Sunday, September 29, 2013

The Last Weekend at Age 24

I am officially a quarter of a century old.

Today is my birthday, although it doesn't feel much like a birthday--no presents, no cake, no ice cream.

It was also a fairly busy week, culminating in another field trip. Yay for field trips! This trip was for my groundwater class. Groundwater so far has turned out to be my most boring class--not because groundwater itself is boring, but because we have mostly done math and uninteresting labs. On our way to our field trip, someone asked jokingly why we didn't do this trip earlier in the semester (since it was so cold), and someone said it was because we didn't know anything about groundwater then. Then someone said that we still don't know anything about groundwater. (That comforted me, since I felt like I was the only one.)

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

On Friday, I had to miss my 3:00 writing class because we were leaving at 3:00. There were twenty of us students, two grad students, and our professor. We all loaded up in two geology vans and a truck and headed out to Great Basin National Park. This was just barely the seventh national park I went to at the age of 24, the others being Death Valley in November for Geomorphology, Kings Canyon and Sequoia in June with my family, and Zion, Bryce Canyon, and Capitol Reef for Geology 210.

Lots of people brought iPods, but I was the only one who brought a cord to plug them into the stereo. If I had known the kind of stuff we were going to listen to, I wouldn't have brought it. I was surprised that my fellow BYU students were listening to music and standup comedy with such utterly foul language. Sometimes I think my Lady Gaga is pushing the limits, but I had to listen to Gaga on my headphones in order to try to block out all the offensive stuff! I guess I could have asked them not to play that kind of stuff (after all, the only reason they were able to was because I brought the cord), but I feared man more than I feared God and didn't say anything. I think the next time I go on a trip like that (if I go on one again), I will say they can use my cord only if the content is clean--at least clean enough to be on the radio. The only stuff from my music we listened to was Mideau (another van mate had been to that same show); I didn't think this crowd would like a lot of my regular music. That's one of the problems with my personality: I let people walk all over me.

If you live in Utah (and I think most of my readers do), you know that it got cold this week. We drove through Eureka, UT, and there was snow there. We stopped in Delta for dinner and then headed out to the park. We arrived at twilight, so we had to put up our tents without much light. (I got there and realized that I had forgotten my flashlight. Oh well. I survived.) There was snow on the picnic tables at our campground. It was quite cold; we set up a fire. I'm usually apathetic about campfires, but I think this was the first time in my life I actually appreciated a fire for its warming quality. We roasted marshmallows (and I bought pumpkin spice marshmallows in Delta specifically for that purpose) and talked around the fire. I don't go around advertising that I'm not a geology major, but I enjoy it when I get a chance to tell geology folks what my major is and see their reaction. "Why are you taking this class?!"

Then it came time to go to bed. No one wanted to sleep in my tent, so I got to spread out, but it meant that all the heat came from my body. I wanted a really small sleeping bag for Geology 210, but small means cold. When I went to bed, I had on a thin hoodie and a thick hoodie, a beanie, pants, and two pairs of socks (one thick and one thin; I tried another pair of thick socks but they put too much pressure on my toes). I had a fleece blanket in my sleeping bag. I felt quite nice when I went to bed, and thought, "This won't be too bad!"

But it didn't last. I got quite cold. And there was one point when I felt decently warm, but I couldn't fall asleep for more than an hour. The one time when I felt I could have really slept well was when it was time to get up. I was really tired all day.

Our first stop on Saturday morning was Lehman Cave. I had been there when I was twelve, but that was twelve years ago. Our tour guide wasn't a geologist, so we may have known more about caves than she did. Caves form when water mixes with the carbon dioxide in soil and becomes carbonic acid. The carbonic acid then dissolves bedrock limestone. Then the calcium carbonate that is in solution will deposit again as travertine, making the stalactites and stalagmites and other features.

Caves are pretty cool. The problem with Lehman caves is that lots of early explorers did lots of damage. Some of the broken stalactites had new formations, which allowed us to see how "fast" the caves grow. The stalactites only grew an inch or two in like a hundred years!

I was reluctant to take pictures, because I knew they would be awful, but I did take some.
The cave tour was the most interesting thing we did. After that, we went around with a biologist PhD candidate who worked at the park. He took us to a well that the USGS installed.
When you take the lid off, there are three pipes (wells) that go down into the ground. We measured how deep they were and where the water came up to. I didn't understand everything that went on with the wells, but I do remember that the shallow well had the water come up higher.

Then we saw a place with limestone cliffs. I think that the sudden cut in the cliff comes from where a stream once eroded it away, but eventually that stream joined another stream. Something like that. I didn't quite get it.
I do like September snow, even if I have to sleep in the cold.






The rest of the trip consisted of going to different springs and using a machine to measure the chemistry of it. I didn't understand all of it. One of the things we measured was the amount of dissolved oxygen. If there is not much oxygen, then it means there are lots of nutrients in the water. Therefore, springs without much oxygen will have fluorescent algae that take all the nutrients. We took the measurements at different springs and compared them to others to see whether or not they were part of the same aquifer.This spring was one of our last stops actually in Great Basin National Park.
The rest of the time was in Snake Valley in Utah. You may remember the controversy that Las Vegas wants to pump water away from the ground. Snake Valley is the place that would be devastated if they did so.

