And then you remember the Good Times.

Journalism Field Trip to the Dreaded Grove, 2008. I endorse wholesome recreational activities! One of my students got us in free to the Dreaded Grove--not too scary, but really a lot of fun. Nothing like running away from scary clowns to bond you together! :D

Reinvent yourself; do hard things.

I read all of your blogs and see all of the wonderful things you have, husbands and babies and I am so excited for you all! Kind of jealous it's true--I want to be doing what you all are doing! I know you would say, oh, there are advantages of being single, and I am sure there are, but I long for those relationships that we are told have the potential to bring us the greatest joy in life.

I can't say anything terribly interesting is happening right now. I have been playing with some cute boys lately, but nothing interesting to report there. I teach 151 crazy teenagers and it has its daily challenges, but that is what I like about teaching--my life needs a good challenge now and then.

I will have to say in this report about my terribly interesting life :D that I have been trying to do some hard things lately to help me re-invent myself. When my ward went to a ropes course for fhe I tried all the crazy things and dared myself to do them, even if it meant screaming for everyone to hear. I climbed Mt. Timpanogos today for the first time--even though it was snowing and 20 degrees. I have always wanted to climb Timp and have just never done it knowing it would be a huge challenge for me. I have been working on taking up running for the last couple of years, and although a 10k is all I have run, it is something to help me stay healthy. I have daily challenges with work, running the school newspaper, being the PR person for our high school and going through the constant evaluations "new-ish" teachers have to go through. I am working always on trying to make myself more avaliabe and open to the idea of dating someone seriously which is a challenge for me, and I am trying really hard to understand and like football. So there you have it. Me currently--working on me.

The Tool-Test

Now, I don’t believe in holding guys to the standard of “tests” that they don’t know they are being put to, or necessarily holding them to expectations they don’t know you have set for them, or judging them on one single incident, but…with all of those disclaimers, I will have to say that it is food for thought when you ask multiple guy-friends if they can help you screw something together (i.e. a vacuum) and it takes you 2 weeks and multiple solicitations, and you finally try one more guy, and he comes over after one solicitation, saying he can come anytime you need him, with a borrowed screwdriver. I’m not saying this guy is better than anyone of the other guys, but it is just interesting to see which one of your friends will drop what they are doing to help you when you really need it. And then he asked if there was anything else we needed fixing! Good guy.

Miss Provo

For those of you inclined to miss Provo, here are a few pics of how beautiful the autumn colors are this time of year up in the canyon, my favorite place in all of Provo!

If there are fall leaves anywhere you are right now, go out and hike in them! Enjoy!

Bears Do NOT Tip-toe

Ward campout. Bedtime 2:00 a.m. after flirting around the fire, three girls, one 1 1/2 person tent. Tent mates decide they hear bears outside our tent. Suddenly I feel a body jump on top of me. Sleeping on top of everyone else is apparently safer. Personally I think if a bear came romping into the tent they would go right for the person in the middle before the outside, but whatever. I just tried to sleep through it, but I was in and out of consciousness. Needless to say none of us got any sleep because the two of them were poised waiting for the bear, ears strained for the slightest noise. The thing is, if there really was bear, he or she wouldn't have been on their tip-toes. They don't crawl up silent as a mouse, there would have been some serious breathing, tent ripping, body snatching, and blood. But whatever. We survived and actually had quite the fun time. But seriously, reminds you of those late night babysitting adventures where you think someone is peaking in the window or you hear phantom tires in the driveway. The thing is, seriously, when you do a hear a freaky noise, that's just it, you hear it. :D

Single Mormon Women

Okay, I know this is a really opinionated article and may offend some, but Ensign article on what it feels like to be a single Mormon aside, here is an interesting link to a blog about how hard it can be to be a single Mormon. Don't worry, there are graphs and charts to make it more intriquing!

http://smashgfunk.blogspot.com/2005/10/mormon-scale-of-attractiveness.html


Here is a little excerpt:

"Most LDS singles marry in the 20-25 year old age range. We marry young. Agree with the wisdom of this concept or not, mormon people marry young--except for those that don't. I, my patient reader, am one that did not. And, indeed, may not.

