Rumour Has It

. . . that this is the catchiest thing to come off of Glee thus far.
Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.

Doesn't the title just inspire you to start using British spelling?
"Rumour" sounds so much more elegant and mysterious than plain old "rumor". And can't you see yourself wearing a floor-length gown to the "theatre," as opposed to the "theater" where you might spend a dollar to see a film? Those English know what they're doing with their English.

As far as Adele goes, here is another cover that manages to do her justice:

The world needs more curvy, soulful, talented artists worth replicating. Adele, I'm a fan.

Fournier

Photo cred: wiki music


Just think everyone should know about this guy. Because he's been in my ear a lot lately.



Sean Fournier.   Download for free right here. 

Personality, Professors & November's Playlist

Forever 21 shirt + Pigtails = Halloween costume?

Yesterday I took the Myers-Briggs test for kicks. My results seemed surprisingly accurate:

E- Extroversion
N- Intuition
F- Feeling
P-Perceiving

In other words, not a single letter from the concrete, logical, and grounded side.   Oh dear.  So here it is, according to Myers-Briggs I'm:

Warmly enthusiastic and imaginative. I see life as full of possibilities. Make connections between events and information very quickly, and confidently proceed based on the patterns seen. Want a lot of affirmation from others, and readily give appreciation and support. I'm spontaneous and flexible, often relying on the ability to improvise and my verbal fluency.

I was delighted to discover that my writing professor and I have the same letter combination.  Have I mentioned that I adore her?  She's the kind of person who bakes cookies and brings them to class, who meets with you to go over your paper a second time, who tells funny stories about her mission and shares inspiring, thought-provoking personal experiences that are somehow completely relevant to different writing concepts we are discussing.  She's the kind of person who brings up pictures of her kids and husband, sighs deeply, and says

"Oh you guys, this is what you have to look forward to.  You have no idea how much joy is waiting for you."

I love that.

I love how she teaches for us and not just to us. She doesn't teach down to us, and for that I respect her so much.  Our class is only about twenty people strong so we've become pretty close-knit this semester. We've had some incredible in-class discussions and I've made some friends I know I'll be keeping around.

In a different vein, November's been an excellent month for music.  My tastes have been more acoustic, I've just been flowing with the cozy, chill fall vibe.  I decided that I had a quintessential fall moment which I described in a recent missionary letter:

I am curled up on the living room couch, listening to some John Mayer classics and taking in the smell of delicious pumpkin chocolate chip cookies baking in the oven.  When I glance up,the mountains outside the window fill up my view. They have a reddish hue from all of the changing tree colors, but no snow just quite yet. The trees closest to our apartment are bright yellow tinged in brown, but most of the leaves have fallen. The sky is bright blue with no clouds to be seen. It’s a perfect fall day in Provo.

I think Jack Johnson and John Mayer are pretty interchangeable in that first sentence.  They're the sound of deep, slow, rich happiness.

So without further ado, November's playlist (containing much less of the aforementioned artists, but some good stuff nonetheless).

Life Slice

Right now I'm sitting in the Cougareat, sipping a small, caffeine-free cup of Diet Coke. Basically it's doing nothing for me, but I'm hoping the taste will trick my body into revving up my energy. Placebo effect, eh?
I'm voraciously slurping--in the most refined manner possible--the last contents of the cup now, because I just took a gigantic bite of my hot and spicy chicken and rice bowl from Teriyaki Stix.  They weren't lying about the hot and spicy.  I've decided that the chicken and rice combo, or maybe just rice, is one of my go-to comfort foods.  I feel like a list of said food is in order:

Paige's Comfort Food List
Peanut Butter
PB&J
Hot bread (tortillas, freshly homemade bread, pitas)
Burritos
Peach Popsicles
Orange Juice
Hot Chocolate
Grapefruit
Apples
Chocolate chips
Pretzels
Hot applesauce with cinnamon
Chicken and rice


Could be a lot worse, eh?  (Please note my Canadian-ness in using "eh?" twice in the same blog post.)
Buy me any of these things and I'm yours forever.  Or, at least a week.

The sounds of the food court are washing over me, a blur of feminine giggles and masculine guffaws and side-conversations. I'm awkwardly sitting directly in front of someone I recognize from high school and I'm trying not to make eye contact or stare.  My lips are still burning from the chicken.  Food and drink gone, I'm trying to find an excuse not to leave this table before I lock myself away in the depths of the Harold B. Lee Library, never to surface until my research paper is complete.

I mean it this time.

Right now, as I'm sitting here, I'm missing people.  I miss my family, I miss my friends away at college, I miss my friends away on missions.  I'm missing the depth of my friendship with those people.  I have to remind myself that it never came quickly.  Things of great value rarely just fall into our laps.  Still, I can't help but think that it all came so much more naturally in high school.  There's just so. many. people. here at BYU.   And not enough time to really move beyond the preliminaries with everyone.

Lest you worry, I'm far from lonely or homesick.  I'm constantly interacting with wonderful, intelligent people. I've met so many of them. I'm just growing weary of small-talk and starting to ache for one of those soul-searching, up-all-night conversations.  Or maybe just a solid talk with someone new.  Someone who is on the same energy level as me, who will get excited about things with me, who will talk about something other than school but still ask me what my favorite book is.  Someone who I want to talk to just as much as they want to talk to me, and vice verse.  Something new.

For now, I'm marching forward with my eyes open for some place-holders for my missing friends. And I have a feeling, just an inkling, that my heart might even open up some new spaces.

Scraping up the last bit of rice in my bowl, I watch a man and wife converse in Sign Language. They're laughing. I keep on thinking the man is motioning to me, I'm thrown off by his extraneous movements. There's something romantic about their silent conversation.  It's private even in public, it's warm.  It's lovely.

Maybe it's not just words I'm missing, maybe I'm just beginning to forget that feeling, the experience of sitting side-by-side with someone, saying nothing, and being totally comfortable with that.  I think that's the true measure of a friendship.  When there's nothing left to be said, you're happy to just

Be.