Something to be Proud of

So my sister calls me yesterday and starts out with "I'm so proud of myself."

"Why's that, Megan?" I ask, because I'm a good older sister and always show interest in what she's doing.

She tells me about the tests she's having done to get ready for when her and her husband have in vitro done later this year. She explained a test where they do an ultrasound to see how many eggs your ovaries produce. Apparently most women produce an average of 12 per ovary. "My count was 19," she said, excited. I imagine she was probably jumping up and down at this point as if she won the lottery. "It's just nice to know everything is working right and everything, ya know? And you know what this means? Your ovaries probably work great too."

Great. My ovaries produce lots of eggs. Can you put that on a resume? Maybe I can use it on a first date. Like "You know if things ever did work out, you should know I have a family history of great functioning ovaries" *wink wink*.

Ha! The many things in this world we have to be proud of!

Show of Talent

Monday night I saw something that was indescribably hilarious. Something I never thought in my entire life I would EVER see. Like... EVER!!!

We had our last big activity in our singles' ward--a talent show. They did a bake off, did a big picture montage to music where we all oohed and ahhhed, and, of course, people showed off what they could do! One of the coolest things were two guys who did a whole bunch of 90's songs, one playing the guitar and singing and the other playing the cello.

But that wasn't the hilarious part.

Let's see if I can summarize the craziest talent of the night:

Six roommates

All guys

Wigs

Black tennis dress and shirt

Sound of Music

My side splitting with laughter

Seriously... they did pieces from each of the major songs. And Maria VonTrapp? The first AP from my mission. Yup. Elder Dayton. AHHHHH! I just about died when he came out the in previously mentioned dress and the t-shirt on his head like a makeshift habit. Then there was the moment when one of them came out in a blond wig singing "sixteen going on seventeen".

To sum up: You never know what you're going to see at a ward talent show. So be careful. Be very, very careful.

Adding up...

You would think when you join up as an art major, you wouldn't have to deal with math anymore... right? Wrong! Wrong, wrong, wrong!

Anyone who's studied photography knows that the main factor is light. There are two variables: aperture (how big the opening gets) and shutter speed (how long the shutter stays open). Both basically fulfill an equation that looks something like this:

light coming in x time= exposure

Lost yet? Yeah, that's what I thought. So I made a little diagram...

So in other words, you need a certain amount of light and the two factors have to balance that out. But--since each has a different effect-- you might want to swap one for the other. This is known as reciprocity. Like so....

Got it? Good. Now I'm going to let you in on a little secret... if the exposure is too long (when using film) there's this loving thing called reciprocity failure. That's right. The simple back and fourth FAILS! This just goes to show that math and science isn't everything it pretends to be.

You see, if your shutter speed is too long, all the sudden you need MORE time to make sure enough light gets in. I'm sure someday this odd fact will start to make sense to me, but for now... it's proof to me that math is completely overestimated and unpredictable.

Dear World,

I'm sorry I look so crappy today.

Tuesdays I work until midnight, which means if there's any homework to be done, I'm pulling a late night. And boy was last night a late night.

See, World, we have to sign a children's story in ASL this morning, and you should know that I've had very little time to practice. So I came home from work and--like the dilligent student I am-- I worked and worked on my story so that, hopefully, I don't embarrass myself today... and keep it under 8 minutes. (Do you know how hard it is to keep a story under 8 minutes for me?!)

All of this translates to going to sleep at 3 am, missing my alarm, and having exactly 12 minutes to get ready.

So try not to look at my unwashed hair and bloodshot eyes. Try, if it's possible, to not notice the day old makeup, covered with a layer of powder and extra eyeliner.

Thank you World... I'll do better tomorrow!

Photo shop fun!

So we had an assignment in my computer graphics class called "smoke and mirrors". We were required to put together two or more pictures and make them look right. So... I took this:

And this:

 

And this:

 

And came up with:

TA-DA! I'm a genius! I also have to thank Tiffany and Brian for being willing models as well as Lacey, who let me borrow her ballet clothes!

Trips to Costco

So if you could buy anything in bulk... anything at all what would it be?

Me?

Garlic.

Lots and LOTS of garlic. Like this:

Somehow the process of using garlic when it's already peeled and cleaned is so much easier, my garlic consumption has risen by about 200%. If you were worried about my dating life before, you ain't seen nothing yet!

(For the record, I did also invest in several packs of gum. Pretty sure I'll have to get some more though!)

The Unedu-ma-cated

It never ceases to amaze me that people seem to have NO IDEA how to use a library. I've been looking up and finding my own books since I was ten. I wondered why every year in school we were taken into the library to be explained to--in very simple language-- how to search for a book and find it. It really wasn't that hard. You get the weird numbers and look at how they numbers coordinate with the shelves. At some point you'd come across a general topic and start looking for the specific book. It doesn't take a PhD to understand. Or so I thought.

Working at the library has been an eye opener. I'm sure half the people that can't figure out the call numbers would be able to stalk their favorite celeb with ease or search through facebook with great skill, but they have no clue how to find a novel by Charles Dickens (scratch that--they've probably never even HEARD of Charles Dickens!)

Really, though... what beats it all... when you point out the reference desk with the big sign above it that says REFERENCE and they start looking around asking "where?" Has education gotten to this point? Really?