Merry Christmas from the Odas

Merry Christmas.  Since most of you won't be getting our Christmas card, I thought I'd post it on my blog.  Plus, I wrote it, so it's basically the same thing.

Merry Christmas fellow family and friends.  This year my mom wasn’t particularly inspired to write a Christmas card, so I, Kristen Oda, heroically volunteered.  In other words, I basically saved Christmas.  But enough about me.  I’m sure you’re all dying to know about the great and impressive things that my other family members accomplished this year. 

Both my parents may be getting older, but you’d never be able to tell from their appearance.  Today Mom tried on a pair of my skinny jeans and rocked them.  I’m proud and creeped out at the same time.  Though my dad is also healthy, his eyes are horrible and last week he had another detached retina.  His eye is recovering well, but he’s not as worried about his “down time” as my mom is.  When he actually is lying on his side (like the doctor ordered) he normally passes the time by watching Jimmy Neutron...He really enjoys that show.   My mom has been busy working to establish a scholarship for our local BYU chapter, and both my parents continue to feed their obsession for tennis.  My dad doesn’t have much free time, but when he does, he likes to fly RC planes.  Hmmm, Jimmy Neutron and remote controlled planes, I think I figured out why my dad has such a youthful vibe.

Lily is the youngest, so she is the only one still living at home with the parentals.  She recently became a licensed driver and has hit only one mailbox since then.  Driving might not be one of Lily’s talents but she’s a pretty good singer, and is an alto in her school’s Concert Choir.  Though Lily is the youngest Oda, she is the tallest, and towers over the rest of us with her 5’4” frame. 

This is the second year that Jenai and I are together at BYU.  We don’t get to see each other as much as we’d like, but we usually share Sunday dinner together.  I definitely get the better end of the deal considering Jenai cooks, and I eat.  Jenai has been salsa dancing for a couple years, but I started to join her this semester.  I was horrible a few months ago, but since I’ve improved, people ask me if I’m Latina all the time.  (We may be half Japanese, but we can pass for pretty much anything).  Jenai is still working customer service at Vivint, and I work in the dish room at the MTC.  Luckily we’re going to college so that we don’t have to keep these jobs for the rest of our lives.

Merry Christmas and happy New Year.  Hopefully the Mayans are wrong, and you’ll be receiving another Christmas card from us next year.  If not, at least the world will end before the last Twilight movie is released.

Love,

The Odas

College Cooking with Kristen

Thanksgiving is tomorrow, which means food is on my mind.  Ok so food is always on my mind, but you get the idea.

Cooking in college can be rough.  Most of us are cooking noobs, and don't have the time nor the money to make anything very fancy.  Because of this, I thought I would be a saint and share my favorite meals with you.  They are fast, easy, and cheap.  You can thank me later. 

Canned Soup
Ingredients:  Canned soup.
Instructions:  Dump soup in bowl.  Microwave.

Boiled Potatoes
Ingredients: Potato, salt
Instructions:  Boil water, add salt.  Cut potato, cook in boiling water up to 15 minutes.

Toast
Ingredients: Bread
Instructions: Place bread in toaster, and heat.  Add butter, jam, honey, peanut butter, cinnamon sugar, etc.

I may have had two pieces of toast while I wrote this blog...

Tuna Fish and Rice
Ingredients:  Rice, canned tuna, soy sauce, sweet relish, garlic powder
Instructions:  Cook rice, and boil water.  Place rice in bowl and add said ingredients and add hot water.

Egg and Rice
Ingredients:  Egg, rice, soy sauce
Instructions:  Crack egg over freshly cooked rice, add soy sauce.  Stir.

Before you get all Caucasian on me, the rice is hot and cooks the egg.  Sheesh, calm down.

Chili and Rice
Ingredients: Hormel chili, rice
Instructions: Cook rice, stir in canned chili

This picture doesn't do it justice.

Squash
Ingredients: Acorn Squash
Instructions:  Preheat oven at 375.  Cut squash in half and place in one inch of water rind up.  Bake for 45 minutes.

Proof that college students can be healthy AND cheap AND lazy.

Spam and Eggs
Ingredients: Spam and eggs.
Instructions:  Fry spam, scramble eggs.

This was dinner today.

Spam and Rice
Ingredients:  Spam and rice
Instructions:  Cook rice, fry spam.

 

Grilled Cheese
Ingredients: Bread and cheese.  Meat, egg, mustard, and spinach optional.
Instructions:  Grill the sandwich.

