Images of Mexico (so far...)

Jen (and George) and I before we eat in the middle of our trip to Mexico.
I love how everything is colorful in Mexico, including the train!

In Mexico City, there was a ton of graffiti. But as you moved out, it slowly disappeared.

There were many of these little...cartels? Stores? around.

Stupid emergency sign. Ruining my picture.

It's very hard to take good pictures on a speeding bus.

The main area of our apartment. All we get is spanish channels, so...viva mexico!

There's three rooms like these in each apartment. So 9 girls to an apartment. Guess who gets kicked out of the bottom bunk to the top bunk? Moi.

Mmmmm! REAL Mexican food. Simple yet good.

Journey to Mexico

I have never been outside of the US. My parents have taken biking trips, Dad lived in Sweden for two years, Emily went to South Korea and Rick went to Portugal. I love listening to their stories of life outside of the US.
I go to Mexico for my first time outside of the country. I tried to remember as many things possible from the journeys today, since we will be staying inside a compound, and never emerging into the real world of Mexico, never mingling with the people of Mexico.
I have to say honestly I loved Mexico City, despite all the horrible things that can happen there, such as kidnappings, drug dealing, corrupt police officers, etc. The city was huge and clustered, many many people smashed into a small area, yet they make it work. They make it look quaint and doable. I loved the brightly painted homes, despite the fact that it would look “trashy” in everyday American neighborhoods. It was nice to see (a very small glimpse) of what life is really like in Mexico, at least in the cities. There’s little cartels everywhere, people selling their little bundles of wares. There are many stores on the ground floor, then homes up above. Then a garden on top of the building, along with a string of clothes hanging to dry. Despite all the evil seeming to lurk in dark corners, these people have found a way to live, and to enjoy life.
I feel that in the states we just want more and more stuff (I’m guilty of this), and we’re never truly grateful for what we have—we don’t even use the stuff we have til it has been fully used or served its purpose. Something “better” comes out, and we must have that product before we’re done using the one we currently have.

The food isn’t anything like the “Mexican” food we get in the states. It’s much less greasy, much simpler, but tastes just as good, or even better! (The meat….well, I never liked meat anyway. The beans and rice and tortillas were amazing.) We flew in, and got on a charter bus (we’re bundled in for a 5-6 hour ride), and halfway through the ride we stopped to eat. The place we ate at had many restaurants and stores where we could explore a bit (in very large groups) the interesting thing I found in this area was the fact you had to pay two pesos to use the bathroom.

In one of the little cute stores, I found no food or candy I recognized, except for the candy Mrs. Sullivan (my Spanish teacher from middle school) would let us try out. I saw my favorite—dried mangos covered in sugar and chili powder. The most interesting and confusing combination of tastes for the tongue. I offered some to everyone, and most of the swimmers tolerated it, two actually liked it. The one person that gagged and spat it out and flipped me off with a red teary face was none other than my coach, Greg. The teammates who witnessed this with me were almost rolling on the floor with laughter! I tried to be sympathetic, but I deemed he overacted way too much. I plan on saving a bit of the candy so mom and dad can decide for themselves whether it was worth gagging over.

Youngest

I had to steal this picture from Meg. This is a picture of Sammy, taken by Sara(h?). This picture fits this post perfectly.

Being the youngest has its advantages and disadvantages. I'm not going to compose a long tedious list about the pros and cons, but simply a post about nothing or something.

One of the wonderful things about having my siblings over for the holidays, whether it be Thanksgiving or Christmas, is to see them and their kids. More than seeing them, I get to observe them a bit. Yes, I observe, even though I'm always reading or staying in a corner.

To watch the way my siblings look at their spouses (or vice versa) is just so cute. I think it's wonderful that everyone has found their other self, their other half, and they work as best friends, as partners, in bringing children into this world, to protect them, to teach them, to raise them.

It's fun to observe mom and dad, especially since they know each other so well, to see them tease each other, to "bicker" in a loving way. To enjoy each others' company.

It's fun to play with the nephews and niece, to watch their wonder, imagination, and playfulness, to watch them learn little (and big) lessons of life. To watch Sammy and Carter work on smiling, being cute, crawling, lifting those unproportional heads. To watch Willie and Micah work on sharing, playing together. To see Oscar grow so big, so curious, so smart. To see Poppy (the lone girl of the group) be sassy and sweet.

I think families are awesome. I see that everyone in my family all has that one essential ingredient to a happy family: charity. I see it in the way they treat each other and their children. Thank you so much for your good examples!!!!

I'll have my own one day, but it won't be too soon. I'm not selfless enough yet. Nor mature. I'll wait until I have more of both. Oh, and I probably have to meet someone to make the equation work, right? :)

Christmas 08

I hope you guys all had a lovely Christmas! I enjoyed it very much, spending time with family. I'm grateful for holidays where we can get together and enjoy each other's company.
(I'm putting these pictures of Lindsey and Emily on here to see how long I can get away with it...)

Emily kept up the yearly tradition of knitting or crocheting something. She actually taught herself to knit!

Carter always is happy on Grandpa's shoulder or sucking on Grandpa's fingers.

Sammy and Carter!

Sammy

Carter is so adorable. He's learning to smile more and more.

Micah's starting to look so old! (Especially on camera.)

I is a coledge stoodent dat is no longer a teenager

Well, I got to start off my 20th birthday with waking up at 5am to cram a little bit more math into my brain before my final at 8am. I have to say, I did...*okay* on the exam. Not too confident there. But it's done and over, and now I'm absolutely free from intellectual thinking for about a month! (Not free from swimming though, that happens when piggies fly and eat hot dogs. Actually, I'm pretty sure they already eat hot dogs...) After my exam, I looked at my phone to find I had 13 text messages and two missed calls and two voice mails. It's a birthday! What's the big deal? :)

I'm at the burb, turning in my books, then I'm going to go get some academic advising from the physics advisor, then run up to the dorms to check out of my room, then I go to swim practice (need to find lunch sometime), then I should be on my way home! I cannot wait.

