Glimpses Into my Childhood

Here's a good reflective post for you. I felt like writing about some of my memories from my wonderful childhood.

When I think of my childhood I think of riding snowmobiles and four-wheelers. We used to tie a sled behind the snowmobile and pull it around the neighborhood or field. It was always so fun. We'd sit 2-3 kids on it, and see how far we could tilt it to the side without flipping it over. The best part is, that we still do it. When we go sledding still, Jashley and I will share a sled. We're so big now that we're crammed on there in really uncomfortable positions, but hey! it still works.

Another activity that I associate with my childhood, is playing night games. I remember during the summer trying to play night games with my sisters and neighbors almost every night. We would always pow-wow at Robertson's house, and pick a game. Then we would start playing, and end up arguing for a very long time about whether or not the little kids had to split up or if they could stay in a pack. Usually by the time that we finished arguing, no one cared anymore and we'd find something else to do. So basically there wasn't a whole lot of playing going on, but it's the thought that counts. Something else that goes right along with this is sleeping on the trampoline. During the summer, my sisters and I would sleep on the tramp as often as mom and dad would let us. To this day, it's still my favorite place to sleep.

One of my favorite games to play with my neighbors was Pirates. We'd split into teams with Cameron, Brett, and Adam Moore, and one group would be the pirates and the others would be the good guys. The pirates would catch the good guys and hold them captive on "their ship" (either the trampoline or the swing set.) Then the other good guys had to go rescue them. It was always so fun, but I remember that somehow it always turned into a game of house.  

When I was little kid I used to do this weird thing where I'd sit on the kitchen floor, pull my legs up to my chest so my feet weren't touching the ground, and spin. I'd sit there forever just spinning around in circles, sitting on the kitchen floor. It was really rather fun. You should try it sometime.

One of the most bizarre memories of my childhood was coming downstairs in the middle of the night once and finding Emily and Jashley, in Emily's formal dresses and having cowboy-style shoot outs while Le sat on the couch rolling with laughter. They'd provide the sound effects from The Good, the Bad, the Ugly (The one that I used to have as my ringtone, if that helps any), then they'd draw their imaginary guns from their hip-holsters and shoot each other. To this day, I still don't know why they were dressed in formal dresses, or why they were shooting each other, but I guess that's just the type of thing that we did in my family.

Another great memory from my childhood was when I learned my first swear word. I was watching the movie While You Were Sleeping. There's a part where one of the old men asks "What the hell is going on here?!" I thought that was funny, and that I was clever by quoting this movie. So I went and asked Jashley "Hey Jashley, what the hell is going on here?!" She laughed and told me to go tell Emily. I thought she laughed because I was funny, so I went and asked Emily "Hey Emily, What the hell is going on here?!" Emily also laughed and told me to go tell mom and dad. I thought I was supposed to go tell them because it was such a good one that they thought everyone should hear it. Apparently it was, but not in the way that I was thinking. So I went and asked my parents "Hey! What the hell is going on here?!" Then I got in trouble. Thank you Jashley and Emily.

All of these stories make me laugh. I had the best childhood a person could ever ask for. Great family, friends, neighbors, all living in a wonderful neighborhood. What more could a person want?

The girl who fainted

The day started out fine. Kelsey left the dentist office that morning feeling happy as can be. One her way to catch the bus, she sent a text to her mom saying "Wow! That laughing gas is good stuff!"

She felt slightly weak as she hustled across campus to meet up with her group members. She entered the business building study room as Eric, Jeff, and Jenny were finalizing their power point for the presentation they were to give on workplace bullying. The group moved together to the classroom where they were to set up for their presentation.

Jenny began the group presentation by asking the class-members what types of workplace bullying they had witnessed before. Eric followed her by defining what workplace bullying actually is, and giving examples of the different types of bullying. Then Kelsey spoke about the legal aspects of workplace bullying. She stumbled over her words a little bit, but the presentation continued as planned. After Kelsey's two bits, Jeff began telling the class about some strategies to avoid workplace bullying. That was where things took a turn for the worse.

While Jeff was asking for feedback on a given scenario, Kelsey's ears started ringing, and she started feeling disoriented. She shifted her weight and clasped onto the edge of the counter. She lost focus of what was going on, and the next thing she knew she was sitting on the ground and her group members and teacher were gathered around her. Her ears were ringing so terribly that it was almost a physical pain. Her friends helped her get to her feet, and Jenny walked her to the bathroom to recompose herself.

