How Do You Know? You Don't, Not 100%

      I had a friend today tell me about one of his best friends getting dumped because his fiancé was not “100% sure” that he was the right person for her.  I felt that was kind of strange; has anyone ever been 100% sure about the person they’re going to marry?  I highly doubt it.  To me, that takes away the exciting leap of faith that is associated with marrying someone.  It also makes it seem that strong marriages are guaranteed because of compatibility rather than being earned through dedication, conscious choice and sustained effort.  However, this did get me thinking about what attracted me to Julie in the first place and why I decided to marry her.

      The first time I saw Julie, I obviously thought she was beautiful.  How could I not?  But, there was something deeper, too.  I had seen lots of hotties before that I was more than content looking at from afar.  With Julie, it was different; I remember when I saw her I had the strange thought, “I wish that she was my girlfriend.”  After days of begging, my friend finally gave me her phone number and I called her up.  From the minute I picked her up, it was very easy to talk to her.  A lot of this probably came from the fact that she had been on millions of first dates, but there was a comfort I felt around her that I rarely feel around people when I first meet them.  We enjoyed talking to and being around each other.  Pretty soon, we became boyfriend and girlfriend.  We knew that we liked each other, so we started talking about important things to see if we could be with each other for the long haul.  Already knowing I liked being around her and that I could see myself enjoying her forever, I started to ask about her view on family.  It sealed the deal when she shared her views about her excitement to be a wife and a mother and that family was the most important thing to her.  Her was this beautiful, intelligent, educated, fun, funny and kind woman who did not think it a burden or a sacrifice to have a family.  Though I am not really any of those other things, I too think family is the most important thing and have never really understood why men or women think career choice and advancement is what makes a person successful.  I guess I learned that to a large extent from my parents, who always put us first even though they have been successful in other pursuits.  So, I said to myself that she was beautiful, had a testimony, wanted a family, and I loved her; that was more than enough for me to make the choice.  I did not really even have to ask God about whether it was right. 

     Still, with all of these assurances, there I was on March 19^th (late the night before my wedding) vomiting out of nervousness.  I guess the point is, no matter how much you love somebody, there are no guarantees and marriage has never been “easy.”  I hope this girl who was not “100% sure” about her fiancé that she will never find a man she is 100% sure about, but that she will find a man she is 90% sure about and have a happy, long marriage to him.  If you want, write me about how you knew you wanted to marry your spouse.  To me, it felt good writing this and I am fascinated about why people marry.      

Before I met Julie, this could have been my song. 

1 Down, 3 To Go!!!

On Friday, I had my first graduate school interview with the University of San Diego. My Mom drove down with me and we had a fantastic time listening to each other's stories, talking about our funny relatives (like my Great Grandpa saying repeatedly after his wife died, "God don't want me, Satan won't have me and Louise hasn't made up her mind, yet. That's the only reason I'm still here") and of course, throwing on some Beastie Boys. 
  We got there on a Thursday afternoon. My Mom doesn't trust modern technology, so she did not believe the GPS was taking us the right way. She made me change the route, and I accidentally told it to avoid all freeways with carpool lanes. The only route it could come up with was to take me up to Sacramento and back down. Fortunately, common sense won out and we just continued on I-15 until we got to our hotel: The Vagabond Inn. It wasn't as ghetto as you would expect from its name. We mostly just hung out that night from fatigue and watched the World's Dumbest Competitions on TV. We did have to make a stop to the liquor store right next to us, because as Mom points out, "it always has the coldest Dr. Pepper." 
   Finally, my interview came. Mom and I stopped at Starbucks and got what we decided were the worst scones and bagels, ever. That's what we get for eating at the Devil. I got to my interview 20 minutes early and thought I was impressive...until I saw that I was the last person to get there- stupid overachievers. Everyone was real nice. There were only 4 guys, including me. So, I thought it was going to be easy until I realized how talented everyone there was AND that the other three guys were minorities (I felt like the scene in Modern Family where Cam and Mitch are beat out by the interracial lesbians, one of whom is in a wheelchair).

I love Catholics!!! And their buildings! This is the Chapel on USD's campus.

  Overall, I felt the interview went well. The teachers and all the other people I talked to seem like really good people. It was an interesting interview process; three small group interviews broken up by going like sheep into a big room to wait for the next interview. I secretly wonder if they had video cameras watching us interact in those rooms.
   After the interview, Mom and I went to Old Town in San Diego; it's basically a little Mexico. It had excellent Mexican food (I got these HUGE plate of nachos with Mexican sausage. Not exactly good food to eat before you go on a ten hour drive). These two older Latino guys came and played an hour long song (seemingly) in Spanish right into Mom's ear. That was fun (for me). Finally, we were on our way. It was a great trip except for one thing: no Julie. I couldn't stop thinking about her the whole time and wanted to be back in snowy Provo as soon as I could. Home is where the heart is, I guess.

