Christmas with the Cardenas Clan

Despite the fact that Christmas has come and gone, I'm going to tell you a little about mine.  Enjoy.  Also, disclaimer, this is a little long so if you have things in the oven or on the stove, cat needing brushing, socks that need washing, go do that.  I think you'll probably find it more satisfying anyways.  What's better than warm socks?

That time of year has come and gone again where families around the world get together and celebrate the holiday of Christmas.  Trees are decorated, houses are lit (with lights, not fire), and gifts are exchanged and promptly returned and exchanged for something else since you overheard that Susan wouldn't be caught dead in that tacky pink dress.  But you thought it was a pretty dress you tell Susan.

"If anyone gave me that dress, I'd set it on fire in front of them and then I'd set that person on fire.  So who'd you get for Secret Santa?"

Damn you Susan...

Anyways, I digress.  One more thing that people usually gather around is the decoration of gingerbread houses.  My family goes along with this tradition and decorates a gingerbread house, but somewhere a few years ago this tradition went a little off track and we added some of that Cardenas Flair.  Now, I'm going to give you some examples of a traditional gingerbread house that I just pulled off a Google image search:




I think I heard some "Ahhhhh"s and some "Adorbs!" from a couple of you (you know who you are).  These are cute little houses  with fun decorations that just scream Christmas. Listen...CHRISTMAS!  See?  Normal house.

As I said before, the Cardenas gingerbread house took a turn for the different some years before.  I can't recall the exact reason it changed, possibly due to modeling after some Calvin and Hobbes ideas, or just because we thought it would be fun, but either way, it is what it is.

Now when I show friends and others our gingerbread house, they respond appropriately with the "Ahhhhh"s and the "That's a cute hou--!" Then they start to look closer.

Here I present to you the Cardenas Gingerbread House of Horror with commentary:

Here we come to the front of the house where we happen upon a happy pirate/evil Communist genius.  Communist due to the fact I watch too many old James Bond movies and he has a glowing green eye.  Anywho, he is urging on the gummy bears to attack those poor marshmallow people who never had a chance.  Then we added some holiday cheer by covering it in sugar sprinkles!

 Here we have a marshmallow man trying to escape from the carnage that is going on behind him.  Did he make it?  We'll never know

Off to the left, we can see a happy marsh--oh wait, he's decapitated, there's his body.

In the back, we have our oblivious giant gingerbread man who is just taking it in.  Poor guy.  On the tree is also an angry pink guy, what he's doing there, I'm not sure.  Maybe he's a bird.



Next is the back of our house, with a beautiful gingerbread man's head decorating the entryway.  The decorator told us it would add more retail value to the house.

As we round the corner we find an alien chasing down some marshmallow men, one who appears to be laughing.  I bet it's because he's the only one who got away.

Next is the roof.  Up here we find the house decorated with brightly colored candy balls which add some nice texture to the house.  Also, there's an alien with a leg in his mouth and a poor man who apparently fell to pieces.

Upon the chimney who do we find? Santa!  Just kidding, it's another alien.  Got you, didn't I?  He has just recently gotten that gingerbread man who's leg is in the previous aliens mouth.

Looking underneath the awning of our house we find one man who had some sort of accident that left him blown to pieces up here *points to head*.  I wonder where that ended up...

Oh there it is!  Splattered all over the concrete and shingles!  I do have to say that these deep ruby red does wonders for the color scheme of the house.

Moving on, we come to the train station next door.  Why anyone would live right next door to a train station is beyond me.  Maybe that's why the house was so cheap, if only they knew...

Our train has apparently just pulled straight out of hell and is being commandeered by an evil man with a mustache.  If you have a curly mustache and a black hat, you're automatically evil, deal with it.  A tribal head is placed perfectly in the center of the train creating a nice balance as it runs over a poor pink man who wasn't fast enough to step out of the way.

Or as I learned from drivers ed, he must have not looked before crossing train tracks.  Silent killers those trains out of hell are.

Here is a larger picture of our hell-sent train.  Leaning on it you can see a giant snowman who has so fashionably used a peppermint as a stylish belt. FABULOUS *hand flip*

Up on the top you can see the real conductor with a nice green hat.  I would be that happy too if I got to drive the party train from hell.

If we come in a littler closer, here we find the result of some experiment: The gummy bear centipede.  He enjoys long walks on the beach, sipping pinot grigio, cooking waffles at 5am, and discussing the benefits of drinking acai juice.  He's also enjoys devouring gummy bears and adding them to himself.  Hard to believe he's still single.

Being tugged along in the caboose of the train is a marshmallow dragon cow.  Often thought to be a ferocious creature, the dragon cow is docile and grows his own bonsai trees.  He puts hours of care into each one and has consecutively won the award of "Feng Shuist Tree on The Block" award for five years.

I'm just assuming that guy ate a lemon.  Probably his eternal punishment for having a marshmallow hand.

And last, but certainly not least, we have our interracial confused snowman.  I think this needs no other explanation than to look near his bottom.









So there you have it, a Cardenas family tradition.  Like I've said before, we all have our family traditions.  Mine just might be a bit stranger than yours, but that's what family is all about isn't it?  A place where a bunch of weirdies can get together and even if they judge one another, they're still connect by genetics.  If you're adopted, then I guess you're out of luck, you guys all get what I mean though.

A couple more things to add some holiday cheer to your day, Cardenas Quotes (not as many as last time, this is just from sheer memory):

"Get up or die!"

"Matt Damon is bald?! NOOO!"

"A homeless man thought I was David Archuletta so I sang for him so he'd go away."

"I just hate all people."

"Sooo, are we giving this away or can we just eat it?"

"Just say they're ethnic marshmallows."

"The children are restless. " (Christmas church 20 minutes in)

"That's an...interesting sweater."

That's all my mind is bringing up right now.  Family, if you can think of any, feel free to add your input.

Hopefully we can all feel some holiday cheer this season and get together with our families, whatever that family consists of (around 35, mine will be a cat and Ben and Jerry's ice cream)

Happy Holidays! Merry Christmas!

Hold On, I'll Call You Back

It's finals week.  My brain is full of knowledge that I am not going to use next semester and rarely in everyday life.  It's time for me to empty some random crap I have in the old noggin' so that I have room for what I need.

Alright, here we go...

There's a good friend of mine that I actually talk to on the phone (I know, you're thinking that I'm actually getting human interaction, yay me!).  Anyways, this is how our phone calls usually go:

*ring ring*

Me: Hello?

G: Oh my gosh, I have something I need to tell you!

Me: I can't talk right now, let me call you back, 5 minutes!

5 Hours Later...


*ring ring*

G: Let me call you back

Me: Ahhhhh...

The Next Day


*ring ring*

Me: Hello?

G: Hey you called me

Me: Did I? Huh, now I can't remember why...

G: Maybe I called you...

Me:  I do seem to remember calling you though

G:  Ope, gotta go, bye!

*sigh*

Occasionally, we do have a decent conversation, but this is what happens a majority of the time.  I'm on ly writing this because I need to focus on something else rather than how monopolies work or what I'm going to have to pay in accounting when a hurricane hits my plant.  It's been a long day...this makes me laugh and relax a bit.  One day I'll have a phone call where we only pick up and hang up once.  One day...

Also, to lessen the pain on my brain, I dance around to Robyn's Dancing On My Own.  It really helps, I promise.

Oh...Obviously

Well finals week is now descending upon us like the snow has from the sky, so all my classes are winding up final lessons and making sure everything is in order.

So, of course, I'm going to talk about class.  Biology, in fact.  Never done that before.

So we were finishing up the last chapter in our Biology book today when we get to a discussion about common ancestry.  My professor brought up the point that dolphins and humans have similar bone structure in their fins/hands and that way back when, we must have had some funky looking common ancestor.  Jokingly, my professor says, "I wonder what that thing must've looked like."

A student from the other side of the room, "It was the little mermaid!"

*laughter*

"You know, I always wondered how she got air to sing and why she didn't sound like muamuauaauaaa," my professor said.

*more laughter*

Then, with a face of cold stone and complete seriousness, the girl in the second row,

 "It's because she had gills."

Oh...obviously that's it, how could we have all been so foolish.  *awkward shiver*

Let's just say that the humor in the room at that moment threw itself off the top of the library.



Sidenote:  I'm usually a Scrooge about Christmas music, but apparently my black heart has melted and I can partake in the Christmas spirit.  I've recently been obsessed with the She & Him Holiday station on Pandora as it is all very classy Christmas music.  Mostly, it doesn't make me want to stab my ears.

Consider the Lilies of the Field...

...as I run them over with a lawn mower.

Ok people, it's one of those times where I can't focus so I'm taking a quick break from writing my English paper (more on that later) and writing down nonsense that makes me giggle like tickle me Elmo.

