An Epic Post or Home Sickness. You Choose.

I am giving fair warning that this post is going to a polluted train of thought that only I will follow and fully understand. I guess the fun will be in the interpretation.

I have spent a great deal of this week reflecting on my current situation. The main questions being "Why am I in Vegas?" and "What can I be doing different to realize the answer to the first?" As some of you know. I never really intended to move to Vegas when I came down for the interview. The idea of a free vacation was just to good to pass up. Then once I got here it just felt like I needed to stay. It's hard to explain. The question in my mind was never if I would be offered the job but how I would make it work when it was offered. Poor Andrea had to suffer through my "What if I do it? What if I move to Vegas?" the whole weekend. I would have punched me in the face. (Thank you for not punching me in the face.)

So I typed the first part of this blog about two weeks ago. Alot of things have happened since then. I'm still reflecting on my reasons for being in Vegas. I went to Utah recently and had a fantastic time with all my friends there. It really made me think about the time I had spent in Salt Lake versus my time here in Vegas. Also, I went to the University and I realized how much I wanted to go to Grad school. I was really kind of dumb to not do it in the first place. I think I have a lot of decisions to make right now. Some of my New Years resolutions involve retaking the GRE and looking at Grad schools. I downloaded all the stuff for LSU again. I wonder if I can just call and have them reactivate my previous application?

I looked at UNLV but I just didn't see anything that fit into my "plan" but then what the hell is my plan? I still don't know what I want to be when I grow up. I have been thinking of getting a second bachelors in Chemistry or Biology and then going to grad school. I know I want to do something in Forensics so I probably should have originally gotten a degree in a hard science. I was just lazy.

So many other things are causing reflection right now. I'll try to keep everyone updated. I am working on a Christmas/New Year post and I've decided to borrow Andrea's idea of a 2008 wrap up and 2009 predictions blog. Something to look forward to.

Blogging in the Bathroom

I just realized how the title of this blog could be misleading. I am sitting on the counter in the bathroom because that happens to be where my computer speakers were packed away and I just was to lazy to move them to the living room. I'm just jammin waiting for David to get off work so that we can trek out to Henderson to see Zandra play. I got all glammed up and then found out that I had no one to go with. Luckily I remembered that if I was patient David would want to go. I was thinking about a few things that really bug me today. Since I'm bored I thought I'd share.

1. It really bothers me when people try to use Jesus as a personal reference on their job applications or in their interviews. There are some rules of hiring that can't be broken and no finding Jesus story will change that. If you were in jail for molesting a child and then found Jesus, I still can't hire you! Plus I hear alot of stories and excuses and lies when people want something (ie: a job). How do I really know that you have changed. It's not like I can call and verify that reference.

2. I have mentioned this one before but I saw it again today so it's fresh. I hate it when people take pictures on the strip (or anywhere actually) and they try to make it look candid by looking off to the side somewhere. First of all.. What the hell are you looking at? and second no one thinks that you were candidly caught completely alone (because there is always some one there blocking people from walking by and causing a traffic jam on the strip) looking to heaven in front of the Bellagio. It makes me wanna jump into there photo with a creepy stalker side eye. You know the one I'm talking about right Andrea?

3. I hate it when I tell people about my blog or they find it and then I have to stop complaining about them or try to be covert enough that they won't catch on. I'm not that good at disguising crap.

4. I hate it when I don't get what I want. Which is pretty bratty of me. I understand. I'm kinda pouting right now because of this one though. I'd tell everyone more about it but #3 is stopping me.

5. Oh oh. One more. It really bothers me when people make me feel stupid because I am not stupid. The back story on this one is kinda detailed. I had a boyfriend who had a special talent for this. I didn't realize how destructive it was to my self esteem at the time. I decided after that relationship that I wouldn't let people have that much control over how I felt about myself. I'm sorta battling that with a new friend of mine right now. The thing is that I am a mess sometimes and I have my faults but for the most part I'm pretty friggin amazing! I have a strong testimony of church and am doing all I can to be better everyday. I'm pretty hot if I do say so myself. Improvements could be made but I'm more comfortable in my skin than most. I have a plan of how I would like to see my life go and I'm diligently working on seeing that plan become a reality. It really bothers me when someone makes me doubt these things or makes me feel less than I am.

