Monday, March 31, 2008

Secondary Education

Happy, happy day! Today I got some eagerly anticipated news. On Friday, I interviewed to get into the Secondary Education program at UVU. It was a little odd, it was a group interview and while I felt that it went good, I wasn't exactly sure what to think. We were told that we would hear back in about a week. Even though I knew it would be about a week, I eagerly checked my e-mail everyday and today it paid off. This is what I found in my in-box:

On behalf of the Admissions and Retention Committee, I am pleased to inform you of your acceptance to the Secondary Education program!

I screamed! Mike asked why I was so worried (he is wonderful in that he has no doubts at all!) and we celebrated! The end of school is in site, what a wonderful feeling!

Monday, March 17, 2008

Zion National Park Fun

This past weekend, Mike & I took a trip to Zion National Park. It was a much needed relaxer after a tough winter. We journeyed down with Karen & Kevin. The real reason for going was so that Karen could participate in a 10k in Ivins (part of St. George). We had decided that due to the late hour of arriving, to spend the night in Mesquite and then get Karen to St. George by 7:50 AM. We got to the hotel around midnight Utah time, set the alarm, bunkered down and really slept well. We woke up to Karen realizing that we had 10 minutes to get to St. George to meet her brother. It all turned out OK though. We made it the St. George in record time, they had too many runners and so the buses didn't all leave by the 8:30 deadline and Karen did awesome on her run!

We made it to Zion around 2 and found the perfect camp site. We set up our tent and then headed over to the visitor center. The original plan had been to hike Angel's Landing, however due to the late hour, we decided to hold off on that hike until the next day. We did the Emeral Pools hike (which is very beautiful) and the Weeping Rock hike. It was a beautiful day and only got a little chilly every now and then.

We got back to camp and were able to watch about 10 deer in the field right next to us eating. It was fun to sit there and watch them. They were really close and didn't get spooked at all. We then had some 'dang' good chili (Bear Creek, yummmmmmmm) and bunkered down to bed.

Sunday morning, we woke up to snow. Out the window went Angel's Landing. No way was I going to do that hike in bad weather (for those not familiar with it, there are portions you are walking on a precipice holding onto a chain...not for the faint of heart). We decided to do the River Walk, which isn't really a hike but more of a walk. It was beautiful. We would definately suggest anybody do do this 'hike' while in Zion. We then did the Lookout hike. This is a very fun hike, Karen and Kevin neglected to inform us that there is a portion where you are walking under the cliff on a bridge with a huge drop below you. However, we would suggest to make sure when you do this hike to make sure you aren't hiking in a cloud. Instead of the beautiful overlook, we just saw CLOUD. It was fun though and I even got hot enough that I shed all of my winter gear.

Overall, it was a very fun trip and Mike is counting the days until we can go again. I definately put the veto on June or July though, can you imagine 100+ degree weather to do hikes? No thank you. I will take the snow any day over that!

Tuesday, March 11, 2008

The Futility of things...

Have you ever sat down to do something, actually did it for a couple of hours and felt that you wasted your time? Welcome to my life when it comes to writing research papers. In my Modern British Literature class, I have to write a 10-15 page (don't you love the parameters of that?) research paper showing how 3 or more of the books or short stories we have read this semester tie together. Much as I love finding connecting themes in different styles and types of literature (please note the sarcasm here), doing it for 3 or more works and in at least 10 pages is excrutiating.

I decided that I would love to write my paper on the post-colonialism aspect of E.M. Forster's novel "A Passage to India." For those who have not read this, it is a really good novel, but it made me very angry at the way the Indian's in the novel are treated; basically as sub-class citizens. Post-colonialism is a type of literary theory where you look at novels, or any work, written by the 'white man' from the eye's of the citizens of any of the English colonies, or by reading any work written by these same citizens. Doing this for one novel is hard enough, but then to know that I have to incorporate more into it? For crying out loud...

Well, I have some research time today (thanks to my wonderful teacher who thinks that we need a full week of spring break and so she scheduled research time for our class today) and so I came home to research for this other class. I have been sitting at my computer for 2 hours searching for any articles about post colonialism, E.M. Forster, Jean Rhys, Virginia Wolfe, George Orwell or H.G. Wells. These are the authors of the stories that I am tying together. They all, in some way or another, either through story or character have some tie to India or the English colonies. I have had absolutely no luck. So, what do I do? I turn to my blog and write a post about my frustrations.

For any of you who have had English classes and have any ideas or suggestions that could possibly, in some way or form, help me out, it would be absolutely wonderful! If you are just looking for something to read and want the names of the novels by the above authors, I can help you out there. I would give a voice or warning though that Virginia Wolfe was not exactly an enjoyable read. Her novel, 'Mrs. Dalloway' contains absolutely no chapters and is very disjointed (cunningly of course) in how it is put together. When I asked my professor if all of her works were written like this, he said yes, which added to the enjoyment of reading her. I think in my mind it just confirms that I may have to be hard pressed to pick any of her works up again...no matter that there are many people that absolutely love her work.

Thursday, March 6, 2008

Long Time...

I feel like it has been forever since I have placed a blog. It has been a crazy month. Anyway, I would first like to apologize for my overly pink, feminine blog page...I am sure Mike absolutely loves it! Besides being really busy at work and school, things have been good. We loved the warm weather last week and actually spent some time in the yard cleaning it up. Oh, it looked so sad after this winter, but it is on a comeback!

We are looking forward to a little trip next weekend. We are heading down to Zion National Park for the weekend with some good friends. Mike will learn that he probably will never want to go hiking with me again as I will probably make him carry the majority of my camera equipment. We are really looking forward to getting away from civilization again and to have some good ole' times. I will update with some pictures that I take. Golly, I wish it were tomorrow that we were heading out.

In addition, we are looking forward in a month to going to Elko. Our niece has been asking when Aunt Becky and Uncle Mike were going to go visit. Well, my sister needs a toy box taken out to her from my parents house, so we are killing two birds with one stone. That will be fun also. It is great that these winter months are leaving and My favourite season (Spring) is here and Mike's favourite season (if you can count from March to Oct a season) is definitely here. Expect a ton of camping pictures this summer!