Internship

As you may or may not know, I started a new internship for this summer. I am officially a Quality Assurance Intern with the LDS church. That means I get to try and find problems in all the new websites the church is producing these days. There are going to be a few new ones coming out in the next couple of months. It is pretty cool, for once I get to work on something that people have actually heard of, like LDS.org.

Actually the best perk so far is the fact that I now have a "super admin" account for the stake and ward websites. That means I can edit any stake or ward website in the whole world. Oh the power!

On the down side, I have to get up at a quarter to six every morning, and I spend around 3 hours a day on a bus going between Provo and SLC. I'm pretty tired by the time I get home in the evening. I plan on doing a lot of reading this summer, and luckily I got a little netbook for graduation. I will get some good use from that.

Twitter?

I got curious about twitter and created an account.

http://twitter.com/hndsoff8

Here is some info about twitter.

My Favorite Albums

I got this idea from a facebook application... you know, those things that everyone hates.  Anyways, the application gives you a bunch of different categories in which you can choose your 5 favorites.  One of these categories is "favorite albums".  I filled mine out and then decided that I wouldn't be satisfied choosing just 5.  That seemed too few.

In making my list I considered a few criteria.  The first of these factors that I considered I will refer to as "completeness".  This means that if I were forced to listen to the entire album I wouldn't find myself fighting the urge to skip a significan number of the songs.  The album needs to be consistently good.  Second, I considered how "influential" the albums were in my life.  If an album had left a lasting impression on me, enough to be remembered years later, it would be more likely to make the list.  Finally, I decided it would be smart to exclude compilation albums.  "Best of" cd's that pulled from many different albums would not be considered.

So here they are, my top 10.

1. Danse Macabre - The Faint

2. Weezer (Blue Album) - Weezer

3. Bleed American - Jimmy Eat World

4. Plans - Death Cab for Cutie

5. Deja Entendu - Brand New

6. Hybrid Theory - Linkin Park

7. Wet From Birth - The Faint

8. You're A Woman, I'm a Machine - Death From Above 1979

9. Infest - Papa Roach

10. Darkest Days - Stabbing Westward

Some Updates... in Bullet Format

Sorry we have been such slackers in the blogging world. We always say we will get better, but that doesn't usually happen. Here are some things we have been up to lately.

• I had a birthday and turned 23 years old. We ate pesto pasta, opened gifts, and Landon took me to a ballet on campus. Debbie (Landon's mom) was in town and ate lunch with us and had a sleep over with us. It was a great day!
• Both of Landon's parents have visited. It is always fun to have family in town. My mom and my sister and fam are coming this week as well.
• We have had lots of parties lately! This weekend we had some of Landon's Florida friends over for games and treats. We also had a Y-Be-Fit party with all my friends from work. After everyone left at about 9 our house was so quiet. We decided it was too quiet and invited Marcie and Kathryn over to play games with us.
  
• At the end of the semester I am going to do my thesis proposal... that is the plan anyway. I have a lot of work to do in the next month!
• We have a new favorite game store. You can rent games for a fee and the amount spent (up to $5) goes toward a game to purchase. Killer Bunnies is our favorite right now, thanks to Gameboard Revolution.
• We hung up wedding pictures in our front room... finally!

That is all I can think of right now. Stay tuned to a more exciting post, maybe even with pictures.

Good Fortune

Last weekend I got a letter from BYU Graduate Studies informing me that I had been accepted to a master's program. To celebrate Katherine and I went to the grocery store and got a pair of Jones cream sodas. It is good cream soda, and we like the fortunes under the cap. Both of our fortunes were good this time, considering the event we were celebrating.

Here is mine:

Here is Katherine's:

Both were true!

Update: I just posted a photo submission on the Jones Soda website. Check it out and vote for me!