If you want your sandwich to seem fancier, just GRILL it.

Grilled PB&J
Ingredients: Bread, peanut butter and jelly/jam
Instructions:  Grill it dumby.

Seriously.  You can grill ANY type of sandwich.

See how witty I was with that?  None of those meals were real recipes and they didn't require more than three ingredients...Ok, so it's not that funny.

But the truth is, I haven't made a real meal yet.  All that stuff above is what I really eat, and that's the fanciest it gets. I refuse to buy ramen, and I'm not living off of cereal, but I'm not eating anything that my mom would make for dinner either.  You may think I eat like this because I'm a poor starving college student, but that's not exactly the case. 

Like this Uber Frosh, I may blame my crappy meals on being poor, but I'm pretty lucky because my parents give me grocery money.  The real, less cool reason I don't cook anything is I'm just too dang LAZY.  I hate cooking, and I get home from work at 7:30 every night.  The last thing I want to do is cook and wait another hour till I can eat. 

And that's why most of my meals consist of rice, eggs, or meat from a can. 

Toast and Avatar saved my life.

I just finished the worst three weeks ever.  Ok, they weren't the worst ever, but they still sucked.  School just has a way of causing an unhealthy amount of stress in my life and I don't always appreciate it.  But I'm not going to explain all the crappy things I've had to deal with for the past few weeks.  You don't care, and I don't want to think about it anymore. 

The important thing is I survived, and there are three things I have to thank for that.

1) The knowledge that Thanksgiving break was around the corner.
  That's really all I have to say about that.
2) Avatar.
 Not the blue kind, the avatar with an arrow on his head.  I'm currently halfway through the third season.  It's SO GOOD.  My roommates and I were trying to decide which bending skills we would pick if we had the option.  Meghan said fire, Aubrey said water, and I said air.  But I'm still not sure; they're all so awesome.  

Yes, I did draw this.  I was willing to do anything besides my paper.

3) Toast.
We bought a toaster a couple weeks ago and it's basically the best thing ever.  We have been eating A LOT of toast.  I've had four pieces in one day.  Twice.

Toast with butter and honey.

Toast with cinnamon sugar.

Toast with peanut butter and honey.

Toast with butter and jam.

  

There are so many delicious options when it comes to toast.  Consuming just one piece is out of the question.

Bye.  I think I'm gonna go make some toast now.

HALLOWEEN

Yeah, yeah, I know Halloween has gone and passed, but I've been kind of busy, so I can't ALWAYS be on top of it and current with these posts.

Yes, I do realize how defensive I sound in the last sentence.  And no, I don't know why I'm responding to comments that I made up in my head.

Halloween.  (That's the scariest font I could find. Blogger has a very limited selection).

Halloween is an awesome holiday that makes absolutely no sense.  While Mexico celebrates Day of the Dead to remember their past family and friends, the U.S. celebrates Halloween. It's a pretty sacred holiday for us.  That's why we dress up in costumes that vary from princesses to bananas, go door to door of perfect strangers, threaten them with tricks if they don't give us candy, and then go home and eat all of it.

Like I said, Halloween is awesome.

I always loved Trick or Treating.  What kind of kid doesn't?  You get to dress up in a costume and collect pounds and pounds of free candy.  I remember the first Halloween I got to trick or treat with only my friends and WITHOUT my parents.  That's when I got serious about trick or treating.  We found the best route, ran to every house, and cut through yards.  Anyone who couldn't keep up got left behind.  Luckily, I had lots of skinny friends.  We would collect so much candy that we'd have to drop it off at home halfway through because our pillow cases would get too heavy.

Professional trick or treaters.  I didn't get the memo to dress like a barbie.

I used to get enough candy to last me the year.  Of course it was all the gross candy I didn't want.  Who the heck wants to eat a gummy eye ball?  Chances are it was made in China and has lead in it.  Speaking of candy, have you seen this video yet? 

I really loved dressing up in Halloween costumes.  But somehow people always assumed that I was a boy.  One year I dressed like a scarecrow.  Hey, I looked adorable.  Anyway, an old lady kept saying I was such a cute farm boy.  I was so mad.  Yes, I was wearing a plaid shirt and overalls, but my face was also painted like a scarecrow.  FARM BOYS DON'T WEAR FACE PAINT!  A different year I dressed like a soccer player.  Only I added an afro, buck teeth, and over-sized ears to the costume.  People kept on calling me a boy.  I've also dressed like an elephant, dinosaur, and a fish.  I'm starting to see a theme here...

