Ode to an Essay

O cursed wretch am I! O loathsome fate!
To struggle in my mind's dark, empty shaft
And torture self to write something of weight
To push toward that gloried final draft.
My pen leaves trails of blood as testament.
My sweat and tears have soaked the paper through.
I eat and breathe this essay every day.
And as I weep from effort's long torment
Myself I offer sacrifice unto
Whichever god can help me scrape an A.

- Jessica Grosland



P.S. In case you are unfamiliar with the rules for structure in Ode-writing, let me clear a few things up:

There are three main guidelines. An Ode:
1) Must be ten lines to a stanza.
2) Must be in iambic pentameter. (ten syllables, with every other syllable emphasized)
3) Must follow the rhyme form ABABCDECDE.

There. You're smarter now. Aren't I a gem?

A Note From Valeri

To Whom it May Concern:

My employer, Ms. Jessica Grosland, is unavailable at present. She wishes to convey her sincerest apologies that she has been unable to post recently, but hopes that her faithful readers will understand the dilemma she currently faces.

Ms. Grosland had been working incredibly long hours over the last week, pushing herself mentally and physically to the extreme limit. She has been preoccupied with midterms, papers, research, presentations, and other schoolwork to the exclusion of almost all else. The exception to that is a newfound obsession with a novel entitled Mistborn. She sleeps and she eats, but only when absolutely necessary.

As her personal secretary, I extend her plea for understanding during this rather disastrous week. She is working on several more entertaining post which will come forthwith, but until she has regained her composure she fears that her readers will have to endure the absence of her clever witticisms for a while yet.

Cordially yours,

Valeri Comstock

Happy Birthday To An Old Friend

With our long and twisted history

Of honesty and mystery;

The good times, and the bad as well,

From Brookside, through and on past "Hell";

Sharing dreams and schemes and fears,

Music, laughter, even tears;

It matters not how far you get,

How long it's been since last we met.

You are so rooted in my heart

That we can never be apart.


- Jessica Grosland

Some Most Exciting News!

I GOT MY OWN LAPTOP!!!!



Hurray! Now I can do my schoolwork/emailing/messing around at home instead of having to find an Open Access Lab on campus. It is SOOOO wonderful! I am basically infatuated. Also, I named him Nosferatu.

More exciting news: I got promoted at work!

Now, instead of doing Garbages, my new assignment is Floors. Basically, I walk around a lot. First I have to walk around and pick up all the giant heavy mats and move them out of the way. Then I take my faithful dust-mop and circle the entire floor looking for deviant dustbunnies. After that's over, I break out The Machine.



As you may have guessed, this is The Machine. It scrubs the floor with two little circular pads on the front, then vacuums the excess water with that squeegee thing on the back. I push it around for an hour or so, and the whole time I feel like an old man. (The thing only moves about 1.5 mph, so it takes quite some time to walk down those long hallways.) The best part is that I get to use this awesome chemical called VMC 30 - which I'm not technically trained on, so don't tell my supervisor - and it is one of the best-smelling chemicals we work with that won't kill you if you're alone in a room with it for too long.

The sad news is that the reason I got this job is because the ever-hilarious Mike Lemon quit our crew. (*sobs*) Seriously, if you only knew him, you would understand the enormity of this tragedy. Here, I think I have a picture of him from Halloween.


Yup. There his is. He went as a . . . fifties cop, I think. Anyway, he's hysterical in more ways than one, but everyone who works at four in the morning is a little nutty. We use our insanity to compensate for lack of sleep. And besides, everything is really funny that early in the morning.

Okay, last bit of exciting news.

MY BIRTHDAY IS IN 18 DAYS!!!


I know this picture's kind of hard to see, but that's my birthday written on our calendar in my apartment. Doesn't looking at it just make you want to celebrate? My roomies are the best!

I'm going to be nineteen, and so are SOOOO many of my friends who have birthday in this most awesome of months. So let me take just a second to wish a happy birthday to:

Tairsa Brown (19)
Jake Gibby (19)
Logan Brown (19)
Jerina Dement (18)
Robert Grosland (73)
and anyone else I may have forgotten.

Also, it's my Grandma Grosland's birthday on the 28th. She died a little over six months ago, and this is the first time I'll have a birthday without celebrating hers the day before. But I'm not too depressed about it. If I know my grandma, they'll try to throw her this totally awesome "we're angels so let's rent out Cloud Nine" party, and she'll turn them down because all she wants is to play a thrilling game of Phase 10.

Anyway, Happy Veterans Day everybody. God Bless America.

AHA!!!

I finally figured out how to put pictures on my blog from BYU!!!! Surely there will be no end to the chaos now!!! (*evil laughter*)

So, anyways . . .

This is a picture of my apartment complex (aka, The Riv):



Beautiful, innit? Yeah, I know you're all jealous. You wish that you could live in a building where the oven runs on hellfire, the furnace is having an identity crisis, and the most populous items in the cupboards are popcorn and marshmallows. It's pretty much da bomb.

Plus, you never know who's gonna be in your house when you come home. It's great!

Okay, so I wake up at three o'clock in the morning and walk along that very sidewalk (only it's not as colorful in the dark). Then I turn the corner and am greeted by someone who is now an old friend:



Yes, it's Life-Size Stump that Looks Like a Guy Leaning on a Car! No, really, this stump and I go way back. See, when I'm walking at three-ish in the morning and I turn the corner, all I can see is this silhouette of something big and menacing leaning up against a parked car. For the first three weeks I jumped every time I turned the corner, thinking that there was some creepy rapist standing there waiting for me. I finally got used to it, though. Even if, truthfully, I have to remind myself every time I'm approaching the corner, "Okay. There's gonna be a big ol' scary monster as soon as you make this turn, but don't worry. It's only a stump."

And then I make it through work and - hopefully - all of my classes. But even as the students walk along with bright smiley faces, blissfully chiming "Hello!" to each and every person who makes eye contact with them, there is a constant threat of which we are all painfully aware, and to which we are all vulnerable:



SLEEP. Upon entering college, all students unwittingly become susceptible to narcolepsy. The Sandman works overtime on campus, and you can see his victims sprawled endlessly over the battlefield: collapsed upon textbooks, on the lawn, or into food trays. I have already discovered my favorite place to pass out on campus (besides my Sociology class). It's on the third floor of the JKB. Good times.

REALLY SHORT SUMMARY OF CURRENT EVENTS:

* I told Jimmy I can't date him more than twice in a row because I don't want to "go steady." He promised he would respect my rule, but confessed that he couldn't say he liked it too much.

* Halloween on campus was great. My favorite costume was a Mario who had theme music with him where ever he walked.

* I'm mad at Scott Evans because he's a slacker and hasn't sold me a Choir Dinner ticket yet.

* I'm taking a Mission Prep class. I have a Preach My Gospel and we're setting goals and practicing missionary experiences and everything. I think I might actually do it, you know. And I'll probably be pretty good, because I still have two more years to practice.

* My birthday is in 27 days.

And . . . that's all for now. But I'm planning to take many more pictures now that I have something to do with them.