So the GMAT is tomorrow morning at 8:00 AM. I have worked and prayed my butt off to get a good score, and I have tried reeeeally reeeeally hard to be good so God won't say "you don't deserve my help". What else can I do, right? I am doing some light review today but not delving too deep into the books. My mind needs to relax so I don't overdo it tomorrow. Tamara and I are going to the Temple tonight, and I can't think of anything that would clear my mind better than that.
I went to an information session at the University of Utah last night and it was very enlightening. It is a good program with a lot to offer its students and alumni, far more than the program at UVU (which my Dad is, understandably, trying so hard to talk me into taking -- both he and my Mom work there). I got to chat for a few minutes with the director of admissions which definitely ought to give me an advantage of some kind. He remembered my application (out of hundreds) and asked me to call him after I take the GMAT and tell him what my score was. That would suggest to me that my application really stood out except for that stupid GMAT score I got the first time. So it looks like all the pieces are falling into place. Everything hinges on how well I do tomorrow, and I don't know what more I could do to prepare for tomorrow than I have already done. One more thing, if I get 50th percentile in the math portion of the test, I won't have to retake College Algebra (my current transcript grade is too low). I'll still have to re-take Business Statistics, and that is going to suck, but at least I won't have to take that College Algebra class... I feel encouraged and optimistic right now that everything is going to work out. Things have not been going much my way for the past year. Finally something promising seems to be going my way and I'm fired up to make it happen! Wish me luck!! Or a prayer might work better...
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
Saturday, January 9, 2010
Avatar
Movies will never be the same.
I don't post very often, let alone in the same day, but I did not plan on going to the movies earlier today. We decided to take a break from studying and go on a date tonight. Since we saw Tamara's movie last time (Sherlock Holmes), I got to pick this time. I had heard good things about Avatar, but nothing could prepare me for what I was about to witness.
Avatar was a-m-a-z-i-n-g. The movie is a thrill ride from beginning to end. From the minute it started, I was hooked. The whole movie is three hours long, and for a movie to be so bold as to suggest it deserves three hours of my time is quite presumptuous if you ask me. Not only did Avatar deserve three hours of my day, but it changed my freaking life. Every movie made from this day on will have a standard set by Avatar. I will ask myself the question "How good was this movie, on a scale of 1 to Avatar?" after seeing movies from now on.
Actually, the first 20 minutes or so I wasn't sure what to think of it. It seemed a little overblown and over-scripted. When the plot began to develop, though, and the world of Pandora opened up on the 3D-Movie screen, I just wished I was there. By the way, don't bother seeing the movie if you don't see it in 3D at least. If you can see it in IMAX I personally guarantee you the ride of your life. Seeing it on a regular screen just won't do it justice.
The plot is not the most original -- no spoilers here, don't worry. A marine is deployed via Avatar (his mind is placed in a body not his own) to infiltrate an alien race in order to persuade them by peaceful means to move off their homeland, which is full of a valuable mineral the humans want to mine. Of course, the marine decides he likes being an alien and the aliens don't want to move. Violence ensues, and it climaxes with -- hands down -- the most incredible battle scene I have ever watched (LOTR included, sorry). The ending is good, leaves plenty for your imagination and closes all loopholes I needed to have filled.
But even without the most original plot, it certainly kept my (rapt) attention. Got my adrenaline going a few times too. To end, I will say that I am usually satisfied seeing a movie once in the theater. I likely will never have a strong desire to see that particular movie again. LOTR and the Dark Knight are the only two that come to mind that I actually wanted to see a second time in theaters after seeing them once already. Walking out of the theater, I was already plotting out my budget (time and $$) for the trip up to Salt Lake to see it at the IMAX. I will be talking about Avatar for a long time, I think.
In Case You Didn't Know
I have been pretty reclusive recently and I just thought some (few, I'm pretty short on "buddies" right now anyway) people might wonder why I am so anti-social lately. Well, I have a good excuse. I submitted my application to the MBA program at University of Utah back in November, kicked back my heels and waited for their decision. Honestly I didn't think I had very good odds of getting in. People are applying like crazy to MBA schools right now, and the schools are able to pick and choose the cream-of-the-crop. With my average GPA and slightly-better-than-average GMAT score, I didn't expect much. To my surprise, however, about three days before Christmas, I got a letter from the school saying my application shows "promise", and they would consider admitting me with my current application, or I could "greatly enhance (my) chances of being accepted by re-taking the GMAT". I assume they want me to get a better score so I can bring the school's average UP rather than DOWN. The deadline, however, is January 15, which gave me slightly more than three weeks to brush up and get ready. Ever since, I have put in several hours of study per day and done little else. I've passed up opportunities to go skiing for free, I haven't hung out with anyone except my wife (we went to Sherlock Holmes last week, good show!), and I've been stuck mostly in my bedroom studying except for the occasional football or basketball game.
