Really!?

It has come to my attention that there actually are some people who read this blog. This is shocking news. Seriously, I thought that we had 6 "subscribers" because April has a lot of siblings and some friends of ours a while back thought we actually updated it sometimes. Now I've learned that there are people who read it when it gets updated. Crazy. So I will try to make it interesting.

Today at work I got to "train" a lady named Mery from Peru. She's been a CNA for 8 years. She's WAY better at that job than me. So today was awesome. I even got to take a lunch! Also one of our residents who is totally addicted to her pain pills decided she had to have a bed bath right. now. So we told her no and she did it herself. Amazing how she can magically do things when we won't but if she thinks she can talk somebody into doing stuff for her she's completely incapable of helping herself. Now her excuse is that she's completely bat-crap crazy. That's why she lives in a nursing home. It's not an Earth shaking experience for her to follow a man (me) around the hall saying, "You need to give me my bed-bath now. You need to give me my bed bath now. You need to give me my bed bath..." But imagine if you saw someone doing that in the library. Or at Wal-Mart. Ok, you're right on that one, but at a normal grocery store it would be crazy right?

So I got to thinking. Is there anything I could totally do for myself that I just won't? It turns out there is. There's actually a lot of stuff. I need to lose like 45 pounds and I just don't. I need to read my scriptures every day and not skip because I feel tired or hectic. I need to learn how to organize my house and keep it that way. I could go on, but these are going to start getting embarrassing pretty soon. So it turns out that whether you live in a nursing home or not, whether you're actually diagnosed with some kind of insanity or not, no mater where you are: you're human. Sorry. There's no getting around it. We all struggle with things. For some people it's trying to sneak more Oxycontin and get young men to give you a bed bath. For some people it's working too much and ignoring your family. For some people it's eating too much junk food and not exercising enough (that one's me). It's kind of weird how much you can learn about life from working in a nursing home. But maybe not. It's just life amplified. With no other distractors, like an ability to care for yourself, you can really focus on showing popular character flaws and gossiping. Thereby giving others the chance to learn from your life.

Ok, so this hasn't been the silly, happy kind of entry that I usually aim for, and I promise not to get too serious/preachy like this very often. Sometimes I see things and I just want to get them written down somewhere.

Happy Saturday!

So I didn't have to go into work today! Which is great because I have been super sick all week and I'm still not completely over it, but bad because we need money and I'm quitting after this week. So it will be interesting to see how that works out.

This morning we went to the Early's for breakfast and the Axelgards were there! But not the ones who used to live here, different ones! But they were really nice anyway. So after breakfast we went up to the Jones' and Isaac and I went and threw a frisbee around in the park. I love frisbee! Then we played a game on his Xbox called portal 2 that totally awesome! You are two robots that have these guns that make portals so if you shoot the floor and a wall you fall through the floor and come out through the wall! We had a lot of fun launching each other into various things.

Ok so I know this wasn't the most awesome entry ever, but I'm trying to get into the habit of posting more often. So to make it up to you I'll tell you a joke I heard recently. There were three Indians who were all pregnant. The time came for them to give birth and one lay down on the skin of a bear and gave birth to a son. The second lay down on the skin of a moose and gave birth to a son. The third lay down on the skin of a hippopotamus and gave birth to twin sons. This proves that the squaw of the hippopotamus is equal to the sons of the squaws of the other two hides.

Finals Are Over!!

So this past week has been the magical time of getting things for free! I told you the story about the bookstore gift card, but I didn't tell you what happened yesterday on my way into the testing center for my last final- Genetics. The class I actually liked this semester. And pretty much the only one. The student development class was useful, ochem lecture was pretty interesting, and the lab was cool when it wasn't frustrating. But I digress- on my way into the test I stopped by the vending machines for my good luck bag of goldfish (it's the cheapest thing in the machine, and come on- who doesn't like goldfish?) and they didn't have any! So I stood back to decide and there was a young looking guy who grabbed something out of the machine and then turned to me and said, "You know, I've got diner's plus and I'm not going to use all the money on my card before I leave town. You want something?" And then a light shone through the ceiling onto his head and showed me that he was an angel. And I said, "Sure!" So I got Sun Chips, Wheat Thins, and Pop Tarts! For free! It was awesome!

