Two Quick Things on Freedom (one of which is life-changing):
Freedom is not being able to do whatever you want but rather the power to do what you should.
Q: Why are there no knock-knock jokes about freedom?
A: Because freedom rings.
Wow. Such Truth,
TWS
Wednesday, November 27, 2013
Monday, November 25, 2013
Every Day
I was brushing my teeth today, staring intently at a couple of washcloths in my bathroom.
On one of the tags, it said Office Blue, and I thought, "That's a weird name for a color."
Just for kicks, I looked to see what color they had named the white one.
Artic White
It then occurred to me that they had spelled arctic wrong.
Unless, of course, they're referring to the Anaheim Regional Transportation Intermodal Center.
(said like Barbossa) But I doubt it.
By the same token, I'll be going through files at work, and I'll occasionally see one that reads Permenent File.
And then I'm like:
Speaking of work, I'm pretty sure by now you've probably heard the story of how my final CPA exam went worse than expected.
Like, a lot worse.
And the word "bawling" was probably used in fabricating this story to ye, but I assure you, no "bawling" occurred. This is the term that my family loves to use whenever someone's voice gets even the slightest bit shaky.
I did weep, though. Just like Jesus.
Would have.
If he had taken the CPA exam and did as bad as I did on it.
"OMG HOW BAD?!?!?"
I don't know.
I did some ratio analysis, though, and since my expectations are always lower than reality, there is a slim chance I might actually pass, and we'll all just pretend this never happened and life will go on as normal.
If not, well, I didn't really want to be a CPA anyway. Then again, that means my last three scores were all for naught.
Seems about right.
I wonder what it's like to do things that actually matter.
I bet it's, like, exciting.
Should've been a cowboy,
TWS
On one of the tags, it said Office Blue, and I thought, "That's a weird name for a color."
Just for kicks, I looked to see what color they had named the white one.
Artic White
It then occurred to me that they had spelled arctic wrong.
Unless, of course, they're referring to the Anaheim Regional Transportation Intermodal Center.
(said like Barbossa) But I doubt it.
By the same token, I'll be going through files at work, and I'll occasionally see one that reads Permenent File.
And then I'm like:
Speaking of work, I'm pretty sure by now you've probably heard the story of how my final CPA exam went worse than expected.
Like, a lot worse.
And the word "bawling" was probably used in fabricating this story to ye, but I assure you, no "bawling" occurred. This is the term that my family loves to use whenever someone's voice gets even the slightest bit shaky.
I did weep, though. Just like Jesus.
Would have.
If he had taken the CPA exam and did as bad as I did on it.
"OMG HOW BAD?!?!?"
I don't know.
I did some ratio analysis, though, and since my expectations are always lower than reality, there is a slim chance I might actually pass, and we'll all just pretend this never happened and life will go on as normal.
If not, well, I didn't really want to be a CPA anyway. Then again, that means my last three scores were all for naught.
Seems about right.
I wonder what it's like to do things that actually matter.
I bet it's, like, exciting.
Should've been a cowboy,
TWS
Thursday, November 21, 2013
Profession Confession
I was reading about the 3.8% net investment income tax today.
It was so boring, even my legs fell asleep.
I mean, that may have had something to do with them being propped up in a weird position on my desk.
Doesn't make it less of a true story.
I haven't flipped my eyelids up in a really long time,
TWS
It was so boring, even my legs fell asleep.
I mean, that may have had something to do with them being propped up in a weird position on my desk.
Doesn't make it less of a true story.
I haven't flipped my eyelids up in a really long time,
TWS
Monday, November 18, 2013
Sunday, November 17, 2013
Cute
This is a cynical post.
I don't dig how like all guys suddenly dig dark, gothic, punk chicks.
Just another case of Allie not liking something she doesn't understand.
The Matrix,
TWS
I don't dig how like all guys suddenly dig dark, gothic, punk chicks.
Just another case of Allie not liking something she doesn't understand.
The Matrix,
TWS
Wednesday, November 13, 2013
Block
Hey
Remember when I used to drink herbal tea and write for hours about whatever?
Like when I wasn't trying to make money or really accomplish anything in particular in life except full pages and empty pens?
