Entry #2 (Eng 102) - VACATION!

Vacation All I Ever Wanted...

That was essentially me after I left my history class, Friday, after my mid-term.  I hopped into the car with my husband and we set off for Southern Utah.  About seven hours later we finally made it to our resort at Brian Head, UT.  It. Has. Been. Glorious!  So, yes, this was our (slightly late) 10-year anniversary vacation.  Our anniversary was actually October 6th but life doing what it usually does, we weren't able to work things out to have that weekend off. 

So here we are now, finally on vacation and a few things have occurred to me over the past few days.  The first being that this is the first real vacation we've had since our honeymoon.   By "real" what I mean to say is it's the first vacation we've taken that wasn't to visit family for fun or due to a situation in the family.  Ten years.  Ten years to get to this point of being able to be on vacation that's just the two of us!  >.>  That may or may not be why I'm only just now getting these blog posts done.  Why?  Because that's the other thing I realized this weekend!  I completely scrapped my original 'self-generated' post idea and decided to do a post on vacations.  Because everyone loves vacations!

I really hope that no one minds lots of pictures.  I've taken an obscene number of pictures, however, I have picked out my favorites and attempted to keep the number within a respectable limit.  That said, I am afraid there will be fewer memes than usual, as the pictures will take their place.  I hope none of you are too terribly disappointed. I also hope that any of you reading through this actually enjoy the photos themselves, I had a grand time taking them all.

So that's the summit of the mountain on which our resort was located, granted the resort itself (along with all the other resorts around the area) was nestled down a few thousand feet lower.  Well.  Barely.  The town of Brian Head is at an elevation of 9.800 feet with a local (year round) population of 83 people.  Granted, they only have about 6 weeks of 'off-season' as people are either here for skiing or here in the summer to enjoy the breathtaking scenery.  And speaking of scenery, let's get to the pictures!

The pictures really don't begin to do it justice to standing right at a cliff (or more accurately about 15 feet away from a cliff cause I don't have a death wish) and taking in the full breadth of this kind of view.  Of course, the biting wind attempting to cause frostbite on my fingers and making the elevation feel even higher were some interesting aspects I hadn't been anticipating either but hey, it was worth it!

This is Parowan Gap 

There's a small town nearby (about 15 miles down a steep as hell two-lane highway) called Parowan that has this really amazing cultural attraction called the Parowan Gap Petroglyphs.

The oldest of the petroglyphs has been dated back to 500 A.D. although as various  nomadic peoples traveled through the area, they sometimes left additional carvings into the rocks that eventually became part of the same petroglyph system. 

Two major studies on the petroglyphs, one in the '60s and a ten-year study that started in the '90s, have been performed.  Both studies are still under review by both scientific and Indian communities!  So there may yet be even more information to come from these once these studies have gone through their own form of peer-reviewing and been published!

The glyphs might "only" be 1500 years old, but the gap itself was formed originally by a river that flowed through the land.  The rocky areas on either side actually grew up around the river and the rushing waters cut the gap through the rock as it formed up.  This makes it a 'wind gap', an ancient, now dry, river cutting its way through the hills.  In fact, the gap itself dates back over 200 million years ago!  The petroglyphs are also listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Some scientists believe that the 'zipper' like carving in the picture to the right could be indicative of a solar calendar.  When scientists overlaid an outline of the glyph onto a topographical map and found that the lines of the 'zipper' carving conformed to the contours of the gap on the map.  This has led scientists to believe that the tick marks along it, giving it the zipper appearance, were used to note the days between spring and harvest.

And of course, hubby and I had to go see these because even on vacation we feel a need to learn something new.  (Cause we're nerds, but we're okay with that!)



Of course, going to see the petroglyphs at Parowan Gap was only part of what we did over the weekend.  We also spent a whole lot of time hiking around. (Or in some cases driving up one heck of a long road to reach the summit of the mountain.  Cause there was no way on God's green Earth I was going to hike that up and back down.  Nu uh.)  There were some unbelievable locations to see and some places I forgot to even take pictures because I was too busy staring and just taking it all in.  However, I did remember at some important times!

