The Name Game

1.YOUR REAL NAME
Rebecca (Becky) Ann Tucker

2.WITNESS PROTECTION NAME:(mother and father's middle names)
Ann David

3.NASCAR NAME:(first name of your mother's dad, father's dad)
Glenn Claire

4.STAR WARS NAME:(the first 3 letters of your last name, first 2 letters of your first name)
Tucre

5.DETECTIVE NAME:(favorite color, favorite animal)
Red Dog

6.SOAP OPERA NAME:(middle name, town where you were born)
Ann Placentia

7.SUPERHERO NAME: (2nd fav color, fav drink, add "THE" to the beginning)
The Blue V Coke

8.FLY NAME:(first 2 letters of 1st name, last 2 letters of your last name)
Reer

9.ROCK STAR NAME:(current pets name, current street name)
Randi University

10. PORN NAME: (1st pet, street you grew up on)
Goldie Cornell

11.YOUR GANGSTA NAME:(first 3 letters of real name plus izzle)
Becizzle

12. YOUR GOTH NAME:(black, and the name of one of your pets)
Black Rollie

14. STRIPPER NAME: (name of your fav perfume, fav candy)
Beyonce Milk Duds

Dodged that Bullet

I have been meaning to purchase an external hard drive for some time now, and by some time I mean about three years. I rent a computer from BYU and so one day will lose it and with it all of my information and so I thought it best to have it all stored somewhere else. But! Like most other things, I put off the purchase because those things are expensive and I'd rather have new clothes or a new version of guitar hero or a car. So, I put it off and I put it off and finally I decide that I should just get her done and make the purchase even though I can't really afford it. So to Walmart I go. I buy the little beauty shown on the left. It's quite a gem. Holds 500 GB and that's plenty for me. Home I skip, new hard drive in hand. Once I get home, I go to town, storing all my pictures, music, and documents on the little sucker and basically cleaning out my computer. About five minutes after I do all this, my lovely little rental computer says it needs to restart. Now, it's been having some problems rebooting lately. It will but then it won't again and then it will and then it won't again, but eventually, it always does. This time was different. My companion of three years, this little computer that got its start at the MTC and then made its way to the IT office to be rented to me, finally gave up the ghost. Good thing I finally splurged and bought that external hard drive or everything I've done, all the music I've purchased, and all the pictures I've taken over the past three years would have been gone forever. Phew! Call it luck if you want to, I'm gonna call it a blessing, but whatever it was, I'm so glad it happened!

Confrontation

AHHHH!! Anxiety attack! One of the hardest things to do in life is to say hard things to people, especially people you love. Hard things include: telling someone you have feelings for them, telling someone you love them for the first time, telling someone you don't want to go out with them again.. or worse yet that you don't want to go out with them at all, breaking up with someone, asking someone for money they owe you when you know they don't have it or will be upset you asked, asking someone to borrow money, telling someone they aren't a good singer/photographer/dancer or whatever it is they think they're good at but that they really can't do (this particular one isn't done enough, as is evident in American Idol and other similar "I've got talent" shows), telling someone they're making a fool out of themselves (also something people don't do enough because they're afraid of hurt feelings, but wouldn't you rather know if you were the fool?), giving someone advice they don't want to hear, being the one to tell someone they lost a loved one, saying you're sorry, admitting to doing something hurtful or stupid, talking about relationships of any kind (especially the romantic kinds) with the other person in the relationship, asking someone if they want to marry you (and I don't mean proposing, I mean actually bringing the subject up for the first time), and oh so many more.

