Bucket list of food

Places to Eat in Provo:
-Communal
-Malawi's Pizza
-Gloria's Little Italy
-Pantrucas
-Chinatown
-Nicolitalia
-Wild Ginger
-Tucanos
-Sensuous Sandwich
-Pita Pit
-Saigon Cafe (Ming's)
-La Dolce Vita
-Norma Jeane's Diner
-Spicy Corea
-Fusian Asian Grill
-Sam Hawk's
-Zupa's
-Station 22
-SLAB
-Ripple's
-Rocky Mountain Drive In
-Nate's Diner
-Pete's Lunch
-Big Al's
-Tommy's BBQ and Grill
-El Gallo Giro
-Diego's
-Mexisal
-Spice Grill
-Guru's
-Tommy's Burgers
-Sammy's
-La Jolla Groves
-Two Jack's Pizza
-Spicy Thai
-Four Season's Hot Pot and Dumplings
-Thai Mango
-Braza Express
-The Awful Waffle
-Se Llama Peru
-The Banana Leaf Restaurant

Places to Eat in Orem:
-Jason's Deli
-Noodles & Co.
-Terra Mia
-Milagros
-Shabu Shabu
-Bangkok Grill
-Thai Drift
-Pizzeria 712
-Mountain West Burrito
-Joe's Cafe
-Yamato's
-Kohinoor
-The Chocolate
-Dickey's BBQ pit
-In-N-Out
-Goodwood
-La Puente
-Carraba's
-Texas Roadhouse
-Firehouse Subs
-Chef's Table
-Five Guy's
-Smashburger
-Yogurtland
-Callie's Cafe
-La Carreta
-Eliane's

Places to Eat in Salt Lake:
-Ali Baba
-O' Falafel
-Red Iguana
-Brugges
-Chow Truck
-African Market
-Mazza
-The Copper Onion
-The Pie
-Settebello
-The Roof
-Little World Chinese Restaurant
-The Lion House
-Squatter's
-One World Cafe
-Finn's
-Paradise Bakery
-Thaifoon
-Les Madeleines
-Elizabeth's Bakery and Tea Shop
-Cedars of Lebanon

(List to be expanded, edited and used)

Hadji Bektash-i Veli

Principles of the Bektashi Path
•  Seek and find.
•  Whatever you do, do it for the Truth.
•  There exists in you a “there is” to replace every “there isn't.”
•  He who walks the Path never tires.
•  There is no rank or station higher than the Friend's heart.
•  The one who is wise but doesn't share his wisdom is ignorant.
•  To the ignorant, abandoning what is no longer needed is death; to the wise it is birth.
•  There is no repentance of repentance.
•  Let your heart, your hand, and your table be open to others.
•  Look for the key to all within your deepest being.
•  Whatever you seek, look within.
•  Do not forget your enemy is also a human being.
•  The beauty of human beings is the beauty of their words.
•  If the path appears dark, know that the veil is in your own eyes.
•  All blessings upon the one who overlooks another's shortcomings.
•  All blessings upon the one who makes a secret of secrets.
•  The Word is Truth.
•  Do not hurt others, even if you are hurt.
•  Hand-in-hand, hand in Truth.
•  One hour of meditation is better than seventy years of piety.

Musical Activity

My Top Artists according to Spotify:
-Suprême NTM
-Das Racist
-Jay Z (and Kanye, but they leave him out for some reason)
-The Decemberists
-Brigitte
-Booba

What I actually feel like I listen to the most:
-Chris Thile/Punch Brothers
-Suprême NTM
-Das Racist
-Saintseneca
-Brigitte
-Podcasts on itunes

Other music I enjoy regularly:
-Louise Attack
-Ratatat
-Ben L'Oncle Soul
-Raphael Saadiq
-Brittney Spears
-Adele
-Lil Wayne
-Radiohead
-Fleet Foxes

