Thanksgiving

For Thanksgiving I went to a potluck at the church of one of the other staff at the counseling center. I typcially avoid getting into situations like that, a party-like thing where everyone knows eachother intimately but I know hardly anyone; but I thought it might be good exposure therapy, something to do on Thanksgiving, and an opportunity to potentially make a new friend or two. It turned out to be very nice, actually. There was a church service first, followed by the potluck. It's a pretty small congregation, and pretty close knit, so they were able to do some little things during the service that were pretty nice that I had never seen before. I won't go into the specifics. Also, the pastor/minister/whatever is a woman, which is always nice, and she was very warm and nice (lots of nice). The food was about as good as Thanksgiving ever is, which is to say pretty good, but far from gourmet. I made a sweet potato casserole that came out pretty good. Tom, the staff member whose church this was, introduced me to a lot of people, including one young woman I found especially intriguing (the one on the right in the picture). Based on what I could gather from the conversation at my table, people at this church are generally pretty liberal, an uncommon thing in Utah. That made me feel even more at home. I almost wished I was a Christian so I could legitimately join that church. Alas...

USU Football Game

Since we won free tickets to the USU football game when we won that Aggie spirit contest, I decided to actually go to the game on Saturday. It was surprisingly enjoyable. I went with my friend, Susan.

Aggie Spirit Contest #2

As before, the Counseling Center competed in a contest for the most spirited office the Friday before the last home football game. As before, we won! I spent many hours designing and building the lit-up "A" tower shown here.

Native American Festival

I went to a Native American festival tonight. Some of it was good, but some of it was crap. The crap part of it was a singer who sang a bunch of white, conservative, Christian songs. They only had her sing because she happened to be Native American. Two of the songs were American patriotic songs! Yippee! Let's sing a song supporting the people who invaded our land and put us on reservations, slowly destroying our culture! What a great selection for a Native American festival! Her singing was about half the program, too. It was really unbelievable.

Conference in Park City

Today I went to a conference for Utah university counseling centers in Park City, Utah. It was a beautiful drive through mountains. There was some rock formation along the way called Devil's Slide. It's on the left edge of one of the pictures below. Quite amazing. The other picture is of Brandon, having to pee to an extreme degree, waiting by the door of the van to jump out as soon as we get to a place with a bathroom. He almost didn't make it!

Wellsville Ridge with Snow and Clouds 2

I love waking up to scenes like this.