Blogging Basketball/Volleyball Co-ed: Part 4.

Ahem.

Today was monumental.

Kind of. Actually, it was just the round robin basketball tournament, where we went 4 on 4. I think my basketball skills have improved, just by me saying "I am Jimmer I am Jimmer I am Jimmer" over and over. I've noticed significant improvements in my hops.

I even scored one basket. One. Which is an improvement from last time.

Ok ok ok. So I ended up playing against 3 different teams. Everyone on my team was taller and more skilled than me, so I didn't get much playing time, which wasn't exactly a bad thing because we lost every game we played anyways.

The first team we played against was Micah's team. Micah...is certainly a character. He is a good kid. We get along alright. Sometimes, he reminds me of Will Smith. And sometimes, he reminds me of...my childhood. Mostly, he is entertaining. In that game, I was trying to not look like an idiot but at the same time trying to show off my mad skills. They ended up just cancelling each other out, and all I really remember is accidentally tackling Micah. And then I felt pretty stupid.

The second team we played was [if you think you are going to get mentioned in my blog by taking off your pants you are so so wrong]'s and we lost that because everyone on his team was tall, had mad hops, and...[that was just sick and wrong. actually, i didn't even look. good thing too, cuz its not like i want to be scarred or anything] kept distracting me. Kind of.

The third team we played was Nick's team. My personal goal was to not let his team win (which they did) and to...foul...him as much as possible. Not for any specific reason. It's definitely not personal. It's definitely not like he ever hurt any of my best friends or anything. Pfft. That would be absurd.
Anyways, mostly I went around shoving people (Nick), and that was the game where I made my first basket.
That's pretty much it for the basketball.

There was one more thing that happened today.
One thing that was definitely worth blogging about.

I was walking towards the locker rooms with [not happening]. And this is pretty much how our conversation went.
[No.]: Kaela, if I take off my pants, will I make it into your blog?
Kaela: Wait, what!?
I didn't actually think he would do it. But next thing I knew...
Well, you know what happened.

To my readers: I hope you've all been enjoying this. It might seem a little slow right now, but I get the feeling this class is going to pick up. Which is saying something since it's already pretty crazy.

[You know who you are.]: If you want to make it onto my blog, please, for the love of all that is good and merciful and holy, please do not take off your pants in front of me ever, ever again.
P.S. Who wants to join my churchball team?! I'm recruiting Jimmer!!!

Tangled Movie Review

Confession:

I've never been that big of a Disney fan. I think I was comatose for half of my childhood, and never got around to doing what all the cool kids were doing, aka watching disney movies. In fact about half of the classic Disney movies I hadn't seen up until this last summer.

Disney princess movies, especially, never really appealed to me as a child. Maybe I was a lil bit of a tomboy, or never really wanted to be a princess, or whatever.

I guess what I'm trying to say is my life has been very sans Disney. I've never even been to Disneyland. (I shake my fist at all of you who are going on tour. Sigh. Just kidding! Of course I'm not. I'm not jealous, not one bit. Don't give me that look. I'm going to go see the Justin Bieber movie! In 3D! I can't even see in 3D. Hey who cares whatever right?? Heh. I bet all of you are jealous of me now. Ha ha! Ha! Heh...)

Ok ok life which has lacked Disney. Got it. I've just never been terribly impressed. The classic Disney movies, like the ones from the 90's, are pretty boss. Lion King, Hercules and Mulan were probably my favorite, and thats about it. Nothing else was that prominent.

And it's not like Disney, in the decade of 2000-10, really impressed me that much. Nothing they came out with was what I could say 'Okay, that is up there with the classics of the 90's. That was really good."

..........

TANGLED IS THE SINGLE GREATEST MOVIE I HAVE EVER SEEN.

It was around this time last year that I watched Iron Man 3 times in one day. I declared that Iron Man was my favorite movie...ever. And now it is time that Iron Man hands over the crown he wore for a year, and hands it to Tangled.

Tangled was one of those movies that was completely flawless. There wasn't a part where you were like 'wow, that was really dumb and unnecessary. That character bugged me the whole way through. It was really cheesy."
Tangled was one of those movies that you walk out of the theater DYING to go see it again that second.
There weren't too many songs, but there weren't too few, either.
The songs were catchy.