An empty Bic pen was such a massive achievement. It meant you had written so much that you actually needed a different writing utensil. The amount of work that the empty plastic casing represented was enough to send shivers down a nine year old's spine.
Ok that was a weird sentence.
I used to have so much FUN decorating pages with whatever stream of consciousness and crayons happened to create at the time. And then I'd get to go back and fill the pages with dumb stories or Victor comics or boys or descriptions of mundane events and people that made my life seem more exciting than it really was.
Like the pink clouds.
THE PINK CLOUDS.
HOW MAGICAL THE PINK CLOUDS WERE.
This makes sense to approximately -45% of my readers. It barely even makes sense to me.
But I read this book in elementary school, and while I remember nothing about the book itself, I remember that when they started building the subdivision across the street from my house, we would take walks after dinner. I remember seeing these pink clouds that looked exactly like those on the cover, and for whatever reason, I just got so elated by those clouds.
I imagine this feeling of intense joy is what Emily of New Moon's "flash" was all about whenever she experienced/felt/saw something of extreme beauty. That's one of the main reasons that book is my favorite of all time.
Because it gets me.
I'd hardly ever go on a swim meet without my massive 150-page spiral notebook so I could scribble all the day's dialogue and high school drama onto the sheets, sprinkled with teenage angst, Taking Back Sunday lyrics and character sketches.
Oh, the character sketches were the best.
Because, you know, some people look like certain things...
And I remember the time I promised myself I would write every single day because I wanted to stay in the habit or whatever of writing because I wanted to be like an author or something at some point or other.
I must have been a very disciplined 7th grader because I did indeed write every day- even if it wasn't about anything except that I ate soup for lunch and how pirates are awesome and mom made me fold laundry.
And then I started liking boys and my writing career as I knew it took off. Pages- nay, BOOKS written entirely about crushes, romanticizing every encounter to the point of barf-hood.
Printouts of instant message conversations, e-mails, piecing together conclusions I found regarding the following two earth-shattering questions of a naive 15 year old girl:
what did he meeeeeeeeeeeeean
why doesn't he like meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
Some of it is SO INCREDIBLY GIRLY I can't even stand to read it.
Which makes me glad that I wrote it down and kept it to myself instead of telling everyone and making myself seem like a high school stalker spaz.
Then again, I have no idea what people thought about me except for what they wrote in my yearbook.
"Have a great summer!"
Mostly, I just concluded that I think too much and everyone else is stupid.
No need to write nice things if no one can decipher my handwriting anyway, right?
And then I apparently did a series of "Seriously WTF comics" drawn in the margins of the composition book which I would do really late at night or when I was feeling especially loopy. It was like a stream of consciousness with a pseudo-plot and illustrations. Kind of like how dreams are.
SCARY, but actually quite entertaining upon closer inspection.
Sometimes- rarely, but sometimes- I would write a really good story. My senior year, we had "writing time" in Mrs. Heath's AP Lit class, and I wrote this story about two olives that fall in love in Italy and instead of saying "I love you" they say "Olive you" and it is absolutely adorable, complete with a fancy font, illustrations and even fine dining puns.
And then, of course, you probably know about The Specificity of My Phenomenal Maneuver, a satire of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. This unfortunately, boys and girls, is less impressive than we originally thought. It's laden with inside jokes of which I am far too removed to remember, and the immaturity level of it all makes me, well, squirm. So that is a work of art better left on the shelf. Alone. Forever.
Then college happened, and I was decidedly obsessed with writing about how much crap I had to do and how much earlier I could graduate and move back home if I did x, y, and z. But then z was going to take longer than I thought, so if I reschedule y to happen during z, then I could do it as originally planned.
Does that make sense to you?
Yeah, me neither.
A lot of my books during sophomore/junior year are filled with rants about classes or friends or student accounts.
Oh, student accounts. You gave me such good writing material.
Then I broke up with my boyfriend of three and a half years, and my life got fun and hilarious with such lifelong characters, namely Mike and Mark. Also, I started drawing and designing clothes among the pages. A few more rants about business intelligence and marketing class...
And then I was pretty much done.