Cheese and Rice. I have no patience. Why isn't anyone here to go to Fado's yet? I've blogged long enough for someone to be here. Bah!

So now that there is a group around it's too late to go to Fado's. Sorry Z. I love you anyways.

Halloween (Possibly Better than Christmas)

It's hard to beat last years KAPS viewing party but this year involved much more attractive men so it's a close tie. Zandra was playing at a bar called Fado's Irish Pub (your welcome to Fado's for the free publicity) so I loaded up a few friends and headed down. Among the mix we had Minnie Mouse (me), Chip Lemue the 70's game show host (Sam Findley), Spanish Senorita (Bryn Davis), and a healing bruise (David Sanford). The music was awesome. Some of the costumes were skanky and I got a pretty hilarious strip tease from Chip. Then we headed to a party at a friends house. That was sorta anticlimatic after the club but the cops got called so it wasn't a complete bust. All in all it was a pretty fun night. Oh the cat in the one picture is Chip's sister Aimee. I brought the cat hat for her because I knew she would be all in black after teching for a show earlier in the day. She is a pretty amazing girl! Good times, good times.

Yeah I'm that lazy.....

Whenever I do anything with Andrea I let her blog about it and then just steal her thunder and link to her hard work. I think she is more entertaining than me anyways. So here are the stolen highlights from her recent visit to Vegas (Click HERE).

Holy Ghost!

So I went into work for a few minutes tonight to pick up some headphones I left in my desk. I needed them because apparently the music I listen to and my singing along is offensive to nameless roommates. Now they just have to listen to me sing with no music. They'll be sorry. Anywho, I swipe my card go in and turn off the alarm. I'm putting the key in the door and I hear "Hey!" over my right shoulder. Well of course I screamed for about a full minute and then I turned around to see who else was in the office on a Sunday night and its no one! There is not a soul there. I walked around a bit and was yelling out "Is anyone here?" to which there was no reply. In retrospect I'm glad there was no answer since there were no living people there. I probably would have wet myself if I heard a reply.

Just Another Day in the Looney Bin

I called my nephew a few days ago to ask about his birthday and to see if he got the "fiver" I sent him to by trucks with. At the ripe old age of four he has mastered the art of sarcasm. I asked him what his cake looked like and he told me "It was square" and then handed the phone back to his mom. Makes me so proud (stifling a tear)!

Nothing much different than usual has been happening here. I have ever illness known to man. Which seems strange to some people but seems to be destiny here in Las Vegas. I also have re-injured my foot with about the same action as when I broke it the first time IE: absolutely nothing. The hardest part has been trying to eat, sleep, work, breathe through the pain while Utah and Nevada argued over who was going to pay for my doctors visit. The good news is I don't have to St. George to get it looked at... the bad news is that I still haven't had it looked at. Why is it that no one returns a freaking phone call here? Yeah I'm talking to you Desert Orthopaedic Center.

For a while I gave up on getting ready for anything. Which for some of you who know me well, happens sometimes. The last two days I have woken up a bit early to get ready for work. Today my efforts were finally recognized when Patrick told me "you look nice. You can't even see your zits today." Ah success.

Everyone who has ever heard me complain about TV should probably sit down right now. I started watching the first season of Heroes and I am totally converted. I will be naming my first born Mohinder Petrelli. This season is not as captivating. Mohinder is a molting cockroach/lizard/snake man and Peter has the "hunger" which I think is an affront to his extremely attractive good guy persona even if it is for the greater good of the show. However it turns out they are both kinda tarnished in my eyes. Kill the ugly people and give them weird flesh eating disease powers. I'm losing interest due to the lack of eye candy. Also I have to think too much. I like my TV dumbed down for ease and convenience. So I guess really I'm converted to Milo Ventimiglia and Sendhil Ramamurthy. Could those names BE any harder to say?

