Yes, It Is

Well, after getting the first call from the English Composition Office, I shortly received a second call with an official job offer to work Tuesdays and Thursdays from 8-5 during the spring term. I am glad that I don't have to spend 40 hours a week working in the dorms again. I wish I could work a full 40 hours a week in the office, but I'll take what I can get for the moment. I have to rearrange my class schedule for the spring and the summer, but at least in the fall I can have a job I will enjoy and not go crazy over.

I realized this morning that I need to go and get approval to enroll in the next editing class on the list. I didn't realize I needed to do that, but I still have a couple of days until I register to make that happen. I plan on taking care of that either later today or tomorrow for sure in order to get some of the other classes I need to have. Also later today I need to sit down, find the paperwork, and organize which classes I what to take because I have to take them all in the morning and not in the afternoon this fall so I can keep my new job.

The Colorado Avalanche lost on Saturday evening which eliminated them from the playoffs, but I am not too disappointed because they finally meshed as a team during the second half of the season and that means that next year should be good, especially because the team did not trade away any of their promising prospects like they have been known to do so many times before. Joe Sakic has decided to stay for next year and that is great since he posted 100 points once again this season. I'm excited for next season, but I don't have much to follow until October now. Perhaps I'll pay a little more attention to the Colorado Rockies in baseball this season and see if they get a little better this year.

Could It Be?

My chances of getting a new job yesterday seemed like they were pretty slim and that I was doomed to be a custodian for the remainder of my school-work experience. Then....I get a phone call this morning from the woman I interviewed with saying that they are looking for someone to work two 8-hour shifts, one on Tuesday and the other on Thursday. While it is only 16 hours a week, and I will have to completely change my school plans for the spring term I will not hesitate to do so in order to get this job. I will still have to find other hours elsewhere on campus, probably still as a custodian, but at least I have a potential foot in the door for the fall semester. Nothing is confirmed yet, but I am supposed to get a phone call about it in the next few hours or so. All I want is a new job, really, seriously, that would make a world of difference in my life right now.

The Colorado Avalanche are doing everything humanly possible to make it into the playoffs right now and they finally got their first piece of good luck last night when they beat the Canucks and then after the game the Flames lost to the Sharks. That puts them 3 points out of the playoffs with two games to go. It will be a great finish to the season, whether or not they actually pull it off, but I'm desperately hoping that they do in the end.

The semester is closing faster than I expected it to. Maybe I have just not been paying attention, or maybe it is the low homework load for the classes I am currently taking, but it seems like the semester never really got started for me this time. I am sure it will be different come fall semester as I begin the heavy workload of my actual major and minor classes, but still, it feels a little funny to have 7 days of class left at the moment. I have lots of things to do this weekend to stay focused for the last week of class, including an english project that I almost forgot we had to do, but it is okay, I have 9 days to complete it and it should only take 4 or 5 at the most.

Let's Start Again

I have never liked not having a routine, but sometimes life will throw a few curveballs and create all sorts of things that prevent me from having a routine from day to day. I'm not sure why I never seem to find the proper schedule for myself when signing up for classes, or why I never manage to find a way to go to bed and wake up at the same time each day, but I'm hoping that someday that may change.

This week is going to be a busy one. There is an awful lot of homework that needs to both be done and reviewed in preparation for the last couple of mid-terms, not to mention finals. There is a project for my English 322 class that needs to be started and finished in the next week as well. I am still not happy with the fact that right in the middle of being on top of my schoolwork I had to miss almost an entire week with bronchitis. I was doing so well for once and then it all got ripped out from underneath me.

My sister got engaged last week, and so my mother is making a 'wedding planning' trip out to Provo this next week to shop for dresses and whatever else is supposed to be planned for. She arrives on Wednesday of this week and will be here until Sunday. Unfortunately for me, I am in class or at work except for in the evenings for basically the entire time she is in town. There should be time for us to see each other though, so I don't forsee any difficulties there. She'll be spending a vast amount of her time with Shyla taking care of wedding plans anyways.