I stopped writing consistently. I stopped telling stories. I'd write down some quotes here and there:
Mike and I frequently argue about the temperature of the house.
Mike: IT IS SO HOT IN HERE. I'M SWEATING. I'M GOING TO HAVE TO TAKE ANOTHER SHOWER BECAUSE I'M SWEATING SO MUCH.
Me: You're not sweating. Your body is just crying because it's sad that it is so cold in here.
But I can't really say why I stopped writing for myself. It's not that it became less fun. I just lost the excitement, the purpose, the fervor (PINK CLOUDS!!!) that it all meant to me.
My life was a story.
It was a true story.
It had a purpose and a plot.
And I was the protagonist.
I think once Mike and I knew we were going to end up together, I felt no need to write a epilogue because my life already had a happy ending.
But I've realized I need to keep writing. I need to keep that ability to be creative and to keep the record so that the grandchildren that I don't have will know that I existed.
And that my life and the people in it were awesome.
My story isn't over,
TWS
Remember when I used to drink herbal tea and write for hours about whatever?
Like when I wasn't trying to make money or really accomplish anything in particular in life except full pages and empty pens?
An empty Bic pen was such a massive achievement. It meant you had written so much that you actually needed a different writing utensil. The amount of work that the empty plastic casing represented was enough to send shivers down a nine year old's spine.
Ok that was a weird sentence.
I used to have so much FUN decorating pages with whatever stream of consciousness and crayons happened to create at the time. And then I'd get to go back and fill the pages with dumb stories or Victor comics or boys or descriptions of mundane events and people that made my life seem more exciting than it really was.
Like the pink clouds.
THE PINK CLOUDS.
 |
| DO YOU SEE THE PINK CLOUDS?? |
This makes sense to approximately -45% of my readers. It barely even makes sense to me.
But I read this book in elementary school, and while I remember nothing about the book itself, I remember that when they started building the subdivision across the street from my house, we would take walks after dinner. I remember seeing these pink clouds that looked exactly like those on the cover, and for whatever reason, I just got so elated by those clouds.
I imagine this feeling of intense joy is what Emily of New Moon's "flash" was all about whenever she experienced/felt/saw something of extreme beauty. That's one of the main reasons that book is my favorite of all time.
Because it gets me.
I'd hardly ever go on a swim meet without my massive 150-page spiral notebook so I could scribble all the day's dialogue and high school drama onto the sheets, sprinkled with teenage angst, Taking Back Sunday lyrics and character sketches.
Oh, the character sketches were the best.
Because, you know, some people look like certain things...
And I remember the time I promised myself I would write every single day because I wanted to stay in the habit or whatever of writing because I wanted to be like an author or something at some point or other.
I must have been a very disciplined 7th grader because I did indeed write every day- even if it wasn't about anything except that I ate soup for lunch and how pirates are awesome and mom made me fold laundry.
And then I started liking boys and my writing career as I knew it took off. Pages- nay, BOOKS written entirely about crushes, romanticizing every encounter to the point of barf-hood.
Printouts of instant message conversations, e-mails, piecing together conclusions I found regarding the following two earth-shattering questions of a naive 15 year old girl:
what did he meeeeeeeeeeeeean
why doesn't he like meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
Some of it is SO INCREDIBLY GIRLY I can't even stand to read it.
Which makes me glad that I wrote it down and kept it to myself instead of telling everyone and making myself seem like a high school stalker spaz.
Then again, I have no idea what people thought about me except for what they wrote in my yearbook.
"Have a great summer!"
Mostly, I just concluded that I think too much and everyone else is stupid.
No need to write nice things if no one can decipher my handwriting anyway, right?
And then I apparently did a series of "Seriously WTF comics" drawn in the margins of the composition book which I would do really late at night or when I was feeling especially loopy. It was like a stream of consciousness with a pseudo-plot and illustrations. Kind of like how dreams are.
SCARY, but actually quite entertaining upon closer inspection.
Sometimes- rarely, but sometimes- I would write a really good story. My senior year, we had "writing time" in Mrs. Heath's AP Lit class, and I wrote this story about two olives that fall in love in Italy and instead of saying "I love you" they say "Olive you" and it is absolutely adorable, complete with a fancy font, illustrations and even fine dining puns.