That's Lily, but I wore it too.

Halloween is just innocent fun when you're a kid.  And then those kids grow up and go to college.  And then they corrupt Halloween. 

Halloween is no longer about dressing up to get candy, it's about dressing up to get laid.  At least that's what I assume when I see all the pictures of girls dressed up like sluts.  Oh sorry, I meant sexy bunnies and nurses.  So if your costume was "sexy" and you posted pictures on facebook, chances are I looked at them and laughed at you.  And that's the honest truth.

But I'm not gonna hate on you if you decided to dress a little slutty for one night of the year.  I get it.  The thing that makes me mad is when mormon girls go to mormon parties dressed like skanks.  THAT makes me mad.  It makes everyone else around them uncomfortable, and it lets every guy around them know that they're ready for a NCMO.  (If you're not familiar with BYU lingo, that's short for non-committal make out).

Moving on...now I will post some pictures of my never ending Halloween weekend.  Pictures that prove I was social.  THREE nights in a row.

Thursday night I went salsa dancing with Jenai and Ashley.  I was a raccoon. 

 Friday night we hit up the Asian Ward dance and then went to the dance party at Alpine Village.  If you were wondering, that's where all the skanks were.

I wasn't a very good mime.  I still talked a lot.

 Saturday night I dressed like a chola for our ward party.  I was a chola last year too, but the only piece of clothing I repeated was the bandana.  I'm proud of that fact.

This year.

Last year.

It just bugs me when I go to Party Station and the only women's costumes are some form of lingerie.  So please don't hate me if I offended you; maybe I just hate the girls in sexy costumes because I'm jealous.
.
.
.
Nope.  That's a lie.

The life of a hermit.

I've discovered something about myself this weekend.

I'm a hermit.

But that's not really surprising at all.  I didn't do much hanging out in high school, and I hardly left my house this summer, but that was because I didn't feel like seeing those people. Now I'm back at BYU and I actually do like the people, but I'm too lazy to make the effort to be social sometimes.  (It would really help if we had a car). After a long week of school and work all I want to do is sit around a waste time.  I swear I can hear my couch calling out to me saying, "Sit on me!  I'm so comfy and soft.  Don't be social, be lazy!"  And I obey. 

This doesn't happen every weekend, but it's not rare either.  Last week my roommates and I were going to go do stuff with some other friends, but it got complicated and plans kept on changing, so we just bailed.  Instead we drew pictures of pokemon and colored.

That picture didn't take a long time to draw, but it took FOREVER to color.  If you can't tell, there's a lot of shading and other artistic stuff goin' on there. 

This Friday was a hermit day also.  Meghan and I stayed home and did a lot of stupid things.  First we made gourmet ramen with eggs and peas for second dinner.  (I'm proud to say that was the first time I've had ramen since school started).  Then we spent about an hour on reddit.  Just looking at really cool things like this.

Then Meghan introduced me to omegle.  It's where you can chat to strangers on the internet.  People go on omegle for different reasons, but we were there to troll.   We thought we were pretty funny, but the people we talked to would probably disagree.  Most of the conversations ended when they found out I wasn't there to talk dirty.  (Lots of classy people use omegle).

He didn't get my joke :(

Ouch. 

Apparently there is something wrong with mormons.  He didn't want to talk to me:(

How come they don't see the humor?

I have a problem with correcting people's spelling.

He didn't even say hi first.  Rude.

Why did he disconnect?  I was PERFECT for him.

Hahahahahahahah.  I loved using this one.

Sometimes you'd find other people there to troll too, but mostly the people hated me.  It was fun.  You should try it sometime.  Just don't give away personal details, there are a lot of scary people out there.  (I'm sure you already know that, but I don't want to be the reason some stupid girl gets abducted by a creepy 60 year old man).

Why would I want to go out and flirt with hot guys when I can chat to weirdos on the internet?  Wow that sounds really pathetic.  I don't care.  It was fun.

Really important things, and more crappy phone pictures

This is sad.  I feel like I never have time to blog anymore because I'm always busy.  I'm either sleeping, studying, homeworking (just invented that word), going to class, exercising, or working.  But seriously, that's basically all I do on the weekdays.  Whenever I have free time I feel like I should be studying.  College can be annoying like that.

But today is Saturday.  And that means I'LL DO WHAT I WANT.  So I'm gonna blog.  Just about what's been goin' on in my life since I haven't done that for awhile. 

