Oklahoman's Eat Weird Things!!

Wow...I can't believe I haven't posted anything for a month. I had a wonderful Thanksgiving in Utah and am so grateful that I could be with my family and friends! I am also grateful for the delicious food we had.

So, this last week I have been working in Dialysis. Well on Friday I was assigned to do 5 nutrition assessments which consist of me filling out paper work, talking to patients about their diets and then filling out more paperwork (now that I write it that sounds pretty boring but I actually really enjoyed it). So for part of the assessment I have do a 24 hour recall meaning that I ask the patient about all of the foods they ate in the past 24 hours to see generally what their diet is like.

Here is part of my conversation with one lady I talked to...
me-"Can you tell me what you ate for lunch yesterday?"
her-"Oh yes, I went to this nice diner that has a $5 special everyday where you can get 2 vegetables and a meat."
me-"And what kind of vegetables and meat did you order?"
her-"Well for the vegetables I had cabbage and green beans and for the meat I had neck bones."
me (very confused)-"Neck bones???"
her-"Oh yes, they were very delicious...have you never heard of them?"

After I finished with the assessment I talked to the dietitian I was working with and she said that neck bones are a fairly common dish usually made of beef but sometimes pork. She also told me that people around here also like to eat Ox Tails.

Ox TailsNeck Bones

Later that day I was interviewing another patient and asked him about what kind of snacks he liked to eat and he says, "After lunch I sometimes will eat a Suzy Q." I don't know how I have never heard of these before but they look pretty tasty.

Well after I left dialysis on Friday I thought my weird food experiences would be done...but what was I thinking break the fast was this Sunday. My friend Weijuan is from China and she decided to bring some Ox Tongue for me to try. And yes I did eat it...not very much but I had to give it a try. It didn't taste too bad but there were lots of spices on it, also it wasn't as chewy as you would expect.

Earthquake!!

This week for the first time in my life I was in an earthquake! Here's what happened. On Saturday morning I woke up and as is typical for Saturday I got onto facebook. Well all of my Oklahoma friends had posted about the earthquake that had happened during the night and how it had woken them up. It surprised me to read that the earthquake had been a 4.7 and I just slept right through it. So, then Saturday night at about 10:30 I'm in my room and I hear a creaking noise. With that Percy starts going crazy running all around the apartment barking. Then everything starts shaking. It lasted for a little while but the whole time I just stood there in my room not knowing what to do. After it stopped my roommate came out of her room and we looked around to see if anything had fallen or broken or anything, and nothing had. Then we talked about what to do if a bigger one hits and then we went to bed. (I say we went bed but not to sleep because I was pretty wide awake after that). It was pretty cool though, I have always wondered what it feels like to be in an earthquake... and now I know. 

It's interesting though because I guess this is the biggest earthquake recorded in Oklahoma history! Note: I live in Edmond, Northeast of the epicenter.

Also, I have a Percy story for the week. This morning I woke up early and couldn't go back to sleep so I decided to take Percy for a walk. Well while we were in the little grass dog area of my complex I set his leash down to go get a doggie bag. Percy took this opportunity to make a run for it. I tried to call him back and get him to come without chasing him and turning it into a game but that didn't work. So, I started to run after him. The faster I ran the faster he ran until he finally left the apartment complex. I don't know what it is about dogs but the middle of a busy road seems to be the most appealing place. Percy decided that running down the middle of 15th street would be a fun game. So, there I am running down the middle of the road chasing my dog beginning to wonder if I would ever catch him. I don't know if I would have caught him if he hadn't decided that the middle of the intersection would be a great place to stop and go to the bathroom. As soon as he stopped I picked him up and ran back to the side of the road, to embarrassed to look at any of the cars that were driving by at the time. I'm pretty lucky though because all this happened on a Sunday morning when there were not too many cars out. Anyway, that's been my week!

End of Management!

This week I finished my management rotation! It means that I am done with 1/3 of my internship. I can't believe how fast this is going by. It's been a very good rotation and I have learned so much! The people I worked with helped me out so much. So, I decided that it would be nice to do something for them. About a week and a half ago I asked Jamie to send me some chocolate covered cinnamon bears with some extra bags from the bookstore. When I got them I divided them up among the 6 managers I have been working with and passed them out at the weekly manager's meeting. Everyone loved them! The rest of the day that was all people wanted to talk about. After lunch that day I was walking down the hallway when a lady I didn't know came up to me and said, "I love your favorite candy! It is so delicious! It's my new favorite candy too!!" It was very surprising because I don't even know how she knew who I was. Also, later in the week I had some people come up and ask me if there is anyway they can order them online! 

