Quick Update

I realized last night when I made a new post that I hadn’t written on my blog in a ridiculously long time, so here’s the highlights from last year:

I graduated from college with a BA in Math and a minor in English. Yay!

I discovered I can’t do much with said degree except teach math at a high school or something.

I watched the movie Post-Grad and related to it entirely too much.

I panicked over my lack of plans for the future and ended up in math grad school because I know I’m good at the whole school thing (I mean, I graduated after all).

I discovered that grad school is the perfect place to kill my love of math and of learning.

I discovered that I like teaching math. I work as a TA at the university to pay for grad school.

I discovered that I hate grad school.

I haven’t made myself quit yet. Should I stay and finish since I’ve already almost completed a year of the torture (not to mention paid for the year of torture)? Should I leave? Should I stay or should I go now?! Good song, very applicable to life.

I still tutor math and English.

I do some accounting for a database and web design business.

I still work at an engineering firm doing drafting and whatever I want when there isn’t work for me to do.

I play piano way more since grad school started, primarily because it reminds me that I am in fact good at something. I’m not a prodigy, and I don’t like playing in front of tons of people, but it’s still fun.

I moved out of my parents’ house and live in an apartment across town.

I dream of all the things I could be doing instead of grad school.

None of the things I dream of involve math since I loathe math grad school.

I consider quitting grad school about every 12 seconds or so.

One would wonder why I don’t just quit. I’ll tell you why.

Because if I quit, future thirty year old Ashley might say to herself, “Ashley, why didn’t you just hang in there and finish?” The only thing I hate worse than The Dungeon (that’s what I affectionately call the math building at school) is the idea that The Dungeon could squash my dreams and fill my future self with regret. Silly, I know, but there you have it.

So if I write on here much this year, I can guarantee the following:

My posts will be random.
My posts will be about everything but math...well, I think they will be anyway.
My posts may contain rants or countless tales of a confused post-grad in grad school.

The good news is:
I make it my goal to find a reason to be thankful every day. There are plenty of reasons. Perhaps I will inform you of them on this here blog.

Reason #1: I know God has a plan for my life, even if I’m not too sure what it is yet.

The sun will come up tomorrow. As Anne of Green Gables once said, "Isn't it nice that tomorrow is a brand new day with no mistakes in it yet?"

That’s all for now. Have a splendid day. Thanks for reading this, whoever you are.

Texting Lauren: Rockets, Christmas Trees, and Husband Surveys

The following conversation is a perfect example of one of the many hilarious reasons why Lauren and I have been friends for twenty-one years. We can change the subject fifty times, and talk about absolutely nothing of importance and absolutely everything of importance for hours and years on end. The following is simply an excerpt from a particularly amusing conversation. It all started when Lauren asked me how Spring Break was going. Enjoy.

Me: Are you in Houston all week?

Lauren: Yes ma'am. At a rockets game currently.

Me: ...what sport is that?

Lauren: Basketball lol. We just met up with the spring break campaign that's there.

Me: Is watching basketball fun?

Lauren: Ha it's better in person, but we also walked around a bit.

Me: Haha well that's nice. I took down my Christmas tree. That's all.

Lauren: Haha well at least you finally accomplished that.

Me: Kinda. I can't find a big enough box for the bottom so it's just laying in the floor.

Lauren: Haha well you'll eventually get it all picked up!

Me: Too bad I don't have an attic...maybe I should get a house and a dog and then I could put my tree in the attic. Great plan.

Lauren: Yes good plan, but add a husband in too. Even better plan.

Me: That's true. Very good plan. I'm afraid he's off with the house and the dog somewhere without me. Silly husband-to-be.

Lauren: Well you will just have to go track him down and get him back on the plan!

Me: Haha it would help if I at least had a first name to go by.

Lauren: You should go to different church meetings throughout the week and find him!

Me: But how will I know it's him? I guess I'll just take a survey of who has a house and a dog.

Lauren: Very good plan. And if you're up-front and honest about it, you can weed out the ones that will be freaked out by the concept.

Me: Haha true! And I can hand out my number to the ones who have a house and a dog.

Lauren: Does it have to be a certain kind of dog, too?

Me: A big dog!

Lauren: Yes, so also make a column for kind of dog. Or you could just be a greeter and slip your number into cute guys' pockets.

