Snuggie

Okay, so I was gonna post a commercial for this on here, but they are just so stupid I couldn't even handle it. Ha ha, so Snuggies are basically a blanket with sleeves, and you look extremely ridiculous in them. I know that I've made fun of them before, which is funny, because I now own one! I would like to state that I did not purchase it, but instead got one for Christmas. So I'm gonna go out on a limb and admit that I love my snuggie, even if I look like a big goof-ball in it!

Okay, I found a good one! Honestly, I think these would be fine if the commercials weren't so lame. However, I think that they are so bad that they actually encourage people to watch, laugh, and then purchase one!

A whole new generation of Trekkies

"Tell Calvin to come watch the Blog with me." - Carson

"The Blog?" -Me

"Yeah, they are scary!" -Carson

So my mom has been watching the old Star Trek films in lieu of the new one. She insists that we will enjoy it more if we see the old ones first. So this is what Carson, my 8-year-old little brother has gotten out of it! Oh yes, for those of you who are not Trekkies, he was referring to the Borg, who are these crazy machine alien dudes who... you know what, never mind. I am revealing too much of the nerd!

Oh yeah, this is Calvin - he is 11, and he has no idea who the Borg are.

Icy wonderland

So this morning was a little nuts. In preparation for the three (yes, three) finals I had today, I stayed up till close to 3 am. I probably would have slept through my 8-o-clock final if my carpool buddy hadn't shown up on my porch and woke me up! Ha ha, yeah I got dressed in like five minutes only to discover that my car was completely covered in ice. And this was not the normal Utah winter ice that comes off when you scrape it... nope, we scraped and scraped, and it wouldn't come off! It was nuts. It took four people and some de-icing windshield washer fluid to achieve some semblance of vision. (Ha ha, that sounds like a bad joke - how many dental students does it take to scrape a windshield?) I am happy to report that we made it to the dental school in time, and I didn't even get a ticket for my slightly illegal park job! Ha ha.

So in conclusion, I'm pretty excited to get three more finals crossed off my list of doom. Unfortunately I've got one massive exam left. Yuck. Well, I guess it's only one more day, right?

Lord of the Rings

Okay, I'm sitting here reading about "typical dental emergencies" and I keep thinking about Lord of the Rings. Why is that, you say? Be prepared for my somewhat involved story.

So last year for Christmas break I decided that the best use of my brief freedom from dental school would be to watch all three extended versions of LOTRs. Um yes, it was awesome! What started out as my own personal quest to conquer 10 + hours of quality cinema soon became a family project. The brothers soon figured out that when I went upstairs with my blanket, I was on my quest to continue the saga! I am proud to report that, even though it took me about a week, I made it through all of them.

Now it is Christmas time, and I have decided that it is my new tradition to partake of the awesomeness of LOTRs! In fact, I have already gotten some requests from my cute little brothers as well as the less cute (but still awesome) older ones. Ha ha. So anyways, studying for finals has become particularly difficult because, let's be honest, Christmas is way more fun to think about. Just one more week!

Blizzard fest!

Holy crap, Nebraska winter beats the shorts off of Utah winters! It's only snowed like twice and already we've had TWO snow days! Crazy, huh? Yeah, I think in all of my Utah living, I've only seen class cancelled once, and that was only because it was like 6-o-clock at night, and the University was tired of shoveling that late at night. Well tonight we had a preemptive class cancellation for tomorrow because of the volume of snow we have been receiving.

So I have actually spent the entire day inside studying, and I hadn't really been paying attention to what was happening outside. Then I looked out my front door, and realized that I couldn't open my door on account of all the snow that had drifted onto my porch. Crazy! So of course I had to go outside and take some pictures of it. Ha ha. Yes, it was cold, but it was totally worth it! I am even slightly tempted to get all my snow gear on and go roll around, or make a snow man, or something. Ha ha. Too bad finals week is still pretty much on (except tomorrow)!

