Year in Review

Well friends, it's the last Sunday of 2012. It's been a good, eventful year, so I am going to think back, month by month, on what happened.

January. In the beginning of the month, I said goodbye to my visiting nephews, Preston, Franklin, and Nathaniel (aka Baby), and went back to Provo and moved into West Cambridge #12. I had lived in the ward in 2011 and was fortunate enough to find another opening there when I started school again. My roommates were Bryton Beesley, Ammon Orgill, and Cameron Eaton. I took English Semantics and Pragmatics, taught by Dallin D. Oaks (my favorite professor ever); Beginning Piano Techniques Part 2, taught by a grad student named Randy; Basic Editing Skills, taught by Doris Dant; Doctrine and Covenants, taught by Barbara Morgan; and Physical Geology, taught by Steve Nelson. I also joined a student journal, Schwa, to get editing experience.

February. I went to a tri-ward dance and was a wall weed. This was the month of the terrible tragedy of that nefarious, abominable, diabolical Josh Powell. I coined the term lemits to refer to the really weird, often depressing time of year in late February and March. Ammon moved out of the apartment and was replaced by another Cameron, Cameron Haas.


March. One Sunday, while wearing a Snoopy St. Patrick's Day tie and watching a CES broadcast, I discovered that I have a double who sings in the choir at BYU-Idaho. I went to the St. Patrick's Day parade in Salt Lake City, even though I think parades are stupid. March 31 was the first time Salt Lake City ever hit 80 degrees during the month of March.


April. This was quite an eventful month. I went to Rock Canyon with my geology class a few days before Easter. Cameron Eaton got engaged and moved out for the summer, and Bryton became the elders quorum president. I finished winter semester with a 4.0. During the break between winter and spring, I wrote the longest blog post ever. My parents also took me to Vernal to see Dinosaur National Monument, which is one of the coolest places ever. I went back to Provo the day before spring classes. After a ward FHE activity of capture the flag, I went running for an hour. Well, it was meant to be an hour, but at 59 minutes I stopped because I didn't feel well. Next thing I knew, I was lying in the middle of the road with scraped knees and hands. I went to the Student Health Center the next day; apparently I just had low blood sugar. All my scrapes made it hard to walk for a week. I started spring classes, taking Print Publishing and History from 1500. I applied for an internship just because I could. On the last day of the month, I got a call to go in for an interview. I wasn't prepared for an interview, but I went in and got the job!

May. I can't remember if I got my new glasses in April or May. I started working at BYU Studies, my first article to edit being about baptism in the Book of Mormon. I got to watch the solar eclipse. A bunch of girls--Hanna, Suzy, Carissa, Kristen--started visiting us frequently. I started my memory blog. On the Friday before Memorial Day, my parents tried J-Dawgs for the first time (and have been hooked ever since) before we went and visited some amazing lava tubes near Fillmore. 

June. I got to see the transit of Venus. I had a completely dreadful final for my completely dreadful history class. I also had to do a final project for my Print Publishing class, but the printing place in the Wilk messed up my book. Between spring and summer terms, I went home and ended up completely tearing the mat of our trampoline. I contacted Jan Terri on Facebook, and she sent me burned copies of her CDs and and an autographed photo, which some horses took and framed. I sent her a check for $20. (Now all of her music is available for download, so I got a good deal.) I introduced all sorts of people to Jan Terri, and we even had a Jan Terri party in which we took my Jan Terri picture to the park and took pictures with "her."
I started summer term, taking French 321 from Daryl Lee, Book of Mormon from Byron Merrill, and Writings of Isaiah from Shon Hopkin.The last week of the month, my cousin Jesse got married and I was the best man, but that didn't really mean anything. My brother was moving to California, so I briefly got to see his family for the wedding.

July. I watched part of Provo's Fourth of July parade with Bryton, and then I went swimming with some of the horses later that day. We watched fireworks from the field by the MTC. The next day we went to a small performance of Cyrano de Bergerac; it felt like September that day. I went to a llama festival in Spanish Fork and discovered I don't really like animals. I went to an orthopedist because my knee hurt whenever I would run; he gave me some knee exercises to do, and now I can run again. My parents bought a giant TV that plays YouTube videos, but my dad misuses YouTube. A certain tarantula came and rearranged our apartment. I watched Olympics, even though I don't like sports. This was the month with the Aurora shooting catastrophe.

August. On August 1, I took most of my French class to a French bakery. That same day, I said goodbye to Hanna. I finished summer term with three A minuses. Then my dad and I took a train to California to visit my brother's family. Baby had an adorable catch phrase, "You inky!" We saw all sorts of touristy places, such as Muir Woods and the Golden Gate Bridge. But mostly we stayed home with my nephews. I flew home by myself after a week. I enjoyed my time off, but then it was time to go back to Provo. I got a calling as an assistant ward clerk. I started my first fall semester. I took Empirical Methods in English Linguistics from Nancy Turley, Varieties of English from Wendy Smemoe, Substantive Editing from Doris Dant (again), Environmental Biology from Richard Terry, Jogging from a coach named Josh, and Geomorphology from Jani Radebaugh. And then I got sick, even though I never get sick. Scott Boyce moved in during the break.

