End of an Era

So this is it folks...I know that I promised some stuff...but alas, I am but a lowly college student. You know the kind; easily distracted, lazy, the kind where you look at them and wonder what in the world they are doing with their lives. Anyways, this shall be the last post for the next two years.

Teddy has gone and I am next. I thought more fun times were to be had but the Man brought us down...but instead brought gas prices up keeping me from seeing Teddy before the day he left for his mission.

The time-however brief it was-was still good for us. We got to say last goodbyes, see him with short hair (weird...haha) and have one last adventure before the fateful goodbye.

We had a nice walk around BYU campus to show his parents the main sights. The Wilk, the Library, the Creamery and where it all started...Snow Hall. It was fantastic and I will never forget my will be life long friend Teddy. I love him (no homo) and can't wait to see him as a brother of the Lord after our missions.

So to all those who actually read this...I bid thee farewell in the hopes that when we return you will be interested in what is to come. Have a fantastic next two years because I know we will. Farewell!

New Roommates

Now that Summer stories are over I have news of Fall and Winter to tell. I guess I will start with the new roommates and friends that were made from these semesters (there are many).
When I moved over to Wyview I gained two new roommates, Jesse Grigg and Aaron Moss. Teddy got Matt Woolley, McKay Miles and Logan “Too Fine” Tatham.

Jesse is one of my best friends back in Boise. He is a great guy and loves to do dishes and clean, which I was glad about. Good times were had by all in that apartment. A time such as this when we watched General Conference over at our apartment and played some intense Risk. Then the time we played Axis and Allies and Jesse got a major sugar high. *Warning, do not let Jesse eat tons of Pixie Stixs and drink Vault in 5 minutes…he gets really funny to watch! Haha!

Aaron is more laid back. He is a big guy, like one of those guys who when you see him you keep your distance because he is kinda scary. But he is an awesome person and really nice and not scary at all. He loved sports and he and I took a tennis class together. It was awesome! Along with the sports he liked video games so every now and then we would have epic video game nights at our apartment, whether it was on the computer or on the PS2.

Matt Woolley is a smart, awesomely named person who would eventually go on to be mine and Teddy’s roommate in Winter semester. He plays the viola (lame I know… :P) and liked to hang out with us and still somehow managed to get great grades. I was jealous of how well he could do in school. Anyway, we became the Tri-Matt when I moved in and had tons of sweet things happen. There was all of the videos that he showed us…which occupied a lot of our time haha. There was the St. Patty’s day party. There was the time that he taught us what FTW stands for…which apparently is clean. Who knew? One of my favorites from Fall and Winter (no offense other guys).

McKay Miles is a trombone player. He and I had some epic conversations about playing trombone and how I wasn’t very good, which is fine because I was still in the Marching Band and Pep Band. He liked locking doors. Like all the time. We eventually came to an agreement about the doors and everything was good from there. He also kept us on top of the dishes most of the time, which was good for us. We needed to keep up with them cause it got pretty nasty after a while.

Logan Too Fine Tatham…well, I’ll save talking about him for another time. He needs his own entry. The point is, is that with each new roommate came new adventures. Fall and Winter was long, but very rewarding. Kind of. Teddy and I needed to work on our Academics a little, but we made it work. Good times were had and people will be missed.

Parasomnia Tales

Now many people have heard of the term “insomnia” but how many people have heard the term “parasomnia”? It is not as well known as insomnia but still as prevalent in our community today.
Parasomnia is defined as “any several disorders that interfere with sleep such as sleepwalking, sleep talking, night terrors etc.”

For example when a person is sleeping, there is a part of the sleep cycle called the REM stage that causes the body to freeze in order to protect itself. With parasomniacs this doesn’t always work which is why they walk or talk in their sleep. Parasomnia comes and goes as well. It is usually triggered by some sort of stressful event. School, a new apartment, any number of stressors can cause this disorder to come about.

I believe that I have this disorder. Or at least I think I do, based on the many tales that I have heard of from my roommates. I am a big sleep talker (apparently). Over the summer when I was rooming with Landon I would wake up in the morning and he would tell me some funny thing that I said to him that night. He would know and remember because he would stay up late a lot.

But one night in particular…I walked…and by walked I mean I thought I was some sort of secret agent or something. Now, most of the time I do not remember anything about the times that I walk or talk, but for some reason, I remember parts of this time. It all began that night when I started punching and kicking my wall. Landon asked if I was alright, no response. Then he told me that I “James Bond slid out of bed” and crawled into my closet. Once I was in the closet he asked me if I was awake. I did respond to this question saying that I was. He didn’t believe me and when I began to make my way to our door he told me to get back in bed. I guess my body understood this command because I did go back to bed with a quick stop at my computer to find something (which I obviously couldn’t find because there probably wasn’t anything to find). The next morning I woke up and was told what I did. It was embarrassing at first, but now it is really funny.