It's difficult to describe how beautiful it was to really see the varying shades of blue that were present.  I didn't use any kind of filter at all on my camera when I took any of these pictures, this is exactly the way that the colors had manifested and it really was amazing.

 And then, of course, we had to go back for sunset and make sure to get as many pictures we could of that.  It was too amazing to pass up and hubby and I both knew that the stone 'hut' would make for a superb backdrop.  And what do you know, we were right!

Then of course there's the surrounding area just as the sun was setting.  It was something that was nearly indescribable.  Humbling would be a good descriptor.  It certainly had a way of making me feel small and yet connected to something so much more than just myself.  The entire trip has been like that, just going up and down the mountain and exploring different areas, it's really been a trip unlike any other I've ever been on.

And two more, some of my favorites.  Although, to be fair, most of these have been my 'favorites'.  I'm seriously considering getting some of these framed to hang on the walls at my house.

Sadly, now, tomorrow we have to check out and make the long drive back to Peoria.  This has been one of the most amazing weekends of my life.  Not a lot has compared to this trip and all of the sights that we've seen.  It's been wonderful to be able to spend time with hubster and be able to change plans at the last minute if we felt like it because driving 20 miles the wrong direction just to check out an interesting place we were told about sounded like fun.  That's the best part of vacations I think, just doing something because it sounded like fun and keeping the spontaneity alive and well. 

 Now, sadly, I have to deal with packing.  I'm not looking forward to it.  Packing is the final nail in the coffin of 'it's really over' and I don't want it to be over.  I am sad.  This, I am afraid, is the best you're going to get from me for a goodbye meme.  The fact my vacation is over is enough of a goodbye.  I'll be seeing you all real soon anyway, so it won't  be goodbye for long.

Entry #1 (Eng 102) - Battle of the Blogs, Round 2!

Three, two, one... FIGHT!

Okay, so admittedly it isn't really a battle of blogs per se.  They aren't really competing for anything except perhaps my attention and desire to read them.  In that regard, two I've found quite interesting and the third (while in search of another one I liked) I have found particularly 'meh'.  That's a technical term in case no one knew.  So, allow me to get right down to it.  I've found three blogs that I want to talk about.

Fashion!  ...maybe
 

 The concept of 'fashion' is something that's difficult for me to understand.  I understand some aspects like matching my shoes to some part of my clothing if at all possible (I don't own that many pairs of shoes) and I often wonder if it's actually okay to wear white after Labor Day.  Or is it before Labor Day?  There are so many 'rules' that it's hard to keep it all straight.  Even beyond that, however, is the fact of what some people call fashion.  Honestly, some clothes that I see that are considered 'fashion' I think I could come up with on my own by basically finding the most ill-fitting, random, nonsensical pieces of clothing, throwing them on together and calling it fashion.  Apparently, the blogger of the first fashion blog I'm going to talk about seems to think that's perfectly acceptable.  Clearly I'm missing something as her style and sense of fashion have been well received and are really popular.  I just don't understand why.  However, I digress.  First up we have: Double3xposure. 




Okay, the fact that I apparently just don't understand fashion isn't why I didn't like this blog.  I was curious and interested when I clicked on it, wanting to see something - anything - that might help me understand something more about fashion.  Unfortunately, the layout, to me, left much to be desired.  I'm a big fan of visual media to help support what people are doing.  Hello - memes much?  Still, there is such a thing as resizing and the pictures on this blog were in desperate need of it.  I have a full-sized laptop screen and had to scroll down over every picture just to be able to see both the top and bottom.  Which is to say, I couldn't see the top AND the bottom at the same time because the pictures were HUGE.  Given her apparent enjoyment of oversized, 'frumpy' (by her own admission) looking clothing, maybe she just likes oversized things which carried over to oversized pictures.  I don't honestly know.  But I was not impressed.  Newp.  Case in point, let me actually share the image of the outfit which I'm referring to as the blogger's self-professed 'frumpy' outfit, which apparently the frumpiness of it made her love it. 

