I’m funny and I cook really well and love to do jt and I have extensive movie and book knowledge I’ve read and watched almost everything worthwhile

I have a great vocab and I’m stubborn which makes arguments funnier

I got the societal standards of conventional beauty I have a high metabolism

I like taking care of people I forgive too fast and will give my all to the right person

I will get along with all your friends and im easy to be with I never cause drama and I get over things fast it takes a lot to really hurt my feelings

I need my space so you’ll get your space too

I love to go out and do things

I have a good career ahead of me I’ll make a lot of money im really good at saving money

I have good style and a great wardrobe

I love thrifting and im always down for new adventures

I love all music and mostly all foods

I care a lot of the environment and the community and social problems

i like cooking i really enjoy that

and i like eating it after 

i like spending money on food or clothes but i also feel really guilty sometimes

i like seeing my friends but also i get bad fomo if i cant come to things so i have a hard time saying know

i like taking my dog on walks but sometimes im so lathargic i cant move and its a lot of work

i like painting but im in a creative drought right now

i like sleeping in but it makes me feel like im wasting my day

i like making playlists on spotify

i like driving but gas

i love eating good food

i like watching tv shows

i like having a clean room and cleaning the house

i like watering my plants

I got a text from my friend parker today and he said that he and Seth have been talking and they had been talking about how this is the best they have ever seen me and that they can tell that I am just so happy and stoked about everything (to put it verbatim). 

Thinking about this honestly makes me tear up because I have chasing this feeling since my trip in Costa Rica. I always go back to how I felt there because it was the first time I ever felt actually free or anything. I was 100% completely myself and I had never felt like that ever before (growing up in a restrictive religious household I never really got to find myself). Ever since that trip I have been hoping for a chance to get out of where I live and go be free again. 

This last few months though, there was almost like a switch that went off in my brain. I had been thinking that I need to leave to be free and really experience happiness like I did on that trip. But that wasn’t the case at all, it had everything to do with my mindset and nothing to do with where I was. I suddenly realized that I don’t have to wait to go to another country or leave the state I am in to be me and to feel free and have experiences, I could have them right here. I realized how much my life now and all the people in it had to offer me. I realized how much I had to offer.

I love that others can see that change in me because it’s true. I am the happiest I have ever been. My mental health has never been better. And even with some horrible things going on I can somehow wade through it like I have never before. Things that had me crying on the floor, are like little ants passing by. I am so optimistic about life and what the present provides. I love myself and I am excited about life.

Going camping with family and playing an rpg

sitting on the couch laughing so hard with parker when we got a lil cross faded

talking to parker everyday

when he said I’m the sister he always wanted

Yeager

Beer festival

Making a sailboat painting with Jorge

Starting coding school

Jessi getting fired and I cried in the car snd my boss asked me to come back up

Driving to Ogden to get Parker’s new bike and sweating so much

Getting drunk with kennady for the first time and she threw up

meeting madi

People making me playlists

Getting my ac and music fixed in my car

taking videos of myself being happy

Hooking up with that journalism dude that looked like Tom Holland

Crying because I don’t know how to be emotionally vulnerable with people and can only be physical

Kayak with jessi

Walking around Parker’s complex trying to figure out how to respond to whitney and laughing so hard

Parker calling me his best friend

Buying my Bali plane ticket!

getting told i get to work from home in September

Kenzie came out to me

Libby and I trying to put the recycling in my car

Oh wonder//lose it

Oh wonder//the rain

Elvis Presley//can't help falling in love with you (twenty one pilots version)

