Thanksgiving Daily

Thanksgiving is such a wonderful time of the year. What makes it so wonderful? How can we experience that more often?

Party in the U.S.A. ASL Video

One of my favorites :)

DanceSport

I competed in DanceSport this morning. It went great. My partner is **correction** WAS Dana Gibson. We had such a fun time. We made it past the first 6 rounds. But on the last elimination, we were among those eliminated unfortunately. Our teacher said a lot of it had to do with the fact that the judges were on the other side of the room. But all-in-all we had just a really good time, and we were thrilled with how far we got. I'm certainly doing this again :D So much fun!!!

Nerdy rant...

It is SO typical of Microsoft to provide a service that is really awesome and then not deliver. I hate Microsoft!

But how can I make a jab at Micro$oft if I don't make a jab at Apple? It is typical of Apple to make the computer so user-friendly that you can't do anything with it. And for their programs to act like a virus (thank you iTunes, you've earned quite a lame reputation).
And how can I make such negative comments about M$ and Apple without expressing my love for Google?
This morning, I was studying and chatting on the same document with 90 students on Google Docs to prep for our History Test, each of us adding content. I sent a free text in the basement of the Library where I don't get cell phone service using Google Voice, I read from my favorite blogs and uplifting content from LDS.org from Google Reader, and I'm using Google Chrome right now, which just works. I love Google!

iSayHi Message to members:

Hey iSayHi members! I hope everyone's still having great experiences with the iSayHi commitment! Just a few things:
1. iSayHi Shirt Sign Ups in by next week!
2. Redefine Service Blog
3. iSayHiAnonymousPickMeUpTexts
4. iSayHi Party November 20th (Provo Area)
5. iSayHi Buttons (We're getting them, just so you know :D)

1. So we have the shirts ready to be printed. Now we just need sign ups for them to know how many to print. We'll send off the order a week from this Monday. The shirt costs $7.50. If you want a shirt, there are a few ways you can go about signing up to get one:
- Online: By far the easiest is to order it online through the store gadget I made here: https://sites.google.com/site/isayhiweb/t-shirts
- Another easy way to order is filling out the following form. I will connect with you to get the money for the shirt through your e-mail address or if otherwise specified: https://spreadsheets0.google.com/viewform?formkey=dGUxU1ZuX3plVUJTeG1TU25CeXQ1Rnc6MQ
- I will have sign up sheets around my apartment complex (Alta) in Provo, so if you're in my ward or in my area, you can just come sign up there (may as well just drop off the money to me if you do that).
- There will be sign up sheets in the Foyer before and after Men's Chorus, so if you're around the HFAC at 4:00 - 4:50 you can sign up there.

2. There is a blog for Redefine Service, created and updated by my dear friend Deidre Edmunds. Redefine Service is basically like iSayHi. Take a look :) http://redefineservice.blogspot.com/

3. We're still doing iSayHiAnonymousPickMeUpTexts. Just e-mail iSayHiMail@gmial.com with the name, phone number, and message and we'll send them a nice anonymous text from the iSayHi Phone number. It's an easy way to brighten someone's day!

4. For those of you who are in the Provo Area, we're doing an iSayHi Part on November 20th. We're going to do something special, so come and bring your friends, and respond to the event so we know how many to expect! Thanks! http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=149197425124869

You're all so great! Thanks a million for all the friendly-service that you do! See you around!
-Kent

High times, hard times...

Well, it's been quite some time since I last posted on my blog... I don't know why. I should do it more.

I spent today going to school, and getting some homework done. It's really nice to stay ahead in school. I just picked up two classes I Sys 100 and 101. They're for Excel and PowerPoint and they're ultra-easy. It's just online. It uses words like "Objective: Minimizing a window" and asks questions like "True or False: You can not run multiple programs on a computer at once." I'm not joking... It's just funny. I'm sure that in later lessons I'll learn something I didn't know before. All-in-all, I'm really enjoying my classes and doing very well in them. I wish that I'd discovered my affinity for these types of classes before. It's so much better for me than the math and science classes I was taking earlier. who'd have thought that I would be into accounting? Not me!

