Nocturnal.

Okay. So. Chris works nights. Which means that if I want to get to talk to him, I have to stay up really late. This has generally evolved into me being almost nocturnal along with him, which is why I'm writing a blog post at four am. Even when he doesn't work, it's easier to stay in the general rhythm of being up all night and sleeping all day. Which means a lot of nights lately have been spent with us talking until like... five am. Whoops. (Hurray for having a basement so I don't wake up my roommates!)
Last time we saw each other, we told each other our respective first kiss stories. When I demonstrated mine (it makes the whole story SO much more accurately awkward) he laughed. It made me laugh. It was interesting to me how I used to think it was the most awkward thing on the planet, and how I was so embarrassed to tell anybody about it, but now I realize it is pretty ridiculous and funny. We talked a lot about high school, and how we don't want [my children or his children or, at this rate, TBH, our children] to be as dumb as we were. We talked about how we want our kids to really realize that there IS life after high school, but at the same time we don't want them having what I call "college tunnel vision." I honestly think that's what ruined my senior year. All I could think about was how badly I wanted to get the heck out of high school, and Logan in general, and I forgot to enjoy it. And, of course, we talked about how we don't want our children to pair off in high school. But the fact of the matter is, they're going to do it anyway. And I'll be there when they get dumped, not with an "I told you so!" or a "NOW don't you wish you'd listened to me?!" but rather with a "this really sucks, I'm sorry you have to go through this."
Anyway. I'm chatting with Chris on Facebook and totally just lost my train of thought, which is a bummer, because I had some good things to share with you folks.

Oh! Yeah! So I'm a Crimson Flier now. I'm pretty much the official Fliers graphic designer. Because I'm just that awesome. But Chris and I are going to play for the Lost Boys at the Cinco de Mayo Cup and I'm waaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyy excited! :)
I'll just leave you with my latest creation. When I say Crimson, you say Fliers!

Quidditch.

So today my mom asked me how the Snow Cup went, and I told her it was legitimately the best weekend of my life. Why? Okay, I'll tell you.


1. Finally getting to meet some of the greatest people I have EVER known in my entire life. Seriously, the morning of, running up to everyone and hugging them? BEST. THING. EVER. (Zach wins though, seriously. I said his name and we legitimately ran and jumped into each others' arms and stayed there for at least a full minute. I love him SO MUCH.)

2. Winning our first-ever Quidditch match. Seriously. I'm not sure I've ever been so thrilled in my entire life.

3. Crash course in goal reffing fifteen seconds before the match started.

4. Picking Kevin (SupaKev) up at the airport.

5. Talking about Quiddich ALL DAY LONG. And all night long.

6. Not gonna lie, meeting Alex Benepe was awesome.

7. Watching my team have the time of their lives. I was worried half of them would quit. Now I legitimately can't wait for Western Cup with them. And everyone else. WESTERN CUP.

8. Putting up a couple of really great hits on some UNC chasers. Man those felt good. (Nothing personal guys.)

9. Scoring my first-ever goal against Auxkas. I felt like such a beast.

10. (Sorry guys, mush time.) Watching my ridiculously sexy boyfriend play Quidditch. YUM.

11. Being so sore that moving was a long and arduous process for the next two days, and being completely happy about it.

12. Spending a good chunk of time and money on those legit brooms, and hearing people talk about how awesome they were.

14. Wearing my muddy jersey to school on Monday and getting the weirdest looks ever.

15. Reading the article about us in our school paper. We're so cool.

16. Having Zach tell me I'm actually good at Quidditch. And believing him.

17. Lillian.

18. TRADING CARDS.

19. Yelling myself completely hoarse being that obnoxiously passionate captain on the sidelines.

20. QUIDDITCH. QUIDDITCH. QUIDDITCH.

(This worked better on Facebook when I could tag everyone I love SO DEARLY.)

Anyway, to sum up the Snow Cup, we won our first game, and our last game, both against UNC (they went 0-5, poor guys). The Crimson Fliers won the whole thing, with good reason. They are incredible. If you want to watch some good Quidditch, watch the Fliers. They play a very beautiful Quidditch match. Watching Chris play Quidditch turns me on more than looking at pictures of him play baseball. GOSSSSSHHH he is so hot. 