Only the people at work will appreciate this but I just looked up per diem in the dictionary and the first definition is: by the day or for each day. I can't believe that fool used the term correctly and that none of the rest of us knew it. It is generally used to describe being paid by the day or as an allowance but technically could be used in reference to working on a day by day basis. Well at least he's still and idiot for knocking up and old lady just to get a croch rocket motorcycle.

Hemorrhoids

So my roommate Cindy had a wicked eye infection about a week or two ago and now I have an ear infection that is bringing literal tears to my eyes. We were talking about it in the hall way and my beautiful roomie Melissa said "eye infections, ear infections. What an I gonna get? Hemorrhoids?" I don't think I have laughed so hard since I got here. She told me I was absolutely not allowed to blog about that comment which made it all the more funny. Oh, I love her.

Hooking it on Fremont Street

I had my first truly touristy night in Vegas last night. Zandra and I went down to Fremont Street. I've heard of Fremont but only in reference to prostitution so I have to admit I wasn't as excited as I could have been. It didn't get any better when Zandra gave me the "rules."
1. Do NOT make eye contact with anyone for any reason and
2. if for some reason you do make eye contact... walk away.

We walked around for about two hours. The first thing I want to mention is the multitude of mullets that I saw in that time. No two were the same. Which leads me to a few "rules" of my own. These are for anyone thinking of visiting Fremont Street or any other street for that matter:

1. Always Always Always wear a bra. No one wants to see your cleavage. Especially if its long enough to look like your chest has been split open from your belly button to your chin. Also if your boobs point so far east and west that the in between could be mistaken for the grand canyon a bra is your best friend.

2. This one is more for street performers: Holding one note for ten minutes is not difficult. Especially on a saxophone. Wow you can hold down a button for three minutes. I'm not impressed. I was more impressed when Zandra held the same note in the elevator for six floors. Now that is talent. A little variety please.

3. If you have been drinking it is not a good idea to try the following: Dancing, photography, singing, walking, talking, flirting. Especially not flirting.

4. Do not dress like a whore. There are enough whores in Vegas we don't need your help. It also makes number 1 and number 3 all the more relevant.

5. Bring water and don't wear cheap Wal*Mart flip flops.

Besides all the complete weirdos some pretty funny and entertaining things happened. First of all we parked in a parking garage that had a bridge that went over Ogden Blvd. I wanted to take a picture of Z and I with the neon in the background. As we were doing that a car drove over the bridge and made the whole thing shake. Z started yelling and jumped back. I though she had been hit by the car at first but she told me the spot that she was standing on moved in two directions and she thought the bridge was falling. You probably had to be there for that one but it was hilarious.

We watched a show with those big metal spheres where motorcycles go around and upside down. (Man that was a horrible description but I'm not sure what that thing is called). It was a lot smaller than I thought it was going to be and they had three motorcycles going in there at once. Man if one of them sneezed or blinked at the wrong time they all would have died. That is my aspiration for Vegas now. Everyone here wants to be in a band or make a CD. I want to ride motorcycles in metal cages.

There was a big sign off Fremont that said "wedding information" and pointed off to who knows where. Quick side note: How lame is that? I can't believe that eloping to Vegas is so popular that they have neon signs that lead you in the proper direction. I'm adding that to the list of things you should not do while drunk. Anyways, we walked down a kinda dark alley way which in hindsight wasn't the best idea, when three guys walked up and offered to take our picture so we could both be in it. This is when Zandra broke both rule 1 and 2. She gave them my camera and let them take the picture then instead of walking away she gave them her card and told them to come see her play (she's is a friggin talented violinist) the next day. Then the part that makes me smile, the man looks her in the eye and says "you are so hot" and goes in for the boob grab. Z reacted like a pro and told him "I don't know you!" After they left I reminded her of her own rules and we were on our way.

