face when I know I won't be sleeping for the next week.

And this is my face for the majority of the film.

The first scary movie I ever saw was The Ring.  Not only are asians good at math, they are also are good at making scary movies.  My own people betrayed me.  After I watched it I was certain that I was going to die from absolute terror or lack of sleep.  I also promised myself I would NEVER watch it again, but I got pressured into watching it again a few days ago.  This time I watched my pillow more than the screen.  I had worked 5+ years trying to forget that movie, so I wasn't going to let all that hard work go to waste. 

(My depiction of Samara/The Ring.  I was too afraid to actually look it up on Google images).

What makes The Ring so much scarier to me is the fact that we had a freaky old tv in our basement that would randomly turn on and do that fuzzy screen thing like in the movie.  I would walk downstairs with the lights turned off and find the tv doing that.  No one had turned the tv on.  IT TURNED ITSELF ON!! Samara was going to kill me.  This happened a few more times and then I solved the problem by unplugging the tv and covering the screen with a blanket.  Genius, I know.  Then later on, when I was less freaked out, I tried to solve the mystery of our haunted tv and discovered that the self timer was set to turn the tv on by itself.  It took me awhile to find that amusing.

The moral of the story is, I'm a baby. 

The Phantom Poop

Yes, I am writing a blog post about poop.  So if this offends you, stop reading now, because I'm going to say poop at least twenty more times in this post.

So far I'm averaging one poop per sentence. 

Ok enough with the introductions.  I actually do have a story to tell, and it's about The Phantom Poop.  (If you can't tell, that was supposed to look spooky).  As I was saying, sometime during high school I was haunted by a huge turd.  Don't laugh, it was traumatizing.  Whenever I would use a bathroom at someone's house I was confronted by a huge, scary turd.  It didn't even happen in public restrooms; It always happened in the comfort of someone's home where I was least expectant and most vulnerable.

I had my first encounter with the Phantom Poop when I used my friend's bathroom at a sleepover.  I was pretty surprised to find him just floating there.  How can you just forget to flush after taking a number two?

My artistic rendition of Phantom Poop.  I thought I'd spare you from the real thing.

So one person forgot to flush, no big deal.  EXCEPT IT KEPT HAPPENING TO ME.  Another time I was babysitting and met Phantom Poop for a second time.  Please let me stress how freaky this was.  Try to imagine my scenario:  I was babysitting for an adorable family, with an adorable house.  The adorable parents go on their adorable date, and leave their adorable four year old daughter with me.  At one point in the night I walked into their adorable bathroom, lifted up the toilet seat and there it was.  A huge turd.  I assumed this was not the workings of their four year old, which meant one of the parents was the culprit. Every once in awhile you'll walk into a stall in a public restroom and some retard didn't flush the toilet.  This is something I will never understand.  Do you want someone to see your excrement?  Are you so proud of it that you don't want to waste a good poop by flushing it away?  And that, my friends, is a tangent.  Anyway, when you encounter a stranger's waste, it's gross, but doesn't mean anything.  On the other hand, when you find a turd in a family friends' toilet, it freaks you out.  You can't help but guess whose poop it is, but at the same time you're trying to permanently burn the image from your memory.  Basically, it throws off the balance of everything.  People aren't meant to see other people's poop. 

Sadly, it doesn't end there.  A couple weeks later I was watching someone's cat while they were on vacation.  They kept the cat's food in the parents' bathroom, so while I was in there I had this crazy thought:  I wonder if there is a turd in their toilet.  Yes, I realize how weird that is, but it had been happening to me so often, I just felt this weird connection to poop.  Almost like stool ESP.  So I peeked under their lid, and sure enough, there was the phantom turd. Now this, this was crazy.  Not only was I finding unflushed stool in the bathrooms of adults, I was also aware of its existence before I even lifted the seat.


Eventually I expected to find unflushed poop when I used someone's bathroom.  That is not a happy expectation.  Luckily, the Phantom Poop slowly disappeared from my life, but the whole thing still baffles me.  I'll admit, I have left my waste unflushed in someone else's toilet, but it was only once.  I was five and still deathly afraid of flushing strangers' toilets.  That's normal right?  Either way, once I grew up I always flushed the toilet, ESPECIALLY after a bowel movement.  Basically there is no excuse for unflushed poop. Unless a Tyrannosaurus Rex comes through the bathroom door and you have to run away without having time to flush.  But come on, that's totally unrealistic.  Everyone knows a T Rex can't open a door; his arms are too short.


Poop/Poop synonym count: 28

Yeah, my mom is going to kill me once she reads this.

How to Write a Really Long Paper

So I'm an English Teaching major, and I'm taking three English classes this semester.  In other words, all I do is read a lot and write tons of papers.  But seriously, I write so much.  Most of it is easier stuff that I can whip out in less than an hour, but I have plenty of other papers that make me want to die.

This last paper was no exception.  It had to be around 10 pages, which isn't totally horrible, but when it's for an actual writing class, those 10 pages actually have to be good.  What a concept.  Anyway, I planned to finish all my homework early in the weekend, so I'd have most of Saturday and Sunday to write my paper.  And that's exactly what I did.  Not.