Its taken some self-discipline to keep this up with so much intensity for a few weeks now (I really wanted to go skiing!) but it is seriously paying off. My original GMAT score was 560, a little bit better than the average score. My practice tests, which are a pretty reliable indication of how well you will do on the actual test, have gone steadily up. My most recent (yesterday) was 610. I feel pretty confident that if I can perform like that on the actual test, I will get into the MBA program at U of U for Fall 2010. Just got a few days left! I take the test on Thursday at 8:00 AM. I hope my nerves don't get me...
Monday, December 28, 2009
2009 Music Wrap
Every year everyone in my family puts together a little playlist of 10-12 songs that were somehow meaningful over the past year. Someday it will be kind of fun to look back and see what kind of music we were listening to over the years. I like my list this year the best so far, I think. Here are my songs with links to the music.
Quick explanation: Collective Soul put out a new CD this summer and as usual it is awesome. Welcome All Again is the title track and it is packed with the energy that they have been missing for a few years. Comfortably Numb is my favorite Pink Floyd song, and I got into their music while living in California. Great tonal quality and the guitar outro at the end is immortal. Recently I started to really appreciate Fleetwood Mac. A lot of their songs have a melancholy tone and extremely rich lyrics that have resonated with me lately. I've got The Chain and Dreams on there. One Day Remains is a great song from the little-known band Alter Bridge. I love the energy and the optimistic message. I'm not much of a Live fan, but Ghost brings back a lot of memories of California, especially the fog and rainy winters. Let The Good Times Roll played on the radio about 4 separate times on our way back from a Moab biking trip this fall, and ever since I have loved the song. My sister gave me a Stone Temple Pilots cd for my birthday, and I really liked the hard core songs but the acoustic version of Plush really stuck with me. Heart to Heart has grown on me. It is such a simple but absolutely beautiful song, and it illustrates why Ed Roland is one of music's greatest and under-appreciated vocalists. Cedars of Lebanon is, in my opinion, the only great musical achievement by U2 on their new No Line on the Horizon album, which has been critically acclaimed as an unfortunate follow-up to their smash How to Dismantle and Atomic Bomb from 2007. I love U2, though, and this song has a very unique sound, although a bit melancholy as well.
I like it. I'd listen to it. I do listen to it :). Enjoy.
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
End of the Year
As 2009 closes out, I have to say I will not miss it. Plenty of good times mingled with bad ones, but I am glad to see it go. The future worries me sometimes -- my employment is insecure, prospects not good, my home in pending foreclosure, and government doing everything it can to make sure the general situation doesn't get better -- but I have my wonderful family and the gospel. So I can't consider myself anything but truly blessed despite the hardship that has been heaped on me for the past 12 months. Life has been hard for a while now, but they say times like these are like the refiner's fire. Goldsmiths used to purify gold ore by melting it in a big pot over a fire. The impurities would float to the top, and the goldsmith would scrape all the muck and goo off the top and throw it away. This "refining" process would continue, sometimes for days, until the goldsmith could, as they say, see himself in the gold (his reflection). The reason our trials are so often compared to a Refiner's Fire is that while we are dealing with our little problems, our Father in Heaven is removing the gunk and filth out of our lives and the process continues until He can see a reflection of Himself in us. The most important thing to remember while in the Refiner's Fire is that the Refiner can't work with resistant gold. If we get caught up in feeling sorry for ourselves, or blaming others for the situation we are in, that filth and those impurities can't be worked out of us, and we will miss the opportunity to have God shape us into the valuable form He would have us be. This is my Refiner's Fire. I have realized over the past month or so that I have never dealt with trials as difficult as the ones I am facing now, and as a result, I am asking God for a lot of things (help me find a job, help me get into school, help us sell our property, help help help ...). As I thought about how much I am asking God for, I got to thinking about how much I deserved it based on my faithfulness. Since returning to Utah, unfortunately, the answer I had to give myself was "not much". Living in Utah, it is so much more challenging to be faithful spiritually, which is unfortunate. So, in order to be worthy of the blessings I seek, and to be sure I don't miss out on my Refiner's Fire, I have made a commitment to the Lord as the year ends to live worthily of the blessings I am seeking, or else I can not ask. If I am not attending church every week (and staying all three hours) that I am able, not reading the scriptures daily, not keeping the Sabbath, using inappropriate language, listening to inappropriate music or watching inappropriate movies, etc... , how can I go to the Lord and ask Him for blessings? He will hear my prayers, as He hears every prayer, but He will not put forth effort to bless me if I have put forth no effort to honor Him.