Earlier today I was mowing up some leaves in my backyard before it snows like hell* here and after my last time emptying the leaf catcher, the warning on the mower caught my eye.  Here is what my mind thought upon seeing the pictures:

Don't make peace signs at the mower or it will chop your fingers off.  Also, don't kick the mower, you'll lose your toes.

This mower isn't for running over children holding hands, it's for running over single men.

Do NOT perform a tribal African dance in front of the mower else it spear you with red arrows in the cranium, asophogus, and shin.

 This mower should only be used as a skateboard ONLY when the ground is under 15 Degrees in slope.  Or you'll die.  Also, use both feet, not just one.

Oh the things that bring me joy.

*Can it snow like hell?  I guess that would be fiery snowballs...you guys get what I mean.

In The Spirit of Giving--A Turkey Day With The Cardenas Clan

In the spirit of giving, I thought I'd share with you all a Thanksgiving day with my family since every family is unique in their own way.  We don't get to choose our families, but we sure get to talk about them.  You're welcome mother.

In response to an action:  "What are you, three years Old?"  "No, three year olds are smarter."

"Eat as much as you want, just make sure you drink lots of water after and you'll be fine."

"You better drink skim milk...to save your heart."

"You're a phlebotomists dream!"

"We're hobbits!"

"Your cat cheated on you..."

"...but Pocahontas made raccoons looks so cute."

"Church will be really huge so no one will notice we didn't come."

"Use the please word."

"You know that crazy person in Cedar? "  "...all of them?"

"I'll just stop selling crack."

"Thanks for ruining Thanksgiving Joey"

and to finally sum up the experience:


"If you miss Thanksgiving dinner I'm going to rip off your head."

Ah Thanksgiving, a time to eat, eat again, eat late, eat pie, and sit crowded together for a couple hours.
Feel free to share some of your favorite Holiday moments with your family.  Happy Thanksgiving!

It's like camping

Within the past week or so, I recently moved into my new home that I will be residing in until the end of Spring semester.  Let's talk about some of its wonders.

When I first moved into this house, I was the only person living inside of it.  A 1950's house, under remodeling, and all alone.  You think I'd have easily died the first night living there with some man with a hook hand coming through my window.  Fortunately for me, I just had to live with occasional creaks and moans that the house made so I could cry myself to sleep.

The next week got a little bit better.  Unfortunately for my friend Nicholas, he was booted from his house and needed a place to stay.  I jumped at the opportunity so that if a hook handed man got in the house, he'd get Nick first and I'd have time to go out a window.  With Nick moving in, we decided to bring the fridge in from outside where it had been living.  It now stares at me in the living room since the kitchen wasn't ready for it.  

Another great thing that came about with Nick's arrival was the bathroom door.  Not that he brought one, it just wasn't on the bathroom before he got here, it was outside hanging with the fridge.  I decided that since if I was alone, it was ok, but I thought I'd spare Nick the horror of....all that.

We also made the place more homely by hanging up posters of female pop stars.  Because, hey, what doesn't cheer up a place like voluptuous women who sing dirty pop songs?  I bet you don't have to guess the sexuality of one resident with Katy Perry and Ke$ha staring at him while he sleeps.

So here we are today.  A fridge staring at me while I type, a door on the bathroom, and no curtains on any of the windows.  Good thing I stopped walking around naked, all the neighbors would have just been SO shocked by my AMAZING body.*  But hey, at least it's home.

Artist of Note:  I'm obsessing over Regina Spektor again.  The pre-made YouTube mix for her is excellent since it has one billion songs on it, all of which I like.

*That's totally sarcasm in case you guys didn't catch that.  I thought I'd tell you.  Fools.

Meat Trucks, Fur Coats, Water Polo--Colorado

So I recently did something that was completely out of my comfort zone and completely spontaneous.  Usually, I'm the type of person that overthinks everything and takes a long, looong time to decide.  But there are occasionally those times when I decide to be crazy and do something out of the ordinary, and sometimes, sometimes, they lead to great opportunities in my life.

Wednesday night, I was bored, done with homework and looking for something to do.  Deciding that I couldn't sit on my floor and watch any more 30 Rock on Netflix when I got home, I texted a friend asking if anyone was going to play water polo sometime during the week. "Hey! We're going to practice at 5 today, come!" was his response.  *sigh* I had just walked out of the gym (it was 4 o'clock) and my legs were killing me.  Well, I asked, so I was going to go.

I was definitely a tad rusty, but practice was fine and I got my treading legs back in the water.  Of course, after practice, my new water polo mates asked me if I'd like to join them on Saturday in going to Colorado to play in a small tournament.  After much deliberating that went something like: "I really am not good enough to play at a college level, even a small college level to play in a tournament, I'll just embarrass myself.  But water polo is FUN, you have so much fun when you play! DO IT! GOOOOOO.  NO, don't go, you'll look like a loser!"  Well, on Friday night, after a couple texts from other kids, I decided to give in and go.  After all, even if I was a total failure in the pool, I could at least have some fun.  Commence traveling music...

Instead of going to bed at a normal hour like a normal person on the day of the trip, I stayed up with this kid eating del taco and watching 30 Rock.  Imagine me going to bed at 2 in the morning, then waking up at 5:50 to meet up with the other players.  Needless to say, I was a zombie who "slept" (if you can call bumping around in a van for 5 hours sleep) the whole way there.  I woke up occasionally to eat pop tarts and adjust my position but that was about it.

First, can I talk about Colorado?  Most of it resembles southern Utah in the sense that THERE IS NOTHING ANYWHERE, and the other parts resemble post-apocalyptic zombie towns.  Maybe it's because I've been watching The Walking Dead, but these towns looked deserted and the sky was so sad and bleak.  I wouldn't have been surprised if a zombie walked up to our car.

Our first gas stop was the first time I moved since getting in the car and this is where I saw some of the most wonderful/horrifying things in my life.  Walking around the rural gas station, which was passed by people on dirt bikes and had a melon stand nearby, I spotted a man.

Now, I'm usually good about staring at people, but just pictures this kids.  Bleach blonde hair stuck straight up, black pants, and a large fur coat that had a collar that extended past his neck.  When I saw fur coat, I mean a FUR COAT.  This thing was thick and look like it had recently been skinned off of Sasquatch, if Sasquatch had a nice light brown pelt.  It was the most interesting combo of clothes I had seen in a long while.  To top all this off, as I was sitting in the van again waiting for the gas to finish filling up, I saw our fur man getting into his white sports car.  His passenger: Two skeletons.  Obviously the bones of his last two victims.

Well, here's where the horrifying comes in.  Still waiting for the gas, a truck drove up and parked in front of our lovely little gas station.  What I saw made me gag and cry a little.  Inside the bed of the truck, uncovered, was the ribs and other body parts of Bambi and his extended family.  This wasn't a small pile of death, this pile was piled higher than the truck itself.  They had cleaned out the forest.  Poor Bambi...never saw it coming.

After our gas station of interesting people, the trip went rather smoothly.  We arrived at the pool, got dressed, warmed up, and played some water polo.  Getting back in the pool really made me realize how much I miss this violent sport.  These kids were much more aggressive than any kids I had played in high school and they were mean.  Of course, this makes the game even better.  We played a total of three games, the first two being SUU against Colorado Mesa University, and the last game being a mixed game with everyone put together on two teams playing against each other.  Needless to say, I was rusty, and by the end of the second game, I was a little bit done playing, so the third game I mostly slacked off since it didn't really matter (and we had won the first two games, woot!).  We were supposed to play a team from Wyoming, but unfortunately, they couldn't come due to traveling restrictions or something.  By the end of this, I emerged with 3 new scratches on my left forearm and a hunger for ANYTHING.  I could have eaten a live cow and two Bambis.

After changing back into normal clothes (I also left my speedo in the locker room by the way, sad day for him, he was so young), some members from the other team and our team went to a local pub and job some delicious food.  I do have to say that it's nice when kids you compete against don't hate you just because you were competition, cause these kids were completely normal.

Well commence driving music again kids.  Back in the car we went and drive drive drive back to Cedar City. We got home around 11:15pm where I thought I would surely pass out, but instead I stayed up until 2 again.  I blame this on all the car "sleep."

End Trip

Sorry this post was a little wordy and long and mostly just description, but I'm just writing it out because it made me happy.  I made new friends, I did something I loved, and it was one of those situations where I did something spontaneous, and the results were good.

I'm going to brag for just a second before I post this, but I got my economics test back today.  85%?  95%?  NO.  I got a big whopping ol' 115%!  Take that college!  I beat you at your own game and slaughtered your test with my superior knowledge.  Gloating session over.

Band of note:  Camera Obscura and any Ella Fitzgerald.

