Русский? (Translation: Russian?)

I freaking love my job, even if it makes me lose sleep, spend long hours at my computer, and induces emotional eating/snacking. Nevertheless, I love what I get to do, the people I work with, and what we accomplish. Every summer we run two camps that brings over Russian, Ukrainian, and Chinese students over for a few weeks. They spend a little over a week in Utah going to English class in the morning and field trips in the afternoon. Then they go to Southern Utah, Arizona, Nevada, and California for the next week and hit up all the sites and fun places.
Last summer I taught everyday and went on half the field trips. This summer I have more responsibilities so I'm only helping out a couple of days. Oh how I miss it!! Right now we are in the midst of the Russia/Ukraine camp.

I waited to the last minute to plan things to teach for this morning but it all worked out...that's kinda what happens with ILP. My boss wanted me to teach about candy making and I know nothing about candy making but this morning I threw together some stuff at Smith's before I drove to Draper. We made candy sushi, sounds good, yeah? They had to listen to my directions and follow the steps. I also asked them a bunch of questions while they were doing it so they had to converse in English. Win. Win. Win. We smashed rice crispy treats flat, rolled a swedish fish inside, and used a foot roll up for seaweed to seal it all in. I then sliced pieces so it actually looked like sushi. It was super fun and I think everyone felt pretty Japanese by the end of it. We also played "Do you love your neighbor?" Big hit!
I love summer camp because I get to meet new people/kids and get to see the ones that came last year too! My friend Larissa from Ukraine brought me this dish and some Ukrainian chocolate (delish!!!). She is so sweet!

We ate at a buffet (real sushi this time), went to the Sweet's candy factory, the copper mines, and back to the school. As I was singing along to N*SYNC I looked in my mirror at all the beautiful Russians in the back seat and thought about how lucky I am. Isn't that what the American dream is all about...Getting to do what you love, and driving a bunch of foreigners around while jamming to old boy bands..? It is to me! After we got back I waited with some of the boys for their host families to show up and I pulled my longboard out. Holy crap were they excited to ride my piece of junk board, it was so funny. I told them they could borrow it but they couldn't imagine taking it home, haha.
I had to take some of the Russians to the store to get groceries, shoes shopping, and then to pick up some sympathy flowers. It took forever but I took the little 7 year old girl Dasha, to get some awesome Polly Pocket toys to take back to Russia. She exclaimed, "I just love America" in the store and won the hearts of all its patrons. Her parents don't speak English well so communicating was interesting. They would often say things and look at me so I would smile or give a little nervous laugh because I didn't know what to do. I think that somehow translated to them thinking that I had some type of clue about what was going on. So they would talk and then look at me waiting for a reaction. Russian sort of sounds like people are arguing or angry so I just nervous laugh and look foolish. Kinda like this:

For the next hour and a half they would say things in Russian and look and me waiting for a response. It was awkward but I smiled and tried to use context clues to figure out what they were referring to. Everything worked out and I got them home safe and sound. They were so cute and grateful about all that I did for them, and it wasn't a big deal (even if I spent 11 hours with them today).
Man, I love summer camp, meeting new people, seeing new sites, and eating at buffets for free. I just wish I knew at least how to say one thing in Russian so I didn't look like a complete idiot. But just you wait...come Chinese summer camp, I'll be slinging all types of mandarin around! I love my job :)

Oh Rats!

So I most definitely should be using my time wisely and writing my paper and studying for finals but I can't concentrate. I thought I would share a little story that I was telling my roommate the other night. And y'all know how much I love to draw ridiculous pictures.
When I was in the fifth grade we had pet rats which procreated and created more rats in the form of adorable babies. Yes, I actually do enjoy a good rat, even though their snake-like tails kinda wig me out.
Anyways.. one day our student teacher (who was a friend of an older sister of the group) asked my friends and I to stay after school and pose for pictures of us reading and doing other scholarly things for her teaching project portfolio. We all really liked our student teacher so we agreed. We stayed after and felt super mature that we were being models for her oh-so-important college assignment. As we were staging an awesome reading session, we decided to take the baby rats out and put them on the floor to "read" with us. Let me preface this by saying that at this point in my life I was very much into bell-bottom jeans. Were they in fashion at the time to anyone but me? Probably not, But I didn't care and wore whatever I wanted. So I'm workin' the camera and my sweet flared jeans when I learned a very important life lesson:

That's correct, wide leg jeans + curious baby rats = danger!

