In the Past Couple of Weeks

Mike and Andrea got married.

It was the most exquisite wedding and perfect in every way.

We've played more games, watched more movies and eaten more food than you could imagine.

We have done weird things, like always. And laughed about them afterwards.

Preston and I played with my scarfs in an attempt to get me ready for Jerusalem.

I leave in exactly 6 days from now and I can't even wait!

Major Get of 2009

We have a game of sorts that is constantly being played in my family. It is called the game of "gets." It never ends, and there is never a set winner. It has been ongoing for too many years to count now.

How to play:

1. Tap the victim on the shoulder and hope that they think it was someone else that tapped them, preferably a stranger, although another family member is still considered a success.
2. Tell a flat out lie to the chosen family member and count on the help of others to play along until they believe you.

How to score/win:

1. If performing option number one, we use a baseball-type score keeping theory: a small turn of the head gets you to first base; shoulder and hip turn gets you to second; a full turn gets you to third base; and if you talk to someone because you believed they tapped you, when in reality they didn't it is considered a home run. The greatest home run ever to occur happened nearly ten years ago while waiting for a BYU devotional to begin. Alex reached across the seat and tapped my dad on the shoulder who then proceeded to turn around and carry on a two-minute conversation with the student sitting behind him. We still haven't let him live it down.
2. If performing option number two, after a sufficient amount of time has passed and you're quite confident that the person fully believes whatever lie you've just told them, start laughing and yell, "GET" (as in, "I got you") and watch as they hang their head in shame after just being got. Last night, the best "get" of 2009 took place. On me. It's hurting my pride to even admit it, but sometimes you just have to confess that it was a good get and give props to the "getter"

Last night we went to the Jon Schmidt Christmas concert. During intermission a very tall man on our row walked past us to go into the lobby. As he was coming back, Ethan leaned over to me and said, "That's Mehmet Okur." That meant nothing to me, and when I asked who Mehmet Okur was he informed me that he was a Jazz player. No way. We were just three seats away from a Jazz player. Kind of a big deal, right? I immediately turned to my mom and dad and told them that the very tall man wearing designer jeans was a Jazz player. When my mom said that it couldn't be because the Jazz were playing in Atlanta tonight my dad quickly said that he hurt his knee and was on the injured list and didn't have to travel to away games with the team. Mom thought this was a great hook-up and told us that if she was on the Jazz she would want to get injured during Christmas time so that she could still go to concerts. My thoughts: when else in my life will I be sitting three seats away from Mehmet Okur? Never. I needed to take this situation seriously and while he was standing with his back turned towards us I pulled out my phone to snap a picture. Afraid of getting caught, I was only able to get a photo of his elbow. Despite the less than quality picture, I was still feeling somewhat successful until I heard both Ethan and my dad bust up laughing, feeling even more successful at this "major get" they had just completed. Yes, I had been "got" and was forced to hang my head in shame. I believed I was sitting next to a celebrity and even took a picture. Unfortunately it wasn't Mehmet Okur. It was just a regular tall man with nothing famous about him. In my defense though, he was really tall and may as well have been a professional basketball player. Well played, Ethan and Dad, well played.

You Know it's Cold When...

• You look like Randy walking to campus
• The nice boy in the ward you have never talked to offers you a ride to school and there is zero hesitation. In .02 seconds you are sitting in the front seat. Any awkwardness is completely worth it.
• You are faced with the 'winter-time dilemma': you have 20 pounds of layers on when walking to school and by the time you maneuver around the overheated building and finally arrive in your classroom and have the chance to take off your coat, scarf, gloves, and hat you are sweating like a dog in a Chinese restaurant.
• Your jeans freeze almost solid and make it painful to walk.
• Your leg hairs begin to grow at an alarming rate.
• Icicles are formed on the inside of your roommates car.
• After being outside for several minutes your nose hairs freeze. Try sniffing when this happens, it's one of my favorite strangest sensations.
• The thermometer reads 1 degree.

