Memory Monday: Part-Time Model

My freshman year of college was oh-so-fun!  We would stay up till all hours, and do some of the craziest things.

During that year, I started to wonder where I would get the funds to keep going to college.  My freshman year I had a one-year scholarship to get me in-state tuition.  But I had no idea if I was going to stay and apply for residency (the rules were a lot less strict then than they are now), or...what.

At one point, I had a note up on my cork board.  It looked a little like this:

How to Pay for College 

sell a kidney on the black market

get another scholarship

take a year off and work

marry a Utah resident

convince my parents to move to Utah so I can get residency

rob a bank

Our school's joke of a newspaper would run help wanted ads, but sometimes I wondered if they were jokes.  There was always one for posing nude for an art class.  There was another for milking cows on someone's farm.  And the one that my roommate, floormate, and I decided that we'd actually go and check out.

The ad said, "Models needed!  All shapes, all sizes!"  Something like that.  We decided to call, just because.  We knew it would never turn into anything, but we were curious.

Between the three of us, we had the "all sizes" part of the ad down. My roommate, Stacy, was super tall and very athletic. She was from Las Vegas. The floormate, Becky, was teeny tiny-maybe about 4'10".  A lot of people thought she was, like, 12, because she looked really young.  She was from Fargo, North Dakota.  And then there was me-somewhere in between the tall and the short.

Becky from Fargo, ND

 

Me and Stacy from Las Vegas

We went down to where the "try-outs" were at.  They wanted us to bring a picture of ourselves.  Of course, not knowing how it all works at the time, we just brought little wallet-sized pictures, instead of big 8x10 head shots in a portfolio.  The "studio" was in the basement of some random building.  We walked through a hallway, and into the first room.  In there was a catwalk.  There was a really tall guy, walking back and forth on it.  He was practicing his turns.  It reminded me of Zoolander.  Then we went into the next room, which was an office.

The lady had us fill out all this paperwork.  And then she asked us for our pictures.  The whole time I had to hold back my laughter.  But I'm sure when she saw our "head shots" she had to hold her laughter back as well.  After we were done with paperwork, she began her interviews.  If you can call it that.

She started with Stacy.  She basically called her fat (which she wasn't) and told her that she might be a good plus-size model.  Ouch, right?  Then she moved to Becky, who she told could maybe model little kids' clothes.  Ouch again.  And then it was my turn.  She told me I was too short to model, but I should try acting.  Yee-haw.

What. A. Joke.

"All shapes, all sizes"?  They should have said, "All shapes and sizes if you want us to insult you".  Or "All shapes and sizes if you are between 5'9" and 6'2" and weigh 80 pounds".

We left, and just...started laughing hysterically.  We thought the whole thing was so funny.  Becky was all, "How about I chop my hair extra short and model 10-year-old boys' pants for JCPenney?!?!?"  And I was all, "Yes, I'm going to win the next Oscar!"

Good times, my friends.

I did end up getting a summer job at Zuka Juice in Logan, which helped take care of my financial woes for schooling (earning money in a legitimate way, and getting Utah residency at the same time).  I'm glad I didn't have to be a part-time model.

Memory Monday: Appliance Gratitude

This last week, our microwave decided to die on us.  (This isn't the "memory" part of my post.  This is just the setup of what brought back this particular memory, or memories, if you will.)  One minute it was working, the next minute there was absolutely no heat emitting from its...micro waves. 

The appliance fixer guy came out and said a piece wasn't working.  I keep wanting to call it the Megatron.  The...Magnavox?  The...MAGNATRON!  Yes!  I remembered!  (Seriously, my brain goes to Megatron first.  I must have boys in my house.)  Anyway, that's the thing that makes the microwave work.  We could either replace the part, or get a new one for the same exact cost.  I went with a new one, because why not?

While I was looking around the store, I saw some really fancy appliances.  It's only been 5-ish years since I've done some appliance shopping, though at the time we had Budget X to work with because that's what our home builders told us we had.  Of course we could have gone over Budget X to get fancier things, but we didn't have more money with which to spend on the fancy, so Plain Jane is what we ended up getting.

But now?  There are microwaves that have grills inside of them.  Crazy, huh?  And there are ovens that have a smaller oven door, which totally fits a 9x13 pan, but you only have to heat up the smaller one (and then there's a full-size oven underneath), so it's more energy efficient and all that jazz.  (Here's a picture of one.  Awesome, huh?)