But yeah. My team actually did incredibly well. I'm so proud of them/us, and so many people told me how impressed they were by us, both on and off the field. That is always so nice to hear, especially as a captain.

One more little gooey-ness before I head to bed. This weekend just showed me even more clearly why I love Chris SO MUCH. Yeah, yeah, he's good at Quidditch and he's extremely good looking and such, but he's also way smart, super dedicated, and so, so classy. He would ceaselessly give credit to his team, and most of his hard work (especially on the brooms) went completely unnoticed and he didn't even care. I would say that I'm sorry ladies, because I am a little sorry that you are all missing out, but seriously I'm not all that sorry, he is so wonderful and I feel so lucky. I am still a little mystified as to why on earth he's dating me... But I guess I DO look pretty hot in my Quidditch uniform... ;)

And one last thing... Chris texted me "Wanngoballwime?" 25 minutes before the dance started... OBVIOUSLY I said yes. Silly, silly, adorable boy. (He looked so freaking handsome. It was not fair.)

Discovered.

Trying to finish my twelve-page paper tonight... No bueno. I'll probably end up being up until four or so, sleeping for three and a half hours, going to work, then printing my paper and turning it in, and crying tears of extreme relief before I collapse in a heap on the ground from exhaustion. Honestly I am so sincerely looking forward to tomorrow night, when it's finally all over, and I can just play Skyrim all night without feeling guilty. Oh, and text Chris, OBVS.

Speaking of Chris, Hannah found out about his blog. That may have been, in an extremely indirect way, my fault. (Sorry Nerf... yes, my pet name for Chris is Scruffy-Lookin' Nerf-Herder. You're jealous, don't even try to deny it.) Remember how I love the Anti-Austens? Yeah, go check out this post. Apparently Hannah's sister may or may not read the Anti-Austens, which led her to Chris's blog, which... if you read it and you know one or both of them, it's... yeah, pretty each to use powers of deduction. I only feel sort of bad, I personally think she deserves to see a) how much he actually loved her and b) how much she hurt him by leading him on. Again, I'd say I hate her, but I really don't. I seriously owe her, big time, and although I'm NOT glad she hurt him, I am glad she lost interest, because I love Chris way more than she ever did. No seriously, talking to him about it has always kind of astounded me. She put next to no effort into that relationship. Yeah, who was the one driving up to Logan EVERY SINGLE WEEKEND to see her? Yep, Chris. And yeah, I've pulled the, "hmmm, that doesn't sound familiar at all" line, but frankly, it does make more sense for me to go up there, plus I'm pretty sure Hannah never bought Chris a tank of gas in her entire life. Which Chris does. And he washes my windshield. Don't worry, I tip him very well. ;)

However, apparently, I've made it pretty easy to figure out who he is. BUT! Although most readers know my name, most of them only know who Chris is through me if they Facebook stalk me. (Tripp you are officially being called out. Right now.) Never once have I called him by his real name, even though I almost have like 50 bajillion times, because I really like his real name. And since we started dating/since I started getting mentioned on his blog, I have only commented as 'Mirage' and not myself. Yeah, okay, I've talked about him being on the Quidditch team a lot, and I've posted attractive Quidditch pictures of his posterior, but seriously, only if you had Facebook stalked me would you know who Chris really is. Or if you had Facebook stalked the Crimson Fliers. (Either way, Tripp, you're still a creep. It's okay, I still love you. And if you're going to Facebook stalk me, just add me as a friend for crying out loud, Chris and I are kind of actually dying to meet you.)

On a completely unrelated note, my tandem bike bruise is officially ten inches long by four inches wide. Yeah, as soon as I can get a good picture I'll post it, because it's freaking epic. Definitely the coolest bruise I've ever had.

On another completely unrelated note, my students today were tough. They were good kids, just... ridiculously un-coordinated. Like, unbelievably so. This resulted in one of them getting hurt, which resulted in me having to fill out an accident report with Ski Patrol... yaaaaaaay.

