2013

Well, it's the last Sunday of 2013, so it's time to recall what has happened over the past year.

January. I returned to Provo for winter semester classes. I took historical geology, geology of planets, Old Testament, phonetics and phonology, and Early Modern English. It was really cold for a really long time, and the air was nasty. On January 24, we had freezing rain, and I unwisely decided to go brave it. I meant to go to my phonetics and phonology class, but I ended up at the dentist instead, since I slipped on the ice and landed on my teeth. One tooth was killed as it was pushed back and severed a nerve, and others were chipped. There were lots of videos of the ice, and I actually know the guy who made this one:


February. A Gospel Doctrine lesson inspired to make a silly song, which my roommate recorded. The video shows my lovely droopy eye and my gaudy Valentine tie.

On Presidents' Day, I got a root canal for my dead tooth.

March. Some friends threw a "morning mourning bash" for my tooth before I went and "helped" my cousin Jesse move into his new house. On the day before St. Patrick's Day, I went on a field trip to Spanish Fork Canyon in which we saw many things, including reptile clawmark fossils.

On St. Patrick's Day, everyone was impressed with my green outfit. On the day before Easter, I went to a funeral of an old family friend.

April. I went to a mission reunion in Draper on conference weekend. My church calling was upgraded from assistant membership clerk to THE ward clerk, which meant that from then on I've had to attend bishopric meetings and ward council. My roommates Scott and Cameron moved out, and the semester ended. There was a tarantula who owned more stuff than anyone I have ever known.

My final for my Early Modern English class consisted of writing a hymn based on scriptures, and I was pleased with mine. During my short break, I went with my parents to see a Mummies of the World exhibit. When I returned to Provo, I met my new roommate Jordan. I had my first day of spring classes, but my only class that day was the editing capstone class.

May. I had my second day of spring classes, and I finally had my structure of English class--a class in which I learned all about ambiguity, so I'm now very good at seeing ambiguity. I went to the first Rooftop Concert Series of the summer, although I don't remember much about the performers. I think I went swinging at Kiwanis Park a couple of times. Jan Terri released a new video.


June. I finished up all the work for my spring classes, and then summer term started. But I didn't take summer classes; I just increased my work hours and had a nice, relaxing summer. A few times I went and pulled up evil goathead plants, a tradition I plan to maintain. At the end of the month, I drove with my parents to California. We went to King's Canyon and Sequoia National Parks, where we met up with my brother and his wife and my three nephews, Preston, Franklin, and Nathaniel.

On the last day of the month (my mom's birthday), we drove to their house in the Bay Area.

July. I got sick at Six Flags, which made the Fourth of July not very good. I was amused by the goodie bags my nephews got on that holiday.

On July 6, we drove all my nephews home to Utah. I went back to Provo, but I visited on weekends. Eventually it was time to take them back to California, so we drove to California again and went to Disneyland. Then we had to drive back to Utah, nephewless. The air conditioning in my apartment went out for two weeks, and my roommate Bryton moved to Mexico to work at their MTC.

August. I went to another Rooftop Concert--all by myself--but I liked Mindy Gledhill and really liked Mideau. My roommate Chad moved in, but he tends to have different hours than I do, so I don't see him much. I went with ward members up Provo Canyon to go see a meteor shower. It was cloudy at first, but eventually we saw some good ones. Then my summer ended two weeks early so I could go on geology 210. The first week we went to Little Cottonwood Canyon and made a geologic map of the area--Tintic Quartzite, Mineral Fork Tillite, Maxfield Limestone, Ophir Shale, and Alta stock were all terms we became familiar with. Then we had an unseasonably cool Monday before I headed out for the second week of 210. On that one we went to southern Utah, going to Zion, Bryce Canyon, and Capitol Reef.

Our ward boundaries were rearranged.

September. I shaved my beard from 210 on Labor Day. My roommate Scott moved in (not the same one who had moved out) that week. I started fall classes, taking groundwater, swimming for non-swimmers, the senior course for my major (the section being about corpus linguistics), Old English, technical writing, and internship credit. We had a crazy rainstorm that flooded Provo.

I went to another Rooftop Concert by myself, but the following weekend I went to Mideau's album release--an album that is probably my favorite music purchase from 2013. I got ready for Halloween, and then the last weekend of the month I went on a cold field trip for groundwater. We went to Great Basin National Park, and it wasn't terribly interesting, although Lehman Cave was fun. The day after we got back, I turned 25.