Concerts I've been to recently:
-Punch Brothers (Jackson Hole, WY)
-Saintseneca, etc (House show in Provo, UT)
-Flaming Lips (The Saltair in Magna, UT)
-Bright Eyes (SLC, UT)
-Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros (SLC, UT)
-Fictionist (Provo, UT)
-Mindy Gledhill and some other equally boring musician (Provo, UT)
-some random concert at Muse (Muse Music, Provo, UT)
-Jesse James (Provo, UT)

Productivity

What I Accomplished Last Week:
-Packed all my stuff
-Moved it to my new house
-Cleaned my old apartment and checked out
-Wrote and gave a talk in church
-Wrote and gave a lesson in church
-Met a homeless man who gave me a good new perspective on life
-Told a woman how to get to the hospital to meet her daughter who was in labor
-Went to a free Bright Eyes concert
-Ate a Liege waffle
-Helped other people move and clean
-Made a podcast (it's not a real thing yet)
-Forced people to listen to Dolly Parton
-Rode my bike
-Took a friend to the airport
-Took off my glasses and jumped in the pool
-Hung out with Argentines
-Went to the temple with a roommate
-Hung out on a hammock
-Went to a bonfire
-Watched a lighter explode in said bonfire
-Talked about stuff with people (very ambiguous rhetoric)
-Went to a wedding reception for one of my favorite people in this world
-Got visit taught
-Ate a free dinner care of institute funds from the ward
-Hung out at the hospital cafeteria and saw the usual random people there, including the guy who stole my bike lock (and gave it back ten minutes later)

Boredom

What to do for fun:
-Bike rides
-Open more and more accounts for things on the internet
-Start a band
-Learn the lyrics to a random song
-Txtmsg random people
-Gchat
-Read articles/talks/devotionals/random stuff online
-Stalk someone on facebook
-Actually do homework
-Go to ward activities
-Find someone who looks bored and start talking to them
-Eat something
-Play the guitar
-Make lists
-Call someone on the phone
-Read lots of blogs
-Write a blog post
-Write a letter
-Write in a journal
-Clean
-Paint nails
-Bake something
-Daydream
-Go for a walk
-Go for a drive
-Go shopping
-Plan out a schedule for the next week, semester, whatever
-Look for jobs/housing/graduate programs
-Think about new hobbies to start
-Doodle on a piece of paper
-Drop by a friend's house just to see if they are there
-Watch tv/movies
-Go running
-Go to the gym

What to do the first week of July in Riverside, California

Things to do when visiting family:
-Go to Disneyland for a day
-Ride Star Tours at least twice while there, along with Pirates and Thunder Mountain
-See Cars 2 with all the children
-Go out with old friends a few times
-Push the nieces on the swingset in the backyard
-Spend time with a german shepherd
-Talk about what's going on in Provo, Mesa, Nashville, or Riverside these days
-Go watch fireworks at a family friend's house
-Watch Mt Rubidoux catch on fire just a few minutes into the fireworks show
-Wait for a long time to see if the fireworks will start up again-- mostly wait for the fires to be under control
-Watch roman candles in the field close by catch the field on fire
-Get bitten by mosquitoes and have those bug bites swell up to ridiculous sizes
-Don't even open thesis related work
-Finish off that book almost a year after starting it
-Go to Costco
-Go to the Galleria at Tyler
-Go to Von's and Trader Joe's
-Eat lots
-Macerate some meyer lemons from the backyard
-Make shaker lemon pie
-Make world peace cookies (aka chocolate korova?)
-Bring a loaf of avocado pound cake in suitcase to share with family, while leaving a dozen muffins for the roommates
-Text people a lot when bored
-Watch Harry Potter 1 with the nephew who had just finished the book a few days earlier
-Play the piano, mostly when no one's home
-Eat thrifty's ice cream sandwiches
-Let a niece be entertained endlessly by emoticons on gchat (the blue crying face is the best)
-Play basketball with family or just solo
-Ride a bike with flat tires that are also completely deteriorating and think about buying new tires for it for the future, but never follow through on that
-Spend time with family, alone and together
-Sleep in most days
-Listen to awesome testimonies in church about how great and tall trees are

