those are Nine Inch Nails lyrics, in case you didn't kno

Quick and dirty drawing, just in time for Valentine’s Day!  Promise I’ll step up the quality for the next few.

What a blast seriously, I can’t wait to do it again next year!

If you are unaware, the Krispy Kreme Run is THIS and it is so, so legit.

So it started out kind of rough because we sprinted and jumped a half-mile’s worth all over the NCSU campus in a frenzy trying to find the packet-pick-up tent 5 minutes before the race began.  I was freaking out and was so worked up that I thought I was gonna cry, but cry I did not and we found it in the nick of time and the sprint turned out to be a really good warm up!

Upside down number cause of the aforementioned stressful frenzy

The morning was so gorgeous! There was a nice chill in the air, perfect for running, TONS of people around (7700!) and a lot of cool costumes to keep us alert:

Christian ran ahead, so Mom and I decided to walk the whole way.  One MAJOR BIG DEAL half-marathon a year gives us a lot of slack I think!

Anyway, I learned something today.  I learned that the best part about being the slowest one in a loop race is that as you are getting TO the destination, all the buffest people are going BACK, and that’s just something to be thankful for.  There were plenty of buff men with handsome faces about, some of them be-shirted, others not.  I took full opportunity to encourage these super brave men in their journey, with lots of thumbs up and yelling and yes, even some winking thrown in.  Mom might have been a little embarrassed, but what can I say?

I’m an opportunity taker.

Well we got to the Krispy Kreme store eventually and a beautiful person gave Mom and me a box of donuts each!

I WAS SO PSYCHED YOU GUYS YOU SEE??!!?

There were crazy awesome people EVERYWHERE (like everywhere, everywhere) with 3 crushed donuts  in each palm, eating like there was no tomorrow!  These people were awe-inspiring, but the moments of awe were ruined by loud grunts and groans and burps. Pretty grody.

donut corpses... respect

Mom had no donuts and I ate one because we are both delicate females who are also super wimpy.  We carried our boxes the rest of the way through downtown Raleigh.  That was nice.  The finish line was guh-loriously disgusting and kind of slick with vomit, but it was so worth it to finish. SO FUN! All of it!

VICTORY!

Now, the Krispy Kreme Challenge was super cray in a good way, but I did notice one thing about it that could use improvement.

In Oregon when we ran the half, people were cheering each other on, yelling into each other’s ears, pounding each other on the back!  You let out a whoop, you got one in return, and vice versa! Everyone was excited to be running and they were all helping to build on each others’ (other’s?) enthusiasm.  It was just the way to participate in a great race!

That was what I was expecting for this race.  Actually I was expecting even more of that because it is a FIVE MILE COLLEGE FUN RUN WITH DONUTS.

So I yelled at like everyone, especially the cute guys, and like clapped and all that because things were SO EXCITING and you know what I got?

Like NOTHING is what I got!  If it is possible to have awkward silences during a race, then the awkward silences I got during this race were awkward silences beyond compare.  I don’t know if people think it’s just not cool to yell and be excited about something or what.  Maybe they were all snobby Cary-ites.  Anyway all I know is that people were generally being really boring and not at all supportive of enthusiasm.

It was pretty much the subdued march of the bland and uninteresting.

‘Cept for these guys.  I fell in MAD love with them.  They totally roared back and pretended to chop people’s heads off with their cardboard swords. So awesome. :

Buncha Spartan babes

SO overall it was an amazing race!  Next year Christian and I have decided to dress up in a big way and  form a team!  Who knows, maybe we’ll even eat an acceptable amount of donuts.  We’ll be legitimate NCSU students by then, so I’m assuming that eating a non-wimpy amount of donuts is obligatory.

1. Person is humble to begin with.
2. Everyone loves humble people and either appreciates them a lot and/or wants to build them up, so humble person gets compliments by the truckload
3. Person is naturally humble already, so compliments glide off him like softened butter on toast. But, they stay there! Like butter STAYS on the toast, so compliments are absorbed by the complimentee. Yet they ALSO glide away and discreetly become one with the toast, not like garish jam, or cold butter that falls off of the toast.
4. Humbleness retained, the cycle begins all over again.

