The long version

In 2005 I was sitting at my desk at Tooele High School and had a personal revelation where Heavenly Father said, "It's time to get your PhD." Now the search for a school to go to. The top contenders were University of North Carolina at Greensboro and Indiana University. Both good school, but the biggest problem is that my GRE scores were expired and the last time I took a math class was in 1993. I kept pondering and almost went to UNCG, but again another personal revelation said, don't go there. So I was at the IADMS conference in Ohio in 2008 when I met Dr. Matt Wyon from the University of Wolverhampton. I had been reading his research over the years and thought he was doing good things in dance research. I told him I wanted to continue my research in a neck injury in female ballroom dancers, and he said come to England.
In England for a PhD you do 3-5 projects instead of 1 dissertation. And you have to put your project proposals in your application. I decided on two surveys and two biomechanical analyses (I won't bore you with the details, unless you ask for them). I had originally turned in my application last June, but it was too heavy with ballroom terminology, so the application committee made me redo it. I fixed it and it was accepted in September. Now to get a visa.

So here is the story I was told, a bunch of students from India had been accepted to universities in the UK, showed up, and then disappeared. If you have been to Europe you know that once you are in you can go anywhere, so this is a security problem. Now the UK is making a bunch of new rules about getting student visas. I was originally going to pay for school with a student loan, but I found out that the University of Wolverhampton does not have a current federal school code and is not going to fill out the paperwork to get a federal school code. (It took the school three months to tell me that sentence.) A week later I was told about the studentships (which is the UK term for graduate assistantship) I could apply for but then I would have to wait a month for an interview, this was December/January.
Well I got the studentship, so now I have to have the equivalent of £5400 in my bank account for 28 days. Yeah there is always a but. But there is a rule change starting February 22nd that I have to have a CaS# instead of a visa letter. By this time it just feels like the UK government is making new rules just to mess with my head. So I did the 28 days and got my CaS#, then filled out the visa application and waited...I think it is the waiting that kills me.
Sure enough my visa came this morning and I bought my plane ticket. I'm leaving on Sunday and start school on Tuesday (Monday is a bank holiday in England). After 8 months of dealing with all the visa obstacles I am grateful to be starting the hard work of a PhD. Grateful that I finally get to do what the Lord has asked me to do. Everyone is welcome to come visit, just let me know when you are coming. Hope you have a good weekend like I will!

Percy Jackson movie

A while back my Mom and I went and saw the Percy Jackson movie because we read the books. DON'T watch it if you like the books. The movie SUCKS!!! If you watch the movie and don't read the books, you will like it.

BYU 50th Ballroom Dance Company Reunion and Concert

(This is Kurt and Autumn in "Blue Danube". Little girls loved this because they all wanted to be the princess.)

In 1999, I had the privilege of going on tour with BYU's Ballroom Dance Company to South Africa. The truth is I just wanted a free trip back to South Africa, but while on tour I learned that dancers get cooler injuries than athletes. So I became addicted and went back to school for my Master's at BYU and worked in the Dance Training Room and went on tour with BDC again in 2004 to England, Belgium, France, and Spain, which included the Blackpool competition. This is the 50th year of ballroom at BYU, so there was a fun reunion with lots of activities to see my former dancers and tech crew. When you spend a month on a bus with 50 people, you get to know each other pretty well. These people are like my brothers and sisters, you miss them when they are not around and you hope everything goes well in their life.

At the UN in Belgium
(Lee said fall, so we did. I'm on the right, the only one with sunglasses and a white headband.)

Conference/Easter weekend

I went with my parent's to Idaho for the weekend to spend time with Caimon and Brylee, (yeah ok, Corey and Sara too). I took some pictures.

When Caimon was little I took a close up of us and we have the same color eyes. So what do you think, do Brylee and I have the same color eyes?

Caimon has progressed to using real toothpaste, but he doesn't really spit it out. It is interesting to share a sink with a toddler.


Brylee was sitting on my lap and I took this picture and didn't realize until I downloaded it how cute it is. Then I cropped it, which one do you like better?