School Break Week 1 - A little of everything

As my first week off from school I had a lot of things I wanted to do and get done. School breaks are meant for two things: 1. get everything done you normally can't because you are too busy with classes, and 2. catch up on homework. This last week I focused on number one. 

On Monday Matt and I went to visit kittens and officially decided on an this adorable cutie. 

Matt named him Shade. We can't take him home until he's 12 weeks old which is perfect because we still have to wait for official approval to have the cat. Also, we get him the first or second week of November which is right when my classes end and I have two months to give all my devoted attention to the little guy. We're excited!  

After visiting the kittens we went straight to FHE with Brock and Kaytlin which is always fun. I did a lesson on goals and then afterwards we played a game of Skip-bo. I had a ridiculous win the first time where I had tons of Skip-bo's! It's always nice to know I can win games on occasion :)! 

Tuesday I started on a project that took me nearly two days. When we brought all our movies from the US we got rid of all the cases for the DVDs (with some exceptions) to save space. We decided we would use disc holders and use our MyMovies app to organize the movies by number instead of alphabetically. Once they are all sorted any new movies will just be assigned a number and go in the appropriate place. Naturally, I still wanted to keep all our old movies alphabetical. I took over the living room and made rows of DVD's so I could alphabetize them, assign a number, and then put them away. After completed nearly 30 DVD's Matt came home from mutual and I told him there were a bunch of movies missing. It turns out he put them with some CD's, and I had to redo more than half of the DVD's I had finished! Finally, by the next morning I had completed numbering and ordering all of our 264 movies! The good news is I'll never have to do that again. I wish I had more pics of the process, but all I have is of the completed containers.

A couple of other interesting things happened on Tuesday. I worked out (first time in weeks) while watching Jack the Giant Slayer. After over an hour of doing high intensity interval training and stretching I was pooped. After a nice shower I decided to clip my toe nails and while filing the edges I broke a nail! It didn't really hurt, but I was quite surprised! Wednesday I went to uni to meet with Martijn van de Pol who is a well accomplished statistician who has done a lot with mixed models which are often used in animal behaviour and animal personality studies. It was a fun hour to chat with him, but I wouldn't say our conversation was extremely productive. The most important information I obtained was that we would be use the R statistical program for the next day's workshop. 

Plant near the distribution center

After I left uni to go home I decided to go to the shops and get some stuff for feeding the missionaries that night. I took a different bus and on my way I realized I was near the temple and could stop and get the hymn book I wanted as well as some new garments. After walking from the stop to the Distribution Center where the church items are sold I discovered I was 30 minutes too late and they were closed. By this time I decided I better just go home and cook what I have for the sisters. My phone said the quickest way was by train so I walked all the way to the train station (about 15 min) only to discover I'd have to wait another 17 minutes for the train. According to the maps it would take me the same amount of time to just walk home. My legs were EXTREMELY sore from my workout from the day before so my 40 minute walk home was painful and exhausting, and I made it 10 minutes later than if I had taken the train but at least I saw some interesting things (see below). The good news was we had a wonderful dinner with the sister missionaries and afterwards they challenged us to make missionary goals each week. Awesome!

K 13 submarine memorial

Thursday I went to uni to attend the workshop with Martijn van de Pol on how to do Mixed Models. I learned a lot, but I'm sure I will forget most of it. At the end we were able to practice on our own data and I decided my honor's thesis on cheetahs would likely have been better as a mixed model than the nested ANOVA I did. I wanted to run the tests, but I had to reconfigure all my raw data into a statistical format which took me the rest of the time. Some day I'll play with that some more. Martijn says the best time to learn R and statistics is when you need it so you are working with it a lot, but this will also take quite a bit of time. Joy. 

Friday I had to leave home at 7:30 am to get to my 9 am hair appointment. It was well worth it because I had a fun chat with the hairdresser and they did a great job! I mentioned that I was going to a church game night later and next thing I know we were talking all about the church. She admitted she didn't know anything about the Mormons and I was more than happy to explain a bit about our beliefs. Somehow this led into an interesting conversation about people with the spirit and evil spirits which was pretty interesting. At the end I wished I had a pass-a-long card but I told her about mormon.org and she said she'd look it up. 

My good day got better as I went to the city to meet Kaytlin for lunch. I had a lot of time to kill so I just walked around for a bit. It was a day for good deeds as I saw someone's scarf fly to the ground. I picked it up and soon found the woman it belonged to who was very grateful. Not too long after there was a man with a dolly stacked with boxes crossing the street and half his boxes fell over. I helped him put them back and we eventually got them all to stay still. As I reflected on these two experiences I realized I was so willing to help because I had so much time and it made me wonder if I would have passed them by if I was in a hurry. After a quick trip past the Anzac Memorial in the city I finally met up with Kaytlin for a sushi train lunch. We learned that just because it looks good, doesn't mean it is. 

That night I made enchiladas for a family with a newborn and for Matt and I for the ward game night. Enchiladas were a big success and even Matt liked them! Apparently he just didn't like the enchilada sauces that I had used before. After dinner we played Monopoly Deal with the bishop and a couple of young men. The boy who won had a MASSIVE play that led him to wiping everyone but the bishop out giving him nearly 7 sets and $47 Million. Wow! I'm glad this will be a bi-weekly event as I think it is a great way to get to know more of the members. 

Saturday was our two-year anniversary! It's crazy how time flies! I made Ebelskivers for the first time for breakfast and I was pleased that they all came out perfect! Matt wasn't as thrilled as I was about them, but that's ok....the more for me to eat! As I cleaned and got some stuff done, Matt started painting the banister. It now is primed and ready for paint! 

We had an early lunch and drove to the Sutherland Entertainment Centre to watch The Phantom of the Opera starring my friend Tamasin Howard as Christine! It was their second show and I expected some technical issues or slip-ups, but I was blown away. The show was spectacular! I've never heard Tamasin sing in a show and every song she sang gave me goosebumps it was so good! It was a wonderful and professional performance and I'm very glad we went. 

Tamasin as Christine (from Facebook)

Afterwards we went to eat at Outback Steakhouse which was easily the most expensive dinner we have had yet. It was still very good, but I definitely don't think we will be eating there often. To finish off our night we rented Iron Man 3. It was a great day. 

Sunday was also quite eventful. Matt and I decided on our missionary goals and then spent some time just sitting in the sun and relaxing. At night we headed over to the Barnett's flat for a house-warming party. Erika and Mike are new to our ward and just recently got married. We had delicious burritos and rice pudding. It was also fun to see some people I already knew from either the Greenwich ward or from when I studied abroad! We played a game with pictures from everyone's childhood home and shared a childhood memory in that home. Then we had to guess who's home belonged to who. It was a really fun night and I got to know a few more people. We will definitely be doing more with them in the future. 

Now this week I have to focus on more school stuff!