I saved the most glorious part for last. Towards the end of the street there is a booth where you can have your picture taken with Chip n' Dale dancers. There are no words to explain how hot these men were. I made Z pretend to watch some art show so I could stare at them. Finally I gave up all pretenses and stood there mouth open, drooling, staring at them. It really made me wish I had brought my wallet. I'm totally heading back there on payday! They let you grab their booties when you take a picture with them. Totally worth it.

Camping with Batman

I'm not really in the mood for typing a long blog so here are the highlights that go with these pictures.

Kobe got a Batman mask at Walmart while we were buying camping supplies. He loved it so much he wore it pretty much the whole day. He even fell asleep in the car with it on.

We camped in Morgan in the middle of a cow turd field. We had plans to float the river but the weather had plans to rain. The weather won.

I got to share a tent with Kobe. He was a first time camper and super excited about that fact. When we got in our tent we made shadow puppets with the flashlight until he fell asleep and then I stayed up all night worrying about having our tent blow into the river or having a rogue band of cows attacking the tents in the middle of the night. The morning was beautiful and chilly. A nice change from Vegas where the average temperature at any time of day is 560 degrees.

Labor Day Mayhem

I learned an important lesson over Labor day weekend. As soon as you have gap coverage on your car it becomes indestructible. Which is great if you love your car, is strangely annoying when you hate your car and owe way too much money on it. Every morning I wake up an pray that someone will run into my car (while I'm not in it). So I was in Utah over Labor day weekend driving from Ogden to Salt Lake and I see a car in the far right lane start to swerve erratically and veer way off onto the shoulder. It then over corrected and shot back towards the road. I was bracing myself for immanent death when the car was stopped by a series of traffic cones and a few signs. The signs didn't make it by the way (moment of silence). ... They were propelled into on coming traffic and the car in front of me hit them and veered off to the shoulder. Here comes the amazing part... It was inevitable that I would also hit the signs and the car that had just veered off but somehow I remained perfectly calm and swerved around them like a professional stunt driver and pulled off the road well ahead of the commotion. It was insane. The doucebag driver of the first car ended up being an insanely freaked out young woman with a child and two older ladies with her. A broken windshield was the only consequence of her spaz attack, well and I'm sure a wicked awesome traffic ticket. The car that hit the signs had a pretty bent up and scratched bumper but at least it didn't have another car embedded in the side of it.

Crap! I've been discovered.

Two things recently came to my attention (well a lot of things have come to my attention lately but that is a wemu of a different color).

1. When I changed my profile background it deleted the Kristin's Almanac of random phrases. So disappointing! I'm trying to remember all the the nuggets I had on there. I thought of one just now and then it was gone as quickly as it came. Crap I just realized that all my side bars are gone! Stupid layout changes. I'm not even convinced I like this layout. I should change it now before I put everything back.

2. Patrick found my blog today. So the perception is reality debate has gone techno. How do you (Patrick) have time to be searching the Internet for the blogs of your lowly employees? Did you Google me to see if I was felon? Lucky for you my job hating melodramatic blog days are nearly at an end.

Well I have a few vacation blogs to post but I also have an amazingly powerful brain busting headache. So mom, you'll have to wait a few more days to steal my collage of camping pictures for your screen saver.

Sweet Freedom!