At one spring, we had to crawl under a barbed wire fence onto private property. (We're geologists. We do what we want.) There were these two horses there who kept following us around. Really--we would walk, and then they would follow and hang around. The black horse was a little shy, but the white one was really friendly. It kept going up behind people and sniffing them. I don't care to be by animals, so I tried to make sure someone was always between me and the horse. The horses seemed a little skittish (though fascinated by us), so I worried they might bite or kick or trample us. (They didn't.) They were kind of distracting. The box that we put the chemical-analyzing meter in was on the ground, and the horses went up to it and sniffed it and even bit it. It was funny.

After we were done at the spring at that location, we closed the lid and walked away. The horses stayed behind and sniffed the lid where we had just been.
And once their curiosity had been satiated there, they followed us yet again while we looked at a groundwater meter installed by the Utah Geological Survey. Then we had to climb under a barbed-wire fence again, while the horses sadly watched us leave.

Then we walked across the road to another spring.
This spring also did not have much dissolved oxygen, so it had fluorescent algae. It was part of the same aquifer as was on the horses' property. This was a small pond, complete with ducks, but it was entirely from groundwater, not from runoff.
The soil here had lots of water so that one person could jump on the ground and everyone around would feel the ground shake.

We went to another stream.
There were lots of mudcracks at this stream. Some of us played a spontaneous game of catch with one of the dried-up pieces of mud. Normal mudcracks break when you step on them, but some of them were so huge that they didn't even break when I jumped on them.

Our final stop was at some hot springs. This water was warmer than all the other springs we'd visited. None of us had swimsuits (since no one told us there were hot springs), but it's just as well, since the pool was pretty small, certainly not big enough for a class of twenty people. There was a stream at the bottom, and then we had to climb up a hill. We took off our shoes to get across the stream, and then had to climb barefoot up the hill. The stream deposited tufa--a sharp precipitated limestone--so that was painful to walk on. But the gravel and dry grasses weren't too comfortable to walk on either. I got a cut on the bottom of my foot, but hopefully it will heal soon. (I learned this week in my corpus linguistics class that our term "tenderfoot" was a mining term that came from newcomers literally having tender feet. I couldn't help but think of that word as I stepped gingerly up and down the hill.) I dangled my legs in the spring at the top; it was like warm bath water. But we couldn't stay long, so it was back down the hill and back to the vans.

Then we drove back home, listening to foul comedy.

This was probably one of the most boring of my posts that you've ever read. That's OK. It was one of the most boring geology field trips I've been on. But a boring geology trip is still funner (yes, that's a word) than most other things that go on in my life.

Sunday, September 22, 2013

Johnny Tremain

This semester is (or was) going to appear to have rather calm Sundays. Last week I wrote on both of my blogs and still had time left at the end of the day that I didn't know what to do with. Church starts earlier now, so I have more time in the afternoon. (That's a bad thing, because then I want to take naps, which means I won't fall asleep when I go to bed. I'm not looking forward to the two hours of lying awake that I know will happen tonight.) I have made it a rule that I don't do homework on Sundays unless it is of a religious nature. I know that's not a commandment, but it's my personal choice. I don't have any religion classes this semester, which means no Sunday homework.

Except that tonight was the first time in college that I've done non-religious homework on a Sunday. You see, I have some classes in which I have to do the homework assignments on the weekend. But I spent my weekend frivolously by going home.

I wanted to go home in order to get ready for Halloween. My Nightmare Before Christmas CD was at home, so I had to add it to my Halloween playlist, which now has 102 songs. I wanted to watch Frankenweenie in 3D (I still can't believe my dad got a 3D Blu-Ray player). I gathered a bunch of Halloween decorations to put up in my apartment. I went grocery shopping with my mom and got all sorts of pumpkin- and pumpkin-spice-flavored goodies--Pop Tarts, M&Ms, granola bars, cereal bars--and Count Chocula.

It was also that time of year to make grape juice from the grapes that grow in our backyard. We get lots of leverage out of our home-grown produce--apricot jam, apricot cobbler, plum pie--but the grape juice is my favorite.

I didn't leave to go back to Provo until fairly late, since there was some kind of uninteresting event going on in Provo. I probably wouldn't have been ready to leave anyway. Then I came home and just had to put up Halloween decorations before I went to bed, and Carissa the horse visited me while I did so.

Thus I did zero homework on Friday and Saturday. I don't necessarily regret it; it was fun to rock out to the Mamas and the Papas with my mom, see my sister's new house, and take my grandparents out to lunch before they went to that uninteresting event. But it meant that I didn't have a very restful day of rest.

Johnny Tremain lost the use of his arm for breaking the Sabbath. All I lost is a few relaxing hours.

Sunday, September 15, 2013

glīwcræft

It was a weird week for wildlife. You probably heard about the bats in the Marriott Center, either from Facebook or from my other blog, so I won't talk about them here. Then on Friday, I was sitting outside on a bench near the Eyring Science Center. I thought I saw a deer nearby. Then it came running around the corner. It ran around and made a circle back to where it started. Then it came around again. It looked like its tongue was hanging out; it almost seemed as if a deranged deer was coming straight at me. It turned, but it was such a sharp turn that it kind of lost its footing and kicked dirt out of the little garden area. Then it kept going straight, and it almost fell over when it switched from dirt to concrete. Deer aren't as interesting as bats (they practically live in my yard at home), but it was still a strange experience.

