2014: A Review of Highlights and Lowlights

I know that everyone does this kind of a post at New Year's, just like everyone writes what they are thankful for at Thanksgiving. While the thankful posts kind of bother me, I LOVE reading end of year posts. There's something magical about taking stock of where you are and looking forward to what is to come. 

Without further ado-the highlights:

1) I'm a career woman

This is without question the most exciting thing that happened to me in 2014. It was the realization of 5 1\2 years of school. It was my biggest life goal, and it's been extremely satisfying to check it off my list of goals. I love this job. I love my students. I feel extremely grateful that I got hired. 

2) My colorguard

I know that a very small portion of people reading this have any idea how band and colorguard works, and you probably get sick of reading my posts about it during the season. Just know that this little team of mine came together and did astounding. They brought me so much joy, happiness, and pride in their abilities. I feel privileged to get to coach them, and it was easily one of the best things I got to experience.

3) I finished with USU

This is related to #1, so I won't write a lot about it. I graduated from Utah State, got an official degree, and somehow miraculously did so without student loans. I feel good about it.

4) I went back to church

Surprise! I've only talked to like 6 people about this. I'm happy, and it's deserving of the highlight list.

And now, the lowlights, because I think they're just as important to remember and document, even if it's only to use as a comparison for how far you've come. 

1) My sister moved away

I probably had a much harder time with this than I should have.  My adorable baby sister moved away to go to college, and it was ROUGH. She is an integral part of my life, and I despised not getting to see her every day.  We've mostly made up for that with a series of very child-like emojis that we send to each other frequently, but it's still a big adjustment. Having her home for the break has been a dream. 

2) I learned that being an adult comes with loss

Friendships grow apart, people close to you leave, and loved ones pass away. For some reason, up until this year, I'd been able to avoid all 3 of those pretty well. This year I got to face the reality that all of those exist, and they are painful to go through.

3) I faced the reality that I'm not (and can't possibly be) the best at everything.

I know that sounds stupid, but I hold myself to a pretty high standard in several aspects of life. I've always picked up on things fairly quickly, and I get frustrated when I have trouble with a concept. This year, I was thrown right into several situations with a pretty steep learning curve. These high expectations for myself left me feeling inadequate, unsure, and uncertain, and I had to learn how to deal with not being instantly good at something. It was painful. Luckily, I've had several mentors along the way reminding me to be gentle with myself, to be patient, and to learn to accept incremental progress. I'm very lucky I had these guiding lights in my path to help me through a variety of brand new experiences. 

2014 was astounding. I'm eager to see what 2015 holds and can't wait to see the growth that accompanies it. 

Happy New Year!

4 Things to Stop Saying in 2015

Every year certain phrases come into our usage, trendy little sayings that everyone seems to adopt. Some of them come for a season, get ultra annoying, and then flicker into nonexistence. For unexplained reasons, some of these vogue sayings stick around. And a percentage of these phrases should never have been popular in the first place. Please. Stop using them. End the cycle.

4. "You're fine."
When I worked at McDonald's, I constantly saw little kids run up to their parents crying, whether it was due to a perceived injustice or a stubbed toe. Some parents would cuddle them for a moment, kiss it better, and send them off to play again. Others would explain the situation to their child, trying to teach them empathy and understanding for their peers. The most common reaction I saw, though, is a parent simply saying "you're fine." It kills me every time! If someone comes to you in a moment of vulnerability and expresses their emotion, do not invalidate them by telling them they're fine or they'll get over it!  I understand the reasoning behind the sentiment. I also understand that you don't want the people around you to constantly be expressing negative emotion, and that they need to be able to handle emotions themselves. But if someone comes to you and expresses that emotion, validate it. Don't just tell them that they're fine-that discounts everything they're feeling.

3. "Because I said so"
When I was in the 10th grade, I had a teacher who never gave us an explanation for anything we did-she always just told us "because I said so." It drove me CRAZY. Even though I was 15, I was a somewhat rational human being capable of thought, and I wanted a justification for the activity we were doing. I despised the phrase "because I said so." Now that I'm on the other end of that exchange and am teaching sophomores of my own, I can definitely understand wanting to pull the authority card. But I won't let myself do it. I think that people of all ages deserve explanations for what they're being asked to do. That explanation may vary depending on the age group you're addressing or the type of activity in which you're engaging.