It also wasn't a stereotypical Disney princess movie. It's hard to even classify it as that, even though it totally is. First of all, Rapunzel wasn't a complete airhead with no sense of character or personality. She was cute, and funny, but also tough enough to not be a complete damsel in distress. Also her voice was incredible. Mandy Moore did a fantastic job.
Another stereotype it avoided was that of the nameless, faceless Prince Charming, who rides in at the last second to save the princess from the evil dragon/lady/octopus (my knowledge is limited, bear with me).

Flynn Rider...is the single best character Disney has ever come up with.
I'm just going to say a few things about Flynn (or Eugene Fitzherbert, whichever you prefer).
He is so classy. He isn't the picture perfect prince from all the other movies. He starts out as a completely self centered thief, and ends up falling in love with Rapunzel, and turning his life completely around. Also his personality is exactly what I want in a man.

FLYNN RIDER IS EVERYTHING I WANT IN A MAN!!!!!!!! AAHH WHY DOES HE HAVE TO BE ANIMATED, GOSH DANG IT?!?!??!?

whew. okay. calm. Anyways, you get the idea. Flynn beats out all the stereotypes and becomes the best character ever thought up by all of man kind.

The story itself was super cute. Rapunzel wanting to go see the lights was a cute twist on the original story.

Actually, the original story was creepin to the max. Rapunzel is a brat whore, the prince is her brother, and there is lots of blood and gore and...yeah.

I like the Disney version a lot better.
And I should probably wrap this up, so, suffice to say, Tangled is incredible. If you haven't seen it yet, go see it...and take me with you. I've already seen it 3 times and I intend on seeing it at least ten times in the theaters alone. Which might seem excessive but it really is that good.

1,000,000,000,000 out of 10. Best. Movie. Ever.

Peace!

Blogging Basketball/Volleyball Co-ed: Part 3

Today I learned a very important lesson:

In tennis, if you take a break and don't play for five years, you could probably pick up right where you left off. It's like riding a bike.

Basketball is not.

After not playing for five years, any skills I had back in 6th grade are long, looooooooooong gone. Today I learned that I cannot shoot a basket...to save my life.

I can dribble, kind of. And that's about it.

Cole's 'coaching' techniques didn't really help either.

Oh, it's going to be a long semester.

I think I'll just stick with tennis.

Dating = Fun

Wanna know a secret?
Nah, you don't. Never mind, I won't tell you.
Oh you do want to know?
Okay then.

Every time a dance or date is coming up, I get a little nervous and hesitent. "Dating is too much trouble." I say.
But alas, at the end of every night, I will walk away from a date saying "Wow. WOW!! THAT WAS SO MUCH FUN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

(with the exception of one and a half buuuut we don't talk about that. ahem.)

Basically, Friday was easily the funnest date I have been on. Ever. EVER.

First, I need to start out by thanking Matt Woodruff. Matt, thank you for letting me take you on a date, and thank you for helping me have a fantastic time.

The people in our group were 5 girls, Me, Kate Cutchins, Kat Moulton, Katelyn Rudy, Whitney Carlson, and their dates, Matt, Christian Paiva, Nick Walton, Michael Christensen, and Caleb Karpowitz.

Basically the best group...ever.

The first thing we did was go ice skating. I told everyone that I had been born to 2 loving parents named Apolo Ohno and Michelle Kwan and that my ice skating skills were unmatched. The truth is, I took ice skating lessons for a month about 6 years ago and learned the fundamental skill of not falling over. Though I kept my skills in ice skating, I did not keep my skills in basketball whatsoever, which was the sport I tried after ice skating. (more on that in Blogging Basketball/Volleyball Co-ed: Part 3.)
The point is, ice skating is tons of fun. I really wish I had stuck with it, even though I say that about every sport I've tried. We all had a great time, even though we all took many falls. (Matt, I'm still sorry about that one. haha)
Christian pretending to be a German exchange student was really funny, by the way.

The second thing we did was driving home. I'm putting this in a category of it's own, simply because that was really eventful and mostly illegal and...that's all I'm going to say.

The third thing we did was making pancakes at Whitney's house! The girls made the batter, and the guys cooked the pancakes. That...was pretty interesting to watch. It was like Cake Boss, on steroids.

