Halloween

We love Halloween!

Despite the fact that we both woke up feeling under-the-weather (which resulted in not being able to spend the evening with our good friends the Hamiltons... sad day!), we still were able to take part in a few Halloween Traditions:

Carving Pumpkins

Costumes!

And, of course, Garfield's Halloween

Ingenious Contraption

On Saturday, we figured out that we had probably put too much oil in our car... like 3 quarts too much oil... but we weren't quite sure. Our new Mazda's dipstick is absurdly hard to read. It's a long story with lots of details that no one really cares about, so we'll just say that we're pretty sure we thought it was empty so we added 3 quarts, and now we're thinking it was probably full to begin with.

So, being the self-reliant (not to mention "poor") students that we are, we had the great idea to rig up a homemade device to suck some of the oil out. The device would involve some rubber tubing from Lowe's and a baby nose-sucker from WalMart.

We drove all the way to Lowe's and were walking in when we realized that neither of us had our wallets (aka no $). We decided to check to see if they even had what we were looking for. They did. It cost 9 cents per foot. Dilemma: do we drive all the way home to get a quarter or do we search the floors of Lowe's until we've found all the loose change people have dropped? We searched the floors for about 5 minutes as we walked from the back of the store to the front doors, then drove home. We considered asking random people if they had any spare change. It's too bad we didn't have a spare Santa suit, a bell, and a Salvation Army bucket in our trunk.

We eventually did acquire the needed materials and produced the world's most inefficient oil-sucker. It took us about 45 minutes to suck out about a quarter of a quart.

We finally decided to take it to Jiffy Lube on Monday and have them drain all the oil and put in the right amount, just so we can be sure.

A New Member of the Family

We've been wanting one for a while.....

We haven't decided on a name yet.....



We finally got an amazing deal on the car of our dreams: a 2008 Mazda 3 Sport Hatchback. This car is just the color and has the features that we wanted. Our car broker got it at an auction last week and we were finally able to pick it up from his house on Wednesday night. So far, we have been enjoying the sunroof way too much and the nice sound system.

There was some early drama with the car, as it was leaking oil faster than Rocky was leaking blood during his fight with the Russian man of steel. We took it back to the shop and they had put the wrong oil filter in (which is what we thought happened). They fixed it in an hour. The whole time we were surrounded by Latino children running around, drawing pictures, and offering us candy that had fallen out of their mouth onto the floor.... At least we got the car fixed, even though we felt like minorities in our own country.



We're not used to driving a sporty-looking car yet, so we feel pretty nifty every time we climb into it. Fortunately, we do a pretty good job of sharing the joy of driving it, so we don't have to set out defined custody agreements and times.

Baylor College of Medicine

Editor's Note: This blog was written a couple of weeks ago but due to technical complications was not uploaded in a timely manner.

After waiting around the Columbus airport for forever (9/24), I finally boarded my plane for Houston. The plane made a brief stop at the Chicago-Midway airport, so naturally the seven of us continuing on to Houston made a mad scramble for the good seats (front windows) once we were done being counted. An old lady ended up sitting next to me on the plane, and we started talking during the flight because she kept spilling her food on me. She started telling me all about her granddaughter who was studying at some Texas university, minoring in Religion so she could go be a missionary somewhere. I told her that I was a missionary in Russia for two years without even having minored in Religion. She had all sorts of questions about that, but it seemed that when she found out that I went to school in Utah she stopped being so curious. Oh well.

I got a ride on SuperShuttle to get from Hobby airport to my host’s apartment. There were only two other people on the shuttle with me and, oddly enough, one of them was some lady from Orem going to some ultrasound conference (she worked in a hospital). So it really seems that I can’t escape from Utah Valley regardless of wherever I go. My host people were really nice (a married couple from BYU), and I just ended up watching “The Office” and “Jeopardy” with them the whole evening while I prepped for my interview.

