Friday, February 29, 2008

Movies For One And All

Last night the JRCLSSA had their monthly girls night, and it was my turn to host with a good friend. I am not a good host, to say the very least. I get really nervous when a lot of people listen to me at one time and I hate being the center of attention. So of course when I was talking, I was babbling like and idiot and making asinine comments when I would be talking like a normal human being if I was talking to just one person. Anyway, everything seemed to go fine. Sarah and I decided to do our night on Movies, so we picked out some of our favorites and had everyone email their favorite movie quotes and it worked out pretty well. We had a nice mix of some fun contemporary movies and old favorites. My contribution was a mix of old stuff. I love old movies, old musicals and whatnot. The dialogue in old movies seem to me so much better because they couldn’t rely on special movie effects and people were always breaking out into spontaneous dance routines (yes I know “spontaneous dance routines” is contradictory which is why it’s usually pretty funny). I got a chance to talk a little bit about some of my favorite movies last night, and while I’m sure people just thought I was a little crazy, they had the chance to humor me for a little while and I would be thrilled if someone sat down and watched one of those movies on my recommendation. It was a fun night.

Wednesday, February 20, 2008

Let's See How Much He Really Wants To Be A Lawyer

As Chris is getting ready to finish his law school experience, he’s finding that getting out of law school seems to be a lot harder than getting in. Sure, in order to get into law school he had to take the LSAT exam and send in applications to good schools and maybe write an essay or two for those applications. But in order to call himself a lawyer, to use those three little letters at the end of his name, Esq. (not that he cares about that sort of thing, I’m just using that as an example of the little he receives after all the work he’s put in), he has to do everything but sign away the rights to our first born son. Of course he has to finish his final semester and get the diploma (he doesn’t want to attend graduation). After he’s finished with finals and graduation, however, he has to take another class to learn how to pass the Bar Exam, a grueling 2 or 3 day mind numbing horror of a test that over half the people who take in California fail (okay, so the Utah Bar pass rate is higher, but I’m going for effect here, experience the horror with me people). For the price of the class that Chris is taking before the bar, we could have taken a nice vacation, or put a nice down payment on a car, or paid our rent for a couple of months. After he’s finished the class, of course comes the Bar itself. But you can't just walk into the examination room and say “hey, can I take this test?”. Oh no, you have to send in an application that needs a background check, fingerprints, a passport type photo, driving records for the last three years, lawyer recommendations, peer recommendations, a urine sample, a blood sample, a lock of hair, the location of your childhood baseball card collection, and your signature to a paper stating that you haven’t sold your soul to the devil yet but he can have it for the right price after the test, and it all has to be notarized. Okay, okay, some of that is made up, but you get my point. The background check alone was enough to disturb the peace of our little family. Chris looked at the Bar application a month and a half before it was due, which should have been enough time, right? Wrong. Chris looked into it and apparently the background check can take up to 20 weeks to get back. 20 weeks! That means that an applicant would have to look at the application 5 months before turning in the application! Also, the application has to be turned in four or five months before you can take the exam, so really, you have to be getting ready to take the bar a good 9 months before you can take it. When Chris read that, he panicked a little bit because without the background check, they will not allow you to take the test, period. No excuses, no exceptions. Luckily the FBI is having a bit of a slow month because Chris got his background check back in a mere three weeks after doing everything he could to get it expedited. Chris is waiting on just one more letter of recommendation and his driving record and then after paying somewhere around $500 for the actual test, he can hold his head high as he walks into the test that everyone dreads for three years of law school. Hopefully he passes the first time because he has to wait 6 months before he can take it again, but if he does pass it, what a relief. Then he’s a lawyer.

Friday, February 15, 2008

The Smallest Things Can Lead To Thoughts On Religion

Every once in a while, I’ll read a book that causes me to think seriously over my own thoughts on religion, though the book is not something that I picked up for spiritual education purposes. I’m a little ashamed to say that I haven’t read many books just for the edification of my spiritual well being. My reading has been focused in another direction and I’m not ashamed of the books I have read, just the lack of time I’ve spent on books that should demand some of my attention. However, I don’t feel that my time has been wasted or that my testimony has been neglected because I’ve been reading classics. On the contrary, I’ve found that I’ve spent a lot of time pondering over what the gospel teaches and what I believe in due to some of these books. Some of the books have been pretty religious in and of themselves, though not LDS books, like Siddhartha and The Screw Tape Letters. It would have been very hard for me to read the story of Siddhartha, the story of the man trying to find his own religious path, and not think about the things that I’ve believed and done in my own life to have the peace of mind and the knowledge of God that I do; and of course The Screw Tape Letters has so many ideas that correspond with the LDS religion that it’s hard to believe that C. S. Lewis wasn’t a Mormon. There are also books that are not overtly religious that lead me to the realization that I am truly blessed to have the gospel in my life. At the moment, I’m reading The Razors Edge by Somerset Maugham. The religious aspects of this book are fluttering around the edges of the story at the moment, and may take a bigger role in the story later, but up to where I am in the book the author has made one or two small comments that have stopped my reading short and have brought me to the contemplation of how grateful I am that I have a knowledge of the gospel and the truth of things that many people are searching for.

