Things I'm thankful for...

I realize I'm a little late but I feel like to be a good blogger I must recognize the holidays. So, Thanksgiving just came and passed and I would like to post a few things I'm thankful for.

First, I am thankful that facebook gives you the option to not announce to everyone your scores when you play a game. I'm not even real proud of the fact that I play games on facebook but I do play Bejewled Blitz when I'm bored and 90% of the time I get a score I'm not proud of. Facebook is always proud of me. "You got a 25k medal!" Your friend on the side who scored 433,000 probably gets 25,000 in her sleep but good job, let's tell everyone! But then they offer you the option of control "Or... I guess you can cancel this and pretend it never happened..." Thank you facebook :)

I'm also thankful for email and text messages. I know people say they're ruining the way people communicate, but I'm pretty sure they're helpin me out. I'm awkward to talk to. At least with texting and emailing I have time to go back and edit what I'm saying. Text messages have also helped my family communicate much better. Mass texts = amazing.

While I may be awkward to talk to at least I am fortunate enough to not be rude or completely obnoxious. I would much rather be quiet or "shy" than annoying. I may have less friends because of this but they are much better listeners :)

I'm also grateful this season for my puppy. He may bite me all the freakin time but every once in a while he sits back and actually looks cute.

Who could be mad at that? Only a puppy hater, which I am not.
















I'm grateful for study guides. Without them I have to rely completely on notes... which sucks...

Of course I am grateful for my family and friends. They make me feel loved all the time. I would like to share a story told to me by my sister.
My adorable niece Victoria is two but she's pretty behind when it comes to talking and most social stuff. She doesn't speak in full sentences but she does understand a ton and she's getting pretty good at copying. Whenever my sister kneels with her to say nightly prayers Victoria will either pretend to repeat what my sister says or she'll just say her own prayer out loud. On Thanksgiving night my sister put her to bed after we had spent the day with her. We'd been with the entire family but when Victoria said her own prayer she decided rather than repeating she was going to make up her own words. The only names she mentioned in her prayer were "Ahhy and Bwendn"--which is me and my husband. If I've got that little girl prayin for me I'm pretty sure I'm gonna be ok :)

Oh be wise, what can I say more?

It drives me crazy when people don't do the simple little things. I'm almost positive they're the same people who complain later when it backfires. There's so many tiny rules that are so EASY to follow and yet, so many people just ignore them.

Like on the light rail. Arizona got a new light rail a few years back. It's convenient for ASU students because it runs right through campus and all the way to downtown Phoenix. They've also provided free parking at a few stops so ASU students can save a bundle on parking. They still expect students to pay for their ride but they've made this process simple too. They provide a "U-pass" to students for $80 a year. All students have to do is tap their little card (literally tap, not slide, not shove in any hole just tap against the outside, it really doesn't even need to touch just hover over) on an orange square at the ticket booth and then their ride is paid for. I assume they want students to do this so they can track the success of the light rail. They want to be able to keep track of who is using it, how often, what stops, all that good stuff so they can consider whether or not they may make it bigger in the future. It's so important for Arizona to track this information that they require that students tap their card before boarding or they could receive a fine of up to $500.

It's very easy for anyone to hop on the light rail without tapping their card and most of the time you can ride care free and never have to show your card to anyone but every once in a while those security guards get on at a random stop and ask to see your card. They have a little scanner to see if you tapped your card and if you didn't... you got some 'splainin to do.

So why risk it? It takes two seconds to tap your card. You already paid for the card so it's not like it costs you anything but those precious two seconds to tap it. You're probably going to wait an average of five minutes until the next train arrives anyways so why not tap your freaking card?!

Another pet peeve of mine is dealing with cross walks. I don't understand J-walking in the first place. Especially if you're going to run into a crosswalk sometime anyways but you just decide "Oh, no cars are coming I'm gonna cross NOW!" But that's just a little pet peeve. My bigger pet peeve is j-walking when you ARE STANDING AT A CROSSWALK! How would someone do this, you ask?

It happens all the time in downtown Phoenix. People walk up to a light that they know rarely changes so instead of pressing the button and waiting for it to change, they look both ways and then run across the street as fast as they can. Why not press the button? It's such a small simple thing! You're going to stand there for five minutes looking for a chance to run across anyways, why not press the button in the mean time and maybe it'll stop the cars for you! No, no, no let's just run across and hope no cop gives us a ticket for j-walking. It does happen! So do the smart thing!

These are only a few examples but I feel like the simple things are over looked in many areas of life.
I'm LDS and the next stuff I say may come off offensive but I don't mean it to be. I just want to stress the simple stuff.

