Valentine's Day

This Valentine's Day has brought an

Unsolved Mystery

 to Studio 24. 

I was a little late getting ready on that fateful February 14th, 2011,
so as I'm rushing out the door -- what do I find on my door step?

Why these flowers of course!!

Not those that my roommate received.  

Instead I got this adorable mini-rose bush:

and this accompanying note:

Please refer to the picture in last post to preview my ray of sunshine smile. :)

By the way, the mystery font at the bottom is still unsolved so if anyone has any great ideas ... please let me know. It is not any known font on my Mac and it isn't Greek or Hebrew.

I am very excited about my mystery rose bush, and I'm even more excited that I don't know who gave them to me -- 

then I don't have to deal with any awkward thanks a lot, but I will never like you ever moments!  

(If it happened to be someone that would elicit that response, if not I guess I'm missing out!)

Its a win win for everyone -- somebody gave me flowers, I share my smile and don't feel awkward. WOOHOO! 

Another unsolved mystery is how to keep my little rose bush alive. There is a lot of water just sitting in the pot, and not a lot being soaked up. Are you not supposed to water them everyday? 

(I have stopped watering until the water soaked in!)

Any hints or tips would be great! Thanks viewing audience! 

The Daily Universe

Recently I have been finding the Daily Universe (BYU's school newspaper) a must-read each day.

And today I was definitely right!

What other paper would give you a free Jimmer head to cut out and take to the game?

Also they have been a Valentine's Day special where 'Dr. Love' answers questions. I thought this one was funny (if only because I love twilight!). For you Toni:

Q. Dr. Love,
  Help! I am in love with the most perfect man. He is impossibly beautiful  -- he basically looks like a Greek god.  He is tall and buff. He has a flawless face: a strong chin, straight nose, full and luscious lips. I want to kiss those lips so bad! His hair is a unique bronze color and I wish I could run my fingers through it all day. I get sucked into his topaz eyes and can't stop looking at them. He is the ideal gentleman; he is charming, polite, courteous, thoughtful, gracious, charismatic . . . sigh. I am unconditionally and irrevocably in love. He doesn't know I exist. What do I do?
-- Girl who wants to say it out loud.

A. Be careful. Vampires bite.
-- Dr. Love

Let me know if you'd like me to pick up a Jimmer head for you and yours! :)

The Best Birthday Ever!

Yesterday was my TWENTIETH birthday!!! 

And I think it was one of my best ones ever!

I can honestly say.. that I have sort of given on birthdays in the past. I just think that expectations are too high and then when things go wrong.. . . life is no good.

BUT YESTERDAY MY VIEWS WERE CHANGED.

My roommates and family really made my day great!

 

My birthday celebrating officially started on Sunday. My sister Dawn had me and my brother over for dinner. She made the best lasagna, bread (no surprise there, she's like the queen of bread!), and desert ever! She even had organic spinach for a salad. What a great gal she is! I really enjoyed my time watching Man-Tracker with Bryan, Dawn, and Freeland Baby Girl #1. It was a blast! Thank you Freelands!

 

Then I got flowers! Thanks mom and dad! You Rock!

On the day of my birthday my roommate went all out! 

They started out with a wonderful breakfast! Cinnamon Rolls, which I have recently been craving. It was so sweet! 

 

I loved it, and it was fun opening my presents from my mom and dad and Todd in the morning!! My mother wrapped them so prettily, and they were great when you opened them too!!

 

Then I went to school, spent sometime with the Cadavers, and since I now have anatomy buddies -- they told me happy birthday there as well!

 

I came home excited because I got to have my favorite meal ever! SPAGHETTI AND MEATBALLS! YUM! I was so excited. Also my roommates gave me the best present. It was a T-Swift Concert Ticket Fund Jar. Filled with loose change. SO SO SO CUTE!!! Again thanks roommates -- you know who you are and you are AMAZING! (TJ would agree.)

Speaking of TJ.. I had a couple of visitors while I was gone write me some notes on my whiteboard. 

TJ Fredette

Jimmer Fredette

The Obama's!

Miss Taylor Swift!!

You all are allowed to be jealous! 

I then had to go to a pressing meeting. 

  

When I came back the party started! We had hot fudge brownie sundaes. Thanks again roommates.

Then we played a fun game of spin the bottle. . . 

NOT the kissing kind. 

I'm adult now you know -- so far removed from those childish teen games.

Then we all fell asleep in front of the television watching a great MOVIE!

I can't say enough how excited I am to have such great roommates who make special days so special. It really is a blessing, and I'm so glad that I live where I do!!!

I hope everyone enjoyed their Feb. 9, 2011, cause I sure did!!

