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.