On a completely unrelated note I would like to point something out that people who have known me for a long time and haven't seen my writing will be confused about: my use of the Oxford comma. I used to hate the Oxford comma. With a passion. Isn't that how the debate over the Oxford comma goes? It's like with PC's and Macs. There are no people in the middle of the road. Just a sharp division with strong proponents on either side. I used to come down on the side against. Now I'm for. How is this possible you ask? I'll tell you. I read a book called Eats, Shoots, and Leaves which gets its title from the punch line of a joke about a panda bear. The author, Lynne Truss made such a convincing argument for the Oxford comma that she actually changed my mind. I have been for it ever since. For those of you who have no idea what this whole paragraph has been about, the Oxford comma is the comma before the "and" at the end of a list. Red, green, yellow(,) and blue. Like that. I have been convinced that it actually does clarify meaning and aid in communication, which is the purpose of language and therefore punctuation. Hence my stance. This has been a message from Ben's Soapbox of Idiosyncracy, thank you for reading.

Finals week

So we went to St. George last weekend to visit the Whites and Jared and Kelly came up with their boys too! It was great! And before we left I stopped by the BYU bookstore and sold my OChem book back and got $94 for it! That's way better than the $12 Bucks for Books tried to give me! And when I got to the front of the line I told the lady who was running the register how impressed I was with how fast they get the line to move, because it still impresses me every time. That line is LONG and I was only in it for like 15 minutes! And she gave me a bookstore gift card! So I went downstairs and bought some chocolate for the road trip to find out how much was on it. I was expecting $5, but it had $20! How awesome is that!? That's awesome.

So we went to St. George and Neil and I went for a bike ride on his road bikes and it was super fun! April and I totally need to get into cycling. Maybe using next year's tax money. Also we got to attend Elijah's 5th birthday party, which was super fun- there was a pinata and everything! And April showed off her mad kid-wrangling skills. Sarah even turned to me and said things like, "How come they don't listen to me like that?" and, "How does she do that?" And this is coming from a mother of 3 rambunctious boys and a 2 year old girl! April is going to be such a good mom. Makes me want to say, "That;s right- that's my wife."

So we got back late Saturday night and went to our new ward on Sunday, after going to our old ward so I could sing with some other guys in our sacrament meeting. We've been meeting Sunday afternoons and singing various things- including a really fun old school barbershop arrangement of You're a Grand Old Flag with so many scoop-able notes we almost get seasick every time we sing it. But in church we sang I Love the Lord which is an arrangement of Be Still my Soul with different lyrics and some awesome chords! My goodness, the harmony in this piece is gorgeous. I should find a link and post it on here. Ok- on to the afternoon!

So I need to stop beginning paragraphs with the word so. I mean it is informal writing, so I guess it doesn't really matter, but it's still annoying. Sorry about that. After church we went up to campus to meet up with April's family and then went into the MARB where our new ward has sacrament meeting. One of the girls I work with- Lyndsi- is in our new ward and it was really weird to see her not wearing scrubs! During sacrament meeting we got to bear our testimonies and introduce ourselves to the ward, and afterward there were like 5 guys who came and said hi who are all from Poway! One of them was in my ward when I was knee high to a grasshopper! That was cool. Then I got the full tour, a breakdown of my new responsibilities, an interview with the Bishop so he could make sure his new 2nd counselor isn't crazy, and I went home.

