YONMO (You Only New Mexico Once)

It's Spring Break! Meaning I still have school, but no clinicals. Meaning I understand the amount of free time normal college students have once again. It's nice. Monday, I bought groceries, did HW, and went to the gym three times. Tuesday, Lauren came over after her caucus meeting and only cried a little at the idea of me leaving for the summer. We hung out with Matt, Benson, Ellen, and Alesha and played a horror board game that's a mix between Clue and Choose-Your-Own-Adventure and HeroScape.

Cahoots to defeat Blobmonster Benson.

Wednesday morning I made waffles and we struggled to get Oldsmobile Orson to start up so I didn't have to lug my luggage over to the SFH. Six of us (including our teacher, Aaron,) saddled up in a 15-passenger van for the long, twisted road to Albuquerque, stopping only in Moab for tacos. Emily and I got set up in our very nice hotel suite and hit the hot tub for a few before going to BJ's Brewhouse for dinner. You know fried calamari? The ones where you can still see their tentacles and little frillies? Surprisingly good. Also, steak.

Reminds me of l'Esterel, France.

Bucket list: camp in Moab.

After a hotel breakfast, Aaron picked us up for our teacher, Ty Hopkins' presentation around 10. My clinical preceptor, Patty, checked us into the RMATA Conference (Rocky Mtn AT Association) and was surprised that I actually own fancy clothes. Ty was awesome - he is a genius. Some ATCs were frustrated that he didn't provide a set cure for all ankle injuries, rather encouraged us to cater programs to individual needs. After a UT legislature meeting, we got lunch at Panera with Ty and Aaron - thanking Ty for his presentation, disregard for KT tape, and swiftness propose motions. From there, we learned about breathing interventions, talar dysfunction, and elbow conditions (which were all a nice review for our upcoming finals). Then I snuck into the adult eatery session (and got caught and reprimanded) and also met Randy, who I was supposed to introduce the following day.

Randy: the guy to talk to in writing policy.

Thursday night, we competed against thirty other teams at the annual QuizBowl, narrated by a patronizing man with a squeaky voice. And we killed it. We  were the top two teams until Round 2, Team 1 only bet 25% on a daily double. There was even one question that only BYU got right! My team was still in the lead by a large margin until, 5Q left, we had another daily double that nobody knew the answer to and only a few lucky guessers got correct. A bunch of people came up to us later saying that if our district wanted a chance at winning nationally, then they should send BYU. We ate away our misery at Bucco di Beppo, a family-style restaurant.

Team 1: Emily/Kevin/Chris // Team 2: Me/Matt/Larson

Friday we had to wake up early to attend the Student Symposium. NATA Director Chris spoke and, in an attempt to be approachable, gave us his phone number. I immediately texted him. Obv. Valerie gave us insights on interviewing appropriately. Susan McGowen crushed her explanation of the wide range of opportunities available to ATs - using Star Wars to highlight key points. In between presentations, we held various student competitions, including Trashketball and Speed Taping. Jeff told me that if I didn't win the taping, I had to walk home.

Won by a landslide - 34s later.

 After lunch, I went to the exhibits from various sponsors and innovative invitees in the main hall. Emily had her own poster on a case study she did with Dr. Draper. I got all the free swag and gave presenter some difficult, but pertinent, questions to sweat through. I introduced my guy, Randy, and also one of the sponsors, Tim from Biowave. We're all friends now.

Emily and Draper killing it.

 We left, taking Draper with us, to go to Aaron's favorite childhood resto: Taco Cabana. Funny moments with Draper: When he took off his shirt to show us his quadruple bypass scars. When Aaron was telling the story of how his brother was dared to eat at Taco Cabana dressed as a woman and Draper blurts out, What, did he borrow your dress, Aaron? Sassy Draper is the best Draper. We stopped by the temple that was closed before hot tubbing and watching Remember the Titans.

It's still weird that not everyone at the conference was LDS.

Saturday we were toast. We were tired, NOT hungry, and mentally worn. We still went to 2 presentations before skipping out in favor of Old Albuquerque. It was a delightful place with great fajitas and cheap hoodlum sweaters.

Aaron decided last-minute that he wanted to head back to Provo. We chilled at the conference while he packed And I had to take a picture with my guys: Hall of Famer, Tim (who claims he can tape faster than me) and BYU Women's Basketball ATC, Jeff. They're wonderful.

Tim gave me his cell #, so taping contest to come.