And then there's the fancy, roomy dishwasher. *sigh*  Of all my appliances, I would want my dishwasher to break.  It's short, and small, and the utensil holder is in the bottom instead of on the door so it takes up a ton of room, and then it has that spindle thing in the middle of the bottom and top that shoots water up, so you have to work around it.  And because my dishwasher is short, if I use a normal-sized skillet, I have to lean it over, so it takes up more than half of the bottom of the dishwasher to clean it.

I was coveting, my friends.

However.  This experience brings me to my Memory Monday.  And because it's late, I'm sure I'll forget all sorts of descriptive details about it.  Though, I think for Memory Monday's sake, I'm going to just stick to the appliance section of this time in my life.

The year span was 2002-2005.  Pete and I got married in June of 2002, and we moved into married student housing on campus at Utah State.  I think these beauties were built in, like, the 1940s or something.  There were plenty of things wrong with the Aggie Village apartments, but for two really poor college students, they were just fine.  Here's a pic of one of the buildings:

Sweet, sweet cinder block walls with no air conditioning.  Very cold in the winter, warm like unto an oven in the summer.  (And then being SUPER pregnant during one of those summers!  Yikes.  Bikes.)  They were cheap, but a great deal because our water, cable, internet, phone, garbage, sewer, and electricity were all included in the price.  The downside: no appliances to be had.

Laundry machines?  We were lucky enough to have the laundry building right next door to our building.  Microwave?  Pete's siblings all pitched in to get us one for our wedding gift.  It sat on an old desk that Pete had had in his single days.  Dishwasher?  I called my dishwasher my hands, my sink, soap, and a towel.  We had a dinky little gas oven in which only one of my cookie sheets would fit all the way.

Our cabinets had sliding fake wood doors.  Our "pantry" was maybe a foot wide and maybe two feet deep (I'm being generous on the measurements).

One day in Sunday School during church (which was basically our whole ward, because there were, like, 5 kids old enough to be in nursery while the rest were all brand new babies, and that was the entirety of our primary), someone made a comment about our fake wood sliding cabinet doors, and our lack of counter space.  And I think every woman in the room started fantasizing about real wood cabinets, and appliances that were younger than she was.  And our teacher (I can't remember his name, but he had red hair, if I'm remembering right) made this comment:

If we can always remember our fake wood cabinets during this time in our lives, we will always be grateful for what we have.

That really hit me.  I think he was trying to say a few things-or, I interpreted it a few different ways.  One, that someday we'll look back and realize how poor we were in college, and that hopefully we'll be better off in the future, but we need to be grateful for how far we've come.  Two, that aren't we lucky to even be in college, and that we even have cabinets in which to house our food and dishes.  And three, all we need are the basics, and our happiness doesn't come from material goods.

So yes, I coveted a new dishwasher last week.  But then I remembered what life was like without one, and I realized how great I have it.  I am so blessed, and not just with appliances.

Memory Monday: Reuben (Knuckle) Sandwich

When I think of the worst dates that I've been on, this one is probably the worst one.  Well, maybe not the worst one, but definitely in the top 5.  I was a junior in college, so fall of 1999.

There was a guy in my ward in college named Reuben.  I called him Ruby, I think mostly to bug him.  Nice guy and all.  He lived with about 8 guys in a house that they had dubbed the "cinna-batch".  I have no idea why they called their house that, but whatever.

So Reuben asked me on a date for a Friday night, which I gladly accepted, because he was a really nice guy, right?  Um, yeah.  Right.  I mean, he is.  But just not on this date.

He picked me up, and when we got to the car, he said, "You can get your own door, right?"  1st wrong step of the night.  I was like, "Uh, yeah, I guess."  For dinner, he took me to a stake barbecue.  We got there late, so there were slim pickings on the food.  Come to think of it, I don't even think it was our stake-I think he just heard about it from who-knows-who, and decided, hey! free food!  2nd wrong step of the night-free food for a date?  Not that I expected a super fancy expensive meal for dinner, but dinner together would have been nice instead of with 100 other starving college students.

