holy crap!

after a great weekend up in boise we returned home late to find a bag of mail attached to our stair railing. chris imediately saw there was no large envelope so he passed the mail bag by and left it to me to go through. i found a small envelope from the university of utah. we both looked at each other and knew that the inevitable had finally come. we were either wait-listed or rejected completely...freezing wisconsin here we come. {we've both been gearing everything to that and getting excited for milwuakee since that's where we were happy to be headed} chris opened up the envelope and started to read. i wasn't really reading the letter, just scanning for the words "i'm sorry" or "wait-list" but instead it read "i am delighted to offer you a position in the august 2008 freshman class of the university of utah school of medicine." chris's face lit up and his eyes were huge. i was so shocked i couldn't even believe it. we looked at each other...both of us in unbelief. i can't believe that after all the waiting, all the anxiety, all the work that it was finally over. i cannot even begin to express how proud i am of chris. for three years he has worked, studied and fretted over his application, test, interview. the U takes 8 applicants from idaho each year--8. for him to be a white male from BYU of all places. i have been rooting for the U from the minute he got an interview there even after chris assured and reassured me that there was no way he was getting in there {the chances were just too slim} and we have been waiting since october to hear that we were accepted. we are very blessed {and relieved} to be able to stay in an area that's close to family and are vey happy to be going to medical school. i am so lucky to be married to such a wonderful guy who establishes goals for himself and sets out to accomplish them. i know i've said this a million times but we are so very appreciative of all the prayers and support that have come in our behalf. we know that without the encouragement and help of those around us we would not be as blessed as we are.

ridiculous t.a. strikes again

a few weeks ago i wrote about our mountain biking t.a. well apparently {and i should've known better} he has more tricks up his little biking sleeves. for the class we are required to write a 3-4 page paper on some aspect of biking/mountain biking that has significant meaning to the sport. the week before the paper was due, he sent a mass email to the class explaining the criteria. so, just as i've completed every other paper while at byu, i waited until the night before to really get serious. i chose to write about the Tour de France. i thought my paper turned out pretty good {nothing too terrible} plus i learned a lot. the papers were due yesterday at 4. this morning chris and i found another mass email in our inboxes from mountain biking t.a.. i've copied it below it for reading pleasure:

Riders-
I have begun posting grades on the mountain biking reports to Blackboard.
While many of you may be frustrated as to why a mountain biking class would be so demanding in a paper, practicing good writing skills never hurt anyone.
Because this is an "easy" class, I am allowing a single paper re-submission before the beginning of class (4pm) next week on 1 April, 2008. Please carefully follow the instructions I've given below for your re-submission.
1) Pick up your graded paper copy at Outdoors Unlimited. When you go to pick it up, ask any employee up front to grab your paper. You will need to tell them that it is in the rental forms file under your last name.
If Blackboard does not have a grade for your paper, it's not ready to pick up.
2) Review your paper + the grading rubric and see what you missed and why. The idea of the rubric is to help me objectively assign a score to your paper, and to also give you objective feedback on your paper.
3) Ask me any questions you may have. If after looking at your scored paper you still feel my comments are unfair/unreasonable, I ask that you make me aware of your concerns. I am always available by e-mail and SMS, my mobile number is 435.668.7524.
If you prefer, I'm happy to make arrangements for a face to face meeting to provide even more feedback. Let me know when you'd like to meet.
4) Re-write your paper. The closer you pay attention to the feedback I've given you, the better score you'll get on the paper.
5) Re-submit your paper. You will need to turn in a hard copy of your new paper along with the graded copy of your old paper at the beginning of class next Thursday.
6) Adjustments to grades will be made. A resubmission will only help your grade, not hurt it.
Hope this helps,
-m

at this point i was worried, but seriously, how bad could it be? so chris and i checked our grades. chris got a 56 and i got a 42...out of 100. yeah. terrible right? so i'm trying to decide if it's really worth it to redo the thing. but how pathetic would it be to not get an A in a mountain biking class...but how even more pathetic is it that a mountain biking t.a. gives out 42/100 on a paper? i'm counting down the days till it's over already buddy and you're not helping matters at all.

long hours

poor chris has had a really hard week. he had to work the 3:30 am shift everyday this past week. saturday morning he got to sleep in until 5. he's also been on call all week and was called in saturday evening for an hour and then was called in again at 2:30 this morning. and he's been there all day. it's now 5 pm and chris is still at the hospital and not sure when he'll be home. apparently lots of people decided that this weekend would be a good one to need emergency heart surgery. i'm starting to wonder if if this even touches what we have to look forward to in medical school.

rex lee run

i signed up for the rex lee run last night. it's a 10k {6.2 miles} that benefits cancer research at byu. rex lee was a previous president of byu who died of cancer. every year i've been at byu i have wanted to run it and every year i'm too late. so this year when i saw a guy on the street holding up a sign advertising the run, i signed up. hopefully it's enjoyable, and hopefully maren decides to run it with me. any other takers? it's $20 and starts at 9:00 am this saturday.