I really just don't understand it.  At all.  Beyond that and speaking to the blog itself, aside from the oversized pictures that made my head spin trying to scroll past them all, it felt like the little bit of actually writing that she does (that I've gotten to thus far) has little to do with fashion.  If I'm going to follow a fashion blog I want to actually see and learn something, give me tips, direct me, MOLD ME or some other sort of thing that you do for non-fashion-inclined people such as myself.  Anyway, I digress, let's move on to the next blog!


Say Cheese!

To start, I found a really amazing photography blog that's run by Joe McNally that's named directly: Joe McNalley's Blog.  Honestly I'm kind of in love with this blog now.  I hadn't really expected to enjoy it as much as I did.  The layout is easy to navigate, the pictures are breathtaking and I really like his posts and how the content really makes him seem very approachable.  I've actually saved this blog into my bookmarks so I can follow it more closely, which is saying something as it's the first blog I've ever bookmarked beyond my own.  (Admittedly I only saved my own as a bookmark for ease of access to make further posts.)



One of the first posts I clicked on was about a photo shoot in the air.  I was stunned.  Captivated.  It's breathtaking.  Here's the best part though - the post about the photo shoot weren't in super high-tech terms.  It was something I could follow, something I could understand and appreciate all the more for how it was explained.  All the posts (the ones I've read thus far at least) are like that.  I can understand the amazing skill and preparation and thought process that went into capturing each incredible photograph.  Somehow, being able to understand it just makes it that much more amazing.  If you've ever been the slightest bit interested in photography, I'd give Joe McNally's blog a look.  I don't think you'll regret it.

Onward we move!  Let me continue on to the next blog, otherwise I could spend entirely too long writing about the previous blog.



I'm Sexy and I Know It!

Please don't judge me, but the third and final blog I'm going to be discussing here is another fashion blog.  This is one that I feel I can actually get behind.  Ok so it likely has a lot to do with the impression that 'fashion' equates to 'skinny as a rail', which I am not.  But then there are blogs like this one, a blog about fashion that speaks to a great number of women in the country (and around the world).  The Girl with Curves Blog has a wonderful mission statement, so to speak: "Style, Beauty, and Inspiration for the modern Girl With Curves."  How awesome is that? 

This is something that really does need to be more clearly stated for the average woman in America.  Many of us have curves.  They don't define us, they don't make us good or bad people, make us worth more or less, they are just a part of who we are like having freckles.  Sometimes, and this is difficult for some to grasp, it's possible to be 'fat' and still 'healthy'.  I know, shocking right?  Being fat, being curvy, doesn't mean that those of us who are sit around stuffing our faces and doing nothing.

I really love this blog, which is shocking for me to say because, as I stated the review of the first blog - I don't like fashion.  This doesn't so much feel like fashion though.  I love the way the blog is designed, it's a collection of posts from topics about motherhood, suggesting fun family movies, to information about trends for different seasons.  This blog makes 'fashion' easy.  Even better?  It even has an easy access link to shopping for larger sizes of fashionable clothing.  Which, if you're a curvier woman, you know is no easy feat.  Apparently most clothing designers seem to think that if you're big, you have no desire to look nice or wear nice clothing that's flattering and not going to make you look like a granny.  Take this post for instance.  What great tips to offer for how to tone 'up' your wardrobe in a simple way without having to buy super specific clothing to make it happen.

 So that's it for me.  I know I kind of did an about-face with starting with a fashion blog I really didn't like and ending with one that surprised me by being wonderful and generally awesome as all get out but such is how these things happen.  I'd be curious to know what others think about the topics of the blogs that I chose to write about  Are any of you out there interested in fashion?  Maybe you know more on the subject than I do.  Do you have some photography blogs that you just love?  Toss them up in the comments and share so I can check some more out!  And with that, I bring this massively long post to an end and bid you adieu with an adorable kitten.

