For my birthday, my mom sent me some books, which I appreciated a lot. One was a retelling of the tale East of the Sun and West of the Moon, which is sort of like Beauty and the Beast. (Incidentally, I just accidentally wrote Beauty in the Beast instead of Beauty and the Beast, which sounds like a self-help book or something.) Anyway, one crucial element of the story is that while the girl is living in the palace, every night some mysterious man gets in the bed and shares it with her.
Well, I guess it was on my mind or something because the night I was up in Boise I woke up all of the sudden not quite sure who this strange man was who was sleeping next to me. Should I go get help? Should I turn the light on to see who it was? After sitting in the bed for like half a minute I realized it was Kevin, and he was supposed to be there. I looked at the time. 11:56. Then I went back to sleep and told him the story in the morning.
The next day we drove back from Boise and listened to a book on CD called "Till We Have Faces." It was actually kind of weird. Maybe it's because the first CD was scratched, so we had no idea what was going on for the first fifteen minutes of listening to the second CD. Anyway, the main girl's sister was sacrificed to the gods but it turned out she was fine, and every night she would go to sleep and then a man would join her in the darkness.
Again, I thought? What's up with all these mysterious men?
And again, last night I woke up suddenly, not quite sure who was next to me and if I was in danger or not. Then I realized it was Kevin. I checked the time. 11:56. Seriously. Then I went back to sleep.
I think I need to read different books.
Saturday, May 14, 2011
Friday, May 13, 2011
Lately . . .
So besides doing a random post on my birthday about a weird thing I did as a child, I haven't blogged about life in a while.
And quite a bit has happened. But rather than blathering on and on about everything and every thought I may have had about everything, I'm going to save that for my journal and just share a couple of highlights. Occasional pictures. And I'll try to keep to the 6 word limit Ernest Hemingway kept one time (as shown by my wonderful cousin here), though I may have longer parenthetical remarks.
Here goes . . .
Garden
Just ask Jillian: I like dirt.
(or ask Kevin. I also like peas and onions and lettuce and marigolds and garden soil and watering cans and getting dirty and then getting clean. We don't have high hopes for the peas since it's finally warmed up, but it's still fun)
Finals
3 scheduled finals within 24 hours. Done.
(okay, that was 7 words. And those were just the scheduled finals!)
Graduation
At least my cap didn't fall off.
(7 words again. And it almost did 4 years ago in high school while I was giving a speech. This time my name was just mispronounced in front of thousands of people [though I made sure they pronounced it right when I was getting the diploma]. I'm over it now. :D
One of my favorite parts (and the most nerve wracking) is shown in this picture. I felt so honored to play a musical number at convocation. Also, Kaylie is very good at curling my hair into ringlets.)
Anniversary
Love Kevin. And Old Rock Church.
(okay, 6 words just can't do justice. This has been a wonderful wonderful year and Kevin is remarkable. I could go on and on about just how wonderful our anniversary was, going back to the inn where we spent our first night, watching the Importance of Being Earnest while eating breakfast in bed, let alone all the wonders of this past year and how it's changed me as a person and helped me remember who I was before I became a angsty teenager . . . but I will refrain. Just know that marriage rocks.)
Carl Bloch
The Savior loves us dearly.
(I feel like saying much more would be irreverent. It was a very humbling experience and the paintings were magnificent. I'm so glad the Church discovered Bloch's artwork.)
Work
Done by 5! No homework ever!
(and no other girls either, for that matter. Goodness . . . some days I look forward to grocery shopping just so I can talk to another female face-to-face for the first time that day!)
Birthday
Snow. Steak. Cake. Friends. Happiness. 21.
(Some of my high school friends had a party up in Logan [not for my birthday, just for fun] and it was good remembering how awesome they are. And my family fed us steak and cake for dinner, which was also awesome. I think it was one of the happiest birthdays I've had in a long time.)
Tulip Festival
I love tulips. Still use WordPerfect.
The festival promised "eye candy" and I think this picture definitely has a lot. :)
Wicked
Flying. Singing. 6 years of waiting.
(yeah, it was awesome. I sorta wish I hadn't known the songs quite as well going in, but it was still amazing. And Kevin liked it. And Boise was wonderful and I have the most wonderful family up there. And I liked the zoo.)