October. On conference weekend, I went to the final Rooftop Concert, even though it wasn't on a rooftop because of the cold. It was the Lower Lights, and I always love them. I was with Kristen and Carissa, two horses. My roommate Scott got to learn all of my eccentric viewing habits, as I watched my cheesy Halloween shows. I carved a Jack jack-o-lantern, and on Halloween I went to a tri-stake Halloween party and got my face painted.

November. I got lots of clearance candy corn for Thanksgiving, and I had to share with my roommates. I lost a flash drive, but luckily I found it again. I went home for Thanksgiving, which was at our house, and I saw wild turkeys when I went running in Bountiful. There were only two movies I saw all year, and I saw both of them in November--Free Birds and Frozen. Frozen was really good; Free Birds was perfectly mediocre, but a mediocre Thanksgiving movie is better than an ordinary mediocre movie.

December. My roommate Scott loves Christmas, so I went caroling one Sunday with him and made wassail for his Christmas party. I finished up winter semester classes, doing a very nasty lab writeup for groundwater. Then I went to my cousin's wedding reception in Fillmore, and then on Christmas day I flew with my parents to California to see my nephews again. Nathaniel has been telling us about his sixteen (or "hixteeng") new houses, each with a swimming pool. 

In this picture, he is trying to push the log over.

In 2014, I am going to graduate. Hopefully that also means I'll get a real job, or I'll be in trouble. I have no idea what the year is going to be like. That's kind of a scary thought. 

Groundwater is six feet under

On Friday night I had the glorious experience of coming home and seeing my phone's weather app change to North Salt Lake and seeing presents under the tree and stockings on the fireplace. There's really no place like home for the holidays.

Of course, it wasn't all peaches and cream (or, to make it seasonal, gingerbread and eggnog) to make it to that point. It was, after all, finals week. For Old English, I had to translate eighty lines of poetry. It was fairly easy.

But groundwater was just annoying. I had to write a big nasty lab report. They are no fun to write or do. With my other geology classes, I can learn about concepts and explain them to you, as evidenced by various blog posts. That's not the case with groundwater. It was all equations and math. We learned all these equations, but I don't know what the equations mean. I have a basic understanding of groundwater, but not as much as I had hoped. I was talking with one of my classmates about that, and he said it's sad that that's how I'm ending geology. I'm taking geology seminar next semester, but that doesn't really count as a full geology class.

I finished my report Thursday afternoon, and I was all done with all my classes! That's a great feeling. Then that night I went to the last of the tithing settlement appointments. (But come January, I'm going to have to deal with more tithing stuff. Ugh.)

The Salt Lake area got more freezing rain this week. That's the second time in 2013 with freezing rain, and yet in my whole life there's only one other time I've seen such weather. (And people say climate change doesn't exist?) Fortunately we didn't get any in Provo--I say "fortunately" because I am deathly afraid of ice. I don't believe that God spared Provo just because of me, but I'm glad that's the way it happened.

I would have gone home Thursday night, but the snow and ice made me stay in Provo an extra night. The next day was my cousin Amory's wedding. My parents swung by to take me to Fillmore, where the reception was. On the way I tried to play my Christmas playlist from Google Play on my phone, but it didn't always work. It's weird to me that Amory got married, because I remember when she was a baby, and here she is married and I'm not. I'm ancient!

Small towns fascinate me. They always have the best Christmas displays (I learned that on my mission). We stopped into the town grocery store to get a card, and the girl at the checkout asked who was getting married, and when we told her who, she said, "Oh yeah, the reception's tonight." That wouldn't happen in the city!

On our way back, my mom got a phone call but couldn't answer because of the signal. She sent a text that said something to the effect of "I'll call you back because we went to a wedding in Fillmore and the reception is terrible." Even non-linguistic people can appreciate the ambiguity there, but my linguistic mind finds that particularly enjoyable and hilarious.

Then I spent Sunday going to church in my home ward, getting out cinnamon and cloves to make wassail and gingerbread, and listening to Christmas albums by the Tabernacle Choir and the Lower Lights. It makes me feel so jolly.

I still have to finish my Christmas shopping.

And I wish my thirty readers a very merry, holly jolly, happy snappy Christmas!

The end is nigh

Well, all my classes are over.

My funnest classes--corpus linguistics and swimming--are completely gone from my life, and I don't have to worry about them ever again.