I was pretending to read when I realized that seven baby rats had made their way through my denim tunnel and were heading north very quickly. I stood up carefully only to discover that my sweet 70s jeans not only flared but had a lengthly crotch area that made for a perfect rest stop for my critter friends.

(Sidenote: my hair really was that horrendous until I hit puberty. Totally accurate.)

It's an interesting predicament to be in; being an extremely awkward adolescent with way too many tiny rats camped out in the crotch of your pants. If this were to happen now my pants would be off in no time but I was so shy I couldn't possibly undress at school in front of my friends! Also, I was worried about the well being of my rat babies. So my best friend assisted me in shimmy-ing my body until the little rodent claws let go of my flesh and pantalones and started to slide down my leg. I carefully cupped my hand under them so they didn't crash to the ground and become instant vegetable brains. Luckily, all little rats made it out safely and I managed to keep most of the skin on my legs. 

There is a moral to the story (didn't see this coming, huh?). If you think it is a good idea to try to bring back pants, that should have never been in style in the first place, you might want to reconsider. And you should never wear anything loose enough that has the potential to house rodents or small animals. 

Hope my pain and embarrassment will brighten your day. And now you will understand if I ever refer to having rats in my pants, rather than ants.... :)

Warning: Exposure to Shelene may end in wicked road rash

Sometimes I am a spaz and do things to hurt myself on accident....and sometimes I'm a spaz and do things to injure other people. The other day I was walking home from class down the long hill at BYU, listening to my ipod (as usual)....  if you look at the illustration above, you will see that there are two walkways separated by a pole for pedestrians and bikers. I was walking down the pedestrian pathway and came to the opening to cross the bike pathway to the stairs.

(Can you tell I'm bomb at drawing ray bans style glasses and ipods? yeah...no)

 I'm always really cautious about walking across the bike lane so I make sure to look both ways. So as always, I looked both ways and swiftly crossed and started on the stairs. Then I heard over my music...

a really loud screech of tires. I quickly turned around to see some guy swerving his bike around. How did this happen?? I looked both ways and he was NOT there! Then the worse part..

Homeboy straight up crashed his bike into the dividing rail! Am I really that slow and large that he could absolutely not avoid hitting me and had to crash his bike into the pole?! I would like to think that the majority of this incident was not my fault. I looked and I crossed quickly. There was no way I stepped in front of him. Then...

Just when I thought it was bad, he flew off his bike and slid down the hill. I felt so freaking bad! 

Thankfully, he got up and let me know he was alive and somewhat well. I still felt terrible and apologized a trillion times. I could not believe what just happened and carefully went down the stairs to my car. I learned my lesson...I will now look more than once and I will RUN across that bike lane. 

Why do these things happen to me? Sheesh!

I guess it's time to start buying cats...

I am discovering a very interesting equation in Utah....
23 years old+single+living in Provo=instant spinsterhood. Must be time to start collecting stray cats, wearing house dresses all the time, and acting cooky. Here is my inspiration:

I don't intend for me to sound like a bitter old single person, I've just been thinking about this a lot lately.
So over the past few months I've had at least three different girls recommend marriage to me. I am a believer recommending things to people but I usually stick to movies, books, and food. I guess it's kinda my fault, I have a bad habit of asking people a lot of questions and usually follow up with, "oh yeah, how's that?" Typically my conversations go like this:
Me: "That's a beautiful ring, are you married or engaged?"
Girl: "I just got married a couple month ago"
Me: (typical answer) "Oh yeah, how's that?"
Girl: "It's so great! I love being married....(blah blah blah) ...ya know, I really recommend you try to get married, it's the best!"
Me: (usual response) "Okay, I'll get to work on that."
In all honesty I would like to respond with "You mean if I was married I would have a best friend, something to look forward to at home, and wouldn't have to sleep alone? Whoa, why didn't this thought ever occur to me before??" But I'm trying to be better at not being a smart A... my mom doesn't like it.

I have nothing against people that get married early, heck, most of my family did! I do, however, have something against people treating me like I have leprosy because I'm 23 and don't even have a boyfriend.
Marriage is a big deal to me and I know and know of enough recently divorced people to want to make sure I am positive about my decision with the right person, right place, and the right time. Call me crazy but I use my brain for logic and reasoning.

I apologize if you have been let down that I take a million years to do anything (like graduate from college) but I'm working on my time and doing what I know is right. And I think that as long as I'm making good decisions I'll be okay :) Oh, and here is a little luck on my side...

So just "Simmer down now" :)