My Leeds blog:  http://davidinleeds.blogspot.com.

I'm Hungry

Since about December, I've had some health issues. I haven't been able to sleep (worse than my usual not being able to sleep); some nights laying there pretty much the whole night, hoping that I can finally fall asleep with no success. Needless to say, I've been a little lackadaisical and aloof (again, more than usual) and have had trouble focusing. This hasn't helped with my social life, nor my relationships.

After talking to my friend, Amy, I was guessing that I had some food allergies that weren't allowing me to sleep. It would also explain my digestive problems I've been having. I had kind of guessed that it was gluten. I didn't go to see the doctor right away though. Then, I started not sleeping again.

After not sleeping for about a week, I decided it was time to do something about this. So, I went to see Doctor Remington (who happened to be cousin to the Remington's who were in my ward back in Parkland ward in Calgary way back in the day). My boss suggested this doctor because he's specialized in homeopathy and change of lifestyle remedies as opposed to immediately recommending surgery or pills....and Richard's wife works for him. :)

After the first visit, Dr. Remington diagnosed me with a Candida infection. That would be a yeast infection. He said the yeast was competing with the good flora in my stomach and stealing the nutrients and vitamin B produced in my small intestine, which meant I wasn't producing many of the chemicals that my body requires to operate, including the one that allows people to sleep (I believe it's creatonin). He also put me on a strict one month diet, but he also recommended that I take a food allergy test. I took that yesterday.

The Summary:

I have food allergy/intolerance (nothing deadly, but my body reacts sharply to it) to:
Cheese
Milk, Cow
Lactose
Banana
Pineapple
Barley
Corn
Rye
Spelt
Wheat
Gluten
Peanut
Corn Syrup
Sucrose
Caffeine
Chocolate

We'll see if I can't establish an immunity to these in the next few months, but in the meanwhile, I can't eat lot of my favorite foods anymore. :(

Nerdiest Dream EVER!!!!

This morning, I woke with a start and thought, "What was that?" I don't dream very often, but when I do, it's always weird. Not ordinary weird. We're talking Crazy Weird. Last night's was fairly mild in comparison to some of my previous dreams, although it would make any Nerd proud. Which I am.

So, I was at a party. At a space station. Somehow, we heard that there was an attack in a star system that was close to us. I decided to go help.

It was then that I realized that I was Patrick Stewart and I wanted to catch up to my X-Men team so that we could soar in and save the day. Unfortunately, Professor X doesn't move too fast in his wheelchair, so I was late. The X-Men had left (from the left hand side of the bay). Fortunately, the Enterprise was still there and since I was captain of the Enterprise, I decided to take that. Oddly, the Enterprise was about the size and feel of an X-Wing once I hopped in, complete with orange Luke Skywalker jumpsuit.

Blasting off into space, the Enterprise's hologram peters out and I'm really piloting the Borg. Finally, I see my target - The Death Star. I fly close to engage the enemy (giant sphere vs. giant cube) and then both the Borg and the Death Star sprout these giant pincer arms from the Incredibles. Unbeknown to me or the crew of the Death Star, I was riding in Optimus Prime and the Death Star was Megatron.

As the robots were duking it out and stabbing each other with their pincer arms, I decided I needed to go to the bathroom. I found the one existent bathroom on the Enterprise (yes, one bathroom for however many decks there are) and peed for so long that I woke up and decided I really needed the bathroom.

Car, Storytelling, and Boardgaming

Yesterday, I attended the Timpanogos Story Telling Festival Winter Symposium. I attended several great sessions by renowned storytellers. I did an improv session and worked on ways to enhance your story by focusing on characters, voice, incident, and place. I also got to hear several very good performances. Today's session looks even better, however I do not know if I can go.

My car appears to be dead. I don't know if it's the battery, the starter, or some electrical circuit. It is completely dark when I'm in my car. We hooked it up to try to get a boost, but it didn't really sound like it was trying to turn, although that did make the inside lights and the automatic doorlocks work, so I know it's something electrical. I'm going to try to figure out how to get my car to the shop today. Hopefully I can do that early so that I can actually make it to the second half of the symposium or home so that I can get a full one credit and not a half.

Anyway, last night, we had a roommate night playing games. Puerto Rico and Mexican Train Dominoes. We certainly had the Central American theme going (name-wise anyway).

Here's hoping I can get my car working so that I can give mom a spell from the twins.

Crazy Dates

So, Lizzy and I have been dating for about four months now. I've never dated anyone this long and we've had some pretty adventurous dates in the past while...not that we've done anything very adventurous. Our first date was to the international cinema where we watched the Spanish film, El Laberinto del Fauno or Pan's Labyrinth. It was a lot of fun and we enjoyed talking to each other and, since we're still dating, I'm not going to go into the details since the outcome is obvious. Still, it is an odd movie for a first date.

