Can I tell you about our Scotland Secret?

It's been all I could do to keep mum about it but Matt gave me the go ahead so I am in the clear for announcing.

First let me give you a hint, it has to do with where Matt and I will be most likely be living from the Fall 2010-Fall 2011

One more hint....

Well, you probably are getting the jist of it. The thing is, Matt applied to do the LLM exchange program for his final year in law school at the University of Edinburgh. Getting his JD from UT and his Masters of Legal Research from the University of Edinburgh seemed like the perfect fit but when he applied for the program a couple months ago, it seemed as if it was too good to be true. The student exchange office was packed with peeps interested in the various programs. We were really not sure if any of it would pan out. Still, Matt applied. Of course, being a reserved and shrewd fellow in all things, he told me not to tell a soul that he did. I did my darndest not to and stayed good on my promise, until now obviously. That was at the end of September. Until then we have been waiting. And waiting. And....waiting.

It got to be too much for Matt last week, so he stopped by to the student exchange office a week ago and asked if he could update his information with a relevant course he wanted to add to his resume. They let him know that it was unnecessary as decisions had already been made and the emails would be sent out "on Monday". That started last weekend out with a bit of tension but we tried to distract ourselves well enough so that we didn't pass out from holding our breath for 3 days.

This last Monday came and went without an email. Same with Tuesday. It seemed that all hope was lost. I was ready on Monday night for the worst and was sure to stop at Whole Foods on the way home from work to buy Matt some organic Reese PB Cups and fancy Martinelli's apple juice as consolation. He accepted it all with a weak smile and didn't even have to tell me that the juice would still taste a bit bitter for a day or two. Still, he enjoyed the PB cups on Tuesday and we both found ways to convince ourselves that "we didn't need that stupid exchange program anyway"..."moving is such a pain"..."if they don't want us then heck! we don't want them!" You get the idea.

Well, of course, Matt still needed closure; so he stopped by the office a final time to get a sure answer. The office was closed but on the door was posted the list of all accepted applicants to their respective programs. And sure to Sweeney form, in such matters, we had assumed too much too quickly. Listed next to the Edinburgh Scotland exchange were the two accepted applicants. Mr. Matthew Sweeney was one of them. The email didn't officially go out until Thursday but it indeed came and we are oh so thrilled!

So I suppose it is off to another adventure. I hope that Edinburgh is as keen on "keeping it weird" as Austin is. From the stories that both my dad and Mr. Swirly Patterns have said from their missions, they keep it weird there in a whole new way. I will let you know the baked goods and bads of what that will mean for Matt and I next year. Stay tuned then I guess...

***Matt wishes me to post one disclaimer about all of this and that is that there is still one more step to finalize whether this actually happens. That is, University of Edinburgh needs to have two interested law students wanting to come to UT in order for the exchange to work. We won't know that until March, so there is still a slight chance that something could come in between us and Scotland. Still, I can't wait until March to get excited for this. In any case, it seems likely enough now that Matt has been accepted.***

Just in case you were wondering

Here is a short list of things that get on my nerves lately.

1. The absurd number of girls on UT campus (and neighboring areas with the same age group) wearing running shorts like they are regular clothes.

2. How it seems that 1 in 3 girls between the ages of 16-25 think that wearing running shorts is not at all sloppy or stupid looking.

3. Girls wearing running shorts with a sweatshirt and flips flops. Can anyone validate how this doesn't make sense?

4. Girls wearing running shorts who clearly .... how can I say ... do not engage in anything that includes physical exercise. Wearing the shorts does not make your legs look like a runner's. Far from it.*

5. The realization that running shorts are the new pajama pants of the south.

Oh well, I suppose it makes it a bit easier now that I have left BYU campus, as most of these girls have reasonably un-big hair and don't tend to wear an unholy amount of mascara. Still, let it be known that running shorts were not designed for fashion. They are clearly designed for a specific function and no amount of "built-in underwear" or colorful stripes on the side can compensate for failure to wear actual clothes to school. The sooner people can begin to respect this principle, the better this Austin community will be.



