Sundance

Saturday I finally experienced some more of the “You have to do this before you leave Provo” traditions: the tumbling gym and the Sundance Film Festival.

The tumbling gym was great. I don’t have any pictures of it, but I had a blast.  I did my first backflip (into a pit of foam and I didn’t even get all the way around so it doesn’t really count).  My favorite was the two trampolines for “experienced jumpers.”  I am not an experienced jumper, but I did the cheater way once to get used to it, and then spent about 75% of my time there after that.

There is one station where you can tackle a friend into a huge pit.  Some girl was holding the pillow mat thing and her friend (who looked like he could be on a football team) ran as fast as he possibly could and smashed so hard into her.  As he was running down the mat, I could feel myself and everyone watching cringe and the smack as he hit her was scary sounding.  It took her about 5 minutes to get out of the pit, as she was so far under and head first down there.  And she was laughing too hard, which was good, because we thought she was crying at first.

Saturday night we went to the Sundance Film Festival.  This is a picture of Main Street in Park City.  We got awesome parking- only had to walk two blocks to get there.

We said we were going for celebrity hunting, but knew we probably wouldn’t actually see any celebrities.  Some guys “Stanky something” gave us a demo cd.  We listened to it on the way home and it was pretty weird rap stuff, but we did enjoy listening to one song “Salt Lake Girls.”

We mostly just walked up and down the street and went into some random shops.

I had to get a picture with my Canada gloves.

   

This limo was sitting here almost the entire time we were there, but there was no one special in it.  We took this picture anyway, in case we wanted to tell anyone that we saw a celebrity. 

I had no idea who Banksy was before this picture.  One of the festival people was nice enough to take a picture of all four of us.  The other girl is Jodi, an awesome girl from their ward.  Apparently Banksy does really interesting street art around the world and it’s pretty controversial, or at least makes a statement. 

Banksy on the Palestine Wall.

No one has any idea who he is though.  Most of his art is done in England, but this is one of his tags.

Biking for my life

Matt and I just biked eleven mile to Spanish Fork High School for Jamie’s game.

ELEVEN MILES

I think that may be the longest bike ride I’ve ever done, which is kind of sad, but probably true.

And I’m going to the tumbling gym tomorrow.

My body is going to be in a lot of pain on Sunday.

32 miles down: 118 to go!

He’s back!

The first day of Personality Theory had some excellent moments that seemed to anticipate a very amusing semester.

Some quotes from my teacher:

“I’m struck by how lame the disciples were.”

“I love beer. I think beer is awesome. I haven’t had a beer in 18 years!”

But the best was this kid in the back.  He made a comment fifteen times the first day of this 75 minute class.  It’s a class of about 40, so it’s not like it was a huge auditorium, but still, that’s an outrageous amounts of comments. 

My very favorite part though, was on the 11th comment, he prefaced his comment by saying:

“Sorry I didn’t raise my hand in awhile, but…”

What?? I couldn’t hold it in, and burst out in silent laughter with Michelle for the rest of the class.

Anyway, Michelle and I were excited to keep a tally of all his comments during the semester.  But the next class he didn’t show up.  How disappointing.  I thought that I had forgotten what he looked like, and he just decided not to make so many comments, but over the next two weeks, I had to conclude that he was no longer in the class.

Until today.  The top corner of my paper today looks like this:

He’s back!!! 

Yes! So glad that this boy is back in the class after a ridiculously long absence.  We’ve missed your comments, dear friend, although maybe not for the most pure of reasons.

(Note: I can’t really talk though.  This role is usually me.  I have a great ability to zone out and then hear silence in the class and be able to search back in my memory to figure out what I should say.  It has saved me from many a teacher hating me.  However, I don’t think I’ve ever made more than 50% of the comments in the class. The beginning of this video is me. Well, mostly the line about answering while the rest of the class zones out.)

Run For Your Life

I despise running.  It’s because I’m not good at it, because if I were good at it, I think I would probably actually love it.

And I’m not good at it because I don’t care enough to be good at it.  A character flaw, I know.  Why can’t I be like Heber J. Grant, and be crazy determined? 

Anyway, Matt and Jamie have convinced me to do Run For Your Life.  Why am I listening to them?  3 reasons:

1. I want an intramural shirt.
2. I want to get better at running.
3. I have no excuse not to.

Except for the excuse that I am a terrible runner. 

This video accurately describes my running ability.  I am a mix of the dandy and the flightless bird.  Mostly the dandy.  Who wants to run when you look like that? 

The best thing about running is that you don’t see anyone consistently while in the process.  That way, when I stop running after 4 blocks, no one will know that I haven’t just ran 4 miles.  In fact, as I am tall and skinny and look like I could be a runner, they probably assume that I’ve been running great distances when really my house is practically still in sight (one of the reasons I rarely run in a straight line even though Provo is dominated by the grid system). 

The only reason I finally consented (because in actuality, reason #3 above wouldn’t really stop me from not doing it) is because I can count the times I walk to campus.  And since I refuse to be on campus any minute longer than I need to, I usually end up walking up to campus several times a day. 

And I’ll take whatever I can get, because there is no way I could run the entire 150 miles.

So I went on a 3 miles walk today with Elder Maxwell and it was great.  I also climbed onto a train and see my favorite house in Provo.  Maybe this won’t be so bad after all!

18 miles down: 132 to go!

Easily Influenced

Many years ago, my sister Kara introduced Uncle Orson Scott Card’s reviews online.  I fell in love.  As I am already  a super easily influenced person, it wasn’t so hard for me to latch onto his opinions and take them as my own.

