Thought of the Day

For the last few years, I have had a passive yet cranky thought cross my mind every time I hear one specific phrase exit a masculine mouth.

“We’re pregnant.”

My regular thought: those two words should never be placed together in a sentence. Why?

1) A man cannot conceivably (no pun intended) get pregnant despite how many times he’s seen “Twins” with the Governator and Danny DeVito. Don’t believe me? Take Anatomy 101.
2) Though the man may have certainly had part in letting this baby enter the world, he is not carrying a baby plus 25 other pounds of “maternal tissues and fat stores” around in his once-trim body. And finally,
3) He’s not dealing with the pains that come as a result of carrying around the baby (for a small list of those symptoms, refer to my last blog post).

In the recent weeks, I have come to learn that number three is where I am dead wrong. I have realized that my husband gets to, nay, has to carry a bigger brunt of the weight of number three than I do. I may have to deal with the emotional and physical pains, but he has to deal with….me. I don’t think that if I was in his shoes, I would put up with me. I whine, I cry, I write off everything as “I can’t; I’m pregnant”, I’m pushy, I’m mean, I steal his clothes because I can’t fit into mine, I go days without brushing my hair, and I’m an overall unpleasant person to be around. Why would anybody put up with that? Perhaps because he realized something a bit sooner than I did: we’re pregnant.

Epiphany moment: I don’t want to be an “I’m pregnant” woman! How horrible would that be? I don’t think I would be able to make it through this for 30 more weeks if I didn’t convert to the “we’re pregnant” mentality. My husband keeps my head above the water. Even though I am the one who carries the literal weight, he is always there to take any emotional weight off my shoulders in any way he can. He holds my hair back for me when I lose my dinner, he gets me fresh ice water at a moment’s notice, he washes the dishes, he takes care of the dog, he gives me a massage at least once a day, and most importantly, he puts up with all of my whining and nagging with more love than I ever thought imaginable.

I am so grateful for him and for the fact that we’re a “we’re pregnant” couple.

Big time updates.

It's been a while since we've posted on here but that's just because we've been so darned busy! For the past 5 weeks, Tom has been in Chicago in training for Teach for America. During his first few weeks in training, I headed out to Virginia to spend some quality time with my oober pregnant sister. It was a great trip and I am so glad that I got to go. Two weeks after I left, Lucy Rose Gross was born.

Isn't she beautiful? We are so happy that she is here and we can't wait to meet her.

In related news...(for those of you who don't already know)

...we have our own little angel on his/her way. Words can't describe how excited we are to have this new addition to our family. The newest Arnett is due to be welcomed into this world on March 4, 2010. As excited as we are for this new baby, he/she has already been causing quite the problems for his/her mommy. Let's start a few weeks back...

Well, I got back from Virginia and spent about 2 days getting things done in Missouri before Trueman and I headed for Chicago to spend the last two weeks of Tom’s training at Tom’s cousin’s house. Tom’s cousin Mike and his wife Joanne live in a suburb of Chicago and were so sweet to offer Trueman and me (I can't believe I originally posted "I" rather than me. Another symptom resulting because of this baby: pregnancy brain.) a home for two weeks while Tom finished training. Too bad they had absolutely no idea what they were getting themselves into. It was supposed to be a little vacation of fun and visiting. Joanne was going to take me sight-seeing, show me all the best restaurants in the city, take Trueman and her dog, Dale, for walks and trips to the dog park, and lots of other fun things. Well, I got to Chicago on Friday night and all was great. Trueman got along great with Mike and Joanne’s dog, Dale. Dale is a 2 year old setter and he is VERY well trained. Dale has been really helpful in showing Trueman correct manners and how dogs should behave. Mike and Joanne have also been AMAZING in helping us train Trueman. It’s like a whole new dog. He almost goes to his kennel on command, he doesn’t bite anymore (well, mostly), and he’s just all around a much better dog. ANYWAY, so two days after getting here, Joanne, her mother, and I decided to go to the Chicago Botanic Gardens. That was when all heck broke loose. I was feeling a little queasy before we left, but I figured it was just a little bug that would go away. Yeah, 10 days later, it still hasn’t gone away. I was nauseous the entire time, and then for icing on the cake, my body thought it was a good idea to vomit in the car ride home. Yeah, that’s right. I totally threw up in my husband’s cousin’s wife’s mother’s Subaru. Thankfully, I had a bag and good aim but that really didn’t help with the whole embarrassment factor. The most depressing part of the story is that I thought it was a bug that would go away in a day, perhaps food poisoning. Nope. That, my friends, was the onset of a long, miserable phase of pregnancy known as morning sickness. The vomiting has not stopped but has essentially gotten worse. I vomit 3-4 times per day and that doesn’t include dry heaving. I have been here for two weeks and I haven’t gone anywhere other than the bathroom, the guest bedroom, the backyard to let the dog pee, and the botanic gardens (and yes, that is in order of frequency to each location).
My laundry list of pregnancy symptoms goes WELL beyond that of constant nausea and vomiting. Here’s just a few:
• I cry all the time. I cry during sappy commercials, I cry when Trueman is misbehaving, I cried when Trueman got his little ear pieced because he bit Dale a little too hard and Dale retaliated (and now I’m crying remembering the experience), I cry constantly during every single episode of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition (which I have watched about 100 of since I’ve been here), I cry when I wake up in the morning, I cry for no reason at all. It’s ridiculous.
• I can’t move. Sometimes, I am literally so bedridden with sickness and exhaustion that I am paralyzed in my bed. Movement, not even a pinky, just isn’t an option. Instead, I cry.
• I hate affection. I don’t want to be touched. I don’t want to be hugged. My personal bubble has enlarged greatly. I have become completely claustrophobic. This is enhanced by the fact that the guest bedroom has a twin sized bed and despite my discomfort, Tom wants to sleep next to me when he gets to stay the night. This usually results in me squirming in discomfort as he falls asleep with a smile on his face. I then get up and go to sleep on the couch. This makes me cry.
• I get food cravings. Of course, the food never really stays down, but I try anyway. Taco Bell has been my biggest craving this whole pregnancy. The other night, I was lying in bed at about 2 in the morning and wanted Taco Bell nachos like I’ve never wanted anything else in my life. Of course, everyone else in the house was asleep and I didn’t know where the nearest Taco Bell was, so I had no other option but to sit in my bed and cry (shocker). It was a very sad night.
• I’m losing weight! Hah, FINALLY, a good symptom! Nothing makes you lose weight like vomiting everything you eat for two weeks! Too bad I’ll gain it back 100 times over within the next 7 months. That makes me cry.

