New Mexico Bowl.

So this past weekend I decided to go on a road trip.  It was kind of a spontaneous last minute trip (or at least it felt that way) which is not something that I generally do.  My little brother and sister finished up finals week at BYU and were driving home for the Christmas break.  I decided I would meet up with them in Albuquerque and we would hit up the bowl game since they would be passing through New Mexico at about the same time the game was going to happen either way.  I tricked my friend Audi into making the 1300 mile, 18 hour journey with me and we took off once I got off of work on Friday.  It was a very quick and hectic trip but it was a lot of fun.  I have included a few pictures in order to help give you an idea of the fun.    

First is a picture of Audi and me in the car as we started on our way to Albuquerque.  We didn't get on the road until about 6pm, which was a lot later than I had thought, thus giving us an ETA in Albuquerque of 3am.  We had to get stoked in order to be able to make the journey…

After we made it to Albuquerque, we went straight to bed and got up in the morning ready to cheer on the Cougars to victory.  These were a few pictures of us on our way walking to the game. 

The game was a lot of fun, as we arrived at the stadium we were able to see some of the pregame festivities.  The highlight of the pregame was when the microphone didn't work for the girl singing the national anthem, so the crowd got restless and decided to sing it for themselves.  

As I am sure everyone knows, BYU dominated the bowl game and won by the score of BYU 52 UTEP 24.  We got to go down on the field after the game for the trophy presentation and for some of the interviews with the players.  We got a few pics from down there as well.  

All in all it was a really fun trip.  It was a LONG time in the car, but it was worth it to see the Cougars win.  The only unfortunate event from the whole trip was that my car blew up when we got home at like 3:30 in the morning.  It blew a head gasket and is completely gone now, part of the reason it has taken me so long between posts.  Also, I have been busy with the holiday season.  BYU should have a really good and talented young team next year.  Rise.  Merry Christmas yall!  12-25-10

Distractions.

Life can be a very busy experience.  Personally I prefer it that way.  An interesting observation my mother once told me was that I am a much happier person when I am busy doing things.  For some reason idle time and myself do not mix very well.  I become bored, irritable, and even at times unpleasant to be around (shocking I know).  Part of the reason that it is easier to stay positive when I am busy is because an empty / bored mind is more susceptible to the negative thoughts and temptations that are constantly thrown our way on a daily basis.  This can lead to a tendency to dwell on the unpleasant things / experiences in your life, what you wish you had, etc.  For this reason I have been ever more aware of the many different distractions that I employ in my life on a daily basis.  There are a lot of different things in my life that I use as temporary respites from the daily trials and frustrations that I have and that help me to chase away the depressing and negative thoughts that so easily come back when my mind is free to wander.  

First off let me put this in perspective.  I am not a depressing person.  My life is actually very blessed and I generally keep that in good perspective and am happy and grateful for my blessings.  There are times however, when it is easy to think of things that I wish could be different regarding my life.  Not everything in my life is ideal, and there are a few changes that I would make if given the opportunity to.  Unfortunately for me, a lot of these things are beyond my control and are not things that I have a lot of influence over.  I am okay with that, and I have come to accept that there are lots of other good opportunities and blessings that I can be pursuing as things currently stand.  While I do feel good about my current situation, there are times when I think about it and it bothers me.  It then becomes easy to become sad, cranky, and frustrated.  This is where the distractions come in for me and turn to music, sports, reading, writing, and friends to keep my mind from focusing on things in my life that have the ability to bring me down.  I am sure this is a very common thing, and probably not worthy of dedicating an entire blog post to.  What really caught my attention though was when I realized how similarly I turn to my distractions listed above to take me away from the reality of life situations that I can not or feel like I can not change, as drug addicts turn to drugs to escape the reality of situations they are facing in their lives.  

