High School Tag

Jackie posted this tag on her blog, and I thought I'd follow her lead. High school was a while back, and I'm going to attempt to remember the answers to these questions. Anyone who knew me in high school, please correct anything you may see that is incorrect.

1. DID YOU DATE SOMEONE FROM YOUR SCHOOL? For a very short time during my junior year. Billy Priddis. If you've followed the BYU/Utah games for a long time, you may have heard of him. He was the Utah cheerleader that beat the crud out of a BYU fan. (I think it was in 1999 or so. I wasn't dating him at the time, but the guy I was dating also knew him from high school and cut out all the newspaper articles about the incident for me to put in my scrapbook.) I also dated 3 other guys from my high school after high school. Here's a little news bit I found: "In 1999, a BYU fan leaped out of the stands and tackled a Utah cheerleader during the game in which the Utes were leading and eventually won. The cheerleader responded by tackling his attacker and landing several punches before security officers intervened and ended the fracas." Yep, high school boyfriend.
2.WHAT KIND OF CAR DID YOU DRIVE? My parents' minivan--a Nissan Quest, and their old Toyota Camry.
3. DID YOU PASS YOUR DRIVER'S LICENSE TEST YOUR FIRST TRY? Yes, but I missed all 6 points on parallel parking. I still can't do it worth a darn.
4. WERE YOU A PARTY ANIMAL? If playing board games and watching movies is considered partying. So, no.
5. WERE YOU CONSIDERED A FLIRT? Absolutely I was.
6. WERE YOU IN BAND, ORCHESTRA, OR CHOIR? I was in band and orchestra. It was cool to be in choir at my school, so naturally I wasn't involved.
7. WERE YOU A NERD? See above answer. Band geek. Hello! (But not really bookish.)
8. WERE YOU ON ANY VARSITY TEAMS? Oh, that's funny. Have you seen me do anything athletic?
9. DID YOU EVER GET SUSPENDED/EXPELLED? Please see the answer to #7.
10. CAN YOU STILL SING THE FIGHT SONG? I don't know if I can remember the words, but I bet I can still play it on my piccolo.
11. WHO WERE YOUR FAVORITE TEACHERS? Mr. Jackson, my calculus teacher, because he never made me feel dumb, even though I had no idea what he was talking about half the time, and Ms. Bodily, my English teacher, because she remembered my name and tried to come to all my recitals in college.
12. WHERE DID YOU SIT FOR LUNCH? By the lockers near the band room, but NOT in the band room. I wasn't that big of a band geek. There was a good view of Hot Guy that ate down the hall from there.
13. WHAT IS YOUR SCHOOL'S FULL NAME? Mountain View H.S.
14. WHAT IS YOUR SCHOOL'S MASCOT AND COLORS? Bruins, cardinal red and gold
15. DID YOU GO TO HOMECOMING AND WITH WHO? Brian Mecham, junior year, and as an alumni with Scott Watson (who is 1 1/2 feet taller than me).
16. IF YOU COULD GO BACK AND DO IT AGAIN WOULD YOU? Absolutely not.
17. WHAT DO YOU REMEMBER MOST ABOUT GRADUATION? I fell asleep after I walked, because I was #15 or something out of like 800 people. I woke up in time to clap for my friends that were at the end.
18. WHERE DID YOU GO SENIOR SKIP DAY? Lagoon, and it was super cold and rainy. I insisted on wearing shorts and sandals because it was May, for crying out loud, and ended up with blue feet and frozen knees. Stupid.
19. WERE YOU IN ANY CLUBS? I think I was in DECA, but I got in all the clubs' pictures so my name would be in the index of the yearbook a million times. I was a nerd.
20. HAVE YOU GAINED SOME WEIGHT SINCE THEN? I think I've doubled in size.
21. WHO WAS YOUR PROM DATE? Keith Phelps.
22. ARE YOU PLANNING ON GOING TO YOUR 10 YEAR REUNION? I didn't know about it until after the fact.
23. DID YOU HAVE A JOB IN HIGH SCHOOL? I worked at Bandit's Texas Barbecue my senior year, and did yard work for my grandpa.


