OH. WOW.

I realize that my posts have been less than "happy" lately. I feel like the blog has become my place to vent. I promise to post about happier times in the future. But for tonight....I just had an experience that I HAD to share.....

Tyler and I both work, and we're both in school. We're busy people. Who isn't, right? I HATE cleaning so I rarely do so unless I have a lot of free time on my hands. This doesn't happen in the middle of the week. Ever. So I get home from work, I'm tired, and still in the middle of homework. Tyler gets home from work later than me, so I make myself dinner, Ty gets home while I'm making dinner and makes himself dinner (I'm not a bad wife I SWEAR. If he would EVER give me a heads up on when he would actually be home, I would love to make him something), and I sit down on the couch to eat, do some homework, and watch the "Dancing with the Stars" results show. I'm good at multi-tasking. All of a sudden the door bell rings. Huh. Who could that be?

ALWAYS check through the window before opening.

Tyler gets the door while I continue to stuff my face with my delicious quesedilla. Then I hear them....."HI! (WAY too enthusiastic) Is Maile here?" Tyler says, "Yes, she's right here." My visiting teachers push their way through the door and say, "We're here! It's the last day of the month! Hahahaha..." Just to preface this, it's not like they called and I forgot. This was there last ditch attempt to get their "numbers". In they come, and perch themselves on the other couch. I'm mid-stuff and quickly look around my house. There is junk everywhere. My living room table is covered with library books, we have things piled behind the front door from our trip to Logan this past weekend, there are tissues all over the floor (lots of allergies lately- for both of us), and there's even some old food laying around. Great. Just what I need. Additional stress and embarrassment.

I muted the TV and tried to finish off my quesedilla while they made small talk with Tyler, trying to be intelligent about the construction industry. I did my best to appear very preoccupied (which I WAS) but it didn't work. They whip out there Ensign and proceed to give a lesson. I'm wearing a shirt that says, "BYU Construction Management" so one partner asks what I do. I explain for the 100th time that I teach. She motions to my shirt- "Oh, so they make you wear a uniform?" Really? I explain that this was a Christmas gift and I wore it because I wanted to. She then goes on to explain to me just how lucky I am to be a professor at my young age, in a very condescending way. Huh. They go on to tell each other about their siblings in financial crisis, periodically remembering that I was in the room, but making no effort to include me in the conversation. My computer was on because I was doing homework, and they looked at the picture on my backdrop commenting about "how beautiful Hawaii is." The picture was taken in Germany. They never asked. They then went on to ask about my schooling- making funny noises and giving me weird looks when they realized I'd gone to BYU for all three degrees. I expect that kind of scrutiny from university uppity-up types, but not the bitter 40-something never marrieds from next door. They proceed to chat each other up more while I look longingly at the results show, muted, going on behind their heads. They decide they've hung around too long, look at me all "motherly" like they're here to keep me on the path to truth and righteousness and say, "we can't do anything for you." Then rethink the asinine comment and correct it with, "is there?" about 30 seconds later. Remember, my house currently looks like a tornado blew through. "No." I reply, desperately wanting them to leave. On the way out the door, one of them "helpfully" says, "If 'John' can't get a job, you guys can groom our lawn!" PS, my husband's name is Tyler.... then they were gone. Peace for another month.

Life really isn't that bad. It's just the end of the semester. I'm slightly bitter. I'll get over it.

Student Ratings

OK, I'm REALLY excited. I have my stewardship interview coming up- meaning my boss sits me down and sees how things have been going. So I have had to look at all my student ratings and see if I have improved. Also, I sent out a mid-course evaluation to all the students to see what I could improve upon and what is going well. I always get super nervous when I read these. As I looked at my students ratings for last semester, they are the highest that they've ever been. For my concrete class, they were even higher than the university average! WOO HOO!! Then I read my mid-course evaluations for this semester. Everyone who commented seems to like the class and many of them commented that I seem to know a lot and they like my energy. GREAT!! The only thing I need to do is slow down. I'm TOTALLY aware of this. I talk WAY too fast. But that was pretty much the main complaint, and some of the students even liked that I talked fast! Ahhhh, life is good. I'm so glad that my students can feel my energy. Honestly, some times these topics can be rough to teach because students come in with preconceived notions about how boring they are. I LOVE my topics. I'm glad the students can see that.

Weirdest Monday EVER

So this Monday was pretty darn weird for a couple of reasons.

This first incident....