That's when the adventure started. I got home at 2:30 and by 4:00 I had a fever over 100. I took a nap and by 6:30 it went up to 102.7. Then it stayed there all day Monday and all day Tuesday (I had to find someone to cover for me at work and I didn't get to go volunteer at the family literacy center!). Now it's Wednesday morning and I still have a fever but it's under 100 now- 99.96! So that means that on Monday I got to take my OChem final (the American Chemical Society entrance exam) while hopped up on so many drugs I couldn't see straight. I just hope I did half as well as I think I did on that test. Now I get to take my OChem lab final and my Genetics test to day and tomorrow and I need an A on the Genetics test, because if I get an A then Dr. Maughan will write me a letter of recommendation for med school- and I need some of those! Ok, I need to start updating this more often so these entries are not so long. Until next time- Have fun you guys!

Man, when will I ever get good at this thing?

So you may have guessed that a lot has happened since the last time I wrote anything. Much adventures. yep. So the semester is almost over, and the basketball team made it to the sweet 16 this year, which is the second farthest we've ever gone and the farthest we've gone since 1981. It was exciting. Jimmer Fredette was named the national player of the year, which was exciting. Probably because of the game against UNM where he scored 52 points. By himself! And a tradition began this year that involves basketball. When our players are on the free throw line we put our hands in the air and if it goes in we clap and say, "Woosh, Cecil!" and point at President Cecil O. Samuelson, who then points back. So when President Samuelson came to my med school application class I asked him if we did that on the good points of his presentation if he would point back and he said, "Is that what you say?" I totally taught him a tradition he had already been participating in for 3 months! Man I'm cool. Let's see, what else...

I learned how to separate paragraphs in my blog. But not very well as you can tell from big mess up there. ^ Oh yeah and WE ARE HAVING A BABY!!!!!

We find out the sex in 3 weeks! I think it will be a girl and April thinks it will be a boy. We have a running tally on our refrigerator of what all our family and friends think too. So far girl is winning. So we are super excited about that. If you have a guess, anyone who should happen to read this despite our infrequent updates, leave your guess in the comments section and it will be added to the list on the fridge. Ok, I have some OChem to work on, but I will write sooner than 4 months from now, I promise! I have to tell you about the a cappella group I'm in now!

Happy Wednesday!

So today was good. I went out to scrape the ice off April's car like usual but there was no ice! Then I came back to the apartment and the door was locked! With my phone and keys inside. So I enlisted the help of my friend Brian Earley and broke into the bedroom window. Yeah, on the second floor. It was fun. Then I went to classes, and I learned that if I run from class to class, then I can get good seats. Then I learned that I'm really out of shape. So during my Organic Chemistry lab I found out that I'm the smart one that everybody comes to for help. Go me! I even had enough product (that I synthesized myself) to give some to two other people who needed some because of difficulties they had! (probably defective equipment, and yes it was approved by the TA's, I'm not a cheater) Go me!

Also, I heard a girl singing on my way to campus as she was walking away from campus and the only words I heard before she realized someone was around and stopped singing (social stigmas being what they are) were "maybe you're a rich man too". That got me thinking. I am rich. I'm super rich! I may not drive a Bentley, live in a mansion, or have power in the traditional sense, but I have things that everyone in the world wishes for. I have a wonderful wife, a job, a family that loves me, in-laws I get along with, great opportunities for learning on a near daily basis and a very bright future ahead of me. Life is great!

Here's a random fact for today: Gingko biloba is the missing link of the plant world. It has parallel venation like a monocot, but it has bark like a dicot. Weird huh?

My wife is sick drunk

So today we are feeling a little under the weather. We didn't even go up to the Jones' for dinner. Just now April noticed that our ravioli bag has "approximately 78 ravioli" and I commented that it was weird because when you use the word approximately it should probably be a round number. Then she started laughing uncontrollably. That was when I noticed that something was amiss. We weren't on a first date, so she wasn't pretending that I was funnier than I am. She wasn't high because I didn't smell anything weird. So that left sick, and apparently so sick that she was sick drunk, you know- where everything is funny and nothing really makes sense unless it's crazy? Like that. But then I said something else and she kept laughing and laughing. I didn't know what to do, so I just left her there and told her to make me ravioli. In a very mean fashion. Grrr. (that's my mean sound, it has an accompanying face but I suppose you can't see that- hence the parenthetical observation)