Let me preface this blog by saying that I love BYU. I love going here and the stellar education that I have received. It's a great school. GREAT.
Now....sometimes the people at BYU are a very interesting sort of people. Let me explain.
Every Wednesday in the Daily Universe [our school newspaper], there is a section entitled "Police Beat." It is a section where they summarize the phone calls that the BYU police receive for that week. I look forward to the police beat every week. It is so amazing how special *stupid* some people can be. BYU does not have the biggest "criminal record" and has been voted top "stone-cold sober" school year year after year. The honor code on campus does a good job of preventing any sort of behavior which would normally make it into a police beat, so we get ridiculous things reported on our police beat.
Here are my favorites from today:
"Police received a report of individuals crossing North Campus Drive wearing garbage bags. They were taking pictures. No crime was committed."
"A resident of Wyview Park reported a suspicious male knocking on her door. She was able to get a license plate number and discovered the vehicle belonged to the BYU paint shop. The man had a work order to do a paint job."
"A Wyview resident reported a suspicious pickup in the Wyview parking lot. It ended up being three people visiting in the vehicle."
Really?
Ok - here are some of the best ones over the past 10 years.
"Sept. 12, 2008: A custodian reported screaming near the MCKB at 4 a.m. The screams were later discovered to have come from a female student sprayed by a sidewalk sprinkler."
"Sept. 19, 2006: An individual reported male students singing to female students outside of Hinckley Hall in Helaman Halls. PoThe males were advised to leave due to complaints."
"July 4, 2009: An owl was found in the former president’s home. An officer communicated with the owl and it left." *How did the officer communicate with an owl!?!? this is amazing.*
"Oct. 23, 2006: An assault was reported in R Hall of Deseret Towers. One male student threw a bug on another male student, who retaliated by spraying shaving cream on the male who threw the bug. Shaving cream got in the eyes of the first student and the argument quickly escalated and became a physical confrontation."
"Jan. 22, 2002: A man was reported leaving the bookstore carrying a gun. When the officer located the male they found he was carrying a chrome toy pistol. When the officer asked the 22-year-old male student why he was carrying the gun, he said his roommate told him it would get chicks. The officers cautioned the male on carrying or simulating a weapon before he was released."
This past weekend was General Conference for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. I love General Conference. Love love love love love it.
I remember being younger and thinking, "Really? I'm required to stay awake and listen to 8 hours worth of church meetings this weekend?" and now I'm thinking "Really? It's over already? Done? No! Can't we just continue this next weekend?"
I feel so blessed to be able to hear from living prophets and apostles in these times. We can read the words of prophets past and gone in the scriptures which is amazing but it's also astounding how we are still provided with that guidance of a prophet on the earth today.
Their words were full of hope and love and instructions on how to draw closer to our Heavenly Father. General Conference just gets me pumped up about life and a renewed resolve to be a better person. My perspective on life shifts back to where it's supposed to be. I remember what's important and what's not. I love it.
Other things I love about Conference Weekend - spending the whole weekend in my pajamas cuddling with my husband being spiritually fed on the words of God while also being physically fed on home-made biscuits and gravy :)
Was it planned? Yes!! It took us longer than we wanted to get pregnant but we couldn't be more thrilled! Timing actually worked out better than we could have hoped!
When did you find out? End of January
How far along are you? 14 weeks as of Saturday
When's the due date? September 25 - but babies rarely ever come on their due date so we're just thinking of it as "End of September"
What's the gender? No idea yet
When do you find out the gender? At 20 weeks so about the middle of May
Are you going to find out? YES!! I cannot wait!
Have you heard the heartbeat? Yes. On Friday we had our appointment where we heard the heartbeat for the first time and it was awesome! It was 160 bpm - It was crazy how fast it was!
Have you been sick? Not too bad - It's been a fairly easy pregnancy and now that I'm out of my first trimester I really can't complain at all! I only had a couple terribly sick days in the first trimester but I was mostly just tired.
Have you started to show? Yes and No. I can for sure tell a difference but no one else really can.