Life is full of necessary confrontations that most of us avoid like the plague. It's understandable why we avoid them. We could get rejected, which would either just be a devastating blow to the self-esteem or cause us to lose someone we love. We could also be rejecting someone else, which might hurt them and that's no fun. Mainly I think these are the two reasons why people avoid confrontation. We're afraid of hurt feelings or losing something important to us. These are both unpleasant things. However, I also believe that these things can be avoided more often than not if we simply go through with the confrontations we know we need to deal with. For instance, we might hurt our friend's feelings by telling them that they can't sing very well, but isn't that better than them auditioning on national television and becoming the laughing stock of a nation? Also, wouldn't you rather confront the person you love when something they're doing is hurting your feelings or bothering you or when you don't understand what they're thinking than just being perpetually confused and ending up breaking up because of frustration with each other? Also, wouldn't you rather take a chance on someone and get rejected than spend the rest of your life (or at least the next few months) wondering what could have happened?

Confrontation is like ripping off a Band-Aid. Keeping the Band-Aid on is comfortable, but that thing is getting pretty disgusting after all the showers you've taken with it on and you know you're going to have a wicked tan line if you leave it on any longer. So you rip it off. And it hurts.. but it can only get better from there.

I recently decided where I'm going to live next year. It was a process that consisted of a couple confrontations that needed to be made and I feel that if they weren't, things would have ended badly, but at least no one's feelings would be hurt, right? Well, I discovered that I don't mind being confronted most of the time and I'm glad when people get up the courage to talk to me about something. Also, I feel better when I talk to people that I need to talk to. Anyway, my situation ended well because we were willing to talk to each other, being honest and tactful and now we all feel good about our situations. So a word of advice, if you feel like you should talk to someone about something, just do it. You'll be glad you did.

Sometimes the Snow Comes Down in June

Sometimes the unexpected happens. Sometimes things go as planned despite the fact that you have horrible luck. Sometimes you try your hardest and things just seem to keep getting worse. Sometimes fate fakes you out and you end up disappointed in the end anyway. I've learned all of these things from experience and I'm sure I'll learn much more even before the year is out. I find that through all of the crap that life throws at me, it always somehow seems to redeem itself.... and then remind me I have no control over anything again. It's ok that I can't control what happens to me. I've given up trying to do that a long time ago, even though some of the anxiety that goes along with wanting to control your life still lingers with me. I'm working on that slowly too. BUT, I can do some pretty sweet crap while I wait for the next blow or the next amazing something in life, so I'm gonna move apartments just because I feel like I should and I'm gonna finish school and I'm gonna run a marathon (one of these days) and if for some reason one or all of these things doesn't end up happening because of circumstances, it's all good. This post has no point. I have no awesome insight. I'm just commenting on life. I think life is nuts, but I do love it. There's no denying that. And whilst I enjoy life, I'm going to be listening to some pretty dang good music. Namely... Kings of Leon and Coldplay. Also, props to Coldplay for winning Best Rock Album and Best Song, among other things, and congrats to Kings of Leon for winning Best Rock Performance By A Duo Or Group With Vocals for Sex on Fire. I normally don't care about the Grammy's, but my boys showed up this year. I feel that.

Staring Problem

I find myself staring at people as I walk to and from campus because they have peaked my interest for one reason or another. For some reason, I'm under the impression that when I stare at people, they can't see me. Like I don't exist and people can't stare at me like I'm staring at them. Am I the only one with this problem? I submit that I am not. And here's why... as I was walking to school the other day, some goofy kid was staring at me as I walked by. I was staring right back of course but neither one of us acknowledged the other, that is until his lack of attention to where he was walking caused him to trip on the ice and land right on his rump just after he passed me. I turned around to see if he was ok and I think he suddenly realized that when you stare at people, they can see it, because his face turned bright red and he continued on his way. Now this may just have been because he ate it, but I'm guessing it was possibly because he ate it because he was staring at me, and I'm sure it wasn't because I was attractive or anything, but probably just because I was walking by and was someone he could stare at. He just didn't know his staring at me would end this way. I tell you this story of this absent-minded gentleman to share with you some wisdom I gained that day, just in case, like me, you didn't already have it:

People can see you when you stare at them (unless you are doing it with binoculars up in a tree or somewhere else far away, and if I just described you, for shame).