The Revival of Chivalry

This morning I woke up and was stumbling into the bathroom to take a shower when I heard voices. No, not the kind of voices that crazy people hear in their heads. These were real voices and it sounded like they were coming from just outside my front door. I hesitantly walked to the door, stood on my tip-toes, and peeked out the peep hole. What did I see? Several inches of snow and several guys in the ward shoveling our walks. My heart melted just a little. Nothing gets me quite like good, old-fashioned chivalry. I think I was maybe born in the wrong era, because when I watch movies like Pride and Prejudice it makes me wish I lived in a time when men respected women the way Mr. Darcy respects Elizabeth Bennett. Sure, it's a little extreme for the man to stand up every time a women enters or exits a room, but a toned down version of that would be nice. It's unfortunate that in today's world a man can't open a door for a woman without the fear of her becoming offended. Obviously I can open a door by myself. I can do a lot of things by myself, but the simple acts of courtesy from a man to a woman are appreciated. Call me old-fashioned, but I get a little offended if the boy doesn't open the door for me. When he helps me with my coat, pulls my chair out, or offers to carry something heavy for me it is not implying that he thinks I'm incapable of performing the acts myself, rather that he has some respect for me. And so today when I saw the boys in my ward going from apartment to apartment, shoveling the snow for all 80 girls in the ward, it gave me a little hope. Perhaps chivalry isn't dead after all. If it is, perhaps the men in the BYU 84th ward are doing their best to revive it. Here's to the resurgence of chivalry and gentlemanly acts of courtesy and respect.

Farewell Carlos y Espanol

Isn't it weird how emotionally attached you can become to fictional characters? Almost every time I read a book I for some reason think that the characters are my best friends and that I know everything about their lives and they know everything about mine. I have to contstantly remind myself that they are fictional and have no idea that I exist or that I am reading their story. They don't even know they have a story, I think. Nevertheless, I become attached. Weird, I know. When the characters in my favorite book, The Book Thief died, I felt like a family member had just passed on. I cried hard. No, I wept hard. Tears streamed down my face, snot ran out of my nose, and I was hyperventalating/gasping for air. It was that kind of weeping. I think I used an entire role of toilet paper to wipe away the combination of tears and mucus. I am slightly embarrassed by the way I reacted to reading that novel, but I justified it by the fact that it is incredible literature with excellent character development that I had invested hours into reading. I've decided that it's okay to get emotional in books. Books being the key word.

Remember Carlos? He is my friend from spanish 101 and 102. In each of the 18 chapters I have studied through out the two semesters, Carlos has had 3-4 'escenas' in each chapter. Each escena is about one page long of dialouge between Carlos, his relatives in Mexico and his girlfriend, Patricia. These dialogues are put in the Spanish 101 and 102 packet purely to engrain spanish vocabulary into our venacular with the ultimate goal of us becoming fluent spanish speakers. They do not include Carlos in the packet in hopes of us becoming emotionally attached to him and his family. He is not a real person. He doesn't have any character development or intelligent conversations. And yet, he somehow managed to get a hold of my heartstrings.

This week I have my final chapter test in spanish. Unfortunately, Carlos's story ends in 102; he doesn't continue on to 105 or 106. Today, I sat in the library and read the last 'escena' in the packet. The story ended by Carlos boarding the plane to head back home to Argentina, saying a heartfelt and emotional goodbye to his realatives and Patricia. And thats the end of Carlos.

Now, I understand that it was acceptable for me to weep while reading The Book Theif and really any other novel for that matter. But when I got the lump in my throat when Carlos boarded the plane, I just couldn't justify it. I had to mentally tell myself to cut it out, I would not allow myself to cry over a Spanish lesson. I could not. I have to admit that I am very sad to see Carlos's story come to an end. He has been such a major part of my life for the past two semesters. But cry over him, I could not. But because Carlos doesn't continue on to 105, neither can I. My Spanish career is quickly coming to a close; it's been a good ride. Adios Carlos. Adios Espanol. I promise to continue practicing with mi hermano.