Why?

Why am I awake at 6:30 every Saturday morning, and on campus at 7:30 (before the library opens I might add)? Why am I awake when these are my only companions? 

When the campus looks this desolate?

To say this least, its pretty brutal to have a 10:00 a.m. anatomy lab every Saturday! I wake up every Saturday to go spend a couple of hours with the cadavers. Its really been a neat experience, if dreadfully early.

I really do enjoy learning about the human body, and I've had quite a few adventures! 

Cadaver Adventures:

A mini-post inside another post!

I was the first one in the lab one Friday morning at 7 a.m. The TA told me to go ahead and get the arm I wanted to work with out.  You may not realize, but arms are pretty heavy.  As I was grabbing the arm specimen out -- I couldn't hold in just my two hands! So I had to put my arm on the cadaver for balance.  I proceeded to work in the lab for another hour, before I could clean away my cadaver juice. 

The same week I was examining another arm, and I noticed . . the finger looked just like my mom's! It was so weird. They leave the skin on some parts of the cadavers, and this specimen had its finger skin still attached. It was the craziest thing to look down and see my mother's fingers.  

It made me feel warm inside. ;)

One thing about the cadaver lab is that when its crowded you can point out the future doctors who feel like they've got something to prove.  Usually this is the girl's. They get uncomfortably close to you, and start answering questions that other people were asking you. Like one time, I knew the stuff pretty well and someone asked me a question. I was going to answer, but the assertive, annoyingly close daughter of God next me answered faster. It almost makes me want to be really good... just so I can be quicker on the draw... but I will let them have their hey-day. Apparently this means a lot to them. 

This week.... I got to touch a human brain. 

It was awesome. They feel kind of firm if you're wondering. It was weird to me to think that all of someone's memories and knowledge and skill was somehow stored in there.  I was touching their lives kind of.  It was also a really cool experience. 

....

So my friends, if you are ever up on a Saturday morning... wishing you were asleep... think of me. 

Know that I'll be wandering the unknown.

p.s. sorry again about the lack of centered photos..
I will work on this when I have time to figure it all out. . . .

Necessary Post

I feel the need to tell you all ... I saw the game on Saturday. I was very disappointed by the loss. The hype might have been too much too soon. However, the SDSU game was really amazing. I still believe in my team. In fact, I've already bought tickets to the BYU vs. Utah game. And.. instead of moving out the top 10 -- we stayed the same this week in one poll and moved up in the other...

So please don't laugh too hard at the last post.. 

You win some.. you lose some...

It's Jimmer Time!

As many of you could probably tell from previous posts (as in the last two) . . . Jimmer Fredette is sort of a big deal around BYU campus, and apparently the nation.

Last night I finally got to see that guy in the ZONE! 

Last night BYU (ranked no. 9) played SDSU (ranked no. 4) at the Marriott, and there was this HUGE ordeal about how to get into the game as a student. They had people skipping classes, work, and devotional in order to line up to wristbands on Thursday. They said that they were only letting in 5,000 students, so the fanatics lined up in the cold and the wet snow in order to get the wristbands. Students waited in these conditions for almost three hours.
(I could go on a rant about the rights of student, and how impossible it is to fight the system when they have something we so desperately want and need, like basketball tickets... But I won't be ranting that way today.....)

But I was not one of those students. 

I instead got a text from Miss Chelsea Akin at 5:30 on Wednesday night informing me that the stand-by line was relatively short so I could still get in that way. So I got off the bus at 5:28 and got right back on 5: 43. I then jogged to the stand-by line, and after a short 20 minute wait -- I was inside the Marriott Center.

We got settled into our temporary seats (we eventually left to seat with Stacey's family, because they have much better seats!), and the game clock countdown read:

 TJ Fredette (yep its Jimmer's older brother) came out and a performed a song for us, which was actually pretty good if you like rap at all. It had an accompanying Jimmer music video, so that was cool too.

Then they trickily upped the time a few short minutes later
 (the picture above shows the time at 88:41... tricky buggers . . )
but that didn't matter -- because again

WE WERE IN THE MARRIOTT! 

Then tip-off happened. Everything was so exciting. Everyone was so loud. 

There was so much energy and so much excitement. 

The crowd was awesome. The team was awesome. The game was awesome.

Its really hard to write about a whole game, but here's a few things that happened:

Jimmer scored. 

The crowd went wild. Even the old people stood up sometimes.

(repeat above, add 28 points by supporting cast at random intervals).

That was basically the whole game.

FINAL SCORE: 

Jimmer 43

BYU 71 -- SDSU 58 
and an ending chant that went something like: "You got Jimmered!"