Classes are still going good. Here's how they are looking:
The Senior Course for my major, a class that focuses on corpus linguistics, is probably my easiest class (at least so far)--not what I was expecting from a senior course. But we haven't really started doing much with the corpus yet. But I don't expect it to be too hard.
Old English doesn't have many assignments that are due, so I'm least motivated to study for it, but it probably requires the most studying for me to learn it. Old English is so weird. Last night I spent some time trying to memorize the pronouns. The first- and second-person pronouns are easy enough, but the third-person pronouns are crazy. Especially since there are four, sometimes five, cases we have to learn. I understand why English dropped all that stuff. One day after class, some people from the next class came in and saw the Powerpoint projected at the front. Several of them said, "What language is that?" I wish I would have said, "It's English. Can't you tell?"
Technical Communication seems to be a fairly easy class. Most of my classmates are from more technical fields, so often our professor will ask me if I can explain a particular principle or ask if I have an example, since I'm the only editing minor in the class. I feel I'm pretty good at writing, so it shouldn't be too bad.
Groundwater is a lot more math than I've done in a long time. Fortunately, it seems to be all algebra, which I can do. It is a lot of work (tomorrow's not going to be fun getting a big lab done), and so far it seems to be more math than geology, but it's all right. I'm at the point where I think that geology is more interesting than linguistics, but I'm more linguistically minded than scientifically minded. I'll stick with the linguistics (which is also pretty interesting).
Swimming for Non-swimmers is fun, but I feel like I'm not learning as well as I'm supposed to. I think I'm learning more than I would otherwise know, but I feel like I never know what I'm doing in class. I can't hold my breath. And I can't see without my glasses. I ordered some prescription-ish goggles, so hopefully those should arrive this week and make the class better.

Those are really all the classes I'm taking, since Geology 210 is over and the internship class is what I was already doing anyway (I just have to turn in some reports and papers).

On Friday I went to Provo's concert venue Velour. It was my first time there. And honestly it's not my kind of place. It's loud, it's crowded, it's hot, it's smelly--not my ideal place. But I went to see an indie-folk ("Of Monsters and Men" type folk, not "Peter, Paul and Mary" type folk) group called Mideau (MID-oh). I first heard them at the August Rooftop Concert Series, and I liked them enough that I would have bought their CD. But they didn't have a CD, so I bought tickets to their CD release concert instead, which was on Friday. Their CD was only available at the concert; there will be a wide release later. I really like them, and apparently so do lots of people. Their concert sold out before the show, and it was their first headliner show (the first time they were the main act)! The friend I was with has been to Velour many times and said it was the busiest she'd ever seen them. If they become the next Neon Trees or Imagine Dragons, I will be able to say that I was at their first headliner show and that I bought their first album the day it came out (#hipster). Here is a video with samples of their album:

Then Jan Terri's album comes out tomorrow. Between Mideau, Jan Terri, and my new Halloween music, I'll be on music overload!

Sunday, September 8, 2013

A Grand Deluge

Ah, what a week!

Monday, Monday, so good to me, was Labor Day, and my last day before classes started. My parents came by in the morning and took me out to brunch. Then I had to finish up my field notebook for Geology 210. I bought some roast turkey socks that I plan to use for Thanksgiving, and then I had to shave. This was the final result of my beard:
 (There is a picture of Jesus that used to hang in my aunt's house and that used to be a tiny magnet on our fridge at home [I Googled but couldn't find it]. I think I kind of look like that picture here, and I didn't even try to do that. Is that blasphemous?)

I am allowed to have a mustache at BYU. But this, folks, is why I do not.

Then Tuesday was back in classes. After turning in my 210 notebook, I first went to Groundwater. Last year I had to choose between taking Groundwater and Geomorphology. If I took Groundwater, I could have taken Middle English, but I decided on Groundwater. I'm glad I did that, because apparently last fall was the first time that professor taught, and he's toned down the workload now. Groundwater is a 400-level class, and I'm not sure but I suspect that once again I'm the only geology minor in the class. It even has two of the TAs from 210. Geology is a really small department (and I don't understand why, because it's awesome), so there are a lot of people that I've had other classes with. One member of my class used to be in my ward, but even though he moved out, his records stayed in the ward, and he never responded to my emails or texts. Now I will be able to accost him to get his records out of the ward. (There are several such people in my ward who moved out a long time ago but never moved their records and never responded to my requests. That really irks me. It makes me question their testimony and their integrity as human beings that they can't even be polite enough to respond. One such person is a famous athlete, and it really annoys me when I hear him on news reports talking about the Church. If you really like the Church, why aren't your records in your ward yet? </ soapbox>)

I also went to my first class of Swimming for Nonswimmers, but we didn't do any swimming that day.

Tuesday afternoon I went to get a new parking permit. When I went in to Aspen Ridge Management, there was a middle-aged man with a mustache. Walmart and my mission taught me that middle-aged mustached men are usually mean. There are exceptions, of course, but they're generally scary. (Young mustached men are just hipsters or wannabe hipsters. Mustached women are socially awkward.) Well, this guy was ornery. I don't know who we was, or why he was mad, but he was ornery. He kept asking to see a manager. People who insist on seeing managers are never up to any good. At one point the receptionist told him that her boss probably wouldn't want to talk to him with the way he was acting. We don't need any mean people. They should become nice instead. And if they are incapable of becoming nice, they should cease to exist.