I don't know exactly how to express a happy dance in writing but I want you to close your eyes and picture me standing in front of you and then all the sudden.... full on body seizure of excitement. This picture is no longer a lie. I have actually graduated from college. I didn't think I was gonna make it. That last paper was killer hard to get done but here we are! I haven't posted for awhile because I kept getting worried emails and phone calls from friends who feared I was on the brink of suicide. Apparently the deeply pessimistic mood of my posts was freaking people out. I decided to wait till I had some good news to report. Things have gotten much better at work. I think my boss has developed the idea that everytime I come into his office it's going to be because I'm on the verge of a meltdown. I don't blame him though that was pretty accurate for about a month. I'm working on reconditioning him to associate my visits with phenomenal news. Don't get me wrong. It's still pretty tough somedays but either I'm learning to deal with it or the Anti Anxiety meds are kicking in. Either way I'm doing just great. I'm excited to be more involved in things now that I'm not perpetually rushing home to do homework. I went to FHE for the first time today. It was gloriously boring and I loved every minute of it. The one thing still getting me down is that I miss all my babies! I called Kobe and left him a message the other day and he had his secretary (Whitney) call me back to tell me he was busy playing with toys and to call later. I just wanna hug them so much!

She's Alive!...... Barely

So I have decided that I hate the phrase "perception is reality." That is bull shit! Reality is reality and settling for perception as reality is a defeatest attitude. Why do people get so caught up in what other people think about them? And for that matter, why the hell do you care what I'm doing anyways? If I hear one more person use that phrase as an excuse to do something that they otherwise have no grounds to do I will seriously go uni bomber on them. I wish I could go more into what is fueling this rant but with my luck someone I work with will find it and use it against me. So funny thing. When I lived a few miles away from my family I would go weeks and one time months without having contact with anyone. Mostly because I'm a jerk and mostly because I only talk to people when I'm in crisis mode (I'm really a hermit when I'm happy). I got a text from my sister today saying that my parents were wigging out that I hadn't talked to them in like 4 days. Really mom (because I know that your reading this)? I promise I'm alive. I just have absolutely no free time. I call you one day and talk to for like a million years and catch you up on everything or maybe I'll move back to Utah and live in your new house with you. Then you'll always know where I am. It would be nice if I knew a few priesthood holders here that weren't my boss or co-workers. Yes I have home teachers but they are weird. Mostly I could really use a hug.

Glorious!

I'm gonna make it after all. I just finished my International Relations paper! I'd let you read it but trust me it's not as interesting a field as it sounds. This paper is an eight page snooze fest but my professor is going to love it. That's one hurdle down and 3 to go. Tomorrow marks my first official investigation in Las Vegas. Well technically its 3 investigations because apparently if you are going to neglect individuals needs its best done in groups. I'm a little nervous because a guy at a gas station got shot the other day after he fired an employee and I'm going to probably fire 4 people this week. I guess you gotta die sometime right? In addition to that I am determined to clean my office before our audit next week. I doubt they are going to do a Mary Poppins white glove check but I like to make a good first impression and all the big whig Utah bosses will be here in addition to the state. I'm not gonna lie that I'm not that motivated to get the other things done for the audit. They have already warned us that we are going to fail. What an amazing motivator (dripping with sarcasm)! All I need now is to finish my Violence paper from last semester (yes DJ, the one on Hitler that I was working on when you saw me last) and I'll be ready to conquer the world. By the way next week is Shark Week on the Discovery Channel so there is no way that next week won't be the best week of my life. Keep watching for all my shark related posts.

Preview

I am taking a small break from school work to let you know about some posts I am working on perfecting:

1. Everyone here hates me

2. Re-tooling the acid bath mixture

3. I need a new job

Yes I realize these are all gloriously pessimistic but it's been a hard week and the next two aren't looking that promising. Oh I forgot the 4th post:

4. Flunking out of college at the last minute

They'll Grow Up Without Me!

I just realized the crappiest part of moving to Vegas (although the decision as a whole has been a good one) all my babies are going to grow up without me! I came to Utah for the weekend to take a test and we decided to have family get together because I didn't get to see everyone before I left. My favorite part of the day was when my dad took me to look at their new town house and he called the bathroom a bastard (This is the first bastard.. I mean bathroom).

