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Wednesday, April 28, 2010

Wait... What happened to the semester?

I remember quite distinctly my first few days in Oklahoma. I remember the excitement of the first days of classes and Professor Swank being the first to introduce us to the Socratic method. I remember small victories and some pretty crushing defeats. Overall, this has been an experience I would never trade away and one that no matter what happens in my future will prove valuable. Either way, it seems odd to me, after all my years of education, that the end of a semester can suddenly catch me by surprise. Especially since I've been looking forward to it for quite some time.

Interestingly enough, my classmates are looking towards the end of the semester so they can work, play, or chill. I'm looking towards the end of the semester so I can commit myself to a project greater then myself. I'm not suggesting they are selfish in there actions, but rather we, my classmates and I, have a rather different focus on how our time between semesters should be spent. On that note, it has been interesting the reactions of my classmates when I discuss the mission with them. It is not an infrequent response for them to ask why I'm doing this now and then to follow up with a more basic why do it period. There is no doubt in my mind that I'm making the right decision. Sure I will be giving up a little, but from what I hear the investment now is worth the payoff later. Furthermore since I made the decision there has never once been a moment of doubt that suggested I was making a mistake or an error of judgement. I look forward to and I am excited for the opportunity to serve amongst the people of the West Indies. I report to the MTC on June 16th which is only 49 days from today.

In terms of goings on there truly isn't a lot of announce or give a synopsis of but let me fill in a few gaps.

Last Tuesday, I had the opportunity to save a few lives by donating blood at the law school. Professor Swank, my civil procedure professor, organizes the event and as such promises that everyone who donates will not be called on in class that week. I thought I should take him up on that offer and also donate for altruistic reasons. For some reason donating blood is part of my soap box. I personally feel that everyone who can should. It is an easy process that is relatively painless and helps people immensely. As such, whenever I can I have always made the effort to donate and I feel everyone else should make at least a similar effort. Also on Tuesday, Lena and I went to Hideaway's Pizza for dinner and then to the OU Baseball game before having orange floats and going our separate ways for the night. I seem to enable her bad side with my own and we have a pretty good time talking, being sarcastic, and hangout with each other.

Other then classes nothing else really happened until Friday when I got together with Lena and her crew and played basketball, a bit of soccer, and a few card games. I'd like to take this time to official announce my superiority in Uno as after four games I had won three of the four. Though I did get it handed to me in some strange card game Jenny and Lena tried to teach me (Euchre). I suppose it was German and this is my excuse.

Sunday church was once again excellent. The most impressive part of the church day was the speakers in Sacrament meeting. All three did amazing and they brought the spirit in the room with their talks and their testimonies. I particularly enjoyed Madison Conklin's talk on Easter and the Atonement. All three did quite amazing though. After church I was again met up with Lena and the gang, this time consisting of Shelly Wernette and Emma Newberry-Davis, and we visited the German Club's festival/picnic.

After hanging out with them for a bit I had my temple prep class that is being taught by the bishopric of the ward. It is interesting as I've been in this class multiple times before and each time I seem to learn something new. The class is of particular importance because of the fact that I'll be receiving my own endowments not this weekend but the next. I'm continuing the prepare and I'm pretty excited about having my family in town and having the opportunity to go through the temple myself.

After temple prep were a few hours of studying before I picked up Lena and we went to a games night at Tyler Thornton's apartment. We played Pass the Popcorn which is a movie trivia game. Sadly, our combined abilities were no match for the others as most of the movies in the game were produced when we were but young lads/lassies or in a few situations before we were even born. We still held our own but didn't win.

Monday night we had a baptism in the ward that I was asked to conduct and it was quite the experience. It was interesting watching the missionaries baptism someone they've worked with and I was silently thinking to myself that I hope I have the opportunity help convert someone to the church. After the baptism, we had FHE and we played basketball and soccer. I was in-between the post in soccer and did an okay job but I played much better in basketball.