Thursday, February 14, 2008

But Baby It's Cold Outside

Chris and I have been pondering what to do with the week off school he gets for Spring Break. I have enough time off to take the week off work so we decided to go somewhere. Some friends of ours are going to Orlando and we had the option of going with them. Chris has a brother doing an internship in the Virgin Islands, so we could have decided to go there. Both those options were fine by me, I’m always up for going somewhere warm and sunny. After all, his spring break is the first week in March, a time where it’s still pretty cold and a time when we’re trying to recover from the effects of the bleakest month of the year. I hate February, it’s cold, usually overcast and if not the days are still pretty short so you don’t see the sun as much, and there’s nothing to look forward to in February. It’s only redeeming quality is that it’s short. But all this is beside the point. The point is that Chris and I, instead of deciding to go somewhere where we could shake off the effects of the cold, decided to go to Toronto. That’s right, we’re leaving for a week to go somewhere even colder! I hate being cold, and everyone who knows me knows I hate being cold, including Chris, so this should be an interesting trip. Don’t get me wrong, I’m excited to be going to Canada. It will be a first for both of us and I’m sure we’ll have a great time. Chris’ dad went on his mission to Toronto, so it holds more interest for us than it might have otherwise. I just wanted to point out the irony of leaving for spring break to go to Canada where spring probably won't arrive for another three months. Also, a little later in March, we are going to the Virgin Islands, so I suppose everything evens out.

Tuesday, February 5, 2008

The Curse Of The Rear-Ender

So I think that I must be cursed. I got rear-ended today on the way to work. This in and of itself is nothing to panic about, I wasn’t hurt, just a little shaken up, and the damage to the car was minimal compared to the three other cars involved. This can hardly constitute as a curse, right? I would agree if this was the first time, but this is the third time that I’ve been rear ended, the second time in our car that we bought just over a year ago! I was rear-ended three days before I met Chris (actually, I think that that accident was a part of the reason Chris and I got together in a weird sort of way). Then we were hit from behind on our way home from Church a month after we bought the car. It was snowy and the roads were slippery. Finally, I was hit today. I think that there must be magnets attached to me somewhere or a sign that says “Hit this car! Hit it hard, hit it often!” None of the accidents were my fault, but I think that there must be some sort of reason why accidents are following me around looking for the opportune moment. I think the only explanation is a curse. Someone hexed me, probably for cutting them off in traffic.

Friday, February 1, 2008

A Return To A Past Subject

Some of you may have noticed the glaring absence of posts about my hockey team on this blog. For all my claiming to be a hockey fan, perhaps more of this blog should have been devoted to the play of that sport. Not So! Some of you may remember my impassioned plea to my sisters to stop praying for my team to lose because they were in dead last place. Well, things have improved dramatically since then, so dramatically, in fact, that I was afraid of them redoubling their efforts when they heard how well our team has been doing since then. They are now in contention for first place in their division and are steadily moving up the ranks in the rest of the conference! Let me tell you a little bit about what has been happening with out team. On Thanksgiving Day, they fired their coach (I’m sure that the chants of “fire Hanlon!” from the crowd had something to do with that). Since then our team has been on fire! Their young superstar has the most goals out of everyone in the entire NHL. Their rookie was named the NHL rookie of the month for December and was the first rookie ever to post 4 points in consecutive games. Another player who has been playing on the minor league team but came to the NHL recently is one of the top 40 players in number of shots blocked and he’s only played in half the games that the other top 40 have. One of our young defensemen has the most goals out of all defensemen. They swept the number one team in the east, winning all four games. And last, but not least, the Caps have won us free wings! (one of the sponsors of the caps, a restaurant, have a promotion where if the Caps score 6 or more points in a home game, anyone who has a ticket can take it in and get some free buffalo wings. The caps did it once before the turnaround of the team, but it was a Saturday night, and Sunday isn’t the day for us to be getting buffalo wings. The second time they did it, however, was a Wednesday and those Thursday wings were good!) Also, Chris and I were able to go to the Caps meet the team party which is held every year for season ticket holders. It’s kind of neat to see all the players close up (they’re much bigger in person than they appear from our seats and on tv) and get autographs and everything, plus this year they gave us free tee-shirts and snacks and it was at the party that they announced that they had signed their superstar for 13 years. But don’t worry Jeaneah and Jenn, the playoffs (should we happen to make it that far) will be over in time for our trip!