To comfort Kelsey, Jenny said that she had gone down really gracefully. Jenny had thought that Kelsey was bending over to pick a pencil off the ground, but then Kelsey slumped over and slid down the front of the table she had been holding on to. After the group had rushed over and gathered around, Kelsey had opened her eyes and regained consciousness.

After Kelsey had recovered from the event, she walked with Jenny back to the classroom. They sat through the rest of the class, and then reconvened with Eric and Jeff to discuss their next project. Eric told Kelsey that when she had collapsed, he had rushed over to her, but then realized that he did not know what to do once he got there. He said that in that moment, he did not remember any of his boy scout first aid training, and did not remember what to do with someone who had lost consciousness.
Jeff on the other hand said that when he saw Kelsey collapse, he started towards her, but then decided to keep his distance because he did not want her to feel too crowded when she came back around. The group joked that she had collapsed at the perfect moment. Jeff had just concluded and they had asked the class for questions, and that was when Kelsey slumped over and lost consciousness.

After discussing the event with her friends, Kelsey was feeling slightly less mortified at the fact that she had passed out and collapsed in front of 40 of her classmates. Although she would forever remember it as the most embarrassing moment of her life.

Rantings of an Economist

My Microeconomics professor is hilarious. We'll be sitting in class, and he'll go off on a random tangent for like 5 minutes, then refocus and continue with the lecture. When he does this, you can almost see the gears turning in his mind. As we've gone through the semester, I've kept notes of some of the funny things he's said. Hopefully they aren't "you had to be there" quotes. I tried to get ones that would just be funny in general.

"Jimmy Carter was a terrible president. And he was killed by a giant swimming rabbit. I'm serious. Look it up on the internet."

He has a theory that if you don't know what something is made out of, you can assume that it's made out of corn. Exhibit A) "Slurpies. What's in slurpies? Probly corn. Yeah! High fructose CORN syrup!"

"Anyone who's got any use for their guns: hunting, defending themselves,..... doing some murdering..... They aren't going to sell them."

Once someone asked if there was some way to come up with some formula for the government to calculate tax rates. Here are his reasons for why the answer is no: "1) the world is a complicated place 2) no one listens to economists anyway."

"Gregory Peck is nearly dead. He's not as great as he once was, but he's still awesome. you should show him some respect."

When discussing why politicians are too smart to believe all the things they say: "The fact that politicians provide this crap leads me to infer that there's demand for it."

"Let's be honest, losing a minimum wage job is only barely worse than keeping it."

"You want to ride a motorbike? Don't wear a helmet! We have a high demand for your organs."

In reference to Idaho: "You work hard, do well, then you have to screw something on your car that says 'famous potatoes'."

In reference to a picture of Joseph Schumpeter: "You look at this guy and you think 'yeah, he could be an ass-hole'."

"No one takes AIDS medicine for fun. It's not a good recreational drug."

"They've convinced us that if you refuse to pay for a diamond, you are a bad, bad person."

"You didn't buy the 120 pack of crayons and memorize the names? Apparently I was kind of obsessive as a child."

"Baseball doesn't need a salary cap; it's all randomness, so it doesn't really matter. It's not like football and basketball."

I hope you have enjoyed my documentation of the random rantings of an economist. Maybe I'll write another post at the end of the semester.

We did the mash! It was the Monster Mash.

Happy Halloween everybody! I finally did something that's actually worth blogging about! I had a Halloween party. Here's how it went down.

Step 1) Dress up like a Latin Dancer

Step 2) Crank up the Halloween tunes

Step 3) Have friends over.

Step 4) See how many tootsie-rolls you can fit into your mouth.

Step 5) Play a game of mouse trap

Step 6) Throw tootsie-rolls at each other and made a big mess

Step 7) Blog about it.

Mix that all together, let it sit, and you're due for a grand ole' time!

Christmas in October???

I believe that all holidays are created equal. And each one has the right to be celebrated in it's own special way.

Independence day has it's fireworks.

April Fools has it's practical jokes

 

Birthdays have their cakes

BUT there's only one holiday that you can start celebrating whenever you want. Some people celebrate the day after Thanksgiving, some celebrate all year long. But personally, I start celebrating somewhere around..... today. Break out the Christmas music, Santa's coming to town!!!!

