Weekend of Craziness!

So I've been working at this preschool for the past month and I finally went to pick up my paycheck yesterday and I was relieved that it was enough for me to put most of it in the bank! I told the bank ladies that I'd be back soon with more money because this weekend was going to be very busy! I'm babysitting, catering a wedding open house, and babysitting some more! I can't wait for Monday morning when I can go to the bank and deposit more money into my very small bank account.

I've been saving up trying to pay for school myself this next semester. I found a number of a woman that might need a summertime nanny, and I think I'd be perfect for the job! I have a car, an imagination and tons of experience! I just need to figure out if I want to take classes during the summer or not. I don't know.

Learning is fun!

Even though I am taking this spring semester off to work and just live, I still like to learn new things. I stopped by the library today and picked up a couple of books on Sign Language! I have always wanted to learn it, but have never really felt that I had time to spare! But now, I think I'm ready to try it out! So I'll immerse myself in non-verbal communication for the next few days and see how it works out!

I wish I had a friend close by who could help me learn, because it's always more fun to learn something new if you have a friend backing you up. But I think I'll have fun anyway. I've learnt songs and the alphabet before in sign language, so I hope it'll be easier than not.

Anyway, wish me luck in my new endeavor! Hopefully, I'll expand my horizons and gain new confidence in my learning abilities! Yay!

Busy busy busy!

So I'm taking the semester off because I'm just tired of school.

I've decided to just work until the next (summer) semester comes along. So far, I have a few things lined up. They're not exactly 9-5, but they're good. I'll be house sitting and dog sitting for a friend, catering a certain event, cleaning a house, and babysitting! What can I say? I'm a woman of many talents!

Also- Basketball season has started! Well, Church Ball has started. I've been practicing with my girls since November and on the 9th of January, all our hard work totally paid off! We won a game against another ward by 40 points! Congrats, girls! I'm so super proud of all of you!

Now I just hope that Saturday's game goes just as well. It's against a group who has a track record of being good at basketball. I told the girls before the first game that I didn't care if they won or not, as long as they had fun. The same thing stands here. I just want everyone to have a nice, clean game and have fun playing!

I've heard there's a group that has been playing a little rough, and I don't want my girls playing against that, but I guess we'll just stay positive and hope to have more of the older girls there just in case. Not that the younger girls on my team can't hold their own, they're just smaller and easier to knock over. Hehe. But they're adorable.

Anyway, I digress.

Wish me and my team of church basketballers luck! I'll come back later and blog something cool.

Also- GO! DO! HELP! It's so easy to help, it really really is. And Haiti really needs it right now.

http://airwalk.com/doingyourpart/

http://www.musicforrelief.org/

100 things?

What 100 things do you want to do with the life you have to live?

I've made a list of 50 so far.

I've been thinking more about doing things lately.

Maybe it has to do with this being a brand new decade, full of possibilities and opportunities.

There is a new show coming to MTV* called The Buried Life. You might've seen the commercials for it. It follows 4 guys with a list of 100 things to do. They want to prove that anything is possible if you go after it.

I also had a lesson recently in Sunday School about doing things. I was handed a list that counted to 100 and asked to fill in at least the first five things. That was hard. But the other night, things just started coming to me.

Looking at the list on theburiedlife.com now, I can see that, surprisingly, a lot of the same things are on both my half-list and their whole one. Trust me when I say I never intended for that to happen. I swear I'm not copying. But I see a good 25 or so that I had on my list that they've written on theirs. I also see a few that I'll be adding when I finish up the second half of my list. I've always wanted to take a kid on a shopping spree for toys, but I've never put it in words.

A good number of the things on my list have to do with learning. I want to learn an instrument, I want to learn different languages, and I would love to learn the names of ALL of my cousins. Another majority of things have to do with doing physical things. I want to learn how to surf. Which, weirdly enough, is the exact thing (Out of all the extreme sports, what a coincidence!) on their list. I also want to climb a mountian. I'm not surprised at all that it's on their list as well. I think some of these things are ones that a lot of people would put on their list.

I find it interesting that certain things are different goals, but accomplished through the same means. For example, on their list, they have put "ride a rollar coaster". On my list, I have "conquer my fear of rollar coasters". Different goals, but they will both be checked off through riding rollar coasters.

I like how different people care about accomplishing different goals. For instance, I don't suppose the guys on The Buried Life would care to hug a penguin (#42, I think, on my list), but would love to get into the Guiness Book of World Records; something that I really don't care about doing.

So what crazy, random, or completely normal things are on your list?


*side note on MTV- Why don't they show Music Videos anymore? Why has the Music TeleVision channel turned into reality tv central? I wish they would to back to how they were back in the day. I still remember my first MTV video. Do you remember yours? I hate what MTV has allowed itself to become. It tries making new channels devoted to music, but ends up turning them into the same ridiculous circus act that the other channels have become. PLAY MORE MUSIC VIDEOS!! I think the last time I saw a music video on MTV was like, three years ago? Geez. Do yourself a favor, MTV, and get back to the basics!

Medical *S-coooool!

So I though I'd share with you all today my new favorite series. It is actually one of my old favorites as well, but with a new twist.