Any weird cravings? Not really - I'm mostly just really picky. I usually make Sean list 6 different things that I could eat for dinner and then I pick one of those.
Is this the first grandbaby? Yes - on both sides! We're pretty excited :)
Do you have names picked out? Yes, some - but I'm not going to post them here because y'all might steal them!!
That's it for now! Let me know if there's more.....
Thanks, everybody, for all your warm wishes! It's so fun to share good news and to have everyone be so excited with us :)
Remember in elementary school when you had word problems for homework?
Example: If Amy had 4 apples and then gave Tom 2 apples how many apples does Amy have left?
The answer is 2 apples. Not too bad, right?
Well, because you are a faithful blog reader, you get to do a special little word problem for me. Are you ready? This one is a little bit tricky....or not :)
Here it goes [it's a lot longer than the example given earlier, so it's a lot of things to keep track of sooo ... good luck!]:
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If Heidi has been extra sleepy for the last couple weeks...
and
If Heidi has been having a harder time than normal getting out of bed...
and
If Heidi was nauseous a few weeks ago but is feeling better...
and
If Heidi has been eating crackers nearly everyday....
and
If Heidi has been craving lettuce and cottage cheese...
and
If Heidi has been wearing slightly bigger shirts and hoodies...
and
If Heidi has been taking more frequent trips to the little girls room...
and
If the Husband has been sweeter than ever...
and
If the Husband has been waiting on Heidi hand and foot...
and
If the Husband has had to put up with a lot more crazy emotions...
and
If Heidi and the Husband have a list of our favorite names....
THEN
What do they have?
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If you said "A BUN IN THE OVEN!" or "A STORK IS GOING TO VISIT THE HOUSE!" or "PREGGERS!" or "A BABY!" then you are 100% correct.
Good job on the word problem! See, it wasn't as tricky as you probably, thought, right??
Oh yeah, I am currently 14 weeks along and the little one is coming around the last week of September :)
Hello Friends... I feel like I have been absent for a while on this blog - oh wait, that's because I have been.
I promised you a run down of my PSA experience and I almost didn't write it at all. I figured it was too far past gone and that no one would even care any more....Well, thank goodness I talked myself out of that one. I really don't care if no one else reads it, but it was a great experience and I need to write it down for myself and you all are more than welcome to read it :) [PS - I completely forgot my camera and therefore have no awesome pictures of things that I saw, did. Bummer.]
Most of the students who went to the conference [probably between 20-30 students] carpooled up in vans that BYU provided. Not me, sorry. I was not going to go on a road trip in a crowded van with people I didn't know especially when I'm prone to car sickness - yup. So I flew.
Thursday I arrived in Seattle around noon on Thursday and Sean's Grandparents picked me up from the airport. They took me out to lunch and then dropped me off at my hotel. We went out to eat at this fab restaurant called Red Fin and I had seafood pad thai - amazing. [I love love love good food] It was so great to see them and be able to spend a part of the afternoon with them. We don't get to see them much so I was glad I was able to see them.
I stayed at the Sheraton in down town Seattle [It was so nice!] where the conference was being held. I had to wait for one of the program directors from my school to check me into my room and she was out and about running one of the sessions at the conference so I sat in the lobby and used that time to work on my presentation and other homework that I needed to get down. After a couple hours I figured I better find her before she would run out for the evening and I would never get into my room. After some investigation and some amazing coincidences [aka blessings] I ran into her, registered for the conference, and was able to get checked into my room.
My roommates had not yet arrived [vans...] so I went out on the town on my own. It was pretty cold and windy but not unbearable. I walked up and down streets and decided to eat at a little burrito place. It was delicious. It was so fun to people watch there! What a great variety :)
After dinner I decided to do some shopping [of course.....I mean, there was an H&M right across the street from my hotel!! I love that place!!!!]. I realized it was getting late after a couple of cat calls and whistles and I realized that it probably was not the smartest thing for me to be wandering the city by myself at that hour, so I went back to the hotel.
