when the bee stings.

sometimes we all just need a good pick me up. .we need something that will make us feel better. sometimes we need a few of our favorite things. like raindrops on roses, whiskers on kittens, and julie andrews.

forgive the youtube slide show format, but it's the best i could do. take a listen. you'll feel better even if you already feel great.



and for you more ambitious types--no need to be satisfied with watching.

and taking a lead from julie, i'll now be listing some of my favorite things. and remember, these are a few of my favorite things, not all of them. in no particular order:

*jonathan coulton*

a wonderfully lighthearted musician i recently discovered and have been enjoying ever since. this link will give you a good list of his stuff on youtube. give it a listen.

*grilled cheese*

need i say more? i think not. it's the best of a bowling alley and a sandwich thrown in the frying pan til golden brown and ready to make me jolly. double cool points when using the sandwich cutting device i received from my sister esa. it turns a one grilled cheese into two dinosaurs made of grilled cheese (as seen above).

*mark williams*

suffice it to say that if you don't know him, you wish you did. if you do know him, you know what i mean. and yes, the photo is of the aforementioned paper-mermaid burning.

*surf ninjas*

how can you not have this movie on your list? it's one of virtually everyone's favorite things. kwansu!

*human anatomy*

yes, it's going to devour me this fall, but as a subject it can't be beaten. it's always crazy when you look at your text book and then look at your forearm and see the same thing. just dissected. way too cool. chemistry would probably be the same if we could readily see on the molecular level. it's also cool that my body works. that's included in this one.

*robots*

and anything that has to do with them. androids are not included in this. nor are cyborgs. and on a side note, i realize that this is sloppier than most of my posts. cry about it. i did.

*mario... and luigi.*

most anything involving these two is bound to be good. and really, the film is what sort of spoils things here, so most any game is a safe bet. the funny part is that we all look back and slam on super mario bros the movie, yet at the time, we all loved it. and some of us saw it more than once. more than three times, actually. and really, it should be noted that the film is included in this favorite thing just because of the nostalgia attached to it. and because it has john leguizamo.

*acoustic guitar*

fun to play, fun to hear, and bob dylan utilized it well enough to make the list of a few of my favorite things. something very soft and soothing about an acoustic that you can't get elsewhere. also wonderful to watch splinter in wrestling matches.

*h.g. wells*

i've recently gotten into audio books and wells has been a staple in the lineup. personal favorites include sleeper awakes and island of dr. moreau. definitely worth investigating.

*england*

you friends across the pond know that i can't leave england out. i love the place. i'm happy to be american, but i'm happy to have english friends. you know i love you, you crazy english folk.

*wales*

and wales, i love you too. i put wales after england because i hoped that at least a few of you would be angry and assume i just lumped wales with england. you know i don't play favorites. just favorite things. and countries. oh how i miss doing sixty in a vauxhaul down your winding roads. i also miss some of the nicest, and at times, bewildering, people in the world. but mostly the nicest. and the people that were bewildering were still friendly... just more confusing than anything else.

and now, to end my list of favorite things, i give you one that's very dear to me.

*chairs*

though we really don't make a fuss about it, chairs really are just too good. really, chairs are wonderful. i love them to death, and hope to have many wonderful chairs before my days are done. and name them all.


now don't you feel better? i do. and it's a good thing to, because i was quite peeved. take care everybody, maybe next time i'll write something worth reading.

minnie and me.

this post is devoted to my stout friend jimmy and my tall friend neil.

(jimmy)............(neil)

the three of us went to school together. i moved into the area where i lived out my teenage years the summer of 2000. i think. i met them in eighth grade when wee trace was floundering around morgan middle school. we were pretty tight friends throughout high school, and had many a zany experience. i wish i could tell you how these two met, but i wasn't around and i'm sure i'd get the story wrong. so oh well.

anyway, it's 1:19 in the morning and i'm looking for something to write about. then i realized that these guys are awesome. so i decided to post this.

the number of stories i've told that begin with either "one time, me and my friend jimmy..." or "i remember once that neil decided that..." i couldn't tell you, but they are many. and that's realizing that most of the best stories haven't been told. at least not out of the circle of the three of us. stories involving mama mia, throwing a tv from a roof (in a tweed suit), camping on the watertower, fake tattoos, pirates, oslo the dog, and lot and lots of sharpees. it's wonderful. you can't put a price on memories like that.

anyway, as of recent things have gotten really weird in a few very particular ways. so having a set of friends such as these is really nice. i worry at times about how a lot of my friendships are based on specific things. i.e., classes, mutual friends, team fortress... once those things are gone, so are those friends (or worse). it's always reassuring to know that these two weenies are always around to remind me with a noogie that i have some of the best weenies in the world as friends.

