Summer so far

Summer 09 has been a good one so far. I've been out of the job which has been frustrating and kind of nice sometimes (except the being broke part) and I haven't been taking classes. I'm pretty much a bum. It's been nice to have a break though and as of today I have a job. I got hired at Provo Canyon School. It's a school for troubled youth and I'll be working as a counselor/mentor. I believe the official term is coach. I'm really excited to start working and I think it's going to be a great experience for me.

Besides efy, I've been keeping busy with intramural softball and ultimate frisbee, camping and other random adventures throughout Provo. I still haven't made it back to California but I'm planning on going around August



I went camping/fishing with Jake Lee and the two Starkey California Highway Patrol Officers Scott and Ben. Classic.



The Lakers beat the Magic in 5 games to win their 15th NBA championship. What a great day. After his epic performance in game 4, I'm considering naming a son Derek Fisher. Kidding... Maybe...




I finally had the chance to see Rosa perform in Singing in the Rain and it was amazing! She did a great job and the show was really good. Anyone who gets the chance to see Singing in the Rain at the Hale Theater in Orem should do it! This was taken right after the show :)



Pretty much our entire ward (apartment complex) has gotten sick these past few weeks and even though I did get sick for awhile, I was able to avoid the swine flu. This picture really has nothing to do with me but it makes me laugh. A lot. Stupid kid. I get the feeling that this is what my kids will be like. The pig lickers.


Well that's what has been going on so far these past few weeks. I'm excited to start working soon and hopefully more fun things can happen. And maybe I'll start blogging more. I say that every time and it doesn't work out too well but who knows, maybe this time it will happen.

EFY

For the second consecutive summer I had the opportunity to work as an efy counselor. Efy (especially for youth) is a week-long camp for youth that is done by the LDS church. You don't have to be Mormon to go but probably 99% of the participants are. It's a really cool experience to work as a counselor and always a lot of fun. I worked two amazing weeks here in Provo. I guess it was really more like 1.5 weeks. I did the first week at BYU and my 2nd week I was supposed to work in Salt Lake City at the University of Utah campus. However, I unfortunately got sick at the end of the first week. I came down with a fever and pretty much every other swine flu symptom (tested negative though). There was something definitely going around efy and I got it. I was told on Sunday that I should not work the week in Salt Lake because I needed to get better. I was a little upset but understood why I couldn't work. I also knew I wouldn't be able to give 100% and efy is a pretty demanding job actually.

Tuesday comes around and I get a call from the Provo coordinators asking if I'm feeling better. I take my temperature and was feeling much better so they ask me to take over for a counselor who got really sick. I came on Tuesday night and worked the rest of the week. It was a lot harder than I expected to come on mid week but I think the week went alright. I had really great co-counselors so that helped a ton. Both weeks were a lot of fun and really good experiences. I had the chance to work with great co-counselors and amazing youth!



These are my co-counselors Jessica and Kelli. We were pretty much the best counselors ever. I always am really lucky when it comes to co's because they are always awesome.



My boys from the first week. I always tend to get the crazy ones. This was a really fun group and I loved working with them.



The entire company "Show unto the world". Such a great group!



My Co's from the 2nd week, Megan and Katie Jo. Once again I had awesome co-counselors to work with. I'm pretty sure there isn't a single picture where all three of us were looking at the same camera. There were about 30 youth lined up in front of us with cameras. We're kind of a big deal



The entire group from the 2nd week. Our company name was In the light. This group was really good at making a cheer for games night


My boys from the second week. Another awesome group of guys to work with. I'm grateful I was able to feel good enough to work with them

BYUSA

As some of you may know, I've been involved with BYUSA the past couple of years. Last year I served in the Student Honor Association (SHA) as a Program Director for Human Resources. Basically what I did was create and deliver a training presentation for new SHA volunteers. This year I've been involved with Campus Activities. I've helped plan and carry out all the BYUSA campus activities like Fall Fest, Homecoming, Battle of the Bands, the Concert Series, etc. It's been a lot of fun and have been a wonderful chance to serve BYU and meet a lot of cool people.