I can proudly say that I did finish all my homework by Saturday, but then I hit a wall when I realized that there was nothing left to do but start my paper.  And that's why I first went on six mile run, showered, did my dishes, cleaned my room, vacuumed the apartment, and practiced my cello (something I hadn't done in over a year).  Oh, and then I went to the Hunger Games.  IT WAS SO AWESOME.

The next day wasn't much better.  I went to church for three hours, and it also happened to be the last Sunday of the month so I had to visit teach and be visit taught.  PROCRASTINATION INCEPTION.  I also made dinner.  Real meal number 3.  I was really avoiding that paper.

Kimchi and spam fried rice. 

This is a happy plate. 

I could go on, but I didn't really start my paper till around 10pm.  I made myself stand up while I typed so that I'd just get it over with.  I was in bed by midnight.  BAM.

It looked kind of like this.  Except this is when I was writing a different paper.

And that's how you write a really long paper.  Kind of.

I'M 20

I'm 20 now.  I remember when I thought that was old.  I also remember saying that I'd probably get married when I was 20.  Needless to say, my perspective has changed a lot since then.

So what did I do the last few days as a teenager?  Nothing too crazy.  I considered streaking, but I decided against it.  BYU campus isn't the place to do stuff like that.  No, instead I decided to do much more conservative activities such as going to work, watching Avatar (Joel had never seen it, so I basically forced him to watch it with me), going to a world folk dance thingy, and going to church.

It was crazy.  

But then I had an awesome pierogi party on my birthday.  I ate lots of pierogies and sugar.  As the hours passed our conversations continued to get stranger and stranger.  That's as close as I've ever been to being drunk.  Like I said, it was crazy.

For the poor souls who don't know what pierogies are...THESE are pierogies.

Everyone looks pretty good, but I have no idea what happened to Tiff and Meghan.

Awesomeness captured.

This is when we started to get our sugar high.

So yes.  That was a fun night.  The next day I opened my birthday package from my family.  I got some delicious squished cupcakes, a grown up wallet, hangers, and awesome letters.

I finally retired my duct tape wallet from 7th grade.  I am now truly an adult.

My mom's pretty cute.

Ok, this blew my mind. 

You fold it up, and it turns into a face!

And that was my birthday weekend.  I'm a lucky girl.

Why nice guys finish last.

Lately I've been seeing a lot of internet memes about guys getting friend-zoned.  If you're not familiar with this term it's typically when a girl rejects a guy by saying they "just want to be friends."  And often this statement is truthful.  We honestly do want to be friends, but nothing more. To girls, this seems like a completely logical plan, but apparently guys hate this.  Even worse is after being friend-zoned, the girl goes for a jerk instead.

Guys complain about this a lot, and they have every right to do so.  Girls really do fall for douche bags instead of nice, respectable guys.  The question is why?  It's not like we want to date selfish, cocky, idiots, but somehow countless girls do.

Yes, I just included myself in this discussion.  I find myself continually attracted to muscular guys that are more obsessed with their bodies than I am.  And I'm a girl.  They are totally self-centered jerks, and yet I'd totally make-out with any of them.  Yep, I just said that.  This never made sense to me, I absolutely HATE these guys, but there is something beguiling about them.

So here's a theory that explains why girls fall into the douche bag trap: These jerks develop a false sense of superiority which makes them confident.  I find confidence very attractive.  Girls might say that we want a sensitive guy, but what we really want is a manly MAN.  The problem arises when girls mistake the jerks as "manly" when they're really just egotistic losers. 

I may be attracted to countless retards, but I would never date one.  I respect myself enough to avoid that situation.  But it really bothers me that I'm physically attracted to jerks, and yet I can't feel this way towards "nice" guys.  Do you know how many guys I've wanted to like, but just couldn't?  A lot.  I hate how there's this perfect, friendly, cute guy, and yet I don't feel anything.  IT DOESN'T MAKE SENSE.  Maybe they're so respectful, I feel like they'll never make a move.  I don't know.  It's weird.

So this is my advice to you nice guys:  If you've been friend-zoned, don't change who you are.  Girls are stupid sometimes.  Ok, a lot of times.  But if you want them to notice you in a "friendlier" manner, you're gonna have to show some confidence.  If you want to kiss a girl, and she seems to have mutual feelings, then GO FOR IT.  Girls like to feel like the guy is in control.  WARNING: No other time will we be ok with guys being controlling or dominating; that's when you start blurring the line between manly and douchey.  Having said that, we still want you to be confident in yourself as a man.  I don't care if it's old fashion, the guy should be the one to make the first move.  If I think he's too chicken, then I'm no longer attracted to him. 

The important thing is to continue and be a nice guy.  Sure, right now you may feel like girls don't notice you in the way you want, but you don't want to date those girls with low self-confidence anyway.  If the only reason you have a sub-par dating life is because you're nice, then you don't have much to worry about.  I've been friend-zoned a few times too and it sucks.  The problem is, I can't use the excuse that I'm too nice.  It doesn't work like that for girls.  No, the reasons I came up with include: I'm obnoxious, I'm annoying, I'm weird, I'm flat, I'm not very ladylike, or a nice combination of all those things. 

See? Just compare your life to mine and you'll feel better about yourself!