I can't think of much more to write and I have class in a few hours and I need to read. So I will leave you here and if needs be I'll come back and edit it a bit. As always there are no guarantees as to the quality of grammar presented in this post.

One Love

Monday, April 19, 2010

Driving the distractions away

It seems I've settled back into a fairly decent routine of posting, so I guess I will look forward to keeping that going no? For some strange reason, I feel like this last week really was just a wrap up to the week before with a few new plot twist.

As now mentioned in multiple post the 1L moot court has been dominating my life the last few weeks and it finally came to a close. Unfortunately, that ending occurred on Monday rather then on Friday as I hoped. Either way with a bit of introspection and a good ole fashion "suck it up" talk from my father and some ice-cream bought by Lena, I am quite proud of how my team and I did. We finished tied for 17th in the class and having nothing to be ashamed of. We also got the benefit of a more normal then usual week then everyone else who was still in the competition. Since we didn't win it all, I'm glad we lost on Monday.

In our last match, on Monday night, we went up again against a team from our section, Mr. Holland and Mr. Kraft. We all did a good job, but I feel like I probably cost my team a shot at winning. I made two or three critical speaking errors that I just don't know if we could have recovered from. For example, I was arguing the standard of review, Abuse of Discretion, for the petitioner and mistakenly made a comment that the respondent should make. The judges picked up the comment and ran with it a bit making me do a bit of verbal acrobatics but I don't know if I made up for my mistake. Once again, I'm proud of how we did. Hopefully, I will get to do this again in the future.

Coed soccer also came to an end last week as well. We finally played a team that was just simply better then we were. Besides two small incidents, we lost with grace and I think we mostly had a pretty good time. Unfortunately, there were no goals for myself but that is okay. I really enjoyed playing and I kinda wish the season was longer, but I'm also glad it is over so I can get focused on the things that I'm really paying all this tuition money for.

Also on the docket last week was the Norman Oklahoma Institute Dance. The dance was interesting. There were a lot of people and the decorations looked fantastic. The big problem with the dance is that the people putting it on tried to control/force the dance a little bit too much, and as such a few things they tried to do didn't work that well. Overall, it was a lot of fun and I enjoyed attending it. I always enjoy a good opportunity to show off my Waltz and hang out with my bro's!

After the dance I rushed home and went to bed(at 1ish) and then woke up at 5am. I had been planning on driving out to Stillwater the night of the dance but I stayed till the end so I decided to drive out in the morning instead. I left for Stillwater at about 6am and arrived at around 730am. I knew my presence that early would not be too appreciated so instead of driving straight to Natalie and Jacob's, I made a deter to daylight donuts in Stillwater. I brought Natalie and Jacob donuts and when I woke them up they didn't seem as unpleasant as they would have otherwise been. We went and had lunch with Nanna and also got to go watch Oklahoma State's spring game which was a lot of fun as well. I always enjoy staying with those two.

Yesterday, church was about par for the course. The speakers in sacrament were excellent and priesthood was just as good. I can't comment on Sunday School though as I got pulled into the Ward Clerk's office and we spent the entire time talking about certain things. Sunday night I went over to Tyler Thorntons apartment and a group of guys and myself played phase 10 and discussed important ward matters. It should be noted, for the record, that I won the game.

Today has been pretty vanilla and there isn't much to report. I did the opportunity to go to FHE tonight which I haven't been to in awhile and it was actually a lot of fun.

When I was attending the University of Utah the first year I lived at home and commuted to campus each day. Now, I'm not unique in that aspect as a majority of students at the U commute daily, but I did commute from Stansbury which is a bit further then most came from. I also, because of my naivety, signed up for 7:30 classes every morning. What meant I would wake up about 5:50am every day get ready and get dressed and leave the house at 6:20-6:30am. I would arrive at campus about 7:10-7:15am and would then walk to class. To complement this hellish schedule, for awhile I was working full time for Discover Financial Services. So when classes were over at 2:30pm, I would hope in the car and drive to work and work until 11:00pm. Then I would finally make the drive home arriving shortly before midnight and crash and then the process would start again.