You want to know why, don't you?

Well, I'm sure all my friends and relatives have their own hypotheses. I'm abrasive. I'm combative. I look like I'm mad all the time. I'm too tall. I act like I'm smarter than everybody else. I'm cynical. My expectations are too high. I'm too prudish. I'm too slutty. I've heard all of these from "friends" or family.

Well, you're all wrong. The real reason lies in Emily K's Theory of the Mormon Scale of Attractiveness. Allow me to explain."

If you want more, go to the link and read on!

All in a Day's Work

Or a week's worth of work, but wait, it's only Tuesday.

So, yesterday I made a student cry for the first time. Okay, so maybe there are little kids crying every night over my classes and I just don't know about it, but I did make a real student cry in front of me today. She thinks I hate her! She has only shown up to class twice and she thinks I hate her. WELL, we got it all worked out and had an 1 1/2 hour heart to heart though my WHOLE prep period, but hey, all in a day's work. Turns out her boyfriend had just broken up with her too!

Today I had a group of boys who were definitely crossing over into the inappropriate for school conversation, right in the middle of group work in my class. It was just disgusting. I pulled aside, all four of them after class and let them know their conversation could be considered sexual harrassment (scared the pants off of them), and let them know we could all have a talk in the principal's office about appropriate school behavior if we needed to. Wow, I was mean. I feel good about that.

So, what's on tap for tomorrow, I mean next week, well, at least it feels like it should be anyway!

The Sarah Palin Thing

McCain chose Sarah Palin, what do we think? It is going to be so completely fascinating to see how this election will turn out! The media is already all over the fact that she is a mother of 5, the youngest with Downs Syndrome and whether she will have the remaining emotional energy to be a VP. AND they are making a huge deal over the fact her 17 year old daughter is prego. Huh, I don't really know enough about her at this point to make a huge judgement, but it is just so interesting! You could take this a million ways and I am sure the media will. Did he choose a woman to play the woman card? Are we automatically assuming she would do a worse job than Hillary would have just because she has five kids and a pregnant daughter? The whole woman in politics thing is just so intriguing. Will this cost McCain the presidency or gain it for him? Will she take some of Hillary's former votes because she is a woman? What is sexier for America, a black president or an old white guy with a woman for VP? Interesting, fascinating, intriquing politics! Sarah Palin's daughter has a Republican mother, she couldn't poltically have an abortion, could she?

Straight Men Don't...

wear these yet.

that my brother says makes me look younger and not like a teacher. (HUH?!) Yeah, he said he didn't mean it that way. (HAha) And I noticed almost all of the guy's jeans in the store had these:

And frankly, I think they look femme. I don't think straight men wear these yet, nor should they, but I have no doubt they will be. The only guy wearing them in the store was gay, and so when I tried to aruge with him (in a friendly manner) about their style-ability, he says I just haven't seen them around enough yet. True. But seriously, they make guys look like they have a girl-rear. I know gay men set a lot of our fashion, but how far is too far. Okay, they aren't as bad as the whole, guys-wearing-actual-girl-jeans thing from a year or so ago, and maybe you could tell me these are not that bad, but I think they are hideous!

Of course it would!

Every junior high and high school student's worst nightmare. School picture day, electrical outlet blows while blow drying my hair, late for school, big zit. Nice. Some things never change. I'm not going to accept my free year book this year, unless I can get retakes!

Untitled.

Friday- Thank goodness for nice people. After a stressful long week, the first week of school,Walmart is totally packed with huge long lines and I finally make it up to the front of the line with my $90.00 worth of groceries and I realized I forgot my wallet on the passanger seat of my car--which I neglected to replace after buying $60.00 worth of gas. Thinking of how annoyed I would be if I was one of the 5 carts behind me loaded down with groceries and children, I dash out to my car, running actually, grab my wallet and run back in, just a few moments after the cashier finished ringing up my groceries. She laughed and smiled, as did the woman with the full cart behind me.

