the last two and a half weeks.

hello all. sorry about the hiatus of sorts. some combination of taxes, finals, moving, job hunting, rediscovering music software, having a computer with a bad attitude, and just having post-semester apathy set in, i got a bit lazy with my blog posts. that being said, i had a few posts i planned to a degree. therefore, rather than having one big theme to this post, i'll have the titles and condensed versions of said posts. i'll try to keep up better in the future.

taxing.
so. taxes are due. i'll assume that you, the reader, are familiar enough with taxes and the general attitude toward them that i won't bother writing about them. instead, i just decided to share something funny from the paperwork for utah state taxes.
i'm glad to see that the state of utah is either seeking to make these forms all the more clear, or simply trying to add a bit of humanity to the taxing process. either way, i was indeed "frowny face" to find i had more due than my refund. oh well, i suppose it's like rent for a year for a very big hotel.

variations on warpaint.
it's finals week. that means things are a little crazy.
for me, with finals week comes certain preparation. in many cultures, the practice of painting faces and bodies in preparation for battle is part of the local heritage and tradition. the purpose, i'd imagine, is generally unique to different groups in the specifics. in general, though, intimidating the enemy and preparing the self for the difficulties of battle seem a safe bet.
here at byu, we're not allowed warpaint, but over the semesters and terms i've developed a sort of variation on warpaint.

my ring and middle fingers are generally the ones that cause me annoyance in testing. even if well maintained, if they're only a bit longer (as in not clipped within two days), they will inevitably begin bothering me through testing. this has defined my "warpaint" for finals week. i clip those two nails shorter than the others. perhaps not intimidating the enemy, but just the same, putting me in the warrior mindset.

i share this not so that you feel as if you should as well, but to encourage you to find some kind of warpaint for yourself... but if you can just use normal facepaint, that's probably the most fun.

to put off intentionally the doing of something that should be done.
it's interesting. finals week is clearly lined up for students for the whole semester. here at byu, many finals aren't scheduled. instead, students can take their tests according to their own schedule, simply going to the byu testing center to take their tests as they like.

the gut instinct is of course to put off your most difficult test to the end of the last day of finals in order to maximize your available study time. the issue here is the fact that that's everybody's gut instinct. what does that translate to?
this is the end of the line to the testing center. this is the benson building. let me give you some scale to put this in context.
the testing center therefore had to stay open until three am (normally closing at ten), with the line peaking at something like two and a half hours to take a test.

moral of the story? sometimes, test aren't worth taking. but they typically are if you don't wait until the afternoon of the last day.


sad bean.
we recently moved apartments. by we, of course, i mean myself and two of my roommates, sean and brad. or sad bean.
the move wasn't all that intense because all we had to do was move our stuff from apt 12 to number 8.
anyway, things are now pretty well settled, and we have our new roommate who i think is still getting used to us, and that's fair enough.

that's about the extent of what i intended to post, but i thought i'd add this just because i could.

this was taken just after sean had finished singing his own interpretation of "i believe i can fly" while brad looked up a conference talk.

they are just toooo cute!






that's basically what i intended for the last several posts that i failed to actually do. i probably could have mentioned more, but i thought this was good enough for now.

so now i'll hopefully be able to feel caught up once again and continue to post garbage that nobody really cares about. three cheers for blogging!