BANFF mountain film festival

Hey all you northern utahers....Banff is here! for those you not in the know about Banff, it is a world famous mountain film festival....so if you LOVE the mountains (skiing, boarding, climbing, hiking, mountain biking, or just looking at them) these are amatuer films dedicated to them. They really range from pure adrenaline pumping to taking a look at lost mountain cultures....

I have been a banff follower for years, and it only gets better as the years go by. It is going on two nights (feb19,20th) at kingsbury hall. Each night has a small collection of films, and it is always adrenaline packed. tickets are 10$ and you can buy them at the box office.

if you love the outdoors, you don't want to miss it.. here is a link to the trailer....the music gets my heart rate going! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4gV6ThtY25Q

Here is a link to the official site: http://www.banffcentre.ca/mountainculture/festivals/2007/

Book Review

So i just realized how much I LOVE throwing my opinions at people. The nice thing about the blog is, you can take them or leave them. I feel for my poor co-workers who have to hear me rant daily. So i am going to start reviewing the books that appear on the side bar of my lowly blog......and if you are a bookie like I am, then you will appreciate it. If not, skip it and go to a blog with more pictures on it!

this review you get a good book and a not so good book(or more like a book i wasted hours of my life reading).

Good book:

Many of you know this book as a play, or THE play of the moment. I have not seen the play, but may I say the book is fabulous. I have a hard time believing the play is better (probably cuz i am a bookie and the book is almost ALWAYS better in bookie world) but i look forward to seeing if it is comparable. This book is dark, hilarious, sad and insightful. I related, pitied, rooted for and against the main character all in a matter of chapters. The author is no literary novice like most best sellers around nowadays, and actually uses beautiful prose and vocabulary. (unlike people who write literary crap a.k.a.-thrillers, da vinci code, anything by steven king....dont get me wrong, those are fun, but HELLO have you ever heard of allusion, alliteration, metaphors?)

It is an easy read as it flows nicely, but it is riddled with large words and long dialogue(nice to learn while you read for a change). The book does something that I rant about all the time....shows the other side of the story. We get so caught up in our "right" deeming that everyone else is "wrong". Wicked beats that theory into the ground. I believe that to be a very important theme especially in today's society and in light of our present state as a nation (sorry, couldnt get away from a political jab....)

Not so good book:

I am going to get a lot of protests to this I am sure, but thankfully, not many people read this blog so i may get very few protests, but hear me out on why i did not like this book.

First of all if you are writing a book that is supposedly about the power of one life and the amazing thing that one person can do, isnt it just a little bit more convincing if it is a true story??! because i am pretty sure i could write an amazing story about a guy that sprouted wings, flew around the world and saved all the poor people and that would just be incredibly inspirational and all....except that it never happened! The power of one is a fanciful story about a kid that could have existed and possibly could have done amazing things IF a million things fell right into place for him, but frankly, it is fictional and none of things ever happened.

Point two, relating to my first point. If you insist on writing a story that is fictional about someone overcoming the odds and rising above his enemies to become a better person, what worse way to end it by making him stoop to his enemy's level and instead of rising above revenge, reep it instead in a really pointless stupid way?? I mean HONESTLY, what is that teaching kids "kids, go out and become a better person than your bully so that one day you can beat him up in the school yard and carve your intials into his head." NICE....really nice, that is what I want my 13 year old boy to read into so that he can get into fights with all the kids at school. fantastic ending....really

and finally, if you are claiming that your book is about social inequality, you greatly dissapointed a lot of readers who were interested in social inequality in africa, because frankly....i dont even remember social inequality being a big theme, yet if you read the back of the book, apparently that is all this one is about. Maybe someone gutted my book, ripped out all the pages, and stuck in a different one in its place....

on a good note, it was a very easy read....and it made me want to go back to grade school and beat up my bully.....wait, no....let's just stick to easy read.

Closet blogger!

For those of you who keep asking for pics, I am sorry! My computer is down and i would use Mike's but......i am a closet blogger! phew, it feels good to get that out into the open. It's not that I am ashamed...but as Mike puts it, whenever I am reading blogs "shouldnt you be reading text books?". Yes, i should be reading text books, right this very second I could be learning about the excitement of electron sharing in phenol rings (OH JOY), but instead I am wasting away, reading and creating blogs.

So there you have it, I am lieing to the man I love....daily, about my blogging habit. If he weren't working 12 hours a day to get his PhD, i might just come out and reveal my love of the blog-but i just can't quite muster up the courage.

And so dear friends, it will be a bit of time until i have some real up to date photos.


oh yeah, and if you happen to run into mike and I, i'd appreciate if we could keep this little secret just between us!

How you know your guy is prettier than you are......

....When every gay man you meet asks if he is single!!!



NO JOKE!!! my boy is so pretty that gay man don't care if he is straight, single, taken, married...they are determined to win him over!

Examples to support:

Mike and I go to vegas and wait for hours to get into club tao...which was way crowded and overpriced....but hey, you got to have that vegas experience I guess. While we were obviously very involved with each other dancing, A HUGE guy reaches into mike's pockets.....Thinking we are getting robbed, we both freeze!! Nope, this guy just wanted to let mike know that he was definitely digging him by reaching into his pants!!!!! ok, just to get things straight, if it were a chick, I sure as hell would defend my turf....but this guy was a monster!!! he grinned at me, waved his hand and skipped off!!!

This is the most extreme example of the men and women i have to fight off to keep my boy.....but this is exhausting, I have never had to fight with both sexes!!! I should have picked up an UGO, at least then I wont have to worry about EVERYONE hitting on him.

Something upbeat (that's a surprise!)

