Looking Back

So it is a busy week. A week of lots of things to procrastinate by reading my old journal when I should be reading my psych book...

I just wanted to briefly share this entry I found about Sel :) cause it made me smile and made me realize how well things can turn out if you don't try and mess it up by being crazy-

November 7th, 2010-Sel has everything I could ever want: patience, brilliance, ambition, compassion, spirituality, athleticism, he is distractingly handsome AND he has a great family. He even has the small things I didn't even realize I wanted-he served the same mission as my dad, he puts his arm around me, he laughs like a little boy sometimes, he makes me laugh all the time, he makes hysterical faces, seems genuinely concerned about me, doesn't care for watching sports all that much, loves traveling, appreciates the same YouTube videos I do, doesn't care that I am clumsy, lets me vent to him, opens the car door for me every single time, wants the same number of kidlets...I could go on, but the very few remaining pages of this journal force my hand still. I don't necessarily need to know that this is the boy I am meant to spend the rest of my life with, but it would help to know that relatively soon... I need to know that he can handle me-my occasional outbursts of emotion, my idiotic moments, those critical times where I pull away instead of draw close, my lack of life skills. I need to know he will chose to love me not just inspite of these things, but almost for them. I think my parents have that kind of love, loving one another's weaknesses in a way. I don't think I will ever struggle loving another human being, especially him. I already want to do all these things for him to let him know how I love him, but I fear of overwhelming him, having it be excessive. I am truly terrified of putting my heart fully on the line for someone I already care so much about and having it possibly be rejected. I don't think I could survive it very well at all. Thing really will turn out the way they are supposed to. I shouldn't fret because I know there is a plan for me one way or another

Love, L

I teared up reading this because I remember feeling this way. So terrified of rejection that I almost hindered the happiest thing that has ever happened to me.

Sel is amazing. Journals are amazing. Procrastination is amazing. Sonic cherry limeade is amazing. Taking tests on material you haven't studied and not caring because you have lots of amazing things in your life called graduation in a few shorts months is..almost amazing...maybe?

Commentary

I should be studying for my anatomy practical tomorrow. Isn't that how it always goes though? I should be doing something else when I decide to blog.

Sel and I have interesting conversations from time to time. I usually tip toe around becoming too emotionally involved in our conversations when they are of particular interest to me. My emotional attachment to the words coming out of my mouth ensured I never did well in debate during high school. Anyway, our conversation today started after reading an article about the murder a 19-year-old muslim woman. She was brutally tortured and then strangled by her husband. The reason: she gave birth to a second daughter opposed to the son her cruel husband wanted. Another story was briefly listed of another 19-year-old who was tied up and raped by her cousin's husband. When she reported the incident and her pregnancy because of it to the police, they threw her in jail for three years. The reason: she had committed adultery by their law. She gave birth to her baby on the floor of the jail. She is doomed now to either live out the rest of her life in jail, be released and likely murdered for bringing such a dishonor to her family, or marry the man who raped her to legitimize the birth of her daughter.

Having studied anthropology fairly extensively for the past few years, I appreciate and love differences in all types of culture. This, however, is disgusting. This is wrong. Everyone, no matter what their background, should see this for what it is.

In our conversation, Sel and I came back to the fact that America isn't too far off from these backward Afghan ideologies. How often does a girl who gets raped get the blame? She drank too much or was wearing too revealing of clothing. Many victims hold back from reporting rape because they are made to feel like it was their fault. After an hour or so of discussion of whether the victim could have avoided the situation or not, Sel and I reached a bit of a conclusion on how current societal ideologies of sex are to blame. I really want to be able to express my true thoughts on this, but know my actual thoughts are weakened by my inability to properly verbalize these emotions. I beg you not judge me too harshly as I know I might not come across the way I want to.

There is a problem with how casual an act sex has become. Lust has replaced love and respect and devotion. Strangers are giving one of the most personal aspects of their selves to one another. A piece of them forever given to another they may never speak to again. Some claim casual sex with multiple partners has no effect on them whatsoever. It is liberating. No remorse. No regret.No emptiness. Maybe they are telling the truth, but I have a hard time fully believing it.