On Wednesday I went to more classes. The senior course for my major differs every semester, depending on the professor. This professor is Mark Davies, who is the master behind the Corpus of Contemporary American English and the other corpora. Corpora are large bodies of text that you can look at to see how language is used or see how it changes.Our class will be focused on corpus work, which is exciting for me, because I sometimes use the corpora for fun.

Then I went to Old English. Our professor is actually from the English department, rather than from the Linguistics and English Language department. I'm kind of a snob, so I don't always trust English people. But hopefully it will be all right. Old English is nothing like Present-Day English, so it will be like taking another foreign language. (But it's only a three-credit class, whereas most language classes are four credits.)

In the afternoon I have technical writing. This is a class I have to take (well, I have to take some writing class), and it actually is an English class. Once again, there are some trust issues there, but I think I'll do pretty well, since most of my classmates are doing engineering or health. (I'm more trusting of English people who are into writing than I am of English people who are into literature.)

On Thursday we actually did swimming in my swimming class. We put on flippers and got kickboards and practiced kicking in the water. I didn't realize how exhausting swimming could be. (My main form of exercise is running. I had weird running this week. On Monday it started pouring right after I left. It was dark, so I didn't think it was safe to run in the rain, and after only ten or fifteen minutes I was completely soaked. On Tuesday I ran past a house where water was flooding into the gutter. I even had the nerve to go knock on the door to see if they knew what was going on, but no one answered.)

Then Friday night I went to the Rooftop Concert Series. I had advertised it on my ward's Facebook page, but I never heard from anyone. I went all by myself. It was lonely. I couldn't help thinking, "What is wrong with me, that I'm a quarter of a century old, and I'm at a concert all by myself?" I later learned that other people I knew went, but I didn't know they were there.

Then Saturday--what a day! In the morning I drove some people up to Alpine to the home of Brother Jensen, the second counselor in my ward. We ate pizza and had fun. And then the rain clouds came. We watched some clouds swirl and descend. It was cool. They said the sky was green, but I'm kind of colorblind with certain shades of green, so it just looked gray to me. (It's also a problem on geology field trips when people talk about green shale--it just looks gray to me.)

I didn't want to drive in driving rain, so we waited a bit before leaving. But eventually we left.

It was pretty wet. Driving wasn't too bad. But then at one point a car totally cut me off. They didn't just cut me off; they nearly rammed into me. I didn't have time to think; I could only react. I swerved and slammed on the brakes. Fortunately no one was to the side. I honked at them. I think they were driving pretty irresponsibly. Meanies!

As we got to Orem and Provo, it got really slow. I thought it was game traffic, but I think it was probably police clearing debris in the road from all the wind. At one point I went on a side street to get out of slow traffic. The street was all muddy, and there were rocks, some of them with at least a six-inch diameter, strewn all over the road. It was crazy. In geology, I have heard of streams carrying big rocks, but here I saw it for myself--and it was rain that did it, not regular streams! There were lots of broken trees.

Then after buying a journal at Deseret Book and two Halloween CDs at Barnes and Noble, I went to do my grocery shopping. As I was driving by Zupa's and Olive Garden, I was surprised to see waves on the parking lot. Waves in the parking lot! I had to stop my car to look. All I had with me was my phone, so I couldn't get pictures. But it was crazy. People were up to their knees in water. In a parking lot! I have never seen any weather like this before!
You probably saw my crappy video footage. (I shouldn't have panned across; I ruined the quality in doing so.)


Then today was a busy Sunday. The executive secretary told me we had meetings at 7 a.m., but they were actually at 8. Then after church I had to go to ward council, count tithing, update callings, and pull people's records in. But I'm getting assistants, so that should relieve me of some of the burden. I did clerk stuff while I watched the CES broadcast, but I didn't pay very good attention.

I wonder if any of the rain will be discussed in my groundwater class!

Friday, September 6, 2013

I turn my music up, part two

Two years ago, I made a blog post about the playlist I use. My favorite way to listen to my playlist is on shuffle--it's like my own personal radio station. It also allows me to easily put my various holiday music in and out according to the season.

In the past two years, my playlist has changed quite a bit. I have deleted some music, and I have added more. Although there is still some discrepancy between what is in my playlist and what I would like to have in my playlist, I do like my current playlist more than I liked the one back then.

So here is the list of the music I put in my playlist. This frequently changes, usually when I add music, but sometimes when I get rid of annoying or boring songs. Not to mention all the changes for holidays.

Cherie Call, 56 songs. I feel like I talk about Cherie Call enough that I don't need to talk about her here. I did delete most of the songs from her first album, because her first album really wasn't very good at all. I only kept the very depressing song "Two Story House." But lest you think I'm not a fan, I have bought her singles. She's great.