Sometimes, I can feel like the song "Home" by Michael Buble "surrounded by, a million people, I still feel so alone." It's hard to describe the way that I feel about my associations with people right now. I want to be with friends and do fun things. But I just think maybe I don't know who to do it all with. I'm not super close with people anymore. It's more like being pretty close with everyone.... I'm not really close enough with anyone for them to just call me up and invite me to do something, I've realized. So, anyway... I'll have to figure that out eventually...

Anyway, enough moping, that helps nobody. Besides, this is the Bright-Side of Life blog.... Though, I think it's perfectly fine to sometimes express frustration and stuff, it's always good to end on a high note, that's why I saved these things for last.

What I'm grateful for:

Heavenly Father, and my Savior. They have so much love for me!

FAMILY!! They're ALWAYS there! :D

Ward family, they're so great!

Test score! 94% on my second statistics test!

Accounting Quiz scores. Pretty much all 100% since I decided I want to do accounting and switched my major.

Friends, they're so great, and they do so much for me!

Cakes made by friends.

Letters from friends on missions.

Professors who love the gospel and what they're teaching.

Beds to sleep in... ooooo sleep, that's what I should be doing right now....

Rockband parties :)

Men's Chorus

Employers who think I'm great :)

Myself :)

The Bright-Side of Life!

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School, Work, Church, Family, Friends, iSayHi, etc.

My, my, how time just flies by. I can't believe it! Things have been kinda crazy, and there's a lot that's gone on that I haven't posted about (obviously). But I want to sum it all up, so here it goes:

School:

• I've decided I want to try accounting and I'm doing pretty well and enjoying it, so we'll see.
• I'm working extra hard in my classes and learning valuable lessons about being a good student.
• I'm taking History 201, Statistics 121, Religion 324 (D&C 1-76), Music 312 (Men's Chorus), Accounting 200, Writing 150, and Dance 180 (Social Dance). I love my classes.

Work:

• I'm still enjoying my job.
• I work from 7:30 to 11:00 am every day, and that schedule works well for me.
• For those of you who don't know, I work at the BYU Conference Center as an Audio/Video Technician.

Church:

• I still love my ward to pieces! The newbies just make it even more awesome.
• I'm still the Ward Mission Leader and I love it. We had the CEO of the MoreGoodFoundation come and talk with us about how to share the gospel using the internet. It's pretty much awesome. That's the focus of our Ward's Mission Plan (considering we have no nonmembers in our ward boundaries...)
• I still work at the temple and I love it. I changed my shift from Tuesdays to Saturdays at 6 - 11 am. It's the best way to start a Saturday :D

Family:

• I'm still a Dodds and I love it ;)
• My little sister Susan got married. I'm so happy for her!
• I get to see my siblings down here occasionally and I go home occasionally :)

Friends:

• I love having Marc home again and being in Men's Chorus with him. We have all kinds of fun.
• I like to have parties :) And I love the regular Rock Band Parties on Saturday Night in my complex :) I'm getting better.

iSayHi:

• I'm letting the idea fly on it's own. I'm hosting another party in October, and then that'll be it. Hopefully someone else will take it over.
• The time I devoted to it pretty much destroyed my GPA last term, and it's a bad idea to let that happen, that's why I have to stop.
• I love the concept, and I'll still lead by example. But I think the most important thing for me to focus on right now is school. I am a student for a reason!

Etc:

• I'm happy that I'm alive.
• I'm learning wonderful lessons.
• I hope that you're all happy!
• And that's the Bright-side of life!

iSayHi Merchandise

The bracelets are sold out!

Bizarre!

So, I was going through some old e-mails and found this in an e-mail I sent to a bunch of people about a vacation I went on with my family. It was pretty funny. So many of you may know that I served my mission in the Missouri Independence Mission. Well, I had gone on a vacation to that area just a year and a half before my mission. Here is a portion of my e-mail about that vacation:

Anyway, we flew into Albuquerque, New Mexico and were there for about 20 minutes (I recorded us there too) then we got on the plane to Kansas City, Missouri, where we rented a car and started off for Independence.

Before I talk about any more of the trip, I want to say that the only reason I would EVER live in that kind of humid climate would be if I was assigned there for my mission. IT WAS SOOOO HUMID!!! I LOVE DRY WEATHER!!!

Ha! Isn't that great!? I had totally forgotten I mentioned that mission part. I do remember hating the humidity. But, that's just rich! Anyway, I thought you'd find that enjoyable :D