Rape is obviously a different situation. The part of that victim's soul is being stolen through a violent physical act. I am not trying to say the victim is at fault in anyway. I am saying the opposite. I am saying this issue goes beyond just a single victim and a single rapist. Society is not what it should be. There are plenty of things people criticize almost hourly about today's society. A lot is centered on politics and what fault is to be placed on whom. I know it might not be as plausible as evaluating how to fix the national debt, but attention should be paid to the issue of society's current ideas about sex. The more skin the better, fashion seems to say. Men can become manlier by having sex with as many partners as possible. One night stands are totally acceptable. In watching a T.V. show over Christmas break, I was shocked by all the things that happened in one episode. Three high school friends decided to have a three-some and on a another story line, a fifteen-year old was plotting how to properly give her virginity away to a 19-year-old drug dealer. Oh and the father of the fifteen-year-old was having an affair with a neighbor. I don't feel as if I am being prudish by pointing out that this is an issue. Teen Mom is one of the most popular shows on MTV. Girls in Jr. High admire and aspire to be like these poor girls who must forever live with the life changing responsibility and duty of caring for a child while still being one themselves.

Sometimes when I think about the way things are now in America and in the world, I feel hopeless. I think of the broken families with broken hearts. Americans hoping their paycheck will last them till the next one. I think of the civil war in Uganda. A seemingly never-ending war of violence and death and heartache. I think of Romanian orphans who stare at gray walls in stale beds with little hope of having more than a few minutes of human contact a day. I think of the women in Afghanistan who are killed for giving birth to a child of the "wrong" gender. Of these women who are by some twisted law to blame for being taken advantage of.

I know I sound gloomy, but I promise I am getting to the good part. When I feel this hopelessness, this feeling that I want so desperately to fix everything wrong in the world, I remember where my hope lies. I don't care what religion one reading this might be, but if you have one, I know you know the world has light in it. Even if you don't believe in God, I bet you know there are people, lots of people, who are amazing and beautiful and are fixing this world one person at a time. You probably are one of those spectacular people. A belief in a world without rape and murder and suffering is not religiously exclusive. Human beings alike want happiness no matter what their background. I come from the background of being a Mormon. Being a member of the Church of Jesus Christ is my hope. My everything. Following it's teachings has given me a sense of indescribable peace. A knowledge that everything is not lost. It will never be lost. Morality and humanity have not completely evaporated. More people in the world than not still care. Being married to Sel and knowing how wonderful a permanent, eternal relationship is makes me want to tell everyone they can have it to. Cause they can. They can feel as happy and grateful and hopeful as I do. I know I am just going on and on, but I really wanted to try at least a little to express something deeper than my usual injury/awkward stories. It might be obvious right now why I don't try to do this more often because I just can't seem to capture what I want to...All the same, hope you are having a brilliant day! (and studying/doing the things you should be doing opposed to putting it off like I have...)

http://www.lds.or

The Iron Lateral Malleolus

In Loving Memory of Whiz's Healthy Lateral Malleolus

Outdoor winter sports and I have never been real good friends. I always seem to lose circulation to my extremities within minutes of playing around in the snow. When I was younger, my family and I would go skiing in some of the "best snow on Earth". I would zoom down the hill for about five seconds and then WHAM, massive face plant into the snow. Tears. Cold. More Tears. My dad telling me to get up. Another face plant. Tears. And by 11AM, I was about ready to use my skis to bludgeon anyone who encouragingly told me to keep trying. This was why I was not super excited when I found out my family-in-law wanted us to go skiing with them this weekend. Conversation with my mom on the Wednesday before

Me: Mom! Guess what I am going to do this weekend?

Mom: What?

Me: Going skiing with the Sels!

Mom: Oh no.

Me: Guess what else I am going to do this weekend?

Mom: Go to the emergency room?

Me: Ha. Funny.Why do you always expect me to get hurt?