On what I believe is the last completely unrelated note, I completely rocked my final tonight. At least, I feel like I did. I finished it in like half an hour, and I felt like I really knew all of the answers, and gave more than was required of me on the short answers. I'm definitely looking forward to my next class with Dr. Barney, because he's frickin' awesome, AND it's Accessible Recreation, which will be really cool from him because he's in a wheelchair. Wheelchair basketball HERE I COME!

Wait, I lied. Last completely unrelated note. I have cleaning checks on Monday and I do not want to clean... Pleh.

Sequel.

Dinner at Chris's parents for the second time yesterday... infinitely better. So, that's a relief, because honestly I was concerned that it would be awkward forever. Thankfully, it is looking up.

Dinner with Chris's friends... while I might not have impressed Smartypants as much as I would have preferred, we ARE friends on Facebook now, so I suppose that's a good sign. As for the Quidditch team, well, they already love me, NBD. Nerdy Friend (I don't think he will end up meriting a nickname, but if he does, I'll come up with something new) would have to be clinically insane if he didn't approve, because we sat across from each other and basically ended up quoting Robot Chicken Star Wars and HISHE at each other all night... Yeah, nerd Jen definitely showed herself at that particular outing. Again, NBD.

Quidditch practice with the Fliers... SO AWESOME! It was fun to see what a 'real' practice is like, rather than just scrimmaging and such. I learned a lot from Brown Wig, and even though it was honestly like the second time I've played Quidditch with other people in my life, I feel like I didn't make a COMPLETE fool of myself. Chasing, however, is definitely not my thing, especially because now that climbing season is over my hands have lost all of their strength. :/ Keeping FTW.

OKAY, so. Onto sappier matters. Today is Chris's birthday. And, having spent his entire birthday weekend with him (the weekend which included the one-month mark, which I'm not going to lie, is a big deal to me, especially in light of my recent success in the dating world) I just have to say that caring about age difference is for shmucks. Not that Chris is immature, but I think we're on a pretty good level maturity wise. Does the fact that we're over four and a half years apart make me love him any less? Assuredly no. Does he love me any less because of that? I imagine not. So. Yeah.

Anyway, I'm heading to Salt Lake once again (isn't Chris nice for buying me gas?) tonight again for birthday shenanigans. Stoked.

OH and a final note, I freaking LOVE my job at Sundance. I have gotten total ballers for students so far, and I'm just... I love it. Putting on that dang Sundance uniform makes me feel (and ski) like a million bucks.

Soundtrack.

Ohmygoodnessohmygoodnessohmygoodness MY SKYRIM SOUNDTRACK CAME TODAY. Yeah, the one signed by the composer, with four discs of video game soundtrack perfection. EEEEEEEE! I'm so pleased that it decided to come when I need it most, with many hours of paper writing looming over my head. Finally I get to listen to my favorite track (featured in the 20-minute gameplay preview from G4, it's called Under an Ancient Sun) without anybody talking to me, or wolves attacking me... It's gorgeous. Seriously, goosebumps.

The Quidditch team headbands came today. I bought two full sets (so, enough for a scrimmage) for like thirty bucks, which I think is pretty decent. I'm trying to decide if I want to BYU-ify them or not.

Another note, Saturday is Chris's birthday dinner. I wasn't particularly nervous about it until I read his blog. And now I'm way nervous. Meeting his family was... so awkward. Ugh, it was awful. We got there really early and so we sat around waiting to eat for like, half an hour-forty five minutes. It wasn't TOO terrible until Sister and Hubby showed up with Nephew, and then Chris ditched me to play with Nephew while I just sat there at the kitchen table awkwardly listening to their conversations. (That was one moment where I was like, "Damn, why don't I like little kids better?!") It was super awkward, and I kept shooting Chris these looks like, 'Save me!' which of course he ignored. It's not a big deal, if I were him I would've rather played with my cute nephew than sit awkwardly at the dinner table with my suddenly silent and thoroughly un-charismatic girlfriend. Yeah. Fail. Normally that never happens... but something about that situation, and the way I could tell that they were disappointed that I wasn't Hannah... I went into 'little shy hermit crab Jen' mode. Not a good mode when you're trying to impress people.