*Sure. You may say that I am being exclusive about runner's apparel since I wear running shorts when I run. By no means am I suggesting that my legs look any better than most of these girls, even though I do run. I do, however, respect that running shorts are utilitarian. As a result, I avoid wearing them in public at all costs. I respect that running shorts were created by the running geek and for the running geek.

For your convenience, I have included an image of the appropriate use of running shorts.

Dogtoberfest!

Get it?! It's a dog festival in October!! The second annual in Austin, in fact, and man was it fun! Matt and I met up with some friends just in time for the costume contest. When Matt heard that there was a costume contest he was a little reticent on coming. "What do we do? Dress up as dogs?" When he learned that it was the dogs who were competing with their costumes, he was all for attending. My goodness, it was a good thing we did. Otherwise we would have missed out on one of the most festive events of the season. It was a good time for all. Take a look...

Get it?! The dog is dressed up as a chicken!

Apparently this dog only needed a hood to pull off Chebacca.

Yappy dogs were even worth interacting with when they had on a costume.

In between rounds of the contest, the dogs decompressed by socializing,

getting a few belly rubs,and even dancing!Of course, what would be a dog costume contest without Wiener Dogs dressed up like a hot dog or a banana?
Is this cute or really upsetting? I'm not sure what yet...

And the grand prize winner, for good reason, goes to the Mad Hatter.
Such dignity.

What is great about this event, is that it turns out that dogs are not at all camera shy. Granted, they get easily distracted by things they can sniff and reeling in people who could potentially pet them, but they are easier to photograph than a happy group of children. Not only that but no body thinks you're a creep for wanting to photograph how great they look. Yep. This event was a marvelous idea. I can't wait until the 3rd annual Dogtoberfest! I think I will rent me a dog to dress up just for the evening....

Be Prepared! for a good Halloween season...

When Mr. Swirly Patterns came for a visit last week, I was struck once again with cult classic fever. There is not one person who can better help you catch the "Ed-Wood" bug than my brother. It's a good thing that he came in time for Halloween season.

For me, this is the most wonderful time of the year; but I have found that in order to experience the depth that Halloween has to offer, eating Abba Zabbas and Bottle Caps is just not enough. Lets be honest here, in addition to the candy and a costume, there needs to be some other things in order to assure a complete Halloween season. I have found that I need substantial time spent in drugstore aisles looking at bad makeup and rayon costumes. I also have found that including something pumkiny helps a great deal too. This can be applied in many ways (ie pie, cookies, bread, carving, seeds, gourds, etc). And of course, viewing at least one terrible (or very dated works too) Halloween flick is a necessity. I'll play viewer's advisory media librarian a moment here and recommend a handful:

- Shaun of the Dead
- The Fearless Vampire Killers
- Ed Wood
- Ghostbusters
- Teen Wolf (but not Teen Wolf Too - unless you are going for terrible and dated)
- Lost Boys
- Sleeper
- Revenge of the Body Snatchers
- Plan Nine From Outer Space (I don't have to have seen this one to know it should be on the list)

I have no doubt that you all would have some good suggestions to add to that list too. Feel free to fill in the gaps I have left. I think I have my main monsters covered here, except for trolls. Okay, I suppose I will throw in Troll 2 just to keep my bases covered.


And for good measure, I thought I would share some key insights we public library folk are trying to share with our community about how to survive a zombie attack. The teen users are particularly receptive to this information at our various "ZombieFest" events. Still, I thought all you "adults" out there might be interested in getting some tips about this too. I mean, you just never know when this information will come in handy...

1. Organize before they rise.
2. They feel no fear, why should you?
3. Use your head: cut off theirs.
4. Blades don't need reloading.
5. Ideal protection = tight clothes, short hair.
6. Get up the staircase, then destroy it.
7. Get out of the car, get onto a bike.
8. Keep moving, keep low, keep quiet, keep alert.
9. No place is safe, only safer.
10. The zombie may be gone but the threat lives on.

