How Was YOUR Birthday?

Cause mine was awesome.

Warning: if you don't like me, you probably won't like this post. It's braggy.

On top of the glorious silver Kitchenaid, Lewis gave me season 1 of 30 Rock and a gift card to Shade clothing (which I will be spending today, cause they're having a sale. Or a sell, as they might say. It's a Utah store). Pretty much, my husband is the best husband of all the husbands.

Even school and work were great for my birthday. I only had one class, and it's a really good class. We had a hunger banquet (because my teacher does cool activities like that), and I was part of the second world. Us second worlders got to eat oatmeal with brown sugar and cinnamon. I haven't had oatmeal for years and I remember absolutely loathing it when I was little. Turns out, it's not that bad. It certainly fills you up.

Maybe this is the vicious cycle of oatmeal. Parents give it to their kids, who hate it, and then the kids grow up and discover it's not actually that bad so they decide to give it to their kids because it's easy and nutritious. And the kids hate it, just like the parents did when they were kids.

Anyway, after class I went to work where I was surprised by a bag of mini-Toblerones by my good friend Paul. I love Paul. Thanks, Paul.

Also, my great boss, Jim, gave me a stylish BYU t-shirt. And a coupon for a free Jamba Juice. I have several of those. I haven't had to pay for a Jamba Juice in a long time. It's great!

My fantabulous parents sent me a bunch of cards with animals of Africa on them (all pictures taken by my talented mother, Mom) and some money. I might take that money with me to the mall today when I go to spend my gift card. I could use some new clothes. Thanks, parents! And grandparents, too, for the card from you!

While the gifts were great, the second best part of the day was getting to talk to all my family! My parents and brother called from Kenya, my sister called from Oklahoma, my brother called from Provo, and my other brother texted from Salt Lake City (we're diverse). And that's just my immediate family! I also got a call from my auntie dear in Idaho and boundless facebook love from a bunch of friends and family members. I'm not very good at calling my beloved peeps as often as I should, so I was really grateful they all thought to contact me. Hugs and kisses all around!

The best part of the day, however, was watching BYU beat Utah State. For having only won one game so far this season, Utah State is actually a pretty decent team. It was an awesome game to watch. We had extra room around us, so several of our friends came to watch with us. I really, really, really love football.

When Lewis would tell people that we were going to the game on my birthday, they would get kind of shocked and say something like, wow, that's so nice of your wife letting you go to the game on her birthday. Yeah, right, like I'd rather be anywhere else.

The game was less fun for Lewis. He bet a friend of ours, Matt Tison (a freaking Utah fan), that BYU would win by more than 24 points. Loser buys the winner lunch at Bajio. Well, Lewis thought he had the bet in the bag. We were up 35-10 until 2 seconds left when Utah State scored another touchdown. Sad day for Lewis.

The birthday greatness has just continued today. We got up early to go get two-for-one massages. I'd never had a real massage before. Oh em gee it was so great. I think I'm going to lobby for my future school district to provide massages for its teachers at least once every other week. They need 'em. I just decided.

Later tonight, Andrew is taking me to a movie. We're going to go see "Cloudy, with a Chance of Meatballs." Should be good times.

Speaking of Andrew, he read my blog about the weather from the other day really quickly and gathered from it that I wanted it to snow on my birthday instead of be nice and lovely and warm (PS, Weather, you were delightful yesterday. Thank you). Because of this, he planned to go find me some snow somewhere and surprise me with it after the game. But, he didn't get off work in time. I was really touched that he planned to do that, even though it wasn't actually what I wanted. It's still really sweet. I've got some swell brothers, I do.

Well, this post about my birthday awesomeness is long enough. Thank you, thank you, thank you to everyone who made it such an amazing day. You're collectively the bomb-diggity.

(PS: did you know that Red Robin'll give you a coupon for a free burger for your birthday? Just sign up online. It's great! Lewis ans his mom and I went and cashed in on that benefit yesterday.)

Alyssa Does Not Recommend OR What I Learned From MSVGS

Mega Shark Versus Giant Octopus. A movie with so much promise. Not promise that it would be good, per se. More like promise that it would be so bad it's good.

But no.

It's just bad.

Bad, bad, bad.

Let's back up for a second. It all started a month or so ago, when we saw a trailer for this intriguing, direct to DVD movie. You can (and should) watch the preview for yourself. I mean, how could we be disappointed? The shark bites a freaking airbus out of the sky! How could this movie not be awesome, albeit awesomely bad?

But like I said. It's just bad. So bad, I'm embarrassed to let people see it and I didn't even make it (sorry, Luke).

The movie appears to be composed solely of stock footage from Planet Earth, green screen scenes, and a handful of digitalized shots of the shark and/or the octopus, used over and over again (sometime flipped to make you think it's a different shot). As for the shark biting the plane out of the sky? I'm pretty sure they just threw a plastic plane and a rubber shark at each other and filmed it. Pathetic.

To be fair, the movie was somewhat educational. Here's what I learned:

1. People with lisps shouldn't swear. It just sounds silly.

2. Referencing something from pop culture will not give your movie more credibility. Especially if what you are referencing is "Thrilla in Manila," because it sounds dumb. I don't care if it involves Muhammad Ali.

3. If you are filming a scene that's supposed to be sunrise or sunset, you should probably make the sky change a little bit, because that's what, you know, happens. If the audience can tell you used a green screen, you're in trouble.

4. Mega is a stupid word, and if I never hear it ever again, I'll be okay with that.

5. If you base your acting ability completely on over the top facial expressions, you're in danger of being in a movie like this. Sorry, Debbie Gibson.