The next week, we went to Into the Woods at the Scera. We sat next to a kid who looked a lot like the little boy on Heroes. He was 11 and gave us his take on Twilight (he'd read the book a dozen times and was excited for the second movie in the series). Truthfully, I wouldn't want to be an 11-year-old boy obsessed with teenage vampire fan fiction. The show was a really good (even though Cinderella's prince couldn't stay in key), until we had an unscheduled 20 minute intermission when Little Red Riding hood caught her leg in a moving mechanism on one of the stages moving part and it kind of got crushed, broken and/or mutilated. It's a little disconcerting when the director comes out and asks if there's a doctor in the house and asks someone to call 911.

Our second venture to International Cinema was a supposedly very good Norwegian Vampire movie. It ended up being one of the weirdest movies I've ever seen. I don't think I can even describe it so I won't. I still don't know what to think of it.

Christmas, Lizzy took us to go see Voice Male's Christmas A Capella concert at Thanksgiving Point. We got there and passed our tickets to the ticket girl and she scanned them. They flashed "denied" on her little scanner. She looked at the tickets and said, "These tickets are for yesterday". Lizzy almost died of embarrassment. I forced her to come to the ticket office with me to see if there was anything we could do. I walked up to the ticket booth, passed the tickets, and said, "Um...it's finals week and....you know. Is there anything we can do?" The lady was sympathetic and we were lucky; a couple had just called to cancel their non-refundable tickets. We got to see the show anyway, which was good, because we absolutely loved it and I converted Lizzy to A Capella music.

Our third trip to International Cinema was with Megan, her mother, and her sister. We saw the French film, Bleu. It was so weird. None of us really cared for the movie. I don't know what we have with picking the weird movies to go to.

Last week, I got tickets to the Utah Valley Symphony (thanks, Steve) where we got to see Jessi Judd perform. There was one part where the bassoons came in and a lady in front of us giggled and turned to her companion and whispered (really loud), "I think those are the oboes". Lizzy and I had a hard time not laughing out loud. The orchestra was just starting the first movement of their third piece when the power went out. For about five minutes, we sat in the dark of the auditorium of the Covey Center while Bryce Rytting (the conductor....from my home ward) told jokes.

So, those are my dating adventures of the past few months. It seems every other time we go out, something crazy happens or the movie is extremely odd. Guess we're just cursed that way. Maybe that's why we play a lot of boardgames.

Tired

Well, here it is 5:30 in the morning and I cannot sleep. This is really getting old actually. I think that it has been about 2 or 3 weeks since I've had a good sleep. Usually I only go a little more than a week. Yesterday, I was so tired. I almost fell asleep during a meeting I was at and was not fully functioning at 5pm. I couldn't think enough to form coherent strings of sentences. I still finished the ward directory and made it to my business class on time (thanks to Lizzy for driving me around since my car is still parked at BYU with a dead battery [I hope]), but I was so tired when I got home that I went right to bed...and took forever to fall asleep (if I even did) and woke up (checked my clock) at 1, and 2, and 4, and finally got up at 5. It's been two weeks now that I've started waking up around 4 and not being able to get back to sleep. I'm scared of how tired I'm going to be today.

I hope I can sleep tonight. This is really getting old.

New Years Resoultions (a little belated post)

Last year, I failed miserably with my new years resolutions.

Resolution #1 I will read the scriptures everyday this year. I've been slacking as of late and need to write this down to achieve it.

Um...no. I tried, really, but everyday? Nope. Far from it.

Resolution #2 I will write for half an hour everyday, starting with when I return from Cairo (I know I should start now, but who am I kidding - I'm in Cairo and I didn't actually bring anything to write with).

Hahaha

Resolution #3 I will read at least 60 novels this year. I read 101 books last year, although several of them were children's books. I finished two on the plane coming to Egypt. You can follow my progress on GoodReads.

Completed! 112 books total with only about 10 being kids books.

Resolution #4 I will go on at least 2 dates a month this year. I dated a lot at the end of 2007, but haven't really dated much since Sarah and I broke up last year. That will change, especially when I get a girlfriend.

Completed.

Resolution #5 I will write 5 children's books and submit at least 3 of them for publication. I've always had this for a goal, I've just never submitted any before.

Um....nope. None.

Resolution #6 I will blog at least two times a week this year. I should put everyday, but I don't want to shoot for the stars on this one. I wish I could be like Nancy in this feat, but it will take time. Two a week should be sufficient.

Also, no. Not even remotely close to completing this.

2/6 is not too bad, but I would've thought I would do better. Well, since I didn't review this and didn't have a way of tracking much, I pretty much failed. So, seeing how I made very specific and difficult goals, I will simplify a little bit this year and make them a little more mundane.

Resolution 1: I will not purchase another book this year until I read 50 of the books I already own. I can accept books as gifts, but I can't purchase any. (tracking on GoodReads)

Resoultion 2: I will play all the boardgames I own this year at least once. (I'm actually well on my way to completing this one). (tracking on BoardGameGeek)

Resolution 3: I will go to the temple once a month. More is ok. (no tracking needed)

Resolution 4: I will budget and record what I spend. (tracking on Excel)

So, these goals are definitely reachable. They may not be totally, incredibly cool and involved, but they'll save me spiritually and money-wise and provide a little enjoyment.