I love Halloween, I really do. But today when I heard one Christmas song, I couldn't help myself. I had to pull up all the Christmas music on my iTunes. I love it. I could listen to it all year. Everything from O Holy Night, to All I Want for Christmas is You, to My Grown-up Christmas List. If it's about Christmas, I love it. Today someone said it's too early to break it out because you will get sick of it. That is a lie. I will never get sick of it. I love it too much!!!!! Yay for Christmas music!!!!!

To help you get in the spirit of things, here are a few links to get you started.

Grown Up Christmas List

Santa's Got a Brand New Bag

O Holy Night

Sleigh Ride (The best version of this song.)

There and Back Again (Not quite a Hobbit's tale)

I once swore that it would be over my dead body if I ever set foot in Laramie. Well this weekend I went to Laramie. And I'm still alive!!! My sister and her husband were blessing their daughter in Cheyenne, so I had my mom drop me off in Laramie on the way.

First I hung out with Kirsten and Austin for a few hours. We watched the first episode of Once Upon a Time. It was pretty great. We played Mario Kart, which I am still lousy at. It was fun time.

Then I went out for a few hours with another friend. I won't say much about that because it wasn't the most pleasant experience, and if I start talking about it I will go on a total rampage. The only thing worth mentioning is that I tried Applebee's wings for the first time. I was surprised at how good they were.

The next morning Austin made an absolutely fabulous breakfast. Then the three of us went to the UW homecoming parade. It was actually a pretty fun parade. And there was lots of candy to be claimed. All the kids around us were leaving the tootsie rolls. I was more than glad to take them though. But I do have to admit that it was weird to see so much brown and yellow instead of blue. I think I'll still take my Aggie Blue any day.

After the parade, I went to Mazie Lewis' house and then we went shopping with her sister Sadie. It was a really fun day. At the end of the day, I went to the football game with my dad, Stan, and Kevin. The first half was a super good game, but as soon as halftime hit, it started raining cats and dogs. But we didn't drive all the way there to get rained out. We went and sat where the over head section hangs over the lower section, and we stayed dry for the rest of the game. The best part of the game was when they played the Gangnam Style song and everyone started dancing. I had no idea that song was so popular. I thought it was just a funny song that my friend Phil liked. But no, apparently it's kinda a big deal. I seriously started laughing so hard.

At the end of the day, I have to admit that Laramie isn't as terrible as I thought it was. I still stand by my statement that I would never in a million years go to school there. But it's not a terrible place to visit. Laramie, you have redeemed yourself ever so slightly in my eyes.

Dreams to Dream

Since my life has been so uneventful lately, I've kinda taken to reflective posts. I told Kylee that I would try to remember my dreams this week so I could write a post about them. But I have failed to remember my dreams. So I've decided to blog about some of my more memorable dreams.

Most Quoted/Mocked:  "Help me you jerk!"

This one was great. In middle school I had a dream that I was running around trying to put together a picnic. I remember that it was a weird picnic because everything was extra big. It seemed like it was a giant's picnic or something. Anyway, I was running around with my arms full of stuff, when I stopped to talk to Brandon Taylor and Elio Merino for a minute. Then all of a sudden I felt a tickling on my arm. There was a massive, massive spider crawling up my arm. I started freaking out, but because my arms were full I couldn't do anything about it. And Brandon and Elio just sat there looking at me. So I dropped my stuff, punched Brandon in the stomach (hard enough that he doubled over in pain), and yelled "Help me you jerk!!!".

That's all I remember. But I remember it because I told it to Merrilyn and Erin that week and they thought it was so hilarious. And forever more, we quoted and mocked that dream.


Most Frequent: T-Rex attack

Did you ever have a recurring dream as a child? One that would come back again, and again, and again? I did. It would always start out where I'd be doing something at the church with my friends or family. Then someone would scream that there was a T-Rex coming to get us. So we'd go climb on the stage in the gym, and there was some sort of secret passageway there. We'd go through the trap door and then suddenly, the scene would change from the church to the food pantry at my childhood home. In my dream, the pantry was usually filled with couches or something like that, so it was very homey looking. Then the T-Rex would poke his head through the door, but he could never get his body through. Sometimes he would get some of my friends, sometimes he wouldn't. But every time, he would come at me, and I would wake up right before he would get me.

This is probly one of my favorite dreams just because as terrifying as it is, it makes me smile at the memory of it. And I blame it fully on the fact that I liked to watch Jurassic Park.