There wasn't a whole lot that went on this week--which is good since I don't have a lot of time to write.
I registered for classes on Friday. These are, of course, subject to change, but so far I'm taking E Lang 326, English Semantics and Pragmatics, for my major, English Language; E Lang 350, Basic Editing Skills, for my minor, Editing; Geol 111, Physical Geology, for my other minor, Geology; Rel C 324, The Doctrine and Covenants, for religion credit; and Music 114, Beginning Piano Techniques 2, just for fun.
This week I overheard something one of my coworkers said. Our ensuing conversation went like this:
Me: "Did you say, 'Lorena's Mexican Restaurant'?"
Him: "Yes."
"Where do you live?"
"I live in Bountiful."
"Oh, I live in North Salt Lake."
"Did you go to Woods Cross?"
"Yes."
"When did you graduate?"
"'07."
"That's when I graduated!"
So I looked in my yearbook, and there he was, and we had no idea we were in the same graduating class!
Yesterday we saw Puss in Boots. It was pretty good, but I probably won't watch it again.
Today I got called in to meet with a member of the bishopric. They were going to extend a call to me to be an employment specialist. I was ready to take it, but then I made sure they know I'm only going to be in the ward for two more months. That made them change their minds (because my calling would require some training and/or meetings), so I'm off the hook.
Tonight we watched The Nightmare Before Christmas. Like always, I noticed stuff I hadn't before. There is just so much detail. The extra characters seem like real actors. They're not just standing in the background; they're actually doing stuff in the background. And did you know that in the "Making Christmas" sequence, there are numerous rats scurrying around on the ground wearing orange party hats? It's such a tiny detail, yet they took the time to do it!
Sunday, October 30, 2011
Friday, October 28, 2011
My third-favorite holiday
I love Halloween. I love holidays in general, but I love Halloween especially. It's my third favorite, after Thanksgiving and Christmas. But what's special about Halloween is that it's the first in a group of fantastic holidays after a long dry spell. July 5 is one of the worst days of the year because we have to wait so long before another holiday.
So, in honor of this glorious day that is upon us, I have decided to write some random thoughts about All Hallow's Eve.
Duration. I consider the Halloween season to last from September 15 through October 31. This is an arbitrary date, but that's how I do it. In the past I've had peculiar and elaborate guidelines for bumping the date up, but I've decided to keep it at September 15. This year I noticed an interesting pattern. I noticed a few houses that had their Halloween stuff up in early September. But the stores this year put their stuff out later than they have in the past. Strange!
Colors. Orange and black is a very Halloweeny color combination. I do not like it, therefore, when I see a recent trend in adding purple and green to the Halloween color scheme. I can see purple; I find it a little spooky. But the purple and the green is just going too far. If you take the black out, you have Easter colors! I think they may be fitting in some situations. Green and black can be an eerie combo on their own. For example, I have a pillowcase that's black with green bats, and it's awesome. But I don't like green and purple being thrown around with the same priority as orange and black. I think orange, black, and white is a much better combination than orange, black, purple and green.
Goodies. Those of you who know me know that when it comes to desserts and candies, I only east seasonal things. So after months of having nothing but popsicles (which end with August anyway), I'm glad to be able to eat unhealthily again. I get to eat year-round desserts with a seasonal twist (for example, donuts with fall-colored sprinkles or ghost-shaped sugar cookies), but I also get to eat uniquely Halloween things. Candy apples. Candy corn. And anything pumpkin--pumpkin shakes, pumpkin egg nog, pumpkin cookies, you name it.
Shows. I currently own twelve Halloween shows, and I watch one a day for the last twelve days of October. I have The Munsters' Revenge (a 1980s TV reunion movie), The Nightmare Before Christmas, Frankenweenie (an early short Tim Burton film), It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, seven Halloween episodes of old TV shows (four of Bewitched, two of The Addams Family and one of The Beverly Hillbillies), and a three-minute episode of the Peanuts Motion Comics Collection.
For me to consider it a Halloween show, it has to actually reference the holiday itself. So scary or eerie or creepy alone just doesn't cut it. Frankenweenie is a bit of a stretch in this regard. It has a bit of a silly, spooky theme to it. In one scene, you can see Halloween decorations in the background. If it were not for those Halloween decorations, I wouldn't add it to my seasonal lineup. Conversely, if there were a scene with those decorations in the background, but otherwise it was not spooky and it did not make more obvious references to the holiday, I also would not consider it a Halloween show.
Of these twelve, the Peanuts clip is the most recent (2008), but it is based on the comic strips of 1964, so it's not new material. So excluding that one, the most recent of those shows is The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993). But despite its young age, it has been a Halloween tradition for me for longer than all the others. My dad got it for my birthday when I turned six in 1994. I remember seeing the trailers for it on TV in 1993 but thinking my parents probably wouldn't let me see it. None of my family had seen it, but it was a worthwhile gift. It's one of our favorites. It's such an amazing movie. I have it literally memorized. I could tell you word for word all the dialogue of the entire movie. (The only rough spot would be that I get some of the lyrics mixed up in "Kidnap the Sandy Claws.") Despite my having seen it a million times, every time I watch it, I notice something I haven't noticed before.
