The Wonderful U S A!

Well, it's coming around to the 4th of July once again, and I have to say I'm grateful to live in the US! It really is a land of opportunity with the chance to complete your dreams. I'm not saying the US is perfect, or that our government always makes the right decisions, but I think overall it's a pretty great place to live.

I'm so appreciative of our Founding Fathers. What vision they must have had to create the government we enjoy today. Not many governments could have lasted this long, largely unchanged! It truly is amazing. I'm excited for the 4th of July, to celebrate our nation and its founding. I just hope everyone remembers why this holiday exists and why it's so important. There were a lot of men and women who have put their lives on the line to build this country (and many who have died) to have a country with our freedoms.

Thank you to all service men and women! What we do without these brave people who are willing to fight for us!

Anniversary Pictures

So Aaron and I finally had our anniversary pictures taken. We didn't have them done around our anniversary because Aaron was having a hard semester, but once it was over, I scheduled them. I got SmilesbyWire, which is where you can view the pictures online and if people want copies, they can order more. I like this because I can download copies of all the poses, even though they're low resolution, so that I have a copy of all of them and not just the ones we ordered. I believe we ordered 6 out of the 12 poses, but it's nice to remember what they all looked like. Plus, digitally they look fine, even if they're a little small. Anyway, if you want the internet address so you can look at them, let me know and I'll email you the link. Fun, fun!

The user picture I'm using right now is one of the poses. It's one of my favorites. I don't even think I knew that the photographer was taking it, but it turned out well. More fun than just looking at the camera!

Scholarship Money!

I'm very excited because last weekend we got a letter from UVSC, the school my husband attends, saying he got a half-tuition scholarship for next year. This is very exciting. I think our Pell Grant will be less this next year because I made more last year and so hopefully with the two combined, we'll have tuition covered! I'm a little surprised he didn't get more considering his GPA, but whatever. Maybe Computer Science doesn't give out full tuition scholarships. As long as we get enough government money, we'll be okay. But I'm so proud of him!

Josh Is Engaged

I can't believe it, but my little cousin, Tim's brother incidentally, got engaged! I can't believe it. When I went to Tim's wedding he kept saying how he wanted to get his bachelor's degree first because he's planning on going on to graduate school and thought that'd be easier. Then at the sealing for Tim, the sealer said to Josh, not knowing he was his brother or anything, and said, "You're next." He thought it was pretty funny, but that's all and then a week later he gets engaged to a girl that he was apparently dating, but I don't think he told anyone. I know he didn't tell me. He said he's been on a few dates since being home, but mostly they were disasters. And with him working 70 hours/week, I didn't figure he had much time for a girlfriend. Then one week later he's engaged! Weird.

EDIT 10/2006: Well, I guess the wedding is off. I didn't find out till I asked why I hadn't gotten an invite. I don't know what happened, nor did I pry. Not my place, but I know his family wasn't really feeling a good vibe about the relationship, so it's probably a good thing it didn't happen.

Tim's Wedding

So my cousin Tim got married last Thursday. I know, who gets married on a Thursday? I heard they wanted a long weekend because they were going back to work on Monday. It was a beautiful day, other than the fact that it was extremely windy! When Tim's wife, Liesl, walked out of the temple, her veil flew off. It took forever to get it back on her head! But she was gorgeous! After the wedding I went with Tim's little brother Josh to get some food for a luncheon that turned into a dinner. It was suppose to be at 3 p.m., but I don't think we started until 4:30. Really, when the ceremony is at 1:45, it makes sense it would take that long to get back from Salt Lake to Highland and have everything ready. I helped clean-up afterwards, but I decided not to go to the reception. I was completely beat! Plus I hadn't seen my husband all day, who was unable to go because he had two finals that day.

So congratulations to Tim and Liesl!

TLE Is Now on Its Own

Well, now that we've officially announced it, I guess I can let you all know that Leading Edge, the magazine I work for, will no longer be associated with BYU's English department beginning this October (once October's issue is back from the printers). 

The English department has decided that their resources are better used for other things. It's been a fight with them for awhile, mostly because they believe science fiction and fantasy are not literary genres and therefore are not worthy of study or funding. This has especially been the case since our major advocates have retired or passed on. We are hoping to keep the magazine going, but will now have to fund ourselves. This is somewhat of a task because just to print the magazine costs us about $3000 a year and we probably only get about $500 in revenue (i.e. subscriptions and selling the magazine). There are other costs involved besides printing, especially now that we're on our own. There is advertising, space to work in, computers and more.

I think what the English department fails to realize is what benefit this magazine has brought to students. It is considered the most professional magazine on campus by many faculty members in both English and editing, and has been around for over 25 years. It has given student real world experience in running the magazine (which has been solely run by students and recent graduates since its inception). It's given students the ability to make decisions on how to run the magazine, how to improve circulation, how to choose stories to publish, and how to edit. Even though we will be disconnected from BYU, we will still be relying on students volunteering to run the magazine, so they will still get this experience, but only as long as we have money to keep the magazine going. And because we accept submissions from all over the world (and I mean that literally--from The Netherlands to Japan), our level of writing is much higher than many college sci-fi and fantasy magazines. If you'd like to see the reaction of current and previous staff members of TLE, check out the thread on Timewaster's Guide Forum.

If anyone would like to support our magazine, the easiest way to do so is to go to www.leadingedgemagazine.com and get information on how to buy a subscription or old issues. Or you can send us a check stating that it's a donation. At the moment we only accept checks, but we are hoping to start accepting credit cards soon. Once we do, we will be adding a link for straight donations. Any donation would be wonderful. Please help keep us alive.

Edit (5/15/06): Well, I guess this was premature. Just a couple of weeks ago the Linguistics and English Language department has decided to take over Leading Edge. Why not before? Because the English department has tried to push student journals off onto the Ling/ELang department before and when Ling/ELang said no, English said, "Fine, we'll keep it." When asked if Ling/Elang would take Leading Edge, they thought it was a bluff just like in the past. It wasn't until they found out that English was going through with giving up Leading Edge that the chair for Ling/ELang said that they would take up Leading Edge. We now have an advisor from that department and are very happy to be staying at BYU. Phew! What a relief.

Late Night!

I didn't get into bed until after 1 a.m. last night and didn't fall asleep until probably close to 2 a.m. (I didn't look at the clock cause I was afraid of getting frustrated that I wasn't asleep yet). You might be asking yourself why I didn't get to sleep until so late. I am usually very good about going to bed on time because I pretty love sleep and it helps me to sleep better if I go to sleep at about the same time every night.

So why stay up so late? One of my co-workers is a very good business man and is very successful. Lately as I have gotten to know him, he's taken the time to "mentor" me and help me see how I can be successful financially. Well, he learned all he knows from someone else who is now a millionaire. I had the opportunity to sit down with this millionaire last night, along with about five others and talk about what he did to become a millionaire, cause he didn't inherit, but rather went from being poor, to being middle class, to being a millionaire. And I say that if you have the chance to learn from someone who's made it, then you should take it right?

Well even though I am really tired right now, it was worth meeting with him. I learned quite a bit and he gave some advice on what books we should read, and what CDs we should listen to to get more information. It was really great. Anyone who is interested in some of this info, let me know. I'll talk with you about it. I have to tell you, millionaires see money very different than the other 95% of people who are not millionaires. Wow!