2."So and so is just doing that for attention"
This explanation is something I hear frequently. "That girl is only doing what she's doing for attention." Frankly, I don't care what the behavior is, nor do I care if they are doing it for attention. In my mind, if someone is doing something for attention, they're lacking positive attention from the people who they most need and desire it. They may not have a good relationship with their parents, siblings, spouse, etc. Is that always the case? Probably not.  But I'd rather take a minute and deal with the behavior than ignore it and make someone feel more unimportant than they already might.

1. Raped
Please. If you ignore the rest of this post, PLEASE stop using the term "rape" in a way that's synonymous with beating someone else, doing poorly on a test, or being busier than you imagined you would be. I can guarantee the feeling you get from failing a test does not compare to the feeling of someone who has experienced sexual assault. That test did not "rape" you. The test may have discouraged you, challenged you, or messed up your chances for an A in the class, but the test did not rape you.

Apologies if this comes off as preachy. For me, all of this boils down to being compassionate toward other people, something I'm trying to work on as well. We never know what situation someone is facing. We don't know what goes on behind closed doors. Let's try not to say things to others that may exacerbate a bad situation.

Loves

I've been in the library for close to four hours today, wading through sections of the grant I'm teaching in my student teaching class. To get past the crushing boredom and occasional frustration, I am taking a break to write down a list of things I love. I think this generally only happens around Thanksgiving time, and although Thanksgiving is approaching, I wanted to make a list of loves and things I'm thankful for before the huge storm of gratitude hits. So, without further ado, here is a list of things I adore:

Fridges that look like cabinets
Jaxson
Liz's new hair color
Spending time with my guard girls
Student teaching
Driving down 10th west while the sun is going down
Writing thank you cards
Oxford and vocative commas
Tumblr
Harry Potter
Baths
Baby animals
Deep conversations
The weird little feeling of affection I get when I look at my classes
Late nights with Dani
Turquoise and yellow
Icebreakers breath mints
All Mexican food
Pilot G2 .07 pens
My laminator and label maker
Organizing
The new Apple headphones that finally stay in my ears
Angry punk rock songs from the 8th grade
Coloring mandalas
Colors arranged in a heat scale or rainbow order


That's it for now. Life is grand. :)

These Freaking Cookies

This is not (nor will it ever be) a food blog. This is a blog where I write about what I love, write about what I hate, and tell preposterous stories from my life. That being said, let me tell you about these cookies.

It's only a Tuesday, and I have had a R O U G H week. Holy cow. I'm not going to go into the details here, but today I desperately needed to de-stress. In the past, my best method of relieving stress has been baking. I found this recipe on Tumblr a few weeks ago and have been dying to make them, so today seemed like the perfect opportunity.

I went to Lee's after school, rounded up the ingredients I didn't already have at my house, and headed home to begin. Everything was going smoothly until I went to pull the cinnamon from the cupboard. Whoever (Mom) had used it last had left a miniscule, not-even-worth-it amount in the bottom of the jar. Having complete faith in my baking prowess, I had foolishly decided to make a double batch of this cookie so I could take them to school to give to my guard girls tomorrow. Because of this decision, I needed 4 teaspoons of cinnamon for these cookies. 4 teaspoons does not sound like a lot. Trust me. It's a massive amount.

I desperately searched the spice cabinet and found no ground cinnamon. Instead, I pulled out a jar of cinnamon sticks and thought to myself "this probably won't be that hard to turn into ground cinnamon." WRONG. WRONGWRONGWRONGWRONGWRONG. It took me 45 freaking minutes to turn cinnamon sticks into ground cinnamon. I suffered three cuts on my hand, and cinnamon powder burned my nose and mouth. To top it all off, a stray chunk of cinnamon stick flew out of the blender and hit me directly in the left eye.

I finally had enough cinnamon for my recipe. I carefully measured it out, weighed it down to the last gram, and then tripped while I was pouring it in the bowl. It went all over the sink, and I was back to square one. I strung some choice expletives together and moved on. I ground more cinnamon, this time without incident, and poured it into the bowl, also without incident. I mixed everything together, plopped the dough in the fridge to chill, cleaned the kitchen, and sat down to grade papers.

An hour later, I came back to actually bake the cookies. AND THEY DON'T EVEN TASTE THAT GOOD. Don't get me wrong, they taste fine. They don't taste bad. But they are not up to the Katy Anderson Cookie Standard. I am ticked. What a waste. This was the worst de-stressing activity to date.