I'm hoping, though, that I'll be okay with his friends, because they're not as scary, and let's face it, Chris and I are pretty close to the same person. Plus half the Crimson Fliers will be there, and I already know them. NBD.

Still nervous though.

AND I have a huge paper to write tonight. Oh that writing a paper were as easy as writing a blog post!

100!

A hundred posts! Crazy-ness. I never thought I'd ever stick to something so well.

Another good title for this post would have been 'Airport' but seriously, the 100th blog post is something to be celebrated, at least in my case.

So, THE AIRPORT! First of all, the BYU basketball game was amazing. I sat by myself (if you know who I am, and read this blog, and go to BYU basketball games, please tell me- sitting alone happens a lot and I am not a fan) but had a great time anyway. We creamed, which was great, but we definitely weren't at the top of our game. It's okay, we didn't need to be, I'm not really that disappointed. One thing that I WAS disappointed in was the complete desertion of the Marriott Center! Seriously, only half of the seats were filled! This is the MARRIOTT CENTER, people! The fifth hardest arena to play in, in college basketball, in the country! I was extremely saddened by the lack of support for our Cougars. In the Jimmer era that would've been completely unheard of, and that was only last season! Ridiculous.

Anyway, after the game, I made a quick exit out of Provo (seriously, it was SO slick, I was amazed) and headed to the airport. I was so excited, my heart felt like it was in my throat. Blasted my Skrillex to distract myself, and that kind of worked... except that Skrillex is a mutual favorite artist, but seriously, no amount of distraction was going to work.

Finally got to the airport at 10:30. Early. Typical "I am my father's daughter" moment. Thankfully though, my iPod was fully charged, so I took full advantage of my Kindle app, and then ended up reading all of the Priesthood session talks. Go iPod. There were a couple of families there waiting for missionaries to come home, and it brought back so many great memories. I chatted with one of the elders's mom, she was so cute and excited, and I just kept telling her how wonderful of a feeling it is when you see them/hug them/take care of them again. Obviously I've never been a mother, but I know how my mom felt, and how I felt. It really is one of the best feelings in the world. I mean, I was super excited to see Chris after five days, but two years? Total trump. :) When the elders arrived, I couldn't help but sit and watch them with a big grin on my face. One of them had a little sister who was the same age I was when my brothers were coming home, and I was admittedly totally filled with love for these complete strangers. After they all left, I probably had another half hour or so to wait until Chris's flight landed. More conference talks, hurray! When it got to about ten minutes before their flights was supposed to land, I kept looking at that stupid board that just kept saying 'On Time' but never 'Arrived.' Oh my excruciating. Especially when it was fifteen minutes past when their flight was supposed to have landed...

But then I looked up and saw familiar faces. People I had never met, but would know anywhere. The MUSS shirts kind of gave them away, but honestly, I would've known the Crimson Fliers anywhere. My heart skipped about six beats before restarting at an extremely heightened rate. I stood up and started walking towards the hallway they were coming out of, and then I saw him. Yeah, my heart did a combination of swan-dive, stopping, and frenzied beating. Goodness, he was/is so ridiculously handsome. And when he looked up and saw me? The expression on his face said more than any words ever will.

I had to restrain myself from being the obnoxious squealing run-and-jump-into-his-arms girl. I wanted to do that. But I knew he wouldn't particularly appreciate that, and I didn't want to act like a 12-year-old in front of his entire team, especially after he had apparently been 'bragging' about me all weekend. (A boyfriend who likes to brag about me? And does? Often? Seriously, WHO IS THIS GUY?) So instead I just stood there grinning at him as he walked straight up to me and wrapped me in his arms. Oh, there are no words for how great that was.

THIS IS CRAZY! I have never experienced twitterpation on this level. Ever. Even one of my oldest friends, Bruce, was telling me tonight that he's never seen me like this. And he's been there through ALL of my boyfriends.