I rode the light rail transit system into the Texas Medical Center (TMC) Friday morning and was completely amazed at how large the center was! It seemed that TMC should stand for Texas Medical City, because it was definitely larger than some cities that I had been in! If I felt like a little flea at Ohio State, I definitely felt like a tiny electron being bounced around in that big city. I walked around and took pictures of the area (something I actually got into trouble for later on by some of the police… they said I looked like a terrorist taking pictures and could get into trouble with homeland security…. Spending a night—or lifetime—in jail would be a great to impress Baylor!). My interview day didn’t start until noon (and I left at 7:45 when the host-husband-person left for his classes), so I sat around a lot. I saw a lot of applicants interviewing at the neighboring UT-Houston medical school. They got those cool backpacks with the drawstrings! And all I got was a name badge. Not fair, but in a just world they will end up paying for it through their tuition.

The monstrosity Texas Medical Center

More of the medical suburb inside Houston

There were about 50 applicants being interview at Baylor that day, so I was definitely in a big group. After stuffing us with pizza and tons of information about the school, we had a three-hour block where we had two 30-minute interviews. My first interview was with a faculty member who must have been from Nepal or India or something (I’m not an expert, unless he would have been Russian). He had lots of questions about my mission in Russia and wanted to know what a typical day was like. At the end I asked him how he balances his career as a physician with his family (and also how he did it in medical school). It seems that he wasn’t the most qualified person to answer that question, because he told me he sacrificed and left his family to go to medical school because he knew he wouldn’t be able to divide up his time properly (though he is married). Talk about a self-fulfilling prophecy! You can’t divide up your time properly so you just completely cut them off? He was happy with his choice, but I definitely won’t be following his example in that way. At the end of the interview, he said that he would be excited to have me at Baylor and his comments to the rest of the admissions committee would be towards that end. : )

My second interview was with a medical student on the admissions committee. Towards the end of the interview he asked if there was anything else that I wanted to tell him about myself that wasn’t on my application. I told the thrilling story of when I was biking in the Columbia River gorge and did not know that my brake was dragging on my front wheel for 29 out of the 30 miles that we rode (this is the cliff-notes version). After I finished he said, “Wow! Did you rehearse that? If that was off the cuff then that was pretty impressive. I can definitely tell you have some background with literature.” I thought that was kind of funny because it’s not like I sat down the night before and planned out that story. Yeah, I’ve told it before but it’s not something I always keep in my back pocket in case a dull moment comes my way. As we were walking out of the room he said how much he enjoyed my story (at least I know that it will stick in brain and give him something to remember me by when he reports to the rest of the committee) and would look forward to having me with a colleague. Hopefully both of these interviewers weren’t just saying that to everyone, because it definitely lets me gauge how well they thought the interview went.

We had several tours of the metropolis known as the Texas Medical Center afterwards and we were finally done with our day at around 7:15. I ran over to the McDonald’s on the main floor of the heart hospital (what a great location for a place that fills you with cholesterol the second you step through the door) for dinner before getting picked up by my student host. It was here that I realized that my name in Texas is not "Bri-an" but rather "Brahn." The cashier did not recognize my name when I said it. After I repeated it, he asked "Brahn?" "Uh... yeah."

Overall I think that the trip to Baylor went pretty well. I was pretty disappointed with it at first (when I first arrived at TMC) because it seemed pretty impersonal and immense, filled with great and spacious buildings everywhere. However, once I got to the medical college, met the students, and got to know more about Baylor I started to feel much more excited about it. Thus, this is a perfect example of why it is so important to interview at the school and keep your feelings open so you can get a feel if the school is right for you or not.

I woke up at 3:30am Saturday morning to catch my 4:00am shuttle to the airport (the driver asked if I was "Mr. Brahn"...). I had never flown on Frontier airlines before, and it was quite the adventure! Each airplane is painted with a different animal on it and so I felt like I was walking into a zoo onboard. Everything from the flaps to the landing gear was creaky, and so at first I worried that the monkeys had gotten loose and tinkered with everything, but we flew safely. At the end of the flight, our pilot let us know that “Sal the Cougar” (the mascot of our plane, apparently) was grateful that we flew with them that morning. I saw the other Frontier planes when we pulled into Denver to switch planes, and I was scouting out which animal I would want to ride on next. It turns out that I got stuck with Jack the Snowshoe hare. Not as cool as Sal the Cougar. I got into Provo at 9:30am, just in time to get picked up from the airport, beat traffic back home, and get ready for the BYU-CSU game! Thus ended my long road trip, finishing the second interview of my double-header. Baylor will start informing the applicants that they accept starting on 10/16, informing a few every week, working their way down their rankings list. So the sooner I hear back from them, the better!