Life Lessons

Things I Have Learned Recently:
-The guitar (not super well)
-Patience (kind of but not super well either)
-How to be more open than is comfortable (still working on that, too)
-How weak I am
-How strong I can be
-All about different cords and cables for audio/visual equipment
-Hard work is worth it sometimes
-David O. McKay was an awesome husband
-So was Harold B. Lee
-Hope is possible without seeing how things will happen, if they ever even do
-Sleep is not overrated, but hard to get sometimes
-I like capitalism
-I'm pretty smart and capable and stuff (more of a needed reminder)
-It's not fun to learn the same lessons over and over
-Finding patterns is kind of really fun.  For me.
-Emotions are good if you accept them
-Emotions sometimes still are the worst even then
-Stability and routine are things I actually really crave
-Knowing that I need/don't need something and actually feeling like I need/don't need something are very, very different things
-Perspective can be really hard to find
-It's really easy to spend money without thinking about it
-Being stable and having a good, solid network of friends for support is worth a lot more than any words can describe
-Music is really good for catharsis
-Movies used to do that for me really well, but now are overwhelming a lot of the time
-I am really funny (not that I didn't know this before)
-I like talking to strangers about things like beeswax, CSAs, history, trivial matters
-I miss some of my old hobbies a lot
-Touching hot pans is bad for my skin
-Being outside is a really good form of therapy
-Writing in my journal is another really good form of therapy
-Talking to friends/family is another really good (better, even) form of therapy
-Being optimistic is sometimes hard but it's always worth it
-Taking risks is also really hard, but it can lead to very rewarding experiences and lessons I couldn't have learned otherwise
-I don't like school enough to go on and get a PhD, but sometimes I wish I did because I do actually really love school enough to keep going on.  Just not enough for the work and life-sucking quality of graduate degrees.
-I should stop being as shy as I am, but I don't really want to talk to other people a lot of the time.  Not enough to actually do it
-I'm really stubborn and moody and prideful
-Laughter is one of the only ways to break the above
-It's really easy for me to be distracted at inappropriate times
-I can carry a joke on until it becomes something very serious, like how comic book characters are all based on scriptural characters.  That joke may have lasted like 24 hours, actively naming comic book characters and the scriptural characters that correspond.
-I have no clue what I want to do even three months from now, or where I want to be.  Like, literally.
-Life is good, even when it's hard
-Even when things can't get much worse, there's a silver lining in that it can (and often will) always get better
-It takes work to feel comfort and hope sometimes, but that work is always well worth it
-Just going through the motions sucks, so trying to be optimistic and actually like my life is really important
-Time helps perspective, so do prayer and scripture study.

Listening to NPR music, mostly

Songs I Listen to a Lot Lately:

-Two against One, starring Jack White (from Rome by Daniele Luppi and Danger Mouse)

-Stone Rollin' (from Stone Rollin' by Raphael Saadiq)

-Heart Attack (from Stone Rollin' by Raphael Saadiq)

-All Cried Out Redux feat. Doug E. Fresh (from The Light of the Sun by Jill Scott)

-Le BOOM (from The Light of the Sun by Jill Scott)

-Rolling in the Deep (from 21 by Adele)

-A la faveur de l'automne (from A la faveur de l'automne by Tété)

-99 problems (from The Grey Album by Danger Mouse)

-Justify my Thug (from The Grey Album by Danger Mouse)

-Detroit (from Rush by Black Gold)

-Plans & Reveries (from Rush by Black Gold)

-Le Premier bonheur du jour (by Françoise Hardy)

-Sleep With One Eye Open (from a Tiny Desk Concert with Chris Thile and Michael Daves)

-Bury Me Beneath the Willow (from a Tiny Desk Concert with Chris Thile and Michael Daves)

-Red Devil (from a Tiny Desk Concert with The Kopecky Family Band)

Best of me

My Favorite Blog Posts on My Other Blog:
-Milou v. Bolt
-Rooney Concert
-Last Summer's Diet Plan
-Uncle Stephen's Tiger Claws
-Don't worry, the cat's not dead...
-Peaches are really important to me (but maybe not to the same degree as dogs, in the end)
-Not really that great, just something I think about a lot
-I blew the cover of my confidential middle name....
-Remember when I thought I had swine flu but actually had mono?
-I still think about this one a lot because of an inside joke I represented here visually
-I still love Martha.
-