I had to drive to Salt Lake on Monday for a couple of meetings. I was driving a BYU vehicle. It was a little electric car, so it already doesn't go very fast. I got on the Freeway at University Avenue in Orem at about 11:15. I moved over to the fast lane (not the carpool lane) and went the speed limit. The freeway was pretty empty so I didn't feel bad for ONLY going the speed limit in the fast lane. But getting an electric car to go much faster is pretty difficult. Anyway, a couple of exits later a motorcycle gets on the freeway. He came all the way over to my lane and got right behind my car. Remember, the whole freeway is pretty much empty. I wasn't really sure what was going on, but he got really close to the back of my car and wouldn't back off. I sped up a little, because he was really close to me. Motorcycles already freak me out because the riders are so exposed, they can get hurt so easily. So things were getting really weird. He started flashing me with his brights, like he wanted me to move over. But the whole freeway was empty, and he had come right over to my lane to get right behind me. If he wanted to go faster, he could easily pass me on either side. He got even closer to my bumper, I swear he could have touched it, and I had sped up to about 75. He was flashing his brights more frequently, so I tapped my breaks slightly. I was getting really freaked out that he was driving so dangerously. He still hadn't backed off. Then I started to look a little closer. The bike was pretty wide and the guy was wearing some kind of uniform. His shirt was a tan or light brown color, long sleeved, and he had matching metallic patches on his shoulders and his chest. I got a little freaked. Then all of a sudden he came around the passenger side of my car and started pointing at my car and screaming at my closed window. Then he sped off down the freeway going pretty fast. If he had been a cop, he would have had flashing blue and or red lights, right? And he would have had a marked bike, right? And the cops don't have that color uniform, right? And he CERTAINLY should have pulled me over after my shenanigans, instead of giving up, right? Was this guys some kind of sick freak that was just trying to get me to pull over or what?!? I called Tyler and my mom right away, worried that I'd get pulled over down the road and cuffed and drug to prison. But nothing ever came of it. Has this every happened to anyone else?!?!

The second incident....

So after a full day of meetings and shopping and homework and eating and yadayadayada, Tyler and I went to bed. At 2:45 in the morning we started hearing some pretty loud music. At any other time of the day, the volume probably would have been normal. But at 2:45 AM, we woke right up. I figured it would be one of the neighbors listening in their bedroom, but then we looked out the window. One of our neighbors weirdo roommates was sitting in her car with the windows rolled up, blasting the radio loud enough for us the be drug out of a dead sleep. Now I've been known to sit in my car for a few minutes after coming home, and finishing up a chapter of a book on CD or something like that, but this lady was in her car blasting the RADIO at almost 3 in the morning. She was just sitting there, doing nothing at all. Tyler opened the window and tried to yell down at her a couple of times to get her to turn it down. The radio was too loud. We lay in bed for about 5 more minutes before Tyler got fed up. He wasn't quite ready to go outside, but he went downstairs and flashed the headlights on our car. That was enough to get her attention. The sound went way down for a few minutes. Then all of a sudden the sound went right back up. I lay in bed staring at her through the window, thinking she MUST come to her senses some time soon. I was about to call the cops at about 3 am when she shut off the car, fussed in the front seat for a few seconds, got out with empty hands, went to the back of the car and dug in the truck, putting in and taking out nothing. Did I mention it was 3 am and we live at the mouth of Spanish Fork Canyon? So it was pretty cold outside and the wind was blowing like a hurricane. This woman was wearing shorts and a short sleeved t-shirt. Then she closed the trunk and walked around the back side of the town homes. VERY weird. That was it. She was gone. It took me two hours to get back to sleep. I woke up exhausted!

Thus ends one VERY weird day...

Really?

We had a Relief Society get together tonight. It was actually really fun, some of the young women in the ward modeled wedding dresses from the older women in the ward. I LOVED this tea-length dress that was warn in the 50's. The evening really was a neat idea. Anyway, because Tyler and I are in primary, no one knows that we exist. I don't even know the other women in primary, I just recognize them. So I feel pretty darn lonely in the ward. The ladies in the presidency still call me May-lee, even though I have corrected them every single time they ask if they've said it right (over 50 by now, I swear). So anyway, the only woman I kind-of know is my visiting-teaching companion. Not super friendly, and a little high-and-mighty. Anyway, she comes over to me as soon as she walks in and sits next to me. She asked to borrow my Hawaiian CD's for the Relief Society Christmas party in the end of November last year. They never even used the CD's and she hasn't called me since. SO when she sat down tonight, she told me that she still had them (DUH) and that she had tried to bring them over "like a million times" but we were never home. Is she SERIOUS?!?! First of all, SHE HAS MY PHONE NUMBER, and second of all, we're home every single evening so she must be coming over in the middle of the day. She knows that I work full time and go to school full time, and she knows that Tyler has school as well. I just couldn't believe what she was saying. She immediately got up and walked away to sit next to someone else. Probably a "real" friend. Sometimes I get a little bugged.....

Cool Music Video

I copied this from my friends blog. I'd never heard the song before, but I really liked it, and I loved the video!