Friday Night Rollerskating

When you are single and Mormon, and it is Friday night, there are a limited number of things you can do. Not small, just limited. This Friday, me and some other decided to check out free rollerskating at the IMA [I am honestly not entirely sure what IMA stands for, but it is the UW gym]. Even though I was terrified of hurting myself, I did manage to get on the skates. Here I am with Jen and Marissa:

The funniest part about this whole experience were the "rollerskating police" who where flying around the gym enforcing all the rules. I remarked to Jen that I needed one of the bossy people to stop and give me some instruction, as I had not been on rollerskates since--well maybe, ever. This kind woman was very patient with me and Marissa:

One of the most valuable things she taught us what how to fall, which I demonstrate quite artfully in the video below. Luckily, it was a skill I didn't need to use.

My Inauguration Night

If you would like to see what I did on the night of the inauguration of our 44th president, I suggest you check out this wonderful lady's blog.

I am far too lazy to do this myself. Plus she had way more pictures...

A Very Sweet Meet

On Valentine's Eve, I went to an annual YSA event in the Seattle area: the Sweet Meet. Here is the premise of said event:

All the boys make desserts and they are auctioned off to the girls, who buy them using fake dollars they have accumulated over the previous month by attending church meetings, institute, activities, FHE, etc. [The responsibility for baking/buying switches off every year; next year the girls will bake, the boys will buy.] The girl then gets to have dinner and the dessert in the cultural hall with the boy whose dessert she just won. The desserts are auctioned off anonymously, thus increasing the suspense and decreasing the resemblance to any kind of event where people are bought and sold.

I was wary of this whole idea at first, but as I began to accumulate "sweet meet bucks" (mostly because I am clearly someone in need of a date and people took pity on me), I started to get excited. And I ended up having a great time.

The cultural hall was festively decorated:

Even though my dessert looked a bit suspicious, it tasted great, and my "date" was nice and easy to talk to:


And, of course, I had a great time with some wonderful ladies:
Overall, a definite success.

Milk Trucks and Small Pleasures

My Estonian class is using a new book this quarter, and it is full of little Estonian poems for children. This is appropriate, because our approximate level of dialogue is that of a three-year-old child.

The following poem was in Chapter 6, the chapter we studied last week. I was particularly charmed by it and the accompanying drawing, which I am unable to reproduce for you here. So instead, I did a google image search for the picture above. Enjoy!

Piimaauto
Piimaauto veab piima.
Piimaauto peab viima
piima lastele linna,
lehm ei lähe maalt sinna.

Tip: if you are wondering how to pronounce this, Estonian is basically a phonetic language. Just hang on to the double letters (consonants and vowels) a little longer than normal, and you have it. It is really a lovely language.

Translation:

Milk Truck
The milk truck carries milk.
The milk truck has to carry
milk to the children in the town,
cows don't go from the country to there.

There is a certain charm to Estonian word play in a poem about milk trucks and cows. Sometimes it is finding pleasure in the small things that gets you through the day.