Music. I have some Halloween music I add to my regular playlist. I have the soundtrack to The Nightmare Before Christmas, and I have two versions of Vince Guaraldi's "Great Pumpkin Waltz," the original one from the special and another version from two years later. I also have a little song called "Ghosts," which was a piece from my introductory piano course (so I can play that one!). I have a piano book which contains "The Great Pumpkin Waltz," but unfortunately I don't play so I just have to plunk along.
Memories. You remember my Halloween memory post? I remembered another detail about 1994: We went to my grandparents' that night. I only remember this because I remember that on the way back, a house in their neighborhood had a jack-o-lantern lampshade in the window. Since that time, I've wanted a jack-o-lantern lampshade.
Halloween costume FAIL. If you read the above post, you will note that I conveniently didn't write about my costume when I was 11, since Halloween was a Sunday that year. That's because it was incredibly stupid. At that time in my life, I was very weird and very nerdy. You're probably thinking, "You still are very weird and very nerdy." But no, I was really, really, really weird. At that time, I had a fetish for chess. Which I really don't understand, because I wasn't any good at it. I think I've won one game of chess in my life--and that was a few years after my fetish ended, and it was against someone who'd never played before. But I digress. I was obsessed with chess. So I decided I wanted to be a chess piece for Halloween. Sounds like a reasonable enough costume, right?
I decided I wanted to be a white king. If you've noticed, many chess sets have a cross on the king. So that was my costume. I had a white robe, I painted my face white, had a white hood, and a little cross on top of my head. I actually don't think anyone knew what I was unless they asked. They either thought I was some Christian zealot, or else a member of the KKK. How do I know this? Well, in the school costume parade, someone in my class was the devil with elaborate face paint, and one of the teachers jokingly remarked that I needed to go stand by him. At Boo at the Zoo, a woman--a complete stranger--came up to me and asked me what I was. And then when I was trick-or-treating, a neighbor kid asked me if I was supposed to be a member of the KKK. I think that's what everyone else was thinking. He was just the only one who said it out loud.
And one more thing. I went trick-or-treating with my friend David Christensen. What was his costume? A book. Yes, a book. He was wearing a box that said "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban," which was the most recent of the series at that point. (I actually don't think he had even read that one yet.) So there we were, two bespectacled friends, dressed as a chess piece and a book. Nerd Alert! Nerd Alert!
******
I could write a lot more about Halloween. But I'm tired, and you're bored to tears.
So, in honor of this glorious day that is upon us, I have decided to write some random thoughts about All Hallow's Eve.
Duration. I consider the Halloween season to last from September 15 through October 31. This is an arbitrary date, but that's how I do it. In the past I've had peculiar and elaborate guidelines for bumping the date up, but I've decided to keep it at September 15. This year I noticed an interesting pattern. I noticed a few houses that had their Halloween stuff up in early September. But the stores this year put their stuff out later than they have in the past. Strange!
Colors. Orange and black is a very Halloweeny color combination. I do not like it, therefore, when I see a recent trend in adding purple and green to the Halloween color scheme. I can see purple; I find it a little spooky. But the purple and the green is just going too far. If you take the black out, you have Easter colors! I think they may be fitting in some situations. Green and black can be an eerie combo on their own. For example, I have a pillowcase that's black with green bats, and it's awesome. But I don't like green and purple being thrown around with the same priority as orange and black. I think orange, black, and white is a much better combination than orange, black, purple and green.
Goodies. Those of you who know me know that when it comes to desserts and candies, I only east seasonal things. So after months of having nothing but popsicles (which end with August anyway), I'm glad to be able to eat unhealthily again. I get to eat year-round desserts with a seasonal twist (for example, donuts with fall-colored sprinkles or ghost-shaped sugar cookies), but I also get to eat uniquely Halloween things. Candy apples. Candy corn. And anything pumpkin--pumpkin shakes, pumpkin egg nog, pumpkin cookies, you name it.
Shows. I currently own twelve Halloween shows, and I watch one a day for the last twelve days of October. I have The Munsters' Revenge (a 1980s TV reunion movie), The Nightmare Before Christmas, Frankenweenie (an early short Tim Burton film), It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, seven Halloween episodes of old TV shows (four of Bewitched, two of The Addams Family and one of The Beverly Hillbillies), and a three-minute episode of the Peanuts Motion Comics Collection.
For me to consider it a Halloween show, it has to actually reference the holiday itself. So scary or eerie or creepy alone just doesn't cut it. Frankenweenie is a bit of a stretch in this regard. It has a bit of a silly, spooky theme to it. In one scene, you can see Halloween decorations in the background. If it were not for those Halloween decorations, I wouldn't add it to my seasonal lineup. Conversely, if there were a scene with those decorations in the background, but otherwise it was not spooky and it did not make more obvious references to the holiday, I also would not consider it a Halloween show.