September. My parents came down one weekend and took me on an adventure to Cascade Springs. Then in the middle of the month, I was super excited to get ready for Halloween! It was my first Halloween with decorating my apartment, Mad Monster Party?, and, of course, "Get Down Goblin."
I went on a field trip to the Crandall Printing Museum. We all participated in the Brigham City Temple dedication, which was quite interesting in the Marriott Center. I had an impromptu birthday party with some of the horses and turned 24 the next day.

October.  I went to the final Rooftop Concert Series to see the Lower Lights, whose latest album I got for my birthday. In general conference, they announced the new missionary ages. On homecoming weekend, my grandparents came and took me to dinner and to the MOA. The mountain was absolutely beautiful. My parents took me to see Frankenweenie in the movie theater. It was a good movie; you should see it. I helped out at a Relief Society luncheon. On Halloween, I carved my pumpkin to protest the political sign outside our apartment complex.

November. I got a free trip to Death Valley! My Geomorphology class all went to Death Valley the first weekend of the month. We saw playas, volcanic craters, sand dunes, and moving rocks. It was great! I had some major tarantula problems. I had fun celebrating Thanksgiving and bought six bags of Thanksgiving candy (clearance Halloween candy that doubles as Thanksgiving candy). Thanksgiving was at our house this year, and it was pretty fun. Then I went back to Provo and had to buckle down for all the assignments and projects coming up.

December. I had to do four final projects and five finals. It was kind of stressful getting everything done. But I got it all done! Unfortunately, I ended the semester with two A minuses. Oh, well. I went to a caroling activity but was the only one to show up. Then I came home for the break. There was the terrible Connecticut tragedy. I saw Cherie Call at a live radio concert. We had an early Christmas and I got a new laptop, which I am presently using. Then this past week I have been in California to visit my nephews again. We went to Six Flags and Franklin got really mad at me because I accidentally splashed him with water, but he doesn't believe people do things on accident. Preston got baptized. Then we drove home!

"Because it's wintertime again,
And the last leaf falls on what has been, 
And as this year comes to an end,
I am thinking about starting again, again." 

Christmas Traditions

Have you ever noticed that we tend to talk about a lot of traditions at Christmas that aren’t really traditions anyone follows?

For example, I have never seen real holly used as a decoration. I have never been on a sleigh ride. I have never kissed under the mistletoe (thankfully). In fact, I hadn’t even seen mistletoe hanging until this year, and I doubt it was authentic mistletoe. (Did you know that mistletoe is a parasite? I don’t think that’s very Christmassy.) I’ve never had plum pudding or figgy pudding. I haven’t had a real Christmas tree since I was five years old. I’ve never gone caroling door to door, nor have I had any carolers come to my door. I’ve never used a real sock for a stocking. I’ve never roasted chestnuts on a fire. I don’t even know what chestnuts are!

This year was the first time for me for many traditions. It was the first time I’d ever had real wassail. I had it at others’ houses this year, so this week I made my own. I’m accustomed to making spiced cider for Thanksgiving and Christmas, so I just added some pineapple juice, orange juice, and nutmeg for wassail. This was the first year that I personally made gingerbread. And it was the first time I’ve ever had fruitcake. I was always surprised at all the jokes making fun of fruitcake—I think fruitcake jokes are more common than fruitcake actually is. After trying it, I can kind of understand why it gets such a bad rap. I found it really weird, and I don’t think I would eat it if it weren’t so closely associated with Christmas. Kind of like candy corn for Halloween and Thanksgiving, except that candy corn is better.

I suppose that as some traditions slowly fade away, it’s time for new traditions to come. But I don’t think the fad of “ugly sweater parties” is a tradition that should stay. It seems to me that ugly sweaters are kind of like fruitcake—there are more jokes and parties about them than there are actually sweaters. My North Salt Lake singles ward had an ugly sweater party this week. It was the first one I’d been to, but I know there are tons of them going on all the time. More than half of the people at the party weren’t wearing sweaters, including me. Of those who were, I only thought one sweater was actually ugly, and it wasn’t a Christmas sweater. I think a lot of the sweaters do have kind of an old lady feel to them, but I don’t think they were ugly. If I had a sweater like that, I would wear it, not even to an ugly sweater party. But then again, I wear holiday Snoopy T-shirts that are two sizes too big (I draw the line at three sizes too big—I just wear those to bed). The ugly sweater party was also a white elephant party. I like white elephant parties, even if I have no desire to keep a nerdy pirate card game.

A new tradition I think we should embrace is new Christmas music. I have often expressed my disdain for “Jingle Bell Rock.” I think the Davis County Clipper only hires ultra-conservative old fogies to write its columns. This week there was a columnist saying he didn’t like post-Nixon Christmas music. Which means he doesn’t like Paul’s wonderful Christmastimes or John’s happy war-is-over Christmases. Um, I think of those former Beatle songs as being too old and too overplayed. How can you possibly stand to listen to the same songs over and over again for FIFTY YEARS?!?!?