Awkward Exam

Okay I was randomly watching MIB today, and I couldn't stop laughing at this scene! I love how hard it is for them to take this test, and I can't help but feel their pain. And then Will Smith just gets up and drags that table across the room! Ha ha, I loved it. Also, it is very late... and things are usually funnier that way! Oh my gosh, that is going to be me for the next week and a half!

Sleigh ride

You may have noticed that I added Christmas music to my playlist. I am really excited about one song in particular, because for several years I thought it didn't exist. You see, my brothers and I used to listen to this song every Christmas and get all excited for the holiday (yeah, we are weird, I know). It was on this old CD that we lost and re-found every year, and eventually it disappeared into the abyss. Well I've been searching for this song on the internet every Christmas for like the past five years, and I finally found it!

So please enjoy "Sleigh ride" by Mannheim Steamroller, and please don't judge me for my weird family traditions! Ha ha.

Good news!

Okay, I have some really, really great news!

So last summer I was doing some routine laundry, and happened to leave a certain item in my pocket. About ten minutes after the washing had started, I realized my error which - by that time - was uncorrectable. Yep, I washed my iPod nano!! It was a sad day, a very sad day.

Although the iPod was deceased and the screen was full of water, I was unable to part with it. Six months later, when I decided to clean out my closet, I found it and thought, "hey, why not." To my surprise and delight, it worked! So in case you are wondering, if you wash you iPod, it just might work six months later. So don't throw it away!!

Finals Mania

Oh my, is it that time again? Apparently. And for those of you that thought graduate school meant no more finals week (mostly me), that is wrong. Dang! Anyways... today I've been studying pathology, and my brain is pretty much fried. So I get the munchies when I study, and I got all stocked up with m&ms and cheez-its. However, that just wasn't enough to keep me entertained. However, I have discovered that living alone has some major benefits, such as the fact that I can spread my papers and books and crap all over the living room - and no one even cares! Ha ha. It's pretty much the best.

I think that part of the reason I am having such a hard time focusing is because I am just plain ready for it to be Christmas. I put my decorations up the first day of Thanksgiving break, and I love plugging the tree in at night. I am very proud of it, and I'm also very proud of the cute little dentist decoration my friend Kate gave me! I am so excited to go back to Utah for the holidays, and I'm already counting down the days. Just 15 more days (and 10 exams) left. Yay!

John Mayer fan

Hey, so I just found out that John Mayer released a new album like three days ago. I was pretty excited, but the funny thing is, I was tipped off to this fact by one of the removable prosthedontic doctors. So I would like to give a shout out to Dr. Davis, who rocks my world with his sometimes awesome, but usually odd music selections!

Also, John Mayer is apparently coming to Omaha next March, and I want to go! Anyone interested?

Dentists

Okay, so this weekend we were watching TV, and it suddenly hit me why no one likes dentists. Because in every show that I have ever seen that has a dentist, he (or she) is a big looser! For instance, the dentist in Lost is this old man who can't do anything, while the doctor is the studmuffin of the show. Seriously! The show I saw this weekend was "Charlie and Chocolate Factory." Talk about creepy dentist. The reason Willy Wonka is so messed up is because of his creepy father who wouldn't let him eat any candy. However, I did really enjoy the line at the end when Willy finally goes to see his father, and his dad doesn't even recognize him until he gets a good look at his "bicuspids" (an incorrect term, by the way)! So funny and sad at the same time.

However, if you would like to see a good movie about a dentist, please check out "The Whole Nine Yards." Talk about awesome dentistry! Matthew Perry (my very favorite character from Friends) plays this crazy dentist guy who gets mixed up with a couple of hit men. Anyways, he is my hero for being a semi-awesome dentist! Oh yeah, and the "Finding Nemo" guys is pretty funny, especially when his fish start speculating about whether or not he is going to do a root canal! Oh man, I am sad, because I totally get a kick out of movies with dentistry in it. Whatever, dentist are awesome!

Halloween!!

