Corporophobia

Corporophobia Aka Toilet Phobia

One of my first emotions I can remember having was fear, and it wasn’t over anything life-threatening or exceptionally scary, it was for toilets. The toilet has always been my enemy. It sits there cold and stationary, the number one fear of a messed up little girl, except perhaps that scary vacuum.
I remember staring into the toilet, not knowing whether or not I should use it or refuse. Every toilet had a different look, and each one seemed to have a face when I looked inside, grinning and inviting me to just sit on it before it can overflow or suck me inside or flush unexpectedly. If it was big enough or had more than the usual amount of water, there was no way I’d use it. The automatic ones were always a nightmare, especially when I had to go really bad but I feared its loud flush and the terror of seeing the water race back to the horrible depths below called the sewer. I would usually be too afraid to open the toilet and I made someone else do it for me at home because I was afraid it would be clogged.
To overcome my fear, I tried some techniques to be mean to the toilet and bully it. Just remember here that I was a little girl, my older self does not still do this.
My initial attack of that terrible loo was to flood it as much as possible, because somehow I thought this was revenge. I loved to clog it, yet it scared me when I did and I would always run away when I saw it clogging. My mother always got mad at me for clogging it and getting water all over the floor, but all that mattered to me was that the toilet was getting hurt.
I also sometimes insulted the toilet to make it angry, but then I would feel bad and apologize in case it came after me. It never occurred to me that toilets can’t come after you or attack you.
Eventually, I overcame my fear and made a truce with the horrible things. I now am not scared of toilets and I couldn’t care less what kind of toilet it is, whether it’s big or small or flushes by itself. Toilets are toilets, and they are there to serve us eternally.

Childhood Fun

Childhood Fun

I have an older sister named Ashley who I love very much. We have so many great memories of playing games and getting into trouble together. Sometimes I wish I could go back and live it all again. I love looking at old pictures of us together before the other two sisters came along.
Our number one favorite thing to do was to play Barbies. Unlike other kids we knew, all of our Barbies had a specific name and personality. There wasn’t a different story each time we played; they were always the same kind of Barbie with the same family and hobbies. Ashley and I were always giant Ashley and giant Celeste, and we loved to help the Barbies and the Barbies loved us.
One story that we did a lot was to have the Barbies become slaves. Our evil panda bear or a rag doll we named Hades would come and make them all do terrible things like writing your name a hundred million billion times, making one hundred pancakes, running one thousand miles, and other atrocious things that included big numbers. Ashley and Celeste giants would come later and defeat the evil slaver and save all of the Barbies.
Another of our favorites was having the Barbies work at McDonald’s. That was our dream job and we loved to have the Barbies make chicken nuggets and hamburgers and party there at the best place in town. I always made the chicken nuggets and Ashley liked to make the hamburgers.
I can’t remember a lot of specific stories with the Barbies, but I just remember we played them a lot and had tons of fun. It was always a sad day when we had to throw away a broken Barbie because we grew very attached to them.
A movie that Ashley and I watched a lot was “A Bug’s Life”. After seeing the way those terrible, evil grasshoppers treated the poor ants, Ashley and I decided we should do our part. We liked to leave out a couple of crumbs on our front porch to get a crowd of ants. Then, we would gather many leaves and grass and flowers and put them in a huge pile for the ants to give to the grasshoppers. It was very fun to do and a favorite activity of ours. Our parents, however, would get upset with us because the land lord would have to clean up the mess and get after our parents.
We played many games together and we loved to hang out. I was always very lonely when she got to go to school and I had to stay home and wait for her to come home on the days that I didn’t have preschool. She usually bought me a soda from her school though (it used to be a junior high so it had lockers and a soda machine) and when we came home, we would play for hours.
Ashley’s best friend in the neighborhood was a girl named Helene. We loved to play with Helene all the time. We had to hide our Barbies whenever she came over though, because she hated them and liked to take their clothes off and rip off their heads. One of my best memories of Helene was when she and her older sister came over for a sleepover at my house, and each of us was one of the muses from Hercules. We put sleeping bags in front of the TV then watched Hercules and sang and danced like the muses. It was super fun.
I was extremely skinny for my age. The doctors said I was off the charts, yet I ate tons of food. Therefore, a lot of people thought my mom was starving me. A favorite game of mine and Ashley’s was having me put on my clothes and run around and see how long it took them to fall off since I was so sickly skinny. None of my clothes stayed on very well and it always amused us to no end.
We both shared a big room in the basement for a while, and it was hard to keep it clean because we were always playing games. Whenever our mom would tell us to clean our room, we would eat smarties candies to think of smart ways to clean our room quickly without doing any work. We usually liked to stack up our big toys against the door in the hopes that our mom wouldn’t be able to come into the room and see how little progress we’ve made. I still have the image clear in my mind of our mom banging the door open and our doll house flying from the door and her evil mother eyes glaring at us. She would then take out a trash bag and start to throw away our toys so we would hurry fast to clean up our toys.
Ashley and I continued to play a lot together like sledding down the stairs, climbing up the wall and then jumping off onto cushions, playing outside in our play house, and many other fun things.
Eventually Ashley spent less time with me until we barely hung out at all. The only time I hung out with her for a while was when my cousin was over and my sister had a boyfriend. She was grounded though, so she had me pretend to go on a walk with her so Mom wouldn’t be suspicious and then she would go meet him at the junior high while I stood around and watched.
Now that we’re both older, we are now good friends again. I love to just talk with her in her room or after school about things going on. One of my favorite things to discuss is our childhood memories and our many fun games we played.

