Dealing with Disappointment

I'm sad. I'm now better at juggling than anyone I knew in the juggling club at BYU. I can't juggle five balls like Karl can, or do hopscotch on the unicycle like Alan. But I know enough to show off at least a little with every toy, and I know enough three-ball tricks that if I were in yJuggle, I could probably have my own routine in shows. Now I'm in a juggling club, and we have even more toys to play with than we did at BYU, including torches and machetes... but only two people ever show up to practice (myself included), and Rob spends half his time at practice doing homework. So most of practice is just me wandering in circles and juggling by myself and trying to get the nerve to ask people passing by if they want to learn how to juggle even though I know they'll give up after five minutes when they can't get it right away. We don't have enough people to do shows at all, and every time I recommend some kind of recruiting event or even putting up fliers, Rob says, "Why bother? It won't work." In all, it's more frustrating juggling in the middle of the Wood Center by myself wondering what the point of practicing is since I'll never get to be in a show than it is struggling through my philosophy and speech classes.

I never got to be in a show at BYU, either. My first semester, I couldn't go to shows because I was still learning the basic 3-ball cascade. The next two semesters, every single time there was a show, it overlapped with a band performance. The band performances gave me scholarship money, so I didn't really have an option. After that, I joined the staff at The Leading Edge, which overlapped juggling practice altogether.

I don't know why I keep trying, sometimes. Oh, yes I do. It's because I love juggling. And when I'm at practice and no one's there and I get so frustrated that I want to throw things, I have to laugh because, ha, I already AM throwing things.

Also, Brandon Sanderson's third Mistborn book came out back in October. I think I mentioned it on here... Well, I went to Barnes & Noble to get a copy of it, and they didn't have it. They said they could order it, but by the time they get it, I'll be in Virginia, so I might as well wait.

On a happier note...

We were learning about modal verbs in German last Thursday. I wasn't paying a whole lot of attention, so the teacher homed in on me and said, "Lint Monkey, can you use a modal verb in a sentence for us?" Caught off-guard, I spouted out the first sentence that popped into my head: "Ich kann jonglieren."

The teacher got this huge smile on her face. "Do you have your juggling equipment with you today? Will you bring it next week and juggle for us?"

So maybe I lied. Maybe I'll get to put on a mini-juggling show after all.

Also, I'm at work right now. And I don't have any articles to edit until Kortnie finishes writing her editorial, so she told me to "just hang out" until she finishes. So I'm getting paid to update my blog. How cool is that?

And I may have found an internship this summer as a linguist working for Rosetta Stone. It pays really well too. Also, I would get to go back to Virginia for a bit. Actually, I swore I would never live in Virginia again. But this is Rosetta Stone. Come on. That would look epic-amazing on a resume. Assuming I get the internship. Which assumes I get around to applying for it. I really need to get on that.

I have my dictionary open next to me. Did you know that the word "beetle" can be used as a verb? It means "to scurry like a beetle." As in "Editors beetled around the office." That's a pretty funny example sentence. Editors beetling, huh? I've never heard that before.

I really ought to consider getting a new laptop when I get money. Mine was weak when I bought it five years ago. Now there are new laptops that are three times more powerful than Harvey (my laptop) but cost half what Harvey did when I bought him. For some reason, every thirty seconds or so, random bubbles pop up from the tray in the bottom right to tell me again and again and again and again that I'm connected to the internet. When the internet bubble isn't popping up, another bubble is popping up to tell me about a Windows System Error. But it refuses to give me any more information. Automatic updates download stuff without telling me and when they finish downloading, they internet my work every five minutes to say "Do you want to restart your computer now?" "No. I'm busy." "Okay." Five minutes later: "Do you want to restart your computer now?" "No. Still busy." "Okay." Five minutes later: "Do you want to restart your computer now?" On and on until it times it just right that it pops up just as I'm hitting enter or spacebar, and then it restarts without my consent, and the computer takes no less than fifteen minutes to restart no matter how many things I disable in msconfig.

Well, on the plus side, I do have my desktop which I can use anytime except when I want to use a computer at work or on campus. And using Harvey is still preferable to using a Macintosh. And besides, Harvey has a lot of personality for a computer, even though he's not decorated with stickers like a lot of other laptops I've seen. I prefer simplistic decorations anyway.

Oh, fantastic! Kortnie finished her editorial. Toodles!

Today's post has been brought to you by the word defalcation.

Edit: Also, we've had a heat wave over the last four or five days. Like, not only was the temperature a positive number, but it was even a positive two-digit number. So today when I headed to work, I only wore one shirt and a coat and a baseball cap. And a scarf. As I walked home, I became enormously grateful for the scarf, which I ended up wrapping around my ears when I realized they were numb and probably going to get frostbitten if I didn't warm them up soon. I held my fingers over them for a minute, until my gloveless fingers started to freeze. The scarf wrapped around my head like a turban helped a lot, but I was glad to get home. The funniest part, though: My coat has a little thermometer attached to a string that's sewn into the pocket. You can take the thermometer out of your pocket and let it dangle and theoretically it'll tell you how cold it is. I don't think it's all that accurate, particularly since even if it's outside of your pocket, your body heat will still probably throw off the reading, but it's fun to toy with anyway. Well, when I got home, I looked at the thermometer. The needle had moved down to ten degrees before the water inside the thermometer froze solid. Ba-hahaha! I checked the internet after that. Fifteen below. Thirty below with windchill.

Next time, I'm bringing gloves even if it's above freezing.