Signs

Efficiency Expert

After some research last week and some more today, I found ways to save my mom about $500/month just in our insurance and phone plans. Booya! Maybe I should charge a small fee to people to help them save money or time doing things more efficiently. I'm pretty sure I've heard of people actually doing that. Anyone interested in my efficiency services? :-)

It's looking like I'm going to be spending a majority of my time on my computer this summer.

• Learning SEO with Leadgenix
• Learning Adobe programs with BYU's OIT Training AND with the free Comms Department Lynda.com training membership
• Starting a website or two just to see if I can (and maybe start up a business or NPO?)
• Studying for the GMAT

All not including the time I spend on my computer already. What a nerd.

After today!

Matt, this one's for you. Well actually just the title.

Four presentations and 2 books down. Just 1 1/2 more short (easy) essays and 225 papers to grade. At least that's what I keep telling myself. Really, even after I grade the papers I have to spend hours putting them all into excel and making sure everyone's grade is right, and ranking the speakers by how much the students liked them.

But I get paid to do all that, so it's not like it's the worst thing in the world.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FoIFa94fD3c

Except not about a girl. More the whole finishing the year of school thing.

UPDATE: Essays are done, so I'm officially done with classes this semester! The 225 papers and everything else with work remain. For now...

You should know something about me...

I balance.
Not literally.
Well, sometimes literally.
Everything about me is balanced.
I’m neither right- nor left-winged.
I’m used to the cold. I’m used to the heat.
I was born in the east, now live in the west.
My last name starts at the end of the alphabet.
My first name starts near the beginning of the alphabet.

I don’t apologize for being neurotic about the details.
(After all, the details are what separate good from great.)
I get chills when I figure out what makes someone tick.
I am moved by good music and great photography.
I’m creatively inclined,  I’m strategically talented.
I actually do care what other people think.
I learn new things as often as I can.
I stay up late. Too late.
I balance.

There's no place like home

I'm not entirely sure what I want to say, which is odd because most of the times I blog, I do it because I think of something I think is interesting, look around me to see that no one is around, so I tell everyone instead. (And of course by "everyone" I mean those (lucky?) few who actually read this.

So I don't deal with change very well. On my mission whenever I was moved to a new area I went through mini bouts of depression (just feeling down, not really depression) for anywhere from a day to almost a week. I always got over it though once I remembered that the Lord's work is great everywhere. (Although definitely harder in some places...)

And then sometimes I just ignore the situation and hope I will get used to the idea of the change over time without getting down. So far this has been how I've dealt with my whole strange family situation over the past few months. Maybe I'll talk about it more in the future. For now it is sufficient to know that things will work out well, but it will probably be just under 3 years until that is true.

Today was, bar none, the most productive day I've had all semester. I woke up at 8:30 (early-ish for me) and graded about 110 papers. Then I started making the book for my media class presentation. By 1:40 I was in the adlab making videos for my account management presentation, which took me until about 6:30. So I was basically going straight from 8:30am to 6:30pm. The sad thing is this is probably how many of you spend most of your days, and you're thinking "that's the most productive you've been this year? Wow, I'll trade lives with you any day!"

That's alright.

K I'm rambling, so I'm going to bed so I can go to church. I haven't gotten to take the sacrament in 2 weeks (general conference weekend, then a friend's baby blessing that took place at the same time as sacrament meeting. I can definitely feel a difference, and can't wait for sacrament meeting tomorrow.

Weird how we (I?) take things for granted so often.

Oh yeah, and how do you like new look of my blog?

Garbage

So BYU's L'Oreal Brandstorm team went to good ol' NYC to blow away the other schools in the National L'Oreal Brandstorm competition.

Unfortunately the world has gone to trash. The challenge: to create a new line of men's beauty product through Diesel. BYU's product line "Immortal" only got 2nd place to NYU's line "Foreplay." That's right, foreplay. It's a product that is basically a cologne/perfume for your not-so-public parts.