How to Procrastinate a Thesis

Things I Have Done Today:
-Learn how to play the guitar
-Watch random tv show
-Read news stories on NPR and Le Monde's website
-Read emails
-Read through my Google Reader
-Make foods to eat
-Overbook myself on several different days
-Think about what I should be doing
-Open up Microsoft Word documents for my thesis
-Almost clean my room
-Clean dishes
-Put away dishes
-Minimal amounts of getting dressed and other things to make myself presentable to the general public
-Browse amazon.com
-Write out my tithing for tomorrow
-Agree to go to ward prayer tomorrow night
-Procrastinate calling friends about dinner tomorrow night
-Watch trailers for movies on apple's website
-Watch trailers for movies on youtube
-Listen to Tété
-Listen to Ben L'Oncle Soul
-Spend a lot of time on google calendar thinking about what I have to do next week
-Think about running/showering
-Think about road trips I want to take, mostly either to Southern Utah or California
-Ditch out on Stake Relief Society service projects because sleep is more enjoyable

A Cinematic Semester

Movies I Watched This Semester for Class:
-Lost Book Found
-Manhatta
-Rien que les heures
-Run Lola Run
-M
-Die Mörder sind unter uns
-Heisser sommar
-Und Diene Liebe Auch
-Cléo de 5 à 7
-Diva
-La Haine
-Gratte Papier
-Schwarzfahrer
-Metropolis
-Der Himmel Über Berlin
-Paris Qui Dort
-Pépé le Moko
-La Jetée
-Playtime

Movies I watched this Semester at International Cinema:
-Truth and Conviction
-Lourdes
-Alice
-Children of Nature
-12:08 East of Bucharest
-The Secret of Kells
-Troubled Water
-Football Under Cover
-Mutum
-A Town Called Panic

Movies I Watched This Semester for Fun, Extracurricularly:
-Easy A
-Memento
-Scott Pilgrim Vs the World
-17 Again
-Bright Star
-Just Wright
-King's Speech
-Inglorious Basterds
-Unknown
-Lord of the Rings (Bashti version)
-A Dog of Flanders
-Driving Miss Daisy
-Pride and Prejudice
-Persuasion
-Some Lifetime movies on Hulu
-Amadeus

I am blind and my dog is dead

Ways I am Like a German Shepherd:
-German ancestry
-Commonly connected to security, drugs and war
-Some people find intimidating, scary
-Precisely bred to be a hard worker and awesome
-Long hair, though somewhat rare
-Known for intelligence and loyalty
-A favorite among dog lovers
-Sometimes hangs out at dog parks
-Strong jaw, with scissor-like bite
-Double coat
-Bond well with children with whom familiar
-Aloof
-Approachable, but not usually friendly with strangers
-Over-protective of family when not socialized appropriately
-Arthritis
-Bloat
-Prone to ear infections
-Starred in 80s German sitcoms
-Occasionally work with Will Smith or Joaquin Phoenix
-Love of meat

How I am Like Blind People:
-Can't see well
-Enjoys music
-Frequently runs into walls, door frames, or stubs toes
-Sometimes seen with dogs
-Have a favorite breed of dog, specifically, German Shepherds
-Occasionally associated with Tiresias
-Used as a metaphor in a Bob Dylan song
-Similarities to Geordi la Forge

Globophobia

Reasons Balloons are Evil:
-Popping them sometimes hurts
-Popping them can give a war veteran panic attacks
-Helium is becoming more and more rare, which is actually becoming a legit issue
-Associated with clowns
-Create static electricity
-Bad for the environment
-They smell bad
-I'm sure a lot of people are probably allergic to them, right?
-I'm not the only one who thinks this.

