Video Update (Nov. 30 - Dec. 6)

Video absent

Sorry guys, but no video update this week. I'm sick and the video wouldn't have been very fun since half the entertainment is from Allison and me going back and forth with each other. We should have a new video next week.

Video Update (Nov. 16-22)

Video Update (Nov. 9-15)

Thanks for wearing pants this time.

Video

The World is a neighborhood.

What if the world was just a neighborhood. What would each country be? Well, I was playing around with this idea with Allison and we came up with some interesting ideas. I'd like to point out that what we came up with is not necessarily how we think, but rather how we feel the general population of the US think about these places. Also, each country's role in the neighbor hood should be unique if for no other reason than to keep it interesting.

USA - that's home.

Canada - our neighbor who thinks they're better than us, but for some reason steals our best ideas.

Mexico - the house that has three large families living there and they're all poor, hard-working people.

China - Wal-Mart.

India - the call center.

Japan - electronics store.

Germany - car dealership.

France - a restaurant (there's only one restaurant in town because every country could be represented by their food, so we picked the one that's most famous for their food).

Italy - the local coffee house.

England - school (because of that dang accent, many Americans think that Britons are smarter than us).

Switzerland - a candy shop.

most of South America - the forest that keeps getting chopped down to make a cattle farm or the Home Depot were all the illegals wait at to get work.

the Middle East - the bad part of town that has all the gas stations.

Australia - the beach.

Africa - part of it's the zoo, part of it's the local jewelry store (it seems that most Americans think of Africa as one country).

Vietnam - nail salon.

Korea - dry cleaners.

Greece - art studio that also employs architects and philosophers.

Siberia - ice house.

That's all that we came up with so far. What do the rest of you think? What did we get right? What did we get wrong? Who did we leave out? I may update this list, if I get any good ideas from the rest of yous.

"Truth."

There are a few things that I live with knowing, without any doubts. Some of these truths are easy for my brain to access (the Church is true, I love Allison and she loves me, and spiders are the most terrifying creatures on the planet) while others my heart knows, even if my head doesn't. Unfortunately, I got shaken up recently.

Apparently, one of the things that I believe is that there always truth to a situation. What I mean is, if you say something and I say the opposite, only one of us can be right (or, as is usually the case, the truth lies in the middle). But what happens when two people are saying things that oppose each other and their both right? I won't say what happened, just that Allison and I disagreed about something and we were both right! I kept going it over and over in my head to try to see where I was wrong or where Allison was, but I got nowhere. It shook me pretty deeply.

Now, I'm not saying that I am now questioning all the other true things in my life. Not at all. I'm just trying to wrap my mind around the fact that there can be two right sides to something that isn't a geometric shape.

Although, I'm sure all you married people figured this lesson out already, right?

Professor Baby.

So, I know that at 26 I'm pretty old to still be working on my bachelor's degree. I'm okay with this fact for a few reasons. It's never too late to finish your education, but really: I took off a year to work, two years for my mission, then I had trouble with school (y'know, failing it) and didn't get properly on with my schooling for an additional two years. That's five years accounted for and while I would do things differently given the chance, I'm okay with where I am and happy to be moving forward.

Why am I going on about age? I just found out that my Government teacher is younger than me. And Allison. And Paige, even. He's 22. He was talking about 9/11 on the eight year anniversary we just had and mentioned that he could still remember when it happen when he was a freshman in high school. I chatted with him for a minute today and mentioned that this was the first time that I've ever had a professor younger than me. He asked how old I was and when I told him, he responded with, "Wow" (like I'm so old!). Anyway, he said when his birthday was, in what I think was an attempt to reassure me that it was okay because his birthday's later in the year. Well, I'm not reassured.

Allison thinks that he must know someone at the school to be able to be a teacher so soon. I'm inclined to agree. I mean, I guess good for him for making it to this point in his life so quickly, but it's just really weird. Normally, freshman or sophomores take American Government, so there's a good bet that he's a least somewhat older than most students; I'm a fluke because I'm a transferred junior, who normally wouldn't take the class.

To help you visualize, here's a pretty good likeness of Mr. Cunningham.

Should We Just Make Friends with the Bugs Already?

These are our bugs that come around everyday, these pictures were taken by me only one day after the maintenance people swept and they have also sprayed twice now. It really is disgusting. As you can see there are a few huge ones .

Road Kills

First of all, let's all congratulate Allison for her first blog post! Yesterday's post was good, funny, and insightful. So if you haven't yet, go and comment on that post!

So, there's not a lot of roadkill here in Oklahoma. In fact, I've seen more dead animals on the side of the road in San Diego county during the same time period. The thing that's disturbing, is that in the almost two months that Allison and I have lived here, we've seen three armadillos dead on the side of the road.