Miriam hill// one time

James hersey //coming over

Daughter// youth

Daughter//medicine

Circa waves// t-shirt weather

The national parks// ghost

Twenty one pilots//the judge

Passion pit//whole life story

Passion pit// constant conversations

Vampire weekend//giving up the gun

Wolf gang// something unusual

Broods//never gonna change

XYLO// america

Jaymes young & phoebe// we wont

Zella day//Jerome

Jaymes young//I'll be good

Phoebe Ryan//mine

Jai wolf// Indian summer

Leo Kalyan//silver linings

Gold// kiiara

Moaning Lisa smile// wolf alice

Sacred heart// the civil wars

In a week // hozier

Home// Edward sharpe & the magnetic zeros

Cousins// vampire weekend

Air catcher// twenty one pilots

Kodachrome// Paul Simon

Nervous// x ambassadors

Jungle// Panama

Slip// Elliot moss

Something good can work | Sleep alone// two door cinema club

Don't save me// haim

The emotion// børns

Ceilings// local natives

Build God, then we'll talk//panic! At the disco

Ways to go// grouplove

Seaside// the kooks

I can't stay// the killers

Everlasting light// the black keys

Shake me down/ cte

the girl who comes after me

when you taste her it will taste like me

so when you open your eyes you expect mine

and instead see hers

her touch is soft, gentle

but it won't send electricity through your body

the way the slightest touch of my fingertips did

her voice will be lovely

it won't bring you to heaven the way mine did

you will search for my eyes in hers and find me nowhere

you will dream you are in my arms and wake up in hers

you do everything to convince yourself, you're in love with her more than you are with me, that you want her more than me

realization

the thought you

keeps my heart racing

i can’t sleep

my mind is going

thinking of you looking at me

making me feel like i’m orange yellow and red

like i’m a sun going down on a mountain range

or a quiet lake

Conley Morris

English 1010

Professor Lee Mortensen

9/18/18

Mr. Online Dream Guy?

“You down to makeout?:)” Ah, my favorite pickup line. No, really online dating has really heightened the romance these days, I mean could you outright ask a person to stick your tongue down their throat in the days of traditional dating? I think not! Online dating...where do I even begin with this one. All jokes aside, I would definitely have to say it's one of the horrors of our time. I’ve never had so many disgusting things said to me than through online dating apps. Online dating isn’t so bad afterall. I actually have one friend marrying the guy she met on tinder and I have several other friends currently dating someone they met online! However, the majority of my experiences with this have been downright awkward or just plain awful. And, of course, I couldn’t get away without some absolutely hilarious moments. Ever since I’ve turned 18 my love story has been one bad date after another. I guess when I reached “adulthood” I expected to have some wonderful dream guy to just come sweep me off my feet and it would be everything I imagined and more. What happened was not at all what I expected. 

In the “old days”, you would meet people organically more often. At the bookstore, the coffee shop, your math class, your church group, etc. Now-a-days everyone tells me “you have to get on tinder, it’s the only way to meet people”. Now in my opinion, I much prefer the meet-cute way, but in the beginning I hadn’t totally written off meeting online. I feel like the only way to develop a relationship with someone is by somehow relating to them and getting to know them first without assuming that there will be for sure a relationship at the end of things. This would be how I was supposed to meet Mr. Dream Guy according to how society works today. Unfortunately for me, all of the guys online had no idea my expectations. Half of them came into online dating thinking that this is a perfect opportunity to get some action, while the others were convinced I would be their next girlfriend to wife. On Monday, July 23rd ‘Keaton, 21, 5’11 BYU and works at vivint’ started off our quintessential relationship with “What qualities do you have that you think would make you a good mother?” Needless to say, that match lasted approximately 12 minutes because well, motherhood is not something that is on my radar for another few years let alone with a boy I’ve never met. 