I got in my pjs an worked on my presentation, worked on other homework, and planned out the remainder of my weekend. At registration I got a huge pamphlet with what sessions would be going on at what times so I could map out what I wanted to do [For most of you, I'm sure that attending a sociological conference listening to people's current research projects would not be on the top of your list for exciting, well, it was for me!!] It was awesome.
The conference was held in about 15 different rooms at any one time and in each room a different session [about 1.5 hrs] was taking place covering a different topic. These topics ranged from Race in the media to how to deter crime to adoption to women's issues and the list goes on and on [literally, for pages....]. In each session between 3-5 researchers would go up and present their research and afterwards they would have a question and answer opportunity. It was great.
Friday
I woke up early [early enough for the 8:30 session!!! points to me...] the next morning to go to the conference. I got all dressed up in my professional looking clothes, grabbed my badge [official, no?] and bag [filled with my notebook, the conference program, and of course, snacks] and headed to the conference [Might I add that I looked very grown up and professional?]. It was great! I jumped between rooms and attended the sessions until about noon. It was fabulous. I learned many new great things [but I will not bore you with those at this current moment].
After that, I stopped back at my hotel room, freshened up and went out on the town to find some lunch. I went down to Pike's Place Market and spent all afternoon there. AWESOME. It was great. I had a delicious lunch and some random place and then got dessert at a Russian Bakery. I tried all of the samples [fresh fruit, dried fruit, nuts, cheese, jerky, fresh salmon... everything] and had a great time. I just wish that the husband was there cause that just makes everything better.
I got back to my hotel in time to see that some of my roommates were heading out to dinner and invited me along. There were a couple professors and a couple students and it was great. We went out to this fabulous Thai restaurant [I love good food and have recently fallen head over heels for Thai - if you have never had Thai food it is now your assignment to look up a Thai restaurant in your area and go this weekend. Provo people Thai Mango or Bangkok Grill are great choices :) ] and ate family style. Delicious. Salmon Curry, Pumpkin Curry, a couple of different noodle dishes...yum. And then of course top it off with mango and sticky rice for dessert [those of you that are going out for Thai this weekend it is imperative that you get this dessert - crucial.] Yum.
After dinner a couple of us stopped by H&M before heading back to the hotel. Yes, I did stop again. No, I will not tell you if I bought something there for a second day in a row [but any of you that know me I'm sure you can guess...] Then it was bedtime.
Saturday
I slept in a little bit that morning but my roommates were all up early because they had to present at 8:30 that morning. I wanted to go see them, but I did not want to fight for the shower, so I took my sweet time that morning. When I was ready for the day and about to head out to find some food for breakfast my roommates came back and we went out to go get some breakfast. Turns out we went to Pike's Place again and just snacked on the samples. Remember before when I said I tried all the samples, well, I didn't mean literally all the samples, but now I do. We stopped at every booth and tried everything. We stopped at every jam booth and tried every different kind of jam that they had. We stopped at every jerky booth and tried every different kind of jerky. It was awesome.
At that point our group kinda split up and I spent the rest of the day with one other student. She's an older student [Married, 3 teenage kids...] that I've had in a couple of my classes before but never spent time with. She was great. All my plans about going to the conference that afternoon were smashed - but I was quite alright by that. I was entranced with the city and I had a great time. We stopped at some point for lunch at a fabulous little corner cafe and got a delicious salad and sandwich.
That afternoon we stopped by the hotel so I could meet with my professor to go over our presentation for the next morning. It was a brief meeting and afterwards we walked down the street to meet up with other BYU folks to watch the basketball game at a sports grill. That was a sad game.
After the game I went out with the same student I hung out with earlier in the day and did some more running around the town picking up souvenirs for her kids. It was great. After a couple hours we were tired and decided that we should grab some dinner [at 9:30 at night....not healthy, but awesome]. We went to the Cheesecake Factory and split a big ol' pasta plate. Delish. Then bedtime.