Fake Babies--Oh Sweet Pear!

Ok people, can we take a moment to talk about Facebook again?  Just for a second?

Since I don't hear any sirens or cops coming my way, I'm going to go full steam ahead.

So we all know those people who are on Facebook constantly through their phone, updating their status or checking other "friends" status'.  Some of them keep it to themselves, you know, go through the motions and don't bother anyone around them with silly details.  Then, there are those people who are so absorbed in their online social life that they have to let everyone around them know what they just posted or what someone else just posted.  I even met a kid once who social networked with us while we were in the room.  He sat there, and told us he was going to comment on something that another person put, and then he would do it.  WHAT?! My brain really doesn't comprehend.

But I digress, let's get back to those people who talk about it ALL the time.

 I once had the awkward situation of having a friend come up to me and say, "This (some large number over 30) many people liked my status today!"  I simply stood there, looked at them, and replied with, "Cool..."  Well, you might have thought that I had chucked that person's baby out the window by the look that he gave me.

So let's talk about this baby that I threw out said window.  Let me explain friend, why I don't like your baby. See, your baby isn't a real live, talking, walking, burping, cute baby--your baby is a fake plastic baby that spits up fake vomit and has a crackly voice-box that repeats strange noises over and over.

 You carry this baby around with you everywhere you go and expect everyone else to be just as excited as you are when you ask them if they want to hold it.  You run around campus, waving your baby proudly for all to see, shoving it in student's faces waiting for them to praise it as you do.  "Would you like to hold my child?!" you ask an innocent bystander who unknowingly steps into your trap.  At first, they think that it might be a cute, adorable, cooing baby, but when it's placed in their arms, they realize they're holding something of no worth and the look is shown on their face.  Of course, you're convinced that this child is a living, breathing thing that will die without you and you snatch up your child from the strangers confused face and walk away in a huff.  They just won't ever understand, you think to yourself.  They're just idiots to not realize how adorable this baby is, how ALIVE it is!  Idiots, all of them.

So when you ask me to hold your fake baby doll, I might look confused for a second, but then I'll promptly send that thing out the nearest window. You'll scream and cry, "Oh sweet pear!", but I know that I've done something good for you and the sake of all mankind. Fake babies aren't fun to play with, talk to, or talk about.  You shouldn't bring them up in normal conversation, or bring them to a social gathering.  Those of us who are concerned with REAL life and the world that is going on around us right now don't need to be reminded of how you reinforce your self-esteem by how many people "like" your baby.  If I see your baby once and I like it, I'll just tell you.*

Usually though, I'll just look at your made in china baby, look at you, look back at your made in china baby, take the baby, slap you with it, and throw you both out the window.  Because no one should be obsessed with something not in the real world**.

 But that's just me.  I obviously get really annoyed by this occurrence, but what do you think?  Am I overreacting just a bit or am I justified?  Is it just my sincere hate for Facebook?  Either way, I'll slap you and your ugly baby back to when your baby wasn't even born.

Rant over.

Quick School News:  I am definitely taking 20 credits next semester, I have to get into math 1050 STAT, I still have an English paper, I got a 71% on my Accounting test, and the library is empty.

Life News:  I need food, I've eaten way too much junk lately (more than humanly possible), and I've started listening to a ton of Bilie Holiday and Louis Armstrong.  This is so much better than homework *raw raw raw!*

*Not to mention, if you base your self-esteem and worth off of how many people "like" things you post, you really should get a new outlet and look your life over.
**I am ONLY referring to Facebook posting when I say not obsessed with things not in the real world.  I'm a twitter, tumblr, youtube, and blog fan.  None of those things are tangible, but I don't go around waving them in everyone's face.  I'll only bring them up when relevant.

Update:  Can I also mention strangers adding you on Facebook.  Not strangers as in "I only met them once," I mean strangers that YOU HAVE NEVER MET, EVER.  It's been happening more recently and I just don't understand.  Come on people, use your brain.

...then his head exploded

Let's talk about this week, seeing as how it's only Monday... *crowd moans*

I have two tests to prepare for:  Accounting test and Microeconomics test.  Accounting shouldn't be bad since our teacher tried to make the test easier this time so that the class average this time wouldn't be a D (I got an A-).  I just need to go over a bunch of silly questions with numbers.  That's the perfect description of accounting, silly things with numbers.  I'm so brilliant.  Moving on--micro will be a little more challenging.  I need to learn more terms that I neglected to learn in the beginning but other than that I'm fine.  I always feel awkward when the kid next to me talks about how hard this class is and how he needs to study more with the formulas.  I get the formulas so I can either lie and reply with: Oh yeah, this class is soooo hard... *hides test score*, or I can try and explain what we're doing.  I've done both.

Onto English.  I don't know if I mentioned before, but I got a B+ on the last paper I turned in.  You know,  the one about digressions?  Well apparently my digressions weren't digressy enough.  My teacher failed to see what they had to do with the overall theme of the paper...I also failed to see what they had to do with the overall theme of the paper as I don't even know what the overall theme of the paper was.  As our last small paper, I decided to wing it and see what I got.  Not bad Ryan...not bad.  Only thing about English that's still stressin' me a little is my big research paper.  But I know I'll get it done if I stop. drop. and stop freaking the hell out.

Next semester approaches!  I signed up for classes this morning and got into everything that I wanted.  But is it everything that I need to have my associates by next Spring? NO.  What am I going to do?  Do maymester.  What might I also do?  Take 20 credits for Spring semester.  ...and with a click of his mouse, Ryan's head exploded... I actually don't think it would be terrible since 5 of those credits are really not even classes, just silly things that I have to sit in to say that I did it.  I'm also going to go ask someone with more knowledge than me if I can just test out of these silly things so that my head won't explode.  I think they'd actually help me more if I phrased it like that.  Although, they might just think I'm a terrorist.

In weird news, I stopped drinking milk.

That's all that's coming to my head at the moment other than that my She & Him Pandora radio station is the BEST THING IN THE ENTIRE WORLD.  That is all.

Bleeeeggghhh

That's the sound my face makes as I put both hands on it and pull down.  It's rather disgusting, but that's how I feel at the moment, k?

I'd like to quickly thank my body for getting over that nasty cold I had.  Also, I'd like to thank whoever made ibuprofen as I can take lots of them and not die.  Thank you little red pills, my body hurts a lot less.

I promise there's a point to this, I'm just deciding what's more important to write about at the moment.  I'm eating an apple in the library, that's pretty important, right?  No?  Well then I guess I'll write about English again.

Can I start off with how awesome my teacher is?  Seriously, the man is great.  First, I like that he isn't a Utah local and he suggests that during our research time we get a cup of coffee and sit down and work.  The look on the majority of the kids faces is just priceless (you can see the judgment in their little eyes).  Second, I love his grading.  If you mess up enough on your paper, he'll tell you exactly what you did wrong to and will sit down with you to figure out everything.  Then he'll actually let you turn it back in and you can get FULL CREDIT.  Yes, FULL CREDIT.  I just recently had to do this due to my bad habit of sentence fragments cause. I. Sometimes talk.  Like that. After my little mishap, I got an A and his comments were "I love the tone of this essay, plus you do an excellent job of analyzing the relationship."  Bam.  Score one for Ryan.  I got an I love on my paper, not an I like.  It makes me feel super awesome as you can tell.

Well the problem I'm having with my class right now is our research paper.  Ten pages on a nature artist/writer on an aspect of their work.  Now, the ten pages doesn't scare me, it's the aspect that I'm going to write about that scares me.  Choosing Ansel Adams, I figured that it would be easy enough.  Actually, it should be and I'm just overthinking this whole thing a bit.  I guess I just wanted to say what I'm doing.  Well, there you go.

Well, would you like an embarrassing moment in Ryan's life to make this a worthwhile read?  Why not? I'm feeling generous today.

Once upon a day, I was at the swimming pool at my high school well...swimming.  It so happened that after my workout my coach wanted me to work on my push a little push (push being how I pushed back the water in my stroke).  He thought it could be a little bit stronger so me and a few other teammates gathered around a machine where you lay face-down and push two handles with your arms simulating a stroke with both arms.  I let all the other kids go first, each one smoothly pushing back and forth as they slid up and down the machine in a smooth rhythm.  Eventually, it came to be my turn.

 NOTE:  This is minutes after I got out of the pool so my body is still dripping with water, but back to the story.  I lay down on the black plasticy pad and put my hands in both handles and pushed.  It was smooth, easy, nothing unusual.  "Come on, push a little bit harder," my coach urged.  So I did.  "Harder!" he let me know once again.  So I pushed harder and harder with smooth movement.

SEGWAY:  This machine is also positioned so my head is directly aimed towards the concrete diving blocks, you can probably guess what happened.


