What I'm Thankful for This Thanksmas

Yeah, I normally do this on Thanksgiving, but I got pretty lazy this year. So let's just call this a Thanksgiving/Christmas list. A Thanksmas list. So without further ado, here's a list of some things I'm thankful for:

• Not having much snow this year. I know, it's bad for global warming and the Utah economy, but I got to walk to school in that crap.
• Also, having NO snow last year for the same reason.
• But having enough snow in the mountains right now to go skiing
• My calling in church. Seriously, Ward Prayer Co-Chair is the best thing ever. It's a ward leadership calling in my ward, but I have to do next to nothing. And it's a pretty social calling too.
• The Wendy's near the Tanner Building. I've been eating there 2-3 times a week. The cashier knows me.
• The free Frosty key chain I have. I think I've gotten about 100 free Frosty's this year.
• The fact that I can get about 2,000 calories off the dollar menu for $5 at Wendy's.
• Group members who do good group work (evil stare at one group member from this last year).
• The fact that I survived spending 16 straight hours on campus one day late in November.
• Getting a 97% on an Art History final and beating the art majors at their own game. Suck on that, liberal arts majors!
• Lists. 
• That my major does not require me to write giant research papers for classes like certain Art History classes do.
• That I have a job offer. Related to my major.
• Facebook friends that tag me in photos (my parents are grateful for that too, beeteedubs. It lets them know that I actually have friends).
• Disneyland.
• That we don't live in a zombie apocalypse,
• but that I'm prepared for one in case I ever have to. Thanks, Walking Dead.
• People who are engaged, but don't feel the need to be constantly touching each other.
• Chester the Molester.
• Chester the Molester not dying this year.
• Surviving my first car accident in TLC, the other car I drove this summer.
• As well as the time TLC somehow had one of its tires impaled by a set of pliers while on I-15. Literally impaled.
• And the time the hood on TLC decided to flip open while driving on I-15.
• That I don't have to repent for hating a car.
• My bishop.
• My ward.
• Not getting hit by cars while riding my bike in Provo. . .Yet.
• The friend who convinced me to run a half marathon.
• The friend who introduced me to Doctor Who.
• The friends who didn't get all political on Facebook this last election.
• The friend who always invites me to dance parties.
• The friend who says she loves my laugh, in spite of how obnoxious it is.
• The friend that was willing to be dragged through the BYU Art Museum and look at all the works of art with me.
• The friend that always lights up when people she knows enter the room.
• The friend who introduced me to frappes.
• Friends in general. Good grief I'm blessed.
• The roommate who did my cleaning check for me.
• The roommates who are willing to listen to my dating stories and gripes.
• My roommates in general.  Seriously, they're great.
• Sunlight
• That time late at night when everything becomes hilarious.
• Sunday dinners.
• Stargazing.
• Frozen food.
• Family.
• Kittens.
• The fact that I can list this many things to be Thankful for.
• The Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Thanks for the great year everybody!

 

Christmas + Thanksgiving Wrap Up

So I'm still fairly behind with blogging since I did such a crummy job at it for a good six weeks, so here's a bit of a quick update of what's been going on lately.

First off, our family once again did a lot of pies on Thanksgiving. It was amazingly delicious. We usually get tiny slices of each pie so we can sample them all. In the future, we may have to vomit the pies halfway through so that we have enough stomach space for all of them. Sort of like the spitting up whine thing you do when you go whine testing.

Also, my grades just came back, and I received my all time lowest grades ever in all of history. A C+ and a B-. And you know what? I don't even care anymore. I graduate in four months, I have a job offer, and I don't have to worry about keeping my GPA up for scholarship anymore. So why worry, right?

In related news, my brother who just returned from a mission in Japan has informed me that I'm taking a giant dump on every last vestige of Asian left in my blood. I should note that my other younger brother, who I've been living with for the last semester, has just barely received his mission call to Japan. For those keeping score at home, here's where we stand:

• Dad: served in Hokkaido, Japan
• Mom: from Tokyo, Japan
• Younger brother 1: served in Kobe, Japan
• Younger brother 2: going to serve in Fukuoka, Japan
• Younger brothers 3 & 4: almost certainly going to serve in Japan. Probably the Nagoya and Sedai missions, so that we end up covering the whole country with Low family shenanigans.
• Me: Little Rock, Arkansas.

