The Forecast for Today is....

(sorry it's so small)
...why am I not surprised?

... that one week of fall sure was nice.

It's A Small World

So we just got home from church. As you may know, it was fast and testimony meeting because General Conference is next Sunday.

One of the new girls in our ward got up and was talking about how they spent their summer in Connecticut... Really??

So after Sacrament Meeting, I went up to her and asked where they lived. She said they were there working with Apex (alarms) and lived in ROCKY HILL!!! THEY WERE IN THE CROMWELL WARD! I was so jealous. They spent their summer in my home ward! Anyway - mom and dad - they were Tyler and Kim Muir - in case you remember them.

New Post

Hello my dear readers.

I should be doing homework or laundry or something, but here I am writing on the blog. Mom informed me yesterday that she anxiously waits for new posts - so this one's for you mom.

For all you readers out there who are wondering, we did get the car fixed. The guy from our ward was taking a long time to get back to us, and we didn't know how long it would take him to fix it once he actually had the car. So we just took it to the shop in town that was recommended to us by Grease Monkey and Les Schwab. Chad called them Wednesday, his day off, they told him what the problem probably was, he took it in, and got it back a few hours later. Yay! As I told mom - when the car first started having problems, I put on my internet sleuthing hat and found some forums that said it was probably our brake booster. Then we talked to Les Schwab and they said we were probably right. Then we talked to the guy from our ward who came over and looked at it and said he thought it was the master cylinder. Then we talked to my automotive teacher who said it could be a disconnected hose or the ABS. Let me just say, that my internet sleuthing skills were right all along. I was pretty proud.
Anyways, so we got it fixed, it cost us a few hundred bucks out of our "emergency fund" but that's what it's for! And we have a working car again! I am SO happy about that. Today is laundry day and I'm glad we don't have to 1) risk our lives trying to drive to the laundromat or 2) do our laundry in the sink.

Well, as I said, school started. Somehow I got really busy.
Here are my classes:

Music Literature 3: I learn about and study the music literature of the 20th century - everything from Copland to Stravinsky.

Teaching Strategies: I learn about philosophies, leadership techniques and teaching strategies specific to the music classroom.

Motivation Management: I learn discipline and teaching strategies for the general classroom. Mostly geared toward elementary education teachers, but it's interesting.

Reading in the Content: A silly class where I learn about how to teach reading. Required for all education majors. As music students, we wonder how this really applies to us. We understand that we will have to teach music terms, but how often are we going to have to sit down and teach reading? We think there should be a separate class for how to teach reading music since music is it's own language.

Piano Pedagogy: I learn the ins and outs of teaching piano lessons. Could be a handy skill when I'm stuck at home with kids.

Wind Ensemble: Same ol' same ol'. First chair for my last semester.

Clarinet Lessons: Preparing for my senior recital!!! December 5th.

Marching Percussion: This class replaces the BYU-I Marching Band program. Instead we have a drumline and color guard. I'm playing in the front line, meaning I stand on the sidelines (don't march) and play mallet percussion/auxilary percussion. (Bass drum, wood block, suspended cymbals, etc)

And finally Automotive 100: I learn how to clean and maintain my car. So far it's been pretty fun. Did you know that you should always look for tire pressure information on the placard in your glove box, not on the sidewall of the tire? See how much I'm learnd-ing?!

I'm also "mentoring" for the basic theory/ear training class which is making me work 8 hours a week for which I get paid. I'm doing it for the teaching experience, not the money, so I might trade some of my hours to someone else so I'm not crazy this semester.

In other news - Yesterday I got asked to play for the Chairman's Honor Recital - a concert in the Barrus (the big concert hall) on October 6th. I'm excited. The Sinfonietta will play a piece (or two?) and then student soloists will fill out the program. Not really sure what the point of the recital is - they said they used to do it, but haven't in a long time, and they're trying to bring it back.