Thanks, Jackie, for giving me something to blog about. It's kind of fun to think about those days, but not actually be living them. I'll tag anyone who's interested. Here's a picture from my Prom senior year. Yes, that's a bow on my butt, and yes, I'm wearing white heels. I need to add that my friend's mom made that dress in 2 days for me. I wasn't expecting the bow on the butt, but you don't look a gift horse in the mouth. I had some pretty funny pictures to choose from that had some pretty great outfits, but I decided to choose the one from the best date I went on in high school. Thanks, Keith. (I have some great high school date stories. I'll tell you some time. The Prom my junior year involved a spraying hose that I detached from the fountain with my heel. The evening ended with the principal mopping up a huge puddle in his tux. Good story.)

"The Eyre Affair" and other Thursday Next adventures by Jasper Fforde

You may have noticed (if you look at the stuff on the side of my blog) that I've been reading "The Eyre Affair" for about 2 months. I've actually gotten to the third book in the series, "The Well of Lost Plots." These books were recommended to me by my good friend Rachel (whose blogs are a joy to read--there are links to both if you'll look to the right). I am not talking about myself in the third person like Elmo does. I swear. Rachel is an English major and has read just about everything ever written. I always know that if she says it's a good book, it will be a good book. She was, as usual, right! I must warn you, though, that if you're like me, and haven't read all the classics (like Kafka's "The Trial," for example), there may be some jokes that go over your head.

The premise of the book is this: The world is obsessed with literature. There are radical groups, like Baconites, who believe that Sir Francis Bacon wrote the plays credited to William Shakespeare. Genetics labs have brought dodos and neanderthals back to the earth (the dodos like marshmallows, and the neanderthals are used for labor), and there is a special enforcement group called SpecOps, who has divisions that include Literatecs (they investigate forgeries and rare book discoveries) and the Suckers and Biters division (vampires and werewolves). Thursday Next is a Literatec agent whose job it becomes to chase down the evil Acheron Hades, who has made off with the original manuscript of Martin Chuzzlewit. Hades has seemingly supernatural powers, making Next's assignment nearly impossible. Thursday's genius uncle has figured out how to jump into books, using bookworms and lots of electricity. After a series of strange and hard-to-explain adventures, Thursday and Acheron end up in a showdown in the middle of Jane Eyre. If you've already read this book, you'll know that this summary barely scratches the surface.

Now for my opinion: It took me a few chapters to get into it (same as you, Angela). There's a lot of time spent establishing the world, which is a tiny bit confusing. I'm not all that versed in our own world history, but I'm pretty sure the Crimean war has been over for quite some time. Did we even have the Crimean war? But after a few chapters I got sucked in and started to really enjoy the ride. I love the little touches like Pickwick the dodo, who loves marshmallows and brings Thursday a "gift" every time she comes home. The gifts are usually pieces of trash. The book includes fun things like Time Travel (Thursday's father has gone rogue from SpecOps Chrono division), romance, gunplay, and lots and lots of humor. One thing I realized, though, after reading this book, is that I am not nearly as well-read as I thought I was.

This became more and more apparent to me as I moved on to the second book, "Lost in a Good Book." I'm guessing it would have been much more funny to me, had I understood half the literary references that are placed throughout the novel. But I understood enough to laugh out loud at a lot of the book. This time, Thursday is in trouble for messing with "Jane Eyre." She becomes apprenticed to Miss Havisham (yes, the one from Great Expectations) to help control the Book World, where grammasites eat nouns and adjectives and wreak havoc on literature. All the agents meet for roll call at the ballroom in Norland Park in "Sense and Sensibility." Marianne enjoys flying planes and watching TV when she's not in the narrative. It's all very clever and entertaining.