Now over the next few semesters I haven’t really had the opportunity to find out if I have walked or talked in my sleep. This is because my roommates would go to bed before me, which is fine, but I was curious as to whether or not I was doing these things still. Eventually Sterling began to sit by me while I would be sleeping during the day, just chilling at my computer. One day I sat up in bed, saw him there and said hi. I vaguely remember that part. But then I said something completely random and had no idea what I was saying, but after I woke up an hour later or so he said that I do that quite a bit. So I have still been sleep talking I guess.

My most recent exposure to sleep talking has happened fairly recently…as in last night. My roommate has insomnia, and even though he goes to bed earlier than I do, he wakes up in the night sometimes. The last few nights he has been woken up by us having conversations with each other while we are asleep. Last night (as he tells me) we were talking to each other and when he woke up he asked if I was okay. Apparently I yelled, “I’m not crazy Logan! I’m not crazy!” He said that it was okay and went back to sleep while I was still saying funny things in my sleep.

So there you have it. These are the funny doings of Matthew Rich at night. I sleep talk and sleep walk. If you ever want to get a few laughs at me (from something other than me being colorblind…) then come watch me sleep and you might just end up hearing something really funny come out of my mouth. So, I wish you all a good morning, because I cannot wish you a good evening while I am sleeping…um, never mind I got confused.

We're On a Boat!

Our apartment during summer term was founded upon one simple, beautiful phrase…I’m on a boat. Everything we did we tried to focus it around I’m on a boat. What is I’m on a boat you say? Well, it is in fact a lovely little ditty about a group of guys who get a boat ride for three. Here is the video.

So...the video feed isn't working. I have been trying for a while, but it isn't processing the video very well. I guess I can provide a link for it instead. If you really feel the need to watch it (which I suggest doing) be my guest and click on it. It's funny.

http://www.hulu.com/watch/56632/saturday-night-live-digital-short-im-on-a-boat

Now this video is a clean censored version. The uncensored version is not good…at all. It is funny when listened to while censored. Really funny in fact. Just, everything about it (especially at like 2-3 in the morning) is funny. It doesn’t make any sense. It just makes fun of rapping, which I appreciate greatly cause rap sucks!

We had a lot of good times with this video. Any time any of us saw a boat or heard a boat or about a boat or whatever we would mention this spectacular piece of art. Not really, but it is funny. Now, in Spring term, Logan and I have put up a boat of our very own in our room to decorate cause it’s awesome in memory of this video!

Anyway, the point I’m trying to make here is that this video is very funny and enjoyable. It’s SNL which speaks for itself. Here are some links to other very funny videos (not all necessarily from SNL, but still good) that you may also enjoy to go along with this one.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qpaW2eVBFd8&feature=related (thug story)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z8pEzi1E5Og (let's go to the mall)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJqlso8tZVE (you just got slapped)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yacccC98uoM (you're the voice)

Sorry, this kind of turned into not "I'm on a Boat" but...it still is. Cause "I'm on a Boat" is awesome. And the point of this...yeah. Good Day.

BIRDMAN!

So this post goes out to our good friend Eric. Even though he is on his mission right now I know that he knows that I know that what I am about to write is true doctrine. Anyway, this is the true doctrine of The Birdman. The Birdman is an ongoing game of honor. Once someone learns the rules of Birdman, they must continually abide by these rules or they have no honor (Teddy…). Throughout this post I will explain these rules and show you the signs of the Bird so you too can participate in the Birdman and get your friends and family in on the Birdman. Some of the terms that I may be using are just made up by me. I’m sure that they have some specific names, but I am writing this for fun, not to be specific.

The Rules of the Game:
1) If a player looks at another player who is in birdman position, that player must lie down on the ground, flat on his or her back, regardless of the location, situation, or any inconveniences.
2) If a player throws the block sign in the air before looking at another player who is in birdman position, he or she has successfully blocked the birdman attempt, and does not have to lie down on the ground.
3) If Player A watches Player B get into birdman position with the intentions of birdmanning Player A, Player A does not have to lie down on the ground.
4) Any player who has successfully been birdmanned has a total of 3 steps before he or she must lay down.
5) Any player who refuses to go to the ground after a successful birdman will be suspended from play indefinitely. Multiple penalities will lead to expulsion from the game for life.
6) When two people birdman each other simultaneously, both will cancel out and nobody goes down. We call this the "Forget and Move On" policy.
7) When 2 people birdman 1 person who is already in birdman position, the 1 person must go down once (same goes for 3 v 2, 4 v 3, etc. attacks).
8) When a driver is birdmanned, he must get down at the first possible stop.
9) Birdmans may be stacked based on time. Meaning, that if a person is birdmanned once and does not lay down right away they may be stacked at intervals of 5 seconds ground time per Birdman with a max at 45 seconds. To put it plainly, a person may be birdmanned up to 9 times before they lay down once.
10) When a person looks at himself in birdman position in the mirror or at his own birdman drawing, he must get down. This is referred to as "suicide."
11) Peripharals (periphs) are legal if used honestly to detect an attack. Abuse of periphs will result in banishment from the game.
12) The right to birdman shall not be denied on the basis of race, skin color, gender, or age.