For technical writing, I have to show up on Tuesday for the final, but all that is is watching group presentations. My group already went, so I just have to show up and evaluate the others.

For Old English, I have to translate a passage and take it to the scheduled final on Thursday. We have been translating all semester, but we have had an online glossary that helps us translate. This translation will be more work, but hopefully it won't be too bad.

Groundwater--ugh. I have been working on the final project, but I think I still have a lot I have to do, not least of which is write the three-page report. In this class, we learned lots of equations, but I don't really understand what the equations mean. I don't have to finish until Friday, but I want to finish earlier--especially since other people are going to finish earlier, and I need to work with other people, or I will be completely clueless.

I submitted student ratings last night, including ratings for Geology 210. I was amused when it wouldn't accept my submission:

I think I've finalized my schedule for winter. I just need to get my textbooks now. I decided to drop Old English 2, which I'm a little bit sad about, but I ought to take another class instead that hopefully will help me get a job. It's a three-hour evening class, but it's only once a week, and this way I won't have any Friday classes! I'm going to do my internship for more credit, because I need more money. Also in the schedule are editing student journals, French, and geology seminar.

With Christmas approaching, I've been watching various Christmas specials. I've watched all four Charlie Brown Christmas specials, and all of them are good, since none of them are from the 80s, when Peanuts specials were at their worst. However, I think that they're not as funny as the strips, because the child actors don't say their lines the way I imagine they say them in the strip.

I also bought a DVD set with seven Christmas specials, six of which I didn't have. One of them is an odd one entitled Cricket on the Hearth. It was moderately charming at first, but halfway through it got weird. There was a seedy animal joint with an ugly cat in a slinky dress singing a song about fish and chips--and then three shifty animal characters were shot in cold blood! This was a cartoon from 1967!

There was plenty to laugh about this week. Like the dream I had that my bathroom was a tattoo parlor, and I was going to get a tattoo on my arm, but before I could make the down payment for my $22,000 tattoo, I realized I would be a hypocrite if I got one.

Jan Terri posted this gem on Facebook: "i will be om WGN morning tues at 9:60 singing rock n roll santa . turn in." "Wock and Woll Santa" is a great song, with its wonderful lyric "Jumpin' around like a house on fire," but Jan's announcement of her 9:60 performance made it that much better. 

I've consumed a few million calories* this week, due to eggnog, wassail, gingerbread, candy canes, cookies, and other goodies. The air quality has kept me from running, so I'm going to become nice and "jolly." Then after New Year's, nothing is in season except for hot chocolate. Hopefully the air will clear enough that I won't be so jolly anymore. 

*Thanks to my mom for pointing out that I originally said "categories" instead of "calories."

Brrr...

Well, this week was the first time I saw snow actually sticking to the ground this season. I saw snow falling last month, and I saw snow on the mountains as early as September, and in September I saw snow on picnic tables in Great Basin National Park, but this was the first time I saw it snow and stick at the same time.

Because of the lack of snow, November seemed very Novembery, but it seems like the weather has jumped from November to January. Not only did it begin snowing, it got really cold. People think that snow makes it feel like Christmas, but when it's so cold out, to me it seems more like post-Christmas depressing January.

After breaking my teeth in January, I have become terrified of ice. On Tuesday I went home earlier than I had planned because I wanted to get home before snow became ice. I've worn ugly shoes because they had better traction. I've worn really bulky gloves because then I can hold on to snow-covered railings without getting wet. I've joyously crushed and kicked ice and snow around so that it will melt faster. I chose a running route that I thought would be less icy, although there still were some icy patches. (Running in fifteen degrees was surprisingly easy, but probably because I was going slow so that I wouldn't slip.)

On November 30, I hit my four-year mark of being home from my mission. The length of a mission ago, I had been home from my mission for the length of a mission. The anniversary passed and I didn't think about it until the next day, when someone asked me how long I'd been home. I've had some reminiscing of the mission.

I've been listening to my Christmas music intermixed with my regular music, and one song that came up was on a MoTab CD I brought on the mission--the only CD I had when I entered the MTC. As the song came up, I had flashbacks to my very first week in Spokane, riding around in our car in Mead, WA. I had just moved in with the Welshes, an elderly couple, and their home teachers had given us some cookies. I really didn't know what was going on. I didn't know the area, and I didn't know anything about missionary work. It was kind of an odd time to remember.

