Friday, November 27, 2009

Commando

What is the most adventuresome thing you've done?


There are two things that I think come in a close tie for first. The first and most obvious one is skydiving. I've been twice in the last year and a half and I plan to go a third time next year if I have the money. I have always loved the feeling of free falling and skydiving is exactly that. I want to go a third time because on the third jump I would be allowed to go without being strapped onto an instructor. Of course, an instructor would still jump with me, otherwise I wouldn't go. I love it, it's an amazing feeling.

The second thing that was adventuresome for me but probably pretty average for most other people was going to RYLA. I got a random phone call one day about going to this youth camp thing. I had no idea what it was all about, but I figured it would look really good on a resume as it had to do with the Rotary Club. I normally tend to ignore things that I don't completely know what they're about, but this time I figured that I should get out of my comfort zone and give it a shot. I went, by myself, to this camp where I was confused out of my mind the entire first day. I had no idea why I was there or why I had been called. Normally people have to apply for the program. I really lucked out I guess. Going to RYLA was one of my favorite experiences and if I hadn't just gotten off my butt and decided to go, I would have missed out on an awesome opportunity. For me, going somewhere like that completely by myself without knowing a single person was REALLY adventuresome. Now I do it all the time, haha. Go me Go!

Thursday, November 26, 2009

In The Tunnels

For Christmas once my mom gave everyone in my family a jar full of questions for us to answer. We got it years ago with the instruction to pull them out as a sort of journal entry topic when we were older, hopefully married with kids. I plan to answer them all later in my life like intended, but I think it will be kind of fun to answer some of them now. So although no one reads these, I'm going to do one occassionally just for fun. Here we go!


Describe family traditions that you remember


One of the biggest, and especially the most memorable today, is playing Nintendo together at Thanksgiving and Christmas. Today is Thanksgiving and, like usual, all the 'kids' got together downstairs and played Tetris, SuperSmash Bros, and SuperMario. We usually play Dr. Mario too, but we haven't gotten to that yet. I don't remember how long ago our silly little Nintendo tradition came about, but I do remember that it was my idea (Go ME!!). I had been thinking about how kind of normal Christmas Eve was, so I asked Adam and Ashley if they wanted to stay up and play Dr. Mario. Ever since then we have done it every year, and now we have Mark and Katrina playing as well.

Our family has never been particularly big on traditions. And we're a little strange. Perhaps that's why our most prominent tradition includes something so nerdy as Nintendo....haha. Another fun tradition we used to have was going to Lake Powell with the Lethbridge family every year. We haven't been for the last two summers because everyone's at the age where we don't have the time to coordinate a week long trip. The year we stopped it was because Adam and Ashley had work and I had Clayton. I think Synergy tour was the same week as our Powell date, or something like that. However it worked, we ended up selling our half of the time share back to the Lethbridges. We all miss it a lot and I hope that once we all are married and settled down that we'll be able to start going again with all of us and our families.

I loved going to Lake Powell every year, if only for the car ride. I love long car rides. It's a fun time to talk, goof off, and anticipate what's to come. Also, Lake Powell is just pure awesomeness. I'm slightly afraid of being in water because I can't see what's beneath me, but Lake Powell has always been worth it. I'm terrible at wakeboarding, but I've started to enjoy tubing in the past few years. I used to hate it because Bud is a sadistic boat driver and I would always get hurt, but now I find that kind of fun. Masocist....haha. It was also fun hanging out with the Lethbridges. We would always watch "What About Bob," "Groundhog Day," and "The Man Who Knew Too Little." Yay for Bill Murray at Powell. I also loved playing games with them. I'm going to miss Lake Powell. :(

Those are the biggest traditions that I can think of....we have a couple Christmas ones like our candy calendar for December, setting up the tree together, and opening presents together in the morning, but those are all kind of the usual traditions that a lot of families have. Although I do have to say that our family is unique in the fact that it's an effort to get Adam, Ashley and I out of bed on Christmas morning. We're all excited for presents, but rather than getting up at 5 or 6 like most kids, we roll out of bed and into the shower at around 9....we're a little lazy. Well, that's not true. We're just not morning people. And it doesn't help that we've usually stayed up until 5 or 6 the night before playing Dr. Mario.

I love my awkward family. :D

Saturday, November 21, 2009

Cave

Heeey.....so I'm having a serious lack of good new music other than Mika right now. Do you guys have any fantastic ideas of music I should listen to??

Friday, November 20, 2009

Be Calm

I wanted to change the background color on my blog but with no success. Maybe I'll try again later. So basically this week has been a seriously of fantastically awesome failures on my part. There's been one a day so far. Here's a list:

Monday: Slept in through half my classes on accident because I'm AWESOME.
Tuesday: Poured rootbeer all over my computer because I thought it would be AWESOME. My computer actually ended up being more or less okay except for the keyboard which is having some struggles because the rootbeer dried and all the keys are sticking. I pulled the sticky keys off and washed them, which helped, but I wasn't able to wash the mechanisms underneath each key very well. And I accidentally popped the mechanism off the 'c' key and tried to stick it back on myself. So now I may need to go in and get my keyboard cleaned at the Apple store, and I definitely need to get the 'c' key fixed. The most annoying is that it still clicks, it just doesn't show up so I think that I've typed it and I look up and it's not there. Ugh....I'll live. It could've been SO much worse. I'll take it. Oh, I also spilled all over the couch cushion and the pillow. That was nice. Apparently our pillows can go through the washing machine. Who knew? Someone suggested I get one of those protective keyboard covers. I think it's not a bad idea, I'm just worried it'll make it harder to type. Most of my keys are starting to unstick now that I'm using them more. Should I try to fix the 'c' key on my own? Decisions....
Wednesday: Stuck my hand on the stove like an AWESOME person and burned my thumb. Oddly enough it didn't hurt, just burned a really smooth bar onto my finger. No more fingerprint? Not quite that cool.....haha. I'm just glad it wasn't an instant blister. Then I would've had to wear a glove at work, which would've SUCKED.
Thursday: I spilled at work because I thought water all over the floor when I'm in a hurry would be AWESOME. Fortunately it was only two glasses of water and it was only in the aisle. I'm so glad I didn't actually spill ON anyone. Phew** And fortunately I had just handed the table their hot chocolate. Super lucky because most of the spill made it's way onto my pants before hitting the floor. That would've KILLED. Eeek.

So today is Friday and needless to say I'm a little concerned. Can I break the pattern and defy fate? We'll see.

We got our work schedules for the rest of Nov/Dec yesterday. I kind of wish we always got our schedules in month long increments instead of every week. Or at least every two weeks would be nice. I mean, I totally understand why they do it the way they do. I'm just saying. I do appreciate how flexible the schedules are though, so I shouldn't complain at all. I'm pretty excited about the schedule, I'm scheduled a lot more and that will be nice since I need money to pay for Synergy. I made my first payment today. $500!!! Ahhh......my bank account was at $1000 for a while and it felt so nice. No longer.....*sniff* But ya, in a couple weeks it should be right back up there. My only qualm is that Nick appears to have accidentally scheduled me for one of the days I asked off. I say accidentally because he said that everyone who asked for days off got them off. Oops Nick, oops. The day I'm scheduled for just happens to be the day I have a test for one of my online classes. Kind of important.... I'll just have to talk to him on Saturday.

Ok, last thing I'll say for now is that the new Mika CD is pretty much the most fantastic thing I've ever heard in my life. Just a little tidbit for ya. If you don't know who Mika is, shame on you. Listen to his music. It'll change your life. Haha.

Wednesday, November 11, 2009

We're Made Of Star Speck

So life's been pretty dang awesome for me right about now. I've been really enjoying my classes at school, which I have to admit is somewhat depressing when you realize that most of my classes are grammar in some form or another. I've found the U to be much more enjoyable than the Y for a lot of different reasons. I did like some things about the Y, but it's so much more comfortable on campus at the U. I felt like I was always being watched at the Y, people always wondering what I was doing anywhere. At the U I can sit down in the middle of the hallway and get on my computer and no one else questions it. It's really nice. :D Hahaha, I also like how much less.....uptight everyone is. I can say this because I'm an uptight mormon, but most of the people at BYU had a stick up their bums. I must've missed the week at church when they handed those out. Ah well, better for me. Now that the semester's winding down it's about time to register for my Spring semester classes. Terrifying thought.... I was going over the different job possibilities for me if I major in Linguistics, and I found a few that I like. I'm considering maybe minoring in computer science as well, that way I could work on some sort of computer linguistic program or search engine. Or I could work for the FBI or something, muahahaha. I don't really know what I'm going to do at this point. It's kind of scary, as I'm sure you all know. Decisions like this always are, so I should just buck up and get over it. It's not like I can't do something else later.
I got a job finally!! Well, I got it about two months ago, but that's besides the point. I'm working at Desert Star as a server and it's actually a lot of fun. It's nice because a lot of the new people have already graduated from high school. It's the excessive amounts of 17 year olds that concerned me at first, but I'm getting along just fine with everyone I work with. And it's nice to finally be making money. I think the best part for me is that I get to take most of it home with me everyday, so I am actually able to see a return for my work almost immediately. I like that a lot.
I'm trying to save up my money for Synergy next year. Yes, I'm doing it again. Rehearsals start in January and I am sooo excited!! We're going to the Philipines next year, which I'm sure will be awesome. Auditions were maybe three weeks ago and Kim's been harassing me for those entire three weeks to find MORE BOYS!! AHHH!!! I've asked a couple though, so we'll see how that works out. There's one I'm kind of excited about and I hope he'll do it. That'd be awesome. But ya, I've been looking forward to doing Synergy again ever since we finished last time. It's the only thing that got me through 2 semesters of BYU, looking forward to being able to be at home again and doing Synergy. It's nice to have such a close group of random people. Clayton is my high school, but much less dramatic. I'm so much more excited this time than last time too because I know the people in it so much better already. Last time I was one of the youngest and it was kind of nerve wracking because I sometimes felt like I shouldn't take my place in the group for granted. I mean, I shouldn't, but I should've been a little more....outgoing maybe? Ah well, this year will be so much fun. :D
That's about it for now. I just wanted to get out all the awesome things happening to me right now because I want to make sure I'm not taking things for granted. I'm so grateful for what I have right now! My life is taking a turn for the less-boring and although that sounds really dorky, it's seriously saving my sanity. Adam can attest to the life boredom that we were going through and now it's finally starting to go away for me. It's awesome! :D You're all maniacs! PEAce OUt!!