the weekend

we had a fun weekend. we saw reckless city, which was featured in the sundance film festival. it was alright. i was more into the music than the storyline. there was a Q&A afterwards but eddie and i didn't stay since we decided everyone tries to act real artsy and ask off the wall questions. but if we would have stayed i would have asked how they came up with such cool music b/c i was really impressed. overall, it was fun to escape to park city for the night.

we also went to the carl bloch exhibit at the MOA on BYU campus. it's so incredible. i think it'll be there til may. tons of his art is in LDS chapels, temples, manuals and magazines. while i loved them all, my favorite piece wasn't one of the 6 featured altar pieces. i loved his painting of the story of raising the daughter of jarius. while most artists portray the actual miracle, bloch chose to paint the girl laying dead in her bed, her mom crying over her, with the savior walking in through the doorway. just before the miracle. it really was touching to see a different viewpoint of the story, i'd go again for that one painting.

(of course eddie loved it bc the tour guide was an ipad)

on fri night we went to the byu hockey game w/ eddie's friends. he has a good group of friends that are fun to hang out with. we were sitting right behind the penalty box so the guys heckled the other team the whole game. we all hit up happy summo's 1/2 off everything night after the game, which was so delicious and CHEAP!

Sunday night Eddie won hometeacher of the year award when he had to drive up provo canyon to rescue one of his ladies whose car broke down at vivian park. he loves doing this kind of stuff- rescuing stranded people. i can think of so many times when he's dug people out of mud, snow, ditches, etc. etc. he's smart, handy and willing to help. definitely good traits for a husband :)

name

for me, the hardest adjustment about marriage has been the name change. (well, that and how you have to be selfless all the time.) it was weird to me that for 24 years I had gone by Marianne Gold and was suddenly supposed to start going by Marianne Prignano. eddie asked me everyday for 2 months straight to get it changed, but i kept putting it off. i don't know why i struggled with it more than most girls, but i think i did. i loved having Gold as my last name and didn't realize how attached to it i was. there was one week when i came up with the bright idea of having eddie take my name. that didn't go over very well.

since we got married in the middle of the semester, to keep things simple, I decided to keep going by Gold until the end of the semester. So school wise, this is the first month anyone's known me as Marianne Prignano. In fact my new team member char always calls me Mrs. Prignano in an italian accent. Maybe it's because I see/hear it more, but this week I started liking my new name! It is no longer foreign, and I think it's pretty. Plus, I like how our names sound together.

the day I became Mrs. Prignano

the story of the best game of all time.

i'll skip the boring stuff & get to the good stuff.

...it was 5 hours before the big (byu #9 v sdsu #4) game and i STILL didn't have a ticket. eddie did though. i had been trying to coordinate w/ my girl jessie but we didn't want to go above $50 for nosebleed seats, and every time we would cave and call someone from KSL to get their tickets, they had "just sold them."

we finally got ahold of 3- for jess, her sis danielle & me. we were stoked. 1 row from the top but so happy we were going to the game instead of watching it @ iggy's.

so these

were our original seats:

terrible. but like i said,we were thrilled to have them.

me, jess & danielle

but then at half time we spotted the ultimate seats & eddie ran down & saved them.

no kidding- center court, 12 rows up. we were dying. and so happy! the game at this point was tied. it had been tied the entire first half. the crowd was on edge.

the rest of the game was so intense i couldn't believe it. it was so loud i couldn't hear myself screaming- and there was so much energy! that's what i love most about byu games, the fans go nuts. it wasn't until the last 6/7 minutes that we pulled away and it was the ultimate victory. 71-58. i say this every time, but it was the best game of the season. the only thing that will top it is when we beat san diego in san diego.

rushing the court!

BYU fans for life.

...finally got to see him make this face live!

how cool is this pic?!

things i love to wear that eddie hates

1. leggings

2. pointy flats

3. sweats/ no make-up/ high pony tail

it's unfortunate because this is actually my favorite look

4. my favorite lounge pants

i get it. i probably shouldn't change into them

the second i get home but i can't help it! i love them!

CB radio

Eddie's been searching the pawn shops for a CB radio for his truck for a long time. I got a text on thursday saying he had found the perfect one and wanted my opinion on buying it. He told me later he had already gotten it, just thought it would be a nice gesture to ask me. He doesn't buy too much, so whatever.

He used it on our way up to Sundance yesterday when we went to buy our tix for the film festival (so excited). It was hilarious. For some reason I got all nervous and ducked my head in my lap when he was trying to talk to the truckers! He looked up all the lingo, so he kept asking people what their 20 was and if there were any bear traps. Then he'd say he was coming down the canyon in his "triple digit ride." hahaha. He'd get so happy when people would respond and take it real personal when they wouldn't.

We used this catalog to pick out which movie screening we wanted to go to. All the good ones seemed to be sold out so we just took whichever one we could in Park City. I figure our chances of seeing celebrities are higher in PC than the other venues.

being married is fun.