It's a weird thing to see an armadillo anyway (I mean, seriously, these things are rather alien looking), but to see them dead every couple of weeks? Disturbing.

And provided here is a picture of the latest on that we saw (this morning on the way to Church). Don't look if that kind of thing grosses you out.

The Things I Miss

So this is my first blog entry, although I have contributed to the experiences that Jordan often writes about, I haven't actually posted anything myself. Before I start, here is a small disclaimer or warning: If I don't make sense in what I am writing that's because I am left handed, or at least that's what Jordan tells me. Anyway, I wanted to make a list of some of the things I miss about California (besides family because that's obvious and uninteresting :))
Golden Spoon Frozen Yogurt- it is the best and it's good for you, my favorite flavors are cake batter and chocolate malt. If you have never experienced the power of this deliciousness you are definitely missing out.
Spicy Mexican Carrots- They are just carrots in vinegar and jalapenos, so spicy, soooo good. I can eat so many of them. At the local Wal-Mart, which is a huge deal here, they only have canned spicy carrots. They are not as good as the ones I used to get a Colimas in Oceanside. Jordan even went around to all the Mexican food places in Stillwater and they hadn't even heard of them.
My cat Cheeka- I miss her so much, she loved me and for the longest time when Jordan and I were just dating I wouldn't tell him her name. I would say it really fast and he thought I was saying Jenga, like the game. Her real name is Jackie but somehow her name evolved into being Cheeka. But if you know anything about my family it's that we give each other and our pets many different names. For example my mom calls my brother Jason, George or Georgie. She has called me Monkey, Dorothy, and now its Sissy. We had a cat named Fred and we called him Bean, and eventually changed that to Pete. Yep, so I miss my cat Cheeka.
Palm Trees everywhere- I took them for granted but they really are a cool tree. There are a lot of trees in Stillwater. It is very green, probably because we get really scary thunderstorms every other day.
California Accents- I think California is accent-less for the most part but not here. People say weird things like pop instead of soda. If someone doesn't hear you instead of saying "What was that?" or "Pardon?" they say "Do what?" It is very strange, I pointed this out to a co-worker of mine and he agreed that it doesn't make sense and everyone including him says it.
Smaller Bugs- If you know me at all you know that I hate bugs. Some bugs here could be mistaken for babies they are so big. Cicadas are everywhere. They are huge fly like things that make rattlesnake noises and when there are thousands of them it is quite scary walking outside.
Ok well these are just a few of the things I miss about California. I am not a Southern belle and never will be.

I hate football.

Let me clarify: I hate what football does to people. I am not kidding when I say that Stillwater basically shuts down on game day. Allison couldn't even park at the library last week because the parking lot was set aside for game parking. This morning, the local grocery store was allowing customers to park for only one hour ... unless they had a ticket to the game. I feel like I'm taking crazy pills! On a game day, everyone walks where ever they want, crossing in front of cars even when they are moving. I usually simply say that I don't care for football, but for now, I hate it.

School Daze.

Hey, so, I'm still here. School's been somewhat tough, but not so bad that I can't take a few minutes to post something. You may not have noticed, but I've decided to have a 3-times-a-week schedule. It's something that may completely fall apart next week, but it's something that I'm trying to stick to for now.

School is going well for me (at least the first week). I have American Government first on the MWF circuit. My teacher is young (he looks about my age) and I think this is only his second semester teaching, based on a few things that he's said. He also likes to show off his vocabulary when defining words for the class, which I feel defeats the whole point of defining the word.

Next is Spanish. I'm doing great so far. This is the only class that I have that meets every weekday, so I'm exposed to it a lot more often. Of course I've had plenty of exposure to it growing up, so I've only learned a few new things compared to other students who this is completely new to.

Then I have English Grammar. Nothing too bad, yet but I've only had one assignment (and thanks to everyone who helped with that!) We'll see how things go as the semester continues. Did you know that for a long time, double negatives were totally acceptable? And English was spelled Englych? I didn't.

Finally, I have my only class on the TR circuit: Advanced Composition. All I know is that I have a lot of writing to do. A lot. It's going to be time consuming, but hopefully fun.

Anyway, hay catorce horas en escuela. I think.

Orange everywhere!

Now, you're probably a patriotic person. You love our nation and are happy to be a citizen. You may even decorate your house with the colors of the flag on Independence Day or where red, white, and blue on Labor Day or something. But would you do these things year round?

Stillwater is orange. Seriously, everything in town is supportive of the school. Which is fine, of course, it's just that the school color is so . . . ugly. I think that orange is a fine color when used properly. Orange explosions are not so good.

And everybody wears orange! Maybe I notice it only because it's a color that is usually used in moderation, but even Allison's work requires her to wear an orange OSU shirt on Fridays.

