My Bachelor's Degree

A most embarassing fact about me: I started college in 1998. I have been a full time student most of the time since then, taking only a few semester's off. I am still technically working on my Bacchelor's Degree.
I majored in Elementary Education (for a brief time dual majored with Special Ed) at Utah State University for 3 year, then for 2 1/2 years at BYU. I felt inspired to get my Associate of Nursing, Registered Nurse when Brent and I decided to get married in 2005, and finished that degree at the end of 2007.
I like school, and don't regret any of my educational opportunities and experiences. I love nursing much more than I expected I would, and I find it a rewarding career, spiritually, relationally and financially. I work at a high school/ residential treatment center, and have many opportunities for teaching and mentoring through my work.

Still, since my days at USU, I have always been interested in national educational policies, and educational philosophies-- specifically figuring out and applying educational ideas that actually work. With this interest in mind, and inspired by my hero in the educational community and mentor at BYU, Buddy Richards, I am considering a new graduate program through BYU in Educational Reasearch, Measurement and Evaluation. You can't apply to a graduate program unless you have a Bachelor's Degree.

After evaluating a number of options, I felt that the BYU Bachelor of General Studies Program would provide the flexibility I needed to complete my Bachelor's degree with a Psychology Emphasis. That is what I'm working on now. I finished my first couple of classes in a couple of months. But, then I dove into statistics. OUCH!! I knew that statistics online would be hard, but I still got bogged down in some issues, not the least of which was the professor's refusal to give any feedback or help me to understand what I did wrong on the second exam....

Anyway, I am now, after about 3 months, finally about to take the final exam and finish the course. I only have 4 more classes after this to graduate. I had planned on April, but I'm now aiming for August.

I don't know exactly what is next for me in my education after I finish this degree. I feel that I'll have a lot of options. I definitely see a lot of potential with my current employer, provided Brent's career options after graduation keep us in Utah. They have been more than good to me, and I feel like I can make a difference there.

Of course, we don't know how starting our family will impact our future. Certainly our goal is for us to be the full time parents of our children. Due to Brent's encouragement, I'm no longer convinced that that will mean that one of us doesn't make outside of the home contributions to the world, but certainly it will mean that our family will be our first priority and that we will raise our kids-- not daycare or someone else.*

So, hopefully in August, you will all be seeing graduation pictures for me and for Brent! Yipeee!!!!

* This is not meant to offend anyone, but to express our own commitment to a personal value-- what it means to us to be parents. To us it is a complete commitment, and obligation that cannot be passed on to anyone else.

TV 2: Shows

Last post I blogged about TV sets. Least any of you are worried that Nicole and I are falling too far behind the popular culture trend and therefore won't invite us over for pizza and a movie, I want to emphasize that we do watch TV shows and movies. We just don't watch them on TV. And, perhaps more to the point, we never sit in front of a TV set and click through the channels to see if there's something on.* All our TV show watching is pre-planned.** There are several shows that we enjoy and might even recommend, and in that spirit, I present



Our Top Ten TV shows***:

Monk: One of the shows we watched when we were dating. It's on USA network, Fridays at 9 but we just watch the DVDs. It is also avaiable at http://hulu.com/ which is a great service all around. We've got most of the rest of my family hooked on this one, it's a keeper. The show will start its 8th and final season this summer, (the title character likes things to be even).
>Premise: Monk is a former homicide dective whose OCD and multiple phobic personality symtoms increased to the point of incapacitation after his wife's death. Somewhat recovered he now serves as an "eccentric" consultant to the San Fransico police as he tries to find his wife's killer and hopefully become re-instated as a cop.
>Genre: Police procedural/Comedy
>Family Friendliness: Very Family Friendly. Monk is extremely straight-laced (although ostensibly because of mental health issues not morality). He doesn't smoke or drink or look at naked people (he even puts his hand in front of his face if someone's immodestly dressed). Each show, however, begins with a murder, and that can be a little violent and gory (although it's usually not too bad). For a show about murderers it's surprisingly light and amusing. Occasional "mild" profanity (the ones in the Bible somewhere). Occasional "adult" themes (i.e. ADULTery and murder often go together).