Things that are going on in my life that mean nothing to you and everything to me:

1)I'm running the Halloween Half Marathon.  Yep.  It should be interesting.  I already have two black toes, so I must be doing something right.  I mostly want to run in this particular event because we can wear halloween constumes.  I'm open for suggestions.

2)  Provo is ugly except for the mountains.  I've gone biking twice in Utah, and both times I rode on a trail up the canyon.  I wanted to cry it was so pretty.

Wait, you don't bike next to waterfalls? That's weird.

Well, it's much prettier in person.  All I had was my phone.

3)  I hate my Sociology 310 class.  Yeah, so I'm taking two sociology classes this semester because it's my major, but I discovered that I kind of hate it. My 310 class is basically a philosophy class and it makes me want to die.  Want to know the differences between Hobbes and Locke?  Locke is the religious version of Hobbes.  That's about it.  Okay, well I could also compare and contrast Hobbes and Locke with Kant and Hegel.  Would you like me to do that?  Of course not, because it sucks.

On a side note: we're currently learning about Karl Marx and he's the first philosopher I actually agree with.  I'M A COMMUNIST.  Just kidding, but really.  If you disagree with Marx, you basically have no heart.  My professor explained that the ideal communist society according to Marx would be the set up of Star Trek.    It didn't take me long to realize how nerdy my class was.  But think about it; Star Trek is totally communist.  And awesome. 

4)  I recently decided I want to be a teacher.  So even though I hate my Sociology class, it gave me the mental breakdown I needed to figure out what I actually wanted to do with my life.  And I decided on high school language arts teacher.  Don't laugh! That's insulting.  But I can understand your confusion since I hated school so much.  I always told myself I would never be a teacher and then I realized that I actually would like to be a teacher.  I hated a lot of things about high school like the cliques, drama, bad teachers, and math.  But if I'm the teacher I don't have to deal with those things.  I lied.  I'll never escape that, but at least it's not middle school...

I also plan on being the cool teacher.  That's really all I want.

Sick of being Single

Warning:  This post may end up being a rant.  I will try to control myself, but I can make no promises.

Do you know those girls who always have a boyfriend?  It doesn't matter if they just ended a relationship a month prior, chances are they have another boy lined up.  I can never see anything spectacular about these girls, but somehow they always have a boy.

Well, guess what.  I'm not one of "those" girls. 

I have never been, nor will I ever be, and that's ok with me.  But for heaven's sake, can't I have some of their luck every once in awhile?  I'm not saying I want a serious relationship (because I don't), but that doesn't mean I wouldn't like a little excitement in my life.  I just want a chill relationship with a nice guy that happens to be hot.  Is that too much to ask?  Probably, considering every other girl here wants the same thing as me.

For you to fully understand my frustration, I'm gonna have to go back to my High School years.  Shiver.  First off, since I'm mormon I wasn't allowed to date till I was 16.   So technically, I wasn't dating till the middle of my Sophomore year.  Correction: I wasn't allowed to date till my Sophomore year.  Until then, I blamed the lack of romance in my life to the dating rule.  Then I realized that I wouldn't have had any romance even if I had been allowed to date.  Like I said, I'm just not that kind of girl.

I was only asked to a school dance twice, and it was by the same guy.  (He asked me Freshman year, but I had to awkwardly decline).   I never had a real boyfriend either.  (I'm not counting summer flings).  I went through High School single, and just assumed it was because no one was interested.  Then the end of senior year was fast approaching, and we started to vote for Senior Superlatives.  I ended up tying with another girl for the "most attractive" superlative. 

Proof that I was the "most attractive" girl at my school.

Yeah, I know you're surprised; so was I.  It was quite the compliment, and I was flattered, but then I got mad.  If guys had been interested, then why hadn't any of them tried to date me, let alone talk to me??  GAHHHHHHHH!!!!  Oh, and today a kid from high school started talking to me on facebook chat.  After just a couple minutes he went out of his way to tell me he had had a crush on me all through high school.  Thanks dude, but why are you telling me this NOW?  I must be cursed.  All I know is that weird girls get boyfriends, and pretty girls get boyfriends, but I can't get one of those if I tried.  People tell me, "But Kristen, boys are just intimidated by you!"  Bologna.  I know a crap answer when I hear one. 

Now I'm at BYU, surrounded by hot guys and I'm still as single as it gets.  But I really should be blaming myself.  I have a problem with flirting because I find it obnoxious and annoying, so I avoid it.  So basically, guys don't know if I'm interested in them or not.  Here's the hint guys: if I talk to you in person a little more than the other guys, or I add you on facebook, I'm flirting with you.  That's about it.