Of these twelve, the Peanuts clip is the most recent (2008), but it is based on the comic strips of 1964, so it's not new material. So excluding that one, the most recent of those shows is The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993). But despite its young age, it has been a Halloween tradition for me for longer than all the others. My dad got it for my birthday when I turned six in 1994. I remember seeing the trailers for it on TV in 1993 but thinking my parents probably wouldn't let me see it. None of my family had seen it, but it was a worthwhile gift. It's one of our favorites. It's such an amazing movie. I have it literally memorized. I could tell you word for word all the dialogue of the entire movie. (The only rough spot would be that I get some of the lyrics mixed up in "Kidnap the Sandy Claws.") Despite my having seen it a million times, every time I watch it, I notice something I haven't noticed before.
Music. I have some Halloween music I add to my regular playlist. I have the soundtrack to The Nightmare Before Christmas, and I have two versions of Vince Guaraldi's "Great Pumpkin Waltz," the original one from the special and another version from two years later. I also have a little song called "Ghosts," which was a piece from my introductory piano course (so I can play that one!). I have a piano book which contains "The Great Pumpkin Waltz," but unfortunately I don't play so I just have to plunk along.
Memories. You remember my Halloween memory post? I remembered another detail about 1994: We went to my grandparents' that night. I only remember this because I remember that on the way back, a house in their neighborhood had a jack-o-lantern lampshade in the window. Since that time, I've wanted a jack-o-lantern lampshade.
Halloween costume FAIL. If you read the above post, you will note that I conveniently didn't write about my costume when I was 11, since Halloween was a Sunday that year. That's because it was incredibly stupid. At that time in my life, I was very weird and very nerdy. You're probably thinking, "You still are very weird and very nerdy." But no, I was really, really, really weird. At that time, I had a fetish for chess. Which I really don't understand, because I wasn't any good at it. I think I've won one game of chess in my life--and that was a few years after my fetish ended, and it was against someone who'd never played before. But I digress. I was obsessed with chess. So I decided I wanted to be a chess piece for Halloween. Sounds like a reasonable enough costume, right?
I decided I wanted to be a white king. If you've noticed, many chess sets have a cross on the king. So that was my costume. I had a white robe, I painted my face white, had a white hood, and a little cross on top of my head. I actually don't think anyone knew what I was unless they asked. They either thought I was some Christian zealot, or else a member of the KKK. How do I know this? Well, in the school costume parade, someone in my class was the devil with elaborate face paint, and one of the teachers jokingly remarked that I needed to go stand by him. At Boo at the Zoo, a woman--a complete stranger--came up to me and asked me what I was. And then when I was trick-or-treating, a neighbor kid asked me if I was supposed to be a member of the KKK. I think that's what everyone else was thinking. He was just the only one who said it out loud.
And one more thing. I went trick-or-treating with my friend David Christensen. What was his costume? A book. Yes, a book. He was wearing a box that said "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban," which was the most recent of the series at that point. (I actually don't think he had even read that one yet.) So there we were, two bespectacled friends, dressed as a chess piece and a book. Nerd Alert! Nerd Alert!
******
I could write a lot more about Halloween. But I'm tired, and you're bored to tears.
Sunday, October 23, 2011
The purple-people-eater basketball coach was centuries too early.
This week was looking to be relatively uneventful. I worked late Monday through Wednesday, and I would have worked late Thursday if I hadn't gone to the temple with my parents. (I still worked later than I was scheduled, though.) Friday was our only calm day, so I was finally able to go running that night. As I was driving to go to my starting spot, there was an elderly man wearing a purple shirt, purple athletic pants, and a non-purple hat walking backwards up the exact middle of the road. I drove closer to the side of the road so I wouldn't hit him, but then he turned around and almost walked right in front of me. As he did this, he had the biggest grin on his face. It was so strange and random I burst out laughing.
But yesterday was a little more out of the ordinary. My parents and I got up early for a day trip down to Price and Nine Mile Canyon (which, by the way, is more than nine miles long). We were supposed to get back in time for our stake conference evening sessions, but we didn't get back until 7:00, which was when they started. So we were heathens and skipped our meetings.
We went to the prehistoric life museum in Price (where their slogan is "Death Elevated"). I don't understand why the College of Eastern Utah's dinosaur museum is bigger and better than BYU's. Maybe it's because you won't find any dinosaur fossils in Provo. The museum had a paleontology side and an archaeology side. I thought my archaeology class this summer was kind of pointless, but I realize it did give me a new perspective on the world and society.
The archaeology is related to our trip through Nine Mile Canyon, which is full of Fremont Indian artwork throughout. It's mind-boggling to think that there were people there drawing pictures hundreds and sometimes even thousands of years before anyone of European descent came to Utah.
Sadly, much of the drawings have been vandalized by moronic people who ought to be branded. They often prove their own idiocy. Like this one:
They couldn't even spell trespassing right! I really don't understand this one, because to see it, you have to walk off the road a way. Why wouldn't you put a sign up there before people got anywhere? And the only reason I could think of why you would care if people were up by the pictures was so they wouldn't disturb them--yet this is exactly what they did.
Here's another idiot:
They can't even draw a heart! it looks more like a cat.
Fortunately, many were left relatively alone, like this most famous one:
I learned some things, like:
But yesterday was a little more out of the ordinary. My parents and I got up early for a day trip down to Price and Nine Mile Canyon (which, by the way, is more than nine miles long). We were supposed to get back in time for our stake conference evening sessions, but we didn't get back until 7:00, which was when they started. So we were heathens and skipped our meetings.