Psych: The show Psych is like the younger, hipper, funnier version of Monk, without the mental health issues. It is quickly becoming close to my complete favorite show. It's on the hour after Monk on USA. Again, we have the DVDs and it's on Hulu. They have just finished their third season and will return for a fourth this summer.
>Premise: Shawn Spencer is a skilled slacker who was trained by his police father to be a crack detective, but rebelled and became a bit of a goof-off. He made up a story about being a psychic when the cops wouldn't believe that he could call in a case-solving tip without being an inside man in the crime. Since then he and his best friend Gus opened up a private [fake] psychic detective agency. Humor ensues
>Genre: Comedy/Buddy Show/Police Procedural
>Family Friendliness: No quite as clean as Monk in that Sean is more than comfortable with flirting innuendo, however, they don't always show the murder so it can be less violent.

Burn Notice: Renewed for a 3rd season starting this summer, this is also a USA original series, airing on Thurdays nights, and again on Hulu. I'm impressed at USA coming out with so many good series, but their last effort "In Plain Sight" restored my usual low expectations for the network.
>Premise: Michael Weston was a spy who got fired ("burned"). Now he's restricted to Miami and uses his special skill set to help out people in desperate need as he tries to unravel the mystery of why he was burned, what a clandestine group wants with him, and who are the people trying to kill him. He's aided by his "ex"-girlfriend, Fiona, and old special ops buddy, Sam.
>Genre: Mostly Action with a little bit of wry, tongue-in-cheek humor, buddiness and romace
>Family Friendliness: Very little sex (just two off-scene implications across two seasons) although Fiona dresses, as Nicole put it "very skankily," and there are regular "establishing shots" of Miami bikinis. There is abundant action violence: explosions, fisty-cuffs, high-speed car chases and guns. There is not much strong language, although there is one in the title sequence. I wouldn't recommend it for children, but I certainly enjoy it. It's great to run to because of the high-adrenaline action and entertaining humor.

Lie To Me*<-This * is not a footnote, it's part of the shows title): This is a brand-new show from FOX that irregularly shows on Wednesdays. We were unsure at first, but both Nicole and I both really enjoy it. It too is on Hulu. >Premise: Dr. Cal Lightman is a psychologist who studies micro-expressions and lying. He and his team/company serve in D.C. as consultants to various agencies typically in criminal investigations.
>Genre: Psychological Fiction/Police Procedural/Subdued Comedy
>Family Friendliness: As a broadcast show, it meets certain standards, but the situations are regularly more "adult," again lying and Adultery seem to go together a lot. There's only been 4 episodes so far, so we'll see.

Eureka: We discovered this on Hulu. It's an original show from the Sci-fi channel. I don't know it's broadcasting info, but it's going strong in its third season.
>Premise: U.S. Marshal Jack Carter gets transfered to be the sheriff of small-town-with-a-secret, Eureka, supported by the DoD.. Eureka is a town of geniuses too smart for their own good. Jack, while still not understanding nuclear physics, is intuitively gifted and frequently has to reign in an experiment or experimentor gone awry.
>Genre: Fun and light Sci-fi/some drama
>Family Friendliness: Extremely family friendly.

NCIS: Highly popular show in its 6th season on CBS. Broadcasts on Tuesday nights. Not on Hulu, although Hulu links to CBS's website which shows recent episodes. It was recommended to me by a friend, although I can't remember who. I have the first three seasons on DVD, but I usually just watch it online now.
>Premise: NCIS is a show about the agency of the same name. It focuses on a team of investigators including a forensics expert, computer hacker, M.E., and others.
>Genre: Police Procedural/Ensamble drama
>Family Friendliness: While it is a broadcast show and therefore avoids language and nudity, it's about murderers and contains adult themes. Nicole is mostly turned off by occasional excessive gore, including autopsies.