So do yourself a favor and stop staring at people if you currently have a habit of it, because if we're not careful, we'll all end up like my new friend who didn't think people could see him until he fell on his rear end in public.

I One-Upped Eminem

I've been on this running kick lately. I always said that the reason I didn't work out was because I didn't have a car or a gym membership. I know that I could have been working out on campus all these years, and I did my freshman year, but let's face it, I'm the lazy type when it comes to walking to campus. I minimize the number of times I have to walk to campus in a week for good reason... it's no fun.

But, along with buying a car, I bought myself a gym membership to Gold's. Now, I would actually probably prefer 24 Hour to Gold's, but when I went to 24, I had kind of a bad deal and paid waaay too much a month and Gold's also has a sweet theater room that inspires me to run for entire movies at a time, which is much more tolerable than just counting songs or looking out the window for an hour and a half at a time. So, I was a little hesitant to make the switch, but I'm happy with my decision now, so that's good.

Now that I've explained the decision-making process behind choosing a gym to go to, which I'm sure was riveting, I'll tell you how successful I've been at actually going to said gym. Surprisingly successful, actually. I manage to go about 4 to 6 times a week, usually at 6 in the morning before I go to school or work, and it's been, for lack of a better word, delightful. I go to the gym, get my workout on, and then come home, shower, and have about a half hour to eat breakfast (which I didn't used to do either) and read my scriptures and/or a book before I go to school or work or wherever I'm headed that day. My mornings are just great, which is important because good mornings help you have good days and good days help you have a good life, so I'd say things are going pretty well.

I'm especially impressed by myself because I've actually been making goals with the running. I want to run a marathon or a half marathon, or at least be able to, this summer. Also, I just figure if I'm going to be working out, I might as well get good at something while I'm at it. So, I try to do my own made up training techniques so that I get stronger and faster and all of that, and they seem to be working. I know this is not terribly impressive to all of you actual runners out there, but I ran 9 miles on Saturday for the first time in my life! It wasn't too long ago that three was a stretch, so I'm feeling really good about it.

This is just a little personal triumph for me that I thought I'd share. I've always liked to work out, but have made whatever excuse for not doing it, and I'm so grateful that I'm finally in the optimal situation for actually doing it. And I'm proud of myself for actually doing it and not making another lame excuse for not. Anyway, running is fun, I recommend it. It also helps me feel like I'm actually accomplishing something, which is a nice feeling because school and work can often times feel a little mundane.

Here's the update you've all been waiting for: I did buy a new water bottle at Walmart. It's lovely and blue, but I forgot to bring it with me to work today, so I guess I'll just have to try it out tomorrow. I have, however, given up the regular water bottle at work because I don't thing feeling sick is very fun. I'm just sticking to the drinking fountain for today. Also, I went to the mall with Mallory and got two sexy pairs of jeans that I love and I owe Mallory my life for sharing her shopping expertise with me!

Something in the Water

I'm convinced that reusing water bottles is a bad idea. My reasoning behind this is that I have been doing so for about two years pretty consistently now and I'm pretty sure the nauseous stomach that I've been enjoying recently at work and often times in the past is a result of said action. Maybe this stems simply from the fact that I think it's doing me harm and so somehow my subconscious makes me believe that the sensation of goldfish swimming through my innards is real even though it really isn't. But, I think it's probably just that the water is rancid because I've been reusing my water bottle for too long. I think it's time for me to invest in a couple eco-friendly water bottles (as mentioned on The Biggest Loser) to use instead of reusing these meant-for-one-use-only bottles that are quite a bit cheaper. However, (also as mentioned on The Biggest Loser) in the long run, these meant-to-be-reused-eco-friendly bottles will be a much better investment and will save me a lot of money.

In the meantime, I'm stuck slurping down some Cup Noodles (that's right... it's actually NOT Cup o' Noodles) and drinking some Citrus C Odwalla concoction to get rid of this nasty feeling in my stomach. Hopefully it works.