My Hero

My little sister is one of the most amazing people! She is kind, selfless, caring, patient, and always willing to help. I feel bad because sometimes I get grumpy around her because she is so good at so many things that I am trying to work on myself. But she is always sweet and patient with me.

Sarah has been called to serve in the California, Fresno mission speaking Spanish (exotic, yet domestic)! She flew up to Provo on Friday with my parents. My parents left on Sunday and I got to be my sister's companion for 2 days until she reported to the Missionary Training Center. It was fun to have her tagging along to my class and the different errands I had to run. She took her scriptures with her everywhere and read, because she was determined to finish the Book of Mormon before she reported to the MTC.

I was pretty much in denial the whole time. I kept thinking "she is going to be living literally down the street from my house for 8 weeks while she learns how to teach in Spanish." I just ignored the little detail that I won't be able to see her or speak to her even though she is that close...

We dropped her off at 8am on Wednesday, so I could get to my school by 8:30. That was when it hit me. My baby sister is going on a mission! I can write her letters, but I won't be able to see her for A YEAR AND A HALF. I know it will go quickly, but so many things are going to happen in that year and a half. Moving, medical school.... and who knows what else.

I am so excited for Sarah, she is going to be a fantastic missionary.

Prayer in Schools

After being interviewed by the school administration, the prospective teacher said:

'Let me see if I've got this right.
'You want me to go into that room with all those kids, correct their disruptive behavior, observe them for signs of abuse, monitor their dress habits, censor their T-shirt messages, and instill in them a love for learning.
'You want me to check their backpacks for weapons, wage war on drugs and sexually transmitted diseases, and raise their sense of self esteem and personal pride.
'You want me to teach them patriotism and good citizenship, sportsmanship and fair play, and how to register to vote, balance a checkbook, and apply for a job.
'You want me to check their heads for lice, recognize signs of antisocial behavior, and make sure that they all pass the final exams.
'You also want me to provide them with an equal education regardless of their handicaps, and communicate regularly with their parents in English, Spanish or any other language, by letter, telephone, newsletter, and report card.
'You want me to do all this with a piece of chalk, a blackboard, a bulletin board, a few books, a big smile, and a starting salary that qualifies me for food stamps.
'You want me to do all this and then you tell me. . . I CAN'T PRAY?'


I love teaching! And it does take a lot of (silent) prayer to get through the day!

Going Nuts in Columbus

So, once again, poor Natalie had to wake up with me way before the crack of dawn in order to take me to the airport. Before we left for the airport, though, I checked our e-mail and saw that I received an invitation from Washington University in St. Louis to interview there on 10/20! That was exciting and I hoped it would prove to be a good omen for the remainder of the trip.

My flight to Columbus was surprisingly uneventful and I waited around the airport for an hour or so for the Leales (our friends. Yes, we do have some! I used to be their home teacher--twice) to come rescue me from the airport. Natalie and I had considered buying them a gift card to Chilis restaurant as a "thank you." However, it's a good thing that we did not go that route because I was sitting right by a Chilis in the airport and doubtless would have consumed the gift card on my own guilty pleasures (the chicken tenders with honey mustard... mmmm....).

Later that night when I checked my e-mail I discovered interview invitation numero dos: from Michigan! So far that day I had been two for two on opening my e-mail and getting an invitation. Unfortunately that easy pattern has been broken the last week or so as I have not heard anything else. Of course, only when Michigan sees me going to interview at their rival's campus would they send me an invitation.... Whatever. I'll deal with them on 11/13 when I go to Ann Arbor for my interview.