To be honest, there are mornings when I would "wake up" in class and not know how I had got to class. I remember one morning in particular that as I was driving across I-80 going to school that I reasoned that I could close my eyes for a brief moment and I would be okay. Looking back on those times it scares me to think how easily I could have killed myself, or worse someone else. I remember that the only thing that kept me sane through my schedule was the long drive home.

You see, when I drove home at nights, I would be able to think, reflect, and sing. I would think about the day behind, the day ahead, and the day current while singing along to either the radio or one of three cd's I owned at the time. I had forgotten how much I love to just think and drive until Saturday morning somewhere between Guthrie and Stillwater. I guess ultimately when you are in a car driving on a mostly empty interstate singing along with radio you can let your guard down and enjoy life. I also believe that my best solutions to my biggest problems have come from the cockpit of a car. I will be without a vehicle for two straight years, but I'm sure I can cope and find other mechanism for thinking time.

One Love

ps. Finals start two weeks from Tuesday the 20th
pss. I report to the MTC in 58 days.

Sunday, April 11, 2010

The Irony Strikes Back!

Most of the time in our lives, I feel it is safe to assume, we try to take upon ourselves enough work to keep us busy but not so much that we become overloaded. For some strange reason, I am hoping to nth power that I'm as overloaded as possible this week.

As I mentioned in my last post, the 1L's have the opportunity to participate in the moot court/appellate advocacy tournament this semester. We found out last Friday which teams advanced from the "group stages" into the tournament proper. The BoA, or Board of Advocates, run the tournament and they announced that out of the original 99 teams that participated 28 of those teams went undefeated (3-0). Unfortunately though, there were only 24 spots for teams in the tournament. Luckily, Dan and I, Team 51, advanced into the tournament and we have our first match up on Monday. We have spent close to 6-7 hours working on our arguments together and then who knows how much more time thinking through it on our own this last weekend. If we win Monday we compete again on Wednesday. A victory on Wednesday means another competition on Thursday, and a victory there moves us straight into another that same night. If after all that we are still undefeated we compete on Friday at noon in the Bell Courtroom for the right to proclaim ourselves the best in the 1L class. Once again, I'm hoping I'm extremely busy this week.

To add onto that complicated mess that is the Oral Advocacy tournament, the coed intramural soccer tournament begins on Tuesday night and if we win we will have a game right after the last. At least the tournament will be over for sure on Wednesday, but to be honest I'd be surprised if we advance past Tuesday. I'm still pretty stoked about it though as we have a fun team and I love soccer. Last week the game on Tuesday was sadly a loss as the team gave up two goals, but to a girl, and so they counted for two points a piece. We shall see how we rebound on Tuesday without our best players.

Something else that also needs to be mentioned is that the Big Event took place on Saturday of last week. The Big Event is a way for the students of the University of Oklahoma to give back to the community through service projects around and in Norman and Oklahoma City. For example, my group which consisted of the LDSSA (Latter-Day Saints Student Association)(Chris, Emallie, John and etc) went up by Remmington Park in Oklahoma City and helped clean up a neighborhood. We had a good time and service is always a good thing to participate in. Especially when you get a free t-shirt for doing so.

Church was excellent and I always enjoy attending. Of particular note was President Keye's testimony at the end of sacrament meeting today. President Keye's retold a story from his experience at the priesthood session of conference which he was able to attend. Furthermore, he recounted President Monson's talk from conference. The one in which President Monson mentions a twenty dollar bill and then tells about how although that bill might be crumpled, stained, and dirty it is still worth the same as any other twenty dollar bill even those that are clean and new. He then noted how the Heavenly Father loves us all equally. Those that sin and those that are the perfect. We all have worth to him and we need to realize that worth as individuals. As someone who has not lived a perfect life I loved this talk and I appreciate its message and I that everyone who can will go back and listen to it and take its message to heart.

