Sad Statistic

I learned something yesterday. Only 5% of the US donates blood. How pathetic is that? I mean really--we can do better than that. I try donating regularly, but man, I have the wrong body for it. Half the time my iron count is low. And the other half of the time is a struggle for finding a good vein. For Christmas, can I have the veins for donating plasma? That would be a miracle.

Some other statistics for you:

• There are more $100 bills in Russia than in the US (This one's for you Sarah.)
• The number of possible ways of playing the first four moves per side in a game of chess is 318,979,564,000. (Mom's)
• More than 2500 left handed people are killed every year from using right handed products (Emily!)
• If you attempted to count to stars in a galaxy at a rate of one every second it would take around 3,000 years to count them all. (Melissa)
• 96% of people put the peanut butter on first when making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. (Nikki?)
• The Statue of Liberty is 151.1" tall and weighs 449,743 lbs. (Hope you saw the French connection, Dad!)

This brings me to another point. As the old sayings go, "Don't believe everything you hear," and "Take it with a grain of salt." I have this problem where I like to believe everything I hear. And I'm not sure what to do differently without going to the other extreme--not believing anything I hear. When someone quotes a general authority it has to be pretty outlandish before I'm going to dismiss it or look it up. When someone throws out a statistic I lap it up before I ever wonder how that data could have been collected. I guess I am just very willing to believe that most people know what they are talking about. I think I'm going to try and pay attention to this more.

I have an audience...

So the blog that I firmly decided not to tell my family about is being read by them all it seems. That's some recent news, for me anyway. I decided that I can't trust any of them to keep anything to themselves. The blog, a nice example. The video that Sarah and I made together, another. Now, on the other hand, if there is news to tell, they know how to keep their silence then. Of course, my own mother has nominated me as the daughter most likely to get married without informing anyone.

On a more interesting note, Nikki has finally come to UT! And Mom and Melissa are visiting! I was able to visit them this weekend and I'll see them tomorrow for lunch. Thinking about her coming to BYU I had been thinking back that my older sister was going to the same school, but I was reminded recently that my first term here Melissa was at home. So Nikki's first term will be different, but positive I hope. She's always positive so I'm not worried.

I'm sorry if you were expecting something more after months of silence....there it is.

About Me

I've been tagged. So I don't know exactly how this works, but here I go.

Favorite Animal: Um....I watched a documentary on Panda's once. It was cool.
Favorite food: Potatoes. Prepared in most every way.
Favorite Sport: I like playing basketball the most, and watching football.
Hobby: Hanging out w/friends, playing games, reading, being on the computer, and so on.
Favorite Movie: You've Got Mail?
Favorite board game: Taboo
Favorite store: Wal-Mart. It has everything!
Favorite subject at school: In grade school I liked math and science a lot.
Favorite Teacher: Ms. Valentine from 3rd grade.
Favorite icecream flavor: Chocolate
Favorite candy : Milky Way and Cadbury Cream Eggs

Well there it is. I would tag someone, but there's no one to tag.

My Day.

1. Went to school.
2. Went home.
3. Took a nap.
4. Watched American Idol/Hell's Kitchen.
5. Ate.
6. Got on the Computer.
7. Went to bed.

How uneventful. But did you see that nap? Yeah!

Pet Peeve #1

Okay. So I have a lot of pet peeves. I have a good farm of pet peeves, but here is one of them. It drives me crazy when the chorister or whoever is conducting the meeting decides that when time is running short to take out or sing the first verse only of the closing hymn. Absolutely crazy. Don't they think that we sing so many hymns for a reason? If they weren't an important part of the meeting they wouldn't be standard. Hymns are a form a worship that the entire congregation gets to take part in. But when Bro. Smith decides he needs to get up and bear his testimony at 10 min. after the hour when Bishop clearly said we'd be ending testimonies 5 min. after the hour (a different rant which I'll save for another day) and it's perfectly right to make time for him, why can't we take 3-4 more min and sing a full hymn?

Why at the end of RS do we give 5 minutes to the sisters for them to bear their testimonies, so that everyone can look awkwardly at each other while no one actually gets up, and have to skip the closing hymn? Most Relief Societies are already skipping the practice hymn in the first place. I can't understand why music in church is so neglected. We have conference talks on the importance of hymns and good music. No one would ever think it's appropriate to skip the closing prayer at sacrament meeting.

It wouldn't make me so upset if it was just that odd ward that I went to that did this. Or if it was just an odd week. But it's so consistent. Every 3 hour block that I've attended this year has had at least one song curtailed or removed altogether from the program. I hate it.

From the Teacher's POV

Megan had parent teacher conferences yesterday. They went pretty well. She has a student whose parents are deaf and they attended their first parent teacher conferences. So that's cool. One of her top students came in. With a push from her dad she tearfully admitted to adding some minutes to her reading log and forging her parents signature. Megan reports that she had to fight back her laughter. I can fully imagine this students fear of coming in and telling Megan this. I can imagine me having to do it when I was younger. And Megan just thinks it's the funniest thing, and really doesn't care about it at all. I like being on this side better.

Happy Groundhog Day!

I'm going to be a bridesmaid!  Guess for who--Beth.  Yeah, so I need to be planning a trip to Spokane, WA for late July.  She's asked me to start thinking about dresses. There is still a lot of time though.  So that's nice. 

I don't like my roommate at all. Ugh. So I don't see her a lot, but when I do, it's....painful. Right now I'm listening to her talk about Johnny Depp. "His one fault is that he's not tall enough. I prefer my guys to be taller." She is almost 30 and complaining about how she hasn't been on a date in so long, and then in the next breath scrutinizing her idol, Johnny.

When she's not talking about her dating woes she's talking about Jen and Mel. Oh my goodness. It's really rediculous. One night she came home crying and I asked her what's wrong. For the next four hours she told me her sob story about how her friend Mel left her and how Jen is sick of her. I invited her to eat dinner with me and Megan one night and we ended up sitting there for two hours while she retold me the whole story. She had 4 or 5 girls over from her ward in her bedroom for some meeting and I walked by and heard her telling them. I came out to the kitchen a couple of weeks ago and she was on the phone sharing the same story with him, too. I have another roommate who is much more patient, and she must have sat through the same story at least 5 times, for how many snippets I've heard. So Mel told my roommate that they couldn't be friends anymore TWO YEARS AGO! And Jen, their mutual friend doesn't spend as much time with her.

She wants drama in her life. She invites it. I don't. I would prefer a different roommate. More on her later maybe.

I've missed a lot, I know. So Christmas was good. It took me a couple of hours to make the 50 minute drive up to Grandmas because of holiday traffic (or something). I went to get on the freeway and for some reason which I still can't figure out, the entrance was closed. From both directions. Just to discover that and turn around took me an hour. So frustrating. But I got their on Christmas Eve. I really only wanted to stay until the day after Christmas, but Grandma expected me to stay much longer.

On Friday though, I went over to Aunt Shayla's family's home and played some games and stuff. Then I ended up staying the night at Eric and Shayla's. I didn't get too much sleep though. Around 4 AM one of my cousins came and asked if he could sleep with me, and I let him, though I never got back to sleep. I made some earrings with my aunt who taught me the basics of jewelery making and I really liked it. I'll have to post some pictures of some stuff I made. Anyway, and just as I was about to go back to grandma's, Erica called and asked if I wanted to hang out. I felt bad, but I really did want to so I hung out with her and her cousins who all planned out their ideal proposal.

I was going to stay the night, but decided I didn't want to make that phone call to Grandma and tell her that I was yet again going to delay my return, so I got back around midnight. After checking in with her I went to my room and was a little restless. My phone had been low on battery and I discovered that I hadn't packed my phone charger after all so I figured I would just sneak out of the house and go to my school in Lehi since their was a charger their. I was really quiet getting out of there--I left a note just in case my absence was discovered, but hoped to be back before she ever knew I left. The drive down was uneventful. I get to the school and I go to pull in. It had snowed a lot in the past couple of days, but I saw several sets of tracks in the snow leading to the front door and turned into the road. I didn't get far at all before I got stuck. So it's 1:30 AMish, my phone is dead (not that I had anyone to call), and I'm in a quiet family sort of neighborhood.

I figured their was not much else to do but wake someone up and ask for help. I couldn't stay the night. So I walked down the street and saw a house with the living room light on, and a bedroom light on. There was three or so cars parked outside and I really hoped that maybe they were having a get together that was going late into the night. I knocked on the door and a woman asked through the door, "Who is it?" And I told her that I needed help getting my car out of the snow. She was SO nice about it. Janelle, this lovely person, called her brother Joey down and we went out to my car. When we couldn't get push it out she called her fiance who had a truck and chain. Once he got there it was really easy. I want to do something nice for them all, but I'm not sure what I can do. But I'll have to thank them in some way.

I got home and I'm pretty sure grandma never knew anything. She never said anything at least. And that will have to be all for now. I'll highlight some more of my holiday later.