Family Reunion '08

Just got back from my last summer trip before school starts! My family had a mini-reunion in Indiana and Ohio! For those of you who don't know my sister's family just moved back from Germany and now live in Indiana, where my brother in law works at IU. Here are a few fun pics from our trip! We went to Amish country, and played in a few beautiful parks, toured IU, went to Nashville,Indiana, which is a fun little shopping town, and just hung out with the family!

My long-lost relative.

At Indiana University.

Um, dad threatened to disown us! We stopped to have a little fun in the Kroger's parking lot. I love my family! Haha.

The girls at Mama Bear's in Bloomington, Indiana, the #4 best pizza parlor in the USA, according to People's Magazine.

Here is a shot of the whole family.

Reece & I in a playhouse type thing in a park in Columbus, Ohio, acting like frogs, apparently.

This one is for the girls!

So, the new Ensign article on single people talks about having good friends to help you cope with being single forever. And I think that is so true. I love all of my good girl friends that I have had forever, and recently as well. I am so grateful for the listening ears and the good times that keep me from being lonely. If I can't be married yet, at least I have all of my wonderful girl friends, including all of you!

Here are a few recent pics with friends.

Cruise to Mexico


Les Miserables, The Tuachan Theatre


Strawberry Days Rodeo


Panini and I at a wedding reception

My Alien Encounters

My childhood world was populated by knights and princesses; cowboys and indians, even talking animals; not anywhere was there, not even once, an alien, or a spaceship, or an astronaut of any kind. Maybe it is because my dad wasn't into that kind of thing, and my only brother was 8 years younger than me, and was not into that either. So while I can be scared of mass-murders, non-alien-fantasy monsters, evil princes, ROUS even, I can't be scared by aliens. My suspension of disbelief cannot be breached with aliens! They just don't scare me because to me they just cannot exist on this earth.

This being said, Scully (wonderful friend!) invited me to have some fun with her and some friends this Pioneer weekend for an X-Files marathon, pre-the new movie. And much to my suprise I enjoyed myself! I don't think I will ever be a huge fan (primarily because of the alien thing), but the plots are intriguing, and D.D. is a very good-looking man. So, will I ever be scared, fasinated or intirigued by aliens? No, but I can enjoy some good entertainment. The second movie was good, I thought, but my lack of X-Files experience doesn't make me a good judge.

And I am going to try reading Stephanie Meyer's The Host, which consequently is about aliens, and try one more time to see if I can have suspension of disbelief.

Yes, I'm in the Ensign

Yes, I am in this month's Ensign Magazine. I have been getting lots of e-mails, love you guys! I am in the Ensign this month, in the article about the perpetually single! :D LOL. I have a friend who works for the Ensign and she edited that article and said it made her think of me so she gathered me with other of {her} friends for the photo. Yes, it is a staged photo! :D

I haven't seen the article or photo yet, so I don't yet know whether I need to be put in witness protection, but I have it on good word from my family that I don't need to have them disown me for my good looks; I warned them if I looked like a dog they are ordered to say "That is not Esperanza, wow that strangely looks like my sister/daughter, but it's not her! :D

Camping at Mt. Rainier!

I was able to go home for a few weeks and we went camping, yeah! We camped at Chinook Pass a few miles below the backside of Mt. Rainier and went hiking on the mountain, and hiked through the Grove of the Patriarchs and wore tye-dye t-shirts, (not mine) and ate yummy food and kept all the neighboring campers up with sounds of the guitar from my brother and lots of laughing coming from my sister and I's tent. I love camping! Tons of misquitos, swimming in glacier lakes, ect., Nice. Here is a few funny pics!

The Fade

Disclaimer: I have been 1200 miles away from my social life for three weeks now, and am not then obviously dating anyone here in the motherland so this is not about me.