An example: When I first watched Gwyneth Paltrow’s Emma, I didn’t particularly enjoy it, but I felt like I should because I loved Jane Austen.  However, when I tried to read the book afterwards, I found Emma to be dull and non-relatable, and I couldn’t even get halfway through the book.  Later I saw it on OSC’s list of movies he despises even though critics loved them.  Thank goodness, I thought, maybe it wasn’t such a bad story after all.

Years later I saw the 2009 BBC version and loved it.  Not only was the movie captivating, I sat down to read the book and I not only finished it, Emma became one of my very favorite Jane Austen books.

Upon reading his review of it, I was further justified.

“How in the world do you make a good film out of a story in which the leading character is so amazingly and consistently stupid? The key is to understand that she is not stupid at all, merely young and hopelessly trapped in a life that no sane person would choose. She is only pretending to be content, and her life is spent flailing about for something -- anything -- to occupy her attention and give her purpose.

Neither Gwyneth Paltrow nor director Douglas McGrath had even an iota of understanding of the character of Emma. Paltrow played only two things: social class and English accent. Beyond that, her character was merely pretty. And McGrath made it plain that he understood none of the motivations that would make Emma likeable and worth caring about…

[Seeing the 2009 version] is like having the best literature teacher in the world explain a difficult novel and so turn it into one of your favorite stories. Those of you who hated reading Emma: I can't disagree with you, the book is that hard to love, but I urge you to watch this film version and judge again.”

Or how about homework? 

“It's homework season once again, and I grieve for our children, whose hours of freedom and creativity, whose time with their parents and siblings and friends, are stolen by the mindless machinery of our ignorant education system.”

And his essay on Snape? One of his best essays ever.  He called everything out before the 7th book.  One of the greatest regrets in my life was not thinking Snape was innocent…

“My own prediction is that Snape will reveal himself to be as loyal to Dumbledore as Harry Potter himself; in fact, I go farther, and offer the thought that Rowling will have Snape give his life in the process of helping Harry Potter prevail in the final battle…”

Anyway, so I read his reviews all the time, and generally they become my opinions as well.  Call it weakness of character, call it my lack of critical thinking.  Or maybe he’s just always right!  ;)

No one really ever called me out on it until Kate and Kaitlan.  It’s become somewhat of a joke between us.  They always tease me about “oh but what does Orson Scott Card say about it?”  Or maybe their just trying to hide the fact that they’re jealous that I always share such great opinions.  :)

Hence this Facebook post.  Kaitlan went to see SH2 last night. Notice her snarky response.

The Unveiling

Jamie and Matt found out the gender of their child!  They found out on Monday, but didn’t even tell anyone that they had found out, but I overheard Matt tell his mom that they knew the gender.  I convinced them to have the unveiling party that night, since the next time they could get everyone together wouldn’t be until Sunday and I wanted to know really badly. 

They were easily persuaded.  The only thing that held them back a little bit was that they hadn’t told Mom yet, and because of the time difference, she would pretty much be the last to know.

They dyed my tongue with food coloring to tell me, so that Matt and I could go buy some decorations while Jamie made some cupcakes.  The plan was to put a gumball in the middle of the cupcake so that when people bit into it, the gumball would reveal the gender.

 

Everyone was instructed to wear the color that they thought the baby would be.  Jenny and Mei Ling wore blue, Kristen wore black (??) and I wore pink.

 

The gumball mechanism worked!  Here’s an extremely attractive picture of Jame with her genderfull baby.

Did you get that?  Could you tell?  That’s right, Jamie and Matt are having a baby girl!

Can’t wait to make that CD of daddy-daughter country songs for Matt.  I have so many of them- they get me every time.

And you know what else that means… I was right!  And so were Matt and Jamie, since both of them thought it would be a girl too.  :)

 

Can’t wait to have three nieces within 8 months of each other.  I really need to get going or all my babies aren’t going to have any kids their age!

MLK Day

MLK Day is always a service day at BYU. Luckily I didn’t have to go to the super early devotional because Kaitlan was in charge of one of the areas so I could go strait to the place.

We got to paint tiles with mentally handicap adults.  I guess the school system can’t provide anything after the age of 21, so this program is in place so these adults have a place to go everyday.

They were really sweet.  This is Anna, who Kaitlan got to paint with.

 

Me and two other people who just loved each other so much helped Larry, who loved BYU football. He’s fairly certain that BYU will win the superbowl.  :) In this photo, we were supposed to be making a “Rise and Shout” face.

Our friends Adam, Chase, and Josh with Heidi.

It was great fun. There was also another boy, Ryan, who gave everyone he met a nickname. I was “Serious by Colors,” Kaitlan was
“Can’t We Try,” Chase got “Maneater," and some other good ones were “My Best Friend’s Wedding,” “Shake Shake Shake Your Booty,” and “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door.”  I am so grateful for people who make these sorts of programs happen.

On the way home, we stopped and “hiked” the I.  Bet even you
BYU-Ites haven’t done that!  :)

“Why eat healthy and exercise when you can just look like you do?”

 

 

“This commercial isn't real, neither are society's standards of beauty.” _Jesse Rosten

Genetics

Lorelai is naughty.

Jonathan is LOUD.

Sometimes genes skip a generation.

Christmas Break

My choices for Christmas this year were:

1. Go to Seattle with Jamie and Matt’s family

2. Go to Boston with Callie and Andrew’s family

3. Go to England with my parents, Kara, Jonathan and Lorelai

4. Stay in Utah

All options had their pros and cons. In the end, I decided to bite the bullet and go to London, severely depleting my monetary resources.

I’m glad I did. I had a great time, even if jet lag was a major bummer and left me very sleep deprived on the majority of days there. I absolutely love those kids though. But I won’t let this turn into a “my niece or nephew is better than yours post.”

Since most people who read this blog also read my mom’s or my sister’s blog, they know all the exciting things we did over break, so I won’t waste your time except for a few pictures.

I think.