It turned out that the following day, the day of my interview, was Jimmy Leale's first day of dental school classes. So I, being the dutiful home teacher, flew all the way out to Columbus so that I could escort Jimmy to his first day of classes and make sure that he got to campus alright. I'm sure if word got out about this it would end up in some inspirational story in the Ensign or General Conference. Anyway, so I walked around campus for awhile. I felt like a little flea walking around the huge campus. I also felt like a tourist taking all sorts of pictures of campus, until I realized that it was the first day of school for all of the undergrad students. So instead of a tourist, I just looked like a helpless freshman taking pictures of his lecture buildings so he can find them the following day (I think I prefer looking like a tourist).

Mirror Lake. This is where everyone jumps in during the week of the OSU-Michigan game. They really are "nuts" here at OSU.

The interview day went pretty well. I got a nifty shoulder bag with a logo on it that basically cries that it, the bag, the user, the user's family, and the user's dog are all property of Ohio State (think I should wear that around Michigan?). There was another BYU student interviewing there, as well, as seems to be the trend. We had several information sessions for the first two hours or so, had lunch, took a tour of the area, and then waited in the conference room for our interviewers to come get us. My first interview was with a med student on the admissions committee. It turns out that he is from Ogden, so he actually knew where Provo is! That interview was only 20 minutes, which was surprising. Up until that interview I had been wondering if I had made a mistake in making my application so unique (emphasizing my Russian background and interests). I thought that maybe I had come across as some sort of freak (which fact I am trying to hide until I am accepted...). However, this interviewer went off about how much he loved my application and personal statement because it was unique and like a breath of fresh air. I had been reviewing it the night before and came across something about my research in Russian literature that I should find a concrete example for. So I came up with one at that time, and then during the interview the interview asked for a specific example of the very thing that I had thought of. Whew! So I felt that it went pretty well overall.

Okay, I didn't actually take this picture, but I like it because it shows the medical center (left side) and the building where my interview day was (front right).

I had a 30 minute break until my faculty interviewer came in to get me. We spent the first couple of minutes just talking about the Northwest and hiking/doing outdoors stuff there. I told him how my brother Bill and I had hiked up to the edge of the crater of Mt. St. Helens and that he should do it too as long as he doesn't fall in and get incinerated. He also said how much he enjoyed my application. He mainly talked about how well-balanced he felt that I was as an applicant and asked me some questions about the various things I've been doing. At the end of the interview (it was about 45 minutes), he went off about how much he loves BYU students. He said that "they are so mature and go on their missions and learn so much about themselves." I tried to be nice and score some extra points for the home team by saying that it says a lot about their program that they value BYU students so much, because it indicates the kinds of values that they focus on. I hadn't really thought about it in that sense until then, and so I started to feel better about the fact that there are so many BYU students there. He also told me how much of a BYU football fan he has become, cheering for the little guy (is that supposed to be a compliment?). He asked, "Who did you guys play last week?" "Uh, Florida State," I replied with a wince. "Oh yeah! That was such a physical game! I didn't know who was going to win until the very end!" It then dawned on me that he was referring to the Oklahoma game, because those would not be the 18 words I would use to describe the FSU game (if you went back and counted those words, shame on you). However, I didn't want to burst his bubble (or get rejected). He also said it was great when we burst into a BCS bowl game a few years ago. This time, not only did I not want to get rejected, I did not want to give Utah any more credit. Anyway, the whole day went pretty well and I came to like Ohio State a lot better than I did before I came.

The Leales showed me around Columbus later in the evening. We went to a German restaurant that had cream puffs the size of my face! I couldn't pass up an experience of a life time, eating one of the 8 wonders of the world, so I had to order one and test my prowess at eating such a monumental conglomeration of fatty acids and carbohydrates.



The next morning I was dropped off at the airport, where I waited for my flight to Houston for my interview at Baylor! I had a great time at Ohio State and had fun staying with the Leales. They showed me the wonders of Columbus and taught me many important things, such as the fact that a "buckeye" is a poisonous nut. Oh well. I guess even though a wolverine may eat it eventually, its victory will be short-lived. I guess that's the strength of a buckeye.

I won't hear back from Ohio State until after 10/16, so after then we'll see if I get in!