Am I ashamed? Of course not. I learned how to deep fry stuff. And as any stateside missionary will tell you, "stateside is the best side."

Now, for Christmas, I got a graphics tablet. I'm really excited about it, but I'm still learning how to draw things. You might think that art skills would translate to drawing on a tablet super quick, but it doesn't. You have to look at a computer screen instead of your hand, and you still have to learn how to do Photoshop and stuff. I'll probably be illustrating this blog using the tablet from here on out. Even though I'm fairly slow with it, it's still faster than MS Paint or using the sketch app on the iPad. Hey, here's a picture I drew earlier for practice!

"I AM ZIIIMMMM!!!"

As you can see, my drawing on the left is kinda sloppy when compared to the source material on the right. So we'll see what happens from here on out.

Finally, I think I would be remiss if I didn't put up a list of what I was grateful for this last Thanksgiving. I've done it for the last two Thanksgivings, and I feel like it's a good tradition. I know it's super late, so maybe we'll just call it a Christmas List of Thankfulness. A Christfulness? Thankmas?

I'll figure it out. It will be its own post though.

10 Dumb Ways for the World to End

So the world hasn't ended yet (if this surprises you, then you really ought to science more often).

In light of these recent events, I thought it would be fun to theorize the dumbest possible ways for the world to end. I only could think up a couple, so I turned to my Facebook friends for help. Here are our ideas on how the world could end:

1.  Death by failure of Bruce Willis 

2.  "All the cutest animals in the world become viciously evil and take over." -Rich

3.  "Marshmallows start raining from the sky and everyone keeps eating them and can't stop. Everyone gets beyond morbidly obese and are all rolling in the marshmallows laughing. Everyone is so obese that you can't even see the ground b/c of all the fatness and then everyone suffocates in each others fat and marshmallows." -Victoria

4.  "Death by Sasquatches." -Chris

5.  "Winnie the Pooh's Eeyore becomes a prophet. 'We're all gonna die,' he says. At that moment, unicorns and narwhals engage in mortal combat in the heavens above and the earth is flooded by rainbows and then colonies of hippies are the only survivors." -Jason

Dag this one was weird to draw.

6.  "God spills coffee on his keyboard, and he somehow loses the 'earth' file." -Travis

7.  "Jacob low replicates himself exponentially and takes over the planet." -BJ

8.  "The turtle that carries the earth on it's back dives under water and we all drown." -Aaron

Note: Mayans believed that the Earth rests on the back of a turtle.

9.  "Women are banned from eating chocolate. Men lose the right to play video games. Each gender goes nutso and everyone offs each other." -Chantel

 10.  Lame zombie apocalypse. As in, the zombies from Pirates of the Caribbean 4.

Mutton Chops are Like a Hug From Your Hair

Ok, I have been neglecting the blog like a tool for far too long. I guess I can make the excuses like having a crazy semester, lack of time, and other blah blah blah things like that. Instead, I guess I should just start posting. I've got a lot of good ideas, they just take time to make, so be patient and you'll start seeing things on here.

But it probably won't be for a few more days because I'm in Disneyland right now and am enjoying a much needed vacay.

In the meantime, I wanted to share with you a great insight my roommate shared with me: MUTTON CHOPS ARE LIKE HUGS FROM YOUR HAIR.

That is all for now.

Halloween Wrap Up and Other BIts

So it's election day and I've got some stuff from Halloween that I haven't posted yet.

First off, the Halloween Half Marathon:

I trained for it ever since the school year started. I got pretty fast at the end. I was able to run 8 miles in an hour and was feeling pretty good about how well I'd do. The biggest worry I had was what costume I'd wear while running the marathon.

But about 4 miles in, my knee gave out and I had to stop running. I ended up limping the remaining 9 miles of the race. So I ended up finishing an hour later than my goal, and my knee is still angry at me for even pushing that hard. It's pretty disappointing.

