My Family

I talked about it in an earlier post about how much I love my family. So to elaborate on it, I feel it appropriate to write a little something for those I love the most. This will be primarily family and even some of my good friends.

No I'm not dying, nor do I expect any of those mentioned to die any time in the foreseeable. I've never been that great with earthly gifts (if I even remember to get one) but I do see myself as one who is good with words.

First of all: My great father. I can expect him to make a witty comment either criticizing some spelling or grammatical error I've made while simultaneous thanking me for the nice post. Never too sappy, but also not too cutting. Always right... And humorous. He is in fact an awesome dad. My fondest of memories include watching the Lion King countless times, riding in a seat on the back of his bike going around Lake Elizabeth, going to the train tracks and waiting to see a train go by, and so much more. He provided me with everything I needed and most of the things I wanted. He used good discretion as looking back, I wanted a lot of retarded stuff. He is also always witty and original in his humor. People have told him that he must get his humor from me. They are sadly mistaken and honestly quite stupid as it's obvious I get my humor from him. 'The tail doesn't wag the dog' as he would say.

My loving mother. People always say that a man will marry someone like his mom. Not to be all sappy or anything, but if I marry someone like my mom, I'm set for life. This woman has taken care of not only my dad (an obstacle in itself) but managed to raise six awesome kids as well. That means giving birth, feeding, dressing, helping with homework, taking them to appointments, dealing with our fallacies and still loving us after all of that crap. I've told her before that I feel like the mom of my apartment since hardly anyone cleans up after themselves and I seem to have taken on her role in my apartment. Scary right? Anyway, my mom has done more than I ever could, can, will, and I'll never be able to give adequate thanks.

My second mother, a.k.a. my sister Sarah. She was almost 16 when I was born so I don't have that many memories of her since she left for college when I was 3 or so. The funniest story though was one I don't remember but she told me about. My mom, Sarah and I went to the mall when I was a newborn and I was in a stroller. While in the mall, my mom asked Sarah to stay with me while she ran into a store really quick. During that time people apparently gave her nasty looks, thinking she was a teenage mom.
In later years, I remember sleeping over at her house with her husband Joel (also a really cool guy, but this is a family post, sorry) and their two cats. Unfortunately I realized the next morning that I was allergic to cats as my eyes were itchy and my nose was quite runny. One last story was just before Sarah got married. She and my mom were cutting invitations or something on one of those big paper cutters where you bring  down the blade perpendicular to the board (sorry I don't know the proper vernacular). During one of her swings of the blade, she cut the edge of her finger. In attempts to cheer her up, I went upstairs, took off all my clothes (except my whitey tighteys... I was like 6 or so) and went back downstairs running around flailing my arms. It worked. Sarah's been like my mom in the disciplinary department, and a sister in the 'always making fun of me' department.

My sister Allison. She also left for college before I reached my 'remember things' years. But more memorably, she lived with my parents and I with her husband and baby girl. That was fun in itself as I could play video games with her husband Dave and play silly little games with her daughter. Since Becca had already left for college, it was like I had siblings again and prolonged the time till I had to be alone with just my parents. The most pronounced memory is when her daughter was taking a nap and everyone else was out of the house. We were chatting in the kitchen when we heard a buzzing by the windows and realized it was a bee. We freaked out cause we're both sissies and tried a whole number of things to get it out. Eventually we plugged in the hose vacuum (the ones that go into the wall) and hesitantly made out way over to it with the hose and finally destroyed it. High fives were in order as we slayed that mighty beast.

My brother Jeff. When I was a baby, apparently Jeff played with me a lot. In my middle years (the ones I actually remember), not so much. But in my later teen years, we bonded much over excited yells at Call of Duty as we would trade off turns playing. He's now engaged to Jess, a girl who gets as excited as he at video games and is arguably as good as any of us at video games (except Call of Duty of course). She's pretty awesome as well, but again, this is a direct family only post. My fondest of memories of Jeff was when he was taking me to some summer activity. We went outside and were about to get in his Camero (or as I pronounced it Cuh meh woah) when he asked 'Wanna take the top off?' His Camero had a T-Top and when those bad boys were off... Dang did I feel cool riding in his car. Sure enough, we took em off and we drove to whatever activity I had in style.

My sister Laura. Laura likes hugs... A lot. Maybe my parents didn't love her enough as a child, but pretty much whenever I'm with her, she'll hold her elbows by her body, forearms outstretched, wiggling her fingers. This implies a hug is wanted. Most of the time I give her one, because hugs are in fact nice. But I do it grudgingly... We'll often share phone calls where I say silly/stupid things and she laughs at how stupid I am. Our conversations are riddled with 'Sooooo... What's up?' and 'Ummmm yeaahhh' You could call it awkward. I call it sisterly bonding.