Squeee! "WOAH!" One final HARD push and my slick body propelled off the machine like a man from a cannon.  The world quickly turned upside down as I flipped over and landed on my neck (not painfully, don't worry) at the base of the diving block onto the tiled deck.  I just sat there for a moment, my legs twisted behind my body in some weird failed somersault pose, and then I couldn't stop laughing.  Mostly because of the look of concern on my coach's face which cold be described as a gaping mouth and two eyes that screamed "OH SHIT, NOW I'VE GONE AND KILLED ONE OF MY SWIMMERS."  He is one of the quietest and kindest people in the world, so killing someone probably doesn't sit too well with him.  In his defense, I really could have been seriously injured with a metal edge going into my skull, but let's ignore that.  He apologized again and again but I assured him I was fine and just went and took a nice hot shower, laughing the whole way there.

Yet another day that I dodged death and/or maiming due to my own lack of foresight.  Yay me.  I can't say I ever used that machine again.

Questionable questions

It's another night in the library and I'm doing that stupid thing where I question decisions in my life.  Or sometimes just why things are...or happen--whatever, just life.

One pressing thing I must address is why my pandora radio station for Britney Spears' song "Till The World Ends," is playing Jack Johnson.  Come on people, this is a life and death thing.  Bad pandora, bad.

Why am I taking English?  Or rather, why am I putting any effort into it anymore.  I turned in a paper today that procrastinated to do all weekend and finished at 2 o'clock this morning.  Needless to say, I was tired and sick of typing away so I slightly improvised a little on my paper.  By improvise, I mean told downright lies.  Well, I'll justify it by saying they weren't lies, the paper was just a lie when I combined multiple events into one single event (the paper being on an excursion through nature).  I'm proud of myself for not making the whole thing up as I was tempted to do and see what grade I would get.  Come on, wouldn't that be an awesome story?  I'd definitely be in some foreign jungle fighting gorillas and stealing ancient artifacts from sacred temples.  Although, that one might be a little obvious.

Hey body, why are you getting sick?  Why is your right nostril eternally flowing with snot that makes the kid next to you cringe.  I'd really appreciate it if you'd stop.  I was fine yesterday.  No symptons, no aches, nothing.  So stop.  Just stop it now.  If you do, I'll reward you with a donut (sidenote: it really bothers me that it says I spelled donut wrong, its a donut, duh) that I said I wouldn't eat until after Halloween was over.  

Why is my accounting homework always stuff that we learn in the class after we turn the homework in?  Does that make sense to do?  Absolutely not.  Stop it teacher.  I'll stop sleeping in your class.  Also, another thing.  Why, at the end of every chapter in my accounting book does it say things like: "Everything you just learned for the past two weeks is now done by a computer program!  Good luck getting a real job loser!"  *punch book in the face*

Serious question time:  What am I going to do next semester?  I have a couple days to go find an adviser I can speak to who will fill me in on what the other majors I'm interested in pertain.  I'll get on that.\

Basically, all these things make me just end up face-palming and crying into my pillow with a spoon of ice cream in my mouth.  Oh, also:  Why does ice cream make you fat?  I really want to eat it all the time world.  If Halloween wasn't coming up and if I didn't want to be an Indian, I'd eat you all the time ice cream.  I'm sorry that we have to break up for a bit.  I promise I'll be more faithful next time, I'll even bring the chocolate syrup.

Small Revelation

Short things to write about:

I'm really ecstatically happy that the weather is getting colder.  Do I like snow?  No, not one bit.  Do I like long sleeved, warm shirts?  Yes, very much so.  The majority of my wardrobe consists of long-sleeve shirts and jackets and now I can finally wear them without wanting to die of heat.  Can I get a hallelujah? (the little things that make me happy, I know I'm crazy.)

I was laying on my bed procrastinating writing my English paper--an ordeal I know will take at least an hour of rough writing, another hour of adding things, and then more editing)--when I realized what the paper was about.  I mean, I know what it's about, but I finally realized what it meant.  The paper is about an excursion through nature where we're supposed to digress all the time and talk about random things.  *Light bulb!* I am so good at getting distracted, it's ridiculous.  Most of these blogs I get off topic and rant...hopefully that'll be fine.  As you can tell, I even blogged about it instead of actually doing it.

I'm definitely going to get an A.  A victory for my wild mind.

Decisions, decisions...

So lately I've been questioning the point of why I have a Facebook profile.  I've even thought about terminating my account with the website (I can almost hear Facebook screaming out in pain...).  Why would I do such an atrocious thing?  Well, let me explain:

First off, Facebook is starting to annoy me.  Well, not really starting to annoy me since it has for awhile, but I'm getting to a breaking point.  There are too many people, or so called "friends" of mine who post passive-aggressive things an/or self-pity posts.  Some made up examples being: "I wish people wouldn't be so RUDE and MEAN!" or, "So sad today, I wish life could be better..."

Look, I know that sometimes we all have to get things out, but a person who uses posts close to my examples are obviously looking for something.  Usually sympathy.  With these posts, you'll almost instantaneously be getting asked by your "friends" what is wrong, or what's going on.  A lot of the time, you'll also be getting nice compliments and words of encouragement from people, such as: "You're such a great person and so cute!!!!!!!" *shudder*  For a person like me, I'm not going to go around the internet posting how I feel when it's something important in my life.  Usually I just want to respond in a snarky way (ex: "Dang, that sucks bro-ham, I guess you should stop getting sick so often.").  To me, when people put things like this, they're seeking the attention of anyone who will look--especially with backhanded passive-aggressive posts to get back at someone.  From my point of view, I wouldn't go around campus telling people I've met once and "friended" how I feel that day.  Do you think they'd care?  No, they wouldn't.  Also, they'd probably just walk away really confused and weirded-out.  PLEASE, go talk to  friend or just go drink some orange juice, don't go spreading your diseases virtually.  In REAL life.

Second reason why Facebook might die in my life:  Why is there so much stuff?!  Seriously though, there are so many things on a page every single hour that I honestly don't have time to sit and look at everything.  Most of the time, they are things that I could care less about like a picture album of your cousin's wedding.  I don't know your cousin, their partner in marriage, your family, or for that matter, you very well.  I know there are people that are glad you put up those pictures, but to me, it's just junk that I have to sort through to find anything of worth to me.  Sometimes, I don't even find that.  I realized that the people who are constantly commenting on things and uploading things are the people are who are constantly on Facebook (duh).  Perfect example being the kid in my accounting class a row in front of me.  What has he learned in accounting?  Heaven knows.  I know that he likes to update his status a lot, and also likes to comment on everything his friends put up.  Do I know this kid, no.  I'm just a creeper like that.  I honestly don't have the patience for all that.

Third reason why:  Facebook really doesn't want me to leave or delete anything ever.  Over the summer, I kind of forgot I had an account and didn't log onto the site for over a month.  Over the period of that month, I received some tearful e-mails from Facebook himself (herself?) about how much they missed me there.  The site was cold and lonely without my sunshiney presence warming up the cold servers that were my homepage.  I even got an e-mail once where Facebook threatened to kill itself if I didn't come back...ok, maybe they didn't go that far, but you get my point.

 Facebook has become my clingy boyfriend.  Whenever I try to rid the site of embarrassing pictures of myself, I must go through a series of questions of why I'm doing it.  Shouldn't the reason "I just don't want this picture up," be enough?  Why the ninth degree Facebook?  The worst part is, even though I can't see the picture anymore, it's still somewhere on the site.  Like a crazed lover who saves all the hair from your brush and used tissues in a box in their closet.  They're not going to give them up without a fight and/or restraining order.

Especially when you try and break it off ("It's not you Facebook, it's me...in the fact that I hate you so much."), Facebook makes it really hard to leave.  "Are you sure you want to leave?  Are you really sure?  Positive?  You have to be really positive, because once you leave you can't come back...ok, you can come back, I was kidding."  *sobbing* "Why?! What did I ever do to you?!  I'm going to kill myself I hope you're happy!"

Yeah...

There are obviously the good things about FBook (connecting with long-lost friends and talking to people impersonally), but I don't want to expound on that really.  If someone wants to talk to me, they can contact me in real life, so there goes that argument.  I'm just thinking about what I might do.  Also, I'm lacking on time, so this is going to end now without me having looked over this and editing anything.  I might regret it later with bad sentences and spelling, but judge me.

*I looked over this, and fixed a spelling error, and can't think of what else I would say.  I got off the crazy train I was on and just have to wait for the next departure.

A few more sentences

I thought I'd talk about my life.  You know, the things that are happening RIGHT NOW!

I applied and just had (two hours ago) an interview with the new cupcake place in town.  It probably won't be anything steady since they're brand new and have little to no business, but it's a job.  We'll see if I can score it and get fat eating cupcakes all day--I mean, working.