In Which I Expose my Inner Nerd

I've seen this post going around Facebook where someone tags you and you have to write about ten books that have stuck with you over your life. I haven't been tagged in this, probably because most of my friends know that I think most Facebook pass-along activities are annoying, but I LOVE this one. I am such a huge advocate of reading, and I think books have the power to be life changing. Because I lack the ability just to list my top ten books without writing about why I love them, I've decided to turn this into a blog post. I had to go back to my old Shelfari page to decide what my top ten will be, but I think I've got it narrowed down. Here they are, in no particular order:

1. I Am Neurotic (and so are you) by Lianna Kong
One of my friends told me about this book while hanging out and I instantly went home to make a copy. I have always had extremely weird habits. I count my steps. I refuse to take the first two slices of bread in the loaf.  I lint roll my bed spread excessively. I chew my food the same amount of times on the left side of my mouth as I do the right. I always thought I was just a nut job. This book gave me a kind of connection with other people. I realized that everyone has their oddities, and they can still be perfectly acceptable and loving humans.

2. Matilda by Roald Dahl
I used to think I was Matilda when I was little. I tried for years of my life to make things move with my mind. Luckily, I never had a psychotic, terrifying teacher I had to battle against, so these telekinetic powers weren't really needed. But seriously, how awesome is Matilda? It shows that reading is important and can help cope with difficult situations. It shows that gaining knowledge is a good thing to aim for. I love Matilda.

3. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
How could this not be on my list? My grandpa gave me this book to read when I was eight years old. I read it quickly and gave it back to him, telling him that I didn't think it was that great of a story. He gave it to me again when I was twelve and again when I was seventeen. Each time I read it I liked it more and more, and I learned more from it. It was the first book to which I gave a second chance; usually if I dislike a book, I read it once and not again. But because my grandpa asked me to, I read it multiple times. The whole experience taught me to give everything a second chance, that opinions change and first impressions are not always correct.

4. Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follet
I'm going to give a warning up front that this book is a little graphic. Don't read it if you're not comfortable with that. HOWEVER. This book is incredible. I've never read a book that makes you feel stronger emotions toward the characters. Ken Follet somehow has the ability to make you empathize with his male protagonist, admire his female protagonist (who, for once, are not involved in a romantic relationship), and loathe his antagonist. I feel greater hatred towards William Hamleigh in Pillars than any other villain, both fictional and in real life. He takes five completely different stories and weaves them all together masterfully. It is incredible.

5. Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders
In my psychology class in high school we had to do an outside reading report. I read one of the novels my teacher kept on the shelf and fell in love. I tore through his bookshelf; I read more than 30 books that school year. After I finished the novels, I decided to read the DSM. For those who don't know, the DSM has every mental disorder a person can possibly be diagnosed with. It lists symptoms, relevancy, and treatments as well. I found every word fascinating. It was just such a foreign world for me to imagine that people actually dealt with these disorders, and reading it made me want to be a psych major in college.

6. Inkheart by Cornelia Funke
Another book that advocates reading. I think I loved Inkheart so much because it reinforced how I felt about books. It talks about how the people in a book can come alive and have a huge effect on the reader. It's a young adult read, but it's really fun.

Disclaimer: I have always LOVED books that write about characters who have problems. Psychological fiction is my passion. The next few are books that fall into this category that had a profound effect on me.

7. Madness by Marya Hornbacher
Madness is a memoir written about the author's struggle with bipolar disorder. It is powerful.

8. The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky
I promise I liked this way before the hype of the movie. This book has three things in it that I absolutely adore: 1) The positive effect a student-teacher relationship can have for both parties. 2) A love of reading. 3) The idea that everyone deals with their pain in different ways, and that we should be considerate of other people.

9. Burned by Ellen Hopkins
I know that Ellen Hopkins is very much a teenage-focused writer, and is very over hyped a lot of the time. Burned taught me not to put up with crap from anyone. I know that sounds very much like the myspace status of a 14 year old, but that's the most succinct way I can put it.

10. Whale Talk by Chris Crutcher
Just read it. It's a young adult novel, a really quick read, and teaches a powerful lesson about kindness.

I'm sorry this was so long. If you made it all the way to the end, I salute you. And I would like to know what some of your favorite books are! I am constantly looking for more to read :)

Awesome & Awkward

Awesome
My super cute boss gave me flowers and Hi-Chews to celebrate my last day at work.
Now that Liz is gone, I have a bathroom to myself.
I finally found the last piece of our colorguard uniforms for this year-they look awesome.
I have an iPhone now! I love it.
I have watched all of the Harry Potter movies this weekend.
I tried FOUR new recipes this weekend, all of which were successful.
My new cooperating teacher is also a huge Yankees fan. We get along well.