The next Christmas, my companion, Elder Love, had lots and lots of MoTab Christmas CDs. But our favorite was the one I bought that year, Rejoice and Be Merry! with the King's Singers. When I hear that album (and lots of other MoTab songs), I remember driving around Davenport, WA, and all the other tiny towns.

The cold has also helped me reminisce, as the gloves and boots I've been wearing were ones I wore on the mission. My snow boots are way too big--the Walmart in Airway Heights, WA, didn't have any in my size (either that, or we got tired waiting for someone to help us).

It took me two years of being home before I was no longer sad not to be on the mission. I've moved on with my life. But once in a while, when I hear a song that I associate with my mission, I get a little twinge of sadness that that part of my life is over and will never come back. If I were to go back, I know that hardly anyone, if anyone, would remember me, especially since I look very different. It's a little sad.

This week is the last week of classes! All of my finals are final projects, rather than true exams. I'm just worried about groundwater, because it's a really big project, and I don't remember how to do it all. But I have two whole weeks, and I can work with other people, assuming I can get a hold of any of them.

I thought that this semester was going to be relatively easy, since I had three credits already out of the way, but it didn't turn out that way. I'm so glad, though, that I did have those credits out of the way, because I don't know what I would have done otherwise! I'll be glad for technical writing, groundwater, and Old English to be over (even though I'm taking Old English 2), but I'll be sad for swimming and corpus linguistics to be over. (I could take another corpus class, but I would have to drop French next semester, or at least take a different section, but I want to stay in the current section because I'll be with my roommate and have a built-in study buddy.)

The giving of thanks

Thanksgiving is the best weekend of the year. It's also the longest (since Christmas isn't really a weekend). What's not to love about it? You get a much-needed break, you get lots of good food (and pecan pie!), you get to get ready for Christmas, you get to visit with relatives (some of whom are more enjoyable than others--but I think everyone who reads this is on the "more enjoyable" side), you get to see movies, and all sorts of pleasant things!

On Monday, FHE was cancelled, so instead of doing homework (which is what really needed to be done), I went running. It was the first time I'd gone running on 900 East since they finished construction. BYU decided to close East Campus Drive, so now 900 East is a lot busier. They've added an extra stoplight, they've widened the sidewalk, and they've added another turn lane to the intersection at 900 and the road that becomes University Parkway. It means that you have to wait a long time at intersections now. I'm not sure how I feel about that. Especially since it's no longer so easy to drive to, say, the Marriott Center from south campus.

Then on Tuesday I went to my Old English class, and only three of us were there, so class was cancelled. A lot of people in that class are in my corpus linguistics class the hour before, and that class was cancelled, so I guess they didn't think it worth coming. (It isn't the most helpful class.) Then I drove home!

On Wednesday my mom and I went and did errands for Thanksgiving. That afternoon I went running and saw a flock of wild turkeys by the Bountiful golf course. There were probably twenty of them. It was in the low 40s, which is perfect running weather, so my running was super easy. I listened to Thanksgiving music while cleaning and such.

On Thanksgiving, we had a repairman come and remove our swamp cooler. Yes, on Thanksgiving. I went running again, hoping to see turkeys again, but I didn't. That run wasn't as easy (since it had been less than 24 hours since my last one), but I made it. I also helped with the final preparations for Thanksgiving, since it was at our house. The turkeys didn't get done in time, so dinner began as a vegetarian meal. But then the turkeys came out of the oven, and Thanksgiving was complete.

Then Thanksgiving ended, and on Friday the Christmas season began. I started listening to Christmas music. I have over 500 Christmas songs! I have some weird Christmas music, but some of it is quite lovely. I enjoy the Lower Lights' new album, and because I've been listening to Kelly Clarkson's new Christmas album, I had a dream that she was one of my roommates and had served a French-speaking mission. (Surprisingly, that's not the first time I've dreamed she was an RM.)

On Friday my family went and saw Frozen. It was quite good; I think I liked it more than Tangled. It was the second movie I'd seen both this month and this year (the other being Free Birds). I rarely see movies.

I also got a blue poinsettia.

Then Saturday, after putting lights on the Christmas tree, I had to return to Provo. My roommate Scott got a live tree and put it up.

I love  Christmas, but it sometimes makes me feel sad for some reason. Maybe it's because I won't get to relax most of Christmas this year. Maybe it's because I don't get a very long break. Maybe it's because it's getting closer to January. But I will do my best to be happy.