Easter has always been a fun holiday.  For as long as I can remember part of Easter was finding a hidden Easter basket.  As I got older the hiding places became more and more difficult.  When it was only Tyler, Liam, and I left at home a new rule was added.  You could only keep your basket after you had found all three hidden baskets.  This was usually quite a challenge.  Every year I was amazed at how difficult it was to find our Easter baskets.  My dad is absolutely amazing at hiding our Easter baskets.

Another great part about Easter has always been Easter dinner.  My mom is an amazing cook and Easter dinner has always been absolutely delicious.  Simply put, Easter has always been a holiday to look forward to.

Well this year was a little different for several reasons, (1) I am the only unmarried kid still in Utah and thus the Easter basket tradition loses some of its grandeur, (2) my mom was out town for Easter visiting other family members, and (3) my dad so busy with work and I was so busy with school that I didn’t even get an Easter basket.

Because my mom was out of town my sister Janae decided to host an Easter dinner for my dad and I (her husband was also out of town.)  I was excited for this because Janae is also a great cook and it’s always fun to spend time with her and her family.  As Easter approached the thought hit me “I should invite Ali over for Easter dinner!”  I called Janae to see what she thought and she agreed that it was a good idea.  In the end it was the most bizarre Easter I have ever had: no Easter basket, a Mexican dinner shared by a Nigerian, my dad, my sister and her children, and myself.  It turned out to be a great holiday and I was grateful. 

Easter isn’t about baskets, bunnies, eggs, and dinners.  It’s about the resurrection of Jesus Christ and I’m glad I was able to share this holiday with such good company.

Russian the Translation for Oakley

It all started when I get a text from my Uncle Derik.  He is the VP of Finance at Oakley and told me that they needed some material translated into Russian.  I was eager to help and told them to send me sample of it. It was intense. There were tons of words that I didn’t even know in English, let alone in Russian. However, as I looked up these words in Russian I was happy to see that they weren’t all that different.  Ballistic fragmentation was баллистическая фрагментация (ballisticheskaya fragmentatsiya) and it seems like a lot of these big scary words followed this same pattern. 

I decided that I would accept the offer.  I told them that I would love to do it but I would like to do it after school ended.  They responded and said they needed it within the next 2 weeks. I looked at my schedule and saw that as soon as I finished a test in my econ class I would have an entire weekend to dedicate to it.  I told them I would have it to them by Monday morning.  After some negotiation we settled on a price of $0.25 a word.  I was excited for this business experience but I didn’t quite know what I was getting myself into. 

I finished by econ test on Thursday and began translating.  I stayed up all night Friday translating only taking a small nap.  I translated all day Saturday and stopped at midnight so that I could observe the Sabbath.  I started again at midnight on Monday trying to finish it by the deadline of Monday morning but I just couldn’t do it.  I had to admit defeat and tell them I would get it to them by Tuesday.  They said that would be fine and I got to work.  I wanted to get it to them before 8 AM Tuesday morning so I tried to stay up all Monday night translating but my body shut down and I crashed at about 1 or 2 AM.  I woke up the next morning and get to work.  I finally finished just before noon on Tuesday morning.  Overall I spend about 40 hours translating and filled up 19 pages in Microsoft Word.  I was glad to finally be done.

ADD

I’ve always had ADD; when I was younger I took medication for it but as I got older I learned to compensate for it and stopped taking medication.  Well I recently had the worst experience with ADD and a test.  Tests have always been hard for me and I’ve especially struggled with finishing tests on time.  So I had been studying like crazy for an upcoming math and because of work just being busy I decided I would take it the last night. 

My cousin Donevan took the test earlier that day and he told me about his experience.  He said that he got 100 percent and that it took him an hour and a half.  I was excited because I knew that I was well prepared and would do well.  Donevan isn’t a super-fast test taker either so I assumed giving me self a little over and hour and a half would give me plenty of time.  Well I was wrong. Within the first 15 minutes I knew that there was no way I would finish the test.  As soon as I made this realization I had an anxiety attack and my body shut down.  Material that I knew well was suddenly foreign to me and I just kept skipping problems in hopes I would find one that my brain could handle.  In the end I got a 36 percent.  It was without a doubt the worst testing experience of my life.

The one good thing is that it motivated me to meet with a school counselor and I have since been given accommodations including time and half for tests and an isolated test-taking room.

Some Gum to Spare

So for my M Com class I was given an assignment to “give a stranger a coke” and write a blog post about it.  Now I need to confess my sin: I didn't give a stranger a coke.  However I didn't something similar and I felt that it had the same effect.

I was sitting in the airport waiting for a flight when I saw a woman trying to find a place to plug in her phone.  When I saw her doing this it reminded me that I ought to charge my computer so I took out my charger and saw that there was an outlet under my seat.  I informed the woman and scooted over to make some space for her so that she could sit next to me and charge her phone.  As I plugged in my computer charger I noticed immediately that the outlet wasn't working, in fact it appeared that none of the nearby outlets were working.  My computer said it had 40 minutes of charge left in it and our takeoff time was in almost 40 minutes so I decided that plugging in my computer wouldn't make too big of a difference.  I felt bad for the woman who couldn't charge her phone so I asked her if she’d like to plug her phone into my computer to charge it.  She was very grateful and said she would really appreciate that.  It made my computer die a little sooner than I had hoped but I was grateful for the change to help out a stranger.

As my new friend and I sat there I heard the man next to me ask his wife for some gum, she said that is was buried deep in her bag.  I quickly responded that I could give him a piece of gum and he accepted.  So I didn't end up giving anyone a coke but I was able to give some charge and some gum. 

June 8, 1990

Today I went to my Uncle David’s (my dad’s brother) house for dinner. When I got there Dave told him he had a gift for me.  My grandma recently passed away and Dave was going through all of the letters that she cherished enough to hold on to.  Dave pulled out a letter that was written by my Dad on June 8, 1990, my birthday.  My dad related the story of how my oldest brother’s Eagle Scout Court of Honor was on the night of the seventh when my mom went into labor.  I had heard this story before because it was so cool to hear the details that were written down right after it happened.  I was super grateful that Dave saved that letter for me.