For Science!

Spencer and I have decided to be part of an experiment. The exercise science department is doing a study about how muscles recover after exercise. It sounds like the research is being applied to help understand degenerative muscular diseases, so we figured we'd join the cause. Actually, we figured we'd join the cause because there's a $200 compensation. It makes me feel better that it's also for a good cause. After all, where would science be if nobody was ever willing to be a subject? The study is 5 weeks, but three of the weeks we don't do anything, and there's only about 8 hours of time required. There are 4 muscle biopsies involved, which make me a little nervous, but they don't sound too terrible, so we signed the consent forms this morning. That biopsy needle is huge! The things we'll do for a little extra cash...

This past week was pretty busy with school work. We both had two tests and I have a paper due this morning. I spent pretty much all weekend trying to focus on my paper long enough to get something coherent down on the page. I'm not sure I ended up with anything coherent, but that's just how things go sometimes. I took my New Testament midterm on Saturday, and it went alright. I need to pay more attention to names and places for the next one, I think. The class has been really insightful though. On Saturday afternoon we went to a ward activity for our new ward. It was at a nice community waterpark up in Lindon, but the waterpark is kind of geared for kids. I think most of the ward must have known that because only like 6 couples came. Ward activities are always a little awkward when you're too new to have any friends and it didn't help that nobody we'd actually met in the ward came. Actually, my roommate from freshman and sophomore year's older sister is in my ward, so we knew them a little bit. I'm glad we went, and we had fun with each other in the lazy river, but I hate being new in a ward.

We had James our mutual friends Katie and Taylor over for dinner on Sunday. It was really fun, and AnnaMarie's sweet and sour chicken recipe was a hit. James brought some yummy brownies, too. That's about all we've been up to lately. This week will be less busy, and we get wednesday off because of Pioneer Day! Hopefully we'll go camping on Tuesday night or something. (Pioneer Day is a holiday celebrating the Mormon Pioneer heritage. It's kind of a big deal out here. They have fireworks and people do reenactments and stuff.) We'll probably go watch the fireworks with the Mooney's.