I think part of my problem is the mascot doesn't match the color. When OSU was founded on Christmas day in 1890, it was originally Oklahoma A&M and the mascot was the tiger (I learned that from the hold music whenever I call the office. Guess how often that happens). Orange tigers I can get behind. Orange cowboys; I can't get behind that.

I'm freakin' out!

School starts tomorrow. If we don't update here for while it isn't because we hate you all or anything, it's just that we'll probably be extremely busy. Hopefully things won't be too bad, but we may not post again until winter break. Learning!

Me "preparing" for school.

"Stonking"

In my last post, I mentioned that tuition is high and that I'm annoyed where the money goes. I wrote that "tuition is pretty stonking high already." One of my readers pointed out to me that "stonking" isn't a word. The exchange (which took place through email) went something like this:

(It may help if you imagine us with British accents, for some reason)

Reader: Good sir, I have the utmost respect for you and your skills as a writer, but I believe you may have accidentally included a typographical error in your last entry on your internet website. I am sure that this was not intended and I wanted to point it out in electronic mail as to not embarrass you publicly.

Me: Gentleman, I am convinced that you are filled with the wisdom of the ages, but alas, I have gone through with both a visual inspection and the use of a "spell checking" device and have found no errors present. I am sure that you meant nothing offensive by your message and I assure you that no offense was taken, though perhaps in the future you should be certain of others mistakes before pointing them out.

Reader: Most gracious sir, while I do respect your brilliance as a writer, you used the word "stonking" and that clearly cannot be right. Perhaps you should go and edit your post.

Me: Kind reader, if you are under the impression that I meant "stinking," I promise you that I chose the word "stonking" on purpose.

The above conversation may or may not be verbatim as to how it actually happened.

Anyway, I looked up "stonking" at dictionary.com. It means "excellent, very impressive" or "extremely, also called stonkingly." My reader may simply not have known that "stonking" was a word, just as "stonkingly" is. In my defense, "stonking" is recognized by Firefox's spell check, but "stonkingly" is not.

Also, my readership is limited to family, so you know the reader. I didn't mean any offense by this post, I just wanted to rewrite the conversation in hoity-toity Brit-speak. Oi!

Hidden Fees

I get to ride the bus for free in Stillwater! Well, that's not true. I do not have to pay any additional fees to ride the bus. I was going through the cost of tuition for attending school, and there are a lot of things that I'm paying for, whether I want to or not. Things like the Academic Excellence fee ($360.50), the Academic Facilities fee ($147.00), the Student Union Renovation fee ($60.90), the Student Activities and Student Activities-A fees ($35 and $42, respectively), and the parking and transit fee ($32.20).

I guess my problems with it is that tuition is pretty stonking high already and then they glob all of these extra things on top. The Student Union looks nice, but why do I have to pay for the renovation that (as far as I can tell) already happened? I do like that by showing my ID I get to ride the bus for no (additional) charge, but what if I didn't have to ride the bus? And why is called parking and transit fee, if we still have to buy a parking pass? And why are there two student activity fees? Why not just have one fee at the combined price? That one's just weird to me.

Maybe my problem isn't the extra fees, it's knowing what they go to. Tuition I don't have any argument with because that's for my education, but if I knew how much of my tuition went to stocking the faculty lounge with donuts, I'd probably be telling a different tale.

Iron Chef America

Allison and I have discovered that Iron Chef is a very entertaining show. Well, the first 5 minutes anyway. If you haven't watched Iron Chef America, watch it. The actual show is decently entertaining as the chefs work on their dishes, but the best part is the revealing of the "secret ingredient" (I'm convinced that they know what it's going to be before hand). The chairman is ridiculously cheesy as he screams the ingredient. "Halibut!", "Hamburger!", "Artichokes!" It's all so funny. After that, Allison and I may watch the rest of the episode, or may not. We've already seen the best part.

Couch on a budget.

This is me taking a nap. On our couch.

Y'see, we have no real couch. We have an area rug and with a couple of blankets. And, of course, pillows. When Allison sits on the rug and wants the pillows, she'll ask for the couch. If I join her after she's already there, I'll complain that she's hogging all the couch. It's funny, but it's still the floor.

But think of all the money we saved!

It's official!

Here, in blurry photographic evidence, is undeniable proof that Allison and I are, indeed, lawfully wedded. Isn't it sweet?

Further proof that we cut the wedding cake.

I made an animated gif, but for some reason it wouldn't work here.

You've heard of the shamwow? Well, apparently our tablecloth is made of reverse shamwow.



It really won't absorb any liquid. It's really cool, but I have no idea how wash it.