Thanks for helping me out with that Jaim!!

Also this week has been a very pesky week for Percy. First, on Wednesday I woke up to find my cell phone pretty chewed up. The screen is now cracked and unreadable, and the keypad is pretty damaged. (The good news though is that I have a new phone coming Monday!!). The next pesky thing was on Thursday. Every Thursday night the missionaries come over to teach my friend Weijuan. So there we were in the middle of a discussion, with the two elders, Matt, Weijuan, Angela and I when Percy comes running out of my room with a pair of my underwear in his mouth. After getting everyone's attention he drops it right in the middle of everyone and runs off again. It was too embarrassing!!!

Funny Things

I have not posted in a little while because I haven't been up to anything other then the internship and school. I am really enjoying it but it is sure keeping me busy. But, I thought it would be fun to post about the funny things people have said to me lately.

So, I cut 7 inches off of my hair last week! When I got home my 11 year old neighbor tells me that I now look like I am 34!! Not quite what I wanted.

The other day I ran into one of the people I was in orientation with when I started at Saint Anthony and he says to me, "You look nice, I'm glad to see that they are letting you wear normal clothes now."-- I've never had a uniform or anything...

Well, I feel like more comical things have happened recently but I can't remember them right now...
And here is a pic of the haircut...

The State Fair

For the last 10 days the State Fair has been in town and it is all anyone can talk about (well...that is when they are not talking about football).It's a pretty big deal here...much larger then our little Uinta County Fair. Well on Friday night I was asked to do a cooking demonstration at the fair for the Oklahoma Beef Counsel. I made some garlic and lime beef fajitas. It was a really fun experience... I felt like I was on the food network or something. It's very hard though to be up on a stage having everyone watch you cook and try to explain what you are doing. Also, while waiting for things to cook I had to try to figure out what to talk about which was also hard. I had one of my classmates up there with me also making a recipe, and another boy who was promoting beef because his family owns a ranch. Here is a picture of where I was at. 

It's a pretty cool set-up because they have mirrors above where you cook so that the audience can see exactly what you are doing. And then when we were finished we gave samples of what we were cooking to the audience.  So, after I finished everything up I went to the back to take this picture and I started talking to some of the people who watched me cook and they were so nice. They said to me, "Why are you leaving? we want to see you cook more food." I told them that some of my other classmates were going to make something for them and they said, "No, but we want you to cook some more...you're food was the best!" It made me feel so good because it really is hard to try to figure out a recipe in front of an audience. 

After all that I decided to look around the fair for a little while. I took some pictures of the crazy fair food that I saw there.

 * Notice on the left corner...deep fried bacon!!

 

 

An Awfully Big Adventure

Last Friday night I got to go to the Broadway production of Peter Pan with three of the girls from my ward! It was magical! The musical was beautiful...and the lady who acted as Peter Pan did the perfect job...one of the girls I was with said she has acted as Peter Pan in over 5,000 productions. When she was younger she was an Olympic gymnast and so you can imagine how well she did with all the turns and flips flying through the air. It was a neat experience to see a big production like that with the detailed set and the very talented actors/ actresses. Oh and there was even an orchestra pit! Oh it was so fun, especially because I have been reading the book. Here are pictures of the Oklahoma City Civic Center where it was held. 

It's Football Time!!

On Saturday OU had their first football game...and I got to go to it. It was a lot of fun to go to a game again, but it felt very weird to not be cheering for a different team. Before going to the game I went to Target and bought an OU shirt and the boy I went with let me borrow his hat so I was all decked out....I looked like a real Sooner fan. Which was a good thing because at the end of the 3rd quarter the camera for the Jumbo tron was right on me. It was fun to be on camera but after a couple of seconds I started feeling awkward and the camera stayed on us for a while. It was a really fun game to go to though...OU beat Tulsa 47 to 14!!!

Also... here is a picture of my puppy. I love that he has freckles like me!!