Little did my mom know she was predicting the future. I did go to the emergency room this weekend. My father-in-law is a beast. He is technically 51, but he neither looks it nor acts like it. I would Wii fit him at 23-years-old. We will come back to this wonderful fellow in just a jiff. I have to foreshadow the story so it makes it even more entertaining and suspenseful for you. Sel, Kit, Caboodle, Briz, Briz's buddy, Whiz, KT, Hans, & Bobert (look how secretive this names are..and yet how amazingly cool. Bet they wish these were their real names) all headed up to Powder Mountain early in the morning. Sel and I got to take a skiing lesson with a friendly, love-struck instructor for three hours of powdery fun. Guess what? I didn't fall AT ALL. Yup, not once. In fact, it was easily the most fun I have EVER had skiing. I had Sel, the fresh mountain air, Joe the instructor, and only mildly cold fingers. Blissful. Sel and I even had a few racing games after lunch. I got to have a 60 second head start and then Sel would try and beat me to the bottom. I beat him...kind of...sorta..not at all. Sel's the best. Ever.

Now back to that early foreshadowing reference. Whiz, Sel's poptart, went off with Briz & BB to dodge pine trees in the fresh powder. They took on black diamond runs, double black diamond runs, diamond headed spears dipped in poison runs. They were kind of a big deal (still are). Not as cool as Sel and I on the green circles of course, but not too shabby. We called my parentals as we rolled on back to G&G's house to announce zero fatalities and injuries. We gleefully trotted into the house to tell the rest of the fam about our glorious day. Sixty seconds later, Briz came in to announce Whiz's ankle was broken. We stared at him suspecting he was telling a story. False. He was not. We found Whiz laying just outside the front door with his ankle draped unnaturally over the one and only step. The Sels were calm to the core. They gently picked up Whiz and carried him to the car. To keep him from going into shock on the ride to the hospital, Sel had to have him touch his iphone for comfort. I have never seen a happier patient than Whiz. Whiz is a radiologist who has never broken a bone or even been a patient in the hospital. He seemed fascinated to be the patient for once. He just snuggled up with his morphine, iPad, and iPhone in that ever comfortable hospital bed and asked to look at the x-rays so he could diagnose himself. 8 screws, one plate, and four hours later, Whiz easily came out of anesthesia to enjoy an orange popsicle (he was on drugs. He couldn't appropriately discern how nasty of a flavor the hospital demons were giving him). He and DSW shoes than drove the three or so hours back to IF without complaint. He even went into work today. Oh and they inserted a retractable knife into his ankle so he can karate slash anyone who threatens him. That's my dad-in-law folks. Be jealous of his awesomeness.

The Orange Reality

First, I have to confess my husband is the best human ever :) Yesterday, I passed out on our couch (in a normal exhausted way, not in a lack of blood to the brain way) and the handsome fellow carried my limp body to bed. And then he snuggled up next to my drooling face even though I was too tired to get up and brush my teeth. That my friends is love.

Second, a boy passed me on the stairs the other day and decided to welcome me to Space Camp. He informed me it was two miles to the summit and then his black trench coated self vanished into the Smith Field House Forest.

Third, I did the most unspeakable thing. For as long as I can remember I have hated orange anything. Mandarin oranges. Cuties. Orange starbursts. Orange skittles. Orange sour patch kids. Sour patch kids in general. Orange M&M's. Orange cats. Orange fruit loops. Orange highlighters. Sunny D. Naval oranges. Blood oranges. Sunkist oranges.

Do you get it yet?

Sel and I made a bet months ago on how long it would take our brother-in-law to kiss a girl after he got back from his mission. I lost. If Sel lost, he was to eat a cup of mint ice-cream (his least favorite flavor in the world). If I lost, I had to eat (shudder) an orange.

Last week, I finally owned up to my part of the bet. It took a bit because I really didn't want to admit I lost...and because I fetching detest oranges.

Until now...I ate an orange. And I liked it. I think. It has been taking me awhile to adjust to this alternate reality where oranges might not taste like arsenic. I still am not sure who I really am anymore. I might even think of eating another one to help me decide what my new purpose in life might be instead..