So that's some of the amazingly fun stuff I've been up to!
Honorable mentions: party at Joaquin (which ended with a missing wedding ring [not mine]), a wonderful lunch date with a dear friend of mine who didn't seem to mind that I can't eat Subway sandwiches like a civilized being, my obsession with cleaning windows and baseboards and floors and "owning" the apartment, my friend finding her ring after 2 weeks (i.e., today), giving me hope that I won't keep on dreaming she's found it since those are really depressing dreams when I wake up, baby blessing of my youngest cousin which made me feel old, induction into the Provo Married Student 34th ward (long name with unattractive acronym), family dinner, Kaylie's amusement with the "oompa loompas" in the cleanroom . . .
Yeah, life has treated me well.
Saturday, April 30, 2011
Bathroom Sink Spaghetti
Last night while I was cooking pasta for dinner, I remembered a game Leslie and I used to play when we were little.
It was called Two Orphans/Widowed Mother and her Daughter/Teacher and Student/Princesses. The premise was this: there would be some hardship, and we'd have to deal with it. All alone. There would be invisible villains we'd have to fight and hide from and help each other escape from.
And when you are working so hard fighting evil, you get a little hungry. So Leslie made this brilliant discovery that if you fill the bathroom sink with hot (or lukewarm) water and then get some noodles from the pantry and put them in the sink, by the time you're done fighting the villains the noodles are now nice and soft and cold and delicious.
And I don't think we ever cleaned the sink out before we did this.
Yeah, I'm surprised Leslie and I ended up as okay as we did. Minus her getting cancer, of course. (But according to her that's from eating old ground beef.)
It was called Two Orphans/Widowed Mother and her Daughter/Teacher and Student/Princesses. The premise was this: there would be some hardship, and we'd have to deal with it. All alone. There would be invisible villains we'd have to fight and hide from and help each other escape from.
And when you are working so hard fighting evil, you get a little hungry. So Leslie made this brilliant discovery that if you fill the bathroom sink with hot (or lukewarm) water and then get some noodles from the pantry and put them in the sink, by the time you're done fighting the villains the noodles are now nice and soft and cold and delicious.
And I don't think we ever cleaned the sink out before we did this.
Yeah, I'm surprised Leslie and I ended up as okay as we did. Minus her getting cancer, of course. (But according to her that's from eating old ground beef.)
Saturday, April 16, 2011
What I didn't do at BYU
So now I've finished my undergraduate education. It feels . . . interesting. I don't feel a huge sense of "doneness" because I'm going to turn right around the Monday after graduation and continue my research, and then start grad school in the fall with teachers I already know, research I've already been doing for a couple of years, and even textbooks I've been trying to understand for the past decade. So it doesn't feel all that . . . climactic.
But still, it does feel good to be at least sort of done. Since I've reached an end of a chapter of my life, I just want to take a couple moments to reflect on the experience. In retrospect, perhaps I rushed through too quickly. But I've always been like that (I suppose to make up for being born 12 days late). Skipping grades, teaching myself classes in the summer, piling on the AP classes during the school year . . . so double majoring in math and electrical engineering in just 8 semesters (okay, with a spring and summer term) was nothing out of the ordinary for me. Furthermore, a lot of things that I didn't do were things I never considered doing, or didn't even want to do. Do I regret it? Not exactly. But it's interesting looking back at what BYU had to offer.
Here are a few things that I was never able to fit into my to-do list:
1) Study abroad. I'm beginning to regret this one, but for the first few years of college I just didn't care. Why go to Paris when you can Google images of the Eiffel Tower? Why go to Jerusalem when there are the maps and pictures at the back of the Bible? Why go to England when their beef isn't all that good? All of you who have traveled know how faulty my logic was, and I'm starting to realize that I should have taken advantage of these amazing opportunities. Alas. I try to live vicariously through other people's blogs.
2) Go to the Holi Festival of Colors. While this isn't a BYU sponsored event, a lot of BYU students go. The year I may not have been too busy (freshman year) I didn't go because I had a date with a guy later whose name I didn't know until 15 minutes before the date ended (it's a long story . . . basically we were coworkers but he never wore his nametag). And since then I've been too busy on the Saturday it's held. But ever since I read this: http://stuffbyupeoplelike.blogspot.com/2010/03/18-holi-festival-of-colors.html, I haven't felt too bad about missing it. Again, maybe I'm just too cynical, or maybe I'm just not too thrilled about getting chalk in my hair and staining my clothes. (I'm writing this post during finals week. Don't judge me too much.)