Oh well. At least I know that for the next race, I only have to run for five miles and I'll end up beating my time.

Actual Halloween:

This was my last Halloween at Brigham Young University, which is super sad. My school never disappoints me with it's creativity and its willingness to break social norms for the LOLs. In the past, we've had Pacman being chased by four ghosts through the Cougareat, multiple Sexy Sax Men serenading the business students in the Tanner building, and guy in a kilt straight up playing the bagpipes.

This year, I'm giving the costume of the year award to Bob Ross:

He wins for a couple of reasons:

• The dedication: the easel, the paints, the palate - the dude spared no expense.
• He's a really crappy painter, which makes this way funnier.
• He was narrating the whole time - just like the real Bob Ross. "Okay, now lets return to the flowerbed we started here. I'm going to add some Titanium White to these flowers...There we go.....happy little flowers...."

Also, it was an original costume. I think a lot of guys got lazy and went as Waldo this year.

That awkward moment when someone shows up with the same costume as you.

My Costumes:

For this Halloween, I had a couple of different costumes. I went as an emo-punk rocker for our ward Halloween party at Classic Skating.

On the far left.

It was good times. The best part about my costume was the awesome tattoo sleeve I gave myself using sharpies. You can see that below.

I also used sharpie to paint my nails black (washed most of it off in the above pic, but the residue stayed on for days), and got a friend to do some eyeliner for me.

I left the sleeve on for a few days after the party, because the looks I got from my fellow students (especially girls) was just too good. I believe that girls like the reformed bad boy image.

On actual Halloween, I went as Mr. Rogers. It was a pretty easy costume. I wore a cardigan and dyed my hair. Sorta (we used an entire can of the hairspray dye, and were only able to get it go salt and pepper greyish). Unfortunately, I don't have as good a picture for this one. But you can see me doing the Dougie below.

This party was only a couple of days after the half-marathon, and my knee was still giving me grief. I really shouldn't have danced as hard as I did. But when you're an Asian who can actually dance, and Gangnam Style starts playing, you have a moral obligation to do the dance.

Final Note:

Food storage - it's not just for gun-toting super crazies anymore. With Hurricane Sandy, we can see the benefits of keeping enough extra food to feed your family for at least a week. But even if you're not worried about a natural disaster, it would still be a good idea store extra food in case you face some unpredictable circumstances like unemployment or even just moving to a different state. The New York Times did this great op-ed on the benefits of food storage. I'd strongly recommend checking it out. It mentions some local companies, Mormons, and my boss Brandon Brooks of Packsize and  FoodStorageReviewer.com. 

I'MA GRAPIST!

In honor of Halloween tomorrow, I wanted to share a true story about something that happened last Halloween.

I was in my apartment complex's lobby with a couple of girls waiting to be picked up to go watch a scary movie at a friend's house.

Then suddenly, this happened:

Getting Called Out in Class

So I'm a teacher's assistant for one of my marketing professors. I'm going on my second semester grading papers and teaching test reviews now, and I love the job. At the same time, I'm also taking my marketing capstone class from this professor, and this is the second class I'm taking from him. We've known each other for over a year now and have had some good times.

So the other day we were going to take the midterm for this capstone class, and I realized something about the testing style my professor uses that made me a little excited. My professor uses a lot of story problems in his tests, and he always uses the names of his students in his stories.

And so I thought, "hey, he's never used my name before. I've been a good TA for a while now and I think it's time that my professor pays homage to me by putting my name in the test."

Anyway, I got to class and we all started taking the test. I went through all the multiple questions looking for my name. Instead, I kept reading test questions like this:

"Stacy is working at Big Corporation X when her manager comes to her with a problem..."

"Mark just got promoted to be a brand manager for Product X. Which of the following..."

"Jim just started his own business. Which promotion tactic should he use?"

I'm reading the test and am all like "Yeah, yeah, good for Jim, but where am I on this test?"

Then I got to the final multiple choice question:

"Jacob has been having problems with falling asleep in Professor _____'s class. He needs to change his ways. He remembers hearing (or maybe dreaming) about the SMART goal setting framework. Which of the following would be part of that framework?"

BTW, I missed that question on the test.