By this time I was fed up. It seemed as if everyone was in a good relationship with no weird problems. My friends were either getting married or they were already a year deep into an amazing relationship and I was over here trying desperately to make a normal connection, online. If only I could have walked the boys through what they needed to say to me. Boys I’ve never met in real life, never talked to them before, begin our conversations with “Hey, how are you?” “Hey whatsup?”. Excuse me, but I’ve never talked to you before and that’s a really interesting conversation starter, I can’t wait to tell you about how I’m folding my laundry right now. “Haha fun” “yeah wby?” Wonderful. I can’t wait to tell our kids the enigmatic conversation that started it all. Now, if it were me, I’d look at their pictures and their bio and see if they have anything in common with me. Oh, it says they like to read? Me too. People have to be creative, pull them into the conversation, give them a reason to want to reply. If someone had started off a conversation with “If you were stranded on an island what book would you take with you if you had to choose only one” I might have faith in online dating. People don’t owe anyone conversation. Females especially. We have to deal with creepy guys, boring guys all day long. If a dude begins a boring conversation, would you think we want to engage in that? We don’t have time for that kind of frivolity. So the alternative is to make us want to reply to . A pretty face doesn’t mean anything, but a good conversationalist? Now that could get someone far. Another thing males should know, is to be cautious when asking on dates. If they’re serious about wanting to get to know people and they don’t just wanna get down or get married in two months and they are online dating they should tread lightly. So many boys had asked me out within 5 minutes of talking to me and I can’t tell you how overwhelming and suspicious that was to me. My immediate reaction to that when that happened to me is to stop talking to them and unmatch. I didn’t want to go alone with some guy I had never met. I would have prefered for them to ask me to bring my friends and they would bring their friends and that would have been a lot less intimidating. I would have been way more likely to say yes to something like that.

I think my favourite memory is when I had just broke up with boyfriend so I wasn’t feeling too amazing and a really seemingly nice guy I met online was going to take me out with him. I did my hair, shaved my legs, got dressed in the outfit I felt prettiest in. It took two hours. I sat swinging my legs on the bench outside my front door. It was too nice outside to be inside and besides he said he would be here in ten minutes! I waited for forty five minutes before I went inside and turned on Harry Potter. The funny thing about this story is, it’s not the only one! I have at least seven very similar stories and let me tell ya. It is NOT a good feeling. I just thought that if someone was gonna ask me to go out with them, they wouldn’t bail. I mean they asked me? If they couldn’t go why would they even bother wasting both our time. I don’t know. They should have at least have the decency to tell me and give me a few hours notice. 

You would have thought that at this point I would have given up on the online dating scene by now but no. You see, I’m an extremely hopeful person. I try to be optimistic and I’m a romantic. I want to be in love so badly, I want a love story. ‘Falling in love is as addicting as cocaine or nicotine.’ I wanted that. So I decided to give online dating another chance. Are you ready for more exposition? Living in a predominantly mormon culture, most of the males I meet are mormon and are extremely concerned about my purity as a women. My favorite question I received to date, came in from ‘Luke 20, just got home from my mission in Uganda:)’. 10 minutes into this glorious relationship he asked me “How far have you gone, sexually?” Which, I of course responded with telling him how that was none of his business thank you very much. He told me that, because of my lack of enthusiasm to answer this question, I must have something to hide, and that I was not as virtuous as the women he wanted to be his wife. I had to chuckle at that one. Good luck finding a wife with that misogynistic attitude dude! As I said before guys either think they’re gonna find a wife or someone to put their lips on. I can’t tell you how many of my matches disappeared after I informed that that, no, I would not be making out with them tonight or any night for that matter! 

Then next and last guy in my long string of online communications was Ryan. He was 20 and christian. He started off with a question “Do you know any good used bookstores?”. As a book lover, my heart soared. Would he be a kindred spirit? The answer to that was a big fat no. In fact he just knew exactly what to say to convince you to make out with him and hopefully more! He asked me to come over and we would make cookies. I thought, how sweet, he bakes. I went over and weirdly, he was out of ingredients. But good for us! His TV was working just fine. I was a bit unsettled, but he was so nice! But as soon as I sat down he grabbed my face and tried to kiss me. I said I barely knew him and that I didn’t come over to makeout. He angrily argued that no in fact I did know him! We talked for two days he told me about his favorite book of course I know him! I demanded to know what he thought was gonna happen if I came over and he said “I don’t know, I thought you would kiss me and if things went well maybe more?” I got up and left. That was the last of my online dating exploits.

Over the past two years since I’ve reached legal adulthood I hoped the conclusion would be Mr. Dream Guy and I but instead my conclusion is basically online dating is pretty much the worst. Take away the face to face interaction and males suddenly feel like they can say whatever they want to me. I think online dating could be a really great thing and it obviously works for some people but I think if someone is just looking to hook up there are other apps for that! They are hindering someone’s chance to find a Dream Person by wasting their time with efforts to get down. What I learned from all of this, is that I can’t go out and look for Mr. Dream Guy in a way I never believed in, in the first place. In fact what it really taught me was that I don’t actually need Mr. Dream Guy, what I really needed was to become Dream  I learned that I am awesome. The end.