Entry 0.5 (Eng 102) - A New Introduction to the Insanity!

*cackles manically...*

That should be enough of a lead in, right?  Surely it sets the tone for things.  Maybe.  Possibly.  Lord I hope so.  *shifty eyes*  

 Well if the first part wasn't a tip off, this meme surely must convey things far more clearly.  I'm not normal.  But I think that's half the fun!  So for further explanation of myself - my name is Lisa Evans.  I've been a nurse for the last six years (expect a handful of nursing memes at some point or another or at least references to quite a few aspects of nursing).  I've also been married for ten years to a wonderful man who I will also likely reference on various posts through this project.  He is generally referred to as "hubby" or "hubster".  That is his name now for all intents and purposes.  It just is.  He knows it.  We've been together for 12 years, at this point he knows full well what to expect from me.  

It does sort of feel as though my introduction thus far is more of a warning for future insanity but I am hopeful that more of you will simply find it sarcastic and amusing - that's my goal at least!  If any of you happen to scroll back through some of my entries from my previous blog project, I'm fairly certain it will be hard to miss that I use memes... often.  They're sort of my thing.  So is being weirdly amusing and tending to say it like it is.  I mean, if I'm writing a blog I might as well put what I really think, right? 

I hope that the rest of you can have as much enjoyment doing your blogs as I have thus far.  It's an amazing creative process.  It's a bit difficult for me to say what my purpose is per se with this blog, but really I tend to use it to really have a sounding board for my opinions and thoughts on different topics.  And, of course, I like the opportunity to infuse sometimes serious discussions with humor because I believe humor can keep people from becoming too serious to the point that they lose sight of their focus.  That's why I think memes are so amazing, there are so many of them that can be found that fit to all kinds of topics, they can really help to enhance what I'm trying to say while injecting humor and still keeping the topic on point.  So with that said...

This is your only warning.  Be prepared.  ...I almost said "winter is coming" but then I remembered that's kind of the wrong topic.  >.>  Anyway, it's my hope that we'll get to enjoy this crazy, bumpy, exciting ride through blogging together and maybe learn new viewpoints and gain insights into one another.  It's exciting to see what others come up with for topics, to see the different opinions and thought processes and get to share my own with others.  I look forward to this so much and I'll do my level best to make this blog project enjoyable reading for the rest of you as well.  And, as those of you reading this may discover, I never leave off a blog entry without a farewell meme.  See ya'll next time!  Enjoy!

 

Entry #11 - To Sleep, Perchance to Dream. To Think, Perchance to Blog...

The Final Frontier.. wait, no, the final blog!

Well I certainly never would have expected this.  Certainly the declaration at the start of the semester regarding a blog project was not one that I mentally met with joy and exaltation.  Quite the opposite really.  I remember at first being a bit embarrassed to admit to friends and co-workers that I had a blog and quickly explained it as "It's a project for my English class."  Now?  I don't really care what people think, this stuff is FUN!  I never would have expected how enjoyable this would, how much it would get me to think and really consider different topics.  And of course, there's the memes.

When I first started, I had no idea how I wanted to proceed.  I had no idea what format I should use, what kind of tone or how I would make this blog appealing to anyone.  For that matter, I had no idea how I was going to write something that people would actually want to read.

Needless to say, I had a lot of wild thoughts about how this blog would happen.  The use of memes wasn't really intended to be something that became a staple of each entry, it just sort of evolved that way.  I thought it would add something interesting and they were funny.  And trying to end each post with a 'goodbye' meme really happened around the time of the second official entry.  I figured since I'd done it with the first one, I should do it again.  Then the thought occurred to me that I should just do that for ALL of my entries!  Oh how did I not realize the world of procrastination I would open myself up to by having to search down memes related to my topics.  Then again, holy crap that was fun! 