Going back to the car (and every time we got in or out of the car that night), Reuben again said, "You can get your own door, right?"  One of the times I replied, "Um, no, I can't.  Would you please get it for me?"  Which he grudgingly did that time, but dude.  It ticked me off.

We went back to his apartment, and we watched "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid".  And I totally kept falling asleep.  Reuben was in love with that movie, and so of course he owned it.  (Free movie.  Hm.)  And it was fine to sit and watch, but when he was reciting every line along with the movie, it got a little old.

Right before the movie, we went to the store and got some dessert/snacks to munch on during the movie.  I'm remembering ice cream, which I think I might have gotten one little scoop out of before he hoarded it away in his freezer.

Then we went to an Institute dance, where there was a band that was playing Beatles songs.  I thought maybe the date would improve at the dance, because I love the Beatles, but I was wrong.  So we were hanging out and dancing and stuff, and then he decided to start chatting up some random chick.  I went and called my roommates, and begged them to come to the dance and crash my date, essentially.  So my date with Reuben became a date with Reuben, Random Chick that he was flirting with, and my two roommates. 

Eventually, it was time to leave, so we left...and walked Random Chick home.  She didn't live that far away, but dude!  WE WERE ON A DATE!!!  We got back to the car, and he had the decency to walk me to my door after the date, which was the first gentlemanly thing he had done all night.  I might have given him a high five (no way was I going to hug him-I think I would have strangled him if I had gotten that close), because by then I had HAD it.

I walked in the door, and was like "WORST DATE EVER!!!" to my roommates.  They all agreed.

Reuben ended up asking Random Chick to Homecoming.  And we stayed friends, but there was no way I would have ever gone on a date with him again.  Though apparently, he felt the same about me, but before our date even started.

(I just looked to see if I had a picture of Reuben in my scrapbook.  That would be a big fat no.)

College Memories (Or, Don't Know How I Passed Half My Classes Because I Was Playing Too Much)

My cute cute sister just transferred to a different school. She's a junior now, and by the sound of it, having a blast while there. She tagged me for telling of times we did crazy things in college. Seriously, where do I begin?

My freshman roommate and I were up "studying" for a test we both had the next day. And we both drank super caffeine drinks at, like, 10 at night. "Hyper" doesn't really cover it. I folded myself in half, tucking my legs under my head. Then I stuck my hands together. My roommate carried me around by my arms like a basket at 2 in the morning and showed everyone on the floor. Some people didn't think it was as funny as we thought it was.

Highlighting boys' hair, dressing them up in our clothes...

Of course snow fights and water fights and food fights and pen fights...

One night some guys we were hanging out with decided to act like Veloca Raptors the entire night. We went to Taco Bell. They snapped their teeth at the ladies taking their orders, and did the short arm thing. It was hilarious. Of course, there were about 8 of us, all packed into a 2-door car.

We wanted to make brownies, but accidentally dumped the mix onto the floor a little. We were making them for boys, anyway, so we added extra "ingredients"-lint, egg shells, dirt, whatever we could find.

The same brownie night, we acted like we were on a scavenger hunt through the guys' cooking dorms for brownie stuff. We just wanted to meet the guys.

We stole couch cushions and chairs from our guy friends' apartment. At 2 a.m.

Jenga or Twister with Consequences. Whoever lost had to go through the Spanking Machine-crawling under everyone's legs in a line while they spank the loser's butt.

Writing our names with our butts in the air. Also a 2 a.m. activity. (I think we rarely went to bed before 2 a.m.)

One night some guys came in with ski masks and totally kidnapped me. Drove me around blindfolded and dumped me off at some chick's house that I didn't even know. Weird.

We cooked s'mores over the stovetop. It doesn't really work.

One day we snuck into our friends' apartment and waited for them to get home so we could jump out and scare them. Totally didn't work-they were boys.

There was endless bowling and ice cream and dancing on the tables at a school dance. We hiked and campfired in the canyon. We decorated rooms and t.p.'d and spied on the neighbors across the parking lot with our lights off.

One week we didn't feel like cooking, so we convinced different apartments of guys to cook for us. It totally lasted all week. We had some serious flirting skills. Or begging skills.

One night we snuck into Old Main and went up into the very top of the tower that was restricted.

So, there ya go. A peek into the funnest four years ever! I hereby tag Pete and Kristine. They were both there for part of the party I like to call my "college education". Worth every penny, Dad!