That's going to change though.  From now on I'm going to actually try and let guys know I'm interested, and maybe I'll see some results.  My first victim is going to be the new hot guy that works in the dishroom.  I only saw him last Thursday and it was his first day so chances are he quit, but I'm hoping for the best.  I'm pretty sure I sat next to him last year in the Stats lab, so I can use this to my advantage.  Now all I have to do is choose which awesome conversation starter I should use.

Option 1:  "Hey, I remember you from last fall in the stats lab."

•   Nope.  Creepy.

 Option 2:  "Hey, are you bad a statistics?  Because I swear I recognize you from the stats lab."

• Nope.  Insulting.

Option 3:  You're hot.  Want to date me?"

• Nope.  Chuck Testa.

 Yeah, we'll see how this goes. Wish me luck.

For now, I'm just Forever alone.   Ok, I really need to stop with these meme references...

Sometimes my life seems like a joke...

I've been noticing a theme in my life as of late.  It seems like everything I do, something goes wrong, or I do something stupid.  I could look at this negatively, but I prefer to look at my life comically. Basically my life seems like a big joke right now.

Let's start with Saturday's game.  It was the first home game of the season, and we were playing University of Utah.  The Holy War.  Like any other fan, I was hoping for a win, but we lost.  By a lot.

BEFORE the game.  Still happy and smiling.

I really don't want to go into more details about that game.  It was pretty embarrassing.

Ok, so the next day was Sunday.  I happen to have one of the few on-campus jobs that requires the employees to work Sundays, so I couldn't attend my usual ward.  The MTC holds a short sacrament meeting at 10:15 so I was planning on going to that instead of church.  I didn't set my alarm because I assumed my roommates would be getting ready for church before me.  We woke up at ten.  We seriously have a problem when it comes to waking up for church.  Turns out I wasn't the only one out of my roommates who missed church.  At least I had an excuse :p

I only have to work one Sunday a month, but that means we all have to work two shifts.  I biked to work and went back home after the first shift to eat some food.  I made a gourmet meal consisting of a boiled potato, peanut butter and banana sandwich, and half a cucumber.  Then I biked up the freakin hill for the second time that day to go to work.  When I arrived I found out that they provide us with a free meal on Sundays.  I wasn't bitter or anything...It's not like they'd have anything fancier than boiled potatoes.

Alright this next example is the best/worst, which is why I'm wary of sharing it with the public .  Oh well.  On Monday I went to my first work out with BYU's triathlon club.  I was pretty nervous because I had no idea how fast these people were and I thought I wouldn't be able to keep up.  Well, I was able to keep up just fine.  Actually, I was able to catch up also.  Confused yet?  Let me explain.  Do you know what an early morning run does to your digestive system?  If you don't, you're about to find out. 15 minutes into the run I started to get that feeling.  I really had to go to the bathroom.  But there weren't any bathrooms around, so I went in some poor soul's front yard bushes.  I used a plastic bag and leaf as toilet paper.  Gag.  Then I ran really fast and caught up with the pack. 

Sorry that was definitely way too much information, but it's just too funny and ridiculous to be left unsaid.  I've made it through six seasons of cross country and running on my own, but this was the first time I ever had to pop a squat in someone's yard.  Of course it had to be my first day working out with the triathlon club. 

Then this morning I woke up dark and early to go swimming.  We practice at 6am EVERY FREAKING MORNING.  I got halfway to the the pool and realized that I didn't have my student ID card, so I turned around to go get it.  I fumbled at the door and incorrectly entered the lock code twice before finally getting inside.  I grabbed my wallet and ran out.  Once I got to the locker room I handed my card to the girl at the front desk and she gave it back to me with a confused look.  I had handed her my laundry card.  My student ID wasn't in my wallet.  Effffff.  Luckily I remembered my student number, so I still was able to use the pool.  After I swam (or attempted) I put my clothes on and realized that my ID card was in my sweat shirt pocket. 

Why is my life so awesome?

Alarm Clock Fail

I've always been pretty responsible when it comes to waking up for school and church.  Though Seminary at 6am every morning nearly killed me, I still set my alarm every night and got up when I was supposed to.  It wasn't easy, so I came up with strategies to guarantee my chances of actually getting up.  First, I kept my alarm clock on the other side of the room so that I'd have to physically get out of my bed to turn it off.  I also gave myself the bare minimum amount of time to get ready; that way hitting the snooze button wasn't an option.