Red Hat Society off Burnett Road

Today when I went to get my hair trimmed at Baldwin Beauty School around 9:30am, I was a little startled when I went to take my seat in the waiting area. All I could see were two rows of white and grey headed ladies waiting to firm up their wispy permanents or get their weekly wash-and-style. It kind of stressed me out for a minute as I sat down to bobbing heads chattering about coconut cream pie and dropping lines like "just leave that government alone and they'll fix it" in my periphery. After a minute though I realized that this was the group I fit into this year. That is, the at home during the day group with no kids to keep me from getting things done; and most importantly, I am in that women's league too cheap to pay more than $5 for a haircut. Yep. I suppose I belong to this old lady club for the time being.

Heck. I already drink Yogi Herbal Tea.

I am going on an all yoga fitness 10 day diet starting next Tuesday. There's this yoga studio close to my apartment that gives a promo offer of 10 days of yoga for $10. If any of you out there have every tried to take yoga classes at a studio, you can vouch that this is a pretty sweet offer. I am not entirely sure why I think this is going to be something I enjoy or can even do as I have only done yoga maybe four times in the last five or six years. And the times that I did go I had a feeling that was pretty comparable to the one or two awkward middle school dances I attended with my BFFs as a tween. Like yoga, the room was uncomfortably hot and humid with sweaty bodies. I was so terrible at doing what I was supposed to be doing that I was conspicuous. People told me no one was looking at me but since I was looking at everyone else I knew that was a lie. And I noticed that even the people that were "good" at this ridiculous activity looked very stupid, maybe even more so than I did.

So why is it that I am so excited about taking up this offer? It started when I got talking to our Relief Society yoga class instructor.* She is a very convincing lady about her yoga ways and I couldn't help but get pretty...well convinced. Yep. That's all it took really. I wish I could say I had more reasons why I have come to the irreconcilable conclusion that I must devote more of my mind, body and spirit to the yoga way; but that was all there was to it. What can I say? She was very convincing.

Now I have checked out books, read the wikipedia entry on the different forms of yoga, started watching DVDs and of course signed up for this class. I feel like this new "lifestyle" in which I am about to engage adds a pretty cool mystique to my very extroverted self. I can especially feel this mystique when I carry around my book Yoga: A Return to Wholeness. I feel downright esoteric actually. And I like that.

But still, I can't help but think it is going to be a really great thing to do this. Ten days of Yoga might even change my life. Well, at least a little. Also, it's nice to try something new. Get involved in a new community of people. Yoga followers come in throngs here in Austin. Maybe it's the hippy "keeping it weird" factor but I like to think it is something a little bit bigger than that. Can I qualify the word transcendental with a "kind of"? Either way, wish me luck. I will be going on a running and swimming fast for the next 2 weeks. I just thought I would let you know about all of this too, just in case you are wondering why I am wearing stretchy gaucho pants next month.


*Yes we have a RS yoga class that I inadvertantly started when I started the "Fitness" mini-enrichment group for walking and running. Which ironically, the walking and running group has been sturggling along since May and the yoga group has been immensely popular. Another reason this whole yoga thing seems sort of cosmic for me to be doing.

Mind your scripture reading...

I was just reading from the Bible Dictionary a few minutes ago about the definition of the word "Zion". There was a passage that reads: "Enoch built a city that was called Zion". And for a moment my mind misread the passage as: "Enoch built his city on Rock and Roll". I was quick to correct myself and tried to better focus my reading. Still, I can't help but think that the Enoch's story might be been even cooler than it already is had built his city Zion on Rock and Roll.