I have striven to be this sort of person. I’ve observed the behavior of those who are already like this, and those who are the opposite of this. I’ve read numerous books on social graces (“How to Win Friends and Influence People” people!) These years of study have not been unfruitful.  Indeed, even though I’m super horrible at keeping them, the following three rules about compliments have embedded themselves in my mind.  I can tell you now that whenever all three rules are kept, compliment fun-times are WAY maximized:

1. Always say thank you when you’re given a genuine compliment. NEVER deflect it.
2. Try to somehow turn the compliment around so it compliments the other person. I read this in a book. It is super hard to do because you are so focused on how awesome you are and the warm fuzzy feeling a genuine compliment gives you, that it’s difficult to think about someone else’s positive attributes. Unless you are one of those rare naturally humble people who do that all the time. However, I did read that the easiest way to do this is to compliment the complimenter for being so nice and for taking the time to compliment you. You can always be thankful for that!
3. This is really vague, but whatever you do, make sure to not turn one compliment into a quest for more compliments, or any sort of showcase of yourself. This sounds like it’s easy to avoid, but if you’re the average self-centered person it’s really not.

The wrong kind of people are the jam and cold butter on toast kind of people. Jam and Cold Butter people break ALL OF THE RULES. Jam is more easily forgiven however, because (besides being literally quite tasty on toast), Jam people are often just not aware that what they are doing is annoying.

Anyway Jam people don’t absorb a compliment. They let the compliment sit in a bright look-at-me lump on the surface of the toast by feigning humility through deflection of the compliment (“Oh stop it, I’m really not THAT special. YOU’RE more special than I am). But the thing is, they really do think that they’re special. It’s an easy trap to fall into, I’ve done it many times before. It’s really a misguided attempt at keeping Rule #2. It twists itself around though, because instead of keeping Rule #2, it breaks Rule #3. It’s kind of like asking for MORE affirmation.  These people really want to look humble and also cool, but the problem is that they’ve never been taught that accepting compliments is cooler than rejecting them.  And don’t think for a second that Jam people are just high-school freshman girls.  Jam people, from jellies to preserves, can be found in all walks of life.  Some Jam people are just extra-clever and better at hiding their jam status.  You could call them Peanut Butters, or Nutellas.

Cold Butter compliment takers. Oh these people are not fun at all. Have you ever tried spreading cold butter on toast? It doesn’t work. Cold Butter FALLS OFF OF THE TOAST. And then it stays on the plate/countertop in garish white lumps, causing more of an eyesore and nuisance than it would have if it had simply absorbed itself into the toast. These Cold Butters absorb a compliment even less than Jams do. They don’t believe the compliments. They don’t believe anything you tell them because they think that they’re ugly or unintelligent or not that special. I used to feel really sorry for these people, but now I’m mostly really annoyed by them.

This is a choice, kids! Don’t be a cold butter! Don’t be a jam! Be a yummy slice of butter-saturated sourdough, like the kind they have at Denny’s or Elmer’s. That’s totally everyone’s favorite kind of toast! Be that toast!

All the boring people/potheads sit in the back of the class, I am telling you.  Sit in every front row for a semester or two, and you’ll run into the most interesting personalities. Chas is one such character!  He is a Japanese major who comes to class every morning with what looks like an encoded matrix/morse-code/binary type cipher on a sheet of paper.  He meticulously deciphers it whilst listening to punk rock on his mp3 player which is not an Apple product, which I respect.

I asked him once, by way of compliment, why exactly he dresses so snappily for each and every class? Why, Chas? Why, when your peers are so casually dressed, in their black t-shirts and leggings-for-pants and bad hair dye?  What makes you impervious to this massive force of peer pressure?

And all he said was that he enjoys dressing well.  It creates a good first impression.

There is something to be said for that! No longer do you dress down to be hip and unique.  No, no, no, to stand out and be respected you dress UP.  Granted, most people probably have a different definition of UP than Chas does, but I think his fanciness has worked for him so far!  It’s still the first time a man’s outfit has made me feel insecure about my OWN outfit though.  Odd and unwelcome sensation.

*I promised I’d put all the fashion stuff on the other blog, but this is totally a human interest post and it has a moral!

We were discussing the inherent sin of homosexuality. That led us to the question of whether or not God judges all sin equally. This particular friend disagrees with me on almost everything, and the answer to this question was no exception! I was sure the answer was yes, according to my knowledge of Old Testament law and the principles upheld in the New Testament, but didn’t want to commit to anything because I hadn’t ever questioned or thought about that particular subject, let alone looked up the verses to confirm my opinion. My thoughts were pretty firm, however, because I knew that God judged each sin differently in the Old Testament, and I knew that God was supposed to be constant forever. So even though we live in New Testament times, I believe His structure of right and wrong has stayed the same and will stay the same for eternity. Even though we live in an age where we are able to repent and be forgiven before the day of judgement comes, God’s structure still stands. We are simply profiting from His mercy, and must be on the right side when that day comes.

