Not-So-Blind-Date

So, the blind date was Saturday Feb. 25 and I think I have mentioned this before, but I have an inner animal, so this is date will be termed the Inner Animal Experience.

My faithful V.T. set me up on a "blind-date" with a "person-I-know-in-my-ward." LOL. Acutally she set herself up too, and there were 8 couples, so it was really fun. We played soccer, tied to our dates with arm-bands, the twist: we were on opposite teams as our dates---boys against girls! I decided it is a work out to try to run around with a boy on your arm--they stiffle your freedom, however, it was also very nice to have a boy obligated to be on your arm! I could pretend it wasn't obligation, and totally enjoy it, LOL. We then played broom hockey, and yes, yes, I broke my metal broom in half, gave 1/2 the sisters in the Relief Society (and the men too)--bruises on their shins.

The nicely dressed at church, calm, reserved me, became the loud, trash talking, leg wacking, goal-scoring, sweaty, competetive me. Hmmm....either all of these boys will talk to me now, or none of them! And my date did ask if I grew up with a lot of brothers, because that kind of behavior tends to run around with the boys, and I said no, I grew up with sisters!

Anyway--have decided being set up on blind dates isn't so bad, its nice when you kinda know them because you know they are not dorky or weird, or short for that matter, and it helps break down social barriers and form inter-ward friendships. Hopefully, I did not permanetly damage their opinion of me!

Fantasy Boyfriend's Stats

Scott Westcott

Height: 6' 1" Born: 6/28/1976 Hometown: Durham, N.C. Resides: Carraabassett Valley, Maine Sport: Snowboarding Event: Snowboardcross (SBX)

"Seth Westcott of the United States brought home gold tonight in the first ever Winter Olympics Snowboardcross event. The event, which has 4 snowboard racers plunging down a twisting course at the same time in a race against each other, is the newest addition to the Winter Olympics lineup."
http://olympics.groovewatch.com/permalink/wiscott-wins-wild-new/

New Fantasy Boyfriend

My new fantasy boyfriend is Seth Westcott the gold-medalist USA olympian in the SnowboardCross. So, good-looking, so talented, blew everyone away. Course, he is dating gold-medalist in women's snowboard cross from Switzerland, but I can break up their little olymic love affair right? List of things to do: learn how to snowboard. jk LOL.

Man I feel like a Woman!

You know your are a woman if....

Within the space of 24 Hours you feel:

1.) Devious and sneaky, and wonderfully tired after getting into bed after a 2:30 a.m. caper out on the town with roomates.

2.) Complete loneliness (is V-day) and a profound lack of motivation when the alarm clock rings.

3.) Completely IN-LOVE, well, at least cathartically while reading the part in Cold Mountain where Ida and Inman are united after the long separation of war. (A little between-class reading).

4.) Completely sad and ready to be overcome by tears of pity when a special-needs student visits your class with his mother who revived him from death 3 times, and now lives with limited brain-stem-function. Yes, the spirit is strong around him, but so were my feelings of pity and sadness.

5.) Two hours later, a complete and utter rage at the mindless-sheep-who-are-my-classmates, who let the teacher pour into their brains the idea that the "literary mechanisms" of Recontruction Era America, were the "sole and guiding force" of Reconstruction politics and segregation. (Give me a break! Has anyone taken a poly-si class or history? Or economics?) I did voice my diverging opinion and get an angry-ish discussion going on. But really! MINDLESS SHEEP/MORONS... (at least I felt at the moment).

6.) Complete and utter delicious appetite at Costa Azul.

7.) Euporia after a three mile run, and singing Josh Turner's new single, very loudly in my car!
Watch out world, at this moment, I feel completely independent, powerful, and happy.

8.) Deliciously comfortable, and very, very, thankful for all of my blessings, in the form of family and friends, as I crawl into bed at 11:30-ish p.m.

*Is it healthy all this emotional switching? LOL. Simply amazes me what a little hormones can do to you!

"Every Member a Match Maker"

Every once in a while all roads, all stars, all ducks, line up in a row and lead you towards something, in my case...marriage talks. Our entire Stake Conference on Sat-Sun, 2, 2-Hours sessions, were on marriage, and introuducing our Stake Presidency's tag line,
"Every Member a Match-Maker." Actually, I was not offended by any of it, and felt the spirit, and the sincere spiritual preparation behind their message. So, the funny thing is, I have just started being "righteous" jk, and going to institute, (24-30 class), and this week, the 2-hour message was on marriage! A big group from our ward go to this institute class together, and we were like whoa! That makes 6 hours of marriage talks in...4 days!

Amongst us singletons there is always the debate of effectiveness of such messages, although I have to give it to the Stake Presidency, they said they knew this message was for many of us like, "nails on a chalkboard," and its true this message can cause anger/frustration/disappointment/ect.,ect.,ect., I guess for me it leaves me wanting marriage more, and then hopeing and questioning if it will make a difference in the guys...at all.

Nation Building / Peace Keeping

Paul Rusesabagina spoke at UVSC on Friday afternoon, my friend Krista and I went to hear him speak. It was amazing. Rusesabagina is the manager depticted in "Hotel Rwanda." I love hearing foreign speakers when they put on forumns because I love the "un-American" perspectives they have on things. One of the things that struck me the most, was his perspective on the United Nations pulling out of Rwanda in 1994 (?) Rwanda felt abandoned and ignored by the international community. We left them to be slaughtered by their own people. I know we discuss the ethics of being in Iraq and "X" number of other countries, doing nation building, and peace keeping, but when you hear a person say, Why are you leaving? why did you leave us? Why are you ignoring us? You are abandoning us to genocide, it really makes you think differently. Granted as SJ pointed out to me, we didn't have any economic interests in Africa, so why would we stay? (This was not her opinion p.s.), but it makes me sick really. I know we cannot be everywhere, helping everyone all of the time, but can we ethically, as the largest, most powerful country in the world ignore the cry for help?

He talked about how the 60th anniversay of the Holocaust has recently past, and how the most "abused" words in the commemorative news program were "never again." Rusesabagina said, we tout, "never again," but it is happening again today in Africa, in several of the African Nations. Granted, it is not one lone evil dictator, putting citizens in gas chambers, but it is literally millions of people being slaughtered.

Interestingly, I was at the gym the night before and FOX 13 was interviewing members of the Utah (?) military troups that just got back from Iraq. Several of them interviewed said, We were over there for a good reason, doing the right thing, we were proud to be in Iraq, our country is doing good in being there. You may tell me this is "propoganda" on the part of the news station, but it struck me as I was listening to Rusesabagina the next day, that so much of the media is focused on how we shouldn't be in Iraq, we shouldn't be going into these countries, we shouldn't be risking American soilder'f lives in these forgein countires, and I am not promoting the death of our soilders, but these people want to be there, and can see that we are doing good, and people like Rusesabagina, and I am sure people in Iraq as well, (I know these are not identical situations) want us there, and need us there.

Aggregation

I visited an Alternative Highschool Monday and observed the students socio-physical development. It was interesting to me, although not a new revelation by any means, that students really aggregate to like people. The gothic kids sat together, the Hispanic girls sat together, the kids that looked like they would probably be the "nerds" stuck together, and well, its just interesting that in our quest for identity, we find like minds to congregate with! It made me think about my own Jr. High and High School experience, and how being LDS was probably one of the main factors in my social aggregation. A friend of mine noted the other day, how different all of my highschool friends are from each other, and its true! I think a lot of what caused us to be friends was the fact that we were the same age, LDS, and most of us in the same ward. I know that for kids that grow up here in Utah, where there is a strong LDS population, that isn't necessarily a factor in their social grouping.