Another Belated Update

During the past two weeks, I worked more than 120 hours, so I'm sure you can understand why I didn't post earlier. The extra money will certainly be nice -- it's paying for a trip to D.C. in October, which I'll talk about later -- but I had to take two (paid) days off this week to make up for the weekend I missed last week. Instead of doing homeworking like I planned, though, I've been playing Sims 3. I have tomorrow...

I haven't heard anything about the job I applied for two weeks ago. I'm pretty sure, though, that the hiring manager will begin interviewing this week. *crosses fingers* I really hope I get it, and if what I've heard (that I'm the top candidate) is any indication, I'm pretty sure I will. Oh, in my last entry, I told you I bought a suit to prepare for my interview. Here are two pictures of it:





To further prepare for the interview, I made an appointment at the Sanctuary Day Spa & Salon for a haircut and manicure tomorrow morning. The package I booked also includes a deep tissue massage, which will be nice. I've never treated myself to something like this before, so I'm really excited.

I received a letter from Big Brothers Big Sisters a few days after my last post. It took longer than expected, but I was finally accepted into the program! The process of finding a Little for me will no doubt be quite long, but I'm excited. I hope I'm matched with someone before the end of summer - Lagoon isn't open all year!

I also talked about Dr. Bentley's Pops Concert in my last entry. The songs we as alumni sang were recorded and posted on Facebook. I don't think you need to be a member of the group or Facebook to view them, so check them out: Defying Gravity and For Good.

Mistaken - I'm sad to see you deleted your Facebook account. My schedule is wide open for your visit next week, so give me a call and we'll get together: (801)867-1322. It'll be nice to see you again! As for what I like and dislike about Sims 3...

Likes:

• Being able to walk seamlessly around town is awesome! You can visit neighbors and commercial lots without load screens, allowing you to fully immerse yourself into the neighborhood.


• The addition of traits, such as "Family Oriented," "Good" (and its counterpart, "Evil"), and "Workaholic," allows you to customize your Sims' personalities, far above what you were able to do in Sims and Sims 2.


• The "moodlets" are pretty cool. They can positively and/or negatively affect your mood, and they can be obtained by certain events, such as moving into a new home (a mood booster) or getting burglarized (a mood buster).


• The stories of your neighbors continue to progress. They age, have children, quit their jobs and find new ones, and move out of town. It balances out the neighborhood. If you don't want the stories to progress, you can turn it (and aging) off, which is another plus.

Dislikes:

• Weather, which was added to Sims 2 via the Seasons expansion pack, is nowhere to be found. Weather should be a standard feature, but I'm pretty sure it will be added again in a future expansion pack.


• Apartments, which were added to Sims 2 via the Apartment Life expansion pack, have been removed, too. Like the weather, I'm sure these will come back at some point.


• Where are the pets?! Another expansion pack, I'm sure.


• EA is really trying to milk as much money as they can from consumers this time. In addition to the inevitable expansion packs mentioned above, they have a store, which I haven't been able to download items from, with tons of objects and other items you can buy with SimPoints. How do you get SimPoints? Well, other than the 1,000 SimPoints you are given for registering your game, you have to spend real money to get them.

I'm sure there are other likes and dislikes, but those are the only ones I can think of at the moment.

As mentioned at the beginning of this entry, I'm going to Washington, D.C. this October. We're staying for four days, and we'll be attending the National Equality March at the Mall. Our flight is booked, and we have a room reserved at the JW Marriott Hotel Washington, DC, which is located steps away from the White House on Pennsylvania Avenue. I'm so excited! It'll be my first time in the Nation's capital.

Well, that's about it for now. Thanks for reading!