Well, I wasn’t super good at articulating this since I hadn’t really thought it out, so I think I gave a pretty bad answer. My friend then asked me why God stopped “killing everyone” after Jesus came (in the New Testament) and brought kindness and love. It was late and I was stumped. It was true! The New Testament really didn’t seem to have very much of the characteristics of violence that the Old Testament had.

But we had just been studying Acts in Bible Study and I remembered what had happened to Ananias and Saphira, and what had happened to Herod. And also all of the positive miracles that Jesus brought about, and how they could correlate to the positive miracles that God brought about in the Old Testament (like with David, or Daniel, or Noah, or Moses, or Solomon, etc.)

I was stumped nonetheless, so I asked Dad what the deal was, but he was running so he gave me the brief answer that God was no longer like the “head of state” after Jesus was resurrected. Bad paraphrasing. Of course He was still the King and the head and everything, but I guess things were under a new law and a different covenant SO he didn’t have to kill armies for Israel’s sake anymore? I mean He still looks out for us and takes care of us and loves us (obviously! We live only because of His mercy!) but we were given… freedom? Something?

Wow. When I type that out it reads terribly. I definitely have to think this through a little more. If any of you readers have a thoughtful answer, it would be very much appreciated!

When I was 13, all I knew was that I liked pink and mascara was fun to try on special occassions.

At 14 I discovered that dressing and smelling like Hollister was the big deal for kids my age.  Ridiculous store, now, but back then? Big deal.

15 was a relatively stagnant year fashion wise.

But when I turned 16? Things went crazy.  I used nearly all of my babysitting money to buy clothes for a trip out west.  I saved and budgeted and deal-hunted my way into anything and everything floral or brightly colored.  That was the year of dressing like a parrot.  Last year was even worse.  Exponentially worse!  I budgeted like I never had before, read fashion magazines and blogs, planned all of my outfits to the color-specific shoe, set a theme for my 2011 style and took a lesson from the previous year by starting to pay attention to my seasonal coloring (I’m a cool summer, but sometimes I totes wish I could be a clear winter, you know?)

I would stress about how materialistic this all was. I desired to be like those super-smart amazing people who were above all the vanity of dressing fancy and who (to my mind) didn’t worry about looking pretty (or handsome).  I would worry that all the smart people out there would think I was vapid, and that they would judge me for liking lace and high heels and sheath dresses and color blocking and denim shirts and skinny belts and the like.

But NOW! I don’t care! I am a girl for crying out loud! For me, dressing up is a LOT more fun than dressing down.  Planning my outfits is a LOT more fun than wearing whatever happens to be in my closet.  Being able to walk in high heels is extremely satisfying.  Developing my own personal style is just fun, fun, fun!  So, without shame, I display to you my Pinterest fashion board and my personal style blog. Any and all new fashiony type posts will go there.

this drawing is extremely accurate

Please don’t think I’m horrible and superficial, but he is the PERFECT combination of a hobbit and George Costanza.  I have also heard “Rick Moranis” used to describe him more than once around campus.

This does not diminish his skills at all! Really, he’s the best math professor ever.

That’s right folks. We talked drugs today.

Because drugs are apparently number one on the prof’s agenda, he laid out his plan for fixing the system.  First, legalize drugs across the board.  But only make them available in government regulated stores, similar to the ABC liquor stores.  Physicians would work with the government to decide how much of any given drug would be safe to sell at a time and boom.  You’ve got a relatively drug-free nation. Now this was not a divisive issue among my classmates.  Really, the class was divided in half between those who supported heavier enforcement of our current drug policy and those who supported legalizing so called ‘softer’ drugs like marijuana. And then the professor, who forced us to argue his policy.

Someone raised their hand and said that many drugs are extremely dangerous and addictive and therefore should not ever be legalized.  He called that government propaganda and then read us ‘the best’ statistics available about people who become addicted to drugs.  From an ambiguous number of people surveyed, he quoted the percentage of those people who had tried a given drug (ex. 10% of people surveyed had tried marijuana, 3% had tried crack cocaine) and then gave us the percentages of those who actually became addicted to the drug (ex. 2% became addicted to marijuana, 0.01% became addicted to crack cocaine).  The problem was that the second set of relatively small percentages he took from the whole population, not from the sample.  So he claimed that 2% of the whole population became addicted to cocaine, instead of giving the more realistic (and less misleading) statistic that 65% of people who had tried cocaine, became addicted.  Imagine what would happen if you completely legalized all drugs.  More people would have access to them and more people would become addicted.

All of the statistics above are just for example, but you get the gist.  There were many, many more holes in his argument, which I will address later.