Anyway, we walked over to baggage claim, where the point was reiterated to me how much better 'arm around' is than hand holding. And the fact that Brady thinks the same thing? I don't think I have to tell you how I feel about that. I finally met the team, which made me happy, because I've been feeling like I know them for weeks now. Sly and Schau, two of the girls on the team, are super awesome. I feel like we're going to be friends. But the whole time, Brady kept his arm around me. Again, I don't think I have to tell you how I feel about that. Just standing there, waiting for his stuff, with our arms around each other, and my head on his shoulder... Overwhelming happiness, on a level I haven't ever felt before. A mixture of contentment, and giddiness, and twitterpation... Ladies and gentleman, I MIGHT be on my way to falling in love with this boy. Might.

All of their stuff finally arrived, they had a team cheer, some trash talk was exchanged, (the co-captain of BYU Quidditch is dating one of their starting chasers, how could it not?!) and we finally headed home. Chris miraculously got work off, so we figured we'd take advantage of that and chat for a bit. And we MEANT a bit. Yeah, that didn't really work. Call us crazy, but we seriously talked until the sun came up without even realizing it, until the sun actually started coming up. It was the kind of conversation where we just kept talking and talking and completely lost track of time. You might not think that's possible, and if I hadn't experienced it myself, I wouldn't either. But he gave me a play-by-play of the whole weekend, including the games they played in as well as the games they watched, including both of the Middlebury debacles. It was crazy! I've talked for hours on the phone and such before, and had conversations that lasted most of the night on the phone before, or such things with girls, but not anything like that. We just talked and talked and talked, and it didn't even feel like that long until we looked out the window and the sun was definitely rising. Ha. I had been planning on being home before one... yeah right...

Since we both had school, pretty much the only option was to go get food before I needed to head back to Provo. Ah that drive was difficult! And now I'm freaking exhausted from not sleeping at all, but it was so worth it. And I get to see him again on Friday! So excited. I'm staying at a friend's in Salt Lake so I don't have to get up at the butt crack of dawn to make it to Brighton on time for my ski tryout for Sundance! And then after that, Chris and I are going to go down to Provo for BYU Quidditch practice and the football game. And this time, I have things planned for his visit. I'm so excited, it is kind of ridiculous.

Oh, I am in trouble.

Tag.

Playing Skyrim today, I was wandering around in Solitude, and started talking to some kids, and they invited me to play tag with them. So I played tag. With little kids. In a video game. IT WAS SO COOL. I love you Bethesda.

Utah lost in the first round of playoffs to Texas A&M. >:[ I'm super disappointed/mad/sad. They deserved to do better. They should've done better. This World Cup certainly did not go the way they expected. They did well in their pool, 3-1, but... yeah. It's extremely disappointing.

Middlebury won, again. Double >:[ I do not like Middlebury, and next year I WILL beat them. Well, we will beat them. We being BYU. Although Florida did bring up a good point about the finals being on Sunday and that being a problem for BYU... (Florida is the girl who's pretty much in charge of BYU Quidditch, but hopefully I'll still end up as co-captain or something.) We'll see. We still have a year to recruit and train and get amazing.

Chris's phone has been dead pretty much all day, well actually pretty much all weekend. I don't want to be whiney but I'm not gonna lie, it's been a little rough on me. It's stupid and it shouldn't make me feel unimportant, but it does. Whatever, I'm a big girl, I'll get over it. I do tend to stress. But saying it didn't matter to me would be a lie.

Anyway, I need to go write my paper. And maybe 'skype' Chris, though I'm admittedly not really getting my hopes up. (I know, maybe third time's the charm, don't be so negative Jen!) It's been a bit of a disappointing weekend, besides Skryim (that post is coming soon, don't stress!).

Man, just look at that good-lookin' Quidditch player in the red... can you believe he's mine? When this picture popped up on twitter I nearly had a heart attack. And then I proceeded to yell at that guy to get his hands off my man.

Ten.