Recently President Boyd K. Packer gave a talk about homosexuality. I know members of my own religion who are struggling with it who took offense when President Packer did not mention getting outside help during his talk. Instead he focused on the religious aspect of overcoming homosexuality. He mentioned prayer, scripture study and the power of priesthood. He mentioned the simple things. People were highly offended but I wonder... when was the last time you really prayed? How often do you read your scriptures? Do you do them both together? How often do you thank the Lord for everything you do have? I don't mean to offend but I honestly believe it's the simple, consistent little things that make a difference and then therapy has a better chance of working!

I believe simple things also apply to marriages and keeping a clean house. I'm no expert on either of these things but I've experienced a little bit of it.
When my husband does simple little things like giving me a kiss hello or telling me I look pretty, it goes a long way. When I rinse off my dish and put it in the dishwasher right away, it makes it so much easier to get the dishes clean and put away later.

So why not do it? Why put off these things any longer? Yes I am comparing taking two seconds to tap your card to thanking the Lord for all you have or saying a prayer. I am comparing pressing the button at a cross walk to reading your scriptures or complimenting your spouse. I realize sometimes there are outside forces that complicate these things. Sometimes there is no button at the cross walk but I still believe the simple act of waiting for the light to change is safer than trying to cross alone!

I'm not really an angry person...

I'm reading over my very few posts and considering sharing this blog with my family but before I do I just want everyone to be aware I'm really not an angry person! I really could care less if you don't know the difference between manatees and dugongs, what you do at sporting events or if you are not the best teacher.

But -- I really started this blog just to write. I happen to enjoy writing in a sarcastic and angry way.

Family: if you are hoping to read this blog and get updates about my life... I can't guarantee that'll happen. This is a venting place. I just want to enjoy it :)
I do enjoy talking about my every day life to no one in particular though so who knows, it may have the occasional journal entry but let's not hold our breath for it... Love you!

Manatees and dugongs are not the same!

When I was in 3rd grade I did a power point report about manatees. Ever since then, I've been in love with them. They're so cute and fat and slow and lovable! I don't know why this particular assignment from third grade had such an impact on my life (probably because I aced it like you wouldn't believe! My teacher even used it as an example for her other classes. That's a pretty big stinking deal for an eight year old!) but it had such an impact that I have not forgotten about manatees.


Well recently my wonderful brother went on a trip to Florida for some training for his work. While he was there he thought of me when he saw some items claiming to be manatees. My very supportive family of course knows of my obsession with manatees and so I'm sure he was excited to be able to find me a small manatee pen just to let me know he cares about me. Little did he know... this pen is stupid! (don't worry I still love it cause it was a gift from my brother)


The pen is red and then the top half is clear. It reads: "Manatee Endangered Species" on one side and then on the other side there is an image of blue water and a small manatee swims across the pen when you tip it certain ways but... wait what?! It's not a manatee?! Why is there a dugong swimming across my manatee pen? Who do these people think they are selling dugong pens to manatee lovers?! Do they think we won't know the difference! Well ha! Ha, ha, ha! I've caught you in your lies!


Manatees have flat round tails that kinda look like a pancake. Dugongs have a whale tail. Manatees live in shallow water and eat plants. Dugongs live at sea and eat bottom dwelling creatures.

Dugong

Manatee

Maybe I should use my blog like a journal like normal people so you don't get stuck reading these ridiculous posts about manatees... but I gotta be ridiculous sometimes...

Sports

After attending a recent sports game I have noticed there is a common belief among many people that sporting events, especially outdoor ones are kind of a free for all. It’s a time to yell and scream and bring the kids out of the house. As a frequenter of sporting events let me tell you – this is not true. There are rules of etiquette even during a sporting event. So since not many people seem to understand this, allow me to spell them out for you.

1.     Just because there is an empty seat in front of you does not mean you must put your feet on it.  Putting your paraphernalia on it such as jackets, bags etc before the game has even started is completely out of the question. If, during the course of the game it becomes clear that that seat will probably remain empty then by all means – have at it. If someone leaves to grab something to eat during half time, that is not an invitation for you to put your feet up. If there is someone sitting in the seat next to the empty seat, it is not ok for you to put your feet up. They will come dangerously close to the other person’s head and they’re probably pretty dirty so that is gross. Basically, keep your feet to yourself for the duration of the game, ok?!

2.      Just because the girl who sang the national anthem totally forgot the words and pretty much had to start from the beginning again and really didn’t hit all the notes very well, does not give you the right to give her two big thumbs down as she’s walking off the floor. I’m sure she’s humiliated enough without you being a jerk about it. While we’re on the subject of this character, please leave your naked girl shirts at home when you leave for a public place. They’re gross and I don’t want to have to sit behind you and stare at this naked cartoon all night. The fedora doesn’t make you any cooler either. Nice try.

3.     If your children are old enough to walk, they should be wearing shoes out in public. There’s a lot of nasty people at sporting events and your child is walking around with no shoes? Umm… gross.