Condoleezza Rice

C. Rice came and spoke at a forum at BYU today. Wow, is she incredible. Hearing her speak you can just tell she's a great person. I had mixed feelings when I left the Marriott Center. Half of me was thinking she's so amazing there's no way I can even come close to all the literally world-changing accomplishments she's done so why even try? ha, sad but true, that's really what I thought. But the other half of me was so incredibly inspired to be just like her. I don't necessarily have dreams of becoming the secretary of state, but I do have dreams of making the world I live in better. Of bettering my marriage, family, church and community. Dreams of being kinder, optimistic and more understanding. This post is becoming more spiritual than I intended but it really was a spiritual experience for me.

She talked about how she grew up in segregated Alabama and how she had loving and supportive parents. How as a little girl she couldn't even enter certain restaurants because of the color of her skin, but her parents thought she could be the President of the United States if she wanted to- and how ironic it was that she became the Secretary of State. How she wanted to be a concert pianist up until she was a sophomore in college, then decided to be a Russian specialist for the govt and her parents supported her 100%. She talked about how important education is, and how even her great grandpa knew of its importance. During a time when blacks had very little freedoms he went and got a college education. As a result, everyone in his family has received a college education.

She also mentioned some general advice for life, which I always want to remember:

• It doesn't matter where you come from, it matters where you're going.
• As educated people, we have special responsibilities. We've been given many opportunities and with those come responsibilities.
• There are some things you just can't know. We have to integrate what is and what might be. Faith & Reason go together.
• Find your passion. Worlds open up to you when you find your passion.
• Instead of always doing what comes easy or natural to you, master something that is hard. If you overcome hard things it will give you confidence to overcome life's challenges. (Since she gave this in a school setting, she used the example of taking math classes if reading comes easy to you and vice versa. Mastering difficult things helps in other parts of life.)
• Learn languages
• Keep your optimism. We have a responsibility to be optimistic given all our opportunities.
• Never think "Why don't I have more?" or "Why do they have more?"
• You can't control your circumstances but you can control your response to your circumstances. Learn this one principle and you will control your own life.
• Teach our children that self-esteem comes from doing things well, not just doing them.
• We need to help our kids by introducing them to a broad education. Yes, science, math and reading are important- but so is art, drama & music.

The professor who introduced her said she is an ordinary woman who has done extraordinary things. I liked this because sometimes I think high political figures are super-human, that they live 20 feet above the earth and don't experience normal, everyday life. But when you think about it, she beat incredible odds to get where she is today. She has a very ordinary background and really made something of her life. I'm grateful BYU brought Condoleezza Rice to campus, I definitely learned a thing or two.

byu utah rivalry

If it's not obvious already, i don't know how else to say it. Eddie and i LOVE byu basketball. Last night we went to the BYU/Utah game up in SLC. It was so fun- probably the most fun of all the games this season. Nothing makes me happier than BYU killing Utah. I think we look happier in this pic than we did on our wedding day. kidding.

Eddie's favorite cheer is the one where you chant "drive home safely!" if we're dominating the other team and their fans start to leave early. He started chanting that and dangling his keys at half time. We were surrounded by all these BYU students who were probably so obnoxious to all the U fans but I was loving it.

Oh, best part of the night? I ran into two of my best friends from BYU (heidi to my left and jessie on the far right) in the bathroom! What are the odds, right? We used to go to all the BYU games together. Just look at our cougar pride...

worst part of the game? the part where we didn't roll into provo until 11 pm and I still had to go to a friend's to borrow his book. So we got home at 11:30, had to read and do hw, and be up at 6:30 for 8:00 am class. And my last class ends at 9pm tonight. It's ok, I really love my program. I'm just... tired.

school

executive lectures in public management

public & nonprofit budgeting

statistics

human resource management

advanced human resource management

governmental finance

well, school is back in session so the above will be my life for the next 4 months. I did have managerial accounting on that list as well, but I deleted it from my schedule last night. There's no need for all that- I'll take it next semester. I'm trying to simplify, remember?

i must give props to two 2nd years who have helped me organize my schedule. jaclyn, my TA from last semester, and rachael, my friend from jerusalem, have been so helpful. it's hard knowing how much you can handle at the beginning of the semester so its good to have the advice of those who have been thru it before.

So far, so good. This semester will probably be my hardest one- I'm not much of a math person. Gov. finance just may be the death of me. The professor loves the subject and is very intense, but those are usually the professors I learn the most from.

I definitely love HR. So far HR and Finance are my emphases and I'm happy about them. I know I just said I'm not much of a math person, but it's so important to understand so I'm taking the finance classes anyways.

My advanced HR professor has worked in HR for intermountain healthcare for the past 20 years and he's awesome, so I'm real excited about his class. It's nice when I get excited about a class. It's every weds night from 6:30-9 pm though, and my wednesdays start at 8am so we'll see if I'm still loving it once the semester gets going.

My dream job is still HR for Nordstrom or Nike! I've wanted to do that since I was like 17, before I even knew what HR was. But I've wanted to do 1000 things in my life so it's no surprise one of them is panning out. I also think it'd be cool to do HR at a hospital/ doctors complex like my professor, so we'll see.

For stats we're working with a community partner to produce and analyze some data for them. It'll be a lot of work but I'm excited about it. My team's great.

Well, I'm off to enjoy the weekend. We don't have too many plans. We're going to the BYU game tomorrow though, which of course we're excited for. I saw Jimmer at the grocery store a few weeks ago and my heart skipped a few beats. Don't worry, eddie knows about it.

2011

is going to have to be pretty incredible to top 2010~