A couple weeks ago, BYUSA put out a video explaining exactly what BYUSA does. I think a lot of the BYU population doesn't really know what we do. They see the activities and free food that we give out, but besides that, don't really know what the point of BYUSA really is. Hopefully this video can help everyone understand a little more as to what BYUSA really does. Enjoy!





Hopefully that showed you a little of what BYUSA really does. There's a lot that goes on, especially with the Executive President and Executive Vice President. I know that both of them spend at least 30 hours a week doing different BYUSA activities. As I mentioned in an earlier post (I think) BYUSA elections are coming up and I've decided to help my friends Garrett and Nat. I really like the ideas they have and I've been able to work with both of them this past year in BYUSA. I've seen their work ethic, dedication and commitment to BYUSA and know that they would be awesome!

Check them out at garrettandnat.com

Life, the oscars and BYUSA

Alright, I'm not very good at this blogging thing but I'm gonna try to get better. I've probably said that a million times but this time I mean it! It's not like many people read this thing. Yet.

Life has been pretty good for me these days. I had those fun car accident and lost luggage adventures over Christmas break but that's all been settled and is done with. I was able to get my pickup fixed and the Taco (nickname for the car) is back in action. It was about a month that I didn't have it and I'm so glad to have it back.

School has been going pretty well. I still suck at the testing center, that one A I got last semester was a fluke but it's alright. I'm not upset about it. The latest failure came this past week but it actually wasn't my fault. The test was incredibly difficult. No one got an A and I think the highest grade was a low B-. The class average was a 66% and I was right around that. The TA sent us all an email basically telling us she's an idiot and that the test had nothing to do with anything we learned. The entire class will get more points or have the opportunity to retake a test or something like that.

Valentine's day came and went without anything too exciting happening. I went over to Jason Barber's apartment with Dustin and Jake Lee. We had some pizza, watched the slam dunk contest and played some poker. The movie "Blank Check" was on TV. I hadn't seen that since I was a little kid. It was a pretty classic night. I take that back, Valentine's day was very exciting.

Last Sunday was the Academy Awards. I was a little upset that The Dark Knight didn't get nominated for very many, especially Best Director. At least Heath Ledger won best supporting actor. I enjoy watching the Oscars but one thing that I hate is when the winners get all political in their acceptance speeches. I don't really care what the topic or point is, I feel like they shouldn't bring up politics. To me, Oscar night is a night to celebrate the accomplishments of cinema from the past year. Not talk about your own personal opinion. Maybe that's just me though. Oh well. I also think Wall-E is the most overrated movie ever. I could go on about this.

BYUSA is in the middle of it's student body elections. I've decided to help my good friends Garrett and Nat. I know a lot of BYU students don't think too highly of BYUSA but I encourage everyone to study the initiatives and get out there and vote. And take a good look at Garrett and Nat's because I know they'll do an amazing job.

Well that's all from me. Hopefully I can get better at writing in this thing.

Going home for Christmas

I've been really looking forward to this Christmas break. No school, no work, just time to relax and enjoy myself. It's also cool that I'd get to go see my good friend Tyler Jones get married. Now usually I would just fly home and have my Dad pick me up in LA or something like that but this time I needed to go to San Diego first for the wedding. The plan was for Jake Lee and myself to caravan down to Mission Viejo with our good friend Bryce Mosley. We were going to stay the night at his place then drive to the wedding Saturday morning. After the wedding, Jake and I were going to drive back to Bakersfield. Sounds like a good plan right? It didn't quite work out that way.

We were supposed to leave about 2:30. Bryce had a final that got out at 2 then we'd be on our way. 2:30 came around and I didn't hear from Bryce. It also started to snow a little after 2. I got a text from Bryce at 3 saying they were a little late. We finally left at around 3:30. It was snowing pretty hard by then but we figured it would clear up a few miles down the road. That's usually what happens anyway. So we're driving down the freeway and it's really snowy and really slick. I'm going like 30 miles per hour and hating every second of it. We're almost to a little town called Nephi when things started to get really fun. I was driving in the slow lane going about 45 mph. People are passing me pretty frequently when all of a sudden a semi comes blowing by me. It's pretty much driving in both lanes and it kicks up a huge cloud of snow that had settled on the pavement. It was hard for me to see and I'm not really sure if I swerved or what happened but I'm now fish tailing. We fish tail for a few seconds and then I start to spin. My tail spins to the right and I'm completely perpendicular with the road. At this time I start to yell all sorts of fun expletives and Jake Lee also woke up. He had been asleep and got to wake up to me yelling and driving sideways on the freeway. Probably wishes he would have just stayed asleep. All of a sudden a huge white blur smashes by me and clips my bumper and I spin some more. That blur turned out to be a white '99 GMC suburban. I hadn't fully stopped in the middle of the road though so that was lucky. I spin some more and end up on the side of the road. The other car is driving in the median but made it out okay. My airbag did not deploy and neither Jake or myself were hurt.

