St. Patrick's Days Bizarreities

1. Boy in first period informs me I look like a Christmas tree today because I'm wearing a green shirt and have red hair. (Not a girl leprechaun or anything - a Christmas tree).

2. Extra credit on term final for anyone wearing green today! You wouldn't believe the number of students uninhibited enough to shout out to the class and their teacher what color of under-roos they are wearing. And no, please don't show me. Oops, won't do that again.

3. Lunch lady confuses me for a student, and in quite a demanding manner informs me that she cannot let me pass by her in the lunch line without taking a serving of yicky, over-cooked green beans. It's the law. You will eat a square meal!

4. So a student asks me why we celebrate St. Patrick's Day in the United States anyway, I make some off-handed comment about how it is an excuse for some people to drink - it's like the 2nd highest day of beer consumption in the U.S. or something like that. So this same student goes to his next class--seminary. And informs the entire class that I said St. Patrick's Day is for drinking alcohol and in fact a the 2nd most popular day for beer consumption. Thank you student for making your entire seminary class think I drink. How did I find out about this you ask? Of course someone in that seminary class had me for their next class and announced to my whole 3rd period class.......I had to stop and take a moment and inform all my other classes today that I have never, not once, had even one little sip of alcohol.

Ah, a day in the life.

My First Digital Camera

You probably think I am kidding, but I'm not. I've never owned a digital camera. It's 2011 and I teach journalism for heaven's sake, and have travelled all over the world and don't own a digital camera. Granted I have cameras at my disposal to use, and I do, but I've never owned my own. Until now. I am going to break down and buy my first digital camera.

I set a pretty tough personal goal for myself a few months ago and recently accomplished it! The rewards of goal-accomplishment were enough, so I havn't rewarded myself with the camera I said I would if I conquered, but in setting new goals I realized something. If I don't actually reward myself the way I say I am going to, what will motivate me to accomplish my next goal? So now I am setting out to buy a digital camera, and I need your adivce. What do you have? What do you like? What brand, large or small do you think is the right fit?

My Little Journalists

Stressful as it can be, I really do enjoy working with these crazy high school kids! This is *most* of my journalism class at the annual Deseret News Journalism Conference held at UVU. A day that is fun for the students, but stressful for me as I chaperone a couple of suburbans full of teenagers and then stress some more as awards are announced for various competition categories such as best layout, best news article, best column ect.

This year we took home three awards - we have done better, but that's really not too bad for a conference with 21 schools participating and over 400 competition entries. I just get anxious for my students to be recognized for their hard work and budding-talent. Aside from boys playing Risk on a laptop during a break-out session, and girls that were just there to check out cute boys from other schools, all-in-all the conference was a successful experience for us.

How to end up without a date on Valentine's Day

1. Meet someone. Go out on lots of dates with said boy.
2. Go out with other boys who are asking you out who are not said boy.
3. Let boys who have not stepped up in the past anticipate stepping up with you.
4. Become very confused as to whether you are actually dating said boy.
5. Become very very confused as to whom you like and why.
6. Turn down the man who actually asked you out for Valentine's Day because it is not said boy and you feel kind of guilty about a Valentine's Day date with someone else.
7. Said boy does not ask you out for Valentine's Day because he is not sure what is going on either.
8. Stay home and grade papers on Valentine's Day. Who needs it anyway, right?
9. Feel slightly disgruntled that you are home grading research papers on Valentine's Day. Wonder why you are going out so often with boys but have no boyfriend, and are, as stated above, home grading papers on Valentine's Day. Valentine's Day never seemed important at all before; wonder why you are worried about not having a date for it now.
10. Get over it.

I'm Going to China

So I just signed up to go to China over spring break with a program for educators subsidized by the Chinese government/education system. So...I will be travelling with a bunch of boring teachers like myself.... jk....but it will be a really interesting and very cost efficient trip. My roommate Keri is going with me as well. What I'm most excited about, is that other than touring Chinese schools (jk), I will among other things, be able to walk on the Great Wall of China, see the Terra Cotta Soilders, and tour the Forbidden City.

Good Friends & Birthdays!

I am a year older, but still blessed with amazing and supportive friends. This year my birthday was really really wonderful. It was a weekend full of celebrations! I think birthdays are really just a great reason to get people together.

Friday night we went to Macaroni Grill, my favorite resturant in Provo with a bunch of my guy and girlfriends and then saw the movie Tangled, cute movie.

My best single girlfriends had cake and icecream for me Sunday night and gave me an emergency dating kit with toothpaste, lipstick, a movie, scented lotion, and a red, fuzzy blanket! :)Someone is going to get special treatment from me. Haha


Heidi and Heather and Cami and I got together and ate at Tucanos on Saturday. I love that we are all still good friends - always a pleasure! Thanks girls for being a few of my favorite married friends!