I'm in the middle of the third book, "The Well of Lost Plots." Here are some things to look forward to if you get to this series: A rage therapy session in Wuthering Heights (hilarious), Thursday carrying around her friend's newly purchased head in a bag plot, and much more. I'm guessing that Rachel gets all the jokes. I think I'll do some more heavy reading, and then reread all the books. But even having never read a lot of the books that are alluded to, they are fun and entertaining, and may inspire you to read some classics. Thanks for the recommendation, Rachel.

By the way, Merry Christmas, y'all!

Sometimes the Nice Ones Finish First

Did anyone else watch The Biggest Loser this season? Hooray for Michelle! Hooray for beating out Evil Vicky and Whiny Heba! Hooray for being nice the whole time (at least in front of the cameras)! This season was the worst as far as mean people and contention goes (hello, Heba, what's your deal with Phil?), and it was such a relief to have one of the nice girls win. From the beginning I was cheering for Colleen, but after she got the boot and it was down to Renee and Michelle vs. the evil ones, I started cheering for Michelle.

Usually you feel kind of bad for the first few people that get the boot from the ranch, because when they show up at the finale, they look pretty much the same as they did when they left the ranch. But this season everyone that came back looked fantastic. I think Jerry, the 51-year-old cop that looked like he was 70, had the biggest and best transformation. When I saw him at the beginning and found out he was younger than my parents, I figured he'd be dead before he made it to the end of the first week. But at the finale, he looked amazing,and, more importantly, like a 51-year-old man! Vicky was conniving and mean and vindictive the entire time, so even after she had lost 100 lbs, she still looked ugly to us. Tim thinks she looks a bit like a bulldog. I think if she had been super nice and sincere, she wouldn't have looked so much like a bulldog to us. Heba was weird all season, and annoyingly bossy, but as irritating and bossy as she was, we couldn't help but gasp in awe at her transformation. Tim and his calculator figured out that if she hadn't been eliminated before the final 3, she would have won the whole thing. That's pretty impressive. Doofy Ed looked pretty amazing, too, and after Tim found out that Ed is a pro chef, in the South, no less, and managed to lose that much weight, Tim kind of wanted him to win the whole thing. But hooray for Michelle!

And there's a new season in January that they promise to be even bigger and better! (Bigger, literally, because there's a guy on there that weighs over 400 lbs, and he's only 19.) New Year's resolution: To do push-ups and crunches while I watch the new season.

The joys of the season

I woke up this morning all snuggled in my warm blankets, feeling very cozy and content, which was a sure sign that it was snowing outside. And it was, and still is! For some reason I was having a hard time getting into the Christmas season, but waking up to the fluffy, fat snowflakes falling outside my windows really put me in the mood to celebrate! It also helped that it was already 7am and my baby was waking up for the first time since I put him in bed at 10:30 last night. A full night's sleep and a winter wonderland really inspire the Christmas spirit!

I also made a decision yesterday morning at the ward Christmas breakfast that worrying about calories and that post-pregnant belly can wait until January. There is so much good food at Christmas time, and if I'm sitting around thinking about how much fat is in that fudge, or the high calorie content in that caramel popcorn, I'll be cranky and miserable and miss out on one of the best parts of the season! Going to a Christmas party and sticking only to the veggie tray is a bummer, and besides, the hostess put a lot of work into those cookies, so I had better give them a try!

Also, thanks to all those super people who managed to get wreaths and lights and inflatable snowmen up at their house. I really enjoy running errands when I have houses like that to drive past. Ours is not one of those houses this year. We managed to get up our tree and stockings, but the outside of our house is a little on the Scroogey side. So, thank you, neighbors, for all your hard work to make our street look colorful and festive. Next year we'll join you.

Merry Christmas, y'all. I'm off to eat a mint truffle Hershey's kiss. Yummers.