I was noticing yesterday that there might be some benefit to those around me if I was not such an avid fan. Let me explain. While I am a sports fan in general, I am an extremely big fan of the Colorado Avalanche. Normally this wouldn't be much of an issue except for the fact that there are not any other Avalanche fans that I interact with on a regular basis. Anyways, back to my original point. I think it might be less intense for everyone else if I was to keep my "fandom" to myself most of the time, not all of the time because I don't think I have that much control, but most of the time at least. In the end it just makes me look like a little kid I think who doesn't realize that there are much more important things in his life than whether or not the Colorado Avalanche actually make the playoffs this season.

Free-Time Update

My first class of the day was cancelled when I arrived and so I have oogles of free-time this morning because after I looked at my homework schedule I have none to do until I get home. The only thing that needs done is my one-page reflection paper for English 195 and I don't have that notebook with me on campus today. So....I have lots of free time. I contemplated going back to the apartment because I could have been there in 20 minutes and had almost 3 whole hours to do things, but then decided to just stay here, balance the checkbook, write on my blog, play some Conquer Club, send a few emails and in general bask in my improving health and wellness.

Speaking of Conquer Club (the online RISK gaming club I recently joined) I just won my very first game of RISK in my entire lifetime EVER! Ah, it sure feels good to bask in this kind of glory as I pounded a hapless soul from England into oblivion. Well, anyways, at the very least it was cool to win, now if I could just do it in a regular game that wasn't on the computer. Baby steps I say. I have organized a 6-man, do-or-die, battle to the death, RISK extravaganza for right after the upcoming priesthood session of conference next weekend. All the participants are eagerly awaiting the chance to wage war upon each others poor souls. It should be fun.

The Colorado Avalanche are doing well at the moment, they are 6 points out of the playoffs with 10 games remaining and while I know that this means absolutely nothing to almost every one of you reading this blog, it means A LOT to me, so....deal with it. If they don't make the playoffs they have at the very least fixed a couple of problems heading into next season as far as goaltending and other position players. Next season is going to be VERY good, I can feel it!

The floor hockey season ended in a magnificent fashion; if losing two INCREDIBLY close games in the tournament can be called magnificent. I'm not sure we could have played any better in either game, especially coming back from a 6-3 deficit to tie the game at 7 in the final two minutes. As for me, I don't think I could have played any better goaltending for a novice if my life had depended on it during that elimination game. One of the players on the team said he took a rough count during the game and that I stopped around 45 shots. Heck, three Canadian players from the other team that beat us 8-7 at the very end of overtime said they couldn't believe some of the shots I stopped. Needless to say, that is HIGH praise to get from Canadian hockey players, so I'm still riding that high a little bit and will for the rest of the summer probably. I've already been starting the recruiting for next season because I can't wait to play goalie again. I'm even thinking about finding out if it is possible to reserve one of the RB gyms for some floor hockey and use the pads with just a bunch of friends one of these days. We'll see.

I just looked at the upcoming events for Spring-Summer and there is a two day Dodgeball tournament that I am now determined to enter. Talk about memories. Dodgeball, why not? I say me and some guys from the ward could totally rock that!

Minor Reflections

Students elections have begun this week on campus and due to the connections I have with one of the candidates running for office I guess I already know who I need to vote for out of loyalty. The campus paper is going to be flooded with complaints about the ridiculous nature of the campaigns all week long which means there won't be anything worthwhile for me to read each day but I can live with that. I might care more about what these candidates have to say if the BYUSA organization ever did anything that mattered to me. I am all for the parties they throw (if I went to parties) or the new syllabi on the website (if I cared that much about the professor's I sign up for) or the number of clubs available on campus (if I was social enough to ever actually join one of them). The BYUSA program won't ever effect me in a way that I pay attention to, so I don't really care about what the candidates have to say, I'm just doing my job as a loyal friend. I am fully aware that they do make a difference in some circles and that they do make improvements to the way of life for BYU students but I refuse to accept that those improvements matter to more than a few individuals here and there. Maybe if the BYUSA President was actually a student body president (I still don't understand why BYU doesn't have one of those) then I would care a little bit more. As it stands however, they don't do much more than organize service projects and I have to say that I have better things to deal with than that in my life at the moment.