I finally chose what I'm going to write my final 10-page English paper on:  Rachel Carson.  It has to be some sort of environmental artist/author/person so I thought that would be a nice one.  I'm actually not to worried about getting to 10 pages since there are a billion books about her and even more things since she's dead.  Note:  If you're researching a person, you're going to find a whole lot more about them when they're dead.  Just a fact.

Halloween quickly approaches and so does the exodus of my grandmother's house.  I'm actually thinking within the next week or so.  Not Halloween in the next week or so, my moving.  Sidenote:  I'm being an Indian for Halloween.  I guess to be politically correct, I'm going as a Native American, but that's just so many syllables.  Either way, it's just so I can wear as little clothing as possible.

As for my Biology class (which I've never talked about before), I'm pretty sure the girl that sat next to me, doesn't like me.  Sat being the key word.  After never talking to me when I tried to make conversation, the next class, she proceeded to move to the row behind me leaving me all alone, front and center.  I have now resorted to moving to the back row where the funny black kid that sat next to me previously traveled to.  Despite the fact we sat next to each other for half a semester, I just learned his name today.  Good job Ryan, look at your social skills bloom.

Cedar City has prompted me to finally get my winter things brought down here by my family.  It lightly snowed and dropped 20 or so degrees, then warmed back up to the 70's.  This small town really likes to screw with people.  I think it really is just giving us a tease of what it really can bestow upon us very soon.  It's basically saying, "Muahaha, look what I can do.  You think that's snow?  Wait until November and then I'm going to dump so much frozen precipitation on you that you'll wish you'd never traveled here due to the cheap tuition."  At least, that's what I hear in my mind.

I just recently purchased Heather B. Armstrong's book It Sucked and Then I Cried off of Amazon.com.  I already frequently read her blog (which is hilarious, dooce.com) and so I looked up her book and read the few free pages that amazon will give you.  Needless to say, it got me hooked so I bought it.  Now I just get to wait until it gets here and then I can write about that.

But what am I literally doing RIGHT NOW? At this current moment, I sit in the library listening to my Feist radio on Pandora and also listening to that guy across the room and noisy headphones.  I just finished my accounting homework on time.  It was something we hadn't even been taught in class yet and I got everything right, shows how much I need to go.  As I even type now,  a girl just sat across from me with a pink macbook. I think it's probably my time to go then.  I really have no other reason to be here as now I'm just wasting time writing about my life as it happens.  Not terribly exciting, I know.

New artist of note: Youth Lagoon

A Library Story

So once upon a time, 6 year-old Ryan (large glasses and all) accompanied his mother to the local library to check out books.  Yes, even at that age, I was a nerd who liked reading and playing video games rather than actually interacting with society, judge me.

The trip went rather normally as library trips always did.  I would wander aimlessly through the library that, at the time, seemed like a labyrinth of books.  I usually never found anything on my own, but it was still fun to look at everything.  Especially the crabs.  Instead of a fish tank, my library had crabs.  Did they ever move?  Not that I can remember.  But in the eyes of a 7 year-old, were they amazingly and breathtakingly cool?  Hell yes.

Finally, after spending what seemed an eternity (probably 15 or so minutes), my mother had found suitable books for me and we waited in the line to check-out.  Lo and behold, directly in front of me was an old man carrying an oxygen tank along with him.  Well, as you can probably tell, I was fascinated.  A shiny foreign object, almost as tall as me, whose properties I didn't understand.  I knew that there was probably air inside (I really had no idea, I was just guessing), but what were these knobs?  The shiny silver container had several knobs of red and brown all along it with the long plastic tube heading up to the old man's nose.

What would happen if I touched these knobs.  Nothing?  No, if turned one the wrong way, the canister would surely explode and kill us all.  If not that, then too much air would escape and send the old man flying throughout the library.  I could even see it...his green sweater whizzing past the piles of books and him yelling in his old man voice, like a deflating balloon.

I had to touch it though.  Why?  Because it was shiny, and I was 6.  I thought to myself, "Don't touch any of the knobs, or you know what will happen."  I reached up, my desire to feel the cold metal greater than my fear of destroying him.  My hand softly touched the metal and -- Whack!

Ah, What?! What had happened?  My head was sore and I was sorely confused.  I glanced upwards only to see the wrinkled face of the old man glaring down at me, with hard-back book in hand.  Then, he proceeded to simply walk away.  Really? He really hit me?  He should have known that I only wanted to feel it, not tamper with it.  I mean, what child would do that?  I sat there, stunned, not even knowing what to say.  If only I could have explained to this old man, he would have been kinder and possibly even felt bad for his actions.  But no words could come out of my mouth.

We then headed home, my mother confused as to why the man had swatted me with his book as she hadn't witnessed anything.  Hopping in the car, I sat and thought.  Instead of feeling sorry, I was actually peeved at this old man.  Was it really necessary?  Being aged and wizened, he should have known I had no ill-intent, I was just a kid.  Even if anything bad had happened, it would have been quite a scene to watch an old man fly through the air.  I moved on, as this old man clearly wasn't worth my time, and dove into my new book.  Surely, Arthur knew everything there was about living.

Quick Rant

I'm going to quick rant here because I can't focus on studying during my hour break without getting this out first.

So, being a business major, I have a few classes with a lot of the same people.  Deciding that I didn't want to be a loner in class my entire semester, I befriended some people.  Occasionally, we study together in the library when a test approaches.

A couple days ago, the day before our economics test, a boy I had never met joined our little study team.  Sitting at a small table on the third floor of the library, we quizzed each other on questions that were on the study guide. It was quite routine, nothing unusual about it.  Until, that is, we got to a very specific questions.

What role does economics play in the discussion of global warming?


You might have thought I had talked smack on this kids grandmother by the way he started going off.  First, he complained that this was a "gay" class and he didn't even have to take it, he just was.  Wow, good job kid. I can handle derogatory comments here and there since I live in a small town and people are still using terrible slang and I also didn't want to raise an argument that would make me lose my new class friends.  Here is where he lost me.  "Duh, global warming is just something that politicians like to argue about."  I starred, wide-eyed at him and asked seriously, "Are you serious?"  He responded with something along the lines of, "Yeah, it's just another thing that they can argue about, politicians are so stupid."  I just kept staring at him.  What? Was he really this serious?  My hand almost subconsciously back-handed him.  Of course, he then complained about how hard this class was because our teacher was the "gayest" teacher ever and didn't know how to teach (I like my teacher by the way, he's hilarious in the fact that he makes fun of everyone).

I just had to write down my frustration.  Back to work now.

My Writing Process...Or Lack Thereof

Well, I'm back again for more.  It's always the times when I'm supposed to be doing something else that I sit and think to myself, "You know what I should do right now? Write something down on my blog.  It'd be much more productive than writing out your cat analysis paper for English."  I'm not joking about the paper  by the way.

Something that I do enjoy writing about here though is my English class.  It's the class this semester that has given me the most to talk about in terms of the weird things that go on there.  The official title of my class is: English 2010, Writing From the Environment.  When I signed up for this class, I envisioned that it would be something along the lines of going to a specific environment, say a bakery, and writing about the experience somehow.  I didn't think that it literally meant the environment.  Nature environment.  I've spent the last month and a half writing about how leaves dance in the wind or how the majestic mule deer flies through the untamed brush of the really really really tall mountain. For me, this class is a little bit of a struggle.  I am a person who definitely appreciates nature in its many forms, but when it comes to expressing that appreciation in the form of a very poetic paper, I'm at a loss.  To compensate for my lack of poetic nature writing skills, I fake the paper, mostly to myself.  I become a different person altogether.  My papers end up sounding like a cheesy greeting card since I sit there and use thesaurus.com to help me find words that sound more intelligent/pretty.

 The end result, my papers are complete and utter garbage, but so is everyone else's in the class.  After reading over other's papers and seeing what they've written, I cry a little inside.  Every single person tries to use as many poetic phrases they can in trying to describe their topic.  In my mind, I always just picture fluffy little bunnies running around in a cliche forest.  Yet, our teacher eats it up.  He goes on and on about these papers and how some are wonderful and some could use a little work.  I recently just got an 'A' on a paper that I thought for sure would be ripped apart because it was so utterly ridiculous.  My plan had worked.  All I had to do, was write for the teacher.  I write ridiculous papers on nature and everyone wins.

Is this the proper learning process for writing well?  Probably not.  The only thing I've learned so far is that I'm good at writing silly things in a short amount of time.  I can also write in great detail about trees.  Those things are so riveting sometimes.  Is it bad to write just to please the teacher and give up things that actually sound sane and written by me?  Or am I just going to have to get used to learning what gets you a good grade?  I guess I'll have to wait and see.