Me: Great idea!! I should probably use Microsoft Publisher since columns are a pain in Microsoft Word.

Lauren: I wouldn't know. lol

Me: Haha, I should probably make a column for job, too...as in, do they have one. However, in today's economy, that might decrease my number of options drastically, so maybe I shouldn't make a column for that.

Lauren: Y'all could just live off the salary of love.

Me: Of course. I'll get rid of the job column. I can't think of any other important columns.

Lauren: No, I think we have determined all of the important ones.

Me: Agreed.

Advice from the Cheshire Cat

One day Alice came to a fork in the road and saw a Cheshire cat in a tree.

"Which road do I take?" she asked.

"Where do you want to go?" was his response.

"I don't know," Alice answered.

"Then," said the cat, "it doesn't matter.”

___


Maybe that cat isn't so crazy after all.

America: Land of the Free and Home of All Foods Fried

This is a new appetizer at Olive Garden. It's called Lasagna Fritta...aka FRIED LASAGNA!!! Because, of course, we must fry everything we eat, including pasta. This is the most terribly unhealthy, yet brilliant idea ever! Unfortunately, I did not notice it until I had already ordered my favorite Smoked Mozzarella Fonduta.

Luckily, I did not make a new year's resolution to eat healthier foods this year, so next time, I'm ordering fried lasagna. And I'm sure it will taste absolutely delightful, because it is absolutely horrible for me.

If celery tasted like fried lasagna and if running felt as good as sitting on the couch watching a good movie, every American would be much healthier. If only...

In Defense of Fairy Tales

"If you want your children to be intelligent, read them fairy tales. If you want them to be more intelligent, read them more fairy tales."
--Albert Einstein

"Fairy tales were not my escape from reality as a child; rather, they were my reality -- for mine was a world in which good and evil were not abstract concepts, and like fairy-tale heroines, no magic would save me unless I had the wit and heart and courage to use it wisely."
--Terri Windling

"Life itself is the most wonderful fairy tale of all."
--Hans Christian Anderson

"Critics who treat 'adult' as a term of approval instead of as a merely descriptive term, cannot be adults themselves. To be concerned about being grown up, to admire the grown up because it is grown up, to blush at the suspicion of being childish; these things are the mark of childhood and adolescence...When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if found doing so. Now that I am fifty, I read them openly. When I became a man, I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up."
--C.S. Lewis

"Every man's life is a fairy tale written by God's fingers."
--Hans Christian Anderson

"Fairy tales are more than true; not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten."
--G.K. Chesterton

Fireworks and The Muddiest Mud That Ever Did Mud

This is a picture of my green converse. You may notice that they are, indeed, quite muddy. If you know me at all, you know I am not the most outdoorsy person, and you are probably wondering what on earth possessed me to walk anywhere it was that muddy, especially in one of my favorite pairs of converse shoes. Well, you can stop wondering now because I am going to tell you the story of my muddy green shoes.

It all started on New Year's Day at precisely 8:38 p.m. For, you see, at 8:38, I received the following seemingly harmless text message from my friend, Justin:

Hey! We're gonna meet at Erin's at 9:30 to have an explosive night of firework fun! Be there! :-)

To which I sent the following reply:

Yay!!

At the time, I was busy doing extremely important things. As a matter of fact, I was playing dominoes with my mother and my aunt. I quickly finished the last round of Mexican Train Dominoes so that I would not be late for "an explosive night of firework fun." Who in their right mind would be late for firework fun? (On a side note, I'm not being racist. The game really is called Mexican Train.) So as soon as my aunt finished beating me at dominoes, I rushed out the door and hurried home to change into more practical clothing for firework fun.

You see, before I was wearing the green converse, I was wearing brown high-heeled boots. Obviously, high heels are completely impractical for outdoor activity. So I changed from my pretty blue sweater, jeans, and high heels to a green t-shirt, jeans, and green converse.

I'm sure everyone wanted to know that useless bit of fashion information.

Yes, that was sarcasm.

I will proceed with the story now.

So I drove over to Erin's house, and once everyone had gotten there, we finally left for firework fun. To clarify, the process of my friends "finally leaving" to go anywhere takes approximately 15 minutes to an hour. In the process of leaving, we got distracted and watched some YouTube video of swing dancing to the tune of "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy." Then we moved on to the last stage of "leaving."

