Wednesday, February 27, 2008

Battle wounds

Last night Ashton and I had a soccer game. I was going to bring my camera so that I could take pictures. I was hoping that we'd have enough girls so that I could take it easy and not play as much. Yeah, that didn't happen. I called around and we couldn't get an extra girl signed up to play. They were all sick.

I should explain intramural co-ed soccer rules as far as girls go. There are 6 players that are allowed to play on the field, not including the goalie. Of those 6, 3 of them can be boys, but you can only have 3 boys on the field at one time. So the rest of the players have to be girls. You have to have at least 2 girls in order to not forfeit. They even make it worth 2 points when a girl scores for a couple of reasons: so the boys will play nicely and pass the ball and also to make it worthwhile to have more girls. Personally, I think that it's rather lame. I'd rather have people play and pass to me because I'm good and not because it's worth more points if I score.

We normally only have 3 girls that play, which kinda stinks because us girls don't get a sub. Last night, one of the girls got sick so we only had 2. So, I had to play and as a team, we had to play a man down. Hence, no camera and no pictures.

There would have been some great pictures, too. We play inside on turf, which is complete with fake dirt, too (little black rubber balls). The fake dirt gets everywhere. Pants, shoes, socks all get fake dirt stuck to it. Within the first few minutes, I was tripped up and did a nice face plant complete with sliding on this stuff. That would have made a nice picture. My shirt came up a bit and my stomach got scrapped up. The worst part was that a lot of fake dirt got down my shorts. I didn't have time to pick it all out so I kept playing and waited until we got home to do something about it.

It was a miserable game. We held them off until the end of the second half. Darn cherry pickers. Our goalie Lance (my brother-in-law) did a great job saving as many goals as he could, but there's not much you can do when the other team is cherry picking and they have an extra player. I almost lost it a couple of times and punched someone. It wouldn't have done much good if I had gotten thrown out of the game so I just glared at people and thought about what I'd do to them if they ever met me in a dark alley. I've never been thrown out of a game before. I don't think I've even gotten a yellow card. I might have to try it sometime.

At least I got some good battle wounds.

Monday, February 25, 2008

Movie

I've been trying to figure out what to write about for the past week. Nothing really interesting has been happening. More of the same old: school, work, apartment hunting, me losing whatever is left of my sanity, church etc. I keep telling Ashton that we either need a kid or a pet to make this blog more interesting. I could keep hurting myself, but I'd prefer to stay intact as much as possible.

We did get to see a movie on Saturday. We went to the dollar theater to watch the movie Enchanted. I love the dollar theater. Such a great way to go see movies. Even if the movie is horrible, you only paid a dollar for it! Much better than renting or watching it in a real theater.

Anyways, the movie was good. For those of you who haven't seen this movie and don't know what it's about, it's basically a fairytale that makes fun of every other fairytale (Snow White, Beauty and the Beast etc). It starts out as a cartoon and typical fairytale (boy meets girl, decide immediately to get married, etc). Then it moves to real life in New York City. Fairytale meets New York City, doesn't get much better. Although a lot of movies take place in New York City. I'd be nice if they could pick a different city once in a while.

I spent the first half of the movie hiding my head in embarrassment for the characters. I have a hard time watching people do embarrassing things. Even if they don't get embarrassed, I'm embarrassed for them. It mostly just happens when it's in front of a bunch of people. So, I found the first half of the movie to be embarrassing and therefore kept looking down and around to avoid having to watch the display even though it was entertaining.

The second half was great. This about when it starts creating its own fairytale with a few twists and turns. Throughout the second half, the movie still pokes fun of previous princess stories, but does a good job of progressing the story along to the end. Pretty entertaining stuff.

A few things really impressed me about the movie. For starters, it's really clean. I don't think that they use one bad word in the entire movie. There are one or two slight innuendos. Anyways, the cleanest movie I've seen in a long time. Another thing that impressed me was the actors. The actors that they chose were perfect for their roles. They were all very believable and I was taken with their skills.

My favorite parts were when the chipmunk is playing charades with the prince, cleaning up in the apartment, and the song and dance scene in Central Park. There are some great quotes in those scenes. I'll refrain from quoting them so that it won't spoil anything for those of you who haven't seen the movie yet and want to.

For those of you who have kids, and even if you don't, I'd recommend seeing this movie at least once.

Tuesday, February 19, 2008

Apartment Hunting

So I realize that the pictures that I put up have nothing to do with the post that I'm writing. I just find these pictures funny.