Cuz you can't, you won't and you don't stop! Home is where the woman who bought me these guys' anthology is.

It's the middle of Winter, it's February, and I like laying down in front of the TV, okay?

So our apartment complex cut off our cable a few months ago, without warning.
LAME.
And because we didn't want to pay for something that we are still technically paying for in our utility fees, we haven't gotten it again.
Luckily, we have Netflix, and have the Instant Queue through our Wii <-- if only I got paid for product placement, right?
I like the instant queue for many reasons, like no commercials, getting to watch a bunch of previous seasons of TV shows that are no longer on Hulu, and its kind of random assortment of movies (old and pretty new). One thing I do NOT like, however, is how often it cuts out. If I have to see "Retrieving...." one more time, I might lose it.
Wow, tangents, sorry.

What I really wanted to write about are the TV shows that I'm kind of addicted to. And how much it STINKS when you have  watched everything from a show, multiple seasons even, and then catch up to the current season and have to wait an ENTIRE week to watch the next episode. Will someone please explain to me why my interest in a show diminishes somewhat when this happens? If I can't watch an episode every night, then the comedic value/interesting story lines/character development doesn't seem quite as interesting a week later.

Again, I digress.

Here we go. Shows I am addicted to. Dylan is addicted to the first two, but the third is pretty much all me.

1. Modern Family

-This one has the best clips. The other two are whole story lines, and less one-liners, so they were hard to find clips for.  Seriously, these clips make me almost pee my pants. I laugh SO hard at them.
Characters:
Jay and his second wife, Gloria, and her son Manny.
Jay's daughter, Claire, her husband, Phil, and their children Hailey, Alex and Luke.
Jay's son, Mitchell, and his partner, Cameron, and their adopted daughter, Lilly.

2. Lie to Me

-We actually haven't quite caught up to the current season of this, so we're still good! We're on season 2 (please, no spoilers!). This is such an awesome show - so original. They solve cases, but unlike most detective shows, it only deals with murder or crimes some of the time. The Lightman Group works on any case where someone needs to find out if someone else is lying, and what they're lying about. They use the science of deception detection to discern the truth. It's fascinating. At first we were afraid that it'd get kind of repetitive, showing the facial expressions and body language over and over again, hammering it into the ground, but they have done a superb job of developing their characters, having intriguing story lines, and always having interesting twists and unexpected conclusions. 

3. Bones

-I had only watched this show here and there on TV, when it was on, but I started at the beginning and watched the first 5 seasons (season 6 is current), and am hooked. I find their process (forensic anthropology) so fascinating, and often riveting. I actually learn stuff by watching the show! I am hooked on the characters, too. There's no one I don't like on it, which is amazing for me to find that in a show, and there is always something going on in their personal lives that they develop. Sorry about the bad clip, but it's all I could find. You'll just have to watch it, I guess.




If you haven't seen any of these shows, seriously....why not?
If you have, what do you like/dislike/find interesting about them?

The Road to Marriage and Family Therapy

   A few days ago, I got an email from the University of San Diego saying that I had been selected to be interviewed for their graduate school. While Julie laughed that getting this big of news through an email is kind of like getting asked out on a date through text, I was excited. It made me reflect a little on the process of how I decided that I would try to become a Marriage and Family Therapist.
    In a way, it started when I was a kid. I used to think I wanted to be a football player in the NFL (and a baseball player in the MLB and a Ninja Turtle, but I digress) when I was a young lad. Then, one time while my friends and I were playing outside, I blitzed my best friend (a half Native American, half African American from a low-income single parent led home) from the blind side and absolutely obliterated him. He wound up with a splitting headache and we had to stop playing. I felt so bad that I immediately ran into my house and got him Aspirin and Dr. Pepper and begged for his forgiveness. It was then that I knew I didn't have what it takes to be a good football player; plus I ended up slow, short and fat. 
   The fact that I felt bad for my best friend not only because of his splitting headache but because of his lack of support at home should have registered to me that helping people overcome difficult circumstances was what I wanted to do. But, it didn't. On my mission, the most joy I got was from helping families embrace a new way of life and embrace each other more, but it still didn't dawn on me. I came home and thought that the English major was a good fit for me. But, as one of my teachers said (as a compliment), "You're not like other English majors. You don't philosophize and think as deeply." Like I said, it was meant to be a compliment and I took it as such, but also realized, I was definitely not intellectual enough to be an English major (the fact that I've been thoroughly bored by every Jane Austen, Henry James and William Faulkner book was enough reason for me to switch). Finally, my baby cakes helped me to figure out what I'm really interested in: helping people and improving their lives. Hopefully soon, I will be able to help improve lives by changing patterns in their family and couple relationships. In other words, I'll soon be working with issues such as this:

Biz Markie - Just A Friend
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