School's Out!

It was a bit of a bittersweet day here in the Winn home. As you can tell by the title, another semester ended today, Jarom's 23rd here at BYU. He thinks that he did pretty well (Optimistically all A's and A-'s). He is a little upset though, because in one class he ended up exactly .67 short of an A. He asked the teacher if there was any possibility of doing extra credit to make up that 2/3 of a point and was told no. Bummer. Lixi finished her final class (First Aid) and just has to survive one more semester of student teaching. She is getting used to her job and liking it a little more these days, although she is still not sure this is her final career path.

Today also marks my one year anniversary as a resident here in Provo. It was not celebrated at all because I am in the proverbial doghouse right now. There was an incident today where I made a mistake. It is feeding day, and as Lixi was putting me into my feeding cage, I got a little too excited and bit her hand, only briefly, before realizing that she does not taste good at all. In my defense, I hadn't eaten for over a week, and I would love to see any of you do that and not take a bite out of anything that looked even remotely like what you usually eat. Anyway, she cried (not from the pain, but from the emotional trauma of being bitten by her buddy) and I tried to apologize, but she isn't a parselmouth. Hopefully she will forgive me.

Jarom and Alixa also did some babysitting tonight for some friends. It was not very long and the kid was quite pleasant, so everyone had a good time. It did remind Lixi that she wants a baby of her own. Who knows how long Jarom can keep avoiding that. It was also sad because their friends whose child it is will be leaving for Kansas after Christmas. So this was the last time that they will see them for a while. That is the really sad part about school; you make great friends, but the probability of ending up in the same place is not high. I guess that is why God invented facebook.

I will be locked up for the next few weeks while Jarom and Lixi visit their families on the east coast, so have a merry Christmas and a happy New Year.

Black and White

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas. In more ways than one. It is stinkin' freezing here in UT. The last 7 days we have had temperatures between the teens and low thirties. I just sit on my heat pad and don't worry about it, but Jarom has to get on his motorcycle and ride to school and work. His throttle has frozen itself solid a couple of times, so he has started going out earlier to start the bike and let it warm up for a few minutes. He wonders how on earth he managed to ride back and forth between American Fork and Provo every day last December in similar conditions.

In addition to the cold, there are some presents sitting around. All the shopping is done, which is nice. Neither Jarom nor Lixi is very patient or concerned with opening their presents on Christmas day, so they have opened their gifts from each other already. They both did a good job choosing gifts, and are excited to see their families and open some more. They leave on Friday for Cleveland, where it is at least as cold and snowy as Utah, and probably worse.

Jarom did have one interesting thought that he wanted me to share. In his priesthood lesson today there was a discussion about the revelation that was given allowing blacks to hold the priesthood. Throughout the entire lesson, both the teacher and those in the class were noticeably uncomfortable using the term "blacks", and most of the time exchanged it for "African Americans." This is obviously not right, since the revelation had nothing to do with one's nationality and everything to do with their skin color. In fact, the vast majority of those affected are just Africans, with no Americans attached. But in the strange politically correct world which we live, saying that someone is black has taken on a slightly racist feel. On the one hand, I guess that it is good because it means that people are thinking about the feelings of other groups of people. The flip side of that coin is that I think everyone is just getting too sensitive. Few things annoy me as much as easily offended folk. I am reminded of a Seinfeld episode where Jerry is dating a Native American and has to avoid saying things like scalper, reservation, and indian giver. All very amusing, but irritatingly true. It is a problem that has seeped into groups all over the world. Muslims flip out because someone drew a cartoon of Muhammad or named a teddy bear after him. Indian tribes get offended (or other groups get offended for them) because a school is using them as a mascot. Crazy christians go off the deep end and try to boycott The Golden Compass because they think it has a subliminal anti-God message and will encourage children to read books. I know that we often times say and do things that are offensive and should be stopped, but pretty much everyone takes it too far. I have a dream that someday all the crazy people in the world will calm down and realize that it is just not that big a deal.

In other news, Canada has the most coastline of any nation in the world, Jarom made it to the finals of two of his three fantasy football leagues, and Alixa wore her shirt backwards to church today. How embarrassing!

Finally!

It has been a little while since my last entry. I apologize, but I have been shedding, and Alixa gets really mad when I leave my old skin everywhere, so I haven't left my cage much. Provo got a whole bunch of snow dumped on it for the second straight weekend, which makes everything pretty but causes some problems transportationally speaking. The big news for this week is that Jarom finally bested his wife in fantasy football. It is playoff time, so unfortunately that means the season is over for Lixi. But she did great, especially considering the fact that this was her first season. Although Jarom did give her advice on occasion, she did it mostly on her own and had one of the best teams in the league. In order to balance out the good karma Jarom used in beating Lixi, he had to give a talk in church today. This is Jarom's second least favorite thing to do, behind trying on clothes and just in front of formal dinners. Alixa said that it went OK, and he even got a few chuckles from the congregation when he told his joke (The one about how the Pope, President Hinckley and Pauly Shore go fishing together [Punchline: "It's not holy water anymore!"]) This afternoon Jarom and Lixi went to visit their other animal friends, a pair of horses that have been named Snow and White (guess what color they are). They live on a vacant lot next to Jarom's sister's new apartment. It was not quite a smashing success, as they could only find baby carrots in the store, and it is tough to feed a horse through a chain link fence with only 2 inch nubs of carrot. A lot of them fell on the ground, but the horses didn't mind. They enjoyed the snack and probably liked having some company on a very frigid evening.

Alixa's flag football team lost in the championship game, bringing the fall intramural season to a close. Runner up is by far the best finish the household has ever had, but still no t-shirt. Only one semester left. Other than that the Winns are busy prepping for finals and getting excited to visit their families over Christmas.

As a final side note to those who participated in the recent poll, here is the lowdown: Despite what you may have heard in scouts or from your mother, you only lose about 10% of your body heat through your noggin, although for me the percent is much less (I have a pretty small head).

Winter Wonderland

Provo received its first real snow last night, which meant that Lixi had to go wipe stuff off the car before heading to get her haircut. It also means that Jarom's bike is out of commission for a few days, so I guess it is a good thing that it is the weekend. Last night Jarom and Lixi lost the first game in their volleyball tournament two games to none. The highlight of the evening came when Jarom swung as hard as he could in an attempt to spike the ball for a kill. He made good contact, but can't aim very well, so the ball went screaming out of bounds where it connected squarely with a small childs face, knocking the kid backwards into the wall. Play stopped for a minute while the parent (a member of the opposing team) took care of the little girl, who seemed to be OK later that evening.

Today Alixa went to see Enchanted (her new favorite movie) while Jarom had to go take the GRE. He has to wait two weeks to get the results from the essay portion, but he got a 1400 (760 Math, 640 Verbal) on the portion that is graded thus far. Now we will see if that will be enough to overcome his slightly less than stellar performance in classes and get him into graduate school. Alixa is eternally optimistic. She is also learning spanish now, thanks to Nate, who gave her a Rosetta Stone introductory CD. Ella habla muy bien y siempre me esta llamando 'Mitcho'.