The last stage of leaving Erin's house consists of many difficult decisions. First, we must find our coats, shoes, etc. and decide how many jackets we need. After I decided to wear two coats and Erin decided to wear a gigantic camo jacket (and we made jokes about not being able to find Erin because of her camo jacket, and then laughed about how dumb the jokes were), we then began moving toward the door. You think we're well on our way now, but we're not. We stop.

Are we supposed to go out the front door or the back door? How many cars are we taking? Who's driving? Where are the keys?

So approximately five minutes later, we decided to take one Expedition. As we got into the Expedition, however, we discovered that, in fact, Justin was not present.

"Where's Justin?" we all asked each other.

"He must be taking his own car," Erin said.

"Why?" Katy asked.

"I don't know. I guess the fireworks are in his car," Erin replied.

"Wouldn't it be easier for him to just put the fireworks in this car, and we can just ride together?" Katy asked.

"That would make sense," I said.

"Well Justin's the one who knows where we can shoot off fireworks, so I guess we'll just have to follow him," Erin declared.

"That'll work, I suppose," said I.

So, we all rode in the Expedition with the exception of Justin.

This was the first fatal mistake. Because of this decision, my green shoes are now brown.

As we began to follow Justin's little speedy sportscar down the road, we discovered Justin was, in fact, driving quite quickly.

"He probably just wanted to drive because he likes driving his fast car," Erin said.

As we began heading out of town, we approached a stop sign. Justin started to do a U-turn.

"Why is he turning around?" we wondered.

Justin rolled down his window and yelled, "It's a dirt road. Maybe I missed the spot. *It might be on the other street."

*For the record, none of remember Justin saying that we might have been on the wrong street, probably because we were being lazy and didn't want to turn around and drive all the way to another street. That would be logical and involve turning the steering wheel a few extra times (which of course takes way too much effort). Even though, I don't remember Justin saying this, he insists that he did. So I pretended he said that and wrote it in.

Erin then says matter-of-factly, "We have to leave the city limits anyway! We have to go on a dirt road to get out of the city! Let's just go forward!" And she gestured toward the dirt road like she was a flight attendant or something. (Erin has a tendency to gesture quite a bit when she proclaims something...or tells a story...or is just talking in general.) Anyway, Erin sounded very convincing, and we all agreed that going straight ahead sounded like a pretty good idea.

It was a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad idea. But of course, we didn't know that at the time.

Justin did another U-turn and began to lead the way down the dirt road. We noticed that Justin didn't seem to be driving all that well. This was quite strange, you see, because in west Texas, dirt roads are not that rare. We have all driven on many dirt roads. I mean, it had snowed a couple times over the past week so it might be a little muddy, but still, this should be no big deal. And yet...


"Justin is fishtailing!" Katy exclaimed.

"Well that's weird," Erin said.

"Uh-0h." I said.


And there went Justin's little sportscar. It drove itself to the side of the "road," and nestled snugly into a muddy trench.

"He's definitely stuck," Chui said.

"Alright. Well...should we get out and push his car?" Katy said.

"I guess so," we all muttered, as we began to open the car doors.

"It is EXTREMELY muddy," we heard Chui say.

"It can't be that bad...or maybe it is...ewwww!"

At this point, I realized that it was very cold outside and that my choice of shoes was terrible. As I thought this, I stepped out of the car, and into the mud. I then began to sink. The mud just oozed all the way up to my ankles, covering my jeans and all the visible (now invisible) green of my shoes.

This mud was the messiest, slipperiest, mud I have ever seen. It was completely horrible. We began walking toward Justin's car. But we weren't really walking; we were kinda marching. A few moments after we reached Justin's car (which was hopelessly stuck in the mud), we all just stopped and looked at each other...and started laughing.

"That's the last time I listen to Erin!" Justing said.

"Everyone else agreed with me! I wasn't the only one!" Erin laughed.

"Yeah, it's true," Katy and I said.

"This is why I did not volunteer to drive," I said.

At this point, Justin and Chui (the only males in the group) began to look at the car and pretend to act like they knew what they were doing.

The girls, on the other hand, got a bit distracted.