It was not something that I had ever thought about before.  I was watching 'Celebrity Rehab w/ Dr. Drew' on VH1 and the people on the show were talking about how they had turned to drugs when the situations in their life seemed overwhelming or too much for them to deal with.  They used the drugs as a distraction to keep them from having to think about the negative situations they were dealing with in their lives.  I have noticed recently in my own life how I will turn to music, sports, or some other distraction to take my thoughts away from situations in my life that I feel like I can't deal with / have little to no control over.  While the consequences of the decisions I make vs. the consequences of the decisions that the drug addicts made are vastly different, the interesting part to me was that the thought process behind the decisions were very similar.  A whole book could be written on the importance of choosing positive distractions to overcome your pain / grief / frustration vs. negative distractions, but I simply wanted to point out how close the actual thought processes behind those decisions were.  Personally I can remember specific times when I have had thoughts that were depressing, frustrating, or both and I have made the conscience decision, "I can't deal with / think about this anymore", and I have turned on music, gone running, or done something else to take my mind off of what was bothering me.  Not that I have a ton in my life to complain about or get me down, but there are times when it is easy to get caught up in the sadder aspects of life.  It was a humbling thought to think that I followed the same process in what has turned out to be very small decisions in my life that addicts followed when making some of the most life altering decisions of their own lives.    

I guess what is important is finding our own personal positive distractions that help us effectively deal with the inevitable windfall of tragedy and heartache that will eventually befall us all to some extent or another.  Perhaps the process behind turning to distractions to deal with different situations in life is more of a human characteristic vs. an addict characteristic than I had previously thought.  I never really thought that I had as much in common with those that have turned to drugs to escape their problems as it now seems that I do.  I guess the only thing that differs is our drug of choice. 12-12-10

Dorm Life.

Over the past few weeks I have been trying to keep myself busy.  I have also been a bit nostalgic and I decided that one of the best ways to help people understand a lot of the random references that I used with my friends up at school, that make absolutely no sense to most everyone else unless you know the context, was to bring my favorite web series to them.  The mockumentary episodic series "Dorm Life" and myself were first introduced by a mutual friend of ours.  From that first chance meeting I have been mildly obsessed with and have incorporated many different Dorm Life references into my daily life.  As such I wanted to share my love of this hilarious comedic masterpiece with those around me now.  

Dorm Life is great show.  It documents the lives of college freshman as they go through their first year of school at an unidentified university.  Most of the show takes place on the dorm floor 5 South where the characters learn "how to bond together and do fun activities."  The main characters of the show include Marshall the RA, Mike, Josh, Steph, Abby, Gopher, Shane, Danny B, Brit, and Courtney.  My favorite characters are definitely Gopher and Shane as they are kind of the comedic relief for the show and are the ones who provide a lot of the floor excitement without any of the drama.  The show is only two seasons long with the first documenting the Fall semester and the second documenting the Winter semester.  Apparently Dorm Life was nominated for a lot of different web series awards and deservedly so in my opinion.  I have included below a link to one of my favorite episodes of the show from the second season that shows 5 South's experience with Valentines Day.  

http://www.hulu.com/watch/64447/dorm-life-valentines-day

One of the best things about the show is how quotable it is.  A lot of the lines that have worked themselves into my main day to day vocabulary come from this show.  Whether it be Shane always saying "Prolly", or Marshall and his "So Rad Dude" (or really "So (anything) Dude"), there are a lot of great one liners from the different episodes.  I have included a few of my most preferred below.  

"You see Danny B, that's the risk you take with mystery hot girls.  Once you take the mystery away, it's just a hot girl and hot girls can be lame."  - Gopher

"We are going to go home with smiles in our hearts and songs on our faces!" - Shane

"Everyone knows there's only 3 ways out of the friend zone: boredom, jealousy, or a traumatic event." - Gopher

"Prepare to die, prepare to die, blood makes the grass grow kill, Kill, KILL!!!" - Marshall

"I don't even know why you guys think this I like sports and video games." - Andy

There are a lot more great lines from the show, but you should check them out for yourself.  There is a pretty rad website if you are interested in learning more, or if you ever get bored and are looking for something to entertain yourself. 

http://www.dorm-life.com/

I hope you enjoy!  12-07-10

Never Neverland.