Taylor Swift, 39 songs. Two years ago, I said I didn't understand why Taylor was so popular. I still kind of feel that way, but I figured out the problem. My first Taylor album was her eponymous debut album, which isn't very good at all. I've retained only a few songs from that album, and even those I don't like that much. I really don't understand how she got popular with her debut album being mediocre at best--but I'm glad she did, because I like her other albums, especially Speak Now. (I actually haven't heard much of Fearless; it's the one album I don't have.) Do I think she's overrated? Absolutely. Don't let the numbers fool you; there are other musicians I like more than Taylor, but I've collected so many songs because she makes long albums. Like others, I get annoyed with her one-track relationship mind. But on rare occasions, she'll come out with a song about a different topic--like "Mean."

The Lower Lights, 37 songs. I think I first heard of the Lower Lights because Cherie Call is part of them. I first got one of their songs on Mother's Day last year, because I wanted a recording of "Israel, Israel, God Is Calling." I got a full album for my birthday last year, and now I have all of them. Whereas the Mormon  Tabernacle Choir sometimes sucks the life out of hymns, the Lower Lights puts it back in. I hope they work on another album soon.


Owl City, 36 songs. When Owl City released a new album (The Midsummer Station) last year, I didn't really want to get it, because so much of his music sounds the same. But I feel an obligation to him, since there are so few squeaky clean popular musicians these days. I wasn't disappointed. He has moved away from the predictable sounds of his early career. Some people say he sold out, but if he did, I'm glad he did. (I'm only sad he sold out on lyrics.) I like his last two albums more than his "Hello Seattle" and "Fireflies" days.


Coldplay, 32 songs. When I made the post two years ago, I said I wanted to get Coldplay's new album, Mylo Xyloto, when it came out. Two years later, I still don't have that album. I've just gotten bored with Coldplay. Oftentimes, when a Coldplay song comes up, I think, "Oh great, this song again." ("Oh great" is supposed to be sarcastic there.) If I got their latest album, I think I would like it at first (definitely better than the Parachutes or A Rush of Blood to the Head albums), but I think that once the novelty wore off, I'd be stuck with even more mediocre songs cluttering my playlist. I think "Viva La Vida" is the only song that I'm not bored by.
 

The Beatles, 25 songs. There are people who hate the Beatles and say they are overrated. But even if the Beatles are overrated (and I might argue that their early stuff is, but definitely not their later stuff), that doesn't mean they are bad. The Beatles are probably the most influential band ever. I think people who don't like them simply say they don't like them because they are popular. If you tell me you don't like the Beatles, I'm not going to trust your opinion on a lot of things. How could you not like "Let It Be," as one example?
 

The Monkees, 24 songs. I liked the Monkees a lot in high school, but I didn't like them much right after I came home from my mission. But now I like them again. They may have been a made-for-TV band, but that's no different than when people listen to Glee music (which is probably even worse). Probably my favorite Monkees song is "What Am I Doing Hangin' Round?" It's a cover of an old country song, but I didn't know that until my mission when I walked into an investigator's house and she was listening to one of the country versions.


Vince Guaraldi, 23 songs. I find that Vince Guaraldi is the only jazz musician I care to listen to on a regular basis. I used to listen to his songs from the 1970s Peanuts specials, but I got bored of them. A recent favorite CD I got was the Charlie Brown Suite, which was a live concert Vince did. It's Charlie Brown music with an orchestra. I don't listen to all of the songs, because some of them are slow--but others are a-mazing.


Lady Antebellum, 21 songs. I feel that Lady A has polarized my opinion of country music. I was mostly indifferent before, but I have really come to like their kind of country-pop sound--while your more stereotypical country sound (Garth Brooks, Scotty McCreery) I like less, because now I know what country can sound like. I'm not too impressed with their latest album, Golden--especially since I had to delete three songs for language--but their Own the Night album was great.

Kelly Clarkson, 20 songs. Does it make me a girl that I love Kelly Clarkson? (Kelly herself says, "Don't be a girl about it.") I was really sad that she was at the Stadium of Fire this year, meaning she was on my college campus, and I was out of town. I got her Thankful album for my birthday two years ago, and I found it good but not spectacular. Last summer I bought her Stronger album. It is one of my absolute favorite albums. I don't think there's a song I don't like (although my playlist doesn't contain "You Can't Win," since it's a little edgy). I'm really excited for her Christmas album this year. You've probably heard "Mr. Know It All" and "What Doesn't Kill You (Stronger)," but one of my favorites is "I Forgive You."


Imagine Dragons, 18 songs. I think the first time I heard "Radioactive" was on my trip to Death Valley last November. I liked it, and I was surprised when the person whose iPod was playing said that they were local. I remember one of the songs sounded familiar, but I don't remember what one (probably "It's Time"). I just barely got this album, so I haven't really listened to much of it yet, but I've liked what I've heard. I like them, and it's an added bonus that they, like Neon Trees, are Mormon. In case you've been living in a cave and haven't heard "Radioactive," here it is (although I don't like the way this video keeps pausing the music).


Simon and Garfunkel, 13 songs. I grew up listening to Simon and Garfunkel in my family, but I kind of forgot about them for a while. This summer I needed to buy some extra stuff to get free shipping on Amazon, so their Bookends album was something I bought (along with the Mamas and the Papas). I think a lot of people still like them, and that kind of surprises me. Not because I think they're bad, I just find it surprising. I think they are still popular because their music has a timeless sound. You can often hear music and pinpoint the decade it's from, but I think it's harder to do that with Simon and Garfunkel.


