These are only my impressions because Matt isn't home from work yet. I'll let you know what he thinks of his classes later (since I can't get him to write on his own yet.. on here that is. He *is* literate). Anyway - here's an overview of my classes thus far and my first impressions of them. (First impressions because out of five classes, I've only had one of them twice).

MWF - Intro to Individual Psychotherapy
Instructor - Matt Draper

Oh laws! I seriously think this is going to be one of my favorite classes! (This happens to be the one I've had twice so far.) Matt is a bit of a nut - but he's so amazing! Today we talked about how pretty much none of the theories we're going to use really speak to the human soul like poetry does. We also talked about how important it is for a therapist to connect to their client in order to help them. It seemed to be the general consensus from like 5 people in my class who've been through therapy, not to mention Matt - who's been on both sides of the coin. I left today feeling so happy! I even had to write a journal entry after it, while sitting in my car :)

W evenings - Intro to Group Psychotherapy
Instructor - Jack Jensen

You must be thinking that I needed therapy, right? Well perhaps I do! Anyway, this is a one night a week class. I think it's going to be fun. It is supposed to run for 2.5 hours, so the first 1.5 hours, we're going to have group. Jack believes that the best way to learn how to conduct group therapy is to be in group therapy - so we will be! He seems likeable - and Danny took it from him and LOVED it (that's why I just had to take it!). After group, we'll get a break and then come back and talk about the book and stuff. (side note - I ordered 3 classes worth of books from half.com - and the one for this class came today! It was the first one!)

TR - Social Psychology
Instructor - Brett Breton

First impression was - "Hey Tyrel!" K, that's not of the class, but I was so excited to see him in this class. We had English and PoliSci together our first semester, kept in touch a little, exchanged wedding invites, and lost touch. I was so happy to know he's still around!
Anyway, Brett seems nice. I'm reserved as to just how well we'll get along though. He can be funny, but long winded, and his accent ... bugs? I dunno.. it's just weird. It's not like I can't understand him or anything. (He was born in Cali but grew up in Mexico City.) I left wondering if anything I might be reserved about is coming from the difference in cultures. We'll just have to see how it goes.
As for the class - we have to do some papers that sound entertaining. The first is about breaking a social norm - we have to pick a social norm (ie. personal space) and write about how people react to it. I think it sounds fun. The second one is similar, but a little more involved. An interesting thing is he doesn't care if we work individually or in groups. We can seriously work in a small group and turn in one paper with all our names on it!

TR - Personality Theory
Instructor - Cameron John

I wasn't stoked about this class. It's not my fav. subject. I really wanted to take Clinical Interviewing, but McKenna (my academic advisor) wouldn't overwrite it to let me take it since I hadn't taken Social Work 1010. I took Psychology, Sociology, and Anthropology! Isn't that good enough? So anyway, I decided on Personality Theory because I had Dr. John in high school through distance education (the first time I took Psych 1010 :) ) I didn't get a great grade, but I was a junior in her first college course, what do you expect? I did remember, however, that I liked the teacher, so I figured I could handle this class.
Oh laws! Dr. John is better in person! We started with a lis of emotion words and talked about emotions for awhile. It was fun. Try describing what "tired" feels like! We had a great discussion, and I actually think this will be another favorite class. As much as I hate papers, we're like one of three classes on campus utilizing the Writing Scholars program from the writing center, so I should be fine. It sounds cool too. Plus! we have a presentation in front of the class, and he gave us options with it. It sounds way fun. I'm actually excited for it.

TR - Physiological Psychology
Instructor - Dr. Yells

Last, but not least, I have Phys. Psych. I'm kind of excited for it because I haven't taken a hard science in awhile, and I actually enjoyed my biology courses. It'll be fun to combine the two (bio and psych). Dr. Yells through me for a loop though - we just jumped into lecture on the first day! After awhile, we took a break and passed out the syllabus, then lectured some more. I think I'll enjoy it though, however, it probably won't be a fav. We'll have to see though. Apparently the beginning is like the stupid Chem chapter that prefaces any intro bio course. We have to get the basics of neurology out of the way so we can talk about how it affects/creates psychology. (ie. what is the biological process of emotion/sleep/etc.)
I'll admit, it was nice to be back in the science building too.

So there are my first impressions of my classes this semester. Hopefully I can survive! :)

So this particular post doesn't really have a focus. Mostly I just wanted to add more posts. I'm sure there'll be a post in a few days, once we get back into school. School starts this Wednesday. I'm excited, but I'm also nervous. It's been awhile since I've taken a full semester, and now I'm jumping into 15 credits! I'm excited though because I only have 3 more semesters until I'm done with my bachelor's! Wahoo! I can't wait... Ok, I have to wait, but I'll get over it.