Also - Last night we went to a show by Jason Hewlett. We were tired when we got home, and were in bed by about 11:00. We were woken up around 1:00 by a group of about 4 guys hanging out on the sidewalk across the street. (In front of the new "Craze" fun center - right below where we used to live.) We were woken up by their yelling obscenities at passing cars and people, throwing beer bottles, climbing up the side of the building and just generally being stupid. The police came around 1:30 but by then they had gone upstairs across the street. Not realizing that they live up there, I was concerned about that, and glad that we no longer lived over there. So the police came and left without talking to anyone because they had gotten off the street. However, 3 of the guys came back down about 2o minutes later and again began drinking and yelling on the sidewalk. (We live in Rexburg!! What the heck?!) The police came again and talked to them for a good 10-15 minutes on the sidewalk. Apparently one of the kids gave two fake birthdays, because the cop couldn't find him in the system. (We could hear this all from our window.) Anyways, then they followed them upstairs to their apartment, and talked up there for a while. The cops finally left around 2:30 and we fell back to sleep. We don't really know what happened, but we're guessing someone was underage. Perhaps that kid who lied about his birthday... twice?!

They were also having an 80s dance party at the beauty college right next to our building. The beauty college went out of business a few weeks ago, and apparently someone rented it for the night and told all their friends. Because of the minigolf/laser tag place, we also regularly have teenagers hanging out on the sidewalk across from our apartment, yelling and genearlly being obnoxious, though last night was especially so. On Thursday night (around 9:00) we also got to listen to a band that they decided to bring in in order to drum up business. It was ridiculously loud, and the singer just screamed for about an hour. You can imagine what kind of people that attracted. We had to close all of our storm windows and inside windows to even attempt to drown them out. Even with the door across the street closed, we could hear everything perfectly. We had heard the Craze was going to look for bands, but we were surprised by their choice, especially considering that there are apartments directly above the "stage". Did I mention that I am SO GLAD that I don't live across the street anymore?!!!

We liked when our little downtown block was ignored and quiet. With the Craze across the street and a makeshift dance hall on the next block, we were overrun with obnoxious people last night. It was so weird! And we didn't like it. We're hoping we'll get back to normal. But that would mean that the Craze would have to go out of business. And since none of my money is invested in it, I wouldn't be sad to see it go. The occasional round of mediocre black light mini-golf and ski-ball is not worth the sort of crowds it's drawing. And the manager of the fun center is the same manager of the apartments, and he's kind of a push-over, so people can get away with pretty much whatever they want as long as they're paying. His apartment is in the back of the building, so I guess he doesn't care.

That's the story from Rexburg for now. I'm planning a Halloween Party for a group of our friends, because last time we got together we were talking about how we never have anything to do on Halloween anymore. I'm so excited! It won't be as good as Mom's parties, but none of these people have ever been to one of Mom's parties, so they won't know the difference. :o)

The Beginning of the End

Hello Everyone.

I daresay, it has been quite a while since I have posted anything. Well, anything exciting. I want to post some pictures of our last few days of summer, but right now I'm at school and that is not an option.

(There are a couple of guys sitting at the computers across from me making comments about how fast I type. It could be worse. They could be making fun of my hair.)

I digress. I'm in the library right now, enjoying a free moment, which doesn't happen very often and probably won't happen again in a long while. I've started school, obviously, without much fanfare. It's my senior year! My last semester on campus!

It sucks to have all of the students back in town though, because everything is busy again. Not as busy as Provo. But still.

On Saturday Chad and I went up to the new school cafeteria that they've been working on for about a year now. It is HUGE. And it is way better than the CougarEat. Finally something we're better at. Eating. Anyways, I would post pictures but they don't even do it justice. You just have to come see it for yourself! ;o)

Sometime in the last little bit of summer, Chad and I went to the Titanic Exhibit at the Museum of Idaho in Idaho Falls. We each got a passenger ticket at the beginning of the exhibit with the name of a real passenger. We were both rich hoity-toity people, but I survived while Chad did not. Chad's name was William Butts. Hehe. Mine was Molly Brown. Yup! Can you believe that?! I can't remember now what her real name was, but I was feeling pretty uppity. They said a cheap ticket on the Titanic would be the equivalent of $600(+) today. How did even the poorest people afford that? I guess they were using their life savings to get to America and when they got there wouldn't have very much more than the clothes on their backs. It was really fun. They had replicas of a state room and a third class bunk room, and lots of artifacts and stories.