I love Christmas and the time set apart to honor Christ. If you are dealing with trials or challenges now or in the future, don't waste your Refiner's Fire. Always live like you know you should, and the Lord will bless you. Maybe not with money or the solutions to all your problems, but He will turn you into the purified gold that He allows into His Kingdom.
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Application Complete!
I just submitted my graduate school application to University of Utah! Pray for me! And I mean pray for me to get in, not that I won't be converted from Blue to Red. I may have to pretend to be a Ute fan for a while if I get in...
Sunday, October 18, 2009
Gooseberry Mesa
This has got to be one of the coolest bike trails in the world. Gooseberry Mesa is just above Hurricane, Utah, and you can see it easily from I-15 on the left as you are headed down into St. George from Cedar City. My Dad and I rode the trails up there this past Saturday and it was just awesome.
After surviving the cockroaches at the Econo Lodge in St George we headed up to Hurricane along highway 59, which eventually dead-ends on the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. We only got about 15 miles though, past the eastern end of the mesa, before turning left onto a dirt road running off as far as the eye can see. We followed that road for a while, then turned onto another road that ran out onto the top of the mesa. It was rocky and rough, but the Man Van (my Dad's old '96 Dodge Caravan w/ no A/C and plenty of room in the back for mountain bikes) has been through worse. After a long and bumpy ride, it was nice to arrive at the gravel parking lot for the Gooseberry Mesa Trail!
The parking lot definitely isn't in the coolest spot on the Mesa. Its surrounded by sagebrush and cedar trees. But you can see the cliffs surrounding the entrance to Zion National Park in the background. When we got there it was before 9:00, so the Sun had only just hit the top of the Mesa. It was still chilly and breezy, and a bunch of campers were cooking breakfast nearby. Their campfires smelled really good (cedar) and made me want to go camping... After some quick lube jobs and double-checking air pressure, we hit the trail.
The surface of Gooseberry Mesa is made up mostly of a loose-but-firm gravelly rock, with huge
slabs of slickrock scattered everywhere. Some of these slabs rise gently out of the regular
surface, while others stick straight up out of the ground to form huge domes. The Trail connects these slabs of slickrock together, so you get to ride all over one big dome and all over the rock around it, and then head off to the next one. Sometimes these domes rise so close together that you are winding around on trail right in between the walls of rock.
Unfortunately I didn't take any pictures of us riding right in between these walls of rock, but that was pretty fun. We cruised around from rock to rock for several miles. The slickrock is really great for bike riding because it allows you to do things that regular mountain soil won't let you do. It grips your tires better, so you can do stunts and ride obstacles that would be a lot more tricky or even impossible on dirt. Ledges are everywhere, and you can't always see them coming because the rock plays tricks on your depth perception, so you have to be constantly ready to bunny-hop or pull back as you go unexpectedly airborne. It is a full-body workout!
All that work is rewarded though by one of the best climactic scenery points ever!
No, Jason isn't back from his mission already. This picture was actually taken last Fall when Dad and Jason went without me... Bums. Pictures do not do it justice though. To the North you get a complete panorama of Zion Nation Park from the Kolob Canyons area all the way to the entrance to Zion Canyon, with all of the landmarks in between, like Watchman and Lava Point. To the South is another endless series of Mesas all lined up row by row. With nothing in the way, the Grand Canyon would be easily visible. So Dad and I took some time to take a few pictures and listen to a guy tell us the story about how he ripped his shorts right in the crotch area while he was riding ... we didn't ask to hear it ... and then we headed back to the Man Van.
I've been riding a full-suspension Specialized Stumpjumper since 2005 -- a very comfortable ride and I have enjoyed it. Dad had been riding a hard-tail (no rear suspension) Giant Iguana since 2003 until recently. This was his first time on full-suspension (in style! he now has a 2008 Gary Fisher Roscoe II! a $4500 bike that he didn't pay nearly that much for). The slickrock on Gooseberry Mesa is particularly rough, and after a few hours riding hard-tail, you feel pretty beat up. Well, after completing the trail yesterday on his Gary Fisher, here is how Dad felt.
Impressive. Great ride. And we made it back in time to see the end of the BYU game.
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