Middle of the Night
This night was daylight savings time and I was terrified I was going to miss my presentation at 8:30 [or 7:30] in the morning and I did not sleep at well. My phone is supposed to automatically change but I was so nervous that it wouldn't and that my alarm wouldn't go off at the right time in the morning that I woke up every 30 minutes to an hour to check my phone's time vs the hotel's clock's time. No sleep. My phone did [as it was supposed to] change times and my fretting was worthless. Oh well.
Sunday
So I woke up on time, got dressed in my professional get-up, and pulled one of these in front of my mirror [no, I did not stand on the counter, I was too tall]:
I went to my presentation room and got my powerpoint presentation all set up and was informed by our session director [who is actually a current professor of mine] informed me that I would present first.
It went great. At first I was nervous and shaky but that got over relatively quickly. I felt I was clear and articulate [not always the case] and delievered everything that I needed to. I then turned the time over to my professor to finish up presenting the statistical analysis that he ran. Once I sat down and the next presentation started I had those thoughts that you get right after you bear your testimony in church where you think of all the things that you didn't say. Luckily, during the Q&A afterwards many of the questions were directed at our presentation and I was able to say everything that I wanted to and felt much much better about the entire presentation. It was great.
[there wasn't a whole ton of people at the presentation because it was 8:30 {7:30!!} on a Sunday morning, the last day of the conference, and we were competing with 14 other sessions going on at once. There were probably a total of 15- 20 people there, but they were very engaged]
After my presentation I went up and packed up my things. Grandma & Grandpa McQuay picked me up at my hotel, took me out for lunch again [jambalaya!!] and then to the airport to finally arrive at home.
It was a great experience. It was very educational, a great experience, and helped me feel like my college education and the skills that I gained during the past 3 years were actually worth something. I did research on an important topic and found new, interesting things. It was great. I was so glad that I had the opportunity to go and that I took advantage of that. I wish I got involved in research earlier in my college career because it was such a rewarding experience.
I ravenously read the first two Hunger Games books nearly a year ago, but it took me forever to pick up the last of the trilogy: Mockingjay. Not sure why the delay, but it happened.
Finished it in a week, wrapping it up last Friday. Loved it.
The series is about a sad, dystopian future of America where one city, named Capitol, rules and has 12 districts that serve as slave-states to support Capitol's people's lavish life styles. The books follows a teenage girl as she unwittingly becomes the face of the Districts' rebellion against Capitol.
It's a fast-paced, impossible-to-put-down series that I strongly recommend to anyone who can stomach a lot of fairly gory scenes. The book was written for young adults (Suzanne Collins, the author, is a screenwriter for Nickelodeon) but involves a number of mature themes throughout as the main character is placed into many compromising situations that make her grow up faster than any child should need to.
This last book was by far my favorite of the series. The previous two were fast paced, but the story line was fairly sparse as each book was consumed by "The Hunger Games" (I'll let you figure out for yourself what those are). Definitely fun reads, but not life-changing or truly moving. Mockingjay, the third book in the series, takes on a much more mature tone. I'd love to explain why, but that'd give the book (and the series) away, and I'm not up to do that.
Suffice it to say, that the ending nearly made me cry. Mrs. Collins was able to utilize a good (but by no means astounding in the literature world) YA plot-line and make some very bold statements about human psychology, pain, grief, self-torment, suicide, and not least of all: love.
I loved it. I'm planning on reading the book again in the near future just to read the ending again. It was powerful - something I was not expecting from the Hunger Games.
I remember during my freshman year of college (2005-2006) a time when I didn't get any emails. None. I'd check my email at least once a day, often times more, and I was consistently and frequently disappointed. Those were the days before I used the Archive function in gmail, so I could see huge gaps in the dates between the emails I had received.
Then one day, it dawned on me: I wasn't getting any emails because I wasn't sending any out myself.
It's a simple principle and but realizing that has made a difference - in a lot of areas of my life, not just in filling up my inbox.
I send out a lot of emails now-a-days.
PS - the word "e-mail" officially got changed to "email" last week. Nerd fact of the day.