I'm back to school this week and will admit that I was starting to get a little bit of cabin fever while spending four straight days in the apartment. I would have enjoyed the time more if I had been able to accomplish anything, but the nastiness of my sickness prevented me from doing anything other than lounging around feeling sorry for myself. Holly deserves and award for kindly dealing with my personality while sick. I don't wish that on anyone. Several days off of school and work have left me with a long list of things to do over the next few days and I'm glad that I seem to have the motivation to cross things off of that list for today at least. Tomorrow may be another story, but today is looking good so far.

This coming Wednesday marks the next floor hockey game for me to participate in and now that the teams have been properly ranked according to skill-level for the various tournaments I am looking forward to the challenge of playing goalie this week. The team finally figured out how to move properly on the offensive side of the court during the last game and while it may not be as easy next time around because we will more than likely play other guys and not girls; I think it was a large benefit to the team. Now my only worry is that with almost two and a half weeks off from playing goalie with any kind of pressure I may not be up to par during the game. Nothing to do about it but wait and see I suppose.

I returned to working one night a week at the SAS Custodial last Friday and have had mixed emotions about the experience. On one side I definitely can handle the kind of custodial work they do over there much better than I can the kind done in the dorms where I currently work, but at the same time the SAS Supervisor is not exactly the easiest person to get along with. Helaman Halls Custodial allows me to come home at 4 o'clock every day during the week and spend time with my wife which is something the SAS didn't allow, but the co-workers at the SAS are of a far better quality than those at Helaman Halls. In the end I guess I don't really care which one I work at as long as I get paid and find a way to get my 20 hours each week, but I would greatly prefer finding a new job that doesn't require me to pick up after other people all day long; especially not immature college students who I am positive are much worse than the ones I lived with in the dorms four years ago. The world really is going downhill with no sign of relief.

That's all my thoughts for today. I was feeling a bit reflective this morning and decided to comment on a few of life's interesting adventures.

This Week Should Be Better

I am pretty sure that no matter what this week will be much less stressful than last week; or at least it better be because I was not a very happy person for most of last week.

It is snowing again today which seems ridiculous to me. There cannot possibly be an explanation for why we need to have a snow flurry every five or six hours. I would love it to just warm up and stay that way from now on. This has been a very cold and very long winter for me and since I am convinced I suffer from some mild form of seasonal depression it would be great to get this dreary weather over with.

I've got big plans to get things done over the next seven days. They include finishing all of my homework before Saturday, working a complete 20 hours for the first time in awhile, spending a little time doing a bit of creative writing to post on Writers Block, watching the BYU basketball game on Wednesday if possible, attending the meeting for Impact Magazine on campus to try and get some technical writing experience, doing some pushups, getting the water pump fixed on the car and likely about seventeen other great ideas that I can't remember at the moment. If I accomplish half of this list I'll feel pretty good, more than that and I'll be puffing my chest out like nobody's business. Oh, and on top of all that I have a floor hockey game to play goalie in as well.

Frosting On My Car

This morning, despite many warnings by the weatherman, I was not happy to wake up to find snow covering the ground and falling from the sky. I am just one of those people who thinks that once the weather decides to warm up it should not regress down into bitter cold again. It simply isn't fair if you ask me. On a funnier side of my world being blanketed in the evilest white I've ever seen is that when I went out to clean off the car I found the snow to be so heavy and moist that I felt as though I were scraping off the excess frosting from a cake. It was an awkward feeling I promise.

I've almost completed all of the homework previously left behind in a fit of wanton abandon which is improving my mood. Of course, Holly has ways of improving my mood so she fixed my very, very, very bad day I was having yesterday by allowing me to skip a class and spend time with her instead.

There was a massive brawl during the Ottawa-Buffalo game last night over a late hit on the Sabres team captain Chris Drury (formerly of intensely popular Avalanche fame). It started a full on melee after the next face-off which was capped by Ray Emery and Martin Biron duking it out at center ice. Something about the level of loyalty between players in hockey is what makes me like this game so much. If someone messes with your goalie there is no hesitation, you make sure and let them know you are there. The same thing goes when someone puts a headhunter out on your star player during the game which is what happened last night. No mercy folks, hockey is for the big boys who aren't scared to get into a scrap.

