USN Interview and visit

Yesterday I flew out to Las Vegas for orientation, campus tour, and interview at the University of Southern Nevada College of Pharmacy to see a few pictures (taken on my cell phone) of the trip you can follow this link. Corrina, the kids and I left Chico @ 7am and drove down to Sacramento to drop me off at the airport. (Corrina then had fun with my siblings and their kids, you'll have to ask her for the details). There was a little bit of turbulence coming into Las Vegas but it wasn't bad, felt like a roller coaster :-). I caught a taxi cab over to the pharmacy school, did my thing there, and caught a cab back to the airport. I got to the airport @ 5:15 and my flight didn't leave til 8 so I was glad I brought reading material. Corrina picked me up @ SMF and then we drove straight home to Chico, arriving after 11pm. It was a long day and went well.


Oh, wait...You probably want details about how the interview went. :-)
First we had an orientation explaining tuition, how the program works, and all that. Then we had campus tours by current students while we waited for our interview, after our interview, we could leave.

This school runs on a block system so you study only one subject at a time, 6 hours a day 4-5 days a week. From 8am - 3pm you have lecture for an hour then a group project/assignment for an hour, etc. In your 1st year, one Friday you work in a community pharmacy while the next Friday is assessment day (individual and group) This school works on a pass/fail system and you have to get 90% to pass. If you pass your individual assessment on Friday you don't have to come on Monday to redo it. If your group gets a 95% on your group assessment, you get 5 extra % points on your individual assessment. the first 6 weeks of summer after your first year, you do a community pharmacy rotation then the next 6 weeks you have a break unless you have to redo a block because you didn't pass the re-assessment on Monday. P2 year is a lot like P1 but then after that, you don't get any break and you immediately start your P3 year, which is entirely 6-week rotations. There are 8 sets of 6 weeks and you only have to do 7 rotations, the 8th is a break unless you have to redo any blocks from your P2 year. There are 4 required rotations and 3 elective that you kind of get to choose.

How they decide who to accept:
First they look at your application/grades/etc. and assign you a score that determines if you are even offered an interview. Then your interview is scored and the two scores are added together to get a total score. That total score goes into a spreadsheet of everyone from highest score to lowest and they start at the top and work their way down until all spots are filled in both campuses (There's one in Henderson Nevada and one in South Jordan, Utah but they are the exact same policies and same curriculum, sometimes they even fly faculty back and forth to teach their specialty on both campuses) If you are accepted and space is available on both campuses, you can choose which one you want to go to.

So to explain the poll at the top of the right hand column: (if you are reading this as a note on Facebook, follow this link to get to my blog)
(*disclaimer: I'm not saying its a sure thing I will have a choice if I'm accepted, this is more for curiosity sake, although as of yesterday, they did have seats available on both campuses)

If you were accepted and were given the choice as to which campus to attend, which would you choose: Henderson, NV (a suburb of Las Vegas) or South Jordan, UT (A suburb of SLC). Feel free to give your reasoning as well. I think I can predict what the outcome will be, but I am going to keep that to myself so as not to affect the poll.

Oh yeah, one more interesting thing: In the orientation he said, if you are put on the wait list, never give up hope! He shared two instances where they accepted someone either a few days before or the day classes started. One student was sitting on a plane waiting for it to pull back from the gate to fly to a different school when he got the call asking if he still wanted to go to USN. He yelled at the flight attendant to not let the plane leave, he had to get off. He then went to the ticket counter and bought the first ticket to Las Vegas he could get. Another student was driving on his way to UNLV the first day of class when he got the call asking if he still wanted in. He immediately turned around and drove straight to USN and started class. Crazy!

A Thought on ObamaCare

A lot is being said, on both sides of the aisle, regarding this "landmark legislation" that was passed and signed last week. I won't even get started on all the objections that I have heard and hold personally regarding it but I did want to mention one particular part of really irks me on multiple levels:

"Coverage for kids": sounds wonderful, right? How could anyone oppose health insurance for children? Now they can't even be dropped for having a preexisting condition. But there's just a few problems:

1. The part that was supposed to be written into the bill that would make it take effect immediately was "forgotten" so now it doesn't start until 2014 like the rest of the bill. (throw your arms up in uproar, how are the kids going to survive 'til then?)

2. (and more importantly) it doesn't have anything to with children. This is talking about the sons and daughters (i.e. "children") of parents who work and cover their adult children while they are in college. instead of being dropped at the age of 24 or if your not a full time student (whichever is first), now they can't be dropped by the insurance company until they turn 26 (as far as I know, no student requisite). These aren't children. These are Boomerangers: grown adult human beings that, instead joining the real world and getting a real job, return to live in their parents basement's and mooch off of them for as long as possible. grow up and get a life! That it what college is supposed to be about. Now (in 2014), thanks to Obamacare, they can mooch for even longer!

