slis bbq

Tonight we went to our "Welcome to the Semester" School of Library and Information Science (SLIS) Barbeque. Our friend Jarrod called us a couple of hours before we planned to head over and invited us out to dinner as a thank you for helping him move a few weeks ago. After a short debate (1.2 seconds) we said "Yes!" which was good because the barbeque was a barbeque in name only: no hot food, just chips, desserts, and beer. (PS We ate dinner at The Brown Bottle downtown where Jarrod's super-cute girlfriend Jenny is newly-waitressing and it was really good: we recommend.)

The "barbeque" itself was actually really fun, despite the absence of hamburgers and hotdogs. We had a really good time talking with everyone who was there about all kinds of stuff from school to home renovations (the couple hosting the get-together had just put in a new glass sliding door and were in the process of re-doing their bathroom as well) to ridiculous tech support questions. There were a few awkward silences, as there always are with a group of people just getting to know each other, but only one of those was caused by me. A comment was made about how any game is more fun as a drinking game and I said, "I dunno, I've played a lot of fun games sober..." Silence. Good times.

I wouldn't normally make a comment like that, but when I was in Spain on my study abroad I had an experience that changed my perspective. All of us in the program lived with families, except for two of the guys who lived in an apartment with two other guys also on studies abroad but from different schools, one from the States and one from China. The kid from the States would go out drinking almost every night with some of the other kids from his program and we would come over to the apartment to play games or watch a movie. We would always invite the 3rd roommate to stay and at first you could tell that he was thinking, "These kids are crazy." But one night he stayed. And pretty soon he was staying every time. And it occurred to me that he had never experienced a sober night in that was fun: he didn't know you could have fun without drinking.

So now sometimes I say things like "I dunno, I've played a lot of fun games sober..." And sometimes that is awkward, but sometimes it helps you make a new friend. So...worth it?

night sleeplessness

Before I got married I never realized how often I have trouble sleeping. When you're in bed alone and you can't sleep, you can get up, do something else for a while until you start yawning and try again. But when your husband is snuggled up next to you fast asleep himself, you can't get up without waking him up. I find myself reading by flashlight, hoping for sleep but often staying up for hours listening to my husband's snoring before I am able drift off to sleep myself. Then of course when I have to get up I'm much too tired and would rather stay in bed.

I wish I could get on a better sleep schedule since on the days that I do get up early (read: 8 o'clock) I feel so much better about the day and get so many more things done. It's nice to be doing things and wanting to run errands at a time when stores are actually open instead of praying they stay open until 9 pm. However, my late nights lead to mornings that come much too quickly which result in uncontrollable evening naps which makes an early bedtime an impossibility.

This semester (read: starting Monday) I have a Monday morning class that starts at 9:30. Should be no problem, right? I've been going to work all summer to a job that starts at 9:30. A job at the library, where my classes will be, too. However, when you have a job where you can set your own hours no matter how hard you try to be there on time if you regularly stroll in at a quarter til it's no big deal: class is a different story.

I've always avoided taking morning classes since I'm not a morning person. Sure all through my undergrad I worked a morning vending route from 7-11am, but filling vending machines when you've just woken up is far different than learning about the concept of information systems and the web that wasn't. We'll see how it goes.

In other news, one of the professors in my department invited us to a church bbq today. Braeden was a little dubious about going since it was in one of the other wards and this professor was the only contact we had there, but we went and it was great! She showed up not long after we arrived, there was good food to eat and we had a really good time talking with her: it wasn't awkward at all. I made two dozen cornbread muffins to bring that got all eaten but two, so I was feeling pretty good about that. And, since we had a whole talk at our orientation about our online presence and how you can't control who reads the things you put online (unless you make them private, which this blog is not) it's entirely possible that this professor could be reading my blog right now, in which case I would like to say, "Hi professor! Thanks for inviting us to the bbq today! We really enjoyed ourselves."