Spring Break

Things To Do In Seattle:

-eat strawberry cake picked out by 5-year-old nephew

-drink chocolate milk and return the bottle for bottle deposit

-eat turkish food

-check out awesome waterfalls

-get soaked from rain

-visit the Seattle public library

-eat donuts

-play with sister's awesome dog named after an awesome character from LOST

-walk around a city (always always fun)

-check out sculptures at the art museum

-watch some movies (good and bad)

-window shopping

-people watching, eavesdropping

-visit Pike Place Market

-be close to lots of water (current residence = desert; water = awesome)

-spend time with family and friends

Cinescopic

Movies I watched in February:
-Cléo from 5-7
-Die Mörder sind unter uns
-Lord of the Rings (1978)
-12:08 to Bucharest
-Persuasion
-17 Again
-A Dog of Flanders
-Amadeus (kind of... missed a huge chunk in the middle)
-Driving Miss Daisy
-Children of Nature
-Alice
-Man with a Movie Camera
-Scott Pilgrim Vs. the World (I skipped out on the end, partially because I've seen three times in like three months now...)
-M
-Pépé le Moko
-La jetée
-The Secret of Kells

Hoarding

Things I currently hoard:

-emails

-txtmsgs

-cupcakes

-cards, letters

-receipts, bills

-schoolwork

-blogs I write in

-blogs I read

-books

Things I will hoard in the future:

-okapi

-cats

-dogs

-tigers

-animals in general

-more cupcakes

-viking furniture

-cooler books, like the ones they put on display at IKEA but don't seem to sell, much to my chagrin

-foreign films

-j crew

Movies

Movies I watched in January:
-Tron (I am counting it since it was during Christmas break, and therefore after winter semester, because my life works in the academic calendar better than the real one)
-Voyage of the Dawn Treader
-The Streets of Laredo
-Metropolis (with the new extra footage)
-Lost Book Found
-Bright Star
-Paris Qui Dort
-Deep Blue Sea
-Inglorious Basterds
-Easy A
-Lourdes
-Memento
-A bunch of awesome animated shorts at Sundance
-Scott Pilgrim Vs. the World
-The King's Speech
-Manhatta
-Rien que les heures
-Pride and Prejudice (the long version, but only a couple hours' worth-- at the most)

Les Courses

Grocery Stores I've Been To in the Past Week:
-First Oriental Market
-Bollywood Market
-Sunflower
-Smith's
-Target

Restaurants I Ate at Last Month:
-Bruges
-El Gallo Giro
-Nicolitalia
-L&T (yes, I mean the place on campus)
-La Jolla Groves

Tricks vs. Illusions

Things that disappeared in January:
-My contacts (eventually I got two packages of a year's supply, though)
-My motivation to write my thesis (maybe it wasn't ever there, actually)
-Free time
-The old relief society presidency I worked with
-An old roommate
-My will to bake/cook, for the most part
-Classes (for me!  and, except for the one for which I TA)
-Warm(er...) California weather (when I came back to Utah)
-Cold Utah weather (I've considered this week's highs in the 50s to be practically spring weather)
-My filter (actually, my language has only slipped when no one is around.  The rest of the time it's been quite intentional)
-The bishopric

Things that appeared in January:
-2011 Tintin calendar...
-Two years worth of contacts
-Cleaning checks
-Brand new RS presidency
-A mold-less macbook
-Plenty of things that are more fun than my thesis
-Sundance film festival (AND Tracy Morgan)
-2 seasons of 30 Rock on DVD in my apartment (curtesy of:)
-A new roommate
-Actually doing my MA paperwork stuff!
-New bishopric
-(for me, by way of Rob Macfarland:)A sweet new version of Metropolis on DVD

Religious holidays always mean miracles

Epiphany Miracles:
-I found my ipod when I left it in the library overnight
-I got my prospectus and program of study signed and turned in
-My sister came into town and I got to meet my youngest nephew (3 months old)
-I have not gotten sick yet
-I have a computer again
-A couple old friends have moved back to Provo after being away last semester (one is even now my roommate)
-I survived the first week of my last semester at BYU
-I found raw milk in Utah Valley (but it's, like, $7/gallon)
-Discovered the Badalisc, as well as Icelandic Christmas traditions that are amazing
-Tintin 2011 calendar... Miraculous.