Let's see, what else is going on? Band and branch stuff seem to be going well. The band just implemented band leadership councils. Hopefully some of the tensions can be worked out now. However, I have vowed to just keep my mouth shut ('cept to Matt and Shawn obviously, but it's ok, cuz they're IN the band ;) ). The band also just hosted the most recent quarterly meeting of the Great Basin branch of The Western United States Pipe Band Association (WUSPBA - http://www.wuspba.org/ - a prime example of things pertaining to pipe bands having WAY too long of names). Aside from the slight talking in circles at the end, I'd say it was pretty productive. I think I'm going to attend more of them. I really enjoyed it because I got to find out more what is on the docket for the branch AGM (annual general meeting). I'm way excited for it because after the 2 hours of actual AGMness - they're holding a clinic! I have recently become a huge fan of clinics. :) I must like learning or something.

Umm.. oh, the other day, like last week, Bhuvan broke a blood feather. It was kind of scary because I've read how dangerous that can be. (Birds can bleed to death very easily.) I think we got lucky with it though. There was no blood in the cage, and he wasn't really bleeding all over when we found out. We called up Dr. Ipsen in Payson, and paid a pretty lovely emergency fee. ($59 for the emergency fee alone, total - $95! Granted, it was like 9pm.) It made me feel better though since he's avian trained.

We found out Bhuvan currently weighs 83 grams. Even though he's been sneezy - the doc says Bhuvan appears to be quite healthy. He estimated Bhuvan's age to be about 8 months. (We had no idea we were supposed to ask how old the bird was when we got him.)

Anyway, Dr. Ipsen and his nurse restrained Bhuvan and plucked the broken feather. He said it looked like it had broken before and sort of scabbed over, and Bhuvan must've broke it again while preening. (Makes sense since I actually noticed blood on the tip of his beak before we found where he was bleeding from.) We think he might have broken it while flying around the house. His wings are clipped, so he doesn't really get height, causing him some funky, crash-like landings. However, Bhuvan recovered very well and is a spoiled little bird. Poor thing is going to have a shock when we're both in school AND work.

On August 16th we had the Jackson Scottish Festival. The band did very well, taking first in both quick march medley and timed medley. We took first in piping both times. And second and third in ensemble and drumming (don't ask me which we took what in, cuz I dont' know).

Matt took second in 2/4 and 6/8 March, behind Dusty Gunn. It was expected, but Matt is most definitely improving. (Thanks Andrew!) Shawn only competed in MSR (march, strathspey, reel), and took second behind Justin Howland. Also expected. He opted out of Hornipe, Jig since he was having drone reed issues.

This year, we started a new tradition with having a clinic with the judges on Sunday. It didn't go quite as planned, but I still really enjoyed it. We got to have an open forum with the judges (Jimmy Bell, Patrick Reagan, and Ed Best). After a few hours of going over EVERYONE's score sheets (it was ok, we all have a lot of the same problems, and they did well to generalize their comments), we broke into pipers and drummers. I have no idea what the drummers did, since I'm a piper. However, Jimmy went over a few people's pipes and helped them be set up a little better. Then Patrick taught us a simple piobaireachd (pronounced kinda like pee-brock). For my first introduction to piobaireachd, it was actually not too bad!

Since nothing really went according to plan, we didn't get fed lunch. We finished at 2:30, filled up the cars, and stopped at Wendy's before heading home. Overall, the weekend was quite nice, especially compared to last year, which was quite cold and rainy.

So today was new phone day! Huzzah! Long process though. It took about 70 minutes to get everything settled. Matt got a titanium Blackberry Pearl. He seems to like it quite a bit. He especially likes the scrolling wheel. :)

It really has a

Yesterday was our first year anniversary. :) We didn't really do anything that special. Initially, Matt had the weekend off, but then he got promoted and no longer had it off :( We were also supposed to have band practice last night (Jackson is this weekend), but a lot of people couldn't make it. So after going to work all day, we went to the mall and had dinner and watched Hancock. Matt wasn't impressed with the effects (mostly flying), but I still thought it was a cute show. Short too, especially by today's standards. So that was pretty much all we did - but it was really nice to spend time together. Ocassionally I'd think back one year ago to everything that happened the day we got married. I guess it was a good disruptive ceremony (take an anthropology class at UVU from Ed Andrus), because even one year later, I still remember quite a bit of it. It was kind of funny because we were sort of acting like newly-weds again. It was nice though :)

We didn't do any actual presents. Instead, tomorrow (Wednesday), we are getting new phones and our own family plan. My contract expires Wednesday, and my phone is broken, so I'm using an older phone . . but its wall charger died, so I have to charge it in the car. It seems like a good time to take another step to independence... and debt if you think about it. lol I currently don't pay for my line, and Matt only pays the $10 for his, plus any overages. Fortunately, Matt got a raise :) However, with this raise, he thinks he needs to move to Orem. We're kind of looking into it. I'm fine where we are at though, for the moment. We'll probably move out of state once Matt graduates in about 2.5 years, so why not stay with cheap rent and either a) pay off debt, b) buy toys we won't be able to afford later, or c) save for a house/increased rent OR a baby... lol