Cinnamon Santas (because that is what I'm eating right now)

It really is amazing how small decisions can lead to experiences you never thought would happen to you. Walking home from school today, I became aware of this concept in my own life. Looking back to when I was a freshman at BYU, I never would have imagined that I would be where I am right now. Let me explain my realization.

Background

During my sophomore year of college, I learned about an opportunity with study abroad to go to Namibia, a country near South Africa, for the summer of 2006. I have always wanted to go to Africa and this sounded like the perfect experience. There was only one problem, I had missed the deadline to apply. I talked to the director of the program and he let me know that he had room for one more if I wanted the spot. After talking with my parents and thinking about it on my own, I eventually decided not to do it. It was extremely hard for me to pass on the opportunity.

As a result, I went home to Boise for the summer and worked. In July of that summer, I received an email about an internship at Y-Be-Fit. I decided to go ahead and apply since I needed an internship for major requirements. I did not expect to get the internship because I would only be a junior, but felt it was a good way to get my foot in the door. To my surprise, I got the internship for that fall semester.

While working at Y-Be-Fit, I got to know two graduate students who became my mentors. One day one of them asked if I had ever thought about going to grad school. I told him, "no," which was the honest truth. I never felt that grad school was for me. My goal was always to finish undergrad and be done for good.

Fast Foward to Today...

I'm now a Co-Director at Y-Be-Fit, I'm in grad school, and I just found out today that my committee chair was awarded with $20,000 to use for my study that I'm really excited about. Actually obtaining a master's degree now seems attainable.

Reflection

• Had I gone on study abroad, I would have completely missed the email about the internship. Or even if I had received the email, applying would have been out of the question because I would have had to work fall semester instead of going to school (to pay my parents back for the trip and to earn money for future tuition).
  
• If I hadn't gone to school in the fall and gotten the internship at Y-Be-Fit, I wouldn't have met Nate and Joel who were extremely influential in my decision to apply for grad school.
  
• In addition, had I not gone to school in the fall, I wouldn't have had some majorly painful experiences that eventually led me to date my husband.
  
• Without the support of my husband, I would not be in grad school. He could have easily encouraged me to start working instead.

And now here I am, with nothing to complain about. Sure, things don't always go well for me on a day to day basis. But I feel so grateful for the experiences I'm having and that I'm where I should be right now. And one day my husband will go with me to Africa.

That is all. Sorry if I wasted your time.

Just Some Movies

We love to watch movies, so I just thought I would share a few of our most recent movie watching experiences.

1. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

This is one of the few movies we have seen in the movie theater lately. Since I discovered Netflix we haven't had much reason to get out to the theater, but my work gave me a couple of free passes so we decided to give this one a chance. I thought it was a great movie. It was a little bit sad and had quite a bit of lovin' in it, but it really made you think about things. I can honestly say that I felt uplifted after seeing it, it made me appreciate life a bit more.

2. The Graduate

We watched this one just last night. I ordered it from an online edited movie store, which is now going out of business. This is one of the top rated movies on IMDB and I felt that I needed to check it out. For those not familiar with the movie, it is one of Dustin Hoffman's first films. In it he is a recent college graduate who gets involved in an affair with an older, married woman only to later fall in love with her daughter. It was full of awkward moments, which I think made it a lot of fun. The final scene is a classic.

3. The Witches

This one is pretty goofy. It is based on the book by Roald Dahl, so you would hope it would be decent. It was full of really ugly bald women and muppet talking mice. Also, how about Angelica Houston doing some wierd undulations.

4. The Nativity Story

We watched this one as a good Sunday activity. It is a pretty well done representation of the events leading up to and including Christ's birth. The girl that plays Mary is the star of Whale Rider, for which she was nominated for an Oscar.

5. The Gods Must Be Crazy

I got this one from Netflix, and had a really hard time convincing Katherine to watch it with me. She did not think it sounded like much, but guess what... she loved it! She thought it was so funny, and I am sure she would recommend it to anyone looking for a good laugh.