Lifetime Accomplishments

Lifetime Accomplishments

When I die, I want my kids, grandkids, and hopefully great grandkids to be able to tell everyone what a great person I was. They can tell people how loving I was and how I made everyone feel at home even if they weren’t in my family.
I want them to be able to brag to their friends and tell them that I helped animate the latest Pixar movie and that I have animated many movies in my life and helped contribute to the growing animation technology.
When people talk about me, one of the things I would like them to mention is how cool they thought it was that I could speak several different languages and I often forgot which language I’m speaking in because I know so many. They would talk to me and I would usually accidentally answer in Chinese or Spanish because I got so confused by all of the many languages I learned. I was very useful in the world and got to travel to many different places because I knew their languages and was able to translate.
I want to have many kids and raise them to be extraordinary people dedicated to our church. I want everyone to know how I felt about church and how they want to follow in my footsteps of going on a mission with my husband when we’re old and retired just like my grandparents.
People would best remember me for my great piano and guitar playing. I loved to sit down and play the piano at every chance I got and always pushed myself to learn harder songs. Whenever our family went on campouts, I would pull out my guitar and everyone would sing campfire songs. They loved it when I would play just at home on a peaceful night. My strong yet soft singing voice would fill the air and everyone would feel so calm and happy. I want people to know that music was a big part in my life.
When a new person in my family is born, I would draw a portrait of them, animate a short movie about them, and make them a blanket. That way, when I’m gone, they will always have something to remember me by and to know that I love them and always will.
The most important thing to me is that I marry a wonderful, worthy guy who loves me, and that I never get a divorce. I want to raise many kids and create a big family. I want to be remembered as a good mother who loved her kids and always did what was best for them. I’ll teach them to love music and reading and to develop their own talents and be the best they can be. I want them to be charitable too and to always give service to others and love everyone no matter what.
If I die young enough, I want to donate my organs to keep another person from dying. I want to die with my husband, preferably in our sleep or in a quick car accident. I don’t want to live until I’m in my 90’s because that seems way too old, I think dying in my 80’s would be perfect with my amazing husband by my side.
The words that I want to come to mind of people when they think of me are spiffing, delightful, and Christ-like. Spiffing and delightful are my favorite words to say to describe things. I want people to be proud of me and to know that I was a good person who always tried to do what’s right. I never hated easily, and I always made things right when I upset someone. I can’t stand it when I make people upset, and I love very easily. I want my family and friends to think of me as a good example. I want to be the best person I possibly can.

Sub for Santa

Today I got to go to school at 6:45 am to go to K-Mart for sub for Santa shopping. For the past two weeks our school has been collecting money for sub for Santa. It was sad because three days before it ended we only made about $2,500 and the day before it ended we were only up to $4,000. Thankfully by the last day, we made about $7,500. We needed to make at least $6,000 to get every family what they need. My first period teacher was happy with us because we donated over the amount what we were supposed to, but he still asked us to bring more to help cover for the other first period classes that weren't making as much. On the last day, everyone in my class brought tons of money. One girl asked her whole family to donate and brought $100. I had gone shopping the night before so I brought all of my extra change and emptied my piggy bank. The envelope that we were supposed to put money in started to rip because there was so much change in it so we put it in one of his plastic hats but that started to overflow too. Mr. Simons was very excited that there was so much change because he loved watching the secretaries count them. It felt good to donate. One person from each first period class got to go and I luckily got to.