We went to the prehistoric life museum in Price (where their slogan is "Death Elevated"). I don't understand why the College of Eastern Utah's dinosaur museum is bigger and better than BYU's. Maybe it's because you won't find any dinosaur fossils in Provo. The museum had a paleontology side and an archaeology side. I thought my archaeology class this summer was kind of pointless, but I realize it did give me a new perspective on the world and society.
The archaeology is related to our trip through Nine Mile Canyon, which is full of Fremont Indian artwork throughout. It's mind-boggling to think that there were people there drawing pictures hundreds and sometimes even thousands of years before anyone of European descent came to Utah.
Sadly, much of the drawings have been vandalized by moronic people who ought to be branded. They often prove their own idiocy. Like this one:
They couldn't even spell trespassing right! I really don't understand this one, because to see it, you have to walk off the road a way. Why wouldn't you put a sign up there before people got anywhere? And the only reason I could think of why you would care if people were up by the pictures was so they wouldn't disturb them--yet this is exactly what they did.
Here's another idiot:
They can't even draw a heart! it looks more like a cat.Fortunately, many were left relatively alone, like this most famous one:
I learned some things, like:
- The Fremont Indians played basketball.
- They had railroad tracks.
- Tentacled mutants coached their basketball games.
Sunday, October 16, 2011
Technically, I didn't get this finished in time.
I have twenty-five minutes to write this post. I made some new guidelines for myself this week.
You know the playlist I blogged about several weeks ago (which, by the way, has undergone some alterations)? Well, it gets me into trouble. I really like listening to it. What's going to come up next? A weird song or a normal song? A mediocre song I'm tired of or a song I think is fantastic? A Halloween [or insert other holiday here] song or a year-round song? I love the element of surprise. So I like listening to it to see what I get. To the point that I do things just so that I can listen.
On Monday this week, I stayed up late, surfing the internet and listening to my playlist. Which meant I got to bed late and I was really tired Tuesday morning. So I decided--no more computer after 9:00 p.m. when I have work the next day. So if you like talking to me on Facebook late at night--well, I'm sorry, that'll have to wait until weekends.
Then on Tuesday afternoon, knowing that I couldn't be on the computer after 9:00, I wasted an afternoon surfing the net, listening to my playlist, and ignoring my sister. Then I went to institute. One of our teachers is Sister Nelson, wife of Russell M. (The other one happens to be Sheri Dew.) She was talking about how she was at the Nissan dealership and there was a continual drum beat (meaning the radio was on), and the TV was on. She talked about how easy Satan has it to influence us, and how can we receive inspiration with all the noise going on around us?
This hit me, because I listen to music too much, and I've become bad at justifying. Well, this lyric can be interpreted a few different ways or if they wanted this to mean something bad, they would make it obvious. Once I would not support musicians at all if they had inappropriate songs or albums; now I have three Lady Gaga songs, and she is hardly a poster child for virtue. She may be on posters, but not for modesty.
That said, I still am selective about what I listen to; you wouldn't find Katy Perry's "Last Friday Night" on my playlist if you paid me. So I'm not worried so much about what music I listen to, but how much.
I've decided I can listen to music if I am doing something productive, and especially if it encourages me to do something productive. So if I'm driving, cleaning, cooking, etc., music is great.
But I've made a drastic change in that I can't listen to music just to surf the internet. If I want music on, I'll do something productive. If I want to surf the net, that's fine, but I can't listen to music. This will encourage me not to waste so much time.
Which means that for the first time, I'm not listening to music on my computer while I write this.
Oh, and do you remember my Halloween memory post? I remembered some details about my 2008 Halloween. I added them to the original post, but I'll put them here:
We were walking home and a woman in a nun's habit drove by. I can't remember if I saw her or if Elder Love just told me he did. He waved at her, and started laughing hysterically because he said she waved back and then got a really weird look on her face. We wondered if she was a real nun or in a costume....On the way out of Ritzville we saw another nun-clad woman, and we figured it was unlikely for us to see two nuns in one day, so at least one of them had to have been a costume, and probably both of them were....The closing hymn was #121, "I'm a Pilgrim, I'm a Stranger." Sister Lyman said she didn't really know it, and she didn't play it very well, so we only sang the first verse. Too bad that only the third verse of that song actually has any uplifting message....On our way back, Elder Colton talked about how hard it was to sing that "pilgrim song," and asked who picked it. I didn't say anything, but he figured out it was me.
You know the playlist I blogged about several weeks ago (which, by the way, has undergone some alterations)? Well, it gets me into trouble. I really like listening to it. What's going to come up next? A weird song or a normal song? A mediocre song I'm tired of or a song I think is fantastic? A Halloween [or insert other holiday here] song or a year-round song? I love the element of surprise. So I like listening to it to see what I get. To the point that I do things just so that I can listen.
On Monday this week, I stayed up late, surfing the internet and listening to my playlist. Which meant I got to bed late and I was really tired Tuesday morning. So I decided--no more computer after 9:00 p.m. when I have work the next day. So if you like talking to me on Facebook late at night--well, I'm sorry, that'll have to wait until weekends.