On a more random note, I noticed something a few days ago that affected me in a strange way. I randomly decided that I would see what someone from my old high school glory days was up to. As I typed in their name into the search bar on Facebook, they came up and I checked out their profile. I'm not sure what is was, but I suddenly realized that we were no longer Facebook friends. Why we are no longer friends I'm not sure. The individual clearly has not met the quota for number of Facebook friend allowed so it must have been a personal choice to remove me. To be honest, I was quite stunned by such an occurrence.

The realization soon came upon me that I had removed friends before without telling them or without any other reason then I just simply wanted to. Surely, if they noticed, it must have been quite an interesting experience for them as it was for me. To this day, I'm surprised that the defriending of myself by someone else surprised me or at least affected me in such a manner. Perhaps, Facebook gets taken to such a point that not being someone's Facebook friend actually means more then it should? Then again, maybe I'm completely over thinking this. Either way I thought it was quite interesting.

One Love

Monday, April 5, 2010

GGGOOOALLLL! (edited on April 6th)

I should probably get over this moment but I'm pretty proud of myself. Earlier today, I played an intramural soccer game with a group of friends. In the middle of the first half I was playing forward and my team released me with a far pass. I wasn't able to catch up to it but the goaltender on the other team was a bit timid and instead of picking it up just kicked it straight out. That is, straight back out to me. I was probably about five feet away and I slotted it cooly home for the third goal for the team. I love soccer and it was awesome to score! I've played high-school football and basketball, church basketball, and intramural football, but that goal was really cool. We won 4-2 (Ryan 2, Edsen 1, and myself 1) which means that as long as we don't post a no-show tomorrow and our sportsmen rating stays about 2.5 we are in the playoffs! Woot!

In other news life is as hectic as ever. Fortunately, and usually, as an undergrad for the majority of the time you don't have constant assignments to work on. Of course there is that odd paper every so often, but what usually occurs is that all you professor assign papers/tests on about the same day or week. That turns that week and the week before it into a mini-version of finals week. Law school is a bit different. Instead we have mini-finals weeks every week. Thus when the schools starts to combine projects say like oral arguments with the start of serious preparation for finals it gets bad and it gets bad quickly. Luckily for me, I've always seemed to do well under pressure so I'm doing great but the stress is starting to get to some classmates.

Oral arguments are on Thursday. Team 51, Dan and I, had our last round last Wednesday. We both felt good about the result and we seemed to believe that we probably won the round. Thus, the round this week takes on an important role. If we did win last week and we win this week, we move into the tournament proper. How it works is there are 24 or so teams from each section. From the last round only 12 advanced with winning records. Thus after this round there will only be 6 teams with perfect records. These six teams advance into the tournament with 2 going straight to the sweet sixteen(probably copyrighted) and the other 4 going into a small 2 round regional. With four sections that means eight teams receive byes and the other eight must work their way into the tournament. We are guaranteed at least this round on Thursday, but if we win we could be competing in a round every day of next week.

I'm pretty excited about it because I think I'm doing a pretty decent job at oral arguments and I enjoy doing it. Also, I think the natural Nielson inability to lose may be kicking in here as well. I think we have a good shot at advancing into the tournament but then it'll be interesting to see how far we go after that. I guess ultimately it is a wait and see kind of thing.

Other then oral arguments and the random other things that occur, such as intramural sports, there isn't a whole lot going on right now besides school. The weather is extremely nice and you just want to sit out underneath a tree and read all day, or play ultimate or soccer. It was interesting to note that we have entered into our last month of instruction and that in only a few short weeks my classmates will be heading to jobs or internships. I'll be preparing for my mission and law school will be behind us for awhile. Man time sure does fly.

I hope everyone had the opportunity to watch General Conference last weekend. I thought all the messages were worthwhile and as usual I especially enjoined the priesthood session. I don't have anything else to say, so I'll just leave you with the customary signature.

One Love