Concerning Hand Holding

Well hey again blog, I'm consistently writing on you which makes me happy.  Should I be writing on you since I have 3 tests within the next 7 days and I've barely studied? No, Probably not.  Should I be writing to relieve stress and maintain my sanity.  Yes, I absolutely should.

So quick update on my English paper:  After turning in the POS that was my paper, I promptly received it back the following class.  During that class hour, my Professor got off on some random tangent about Caesar and the saying, "Veni, Vidi, Vici."  Yeah, I have no clue how we go to this point in a class about nature, but who am I to care.  Thinking to myself in my head, "This means, 'I came, I saw, I conquered,'" I sat quietly until, what would you know?  The teacher tells us that if anyone can tell him what the translation was, he would give the a half letter grade bump on their paper.  You probably can picture me raising my hand in the air so fast that is dislocated itself, trying to scrounge for some extra gradeage.  Those are times when I have absolutely no dignity.  Lucky for me though, the rest of the class had no idea what it was, so I won.  So, at the end of class, our papers were handed back to us.  How he did this so quickly this time, I do not know.  It could only be because they were all so horribly bad.  Upon getting my paper, I ignored all professor marks and went straight to the back page to see the letter grade.  I think my jaw hit the floor.  "A-" was printed neatly under all his criticisms.  With that wonderful stroke of Latin verbage, I had received an A.  A glorious glorious A.  Just thought I'd let you know.

That was a rather long tangent, so I'll get to my main point.

A couple days ago, a friend and I were walking back from signing up for mentor training (something I'll touch on later).  Upon crossing campus, we talked about the guy she had been on a couple dates with and within the next hour, she would be embarking upon another one.  It sounded like a normal date, probably dinner and some random activity.  Then she told me that he might want to go see a movie after.  We can all see where this is going.

Movies are definitely an activity where a plethora of things can happen in the dark, especially that of hand-holding.  It is the perfect environment where one would feel comfortable making the move of reaching out digits and ensnaring a dates hand.  Most people who have gone to a movie as a couple would probably know this.  Asking someone to go for a movie (on a date) is almost like asking, "Hey, any way you'd like to put both our arms on a really small surface, try and maintain comfort, and hold my sweaty palm for an hour and a half?"  It is an activity where hand holding is implied.  Like ice-skating, roller-skating, or barn dancing, somebody is probably going to try and grasp your hand (or swing you dosie-do, who knows).

We talked outside the library about hand-holding seems to be some sort of commitment, at least for some people.  In my opinion, it doesn't mean that much.  You can hold hands with lots of people: Your niece, your best friend as you skip down a street, a blind hobo; It doesn't mean that you have any romantic relationship with these people.  My friends biggest worry was that the joining of hands would result in another step in the relationship.  To her, she wanted the hand-holding to be spontaneous and fun, not something where you could expect it to happen, ie, a cheesy movie.  I agree with her on that.  Any guy who's plan is to hold your hand during a movie, should probably go to the movie alone.

But is holding a hand something as serious as it should be?  I don't think so.  I don't think my friend thinks so either, so hopefully no one is misunderstanding this.  From personal experience, I've held hands on walks, movies, and other assorted activities.  To me, it means little and sometimes can be very uncomfortable (sweaty palms and weird finger placement).  I'm definitely not opposed though.  Where it falls in terms of relationship levels, I have no idea.  I know it's not up there with kissing in relationship terms, but kissing is a whole other story.  I'm pretty sure I've even kissed people before I've held their hand and the world didn't implode.

To me, hand-holding is also definitely an appropriate use of PDA.  Onlookers can easily see that those two are in a beautiful budding relationship, and can all sigh cute little, "Ahhhhhs," as they walk by.  I approve it much more than tongues down throats, or hands down in no-man's land.  Those just make me feel like I got an STD from being so close.

Point being, I guess we will have to wait and see.  I'm glad that hand-holding exists because it really is a nice way to extend your feelings toward another in a subtle, physical way.  Am I over-analyzing this?  Or does hand-holding really mean something special?  I know we've all been in the movie theater before with our hands in our armpits, avoiding another's hopeful advances as they nudge us.  Sometimes, it's for the best, it can tell another we don't want something.  Hopefully though, we will all hold hands one day around the world in the cute little circle race, gender, and equality, and I won't have to think to myself, "Gee, I hope this girl next to me doesn't like me, I don't really bat for her team."

Ke$ha, Vegas, and English papers

Hey look! I'm writing when I actually should, when I have free time!  After turning in a Bio quiz, editing a terrible (really, truly terrible) English paper, and guessing on Accounting (I got them all correct though), I found myself sitting in the library wondering what to do next.  I've already done my workout today, I shouldn't eat quiet yet, and it's way too early to take a nap.  Write!

Anywhosville, I found myself in Las Vegas the past weekend.  Early in the summer, a friend of mine called me up and asked if I would like to go to the Ke$ha concert there.  What kind of a silly question is that?  Loud vulgar music, glitter, and bright lights?  Of course I was going to this event.  I promptly purchased tickets near to where my friends were and proceeded to wait until September 16th when I could depart.  Finally, the day arrived, and we were on our way.

Friday:
We got to Vegas with around an hour and a half to get ready before the concert, so I donned a tight red tank top, skin tight jeans, and my black converse high tops.  Also, my friend did some blue tiger stripes with gold glitter down the side of my left eye, it was a pretty cool getup, I must say.  We found the concert hall with no difficulty in the Planet Hollywood casino and continued to enter the venue.  Having not eaten since 2 or so (it now being 8), I quickly purchased a hamburger that was being sold near the doors.  It was about the equivalent of an elementary school hot lunch hamburger, but it would suffice since my stomach was empty.  Also not wanting to leave this place empty handed, I purchased a Ke$ha concert t-shirt for myself and an Animal one for my sister.  Scarfing down the greasy morsel (this thing was tiny and was 5 bucks, rip-off), we entered the theater and headed down to our seats.  Well, the ushers, or seat-police, were very strict about where people sat in this place and would only let you go to your designated section.  Fortunately, they glanced at tickets and since I was in the general area of my friends, I just sat with them and hoped the seat I sat in wasn't occupied.  No one every showed, so all's well.

Well, the concert started with some raunchy skinny rapper guy who's name I couldn't recall.  He rapped about random things and I do remember one of these being about his dick being racist...yeah, classy stuff.  Well, after he finished and the stage was set, LMFAO entered and it seemed that that's what most of the people here had come for.  Their songs were fun, loud, and sexual.  Mostly about drinking and running around your bikini.  Can you tell that I'm getting a really cultural experience right now?  At one point, they even had a bottle of petrone that they would just drink from.  I'm not sure how they functioned, but I guess everyone has their secrets.  Not much singing occurred either, mostly just loud yelling and booty shakin'.

After this debauchery, what I had initially come for began.  Ke$ha in all her wonderful Sleazy glory.  But seriously, she started out singing sleazy which was fun.  One thing that surprised me though was that Ke$ha actually used real instruments.  She played the drum, strummed a guitar, tapped on a keyboard, and beat a cow-bell.  I'm pretty positive that she wasn't in a sober state though as she kept repeating words as she talked to the crowd (ex: I F*cking love you Vegas! at least 5 times and in the same tone of voice) and once during the show she did a cartwheel...then fell down.  Her "singing" was actually better than I expected it to be since most of it is autotuned magic.  Let me just say, her backup singers sure saved her.  I'm sure though that what she's going for is the show effect, not her actual talent.  It was fun, nonetheless and definitely a show that I enjoyed watching.  Glitter cannons, confetti, drunk people, and strange dancing with dinosaurs while eating a human heart pretty much sums up the whole thing.  Oh Ke$ha, you hot hot mess.

So after the concert was clubbing time!  Unfortunately for us, one in our party was not of age so we decided to get Micky D's instead and go to bed.

Saturday:
Waking up, we all went swimming at the hotel pool where we met some interesting people.  I don't know if it's something about vacationing in Vegas, but people just really want to tell you about their lives and/or vacations.  I met a man from London, and a nice couple from Montreal.  The couple was here to go rock climbing and the woman told us that there were no spas in the desert, so that's why they had stopped in Vegas.  "Nozing feels beterr zan a nice massage and a hot showeh after climbing red roc." She said in her wonderful French accent.  After our poolside relaxation time, we decided to hit up the strip for some shopping.  Most of this time was spent in Caesar's palace at the very large H&M where I'm ashamed to say I spent more money that I should have.  I was on vacation, come on, I had to get something.  Well we spent a good deal of time looking in all the shops where we could never in our wildest dreams afford anything and eventually got dinner.  We also stopped over at the Circus Circus casino and played some games and watched a contortionist and a quick change act.  I still don't understand those for the life of me.