Well, there is apparently good news at the horizon. One of my dearest friends, Brittany, is exactly 8 weeks ahead of me in her pregnancy. She has had a pretty miserable pregnancy too, complete with once a day vomiting and constant nausea. She called me last week saying, “Good news!! I just started feeling better and I’m only vomiting 3 times a week! You have something to look forward to!” ….Yeah, EIGHT WEEKS FROM NOW. I cried.

Trueman

We have an official new member of the family. His name is Trueman. This is not to be confused with Truman. Upon his arrival to his new home, we immediately took him to get all of the necessities, including a brand spankin’ new collar. I decided that Tom could be in charge of getting the collar inscribed while I did a little of the shopping. Turns out that Tom’s spelling abilities didn’t leave our dog unaffected. Upon realizing his mistake, Tom wanted to say that his name should still be Truman except for his collar, but I insisted. An unordinary (notice how I did NOT use the word extraordinary) dog such as Trueman deserves an equally silly twist to his name. So why is this dog unordinary might you ask? Well, let’s go through the facts:

Trueman has two moods, nay, identities. One second, he is asleep, such as so,

and is unable to be disturbed or made upset. Apathetic is a good word. In these states, all he wants to do is lie in your lap or sleep on a comfortable blanket. He’s not necessarily happy, but merely appears satisfied. Then, without notice, he will turn into what we have termed ‘the beast.’

All energy is released in tumbles and snarls as he decides that everything around him that isn’t supposed to be bitten will be bitten. To demonstrate the extent of the problem, observe Bitter Yuck.

The supposed miracle-worker for biting problems. This rosemary-based spray-on product is supposed to deter any animal from biting something merely because of its bitter taste. Not only did Trueman not respond negatively our newest form of hand soap (Note: this is not the intended use of bitter yuck. It is meant mainly for furniture, but we figured our hands needed the protection the most), he rather liked the stuff! If we had poured the bottle into his water bowl, he would have lapped it up. He licked it off our hands and the dispenser hose with satisfaction! The only individuals negatively affected by this product were Tom and I, due to the vapors that went into our noses and mouths, forcing us to have a bitter taste in our mouths all through dinner. I must say, though, that it wasn’t all bad because this then gave us an excuse to go “wash our mouths out” with frozen custard. Back to Trueman the Monster. Despite all of his energy during his “monster” phases, he refuses to get any exercise unless it involves biting something. When he gets into these moods, we try to take him on walks. Does he walk? Of course not. He flops over on his side and then proceeds to allow us to drag him wherever it is we deem necessary.

