Great Day!

Today...

MY BROTHER COMES HOME!

FROM EL SALVADOR!

I'm so excited!

A MAJORLY Awesome Day!

Can you tell the difference between these two pictures:

What's this? You, too, can tell that the girl in the second picture is some how more confident? She looks like she has direction? You can tell that she is moving forward in her life? You can tell that she not long ago has peered out into the daunting future and decided to CARPE DIEM? You can tell just from that one picture that she has declared to the world that she would not be passed by, she has decided what effect she will have on the world and has moved forward to that goal!?

All that from just one picture. Whew.

So my exciting day has led me to talk about myself in the third person (obviously), but in case you couldn't tell from all that:

I HAVE OFFICIALLY DECLARED MY MAJOR!

YOU ARE LOOKING AT THE NEWEST RMYL

(recreation management and youth leadership)

THERAPEUTIC RECREATION EMPHASIS MAJOR!

so watch out world... i'm coming!

Right....

This was the helpful hint from my Daily Fitness Tip:

Find yourself constantly fighting cravings? Check your television intake. Commercial breaks are laden with food cues. Distract yourself with a phone call or some crunches.

Because I so often feel the need to do crunches when I have the munchies. Joke.

Another funny awkward moment of my day that has nothing to do with that.

This story is a little complex. There was a grad student standing in the office getting his computer worked on. There was a man in the doorway talking to my boss who happened to be in my closet/office. There was also a girl standing behind the man that was talking to my boss.
(Got all that?)

So my boss is talking to the gentlemen in my doorway, and I decide to talk to the girl behind him. There's kind of an awkward-too-many-conversations-at-the-same-time-in-a-5-foot-space vibe going on. But it all got worked out. So after all the commotion settled.. I apologized to my boss for kind of interrupting his conversation.

I say: "Sorry if I interrupted your conversation there."
My Boss says: "You did, and now we're going to talk about it."
(It might be necessary to explain that John is always threatening disciplinary action and it never actually happens.)
I say: "Oh man.. Okay.. This is terrible.."

Awkward Grad Students says into the silence:
"So I guess I'll just leave while you work out those ... issues."

I don't know why, but it was so funny.

This is really a filler post to say I'm alive.
I'll get some real stories and pictures up sometime SOON.

My Week One in Review!

WARNING: THIS IS A MARATHON POST.

PLEASE FORGIVE THE LENGTH, AND ENJOY!

Sunday

We got our first taste of living on our own! We (Chelsea, Stacey, Darcee, I) decided to start the tradition on making a big meal on Sundays and eating together. So we cooked some amazing spaghetti. (Not like mom's cookin' but still very decent.) We then started doing the dishes. We had quite a few dishes, so we decided to just fill a sink. A nameless member of our party put the plug in, filled the sink, and we washed our dishes in harmony. We go to empty the sink, when the nameless member of our party says: "Is there a trick to getting the plug out?" The reply: Nope just pull on the knob. . . ." " There is no knob." Yes you guessed it, the plug went knob side in and was pretty impossible to pull out. We eventually had to call in back-up:

Jose fixed us right up!

Very memorable, first time doing the dishes (for one of our party ;)) experience.

Monday

First Day of School!!! This was extremely exciting, because I only have two classes on Mondays and then work! So I headed out at 7:30ish with my fellow apartments and we hiked up to campus. My first class at 9:00 was Stats. The memorable story of the day happened in the middle of the Q&A about the syllabus. A boy raised his hand, and said "So I have a confession... I took this class winter, . . ." (and preceded to ask his question not relevant to the story). So embarrassing point number one: he failed stats once before already. Then the professor answered his question, and said: "Will you please stand up? Turn around for everyone, say hello. Everyone see that kid -- isn't that the ugliest hat you've ever seen?" (It was a Boston baseball cap.) number two: the professor has just made fun of him in a group of 800 students! At the end of class, I just by chance happened to walk out next the failing, ugly hat kid, and I hear him say to a fellow class-member: "I can't even take off my hat, cause I messed up cutting my hair and I have a bald spot." number three: the failing, ugly hat kid, can't cut his hair. I knew that however my day went from there it had to be better than his. I laughed a lot about this one.

The first day of school picture:

Tuesday

I went to my second class of the day, History 201, and I found some interesting discoveries. I hear my TA talking to one of my fellow students. "Hey man, welcome to class. {hand-shake with adoring eyes from my MALE TA} That was a great commercial you did. I saw it on the nightly news. In Georgia." (I'm little miffed at this point, shouldn't the man be sucking up to the TA?) But I look a little closer, and of course its the man featured in the following video:

I've learned quite a few things about him so far:

• My TA has a man-crush on him
• He is a senior
• He speaks Spanish
• He comes from a place where having no black-people, and everyone talking about their bishops is a major culture shock
• He looks very strong
• He likes to find Gospel analogies in history
• He wears his hats with his ears tucked in

Also, I've never talked to him... he just likes to raise his hand a lot... :)

Wednesday

I'm not quite sure, what happened this day. But I do remember that one of my co-workers, told me, that I "think slower" than he does. But he does not believe that his is smarter than me. Somewhat offensive, but I just let it roll off my back. Office politics.

Thursday

I was in my abnormal psychology class, and we watched a movie called something like 'Madness: A History.' Pretty normal film about terrible treatment of people with mental illnesses. Until we get to the part where the lobotomy is discussed. Apparently, lobotomies are current enough to have video footage of an entire operation, BECAUSE THAT'S WHAT CAME ON THE SCREEN. Totally disgusting. I had to look away. Trust me you would too if you saw pointy sticks being pounded into someone's eye sockets! Even my professor was looking away. But sentences like "Then they pound the pick another 4cm into the brain" still come floating out towards you. It was the grossest thing I think I've ever seen.

Friday

I decided that because it was the last day of the week, and because I only had two classes and no work, and because there was a long weekend that I would go FULL ON GIRL for the day. I looked GREAT. Problem: Part of full on girl is looking super cute! I let my vain side take over for a split second, and that's all it took for me to have the worst pair of shoes in the world on my feet as I left the apartment! After I got out of stats, I felt like I had blisters forming on the balls of my feet. I called my ever-amazing mother. She told me to put paper towels in the bottom of my feet. I did-so (trying to be as inconspicuous as possible... I mean .. who actually wants to be VISIBLE doing something like that?). It was a lifesaver. But my feet still hurt. A LOT. In between classes, I ate lunch (and was gawked at by a BYU-golf-cart-tour...), and went to the Marriott Center to pick up my All-Sports-Pass. It was at that point that I turned to my emergency plan. I called Toni, and she being the BEST sister in the WORLD agreed to pick me up and take me home. My feet and myself couldn't be more grateful for her unselfishness!

(My discreetly paper-toweled foot...)

For those looking for an awkward laugh: After I went to the Marriott (it was 90 degrees FYI), I went straight to class. It was hot, and I was SWEAT-Y! There was this girl sitting in front of me. She turned around and was sort of looking around and sniffing. I WAS SO EMBARRASSED thinking that I was the reason for her to be sniffing out the nasty stench. Turned out though, that she just had a serious cold. I observed her sniffing away when she was up front as well, so don't worry. It was just me that was self-concious without need (I think).

Overall it was a super great week, and I'm excited to start the next one!