Home Sweet Home

So, we're all moved in! We had a good crew of movers on Saturday (aka Ashton's family) and we got the rest of our junk...I mean stuff, moved into our new place in a matter of hours. We only had to take two loads and the second one was just a few bags along with the piano, table, and coffee table. Maybe that was because we had four cars to stuff full along with a trailer for the big stuff. It doesn't matter though because it worked and we're all in! We did a lot of organizing yesterday as we needed to, but we still have a lot of unpacking to do. I actually like unpacking and organizing everything so I don't mind this part of moving. It's fun to make things cute and have it just the way that I want them. Anyways, here are the pictures I promised of our new place. I was going to put in a video of the pictures that I put together so you wouldn't have to scroll down and look at all of these pictures, but I haven't been able to get it uploaded on here.

Here is our new living room. Kinda small, but sufficient for what we need it for. Besides, there's more room behind the chair.


This is our cute little porch. This is what's on the other side of the living room. The door you see on the porch is an outside storage closet.


This gives a view of the front door and the coat closet. You can also see the distance from the living room to the porch.


This is my new kitchen. Much bigger than the last kitchen with also a lot more cupboard and counter space. Not that you can tell.


Another view of the kitchen. The newspaper mess you see on the counter is all of my pictures that I have to find a place for.


This is my new pride and joy or just one of my new pride and joys. Our last apartment did not have one of these, besides me and Ashton. It's so nice to have a dishwasher.


We also have an actual dining room. It's pretty exciting.


Another view of the dining room to give you an idea of the size of the room and what it's like.


This is bathroom number one. That's right...number one.


This is our spare bedroom. Right now it's just filled with random stuff from the move.


Still the spare bedroom. Just the other side. The closet is pretty big as well.


This is our bedroom complete with a nice walk-in closet. Probably the biggest closet I've ever had, even though I have to share it.


Another view of the master bedroom.


Our bathroom off the bedroom. It's not big but hey it works. Not to mention any bathroom is great if it has penguins in it!


This is my other pride and joy. Now I don't to trek down the hill to do laundry!

Free at last!

Sorry that it's been a while since I've posted. It's been a crazy month with the end of school. But as of today, I'm done!! I took my last final today and sold back all the books that they'd take back. Ashton finished his finals yesterday, which has also been good. It feels so good to be done with the semester! It's a bit of a shame that we're starting Spring Term next week, but it's ok. The beginning of a semester isn't as bad as the end. Not to mention it's a term so it only lasts for a month and a half. I've heard it's a lot more fun to go during the Spring and Summer. I guess I'll find out for myself whether that's true or not. Besides, it's only that month and a half that stands between me and my diploma. It's worth it.

So, now I get to spend my time doing other things. Like packing! That's right. We're finally moving. I'll be spending my days packing and we're planning on being out by Saturday. We've already started moving some stuff in like books, games, and pictures. Ashton has been bringing stuff with him on his way to work to drop off at the new place. It's been helpful and keeps our tiny apartment from getting too crowded with everything that we're trying to pack.

It's a bit sad to be leaving this place. It's been a good place to live. We like our neighbors and the people in our ward. But we're excited that we're moving away from Provo, because well...it's Provo. It also helps set in the reality that we won't be going to school forever. We also like our new place. What's not to like? Dishwasher, washer, dryer, space...all the necessities. It'll be a new adventure.

End of the semester fun

It's been a while since I've written on here so I thought that I would catch people up on what's going on.

Things are wrapping up with school. We have less then two weeks of classes before finals begin. I'm busily trying to do research and write papers while keeping up with the mundane day-to-day homework. I'm just hoping to get it all done by the time it's due. We'll see how that will go. Ashton has a test this week and a paper to do before finals. I don't know why teachers feel the need to have a test before finals, especially when they're close together, but I guess it's an opportunity to make sure you really understand what's going on before testing that knowledge on the final. We're both looking forward to the end of the semester.

Yesterday, I finally declared my minor in humanities. It was a lot easier than I thought it would be. It was nice to not have to fill out a bunch of paperwork. While I was at it, I also filled out the paperwork to graduate in August! I'm very excited about this. I've been planning on graduating in August for a while, but to have the paperwork filled out and turned in makes it feel more real. Feels like it's actually going to happen. I still have a lot to do before I can graduate. I have to take a couple more classes and lastly, take a test that will determine whether I can graduate or not. It's a lot of pressure, especially since it's an oral test and I don't speak Spanish as well as I should. Hopefully this pressure will make me work harder on speaking and practice more. Nothing like a little bit of pressure to get you going.

After a few weeks of trying to contact the apartment complex, Ashton finally stopped in on his way home from work and found out that we did get the apartment! (Apparently she had left a message on Ashton's phone that he never got...darn phones.) We can start moving in on the 19th of this month and we have until the 28th to finish since that's the day we have to be moved out by. We haven't started packing yet, but soon I'll have enough time to start dragging out some boxes and putting stuff in it. Right now it'd be hard to figure out what we're not going to use or need in the next few weeks so we can pack it. We have the apartment though and soon we'll be moving into it!

Never a slow moment.