So let me re-iterate: THIS DOES NOT HELP THE CHILDREN!  but helps the boomerangers. In Spanish, little children are translated as "los ninos" while the sons and daughters ("children") of a parent are translated as "los hijos".

New Calling

I was extended a new calling in church today. When I met with the 1st councelor, he prefaced it by saying "Its kind of a different calling, you probably haven't had it before..." I immediately thought "He's calling me to serve in the nursery", which is funny because since we've been married, this is our third ward and I have served in the nursery in both of our other wards. (I was even the "leader" not just a worker, in our last ward). Sure enough, I am now three for three. :-) Which is fine... Most of the time I really enjoy it, maybe because I'm just a big kid. :-) I will miss the asociation with the men in the Elder's Quorum, though, but Oh well. Later, I was thinking about it and in the 6 years that I've been home from my mission, I have served in almost every organization in the ward (obviously not YW or RS) I was ward mission leader in my singles ward, Corrina & I team taught primary in our first ward, then I was shifted over to nursery. Whe nwe moved up to Chico, our first ward here called us as the nursery workers then I went from Deacon's Quorum Advisor/2nd councelor in the YM presidency to the 11year scout leader. After we moved into this ward, I was called as the Elder's Quorum secretary and then the Financial Clerk. and now back to Nursery...Where haven't I served. :-)

P.S. 90 posts!

Happy Pi Day (repost)

In Honor of Pi Day (3.14) I've decided to post a few math and science jokes. Hopefully some will make you laugh, others will no-doubtedly make you groan. Enjoy:


Willie was a chemist, but Willie is no more
For what he thought was H2O was H2SO4

A young man from a small, backwards town in the Ozarks received a scholarship to study math at a big university. The whole town was proud of him, seeing as he was the first in their long history to go to college. When he came back for Thanksgiving break during his first semester, the whole town through a big homecoming celebration for him. As part of the festivities, they asked him to stand up at the podium and share some of the great wisdom he was learning. He proudly proclaims "Pi R squared". To which his pa quickly rushes the podium, removing his belt, and beats his son to a pulp. The boy asks his pa what he did that for, the pa said "everybody knows pie are round, cake are squared."

This poem was written by John Saxon (an author of math textbooks). ((12 + 144 + 20 + (3 * 4^(1/2))) / 7) + (5 * 11) = 9^2 + 0 Or for those who have trouble with the poem: A Dozen, a Gross and a Score, plus three times the square root of four, divided by seven, plus five times eleven, equals nine squared and not a bit more.

A mathematician, a biologist and a physicist are sitting in a street cafe watching people going in and coming out of the house on the other side of the street.First, they see two people going into the house. Time passes. After a while, they notice three persons coming out of the house. The physicist: "The measurement wasn't accurate."The biologists: "They have reproduced".The mathematician: "If now exactly one person enters the house then it will be empty again."

"A mathematician is a blind man in a dark room looking for a black cat which isn't there."– Charles Darwin

A guy gets on a bus and starts threatening everybody: "I'll integrate you! I'll differentiate you!" So everybody gets scared and runs away. Only one person stays. The guy comes up to him and says: "Aren't you scared, I'll integrate you, I'll differentiate you!" And the other guy says: "No, I am not scared, I am e^x."

A Mathematician, an engineer and a physicist were traveling through Scotland when they saw a black sheep through the window of the train."Aha", says the engineer, "I see that Scottish sheep are black.""Hmm", says the physician, "You mean that some Scottish sheep are black"."No", says the mathematician, "All we know is that there is at least one sheep in Scotland, and that at least one side of that one sheep is black!"

What is π? Mathematician: "π is the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter."Engineer: "π is about 22/7."Physicist: "π is 3.14159 plus or minus 0.000005."Computer Programmer: "π is 3.141592653589 in double precision."Nutritionist: "You one track math-minded fellows, Pie is a healthy and delicious dessert!"

In Memorium...