And then, of course, you probably know about The Specificity of My Phenomenal Maneuver, a satire of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. This unfortunately, boys and girls, is less impressive than we originally thought. It's laden with inside jokes of which I am far too removed to remember, and the immaturity level of it all makes me, well, squirm. So that is a work of art better left on the shelf. Alone. Forever.
Then college happened, and I was decidedly obsessed with writing about how much crap I had to do and how much earlier I could graduate and move back home if I did x, y, and z. But then z was going to take longer than I thought, so if I reschedule y to happen during z, then I could do it as originally planned.
Does that make sense to you?
Yeah, me neither.
A lot of my books during sophomore/junior year are filled with rants about classes or friends or student accounts.
Oh, student accounts. You gave me such good writing material.
Then I broke up with my boyfriend of three and a half years, and my life got fun and hilarious with such lifelong characters, namely Mike and Mark. Also, I started drawing and designing clothes among the pages. A few more rants about business intelligence and marketing class...
And then I was pretty much done.
I stopped writing consistently. I stopped telling stories. I'd write down some quotes here and there:
Mike and I frequently argue about the temperature of the house.
Mike: IT IS SO HOT IN HERE. I'M SWEATING. I'M GOING TO HAVE TO TAKE ANOTHER SHOWER BECAUSE I'M SWEATING SO MUCH.
Me: You're not sweating. Your body is just crying because it's sad that it is so cold in here.
But I can't really say why I stopped writing for myself. It's not that it became less fun. I just lost the excitement, the purpose, the fervor (PINK CLOUDS!!!) that it all meant to me.
My life was a story.
It was a true story.
It had a purpose and a plot.
And I was the protagonist.
I think once Mike and I knew we were going to end up together, I felt no need to write a epilogue because my life already had a happy ending.
But I've realized I need to keep writing. I need to keep that ability to be creative and to keep the record so that the grandchildren that I don't have will know that I existed.
And that my life and the people in it were awesome.
My story isn't over,
TWS
Thursday, November 7, 2013
Attention, World
I have finally discovered the utility of Wingdings.
EMAIL SIGNATURES.
* ajansen415@gmail.com
And there are ones for telephone and fax, if anyone actually uses those devices anymore,
TWS
EMAIL SIGNATURES.
* ajansen415@gmail.com
And there are ones for telephone and fax, if anyone actually uses those devices anymore,
TWS
Tuesday, November 5, 2013
Staple
The more I study estate and financial planning, the more I realize people I love are going to die and it’s depressing.
Girl logic ≠ logic
I've gotten several comments on how much blank space is in my office and how I need to do something with it and put some art there or something.
I feel like that's a problem in our world. People dislike simplicity, the sound of silence, and the tranquility of nothingness.
So maybe I should just hang up my life-size poster of Orlando Bloom.
This is how the modern stay scared,
TWS
The Modern Leper; Frightened Rabbit
However, I would love to do accounting for a tattoo parlor.
This is partly because I'd get to capitalize weird things like ink and needles.
And partly because the account "tattoo revenue" sounds cool.
So that's on my accounting bucket list.
I have lots of lists.
For instance, I have a 2013 list which are things I want to get done before the end of the year:
1. Buy stamps and send in that rebate thing for Orajel
2. Scan in pictures for the book (done!)
3. Publish the book
4.Take the Subway survey to get a free cookie
5. Pass the CPA exam
6. Finish a top that I started
7. Finish a skirt that I started (done! and I'm wearing it right now!)
So I've already done 2 out of the 7 things. Sadly, those two things took me weeks to accomplish.
I know some of the things seem like they're really easy, like buying stamps and taking a survey. But if I go ahead and do those easy things, then only the hard things will be left to do.
I've gotten several comments on how much blank space is in my office and how I need to do something with it and put some art there or something.
I feel like that's a problem in our world. People dislike simplicity, the sound of silence, and the tranquility of nothingness.
So maybe I should just hang up my life-size poster of Orlando Bloom.
This is how the modern stay scared,
TWS
The Modern Leper; Frightened Rabbit
Friday, November 1, 2013
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