Decade in Review/Happy 2011

I didn't realize that the decade was ending until the morning of the 31st, so I had very little time for soul searching. In the spirit of everyone's Facebook status that says "2010 sucked, glad it is over" and "2011 Is My Year," please find below a short synopsis of Miss Jill 2000-2010

Places I Have Lived

*= Like
+= No thanks

Chicago, Illinois (random months here and there at ancestral home)*
Provo, Utah Had lots of * moments, but mostly +
Santiago, Dominican Republic *
Sandy, Utah +
San Pedro Sula, Honduras *
Mesa, Arizona +
Manhattan (Harlem and Washington Heights), New York *
Brooklyn, New York *******************************

Youthful Radiance to Middle Age

2001, My brother's middle school banquet
Social Studies Teacher: Who is the next in your family to enter middle school? Points to me (20-year-old) You?

2010, Nauvoo, Illinois temple, my brother's wedding
80 something battle ax temple worker: Oh, are you the mother of the groom?

Development of Political Ideals
2001, Officer in the state leadership of College Republicans
2010, Trying to pretend that the government does not exist, because it makes me mad

Roommates
Some people I have lived with(and I want to emphasize that I really liked living with most of these people, except maybe not the tighty whitey dad)-

* Girl who had a lizard bedspread and a picture of a naked mole rat on the wall
* Girl who was obsessed with Celine Dion, sent her a Book of Mormon and declared June Celine month (it was the only music that you could listen to)
* Girl who wanted her dead body to be thrown to grizzly bears, but not wolves, because that would be considered cannibalism.
* Girl who had a good body in spite of the fact that she would come home and list approximately 42,000 calories worth of food that she had eaten that day. Example (I wish that I could remember a real one): Three Jack in the Box Tacos, One hamburger, Egg McMuffin, Box of Cookies, Three slices of pizza, Two snickers bars, Two doughnuts, Chipotle burrito, etc. It was amazing.
* NYOM (Nineteen Year Old Model)
* Cat lady who was obsessed with knitting
* Olga the best maid ever and her unibrowed daughter, Karla, who sung "Hallelujah" all night on one note (think first grader playing a recorder)
* A family of alcoholic/drug addicted Dominicans who never gave me food (this was a pro and con). The dad always walked around in tighty whities
* A Muslim family (current)

Scariest Moment
* When I was googling "Obama the Antichrist" and the electricity went out

Most Embarrassing Moment
I told one of my students that I was going to Seattle and she said, in a dreamy voice, "There are just some places that stay with you forever, like Forks." Forks is the setting of Twilight, which is surprisingly not my favorite book. I told my friend about it and she was enthusiastic about going and to make a long story short, now I have picture of myself with a cardboard cutout of Taylor Lautner. For the sole purpose of making the teens in my life jealous. For the record, the pilgrims seemed to be cut from the same ilk as the people that I saw when I went to Salem, Massachusetts.

Jobs I Have Had

Assistant at BYU for the multicultural recruitment office (not BYU's greatest strength)

Customer service for pool liner orders

Appraisal Clerk (two summers), mortgage company that went bankrupt. My obese sixty-year-old boss kept telling us that his wife gave him ummm... provacative pictures of herself for his birthday. She also worked there...

Customer Service, CultureGrams- This job was awesome because I got to read pamphlets about different countries in my free time. Ask me anything about Mali.

Spanish (for gifted kids) and Utah Studies Teacher ("this ain't religion class, lady"), Midvale, UT- I liked this job, but Utah is no place for a 24-year-old spinster

English, Social Studies and Music Teacher in Honduras- This cannot be summed up in a one liner

Will Writer and Personal Injury Assistant, Law Firm, Arizona- Met a woman who kept walking by and saying, "Get on the cocoa box." Later found out that she thought that I looked like Swiss Miss.

Secretary for a Swinger in Manhattan- Quit by e-mail, this story is actually worth elaborating on at some point

Spanish Teacher, Turkish School- Best. Job. Ever.

Thanks to everyone who has been around to help make this decade so interesting.