So now I'm sitting in my car trying to figure out what just happened when I see some guy has already pulled over and he's holding my bumper or something. Not sure how he pulled over so quickly and was able to grab random parts of my car but whoever you are, thank you. I walk over to the other car to see if the other guy is okay and he's walking towards me. Pretty much in the same sentence he asks if 1. we're okay and 2. am I insured. He did ask if I was OK first, just for the record. And his family was okay too. The only damage to their car was minimal. Mine looked pretty bad but if I'm lucky it'll just be some body work that needs to be replaced.

The police and tow truck come and take us to a truck stop in Nephi where we take care of all that paperwork and fun stuff. Turns out my registration card and my insurance card are expired along with my tags. I have a sticker that was supposed to be replaced in June. Didn't quite get to it though. So I fill out my report and talk to the highway patrolman and all that stuff. He told me he should give me three tickets for having all my stuff expired but he had another accident to attend to. Whoever got in that wreck, I truly hope you're okay but thank you for getting me out of a couple of tickets.

We called Bryce Lee and he drove down to come get us. Luckily we crashed right by a Wendy's so we got ourselves some Jr. Bacon Cheeseburgers. At least I picked a good place to crash, right? Bryce Lee came in this awesome jeep and took us home. So now we're back in Provo but we found some good flight deals and will be home on Sunday. Sorry Tones, we won't be making it to your wedding but we tried.

Now that I think about it, things could have been a lot worse. Had my car rotated just a bit more, we would have been in a head on collision. If I drifted a little bit more into the left lane, that big '99 GMC suburban would have crashed directly into my door at about 60 mph, which possibly could have been fatal. So yeah it sucks that I wrecked and possibly totaled my car, but we're very lucky that things did not turn out to be a lot lot worse.

I also didn't have a chance to take any pictures except for one on my cell phone so if you want one I can send it to you through text or just come be my friend and I'll show you.

Finals Victory!

Finals have come and gone and I managed to do pretty well this time around. I actually got my first "word by my score" in the testing center. For those of you that do not go to BYU, allow me to explain. BYU has a big building called the testing center. As you probably have figured out, it's where you take all your tests. You turn in your test to the office place then walk down some stairs and you'll see a TV monitor with the last 4 digits of student ID numbers and the correlating score. If you do well (90% or above) you get a word like "congratulations or awesome!" next to your score. Well this time I managed a "way to go!". After 3.5 years of BYU, I finally got one. To be honest with you, I never thought it would happen. The testing center pretty much destroys my life every time I go there but this time I managed a victory. Ben: 1 Testing Center: a lot. I'm making a comeback

T-Givin

So I just got back from Bakersfield CA, the center of the universe, for thanksgiving break and I had a wonderful time. I drove back last Tuesday and came back to Utah on Sunday. I pretty much just ate and slept all week. It was great. And my parents bought a Wii so that took most of my time. I definitely didn't do much homework so that'll be fun to catch up on.

This is a Bakersfield winter. No snow, no ice, just fog. Beautiful grey fog. When it got really foggy we'd have fog delays. Early morning seminary got canceled and school started 2 hours later. It was epic.

I got up at 3:30 friday morning to get in line at best buy. I bought a laptop and got a really good deal so it was worth it. It was nuts, so many people were there. Luckily no one pushed to get in and it was pretty calm, just really crowded. I also waited in line at best buy with a rapper from bakersfield named Lil' Heat.

The line went from best buy, past two other big stores and around the building.

My brother Brad observing the table. And apparently casting a spell on it.

My Dad cuttin the turkey, which was delicious.