1. Utah lost to Kansas, but only just. The Fliers's seeker caught the snitch RIGHT as Kansas scored a goal. So lame.

2. I didn't get to watch it, because they suddenly didn't have enough bandwidth to stream games. I'm irritated. Not only did I not get to watch Chris play, but I didn't get to watch Quidditch, period. I had to watch a bunch of dots randomly appear on the pitch marking where shots were made.

3. Bear Train's shoulder was dislocated (he's a chaser) in the Kansas game, and the keeper got red carded. Freaking ridiculous.

4. First legitimate phone conversation with Chris, 1 hour 42 minutes. I'm proud of him, if you've read his blog you'll know he's not much of a phone talker.

5. Quidditch practice for BYU was awesome, I was seeker until I had to go to work, but sprinting full out for like ten minutes in the cold took its toll on me and I had the most ridiculous exercise-induced asthma on the planet for the next couple hours. I was coughing like crazy and I almost blacked out a couple of times. I'll probably play keeper next week, and start getting into a training regimen. If it keeps coming back, looks like it's an inhaler for me. (Weird concept...)

6. Work was boring. 'Watched' Utah's second match against Hofstra, (again on the lame dot system, but I guess it was better than nothing) which they won, and looked at options for our future uniforms, which is pretty much it. Talked to a random attractive stranger who came in to get a Clif Bar about Quidditch, and he actually thought it was cool. He didn't look at me like, "What is wrong with you, psycho?"

7. Home from work, 'watched' Utah's last match of the day against Vermont, (they won that one too) then got bundled for the Idaho game.

8. Froze my fanny off at the Idaho game. Okay actually not my fanny, just my toes. Ugh I have terrible circulation, I hate it.

9. Caught up on Community because my roommates were watching Friends and I didn't want to be like, "Hey, you, I'm going to play Skyrim now. Go away." I love Community.

10. Missed out on 'skyping' (I use gchat video) Chris AGAIN, because he fell asleep AGAIN. It's okay, I know the Kansas game was rough on him and it sounded like he didn't make it back to his hotel until super late, seriously like 11:40 their time, and their last match ended at 7:20 (their time). But I feel like I'm somewhat justified in being bummed, because he keeps saying "we'll do it at [this time]" and then that time comes and he's nowhere to be found. I'm not saying he's a terrible boyfriend or that I'm not crazy about him anymore, I'm just not crazy about getting ditched. He's not doing it on purpose though. These things do happen.

As a parting gift, my design for our future uniforms. Yum.

Fliers.

Chris plays Quidditch. I know I've already mentioned how incredibly hot I find this, but I'll say it again. IT IS SO INCREDIBLY HOT.

Anyway, this Saturday his team is playing the University of Kansas (they're ranked number 2 in the WORLD) at the World Cup in NYC and the game is being streamed live! So I thought it would be cool to reserve a classroom and project it on the wall and all that. After *cough* telling the Dean's Office I needed the room for a club meeting *cough* I got the room, and made an event, and invited the whole team and such. (Wanna come? Come! https://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=248262195230681) I honestly didn't think it was that big of a deal, I just thought it would be cool to watch it on a projector in a place with really nice internet that isn't going to crap out on me!

Apparently though, it IS that big of a deal.

"It's incredible. And I'm sure the rest of the team will appreciate it too! I don't know anyone who would've done this, whether they liked me or not! That's the most sensational thing anyone has ever done for me!"

Oh. Okay. Well... okay. I admittedly did it because I want to be there and can't, so this is the next best thing... But I definitely was not expecting this kind of a reaction. It's nice though. :)

Honestly though, there really aren't any words to convey how bad I want to be there. I found a round-trip flight from Friday afternoon to Monday morning for $489. It is literally PAINFUL not to just do it. But we all know I'm not that great with my money. I'm way too impulsive. The fact that I even LOOKED at flights says that. But I want to be there so bad. And not just for Chris and The Fliers. I want to be there just to be there. The feel of it is going to be incredible. So many kindred spirits! So much passion! So much... awesomeness! I'm dead serious, BYU is GOING to the next one. 

I'm so hyper right now. This is like... probably one of the best feelings ever.