Monday, September 29, 2008

Um What's the Word? Nerd?

You know you are a minority in an area of study at a university when you get an email such as the following:

Dear Math Majors,

We are holding a dinner in your honor this Wednesday, October 1. It is our Fall Semester Math Department Social; you'll pardon, I'm sure, the oxymoron that your associates in the lesser majors would easily identify in this title....

For all the tuition money you, your parents and your bankrupt (fiscally and morally) government are spending on SUU; for the countless hours you devote to homework instead of going to parties to which your major ensured you weren't invited anyway; for the fact that you burn more midnight oil than your roommates drink beer; for all your dedication to this beautiful subject of math and for your patience with us, your sometimes more, sometimes less-beloved teachers; I say, for all of this, we would like to feed you some meat.

But further, the Math Department faculty would like to have you come so we can get to know you on the social plane, that proverbially higher level in communal three-space that we are unable to reach in the ordinary classroom setting.

The dinner will be served in the ELC Conference Room, 4th floor, at 6 p.m. Please come just a few minutes early if you are bringing foodstuffs. We will provide ribs, chicken, potato wedges and drinks with the best in paper wares and plastic utensils. If you would like to bring along a salad or dessert to share, so much the better for all of us.

Weather permitting, those that would like to can take their food out to a lawn and there burn it off with maybe some Frisbee (oops - "novelty flying disc"), tossing of a football or two, or maybe even playing leapfrog and tag if the party should get as wild as we hope. Bring along some your favorite outdoor game if you'd like and wear some appropriate clothing if any of this is of interest to you; frog costumes are fine and even smiled on.

Please feel free to bring along your special other and - as I've hinted - something to share should you have any money left after Fall tuition. (Yes, yes, Top Ramen is fine - but please prepare it so that it can stay bounded on one portion of a plate.) At the risk of pushing redundancy to previously unknown levels, "please RSVP" to Robin (archibald@suu.edu) to let us know if you're coming and what, if you can, you will bring to share. Also, if any of your fellow majors are not reached by this email, we would greatly appreciate you letting them know about the social as well.

Thanks in advance for your company and for letting my team win in Ultimate Frisbee,

Hahahahaha! Most definitely a nerdy department I am in! Only math majors get such emails. Also I received another one similar a couple of weeks ago which included the following sentence: There have been a few changes in the Math Department over the summer (adding & subtracting professors and using the commutative property to change offices). The best part is how he incorporated the commutative propert! Bahaha, pure genius! lol

Now only someone who likes math as I do would find entertainment in such emails, but I came to the sad realization. The realization that perhaps I really am a nerd deep down inside somewhere. Though I don't show it like 5/6 of the department, but still it is there. But please feel free to disagree with me! I am completely okay with being told I really am not nerdy!

Sunday, September 28, 2008

Tagged

I'm officially a conformist... haha

8 Random Things!

8 Things I'm Passionate About: 1) Softball, 2) Family, 3) The Gospel, 4) My Girls (Shay, Olivia, Heather) 5) Not eating later than 8 PM, 6) My filing system at work (sometimes my co-workers think I am too protective of it!), 7) Volleyball (I play two or three times a week so I guess it had to make the list), 8) Not eating hot dogs and cake.

8 Words or Phrases I Say Often: 1) What the random, 2) For real?, 3) I win, 4) Um, 5) Why?, 6) IDK 7) Sweet, 8) What.

8 Things I Want to do Before I Die: 1) Go to culinary arts school, 2) Coach a state-champion softball team, 3) Have my own custom designed kitchen, 4) Go hunting, 5) Hike Kolob arch (only 14 miles, anyone want to join me?) 6) Finish college! 7) Leave the country (to go anywhere except where it's 90 degrees or warmer) 8) Have a family.

8 Things I Have Learned From My Past: 1) Weak things become strong, 2) Don't sit back and wait for life to happen to me, 3) Forgive and Forget, 4) Take in the good times, and learn from the bad, 5) Without the trials, I wouldn't be as happy as I am now, 6) School is expensive and not a waste of my time, 7) When things get hard, press forward 8) Dating can be frustrating but fun at the same time!