"I have never seen this much mud!" I said.

I took a step and began sinking faster. Apparently, it was somehow muddier one foot to to the side. "This mud is...serious about being mud."

I looked over at Erin, who was marching in place to keep from sliding and sinking, and she said, "This is the muddiest mud that ever did mud."

Katy said, "At least we can see the stars!"

Katy and I began to sing:

"Somewhere out there,
beneath the pale moonlight,
someone's thinking of me,
and...laLAlaLalaaa"

The lalas come in handy when you can't remember the words to a song.

"Hey guys! My iphone still works! We can watch YouTube!" Erin exclaimed.

We started googling random things and looking up silly stuff on wikipedia. And singing random songs because it's a good way to pass the time.

Some time later, Justin walked over and said, "Come help us push the car. We're not strong enough to move it ourselves. Whovever's stronger needs to be on the side."

Erin said, "Ooooh, I'm not very strong at all or in shape or physically fit!"

I said, "I used to be in shape..."

Justin muttered something to the effect of "I was in shape before I went to college."

And Katy chimed in enthusiastically, "I move frequently!"

We moved around the car, and Justin and Chui told us to push, so we did.

"Start pushing," Chui said.

"We already are," we said.

Apparently, we weren't very much help. So I pulled out my cell phone and called my dad. Erin pulled out her cell phone and called her dad. Katy found a broomstick on the side of the road and started poking at the mud around the tires while saying, "I'm just gonna dig the mud out from around the tires."

As I was telling Katy that the mud was practically liquid and poking at it probably wasn't going to help, I heard Erin yell, "Katy! What is that?!"

"It's a broomstick!"

"Where'd you get it?!"

"It was in the mud!"

"That is so awesome! Guys, we have a broomstick! This night is not a total failure!"

Erin's dad was on his way with his giant truck and a tow chain, so we decided to just kill time while we waited.

We turned on the car radio, and "danced" in the mud. It was quite comical, considering none of us could really stand very well in the swamp. We watched Justin and Chui continue to do that guy thing where they stand around the car and point at various parts of the automobile, diagnosing all of the reasons why the car was stuck in the mud.

We discovered that patches of ice were pretty much the equivalent of islands in the ocean of mud. The ice was much safer than the mud, actually.

As I was hopping from one patch of ice to the next, I smelled something burning.

"It smells like fireworks..." Erin said.

We looked out into the field to see Justin lighting a Roman Candle.

"Are you seriously shooting off fireworks here?!" I yelled.

Katy exclaimed, "We're still in the city limits!"

"Aren't we?" she asked me.

"Haha, I don't know. It's not like there was a 'You're leaving Lubbock' sign."

About this time, Erin noticed the house in the field, "Justin, stop! Those people in that house are going to be angry at us!"

Then Chui said, "Well if the angry people come talk to us, we can just make Ashley talk to them."

To which Erin replied, "Oh that's a great idea! Nobody can be mad at Ashley!"

"That's a horrible idea! Maybe I don't want to talk to angry people! Maybe they just won't notice."

Thankfully they didn't. Either that or they didn't want to waste time talking to college kids who were so smart that they got a car stuck in the mud and were shooting off fireworks right next to their house.

Eventually Erin's dad got there and joined Justin and Chui, saying, "Well, I don't really know what to do."

Even so, we pushed and pulled the car again and again and again.

And nothing happened.

Well, actually, it might have moved two inches forward and then two inches backward. After countless attempts, we gave up, and took off our mud-caked shoes before getting back in the Expedition.

In the end, Justin ended up riding with us anyway.

By this time, it was after midnight, so we went back to Erin's house and recapped the evening. We all agreed that it was a hilarious adventure we would always remember.

And even though it's a bit corny, I have to agree with my friends in saying that if I had to get stuck in the mud, I'm glad I was stuck in the mud with them.

Strangely enough, I am also glad that my green shoes are now brown because every time I look at them, I can't help but smile and remember my friends and how great they truly are.

Besides, I have another pair of converse. They're purple...for now anyway.

Matthew 22:37-40

"Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself. All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments."

This year, I'm making these two commandments my new years resolution. If I follow these two commandments better this year than I did last year, then I will consider 2010 to be a success, even if I don't manage to accomplish everything on my to-do list.