Okay, so most of the people who know me realize that Halloween is my favorite holiday. So as you can imagine, I'm pretty excited for this weekend. However, I have to first survive two more exams at the end of the week. Bleh. So I'm sitting at my place going through my microbiology slides, and I decided I was bored with that, and that I wanted to create a Halloween CD. Yay! I mostly wanted to do this because I started listening to some random Christmas CD my mom gave me, then I got mad at myself because it is way too early for that! Compiling Halloween songs actually proved to be more difficult than I thought. I mean, there is like Thriller, and Night on Bald Mountain, but beyond that, it starts getting more difficult. However, I did find this creepy Marylin Manson version of This is Halloween (from Nightmare Before Christmas). Creepy!

So I am officially excited for Halloween, and I will be celebrating the holiday by commencing my usual scary movie fest. Anyone want to join?

Oh yes, and for those of you who don't know, this is Bela Lugosi, the guy that played in the super old Dracula movie. It is pretty sweet!

Book List

Here's how it works:

1) Look at the list and bold those you have read.
2) Italicize those you intend to read.
3) Underline (or mark in a different color) the books you LOVE
4) Reprint this list in your blog so we can try and track down these people who’ve read 6 and force books upon them ;-)

The premise of this exercise is that the National Endowment for the Arts apparently believes that the average American has only read 6 books from the list below.

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien

3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meany - John Irving
45 The Canterbury Tales - Geoffery Chaucer
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

Sweet, books are awesome!

Dreamboat

"Hey dreamboat, your barnacle is here!"

Ha ha, sometimes reading old Ensign articles pays off! Just kidding, it always pays off, but this is probably the best thing I've heard all year! Someday, some guy is going to say this to me, and I will just have to marry him right there!

Back to school....

Yes, it's that time of year again when I bust out my Adam Sandler voice! We actually started class two weeks ago, and it's been kinda funny for people to ask me if I'm excited to start class, and I get to reply that we already started. Yeah, those bums over in the law school start tomorrow, so who knows what they've been getting up to these past two weeks! Just kidding, I love my lawyer buddies.

So Sophomore year as a dental student is looking pretty promising thus far. We spend every afternoon, if not more, hanging out in our awesome lab. We are currently in fixed prosthodontics (crowns and bridges), complete dentures, and operative (cavity preps). It is so much fun because after they lecture us for an hour or so, we get to spend the next three hours free in the lab cutting up teeth! Serious, it's like a big fat art class. Not really, because dentists deal in millimeters, and fractions of millimeters, so it's extremely precise with a lot of attention to detail. Still, I'm absolutely loving it! I'm like a big science/art/teeth geek these days. We have already done a couple of crown preps and cavity preps on extracted teeth, and I've got to say that I'm actually starting to feel a bit like a real dentist!

So our labs are balanced out by a whole crap-load of lecture time. We are in pathology, microbiology, growth and development, pulp biology, and periodontics on top of all our lab time. It's a little crazy. However, we have some pretty entertaining professors, especially in our micro class. Thanks to one of them, I will never look at yogurt the same again. Also, we did manage to learn all about cricket from one of the professors who is from Tazmania (Australia). I got to say, there are gross little 'gee whiz' facts I pick up from that class.

Well anyways, that is my brief little update. Unfortunately, it's getting late, and 6 am comes much sooner than you would think!

Just for fun

Okay guys, unfortunately I left my camera cord in Omaha, so I will not be uploading any pictures of me.  Oh well.  You'll just have to wait for that later!

So I got done with finals, and left that afternoon to fly out to Utah.  It was exciting to see the fam, but I got to say, packing and preparing to leave your home unoccupied for about a month is stressful.  I think that my future trips to Utah will either be shorter, or more well planned.  Ha ha.  So um how exactly do you pay utilities from two states away?  Anyways...