Admittedly, while overall I found blogging a lot of fun (a lot more fun than I ever expected it to be) I had more than a few times of groaning and dragging my feet because I just didn't want to do it.  It was fun yes, and when I did it I always ended up enjoying it, but it's so frustrating when you struggle to find just the right words, just the right way you want to say something.  What can you do, say, or add to really make the point?  That's what I struggled with perhaps more than anything.  I wanted to make sure that each entry meant something, that it was a clear point on my thoughts, on my opinions and maybe that it managed to share insight into things that might encourage or help others somehow.

Then, of course, there's the question of... did that make sense?  More than a few times in my life there have been instances where something made perfect sense... to me.  Then I'd inevitably have to stop and explain my train of thought for how I went form topic A to topic W and that it did, I promise, make sense.  Sometimes my head makes connections and logical conclusions that my mouth (or in this case fingers) miss out on.  So, to me it makes perfect sense, but does it to those listening (or reading as the case may be)?   Needless to say, I had to do a lot of re-reading to check my work.  That issue in particular was something of an issue when I was sick because let me tell you, trying to write coherent, cohesive sentences that actually have a point when hopped up on cold meds is just... well it's amusing as hell in hindsight but in the moment it was very frustrating. 

Sure you could try and make a blog post without memes but it just wouldn't be nearly as much fun.  Or as stressful.  But mostly not as much fun.  I often ended up re-reading entries and hoping beyond hope that people found them as funny as I did.  That in and of itself is something different to me.  Blogging really helped to cement in my head the connection between paper and audience.  It's something I'd always known in a kind of abstract way but my focus was always on the paper, on the words themselves, not on who I was trying to reach with those words.  Blogging is much different than just writing papers.  The point to blogging is to reach people, to put your thoughts, ideas, and opinions out there to share with whomever stumbles across this interesting bit of work. 

When I started this blog I had no idea what I'd really gain out of it, if anything, yet as I'm typing this final entry I realize that I've gained a lot from this project.  Not only did I happen to have a lot of fun doing it, but I had an opportunity to talk about a broad range of topics.  Entry #8 is perhaps a particularly fitting example of "things I never thought I'd ever discuss in an open forum type of setting."  Yet it was important and it connected me to my writing in a way I hadn't really experienced in a very long time.  Unlike all of the papers I wrote in high school or writing competitions I did, it was never really about the audience though.  Papers were focused on the topic: what are you trying to explain, what is your position, what's your opinion?  It was a matter of what are you trying to say, not who you're saying it to. 

That was something which was much more important in the papers we wrote for class as well, with no few discussions on who the audience is that we're trying to speak to.  The blog project just seemed to cement that, keeping it something which remained in the back of my mind.  Instead of struggling to figure it out with my in-class papers, blogging actually made it easier to figure out who I was trying to connect to and how I wanted to 'speak' to them as it were. 

And of course there's this.  The dreaded editing.  Something which I spent a great many hours doing for papers.  And, as I just explained, the editing primarily centered around this new concept of audience.  Instead of "does this say what I want it to say?" my concerns with editing became focused more on "Is this something my audience would understand?  Am I making this clear enough without making it seem dumbed down?"  It's amazing sometimes how the seemingly smallest things can have such a profound impact on how we do things.  I honestly think if it weren't for this  blogging project, I would have struggled significantly more with my papers and with this concept of connecting to the audience than I did.  And the blog project did this so subtly I didn't even realize how much it was helping me until halfway through! 

Ultimately, I have to admit that I've had more than a few thoughts of keeping the blog going after the project was over.  I figured no one would ever read it once no one had to make comments for a grade anymore but part of me is sad to think of stopping.  Another part of me thinks "Holy crap are you nuts!?  You've got too much work to do anyway!"  Still, I really did enjoy this experience.  A lot.  A lot more than I ever expected to that's for certain. 

So here we are at the end of our blogging journey.  It's been fun.  It's been enlightening.  I imagine you'll be relieved to not have to sift through entirely too long posts and far too many memes but part of me hopes that you'll miss reading my entries as much as I'll miss writing them.  One last time, our final farewell, I give you my last goodbye meme. It's been fun.