8 Places I Would Love to go See: 1) Wimbledon, 2) Washington DC, 3) Nashville, 4) Any European country, 5) Jerusalem, 6) The Narrows, 7) Africa, 8) The Moon.

8 Things I Currently Need or Want: 1) A Bachelors degree, 2) a Teaching license, 3) Shoes, 4) a Diamond (in ring, necklace, or earring form), 5) Milk, 6) Yogurt, 7) A new pair of pants, 8) a personal assistant.

I tag: Liz, Amy

Wednesday, September 17, 2008

The last couple weeks have been so much fun, as I said before! I managed to post this in order of how it happened!
So as crazy as it may seem, a small town girl like me had never been horse back riding. Well this is no longer the case for me. My friend Carrie (in the green pants) knew a cowboy (Andy, the only guy in the pic) who would be able to take us riding. Aly was invited to go, but i think she ended up going home for a long weekend, so my roommate Sondra came with us. I did well for my first experience on a horse and was able to do it without having to touch the horse!
The weekend of Labor Day, our 'summer fling' Jeremy wanted to go camping before he moved back up to Provo for school. We went up to a place called Yankee Meadow at about 9:30 at night. It was a really really cold night, but definitely memorable! Anyways, there was this giant cow in Parowan and Jeremy just had to get a picture of it. The cow fetish kind of has a story of its own.

On Labor Day a bunch of us went down to hike Angel's Landing. It was so much fun, and I can finally cross that one off my to do list!

This is the kinda scary part of the hike. Good thing time and stuff has worn foot holes in the rock!

When we got to the top, Aly said that our Aunt has a good picture of her family on Angel's Landing. Well this is the best we could do since we were the only ones of our family!

This last weekend, a bunch of us escaped to northern Utah for a couple days. We left Saturday morning, well at least my car did which included me, Aly, and Jake. We stopped and said hi to some of Jake's family in Springville and then stopped and said hi to Amy and Jarom at their new house. After that, Jake and I killed some time before dinner with Heather at Jordan Landing. We then met up with everyone else and went to the Colors concert, which was the point of the trip. The concert was pretty good. We stayed at my friend Bubba's parents house and went to church with them Sunday morning. Sunday afternoon they fed us lunch and we finally got on the road around 4:30. On the way back Shalie joined my car (the girl in the picture with me) and we stopped in Aurora to help Daniel with his math and then a friend's parents house in Monroe for dinner. We had so much fun, even if we didn't get home until 10:30 that night.

At the beginning of the concert, Aly and Emily were playing with the camera, taking pictures of themselves. Every time, I either got my head in between them or I got a hand in at the top of all the pictures. So they decided to really include Jake and I, since we were sitting right behind them. We never manage to get everyone doing the same kind of faces, so we get a mixture.



Before the concert started, Bubba was snapping pictures. Shalie and I posed for this one and she said thoughtful face and apparently I was thinking sad! Anyways, this one is probably my favorite picture from the weekend!

Tuesday, September 16, 2008

Epiphany (at least I think this is the proper use of this word)

About five minutes ago as I am doing the usual making copies and filing paperwork and typing reports at work, I started thinking about how much fun my life is. Though it is really quite busy most, if not all, of the time, I have so much fun. This thought led me to wonder if I will have as much fun when I'm married. And perhaps it will be a different kind of fun. I probably won't be having random shirt making parties with a bunch of people and all the other crazy fun things I do. So as I think of those my age who have so recently tied the knot, I feel so happy that it is not me, especially right now. This great realization came at a great time, as I have been wondering if the marriage thing will ever happen for me. Well right now I don't really care. Dating and being single is way too much fun for me right now! I hope to post some pictures and tell a little about the recent goings on in the life of Natalie soon (as long as homework is finished before) to show just exactly what I mean about how much fun I'm having!