In April I spoke at a conference about sustainable development in Africa at UVU. Here's the link, its the last video on the page. Pretty funny stuff.
http://vimeo.com/channels/325776
Thursday, July 12, 2012
Sunday, July 1, 2012
Bucket List Weekend
A couple weekends ago I crossed off 3 things off my bucket list. (Which, in the grand scheme of things is a pretty big deal, since it will probably take me my entire life to cross all them off) These ones were kind of silly though, so not a huge life-altering event.
#42: Skinny Dip
After I called my mom and told her I did this... she was not pleased haha. But I knew she did it in college (even though when we talked she wouldn't admit it), and sometimes... you just gotta be naked in the wilderness! A few of us unexperienced skinny-dippers were driving around provo for like... a good 45 minutes trying to figure out a good spot to do it. Eventually we drove down by geneva road and found a spot on the provo river trail covered with trees. There were people on the trail, so we nervously tried to look... "busy"? as we waited for them to leave... but how obvious could we look? 7 college girls in basketball shorts over our swimsuits... all carrying towels. So conspicuous. So we finally trekked down the hill when the coast was clear, and hiked down stream for about a minute. The water was like... half a foot deep, we stripped down and layed down in the water... it was pretty stupid, but we did it! We were all so cold that we literally just jumped in and out real quick. Don't think I even took my shoes off. But hey, it counts eh? The most joyous part was that I got to go with Suzy Butler, who left the next day to go home before her mission :( I will miss her a lot, but she's going to tear it up in Brazil! (I am typing this up in the family room sitting around my family. This is how the conversation is going:
Uncle Jason: Whatcha up to on that laptop?
Elise: I'm blogging!
Mom: Whatcha bloggin about?
Elise: That one time... I went skinny dipping?
Mom: WHAT?! What are you doing that for?!
Uncle Jason: HA! Where'd you go?
Elise: MOM! Its not a big DEAL. YOU went skinny dipping in college!
Mom: No I did NOT!
Elise: Yes you did!
Mom: I didn't!
Brooke: What's Skinny dipping?
Gwendolyn: It's when----
Mom: DON'T TELL HER!!
Elise: Well you've been skinny dipping!
Mom: ....Not in college!!!
Elise: WELL YOU'VE BEEN!
Emily: WAAAHHHHHHHH
Mom: You don't need to tell the whole WORLD about it!
Elise: Mom, no one reads my blog except Krista...
Grandma: Whatcha doing on your laptop Elise?
Mom: STOP IT!!!)
#12 Camp under the stars
I didn't realize I'd done this one until after I'd done it... but I got off work on Wednesday night, and Krista called me up, wanting me to go camping up at Squaw peak. It was already really late at night... but I hadn't hung out with Krista very much recently, so I wanted to go bond with her and my other roommates. So I drove up there, got lost several times, and we camped out! It was me, Krista, Mackenzie, and Kat on a tarp in sleeping bags, and Dan Gore and Kim in a hammock. When I got out there, it was pitch black, so I didn't get to see the landscape, but in the morning, I awoke in a glorious mountain meadow! It was so beautiful and wonderful! Dan had a rough night... He fell off his hammock onto a rock, so he decided to move the rock, but when he picked it up there were a hoard of ants underneath, so he just gave up, and decided to sleep over by the fire pit, until he woke up from the cold. At that point, it was 2:30 in the morning, and he restarted the fire. I woke up at 5:30, also from the cold, and just sat and talked to Dan for about an hour. Dan is so great! I had a new found appreciation for him after our conversation. At 6:30 I left to go home and shower to get ready for my next bucket list cross off....
#20 Locks of Love
I FINALLY did it. I have been attempting doing this for YEARS, but I HATE having long hair to the point that I just want to cut it off, so it was really hard to grow it out so much. There were several times I almost gave in and chopped it off... But I didn't!! I'm really proud of this one. Not sure why I've always wanted to do this... I did a little bit of research, and I found out that Locks of Love sells their wigs, whereas the company, Pantene, gives away their wigs. So I decided to donate my hair through pantene. All 5 of us went out to breakfast at Kneaders after I got showered, because Jen was leaving and we wanted to all go out for one last hurrah. My appointment was at 9 in the morning at Taylor Andrews Beauty School. I was a little nervous to get my hair cut at a beauty school, but they do free haircuts for people donating to locks of love (or pantene), so I decided to go there. We got there, and I told them I wanted 8 inches off. The haircutting "teacher" told the student cutting my hair to first braid my hair into pigtails, and then cut it, which freaked me out, because 8 inches of braided hair is a lot more than 8 inches of non-braided hair... So I was worried, and I conveyed this to her, but she insisted everything was going to be fine. Did I believe her? No. After a few minutes of arguing back and forth between the student and teacher, they snipped it off. They handed the two pigtails to me, and it was like holding a dead rat in my hands. Just a big lump of hair. The student trimmed up the rest of my hair, taking off about another inch and a half. In total, they took about 10 inches off. Its so crazy to run my fingers through my hair and have it stop short of where it usually is. After I went to work later that day, I'd go up to my co-workers and have them close their eyes and hold out their hands, and I'd put the hair in it. They all freaked out when they felt the hair, and we got a good laugh out of it. The point is, I did it! Just gotta send it in, and I 've crossed it off!