3) Do pretty much anything associated with Homecoming Week. In particular, the True Blue Football. Again, I'm not really into getting all colorful and staining my clothes. I'm sorry I'm so boring. :)
4) See any of the old movies in the library. I still feel bad about missing "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn."
5) Drive on the sidewalk. Ever since I almost got ran over by a police car going down the ramp (which I had previously thought a sidewalk) just south of the RB, I've wanted to drive a car on the sidewalks on campus. Just like the grounds crew. They say there's a $50.00 fine. I say that's a fair price for a thrill ride of a lifetime. But no, I haven't dared. I haven't even gotten so much as a parking ticket. And actually I'm okay with this one.
6) Buy bookstore fudge. I guess it's not too late now to get some.
By now you're probably thinking, what on earth did she do with her time? How could she have gone to BYU without doing these wonderful things?
Well, I guess here are some things I did.
1) Homework. Lots of it.
2) Take the bell tower class. It was a remarkable experience going up those 99 steps every day and playing the bells for all of Provo to hear (I was actually a little bit embarrassed to realize just how far the sound reached . . . I was hiking the Y one time and could hear the bells). And since it was springtime, the bell tower was surrounded by pink trees and green grass and ducklings and strollers . . . it was incredible.
3) Check a book out of the library. It took me 3 years, and it was a music book (as opposed to an actual novel), but I finally got the courage to check out a book and walk past those security guards with it.
3) Write a musical. Well, parts of one. Well, 4 songs plus a couple of scenes. Someday it will be produced. I have faith. At least some of my songs were used for a ward musical.
4) Get married. At the ripe old age of 19.
5) Get a Jamba Juice, go to the Varsity Theatre, go to International Cinema once, Light the Y, hike to Squaw Peak, throw pennies down the SWKT, chase ducks, go to football/basketball/volleyball games, publish a paper, submit a conference paper, go on a date to the library, witness a marriage proposal in the math lab, eat ice cream from the Creamery/Subzero/Malt Shoppe/Wendy's/Baskins&Robbins, attend Divine Comedy/Laugh out Loud/Humor U/ComedySportz, participate in DanceSport (and make it past the first round, just like BYU basketball in 2010), start the Honors Program, not finish the Honors Program, . . . and the list continues.
I guess I did more than I thought. Perhaps I took advantage of my BYU undergraduate experience after all.
But still, it does feel good to be at least sort of done. Since I've reached an end of a chapter of my life, I just want to take a couple moments to reflect on the experience. In retrospect, perhaps I rushed through too quickly. But I've always been like that (I suppose to make up for being born 12 days late). Skipping grades, teaching myself classes in the summer, piling on the AP classes during the school year . . . so double majoring in math and electrical engineering in just 8 semesters (okay, with a spring and summer term) was nothing out of the ordinary for me. Furthermore, a lot of things that I didn't do were things I never considered doing, or didn't even want to do. Do I regret it? Not exactly. But it's interesting looking back at what BYU had to offer.
Here are a few things that I was never able to fit into my to-do list:
1) Study abroad. I'm beginning to regret this one, but for the first few years of college I just didn't care. Why go to Paris when you can Google images of the Eiffel Tower? Why go to Jerusalem when there are the maps and pictures at the back of the Bible? Why go to England when their beef isn't all that good? All of you who have traveled know how faulty my logic was, and I'm starting to realize that I should have taken advantage of these amazing opportunities. Alas. I try to live vicariously through other people's blogs.
2) Go to the Holi Festival of Colors. While this isn't a BYU sponsored event, a lot of BYU students go. The year I may not have been too busy (freshman year) I didn't go because I had a date with a guy later whose name I didn't know until 15 minutes before the date ended (it's a long story . . . basically we were coworkers but he never wore his nametag). And since then I've been too busy on the Saturday it's held. But ever since I read this: http://stuffbyupeoplelike.blogspot.com/2010/03/18-holi-festival-of-colors.html, I haven't felt too bad about missing it. Again, maybe I'm just too cynical, or maybe I'm just not too thrilled about getting chalk in my hair and staining my clothes. (I'm writing this post during finals week. Don't judge me too much.)
3) Do pretty much anything associated with Homecoming Week. In particular, the True Blue Football. Again, I'm not really into getting all colorful and staining my clothes. I'm sorry I'm so boring. :)
4) See any of the old movies in the library. I still feel bad about missing "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn."
5) Drive on the sidewalk. Ever since I almost got ran over by a police car going down the ramp (which I had previously thought a sidewalk) just south of the RB, I've wanted to drive a car on the sidewalks on campus. Just like the grounds crew. They say there's a $50.00 fine. I say that's a fair price for a thrill ride of a lifetime. But no, I haven't dared. I haven't even gotten so much as a parking ticket. And actually I'm okay with this one.
6) Buy bookstore fudge. I guess it's not too late now to get some.
By now you're probably thinking, what on earth did she do with her time? How could she have gone to BYU without doing these wonderful things?
Well, I guess here are some things I did.
1) Homework. Lots of it.
2) Take the bell tower class. It was a remarkable experience going up those 99 steps every day and playing the bells for all of Provo to hear (I was actually a little bit embarrassed to realize just how far the sound reached . . . I was hiking the Y one time and could hear the bells). And since it was springtime, the bell tower was surrounded by pink trees and green grass and ducklings and strollers . . . it was incredible.
3) Check a book out of the library. It took me 3 years, and it was a music book (as opposed to an actual novel), but I finally got the courage to check out a book and walk past those security guards with it.
3) Write a musical. Well, parts of one. Well, 4 songs plus a couple of scenes. Someday it will be produced. I have faith. At least some of my songs were used for a ward musical.
4) Get married. At the ripe old age of 19.
5) Get a Jamba Juice, go to the Varsity Theatre, go to International Cinema once, Light the Y, hike to Squaw Peak, throw pennies down the SWKT, chase ducks, go to football/basketball/volleyball games, publish a paper, submit a conference paper, go on a date to the library, witness a marriage proposal in the math lab, eat ice cream from the Creamery/Subzero/Malt Shoppe/Wendy's/Baskins&Robbins, attend Divine Comedy/Laugh out Loud/Humor U/ComedySportz, participate in DanceSport (and make it past the first round, just like BYU basketball in 2010), start the Honors Program, not finish the Honors Program, . . . and the list continues.
I guess I did more than I thought. Perhaps I took advantage of my BYU undergraduate experience after all.
Sunday, April 10, 2011
Staples
So I chose the name of this blog somewhat on a whim, and for whatever reason, I picked "Staples, Tacos, and Love." I couldn't tell you why except that my relationship with Kevin has included staples, tacos, and of course, love. I already touched on tacos in http://kevinkyramoon.blogspot.com/2010/08/there-are-two-sides-to-every-taco.html and I decided now is as good a time as any to explain the staples part.
After all, it was almost two years that we started throwing staples at each other. So mature, right? I already know that's something you do in high school to flirt, and back then I was two years out of high school. But if it worked in high school, then I think it can still work in college (and for the record, I still love the gimmicks people use to ask each other to dances in high school even though people generally swear them off in college).
But yep. There we were in the CAEDM lab, that wonderful computer lab with the free printing for the electrical engineers. That's where we had met about three months previous and had slowly developed our friendship. But now I saw him differently. He was no longer just that brilliant young man with the hearty laugh. He was the brilliant young man with the hearty laugh that I had developed a major crush on. And despite my shyness about admitting that I liked someone because of fear of embarrassment and rejection, I decided to do something about it.
I don't remember why we started throwing staples at each other, but I am sure of a few things:
1) I started it.
2) He had it coming to him.
3) He retaliated.
And thus it began. We didn't have full-out wars in the computer lab, but probably more than half of a stick of staples were used as projectiles rather than for their intended purpose. One time Kevin collected all the staples I had thrown at him and started throwing them at me. I thought he was going to throw them at my face so I was quite happy when he kept on missing it. But it turns out he wasn't aiming for my face. Hours later I realized I still had staples in my hair.
I think the staple throwing continued through finals week, but then it stopped once Kevin went to China for a few months. Once he came back we didn't need them anymore to break the ice, so we haven't really thrown them since then. But nevertheless I'm grateful for those couple of immature weeks where we both pretended we were back in high school and let down our guards enough to show our silly sides.
After all, it was almost two years that we started throwing staples at each other. So mature, right? I already know that's something you do in high school to flirt, and back then I was two years out of high school. But if it worked in high school, then I think it can still work in college (and for the record, I still love the gimmicks people use to ask each other to dances in high school even though people generally swear them off in college).
But yep. There we were in the CAEDM lab, that wonderful computer lab with the free printing for the electrical engineers. That's where we had met about three months previous and had slowly developed our friendship. But now I saw him differently. He was no longer just that brilliant young man with the hearty laugh. He was the brilliant young man with the hearty laugh that I had developed a major crush on. And despite my shyness about admitting that I liked someone because of fear of embarrassment and rejection, I decided to do something about it.
I don't remember why we started throwing staples at each other, but I am sure of a few things:
1) I started it.
2) He had it coming to him.
3) He retaliated.
And thus it began. We didn't have full-out wars in the computer lab, but probably more than half of a stick of staples were used as projectiles rather than for their intended purpose. One time Kevin collected all the staples I had thrown at him and started throwing them at me. I thought he was going to throw them at my face so I was quite happy when he kept on missing it. But it turns out he wasn't aiming for my face. Hours later I realized I still had staples in my hair.
I think the staple throwing continued through finals week, but then it stopped once Kevin went to China for a few months. Once he came back we didn't need them anymore to break the ice, so we haven't really thrown them since then. But nevertheless I'm grateful for those couple of immature weeks where we both pretended we were back in high school and let down our guards enough to show our silly sides.
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
Frequently Asked Questions
It struck me today as I was walking to school that Kevin and I answer the same questions over and over again. On the off chance you haven't met us yet, you can come here to find the answers to the questions.
1. Wait, you guys had the same last name before you were married? So, is there . . . any relation? You guys have checked, right?
Answer: Yes, we had the same last name, yes we're distantly related, no, I don't think dating or marrying your third cousin once removed from another wife is all that weird or gross. People have told me about siblings marrying fourth cousins without realizing it until they were already married, so at least we got the hint beforehand. I'm not too worried about it until our kids start coming out with extra ears or missing fingers.
(as a side note, when girls who are recently married find this out, their response is usually like "oh! you're so lucky you didn't have to change your social security/driver's license.")
2. Oh! You're both electrical engineers! Can you fix my ____ (fill in the blank with toaster, oven, computer, lights, camera . . .) ?
Answer: Two fun facts. One: most modern stuff isn't made to be fixed. It's made to be thrown away and replaced. It's cheaper. Two: you're thinking of electricians, not electrical engineers. I can derive Maxwell's equations and probably do a z-transform or two, but as soon as I have to handle wires and circuits I'm a dunce.
3. You're an electrical engineer! Is your dad so happy?
Answer: If he is, he hasn't told me yet. (Okay, so I'm sure he's happy, but he's not the reason I went into it. All the exposure to engineering he gave me helped but I think it was a couple things my mom said that convinced me to give it a try.)
4. You're both electrical engineers! You must be so smart!
Answer: Thanks. It's nice to hear compliments like this but at the same time I'm a bit troubled. If I were doing elementary education or family life, would I not be smart? I've known plenty of extremely intelligent people in both majors, yet I doubt they hear this compliment when they share their major.
Okay, so now you know what questions I don't like to be asked. (I admit the last one was a comment, but I still don't like it.) Now you are free to ask me other (more interesting) questions such as, "What color is your toothbrush?" or "Given the choice between flying a kite and eating a marshmallow, which would you choose?" or even "Do you know what the weather's supposed to be like tomorrow?"
Yes, I think conversations would be a lot more fun with those sorts of infrequently asked questions.
1. Wait, you guys had the same last name before you were married? So, is there . . . any relation? You guys have checked, right?
Answer: Yes, we had the same last name, yes we're distantly related, no, I don't think dating or marrying your third cousin once removed from another wife is all that weird or gross. People have told me about siblings marrying fourth cousins without realizing it until they were already married, so at least we got the hint beforehand. I'm not too worried about it until our kids start coming out with extra ears or missing fingers.
(as a side note, when girls who are recently married find this out, their response is usually like "oh! you're so lucky you didn't have to change your social security/driver's license.")
2. Oh! You're both electrical engineers! Can you fix my ____ (fill in the blank with toaster, oven, computer, lights, camera . . .) ?
Answer: Two fun facts. One: most modern stuff isn't made to be fixed. It's made to be thrown away and replaced. It's cheaper. Two: you're thinking of electricians, not electrical engineers. I can derive Maxwell's equations and probably do a z-transform or two, but as soon as I have to handle wires and circuits I'm a dunce.
3. You're an electrical engineer! Is your dad so happy?
Answer: If he is, he hasn't told me yet. (Okay, so I'm sure he's happy, but he's not the reason I went into it. All the exposure to engineering he gave me helped but I think it was a couple things my mom said that convinced me to give it a try.)
4. You're both electrical engineers! You must be so smart!
Answer: Thanks. It's nice to hear compliments like this but at the same time I'm a bit troubled. If I were doing elementary education or family life, would I not be smart? I've known plenty of extremely intelligent people in both majors, yet I doubt they hear this compliment when they share their major.
Okay, so now you know what questions I don't like to be asked. (I admit the last one was a comment, but I still don't like it.) Now you are free to ask me other (more interesting) questions such as, "What color is your toothbrush?" or "Given the choice between flying a kite and eating a marshmallow, which would you choose?" or even "Do you know what the weather's supposed to be like tomorrow?"
Yes, I think conversations would be a lot more fun with those sorts of infrequently asked questions.
Sunday, March 13, 2011
Take Me Out to the Ball Game
So, I've become one of those people who talks a lot about sports. It's become one of my favorite conversation topics (quickly catching up to weather), and scarcely a day goes by without me checking espn.com.
How on earth did this happen? How did the little girl who has never participated in any kind of organized sports (not even soccer) and rolled her eyes whenever anyone watched sports on TV suddenly know about how all the teams in the Mountain West Conference?
I guess that's what college does to a person. That and marriage (though Kevin's not really a sports buff either, so I can't really blame him).
I think I've figured out what it is about sports that has me intrigued. Sure it's awesome that Jimmer can score from 40 feet away, but in all honesty, I don't even watch the games. (We don't even own a TV, which has probably improved our marriage substantially.) I just watch the scores. I've figured out that games are not isolated events, and that how one team does in a conference affects how the other teams do. When a team loses to a "bad" team, it hurts a lot more than when it loses to a "good" team. When the teams ahead of you lose, you'll probably go up. And . . . that's basically how sports works.
It's simple logic, and there's not really all that much math. But nevertheless it's intriguing to see how the dice will fall each week. Will Jimmer explode or will the Cougars have 30% shooting? Will Duke stay higher in the rankings despite their losses because they're more respected? What will the implications be if BYU gets a #3 seed instead of a #2 seed?
It's a mix of athletics, statistics, probability, politics, and economics that has me just interested enough to keep on watching. And clearly, it's got a lot of other people hooked too. Thank goodness we don't own a TV.
How on earth did this happen? How did the little girl who has never participated in any kind of organized sports (not even soccer) and rolled her eyes whenever anyone watched sports on TV suddenly know about how all the teams in the Mountain West Conference?
I guess that's what college does to a person. That and marriage (though Kevin's not really a sports buff either, so I can't really blame him).
I think I've figured out what it is about sports that has me intrigued. Sure it's awesome that Jimmer can score from 40 feet away, but in all honesty, I don't even watch the games. (We don't even own a TV, which has probably improved our marriage substantially.) I just watch the scores. I've figured out that games are not isolated events, and that how one team does in a conference affects how the other teams do. When a team loses to a "bad" team, it hurts a lot more than when it loses to a "good" team. When the teams ahead of you lose, you'll probably go up. And . . . that's basically how sports works.
It's simple logic, and there's not really all that much math. But nevertheless it's intriguing to see how the dice will fall each week. Will Jimmer explode or will the Cougars have 30% shooting? Will Duke stay higher in the rankings despite their losses because they're more respected? What will the implications be if BYU gets a #3 seed instead of a #2 seed?
It's a mix of athletics, statistics, probability, politics, and economics that has me just interested enough to keep on watching. And clearly, it's got a lot of other people hooked too. Thank goodness we don't own a TV.
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