It's been a great weekend. We didn't have classes yesterday because of the holiday and Ashton didn't have work, so I got to have Ashton home for 3 whole days. Since we spent Saturday doing absolutely nothing, I felt like we needed to do something. Obviously the first thing we decided to do was to watch a movie. We headed off to the dollar theater to watch Enchanted, but it was sold out until 10 pm. We decided that we could just watch it a different day. So instead, we decided to spend our day looking at apartments.

While we like living in the Bunny Hutch, we feel the need for space and we can't live after I'm no longer a full-time student, which would be about May or June. We're looking to move out end of April/beginning of May though for convenience and sanity. We did a search online for apartments, turning up some plausible ones in Pleasant Grove, which, for those of you who don't know Utah geography, it's only a 10-15 minute drive north of Provo.

Since we'll still be going to school for a while, we considered staying in Provo area for all of two seconds. Provo is kinda crowded with all of the students and because there are a lot of people looking for apartments, the prices are kinda ridiculous for the small, often rundown apartments that you get. Besides that, Ashton works in Draper, a good 30 minute drive, and so living closer to where he works would be beneficial.

So, we headed to Pleasant Grove after getting some addresses. We plugged the addresses into our trusty Garmin, who has only lead us astray once or twice, and we were golden. The first one had an income restriction that we didn't know about so we couldn't live there (Oops). Apparently Ashton makes too much money (We weren't too sad to discover that).

We headed off to the next one. Although the neighborhood wasn't very pretty with its dirt piles, warehouses, and railroad tracks, the apartment complex looked nice. We got a tour of one of their apartments and I liked what I saw: walk-in closet, storage space, dishwasher, washer/dryer, and big bathroom. Everything that our apartment doesn't have.

We got some applications just in case we wanted to live there and drove off to check out some more. Well, we vetoed those next ones in just a drive around the complexes. One of them was a senior community and well, Ashton's not that old yet.

After exhausting our list in Pleasant Grove, we drove up to American Fork and drove around there. Yeah, there wasn't anything worth seeing. There were some apartment complexes there, but they looked a rundown. We're not that desperate.

At the first complex we had checked out in Pleasant Grove, They had given us a book of apartments throughout Utah to look at. I flipped through it and found some ones that didn't look too bad in Orem, which is right next to Provo. Although we were going to look at them, we were getting tired of looking and I was starting to feel carsick from all the reading I had been doing. So we decided to save it for another day. So, we headed home. Gotta spread out the fun.

Once home, I checked out the website that the catalog had on its front cover. We found several other complexes that looked pretty good. One of them is in Lehi (further north) and several of them were in Orem. To me, Orem is pretty much the same as Provo so I'm not too keen on living there although it'd be closer to school.

After talking about it with Ashton, we decided that since we're looking to stay in Utah for about another year. So we'd want to make sure that this new apartment is a place that we could handle living in for that long (don't really want to move twice). So we decided to check out the one in Lehi and decide between that one and the one in Pleasant Grove. Orem is our backup if those don't work out.

I'm excited about moving past the whole school phase. I'm hoping to be done with classes this June and graduating in August. What better way to celebrate than to move?

Sunday, February 17, 2008

No Survivors

I've been given a mandate: "It's your turn to update." I'm reminded of a marquee sign near where my brother Nathan lives. I failed to notice the front of it on our way in a few weeks ago, but on the way out I caught the back-side: "So I did." Nathan informed me a few days later that the front read, "The boss told me to change the sign."

Something tells me that, were I to leave the entirety of this post as "I was told to update the blog, so I did," I'd be hosed. My access to this account would probably be removed, and I might come home in a few days to find the locks changed. (Incidentally, Zarah, after reading the above, is wondering at the possibility of getting the landlord to do such a thing.)

A few days ago, the parking lots of several local gas stations were turned into temporary hotels as a winter storm blew through. I'd like to be able to claim that it was the storm that shut down the freeway, leaving many stranded for the night. I'd like to believe that the storm was, in fact, bad enough to justify such discomfort.

It wasn't.

The truth of the matter is that Utah drivers are idiots. On the clearest days (when visibility is only inhibited by the smog that blankets Salt Lake Valley), you can watch the traffic websites light up like Christmas trees with various "incidents" and "accidents." The worst offenders tend to be mini vans, whose drivers seem to have been recruited to conduct physics experiments involving two masses occupying the same space at the same time. The space happens to be the lane in which I'm trying to drive, and the time happens to be when I'm in it.

When any kind of inclement weather occurs, that limited sense of sense becomes even more troubled. Even the lightest rain causes the lines on the roads to disappear entirely (I'd believe some sort of water-soluble paint were the cause if the lines weren't magically re-painted once the roads dried out again.) This makes the above physics experiments extremely difficult to conduct, as there is no longer any way for the drivers to determine when their minivans are about to occupy the same lane as someone else. I exaggerate a little: it is possible to determine the lane, but it takes what is evidently a very long time to do so.