Just some pictures of my family tormenting me while I sleep.

Apparently the alarm clock gods are against me, because these past couple weeks I haven't been waking up on time.  All because I trust in my phone alarm too much.

This year my ward has church at 9am, so an alarm is absolutely necessary.  Two Sundays ago, both my roommate and I set our phone alarms for 8am.  Plenty of time to get ready.  We woke up at 8:20.  Both of our alarms didn't go off, and I'm still not really sure why.  We got ready, and walked to church with ten minutes to spare.  Beast.

The next Saturday night, Aubrey joked, "We better check to make sure our alarms are set."  I laughed in agreement and went to sleep.  I woke up the next morning at 8:15.  Both our alarms didn't go off.  AGAIN.  I had set my alarm correctly, but my sound was turned off.  I still don't know what was wrong with Aubrey's.

This Monday I did my laundry between class and work.  I was really tired so I decided to take a half hour nap and wake up at 3:45.  That way I could get my laundry out of the dryer, get ready, and leave for work at four.  I woke up at 4:15 when my roommates walked in.  I seriously can't describe how confused I was.  The whole thing was actually pretty comical because I was so out of it.

I'll try to recreate the scene, but I may be making some stuff up.  I still don't really know what was going on.

Kristen lay on her bed, deep in sleep.  Her roommates walk in.

Meghan: "You're still here?"
Kristen:  "Wait, what?"
Meghan:  "Aren't you supposed to be at work?"
Kristen:   "My alarm...what time do I work?"
Meghan:  "I don't know.  4:30?"

Kristen jumps out of bed and stares with a dazed expression at her phone.

Kristen:  "Why didn't my alarm go off?"
Aubrey: "Are you ok?"
Kristen:  "Wahh?"

Kristen fumbles around and drops her pants.

Kristen:  "Why am I so confused?"

Kristen stops what she's doing and looks around the room.

Meghan:  "Did you hit your head?"
Kristen:  "What?  Maybe.  I'm so confused."

Yeah, I'll spare you the rest.  Luckily, my roommates were thinking lucidly, so they suggested I call a friend to give me a ride to work.  Then I couldn't find my work polo, so I had to run to the laundry room to grab my other polo.  Hailey gave me a ride, and I showed up to work with a minute to spare.  That shift still feels like a dream. 

Being creepy and stuff

Sometimes I get bored in class (imagine that), so I do things to entertain myself.  My number one strategy is to try and fall asleep.  This often works, but sometimes the professors get annoyed, or I might miss valuable test information.   This is what I typically look like from my laptop's perspective.

Too bad we don't actually have class on couches.

If sleeping and surfing the internet isn't an option, or I need to be more attentive, I have to resort to weird/creepy things.

Sometimes I stare at the back of students' heads and try to picture what their faces look like.  Sadly, they're never as attractive as I hoped.

Or sometimes I let my thoughts drift and once again start staring at the students around me.  I try to figure out what kind of person they are outside of the classroom.  It's pretty easy to pick out the players, (the mormon version of course) and the molly mormons.  I probably shouldn't be judging people so much, but what else am I gonna do? 

Don't say listen to my professor.

So a couple of days ago I was the last person in my linguistics class to sign the attendance sheet.  Since I was last, I held onto it and gave it to my professor at the end of class.  After a few minutes I got bored and started to study the students' names.  Of course there were a few girls named Ashley, and four named Emily, but just because BYU isn't a very diverse school doesn't mean there aren't some unique names.  My class has a Vasilisa, Olimpia, and Sabra.  There also is a girl named Miriam.  Poor thing.  There weren't many weird last names, but I think Tata and Inoue fit the bill.

Today during one of my long sociology classes I found a different way to entertain myself.  Instead of creepily writing down my classmates' names, I looked through their itunes library.  You can tell a lot about a person from their music selection, and I could definitely figure most of my suspects were mormon girls.  Lots of Celine Dion, Mormon Tabernacle Choir, and David Archuleta.  You can see the peoples' names or user names on the side, so that helped too....

Hahahhahaha.  Anita Potty.  Get it??

To my astonishment, I saw a name I recognized in my shared library so I clicked on it.  I'm still not sure if this was the person I know, but I scrutinized her music much too thoroughly to see if it was in fact her.  I don't know why I cared so much.  Yes I do.  It's because I was SO BORED.