Then on Tuesday afternoon, knowing that I couldn't be on the computer after 9:00, I wasted an afternoon surfing the net, listening to my playlist, and ignoring my sister. Then I went to institute. One of our teachers is Sister Nelson, wife of Russell M. (The other one happens to be Sheri Dew.) She was talking about how she was at the Nissan dealership and there was a continual drum beat (meaning the radio was on), and the TV was on. She talked about how easy Satan has it to influence us, and how can we receive inspiration with all the noise going on around us?
This hit me, because I listen to music too much, and I've become bad at justifying. Well, this lyric can be interpreted a few different ways or if they wanted this to mean something bad, they would make it obvious. Once I would not support musicians at all if they had inappropriate songs or albums; now I have three Lady Gaga songs, and she is hardly a poster child for virtue. She may be on posters, but not for modesty.
That said, I still am selective about what I listen to; you wouldn't find Katy Perry's "Last Friday Night" on my playlist if you paid me. So I'm not worried so much about what music I listen to, but how much.
I've decided I can listen to music if I am doing something productive, and especially if it encourages me to do something productive. So if I'm driving, cleaning, cooking, etc., music is great.
But I've made a drastic change in that I can't listen to music just to surf the internet. If I want music on, I'll do something productive. If I want to surf the net, that's fine, but I can't listen to music. This will encourage me not to waste so much time.
Which means that for the first time, I'm not listening to music on my computer while I write this.
Oh, and do you remember my Halloween memory post? I remembered some details about my 2008 Halloween. I added them to the original post, but I'll put them here:
We were walking home and a woman in a nun's habit drove by. I can't remember if I saw her or if Elder Love just told me he did. He waved at her, and started laughing hysterically because he said she waved back and then got a really weird look on her face. We wondered if she was a real nun or in a costume....On the way out of Ritzville we saw another nun-clad woman, and we figured it was unlikely for us to see two nuns in one day, so at least one of them had to have been a costume, and probably both of them were....The closing hymn was #121, "I'm a Pilgrim, I'm a Stranger." Sister Lyman said she didn't really know it, and she didn't play it very well, so we only sang the first verse. Too bad that only the third verse of that song actually has any uplifting message....On our way back, Elder Colton talked about how hard it was to sing that "pilgrim song," and asked who picked it. I didn't say anything, but he figured out it was me.
Sunday, October 9, 2011
Falling from the heavens
Last night I blogged about my 5k. But that was yesterday, and there was a lot that went on this week besides that.
First of all, I LOVED the weather this week. I felt like summer weather wasn't ending. And it did! It was rainy Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, and Thursday and Friday were especially cold. We finally have our heater on again. On Thursday I went running between storms. It was so nice on Bountiful Boulevard, seeing the hills with a light blanket of snow. Once I got past the Bountiful golf course, there were small amounts of snow on the grass! I don't know why I like cold weather so much. I just do.
My family is pretty excited. After more than five months, my dad finally got a job! His unemployment is the main factor in my taking the semester off. His new job pays a little more than his last one and has better hours. (No more swing and graveyard for him!) He starts that on October 24.
And speaking of jobs, at work one of my coworkers and I always talk about the work dreams we have. Every Thursday morning we have a small meeting with just our department, and on the first Thursday of the month, the meeting lasts a little longer. So on Wednesday night, I had a dream about the meeting. Except it was more like a lunch party. (This is not far-fetched, since we do have lunches around Christmas time.) But we were on BYU campus. After lunch, everyone was watching a movie. I went elsewhere, and then I saw in the Daily Universe Police Beat that my work party had gotten into legal trouble. Apparently someone had brought alcohol (a no-no at BYU AND at church jobs), and a crazy lady had gotten in and done something inappropriate.
I work during the day, and I work when I'm asleep.
First of all, I LOVED the weather this week. I felt like summer weather wasn't ending. And it did! It was rainy Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, and Thursday and Friday were especially cold. We finally have our heater on again. On Thursday I went running between storms. It was so nice on Bountiful Boulevard, seeing the hills with a light blanket of snow. Once I got past the Bountiful golf course, there were small amounts of snow on the grass! I don't know why I like cold weather so much. I just do.
My family is pretty excited. After more than five months, my dad finally got a job! His unemployment is the main factor in my taking the semester off. His new job pays a little more than his last one and has better hours. (No more swing and graveyard for him!) He starts that on October 24.
And speaking of jobs, at work one of my coworkers and I always talk about the work dreams we have. Every Thursday morning we have a small meeting with just our department, and on the first Thursday of the month, the meeting lasts a little longer. So on Wednesday night, I had a dream about the meeting. Except it was more like a lunch party. (This is not far-fetched, since we do have lunches around Christmas time.) But we were on BYU campus. After lunch, everyone was watching a movie. I went elsewhere, and then I saw in the Daily Universe Police Beat that my work party had gotten into legal trouble. Apparently someone had brought alcohol (a no-no at BYU AND at church jobs), and a crazy lady had gotten in and done something inappropriate.
I work during the day, and I work when I'm asleep.
Saturday, October 8, 2011
Run for your death!
