Kate and Neil’s Awesome Website

Neil and I have settled our child-name dispute today. We met a girl named Monday Everest. Her brother’s name is Mu-lek George. Her parents must be geniuses. Ah the beauty of working with refugees.

So, while we have been moving I found a strange box labeled “Katie’s stuff.” I plopped it in the truck thinking it must be something we overlooked in the last move. Turns out it is a box that was packed up circa 1999 of a whole bunch of junk of mine from middle school and high school.

There were many random odds and ends. The highlight being a group of spiral notebooks covered with clipped out pictures of celebs. These served as my journals in middle school and high school. After high school I stopped keeping a journal almost completely. I had re-read some of my past material, and was mortally embarrassed that my posterity might actually read this banal junk. You can see for yourself why I don’t keep a journal in the following choice selections from the height of middle school, 1994 (these are DIRECT quotes):

4-2-1994

“Today I got an Aerosmith tape called Get a Grip. Is had the song Cryingin it. I LLOOVEEEE that song. I read the book Charley & I finished it today it is sooooo sad. I cried.”

“Today Sarah Lyon asked Mike Parsons to the dance. Isn’t that pathetic. I’d swear he’s a druggie. When Kate told me I seriously though she was kidding. Mike is a LOSER, he has long hair. She doesn’t even have any classes with him. I mean, it’s a casual dance anyway. You don’t have to have a date. There [sic] a bunch of moronic, chronic FREAKS. That should try to get a life know what I mean. If someone asked me that I liked, I would go. But, I don’t think I would like to ask someone.

PS I might wear a dress tomorrow.”

4-29-1994

“I have no classes with any of the ‘cool’ guys. I’m stuck with all of the nerds in accelerated English. It’s sooooo boring. I thought it would be fun but it’s not that fun. But it’s ok.”

Even from this limited sample you can see, I wasn’t usually pondering the mysteries of the universe as a teen. Pretty much boys and clothes. Typical. I think you could just buy a generic 8th grader girl journal and write my name on it and it would be fairly accurate. I also found a paper I wrote my junior year of HS that began with a lengthy quote from an Alanis Morisette song. Yeah. I had hoped to find one nugget of thoughtfulness, one sign that I was a forward thinking teen. Alas, not even a single glimpse that I cared about any issue but my current outfit & whether it was being copied or not. Thus I put and end to the immortalization of my shallow thoughts, to save myself eternal embarrassment.

This gem of a sketch above is from a later journal, I can only assume, is a drawing of cool fashion ideas I had. Sadly it is not labeled. Perhaps I had ideas of grandeur and was considering my own fashion label, “Fly.”

After working for the New World Archaeological Foundation for 5 years many thought I would never leave, but today I am announcing that I have a new “real” job (by real I mean it pays salary and has opportunity for advancement). Starting Tuesday I will help refugees from Iraq, Iran, Sudan, Somalia, Burma, and Bosnia resettle into the Salt Lake area. My official job title, I think, is refugee Case Worker, but I am not sure.

The International Rescue Committee was started under suggestion from Albert Einstein to rescue German intellectuals from Nazi oppression. Since then it has grown into one of the largest non government organizations dealing with refugee issues. They have offices all over the world and a presence in every major refugee crisis.

I am excited for the opportunity to work with such an interesting organization and I eventually hope I can take an overseas post after Kate and I have finished schooling.

After a week of searching for an apartment we have finally found a perfect place to live: cheap, clean, well lit, downtown, and close to the library. We are moving in this afternoon and are very excited to live in the “Big City” SLC. Because we have been living in Provo with Kate’s parents, looking for an apartment has been the suckiest suck that ever sucked. For an entire week we would wake up at 7, get dressed and out the door before 8, speed up to Salt Lake by 9 so we wouldn’t miss our apartment viewing appointment, and arrive on time only to discover the apartment abandoned or on fire and the manager has fled the country with 2,00o pounds of A quality cocaine. No worries we’ll just hang around Salt Lake until our next appointment at 4 PM! Actually that was only one day and our appointment and 4 turned out to be the apartment we are moving into… so well worth it. We are exciting and living in Salt Lake is going to be fun… pictures to come.

We were in Hollywood, what can I say?. This is what I came back with. Stylish, practical… even good for those rainy days. Mostly because they are 100% rubber. Made in the style of cowboy boots, but galoshes.
Oh, man I can’t wait for the rainy days of autumn. Super-fashion!