Alone

So I saw this poster on despair.com in the demotivator section, it said you are not alone and yet you are alone, so very alone. I always thought that was funny and ironic and now I know what that means. I just had my first official dinner group with some of the members of my new ward. I liked it we had fun but I didn't really know these people and we were making the what do you do small chat that is standard. It's good to start getting to know people but it's also a little lonely when you are coming from a close knit group of amazing people. So I was feeling a little "home" sick for the gang in Salt Lake so I decided to chat them all up. I sent messages to like 8 people and not a soul replied. Sad day. Actually one did reply to remind me that now that I live in Vegas it's very easy to forget about me. So I'm sitting in my room, alone, and blogging trying to figure out why my roommates go to bed at 9pm and wishing I had a familiar face to cuddle and talk about how freaked out I am to go to work tomorrow. I guess I"ll snuggle facebook instead.

What Happens in Vegas...

Okay quickly.. this comment is to DJ. This is called a blog. It's like an online journal that people can read. It's not really like a personalized myspace or facebook or anything like that but you can still comment by clicking on the comment link at the bottom of the post.

So I moved to Vegas this weekend. It was a pretty uneventful truck ride. Driving the Uhaul was not the ordeal I thought it would be. I did not die. (Andrea the code phrase is: ham fried rice, not really but It's me). The exit that Google maps told me to take was closed and my phone died so I got pretty lost. Due to luck or fate I finally pulled over at a Popeye's chicken and plugged in my phone and found out that I was right across the street from my house. I got there at the exact same time as my hired movers so we took a tour of it together. They were convinced I was insane for moving into a house I had never seen. I hit the jackpot though. It is amazingly cute and I love my room and my roommates for that matter. It looks like a model home for IKEA which I love. The only disappointment is that my bookshelf would not fit up the stairs. I'm still considering taking it apart and putting it back together in my room. (Also, I decided that the worst job in the world would be a mover in Las Vegas).

So a little about the girls I'm living with: Amber is my skinny twin. She is finishing up a degree in Sociology and wants to go to grad school. She co-majored in Criminal Justice. Her dream job is to work for the FBI and she loves to watch Forensic Files and City Confidential on Court TV. She wears size ten shoes and said I could borrow them at anytime. Melissa is a teacher. We haven't talked enough to find our combined loves. Actually we did find out that we attended the same Creed concert in Salt Lake. Zandra (she actually works with me but does not live with me) is in our ward she is amazing and she made me curry chicken and told me all the ward gossip today. We decided to have dinner every Sunday and invite boys. We are doing it next Sunday and we already invited some boys. She also wears the same size shoes as me and promised to show me where the nearest DSW (designer shoe warehouse) is.

Okay so about the ward. It was a little strange. There are two relief societies. I am in the meadow lark relief society. I have no idea how they assign people to each one. Also, there is a nursery and a primary in the ward but sacrament meeting was still amazingly silent. It was a somber mood at church this week because the second counselors wife had passed away a few days before. At the new member meeting I met two roomies who called themselves heterosexual life partners. Since I too have a life partner (you know who you are) I instantly fell in love with them both.

I'm feeling pretty confident about this move now. My only lingering worry is how the transition from hourly pay to salary is going to go. I'm afraid I won't get a paycheck for three weeks which would seriously suck.

Writers Block

I am warning you right now, this post is going to be boring as hell. It is 3 am and I am still writing my international relations paper. Well actually I'm blogging about writing my international relations paper. I'm so close to being done that it hurts and I'm spent. I can't finish the thing for the life of me. It's a nice parallel with my school career in general. I'm so close to the finish line and I'm the guy who stops to re-tie his laces. I think the problem is that a few semesters back I procrastinated writing all my final papers and I ended up halfing to write like 60 pages in one night. It put me off to ever writing another paper. I guess the positive is that I learned that I never want to write a book. Since then I can't write even a two page paper without having an emotional melt down. I have five agonizing pages done and about two more to go. Hopefully I'll die in my sleep tonight and I'll never half to write a paper again.