Chuck: I saw the second season premire on a free Amazon.com unbox preview and fell in love with it. I bought the first season on DVD and enjoyed it and have stridently avoided watching on Hulu, so I can enjoy the second season DVDs (it's good enough to own). It aires on NBC on Mondays, I believe
>Premise: Chuck Bartowski, is a nerd working computer support at a "Best Buy" type store when his old college buddy (who became a spy) emails him all of the government's secrects embedded in images (non-conscious). Now lots of people (including our government) are interested in Chuck. He is assigned a NSA and CIA agent to keep an eye on him and to respond to threats when he "flashes" on some bad guy (when the info in his head reconizes something). He maintains his old life as a cover identity. His best-friend and worst-nerd Morgan doesn't know his secret, and neither does his sister, with whom Chuck lives. Sister's fiancee also lives with them and is called Captain Awesome by Chuck.
> Genre: Action Comedy
>Family Friendliness: The show's hilarious and on a broadcast station, but it's a bit more adult themed. There are frequent plays on "femme fatale" stereotypes and frequent innuendo. Not recommended for children.


Honourable Mentions (Things we have DVDs of, but are not actual TV shows - they're from the 80's):

He-Man and She-Ra: 'nuff said

Remington Steele: We enjoy detective shows, and I like Pierce Brosnan, largely because he's Irish. It's a fun show and also interesting as a snap shot of 80's gender roles. If I teach psychology of gender this summer, we'll have to watch a clip or two of it.

Wow, even with the honorable mentions, we still don't have ten...*** maybe I should have added The Adventures of Brisco County Jr. A Cowboy/Comedy/Action/Buddy/Romance/Sci-fi show from the mid nineties that started Bruce Campbell, who now plays Sam on Burn Notice. It was only one season, but it was a good long one. We did watch Heroes for the first season, but couldn't really get into it after. We also will occasional laugh at The Office, but it's not something with watch with any regularity.

*Unless we're at a hotel on vacation at which point Nicole tells me to just pick one channel or turn it off ;)

**This is a really good thing because Nicole has a hard time noticing anything else while visual media is on. Even if she hates the show and is bored to tears.

***I doubt there'll be ten, but nobody wants to read the top 8 of something.

TV 1: TV sets

We don't have a TV set* or at least we've never bought one unless you count the VCR that came with a built in TV screen that we picked up at the thrift store for 5 bucks. The thing is, if you don't have one, people pity you and give you free old sets (see footnote - none of them are plugged in). I remember working in the slums of Dublin. The towers of Ballymun were housing projects that were established in the 70's to temporarily answer a housing crisis (not enough houses) several 13-storied towers were assembled from pre-constructed concrete apartments like Lego building blocks. They were only meant to last 7 years. There were still up when I was there in 2002.** They were decrepit, dirty, smelly and one of the most unpleasant places I've ever visited. Graffiti, broken glass and garbage were the general decor on the grounds and in the halls. We would take the stairs to avoid the urine-stench of the sometimes working elevators. Anyway, the point was, even in this area, the poorest I've ever lived or worked in, it was not uncommon to see several satellite TV dishes on the sides of the towers. I don't understand that.

Growing up we didn't have cable (although we sometimes watched it at my grandmother's and aunt's houses. We certainly didn't have satellite, and we didn't even watch our broadcast stations very much (occasionally Jeopardy and "family shows" like "Doogie Howser, M.D."). Because of the Utah mountains, we don't get any broadcast stations (and we don't have one of those switch it to digital boxes anyway). We don't feel deprived without cable and aren't envious of my Dad's 1000 satellite stations. We do use our laptops to watch DVDs and the internet to keep up with our favorites shows (like Monk and Psych) but more on that next post.

*not true, we have three in the basement
**Thankfully they have finally since been demolished
After that sad story about Ballymun, enjoy this more inspiring story about poverty.

Mormons Taking Over Youtube?

In a surprisingly great idea, short inspirational and powerfully touching videos are on youtube!

http://www.youtube.com/MormonMessages

Enjoy.

Sick Days

I've been sick the past few days. I could feel it comming on Wednesday Night but it really hit Friday, leading me to cancel one of my meetings (it probably didn't help much that I went to our Waterpolo game at 9 pm Thursday night, but it was worth it, (even if we lost)).

Besides feeling physically unconfortable, congested, dizzy when I stood up, feverish and so forth, I've really enjoyed being confined to my bed the last few days. I've got so much done (caught up on a bunch of reading, worked on some writing projects, made this blog entry). The best part is taking a break from running and STILL loosing weight.

I don't think I want to do this every week, but it's certainly been helpful now!