6. Don't ever - EVER! - hire a special effects studio called "Tiny Juggernaut." Really?

7. If you want to be taken seriously as a movie, you should not include the line, "You need to go home and think about what you did."

But what can I expect, really, from the people who brought us "The Terminators," "Transmorphers 2: Fall of Man," "The Day the Earth Stopped," and "Snakes on a Train." And yes, you read all of that right. I bet they have a great market Asia.

Now, what should I rent next? Hmm... "Sunday School Musical" or "30,000 Leagues Under the Sea"?

The End.

Today is the last day of my internship. To say goodbye to all of my kids has been pretty sad. As far as some of them go, I am really quite ready to say goodbye. But for a lot of them, I'm not happy at all about leaving.

On Tuesdays, I meet with this one student who, when I started meeting with her, had absolutely zero respect for anyone around her, especially those in authority. I don't feel like I've made a lot of progress with her, and we've definitely had some hard times together. Like how every time I go to pick her up she flatly refuses to go until I or her teacher tells her that she can go to the principal's office instead. Or like the time we made each other cry. But today, in our goodbye party, she did something that I never would have expected from her. She apologized. She said she was sorry for her bad behavior and that she is trying to be good. I was floored. Suddenly saying goodbye to her was a lot harder.

Another sad thing about my goodbyes is the number of students who haven't been here on our last day. One of my kindergarteners was sick, so no goodbye there. Two of my younger friendship group students just didn't show up for our meeting yesterday. And I just found out that the fourth grade is on a field trip today, so three-fifths of my older friendship group will be gone. It almost makes me wonder if my philosophy on goodbyes was right after all.

I hate saying goodbye. My family moved all the time when I was growing up and every time we left an area, I would resist saying goodbye to my friends at all costs. I'd rather just spend time with them like I always do, without any differences than have a drawn out sadness over a goodbye. I hate it so, so much. But my kids at this school are different. Many of them depend on me to be there at the same time every week. I wouldn't say that I don't think they would get along just fine with an Alyssa-style goodbye, but I do feel like I would be betraying their trust somehow if I was just all-of-a-sudden gone. And the last thing they need is cause to distrust another adult in their lives. So I will say goodbye to as many of them as I can. And I won't cry. I will not cry.

Dear Facebook... Pretty Much You Owe Me Big

Like much of the world, I am a Facebook user. Unlike much of the world, I have been on Facebook for four and a half years.

It's true! Back when I joined, Facebook was exclusive. It was only open to colleges, and a limited number at that. Shortly after BYU was added to their growing list (circa September 2004), a friend of mine from Dartmouth sent me an invite and I began my four and a half year long (and counting!) journey.

Back when I joined Facebook:

-It was known as TheFacebook - I remember when the "The" was dropped.

-You could only join a group if it was made for your network.

-You could browse all the groups in your network. There were maybe 10 when I joined.

-I created one of those first groups. It was about pirates.

-We were impressed when we got over 100 members in the group, and kept pushing towards 200.

-You could also browse all the people in your network. There were maybe 30 when I joined.

-Mini feed? What's that?

-You could write something on someone's wall, and someone else could edit what you wrote.

-Other than your profile picture, you couldn't post any photos to your profile.

-It was acceptable to add people you didn't know to your friend list. A good chunk of my "friends" were people I had never heard of.

-When someone updated their profile, it didn't say what they updated.

-There were none of these annoying applications. No one cared which Harry Potter character you are.

-There was an actual face to represent Facebook. He was blue, and made out of numbers.

-Gifts? I don't get it.

As I'm sure you can tell - no doubt much of this sounds foreign to you, unlike any Facebook you know of - I've been around this website for a while. I know it's ins and outs and what it was like, you know, back in the day.

So, it's been established: I've been on Facebook for some time. In my long and prolific history with the social networking phenomenon, I have brought many people into the fold. I think it's fair to say that each of my immediate family members except for my dad joined because of me... two of my freshman roommates joined because of me... various co-workers and other friends also have me to thank for their introduction to the site. And who knows how many of them were the cause of their friends and family members to join! The list could go on and on.

What I'm trying to say is, Facebook, you have upwards of 175 million users, right? Isn't it fair to say that I had a hand, direct or indirect, in a decent-sized percentage of that 175 mil? Don't you think it's time to thank me for my loyal service? I'd like a slice of that lucrative financial pie. I'll take cash, check, or PayPal. Whichever is convenient to you. Also, you're welcome.

It's the Whopper Sacrifice!

My brother brought this article to my attention. Apparently there's a new facebook application where if you "sacrifice" (delete) ten of your friends, Burger King will give you a coupon for a free Whopper. And that immediately piqued my interest because I delete friends all the time! I have no problem doing that! In fact, you might say that I enjoy deleting friends! One time, Lewis and I even had something of a competition to see who could delete the most friends! It's really quite cathartic.

I do hope that this has gotten all of my readers who use facebook nervous. The jig is up! I'm a facebook friend deleter! You could be next!

I think I'd like to put that on a t-shirt:

But that is neither here nor there (not right now, anyway...). The point is, this article gave me an idea. What if me and ten of my facebook friends conspired together to get ourselves some free Whoppers? We could all delete each other, collect our coupons, and then re-add each other! No harm, no foul, right? Plus, we'd all get some highly amusing news stories on our feeds: "Alyssa sacrificed Mary Shurtz." How great of a story would that be?!

There is a catch, though: I don't like Whoppers. Actually, I've never had one. But they look gross. Now, if Burger King was offering a coupon for a free Hershey's Sundae Pie or a chicken tenders kid's meal (don't judge me!) I'd be all over that. But I do hope I've inspired some of you and ten of your friends to satisfy your desire to beat the system and get a free burger to boot.