Of Monsters and Men, 12 songs. I'm glad that folk rock is popular now, because I really like it. And who would have guessed that one really good folk rock group is from Iceland? I really liked "Little Talks," so I heard some of their other stuff, and I liked it enough to use an Amazon gift card to buy their album. You've probably heard "Little Talks," but that's my favorite song on the album.


The Mamas and the Papas, 12 songs. While on road trips with my family this summer, I realized how great the Mamas and the Papas are, and now I'm hooked. They exude 60s-ness, but that's not a bad thing. I love their vocal harmonies, their folk rock sound, and Mama Cass's powerful voice. Considering that the Beatles and Simon and Garfunkel are still fairly popular, I'm surprised the Mamas and the Papas haven't resurged, especially with the current folk trend. I have their If You Can Believe Your Eyes and Ears album, which is wonderful. It has both "Monday, Monday" and "California Dreamin'," as well as many other great songs. "Monday, Monday" has been stuck in my head for two months now because I love it so much.


Christina Perri, 12 songs. I think when I got Christina Perri's lovestrong. album two years ago was the first time I realized folk music was making a comeback. She's just innocuous, Carpenters-esque music. I hope she stays that way, since I think her personality is a little edgier--as evidenced by her "Arms" video.


Mindy Gledhill, 11 songs. I liked Mindy Gledhill when I heard her on my mission, but she wasn't memorable enough for me to continue listening after I got home. Last month I saw her at the Provo Rooftop Concert Series, and I liked her, even more than on my mission (I think she has found her niche of musical style). She just has perky, lighthearted music.


Lady Gaga, 11 songs. OK. When I say I like Lady Gaga, some of you probably judge me. So I have to make some disclaimers. First, the songs I listen to are clean enough to be on the radio, or cleaner. (I once downloaded "Bad Romance," only to discover that it had swearing in it, so I deleted it. It was a wasted download. But a few months later I discovered that the swearing was edited. If I had known the song had those words in the first place, I wouldn't have bought it--but since I didn't want a wasted download, and since it was edited, I redownloaded it from my Amazon Cloud Player.) Second, if you look beyond the meat dress, the intentionally ugly makeup, and the outlandish wigs, she's really a talented singer. I have more dreams about her than any other celebrity, and they usually involve her going to church or otherwise hanging out with Mormons. I wish she were more virtuous; if she were, she would probably be my favorite singer. "You and I" is probably the most inappropriate song I own--but it's awesome.


Neon Trees, 11 songs. I first heard and liked "Animal" before I even knew that Neon Trees were Mormons in a band from Provo (although I still don't have that song). I liked their single "Everybody Talks," so when their Picture Show album came out, I thought I'd get it, especially since they're from Provo. I like them. But I wish their lyrics were a little bit more Mormon--no more Word of Wisdom problems or half-enunciated swear words.


Adele, 9 songs. I got Adele's 21 album the day after Mother's Day last year. As I've listened to her more, I've become a little bored with her, and two years ago she was extraordinarily overplayed, but I still like her.


The Black Eyed Peas, 6 songs. I know a lot of people hate the Black Eyed Peas, but I still kind of like them, although they're nowhere close to being my favorite. The problem is getting songs without swearing; I got their Beginning album for Christmas two years ago, but I could only keep half of the songs. You've probably heard their "Where Is the Love?" anthem from 2004, so here's another positive song I like, "Someday." (Even if you're a hater, I think you might find this song all right.)

Michelle Tumes, 4 songs. Michelle  Tumes is an Australian Christian singer. On my mission, I thought she could hold a candle to regular musicians--but now I notice that contemporary Christian music has a certain sound to it that will never make it popular in the mainstream.


Katy Perry, 2 songs. I got my first Katy Perry song after my roommate kept blasting "Part of Me" through the apartment when it first came out. Then when I downloaded Lady Gaga's "You and I," I figured that if I could download that song, I could certainly download "The One That Got Away."

Blue October, 1 song. I liked "Into the Ocean" when I was in high school--in large part because it was depressing. I used a free download a few years ago to get this song on Amazon.

Isabelle Boulay, 1 song. When I took French 321 last summer, we had to get exposure to French by doing things like watching news programs. I would watch news reports about music, and once Isabelle Boulay was a guest on the news program. I fell in love with her song "Fin Octobre, Début Novembre."


John Mayer, 1 song. I downloaded "St. Patrick's Day" because it mentions all sorts of holidays. I've considered counting it as a St. Patrick's Day song, but it's about too many holidays to do that. John Mayer is an all right musician, but I don't think he's anything spectacular, and I know he's kind of dirty. If there are lots of artists who make the same kind of music, why would I pick a dirty artist over a clean artist?


Michael Franti, 1 song. "Say Hey (I Love You)" is another example of a song that I once really liked, but I have become kind of bored of it.

Rachel Platten, 1 song. I first heard "1000 Ships" one cold morning in 2011 when I was on my way to work. I liked it, and then I heard it again at Burger King a few days before Christmas in 2011. Then one day I remembered it again, and eventually I bought it. It's really perky, although I can understand how it could get a little grating if you listened to her a lot.