This morning, everyone was put into one of eleven families. I was in family ten. There were three kids, two boys and one girl all under the age of seven. A girl named Brittany Barret and I shopped for the three year old girl. We only had $75 to spend on her and she needed clothes. We got her a coat, boots, a shirt, and pants. We also got her a princess coloring book 96 crayons, and Cinderella polly pockets because she loves Cinderella. We got back with the other people shopping for our family. We got them two DVD's and two games to play. We also got them a pack of treats to eat together. It was so fun and I'm glad we can do this for other families. I felt Christmassy.

I was going to help wrap the presents after school, but I had to stay after to work on an art project and I ended up staying there for over an hour working on it. I then spent another hour lying down in the commons area at the school waiting to be picked up. When I finally was, Mom took me and my little sisters with her to the Mary Kay studio and told us we'd only be there for an hour while she organized and counted the products. We were there for four hours. It was freezing in there and we were bored. I took home some paint and brushes from art so I painted my box while waiting while Hannah and Emma ran around and screamed and fought. Eventually I went to go sit over by the heater and fell asleep for a while. I'm so glad to be home where it's not freezing and to finally eat my first real meal. For lunch, I had a couple of grapes and half a breadstick and I never eat breakfast because I always feel sick in the mornings.

Here's a video I thought some of you would like, I thought it was cool.

My Downhill Education

I got my mid-term report card today. I was mad to see that I have a "U" in Honors English. Mrs. Shinn said that almost the whole class got a "U" except for a few good people. I really thought I'd be one of those good people. I"m not a bad student; there's been a couple of classes where I've had trouble being quiet and good, but I'm good in Honors English and I want her to tell me what I did that made me deserve a "U". I'm so sick of having other people spoil stuff for me. Like in elementary school, I'd always be punished just because most of the class were bad. I'm sick of it, it's not fair. I don't deserve that "U" at all and I'm going to talk to her about it.

I also got back both of my math tests today. I failed one test and got a C- on the second one. On one I wrote on the scratch paper "I hate math" and the teacher wrote this next to it "Then why are you in an honors math class? It isn't a required class." I know that but I can't go back to geometry. I was good at geometry and got good grades in that class so it's completely pointless to go back to a class and re-learn a bunch of stuff that isn't going to help me with Algebra 2. My Mom wouldn't let me anyway. She expects me to have straight A's and be the perfect student just because she was. I hate to let her down, but I can't do it.

I thought I was really smart in elementary school. Well I was, I was one of the smartest in my class every year and I always got straight A's. Then my Mom and I both realized that my school is behind grade level. She home schooled me for half of fifth grade to get me caught up. I went to a charter school for a month in sixth grade, and then I moved here to Farmington. My sixth grade teacher was a weird hippie who was a terrible teacher and never gave us homework and gave us really easy and stupid assignments. I rarely had homework. It's no wonder I was overwhelmed in junior high when I suddenly had a bunch of homework thrown at me when I barely had any homework before in any of my classes in elementary school. I tried really hard but didn't get straight A's for the first time in my life which was really upsetting to me. I kept on trying, but by second semester I stopped caring. I was only a sevvy and I couldn't get my grades up so I just didn't try as hard. I got a D in science which really irked Mom. By the end of the year, I had a C+ in math and didn't get higher than a B in math all year.

The next year went better. I did a lot better in math. At least my grades told me so. Usually at the beginning of a unit, I didn't have a clue what was going on and I usually missed a lot of problems on my assignments but I got A's in math because he only graded on if you did your homework or not. By the end of the unit before the test, I usually found out how to do stuff and got 80-93% on each test. I still found it frustrating because I'd never gotten 100% on a test and I had always hoped I would and tried so hard because it was sad to see these people who didn't even have to try as hard because they were born geniuses and they would get 100% every time. I did well in science though and got 100% on a lot of my tests, at least I did first semester. I did okay with grades all year but never got a 4.0 which is still annoying.