Anyway, point is, we had a good anniversary, even though we didn't really do anything "special." (Maybe one year I'll get to go to Hawaii or something.) Even though being married isn't always easy - I wouldn't have it any other way. I couldn't live without Matt if I had the choice. We're still a pretty happy couple :) They say like the first 7 to 10 (I can't remember which it is) years are the hardest. That's a long time! But at least we got the first one out of the way ;)

K, this is a little late, but I don't really care :) So last week was Pioneer Day (the 24th of July). Per usual, we had to do parades. On the 23rd, we did the Bountiful parade. It is officially the second worst parade we do (the first being Nephi). It's just a tad too long, starts at 6 in the evening (at which point it has NOT cooled down one bit), and has evil parade nazis (of the non-police variety). You see, they have people along the route with signs telling you to speed up or slow down. I'd like to see them try to speed up in blazing heat, wearing wool, and trying to still play bagpipes. I'd even hold their sign to give them a chance to try it. ;)

On the 24th, we do the Spanish Fork parade - which, incidentally, is one of the best parades. It's medium length and starts at 9am. Bless the fact we don't go to Salt Lake for Days of '47. I hear that one's a killer!

So after the parade, we went home and showered and got un-icky! Then we went to my cousin's house for a barbeque. It was nice to chat with some of the extended fam. I don't really see some of my aunts like I used to when mom was alive. We took Matt's motorcycle down, which was fun. Everyone was pretty impressed with it. We left before the "birthday party" part. One of my cousins and I think an uncle have birthdays around this time, so they brought a cake. I stopped at work for about an hour, and then we mostly hung out at our house until evening.

Come evening, we went over to Grandma Wilson's to watch fireworks. That's is one of two things I don't understand. Why do people watch fireworks and why do people go to parades? I don't understand. At first we watched the kids playing with sparklers - not very exciting. Then we watched some boring standard street fireworks. Later, Steven brought out some of his $100 to $200 street fireworks - those were fun. And of course, true to form, we shot off a couple illegal fireworks throughout the evening. These were all from previous Wyoming trips years ago, so they're kind of old. This proved to be a slight problem with the last one.

It looked like a tube with propellers on one end. The idea is it flies in the air and then goes ka-boom. Well, being rather old, it hovered above the ground and made its way up the driveway, near where we were sitting. So we scatter. As it comes up to the corner of the house, it finally goes up about one story - then it shoots off. We were lucky - but it's thing like that which make fireworks fun. That and running from the cops (not this year, but a few years back :) ).

To top off our holiday week - Matt's work party was on Saturday. Not very exciting (never is), but we did run into an old friend. Her husband apparently is a teller at another branch. So we sat with them and had our lunch. After lunch and talking (we chatted with some others from Matt's branch once they came), we went to Target to look at TVs, mostly because I was bored. (It was also boredom that initiated Bhuvan's arrival.) Afterwhich, we headed to Provo Towne Centre because Wells Fargo always reserves a theatre for something recent. In this case, we went to Batman. I must say - it was a tad long, and wasn't spectacular. Of course, there were some cool things. After all, I am a sci-fi fan. But it lacked the consistency of amazingness for me to be utterly swept away. Matt sorta felt the same. However, he blamed it on the hype we've read on facebook and been told by friends who'd already seen it. I think that I would've felt the same regardless. But hey - it was free!

That night, we chilled with Bhuvan for awhile, and then went back up to Target and purchased ourselves a 32" Sony Bravia LCD HDTV. Oh happiness! We've been considering for awhile, and accruing Target gift cards to offset the cost. It's so nice- I can read the words on the 360 games, and figure out which button they are telling me to push! (trigger and bumper symbols look an awful lot alike on a smaller, nonHD tv.)

So that's our festive week in a rather large nutshell.

Here we are - so many people I know use this, and I was feeling left out. We'll see if this was a wise choice or not. This can hopefully be somewhere Matt and I can share updates about our lives in a more lasting sense. I suppose now would be a good time to bring everyone up to speed. :)

Matt and I have been married almost a year now. We are both attending UVU. I am going into psychology, and Matt is studying accounting. I hope to graduate December 2009, and Matt should (hopefully!) follow a year after. I am still working at Western Wats at the Orem office. I am a banking editor, so I don't have to dial unless I want extra hours :). Matt was recently promoted at his branch of Wells Fargo to a banker. He's about halfway through his trainings in Salt Lake. We don't have any kids or any on the way, but we recently added a white-faced pied cockatiel to our family. We call him Bhuvan.

I suppose time will tell how successful and/or interesting this may be, but this seems like a decent start.