Gramsified

(Grams explaining to me how to become amazing like her)

You know how people always think they have the most adorable grandma in the world? Okay, so maybe that only happens with children, BUT if this was a normalcy, I would absolutely win the contest of cutest grandmother in the universe.

My sweet 84-year-old grams stands just below my armpit at 4'11. She probably weighs 95 pounds, but is always insisting she is developing "a belly" and refuses to buy clothes (which she ALWAYS pronounces clo) lower than a 14 though she is obviously around a size 4. She gets her salt and pepper hair done every other Friday around 8AM. She loves lawn ornaments and celebrates every holiday to it's fullest potential. She has a stone goose that sits on her porch that she dresses in clothes themed to whatever season or holiday is being celebrated. She also sends cards to all of her grandkids and 21 (ish) great-grandkids for EVERY holiday-Valentines Day, Saint Patricks Day, Easter, etc. Her favorite color is blue which is obvious from her living room, kitchen, and bedroom decor. She drinks a concoction of pure cherry syrup and cranberry juice every morning ever since she heard about antioxidants. She can out power walk my 18-year-old sister. She is a chocolate addict. She will share EVERYTHING she owns, but she keeps a secret stash of the best chocolate in one of her laundry room cabinets around the holidays. She was a BABE (and still is) and married one of the handsomest fellows around. She misses my grandpa every single day and can hardly wait to see him again. While watching"The Mentalist", my grandmother will wax on about how handsome Simon Barker is and then abashedly cast her eyes to the ceiling and apologize to my deceased grandfather. She points her finger at me whenever I visit and says, "Are you still praying to keep me around? I'm ready to go and you can't stop me!" When the doctor tells her during checkups that she is perfectly healthy, she sighs. Everything my grandma does revolves around serving others and living like the Savior. She has an intuition like no other I have ever met and seems to always call when I need it most. She predicted the man I would marry down to the specifics and winked and whispered to me after meeting Sel that "He's the one!" She is absolutely hilarious without even trying too and has more spunk than any hormonal pre-teen I have ever met.

I want to be JUST like my Grandma someday. I know it will likely never happen because she is WAY too much to live up to, but I keep hoping all the same. Here's to becoming a future Wanda!

Costa Oh-Maya Goodness

Now that I am not sitting on my couch counting the number of things I should be doing: grading papers, studying for finals, cleaning our apartment, etc. I can sit on my parent's couch in Ohio with Sel doing nothing but being super happy that we dominated all of the things I normally think about doing when in P-town. Also, we got to go to Chi town for the past two days with my family and it was fantastic! We also got to go to the Ukranian village because my parents have replaced me with a beautiful Eastern European high schooler. I (take a deep breath) even ate some red meat so I wouldn't offend the kind Ukranians who prepared a scrumptious meal for us while we were there.

I now have found time to relay one of my favorite stories from our honeymoon. Our first port on our cruise was Costa Maya, Mexico. Sel and I got all geared up with the fancy red mom pouch we purchased in Florida and our pounds of sunscreen. After a beautiful snorkeling adventure, we had to decide whether to join the throng of overweight tourists wearing swimsuits two sizes too small

at the beach bar (there was a Fat Tuesdays at EVERY port we went to) or invent our own cultural excursion. Since we had a coupon for a free non-alcoholic drink at Señor Frogs, of course we had to do that. It was free, right? And if there is anything my sweet husband has to use, it is something that is free. Another defining thing about Sel, he is fantastic at saving money. He hates spending something he knows he could save. Sometimes this is great, sometimes it is not so great. Unfortunately, that day was a day that it was not so great. We decided to not pay for a taxi and walk the three miles into town. In the 100 F+ weather. As we started our walk, we were confronted with none other than a fleet of Mexican machine guns and 50 or so armed solders. I panicked and told Sel we should just go back to the boat and gain some more weight. Sel looked down at the coupon and shook his head, "Everything is fine. It is just an award ceremony. This will be fun". As we weaved our way around the machine guns, I looked up and meet eyes with a sniper hiding behind some fourth floor curtains. He stealthily slide back behind the curtains just as I tugged on Sel's hand in an attempt to get him to look at the disturbing sight. Sel shrugged and pulled me forward. We finally found the complex where Señor Frogs was, but everything was shut down because Mexico does this wonderful thing called Siesta (America NEEDS to adopt this pronto). Señor Frogs was open though. We ordered some truly nasty sugary drinks that made our dehydrated selves more thirsty. I also made the mistake of ruining the "freeness" of the drinks by tipping the bartender. Whoops.