Awkward
One of my coworkers on band staff told my new cooperating teacher to call me Whitesmoke. Uncomfortable.
I was in my backyard reading and this chicken ran across the lawn in front of me. I put my book down and tried to shoo it away. It ran at me; I screamed. Neighbor girl in the backyard adjacent to ours stared at me for a loooong time.
I ugly cried for far longer than necessary when Liz left.
Went to Lee's looking incredibly nappy and ran into six people I know. SIX.
I have had not one, not two, but three freakouts about student teaching.


I've been kind of a recluse this weekend, which has definitely cut back on the amount of awkward moments I usually stumble upon.

Ending my Musical Ignorance

In an effort to no longer be useless at my coaching job, I am attempting to learn music. I know, "music" is a very broad term. And the more "music" I learn, the more I realize how much I am still completely ignorant about.

My freshman year at Snow, I had a roommate who was a music major, and another roommate who was a math major, but whose family is extremely talented musically. We would all sit in the living room and do homework together, and the two of them would often work on music theory homework. I vividly remember looking at one of their worksheets and asking, "what's that symbol that looks like a table on wheels?" I was referring to an eighth note. They dissolved into laughter, attempted to help me, and then gave up when I showed no modicum of understanding. I wrote it off, telling myself that I was good at English and that knowledge would be more helpful in the long run, anyway.

But it drove me crazy that I didn't understand what was on that page.  I forgot about my stupidity for a while, but my curiosity was piqued again at band camp.

It started this week when I looked at a score of our band's show. I was writing down the letters of the different musical sections so that when our director tells everyone to "start at letter ___," I could tell my colorguard girls where we were starting in the routine. As I looked through the score, I became more and more curious about what the heck all of these foreign symbols meant.

I asked Brooklyn, my co-coach, to explain, and she very patiently taught me the names of most of the symbols and their meanings. Then Ben, another staff member and an extremely talented musician, entered the room and took over when Brooklyn (very understandably) became bored. We studied the score for about an hour; I learned about crescendoes, rests, measures, the lengths of notes, and the difference between flat, sharp, and natural notes. I left that night feeling both extremely bewildered and satisfied.

The next day Brooklyn taught me how to distinguish between notes and where middle c is located on a piano. I played numerous warm up exercises that are so basic the book they came in was decorated with kitten stickers. And I played them poorly.

Learning music is much harder than I anticipated.

Part of me wonders if this is kind of a lost cause; the people I work with have been studying and playing music for 20-30 years; many of the students in the band have been playing for over a decade. And I'm starting out at square one. But, I'm sick of my eyes glazing over when the rest of the staff talks about music dynamics and attacks, so I will press on in my quest to learn about music.

Birthday Week

I had such a fabulous birthday week. Every single day was packed with activities I love, whether it was hanging out with friends or being at guard practice every day, getting to spend time with my guard girls and the rest of the band staff.

Tuesday I got to go out with Colton, Chloe, and James for a birthday dinner at Chili's. We had a lovely time, and they gave us free ice cream for my birthday :)

Wednesday I celebrated with my family, and man do they know me incredibly well. I received cardigans, a dress, the movie Matilda, a 12 pack of Pilot G2 .07 pens (my favorite), and a pencil organizer filled with fruit flavored candy. It could not have been more perfect.

Thursday, my actual birthday, I spent all day at guard (just like every other day this week). My beautiful guard girls sang a rousing, horribly off key rendition of Happy Birthday, and the rest of the band sang their traditional birthday song as well. I ended the day going to an early premiere of "The Fault in Our Stars" with Brooklyn, Chelsey, Noelle, and Jessey, at which we ugly cried and had a wonderful time.

Friday I slept from 8 pm until 1, then 2am until 9. It was much needed.

And Saturday I watched Orange is the New Black with Jessey and ended the week with a campfire party with a bunch of friends.

I'm not quite positive how I ended up with such lovely people in my life, but I am extremely grateful that I did. 23 is shaping up to be an extremely good year.

The status of my 2011 5-year plan

Today I had some free time and was going over an old blog I used to write in. One of the posts, written in 2011, detailed what I thought was going to be my 5 year plan. It included moving to Minnesota, attending bartending school, becoming a baseball statistician, having a child, and staying out of Utah. Past Katy was 1 for 5. Not an impressive record.

At that time in my life, I couldn't think of anything that sounded better than what I detailed in that post. Obviously, plans have changed, and as of right now, I can't imagine taking a different path than the one I'm currently on. Its only been 3 years, and although I don't feel like I've changed that much, I clearly have. I have a different set of motivators. I find happiness in different situations than I used to. And although now I feel like I'm doing well and am mildly successful, I know that 3 years from now I will be able to look back on this post and laugh at how much I didn't know.

