The Best and Worst Things of 2008

These are things I value finding, enjoying and being around in the last year

1. Ryan
2. My really awesome promotion at a much needed time
3. Paying off the Laptop
4. Realizing we will graduate in a YEAR!
5. Mary getting married
6. Jon getting married
7. Trying Sushi for the first time ever and becoming an immediate fan
8. Taking Childrens Lit, British Lit (emphasizing on Austen) and Adolescent Lit
9. Dr. Horrible's Sing Along Blog
10. The writer's strike, it was much needed and forced networks to give writers more on items they got paid less than 50 cents on...
11. Wii Fit-you can all laugh at me, but its nice to have something that forces me to exercise correctly thats available all hours of the day
12. Rayman Rabid Bunnies
13. Trax
14. Commuter Rail
15. Scarves
16. Skinny Jeans
17. Short Hair
18. The Book Thief
19. StruwwelPeter
20. Going to Wisconsin
21. Cardmaking
22. the Cricut
23. The Cuttlebug
24. Pushing Daisies
25. Chuck
26. Heroes
27. The IT Crowd
28. The Big Bang Theory (its a Saturnalia Miracle)
29. How I Met Your Mother (I'm a Neil Patrick Harris fan)
30. All the awesome festivals downtown
31. The U being undefeated in Football, it takes bragging rights away from those who are poor losers
32. Wall-E
33. The Lecture by Ed Catmull, head of Pixar at the U
34. Obama winning the election
35. Gas under $2.00 a gallon again
36. Akasaka Sushi
37. Dolcetti Gelatto
38. Trying Culver's for the first time and having to admit that the midwest has way way better dairy products than the west can ever hope for....

The Worst Things

1. The end of Capitalism as we know it
2. Huntsman cutting funding on snowplowing and thus making driving in the snow a very hazardous occurance
3. Increasing the cost of tuition
4. The crazy cold hand rash development
5. The continuing popularity of Reality TV
6. Breaking Dawn...I couldn't finish it because it was so badly written.
7. Twilight (the movie) 30 seconds of an intro for a Collective Soul song that does absolutely nothing for the movie, it just felt sloppily put together
8. The Economy, this includes and does not limit to people applying for mortgages and getting them too easily, people withdrawing money from stocks and going back to the mattress mentality and the stimulus checks that only delay the inevitable.

Thats my list for the year, and as the worst is only 8 items comparable to 38 of the best, I feel I have done the year justice.

Perfection-ism, Cataloging and my Disdain for it

Nothing in life is perfect. No one on the planet is perfect. People are not all the same, one should not ever be compared to another.

I was in an anthropology class once and the professor said something that stung me like a thorn, that people have to be judgmental, that it is something we have to do to survive and that the evolution of the world is based on it.

Maybe to a degree but not as intensely as people do.

Thus here I am, and I defy anyone to every want or tell me I am perfect, because that is perfectly ludicrous. Amidst the irony of putting up decorations with Ryan, I told him if this was anyone else it wouldn't be the same. My brain encourages all to think duh after that statement. But I love what I have, and I would not change one iota about it.

I love the crazy busy school/work life because this is the only time it will be exactly the way it is and I'm not ready to really be ahead of where I am now. Now is good. I'm flashing back to Pres Uchtdorf's talk at the Women's Conference, he said a lot of things that I needed to hear and was the right thing for most to hear.

He focused a lot on being Perfect and how that ruins our day to day lives. Women more than men actually compare themselves and its not always (I would say more often than not) a good thing.

I remember after that Conference talking to Ryan and saying, I never want to be perfect, and he kissed my head and told me he never wanted me to be. After all what is this perfect? I think I am perfect at being Angie, but I never want to be the perfect woman, mother, or wife, there is nothing about the idea that is healthy.

I love surprising people as they think they know just who and what I am and I do and the say "I never thought you were this type of person" or "I never thought you liked this"; truth be told I dare someone to categorize me as a type that fits, because the only one that fits is Angie Meeks, spaz extrordinaire. And why do I have to not do something if "I'm not the type". Well why not? and what in your life made you believe people have to be one way or the other? You want me to be less of who I am?

I like a lot of things about life, but my favorite thing is authenticity. Authentic food, friends, life, living, enjoyment, and my authentic Ryan. Others would need other things which is fine. but I hate with every fiber of my being people who do things because others want them too, people changing who they are around other people, it would both tire and annoy me keeping up with all of the facades, so here I am authentically me.

A lover of the fantastic and fantasy and sci-fi, rpg's, magic, holistic eastern thinking ( I HATE DR.S), other cultures and a little dabbling in card making(one day cricut thou wilt have thy own room, it shall be called a Craft Room), Sushi, music, writing, critiquing, living, loving and hating vampires without fangs, critiquing movies and plays and music as to wether it was worth the time spent, and not feeling invalidated by others who profess I don't seem the type, well then change the type, and I probably don't want to be it anyway.

Disdaining Perfectionism as the root downfall of all happy lives and the catologing that goes with it.