As for the fan experience...

The newspaper did this thing were starting on Monday quartered Jimmer up, and by Wednesday you had a life size Jimmer poster if you taped all the pieces together. There were quite a few lifesize Jimmers in the stands. Before the game there was this lady in a motorized wheelchair, she was had a life-size Jimmer taped to a cane taped to her wheelchair. It was so cute, and so cool!

The signs were so funny! Some of my favs:

"Shimmer for Jimmer"

"Fredette about it"

"Jim Jimmery Jim Jimmery Jim Jim Jaroo"

(or something like that)

"Jimmered"

"The REAL King James"

"Aztecs are ancient history."

"20-1: Your past, Our Future"

and other such amazingingness.

At half time the Cougarettes did an amazing new dance!

 It was hip-hop and legit. 

The Cougarettes were followed by BYU's acapella group, Vocal Point.

Some of you from the Powell/Cody area might recognize this guy:

(for those that don't know him his name is Ross Welch from my stake back home...)

The crowd was amazing let me just say that again. They filled maximum capacity, I'm pretty sure. There were very few if any empty seats. It was so loud the entire time. My ears were buzzing for a couple of hour after the game. You had to yell to hear the people next to you. 

The end of the game was also amazing. For the first time that many many people can remember the crowd rushed the court.

Here's it all going down:

The final result:

It was so exciting, and although I was with the old folks . . . 

I still felt the rush, and I was able to capture that neat video.

Jimmer was actually trying to get an interview done, and the camera people got pushed out the way by the crowd. So they had to move Jimmer and the interviewer to the other side of the scoring table. As he made his way to the locker room you could see the crowd sort of following him. The mob got bigger where he passed. It was amazing. 

The hype started after the game.

Kevin Durant (who apparently is really good in the NBA . . . ?) put on twitter:

"Jimmer Fredette is the best scorer in the world!!"


Actually up until this morning Jimmer was trending on Twitter, internationally.. meaning that worldwide he was one of the top 10 people/things mentioned on people's tweets 
(for those not Twitter savvy . . . that's a big deal!)

Urban dictionary has Jimmer as an entry:

(this was just one of some other pretty great definitions)

So basically, every person on the face of the earth at BYU is excited and hyped for the next couple of months. I myself am turning into a sports fan ... watching ESPN snippets, learning that there were TWO rankings for college teams, and finding out everything possible about Jimmer and Co.!!! 

Pretty crazy, but its worth it! 

My week in short sentences and pictures

Things you should never do: (no picture because that would be disgusting.)

• Spit loogies into a trashcan as you are walking by. That is just plain unattractive. This is to the boy who just did that. Gross.

Facts about my coworkers:

• Some teenage boys build cars, play basketball, or start a going-no-where band, but my coworkers built computers.

Thoughts on Condoleezza Rice:

•  She actually was a really good speaker, and my brother and I truly enjoyed our ‘Condie in Fun-Size’ view. (We had some pretty high seats behind her.)
•  “You go girl!” This is a thought which came from the many times that she received a round of applause following only semi-inspiring statements. I think BYU was a little star-struck. Although you could probably figure that out when we gave her a standing ovation the moment she walked in the room . . . this was BEFORE her speech FYI.
• I also admired Julie B. Beck for her networking skills! - She came to the forum on Thursday to support Condoleezza!

Star-Struck Moments (a compilation of moments from the girls in Studio 24):

•  Miss Stacey McKnight probably has the best moments of the week, because she has had two. She has a class with Jimmer Fredette, Brandon Davies, and Chris Collinsworth. She made eye-contact with Jimmer this week. My mama and I agree that this means their first date will be next weekend.
•  Stacey, Ty, and I got the chance to be only 100 feet from D. Todd Christofferson after the CES fireside, but we did not go up to him although we were the only people in the room not in his small entourage, because we aren’t those kind of people.
•  Chelsea acted as the stage-guard after Condie’s speech, so she was only 3 feet away from her. Although Sister Rice never acknowledged Chelsea’s presence, it is my belief that she is very grateful for Chelsea’s service towards her continued safety.

 

Facts about Jimmer:

• He has 4,919 friends on Facebook. Make that 4,921. Two more last night. Dang. He’s cool. I’m sure you could be his friend too. And after a game against Utah where he scored 47 points and a shot like this how would you not want to be his friend?

A moment I loved:

• My roommate and I matched on Sunday. This was great. 

A message to my new audience:

Hallo. Hoe doe je vandaag?

Posts to come:

• A post about the surprise party we threw for someone.

(p.s. my computer refuses to center these photos in the post. Sorry it looks junky.)