nerves

by the end of next week, chris and i will know where we will ultimately spend the next 4 years of our lives. i seriously never thought the waiting game would end, and here it is, on the horizon--literally. whether we end up moving to milwaukee, moscow, or salt lake, i know i will be thrilled, but i'm starting to get very nervous about the two letters that are upcoming here in the next few days. every time i get home and i know the mail is still in the mail box i get a terrible case of the butterflies. everyone familiar to the acceptance game knows that big envelope=good, little envelope=bad, so every day i open the mail box and see no big size envelope i get really scared. chris tells me i'm getting my hopes up for no good reason. maybe that's true. i know that if we end up in milwaukee that's where we are supposed to be. but that definitely doesn't stop me from wanting to stay here. and it definitely doesn't stop me from laying in bed awake all night wondering what's gonna happen and being nervous for something i have absolutely no control over. i'm hoping for a big envelope with a big red U on the front, chris on the other hand says he is happy no matter what, but we all know what he wants to see--UW. so here's to a few more days of that agonizing waiting game...and don't worry people, we'll let you know when we know.

canyonlands half

well it's over....FINALLY. i've never finished a race where i was so happy it was over. the morning of the race was brisk {VERY FREAKIN COLD!} and i was not feeling ready or even excited like i usually do. but we got up to the starting line about an hour before the race and so my dad and i stood in potty lines for most of the wait--thank goodness for those portapotties! the first three miles i was feeling great. our splits for the first three were around 8:20 and i was thinking i was in for a fantastic morning. but then my left leg started killing just above my ankle in the back {think calcaneal tendon all you anatomy buffs} i just kept going, even though every step felt like my foot was gonna just rip off from the rest of my leg. my dad was feeling great and doing great, so i told him to go on without me. i slowed up a bit and around mile 6 i started getting bad stomach cramps, i felt like i was gonna puke my guts out any minute. i wanted to stop so bad but i just kept truckin along waiting for each mile marker to come. around mile 10 there was a hill i had forgotten about. i turned the corner and saw a really steep upgrade and swore out loud {yikes!}. when i finally turned the corner to the home stretch i started picking up my pace. my goal of 1:45.00 was long out of reach so i thought as long as i finished under 2 hours i would be good. people were lining both sides of the finish shoot and i was sprinting as fast as my legs could take me. when i crossed the finish line right at 2:00.00 my eyes went blurry {apparently this happens to lots of people} and i was dry heaving looking for the nearest trash can. a race volunteer handed me a biohazard bag to puke in--to no avail. by the time i found chris among the hords of fans, i was bawling like a baby. definitely not my best race experience. hopefully i can get my stuff together for the salt lake city half...we'll see.

ps. my dad finished @ 1:53.00 great job dad!

ridiculus

chris and i registered for a mountain biking class and since it's only a block class {meaning it lasts half the semester} we met for the first time on tuesday. we didn't ride but we went over the syllabus and the course schedule. each week we will ride for 2 1/2 hours in class and then outside of class as a "lab" we need a 1 1/2 hour ride and then do a write up on it. our professor mentioned that in some situations it would be ok to go jogging or ride on the road. since i'm running in the moab half marathon this weekend {i know, i know people are probably really getting sick of hearing about this} i figured that that could surely count for my lab ride since i've been focusing all my exercise efforts to running this week. that and my legs probably couldn't do 1 1/2 hours on a bike after running almost 2 hours. so i emailed the TA {who is a notable 3 dollar bill if i do say so myself} asking him if i could just substitute my run for the ride. he responds with "i would prefer that you ride"...ok how ridiculus is that. so apparently i have to get my happy {and probably sore} can out either saturday, sunday or monday and ride for and hour and a half. maybe i'm whining but i really thought this TA {who is most likely on a power trip} has no understanding of anything outside mountain biking.

good read

"i ran. a grown man running with a swarm of screaming children. but i didn't care. i ran with the wind blowing in my face, and a smile as wide as the valley of panjsher on my lips. i ran."
-khaled hosseini, kite runner
i finished an excellent book today. it had been on my book list since early june of last year. when it finally came available at the library, i was in a midst of tough fall classes and the twilight series. i turned down the hold at the library and needless to say, i forgot about kite runner. mike and maren began raving about this book one day and it sparked my memory, i knew i'd heard of the book before and it really piqued my interest again. i picked up a copy a couple weeks ago and have been reading it at a somewhat leisurely pace considering how i usually read books. i've come to sort of enjoy reading in bed before i go to sleep {i'm getting old i know this!} but i was always only getting in a few pages here and there. but finally, today i finished. i highly recommend this one. it's a little depressing but a very beautifully written and inspiring story about an afghani boy and his search for redemption.