GMAT Is Over

After a month a studying, the test is over and I have met my goal. Thank goodness, because paying to retake it was not an option and that would have cause too much stress!

Anyway, I headed into Beaverton on Wednesday morning for the exam. Once at the test center you have to wait in line to have your palms scanned, picture taken and sign electronically. Then prove your pockets and hood are empty, you can't wear a watch or anything on your wrists and you have to show that nothing is written on your arms. Then to enter the computer/test area you must scan your palm and show you ID. Then you can finally sit down for the test.

I was assigned to 12B, a.k.a 13, but evidently they avoid the 'unlucky' number at the test centers because the locker was also labeled 12B. I don't know what idiot wouldn't realize they are actually at 13, but if it makes them feel better to think of it as 12B, then so be it.

The test involves two essays in the beginning and then a quantitative section and a verbal section. Between the each of the three sections you get a five minute break. I made it through the essays and quantitative section before taking my break. Which to leave I had to scan my palm and then to get back in I had to do it again! I then sat for the verbal section and finished in about 3 hours, for what could be a 4 hour test.

As I left, I had to scan my palm yet again (the process, kind of annoyed me), and I was given an unofficial test score of 600. Exactly my goal for the test and either at average or above average for the schools I am looking at. I was very happy with the results, but surprised my verbal section was higher than my quantitative. Being a math teachers daughter has always helped my math, but I guess studying the verbal section more actually helped a lot.

To celebrate I hit up Panera for lunch, then headed back home to relax before a celebration dinner with my roommates and a few friends and of course a dessert of a new flavor of Tillamook ice cream.

I am now moving on to filling out graduate school applications, which may take a bit because I am not too excited to write the personal statements. Oh well. The position that I was hoping for at ISU has hit a wall, I was utterly disappointed when I was called last week to be told it was going to be opened this year. But I focused on the test and I am searching for a new options. I know it will work out.

Happy Chinese New Year!

Last week was the start of the Chinese New Year and the year of the rabbit. And with my first Saturday off since getting back, I took my uncle's invitation to come into the city and visit the Chinese Gardens for their New Year's celebration.

The Chinese New Year goes on for a 2 week period, so the garden was decked out in red Chinese lanterns and had different stations for typical Chinese events, including calligraphy writing, story telling, and making of simple Chinese lanterns. On Saturday, they also had lion dances every hour.

So after a long train ride into the city, I made it to the Chinese Garden in time to walk around and see everything before the lion dance. The lion dance was pretty neat, they are constantly moving and the back people never stand upright. That takes a lot of endurance!

After exploring the garden and Chinatown a bit, Doug and I had lunch at a Chinese restaurant of course! It was nice to have time to spend with my uncle and to have a day off to visit something new!

Life as a Club Coach

After graduating I thought I had one career choice eliminated, coaching. Well it seems to me, that once I decide to eliminate an option it circles back around and I jump on the train again.

I honestly didn't think I had the knowledge to coach, but to stay involved (if I were in Iowa) I was planning of getting my officiating license. Well, I moved to Oregon and let that part go as well to focus on sports information. Well approximately 2 weeks after getting here, I started going to Pacific practices to play or help. I fully enjoyed being in the gym and after the season missed it. After thinking a bit I realized I could coach, I understand the game and with some guidance would easily be able to teach it. So I brought it up to Lena, the coach at Pacific. Little did I know she ran a large club program out here, Athena and asked if I would be willing to coach. I jumped on and am now co-coaching a 14s team and assisting with an 18s team, which means practice for 4 hours on Tuesday and Thursdays and 2 hours on Wednesdays in Beaverton.

I am not going to lie I was nervous about the 14s, they would take more patience and more energy to teach. But as time goes I love working with them because you can see the change in their playing more vividly and the lightbulb moments of understanding are awesome! Last weekend, I was flying solo as the coach for the 14s are our power league qualifier. The idea of the power league is you are ranked at a certain number and you want to work your way up the entire season by taking the ranking of the team you beat if they are higher. We started the day at 122.

