{PSA}

As some of you know, I am taking a class which allows me to do research with a Sociology professor, Professor Bert Burraston this semester. The study we are working on, along with dozens of others, is developing the program Real Victory which you can read more about here [http://www.realvictory.org/]. It's goal is to help juveniles who are in "the system" [juvenile correctional facilities, jail, probation, etc...] to get out of the system. The majority of what I do is to help fill out monthly report cards for juveniles who are participating in this study.

For this class I also have to work on a research paper. Another student and I are working together with our professor to write out this paper. Our goals are to have it presented at at least one sociological conference and also have it published in a scholarly journal. We reached our first goal!!! A couple weeks ago we worked out a title and abstract of our paper and submitted it to PSA [http://www.pacificsoc.org/] and we were accepted! The paper is titled The Role Familial Relationships Play in Recidivism.

This means that from March 10-13 we are planning on going to Seattle and presenting this research paper and it's findings at the Pacific Sociological Association Convention!!!!!! And by "we" I mean that I will be presenting this information. YAY!!!!

I'm pretty stoked.

Dr. Burraston is a GREAT professor to be working with, he is a highly regarded criminologist all across the USA. This project will be so great especially considering my emphasis on juvenile delinquency.

YAY!!!!

{Bored in the Library}

This is what happens when you stay in the library too long.....
Enjoy.



Then we used the whiteboard markers to draw on the window... sorry for the glare haha. These were just taken on my little phone...

{Snow}

This may not be a happy post. Proceed with caution.

I wish I could have a better attitude about the snow... I really do. I shouldn't be grumpy or complain about it. I'm "lucky" to have a white Christmas... I chose to come to BYU, I should just deal with it.
But I hate it.
During my first year of school for the first couple weeks I thought the snow was awesome! I was so giddy! I could wear scarfs and cute jackets and it was a good excuse to cuddle. It was "magical." That magic has quickly faded.
I dislike the cold, but I hate the snow. I could definitely deal with cold if it wasn't for the snow. The snow is wet, and it gets your feet wet, and your hair wet, and your ears wet, and it makes you colder. The streets are dangerous to drive on and to cross the street you have to jump over huge banks of snow that were scraped to the side. The ice is dangerous and a bruised tail bone and pride are inevitable.

I woke up Monday morning and found snow on the mountains... it looked like this:




On Tuesday the snow had worked itself all the way down the mountain and into the foothills. Last night/this morning we got our first snow. This is what I woke up to.


I'm trying not to be grumpy, I'm trying to stay happy. But I very strongly dislike the snow. I'm excited for Sean to graduate in April 2012 so that we move out of the snow.

{Easy Meal}

Ready for a quick, easy, delicious meal?

Here it is -

Mango Chicken [it even sounds exotic....]

Ok seriously - I had 40 min today to get dinner ready and I was thinking about doing umm... quesadillas or sandwiches or nachos or canned soup. Sad. But then I remembered we had some mangoes in the fridge from making mango sticky rice [which is another recipe which I will post soon which you all should make...] so I searched the internet for mango chicken.

Thousands of results.

I read over the first few and then just kinda winged it.

Here's what you do. [apologize for no measurements....I just dump and chuck]

-Cut boneless skinless chicken into bite sized cubes and throw in a pan of hot oil until they are browned.

-Drain the fat

-Add soy sauce - enough to coat all the chicken but they should NOT be swimming in it [remember, you can always add more later, but you can't take any away - start small]

- add some minced garlic cloves [we have this magical bottle from Costco of minced garlic that we keep in the fridge - LOVE IT!]

-Cover, reduce heat, and let it sit until the meat gets tender

-Next add slices of mango to it and let it sit covered for about 10 minutes.

-Serve over Jasmine Rice and BAM! delicious dinner in no time. [you can use white rice, but as I said earlier, jasmine rice is just better tasting...especially with asian-ish foods]

Seriously easy. Seriously delicious.

It would have been nice of me to take pictures of it I guess to inspire you to make it, but I just ate it up too fast and then packed away the leftovers for lunches this week. Too bad - you'll just have to trust me.

{English Project}

I'm in an English class right now - not my favorite, but endurable. We recently had to present a group project. My group was assigned the topic of poetry. The whole point o this project was to help the class "understand the section in a manner that might not be possible in a classroom atmosphere." So we decided to take the route of comparing early American poetry to it's modern equivalent, music lyrics.

We discussed 4 pairs of poems/lyrics. Here they are

"The Loneliness One dare not sound--" by Emily Dickinson

and

"Eleanor Rigby" by The Beatles

"To My Dear and Loving Husband" by Anne Bradstreet

and

"I Just Call You Mine" by Martina McBride

"Reluctance" by Robert Frost

and

"If You Leave Me Now" by Chicago

"The Road Not Taken" by Robert Frost

and

"What Might Have Been" by Jimmy Nail

{Pumpkins}

This Friday we carved pumpkins with our neighbors, the Selfs. It was awesome!! This was the first time Sean and I had been "creative" and did something besides 2 eyes, a nose, and a mouth. I found this round of pumpkin carving much more rewarding than usual!!

We used these tools...

process...

Kirra's awesome Frankenstein pumpkin!

Sean's Provo Starry Night

My Owl!!!

Sean's pumpkin of a man scared of Frankenstein

Sean & Kirra's

Sean and Heidi's

Ompha-ompha

My brother (Brenden) is BYU's top Tuba performer right now, so I've recieved some exposure to the surprisingly interesting world of tuba music - which, to clarify this post's title, is NOT just a bunch of ompha-ompha supporting base lines.

I had the wonderful chance to listen to a concert performed by Øystein Baadsvik, the world's only true full-time tuba soloist (ever), last night in a small auditorium on BYU campus. It was AMAZING!!!! The tuba, if played well, is a very powerful, touching instrument whose notes literally envelope the listener in a way that other smaller instruments simply cannot achieve.

Listen to this performance by Øystein Baadsvik (Listen at LEAST to the first 2 minutes of it - you won't regret it and you'll never think of the tuba the same). I love this recording because it's apparent that the audience is in shock to hear the tuba do what Oystein does with it - who would of thought that a tuba solo could get an audience of a concerto to be hooting, hollering, and foot-stomping?



Øystein said it well:"Are tuba players more lazy then other musicians? Do they have a genetic fear of sixteen notes? Don't they believe that it is possible to play anything else than ompha-ompha? No, I don't think that there is much difference between the mind of a clarinetist and a tuba player. They are both just trying to fulfill the expectations put on them. The difference is to be found in what we expect of them. No one expects more than long notes from a tuba player, a fairly simple baseline and a bombastic base-solo every now and then." (see the whole article here: http://www.brass-forum.co.uk/Articles/TubaTheLightInstrument.htm)

Here's a close up of the man:


He's pretty darn amazing - I highly recommend going to his performance tonight (it's FREE) or at next year's OcTUBAfest. The show tonight will be in the Madsen theater at BYU (in the HFAC) at 7:30.