Everyone at the competition said BYU had the best presentation. Diesel was sold on NYU's willingness to push the limit. Now, I wasn't there and couldn't really say anything definitively, but from what I've heard (from a biased group, of course, but still...) it sounds like Diesel overlooked a lot of things from BYU's team simply because NYU dared to go where they did.

Gross. On the positive side, I heard that NYU's business school's dean told the NYU team he hoped BYU's team wouldn't walk out on their presentation because it was so raunchy.

Diesel is a gross brand anyway. I learned that first hand while preparing my own case study/product line a few months ago.

Why today was a good day

1. I actually got a lot done in the time I was at school from 7:30am to 3:30pm. I gave the Sierra-West presentation (practice round 2) (wow, that was today? I guess technically it was yesterday, but it feels like 2 or 3 days ago already...). I worked a bit on the MTV account, we came up with a few rad ideas for the Boy Scouts account, then we spent another 2 1/2 hours working on our Sierra-West presentation. It's getting pretty good.
2. Our (Brandon Tholen's and my) tenacity, doggedness, persistence, and indefatigability helped us get the house we have been fighting for (and had almost given up on). And yes, I just used the thesaurus on the word "tenacity" and wrote down a bunch of synonyms. My browser doesn't recognize "indefatigability."
3. I went running for the first time in a couple of weeks. I'm way out of shape, but it still felt good.
4. I went on a date for the first time in a couple of weeks. I'm way out of practice, but it still felt good :) Hoping to find another date for Friday's ballroom dance performance...
5. I paid a bill and went grocery shopping. (And saw one of the most beautiful girls I've ever seen while shopping. I've seen her a few times on campus and she takes my breath away.) Oh yeah, and girl's who shop at Smith's are hotter than girls who shop at Macey's. Just sayin'. I got to compare today because I went to both.

Housing debacle

A group of us (Brandon, Josh, Jonathan, Bryan, Matt, Tyler, and I) were looking for a place we could all stay. We found a place (which to my understanding is pretty nice, unfortunately I haven't seen it yet) right next door ( a house) which would be great. Then we found out the current owner decided to sell it, and the people who were buying it wanted to make it into women's housing instead.

Then we found out that BYU wanted to make it into women's housing in order to get rid of the (crappy) reputation of the Hollywood house. Brandon Tholen and I began preparing for an epic battle of wills, testimonies, and probably not fists. We got our current bishop and our (hopefully) future bishop to strap on the whole 9 yards of ammo, ready to fight for our entry into the house.

Apparently it only took a few precise shots by our sharpshooter, Bishop Henley (can you tell I've played too much Modern Warfare 2 lately?) to soften the hearts (or convince BYU?) of the soon-to-be owners to let us stay there.

If they try anything we've got literally 14 people as references, 3 of whom are ecclesiastical leaders with the ward's and stake's interest in mind.

Score one for networking. Boo-ya.

'Nuff said

"Man is the causer, though nearly always unconsciously, of his own circumstances and that whilst aiming at a good end, he is continually frustrating its accomplishment by encouraging thoughts and desires which cannot possibly harmonize with that end." - James Allen.

'Nuff said.

To-do List

So I seriously have the worst memory of anyone I know. I'm not sure what brings it on. Sometimes I feel like I'm very smart in some ways, and very dumb in others, and when it comes to remembering things, I definitely fall on the dumber side...

So I make lists. Except when I forget to. And then sometimes I forget to look at the lists.

• Find housing for Fall/Winter of next year
• Figure out my schedule and what classes to take in order to boost my GPA as much as possible
• Make sure I have something substantial to do this Summer
• Find somewhere to volunteer regularly
• Get back in to doing things in the AdLab
• Learn SEO (work with LeadGenix?) and see if my idea for an NPO could work...
• Get involved in some other program where I can gain leadership skills
• Get a job -or- see if I can get the bulk sales thing going to make some side cash while I attempt to stay sane doing everything else above.

The funny thing is I know I can do it all, but fear of failure stops me.

No more.