Birthday Time

Tomorrow is my birthday! This is not a joke. :) And it isn't on General Conference or Easter, so things are already looking good. The worst kind of birthday is on Easter AND fast Sunday. Since my birthday is on April Fool's Day, no one ever believes me. But believe me that it really is my birthday.

School is going well. I'll finish a 25 page paper this week and I wrote a 15 page one the week before (which I'm revising for Environmental history) and chugging along on my thesis proposal. I hope this time I don't get totally rejected on my proposal! Tomorrow I am presenting another paper and maybe sometime I'll get my previous prestigious picture from Joe.

Yippee skippee.

And this morning we had mango-berry smoothies and I watched Beauty and the Beast while I revised my proposal. Our spin class this morning killed me so we'll see if I can stay awake in my stupid History and Theory class.

Babysitting Kaylee

Andrew is out of town. He's presenting his research with T-Roy. T-Roy's wife is Mikey. I told her she should go to the Temple and I would babysit Kaylee.

We had many adventures.

She sat on the couch and took her sock off.

She started falling over so I tried to prop her up with pillows.

That's her on the quilt I made for her! Yay it is being used and loved!


Me and Kaylee.

Lovely brown eyes.

There's a smile!

She was laughing, not screaming. I promise.

Happy baby with only one sock.

We had so much fun. We both watched Jimmer play for the first time and he lost. Poor little Cougars. Then Kaylee started to scream. I checked her diaper. I tried to give her food. I tried holding her. I tried putting her down. I tried doing squats with her. I tried playing games.

Mikey told me I could put her in the other bedroom if she would stop screaming. So I did. She's still in there and I hope she falls asleep soon.

So tell me... Good babysitter or not?

Trip to Omaha

Yes, I went to Omaha, Nebraska. It was for a history conference called the Missouri Valley History Conference. Five of us grad students presented papers. We just went to our presentations and then left to have fun. It was a good time.

Day 1 - The Trip There

Above, you will see us at the Cabella's World Headquarters in Sydney, NE. We are by a statue of elk fighting. Me, Alfred, Simek, Joe, Brumbaugh (that's from left to right)

I'm at the scenic view of the Great Plains. It was so weird that there weren't any mountains to be seen.

Day 2 - The Day I Presented

Joe took a prestigious picture of me giving my paper, but I haven't seen it yet. Someday I will get it and you will all see how prestigious I am.

We went to a bar for lunch and there were taps right on the tables. Simek was happy. I took this humorous picture of me. I am so scandalous drinking right out of the tap.

Rephotography picture in the Old Market area from the Omaha tourist brochure, called "The Girls." L to R - Simek, me, Brumbaugh, Alfred, Joe.


The pedestrian bridge that goes from Omaha, NE, to Council Bluffs, IA.

About to go down the epic and amazing slide!

Day 3 - Last Day of Conferencing

Brumbaugh and I pulling our handcart at the Winter Quarters Visitors' Center.

The Winter Quarters Temple and Pioneer Cemetery.

A tiger at the Henry Doorly Zoo in Omaha.


Simek and Alfred demonstrating backwards evolution.

Me and my fish friend. He just sat there and followed me around. I told him that his psychological issues could be taken care of if he would just try to interact with the other fish.

Day 4 - The Return Home

Thousands of birds on the Great Plains. They live in little ponds called Prairie Potholes.

Me at Chimney Rock (yes, it was like 200 miles off the best route).

Brumbaugh and I packed our wagon well. We are excellent pioneers.

It was a fun trip. Yippee skippee! I was so glad to get home to my sweet Andrew, who had cleaned the apartment very well. :)

So Sorry

If any of you care, I'm so sorry I have hardly posted this month. :( I'm really busy. I have a lot to tell you, though. I went to Omaha for a history conference and Andrew and I had Spring Break. So many adventures...

I'm super busy trying to finish my thesis proposal so I can set up a time for the defense! Yikes and yay!

Hopefully soon I'll be able to do a decent blog post.

Where To?

I just had some thoughts about the way we reference directions.

Out West

Back East

Up North

Down South

Now try saying it with a different thing, like "Back North" or "Up West."

It's weird.

Down We Plunge to the Prison of My Mind

It seems like lately, everything in the world has had to do with Michel Foucault's Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. Perhaps Foucauldian thought permeates everything so thoroughly that no one can escape. Foucault is a French philosopher and this book is about prisons and how they are a psychological punishment whereas torture and public executions were bodily punishment. He talks about surveillance, isolation, spaces, schools, and so on.

So, everything I read mentions Foucault--probably cuz I'm reading about Japanese American internment.

We went to a play called Our Country's Good about British convicts in Australia.

Someone is always watching, and this is law enforcement without law officers. Just as Foucault would note and tell me that it's a part of surveillance.

And there are other things. Such as my favorite lines from Phantom of the Opera. Imagine:

"Down once more to my black despair,
Down we plunge to the prison of my mind,
Down that path into darkness deep as hell!"

Ahh, love it.

Another favorite from Phantom is all of the "Music of the Night." Maybe I just like dark music.

Speaking of Foucault and musical, I love "Stars" from Les Miserables, which is sung by the justice-driven man, Javert.

Another awesome moment in musical movies that has nothing to do with Foucault is the bottle dance in Fiddler on the Roof and then when all the Jewish guys are dancing in a frenzy. Why don't we dance like that anymore? Seriously, since the people of the past always danced in choreographed sequences (some did, and they are called folk dances).

The point is: when one reads philosophy, they suddenly see everything as having to do with that topic.

Ice Fishing Fun

We went ice fishing at Hyrum reservoir last Saturday. It wasn't terrible cold, but the wind was blowing.

Andrew broke his fishing pole. He was sad. I was certain he had caught a tiger muskee! But he just caught a perch. It was an old pole. He was very sad.


I caught a trout! I actually caught 3 trout and one perch. Andrew caught like 10 perch and one trout. We are awesome.

Wesley and friend William were nice BYU people and came to Logan to fish with us. People always want us to visit them instead of visiting us. It must be that the distance from Logan to anywhere is less than from anywhere else to Logan. But they were nice so we went to clean the sink at Angie's.

We cleaned it and the waitress said we were fast. Ice cream and ice fishing! YIPPEE!!