Add to this the even more-limited visibility of a blizzard, and you get scientists on the road who spend so much time trying to figure out what to do that they spend so little time actually driving. For those of us who are trying to navigate the asphalt riverway without experimenting, there end up being many more obstacles to try to circumvent. Once out in the open, however, the driving isn't so much more difficult than on a clear day, and some of the lost time can be made up.

Once those empty bits of highway get filled up with scientists, however, there is nothing left to do but take the nearest exit, find the nearest parking lot, and hole in until enough idiots get off the highway that it's possible to continue onward.

Thursday, February 14, 2008

Happy Valentine's Day!

Happy Valentine's day all! I hope that the "Day of Love" treats all of you well.

Now onto more fun subjects. As much as Valentine's Day is, especially when you're walking around campus watching people trying to manage carrying a bunch of flowers around with their backpacks and whatever else they might have, there are lots of other fun things to talk about. Like soccer.

Since I've come to BYU, I've really enjoyed playing on their intramural teams. During the winter, they have co-ed soccer, which is a whole lot of fun. Playing co-ed soccer means that I can be aggressive and throw my weight around fully expecting to get away with it, well, for the most part anyways. Not to mention, it's a good feeling to put some "big, tough" boys on the ground.

A few days ago, I had a soccer game. I was excited for it and left a class early to head down for the game. (I've got my priorities straight.) I got ready in a hurry and soon it's time to play. Since I've been with a cold for the past few days, I had promised myself that I would take it kinda easy. I do a pretty good job of doing that until some boy stole the ball from me. I wasn't about to let him get away with that and I go after him to take it back. Some guy on my team apparently thought that he'd help me out and as all three of us were going after the ball, I rolled my ankle with a snap. I heard it and felt it with shooting pain. It's nice to feel alive.

After falling to the ground in quite a bit of pain, they stop the game and people started gathering around me. Thankfully, my sister-in-law, who's an EMT, had come to our game. They got me off the field after a few minutes where Melissa (my sister-in-law) started taking off my shoe. Several very concerned people tried to stop her, but they backed off once we told them that she was an EMT.

By then, the pain lessened so I felt a bit better and could start making jokes, especially when the BYU EMT's came. They started checking out my ankle, gave me a little baggy when I got nauseated and threw up (I had to tell them to hurry because they were taking their time and I was ready to hurl on them), and checked my blood pressure 3 times (twice by machine and once by hand because according to the machine my blood pressure was low). It was kinda entertaining especially when Melissa had to keep telling them how to do stuff and after they left, re-wrapped my ankle because they didn't do it right.

We went to two different Urgent Care facilities. (The first one wouldn't take our insurance. I don't know how they can get away with that.) Anyways, they took some x-rays and decided that I only sprained it. They gave me crutches, which I used that night and and in the morning for class. That was enough for me. I decided that I didn't want to use them anymore so now I just hobble around. Stubbornness at its best.

On a more serious note, the nice thing about being in Utah are the different kinds of service that you get to provide on a regular basis. While we were checking-in at the Urgent Care facility, a boy was brought in who couldn't breathe. The immediately brought him back and the mother obviously went with him with her other kids. After a few minutes, the mother came back in tears asking the receptionist if she could find someone to give a blessing. Thankfully, Ashton had some oil and he went back to help. I've never been so grateful for the priesthood and the gospel. I'm glad that we were there to help out that family. We don't know how the boy is doing, but there is the peace of knowing that whatever happens is God's will.

Monday, February 11, 2008

Fun Questions

When meeting someone for the first time at BYU, there are 3 questions that they are sure to ask: 1. What's your name? 2. What's your major? 3. Where are you from? (If they like the responses that you give a fourth question might follow to ask you out on a date. I've never experienced this.)

I almost always have to repeat myself on the first question. "Zarah" "What was that?" (more slowly) "Zarah" "Oh! Cool!" (I've only had one guy that said that he didn't like my name. He's no longer a problem.)

With the second question, I tend to get the question, "So, did you serve a mission?" (Apparently if you speak a second language and you're at BYU, you must have served a mission. A common mistake.)