Well Harry Potter came out like the week after I got to Utah, so I made Blake and Lindsay go to it with me.  I was, however, disappointed that I didn't create some kind of Harry Potter costume because they actually tried to have a costume contest at the theater - and no one was even dressed up!  A bunch of non-fanatical Potter fans.  Lame.  I was disappointed in myself, but in my defense, none of the stores sell anything Harry Potter anymore.

I gotta say, I loved the movie.  They did an excellent job.  However, I am biased, because I think the Half Blood Prince was my favorite of the books.  I even managed to re-read the entire book before seeing the movie.  It was awesome.  I gotta say, I miss the days of buying Harry Potter books at midnight, then attempting to read the entire thing that night!  

Well let's see, I'm pretty much bored here in Cedar.  We did go to Disneyland, which was a BLAST!!  However, that place is always too busy when we go.  Someday I'm going to go on a random Tuesday in like March when everybody is in school or working.  Sweet.  Also, we went to the beach, but apparently there was some big storm in Tahiti (maybe?) that was creating huge swells at Newport beach.  This meant that we weren't allowed to go out very deep at the beach, and the lifeguards actually yelled at me a couple of times.  It made me pretty grumpy, because honestly I didn't think I was out that deep.  Besides, I get to the beach like 1 time a year, and it was ruined.  Lame.  Oh well, I still loved it!

Lazy river

Okay, so I have lots of other pictures, but I choose to start with these because they are the most recent, and they are my favorites!  Ha ha.

This weekend was pretty crazy.  Needless to say, I got almost no studying done.  Luckily, this week has been pretty laid-back with the 4th of July coming up.  Yay for national holidays!  Friday I went to a bachelorette party for a girl in my class, and it ended up being great because I got to know a bunch of the other girls.  Unfortunately, I didn't take any pictures, and I will have to wait until one of the other girls either posts theirs, or I beg them off someone!  I won't say much, but I will mention that there were penis-shaped straws involved!  Ha ha.  

The next morning I woke up to my friend inviting me to meet at the institute, and to bring a swim suit.  Intrigued, I met up at the institute, and we proceeded to drive out into the middle of Nebraska.  On the drive we were surrounded by quaint little towns, and rows and rows of cornfields.  I felt like I was in an M. Knight Shamylan movie, and I kept waiting for the aliens, or creepy plant infections to attack us!  However, we arrived at our destination safely, and I discovered that the plan for the day was to float down the Platt river on tubes!

Okay, so before our adventure began, we discovered these wind boats!  How cool is that?  I felt like we were in the bayou, or something.  If you have ever seen The Rescuers, that is exactly what these reminded me of.  I kept looking for Evinrude, but all I found were mosquitos!

Oh yes, this is David showing off his back-country hillbilly skills.  Ha ha, just kidding.  However, I thought this picture was hilarious!

This is Rae, my new friend from the ward!  Too bad she is only in Omaha for the summer...

This is a group photo - obviously.  That is me, David, Chris, Rae, Bernadette, and I don't remember the little girl's name.  Poor David is surrounded by girls.  Ha ha.  I don't know if he was upset, or just plain overwhelmed.  It is hard to tell from his face.

So the river trip was fun, but the Platt river is really wide, really shallow, and really slow.  We did find some slightly faster stretches, which was exciting, but for the most part it was just a very relaxing way to spend the day!  Too bad I came home with a super awesome sunburn on my back and shoulders!

I finished up the day with some extremely delicious Chinese fare contributed by the village green dental association.  I even made some tasty fried rice!  After that was Transformers on the IMAX screen.  It's good to be in Omaha!

The time has come...

Hey guys!

Okay, I haven't posted on this blog in forever, so the time has come.  Plus, so much has happened in the last month.  Woah.  I don't even know what to tell you about.