Our first match we lost in three sets, with the final set going into extra points and ending 19-21. It was a heartbreaker, but my girls fought until the very last point. We bounced back winning the next two matches to finish 2nd in our pool. Leaving pool play we were up to 106 in the rankings. However, in the first match of crossover play we didn't serve receive well and lost momentum and dropped to 110. The last match of the day was by far the best, girls, who I was sure haven't been listening in practices, broke out of their shells and played awesome! We finished the day at 110, with a 3-2 record. I was proud of the effort they put in all day, because 5 matches over a 10 hour day takes a lot of stamina.

Along with their improvement on the court, they were complimented by CEVA (our volleyball region) officials on how well they ran the court when scorekeeping and officiating. In club volleyball, one of the teams that isn't playing has to do the scorebook, libero tracker, officiate and line judge. As the coach, I have to be the upper official, so the girls have to do everything else without my guidance. One of our matches was run very poorly and there were many delays that ruin the flow of the game. We followed by running the next match very smoothly, and an official and parent from another team thanked us!

I was proud of the girls all around, for everything they did that day! The represented Athena well and improved as individuals and a team!

I'd Rather Make a Snow Angel

Well my first experience skiing wasn't as grand as I had hoped. In fact the first attempt was rather traumatic. Half way down I wanted to call the emergency people to haul me down or walk because I really had no desire to stand back on my skis and finish the route.

To start the day Chantel and another optometry student, Teri, had decided to help me learn to ski. We chose a green route and headed up Mt. Bachelor. Chantel had me go without poles this first time to prevent me from doing something stupid and hurt myself and also to make sure I learn how to properly balance on skis. As we started down I fell about every 10 feet when I was trying turn.

After what seemed like forever, we joined a trail that would take us back to the lodge area, however this trail would require me not to fall because I would either fall off an edge or in front of another skier. Let's just say I bit of a panic attack and crashed, coming down on my chin on the lightly ice cover snow. It didn't feel great, but I was relieved to realize I hadn't bitten through my lip. The next bit I held onto Teri's pole in order to control the direction I was going and at this point my stopping was still failing and I got going faster than Teri, which caused her to crash and me to go off the edge and at a tree, which I avoided...barely and flipped over my head. That was the point where I wanted a rescue team! Well anyway we finally made it back down, I was traumatized and had not intention of going on any run the rest of the day.

I sat in the lodge with Natalie for a couple hours, before chatting with an 8-year old who had been skiing since she was 3 and was telling me the route I went on was the hardest green and that I needed to try 'Homerun' the easiest green run. Well as much as I didn't want to touch the skis again a couple people in our group convinced me along with the 8-year old to try again. So out I went, the run was a little bit better. It was more open space without a lot of trees. It still wasn't pretty, but it got better. Ending the day with 4 fall-less runs was a bit of an accomplishment.

While it ended better than the first run, I really don't think downhill skiing will come again anytime in the near future for me. I can check it off my list, be grateful I didn't get hurt severely and move on to the next challenge. Until then I will stick to making snow angels, once all the bruises disappear.

Weekly Accomplishments

Well this week has yet again been packed full, but this time it wasn't basketball. It was the number of things accomplished. At the end of last week I launched a new website for Landscape Concepts, they are starting a new business entity, which is buying foreclosed homes and fixing them to re-sell. So I started designing the website before Christmas, and let me tell you it was a challenge. I have literally only taken beginning web programming classes with the very basic steps and programs. This was a new ballgame. I told them straight out that it wasn't going to be as fancy as their landscape page (which all I have to do is update), but it would have the information they wanted on it. After many attempts to get a template, I finally nailed one down. It's not perfect by any means, but it serves the needed purpose. Here is the introduction of The Home Redevelopers website: http://www.thehomeredevelopers.com/

