The Price is Right for Memorial Day

Hey guys. It's been a crazy last two weeks, not least because I've been in the same area as two police shootings. But more about that later.  I want to tell you about The Price is Right!

That's right, about 2 weeks ago I went on everybody's favorite game show, The Price is Right. Going on this show was an item on my (currently unwritten) bucket list, and it was so worth it. The wait was pretty long (~6 hours) but they kept it moving by giving you your name tag, taking pictures, and conducting the interview. We were interviewed in groups and were asked basic questions, such as where are you from, what do you do, etc. I'm not exactly sure what they were looking for. We also made friends with some people in line (including a mom and her daughter that were also from Ohio) and I got a good chunk of my book read. (Room by Emma Donahue. I highly recommend it.)

The studio was a lot smaller than it looks on TV but it was also kind of surreal to see the stage and the games up close. One thing that surprised me is that there is a guy that tells you when to clap and cheer (after every prize is announced, basically). The announcer, George, was super friendly and hilarious, as was Mr. Drew Carey! The guy's hysterical, and he actually stays and talks to the audience during the commercial breaks, asking about their lives and such.

No one in our group got picked, unfortunately, but the mom from Ohio that we made friends with did and she ended up winning a car! It was super fun to root for her and see the reactions of her daughter. She was sitting right in front of me so I think they panned over to our reactions a lot when she was on. Check and see June 8!!

My ticket. We were pretty late in line.

The whole gang.

In addition to going to the gym (I know, I'm just as surprised as you are), another thing I've been doing is going on hikes with the Relief Society. So far I've hiked Cherry Canyon and this trail near the JPL, a NASA base. We're hiking near the Rose Bowl on Tuesday. California really is so beautiful, and I'm starting to really like hiking. Weird.

It was pretty smoggy so we couldn't see too far off the canyon, but I still think it's pretty beautiful,
in a way. Like an English heath.

Memorial Day weekend was also really fun. Sunday night there was a fireworks show at this park that pretty much the whole ward went to. I've slowly but surely started to make some friends and gotten to know more people here, and the ward always has a ton of activities so it's been really fun. Monday I went to a parade with Chelsie, another BYU student who's doing an accounting internship for Disney. The parade was fun, full of American spirit and preschoolers. After the parade there was a ward pool party and barbeque at one of the bishopric's house.

New friends Chelsie and Brooke at the fireworks show

Live jazz band.

Good ol' Boy Scout troops

 

Also this weekend I went to see a show at the United Citizen's Brigade with Megan, fellow A&E friend from the Daily Universe. Megan has this rad internship with LA Canvas, which is an awesome magazine you all should check out. Her job is basically to blog about the LA music scene and host crazy parties on Hollywood rooftops. Needless to say, I'm incredibly jealous of her.

The UCB show was super funny. One was an improv team who did sketches based on people's iPods. They chose the Harry Potter audiobook from Megan's iPod and it was literally the funniest thing that's ever happened. The second group was another improv team that did their bit by picking one person and interviewing them about their families. They try to mine the weird stuff about this person's family, but this guy was the most straight-laced, nice guy you could imagine, so the material they had to work with was pretty limited. They made it work, though.

Oh, you wanted to hear about the shootings? Well, one day we were working in Compton, and Nick and Chris were driving right in the middle of like 9 police cars and a helicopter was overhead. Our car wasn't too far away. We saw later that day that there was a police shooting in that exact same area. We also went to San Bernadino, where there had been around 12 shootings that month, including one the day before we went. Apparently we ate at the park right next to the memorial where the shooting happened, although we didn't know it at the time.

But I know self-defense, so it's all good. I hope.