Beans

I made beans! I prepared them by soaking equal parts black, pinto, and kidney beans overnight in the fridge (to prevent fermenting). After draining the beans, I put them in the crock pot and covered them with water. I put in half a coarsely chopped onion, 8 or 9 pickled jalapeno slices, 2 tablespoons of chili powder, and some seasoned salt. Cook on high for 3 hours.

Obviously this was spicy, but it was really good. Allison added some more jalapenos to her bowl, but she likes things really spicy. It was served over brown rice and topped with stir fry vegetables.

Beans.

Wedding Pictures!

The Newlyweds.

Temple

Everybody!

My beautiful bride.

Uncle Keith is a very talented photographer.

Vote Ian for Politician.

Allison thinks Ian looks cool in this one.

Stand up by Papa Peter.

First dance.

So cute!

It looks like a greeting card.

Proof that we cut the cake!

Dancin' the night away.

This is just a sample of all the pictures that we got from Uncle Keith. If anybody has a request for a particular picture that you remember seeing or any of a particular set (like the ones of just my family), let me know and I can email you or post it here if I like them.

We're married!

I probably should have posted this one first. Allison and I are married. You knew that. But enjoy the beautiful picture of my wife.

I really appreciate the cinderblock walls.

Life has begun for us in the land of my ancestors. Oklahoma is very green, and we're currently experiencing a thunderstorm to keep it that way. Luckily, the sky wasn't that particular shade of green that means tornadoes.

We've been doing a combination of looking for work and collecting the things we need. And living in our first and second apartments.

We came into town on Thursday and got our apartment key and directions to it. When we walked in, it was pretty disappointing. It was dirty, it was small, and it was smelly. The fridge wasn't plugged in and mold was growing in the freezer. The stove was disconnected, there was hardly any cupboard space, and there were spider webs in the kitchen-sink drain. Dead bugs were in the corners of nearly every room and the bushes directly outside our front door were a bit overgrown. In addition to that, we had no bed. We bought an area rug and slept on that. We had a couple of blankets and some pillows, but it felt like we slept on the hard, hard ground.

We had been given a list to fill out to identify any damages in the apartment. When we filled it up, we went the next day to get a second list to continue on. We were told to add any additional problems on a plain piece of paper. Allison asked if it was normal to have this many problems. The woman in the office asked what kind of problems. We started explaining what was wrong, and she was very shocked. She and another office worker looked and found another apartment in the same price range that was available. It is a vast improvement. A lot more cupboard space in the kitchen, no mold, and all around just cleaner. Thank goodness! When we went back to the office to sign the paper work for the switch, one of the workers got on the phone to turn the A/C on in the new apartment. I stopped her and told her that we would go without (air conditioning costs an extra hundred dollars a month) and her jaw dropped. That was kind of funny.

In our new apartment, with our new bed is very much a relief. We don't need A/C since we have three fans and we keep the windows open at night.

It may not seem like it, but I think it was a blessing we spent that first day and a half in that first bad apartment because it helped us better appreciate our current apartment. We still don't have carpet, and we don't have A/C. Our kitchen is small with very little counter space and our bathroom is small enough that it's possible to wash your hands while sitting on the toilet (I assume, I haven't tried yet). However, it's fantastic. And it's ours.

Allison enrolled at the local community college and it turns out she only needs one more semester before transferring to OSU. Good, but Holy Crap-in-a-Hat school is expensive here. Even for locals, community college cost over a hundred and fifty dollars a unit. In California, it was twenty. We both looked at each other and were like, "How do people go to school here?" The answer is, they probably don't. Anybody who lives in California and doesn't take advantage of the higher education options available, has no idea what advantages they have that they're turning down.

Since this is a really long post, I'll throw in a picture. On our first day here, Allison cut her hair and now she has bangs. She did a great job, and she looks really cute. We have a picture of it, but the camera is in the car and as I mentioned at the beginning, it's raining. But here's another one (at the top).

Keep those doggies movin'!

So, moving across four States, it turns out, it tricky. Especially when we only have a 4-cylinder motorized car. Er, motor-car. We're planning on leaving behind as much as we can, returning a lot of gifts here and repurchasing them in Oklahoma. I'm looking into LTL (less-than truck load) shipping, but that's got it's own problems. We went to AAA yesterday and had them map out our route for us (since we're members, we might as well take advantage of the service) and give us some guidebooks to help us look for places to stay and eat. Things are going well, but also, well, not. We have one 32" TV, one 50+ lbs laser printer, my desktop (that I'm using to post this), two office chairs, and one dismantled computer desk. Any suggestions?

UPDATE:

We mailed most of the above stuff or just left it behind.

New Post

Just really quick, I wanted to update the blog. I will be adding a lot of pictures soon, but I wanted to change the url and title of the blog (and include my wife) before I make this official.

Blog!