Major thing - I moved to Omaha, Nebraska about three weeks ago.  Crazy, huh?  Well me and my dad loaded up everything I own and drove a moving truck cross country.  We started at 7 am, and made it into Omaha by about 10:00 pm on Friday.  That's a solid 15 hours on the road.  Yeah, we didn't stop much.  For those of you who don't know, the drive is over 900 miles, so we felt like we had made pretty good time!  So my dad was kind enough to drive me out, but he had to make it back to Cedar, so he actually flew out Saturday afternoon.  To make things every so slightly more interesting, I couldn't move into my new place until the next Tuesday, meaning that I got to camp out at a hotel for about three days.  It was nice because I got to totally relax since surviving the massive attack of finals, but it was also extremely boring.  Bleh.  I was glad to finally be able to move into my new place!

I would like to send special thanks to the awesome dental students, and some random guy driving by, that stopped to help me move into my place!  I spent most of that first day unpacking and putting together furniture.  I single-handedly built a table, four chairs, a queen-sized bed frame, a desk, and a bunch of bookshelves.  It was an adventure!  So I live in a one-bedroom townhouse which consists of a bedroom, bathroom, kitchen, living room, and unfinished basement.  I have turned it into a pretty sweet little place, and I took a couple of pictures just for you!

This is my kitchen.  This is a confusing picture, just because there is a giant mirror taking up the entire wall, which makes my kitchen look twice as big!  Seriously though, this kitchen is bigger than the one I used to share with Amanda, Mary-Ann, and Catherine!  Yep, this is also the table where I currently do all my studying.  Awesome!

This is me.  Yay.  Well, acutally this is me in my unfinished basement, complete with washer and dryer.  (Wow, I need to tell that story!)  Any ideas on what I should do with the basement?

Still in the basement!  I have set up a little study cave, and in an attempt to make it more appealing, have decorated the walls with beach-related posters.  Okay, these are actually pictures from old calenders that I have been collecting for years.

Finally, this is my living room.  That is not all of it, and these aren't the best pictures.  Oh well.  I am finally able to put my giant surfer poster in the front room!  I was recently told that I am obsessed with blue... you can't tell from this picture, but I do indeed have lots of blue decorating my place.

Well the last thing I'm going to put up for tonight is to let everyone know that I now have a room-mate named Michelle.  She is staying in my basement for now, just because she didn't really have a place to stay for the summer.  The situation is that she was in med school last year, but got sick a missed several weeks of her gross anatomy lab.  She is here for the summer retaking gross anatomy at Creighton.  Anyways, I just felt like I needed to help her out, especially since I have plenty of extra space, and I actually have a spare bed.  I don't know how permanent she is, because there were other girls in the ward offering to let her stay with them, and it's a little bit of a service project, because I'm currently not really charging her rent.  Any ideas on how I could ask her on this?

Well there is a lot else to tell, but I'm bored, and I don't have any more pictures to post.  So maybe next time!

Finals Week!!

Oh man, finals week is so freakin' awesome!  I was just thinking about past adventures involving this most wonderful of weeks, and I thought I would shout out to them.

I believe it was 2006-ish, back when I lived with Amanda, Catherine, and Maryann.  We were all having a study party in the living room, and Catherine was eating some weird Chinese noodles.  Well they had these funky swirly noodles that she didn't like, so instead she made a creation with them.  Thus was the creation of "Mr. Happy!"  Ha ha.  Catherine and I thought it was so flippin funny!  This was likely because of our sleep-deprived, over-studied brains.  Maryann, however, did not find it funny, and I believe there was a comment made about sticking Mr. Happy on Catherine's butt.  Woah, man, that is what happens when too many people study for too long!

Another fun one - we will all remember the day that Catherine forgot about her O-chem final until the night before, then stayed up all night long cramming.  Also, she ate some weird feta cheese, and took an unintentional 3-hour nap on the love sac.

My favorite was probably the year when I spent all day studying for a genetics final, and we went to Ho Ho's chinese to celebrate when I got done.  Subsequently I felt sick (probably from the super-high-quality food from Ho Ho's), so I spent the rest of the afternoon watching the first season of Desperate Housewives.  I got all kinds of addicted, and Amanda and I kept watching all night until we suddenly realized it was starting to get light outside.  Yeah, that's probably the closest I've ever been to an all-nighter!  Ha ha.  Good thing we had 1-o-clock church, not nine.

