Only because it's spring

This week it has verily felt like late springtime. Well, except for one or two days where it was really cold and windy. I heard it snowed in Salt Lake, but I didn't see snow where I was, so it doesn't count for my desired snow in May. Hopefully it will snow sometime this month.

But spring classes started this week. I'm taking Editing for Publication (ELang 430, the capstone class of the editing minor) and Structure of Modern English (ELang 529). The editing class will be a lot of work, but I think it will be manageable. The professor is new and it's her first time teaching this class. I'm hoping that means she'll go easy on us. She seems like a nice person.

The other class is taught by Dallin D. Oaks. He's one of my favorite professors ever. He's hilarious, and in many ways he reminds me of me--he gets really excited by grammar and linguistics and remembers lots of stories. I had him for Semantics and Pragmatics last year. That class was really easy. I think this one will be a little harder, but it shouldn't be too bad.

I give myself mandatory study hours, but this term I'm giving myself fewer mandatory study hours, because it is generally impossible to do all the recommended hours for every class. This has given me a lot of free time, which I don't know what to do with. I have been watching Hulu because it has TV shows that aren't on DVD. I'm been watching the fourth season of Green Acres since the last three seasons aren't on DVD. The fourth season isn't as good as the second and third, but it's still funny.

The other show I've been watching is terrible, but it's like a train wreck and I can't look away. It's The Munsters Today, a remake that debuted in 1988. (All I can say is I'm glad I was a baby when all that 80s-ness was going on and I was too young to know what was happening.) It is awful. It's not just a bad remake of the original, it's just a bad TV show all around. The jokes are not funny at all ("If you wanted an animated family, you should have picked the Simpsons"), and the characters are completely unrealistic, even for a TV show about monsters. Why I have kept watching it (and why I will continue watching it), I don't know. Jan Terri may be a terrible singer, but she's entertaining. I don't know if I can say the same about The Munsters Today. NBC did a rather dark remake last October. I didn't particularly like that one, but it worked a lot better (it was basically a new TV show that had the same character names). But I often cringe when I read my old blog posts and see all my pop-culture references, so this is enough.

I went on two very spring-like runs this week. One was on Thursday evening. It was so nice outside. It was between 8:30 and 9:30 and it was still a little bit light out. I could smell the tree blossoms, and it just generally seemed like spring. My second run was yesterday during the day. It was a little warmer. I was wearing twelve-year-old sunscreen that I found under the bathroom sink (meaning it expired eleven years ago, not that it was for twelve-year-olds). The smell of sunscreen always makes me think of summer and Lagoon. Last year I couldn't go running during the spring. First I was all scraped up from fainting, and then I had problems with my right knee. This year I seem to be having some troubles with my left knee, but they're not as bad as last year's, and hopefully the exercises that helped my right knee will help my left.

On Friday I went to two free, local concerts. The first was the Rooftop Concert Series. I went with some people from my ward, Carrie and #Megan. We felt kind of out of place among all those hipsters. The only other Rooftop Concert I've been to was last October with the Lower Lights. I liked that one better--I guess I'm more of a folk person than a rock person. (I should specify rock music person, since I am a wannabe geologist.)

The other concert was at a new venue in the Wilk, the Wall. It replaced Outdoors Unlimited. For some reason I heard of the Wall but thought it was a climbing wall. It's a little nightclub thing that has a bar (with nonalcoholic beverages, of course) and food and tables, with a stage for bands to play. One of my roommates from three years ago, Alex Vincent, was playing in his folk band, so I went since I hadn't seen him for a while. My experience was kind of weird. I was sitting at a table by myself, waiting for my order of French fries, when a group of people I didn't know came and sat around me. There was plenty of empty space in the place, but they decided to sit by me. It was kind of awkward. Afterwards I went and talked to Alex, and it was good to talk to him, but we don't have a lot in common.

Yesterday my ward had a Cuatro de Mayo party; it was our second time at Kiwanis Park this week (the other time being for ward FHE). Then I had to go meet my parents at a wedding reception of one of my second cousins. I didn't even go through the line because I don't know anyone in that part of the family. My parents brought down some belts I had left at home and also my French textbook from last summer, since my roommate Jordan is taking the same French class. (Le français me manque souvent.)

I'm starting to feel the burdens of being ward clerk come upon me, but I have two assistants now, so that should alleviate some of it. I really see now how all the callings in the Church are intertwined and help everyone else.

Spring and summer really are the best times to be in Provo. It's going to be a fun summer.

The worst thing about spring is Women's Conference, when hundreds of middle-age women crowd campus and generally get in the way. I'm glad that's done with now.