 

Entry #10 - I'm Crazy, You're Crazy, We're All Crazy!

Admit it, it's more fun anyway...

It took a long time to admit this.  Seriously.  I've been weird my whole life but actually being comfortable with it?  That took awhile.  Really about the point I hit my 30s I suddenly realized "Hey, I don't give a crap if I'm weird.  I'm happy.  So if anyone has a problem with it, well that's on them. Lalala!" Okay so maybe I didn't really think 'lalala' to myself, but it was fairly close.  Either way, it was a very liberating thought to have and the realization has made my enjoyment of my weirdness all the better.  Sure some people might call it quirky, strange, ...possibly psychotic, but really they just need more imagination. 

Answer to the first one?  Weird senses weird.  Answer to the second?  BOTH!  The best kind of friends are the ones that get your own kind of weird, seriously.  And even if they don't necessarily get your kind of weird, they still accept you (and your weird)!  It might seem like a small thing, honestly, but it's huge.  For me, I don't have a huge number of friends.  I've always been the kind of person that prefers quality over quantity so I don't have a lot of friends but the ones I do I am very close to.  Of course, that means that those few close friends I do have tend to be those who 'get' me.  It makes things very interesting to say the least. 

Truer words were never spoken.   The best part about the friends I have is even if their crazy-weird isn't the same as my crazy-weird, it's alright.  It never seems to fail that my friends end up making me laugh till I'm wheezing, red-faced, and with tears in my eyes and I greatly love when I have the chance to catch them off-guard with some wit-tastic (no that isn't a real word) comment that makes them stop and stare at me before they end up laughing.  The best kind of friends are the ones who, even if they don't necessarily get what you're doing or saying, still just go along with it and accept you for who you are - weirdness and all. 

Liberating.  That's what this is.  Very liberating.  One of the best compliments I've gotten from a friend was "Oh my god you're so weird... I love it."  When I carpool with one of my close friends (and co-worker) on the weekend, it never fails to amuse me that one of us (if not both) will likely end up burping or making other such bodily noises.  It takes a level of comfort to be willing to do something like that around your friends and only the closest ones would I ever consider it with.  But the best part?  I swear my female friends are just like my guy friends - we always end up rating the other.  Early morning belch at 5:30AM going 80mph down I-10?  "Eh, that's a 4.5, maybe a 5 if I'm being generous."  It never fails to end up making both of us laugh which, when you're staring down a 20 hour day (16 of which is on the clock) you take the humor where you can find it.  A looooooong while back in my first official blog post I included one about nurses having a twisted sense of humor?  This qualifies as an explanation for that.  Bodily functions stop being gross when you have to discuss them all the time.  All. The. Time.

Make that second one about work instead of school and it officially sums up the conversations I've had with my friend when she (or I) calls off from work.  It never fails that whichever of us isn't there ends up texting the other to ask how the day is going.  To which we must accept that the one AT work then has free rights to bitch virtually non-stop about the horrors of the day and blame the other one for all their daily woes.  That is the official price of calling off from work and leaving your friend who is also your co-worker hanging.  No matter how much we might understand why the other called off, it's just friend-etiquette to hold out that life-line to allow the other that's stuck, alone, at work to let them vent with however many obscenity-laced texts it takes for them to feel better.  It's an unwritten rule in the friend-code. 

So ultimately, the important things to remember here are that it's perfectly alright to be weird, find people who understand or at least accept your weird, and just remember weirdness is often just alternate forms of creativity.  Embrace your weird.  Accept your crazy.  Grab the strangeness by the horns and give it Eskimo kisses if that's what you feel like doing.  Just because you don't fit neatly into a cookie-cutter mold doesn't mean you're wrong, it just means you broke the mold and you are your own person.  Own that shit! 

And because I have my own shenanigans to participate in!  *prances off!*