a real update with pictures will come later

I know, I know. I promised I'd update more. I lied. So a quick update. We finally moved! We found a 2-bedroom apartment in Provo that would let us keep our cats, so we're really excited about that. Eric is still working and going to school full-time, and I am doing neither of those things. I am applying to grad school at BYU and sort of looking for a job though, so I promise I'm only wasting about 80% of my life right now.

Anyway, we brought over the rest of our stuff from the old apartment last night. A pretty good portion of this was bags full of papers and other things I'd had in my filing cabinet at home, so all of it is from my pre-college days. I am going through it currently and throwing away a lot of the stuff that I just don't need to keep. I came across almost every paper I've ever written in high school (most of which are not going to survive the purge), all kinds of drawings I did when I was a kid, birthday cards and other miscellaneous letters from relatives, all the awards I got for being a good student throughout school, and other random things that sparked my memory. I had fun going through everything.

I found a couple of poems that I wrote with my mom in high school for two different English classes that I had with Mrs. Critchley (probably my favorite high school teacher ever). I enlisted my mom's help on these projects because she's really clever and I think she has a way better grasp of how Chaucer and Shakespeare would have written than I ever will. My sophomore year, the project was to write a poem in the style of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, and my senior year, we were to write a parody of Hamlet's "to be or not to be" soliloquoy.

I'm glad I still I have these. Here they are.


Pilgrim: The Farrier

A farrier of Smithfield we did meet
Whose voice was so honey-tongued and sweet,
He was a young lad, maybe sixteen years,
And sounded like a woman to our ears.
He wore thick rough-spun clothes and woolen cape
Yet still appeared thin-shouldered in his shape.
His hair was blond, the color of ripe wheat
And, although thick, unusually neat.
As true mahogany his eyes were brown,
And as he walked he kept them both cast down.
For one who made his living shoeing mares,
I thought it strange his hands were clean and fair.
His nails were trim, not one of them was broke,
He often kept his hands hidden beneath his cloak.
His rosy cheek was smooth and soft as silk,
His complexion quite comparable to milk.
Quiet he was, averse to cpmany,
Unless among the women he could be.
He sat near them to eat his meat and drink,
He did not care for fellowship, I think.
Before the fire he joined the Wife of Bath,
Where they would sing duets, and talk and laugh.
We took delight in listening to their song.
Right glad I was that he would come along.


Soliloquoy

To wash, or not to wash - that is the question:
Whether it is better for the dishwasher to suffer
The stains and blotches of caked-on food
Or to take up soap against the dried-on mess
And by rinsing end them. To wash, to scour -
No more - and by scouring we say to end
The filth, and the thousand vile viscosities
That dishes are prone to. Sparkling dishes are the perfect finish
Devoutly to be wished. To wash, to scour -
To scour - perchance to clean; ay, there's the scrub,
For in that scouring wash what suds may come
When we have eliminated this mortal soil,
Must give us pause. There's the concept
That makes disaster of washing dishes by hand.
For who could stand the chapped and reddened hands,
The broken plates, the sharp forks stabbing,
The insolence of soap, and the little flecks of suds
That flick into the unguarded eyes,
When the vassal might be freed from all
With an automatic dishwasher? Who would cauldrons bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after washing,
The odious task of drying, from which chore
No one escapes, frustrates freedom,
And makes us rather do the chores we have
Than end up being punished beyond reason.
Thus lemony-fresh Joy makes dishwashers of us all.