New Jeans

I have a serious pants deficiency. I own exactly six pairs of jeans. One of which I bought in high school, but it fits and is decent-looking, one of which fits and is falling apart in every way possible, two of which have holes too big to be ignored in places too inappropriate to be ignored, one of which fits me in a way similar to that of your grandmother's stretchy-sort-of-jean material, light-blue-jean-colored pants do (those of you familiar with SNL might call them Mom Jeans), and one of which fits me a lot like a trash bag might (I bought this pair for my fat days, but it turns out my days are never quite fat enough to make them look good). In other words, I have two pairs of jeans that I wear, one of which is quickly becoming another pair with holes too big to be ignored. Most people in the financial position (not great, but good enough to buy pants at least once a year) that I am in, and with the level of intelligence (also not great, but good enough to recognize when new clothes are a luxury and when they are a necessity) that I have would have, by all reasonable paths of logic, come to the conclusion that a pair or two of new blue jeans should be purchased about two and a half years ago.

But, as I'm sure you can imagine by my current problem, I am not most people. So, what am I to do?

My initial reaction is to go to my default reason for not doing anything: I don't have a car. Then... I buy a car. So I move on to the next tried and true excuse for not doing anything: I don't have any money. While this one is still true, it's probably not very valid because I can rationalize spending the little money that I do have on things of much less importance, such as Tucano's and the sheet music for "Open Arms" as made famous by Journey. So, I feel that although my funds are small, they're plentiful enough to splurge on a pair or two of very useful and hopefully stylish jeans. Now that I've gotten past both of these hefty excuses, I make a few trips to the mall. No luck. No pants fit me. THIS, I discover, is the reason for my lack of pants.

Here's where the beautiful and talented Malba (formerly known as Mal Bop, formerly known as Mallory) comes in. She so kindly is going to tutor me in the art of shopping since it's one of my least favorite things to do, and I'm pretty excited about it. This story is to be continued after what I'm sure will be a more successful adventure at the mall than I've previously had. Wish me luck, America. I am finally going to find some jeans to add to my collection after about three and a half years.

Attendance

I have a history of not being good at attendance. Both of my classes this semester take roll and count it as part of our grade. I'm doomed. Either that or I'll just have to suck it up and always go to class. You might be thinking, "What's your problem, Becky? You only have two classes!" But I'm lazy, and that's a hard thing to get over. Also, the temperatures are dropping and that makes walking to school through the ice unpleasant not only because I tend to fall when I walk on ice, but also because it's now absolutely freezing. Other than that, it shouldn't be too bad. Just English classes, so I'm not too worried. No more Italian, thank goodness.

Perhaps I'm also being a tad pessimistic about the upcoming semester because I'm back to work and school after having a two week vacation that was much more fun than anticipated. I went home, which was really nice. It was nice to see my family and friends from back home. I would even venture to say that it was relaxing. Then I spent quite a bit of quality time with Mallory and her lovely family, which was fantastic. This quality time included meeting a sexy Brazilian surfer/snowboarder who made us eat chicken hearts and offered us shots on his break, snowboarding, watching the long but well done Curious Case of Benjamin Button, making an appearance at an incredible institute dance where we saw alot of cha cha-ing and charlie brown-ing, alot of slumber parites, Mallory's 21st birthday, and alot of delicious grub. I couldn't have asked for a better break, but that just makes going back to the boring that much harder.

Bittersweet

Coming home this time has been weird but not for the usual reasons. I'm not stressed out or grumpy or missing anyone from Utah. I miss people here. I miss my life before BYU and I wish I could somehow live a million different lives so that I could be close to everyone I want to be close to and still have time to work and go to school and all of that. I just wanted to take this blog post to say that I'm so grateful for everyone in my life and I'm sorry if we don't spend a whole lot of time together. I miss everyone so much I wish I could see everyone all the time, but I can't so just know that if I haven't seen you in a while or don't see you very often, I love you and I hope you have an absolutely WONDERFUL Christmas!! :)