This summer, I ran a 5k in Provo on the Fourth of July. I loved it. It was a great way to spend the holiday (especially since I had no roommates).
A month or so after the Fourth, one of my Facebook friends, Lynsey Mitchell, "liked" a link that was for a Halloween 5k. I thought I might have to do it if I was living at home for the fall.
Well, it turned out that I am living at home. In August, for the first time I noticed a sign in someone's yard advertising a Halloween 5k, "Night of the Running Dead." I figured it must have been the same one Lynsey liked. So I checked out the website, and debated doing it. The biggest hindrance was the price--$30! So I was debating whether or not I actually wanted to do it, especially since I would have no one else to go with.
This week at institute, Lynsey announced she was in charge of a 5k this very Saturday, a week before the "Running Dead" one. I thought I'd give it a look, since the other one was so expensive. I was glad when I found out that this one was also a Halloween one--"Run for Your Lives!" And it was only $12 (with a shirt!). So I decided to do it.
Since costumes were encouraged, I thought of the options that would be suitable for running. I decided I could get red and black running clothes and a cheap cape and be a vampire. So on Friday night I went to K-mart and bought some red shorts, a black t-shirt with red skulls on it, and a cape. I pulled out my fangs from last year (if you need some costume fangs, buy the ones called Dracula Fangs--they're pricey, but they pay for themselves because they're amazing and you can use them again and again), had my mom paint my fingernails black, and prepared for my run the next day.
It was around 40 degrees this morning--my perfect running temperature. Some gloves might have been nice, but those would cover up my nails! I showed up to the event, registered, and got ready to run. We all lined up in the road. They told us that much of the route would be a dirt path, which would be muddy because of the last two days' rain. They told us to watch out for a giant puddle shortly after the mile mark, and that there would be a water station. They counted down and we all ran. In the beginning I was in fourth place, although once we went downhill a few others passed me. (I repassed some of them later on the trail.) We got to the dirt trail. This particular trail is one that I went running on once last year. And only once. Because it doesn't take long for it to get really, really steep for a really, really long time. But I knew that this was only a 5k, and it started earlier than I had started running last year. I passed the 1 mile mark. And then it it started getting really steep. This hill was killing me; I was feeling not good at all. I knew that I would fall behind, but I knew I couldn't keep running up it (since I already knew how far it went), so I started walking. It also didn't help that the mud was sticking to my shoes and making it difficult to pick my feet up. Then I walked past a water station, which I had seen the six or seven in front of me go past. The volunteers said, "You're halfway there! Keep going! We have some water for you!" I told them I was good, and kept walking past. And wondered when it was time to turn around. It seemed like it had been forever since I had passed the mile mark (a 5k is only 3.1 miles), but I attributed it to the steepness and the walking. I was thinking, "I don't know what that guy was smoking when he said this trail was flat. A blind person could tell you it isn't flat! And why don't they have any more people out here?" I saw the people ahead of me at the top of another hill. I kept on up this hill, and then they came down and one lady told me, "We didn't know where to turn around, so we just turned." I made it to the top of the hill (after all, if they went there, I guess I should too), turned around, and relayed the message to the next person. Fortunately, now the whole trail was downhill, so I could run again. But I started running down the wrong trail--the illusion was such that it looked like the right one. I didn't go far before I realized what I was doing and turned back. I started wondering if the water station had been where I was supposed to turn around. After all, it had been a while since I passed the one mile mark, and the volunteers said, "You're halfway there." But they didn't say halfway to what, and they didn't say anything when I kept going, and all the people in front of me had kept going.
Sure enough, when I got back to the water station, I saw lots of people ahead of me on the way back, people I know hadn't passed me. When I made it to the finish line, 43 minutes had elapsed. They decided that times didn't count, as the first finishers had said they were way behind but turned around first. So they gave no prizes for times. There were a few costume prizes, but only one judge had turned in her opinions, and they were strange--there were best female costumes but not male costumes, and she thought the 60s was the 80s. There were lots of extra prizes, so they just gave one to everyone in a costume.
So I came home with an orange t-shirt, a cheap tombstone decoration, and very muddy shoes. But the only disappointment I feel now is that my shoes are relatively new.
A month or so after the Fourth, one of my Facebook friends, Lynsey Mitchell, "liked" a link that was for a Halloween 5k. I thought I might have to do it if I was living at home for the fall.
Well, it turned out that I am living at home. In August, for the first time I noticed a sign in someone's yard advertising a Halloween 5k, "Night of the Running Dead." I figured it must have been the same one Lynsey liked. So I checked out the website, and debated doing it. The biggest hindrance was the price--$30! So I was debating whether or not I actually wanted to do it, especially since I would have no one else to go with.
This week at institute, Lynsey announced she was in charge of a 5k this very Saturday, a week before the "Running Dead" one. I thought I'd give it a look, since the other one was so expensive. I was glad when I found out that this one was also a Halloween one--"Run for Your Lives!" And it was only $12 (with a shirt!). So I decided to do it.
Since costumes were encouraged, I thought of the options that would be suitable for running. I decided I could get red and black running clothes and a cheap cape and be a vampire. So on Friday night I went to K-mart and bought some red shorts, a black t-shirt with red skulls on it, and a cape. I pulled out my fangs from last year (if you need some costume fangs, buy the ones called Dracula Fangs--they're pricey, but they pay for themselves because they're amazing and you can use them again and again), had my mom paint my fingernails black, and prepared for my run the next day.
