The Finale

Well the last few weeks have been full of late nights, studying, and finals. They went well though. Despite working as much as I did this semester and taking the load that I did, I got the best grades. Hard work does, indeed, pay off! However, I was very happy when my finals were over. Fall 2010 is in the books and now it's time for Winter 2011.

I had a work party this week too which was awesome. I got to meet a lot of people I work with over the phone but have never met. We had a spectacular prime rib dinner which was delicious. Anyways, a year end bonus, treats, and some gift cards aren't a bad way to celebrate. Our party was at This is the Place Monument in Salt Lake which was very festive.

I finally went out with Alizarin. We went to the Motab/David Archuleta concert. It was awesome. The only drawback was we waited in line for about an hour just to get turned away because they over issued tickets. We ended up watching it in the tabernacle which was still fun. We went with my aunt and uncle and had a delicious dinner at the Blue Lemon.

Well I will be spending this week working and working a lot. I can't wait to go home and see my family though. It will be great.

Learn for Life

This week has been one with a lot of ups a just a few downs. One thing that I know is I sure learned a lot. In this learning process I thought of "Math is Cool" that I used to compete in, and I thought that my title for this blog (Learn for Life) went along well with it. I know no one competes in such a thing like "Learn for Life," but it's still cool.

I worked a lot this week, took my last accounting midterm (of which I still don't have my score back yet), and went on my first date of the semester with Aqua. It was pretty fun. We rode trax up to the BYU game, ate at Applebee's and then went and looked at the lights on temple square. Riding trax was super fun. It took me back to the days on my mission in Bulgaria.

I'm so excited basketball season is here. I think it's the only thing that keeps me sane during the winter because I hate the cold weather and lack of sunshine. Duke had a few impressive wins this week against Michigan State and Butler and it looks to be another promising season. This is the last week of the semester and then it's finals.

Some of the things I learned this week:

-"Sometimes just because she likes all the dumb stuff you do, doesn't mean she's the one

idiot."

-How to use allmycousins.com and familysearch.org

-Some amazing capital budgeting tools

-Where all the money was hiding at work to the tune of 36K. Glad I found that mistake

-I love riding TRAX

-My new favorite word is kibitz

Be Thankful

I have so much to be thankful for this Thanksgiving holiday. Thanksgiving hasn't ever been the biggest holiday for me. For much of my time growing up I thought of "Thanksgiving" as the Thanksgiving paper. For those of you who don't know, that paper is usually the largest of the year. It is full of advertisements from every store, even the ones that don't exist. I remember dreading that day on the paper route. I remember my hands could barely corral the paper to fold it. It was ridiculous. How the times have changed. This Thanksgiving week was still associated with school and work however, but that's fine. I am grateful I have two jobs, a body that allows me to work, and a mind that allows me to learn. We were supposed to have this giant snow storm. It was so big they shut down campus, closed stores, and sent me home from work early. Tuesday evening (when the storm was supposed to hit) I spent time at the gym with my buddies watching the sun set. So much for the storm. We did manage to get about a skiff of snow and some really cold temperatures, but that's all folks. Also, I watched my team, Duke annihilate Kansas State, which was very enjoyable. Hopefully we'll win another National Championship this year.

I spent Thanksgiving sleeping in until 7:00 a.m. which isn't sleeping in to most, but for me it is. I had a nice Thanksgiving feast with relatives and Dub4e (my roomate) in the afternoon after completing my morning work and studies. After all the traditional festivities, this Thanksgiving turned into a bit of a Pranksgiving for us. Purivs, Dub4e, and I enjoyed many pranks to celebrate. We can't disclose all of them haha but they did include a new pick up line app for Android and a fake caller app as we played a lil dukes of hazard. It was a grand time nonetheless. We also had an intense Phase 10 game that never got finished because it was taking so long, but as always we topped it off with the hot tub and feeding the duckies. :-)

I finished my magazine article for my Mcomm class entitled "Common ¢ents." I will post it on here shortly. Purvis helped me out with the cover that legitimately looks like a "Forbes" cover. I made the rest of it in Publisher. This semester is winding down and I only have about 7 actual school days left before finals. It's crazy how time flies. I say good-bye to my Elders (kids) tomorrow. This group has been great. Elders Kariya, Loughran (lock daddy or azis), Larsen, Huish, and Gardner. It will be sad but I'm happy for them to finally get to go to Bulgaria, although, Huish and Gardner haven't got their visas yet so they may be staying a little longer.

I thought it would be most appropriate to finish off with a diddy about my gratitude.

I'm Thankful for the Little Things

I’m thankful for the little things

The not so necessarily big things

I’m thankful for the many things

that have blessed my life

I’m thankful for the trials

that have strengthened my heart

I’m thankful for the whispers of love

from my mom n dad that warm my heart

I'm thankful for my testimony

that never fails me in my understanding of this world

I'm thankful for the temple

that it's only a 3 min drive

I'm thankful for accounting

that it always challenges my mind

I'm thankful for my siblings

that are always there for me

I'm thankful for loving parents

that they are still together and love each other

I'm thankful for my able body

that all my limbs and mind are intact

I'm thankful for my mission

that I can reflect on everyday

I'm thankful for good books

that change my life and my perspective

I'm thankful for my work

that provides me a place to develop my skills and allows me to serve

I'm thankful for great friends

that love me and are there to laugh with me

I'm thankful for my heated seats

that keep my bum and back warm n happy at 6am

I'm thankful for my hands

that allow me play basketball, play the piano, and greet people

I'm thankful for my blue tooth

that allows me talk to my parents while I drive

I'm thankful for competition

that drives me to become better

I'm thankful for the little things

The not so necessarily big things

I'm thankful for the little things. . . and much much more!!