The Original Caste, 1 song. I grew up listening to "One Tin Soldier," but the version was by Coven (a Satanic band, surprisingly!). I couldn't find the Coven version on Amazon, but the original version is also good. One of the most meaningful songs I own.


Jessie Clark (now known as Jessie Clark Funk), 1 song. Jessie Clark (Funk) is another artist I really liked on my mission, but now she's a little boring for lots of regular listening.


Ke$ha, 1 song. I know, right? "Your Love Is My Drug" reminds me of fall 2010.


Mumford and Sons, 1 song. I like "I Will Wait," although I think I mostly like it for the banjo. If I had to listen to the lead singer's voice too much, I think it would really get annoying. (I've been generally apathetic about the other Mumford and Sons songs I've heard on Pandora, but I probably haven't heard enough to form a valid opinion.)


Yep, that's what I listen to!

Sunday, September 1, 2013

Geology 210, week two

This week I had my second week of Geology 210, Field Studies. This week was very different from last week. Like almost entirely different. Last week was a very detailed study of one particular area; this week was a broader overview of numerous places. Last week was hiking all day; this week was mostly driving, with periodic stops. Being the lazy person that I am, I liked this week better.

(I make the same disclaimer I did last week: I am not a photographer, nor do I claim to be one.)

On Monday we met in the classroom to go over the geologic history of Utah and discuss some logistical things. Our professor was Dr. "Doc" Tom Morris. We were amused by his lexicon--"beefy burgers," "munchy bars," "groovy souvies" (souvenirs)--and his recurring expressions ("Screw your neighbor" and "If you can't see that [fault, rock contact, etc.], psychology is a great major"). We introduced ourselves to the class. There were three people in the class who were physical science education majors, and the rest were all geology majors. That means that in the entire class of about forty people, I was the only geology minor, the only person not in a major from the College of Physical and Mathematical Sciences, and the only person who didn't need to take the class. We got out in the afternoon, and it was only in the 70s, so I went running. I think it was the first time I've ever gone running during the day in the month of August.

Then Tuesday morning we were off again. We headed down on I-15. We got out at various stops and looked at the geology nearby.

While driving through Utah, I have often noticed hills with basalt capped on top. Now I finally know why they are there. If I understand it correctly, lava flows down to the bottoms of valleys and deposits as basalt. Basalt is more resistant than sedimentary rocks, so the surrounding rocks erode away, but the basalt remains. Since it is on the top, the rocks beneath it are not eroded. Therefore, the basalt was once at the bottom of a valley, but it is now on the top of a ridge. This is known as an inverted valley. We saw one near Toquerville.
A little further south, we stopped at looked at the stratigraphy. Normally I wouldn't care to show it to you,  but I was pleased with the image I made. (I'm not sure if I got the boundaries of the formations quite right.)
Rocks turn red when they are deposited in oxygen-rich environments. They turn red because of the iron. All of the rocks in the above picture are Triassic in age (around 247 million years ago). Utah was on the coast at that time, and these rocks deposited in a tidal flat environment.

Then we made it to Zion National Park. I went to Zion in 2002 and in 2010, so it wasn't entirely new to me. We set up our camp, then we went and got on the park's shuttle. I wonder how much we annoyed the tourists throughout the course of our trip, since there were around forty of us. On one of the shuttles, one of my classmates met some people from Russia whom he knew from his mission. ("That would never happen at the University of Utah," Doc said.)

We went to Weeping Rock, which is an alcove in the sandstone where water percolates through the sandstone, hits an impermeable layer, and then flows out until it can find someplace else to go--in this case, the alcove. One of the major formations of Zion is the Navajo Sandstone. Back in the Early  Jurassic (about 185 million years ago), Utah was covered in a sea of giant sand dunes, much like the Sahara Desert today. These sand dunes were turned to rock when groundwater rose and froze the sand dunes in place, forming the Navajo Sandstone. All throughout the park, you can see bedding planes of the ancient sand dunes.
The cement of the Navajo Sandstone (what holds the sand grains together) is calcium carbonate. As water flows through the sandstone, it dissolves the cement. At Weeping Rock, it deposits the calcite again as a kind of limestone known as tufa. (Prior to this class, I thought all tufa came from springs and formed around plants, but apparently that's not always the case.)

Another stop in Zion was the Checkerboard Mesa. I have seen it before, but I wasn't that impressed previously.
The Checkerboard Mesa gets its name from the vertical and horizontal lines. The vertical lines are fractures in the rock. The horizontal lines are the base of different levels of sand dunes. I don't think the Checkerboard is that amazing from a distance--but we got to go up close, and it was really cool.

We all climbed on the Checkerboard Mesa to hear Doc tell the story of Milutin Milankovitch, a story he told last year in a BYU devotional. Since I'm a scaredy cat and don't have good balance, I didn't climb as high as the rest of my class (Doc told us not to if we didn't feel up to it; there were also three girls who didn't go up all the way). There were several people who took pictures of us as they drove by. I guess we do provide a perspective for how big the mesa is.
The next morning (Wednesday), we left Zion after taking some measurements of the dip direction of the bedding planes of the Navajo Sandstone. One thing that this class (both this week and last week) has taught me is just how common faults are. We found numerous faults throughout the trip. This one is especially obvious, as shale is place directly next to limestone. I think that in this case, the limestone (on the right) was shoved upwards.
There was also a smaller fault at that same location.
Later that day we stopped at Coral Pink Sand Dunes. This is a relatively small dune field. We sat in the sand as we received instruction. Afterward, many people played in the sand, but I didn't because I got my fill at Death Valley, I didn't want to be sandy all day, and there were lots of plants in these dunes.
There was a fence placed to prevent cars from driving on the dunes, but apparently the dunes have migrated and partially eaten the fence.