So, now that you know the rules of Birdman, you must respect your honor and play. Get your friends to play, get you family to play, get anyone to play. But, if you see the Birdman, you know what to do.

Now for some funny stories of Birdman as found in our group here at BYU.

The only people that I have heard of to Birdman people on campus (you know, like during school hours) are Eric and me. We each have birdmanned each other while on campus. Not at the same time, but different times in fact. It was quite entertaining.

We were first taught Birdman by Eric over the summer and now nearly everyone that we meet has been taught the game. Now there is a delicate topic about if pictures are legal or not…well, the majority will say no it is not legal, but there are some (like Eric) who believe that pictures are okay. For example, he tells a story of his friend who got birdmanned by a billboard in Spain. So, I will leave the picture rule up to the digression of the viewers of this post.

Eric was the Elder’s Quorum instructor at his ward in the Fall and one day when he was teaching we decided to pull the greatest thing ever! We birdmanned him while sitting basically right next to the bishop. He saw us only on the last time we tried and took his 3 steps and made it to his chair once he was done with his lesson. He was able to lay down after the meeting was over and explained to everyone around him what he was doing. Then after his farewell talk we birdmanned him while he was saying hello to everyone who came to see him. He didn’t move again until he was done saying hi to everyone so he could lay down with not a lot of people around.

Well, since I have been told that my posts are too long…I shall end here. There aren't a whole lot of epic Birdman stories anyway...but I would like to leave one last thought with you. If ever, you find yourself thinking about what you could possibly do to make someone’s life more enjoyable, just remember these five words. “The bird is the word…” That is all. Have a good night!

The Can Tower

So, the majority of our roommates over the summer enjoyed the occasional soda. And by that I mean most of us had multiple cans a day. So as a result there was a large pileup of cans after a few weeks into the semester. We were too lazy to actually recycle them that often so we tried to find ways of doing something with the cans besides just straight up throwing them away. While wondering what to do with these cans, I was discussing with Sterling what we could do. We came up with a few ideas. We tried just laying them out. We tried stacking them sideways in the recycling bin.

Eventually we tried stacking it along the wall. This is the first day of stacking. We had a lot of cans to start out with. We even tried stacking it in a 3D pyramid, but that didn’t work as well so we stuck with our original tower idea.

We liked the idea of this and just went with it. It turned into a project of ours to see how high we could get it. The regular providers of the tower were Sterling, Eric, Landon and me. There is so much green throughout the tower because of all the Vault that Sterling and I would get. It’s yummy. We each had our own tastes that we enjoyed so there was some diversity in our tower. But with all the Vault and Mountain Dew it seems really green.

Over the next week or so it grew. Not too fast, but it would eventually get there.

It didn’t take too long before it fell though and this is what happens with that. Even though Teddy was not a regular provider of the can tower he was an avid builder and the eventual structural design expert on the tower. He found the best ways to stack the cans and that some of the cans we were using were a little taller than the rest, so we had to use those on their own rows. He rebuilt that thing so many times because it would just collapse on itself.

Once it got to the point where we put the final can on top we decided to take memorial pictures with each one of us. Adam wasn’t with us though. But it was a very fun night for us.

After we got it to the last can, we kept going and added other layers onto the sides so that it would get taller. It actually reached the point where it was too tall for the ceiling so we started building a second layer in front of it. It was a lot of fun that lasted all summer. Here was the final product.

The top can wouldn’t fit because the ceiling was just too low. Once the semester ended we had to get rid of the tower. It was a sad day when we had to take it down, but we let it go with a bang! Here was Sterling, Eric and I kicking it down before we all left. It was a lot of fun.

Final Hurrah!

It seems weird that nearly a year ago right now I was counting down the days till graduation. Now i am sitting alone in my apartment just thinking about the past year. It has been one hell of a year to say the least. I sit back and think how it may have never happened. Its a miracle i ended up in such a great place amongst an amazing group of young people. We all have grown and matured, i have learned so much from them. Tomorrow is when this dream ends for one chapter in my life. Tomorrow i leave this wonderful BYU Campus and enter a shifting period between school and my Mission. It is all surreal. Not seeing friends that actually care about me will be the hardest thing to leave. Man i have learned so much from all of them. Sterling, Eric, Matt, Matthew, Landon, Alyssa, Brittany, Heather, Sharona, Amanda, Heather and Brittany's Roommates and Alyssa's Roommates, and even Logan and Robert. All have taught many different lessons in friendship and the way a real friendship should last after we all break apart. i hope we can all still maintain this friendship even after we go our separate ways. We all say we will but in my case i have never been able to keep a friend after leaving a certain area. i don't know, but i finally for the first time want to try and keep up with all of these great people in my life. i may not have achieved great things in college but i did achieve a great thing in college, and that is the Friends i have made. i am grateful for all of you who have helped me grow up and your examples of friendship you have. sorry Matthew is the Story teller but i just wanted to say thank you for everything. I love all of you and good luck to the Future for us all.

Teddy (matt) Hubbard