Aka Provo.  Home to literally thousands of Latter-day Saint Peter Pans and Lost Boys.  The phenomenon of people moving to Provo and staying there for years and years after graduation (or just moving there to "work") while working at jobs they are seemingly over qualified for (or not over qualified for depending on their major) is nothing new.  Upon my first arrival in this peculiar little college town back in the summer of 2005 I first came in contact with these long time Utah county residents.  At first I thought the ones I ran into were just random occurrences, people that had somehow survived the college experience in the Mecca of single mormondom without becoming converted to the gospel of eternal marriage. However, as I sojourned my own 4 year university experience in the Provo bubble I became aware that these were more than just random occurrences but rather more like a swelling underground movement of college graduates that have no real reason to stay in their college town other than they are afraid / refuse to grow up. 

Now, let me put some disclaimers out there.  I am not referring simply to EVERYONE who stays in Provo after graduation.  I am sure there are a lot of legitimate reasons for staying in Provo once your college days are over including but not limited to: you are FROM Provo, you have a job that could actually be considered as related to your major, or perhaps for the first six months after graduation while you wait for / try to figure out what the next step in your life should be.  Also, let me just say that I am referring mainly to single males here.  I don't really care what the married people do, as they live in a world that is completely separate from mine in most aspects (I mean I see them in the grocery store and stuff, but that is about it).  Also, single females get a little more leeway as a lot of them majored in something completely useless like pottery or floral design in hopes of getting married and now that they are in the position of having to actually use their degree to support themselves, it takes a little bit more time for them to figure things out.  Besides, most girls that stick around Provo for long enough eventually end up getting married or exiling themselves somewhere where the average age of people you come in contact with is > the 18-24 year old age range.  (See Salt Lake City, Boston, Orange County, etc.) 

No, the people I am talking about here are the 26+ year old "Provo All-Stars" as they have been termed that have no real reason for staying in Provo other than they have no idea what they want to do with their life and they want to get a little bit more time hitting on a fresh batch of 19-21 year old college sophomore and junior girls that have made it through the first year or two of college unmarried.  What is it about Provo and the surrounding areas that make it such a breeding ground for this type of dude?  I think there are a lot of factors that go into it.  

1.     Largest group of marriage minded single LDS people in the world - There is really no denying this point.  While there may be some other areas that have a good sized LDS population like Salt Lake City or Logan, the marriage mindset exhibited in Provo is not matched by either one of the aforementioned areas.  Rexburg may have the marriage focus down just as much or even better than Provo, but the size of the single population is much smaller.  All in all this creates an environment where young single adults in the church congregate, often with the pretext of attending school, in order to increase their odds of finding a mate.  Once their education is finished and the pretext of school is no longer applicable they still stay in order to continue to give themselves what they perceive as better odds of finding the "right one". 

2.    Culture setup to accommodate impoverished young married couples - What is one of the greatest things about Provo for young couples who are just starting out their lives together?  The relatively low cost of living!  What makes it very easy for people to stick around Provo after graduation without having a decent job or forcing them to really do anything with their lives?  The relatively low cost of living!!!  That's right, it is super easy for people to stick around Provo for as long as they want because housing is cheap, there is no real shortage of people they can room with, there are a lot of University sponsored events that are either free or very inexpensive, and the entire culture of the people in the area is very frugal / cheap.  I can't imagine an easier place for someone away from home to eek out a living working at jobs that are typically reserved for high school and college students.  How many jobs at the local malls are being taken by someone that has already graduated from school and should have started doing something more productive with their life by now?  It's a good question, think about it…

3.    The population keeps on refreshing - Every year there are new people to meet.  One of the problems with really small college towns or smaller LDS populations is that you run the risk of meeting everyone after a year or two.  This makes things difficult because if people know that someone has been there for a long time they become less and less desirable to continue to get to know, date, or even have around.  This is not a problem in Provo however, with literally hundreds of BYU singles wards to choose from.  Thousands of fresh faces flock to Provo each year thus enabling people to live for years in relative anonymity while the people they meet continue to grow up, graduate, and move on. 

All in all I think there are a lot of reasons that Provo has become a Never Neverland for people who refuse to move out of the bubble and move on with their lives.  It is a very attractive option for a lot of different reasons, but can also be a detriment to the personal growth and development of those that get caught in its refuse to move on / grow up subculture.  There are a lot of good reasons to stay in Provo, but there are also a lot of good reasons to leave.  It might be time to give somewhere else a chance to become your new home. 12-02-10