Ducky want water?

It may be a fairly dumb phrase, but it has provided so much entertainment as of late. As always, my roomies from the d.a.m.p. c.a.j.'s or in other words Dubois, Anstead, Mattinson, Purvis; Cole, Allen, Jace, Scott have consistently fed the duckies at the duck pond. They love us so much. We give them the good bread with fiber. :-) Last night was no different. All of us even had DTR's with our favorite ducks. It's official!

As an apartment we also decided since all of us are losing our lil bet with Frank (If none of us are engaged by June, we all owe him dinner; if one of us is, then he owes all of us dinner), we will be doing an apartment dating participation dealio next semester. More details to follow. It should be dandy.

It's Thanksgiving week and I wish I could go home and spend time with my family. I've missed my youngest sister growing up. Every time I go home, she's a different girl. I miss watching my brother play basketball and wish I were there to help him be better than I was, but that's life as an adult. I'm just grateful for eternal families and that this is just a small amount of time I have to be away from them. I used to think I couldn't wait for my brother to stop wearing my clothes, but now I would let him wear everything I had if I could live with him again. I'm glad I'm not so selfish anymore.

This is also the last week with my group of missionaries. They have been a great group and it will be fun for them to finally get to Bulgaria, but it's always hard saying good-bye to a group. This week I also did some sealings for some Bulgarian names. That was a really neat experience especially because the sealings were just a few generations back in a member's family that I know.

I have been a lil worried about my Mcom class and always will until it's over even though I love it. This week I had a lil worry slip when my teacher handed back my memo and said it was the best one she had ever seen and would like to use it for future classes. I was super excited and even got a bonus point for it.

We discovered text bombing this week and it has been one of the most entertaining things I've ever done. Basically we send up to 2000 texts to a person every 1-30 seconds. It's very entertaining. If you have a smart phone you should try it.

Last but not least we started our apartment blog. It's the dampcajs.blogspot.com. :-)

Out of retirement!

O tay. My sisters blog inspired "Ace of Jace" to come out of a year long retirement. As much as I'd like to post on here frequently, neither can I promise anything nor can I promise that the content will inspire, uplift, or entertain. However, I'll do my best haha. Well one post won't fill in the last year or even the last week but here goes an attempt. This year was consisted of:

-Changing my major to Accounting

-Going to New York with the Family (Wall Street, Walking out of Jersey Boys, Church

history sites, mercury car rental, watching my sisters shop, Tiffany's were all some of the

highlights)

-Getting an Accounting job in Salt Lake

-Getting a Bulgarian teaching job at the MTC

-Playing a lot of basketball

-Biking

-Spending time at the lake

-Restoring my love for the piano

-Reading

-Purchasing my first car a 1998 Subaru Outback (I named her Lily the Lil Cucumber)

-Watching my favorite team Duke with the National Championship

-And many other things

As I sit and contemplate life sometimes I wonder where things are headed. I've decided no matter what I love accounting and I'm going to major in it. Even if I don't get into the accounting program at BYU I will transfer. My lifelong professional goals include that of being a serial-preneur among other things. To achieve that I've decided an accounting degree would be the best route to go to help me achieve that and it just so happens that I love it. I'm not dating anyone and haven't really dated anyone since I've been home from my mission. This is always a weird subject full of emotions in every direction possible. At times I think to myself that who cares why do I need a girl anyways? I have my family, friends, sports, accounting, business, and the piano but then what good does it do for me to have a bunch of money, talents, a job or two, a degree, and no one to share it with. So who knows. I suppose things will work out how they are supposed to. Getting screwed over, rather canceled on 6 times in a semester, is not the ideal way to get to the gold in the end but if that's what it takes o well. Therefore, I have yet to go on an official date this semester. In a positive light, from a financial standpoint at least I didn't have to spend money on someone else's wife to find out what kind of girl she really was haha. My roomies are in similar situations so we joke that it's time to adopt a boy and Uncle Purvis can teach him chemistry and football, Uncle Dubois can teach him mathematics and video games/tennis, Uncle Anstead can teach him anatomy and soccer, and Uncle Mattinson can teach him business and basketball. He'll be the best well rounded kid ever. Wishes, wishes, wishes.

Our weekly dates with each other are probably the most fun things I've ever done. We go to Cafe Rio and mess with people on a consistent basis. That's really fun. That has become a tradition. Recently we fed the duckies together, "Ducky want water?" Let the good times roll. Getting into random cars, (accidentally) Bulgar driving, listening to Taylor and Carrie, studying, watching and playing football, hitting the gym, and crashing parties are all part of the good times. We hate our living arrangements at King Henry rather Slave Henry and we will never live here again. Over-pricing, over-promising, and under-delivering are all some of the superb qualities Slave Henry possesses. However, the good ol days at the Henry will never be forgotten.