4.     While we’re on the subject of children, if your children are not mature enough to sit and watch a game, please leave them at home. This will not only prevent the people in front of you from having to be touched by your kids nasty pizza fingers or have their chair kicked throughout the entire game, you can support your local economy by hiring a babysitter. It'll probably actually save you money in the long run since I'm pretty sure most kids go to these things just for the food.

5.     Yelling “over here!” during the shirt toss probably won’t give you any better shot at getting a shirt than simply jumping up and down would. Yelling it louder still doesn’t help. Yelling obscenities definitely doesn’t help.  Please just SHUT UP DURING THE FREAKIN SHIRT TOSS!!! Thank you.

6.     If you are performing during half time and your best friend is on a date somewhere in the crowd, don’t go find her when you’re done. Definitely don’t make her date move over so you can sit next to her. He’s probably kinda pissed about that…

7.     If you realize you are running late to the game, it’s a good idea to leave your way oversized, OMG-how-do-you-even-walk-with-that-stupid-thing-sized purse at home. You’re going to be entering a crowded arena with seats kinda close together. If you’re carrying a bag that big there’s a chance it’s going to get very much in the way. It’s annoying enough to arrive so late but to arrive late and then smack the people sitting in front of you with your way too huge back is probably bad karma.

8.     If you’re going to take pictures at the game, at least turn off your screen. Your shots of players 50,000 feet away suck and it’s probably driving the semi-skilled photographer behind you crazy to see you chop off everyone’s feet. What are you gonna do with that crappy shot of that player anyways? You definitely won’t hang it up (though, by the way you’re showing it off to everyone around you maybe you will, idk) you’ll probably show it to a few more people and say something like “I saw this guy from 26 rows away! I was using binoculars the whole time but look how close my camera can zoom! Yeah I know he’s blurry…” and then it’ll sit and rot on your hard drive somewhere, never to be seen again. Maybe if you had gotten his feet in the shot it’d have a little more meaning.

9.     There are trash cans in these places, I’ve seen them. I can also see you, and you have legs and hands. So… there’s no excuse for leaving your trash all over the ground. If you don’t have arms or legs, then feel free. J

I’m sure there’s more etiquette to be learned but this was all I saw as important for this particular night. Please apply these things next time you go out and enjoy the game!

I may have a problem with teachers who care too much about what they are teaching and not enough about their students future...

This summer I took an economics class. Our teacher was easily frustrated throughout the class whenever someone asked a question. It was only a month long class so I can understand that it was a lot of material to shove into one class but there's only so much you can do about that. So rather than taking out some of this info and reforming his class to fit the time and still give us all the information that we needed, he just got frustrated whenever someone asked him to slow down. 

However, whenever someone asked a question that had nothing to do with what we were being tested on, but just a curious question about our economy, he seemed excited to go on an hour long rant and explain the issue. 

We had a LOT of students in this class that did not seem to grasp that our class was time sensitive and we needed to get through the stuff quickly if we were going to be prepared for future economics classes, so we spent a lot of time discussing China's roll in our economy rather than how our money system works. 

Maybe I'll tell that full story later. 

However this semester it seems to be happening again. Psychology. 

Our professor seems to want us to discuss everything we learn. It's psychology so I can understand that but this is a large lecture class and honestly I don't see any discussion happening. But -- she holds out hope! Even though she has a lot to get through, she makes plenty of time for pointless discussion questions and long awkward pauses. 

What exactly does she need to get through? Well we have a very large, thick and boring textbook which we are assigned to read a chapter from each night. Yesterday I began my reading and after two hours I finally turned to the end only to find out I was only half way through. TWO HOURS!

You may say, "Silly Alli, just look at the pictures and skim the articles" but this is not an option. She wants us to know details. I've taken this lady's tests -- she wants details. 

So we've got about 4 hours of textbook reading to go through. I don't know if you've ever read a textbook but I'm not gonna lie, it's not real exciting. In fact, I get lost. I count on that precious lecture time to make sense of it all! 

But does it? Sadly, no. 

Why not? Because this professor is so obsessed with knowing every thought in our head that she would rather spend our class time listening to our ridiculous answers than actually teaching the material we need to know.

 Today for example she posted a large list of items on the board and asked if we would add anything to the list. One guy ventured a guess but his silly little thought was already part of the list. Other students tried to explain this to the professor but she was so interested in knowing his thoughts that she would not forget about it until he said something. So after about ten minutes of confusion we were finally able to move on.

Then she could get back to explaining the material... you'd think. Wrong. Movie time! Let's show a 30 minute video I thought was interesting -- who needs to know the basics?! Let's learn what's being done now! Applying this information will help you automatically understand all this, right? Ummm... no. 

So as everyone is getting restless at the end of class and getting loud as they gather their bags this professor is forced to yell tiny details at us that will be important that maybe she could have explained had she not spent so much time teaching us stuff that we will not be tested on. 

I just want to clarify -- I'm all for applying what we've learned, but let's learn it first, m'kay?!