Also, throughout the evening, Christian kept making comments about a certain Kirk Skyles. Some favorites include:
"Kirk covered in honey."
"The black hole that is his belly button."
"Close your eyes. Put your thumbs out. Now, crawl to me. Oh wait, I'm just remembering my photoshoot with kirk."
"Imagine Kirk, laying on a leather couch, covered in maple syrup, wearing only a loin cloth, and the caption is labeled, 'The Temptations of Man.'"
Nuff said?

Ahem. Moving on. The pancakes were delicious, but afterwards many of us were still starving. But before our failed pizza adventure, we played Mafia.

Mafia is either the most boring, or the most fun game of the century. It all depends on who you play it with. In this case, it was the funnest game...of the millenium. I kid you not, I have never played a funner game of mafia in my life. I really don't know how to describe the events that happened in the dark, dark basement so...I'm just going to leave it to your imagination, but promise you that it was even better than whatever you're imagining. It was pretty fantastic.

After Whitney's mom kicked us out, the hungry ones drove over to Little Caesars for some pizza and crazy bread. Except they were closed. So then we drove to Wendy's, where the guy who took our order was really sarcastic and more traffic laws were broken.

And yeah that was pretty much it. Funnest date of my life. And now I'm pretty sure nobody is willing to ever get into a car with me driving again. But it was totally worth it.

Peace!

Blogging Basketball/Volleyball Co-ed: Part 2.

Day 1

And so it begins.

The best part about having Basketball/Volleyball Co-ed (Which I'm abbreviating to BVCE because writing it out all the time is getting really tedious) 1st period, is that I get to spend the entire day all gross and sweaty. Therefore, the lazier I am in that class, the better I will end up looking the rest of the day.

I'm just hoping the locker room smell doesn't stick. Because honestly, it just might get worse every day.

I walked into school feeling confident. Actually, I always walk into school feeling confident. But today, I especially felt confident. Even if this class totally sucks, at least I'll have a lot to blog about. Conflict = gold.

And honestly, for my first day, there was a lot of conflict.

First conflict: I was late. But that's not even that big of a deal. I was late because I could not find the class. FOR THE LIFE OF ME. How many freaking gyms does this school have?! I swear they pop up out of nowhere. I know we have a Thunderdome, and a South gym, and a North gym. Maybe...not sure about the north gym, but I'm about 80% sure there is a South-west gym, and I've heard rumors of a north-south gym.

I don't know which gym we were in today. It was the one with all the super creepy paintings of mascots of random schools we haven't played in years. I remember being traumatized by the Springville devil painting my freshmen year.

Second conflict: When I finally found the south-northwest gym, I wasn't sure at first because it was pitch black. Apparently we had to wait for the janitors to come turn on the lights, so we sat there in the dark for about 15 min before someone came. So I couldn't really look around to see who else was in the class, but luckily when the lights turned on I realized that I recognized quite a few faces. This is a good thing, there was only one problem...

Conflict 3: Cole, this one is for you.
One of the biggest reasons I was so willing to switch into this class was because I knew that Cole was in the class too, so I would have at least one friend for sure. And Cole is one of those people who could make a co-ed P.E. class fun.
Well guess who wasn't there today!! Thanks a lot, Cole.

The actual class...was sort of pitiful. First, it reminded me that even though I think I'm really athletic, in reality I've been sitting around for 4 months with a bum knee. The good thing is, I'm not nearly as lazy and un-fit as I was my freshmen year. The bad thing is, now that I'm in a co-ed class, I'm still getting lapped by 3/4ths of the class.
So I'm gonna step it up. Fo reals!!

Our first unit is basketball. Apparently not only is it just basketball and volleyball, but also flag football and...wrestling.
Just kidding. I would die.
The last one is soccer. But in all honesty the only sport I have a chance at being semi decent at is basketball. So it seems like it might be all downhill from here.

Also, semi-decent might be an overstatement. Today all we did was dribbled almost flat basketballs. Seriously, for a solid hour all we did was dribble basketballs every way mankind has ever come up with. I didn't realize there were so many different ways to dribble a basketball, but that's what we covered today. And by the end of the period I'm pretty sure my arms did fall off. But I realized if I suck at just dribbling the ball then this basketball unit isn't going to go anywhere good.

As I left that class, I wasn't too discouraged. I really think it has a lot of potential to be a great start to the day.

But the locker rooms still stink.