My shveester Becca. I say schveester because it is she (I'm quite confident of this) that I get my crazies from. (She's to blame Katie!) Crazies include our 'Louie Voice' and dancing around making as much noise as possible and just plain being cooky. Though not as hug dependent as Laura, she still enjoys a good embrace. The funniest memory of her I have is when our mom asked us to do the dishes. Stupidly, my mom stuck around in the kitchen and fell victim to what happened next. Our crazies started to build up and we started doing some type of African chant. I was beating on recently cleaned pots and pans while she danced around my mom making odd noises. My mom, most likely from being tired, thought this was hilarious to the point where she started crying she was laughing so hard. I must also give props to Becca for being my... Wingman? by giving me tips and ideas on how I should go about getting my first kiss. For those of you who don't know, all went well and my sincerest gratitude goes to Becca.

All in all, my family is just about the coolest out there. It seems like after my friends (as well as my sisters' friends) meet my family, they want to be an Ostler too. A tight, sarcastic bond is what keeps this family together, and I couldn't love it any more.

Lack of Vitamin D

For the first time since I got back here in Rexburg, it was really sunny. There had been days where it was spots on blue sky, but never really that sunny. Usually it was a mix of overcast and fog (I didn't know you could even get fog if you were this far inland and away from a large body of water) which would make it bright, but it was all gray and just kind of pissed me off.

Today however, as my apartment left for church this morning. It was sunny. 80% or more of the sky was blue and I finally didn't feel depressed to be back in Rexburg. This feeling was short lived as it is now again more cloudy than not, and weather.com has informed me that we'll be getting around 6 inches of snow in the coming days.

It was fun while it lasted I suppose.

Yesterday though, I went ice skating with some good friends from Fremont. I've only ice skated maybe 3 times prior to that, only once being in my adolescent years. I'm about as good as any other amateur, but I'm determined to be able to hold my own by semester's end.

All in all, the weather continues to make me hate my parents since they can wear t-shirts outside and ride their bikes. In just over 2 months, I'll be joining them. I cannot wait.

Life Goes On

I guess you could call my hiatus from posting melodramatic. While initially that was the case, it wasn't meant to last for a month and a half. I simply didn't feel like sitting down and writing about my daily happenings. But now, as I procrastinate doing my Mandarin homework (Yes I'll get to that later) I feel it appropriate to write a bit.

I went home for Thanksgiving, and I spent that with friends as none of my family went home then. We had Thanksgiving dinner with two other long time family friends from Fremont. Ultimately it was a good week, but going back was so hard-knowing I'd only have to be there for 3 weeks made those 3 weeks seem to last forever. My roommates and I all agreed: We hated life that Sunday we all got back. Thankfully though, time cooperated and managed to go by in a... timely manner. I finished up the semester with a 3.5 GPA, thus matching the highest GPA I've ever gotten. My parents didn't believe me. You may think this rude of my parents not having faith in their son, but to be honest I never really gave them reason to possess said faith all through High School. I screwed up with parental support, why strive when I had no curfew or parental advisory? Nevertheless, I pulled it off much to my parents' delight.

I had roughly two and half weeks at home. The best part being I was going to see my entire family for the first time since over a year ago. It was very joyous as conversations commenced with the topic matter being of such sophisticated affairs as defecation and who is 'gayer' and why. Yes, having my family home is awesome, and no I'm not being sarcastic. I'm strange in that sense as today's culture seems to hate their siblings, parents, cousins etc. I can honestly say I love spending time with my family.

For Christmas I got pretty much everything I wanted and more. All I really asked for though was warm clothes. A pea coat, a down jacket, a scarf, two pairs of gloves, and two sets of thermals and wool socks: I was ready for whatever this Rexburg winter could dish out. Again I spent my time with family and friends. It was most enjoyable and very difficult to go back to school.

And yet here I am- in school again. The average temperature from day to day can be counted on just your hands, and sometimes you only need one. Especially since the other may be stuffed so far into your pocket for warmth you couldn't use it to count anyway. I'm taking a relaxing 14 credits which will make me a sophomore at the end of the semester. Those credits consist of a humanities class, a science class, a religion class, a geography class, and last but certainly not least: my Mandarin 101 class. Yes, I am taking Mandarin and I LOVE it. The way the language is set up and how the characters have come to be is fascinating. Speaking and reading the language is coming along as normally as Spanish did, but the character writing is giving me a bit more trouble, but I am learning.

I sit behind a guy from Mexico in that class so whenever we don't know what's going on, we'll talk in Spanish to make ourselves feel better about our lack of Mandarin skills. Also, I sit next to a girl from China in my religion class and she has offered to help me whenever I need it, so I share what few phrases I know to her. She'll laugh and correct whatever pronunciation errors I have made. In turn I've offered to help her with American History. I know my sister's are laughing now since I'm not the tutoring type. Yes I realize it's not exactly a fair trade-off. But if you think of it this way: She knows as much American History as you know of Chinese History. I'm better than nothing and it's the least I can do to make it a symbiotic relationship.

Wo shi hao xuesheng he wo shuo yidiar zhong wen. Duile ta jiao Yu he ta shi hen bucuo!

Anyway, I created my schedule much better than last semester and the earliest class I have is at 9 on T/TH and 10:45 on M/W and a whopping 12:45 on Fridays. Much much better than last semester.

This semester is shaping up to be just as good as the last and maybe even better. I'll try to keep up on my posts as I'm sure you're hanging on to every word. But for now I leave you as I must practice my characters!

Zai Jian!