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Mom and I tonight were watching Strictly Ballroom for FHE, when I turned to her and asked if today was the 23rd. It's been 8 years since I got back from the mission. Huh. Que velha sou.
The change in temperature that I went thru in a 24 hour period was 85º in Londrina, 0º in Chicago when we arrived at 5am and 20º in SLC when we finally landed. I'd forgotten my sweater in my suitcase. hmmph.

This is from my last proselyting day in the mission:

Me (bottom left) at the bus station with a bunch of the sisters.

Our grupo de saída with the mission president and wife. I bawled like a baby during the meeting.

And this is me in the middle of what only seems to be nowhere in my third area:

hmmmmm
I love Brasil.

License Plate Word Game

I like to find words in license plates. The stupid new Utah ones mix numbers and words, so this has become impossible. But the old ones that have 3 consecutive letters are great. To find words, sometimes I have to resort to other languages, and, at times, antiquated spellings. Sitting at stop lights can be boring.
Anyway, the one I saw today made my nerdy self laugh right out loud. Nu in Portuguese means naked, or naked guy. Nus is just the plural form.
So this explains why I this license plate was especially precious. Click on it please:

Props to anyone who can guess where I was when I took this picture.
**I would again like to reiterate that I was at a stop light.**

What the soccer what?

Holy cow, this NM girl must be angry at the world.


Red card?

Dreamy City Street Planning

I have vivid dreams, this has been established.

The downtowns (and sometimes outer areas) of Utah cities are well organized into a grid format, right? Main Street is 0, the next block over is 100, then the next is 200, etc. etc. etc.
Same pattern for Center Street: 0, next block is 100, next block is 200, etc. etc. etc.
I've had people complain to me that Utah cities make no sense because the streets don't have names, only numbers. I admittedly and very honestly have found this complaint asinine, because the pattern makes lots of sense.

Anyway, I guess my subconscious is even more frustrated by this because last night my most vivid dream was about a pattern that could be created to solve this problem: double street names. The streets get a number, as well as a name. The trick with the name is--wait for it--they will be alphabetized. Main Street then 100 + A-name, 200 + B-name, etc. etc. etc.

Following is a basic mock-up, similar to the one that I created in my dream:

Problem solved.

Mayan Metropolis

Here's a video of perhaps the largest pyramid ever found in Mezoamerica. It's in an ancient Mayan metropolis now called Mirador in Guatemala. The area is larger than L.A; estimates on the population put it at about 100,000 in its heyday, which was from about 600BC to between 300BC and 100AD. But the construction on it was started before 900BC and was abandoned at about that time with people returning centuries later.
The video also mentions and shows a frieze of Popol Vuh, the Mayan creation myth.
The whole abandon/return thing also had me really intrigued.
Pretty cool stuff:
I just realized that if you're in google reader, the video doesn't show unless you click into my blog. hmmph.

Halloween

I wore my costume today at work, instead of tomorrow, the real Halloween. You've gotta wear your costume to school, right?
Anyway, here are pictures, some are prep pictures, some are the final dealio. See if you can figure out what I am. Answer at the end.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.

Did you figure it out? I'm a stereotypical south Utah County chica. As you can see from picture #8, I am wearing a bumpit. What a terrible, terrible idea. But, in the end, it made my costume easier. Picture #3 shows off the blue and green eye shadow that I bought specifically for the day, as well. Oh, and the shirt and denim vest are DI specials.

About 10 minutes into class today, one of my students sorta stopped what he was doing and said, "I'm sorry, it's just so hard to take you seriously when you look like that." Another friend of mine couldn't look at me without laughing.

My sister was sure that I'd get a date out of it.

I think my favorite part of the whole thing was the fact that a lot of people couldn't tell whether or not I was really serious about what I was wearing. I think that's really saying something for Utah County, don't you?

NKOTB, justification and libertarians

Back in the summer of '91 or '92, my mom and us kids went to Logan to visit some of the old family friends from their college days. We hadn't seen each other in a while, so we were getting reacquainted. I had just found out that the oldest son (like 1 year older than me, so 13 or 14) had just gone to a New Kids on the Block concert. I retorted with something like, "You like them?" And he fumbled a bit and said, "Well, you know, Perfect Gentlemen were opening..."
His mom interrupted and said, "You don't have to justify yourself." She was pretty mad at how I'd acted. I, however, was pretty sure that my contempt was justified, I mean, I had learned only months earlier that my love of New Kids was completely uncool and that I shouldn't wear that shirt of theirs that I owned. I felt that my enlightenment and forced despite of their music allowed me to feel superior. BTW, Donnie was my fave.
Hah! What a hypocrite I was.

I've thought about that a lot and how whatever his name was didn't have to justify himself at all, and how out of line I was.
And recently I've been thinking about how I often justify my political beliefs to people b/c my temple recommend status is questioned, or my faithfulness to God or the gospel is supposedly in doubt because I'm a registered democrat. Or if someone says that I'm just a democrat because I wanna be different, as if I didn't have a head on my shoulders and were that flippant.
I'm done justifying myself. Giving reasons is one thing. But I'm done justifying myself.


Also, an interesting tidbit that I've been thinking of lately:

A lot of Utah Valley Mormons talk like Libertarians, expect things that a democratic government would offer, yet rail against big government, and vote like Republicans.
I've noticed this over the last couple of years.

So, yes, an experience with NKOTB led me realize that I don't have to politically justify myself to people.