#42: Skinny Dip
After I called my mom and told her I did this... she was not pleased haha. But I knew she did it in college (even though when we talked she wouldn't admit it), and sometimes... you just gotta be naked in the wilderness! A few of us unexperienced skinny-dippers were driving around provo for like... a good 45 minutes trying to figure out a good spot to do it. Eventually we drove down by geneva road and found a spot on the provo river trail covered with trees. There were people on the trail, so we nervously tried to look... "busy"? as we waited for them to leave... but how obvious could we look? 7 college girls in basketball shorts over our swimsuits... all carrying towels. So conspicuous. So we finally trekked down the hill when the coast was clear, and hiked down stream for about a minute. The water was like... half a foot deep, we stripped down and layed down in the water... it was pretty stupid, but we did it! We were all so cold that we literally just jumped in and out real quick. Don't think I even took my shoes off. But hey, it counts eh? The most joyous part was that I got to go with Suzy Butler, who left the next day to go home before her mission :( I will miss her a lot, but she's going to tear it up in Brazil! (I am typing this up in the family room sitting around my family. This is how the conversation is going:
Uncle Jason: Whatcha up to on that laptop?
Elise: I'm blogging!
Mom: Whatcha bloggin about?
Elise: That one time... I went skinny dipping?
Mom: WHAT?! What are you doing that for?!
Uncle Jason: HA! Where'd you go?
Elise: MOM! Its not a big DEAL. YOU went skinny dipping in college!
Mom: No I did NOT!
Elise: Yes you did!
Mom: I didn't!
Brooke: What's Skinny dipping?
Gwendolyn: It's when----
Mom: DON'T TELL HER!!
Elise: Well you've been skinny dipping!
Mom: ....Not in college!!!
Elise: WELL YOU'VE BEEN!
Emily: WAAAHHHHHHHH
Mom: You don't need to tell the whole WORLD about it!
Elise: Mom, no one reads my blog except Krista...
Grandma: Whatcha doing on your laptop Elise?
Mom: STOP IT!!!)
#12 Camp under the stars
I didn't realize I'd done this one until after I'd done it... but I got off work on Wednesday night, and Krista called me up, wanting me to go camping up at Squaw peak. It was already really late at night... but I hadn't hung out with Krista very much recently, so I wanted to go bond with her and my other roommates. So I drove up there, got lost several times, and we camped out! It was me, Krista, Mackenzie, and Kat on a tarp in sleeping bags, and Dan Gore and Kim in a hammock. When I got out there, it was pitch black, so I didn't get to see the landscape, but in the morning, I awoke in a glorious mountain meadow! It was so beautiful and wonderful! Dan had a rough night... He fell off his hammock onto a rock, so he decided to move the rock, but when he picked it up there were a hoard of ants underneath, so he just gave up, and decided to sleep over by the fire pit, until he woke up from the cold. At that point, it was 2:30 in the morning, and he restarted the fire. I woke up at 5:30, also from the cold, and just sat and talked to Dan for about an hour. Dan is so great! I had a new found appreciation for him after our conversation. At 6:30 I left to go home and shower to get ready for my next bucket list cross off....
#20 Locks of Love
I FINALLY did it. I have been attempting doing this for YEARS, but I HATE having long hair to the point that I just want to cut it off, so it was really hard to grow it out so much. There were several times I almost gave in and chopped it off... But I didn't!! I'm really proud of this one. Not sure why I've always wanted to do this... I did a little bit of research, and I found out that Locks of Love sells their wigs, whereas the company, Pantene, gives away their wigs. So I decided to donate my hair through pantene. All 5 of us went out to breakfast at Kneaders after I got showered, because Jen was leaving and we wanted to all go out for one last hurrah. My appointment was at 9 in the morning at Taylor Andrews Beauty School. I was a little nervous to get my hair cut at a beauty school, but they do free haircuts for people donating to locks of love (or pantene), so I decided to go there. We got there, and I told them I wanted 8 inches off. The haircutting "teacher" told the student cutting my hair to first braid my hair into pigtails, and then cut it, which freaked me out, because 8 inches of braided hair is a lot more than 8 inches of non-braided hair... So I was worried, and I conveyed this to her, but she insisted everything was going to be fine. Did I believe her? No. After a few minutes of arguing back and forth between the student and teacher, they snipped it off. They handed the two pigtails to me, and it was like holding a dead rat in my hands. Just a big lump of hair. The student trimmed up the rest of my hair, taking off about another inch and a half. In total, they took about 10 inches off. Its so crazy to run my fingers through my hair and have it stop short of where it usually is. After I went to work later that day, I'd go up to my co-workers and have them close their eyes and hold out their hands, and I'd put the hair in it. They all freaked out when they felt the hair, and we got a good laugh out of it. The point is, I did it! Just gotta send it in, and I 've crossed it off!
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