Thank you to all of my friends and family for being so wonderful whether I was able to celebrate with you or not!

Dear Mr. Tire-Man

Thank you for having pity on me when I came into your tire store bawling my eyes out, mascara dripping down my face, frantically making calls to the men in my life who were not answering their phones. Thank you for the brand new wheel and the brand new tire for free; you saved me $300. I promise I wasn't crying on purpose to get your attention or your services. Oh, and thank you for the bottled water as well.

I am a little creeped out however that you called me afterwards to chat. I don't know if it's okay that you got my cell phone number off the computer and called me. Then again, you could just be a nice man (so says my father).

Yeah right, I don't think so.

When the Lord told Zachariah his wife "stricken with years" was going to have a baby, essentially he told the Lord, yeah right, I don't think so. The Lord promptly shut him up for a while until he believed it.

How many times do I do the same thing? Someone commented in Sunday School today about how Zachariah was a very faithful man, a priest for many years in the temple, and he and his wife had been praying for a child for years and were never blessed with one. So what did he do when he was told he would receive this blessing? He murmured and didn't believe it. This same person went on to comment - do we sometimes murmur at the blessings we receive from the Lord and consider them just another mundane thing or even a trial? Of course the conversation steered toward receiving blessings, but not in the way we anticipated.

I remember praying to know what to do with my life, going to the temple, fasting, waiting patiently, and when the Lord finally told me to go back to school and be a teacher I said, yeah right, I don't think so. Eventually I listened, it took me another entire year, but it has been one of the greatest blessings in my life. I remember feeling the exact same way I received the inspiration to go back to school while working to get my master's degree, again, yeah right, I don't think so.

Today's lesson was a good reminder the Lord knows best. People talked about how we all have times when life is not at all what we expected it to be. And that is not just for those of us who have prayed to be able to get married and haven't, or like Zachariah and Elizabeth, prayed for a child and weren't able to. We all face unexpected lives, but are we sometimes frowning at our blessings?

I had to have a little laugh to myself, maybe when I eventually find my husband, a blessing I have long been waiting for, it will be in a way totally unexpected, to someone totally unexpected. Will I be ready to receive it, or say, yeah right, I don't think so.

Quality Family Time @ Christmas

I've realized as I have gotten older that time spent with family doesn't come around quite as often as you would love it to - so you have to make the most of those treasured moments when you are together!

We spent Christmas out at my sister's house in Indiana (everyone except Reece&Caitlin) this year and had a wonderful time. With a bunch of little kids you can't get out and do too much, but it felt wonderful to have a down-home Christmas just spent with the family watching movies, playing games, sleeping in, wearing pajamas all day, and making holiday treats. I love my family! Merry Christmas! I hope you all had a wonderful holiday season with your families as well.

Merry Christmas to Me

Just when you have a bad day or two, it's time to think happy thoughts, no matter where they come from, even Italy! :) A friend of mine spent Thanksgiving in Rome, and met up with our friends B & D again, and look what I got for an early Christmas present! A cute photo Hello from the city of love, from a good-looking Italian man, who misses me. (The one on the right!)

The Missions of San Antonio

I spent Thanksgiving weekend in San Antonio with Mom&Dad and Reece&Caitlin. Aside from touring the Alamo, which was really really cool, (one of my childhood heros was Davy Crockett), we toured the Spanish missions. There are five missions in San Antonio and each is very different and very beautiful. They were originally walled cities more or less that the Spanish missionaries set up to convert the Indians of Mexico/Texas. We toured the missions close to sunset so the lighting was ethereal and gorgeous.

This is One Place I Never Thought

I would find myself. Teaching and loving these cute kids, my ESL, or English Second Language students. I just lost one student who was sent back to Mexico, but I still have four students from Mexico, and one little political refugee from Burma. What an adventure!

It's been amazing to me to watch these kids try so hard. I know there is a lot of prejudice against kids like this, even in my own high school; people wondering why they are here, ruining America, but I see things differently.

Most of these kids are not here of their own choice, their parents smuggled them into America. They don't hardly know enough English to pass their classes; one girl is in my regular English class as well as my ESL class, and it has opened my eyes to how little they are understanding in their regular education classes. Of course they don't get good grades or turn in all of their homework, they don't understand 1/2 to 3/4 of what their teachers are saying! And isn't education what is best for these kids? What better benefit for our society than to have these kids learn how to speak Engish and to become educated?

I'm proud of these kids for trying to learn English. What a task. I think they are brave to stay in school and graduate. Many of them have hard homes, babies of their own at home even, and just all sorts of problems they didn't ask for. My student from Burma only gets to talk to her mom once a month, and comes from a community where there is no running water and they lit their house with candles. Can you imagine the culture shock coming to America?