Goal Accomplished

Well, one of my main goals for the past couple of weeks has been to score an actual goal for the ward floor hockey team. I accomplished that last night (albeit against a team of girls). I was looking forward to playing a team that might challenge us a little bit, but still give me the chance to make some saves if for nothing more than practice sake. However, what wound up happening is that the girls knew what they were doing and were very organized but our team just out muscled them for the most part. I played goalie for the first two periods and faced a grand total of zero shots, so in the third period I wanted to go and get in on the action seeing as how the team had never scored a goal before.

Next week the tournament starts and I'll be back to playing goalie for the whole game which is something I thoroughly enjoy and I really hope now that we have figured out how to score we can put some points on the board and actually contend with a win or two. That would be a lot of fun for me because I really do like playing.

Tonight Holly and I have our first official non-family member get-together/dinner with another couple from the ward. We are going to have some delicious dinner followed by a movie at the dollar theater.

I Love Hockey

Sometimes it really does boggle my mind that there are not more people in this world that enjoy the game of hockey. It's just plain fun. I got the chance last night to play floor hockey with an intramural team from my ward and I had the time of my life. For the first two periods I played out on the floor and despite being severely out of shape I think that I held my own for the most part. I didn't do anything spectacular, but I made one or two decent plays. For the third period I played in goal and felt bad for letting two sneak in on me. One of them nobody would have had a chance at stopping and the second one took a bad bounce and I lost track of where it was in the crowd. I stopped a whole bunch of others though, so once again a decent performance. I wonder if they will let me play goalie the whole time next time since I managed to push my body to the brink by puking halfway through the game. That was all sorts of entertaining if you ask me. I really did enjoy playing goalie though, it's my favorite position to watch.

Of course, last night it had to start snowing again so I woke up to several inches covering my car. I really, really wish it would stop. Now it is just getting old.

Welcome To The Breezy Season

I think that if it takes until 4:00 in the afternoon for the temperature to slide into the double digits that there must be something inherently wrong with the entire balance of the cosmos. Such has been the weather lately and I will admit that if I was in charge, there would be no winter, but rather just a breezy season where the wind blew all the time. I'd rather it be windy than cold.

Today I made it official and did something about the fact that I am beginning to dislike my current employment more and more each time I clock in. Hence I went to talk to Sheyla over at Helaman Halls where I worked this past summer to see if she would be interested in allowing me to work for her instead to which she readily and heartily agreed seeing as she had tried several times previously to lure me over there. The upside to this new arrangement is that I get to be home at 4:30 in the afternoon each day and since Holly works during the day that works out perfectly. I will also not have to deal with Gayle any longer. She isn't a bad person, in fact she is a very decent person who strives very hard to do her best at her job, however, blame it on a personality conflict if you wish, I do not think she has very great managerial skills. It finally got to be too much, simple as that. I will do the right thing and give her a full two weeks notice however, I feel that is only fair seeing as how most of her employees think it prudent to just quit unannounced half the time. Unfortunately I will have to take a pay cut from 7.75 an hour to something lower from what I can tell. Luckily it will be no lower than 7.10 but I'm hoping for something in the middle, we'll have to see.

I signed up for classes this semester thinking I would make some solid progress towards graduation, but due to scheduling conflicts and a slightly abnormal slot for priority registration I will be making no quite so much progress towards actually finishing my major, but significant progress in improving my overall GPA. That's good news. I enjoy my classes, some of them more than I thought I would, English 322 for example. I'm not someone who normally makes comments in class or even asks questions, but something in that class excites me to want to actually learn it and learn it well besides.

On a personal note: Peter Budaj is the starting goalie for the Colorado Avalanche. He makes $650,000 a year. His backup? The over-rated and extremely overpaid Jose Theodore who makes $5,500,000 a year. Does it make sense...no, not exactly. Is it extremely cool that Budaj is the starter...hell yes.