so, to you two losers whom i adore so much, thank you for being a friend, to quote the theme from golden girls. you guys are great. i (saying this at the expense of being sentimental) sincerely hope i've been as a good a friend to you guys as you've to me.


and to everybody else who read this, chances are you're very cool too. and i'm probably friends with you... probably.

roast mutton.

i love 'the hobbit'. granted, i haven't read the full lord of the rings trilogy, but i think what i've read (the first of them all), i still prefer bilbo to frodo. at least his book. this is for lots of reasons, but i think a big part of it is the fact that in reading it i was introduced to all sorts of new creatures, peoples, ideas and so on and so forth that when i read the fellowship it just didn't have the same kick in the pants as found in 'there and back again.'

one chapter is still a favorite. i took the liberty of having this post share the name of the chapter, "roast mutton." the basic summary (starting some way into the chapter) is that bilbo, being the master thief he is, is assigned by his accompanying dwarves to investigate a fire in the distance of the woods and either befriend the owners, or pilfer some food. he's to give warning if it's dangerous. he is caught by three trolls round the fire, but is able to escape. sadly, the dwarves without the warning have since gone in themselves and been captured and bound, one by one by the said trolls. as things seem worst, the trolls argue and contemplate the fate of the dwarves. all of them involve somehow eating them, but the big debate rests between boiling, bludgeoning to goo, roasting, etc., etc., etc.. luckily, they oafish trolls wind up debating on this point for so long and arguing about whatever they can, really, the morning comes, and with it the sun that turns three trolls to stone. but of course, the narrow escape has more than meets the eye. gandalf (our resident wizard) reveals himself and the fact that he had been perpetuating the arguement the whole time using voices to match each troll and irritating the others to buy time 'til morning. with the dwarves freed, and a key to their lair in hand, they continue on the journey. the trolls are turned to stone because they're each convinced the others are trying to undermine their own efforts or ideas (you could say things about the dwarves as well, but we'll save that for another over-analyitical post). so, lesson learned. when you insist on arguing, whether you're in the wrong or in the right, it usually leads to the same thing. being made of stone, and more generally speaking, stale mates and failure all around. and now to justify the title. the chapter's name comes from the troll's heard conversation prior to bilbo's being caught. a snippet from the text:

"Mutton yesterday, mutton today, and blimey, if it don't look like mutton again tomorrer," said one of the trolls.

"Never a blinking bit of manflesh have we had for long enough," said a second. "What the 'ell William was a-thinkin' of to bring us into these parts at all, beats me - and the drink runnin' short, what's more," he said jogging the elbow of William, who was taking a pull at his jug.

William choked. "Shut yer mouth!" he said as soon as he could. "Yer can't expect folk to stop here for ever just to be et by you and Bert. You've et a village and a half between yer, since we come down from the mountains. How much more d'yer want? And time's been up our way, when yer'd have said 'thank yer Bill' for a nice bit o' fat valley mutton like what this is." He took a big bite off a sheep's leg he was toasting, and wiped his lips on his sleeve.

they were fed up with roast mutton. they wanted to eat man flesh. is that so wrong? i don't think so. not for a troll, anyway. so i think to myself, "i enjoy roast mutton. but every night? i want to eat human," speaking allegorically. and then, pop! in comes a hobbit. a little thing like that would be easy enough and, though not a full person, better meat just the same. lose the hobbit. that's a shame. gain a bunch of dwarves. what a stroke of luck. spend the whole night bickering and turn to stone. that's the biggest shame. that they had what they wanted (moreso in a way, because trolls hate dwarves. eating them would be like an ultimate double whammy), and then it's gone. all gone. sometimes it's like i'm currently in one of two phases of the story. a) lost the hobbit, now hoping to have dwarves show up, or b) bickering until sunrise.

neither one is very satisfying, so at some point i'm hoping to move into the the-hobbit's-a-hero-let's-go-retrieve-the-trolls'-treasure portion of the story soon. that would be nice.

on a seperate note, but one that helped to pick the chapter's name, i grew out some infant mutton chops this weekend, which was very enjoyable. they only had just short of a week to grow, so nothing to impressive, but it was fun to have them while i did. from thursday to tuesday around 4:30 they were still around. but, then they had to come off. but they live on in spirit, and will continue to live on during weekends, holidays, and school breaks.

anyway, long winded, probably pretty boring, and completely normal for this blog; this post is done. thanks for reading, and i'll see you next time.