The second big accomplishment of the week was booking a GMAT test date. I had been telling myself that I was going to take it before President's Day, but hadn't actually booked it. Well the other night I logged on to the test center website and saw the month of January was nearly booked and February was pretty full as well. I moderately panicked, because the date in my head was full. So I adjusted and started through the process of booking it, when I got to the end my card wouldn't go through for some unknown reason....panic did set in at this point because it had just taken my 25 minutes to fill out the information before the payment and the month of January had completely filled up in that time frame. So I called my mom, mind you it was 1:00 am Central Time, whoops! But she gave me her card info and it is officially booked! February 16th at 8:00 am, please send care packages or notes of encouragement, thanks! :) Or I guess I can just go with Libby's advice and go buy all the Valentine's Day candy that will be on sale, which sounds like an awesome plan. Thanks Libs!

Lastly, the struggle of the week was finding almond bark. The special addition to any holiday treat during the Christmas season or so I thought. Not the case in Oregon. We are going on a ski trip this weekend and I wanted to whip up a treat I learned in first grade over break, almond bark covered puff corn. So I went to a grocery store on the way to volleyball after pacing the chips aisle at least 6 times I finally found the puff corn and grabbed a couple bags. Then I headed to the baking aisle to find....every kind of addition to cookies, but no almond bark. So I asked, they called their manager and told me it was seasonal they don't have it anymore. For gosh sakes, it is only 2 weeks after Christmas, how'd you run out already. So I paid for my puff corn, in fear that I may not find it at other stores and left. As I got closer to practice I knew there was a Target, so I decided to stop and give almond bark another shot. I didn't see it on the shelf, so I asked. Only to be asked my the Target worker, "What is that?" Well needless to say, they didn't have it either. At practice I said something to one of my coaches about almond bark, she asked what that was, and it is not the easiest thing to explain and I started to fear that maybe it doesn't exist in this area. The next day I went to Safeway in Forest Grove, failed again to find almond bark again. After calling my mom, I decided to make caramel puff corn instead, and according to her it is on the back of the puff corn bag. Well not in Oregon, because they don't have the brand we have in Iowa. So she told me what I needed. Later I brought up the lack of almond bark supply with my boss, he also did not know what I was really talking about. I was utterly disappointed in this missing ingredient, but maybe it's a regional thing. The midwest must have better holiday treats!

Anyway, I thought I would share the caramel puff corn recipe, because it was the third accomplishment of the week:

Ingredients:8 oz of puff corn (approx. 2 bags)
1 cup butter (real butter, do not substitute)
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup light corn syrup
1 teaspoon baking soda

Directions:1. Place puff corn in a large roaster pan. (I used 2 large kettles, because we don't have a roaster pan.)
2. In a 2 quart sauce pan bring the butter, sugar & corn syrup to boil, then cook for 2 minutes.
3. Add the baking soda. (This will cause the caramel mixture to foam up.)
4. Stir well and remove from heat.
5. Pour over puff corn and bake in 250 degree oven for 45 minutes, stirring every 10-15 minutes.
6. Remove from oven, spread out onto wax paper to cool.

Back to Oregon

The break went too quickly! The last week at home I was able to see one of Leah's games, which was the first loss of the year to at the time the #5 team in 2A. So while it was unfortant they had to lose it wasn't a bad team to lose to and it's better to lose now then down the road. I also got to attend Daniel's Jr.High Geography Bee. He did well answering all of them right on day 1, but day 2 didn't go so well for him. And to top off the week, I visited the dentist to find out I need a root canal, which I am putting off until June...and maybe by then I will have just pulled it myself.

I didn't get to see Leah or Daniel's games on Friday because they both were cancelled due to weather. Our family was due at Stoney Creek in Des Moines that evening, so we waited out the fog for a bit before finally deciding to brave it and take off to meet up with Mom's side.

