Rather than comment on my blog...

...for the next year and a half, I'd love to hear from you through good old-fashioned snail mail. That's right, ladies and gentlemen, I'm about to head off on the long awaited mission to Paris, France!

I'm not sure of my MTC mailbox number yet, but if you're a really motivated letter-writer/Robyn-lover, my brother just might put it up on my Facebook profile after Wednesday.

As for my address the remaining 16 months, it'll be:

Sister Robyn Brough
France Paris Mission
23, Rue du Onze Novembre
78110 Le Vesinet
France

Cheers!

Ode to Rev

Gone.
Rev was
My faithful friend and transporter,
Provider of my independence and freedom.
Now there is no streak of silver outside my bedroom window.
Gone are the frequent and treasured drives.
Gone is the peeling plastic interior.
No more palindromes to watch for on the digital odometer.
Gone is the empty hood ornament, absent the Toyota emblem.
Gone are my memorized radio presets.
No longer will I be stuck with frozen doors,
    remedied by hair dryer.
Gone is the one malfunctioning defrost strip.
Gone is the stubborn trunk that only opens (occasionally)
    with a key.
Even the red and black ice scraper is gone.
Memories of kisses, talks, blasting music, escapades, laughter,
    road trips, stick shift lessons--all gone with it.
Only two 784 WSD plates remain.
Today I waved 'bye to my car,
Then dismayed I had been too preoccupied with titles and money
    to enjoy our last drive,
My sentimentality regretted the quick and dirty sale.
Now I'm having withdrawals--
But Rev is
Gone.

A Tad of Irony

Macs are supposedly eco-friendly, green, and overall superior to PCs (all of which I believe, fyi). But I just noticed as I deleted a document on my PC at work that it went to the "Recycle Bin." When I delete items off of my MacBook, however, they go to the "Trash." Nice. :)

Yet, sadly, with access to the world wide web, it's impossible to feel totally original and ingenious. Maybe Darwin thought his theory of evolution was innovative, but it just so happened that Wallace was making the same sort of observations. And it turns out that someone else noticed this Recycle Bin vs. Trash phenomenon first. Drat.

"New Math"

I got some good laughs today from a website called New Math--here's one of my favorites. And another.

Id.i.o.syn.cra.sy

B-E-T-T-E-R.* 1, 2, 3 hand positions on the keyboard for 2 syllables--I lose. I'm usually not conscious of my life-overtaking quirk, but a quick read of the BYU 100 Hour Board made it more salient in my mind. Here goes the description--wish me luck! It's pretty wild.

Often when I see or hear a word or phrase, usually if I'm bored or don't have anything else to capture my attention, my fingers type it out on an invisible keyboard. Someone mentioned on the Board that they do this same "air typing" (hurray, I'm not alone in my idiosyncrasy!). But I've taken it a step further and made it into a game. Say the phrase is, "and it breaks my heart.*" I keep track of how many times I have to move my fingers to type all the letters, and I try to move them as infrequently as possible, fewer times than the number of syllables in the phrase. In this case, I lose again because I have to move my fingers 6 times to type all those letters (both my index fingers had to punch a bunch of keys). I'm always proud of myself when I get a good switching-fingers to syllables ratio. For example, "Daddy went to the store": 6 syllables, yet only 3 different finger placements on the keyboard (note: sometimes I allow typing letters out of order, as long as it works out with my number of fingers. If that doesn't make sense, don't worry about it). And even "idiosyncrasy," the buzzword of this blog post: 6 syllables, only 2 placements! That was a good one.

Wow, it's really hard to describe something that I do automatically. My mom thinks I'm neurotic. And maybe I am, but hey, I bet if you came clean with an explicit illustration of one of your idiosyncrasies, it'd probably seem just as crazy... maybe. Anywho, it was fun to realize it (in the literal sense of the word--make it real--because as of yet it had been rather unconscious).


*Guess what song I was listening to while writing this? :)
This post dedicated to Paul, my "you should blog" cheerleader...er, yell leader. :)

This is my favorite shirt to wear

It even has my name on the back! :)
(I got this when I was a senior in high school.)

A message from the future!

Dictionary.com is on top of things. I got this email a few hours ago at about 1:00--notice the time they allegedly sent it to me.


Pretty cool, huh?