Near Orderville, we got out and took a quiz. It was one that was very difficult (Doc told us we were all going to fail), so I was fine with my score. Then we headed toward Bryce Canyon. Outside of the park, we found this very cool fault, where basalt-covered rocks are lifted up against the red eroded rocks.
Then we headed closer to the park and stayed at Ruby's Inn Campground, where my family had stayed back in 2002. We just got to relax that afternoon. I wanted to go swimming, like others did, but I thought there was going to be a thunderstorm. There are some people whom I want to be in a swimming pool during a thunderstorm, but I'm not one of them. But the thunderstorm never came our way, so I could have gone. I took my swimming clothes for nothing. That night we went into the park to see Bryce, but we missed the sunset, so the pictures weren't the greatest.
Bryce is one of the most--if not the most--stunningly beautiful places I've ever seen. Can you imagine being one of the first explorers or pioneers to come across the place, having never heard of it or seen pictures? That would be so amazing! That night I bought a "groovy souvie" of a t-shirt, but I later discovered it was a ladies' shirt, so it doesn't fit me. *sigh*

The next morning (Thursday), we returned to Bryce to learn about it.
During the Eocene Epoch (about 55 to 35 million years ago), there were large intermountain lakes in Utah that deposited the Claron Formation, which makes up Bryce Canyon. So the rocks of Bryce Canyon aren't really that old. Bryce Canyon is pretty simple; there are three kinds of erosion that create the formations: headward erosion, downcutting, and slope retreat. (I don't understand those processes that well, so I won't explain them.)

We hiked down into the canyon. These icicle-like structures are from water both eroding and depositing mud on the cliffs.
These trees were pretty cool.

On the trail we even saw some bridges. We were stopped on the trail and Doc asked us what the difference was between arches and bridges. We didn't know, but a random foreign tourist did--arches are formed from seeping or percolating water, while bridges are formed from running water. We saw a few bridges on our walk. 
After we left Bryce, we drove through more locations in southern Utah. At one location, we got out and talked about the Navajo Sandstone. The sand grains in it are mostly made of quartz, which comes from igneous rocks. The sand grains of the Navajo formed in the Grenville formations of the Appalachians, a formation that formed 1 billion years ago. Eventually the igneous rock eroded until most of it was quartz, quartz being tougher than most other minerals. The grains were carried down by rivers into Utah, where they made up sand seas that covered four states. Then they turned into rock. Doc pointed out that there was no way they would be able to go through that many processes in a mere 6000 years. Doc said that the more he learns about geological processes, the more he sees the structure of the system and the more he believes in a creator--which is how I feel. Doc said there must be a purpose to our lives--otherwise he would probably eat his students instead of smiling at them.

I noticed another structure that looked a lot like the Checkerboard Mesa, so I asked Doc if it was the same thing going on. He said it was.


That afternoon we stopped at Twin Rocks near Capitol Reef. We climbed by the rocks and had to memorize the nearby Triassic formations. My camera battery was dead at this point, so my pictures from hereon out are all bad, since I had to use my phone or else had to use my camera really fast before it remembered the battery was dead.
Capitol Reef is the one of Utah's five national parks that I'd never been to. Doc likes it the most because it has seventeen geological formations, while Zion only has three. That night we set up camp, then we drove to a nearby town to get some "beefy burgers." It was fun riding back in a van full of twelve college students all rocking out to Queen. And people think that BYU students don't have fun!

Friday was our last day out in the field. In the morning, we went and looked at some more rocks. My favorite part was the reptilian trackway. These are part of the Triassic rocks. The currents in the rock indicate that the reptile was struggling against the current.

Then we went and saw the Goosenecks, which are meandering streams in the rock. These meandering streams are enigmas, because usually meandering streams form on flat surfaces. There are a few theories as to why these meanders are here; Doc thinks it's because the river follows fractures.

Then we went and saw various other places in Capitol Reef. I got another groovy souvie of a deck of Capitol Reef cards. We saw various other things in Capitol Reef, such as an outcrop of the Entrada Sandstone;
some dinosaur bones from the Morrison Formation of the Jurassic, when Utah was an alluvial plain;
and the "capitol" for which Capitol Reef is named. At least I think it's the capitol. The "reef" part of Capitol Reef comes from the sailors who named the area--the area was suddenly less navigable, just as a reef is problematic for sailors.
Our last place was closed due to a rockfall, so we went to another place nearby. Basalt boulders are all over Capitol Reef. We sat on some while we heard Doc lecture, but sitting on them was like sitting in an oven.
Then we loaded up and went home!

Then yesterday I spent about eleven hours retyping up my field notes, since we are graded on them. I'm not even finished yet. It was not my ideal way to spend the last Saturday before the semester starts.

But I will have three full credits finished at the very beginning of the semester!