Since we were super parched, we decided to go to one of the grocery stores we saw on our walk into town. We had a grand total of 10 pesos, which we used almost all of buying fun Mexican drinks. This was actually one of my favorite parts. No one spoke English and I didn't recognize most of the food on the shelves.

We left feeling much better and not so unhappy about our 2 mile journey in the scorching sun. We were almost to the port when a feeling of utter terror washed over me. One huge ship sat gleaming in the sun ahead of us and it wasn't ours. No other ships were in sight. Hit L's Panic Mode.

L: OHMY! OHMY! Sel where is our ship?! What time is it?

Sel: 4:00PM

L: We were supposed to be back at 3:00PM. It left us. We are stuck in Mexico. We don't speak Spanish! We don't have our passports! We don't have our phones! We have one peso! ONE PESO! That won't get us ANYTHING! We are going to die. Right here. On this sidewalk next to that humongous Iguana. When will our parents know we are gone? In 5 days? 6? We're going to die. We are pretty much already dead. I feel dead.

Sel: Our ship is behind that big one.

L: No it isn't. How could you possibly know that? Why aren't you freaking out? We have been married for ONE WEEK and we are already going to die. Why aren't you panicking?! Are you not understanding how hopeless this situation is?

Sel: Take five more steps and five deep breaths.

L: (Wringing my hands & hyperventilating) I can't. I can't. I only know four words in Spanish. None of those are "Can we please borrow your phone?" or "Where is the American Embassy?" Or "Please don't kill us and don't bother raiding our mom pouch because we just spent the little money we had with us on some really good mango juice"

Sel: L. Walk to me.

I took five shaky steps forward and saw what Sel wanted me to. Our ship. Nestled sneakily and oh so sweetly behind the huge Royal Caribbean ship.

We're still married. Can you believe that? He stuck with me even after my melt down. Know what else? That hasn't been the only time my panic button has been triggered. Sel is the best, most patient human I know. Turns out I have the best husband in the entire universe :)

Merry Christmas!!!

Flabby Arm Girl Strikes Back!

I have been sitting on the couch for the past half of an hour trying to tell myself I really need to study for finals. The only thing I have studied is the cool picture on the front of my abnormal psych book. I have decided to talk about a recent life victory that will hopefully get me into my conquer all mood.

If you regularly read this blog, you will remember a few weeks ago when my exercise physiology TA mortified me in front of my entire class. It was a grand old time. Our last lab was designed to test our VO2 max (aka the best way to determine your cardiovascular health). My awesome partner and I ran an easy mile and then did the ASU treadmill test. Essentially, you run naked on a treadmill in front of your class and they take a vote on whether you are fat or not.

Okay, not true. But maybe a test like that does exist somewhere...I could see Greece doing something like that.

Moving on. You increase the grade 1.5% at 6mph every minute. You just keep increasing the grade until you collapse. Guess what the average of my three tests was?

51.56 mL/kg/min.

Guess what the class average for the girls in my class was?

44.32 ml/kg/min. The high: 51.56 (Me suckas)

The boys?

51.25 mL/kg/min. The high: 53.12 mL/kg/min (only this dude and another dude beat me)

Oh, I'm sorry. Did I see that correctly?

Did the girl with the flabby arms, the hole in her heart and a passing out issue beat the whole fetching average of my BYU athlete filled class?

Hahahahahahahahaahahahahahahahahahahahahaahahahahaha. Hope my tricep fat doesn't smack you too hard in the face while I pass you during my next marathon! SUCKAS!!!!!