As much as I say I hate change, it tends to happen without me realizing it's happening. I only realize how significant of a change has occurred when I look back in hindsight. And so far, I really like what I've changed into.

:)

Happy (NOT the Pharrell Williams song)

My great friend Ashley just started a blog, and her very first post asked the question of "What makes you happy?" Her blog makes me happy. If you want to check it out, go here. But it got me thinking-there are TONS of things that make me happy, simple pleasures in my every day life that make me smile every time. Because I'm uncreative, here is a list, in no particular order:

-Baking
-A well organized closet
-Sunshine
-My family
-Dani and Robyn
-My nephew
-My English clique
-Winning (Shallow, yes. Do I care? NOPE.)
-Analyzing literature
-My friends
-Phone calls
-Writing and receiving letters and thank you notes
-Late night conversations
-Driving with the windows down
-Hi-Chews
-Teaching
-Strawberries
-Puppies and babies
-Diet Coke
-Cleaning something in detail
-Going to bed early
-My work friends
-Spicy food
-Buying presents for people and making them open them early because I can't stand to wait
-Clean sheet night
-Walking barefoot in grass

Really, the list could go on for pages and pages. I've been really consciously trying to notice little things that bring me joy, and the result has been incredible!

BFFs

I vividly remember the most terrifying experience I had while attending White Pine. My friend and I were walking through the halls when a tall, pale, gangly boy wearing a bright pink backpack started running full speed down the main hall, his curly, unruly bangs bouncing on his long forehead. He ran around crazily, squawking and occasionally stopping to stare directly into someone's face, fall completely silent, and then loudly bark before running off again. I pressed up against the wall, hoping that I would not be the next victim. As the boy ran away down the hall, I murmured to my friend, "What kind of person would be friends with that kid?"

Turns out, I'm the type of person.

That kid was David Marshall, and that was our first encounter. Cut forward to our junior year of high school, when after school I saw David walking ahead of me, remembered that he had recently moved into our neighborhood, and ran to catch up and offer him a ride. He looked slightly taken aback, and then accepted. As we walked, I boldly started the conversation with an offhanded, irrelevant fact about myself that I was sure would be the clincher in our just-about-to-be-an-awesome friendship. David, astounded, shouted "Me too!" From then on, we were inseparable.

That first day on the ride home, David climbed into my sea foam green mini van and reached into the backseat, pulling out my colorguard rifle and examining it gleefully. He then proceeded to roll down the window and mercilessly fake shoot the group of seminary teachers walking home after school. Mortified, I shouted at him to stop, telling him that he was shooting my teacher. He excitedly turned around and shouted, "Me too!" before continuing his rampage.

Since that first awkward conversation and drive, David and I have been best of friends. He taught me not to take life as seriously and that it's okay to look and act stupid on occasion. I was forced to quickly got over my embarrassment of driving with him, and even forgave him when he thought it would be funny to write "Katy does meth" all over Sky View. His is one of the longest friendships I have, and I cherish it.

We're in very different places in our lives now, and are motivated by extremely different things. But I know I can always call him for a pick-me-up, count on him to buy me a drink at The Owl, and go on car rides talking about our futures. I'm extremely glad my 7th grade terror didn't keep me away from forming a great friendship.

awesome & awkward

Hi, I'm the worst blogger ever. I never have motivation to sit and write a personal essay type of blog post, so...I just don't blog. I think for a while I'll stick with list posts. For today: Awkward and Awesome.

Awesome
-I will be in Mexico in 36 days.
-I wrote 15 pages in the last 2 days.
-I started my psych clinical at Sky View and completely love it.
-I made the dean's list last semester!
-I finished my taxes tonight so I feel super on top of everything.
-Color guard starts soon!
-I turned in all my paperwork for student teaching and graduation.
-I got the high score on an essay for one of my classes.
-We had an informal high school friend reunion and had a blast.
-I survived my first parent teacher conference.


Awkward
-I tripped in front of my entire psych clinical class while I was being introduced.
-I deleted a whole series of videos that I was trying to edit and then had to confess my stupidity.
-I tried to teach myself several simple ballet moves. It didn't go well.
-I ran into a boy that I went on a few dates with at Snow and could NOT remember his name. He noticed.
-My professor keeps asking me very personal questions about my life and I don't know how to respond.
-I was walking through a hall and a guy in front of me rapidly whipped off his jacket and punched me in the face.

Things are good. I fully realize my "awesome" list sounds slightly pathetic and extremely nerdy.  I'm pretty okay with it. :)