Now, I keep on giving up. Geography is hard because Mr. Simons gives really hard tests and I'm not good at studying for them. I usually understand math, but by the next day I forget how to do everything again. And then by the time the test comes, I forget everything. I think my brain is slowly dying. I find school really hard now, and now I find myself thinking "What's the point? I'm not going to get into BYU anyway and I'm not smart enough to get into the animation program." On tests, if I don't understand a problem I have to force myself to keep trying and usually fail at trying and just quit and think "what's the point?"

This is the worst year to get like this since my grades actually mean something, but now I can't think and the only thing I'm good at is English, Chinese, and day-dreaming during seminary. It's so frustrating, and I've even lost my motivation to do homework. I'll do a little bit if it isn't hard, but otherwise I just quickly do it and if I don't instantly get how to do it, I put it away and say "oh well, I don't care."

I wish I was in elementary school again when my teachers would be impressed because I was the only student who got the math problem right, I got 100% on every test and was very depressed if I got anything lower, I would write a 10 page story when everyone else wrote a 1 page story, and I would shake my head at the other kids and wonder how they can possibly not get how to do math or read right. It was annoying how the other kids would get so far behind and not be able to understand how to do their homework while I was finishing it quickly and then doing more problems just for fun and to impress my teachers. I wish I could be more like my best cousin Amanda. She's a great singer, is always telling me how much fun she has hanging out with her friends a lot, she's in Rhapsody, and gets to go out to dinner with her parents every term because she always gets a 4.0. I wasn't good enough to be a madrigal, I don't usually hang out with friends because no one really calls me except for people in the ward for night games or a sleepover with Sariah, and I haven't had a 4.0 since before I moved here. School sucks, and I can't seem to find a way to be happy other than listening to my favorite books on my ipod and blocking everything else out.

I feel like I'm just failing and I'm disappointing my parents who are always trying to convince me that I am smart when I'm really not. My mom is smart, she's got her master in accounting, she always got straight A's, and she went to beauty school. My dad is a wiz with computers and always works so hard to support our family and does amazing at any job he gets. I usually wonder what happened to me. What went wrong when I was born to have such smart parents and then to not do well and fail four tests in a row in the past month? It isn't fair, I want to go back to when I was in kindergarten and making up my own homework since I never got any and I still thought it was fun. Back when I was still good at school and convinced that I was going to get a scholarship.

Christmas and Birthday Stuff

Last night I went to my neighborhood annual Christmas get together thingy. We all go up to a circle and bring treats and canned food. We donate the canned food instead of neighbor gifts, and then we have treats and hot chocolate while hanging around the bonfires, visiting with Santa, and the little kids have snow ball fights (which I always refuse to participate in). I asked Santa for food on the table and world peace. I felt kinda weird when I found out that Santa was my Sunday School teacher and I sat on his lap. Well I mean it looked like him but of course it couldn't be, that was the real Santa there. It was really fun and I love my ward. Everyone's so nice and fun and I love hanging out with my wardies and going to mutual. At girls' camp, my ward was one of the only wards who didn't have girls fighting and having drama. This is the best ward. I love my old wards too, but this one is so great. I just thought I'd share that.

Anyway, so last night hung out with Matt Wilcox, Jippe and Aksel Albertson (twins), Chandler England, Ben Barlow, and Heather Lieber around a bonfire for most of the night talking.

When I got home my friend reminded me to decorate her locker for her birthday so I spent the next hour cutting out phrases from magazines and paper hearts to put on her locker. I was having so much fun looking through the phrases and some of them I was really tempted to bring but she would probably be mad and the administration would tear it down. I just got a bunch that said stuff like "gorgeous, mysterious, you can't stop the beat, it's time to party, be the best kisser, stay green young woman, and have a fun party (without drinking)!" That last one was my favorite. It wasn't too smart to stay up that late because I had to be to school by 7 am to practice for choir. I don't even wake up until 7. Therefore, I was super tired today and I'm not looking forward to my Christmas Concert tonight.

Here's a video I thought you guys would enjoy :]
**I just barely realized that my Aunt DeAnn has the same video on her blog, sorry!

I have a serious question

If a man speaks in the middle of a forest and there is no woman around to hear it, is he still wrong??

If a woman speaks in the middle of a forest and there is no man around to hear it, is it still considered nagging??