trace lund

revelations from the noggin (fairly boring).

thanks is owed to my friend lee-ann for her post on her blog (found here, if you're curious) that featured some tests she took from the noggin website. now, not only do i love taking pointless quizzes, and love noggin from my teenage days, but i'm also eager to find distractions from lots of things. you may have noticed that from the slur of posts over the last little bit in comparison to my usual consistency in posting. you could say i'm blog vomiting, or blomiting, these days. or maybe blogiting... i can't decide.


anyway, some results for you. and some commentary.

this one may or may not be accurate according to which element of my life you want to take in for examination. on the whole, i'll say that's fairly accurate.



this one isn't very accurate at all. i watch gossip girl when i'm the mood for just about anything, because i'm always in the mood for gossip girl.







key word: jolly. when you're jolly, you can get away with any flavor. you can also melt in pockets--don't read into that.





i didn't realize this test was just for girls until half way through, and it was only about six eight questions long, so i finished it anyway. besides, the semester is starting soon so i need all the tips i can get. sadly, this one didn't prove all that helpful as i already planned on wearing plenty of plaid.

and to end on a strong note, one more bit of evidence that i should have been born with a horn growing out of my forehead, just like i've been saying all along. we all knew that i had to end this slur of quizzes with one that was accurate.


well, that was a waste of time for both you and me. hopefully you didn't bother reading unless you were as bored or desperate for distraction as i was when i wrote it/was doing my research for it.

and by way of announcement, mark williams is very cool. we once lit a small, paper mermaid on fire. i'll have to tell that story another day. it was fun. i have pictures too.


so long, everybody.

rabbit holes (radio version).

i'm in the middle of a weird phase right now.

life right now smacks a bit of when i wake up from sleeping in and can't quite make out what's really going on. even when i do, everything still feels just a little bit off. my daily schedule, hobbies, ability to do random things, none of them quite seem to fit the usual sound, smell, taste, feeling, or appearance of life. maybe it's from all the pizza.

i had a much bigger, much moodier post written up already. i wrote it over an hour's time whilst watching 'westworld.' (on a side note, that was a very good library find. i'm thoroughly enjoying it. it even stars yul brynner for all you 'king and i' types.) i was going to post it, but as i realized it was around three pages long, remarkably melodramatic, and really just annoying (as i would imagine to any reader), i decided to simply e-mail it to myself and forget posting it. maybe i would have thought otherwise if bothered reading it. it was too long and moody, though, so here you go instead. you should be glad i did so. all two of you that will read this.

basically, this post is just here so i can satisfy my need to post something after writing such a long post, and in turn not posting it. this is a sort of sad excuse for a post. like eating a cereal box because you threw away all of the cereal... yeah. just like that.

and now, since you bothered reading, here's part of the last post. it was the light hearted climax of an otherwise heavy handed piece of writing. it has an ironic history about it in context, but i'll leave it for now. if you're really that interested in it you can ask me, you two readers.

and i one day hope to smoke my awkwardness and everything else with it into extinction. figuratively, of course.

see you later. i promise the next post will be a bit more uppity and a little less johny raincloud.

pizza grease.

i can't remember i time i really had any sort of problem with food. this of course is assuming that you allow my typical diet to pass as, well, permissible. put it this way, i've never had a problem with having food be a comfort for me. however, as of late, my best friend seems to have been shasta and that pint size roman, little caesar. last week there was a four day period where i had pizza as my main meal each day. two days of little ceasars, one day of something provided for a church activity, and one day of a frozen generic brand pizza--and let the record show i should have just payed the extra seventy cents for the tombstone.

it's just an interesting situaiton. having never really experienced this before, i'm able to make observations as days go on that i wouldn't had this been a normal experience. the biggest one is that my head has undergone a sort of pavlov's dog idea. i go to get a pizza, and like the bell to the dog, this makes me happy. i'm actually salivating long before i even purchase the pizza, both literally and figuratively. it's interesting. i wouldn't go so far as to say that i'm drowning my sorrow in pizza grease, though by the amount i'm eating you might think so. i really should lay off the pepperoni pizza. it reminds me of the film super size me (which is worth a watch if you haven't seen it).

on the other side of my existence is science fiction. this has always been the case as noted in earlier blogs, but nowadays i find myself more and more drawn to it. over the last little while i've 'read' (via free audio-books) several science fiction novels that i would have been embarassed to mention my knowledge of before. classics such as 'deathworld' and 'this crowded earth' have for some reason taken on a remarkably interesting appeal in the last little while. and i'd feel ashamed of myself if i didn't at least mention planet of the apes. i'm currently renting and enjoying the series from the local library and hope to finish the whole thing before the semester begins.

