Sometimes trends are cute

Sometimes they remind you of cartoon characters. Lately, everywhere I go on campus, I see girls walking around with this hairstyle:

Am i the only one who thinks it looks silly? I mean, it's true that Vanessa Hudgens (sp?) is a total babe with it, but most of us don't look like her. Look how ridiculous it looks on Kim Kardashian there. It's like this super goofy little ball of hair... directly on top of your head. And since 99% of people aren't nearly as pretty as movie stars, it looks even more strange on them than it does on Kim K.

I get it. You're trying to be a trendy girl. But some trends should be left to Vanessa Hudgens and her professional hairstylists. For real, every time I see one of these top knots on a real life person, I picture this:

Why? I'm not sure. But probably because I always thought her ponytail/bun thing was super random and weird and distracting too. So now every time I walk on campus I just see lots of silly Olive Oyls walking around. It's actually kind of disconcerting.

Plus, it's ridiculously cold here. There's no way these poor girls' ears aren't frostbitten with their hair just chillin' directly on top of their heads like that, leaving their ears out in the cold all alone... plus it looks even goofier paired with earmuffs. Just picture it.

Tell me I'm not the only girl who thinks this way.

Lessons from Rexburg

1. The bigger the hair, the prettier you are. Even if the excessive lopsided hair teasing gives you a square head.
2. You can NEVER go wrong with Ed Hardy, rhinestones on everything, or mustard yellow.
3. Having pockets on your leggings somehow turns them from tights into perfectly acceptable pants.
4. The darker your tights, the shorter your skirt can acceptably be in church. 
5. Four-wheelers and this thing are street legal, but throwing snowballs is a crime.
   
6.  Making skirts out of ties stolen from elders on your mission is not actually creepy.
7. Struggling across icy sidewalks in heels is TOTES worth it for the chance to wear that adorbs outfit to class
8. Scraping the top half of snow off the road and leaving a huge pile/median in the middle is considered acceptable snow plowing.
9. When your apartment manager sends out an e-mail telling you you have to move your car out of the parking lot at 8 am on a Saturday so they can plow the lot, emphasizing how it's totally worth getting up in the negative temperatures to have a clear parking lot, she actually means you have to move your car at 8 am so they can redistribute the snow across the lot and do nothing to get rid of the 3 inch layer of ice that covers the asphalt.
10. Since the plowing does nothing, when girls re-park in the parking lot, they only strengthen the stereotype of girls being bad drivers, when, instead of parking like this:

    

    Ignore the bad phone drawing. Note that this is a TERRIBLE layout for a parking lot anyway.

    they think it's totally rational to park like this:

    

    This may seem like a better way, but that's just because i got better at finger phone drawing for this one. it's actually way worse and makes no sense. that's not how the parking lot is shaped. the other day, there was a truck parked ON THE SIDEWALK.

11. The honor code is of equal importance to salvation with the commandments. You wore shorts across the DEDICATED SIDEWALK into the DEDICATED gym? No chance of heaven for you! You were still walking home at 12:01? A boy was in your apartment at 10:00 am? You dyed a chunk of your hair purple?  Hope you enjoy the Telestial, sinner.
12. The McDonalds here don't sell the Spicy McChicken sandwich. Which is a travesty, because everyone knows that's the only good non-breakfast or dessert item on the menu.
13. It's perfectly normal to go door-to-door "tracting" to meet girls. Not creepy, but normal.
14. Despite the overly aggressive nature of 85% of females here (3:1 girl to guy ratio does that to you), the problem with dating is that girls aren't forward enough. Expect a blog on this one later.
15. Don't like the neckline on that shirt? Put on four other ones to distract from it, and you'll be cute! (Shirt too low? Start with a turtleneck, add a Layers brand shirt for good measure, then the shirt you want to wear on top. Maybe add a tank top over it all for good measure. There you go, that's hot.)
16. Mom bobs + extreme highlights + rhinestones + 2 inches of foundation = high class.
17. Yelling out "Honor Code" at people walking by five minutes after curfew means you love them, not that you're pretentious and judgmental.
18. When you run out of things to do, take up meat sculpting!
19. Weekly devotional attendance is a completely rational measurement of whether or not a man is date worthy.
20. This is a normal sight:

    

    He also needs help finding his lost dog and gives free candy to children

    
    

To Be Continued...

 P.S (Keep in mind that even though this post sounds super sarcastic and negative -- because it is -- Rexburg is actually ridiculously awesome and I do love it. A lot. But sometimes I can't handle it, so I need to let out some steam.)

To Brett:

This.

(For all you non-Bretts out there, there's a real post coming soon.)

I had an accident...

Seriously. I had an accident. And I'm a road sign, apparently. I don't know how it happened, but now I'm not sure what to do about it. Keep reading for more information.

So today, I was bored of Rexburg. Having exhausted all of my "sit around and do nothing" patience yesterday on a How I Met Your Mother marathon, I decided to drive thirty or so minutes away to the closest town of any size, Idaho Falls.

My motivations were simple. 1. Get out of Rexburg. 2. Spend some time alone with my music. 3. Go to the bank to cash that tax return and 4. Buy some stuff for a Halloween costume at Target.

Now, as you may or may not remember, I worked in the Target Bakery for several months about a year ago. Right around this past may, I was dating a guy and trying to figure out a way to move back up to Rexburg so we didn't have to do long distance. As part of this, I put in a request to transfer to the store in Idaho Falls. They never got back to me, and I got a killer nanny job for some fantastic kids in Colorado, broke up with the boyfriend, and ended up having the most ridiculous summer ever.