My posts tend to be so sad or unhappy, which is not how i view my life. I guess i think a lot about things like this and how we ought to be out there trying to change them. So today, as a relief to the few that read this....I am going to write an upbeat blog!

I had a GREAT birthday and thanksgiving. My niece is such a doll....and my nephew is hilarious as well. I spent my weekend playing with them mostly. I also got a sick deal on a soft shell mt hardware coat and a kelty backpack! for those of you outdoorsy girls, head to outdoor outlet in San Jorge (for those of you who dont know, that is St. George in spanish)...you cannot beat those prices! I always get excited about new packs, in fact whenever I see those baby packs it makes me want to have a kid so i can justify purchasing one! haha, that is pretty sad and a little weird I know, but those kelty baby packs are SO cool.

My birthday was perfect. there really wasn't much that i wanted, so mike got me a day at the spa at snowbird (i have NEVER had a spa day but i am huge sucker for massages so i am stoked!). He also planned a surprise party for me later that night. The next day as a gift to myself I went down to the climbing gym and signed up for a membership (well OK, i actually just debated signing up for a membership because it is a year commitment.....but after my awesome climb i decided to just muscle down and pay the money.....which i will do when i return to the climbing gym).

this weekend is my first time with the rape crisis line....I am SO nervous. Although last night while i was watching "the waitress" (GREAT FILM!!!) with Mike he told me of his sister's friend who had just been raped....and i totally snapped into action and gave him a bunch of advice for his sister and phone numbers etc....Something inside me knew exactly what to do. So i am feeling a bit more prepared than i was before...we will see.

Next bit of news, i got a new job which i start on monday!! it is a job with a pediatric research network mainly doing clinical research. I am pretty excited about it. It will be hard to leave my old job and try something completely different...but it will be great for med school apps and it is about time for a change.

And finally, Mike and I are heading to sunny mexico in a week!! We take off in LA and head down to Aculpulco. We have three more stops along the coast. I am so excited I can't stand it. I have never been to mexico or on a cruise so it will be pretty sweet. Hopefully I will take some real photos and maybe you will get a post with something interesting! hope everyone else's holidays are as lovely as mine have been!

Erasing Stigmas

Just this past week I have started my training to be a rape recovery center volunteer. It is really interesting when i tell people this; I get many mixed reactions. A lot of people become extremely uncomfortable about the subject and would rather I not elaborate on the things they are teaching me in my forty hour training. Now before i go any further, let me just add this is not an X rated post, it will be PG at best. I find reactions to rape amusing because one of the number one issues at the center is the number of unreported and untreated cases. These are mainly due to the fact that the VICTIM feels ashamed.....the VICTIM!!! Because of the way we tiptoe around the topic or ask questions like: Why weren't you with anyone? Why didn't you fight? Why did you go there? Victims almost always feel like this rape (a crime that NO ONE has the right to commit) was their fault. Society paints this picture like they could have avoided being raped if they really wanted to.

This led me to another thought: The way we blame victims, and how it keeps people from getting the help they really need. About two years ago I had a pretty bad break up. For a few days i would just sit on my couch and watch tv. This is a pretty normal reaction I think, but my few days turned into weeks...and then a month. I had long stopped thinking about the guy, yet I couldn't stop crying-the worst part was, I didn't even know why I was crying. I would wake up around seven, go for a run, lie on my couch and cry until work (which started at 4p.m.) Now those of you who know me, know just how weird this was for me. I am never sad! I always have a good outlook on life. I have so much to be thankful for...more than SO many other people. I tried and tried to get off that couch, and finally a good friend got me into a clinic. They quickly diagnosed me with depression.

It is funny how negative that word is. It immediately makes people think of unstableness, suicide, of how the person ought to "just get over it". Whats even more amazing is that people will often skirt around it too and suggest things like "maybe you should get a hobby" "pray more" "you have nothing to be sad about" instead of things like "do you need help?" "do you need to talk about how you feel?" "do you think you may have depression?".......the funny thing about it is, most patients know they have depression....most of them start crying the minute the doctor says it, chances are however, they never wanted to admit it out loud. I was one of those people, I was a diabetic who was going to be a doc and ran marathons and played lacrosse and I was strong enough to get past this.....but i was wrong, I wasn't strong enough, my body had created this chemical imbalance....no strength would change it.

Along with rape, depression is something we as a society blame on the victim. We think they are being irrational and that it is a pretend ailment....hell, I even thought it was a pretend ailment until i physically could not stop my sorrow. I hope that one day victims of things like rape and depression will no longer feel the shame of society, and society will erase the stigmas that keep people from getting help. I can safely say that I wont keep my mouth shut until this happens.

Halloween

Let me tell you all (the few and far between readers i have out there) what I did for halloween! i holed up in my tiny apartment and studied! my boyfriend worked all night....we keep telling ourselves it will pay off eventually, although it is hard to see where the pay off is at this time...oh well, i could always try and get a sugah daddy if i ever get too depressed about being a poor student dating an even poorer grad student. So, in order to save my relationship I have taken up living vicariously through the rest of you and your blogs.

So now that halloween is come and gone, it is on to my favorite holiday....THANKSGIVING! my birthday sometimes falls on thanksgiving and frankly, i don't know what could be better than running in st. george weather, eating an awesome meal, opening presents and taking a nap....i am stoked! My favorite part of thanksgiving is the fact that regardless of my multiple allergies (i am celiac: i.e. no wheat, barley,rye, and all things good) my mom cooks me the best pumpkin pie ever!

Finally, so as not to dismiss halloween altogether...here is my neice all decked out.....She is a doll, and a hoot. I get to hang with her at thanksgiving as well, which is a definite bonus