Okay, there are plenty more, but I'm afraid I need to return to this year's finals adventures!  Good luck all you poor souls studying for finals right now!

So bored

Okay I would love to give you a glimpse into the life of a dental student.  First of all, I'm not complaining.  Okay, maybe just a little bit, but I would like to think of it as venting!  Ha ha.

This semester we had eleven classes, although some of them were only half-semester long.  I don't think I've ever taken that many classes at once.  Starting April 14th, we have or will have 19 exams or quizzes within about 22 days.  I'm done with 7 of them which leaves 12 in 13 days.  Seriously, they are trying to kill us.  Bleh.

Okay, done venting.  I haven't updated my blog in forever, mostly because of the aforementioned testing situation.  Well things are getting crazy, which means that it must be finals once again, and then the semester will be over.  It is so weird to think that I'm nearly done with my first year of dental school.  Crazy, huh?  I'm 1/4 a dentist!  Ha ha.  I'm also thinking how sad I am to be leaving Salt Lake.  I've spent my entire adult live living in Salt Lake, and it's strange to think of leaving a place I love so much.  I must admit that I'm not entirely thrilled to move out to Omaha, especially since it's flat, and I have no idea which way is north sometimes.  However, I am ready for a new adventure.  Awesome!

Omaha Stylee

I found this sign, and thought it was funny.  However, I didn't go in.  Hmm, I'll have to do that when I move!

For those of you that don't know, Omaha Stylee is a 311 song.  I just thought it was funny because I am moving to Omaha in like 6 weeks.  Crazy, huh?  Well here are some pictures from my recent trip to Omaha.

So my purpose for going was to secure a place of residence for the next three years of dental school.  I checked out the school - which was awesome - scoped out some townhouses, and visited some places.  I should also mention that my dad went to the same school 18ish years ago, so I actually lived in Omaha for three years.  Therefore, the entire trip was a big ole nostalgia fest for my mom.  Ha ha.

The last day we were there we went to the Henry Doorly zoo.  It's this giant zoo that would kick Hoagle zoo's butt, and it was even more fun because I used to go there as a small child.

This is a picture of my parents in the "Desert Dome."  This is the big dome you can see, and I was extremely curious about it the entire trip.  However, inside wasn't terribly exciting because it all looked like Southern Utah to me!  Ha ha.  This is my favorite picture of my parents.  If you can't tell, my dad had the funniest look on his face!

Inside the Jungle place by a large snake.  I have an even cooler picture from when I was about 12 of me actually holding a snake of this magnitude.  They wouldn't let us hold any of the snakes at the zoo...

This is the Winter Quarter's temple, and it is really cool because it is built on the cemetery at Winter Quarter where all the saints are buried.  It was really sad, and really beautiful.

For some stupid reason, the only thing I could remember from Omaha as a child was this slide.  It's in the middle of town, and the slides are really big.  Great for kids, apparently!  My mom admitted that she only brought me there once, and had no idea why I could remember it so vividly.  I didn't slide down them this trip because I didn't want to compete with all the little kids (and one creepy older man).

So in conclusion, I did find a very nice place to stay.  It is in Village Green, the same complex where my parents lived (and me).  Seriously, my mom was telling stories up the wazzu.  I didn't take any pictures, but I am very excited about it!

My Favorite Movie Quotes

This is going to be an on-going post that I will update with quotes that I find to be hilarious, entertaining, or just plain memorable.

"This is the worst lunch I have ever had.  Don't you know I have had diarrhea since Easters?"

"Beneath the clothes you find the man.  And beneath the man you find his... nucleus!"

-Nacho Libre.  One of my very favorite quotable movies.  So very, very many funny things!  Seriously, I made my family watch it, and they love to use the "worst lunch" quote all the time.  Watch it!!

"Hold on to your butts."

-Jurassic Park.  This is the most random quote ever, and I found it hilarious!

"Why a spoon?"