On Labor Day, Chad and I went to the East Idaho State Fair in Blackfoot. Blackfoot is sketchier than either of us thought, but we made it out alive. The fair was everything a fair ought to be. Except it didn't have Footsie Wootsies and I was sad about that. I made sure to bring quarters just in case. We ate lots of deep-fried fair food and looked at giant vegetables. It wasn't as good as the Big E, but it was the closest I've gotten so far. One of the vendors was even selling a back support item for $10(+) that we bought at the Dollar Tree earlier that day. And people were buying them! I bet they felt stupid the next time they went to the Dollar Tree.

However, on the way to the East Idaho State Fair, we were cruising along on the highway when some guy cut us off and Chad had to hit the brakes pretty hard. From that moment forward there was this awful hissing air-leak noise whenever Chad pressed the brake pedal. As scary as that was, it didn't seem to be affecting the brakes, so we decided to continue on to Blackfoot (10 miles). Not to mention there is nothing between Idaho Falls and Blackfoot and we were closer to Blackfoot at this point. Chad called his dad when we got there and spent a good 20 minutes under the hood, on the phone, trying to diagnose the problem. He couldn't hear the noise under the hood though, and we discovered that it was coming from inside the car, right behind the brake pedal. Greeeeeat.

We enjoyed our time at the fair and didn't worry about it. We got in the car to go home, and all was well, except the noise. It seemed to get louder the faster we accelerated and the harder we braked. But still, no affect on the brakes themselves. When we got home we looked up some stuff on the internet and found that it sounded like our Brake Booster went out. Don't ask me what that is, because I'm not entirely sure. We talked to a guy at Les Schwab who told us the same thing but that they don't do Brake Boosters there. He directed us to a mechanic in town who probably would, so we went over there and they were closed. 0 for 2. We stopped at Checker to see if they could help us. They had the part (with trade-in) for $75. Not too bad, assuming we'd install it ourselves. They don't do installation. And the guy said it was probably a 2-3 hour job for a mechanic. Then I remembered that a girl in Relief Society was talking about how her husband was trying to start his own mechanics shop and had been working on cars all summer. So Chad called him but he never called back. The automotive department on campus sent out an e-mail looking for cars to work on in their classes, and one of the topics they were studying was brakes. So we e-mailed them yesterday, but haven't heard anything back yet. The students decide what projects they want to do, so it may not get picked. But they might also not get to it for a month or two, and we can't wait that long. Here's why:

As we were driving around town trying to figure out how much this is going to cost us, we were on our way to WalMart when the brakes decided to start acting up. Now when you press the brake pedal you get the incessant hissing noise, followed by a quick jerk of the pedal, bringing the car to an abrupt stop, and then letting it roll forward. It was like riding in a car with someone learning how to drive stick shift. I didn't like that very much, so we decided that we would get home and not go anywhere until we got it fixed. But last night we needed to do laundry. Chad kept telling me he'd rather live than wear clean underwear, but I could not be convinced. We made it safely to the laundromat. The trip, which should take less than 5 minutes, took probably 15. We drove the whole way with our flashers on, hoping people would keep their distance and not cut us off or follow too closely. Once our laundry got done, we knew we were out of milk, so we ventured a trip to Broulim's as well. If it wasn't 10:00 pm, we might have asked someone to take us or let us borrow their car. But we thought it was a little late for that. We drove to Broulim's, choosing our route to take right turns the whole way there so we wouldn't have to stop abruptly at a stoplight or stop sign. As I said, the car was fine as long as we were not using the brakes.

Anyways, that's what's going on with us. It looks like it's gonna cost a couple hundred bucks at least to fix the car, so it's a good thing that my Pell Grant money came in. Until then, we're without a car. I won't drive it at all but Chad might brave it for emergencies. As long as we're never going downhill. He won't even drive it downhill. We won't be able to do anything with it until at least Friday, Chad's day off. Hopefully we can get someone to call us back and take a look at it.

I guess I should do homework, or something more productive than blogging. Pish Posh.

- Rideless in Rexburg

NO! Stop telling my kids to work hard!!!

Shouldn't someone (or quite a few someones) feel pretty stupid right about now?

Read the speech here.