A Classic Thanksgiving

A couple years ago we had Thanksgiving dinner with my mom's side of the family. Because there were over thirty people present, we had to split up into different tables. One table was for the kids under 10, another table was for the adults and one special table was for the teenagers. The nine cousins that I shared the table with are some of my best friends; we have the ability to laugh together for hours on end and this occurs nearly every time we are together; we were thrilled to find out we had our very own table. We were the first to take our seats, all physically and mentally prepared to inhale the pounds of delicious food that stood only an arm length away, tempting us mercilessly. As soon as the prayer had been offered and the amens were uttered we began to indulge. Our plates were piled high and succulent food covered every square inch of the plate in front of us. We were tremendously focused on the goal at hand: clear the plate and load up again. The table was silent; the only sound that could be heard was the clinking of the gold fork against the porcelain plate and an occasional blunt and panicked, "Pass the potatoes" (or rolls, turkey, stuffing, gravy, yams, green bean casserole, etc.) as if the mentioned food would be spoiled shortly and we had a set time limit to get the food safely stored in our stomachs. The laughter and quality conversation that usually exists when we are in each others presence was absent, instead we stuffed our faces. After we each had seconds, thirds, even fourths for some we began unbuttoning our pants to allow room for our stomachs to expand. We glanced over at the adult's table just to the right of ours: they were all fully engaged in conversation and still only beginning to make a dent in their first helping of the feast. While they had been focused on enjoying the company of family, the food had been the focal point at our table. And the fact that we had cleared our plates three times before everyone else even filled their plates for the second time confirmed that fact. We soon made our way into the family room where we collapsed from overeating. Some fell onto the couches, others lay spread eagle on the carpeted floor. Then we stared at each other. It hurt to breathe. It hurt to talk. It hurt to laugh. So we lay in silence, doing our best to avoid breathing any more than absolutely necessary to remain alive. Every now and then, someone would begin to laugh at the situation at hand, after all we had just eaten enough food to feed an entire third-world country and were now laying like a colony of dead logs on our grandparents floor. One laugh caused everyone else to start laughing which quickly turned into moaning. If it didn't hurt so bad to shift positions we would have thrown a pillow at the first laugher that inflicted so much pain on the rest of us. Instead we uttered a, "Stop laughing, it hurts!" and went back to laying in silence. Three hours later our parents informed us that it was time to leave, ushered us into the car, drove the 20 minutes home and watched "Miracle on 34th Street," our annual Thanksgiving night movie.

When I think Thanksgiving, my mind is flooded with this memory, it's a classic. I hope I experience a little déjà vu tomorrow and have another excellent Thanksgiving Day. I kind of can't wait.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Strike a Pose

Today as I was walking home from campus I passed in front of the HRCB just as a group of six professionals were exiting the building. They must have been involved in some important meeting or conference because they were all dressed in formal business attire: well tailored suits and panty hoes with high heels. Each one of the six people were of a different nationality each with their own unique accent. One woman appeared to be a Scandinavian, one man had an English accent, one man was from an African nation, another woman represented Russia, they referred to one man as "Mexico" and another one seemed to be of Asian descent. Just as I was passing by, the Scandinavian woman asked me if I would mind taking a picture for them. I readily agreed and she gave me her iPhone to snap the picture with. Seconds later I was handed two more iPhones from the English and African men. As I snapped three photos in a row and began returning the expensive devices, the six very professional looking and businesslike men and women asked me if I could take just one more. This time a "funny picture." I said that I didn't mind and snapped one more photo as four men in shirts and ties and two women in business suits and high heels pulled faces and stroke (striked? struck?) poses similar to the ones that are made in the high school dance group pictures at Viewmont High. As soon as the camera clicked they each offered me a sincere thank you and I continued on my way. Walking home I thought about this event that had just occurred and tried to imagine my father and uncles and a few more of their associates leaving a meeting and asking a passerby to take a "funny picture." And I just couldn't imagine it happening.

It is comforting to know, however, that adults from various parts of the world, no matter how distinguished still feel a need and desire to be silly sometimes.