This last Saturday, while we were in the middle of cleaning our old apartment, I received a call from my dad to inform us that his mother, Grandma Hale (is my family the only family that called grandparents by their last names?), had passed away. It was not unexpected: her health had been going down hill for some time and as far as I had heard, she had even made statements hoping for it to come so she could return to be with Grandpa. Earlier in the week the report came that she had become incoherent and Corrina knew from experience (with her own grandma) that it would most likely be a matter of days. I don't do very well with emotions (whether that's a strength or a weakness, I can't say) but I did have the chance to grieve earlier in the week. As I've said before, I have a lot of time to think at work and my mind likes to wander from topic to topic during the three and a half hours I'm there. That particular morning, I got to thinking about Grandma and memories I had of her.
Seeing as for the majority of my life, we have lived in CA while she has lived in UT, all my memories revolve around the semi-regular road trips to UT we would take when I was younger. I remember vividly visiting Grandma and Grandpa in their little apartment just a few short blocks from the Logan Temple. I remember all of us kids rolling our sleeping bags out in the tiny living room and covering the entire floor with them so you could hardly walk (there was a lot of us kids). (I even remember watching The Commish in Grandma's living room) I also remember that Grandma was of the opinion that face cards were inappropriate for members of the church (not even for playing innocent games like War, Go Fish, etc) so even though we could bring them to entertain ourselves during the drive, once we got there they had to stay in the car the whole time so Grandma wouldn't see them. I remember her cooking breakfast for us in the mornings, can't remember what she would cook but I remember it being delicious. Above all, I remember her loving us dearly, even though we were loud, rambunctious boys that would have driven anyone crazy. I remember after I graduated from High School, my best friend Ben and I took a road trip (with his little brother) to Utah and Idaho to go to EFY for a week. We gave ourselves plenty of time before and after EFY week to visit family in the Logan area before coming back home (he has a lot of family there too) and we made sure to visit Grandma. It was fun to visit with her now that I had gotten a little older and a little more mature. And then this summer when Corrina, the kids, and I took a road trip to Wyoming and Montana, we stopped in Logan to be able to visit her and introduce Jaron and Lara to her. The kids did really well with her and weren't as shy as they usually are with strangers and after the visit Corrina and I both realized that might be the only chance for them to see their great-grandma. We were greatful that things worked out the way they did for us to be able to take that trip.
I also remember Grandpa. He used to be a dairy farmer for Kraft Foods so he ALWAYS carried Kraft caramel cubes in his pocket (had to be Kraft) so when we would see him we would go to shake his hand and he would first palm a cube from his pocket and hand it off in the hand shake. (Kraft caramel cubes are still my favorite brand to this day). I also have memories of when he would walk us down to the temple after dark to see it lit up at night as we walked the grounds and he would share stories of miraculous events that happened in the early days of the temple (my favorite being the heavenly visitations after the temple work for the Hale family was completed).
A couple of weeks ago, it was requested that the family participate in a special fast so that she would be comforted and to let her pass so she would not have the pain and so she could return to Grandpa. I participated in the fast, but I couldn't bring myself to ask Heavenly Father to let her die. I don't know if I didn't have the courage or what but all I could fast for was that she would be blessed with the righteous desires of her heart. I'm grateful that she has now found peace and rest and that she is with her husband.I know that through the restored Gospel of Jesus Christ, families can be sealed together for time and all eternity, and not just til death do us part, in the temples that He has commanded us to build and dot the earth with.

We're Done...At Least For Now

It has been a hard decision with lots of prayer and discussion between Dave and I (as it should be with any couple because it really is a personal decision). I think I had the harder time with it, especially since there have been a lot of people trying to push me this way and it was not their decision to make, so I resisted. I have always wanted 3 or 4 children, I grew up with just one sibling and always wanted more. But, as Dave puts it, I may have a body built for bearing huge babies, but it tears my body up. With Lara, I lost 5 pints of blood due to hemorrhaging, which I am still recovering from 16 months later. Dave says he'd rather have me alive, and I would rather be able to be a mom to my children then the lump on the sofa I have been this whole time. So we have made the decision call our family good. We have not ruled out the possibility of children in the future, but only when we know I'm healthy enough to go through pregnancy again, and when we know we can handle all of the things that happen to me again. But that will probably be after Dave is done with school and Jaron and Lara are in school and can somewhat take care of themselves. Unless we have a "surprise" =)
So I'm letting go of all the baby stuff my children have grown out of. It's kind of sad saying goodbye, and I may shed a few tears when we actually give those things away, but this is what is best for our family.
P.S. If you are borrowing anything of ours, it is now yours.

Jaron and Moving

This morning I prepared Jaron for moving. I told him we were finally moving into our new apartment and that we will be unpacking the boxes so he will get all of his toys, etc back. He was exited that he gets his stuffed animals back. I told him before we could do all of that he had to get his day clothes on, so we did that. Then he goes into his bedroom and tells me he needs help. I walk in and find him trying to move his bed. He then tells me his bed needs to go in the livingroom so it can go to the new apartment. I told him we needed to wait for Daddy to get home to do that, then I went into my bedroom to dry my hair. When I finished, I walked into the hallway and find it blocked by Jaron's bed. Jaron pushed it halfway out of his doorway...not enough room in the hall to get it all of the way out. He tells me again that his bed needs to go into the livingroom. I thought it was funny. As I started to move the bed, Dave walked through the front door and was surprised. We got a good laugh out of it. I wish we had taken a picture.