PowerPoint numero dos

Hi all. I helped Nick make another powerpoint about the visual arts in London. All the academic stuff comes from Nick, but I found lots of the pictures, and it's a fun intro to the art galleries if any of you want to check it out.

http://kennedy.byu.edu/isp/litart/

mucho amor

GSA Conference

I've finally downloaded the pics from the conference on the 9th, and I thought I'd share them all with you. The GSA was in charge of putting on a conference for the grad students in the English department. This year we invited grad students from six other universities, and of 40 presenters, 16 were not from BYU. Lit conferences consist of panels of 3-4 people who present papers they've written, and then Q&A session. We had 17 panels, and then a special session with Matt Wickman (my thesis chair) as keynote speaker, and then dinner. It went really well--the non-byu students had a good time and were disabused of their byu stereotypes, Matt's presentation was absolutely phenomenal, and best of all, Don and Amy came and got to meet my profs and see what I do! It feels great to be done. Here's some pictures:

GSA presidency minus Spencer--Sara (secretary), Brooke (VP), Me, Sarah (scrivenor editor)

Spencer, our social chair. Funniest guy.

chatting with some students from ISU. The guy with the glasses was in the MTC with Don.

here's the registration/break room in the new JFSB.

"The Knack"

A guy that Rob works with sent this around the office. Even though I'm not an engineer, I had a good laugh. Thought everyone could use one to start off the week...enjoy!

Phil Collins Live

When you think of, hear, or voluntarily listen to Phil Collins Live, what does it remind you of?

The Leprechaun Trap

For St. Patrick's Day, Nathan's class was assigned to build a leprechaun trap. To do so, the children first learned about leprechaun behavior.

"They like gold."

"They like to play tricks."

"They are very tricky."

"They are disobedient."

"They are little."

Wendy worked with Nathan to brainstorm several ideas. Here are the highlights which Nathan shot down as infeasible. 1 - Place C-3PO in the vegetable steamer to attract the leprechaun. When the leprechaun gets in, C-3PO can close the vegetable steamer and trap the leprechaun. Rejected because the trap has to work. 2 - Place gold in the vegetable steamer to attract the leprechaun and Nathan can close it when the leprechaun gets in. Rejected because Nathan can't always watch the trap. 3 - Place gold underneath a box that is propped up by a stick with a string attached. Nathan would wait underneath Mrs. Woods' desk and pull the string when a leprechaun gets to the gold. Rejected because Mrs. Woods' desk is open underneath and the leprechaun will see Nathan. So we built a trap from a shoe-box. The shoe-box was flipped over and three sides of a square were cut into the box to make a trap-door. The leprechaun walks up on top of the upside-down shoe-box and when he sees the gold that is on top of the trap door, he steps on the trap-door and is caught in the box. We covered it with foil and glitter (a substance that I feel should be banned). Fun Times.

March Madness!

If we can maintain even a smidgen of this Coug Cat's concentration....we will go far in this NCAA tournament. GO COUGS!! :)

school update

NYU-wait list! yay!

U of Colorado-no. dang!

five more...

anna's funky new haircut

Hi all! It feels kind of weird to post a picture of myself on the blog, but I want to show you my new cut. I've been hating my haircuts for quite a while now, so I switched hair stylists to my friend Brooke's. We went yesterday, and she gave me a new fun cut. She's great, and it's nice to have something different from what I've had for the past few years.

my very first powerpoint

I had to make a powerpoint for our London Study Abroad prep class. It's a tour of the London Center and the neighborhood, and one of our professors put it online. So if you want to check it out go here:

http://kennedy.byu.edu/isp/london2/

it was fun to present.

Anna's Graduate Student "Conference?"

Amy, Will, Burke and I showed up really late for the BYU graduate student conference that Anna put on. We had a prior commitment and couldn't come until the end... we would have *loved* to come earlier but just couldn't. We'll let Anna give the details, but it was a triple grand slam!!! Huge kudos to Anna and her committee!!! Lots of people, good food and evidently the first time that this conference had invited other schools... It seemed like a huge hit! We were proud to be associated with her! We did arrive just in time for the final dinner (convenient). Actually, we arrived right in the middle of the closing speaker but were too shy to go in with our kids. We stood outside and listened for a minute until Amy said, "Can you understand anything he's saying?" I couldn't. We went outside and played with the kids in the courtyard for the new Joseph F. Smith building. Beautiful eh? Amy got a great shot of Will and I horsing around.

Love you!

DA Bennions

Burke's Baby Blessing

This first one is of Burke before we left for church. Amy got a good smile out of him.

It was nice to have both the Bennions and Petersens together again. We had a great time with everyone!

Dimples anyone?

Air Filtration

Wendy and I agreed to a visit from a salesman who wanted to sell us an air filter and new vacuum cleaner. The presentation took an hour and in exchange for our time we received two overnight vacation stays at a "4-Star" resort in either Klamath Falls or Newport. Anyway, when the sales pitch came, the filtration system was "nine ninety-eight" ($998) and the vacuum was "twenty-seven ninety-eight" ($2798). The vacuum was nice-it worked like a Dyson, and had a lifetime warranty. But DANG! $4000 bucks! It was hard not to laugh in his face. He offered to give us the filtration system if we gave him our old vacuum, and eventually offered 0% interest, and knocked down the vacuum to $2000. Still, no dice. We will keep you posted on our vacation.

PS -He asked if it was a timing issue for us, and I told if timing meant years, then yes it might be a timing issue.

First one back

I got my first letter today randomly while I was conferencing with my students. Vandy says no. Too bad for me, but it's nice in some ways to have heard at all.

"Whenever It Strikes, He Strikes Back."

Nate is the best. Check out the sound effects.