Thursday, February 26, 2009

Stress, sick, and a 2 am wal-mart run

Hello again. The sickness bug has hit our home this last week. But, as in all good stories, I must start before it came. You see, last week I (Juli) had three papers to write and one test to study for. To say it was stressful is an undrestatement. Well, I tried my hardest to get everything done. At first I thought I only had two papers. I had a paper due in my post-colonial class, and a paper for my film class, plus a test for my film class. OH, I ALSO had a presentation due for the post-colonial class. Yeah, loads of fun. So the presentation was due on Wednesday, so I concentrated on that. Then the paper for the film class was due on Thursday (that was a long night). And then the test was ALSO on Thursday, the thinking being that the paper would help us study for the test. It didn't. Then, I had my paper due in my post-colonial class due on Monday. Now, I know you are going to say that I had the weekend to write it. I didn't, I got sick instead. YAY. So, I wrote the paper on Sunday, pretending that I felt better. Then, what happened, Rob starts feeling under the weather. So we go to bed early and I can't sleep. (This is monday night.) I get to sleep around 10 pm and I wake up at 1:30 am. I couldn't sleep and didn't know why. So, I go out to do some homework that got thrown to the sidelines. Well, I look through one syllabus and discover I have a paper due in my religion english class. yay for me. So I start to write that and Rob wakes up feeling cold, but way hot to the touch. We didn't have a lot of medication in the house, so I take a 2:30 am Wal-Mart trip. Don't worry, it get's better. I get off the hill (campus is on a hill, wal-mart is in the valley) and the mist is so heavy, I can't see beyond 30 yards or so in front of me. By the time I get to Wal-Mart, I am certain some guy is going to jump out and get me, and I won't even see it coming. You know, there is no one around at 2:30 in the morning. I think it is the calmest I had ever seen wal-mart. So, I buy some nyquil and throat drops and tylenol and get back to Rob. He takes the Nyquil and falls back asleep. I stay awake and finish my paper. The next day, I call Steve, the family doctor, and ask him if Rob has just a fever or not, and how long it is going to last. He tells me that Rob has the flu and he should be feeling better come Thursday and Friday. Well, it's Thursday, and Rob feels better. He is not up to 100%, but he is a whole lot better than he used to be. As for me, I am starting to feel a little ill. Let's hope for the best. That has been our crazy week or so (oh yeah, throw in a wedding reception on Saturday, and Missionaries at Dad's on Sunday). At least life isn't dull.

Wednesday, February 11, 2009

This one is for my brother ROB

So, I was talking to Rob, my brother, the other day. I was somewhat chastised for my bad blogging skills during that conversation. He reminded me that not only is he far away from the family and this is an extremely useful mode of keeping his family knowledge up, but I, too, am somewhat far away from the hub of the family. (I realize that Logan is not as far away as Ireland, but it is quite a distance) Therefore, I am going to apologize to all who read this blog as a way to stay in the know with what is happening with the Gillis family in Logan. (no Rob did not put me up to this, and he really didn't chastise me all that bad :D )

Anyway, our life for the past month...hmmmm. What to say. Well, Rob (now husband) and I have discovered how much we are alike in some things. Let me explain. A couple of weeks ago, Rob and I were trying to go to sleep and I realized that the front door was not locked. Well, both of us were warm and neither of us wanted to move. So I proposed a paper/rock/scissors competition, best out of three, loser has to get up and lock the door. I believe it took us 5 tries to NOT have the same choice. If I chose to do paper, so did Rob. It was weird and funny. In the end, Rob lost, and he went and locked the door. Yay for me.

Ler's see, in generalities, we are doing well. Rob really loves his job. He is still working at SDL (the Space Dynamics Lab), he has two classes that he enjoys studying for. The one I hear the most about is a class where they are designing (and building, I think) an aerospike nozzle. He loves it. And I am soo glad that he is doing something he loves. Well, I guess I will have to have Rob write about his classes to get you more information.
As for me, I am in four english classes, three of which are upper division. On Mondays and Wednesdays I go to my Studies in Literary and Cultural Theory. Now, depending on which professor teaches, you study something different (that is true for all my classes) My professor for this class is the Post-Colonial specialist. So we are studying literature from post slavery/independance Caribbean, the apartied in South Africa, and the partitioning of India. We are discussing how each area has a cultural trauma that it went through and we are diving into it and trying to see what it means just like true english majors. (The following classes are all on Tuesdays and Thurdays. Yay for me, I have no Friday classes.) Another class is very similar in name, completely different in presentation and subject material. It is Studies in Literary and Cultural Difference. For this class we are studying the English Reformation and the writings that came out of that. We studying this literature to discover if the literature is accurate of the feelings of the day or not. Those are my two heavy hitters. The other upper level class, is kind of not really upper level. It is Studies in Drama and Film. I heard that last semester the professor who taught this class was the medieval specialist and that the class studied medieval drama. Sounds like fun *Sarcastic* Well, this semester it is studies in genre film. So we are watching movies like westerns, or romantic comedies, stuff like that. I already love the class. I still have to write essays and such, but watching a movie is really nice as homework. The last class that I am in is a literary theory class. It focuses on, you guessed it, literary theory (like marxist theory). It's fun.

Lastly, for Christmas we were given season tickets to Hale Center Theatre in West Jordan. We went and saw our first play there this last weekend. It's called Cash on Delievery. I thought it was hilarious. It was about this guy who had been frauding the SS department in London. Well, the play begins with him trying to get out of it without going to jail. He tries with killing off his made up tenets. But the government wants to give the tenets family money for funeral expenses. This is exactly what Harry, the main character, doesn't want more of. Well from there the situation just gets worse and worse. From a representative from the SS department showing up for a different fictional tenent, to Harry forcing his real tenet, Norman, to dress up in drag. (It's so that Harry can say that Norman Harry's wife). I thought the whole show was hilarious. The writing was really good. Everytime I thought that the situation couldn't get worse and allow the play to remain understandable, it did. And I still was able to follow who was who and what was going on. Okay, most of the time I was able to follow what was going on. I liked it

Well, I think that is all for now. I hope this catches everyone up, and I will try to get out a post more than just once a month. We'll see if that really happens.