Everyone was nicely settled into their typical rooms by the time our van rolled in, but games were ready to start. We did notice some changes to our typical rooms though, Stoney Creek had remodeled...meaning there were no marshmallows ground into the floor or balloons stuck in lamp fixtures from our previous family visits. But game playing still went on. Friday we played late into the night Friday and got an early start on Saturday with the Christmas grab bags. It was the first year for our family to initiate the 'steal or open' grab bag and it was a bit interesting.

Then it was an afternoon to ourselves and whatever activities we chose. Kathleen and I found ourselves wandering the mall aimlessly before I met up with the entire Ellingson clan at Panera. It was great to see their whole family!

For our Saturday evening entertainment, we went to a movie as usual. This year was 'Little Fockers', while I won't say much about the movie, I did see the logoed Chicago 2016 bus go behind them as Ben Stiller's character was standing on the street. So even if the movie was horrible I will give it my vote just for that!

Coming back was interesting. I was on the plane by 6:45 am (CST) and back in Portland by 11 am (PST) (please do your own conversions). I then jumped on the MAX headed to my 18 team's tournament, which was luckily in Beaverton. I was there in time to see two of their games and officiate two matches. One was a thriller for the crowd, because a coach protested one of my calls. I hold to the decision that I made.

After the tournament Natalie picked me up...without my luggage. I had had a parent pick me up at the MAX station and after our final game they left, with my luggage. So after calling them we planned to have them drop off at Natalie's sisters house, where we would be until Chantel's flight got in, which was 3-hours delayed.

By the time we were ready to head back to the airport, my luggage hadn't been dropped off. But we took off anyway and as we were driving I was called because they were there to drop it off. Well grand, we aren't there. So we called Natalie's brother-in-law to meet them and get it. When we got to the airport we headed to the Southwest desk to retrieve Natalie's lost luggage. Unfortunately, it was not in yet, so she had to put up with them delivering it sometime in the following 24-hours. After uniting with Chantel we stopped at Natalie's sisters again to get my luggage and finally made back to our house by 11 pm. It was a long day!

Monday came way too fast and I was back at work. And of course the BCS Championship was a big deal because Oregon was in it. I didn't plan to watch the game, because I honestly didn't care who won as long as Gene Chizik didn't, which I guess would mean I would prefer Oregon to win. But I as invited to the Pacific football coach's house for the game, so I decided to go. Plus while there a guy who worked at the Oregonian stopped and brought the proposed covers for the Oregonian if Oregon won and, of course, all snapped quick phone pictures of the covers that are now probably being sent to third world countries with the championship shirts.

The rest of the week was a filled with club volleyball practice and Pacific basketball. Pacific hosted 5 games this week including a 2 overtime thriller on Friday night. I ran the statcrew computer all week and was perfectly balanced at the end of every game, which no cheating using deadball rebounds. And yes, I know to most of you that makes no sense, but for the few and proud statcrew people it is great!

Recipe: Banana Oatmeal Cookies

I decided to make dinner for the family before the last basketball game and had a nice little menu planned. Once I told grandma, it was changed. She preferred banana cookies to banana bread. I had to get her recipe and hoped they turned out well, but fear not they were good so thought I would share it.

Ingredients:1 1/2 cup flour
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp nutmeg
3/4 tsp cinnamon
1 3/4 cup oatmeal
1/2 cup pecans
3/4 cup shortening
1 cup sugar
1 egg
1 cup mashed banana

Instructions:Cream shortening and sugar; add egg and banana. Blend together dry ingredients and add to shortening mixture. Add chopped nuts. Drop by teaspoonful onto cookie sheet and bake at 350 degrees for 10-12 minutes.

Let cool and frost cookies.

Frosting Ingredients:Powder Sugar
Water
Crisco
Maple Flavoring
Vanilla Flavoring
Pinch of Salt

Instructions:Mix all together until is tastes good...no measuring required!