Top 5 Bubble-Popping Experiences of the Week (so far...)

Okay, maybe Top 5 is the wrong header, but you get the point (haha, no pun intended).

1. As my fifth year at BYU is dawning, I am living* in the freshman dorms for a first, last, and thankfully short time.**

Who knew there are so many buildings?! And this is only *Heritage* Halls. Freshmen are apparently more abundant than rabbits.

2. Eating at the Morris Center. May I simply say: Bleh, indigestion. Apartments with kitchens were invented for a reason.

3. Going to a 2-hour dance with 350 tweenagers, and realizing just how old I really am: I knew two--yes, TWO--songs that were played the ENTIRE night. Granted, I suppose part of that is my own fault, since they *did* play half the soundtrack from Hannah Montana:The Movie, which, if I were cultured, I would most certainly have recognized on my own (as it was, the 18-year-old counselor who just graduated from high school had to inform me).

4. Sending one of my 15-year-old girls to the Emergency Room after she somehow poked a hole in her finger (almost right to the bone) with a folding chair.

5. Finishing my second semester of teaching a real college course. Woowoo! And I even got a nice two-page, hand-written thank-you letter from one of the students in my class this semester. It made me feel all warm and fuzzy.

Tonight is sure to be chock full of delights--a silent movie (actually, I'm excited for that), and then I get to entertain my girls for two and a half hours until bedtime. I told them I would take them on a fieldtrip to the Creamery. [insert squeals of excitement here] Don't you wish I was your counselor? Yeah, thought so.

*in Horne, smack dab in the middle of it all. At least I don't have to live in E. Richards where we have our daily counselor meetings amidst reeking smells of...well, I won't elaborate. (Yep, it's a guy building.)
**I am a Summerfest (sort of like EFY for music students) counselor this week, Sunday through Saturday.

5 Quick Steps to Being "Taken"

I finally watched "Taken." And yeah, I guess I agree with my parents--this movie is very, very realistic.

IF:

--I lied to my dad and told him I was visiting a few museums in Paris when in reality I was planning a tour of the entire European continent, following a rock band

--my only partner for the trip was a ditzy 19-year-old who thinks that "caution" is a brand name

--the first thing I did after disembarking an airplane in a foreign country is make friends with a strange man, let him take my picture, share a taxi with him, and show him the exact apartment in which I will be living, adding that my friend and I will be staying there ALONE for a whole month

--I agreed to attend a "party" with said man, knowing nothing about him except that his name is "Peter"

--as I hid under the bed from my evil kidnappers, I said, "Whew, they're leaving" when they hadn't even gotten both feet out the bedroom door

Genius! Pure genius.

Disclaimer: I am not by any means denying the existence of kidnapping/slave-trafficking, which is a very real and dangerous thing. But with proper precautions and a dash of COMMON SENSE, I firmly believe that encountering such a situation can usually be avoided altogether.