Remember how I said that he likes to eat/bite everything that he is not supposed to eat/bite? This fact includes the tidbit that he isn’t even inspired to bite the things he is supposed to bite. He is entertained by his chew toys for seconds, at best, and his treats don’t even appeal to him when compared to any other trash that can be found on the ground. For example, let’s consider our Saturday afternoon trip to the park. It was a breezy day, perfect for kite flying so the whole gang (Myself, Tom, and the docile monster) headed off for Fleming Park to play and eat lunch. The car is a magical place because it almost always turns Truman into his Dr. Jekyll identity. Something about the rhythm of the car lulls him into a calm, sleepy mood (or perhaps he gets car sick). This does not mean in any way that the lethargy continues past the second we get out of the car; but his docile car mood is still nice for however long we get a break. Once arriving at the park, we first ate some lunch. Truman, not being satisfied with his doggy bacon bit treats, was convinced that our sandwiches looked better. Returning to his Mr. Hyde persona, he was convinced that he was big enough and tough enough to defeat us in battle in order to obtain the magnificent sandwiches. Apparently we still have yet to establish who the Alpha Male in the family is. I don’t view this as our fault, considering we have a dog that thinks he is not only the Alpha, but is also the Omega.

We then decided to try to fly the kite. We thought that we could get Trueman to play by dangling the kite’s tail in front of him, in hopes that he we would chase it. Too much work. The left-over poo on the ground from a prior canine park visitor was clearly much more aromatically enticing and easily accessible. Then, knowing that the one thing we can use to sway him in our favor is treats, we cleverly tied a delicious snack to the tale of the kite. Still too much work. He would chase it for like a second when we would dangle it tantalizingly in his face, but as soon as it was over 12 inches away from his nose, he was on to something else. Not even food can persuade this dog to play.

All in all, no matter where he is, most of the time his greatest pleasure is found in curling up in my or Tom’s lap and snuggling. When there are thunder storms, there is nowhere else he’d rather be than in my arms being held like a baby. It’s times like these when I realize just how much love he has to offer and I melt….until a minute later when he whizzes all over the carpet.

Game Theory in Practice

Last Saturday I witnessed something incredible. When I went to take my game theory final there was a crowd of students outside the classroom door all talking furiously amongst themselves.

...

Now, before I tell the rest of the story, let me give some background information. For those of you who are not familiar with the topic of game theory, here is an abbreviated definition from Wikipedia.

"Game theory is a branch of applied mathematics that is used in the social sciences (most notably economics) ... to mathematically capture behavior in strategic situations, in which an individual's success in making choices depends on the choices of others," (Game Theory).

You might be familiar with game theory from the movie "A Beautiful Mind." The movie is about John Nash, the mathematician who got the Nobel Prize for defining one of the fundamental principles in Game Theory, a principle now known as Nash Equilibrium.

In my class we studied what Nash and others had discovered. We used math to determine the outcomes of situations in which the people involved are acting strategically. First, we identified the rules, the players, the possible outcomes, and the payoffs for a given situation. We then generated a list of possible strategies for each player. Lastly, we looked for combinations of strategies for which no player had incentive to deviate by changing his strategy to improve his payoffs. In order for a given outcome of a situation to be plausible, each player's strategy has to be the strategy that maximizes his payoff, given what all the other players have decided to do. (These plausible strategies are called Nash Equilibria.)

The class was challenging and the tests were extremely difficult. On our first midterm the highest score was 65 out of 100 possible points and the class average was 45. On the second midterm we only did slightly better, with a class average of 50 and a high score of 80. However, these low scores were not quite as troubling as they may at first appear. In the end, the class was “curved.” This means that one’s final grade in the class is based entirely on one's position in the final distribution of class points (not on total points earned out of total points possible). When the semester grades come out, roughly the top third of the class get As, the next third get Bs, and the final third get Cs. In other words, to get an A in the class you only had to do better on the tests than most of the other students. Given how the grades in the class were assigned, if everyone in the class took a zero on the final exam then semester grades would be based purely on results from the two previous midterms and the homework assignments.

So on the day of the final, a few students in the class had arrived early for the test and, after casually chatting about the idea, had decided to try to persuade the entire class to not take the exam. In their impassioned effort to pull off their plan, they were stopping all the students outside of the testing room and were working to convince everyone to follow along. The tricky part was getting everyone to agree to the plan. In theory, getting everyone to adopt the strategy of not taking the test was not plausible since it was not a Nash Equilibria. Some people had incentive to deviate. First of all, if a few people were to dissent and take the exam while the rest of the class stood outside in protest, those people would dramatically improve their position in the overall class grade distribution. As a result, everyone had incentive to be a deviator. Meanwhile, the people refusing to take the test would probably have their grades drop since those taking the test were likely to pass them up in the distribution. In conclusion, these facts meant that as soon as one person decided to start the exam, everyone else would rush in from the hallway to take the test and the collusion would fall apart.