"Because it's dull, you twit!  It'll hurt more."

-Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves.  I just like the word 'twit'!

"Too early for flapjacks?"

- Groundhog day

"We'll stay up all night telling manly stories.  And in the morning, I'm making waffles!!"

"I'm a donkey on the edge!"

-Donkey from Shrek I.  I love both these quotes because my dad says them all the time!

"There's something wrong with this yogurt."

"That's not yogurt, that's mayonnaise."

"Right!"

-Notting Hill.  Jut picture nasty Spike chowin' down on some mayonnaise!

Not to mention the plethora of quotes from Austin Powers!

"Mole!  Bloody mole!  I want to chop it off, cut it up, and make some guacamole!"

"Stick that in your pipe and smoke it."

"Who throws a cupcake?  Honestly."

"What do you know about my father's where.... about.... s?"

"Mooooole...."

"Can't I get some frickin sharks with some frickin laser beams attached to their frickin heads?!"

"Unfortunately sharks were placed on the endangered species list while you were frozen.  However, we do have genetically mutated sea bass."

"Are they ill tempered?"

Words from the Midwest

Okay guys, today I managed to fly out to Omaha, Nebraska!  Awesome, right?  Well I had quite the mishap attempting to board today, making me much less of a fan of airports in general.  Bummer, right?  Well after standing in line for about forty minutes, the guy at the front tells me that it's too late to check my bag, and I that I'm going to have to make a run for it.  So I've got about 20 minutes till my flight leaves, and I've still got to get through security.  Sadly, I had my bag full of shampoo and other such items that airports are in desperate shortage of, therefore they took all of it, making me very sad indeed.  So there I am with my shoes off (they make you take 'em off) holding my computer, and two bags (because they didn't check it) and luckily my dad shows up to snatch my bag and lead me quickly to my gate.  We've got like five minutes, and I'm running like a mad crazy person - with no shoes - through the airport, on those awesome moving sidewalks, down the escalator, through the gate, down the hall, and out to the plane.  We totally made it with seconds to spare!  I finally got to put my shoes on and catch my breath, and enjoy my in-flight beverage and cookie!

Well now I'm in Omaha, and I got my first look at the place I will be living for the next three years.  First impression, I really liked it.  It wasn't as flat as I had anticipated, and there are some really cool old buildings, and delicious restaurants.  Plus, I really liked the actual dental school.  I also ran into one of the sophomores, and he greatly encouraged me by letting me know that apparently all of the other guys in my dental class are slackers.  Hmm, maybe that has to do with all of their drinking parties on the weekends!  So basically, I'm excited for school next year.  The living situation, however, is a completely different story.  First of all let me express how much I hate trying to find a new place to live.  Bleh.  It is like my least favorite thing ever.  So that is what I am attempting to accomplish during this trip, so I will most likely be in a better mood once I find someplace to live.

So today has been one of adventure, and I hope you enjoyed my narrative on the entire thing.  Oh yes, and I also need to tell you about my madness that occurred yesterday.  So I spent the first couple of days of my spring break in Cedar chillaxing with my brothers.  Yesterday (wednesday) I finally decided that it was time to go back to Salt Lake.  However, it was getting a little late by the time I finally pulled out.  So I was enjoying myself, because I actually prefer driving at night.  I even busted out my Angels and Demons book on tape, and was jammin' on down the freeway.  All of a sudden I saw something in front of me.  I slammed on the brakes, but it wasn't fast enough.  I hit a deer!  It scared the crap out of me, especially because you hear so many horror stories of deer totaling cars.  I felt very lucky that I was just fine, my car was only mildly damaged, and the deer ran away, so I can only hope that it was okay.  I guess someone has been looking out for me during my travels, and I feel very blessed to be safe during my travels!

I will try to post some awesome Omaha pictures when I get home.  Peace out, guys!