anyway, it's just very interesting what sort of things take your interest and devotion when life's a little slow. it's easy to slip into apathy and let everything slide by without notice and dismiss it all as part of the same boring, unimportant occurence that is life at times. but somewhere between brent searching for taylor and nova getting killed, i started to realize that things are worth bothering about. yes, tired, stressed, and lots of other things, but things are there to look for. i'm starting a semester soon that really will be the first major bridge to cross on my trek to med school; i've free time to do things i haven't in a long while like playing guitar and writing stupid songs that really only appeal to me; i'm watching planet of the apes and listening to 1970's science fiction. you could ask for more, but there are things to be enjoyed already--don't get greedy.

so bring on the grease. tomorrow is another wonderful day and one day closer to a bright future.
also one day closer to the rise of apes, and i'll eat to that.

eating time and changing minds.

yeah yeah yeah... we all know i get a bit gung-ho about things without really thinking them over. for those unaware, click on the picture above for a history, but i was planning on joining the air force rotc for reasons listed already in that post, so i won't bother repeating them.

well, as part of my prep for applying, i needed to create a graduation plan. whether or not i join the rotc, i'll realistically be graduating in the year 2012. which is sort of depressing in a way seeing as it's 2009, but we'll let that slide. especially since i plan on a lot more schooling past my undergrad. so here's the deal. with the rotc, i'd be able to do so sometime during that summer, and i'd be scraping by with the very minimum of my science credits. also, i wouldn't actually be finishing them until after i took the mcat, which is basically a sort of act for med school. now, i don't mean to sound like a pessimist, but i cannot realistically think that after no science courses really and minimal experience with algebra and physics that i would stand a breath of a chance at that exam.

so.

i went in and spoke to the pre-med advisers who backed up my thinking that it's not worth putting prep for mcat on the chopping block for rotc credentials, but to instead use all the classes to my prep and get my experience for applications elsewhere where they won't take up class hours. that's what i'll be doing.

it should be noted that i still want to join the air force one day. i still want to go through the air force for med school. this is still very possible. from what i understand you basically need to be competitive for med school in general, and you'll have a good shot for getting in to the air force program.


and in addition to all of this, my gpa was rooting me on as it will be easier to keep up good grades when i have classes to worry about that go towards the mcat as opposed to classes that have me studying air force business and then having to study mcat stuff separately.

so there. i know you're probably disappointed i won't have to keep my hair even shorter than byu standards (which, let's be honest, i could really work on), and believe me i'll miss not getting to twirl around guns like on the armed forces commercials. you're probably also disappointed this post wasn't very entertaining, but it seems my posts are getting more and more like that. you can excuse them being such by focusing on the graphics at the top.

placebos and comfort blankets.

as i've begun my trek into the next semester by beginning my studies and trying to fill out all my rotc paperwork including a comprehensive graduation plan for my degree in psychology, minor in chemistry, and requisites for rotc. so, jumping in with both feet, i've once again broken out the school year's glasses and backpack and am gearing up for battle.

many of you know and adore linus from the classic comic strip 'peanuts' (and many of you also adore my nephew, linus, who is all the more adorable). he's famous for always carrying his blue blanket, despite infinite encouragement from the other characters and numerous attempts to do so. whatever the reason, he can't seem to operate properly without it.

for a period of time, he also had a pair of glasses which he wore because he found that his eyes would water whenever he read and ate potato chips at the same time. they were eventually phased from the comic strip, but he did have them for a time to ensure he could enjoy his reading and eating potato chips.

me and linus have a bit in common.

for me, i have a sort of matching set of comfort blanket and glasses. my backpack is my comfort blanket during my studies. even when i've no intention to study, it comes with me. whether at a computer, desk, or on a lawn i for some reason require my beat-up old puma bag. and "glasses is glasses" here. i may be able to study a bit without glasses, but when the frames come out it's business time. time to eat chips and read, so to speak.

all in all, they're both basically serving the functions of a) making me more comfortable to study, or 'getting me in the zone' and b)somehow convincing me that i'm more effective than i may actually be. that's where the placebo part of the title comes in. do these things actually make a difference? maybe. m&ms may also help a cold a bit, but really the difference is made in the fact that your brain is convinced that those m&ms will make a difference. likewise, over time these glasses and this bag have driven their way deep enough into my sulci to make that sort of difference. and yes, i realize that me considering them as placebos sort of ruins the whole thing. whatever.

so. glasses on, backpack at side.

let's rumble.