Gaining their trust has been interesting, speaking to them in my little bits of broken Spanish (thank you again, high school Spanish!) has been interesting, and teaching very basic English has been interesting. What an adventure, but isn't that what makes life interesting?

The Universality of Oprah

I was teaching my ESL students about adjectives this week and as an alternative assessment gave them a big stack of magazines and had them cut out a picture they wanted to write 10 sentences about / describe using adjectives. All of my Hispanic students chose rock stars like Beyonce and Rhianna; the boy chose a red sports car. My little girl from Burma chose Oprah.

She has no idea who Oprah is, but out of all the people she could have chosen to cut out - she chose her. She described her as beautiful with a pretty smile and nice eyes and fancy clothes and get this, she looks very kind and very nice and someone you could trust. Hmmm, so something about Oprah makes her look nice and smart and that is aside from her reputation. Interesting, is one of the reasons that Oprah has a large following everywhere is that she looks nice? So that my little student who just recently left a country where her family was so poor they lit their house with candles -- trusts her? Curious.

It was interesting to me as well when I was in Morocco earlier this year and we ate in the home of our friend Hicham, his mom was an avid Oprah watcher - translated into Arab! She was also an avid watcher of Judge Judy, but that's another story.

Things That Make You Go Hmmmm....

My Halloween costume. Thrown together in an hour - with my roommate who threw hers together in an hour. Don't ask, I have no idea what I was thinking! I'm not saying it isn't remotely cute, but I look like a freak. I hate spiders in fact, but this year I decided to go to our big Halloween shin-dig as a spider web. (???????) My roommate went as Carrie from the 70's horror movie, neither of us has ever seen. Hmmm....haha. Happy Halloween!

Playing the Slots

Over fall break we went down to Escalante (4 hour drive)and spent Thursday, Friday, and Saturday exploring the area. We had never been there before, but we found a lot of interesting and beautiful places. One of my favorite was Spooky and Peekaboo Canyons. The slots were really a tight fit and one point we had to slither through a drop and I might have started to cry a little because I was pretty scared. We did have a lot of helpful boys with us though - and we all had to push and pull our way through the tight spots!

Utah Culture

I have learned living in Utah, that some things are only really in style in Utah. We have this group-culture where people all have to have the same things, keep up with eachother. Most of things I don't fall to, but this one I did. I finally got one of these pretty bracelett-watches all the women in Utah are wearing.

Most women make their own - beading at parties, but I just bought mine at a booth at a fair. It was cheaper than buying my own beads, and no doubt prettier than the one I would have made. I won't get any interchangeable bands, green is my favorite color anyway! Pretty, huh? I don't actually wear watches, never have, but this feels more like a bracelett to me. I love it. And I needed to treat myself to something cute.

Husband Time Double Time

Alright, I am just going to let you all know, I have a plan to double-my-efforts in looking for a husband. :) And I need your help. If you come across any connections to eligible guys, let me know! I just moved to a new area, have met and gone out with a couple of nice new boys lately, and my goal is to work the numbers game. I'm asking my guy friends for advice on what I can do to date better, I am going to read The Case for Mr. Good-Enough when Cami brings it over to my house, pray for opporutnities to meet and go out with more nice men, and am going to try hard not to judge too harshly, give people chances, and just see if I can better do my part to help myself find a man. And just maybe, if I can make this goal publically and privately, the plan will become more real to me.

Social highlights of late:

A guy actually said to me this week over dinner, "Order anything you want as long as it is under $8.00."

A former student said: "Miss E, I don't know if you will ever get married, I don't know if there is a guy manly enough for you out there, or that could ever keep up with you!"

I got hit on at a party by a man who looked okay, then I found out he dropped out of high school, is still a pizza delivery man at age 35, and is named Axel.

Well, and I already told you the story of the "I like butterscotch, you like butterscotch," guy.

I think it's time to redouble my efforts guys....

Welcome My Favorite Time of Year

(The Unitas)


(Stewart Falls)

I may have been up to the mountains three times this week with friends: the Nebo Loop, Alpine Loop, and Provo Canyon. I cannot get enough! Fall comes and goes so quickly, I think that is part of its elusive charm! This is the first year I have ventured around the Nebo Loop and it rivals the other two canyons. I can't believe I worked in its shadow and have never driven around it. I think I need to plan a few more trips before the fall is over. The reds are perfect right now and the yellows are on their way!

Update: I went backpacking last weekend in the Uintas and it was so much fun! I've never backpacked in before and it was work, but not as hard as I thought it would be. I didn't take hardly anything which is part of the trick. We brought in freeze-dried food, water, sleeping bags and that is about it! It was a really fun trip.