Back to Africa

Peter will be going to Sierra Leone for most of the month of May. On the map, Sierra Leone is in yellow, and Ghana, where we were last summer, is in salmon. People in Sierra Leone speak English, as well as other tribal languages. You may be under the impression that Sierra Leone is an unsafe country; however, their civil war ended about 8 years ago and it's considered safe today.

He'll be working on a similar project to the one we did in Ghana last year, but on behalf of a different company. This time, the IRC and MasterCard are asking for the market test. The project is attempting to develop small businesses that can help Sierra Leone's many refugees to get out of poverty. (That's as much as I know, and I think I have all the details right. Peter will correct this later if I'm wrong.)

This will be a great opportunity for Peter, and part of me is happy and excited for him. However, I'm really not excited about the prospect of him leaving for a month. And missing my birthday. Oh well.

Groupon

So, I know I don't post very often, but a company I've been following just launched in Salt Lake City, and I thought I'd let you all know about it. The company, Groupon, offers big discounts at local businesses ranging from food to massages. Today the deal is 60% off Stoneground, a local pizza place (They also offer this service in large cities across the US for those of you that aren't in Utah).

I found this company as part of my work - I've been tracking different revenue models for internet retail businesses and thought this one was a very neat idea. Besides, I'm always on the look out for good deals to local restaurants for date nights with Rachel :) .

Anyways, check it out at http://www.groupon.com/r/uu1328174. In full disclosure, they have a deal where you get $10 in credits for everyone that signs up and buys a coupon that was referred by you.

Accepted

I got my acceptance letter in the mail today! I'm really excited about it. So I will be going back to BYU in the fall, for sure!

Quit

I quit my second job (trump call center) today. For the past three months, I have felt sort of guilty for having two jobs while I know so many people who don't even have one. And lots of the time, I hated my trump job. It was weird, because while I was at work I would alternate between thinking "this isn't so bad, what's wrong with you?" and "I hate this job! I cannot stand another second of it!" And whenever I really hated my job, I'd feel ungrateful, because so many people are out of work right now, and I don't even really have anything to complain about. But today, I quit. And I am very happy thinking about all the things I'll be able to do with my evenings now.

And if anybody knows of anybody who wants to work part-time in a call center in Draper, I know of an opening. It's not bad pay. :) I'm sure after my description of the job, so many people will want to work there that this post will have more comments than all the other posts I've written combined... right?


Also, still no acceptance letter. I should just tell myself I won't be notified until the end of April, because maybe then I won't be so disappointed every day when I check the mail and it isn't there.

Since the last post...

1. I still do not know if BYU has accepted me or not.

2. We have had two visits from my family: one from the whole family except Rebecca, and one a couple weeks later from just my dad. It was wonderful to have them visit, and I wish we got to see them more often.

3. One of my cousins had a baby, and I got to babysit her four other kids while she was in the hospital. We had an awesome time. It's fun to have family that lives nearby.

4. We found out that one of our friends from Ghana died. His house caught on fire, and he was so severely burned that he died. He was a street kid who had been "adopted" by one of our bosses (as in, our boss was supporting him in school, and helped him get the things that he needed, but he wasn't legally adopted or anything), and he didn't really have any family. I was a little surprised by how sad I felt when we found out. It made me think about how blessed we are to live in a country with building codes, and effective fire departments, and advanced medical facilities. It also made me think about how the gospel brings us peace when we lose somebody, because we know it's not over when we die. I hope he finds the gospel.

5. As of last Monday, I have set a goal to eat vegetables with lunch & dinner every day, and to exercise every weekday, even if it's just for a short amount of time. Week one was a success, and I actually am feeling a lot better than I had been. We'll see how it goes from here.