It was around 40 degrees this morning--my perfect running temperature. Some gloves might have been nice, but those would cover up my nails! I showed up to the event, registered, and got ready to run. We all lined up in the road. They told us that much of the route would be a dirt path, which would be muddy because of the last two days' rain. They told us to watch out for a giant puddle shortly after the mile mark, and that there would be a water station. They counted down and we all ran. In the beginning I was in fourth place, although once we went downhill a few others passed me. (I repassed some of them later on the trail.) We got to the dirt trail. This particular trail is one that I went running on once last year. And only once. Because it doesn't take long for it to get really, really steep for a really, really long time. But I knew that this was only a 5k, and it started earlier than I had started running last year. I passed the 1 mile mark. And then it it started getting really steep. This hill was killing me; I was feeling not good at all. I knew that I would fall behind, but I knew I couldn't keep running up it (since I already knew how far it went), so I started walking. It also didn't help that the mud was sticking to my shoes and making it difficult to pick my feet up. Then I walked past a water station, which I had seen the six or seven in front of me go past. The volunteers said, "You're halfway there! Keep going! We have some water for you!" I told them I was good, and kept walking past. And wondered when it was time to turn around. It seemed like it had been forever since I had passed the mile mark (a 5k is only 3.1 miles), but I attributed it to the steepness and the walking. I was thinking, "I don't know what that guy was smoking when he said this trail was flat. A blind person could tell you it isn't flat! And why don't they have any more people out here?" I saw the people ahead of me at the top of another hill. I kept on up this hill, and then they came down and one lady told me, "We didn't know where to turn around, so we just turned." I made it to the top of the hill (after all, if they went there, I guess I should too), turned around, and relayed the message to the next person. Fortunately, now the whole trail was downhill, so I could run again. But I started running down the wrong trail--the illusion was such that it looked like the right one. I didn't go far before I realized what I was doing and turned back. I started wondering if the water station had been where I was supposed to turn around. After all, it had been a while since I passed the one mile mark, and the volunteers said, "You're halfway there." But they didn't say halfway to what, and they didn't say anything when I kept going, and all the people in front of me had kept going.
Sure enough, when I got back to the water station, I saw lots of people ahead of me on the way back, people I know hadn't passed me. When I made it to the finish line, 43 minutes had elapsed. They decided that times didn't count, as the first finishers had said they were way behind but turned around first. So they gave no prizes for times. There were a few costume prizes, but only one judge had turned in her opinions, and they were strange--there were best female costumes but not male costumes, and she thought the 60s was the 80s. There were lots of extra prizes, so they just gave one to everyone in a costume.
So I came home with an orange t-shirt, a cheap tombstone decoration, and very muddy shoes. But the only disappointment I feel now is that my shoes are relatively new.
Sunday, October 2, 2011
23 years.
This week I celebrated a birthday. That's right, I'm now the big 2-3. It wasn't an overly exciting birthday. My biggest present is that our piano is finally getting tuned. It needs it, badly. It's probably the second worst piano I've ever heard (the worst belonging to Ray and JoAnn Welsh in Mead, Washington--compared to theirs, ours could belong to the Utah Symphony). It's too bad I don't play. But hopefully I can get better with it fixed. Now right notes won't sound like wrong notes.
I know there's not much difference between 22 and 23. But I kind of feel like there is. Maybe it's just because in my synesthetic mind, I see 2's as blue and 3's as yellowish, so I've never seen this combination of a blue and a yellowish in my age before.
I kind of feel like I haven't done much with my life. I think the biggest factor of this is that I'm not married. My brother was married shortly before turning 22. An episode of The Addams Family had Gomez and Morticia marrying at 22. But I'm not even close to marriage. I've been on fewer dates than the average high-schooler. I wouldn't mind talking about why this is the case, but I know if I did, what I wrote would be misinterpreted and there would be awkward feelings all around. So I'll just leave it at saying I go on very few dates, so I'm not even close to having a girlfriend, let alone a wife. And you don't have to tell me I'm not doing my duty. The apostles already told me that in April.
Another reason I feel I haven't done much with my life is my job situation. I have only held three jobs (although one I've held twice now). My pre-mission job was rather unglamorous, working in the Walmart deli. I'm SO glad I don't work there now. My job earlier this year was essentially a custodial job. Anywhere else, that would be unglamorous, but on campus, lots of us have bad jobs. But it was somewhat glamorous; I got paid to watch gymnastics and volleyball, and I got to learn all about how gymnastics stuff is set up. But I thought my boss would invite us back if he liked us. I got no invitation, which just shows that I wasn't even good at that manual labor job. My current job is a great environment, has great pay, and requires more smarts than my other two. But it's still not something I want to do my whole life. I haven't had any internships or campus experience or anything like that. Once I take E Lang 350, the basic editing class, that should open up a lot of opportunities for me, so I want to take it ASAP. I just hope I will be able to get a job once I graduate (or before then). At least I have geology as a backup.