"Scrubs" has just kicked off their new season and has made it into a sort of spinoff. The new season, Season 9, has been dubbed "Scrubs: Med School". Now, I felt while watching the original "Scrubs" seasons, that it borrowed a lot of elements from Samuel Shem's classic "The House Of God" . I think that this, among other reasons, is why most people claim that "Scrubs" is the most accurate TV portrayal of hospital life out there. I love the show because there aren't one-in-a-million super rare diseases that have to be found every episode, or diseases that get mis-diagnosed five times before the real cause of the problem is found thanks to an epiphany by the main character. I also love it because of moments like these:

Priceless, no?

Now, the new season is just as hilarious and has many of the same hilarious stars as the original seasons! The new stars who play the first year medical students are amazing. Kerry Bishe's character is brilliant! There's no way to describe how funny this season is so far. You'll just have to follow this link to watch for yourself.

But I have a question. Is the new season as true in it's representation of medical school as the past seasons have been in their representation of life in a hospital? I'd like to think they're still trying to be as accurate as possible in their portrayal of these sorts of things, but I'm not the best judge, seeing as I am still trudging through undergrad as if it were molasses.

So to those of you who have both seen the new season's premire episodes and have been through medical school, I'd love to know how they're doing! Are they as accurate as they were with the original seasons or are they slipping? Are they doing a horrible job in their interpretation or are they pretty spot on? Any and all opinions are welcome. Especially if you are of the opinion that my hair is pretty much amazing today, because I would totally have to agree.



*Juuuuust a quick little side-note here, I've known how to spell "School" since 1st grade. The title is supposed to represent how the show "Scrubs" is putting the "cool" back in "school". It's a little pronunciation joke. Nothing to do with spelling. Which I am awesome at. Just ask my 4th and 5th grade spelling bee 1st place ribbons. They have the number 1 and bees on them, so they're pretty much as legit as it gets.

Christmas time is here.

And so is Finals Week! This week is going to be killer. I seriously am NOT looking forward to the finals this week. I have so much work that's been piling up in the last month and I'm just soooo frustrated with all of it. I wish school would just go away.

Also, there's a dance coming up next weekend. It's kind of a church dance, but they're saying that it's a little more formal and there will be a dinner before-hand. They're also saying "Dates are encouraged, but not required". That's pretty much like saying "Bring a date, or you will feel really awkward". And it's not like high school prom, where I REALLY REALLY didn't want to go. Mostly because I have never really seen the point of prom. It's just "Hey, buy a really expensive dress that you'll only wear once and then put it in the closet to never be seen again so that you can impress all of these people that you'll never see again!" No thanks, high school prom, you can keep your shallow, material sentiments. I don't need them. But I do sort of want to go to this December dance. Just a bit. And maybe I just need to do something and the dance is all that is available to project my boredom solutions on, I don't know, all I do know is that I will probably end up not going for one reason or another.

Anyway, this is just a random brain dump, so feel free to ignore.

Not the best of times, not the worst of times.

Don't you hate when things happen that not only inconvenience you, but anyone who is involved?

Today, I found out that my bank lost a check. It's not their fault. Technically, they sent the check to a collections service or something and THEY lost it. But the bank, naturally, has to deal with the inconvenient consequences (ie: telling me, working out a way to fix it, etc.).

Now, my bank has been extremely helpful to me in the past, and I understand that this sort of thing happens. I also understand that these people are trying to do the best they can to work out a solution and help me to straighten all of this out.

Their solution so far has been: E-mail the person who issued the check and see if they can issue another one. Either that, or see if they can wire the money directly to my bank account.

So this situation is inconvenient. Not only is it inconvenient for me (who doesn't have the money I expected to have before the Thanksgiving Holidays), but it is also inconvenient for the issuer of the check (who has to worry about the lost check and where in the world it might be and decide whether to send another one or to deal with the situation in another way), and for the bank employees who have to deal with who sent the check when and where it was sent and who put it where.

I think part of dealing with situations like this in a civil manner is understanding that there is not only one person inconvenienced by the situation at hand. It would be easy for one party or another to get frustrated with the outcome of a failed transaction and to start throwing blame one way or another. But I think that throwing blame is a good way to get nothing accomplished.

I mean, yes, I am frustrated with the amount of time it took to deal with all of this. The check was sent one day (with a little delay and unexpected inconvenience on that end, but that's alright), received one week later, given to the bank the day it was received, and was supposed to take 30 business days (no weekends or holidays) to be deposited into my account. So I have been waiting on this money for the better part of 2 months to find now that it's all for naught.

But being frustrated gets you nowhere fast.

I'd like, now, to quote 13-year-old me's favorite movie The Mummy. And trust me, I could recite that movie. My favorite quote from that movie is when the desert people are attacking Brendan Frasier's ship as it's on it's way to the lost city. Brendan Frasier is telling Rachel Weiz to jump overboard, and he's getting impatient. "Patience is a virtue!" she reminds him. "Not right now it isn't!" he tells her as he picks her up and throws her off of the burning ship.

Bottom line = There is no burning ship here. I can wait. I don't have to go overboard.*

*And oh my gosh, didn't that just turn out to be the best analogy ever? I just made it up, seriously, right on the spot! Man oh man! I done good!

Update- Everything seems to be fine now. The situation was handled quickly now that we've turned to the internet to help us. Haha! I am so thankful (hey, it's thanksgiving, right?) for the cooperation and professionalism that has been shown by everyone involved. It's moments like these that help me to appreciate being a "grown up" (yuck! I can't believe I just typed that!).

I'm a big kid now!