6. I made a sticker chart for my primary class to encourage them to read their scriptures and say their prayers every day. Every day that they do those things, they get to put a sticker on the class chart. The chart has several benchmarks on it, and I told them each time they met one I would bring them treats. It only took them 2 weeks to reach the first one! I'm so proud of them. Although two of my kids have allergies, one to wheat and one to peanuts, so I'm a little bit limited on what I can bring them. No peanut butter cookies for this class. The girl with the wheat allergy actually told me I didn't have to bring her a treat. Poor thing. On Valentine's Day, one of the primary presidency brought cookies for the whole primary, and it made her so sad that she couldn't have one that she sat by herself the whole time during sharing time. I didn't know what was bothering her until the next week, when she explained. And then she tells me I don't have to bring her a treat. Although I would have brought her one anyways, after what happened on Valentine's Day I definitely wasn't about to leave her out.

Application submitted

Yesterday, I finished writing my personal statements and began to submit my two applications. I applied to both the Anthropology Master's program and the Museum Certificate program, a sub-program within the anthropology department. My application to the master's program went smoothly, thankfully, because it was the more important one. However, when I tried to submit my certificate application the website wouldn't let me. It said I had to select an option for "department contact telephone number" when there was no option to select. I really didn't want to wait until the application deadline (today) to submit it, but BYU is unstaffed at 8PM on Sundays. This morning I called tech support, and they told me that "maybe" they could fix my problem today. I was excited when they emailed me a response after only 30 minutes, but unfortunately, they hadn't fixed my problem. They told me it was something the admissions department needed to fix. I called the admissions department, and they told me the lady who would be able to fix my problem was out of town until Wednesday. I started to think that maybe I wasn't going to get my application in after all, but then again, if I couldn't submit my application, neither could anybody else who wanted to apply for the program. Fortunately, my worries were for nothing. The option for a department contact telephone number was added to the website, and everybody else who is submitting their applications at 11:50 tonight will never know that they almost weren't able to.

Needless to say, I'm glad to have that out of the way.

Other news- I've been called as a primary teacher for the 9 year old class. I'm very excited about it. Apparently I have the best-behaved class in the Senior Primary. I also think it's fun that one of my students is named Bailee Fox (my cousin's name, but spelled differently). My cousin, my sister Anna, and another cousin named Katie are all 9 years old, so I think they picked a good age for me to teach. Somebody must know that 9-year-olds are special to me. :-)

A new year

I haven't posted in quite a long time. My apologies for the hiatus. Here's what's new:

1. I have decided to go back to graduate school at BYU and study anthropology. I decided this on January 4, and then had to start studying like mad for the GRE so I could get a decent score. I was pretty worried about it, especially since the last math class I took was 6 years ago. I took the GRE on the 14th, and it went very well. You take the test on the computer, so I know my scores for the math and verbal sections, but my writing score is still a mystery. It's very nice to have it over with, although I still have to write a bunch of things for the application that I'm not too excited about.

2. My sister got her mission call to Hong Kong! Everybody was really surprised by this. She's studied a few different European languages and Portuguese was her latest passion, so I was nearly certain she'd be called to Brazil, but I guess the Lord needs her in China. I'm so excited for her!

3. Since the new year started, I have made a tradition of baking bread every Sunday. I don't have a bread machine; I do it by hand. So far I have tried two different recipes: one is a no-knead bread that rises over night, and the other one is a "normal" bread recipe that I have tried in white, whole wheat, and today half and half. I like home made bread sooo much better than store bought bread, and it seems like it's cheaper too. I love the way it makes the house smell. We'll see how long this tradition lasts, but right now the plan is to keep doing it forever.

4. Peter spent last weekend at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. His work rented an enormous house complete with its own swimming pool for the 20 people or so who went down together. They had a lot of fun looking at all the latest electronic gadgets and enjoying being away from the snow.

Sara and Emily (Sara's best friend) came up and spent the weekend with me so I wouldn't be lonely. It was really fun to have a girls weekend, although I was glad when Peter came home too.

I think that's pretty much it for the month of January. We also had a wonderful time in Oregon with my family for Christmas. The trip was way too short, but it was really nice to be home.