Right around July, THREE full months later, the Idaho Falls Target calls and asks if I'm still looking for employment with them. I told them I would be returning in September, and I would love a job. They said they'd set up some interviews and would be calling me the following day. They never called. I called them and they never answered or called me back.

Needless to say, the rejection hurt. I thought we had a good relationship going! What we had was special, and I thought they wanted me! My pain turned bitter, I declared every man a jerk, swore off of dating forever, and became a lonely alcoholic. Wait, just kidding, that's a different story.

 To finish this long sidenote, when I came up to school, I realized I didn't want to work at Target EVER AGAIN. So I didn't go in and apply.  I was happily unemployed, and planned on staying that way all semester.

Back to today. 

I went to the bank, and discovered that there was more money in my account than expected, and after doing a small happy dance in my seat, I drove across the parking lot to Target. As always, I ended up spending significantly more money than I intended there, and so I asked the lady to scan my employee discount card just in case it still worked. It didn't. So she asks, "How long has it been since you've been a team member?"

To which I explained that I had been on a leave of absence, but they might have terminated me, since I was trying to transfer to that target but never got an interview. And before I could explain that I was glad for it, since not having a job made sure that I could focus on my schoolwork, she turns to the people in line behind me and says "Hold on a second."

She proceeds to walk towards the Guest Services counter, beckoning me to follow with two short finger curls. I followed, unsure about what was going on. Mystery employee grabs a phone, dials a number, and then says the following:

"Hey Kristy, it's MysteryEmployee. I have a woman here from a target in Colorado who says she's trying to transfer  [which I wasn't] and is here for an interview [which I definitely wasn't]. (Turns to me) what's your name? (Back into the phone) Emily. Yup. Okay. See you soon!" She hung up the phone, turns to me and says "Okay, she'll be right out. I'll wait with you until she gets here!"

At this point, I was standing around like a dog when you throw a blanket over it, entirely unsure of what was going on and not sure how to get out. I was incredibly confused and bewildered by the speed of events. So instead of telling MysteryEmployee that I actually wasn't looking for a job and I had just come to buy some stuffs and had been making polite conversation, I ended up talking to her about something stupid like snow or Black Friday. Before I knew it, two women come out of the back with a folder on which my name was written (Creepy, much?). One introduces herself to me as the lady who had spoken to me on the phone months before and then never called me back. (I bravely held back the tears of a rejection that still stung.) The other was a manager of some kind, and immediately ushered me into the back room, where I found myself in an interview, answering the question "Why do you want to work at Target?"

Now, I should have said, "Actually, I don't. I have no idea how this happened, five minutes ago I was just trying to buy some Halloween stuff and then drive home, I don't want this job. Please don't make me work here again. Whimper."

But the problem is that I was in an interview. These people were under the impression that I had gone there for the express purpose of having an interview and getting hired -- despite the fact that I hadn't showered today, was wearing my oldest jeans with no fewer than three giant holes in the upper-inner-thigh, and had on little to no makeup to hide my lack of sleep the night before. This confused me, so I found myself saying this:

"Um... It's a really good company? (Lie.) I really liked the atmosphere? (Mild lie) and...my coworkers? (More or less not a lie) and how Target treats its employees? (HUGE lie.)"

Ignoring the fact that I had responded with the most uncertainty possible, my interviewer just wrote it down (sans-question marks) and proceeded to the next question. Three minutes later, I was told to go to Food Ave and await my second interview.

So I stumbled dizzily towards the plastic chairs and popcorn smell of the familiar food avenue, pretty certain at this point that I was in a weird dream. Until the second interviewer came out, who was actually just the HR lady from earlier. The second interview went like this:
"Who was the HR person at your store? What was your store number? What time can you get here every day?"

And then she had a verbal debate with herself about whether or not she should put me on the schedule she was making for tomorrow, and which training session I should go to, and how she could figure out how to let me skip the training, since I've already been trained. I was silent and dazed the whole time. I'm beginning to suspect I may have been drugged.

We finished the interview with her saying "Okay, I'll call you tomorrow and we'll get you started as soon as we can! See ya!" To which I responded with something like, "Thanks so much! Have a great day!" And stumbled outside (after trying to go out the "in" doors and feeling stupid,) highly confused and unsure about how that had happened.

As I stood there, blinking and shivering in the wind, I realized the full gravity of what had happened. I had gone to Target to buy ONE THING. I ended up checking out with four items, and within ten minutes, I had accidentally gotten a job that I didn't ask for and didn't really want. I felt kind of like a kid who had been caught peeing her pants at school. Except I was the one who caught myself. My rational self (that knew I wasn't looking for a job, and thinks it would be a bad idea) was standing over my confused, people-pleasing, high-achieving self and frowning, unsure of how to handle the little menace and what she did.

So now the question is this: Do I take the job and drive 35 minutes to work every day for minimum or close to mininum wage, or do I not take the job and give up the extra income? (Which I could DEFINITELY use, by the way.)

Let me know what you think! Or don't. But please do, because comments make me disproportionately happy in comparison with the amount of energy it takes you.  

Also, I linked to some (okay, one) other post in this one, you can tell because some (okay, one) phrase is a different color. You can read it if you want. It's kind of related and might even be interesting, because it talks about my early perspective of working at Target. Plus it'll open in a new window! Bonus! Kaybye!