DeWitt, Amanda. “10 Interesting Facts About Love You Probably Don't Know, According to Science.” Lifehack, Lifehack, 10 Jan. 2018, www.lifehack.org/articles/communication/10-crazy-facts-you-probably-dont-know-about-love.html.

 B., Joshua. “20 Shocking Facts About Online Dating.” TheRichest, TheRichest, 6 Feb. 2015, www.therichest.com/rich-list/most-shocking/20-shocking-facts-about-online-dating/.

Conley Morris

11/1/18

English

Professor Mortensen

Review Essay

I’ve watched a lot of The bachelor in my life. One might call it an obsession, others might call it an indulgence, and I like to call it my guilty pleasure. I sincerely love The bachelor and The bachelorette, and The Bachelor in Paradise. It is definitely some of the most contrived series on earth and it is amazing. I think that I will focus on the very latest season of which I followed very closely. It was The Bachelor in Paradise. It has great drama, which makes it super interesting.

The drama never ends! Let me explain a bit of the premise of the show. Girls and guys from various seasons of The Bachelor and The Bachelorette get invited to join this dating “free for all” on a beautiful island away from the rest of the world. The director of the show allows for a certain amount of people at the beginning and they begin to form “relationships'' and “bonds”. To create even more drama the director may or may not add in people at any given moment. At the end of every week the girls are given one rose each and they may choose any participant to give the rose to, to keep them safe from being shipped off the island for another week. Usually the person they give the rose to is someone they have a relationship with or see a potential relationship with in the future. Of course this could not happen without any tears and drama and this is why this show will never cease to entertain me. The dates are either amazing or extremely weird. The weird ones are horribly uncomfortable and the people end up either madly in love because of it or they say some weirdly scripted line the directors made them say. In one such case, on a date the directors had the two of them go to a music writer and they had to write a love song for each other, ON THE FIRST DATE. They barely know each other. On top of all of that they are all beautiful, beautiful people. Everyone loves watching attractive people and what’s better than watching attractive people vye for each other's attention to get a marriage proposal. Also the directors pump everyone with alcohol which probably adds to the drama.

So in this latest season there’s plenty of drama for everyone to partake of. My favorite topics were firstly The Colton and Tia Drama. To give a little backstory Colton and Tia met off the show and dated shortly. Tia was from a previous season of The Bachelor. Colton applied to be one of the men competing for the next bachelorette on the coming up season of The Bachelorette thinking that Tia was going to be the one whose heart he would be competing for but in a unexpected turn of events for him, it turned out to be Becca Kufrin from the same season Tia came from. (who he tried his best to fall in love with and actually did but he got eliminated.)  And now we are here at the island, and Tia is desperately in love with Colton while he’s still reeling over his breakup with Becca. The first few episodes mainly focus on the drama between them. “Are they on or are they off? Will Colton commit to her? Tia is a desperate, poor girl” In fact it got to the point where I wanted to throw up at the mention of them like come on people give the other contestants some screen time, I’m over Tia and Colton! Eventually they got together and are super in love and ended the season engaged and everyone else got their respected screen time. Yay!

The next best topic of conversation was, in my opinion, between Kendall and “grocery store joe” as he was adoringly nicknamed due to the fact that he owns a grocery store. Ahhhhh my heart just sighs at the very thought of him. I really haven’t seen a more beautiful man in my life. He’s just totally gorgeous. And the sweetest man alive. What I wouldn’t give to be in Kendall’s shoes, who I may say is also insanely beautiful with a personality to match. Kendall was in a previous season vying for the heart of Arie Luyendyk Jr. Because of this, she has a very hard time trusting people and she doesn’t open herself up to people. So she broke up with the most beautiful wonderful man over a few times and made out with a few other boys and we all watched sadly as Joe took it like a man but was very obviously heartbroken. 

10/5/18 1:54am