I have watched and am currently watching friends get in and out of relationships and have had a few myself. And what I want to know is, what is worse--the pre-mature DTR or the FADE? They can be equally debilitating I am sure, and each situation has it's call for one or the other, although personally I try to avoid both either doing either or having either done to me, although in single life I suppose it is inescapable. I can't make a blanket statement as to which one is better than the other, although I would have to say "the fade," is much worse in my eys than a little open communication. I think guys are crazy to think girls don't know when they are being phased-out, but guys and girls both can feel equally slighted when they are not given a long enough chance to be-gotten-to-know, if you will. Again, I'm not referring to anything or anyone in particular, but sometimes I wonder if a little open communication wouldn't just change the world? So Fade or pre-mature DTR? You decide.

(P.S. For those of you who have read/seen Wives and Daughters, if those crazy people just had a little open communication in their relationships, a lot of people would have been a lot happier, a lot sooner!)

Don't Hate Me Because I'm Beautiful

Maybe I will have to vote for John McCain because of his wife! JK. Well, I do like him better now that I know more about his wife. I just hated her a little because she is beautiful. Tendency to do that as women don't we? Beautiful, and looks quite a bit younger than her husband.

Well, I saw a new special on Cindy McCain on GMA (Good Morning American)I only watch it because my mom does. Haha. Anyway, she runs marathons, runs Operation Smile out of Africa, has three kids of her own I think and adopted one severly birth defected child out of Malasia(?) and raised her kids in AZ while her husband was commuting to DC and back and home only on the weekends. I guess what I am saying is she is a tough broad. Good for her! And they showed a lot of pictures of her from over the years and she had lots of bad hair-dos too! She just still looks beautiful because she is thinner than ever and has had some face work done, but all in all, (and maybe I am just being indoctrinated by the news media) she is more than just a perfectly coiffered, formidable woman!

Sure she was born an heiress and seduced John McCain when he was only separated I think from his first wife and she is 15-ish years younger than him, but she seems really cool. I wouldn't mind having a laundry list of great accomplishments as well!

Viki's Isn't Going Anywhere.

(I'm home) and I found an old scrapbook (if you can call it that) of my senior year of high school. Wow, some scary pictures in there! Haha. My little sister and I were looking at them and she was like wow, you didn't wear any makeup back then! Well, I did, but not very much, and my bangs were like wow, way too short and well, you know. Mom assured me that I have beoome much more lovely now that I am older, and I was so cute back then, it was just the styles! Why we wore clothes that made us look like men I don't know. Why I had those ugly bangs, I don't know! But wow, you just have to laugh and not let yourself have that little moment of crazy and totally not normal or necessary fear that someday you will show pictures of yourself to your future husband or kids and they will be like whoa, girl, seriously, what were you thinking wearing that? My mom said we were all so cute then as we are now, styles have just changes. Well, all I have to say is there are a few things that are not ever leaving me, that are improvements I will not ever retract. Victoria Secret and eyebrow pencils and eyeliner, and foundation, ect.,ect.,ect,. Maybe those things help me look a little more than I really am, but I don't care! And just to prove I am a more self-assured adult than I sometimes feel like I am, I am going to post one of these photos (if I can figure out how) on my blog! So we can say, ah, those days! Look how (cute) we were! Ha ha.

Okay, here is a photo of a few of us at my friend's house right before Sweethearts (?)

"Because I Said So!"

Growing up, instead of hearing, "Because I said so!" We would hear, "Because you are a member of this family, and that is what we do!" If we thought we should get paid for our chores or be reimburshed somehow for anything, we were told what we were doing was our responsibility because we were a member of the family, and that is what we do in our family! This morning I woke up grateful for this philosophy.

My brother needed to move out of his apartment,but his car got hit. I have been carrying around his house in my car for over a week. He helped me move my classroom at school a couple of days ago, and all that loaded down weight + extreme heat = car problems. My car has been overheating, and probably my water pump is broken, not because of helping my brother, but just because my car is fastly becoming an old junker :D. My brother helped me fix my car twice as it broke down, and watched patiently as I bumped my head twice, swore, and then proceeded to cry over my life. What a good brother! And then he decided to delay his trip home a while to drive me home, so I don't die in my car somewhere in Oregon.

Last night we took his car to Les Mis down at the Tuachan Theatre in St. George, and had a super, super good time, the play is amazing! We did the trip in one night so we had to keep each other awake until 3:35 a.m. when we rolled back into Provo, laughing at old family stories, singing to the radio, and chomping on beef jerky. While we were doing this I was reminded that my family has a funny sense of humor, but we always find what anyone in the family says extremely halarious, which I love about my family because I dearly love to laugh.

The point of all this rambling? I love my family. Familes are there when you cry and when you laugh, when your car breaks down, and when you do crazy things together like drive back from St. George at midnight instead of camping out like normal people. I'm glad Heavenly Father put us into families because it is much better to go through the bumps and bruises as well as the good times, together. So I am grateful we stick together becuase "That's what we do in this family!"

The Dreaded Question

I hate being asked, "So what do you like to do?" Seems so canned, and is usually a pre-cursor to being asked out. But somehow when people ask you, "So what do you like to do?" You suddenly feel amazingly uninteresting and cannot think of a single thing you "do." It is like being asked the almost equally lame question, "What's new in your life?" And although your life seems amazingly interesting to you, you cannot think of an interesting thing to share that sounds interesting when you are about to say it. I think it's a mental thing.

Last night at a combined ward party a guy talked to me for about 45 minutes to an hour about life I guess. I had never met him before and he was acting engaged in the conversation, and then we got to point, that point we all know about, when it's time to ask, "So what do you like to do?" And I went blank. You see, I like to do everything! The only thing that I really said no to that was presented to me was rock climbing on a first and blind date, not in a practice quarry type place, but on the side of a mountain. My main, lame reason for not trying it, (not that I told him this) was harnesses make your backside look big, and I obviously didn't know him very well! :) But what do I actually do on a regular basis? I read, and scrapbook and go to the gym, and um yeah, that's what I spend my free time doing. Of course I socialize with friends at dinners and movies and concerts and hiking and those types of things, but yeah. Well, when I said I like to run and read he was like, "No, what do you like to do?" And I smiled lamely and said, I like to do those things, yes by choice, on my spare time. I think it must be time I come up with a new hobby like mountain biking or playing tennis. That's what I will try to work on this summer, something interesting to say to that dreaded question: What do you like to do?

Memoirs of a Geisha

I got a tag and I guess I will do it! Here are the instructions I followed:

1. Grab the nearest book. If you are currently reading something, that'll be fine too.
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the next 4 sentences on your Blog along with these instructions.
5. Don't you dare dig for that "cool" or "intellectual" book in your closet I know that is what you were thinking!
6. Tag 5 people.

'But within your okiya...Don't you find it odd that Mrs. Nitta has never adopted Hatsumomo as a daughter? The Nitta okiya must be the wealthiest in Gion without an heir. By adopting Hatsumomo, not only would Mrs. Nitta solve that problem, but all of Hatsumomo's earnings wold then be kept by the okiya, without a single sen of it paid out to Hatsumomo herself. And Hatsumomo is a very successful geisha!' (123)

This is from Memoirs of a Geisha which I just finished yesterday. It is a really good book! It has some adult content, obviously it is about a Japanese courtisan, but it moves you along so beautifully, 1-because you learn all about the Geisha culture, 2-it curiously does not sound like it is written by a man, 3-it curiously does not seem too much like it is written by a Westerner vs. someone imersed in the Asian cultures. 4-I've been picking up some good guy-getting tips; some good seductive eye-contact techniques! LOL. jk. Okay, it moves you along similarly to The Mercy of Thin Air, which it is not at all like, but similarly is able to talk about hard topics and still move you along as if you are floating along on a river or a cloud from the fist page to the last. This being said, I don't think I would like it if I was a man, nor would I recommend men read it. Somethings are just for the women, of course this being said as well, I probably shouldn't read it either? :D

There are some good jems though, this is what I would have posted if I could have chosen my passage. Good advice:

"I understood the danger of focusing only on what isn't there. What if I came to the end of my life and realized that I'd spent every day watching for a man who would never come to me? What an unbearable sorrow it would be, to realize I'd never really tasted the things I'd eaten, or seen the places I'd been, because I'd thought nothing but the Chairman even while my life was drifting away from me." (349

Good advice for me I guess! ;)

The Universe Has a Sense of Humor

Life requires a sense of humor, becuase the universe has one too. Most of you probably know without me having to say who it is, that there is a guy that I met several years ago at a party that I had the most embarassing experience of my life with, compounded by the fact he is very handsome, and how we have had random embarassing moments everytime I have run into him of the years. Well, yesterday again I ran into him for the first time in a very long time actually, and I am not obsessing over how handsome he is or anything, don't ever even think about him, so that is not the context of this story. But, luck would have it that I would run into him again yesterday just after stepping out of the dentist's office, having two cavities filled and my cheeks as puffy as they can get, with no ability to smile. My lips were so numb that putting on lipstick, which I think I can do in my sleep, became nearly impossible; I had to wipe it off the outer-reaches of my cheeks where it wanted to land instead of my numb, puffy lips. Anway, rambling! So I am walking down a street laden actually which a huge bag of groceries that I am carrying in my arms, when low and behold, who should I run into? And of course I said 'Hi, how are you,' as did he, and he gave me a huge smile, which I tried--attempted--willed--but could not quite get my puffy face, and numb cheeks and lips to return! Alas, I just had to laugh at the thought of how my face probably looked attempting to smile at him, I probably looked like some strange, grimacing, I-need-to-go-to-the-bathroom-really-bad, looking person! Again, no significance to this story other than life can just be funny sometimes, and I am determined to laugh with it!

"I'm just Sitting Right Here Having Another *Rootbeer* in Mexico" Cruise 2008

4-day cruise, 7-day Girls Night Out!

The first day we went to Las Vegas and walked around the strip and became alternately grossed out/fascinated at the body exhibit, if you haven't seen it you need to; they replace body fluids with polymer and so you see the "live" tissues coated in plastic, it is amazing.


Las Vegas.


My Mexican boyfriend; one of my favorite vacations photos! La Bufadora, Ensenada, Mexico.


Mexican markets are so fun and colorful! I bought a couple of vases and some silver jewlery~.


Wearing our life jackets, just in case we sink!


Mexico, obviously.


Sitting at an outdoor cantina on Catalina Island, post snorkeling experience.


"Give me two pina colatas, I gotta have one for each hand." Laying out by the pool was amazing, but yeah, I didn't wear quite enough sunscreen!


On our last day of the trip we got all dressed up and went to Wicked at the Pantages in LA! Such a fun show! It was fun to have occasion to wear a little black dress and heels, both for Wicked and the dress up night on the cruise!

We had a really great time, went to Las Vegas, then the cruise from Long Beach to Catalina to Ensenada and back to LA. In LA we went to the Getty art museum and to Wicked. I burned pretty bad, I should have had higher SPF than 30, but my face didn't burn which is good! I hate looking like a cherry-tomatoe! We did run into some Provo boys on the cruise and ate a lot, the food is amazing. Had a blast! Love governement money! ;) I'll be posting a whole photo album on facebook if anyone is interested in seeing more photos!

Desperate Times Call for Kissing Booths?

I promise to blog my trip to Mexico, but first, look what was left in my classroom for the summer! If anyone needs to borrow this to send a message to someone in particular that they want to kiss, just let me know! I'll try it out and see what good use I can put it to! JK.

I had a student do a research paper on displays of affection; whatever, he didn't write the paper, just did the presentation! But it was a pretty good one, I might add. Very creative, and apparently, he thought I could use the kissing booth over the summer!