As the night came to a close, we sat wondering what to do.  Fortunately for us, the club who usually only does 18+ on Fridays, was doing it on Saturday as well due to Pride being that weekend.  Time to get my dance on!  This time, we left our underage compatriot at the hotel and departed for Krave.  Never having been to this club before, I could only imagine what they would have inside.  Amazing lights, a great dj, beautiful people?  Well, I got some of those right.  It was crowded enough when we got there and the DJ was pretty fantastic, much better than SL clubs.  Also, almost every Go-go was a beautiful specimen that one could even deem "lickable."  The lights they had rigged to this place were also pretty fantastic creating the perfect dancing environment.  The downside to all this though, was that the other dancers in the club, were, well...homely.  There wasn't very much to pick from in terms of people in attractiveness.  SL definitely has that on Vegas, pretty people.  The night was fun, lots of dancing, drunk people spilling drinks on you, and foam coming from the ceiling every so often.  At 2am, they even dropped $2500 from the ceiling inside balloons which resulted in mass chaos (and broken glasses on my friends behalf and no money for me).  We left sometime after 2 since we were both tired and went to our McDonald's again to get a drink and a Big mac, since it was free with a large drink.  Well, the girl wouldn't serve us since apparently she needed a manager since our coupon was in the form of a text message.  Stopping at a gas station, we ended the night with sour gummy worms and water.

Sunday:
Drove home and did homework like there's no tomorrow.

Overall, a pretty fantastic weekend so I thought I'd sum it up here.  I've never really spent much time in Vegas so this was definitely a good vacation experience so I'll know what to do next time.

Sidenote:  I'm going to go print my English paper now and hopefully it doesn't burst into flames for it being so bad, or have a helicopter from the English police descend upon me and put me away for years.  I can only see myself in a small jail cell holding onto the bars weeping and yelling, "I'm sorry! I promise that I'll never write terrible narratives on animals again!"  On my tombstone, they can just write: Here lies Ryan, writer of terrible animal narratives.  He died because everyone hated his paper and burned him at the stake.

Training Your Animals

I'm currently living with a small long-haired chihuahua that is basically a spawn of Satan.  Don't get me wrong, I love dogs and other furry creatures, but this little rat has driven me to the edge of madness.  So, of course, I'm going to compare training a dog to training your children (ie: college students), or, your "animals."

1.  Don't bark at every single thing that walks by


Dogs are great for protection sometimes, but when they verbally assault every stranger that comes within view, it gets tiring telling them to shut their mouth.  Same goes for college students.  When I get into a library to study quietly, or a classroom where listening to the teacher is key to passing the class, I'd rather not have to differentiate how hydrogen bonds and what happened in the dramatic life of the Utah valley girl over the weekend.

*All in loud whispers, those kind*
"Oh my! Did she, like, totally do that? No way!"
"Totally, and then we all went and got frozen yogurt and talked about Twilight."

I'm paraphrasing a little bit, but I'm sure you get what I mean.  I talk in class sometimes too, we all have, but when you're chatting about who "Lisa" made out with and then you ask stupid questions due to your non-functioning ear (and probably brain), you need to shut your face.

2.  Teach your "dog" not to jump on/salivate on others


Dogs sitting in my lap don't bother me, especially when they're cuter than everything ever created.  I don't even mind a dog licking me a little bit either, they love people.  Although, something licking my feet grosses me out, so smaller dogs, I'm sorry, go away.  Overall though, I'm sure there are those people out there who don't like being attacked by a strange dog, to some it might even make them cry.  The same goes for people.

Let's start with couples.  Like a dog, you don't really want to see anything cleaning itself.  Especially people...cleaning each other...with their mouths.  When PDA goes past the point of cute hand holding and hugging and goes to the next level of tongue slobbering and groping, people around you are starting to wish they had less vision in their eyes.  Let your friends know that their exchanging of DNA sickens you.  Bad dog! Leave that other dog alone!

Next, we have our overly touchy friends.  Hugs are good.  Handshakes are good.  Really long handshakes and hugs from just a friend start getting awkward.  What can make it more awkward?  When that friend starts to rub your back and/or hand.  Maybe I'm just the type of person that keeps things simple, but whenever I come away from these embraces, I always feel like I then need to be cleansed.  Get me some holy water so I can say some hail Mary's!  Bad Charlie (my imaginary dogs name), stop humping that man's leg!

3.  Roll over Charlie


When you first get a dog, usually puppies, you have to train them to be a good, decent dog that can function well in society.  If you let your dog run rampant, chase the mailman, harass the neighbors cat, and never come home when you call, it's likely they're not going to change without some kind of punishment/reinforcement.  It probably won't even call you to let you know that he's going to come home late from that party.  Oh, wait, dogs don't have thumbs and can't use telephones or speak English.

Moving on.  Too often from being in college the short time I've been here I've seen so many children crash and burn.  Without the good reinforcement/punishment, kids do whatever the hell they want and whenever they want.  You'll end with the stays-up-late-doesn't-finish-homework-parties-too-much-says-rude-things-in-public-is-a-distraction-in-class kid.  The type of kid who uses his laptop in class to watch YouTube videos and comment on Facebook status'.  They've never been punished before, and coming to college, they probably don't think that they will now.  Hopefully the real world mentality will set in eventually and they'll understand that and have sit outside since they peed on the rug.  Hey, peeing on the rug is cool for some kids.

4. Good job for ripping up the couch!
Just an afterthought that relates closely to #3.  Encouraging bad behavior in your dog is not ok.  Praising the dog for barking incessantly and for leaving feces in places where feces should not be found (ie: the bathroom rug) doesn't help anyone.  Your dog never really learns what is right and wrong and will continue to do stupid things.

Translating this to children.  Rewarding your child for being "creative" when they ruin something with paint or just say that they're "speaking their mind" when they torment another child is just plain bad parenting.  Mostly it's just the ignorant parents who think they're children are golden angel children that bother me.  Let me tell you, they're only golden when you're looking.

If there's anything else that you can think of, feel free to let me know when training a dog.  I'm a little dog hungry/dog annoyed at the moment which prompted me to write this.  Hopefully I'll be a good parent one day and my dog won't come home late at night stinking of catnip.

Distra--Squirrel!

I bet you can tell what I'm doing right now.  Homework.  The one thing that everyone knows will ultimately come about when you enroll in "higher" learning.

I bet you can tell that my homework is also going quite swimmingly due to the fact that I'm blogging.  Newsflash: It's not.  At this moment I can do anything but focus on my paper about Millcreek canyon so I thought that maybe writing some thoughts out might clear my brain and then I can finish the paper that is plaguing my existence at the moment.

To begin my writing process, I sat down on my bed with my laptop resting comfortably on my lap.  "Here we go," I thought to myself, "you're actually going to finally start this paper and be done with the blasted thing.  Hm, didn't my iPod need charging? I'm not using it, but best be prepared for when I am."

This then gave me the task of finding my cord, finding my iPod, plugging it in, and getting back to my comfortable writing position.  This is what follows:

• I'm hungry, do we have spaghettios? No? Ramen then.
• What was that Kylie Minogue song that I heard a couple days ago? I better look it up before I forget and curse when I can't find it again
• Is it time for shower today? *smells self* Yes, yes it is.
• Who can I text to distract myself from my writing?
• I wonder how much money is in my bank account?
• I wonder what happened to my sweater I lost last week?
• My hair looks weird *5 min. doing hair*
• I bet if  I smoked pot, this paper on nature would be a lot easier
• Too hot! *commences to take off clothes down to underwear* (sidenote, I danced around my kitchen to Kylie Minogue while making Ramen, in my underwear.  Yay for empty houses...)
• Do I need to shave? No, you're not going in public today
• What's that weird bump on my arm? *commences to pick* (judge me, I'm a picker)
• Let's check to see how the teacher wants me to do this *pulls out notebook and all papers*

*ps: after each activity, try and regain comfy position*

So as you can tell now, I'm sitting in my bed, with my iPod plugged in, a bowl of empty Ramen next to me, my noteobok papers sprawled out, sweater unfound (damn you sweater), hair did, and I'm almost naked.  I wrote about 4 sentences on my nature assignment and now I'm finishing this.  Yay for me.

Brain, you are now required to go back to thinking logically. Love, Ryan.  If you don't, we're all screwed.

Back in C City

I sure haven't written anything for awhile.  I wish it's because I said I didn't have time.  I wish it's because I said I could have been volunteering with small children.  It's mostly just because I'm lazy and forget that I initially have this thing.

Point being, I'm back in Cedar City going back to another semester at the glorious institution that is SUU.  Instead of studying for my Microeconomics class like I'm pretending to do in the library, I'm reading other blogs and frequenting favorite websites.  I figured I might as well write something while I'm here.