Another difficulty was that some people had more incentive to deviate than others. If everyone agreed to not take the exam, then the people who had done poorly in the class up to that point but who were hoping to improve their final grade by doing well on the final exam would not get that opportunity. Thus, people who had done poorly in the class but had studied hard for the final had the strongest incentive to deviate. However, in the end this did not seem to be a problem.

No one had much confidence in improving their grade by studying since there had never been a clear way to study for tests. The teacher never provided practice tests, practice problems, or review sheets. The actual test problems were always much more difficult than the homework problems or any problems in the textbook. In the end, your results on the tests seemed to be based more on how clever you were than on how hard you had studied. Due to the nature of these circumstances, I don’t think anyone expected to do any better on the final than they had done on the midterms.

The leaders behind the plan worked hard to keep everyone in the hallway until they had everyone committed to the plan. As it turned out, getting people to stay in the hallway and delay starting the exam was not that difficult. No one minded starting the test late and loosing time to work through the problems as long as everyone else was starting the test late as well. First they lined everyone up and counted to make sure that the whole class was there. They then opened up a discussion for anyone who had concerns. When concerns did come up and the leaders were unable to resolve them, a few students would go into the classroom and talk to the professor to get a more clear explanation of how the final grades would be assigned. (Note that the professor was fully aware of what was going on.) After a series of questions, the professor wrote his rules on the board. If everyone refused to take the test, he would give the entire class Bs. However, if at least one person turned in a test, he would assign points for the test, look at the distribution of points, and assign final grades based on the distribution. Turning in a test consisted of at least writing your name on the test and stapling a piece of paper to the cover sheet. Lastly, once you left the building you could no longer work on your test.

Once the rules were clear, the entire class agreed to the plan. As it turned out, the pride of being able to say you participated and the intense social pressure against deviating turned out to be stronger incentives than grades. One by one people were sent into the room to write their name on an exam, staple a paper to the exam cover sheet, and hand in their test. The plan leaders escorted them every step of the way to make sure no one deviated. Then, once everyone had turned in the exam, the plan leaders escorted everyone out the nearest exit and had a passer-by take a class picture as proof that everyone had left the building. That picture is posted below.

Senior Celebration

We finally took our camera with us somewhere! We seriously haven't taken a single picture since our honeymoon. Tonight, we went to the BYU Senior Celebration. Unfortunately, we didn't win any of the super cool prizes, but we did get lots of free food. We had a great time spending time with our friends Charla and Sterling and their little baby, Brayten. This semester we've had the pleasure of babysitting him a handful of times and it has been so fun seeing him grow. They will definitely be one of the familes that we will miss most when we move to Missouri.

Recipe of the Week

I finally had a success with allrecipes.com! I had to make a few alterations but in the end it was VERY yummy. Because I made some alterations, I changed the title for my personal records. On the website, the recipe is "Impressed Myself Chicken" but my version is as follows...

The Pig That Ate the Chicken and Stuffed Him Like a Turkey :)

Ingredients:

• 12 slices uncooked bacon
  
• 1 package dry bread stuffing mix
• 1 can cream of chicken soup
  
• 6 skinless, boneless chicken breast tenderloins - pounded to 1/2 inch thickness
• ground black pepper to taste
• garlic powder to taste

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C).
   
2. Prepare the stuffing mix according to package directions. Do not bake. Add cream of chicken soup to stuffing.
   
3. Place the bacon on a clean flat surface. Arrange sets of two slices with one going across, and one up and down.
4. Place a piece of chicken on top. Separate the stuffing into 6 portions. Place one portion in the center of each piece of chicken. Pull chicken around the stuffing to cover, bringing the bacon around with it. Secure with string or toothpicks. Season with pepper and garlic powder. Place the chicken bundles in a roasting pan, and cover loosely with aluminum foil.
5. Bake for 20 minutes in the preheated oven. Remove the foil, and cook until bacon is crisp and chicken is no longer pink, about 20 more minutes.
   

Cooking time may change depending on your altitude. The original recipe calls for 30 minutes with foil, 10 minutes without, but my oven didn't like that idea. Anyway, this is similar to what it should look like when it comes out:

Enjoy!

A fun day at the park

Today Mary and I played with kids at the park and had a wonderful time. Our initial intent was to just get some exercise. The weather was warm and we thought it a good time to be outdoors enjoying the oncoming of spring. Our plan was to bike/run to the park, throw a Frisbee around for a while, then bike/run home (see the map below). The surprise came when we started throwing the Frisbee and boys started showing up to play. They would just casually walk over from the playground to the field where we were throwing and stand there watching us, waiting for a pass. One by one they trickled in until we had a group of four. They were all pretty young. The oldest was probably 11 and the youngest was around 6. Furthermore, none of them seemed to have know each other previously (except for the two that were brothers). They just saw something fun going on and decided they wanted to be a part of it. We were really impressed by their friendliness and their willingness to cooperate as they played together.