Learn to be a Librarian

Well, I survived my "web institute" in Denton to jump start my MLIS program with them Eagles at University of North Texas. If that doesn't sound very impressive, let me just let you know that this institute consisted of four days straight of meeting and listening to 8 hours of power point lectures. The auditorium was full of about 200 other people and we all sat together learning about all the assignments we will have (it turns out to be lots) and hearing the professors go back and forth with the "you are going to absolutely die in the course" to the "oh don't worry - lot's of people have done this and so can you". I'll go ahead and say that it was actually helpful at first. You may even say there was some "synergy" in the room on the first day but that fades after going through the perpetual cycles one starts in those settings: eat, sit and drink, sit and drink, freeze from the AC, break - go to the bathroom, walk around outside, overheat and get a bit sweaty, return, sit and drink, sit and drink, freeze, lunch and so on. It was pretty cruel towards the end but I made it through. I think it may have even prepared me for the semester ahead in such courses as "Introduction to the Information Profession", "Public Library Management", and "Information Access and Retrieval" (why can't they just call that last one "Reference Work"? They seriously make us all sound like nerdy jerks when we call it that around other people.) The classwork will be pretty cool as I have a boatload of interesting sources to make into "annotated bibliographies". I also get to do these weekly "quests" for the reference class where I look up repudiable sources to find answers to questions like what a SAFFIR-SIMPSON DAMAGE-POTENTIAL SCALE is and how a HURDY DURDY instrument is played (if you're interested browse here under "stringed instruments"). Yep, it turns out that info science was a good choice for me. Despite the Medieval Club-soundingness of a quest, it turns out to be loads of fun. I'm not kidding. If you're interested in doing some yourself. Let me know and I will make up one for you.

Heck, I'll do it right now. You can refer to this Super Duper Resource List my professor gave me. You won't be able to access the UNT sites but I'll make up a question that doesn't depend on those sources.

Okay let's see...

Try this one:

#1 Using an encyclopedia only (either print or electronic), find out who is the wife to the Norse god Thor. Who are his parents? Cite your source(s) used (either URL or title and page # of book used).

Did you like it? Here's one more and then I have to start actually doing my homework. (Only Swirly Patterns can tell me if this one is really true).

#2 Using a dictionary only (either print or electronic), find out what term(s) the British use to refer to a Senior Citizen. Cite your source(s) used (either URL or title and page # of book used).

Aren't you jealous you aren't in library school? Hey, you can still come up with your own quests though! Post any that strike your fancy while exploring that Super Duper List of mine. Research is fun!

Summers get you through all the other seasons.

Yep. It's been awhile since I've last posted and with my library science program starting this weekend, two jobs that are now in full force, all the churchy stuff that goes along with being the R.S. enrichment lady, and getting enough "Cate time" (ie swimming and running time) and Matt time - I think I am going to be hard pressed to be a frequent blog poster. So I best not apologize as this is one of many late blog posts to come.

Still, that is not to say I haven't been enjoying myself these last few weeks. There has been a cake dome party, some scenic running, a reunion with my beloved Austin, TX (after a 6 week hiatus of living in OK), plenty of quality Matt time, and all kinds of great activities that leave you with a slight sunburn. The heat has been oppressive but I am getting so accustomed to swimming instead of running these days I have been able to weather it well enough. Still, hitting our 58th triple digit degree day today has made me welcome hurricane season with open arms (sorry Houston but that is just one less thing you have going for you).

When the going gets hot and I find myself spending an increasing amount of time under florescent light at work and soon to be school, I remember 2 things:

My watermelon cake

and my run up Ephraim Canyon on Skyline Drive with some great company and balmy, cloudy weather.

It was a great day to end all summers.

I hope the rest of you had a few days like that this summer to get you through the rough seasons ahead (well unless you live out our way in which case the summer is the cruelest season). Regardless of weather there is something about summer that all the Redfish folk of 2006 said that is sacred. If you haven't had a sacred summer there is still time for a skinny dip in a glacier lake, a Tiger's Blood snow cone in a hot parking lot, a tin foil dinner up the canyon, park picnic or something the like. If you have had a few sacred moments, then keep them safe. You'll never know when you're going to need them.

Which version would make it onto your iPod mix?

The Original from Europe?

or The Remix from Ash and Mom?