Now you see, I grew to love Cedar City while living here last year.  First semester:  Wanted to die or move home.  Second semester:  Made friends and had decent teachers.  I feel as though now I'll be able to tough it out this year since I know how to have fun now.  But, as seeing there are some perks of living in Cedar (short commute, nice/clean weather, friendly people), there are definitely some downsides/things that irk me.  Kind of also a list of "Only in Cedar City" things.  Here you go:

1. Cowboy boots, cowboy hats, hunting caps, faded plaid shirts (or any t-shirt actually) tucked into overly tight jeans, and belt buckles.

Only in Cedar City will you find a group of 4 or more of these people in one place chatting it up.  Now, I don't know these people and judge them on their character or personality, but growing up in the "big city" (as some here have told me), I'm a little harsher when it comes to fashion.  Well, not even fashion, just dressing in general.  This is definitely something you'll only find in Cedar or any equally small or smaller town.  I personally can't do it.

2. Stupid freshman

Not all freshman are stupid.  Really, any student could be stupid, it's just the stupid freshman that annoy me the most.  Mostly kids who just don't get college in general.  When talking to a frehsie in some of my mixed lower classman classes, I hear interesting things.  Some of these also taken from conversations with friends who talked to little fresh children.  "Oh, so what's your favorite book? Fablehaven?" (*inserts mental note to never again talk to*).

Example of kids who don't get things in general: Accounting-balding-returned missionary-always-on-facebook-and-sports-sites-and-only-wearing-sports-jerseys-during-class-kid.  I don't shun the fact that laptops are useful devices, especially during a class where hand taking notes is hard.  When you use your time, though, looking up BYU's last practice video, or commenting on something your friend wrote 2 seconds before (yes kid, I'm watching how many times you write shit), you're annoying as hell.  Personally, I hope you fail the test kid.

3.Crazy Mormons

Living in Utah, it's impossible to avoid them.  The big hair, the many MANY layers, the floor skirts, and the t-shirts under strapless dresses.  Yes, you're being gay judged girls.  Crazy Mormons and  just Mormons in general are something I grew up with.  Upon talking to friends that went out of state, they're constantly asked if they're Mormon solely based on the fact they're from Utah.  Frustrating, I'm sure.  There are those general Mormons who take things too far though.

*Sidenote: I promise I don't hate Mormons, they're fun.  I can explain that more later, just clarifying here.*

The other day I was walking along campus heading to the library to get some studying in done at the end of the day.  Upon nearing the library, two girls were walking in my direction and I could hear music playing loudly from her bag.  Pretty normal, I thought.  Kids play music, nothing new to me.  Subconsciously of course, I listened to the words of the song as I passed by them.  After processing for a split second, I realized what I had just heard.  What I initially thought had just been some sort of rock song had indeed been the rocked out version of the LDS children's hymn, My Heavenly Father Loves Me.  Sick. People who insist that MoTab or any other church music, is the only wholesome music out there make me sad.  They're good for some things kiddos, but put some spice in your life.

(Story taken from my friend)
"It makes me feel uncomfortable to have any overnight guests in our apartment."  My friend is an RA (resident assistant).  She loves all her residents.  She also doesn't mind people, who aren't her suitemates, sleeping in her apartment.  I am not saying my friend is some kind of whore who likes different people over!  Just fun innocent sleepovers.  I for one love big sleepovers (pangea bed anyone?) and the late night conversations that ensue with tiredness and junk food.  Girls who are scared of boys after midnight haven't met me yet. *nudge nudge, wink wink* (joke).

The Returned Missionary (freshly picked and still gung-ho from their plot of mission land):
I like people in general.  I'm annoyed by people who are nice to me solely for the reason of trying to "save my soul."  I mean, good on them for trying, but I already have a nice plot of land in hell with my cats and other assorted devilries (yes, I think I made that word up, but you know what I mean).

Being the slightly sadistic person that I am, I once pretended to not know what the Doctrine & Covenants was to a new friend I had made in my Business class.  I had learned previously that he had only a few weeks before returned from India where he served a lengthy mission.  Making conversation, I asked what books he had read recently other than the horrible textbook for the class that we were in.  To my ears horror, he replied with,
 "I don't really like to read anything.  The only book I've ever read all the way is the Book of Mormon and the Doctrine & Covenants."
What? How had this kid succeeded in life up to this point?  This is about the time the devil in my head came and convinced me to lie.
 "D&C?" I said to him with a quizzical look on my face.
"Yeah, D&C," he replied to me without hesitation as if my question was absurd, "right now I'm on the part where they prophecy about the destruction of the great evil cities of the world-" Wait for it "such as New York, Vegas, Paris.  You know, those places."
By this point, I realized that this kid had obviously taken some words from the text and made his own interpretation that I deemed to be just a little insane.  Not wanting to be "taught" anymore, I just nodded and said "OK" and turned to listen to our new lesson.  I'm not saying I defend Vegas' sacredness, just that the book isn't specific.  I've read the book too, and from what I remember, revelation was never that blatant.

I feel like I've rambled a lot, but that's ok because I'm mostly doing this for my own entertainment and also to take up time.  Dang, looking back this is long.  Ah well.  I think the next thing I write will be about the things I love about my good ol' C City since this became really cynical by the end.  At least now it looks like I've been doing my accounting homework for the past hour.  Please just don't just me other kids in the library. (I have my pen out, notebook, and book out occasionally looking at my monitor as if I just discovered something new and I'm writing it down.) Actually, judge away, I'm probably having more fun than you.

Rediscovery

Within the past month or so, I've been finding myself looking back on my life.  Not a very serious soul searching journey, but mostly things that I enjoyed earlier on.  I've come across music, games, activities, just silly little things that give me a strange enjoyment.  

First, I'd have to say I've found some music recently that I hadn't listened to in a long time.  Mainly it's the artist that is Feist.  I'd say a good 3 years ago, I got the album The Reminder.  Mostly because I had liked the song 1,2,3,4 that I'm sure mostly everyone has heard.  If not I'll stick it in here since it's still a good song.  Well, after buying the album, I probably listened to it a couple of times, downloaded it onto my computer, and eventually forgot about it all together.  Now back to the present.  My brother recently returned from his mission, and as such went through our computer to find all of his old music that he wanted to listen to.  I was pretty surprised by how much old stuff was on the computer so it got me thinking about what I had missed out on.  So, searching the old iTunes library, I found the wonderful album that I had forgot about and not fully appreciated at the time.  Putting it on my iPod now, I listen to it multiple times a day and love it.  Mostly because I love her voice, her beautiful pure voice singing out.  It's the kind of album that just relaxes your body and soul and makes your day just a little bit brighter. In fact, I'm listening to it right now. I will definitely keep it around for a while now.

Now what could be better to start up again than something from my elementary school days (which my friends joke weren't that long ago) than one of my great childhood marvels.  Pokemon.  This will probably be a big geek out entry-nay, it is a geek out entry.  When I was younger, so much younger than today, I played Pokemon probably a good 4 or 5 days a week. What made me more of a nerd is that I played the video game for Gameboy and also the trading cards.  Yup, ultimate nerd right there.  When I wasn't trading cards with kids at school, I was catching wild Pokemon and battling gym leaders.  So, of course being bored when the summer began, I whipped my gameboy with my good old Pokemon.  It wasn't too hard to get back into the flow of the game and become a Pokemon master.  Then, about a week or so ago, my friend invited me to battle him with Pokemon cards.  To my surprise, my friends had turned out to be just as nerdy as I am.  Seeing the wonderful opportunity to geek out, I pulled out my old Pokemon cards (yes, still sitting in my closet with the nice cards in individual cases) and assembled a deck with which to do battle.  I realize at this point I sound a super nerd.  I'm also not sure if I can deny it either.  Part of my strange obsession might be the accompanying nostalgia that comes along with finding my old cards.  Part of it might also be that I simply just enjoy it.  It's just that weird crazy part of me.

What would my life be without books?  I assume that it would be very different, but one piece of literature, using literature lightly of course, would be Calvin and Hobbes.  After going through my bookshelf one day, I pulled out one of my old Calvin and Hobbes comic books.  If there is any kind of comic that can make me laugh, it's Calvin and Hobbes.  Calvin's adult-like intelligence, cynicism, and wild imagination make every joke wonderful to read.  Not to mention the wonderful renderings of each story.  Every small thing beautifully drawn and colored.  It's the type of comic that brings out the child in anyone and visit the imagination that slumbers inside of them.  

Of course, now I have to look to the future.  With my life being a whole lot of decisions lately, I should probably focus on what my decisions will be.  Never hurts enjoy some parts of life though.