Asparagus & Pasta

Ingredients:

• 1/2 lb bag of linguine
• 1/2 lb of asparagus
• Olive oil
• Salt
• Minced garlic
• 1 lemon
• Feta

Directions:

1. Fill your pot with water, add some olive oil and salt before bringing to a boil.
2. Drizzle some olive oil and salt in the bottom of your skillet, add minced garlic.
3. Wash your asparagus and remove the bottom ends. Break the remainder in half and add to your skillet.
4. Drizzle more olive oil and salt over the top of the asparagus.
5. Add the zest from your lemon to the skillet and then the juice from half of the lemon.
6. Sauté your asparagus at just below medium heat and add your pasta to the boiling water, turning the heat down to medium.
7. Cook both until your pasta is al dente, about 8 minutes.
8. Dish up pasta, add asparagus, and top with feta.

Where to Buy Notes:

If you have a WinCo nearby, this is the only store that seems to have normal, skinny asparagus these days and they usually have the best price as well.

          

My Five-Word Purpose Statement

My church, The Mount, recently had a retreat that explored concepts in Mark & Lisa Scandrette's new book, Free: Spending Your Time and Money on What Matters Most. You can buy it here. This book is an excellent and practical path to managing time and money because it starts on the platform of what is most important to you. By building a strong foundation, it is much easier to form purposeful habits in the way you direct your resources. There are activities and exercises throughout the book and one of them is to create a five-word purpose statement to summarize your vision of who you are. This is a great way to put some perspective on what you are doing with your life and to be more aware of who you are. I would strongly suggest that you buy this book and work your way through it if you are interested in working to revitalize your life. My (work in progress) five-word purpose statement is below.

♥ Contributer: I want to be actively involved and make a difference in the world.
♥ Learner: I want to seek knowledge and understanding of God, people, and the world.
♥ Supporter: I want to walk through the ups and downs of life with people and help them through, be someone they can rely on.
♥ Adapter: I want to grow and develop in all aspects of my life, to accept challenges.
♥ Lover: I want to care for people and show them that they are loved and worthy of love.

Nerdy Jokes

This has been chillin' in my drafts for months. A friend (Paul Chaus) and I ended up sharing nerdy jokes and pick-up lines for over half an hour one night. I figured I would compile a list of my favorites and share them here. Enjoy!

Jokes

• "Knock Knock" "Who's there?" "To" "To who?" "To whom."
• If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.
• Argon walks into a bar. The bartender says "We don't serve noble gases here." Argon doesn't react.
• The past, the present, and the future walked into a bar at the same time. It was tense.
• Descartes was drinking a beer in a bar. When he finished, the bartender asked him, "Would you like another one?" Descartes said, "I think not." (wait for it....)
• What has a light side, a dark side, and holds the world together? Gaffer tape!
• How often do I like jokes about Chemistry? Periodically
• Tell a potassium joke? K
• One atom says, "I lost an electron." Another says, "Are you sure?" "Yep, I'm positive."
• What is the relationship between a pumpkin's radius and circumference? Pumpkin Pi
• Do you have any sodium hypobromite? NaBrO
• Is silicon the same in Spanish? Si
• E=m(a²+b²) (think about it....)
• A neutron walks into a bar and says, "I'd like a beer, how much will it be?" The bartender says, "For you, no charge."
• "He threw sodium chloride at me!" "That's a salt!"
• Do I know any Jokes about sodium? Na
• Two men walk into a bar. The first one orders H2O. The second says, "I'll have some  H2O too." The second dies.
• What did the nuclear physicist have for lunch? Fission chips.

Pick-up Lines

• Someone must have shot you with a phaser set on stunning
• You're like an exothermic reaction, you spread your hotness everywhere.
• Are you full of beryllium, gold, and titanium? Because you are Be-Au-Ti-full!
• Are you made of copper and tellurium? Because you are CuTe!

Jane Austen Lover

This is just one of those months when I decide to reread all of Jane Austen's novels because I absolutely adore all six of them (the ones that she did not finish do not count in my opinion). I figured I would share some of my favorite quotes from each of them. Some of them probably won't be as amusing out of context, but if you are familiar with her novels, they'll be fantastic.

Persuasion
"Half the sum of attraction, on either side, might have been enough, for he had nothing to do, and she had hardly anybody to love; but the encounter of such lavish recommendations could not fail."
"If there is anything disagreeable going on, men are always sure to get out of it."
"Alas! with all her reasonings, she found that to retentive feelings eight years may be little more than nothing."
"We certainly do not forget you so soon as you forget us. It is, perhaps, our fate rather than out merit."
"All the privilege I claim for my own sex (it is not a very enviable one, you need not covet it), is that of loving longest, when existence or when hope is gone."
"When any two young people take it into their heads to marry, they are pretty sure by perseverance to carry their point, be they ever so poor, or ever so imprudent, or ever so little likely to be necessary to each other's ultimate comfort."
Mansfield Park
"I pay very little regard [...] to what any young person says on the subject of marriage. If they profess a disinclination for it, I only set it down that they have not yet seen the right person."
"You must really begin to harden yourself to the idea of being worth looking at- You must try not to mind growing up into a pretty woman."
"Miss Crawford was very right in what she said of you the other day--that you seemed almost as fearful of notice and praise as other women were of neglect."
"Let him have all the perfections in the world, I think it ought not to be set down as certain, that a man must be acceptable to every woman he may happen to like himself."
"Let no one presume to give the feelings of a young woman on receiving the assurance of that affection of which she has scarcely allowed herself to entertain a hope."
Northanger Abbey
"Thank you; for now we shall soon be acquainted, as I am authorized to tease you on this subject whenever we meet, and nothing in the world advances intimacy so much."
"For if it be true, as a celebrated writer has maintained, that no young lady can be justified in falling in love before the gentleman's love is declared, it must be very improper that a young lady should dream of a gentleman before the gentleman is first known to have dreamt of her."
"Their joy on this meeting was very great, as well it might, since they had been contented to know nothing of each other for the last fifteen years."
"Your feelings are easily understood. Where the heart is really attached, I know very well how little one can be pleased with the attention of anybody else."
"All have been, or at least all have believed themselves to be, in danger from the pursuit of someone whom they wished to avoid; and all have been anxious for the attentions of someone whom they wished to please."
"But your mind is warped by an innate principle of general integrity, and therefore not accessible to the cool reasonings of family partiality, or a desire of revenge."
Sense & Sensibility
"I have never yet known what it was to separate esteem and love."
"She had only two daughters, both of whom she had lived to see respectably married, and she had now therefore nothing to do but to marry all the rest of the world."
"It is not time or opportunity that is to determine intimacy; it is disposition alone. Seven years would be insufficient to make some people acquainted with each other, and seven days are more than enough for others."
"She hated him so much that she was resolved never to mention his name again, and she should tell everybody she saw how good-for-nothing he was."
"What! Are you never to hear yourself praised! Then you must be no friend of mine, for those who will accept of my love and esteem must submit to my open commendation."
"For though a very few hours spent in the hard labour of incessant talking will dispatch more subjects than can really be in common between any two rational creatures, yet work lovers it is different. Between them no subject is finished, no communication is even made, till it has been made at least twenty times over."
Emma
"I lay it down as a general rule, Harriet, that if a woman doubts as to whether she should accept a man or not, she certainly ought to refuse him. If she can hesitate as to 'Yes,' she ought to say 'No' directly. It is not a state to be safely entered into with doubtful feelings, with half a heart."
"It is always incomprehensible to a man that a woman should ever refuse an offer of marriage. A man always imagines a woman to be ready for anybody who asks her."
"Concession must be out of the question; but it was time to appear to forget that they had ever quarrelled."
"Pray do not concern yourself about my looks. Be satisfied with doctoring and coddling yourself and the children, and let me look as I choose."
"If I loved you less, I might be able to talk about it more."
Pride & Prejudice
"If he had any compassion for me, [...] he would not have dances half so much! For God's sake, say no more of his partners. Oh! that he had sprained his ankle in the first dance!"
"It may perhaps be pleasant, [...] to be able to impose on the public in such a case; but it is sometimes a disadvantage to be so very guarded. If a woman conceals her affection with the same skill from the object of it, she may lose the opportunity of fixing him; and it will then be but poor consolation to believe the world equally in the dark."
"But no sooner had he made it clear to himself and his friends that she had hardly a good feature in her face, than he began to find it was rendered uncommonly intelligent by the beautiful expression of her dark eyes. To this discovery succeeded some others equally mortifying."
"You wish to think all the world respectable, and are hurt if I speak ill of anybody. I only want to think you perfect, and you set yourself against it."
"I might as well inquire, [...] why with so evident a design of offending and insulting me you chose to tell me that you liked me against your will, against you reason, and even against your character?"
"Upon the whole, therefore, she found what has been sometimes found before, that an event to which she had looked forward with impatient desire did not in taking place bring all the satisfaction she had promised herself."

Almost Graduated

I somehow managed to survive my spring semester of five classes. Looking back, I am not entirely sure how. I had a couple of amazing teachers, which was wonderful, but also made a couple of teachers seem even worse, which was difficult. I have definitely learned that trying to give a teacher constructive criticism will result in nothing other than their wounded pride and a further loss of respect for them. It was one of those semesters where it seems like everyone is either dying, getting engaged, getting married, having a baby, or getting divorced. I lost two of my neighbors, my grandpa, and a friend...three of those to cancer. And that is only the tip of the iceberg of what I had to deal with last semester. Needless to say, I am thrilled to be moving on from that semester.
My summer class, otherwise known as my LAST class before I graduate, started today. I absolutely love the teacher already. He has a good sense of humor and he has structured the class in an excellent manner. Most of the material will be a review, but it should be interesting and well worth the time. It is fabulous to be excited about a class that runs three hours long twice a week rather than dismayed by the length. I think this is going to be a perfect class to end my time at the University of Utah on a high note.