Spring break

Okay, I haven't wrote anything for a long time, so I figured now is as good a time as any!  I am currently in Cedar, and as usual, haven't got anything done.  Oh well, I am having too much fun with all my millions of brothers.  Seriously, we have so much fun.  On Saturday I took the two youngest ones to the piano festival, and they both did awesome!  We also got to go to Wingers with my cousin Kent, and his wife Alyssa.  Kent and I used to be best buds, and we haven't really hung out since before his mission, so it was AWESOME to hang out and mess around with him.  

Mitchell has also sucked me into Halo tournaments with him and his friends.  It has got to be the coolest thing ever because my parents have a projector screen at their house, and we hooked up the xbox and started killing each other!  However, Mitchell's friends happen to be good, or at least much better than me.  Ha ha!  I have also finally figured out how to hook up my xbox live, and have been battling it out with the dental students on Halo.  I am sorry to say that my halo skills are weak at best.  Oh well, I have fun driving the warthog!

Also, have you ever had a weird craving for something from like a movie?  Once I watched Secret Window and I was craving doritos and mountain dew for like a week!  Well anyways, I watched this 30 rock episode, and I've been craving a Mcflurry for like a month!  So get this, McDonald's has failed me repeatedly.  In Salt Lake, the one I went to was out of ice cream.  Darn.  Hmm, well I figured Cedar probably had some, right?  I even managed to involve Blake and Mitch on this particular adventure at about 11 o clock at night.  Too bad the McDonald's was closed early for some odd reason.  Good thing that everything but Wendy's closes by 11 in Cedar, meaning I got to enjoy some fries and a delicious "midget" frosty!  Excellent replacement, I must admit!  

Well today I did actually get some stuff done, such as start work on my preventive dentistry presentation.  I figured it was appropriate for the only female dental student to pick a topic about something female-related, right?  I'm going to present on some stuff that dentists should be aware of with pregnant patients.  Awesome, right?  I will let you know how it goes over.  I just want to get it done and out of the way.  This evening I unearthed my five separate scrapbooks, and had a good laugh at all the pictures I found.  I forgot how much fun I used to have!  I also got to fly some kites with the brothers, and I decided that the very best kite you could possibly own is the super cheap diamond kites.  They are only a buck, and they have cool pictures on them like Iron Man, and Buzz Lightyear!  

I went and did it!

Okay, I don't think anybody realized it, but I have been attempting to grow my hair out since last fall.  Considering how short it was this summer, that was quite a feat.  Hence, I have decided to throw up some pictures.

Alright, this summer I got what I like to call "the mullet" cut.  This was made worse by my previous color job, which was red on the bottom.  All in all a yucky cut.  As the dental students would put it, I sported the "fem-mullet."  Ha ha!

Seeya later mullet!  This was my new, improved look with no mullet, and no red.  This is also my very favorite hair-cut ever.

This is about the longest it got.  This was about a week ago.  See that nasty little bang that loves to be in my eye? 

Check out the new and improved!  I got it whacked today, thanks to Amanda's inspiration.  The back is even shorter, if you can believe it.  Anyways, so much for my growing-it-out plan.  Yay!!  (Seriously, getting my hair cut is like an addiction.)

Rachel, oh Rachel!

This weekend was superbly lazy and relaxing.  I almost think that the stresses of tests are worth it just so you can enjoy the calm afterwards!  Seriously, it is the best feeling in the world.  Anyways, I managed to get reacquainted with my Xbox360 for many hours, which was awesome.  I also watched Stardust, which is one of those movies I love, even though it is probably one of the cheesiest movies ever.  On Sunday I had a lovely visit from one of my good friends, Rachel.  Sadly, no Cafe Rio was involved.  The reasons for this are twofold: because it was Sunday, and in memory of Catherine's illness.  (She is my usual Cafe Rio buddy, but she had the flu.)  

Back to my story.  Well Rach lived with me for over a year, and we had a blast.  Here are some photos to illustrate my point!

I would like to thank my awesome MacBook computer for making this party possible, and also all of Rachel's quarks that comes out when cameras are involved!