The Wildcat's Den

Ahhhh... Spring is starting to want to stick around.  I've been cleaning my room and I got my summer-ish clothes pulled out of storage the other day.  You know, after a while you get sick of wearing the same stuff, but then the seasons change and you get a whole new wardrobe without having to drop a dime!  At least, that's how I operate.

My school projects are coming along nicely.  Not finished by any means, but I'm closer than I was a week ago.  I think a couple more days where I am strongly-motivated might just do it.  Now the fun part is getting to that strongly-motivated state.  And yesterday the yearbook kids got the cover design finished so now we can send it to the printers and they can get started on it! (Oh Happy Day!!!!!)

Oh, and my grandma called yesterday for some insignificant something-or-other.  You have to know, my parents aren't exactly on speaking terms with my grandparents (something that happened while I was on my mission - I've gleaned details of it here and there, but it wasn't pretty).  Among other things, my mom is not happy with the amount of favoritism my grandparents show some of their grandkids and not others.  A few weeks ago, my cousin posted on Facebook how great it was that Grandma and Grandpa came to visit.  Coincidentally, Mom found herself on the phone with Grandma and asked about it and Grandma said that they hadn't seen anybody for months (Grandma doesn't quite savvy how all this internet social-networking stuff works).

So, anyway, I kept my conversation with Grandma short and light on the details.  Not that I enjoy giving my grandparents the cold shoulder, but it's so much easier than having to deal with my parents sniping at me for telling them our business.  Personally, I don't have a dog in this fight.  I just think there are some adults who have been acting like children and need to grow up.  But try telling them that - it's better that I stay out of the drama and let the soap opera play out from here (pass the popcorn, please).

In happier news, I found a high quality fansub of Sailor Moon that I've been watching in my free time.  I've decided to shelve my pride and try it out in the original Japanese - and I have to say, it's grown on me.  There will always be a special place in my heart for the English dub, but as one YouTuber noted, it is possible to like both (I love the music in the English version - and I highly doubt that the Japanese names would be the same if spoken in English.  They rarely are with dubbed anime).  There's a lot more to the story that got cut out of the English version and some of the jokes make a lot more sense in Japanese (of course, I had to look some of it up on fansites to get the full explanation, but once I did, everything was great).  And the phrase, "Tsuki ni Kawatte Oshiokyo" ("In the name of the moon, I shall punish you") is a lot catchier in Japanese too. ^_^  Maybe after this, I'll give the live-action version a try.

Also in the "Happier News" column, Sunday is the first day of the singles branch in Delta, which I am looking forward to.  I met the first counselor in the branch presidency when my brother-in-law was ordained an elder last week in stake conference and he's a pretty nice guy (the first counselor, I mean.  My brother-in-law's a nice guy too ^_^  Strangely enough, the first counselor is my brother-in-law's boss.  Small town living - gotta love it!)  I decided that I need to take the attitude that I'm not here solely to date and find a husband.  In fact, the letter that the stake presidencies sent out about this said that a Young Single Adult (YSA) branch gives YSAs opportunities to serve that they wouldn't normally have and helps prepare us to lead the church in the future.  So, I am going into this as though it's a training and teaching opportunity.  After all, I served my mission faithfully and learned everything I did there and now I need a chance to put that into practice.  I've heard it said somewhere that serving a full-time mission (whether 18 months or two years) gives you the equivalent experience of serving in regular church callings for 50 years.  Whether that's true or not, I figure I should use that more fully than I have been.

It's certain I'm going to get some kind of calling.  Everyone in singles wards gets a calling.  Where this is a branch and it's much smaller, it's even more important that everyone has a job.  Plus, it's standard operating procedure that if a bishop/branch president of a singles ward/branch has a returned sister missionary in his congregation, she must be given a significant position (I'm not saying this to prop myself up - I served as Relief Society president in my student ward a few years ago and when I was selecting my counselors and teachers, the bishopric strongly encouraged me to consider the sisters in the ward who had served missions).  It's not a matter of if I'm going to get a calling, it's when and what exactly I'm going to be.  I make it a point not to say what I would like to do, because you usually end up as something you really don't want to be.  That's how the Lord works, I've found out.  If you say you want something, He gives you something completely different to help you grow and learn.  So, I am just going to say that I'll go wherever the Lord wants me and it'll be great. ^_^

Maybe it just seems long, seeing as how I'm having to deal with this slowly loading DSL (curse you Directway!!)  Or yesterday seemed pretty long, what with all my white-trash relatives showing up for cow-branding season and Mom cussing all of them out because their white-trash dogs killed our kittens and they blamed our redneck-yet-well-behaved dogs (there is a vast difference between being white trash and simply being a redneck, which I will save for another post).