Blogging Basketball/Volleyball Co-ed: Part 1

I've been keeping an eye out for something I could consistently blog about that was an ongoing experience. Something that either has the potential to be the suckiest thing of my life, or a memory I will be telling my grandchildren about.

Basketball/Volleyball Co-ed, I think, has the immense potential for both.

My story begins in a class that is not Basketball/Volleyball Co-ed, but rather Lifetime Sports. I had actually been looking forward to this class since I first signed up. I was in it with Kate, who I can have fun with in any class. If we could endure 8th grade Geometry together (possibly to this date the worst class I've ever been in, though there have been a few close runner ups) then nothing could stop us. Lifetime Sports was bound to be the funnest class ever!

I walked into Lifetime Sports expecting a class full of hot seniors, and tons of different kinds of sports, and possibly even being able to kick everyone's trash in tennis at the end of the semester.
I walked out of Lifetime Sports in full sprint down to the counselling office.

Wow. Woooooooooooooow.
This next part could come off as racist or...ageist....but I'm not. Honestly.
But the class was me, Kate, a few freshmen, and about a hundred mexican gangsters and their girlfriends.

I had few options for surviving that class. So like all good people, instead of enduring the class, Kate and I agreed that switching out was the best option.

I walked down to the office and asked the lady at the counter if I could talk to a counselor  about switching classes. She said nobody would even see me unless I had paid the ten dollar fee. Being a poor child who needs those ten dollars for her date on Friday, I asked her what would happen if I paid the fee but then nobody could help me, and she said "oh well, there isn't much we can do."

Sometimes, I hate people. Luckily, sometimes I love people too. And in today's case, the man who saved me was Mr. Warner. Right as she said that he said "I can help someone!" and called me into his office.

Our conversation went something like this:

Him: What can I help you with?
Me: Um...I need to switch out of Lifetime Sports. Please.
Him: Ah. Any particular reason why?
Me: Um....I....uh...maybe...not? Yes?
Him: Yeah, I walked by that class earlier. Say no more. What class do you want instead?
Me: Basketball/Volleyball Co-ed first period, seminary 6th. You...are awesome.

So....easiest class change ever...and I didn't even have to pay the ten dollar fee. He was completely understanding.

So tomorrow I have my first day of Basketball/Volleyball Co-ed. As I was packing up some clothes I would need to wear for the class, I realized a few things:

1. I haven't taken a P.E. class at school since my freshmen year, and I forgot how much I hate taking P.E. classes at school.
2. I hate taking P.E. classes because of changing in the locker rooms. They reek of stale perfume, and death.
3. I hate changing in front of other people. Period.
4. In tennis, it was just me and the rest of my girls. No boys. Being grubby or having non-shaved legs didn't matter.
5. Now that I'm going to be playing with and in front of boys...it does matter. Yikes.
6. My legs have not seen daylight since September. They are whiter than a polar bear in a blizzard.

So basically...that is what I have to look forward to tomorrow. Just me and my short shorts in a co-ed class for 2 sports that I can't play to save my life.

This is going to be fun.

Best of 2010

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. 2010.

Instead of venting about the worst of 2010 *cough cough boys cough cough?* I'm going to highlight the best of 2010. Not just in my life, but all over the world. You-tube videos, movies, songs, etc. Not only were these my personal favorites, but I should hope that everyone in the world would agree. Or something.

People, I give you...the best of two thousand and ten.

Shoes?!

I have many guilty pleasures, it's true. And as I was talking to my friend today, I realized something. If there is one thing I love in this world more than bacon, it is shoes.


Think about all the different kinds of rubber and cloth you can use to style your feet! I have a goal, that by the end of this year I will own at least one pair of each brand of shoe I so desperately want. Which means I need to get a job, or some really rich friends.


Here is a sneak peak of some shoes you will (hopefully) see me sprout onto my feet this year.

Away From Utah

Every year for the past 5 or 6 years I have travelled to the hot, dry land of Arizona to hang out with my family. Spending time with extended family will usually bring extreme joy, or make you wish you were living in a cellar for a month, instead of this one week with THE RELATIVES.


As always, I came back to Provo from Mesa.....more or less kicking and screaming.


Ok not really, but I really didn't want to come back. I love my family that lives there! I spent the week with my cousins Emma and Colette, and the entire week was a nice change from my usual boring, mundane life in Provo.


Here are a few things we did: