Thursday, August 30, 2007

Just Waiting Around

I am sitting here in 4188 of the JFSB on BYU campus videotaping a presentation on the new grammar quizzes being instituted next week for the English Composition courses. It seems almost like I am sitting here having a massive flashback from my English 322 class from last winter semester. Debbie Harrison is doing the presenting, and it just so happens that she was my instructor for that English class. Oddly enough, she is using the exact same examples from class, and perhaps I remember more than I thought I did.

It has been a bit of a crazy week ever since Holly got home from California on Sunday. Her mother is in town and her sister Julie has returned back to school as well. What that means since school hasn't started yet is lots of partying and lots of hanging around. I'm glad that I managed to get the house mostly cleaned up before they all got back into town. Hopefully we can make it through the week without anything too crazy happening. I don't think we'll have a problem for the most part.

Last night I finally saw Shrek 3, which turns out to not be quite as good as the first one, but I have not seen the second one, so maybe number three would make more sense for me if I had. It was a good movie, I had a few good laughs.

Friday, August 17, 2007

11 Days......

....until Holly comes home. She can come home today, I'd be okay with that.

Monday, August 13, 2007

Dinkin' Around

I am sitting here at work just trying to find a few ways to fill my time. I spent the entire afternoon and evening yesterday updating my Conquer Club tournaments and creating my Tournament website until I got to the point where there was nothing left for me to update. Now I have to research how to write HTML code and Javascript before I can do anything more for the website, and I have to wait a couple of days for the tournament games to be underway before updating. It is nice to have a day or two to work on some other things. A couple of the tournaments are almost done with play, so that is kind of cool as well.

I've been balancing the checkbook, posting on the blog, doing a little reading and trying to decide what I would like to do for lunch. I am thinking I might go get myself an 89 cent bean burrito from Taco Bell, but that may change.

Something I did discover today was an opportunity for a paid internship, $550 dollars per semester, to work for a Culture Guide program through the Kennedy Center here on campus. I'm not exactly sure if I qualify for the job this current semester, but I think after finishing my classes in the fall I would be able to apply in the wintertime. It's nothing extravagant, but would put a few extra dollars in the bank as well as get me some good experience here in town before looking for a full-time internship in the summer of 2009.

Holly and I just got called to be the new nursery teachers for the "younger" kids as Josh Whittaker put it when giving us the call. Holly is absolutely bubbling with excitement because she is in love with little kids. Me...well, I'm happy to have a calling that requires a little more than going to a meeting once every couple weeks, but at the same time, a little hesitant given the little kids. Don't get me wrong, I like little kids, especially teaching them to do things they shouldn't, but teaching them important things...well, we'll see I guess. It appears that I will be doing a little nursery shadowing in the next two weeks while Holly is out of town and then when she gets back we'll be getting set apart and put on the job.

Sunday, August 12, 2007

Time To Fill

Holly is leaving on a trip to California in a few days and she won't be home until the 27th of August, which leaves me with almost 2 full weeks of evenings and weekends to fill with projects and other things to keep myself as occupied as possible.

One such project that I have undertaken is the construction of a website which will allow me to conveniently gather all of my Conquer Club tournament information in one place where the players can go to see past results, find direct links to the current tournaments and see a list of upcoming tournaments that includes dates when they are expected to be announced. In the end, it is not a necessity for me to have this website, but I can use Google Pages to create it and it costs me absolutely nothing to do. The other upside is that if I can get it up and running in the next couple of months it will provide me with an effective platform to practice my new skills that I will be learning in my CHUM classes over the next few semesters.

Luckily for me, Russell, is able to answer the occasional question on how to get something to work the way I want it to.

My other projects for while Holly is gone include finishing the office here at home, which I made a significant amount of progress on yesterday and the day before, staying up to date on my current Conquer Club tournaments, spending a little bit of time with Shawn, who I haven't had the chance to go and just "hang out" with in several months, perhaps go see a movie, finish any small unpacking projects from the move two months ago, and try to review a little bit before my new classes start in three weeks. There are several of them that will start a little more smoothly if I can refresh my memory of the material from last semester before the first day of class.

Right now as I type this entry, I am trying to decide what I should include in the new blog: Yahtzee Sucks, which is a blog dedicated solely to stories revolving around the community at the Conquer Club site. It will be linked through my new website, hopefully to create a little bit of buzz amongst the players and a motivation to me to find interesting things to write about.

Wednesday, August 8, 2007

Homemade Churros

I have had some homemade churros twice in the last three days, and both times they were absolutely delicious. Shelley bought me a churro mix for my birthday back in May, and Holly found a free moment to make me some recently. They were delicious all around and we really enjoyed eating them up as a late night snack. I think churro mix will be a regular thing in our household over the span of my life, but we'll see.

The Conquer Club tournaments are going well these days, and some of them are even finishing faster than I had originally thought they would. I'm not going to complain about that at all. I have restrained myself from announcing any new tournaments lately just to make sure I don't get in too far over my head with school approaching quickly in three weeks time. I have developed the ideas for several more though and have them waiting in the wings for when the time is right.

Life in general is treating me well over the past week or two. I have had a little bit of trouble sleeping at night but it is starting to improve a bit. I chalk it up to my usual cycle that comes around every couple of months where I just don't sleep as well as normal. I have no idea what causes it, but it happens and it doesn't cause me much in the way of grief of inconvenience. Holly and I also have spent the last two days being extremely productive and busy around the house getting things cleaned up and put away and scrubbed really well.