Anyway, my birthday was good.  Thanks to rosevixen and shellic for wishing me a happy birthday and for everyone else who e-mailed, called or posted on MySpace.  It good to know that I'm remembered and loved ^_^  We had cake and ice cream with the family and I got "Night at the Museum" (if you have not seen it, go out and buy it -- hilarious and classic!), The Wreckers "Stand Still, Look Pretty" and Miranda Lambert's "Crazy Ex-Girlfriend" CDs and an obscure movie called "Just Friends" that I have yet to watch.  I also got a bag of Cherry Cordial Hershey Kisses (yum!) and I got a couple of cards with money(!)

Then, the next day I went to BYU in Provo to watch my cousin play doubles in the State High School Tennis Championship.  He won his first match, but he lost his second.  The second was really exciting (for it being tennis, anyway).  He played the doubles team from Park City, and they have a professional tennis player for a coach.  The matches were two-out-of-three and they split the first two, so it pretty scary for Park City for a while (I thought one mom was going to have a heart attack or something).  They ended up losing, but it was fun.

Now, we were on BYU campus and there is something you have to know.  There are a lot of jokes about how ugly girls at BYU are and I just figured they were us Utah fans having our fun.  But there is some truth to those jokes.  I cannot count how many jiggly, fat-ass "I *heart* BYU" t-shirts went running by us when we were watching the tournament.  Kudos to them for getting out and exercising, but I don't know how much it's going to help them (try laying off the Diet Coke).  Then we went to Subway for lunch and there were a couple of butt-ugly BYU guys ordering foot-long chicken teriyaki sandwiches.  No wonder they never want to get out of their Utah County bubble - their looks scare normal people's babies and puppies.

Who else watched "The Simpsons" last night?  I'm not really a huge fan, but last night's featured Jack Bauer and Chloe O'Brian (Kiefer Sutherland and Mary Lynn Rajskub) in a "Counter Truancy Unit" parody of "24"  The best part ever was when they threw in the traditional-over-used-yet-never-old "Mole" plotline and they named the guy "Mole" (but he really had a noble reason for selling out -- those poor ants).  And who can forget "Jack, it's a joke name, you're being set-up" "Dammit!"  We laughed.  A lot.  I probably ought to become a bigger fan of "The Simpsons," but I only can have so many fandoms ^_^

Speaking of, tonight's the big night!  Explosions! Excitement! Gunshots! The ending of this somewhat dragging season!  The set-up of next season!  When are they finally going to dump this stupid Chinese plotline?  A&E had all five season finales on the other day and I was watching the season four finale where the Chinese initially showed their faces.  It's been a long time that Jack's had these losers on his tail.  I have no idea what is going to happen, so I am not going to make any predictions because I will inevitably been wrong (the "Audrey is teh alive!!" predictions notwithstanding).  I know very well what I would like to happen, but I have a tendency to "1940-ize" things and people find that annoying and unrealistic (basically, that means that I make a happy ending for everyone).  Well, pardon me for being optimistic and thinking that pessimism is a royal waste of my time. XP

My sister and I have been re-watching "Fushigi Yugi."  We've both already seen it, but not with each other and I'm finding the experience thoroughly enjoyable.  There's a lot more to laugh about when you watch it with other people, especially during those mushy "Miaka! Tamahome!" scenes (we just finished up the infamous Tamahome is Miaka's enemy plotline and I found plenty to laugh about -- of course she's going to worry about stuff again, it's in the job description of a shojo heroine)  Though, I have found a new line that pretty much sums up Miaka.  It's courtesy of JerrytheFrogProductions.com's (which, after this week with probably be defunct, so you'd better go check it out soon ;_;) parody of Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back: "Darth Vader: Luke, it's your destiny.  Luke: To constantly need help or to whine?"  It's not that I don't like Miaka as a hero, just some of the stuff she does and worries about is really, really funny.  And I really wish that she would learn how to defend herself.  At least Sailor Moon had that shiny tiara frisbee and that nifty pink wand that shot sparkly stuff at the bad guys (you can win ugly or win pretty, just so long as you win).

Now if they could just realize that the idiot with the creepy flute is NOT Chiriko!!  I take issue with that ^_^

Love from,
Jenny Wildcat