And on birthdays, the day doesn't feel any different. Sure, I have a green ribbon in my hair to celebrate the occasion of my mother going through tremendous pain to bring me into the world. I'm officially no longer a teenager. Doesn't feel any different neither. Maybe it hasn't kicked in yet. Maybe it'll hit me later. But now? Well, I'm me. No different.

Dang. I was hoping to get some superpowers.

Results from Princeton meet

The results on Utah's swimming page isn't working, hence why poor maddie can't find it. I posted links from the Princeton site, hopefully these will work for ya!
(Helpful tip: When the page loads, and if you're only interested in me, hit control+f on your keyboard, and type in "edge." This works on most pages on the entire internet and is very helpful when doing research. :)

Day one, Friday

Day two, Saturday

Day three, Sunday

And you might notice I didn't swim the 100 free individually on Sunday night. My coach wanted me to do my best on the relay, in attempts to get a NCAA-A cut. We were close. We'll definitely get it at conference.

Stream of consciousness during a physics midterm.

Focus, focus....steady....

Wow, what's that it in my hand? A cool mechanical pencil. Green. Has a good quality eraser. I love erasers. And...huh, the desk seems really blurry with this yellowish paper on it. Why do I feel that this paper is important? Focus...ah! Heh. It's my physics test they wouldn't let me take on Wednesday because the professor felt that it was too early to take it it was originally set for Friday but I told them I was going to Princeton. I told them a week and a half in advance, yet the test wasn't quite proof-read and printed for me to take it on Wednesday. Professor felt like Monday was too late though. So right after a bleary weary fun long swim meet with prelims and finals for three to fourish...or was it five-ish days? After waking up 4 AM on monday morning eastern time, traveling about 7 hours, I had to go straight to the physics building to make up this test. A test? Oh yeah, while my brain was playing around with how frustrating the situation is, I haven't even started the test. And I had to miss all the reviews for the test that are usually very helpful in learning how to actually apply the material we learned. Hmmm.... Oh yes, the test is still sitting in front of me. Hmmm...let's try playing around with this equation here, and see if I come up with a remotely correct-sounding answer. Who throws a wad of gum at a cylinder rotating on the z axis anyway? And we have to assume so many things. Not practical. But makes things simpler, I suppose. A sphere rolling down an incline. Assume it never slides, only rolls. Doesn't make sense. Gravity will cause the sphere to slide a little bit, even if it's the smallest fraction. Wow, my brain does not feel connected to my body. Just jumping all over the place. Ah, there's the proctor. Oh, only six minutes left? And....two of five problems I haven't even started on, let alone looked at? Great. Just great.
C'mon brain!

(grinding gears, stalls)

C'mon!

(engine comes to life for an instant, stalls once more)

NOOOOOOO!
(turns in test, don't even remember much until after waking up from a two-hour nap in the dorms....until now....)


Wow, some days can be a bleary shmeary blur where it passes right by you, yet you remember not much.

Oh, great. Now I just reminded myself of one of my favorite classes I took at the U. A literature class, we read Virginia Woolf's book "To the Lighthouse." It was pretty much all in stream-of-consciousness format. So confusing at first, yet so rewarding at the end. Now I want to go back to majoring in english. I'll minor in math. Think that'd go well? Nah. Me neither. Hm. I do know I want to teach. I also know I'd have fun teaching math, english, and physics. Would it go over strange if I majored in teaching english, and got a master's in math or physics? Yeah, yes it would. Now I'm just babbling at the end of a rather long, disappointing, and endless post. My apologies. I will think up something genius next time! Perhaps a poem?

Hello Princeton!

For those of you who don't know, I'm at a swim meet for the next three days in Princeton. We arrived when it was dark, so I haven't seen much yet. I'm excited to see what the light will bring! :)

Thanksgiving Weekend

Thanksgiving weekend was a wonderful break from school (not really from swimming, because "break" is unheard of in the swimming world). It was wonderful to see Rick, Collette, Oscar, Poppy, Emily, Carvel, Megan, Reed, Will, Sam, Lindsey, Bryan, Micah, Carter! Whew...

However, going back to school has made me realize that it is a torturous holiday: Gives you a tiny taste of freedom for the brain, then makes you plunge right back into a couple more weeks and finals!

I wonder if our little walk on the river the day after Thanksgiving will become a yearly tradition?
I have no idea how Sam could sleep in such a position. But he did.

We went to see the lights that night. 'Twas PACKED! I don't think many of us had fun, but it was worth it for the kids, and to pay a visit to beloved Temple Square.

Notice the hundreds of people on the other side?

I've decided that temples, especially the Salt Lake City temple are very photogenic.

Three

The three lessons I want to learn (and master) from swimming in college are:

1)Learn to do hard things.

2)Learn to have fun doing hard things.

3)Learn to have fun doing hard things, and make it fun for others.

Psychology Paper #3

For our third and final paper in my psychology of adolescence class, we have to pick an interview from NPR's "Radio Diaries." These diaries are simply audio diaries of various teenagers around the country. We pick one of these kids, and analyze them and their interview using everything we've learned in the class. The three stories that interested me most was Josh who lives in New York City, he has Tourette's Syndrome.

Juan also interested me,

but I think I'll do my paper on Ricky. His father is a strict atheist, but now that he's older, he's not so sure about his father's beliefs. His story spiked my interest the most, and I think I have some good ideas already. :)

Now that I look at all the kids who are interviewed, all of their stories are intriguing. I'll have to look at them all when I finally get the time!