So I've talked about what I haven't done--but what have I done? Well, I graduated from high school. I don't think of that as that big of an accomplishment. I passed three of six AP tests (darn that U.S. history, biology, and Spanish!), and got a 36 on the English portion of the ACT. I won the sixth grade geography bee and made it to the state level.
I've been accepted to BYU, and all of my schooling so far has been on at least a half tuition scholarship. I hope to be able to keep it up, especially the full tuition for spring and summer. (Full tuition for fall and winter would be great! But I doubt it'll happen.)
Undoubtedly, the greatest thing I did was a mission. I don't think I was a super amazing missionary, although the only place I have significant regrets about is my first area, but ignorance was really part of the situation there. I was super nervous and sad to leave, but I was even sadder to come home. I can't believe it's been almost two years now!
What was so great about my mission was how I came back. I may still be painfully socially awkward, but I'm much better than I was. (Two years at college have helped that too.) I know a lot now about people, scriptures, and the states of Idaho and Washington. I think in high school I viewed myself as stuck in a rut of being weird. Now I think it's possible for me to be normal. I don't think I ever will be, but at least it's possible.
I lost 60 unwanted pounds. Having returned and doing nothing but sitting in class and doing homework all day, I decided I didn't want to gain those 60 pounds back. This has led me to a habit of running, so that I have lost twenty additional pounds, I have run a 5k, and I currently run around five miles several times a week, with hopes of increasing the amount of time I run.
I think what makes me most nervous about being 23 is I don't know what to do with my life. I have a few more years before I get my Bachelors, but then what? Do I get a Masters or a PhD or do I call my four-year degree good? Whom do I marry? How do I marry or even establish if a girl likes me? How can I get a good job?
I'll just brush all that aside for now...
I know there's not much difference between 22 and 23. But I kind of feel like there is. Maybe it's just because in my synesthetic mind, I see 2's as blue and 3's as yellowish, so I've never seen this combination of a blue and a yellowish in my age before.
I kind of feel like I haven't done much with my life. I think the biggest factor of this is that I'm not married. My brother was married shortly before turning 22. An episode of The Addams Family had Gomez and Morticia marrying at 22. But I'm not even close to marriage. I've been on fewer dates than the average high-schooler. I wouldn't mind talking about why this is the case, but I know if I did, what I wrote would be misinterpreted and there would be awkward feelings all around. So I'll just leave it at saying I go on very few dates, so I'm not even close to having a girlfriend, let alone a wife. And you don't have to tell me I'm not doing my duty. The apostles already told me that in April.
Another reason I feel I haven't done much with my life is my job situation. I have only held three jobs (although one I've held twice now). My pre-mission job was rather unglamorous, working in the Walmart deli. I'm SO glad I don't work there now. My job earlier this year was essentially a custodial job. Anywhere else, that would be unglamorous, but on campus, lots of us have bad jobs. But it was somewhat glamorous; I got paid to watch gymnastics and volleyball, and I got to learn all about how gymnastics stuff is set up. But I thought my boss would invite us back if he liked us. I got no invitation, which just shows that I wasn't even good at that manual labor job. My current job is a great environment, has great pay, and requires more smarts than my other two. But it's still not something I want to do my whole life. I haven't had any internships or campus experience or anything like that. Once I take E Lang 350, the basic editing class, that should open up a lot of opportunities for me, so I want to take it ASAP. I just hope I will be able to get a job once I graduate (or before then). At least I have geology as a backup.
So I've talked about what I haven't done--but what have I done? Well, I graduated from high school. I don't think of that as that big of an accomplishment. I passed three of six AP tests (darn that U.S. history, biology, and Spanish!), and got a 36 on the English portion of the ACT. I won the sixth grade geography bee and made it to the state level.
I've been accepted to BYU, and all of my schooling so far has been on at least a half tuition scholarship. I hope to be able to keep it up, especially the full tuition for spring and summer. (Full tuition for fall and winter would be great! But I doubt it'll happen.)
Undoubtedly, the greatest thing I did was a mission. I don't think I was a super amazing missionary, although the only place I have significant regrets about is my first area, but ignorance was really part of the situation there. I was super nervous and sad to leave, but I was even sadder to come home. I can't believe it's been almost two years now!
What was so great about my mission was how I came back. I may still be painfully socially awkward, but I'm much better than I was. (Two years at college have helped that too.) I know a lot now about people, scriptures, and the states of Idaho and Washington. I think in high school I viewed myself as stuck in a rut of being weird. Now I think it's possible for me to be normal. I don't think I ever will be, but at least it's possible.
I lost 60 unwanted pounds. Having returned and doing nothing but sitting in class and doing homework all day, I decided I didn't want to gain those 60 pounds back. This has led me to a habit of running, so that I have lost twenty additional pounds, I have run a 5k, and I currently run around five miles several times a week, with hopes of increasing the amount of time I run.
I think what makes me most nervous about being 23 is I don't know what to do with my life. I have a few more years before I get my Bachelors, but then what? Do I get a Masters or a PhD or do I call my four-year degree good? Whom do I marry? How do I marry or even establish if a girl likes me? How can I get a good job?
I'll just brush all that aside for now...
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