The third question is my favorite by far. The responses I get are so funny to me that I have to remind myself not laugh out loud. The response is almost always the same and so I can guess what they're going to say and sometimes even say it before they can. My favorite response is, "Maine? You're a long ways from home." (Yes, I am. That was kinda the point in some regards.) It's either that or "That's far away!" (Yeah, it is kinda far huh? I'm glad you know your geography.) If I'm lucky, I get a "Really?" to which I'm kinda tempted to say, "No. Not really. I thought I'd lie to you in order to see how you'd react." (Sometime, I might have to try that.) The follow-up question is kinda tricky. Some people tend to ask where in Maine I am from. I never know, do I just give general location in North, South, East, and West, or do I actually give the town? I haven't gotten the hang of it yet. It's a question I don't get too often. I find that usually the people that I give coordinates, actually know something about Maine's geography and want the actual town. The people that know nothing about Maine's geography, I give the town. Someday I'll get it down.

Thursday, February 7, 2008

Snow and birds

For Christmas, I got what I always wanted, a camera. After breaking it in at my brother-in-law's wedding (mostly taking pictures of some family and friends playing with a life-size nativity scene at the Temple that was still up), I haven't had much opportunity to play with it. I did however take some random pictures after a snow storm the other week. The nice thing about these pictures is that I didn't even have to go outside to take them! I stayed in the comfort of my apartment and took them from the window. So, hope you enjoy them!
The other funny thing that I've noticed this winter is the number of birds hanging around still, particularly Robins. I've never seen Robins hang around so long during winter and found it rather amusing. We had a tree outside our window that has some dried/old berries on it, the Robins like to hang out there. So, I took some pictures of that as well.

Tuesday, February 5, 2008

Pure Entertainment

If there's one thing that being on campus is good for, it's to watch people. In fact, it's one of my favorite hobbies. The things that people will do when they're with a group of people is amazing. Sometimes you find people who have no shame and don't need a group to make them feel more comfortable. They will express themselves regardless. Ashton and I entertain ourselves by finding something (or let's be honest someone doing something) funny while we're on campus. It makes for entertaining conversations later as we share what we found, but it makes for a good laugh while you're watching it happen.

One of my favorite places to watch people is in what's known as the CougarEat. It's basically a food court place on campus for starving students like myself to sit and eat and do some homework. At certain times of the day, it's a crowded place. Maybe it's because it's crowded, but you get some strange people doing some strange things or saying some strange things.

One of my favorites was a few weeks ago sitting in the CougarEat. I overheard a girl say on her phone "So, I almost burned down the apartment yesterday." (A great beginning to a conversation). I eavesdropped long enough to hear that the incident involved a candle and some Kleenex, which are apparently very flammable. Yeah, it made my day.

Another fun game, is watching the gestures and facial expressions people make while talking and creating a conversation out of it (this works especially well when you can't actually hear what people are saying). "What? You were attacked by wild monkeys yesterday?" "Look! I'm a midget." "I so, did not see that." "Uh oh, I think I just wet myself."

It might not be fair to watch people without their knowledge and mock them, but it sure is fun.

Saturday, February 2, 2008

Laundry Day


Since we live on-campus, we don't have a washer and a dryer. So in order to do laundry we have to trek down the hill to a laundry place that's one of five provided by BYU. Some days we have to try to several times to do laundry because of the number of people also trying to do laundry. I could see myself fighting someone for a machine.

Because it's such a fiasco to get laundry done, our philosophy is usually "we don't do laundry until we're out of underwear." Underwear is a bit of a necessity. But as fun as it is to load up our pillowcases with clothes, get socks and shoes on, and put on a jacket, all for a 5-10 minute round trip (including putting in the laundry), it's not so much fun. I can't wait to get a washer and a dryer.

The nice thing about living in a place that doesn't have a washer and dryer or a dishwasher is that it gives us a chance to figure out what we really want and need for our next place. We've been thinking about moving after this semester to another place and maybe even out of Provo. We don't know exactly where yet.

The place that we live now, Wymount Terrace (which is the married on-campus housing) is commonly referred to as "The Bunny Hutch." The name fits for a couple of different reasons. The apartments are kinda smallish and there are so many fit together. In our building there are 8 apartments of various sizes (some have 3 bedrooms, some 2, ours is a 1 bedroom). Kinda cramped, but it's worked for us. The other reason why it's called "The Bunny Hutch" and probably the real reason why it's called that is because of the reproduction rate.

The first Sunday that we attended our new ward, there was a baby blessed. 2 Sundays later, there were 3 babies blessed. My previous experience to BYU wards were singles wards so it was kinda weird to experience this in a BYU ward. For the rest of the summer/fall there was only one sister who was pregnant and had a baby. There must be something about having a baby in spring because there are currently about 7 women pregnant in my ward. I'm sure that there are a lot more throughout the different wards in the complex. They must put something in the water.