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On Monday, my ward had an FHE with piñatas. But these were very fancy piñatas. They had candy in them, but none of it was Fourth of July candy, so I didn't have any. But they had non-candy options as well. I got a flashlight that requires D batteries. The batteries are probably more expensive than the flashlight. I got a thing of bubbles. They also had non-candy foods, so I got a pack of ramen and a bag of sunflower seeds.
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In all my time at college, I have never eaten ramen. I'm sure I had it during fall 2010 and 2011, when I was living at home, but actually at college, I've never had it. I know, shocking, right? Nor have I ever had macaroni and cheese. But I have had plenty of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Once I even had peanut butter and jelly spaghetti. I don't recommend it.
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Eating sunflower seeds made me remember my old job cleaning up sunflower seeds. It also made me remember filling up the food dish of the pet bird my family used to have. Once when my niece was only 2 or 3, I was putting the bird seed in the dish, and she came up and said to me, "Bird seed is so gross. I tried it once when I was a little bird, and it was yucky." I found it quite funny. She used an interesting presupposition trigger: "When I was a little bird" presupposes that she was a little bird. That's something I didn't know about her.
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This week I was studying for the final for my Structure of English class. For this class we learned all about ambiguity, so I have become sensitive to it. While I was studying, my roommate Bryton put Drano in our drain, since it had been backed up. Then later I was using the sink and I poked my head out and said to him, "Thanks for making our water drain." Then I had to poke my head out again, because I realized that what I said was ambiguous. It could be interpreted as "Thanks for making our water to drain," or it could be interpreted as "The water drain was made by you." Bryton informed me that he was actually the one to put the drain in the bathroom, so both interpretations of the ambiguity actually applied.
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On Monday I had my last class period for my editing class. Then the next morning I dreamed we had a substitute teacher who happened to be the Prancercise lady. Then on Wednesday I finished up my project for that class, and I was done with both the class and the editing minor!
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Wednesday was my Structure of English final, and I had planned to finish my editing project on Thursday, but then I realized that I could finish it up Wednesday, so I did. Then I was done with classes until Fall! The last time I finished up classes before an extended break was on August 11, 2011. I finished up my finals, then cleaned up my apartment for a few hours, then packed up my things and drove home. I was in the parking lot when my former roommate Tristram saw me and talked to me. He asked where I was living in the fall. At that point I didn't even know if I was going to be going to school in the fall, and if I did, I didn't know where I was going to be living. That was a long time ago. And this paragraph almost turned into my other blog.
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On Thursday night I went to go running, but then I found a patch of dirt with those abominable goathead plants. I had to stop and pull them up, because I feel a moral obligation during the month of June to pull them up when I see them. Why June? Well, in May they're not as visible, but in later summer they start to get their nasty seeds. These are evil plants. If you saw them, you might think they are kind of cute, with their little leaves and little yellow flowers. But they're not cute. They're diabolical. Their yellow blossoms become big pointy stars, and these stars break into five pieces, each piece looking like the head of a goat. The goat horns are super sharp. They pop bike tires and stab people. If I didn't have slime in my bike tires, I would have had to buy dozens of bike tire tubes on my mission. I think I only had to buy two or three tubes on my mission (one of those was because I didn't have slime at first).
Then walking back home, I found some more, some young ones, near a shaved ice stand. So I stopped and pulled those up. It was kind of awkward, since there were lots of people around, and I just stopped and pulled them up. One lady walked past and said, "Oh, those are those awful pokey plants, aren't they?" At least someone knows what I'm doing. Some toddlers saw me playing in the gravel, so they came over and played in the gravel. But they actually just played in the rocks or kicked them, whereas I was pulling up the evil plants from the rocks.
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I pulled up a bunch of goatheads on Thursday, but then it got dark. I went back yesterday to pull up the rest of them. My fingers and knees are sore from their stabbings. I would actually say my knees are sore not so much because of the stabbings, but because they are as hard as rocks, so it's like kneeling on little pebbles. I might have some small slivers in my fingers. This goathead area was a patch of dirt in a parking strip on 900 East. I don't know who it belongs to, but I don't think they care, since people walk through it all the time, which is probably why they keep it as dirt. But if they didn't keep it as dirt, there wouldn't be as many goatheads, which are a menace to society. So I felt justified pulling them up. I filled up a grocery bag with them.
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It's kind of satisfying to look at the big patch of dirt and see that it is free of goatheads, thanks to me. But then I walked by today and saw a few small ones. I don't know if they were ones I missed, or if they grow fast (which is a scary thought). I know more will grow there, since there are lots of hidden nefarious seeds in the dirt. But I feel satisfied knowing that I prevented so many more seeds from growing. These plants are just like bullies: They don't deserve to exist. Fruit plants are kind in their reproductive patterns, in that they provide a lovely, edible fruit. But goatheads are selfish and mean and just make pokey things to stick in animals. I hate them so much!
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Provo at this time of year reminds me of East Wenatchee, WA, my second mission area. Both places have smelly trees. Both places have goatheads. And both places have nice neighborhoods with mountains to the east.
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This week I saw a trailer for a Thanksgiving movie, Free Birds. I don't think it will be a particularly good movie, but I'm excited for it simply because it's a Thanksgiving movie. Hopefully it will be clean enough for me to watch, unlike the Easter movie Hop. What is encouraging is that this trailer doesn't have the potty "humor" of the trailers for Hop and Hotel Transylvania. So hopefully it'll be more sophisticated and I can incorporate it into my annual Thanksgiving celebrations. But I don't want to get my hopes up in case it is inappropriate.
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This year I have been lamenting the fact that there aren't as many Fourth of July goodies as there were last year. But then I found some red, white, and blue M&Ms, which I haven't seen since 2007! It made me happy. I almost passed them by, because the bags look almost the same as regular M&Ms. I'm so weird.
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There was a broadcast about missionary work today. I could have gone to the live event in the Marriott Center, but I declined tickets. And I don't feel too bad about that, because half of the meeting was just video clips. They announced that missionaries can now spread the gospel online during the unproductive hour mornings. I think that's a good idea--on my mission I always hated mornings, because the only people who were home were old people, and they didn't want to talk to us.
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This has been long. I'd better sign off now. Good night!
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