Easter Sunday

The first year of marriage is always cute as you get to do a lot of "firsts." Sunday was our first Easter together. Growing up, two of us would leave the room while someone else hid Cadbury eggs. The rest of us watched and giggled while others were finding their eggs. In keeping with this tradition, I hid a couple of eggs (not Cadbury, but still chocolate) for Ashton while he was in the other room. I made him listen to music so he wouldn't cheat. To make things worse for Ashton, I took pictures while he hunted. He got me back though, hiding eggs for me afterwards and took pictures of me looking for them. Here are some of my favorite ones:


Ashton looking in the lamp for eggs. As you can see, unlike Ashton, I couldn't see over the top.





I hid one of Ashton's eggs in the paper shredder bag. I thought that I had hid it on the top, but turns out it fell down and Ashton had to take out the bag to find it. Ashton, on the other hand, hid one of my eggs in my shoe.



Later that afternoon, we headed over to my father-in-law's house in Park City to eat dinner with the family. We had a lot of fun talking, having dinner, and hunting for Easter eggs. We also celebrated some birthdays that happened this month. Here are some pictures from the night.



Katelyn loves Curious George and wanted Ashton to read the book to her. I don't blame her. He has a great reading voice. Beside this picture is Katelyn with her Easter basket from Grandma and Grandpa.






Lance and Stacy on the couch, watching people open presents and cards. Lance was apparently yawning, but Stacy was acting...maybe excited/happy for the camera. (Sorry Stacy that it's not the first picture). It was Ashton's dad's birthday on the 16th. He got a pair of glasses as a present. He decided that he would look more stylish with the tag still on them.






Anjanette's birthday was on Sunday. Katelyn decided that she wanted to read the card for her. It was pretty entertaining to listen to her rambling away, saying words that weren't on the card. All of us got a CD from Lance and Stacy. Mandy decided that she would wear her CD on her nose.

Saving the World, a Day at a Time

It occurred to me that nobody really knows what I do all day. Perhaps an image can offer a bit more explanation than I can.

Every month, my employer hosts a contest. I work for a company called DAZ 3D, which specializes in three-dimensional computer models, and the software to bring those models to life. I work on the software side, lacking any real kind of artistic talent.

The theme for this month's contest is "Heros! Men to the Forefront!" Without explicit permission, here is one of my favorite entries so far (entered by DAZ 3D forum member Bad_Kittie):
Every couple of months, we release a new version of the program used to put that image together. So far, I've mainly worked on the user-interface for it (buttons, labels, and so forth). Eventually, I'd like to understand the math behind the actual rendering process (converting 3D coordinates to a two-dimensional view port, making light reflect correctly, etc.), but for now that's a bit over my head.

Crunch Time

With only 5 weeks of school left, it's crunch time. All of a sudden, I went from feeling like I hadn't done much this semester, to stressing out by all that I have to do. I have a matter of weeks to do 3 research papers, another paper that's not quite a research paper, finish two books in Spanish, write a paper on one of them, and continue to do other homework that teachers assign.

Why teachers find the need to continue to assign homework when you have a research paper that you're supposed to be working on as well is beyond me. They must realize that you have other classes that are probably requiring similar tasks. The only logical explanation is torture. They had to go through it and so do you. Some pretend to have pity, but I get the feeling that my teachers are laughing at me behind my back and some of them probably would have no problem laughing in my face.

I will not miss this when I graduate.

On a lighter note, we put in an application for an apartment, the one that I really like in Pleasant Grove. As long as our credit reports and criminal records come back clean, we should get the apartment. I thought of making some joke to the lady who we gave the forms to and filled out other ones for us about hoping our criminal records came back clean, but I wasn't sure how she'd take that. I figured that it was better to be safe than sorry. We can start moving in April 19th and we have to be officially moved out by the 28th. When we move I'll take some pictures so you can see what the new apartment looks like.

School

It's amazing how your life can feel so busy and at the same time so dull and uninteresting. I keep trying to come up with things to talk about, but they never seem interesting enough. In my Spanish linguistics class we were talking about the history of the Spanish language and some things came up that I thought were interesting. So, I thought I'd share.

The class started out with us working in small groups on some questions that the teacher gave us. We were to answer the questions in our groups and then we'd have a class discussion on these same questions. There was one question that particularly caught my eye and that in my group, we had a hard time answering. The question was, "What is a language?" Seems easy enough right? It is until you start trying to articulate a definition. It's one of those terms or concepts that everyone knows, but it's hard to come up with an actual working definition.

As a class we came up with a few ideas such as that language is a way of communicating to express ideas and that follows certain rules. That works pretty well until my teacher asked, "How is a language different than a dialect?" It becomes even trickier when you start thinking about what people consider to be a language and what they consider to be a dialect.

One example that I can think of that might make sense to everyone, not just those who speak Spanish and have been to Spain, is perhaps the difference between Britian English and U.S. English. Some people would consider them to be two separate languages while others would only consider them to be a dialect of each other.

As we considered this example and others in class, my teacher brought up the point that it's something political and economic that makes us consider something a language versus a dialect. When a country develops its own political and economic power, they want their language to be more unique and separate from the country that their language was associated with previously.

It's a definition that I hadn't even considered before this class. At first, it seemed like a ridiculous connection, but the more I thought about it, the more it seemed to make sense, especially when we thought of other examples. We used the example of Argentina and how they speak Spanish, but to Argentines, they speak Castellano. We think of people in Brazil as speaking Portugese, but to them, they speak Brazileno. To them, they are they have their own separate country/identity with their own separate language.

It brings a whole new dimension to thinking about languages and life. I guess that's what going to school is all about.