This week I was able to hear some good new Christmas music. My favorite singer, Cherie Call, was singing at the B 98.7 studios. This was a live mini concert, and I got to go. She’s great. She sang her non-holiday song “Holding On” with some added Christmas lyrics. She sang her poignant song “Gifts,” which is the title of her Christmas album. In response to the Connecticut tragedy, she sang her heartrendingly beautiful “Broken Hearts Like Mine.” She sang some non-Christmas songs, “Already a Butterfly” and “Big Yellow Moon.” I found out that she has recorded “Big Yellow Moon” but hasn’t released it yet, because she wants to release it with a video. That makes me excited, because I have loved that song from the first time I heard it. She sang the first song on her Christmas album, “Peace on Earth to Me.” She sang her own “I Just Knew,” which blows “Mary Did You Know” out of the water. She finished with “Silent Night.” After the show, she gave all of us in attendance (six of us, plus Todd and Erin, the radio personalities) a copy of her Christmas CD. I already had it, so I gave it to my mom. I think it was the fourth time I’ve seen her in person. I really think she’s underappreciated. You should go check out some of her stuff on cheriecall.com.

Despite the gingerbread, the wassail, the fruitcake, the candy canes, the hot chocolate, and the oranges, this isn’t going to be a very traditional Christmas. I am writing this in a Nevada hotel room because we are going to visit my brother’s family in California. We had a small Christmas yesterday since we wouldn’t be home. I got a new laptop, since I’ve had my current one for three years, and who knows how long my sister used it before that. I prefer to celebrate holidays at home, but it will be a new experience.

Merry Christmas!

The end of my first fall semester

Well, fall semester 2012 has come to an end.

It was my first ever fall semester. It was a good one. I took 15.5 credits while working 10 hours a week, which is the most I've ever done. I conducted linguistic research and experiments, gave a presentation on Irish English, learned about substantive editing (kind of), wrote a paper about penguins, and got a free trip to Death Valley.

I started off the semester getting sick, decked the living room with all sorts of Halloween things in September, made an Obama jack-o-lantern to protest the political sign of my apartment complex, got mad at a certain tarantula for listening to Christmas music before Thanksgiving (among other things), and had five finals along with four final projects.

After I finished up all my finals on Wednesday, I went to go to a caroling activity at the house of the first counselor in my bishopric. I think the Jensens are the nicest people on the planet. Since my aloof roommate didn't want to go, and the tarantula and the elders quorum president weren't home, I went by myself. And I was the only person who showed up! The Jensens gave me goodies (I explained to them why I could only eat the gingerbread cookies and not the pumpkin cookies) and I talked with them for a while. Brother Jensen had a trailer with hay bales all ready, and I was the only one. So after a while, he got in the truck and I got on the back with Sister Jensen and their son. We dropped off their son at the church and picked up a little deacon who only wanted to sing army spoofs of Christmas songs--things like "Jingle Bombs" and other violent twelve-year-old-boy-type songs. He seemed kind of disappointed when we took him home, but I was glad not to sing those un-merry songs. Overall there wasn't a whole lot of caroling done, but it was still fun.

Then Thursday I did a final run in Provo (since I didn't do a lot of running this semester outside of my jogging class) before coming home.

Then Friday night I went to a birthday party for my mission companion Elder Love, whom I had in my favorite area at my favorite time of year. We went bowling. It was a long game; there were nine of us on one lane. Once I got nine pins, but then the tenth mysteriously disappeared. On another occasion the person ahead of me got a pin in the gutter. I got a gutterball and knocked the pin out of the gutter, knocking down more pins. Best gutterball ever.

I also had some really weird dreams this week; I usually do on days I get to sleep in. I dreamed that there was a temple parking lot with angled parking in the wrong direction, that Lady Gaga was only like three feet tall, and that there was a beautiful house that wouldn't sell because an old man was brutally murdered inside it and because it had lava continually flowing through it--you had to move it or else it would form basalt all over the carpet.

December is sure sneaky. I still have to do some Christmas shopping. The good thing about not having any friends is that it's fewer gifts I have to buy!

But I am enjoying having no responsibility. I've wasted some time with my friend Mario in 32 bits, and last night I lazily ended up watching all of Cinderella on TV. (Why can't they make movies like that anymore?)

I was going to make this post more organized and more profound. But I guess the laziness of having no responsibility got to me.

Lucky; or, A Drinking Fountain Epiphany

I had a lot going on this week that had me feeling lucky.

I've had four final projects due this week. Four projects wouldn't be so bad if they were replacing final exams. But all of them are in addition to final exams.

I had to do projects for ELang 273, Empirical Methods in English Linguistics, and ELang 468, Varieties of English. I was lucky enough that I was able to do one project for both of these classes. If I had to do different ones, I don't know if I would have been able to get everything done. I analyzed gender differences in punctuation on Facebook. I got a perfect score on my paper for 273. I added a few paragraphs and a few references to make the paper long enough for 468. I'm hoping that since it was perfect for 273, it will be good enough for 468.

My other papers were for Editing and Geomorphology. I had to edit a paper for five hours and then write a report about it. I had asked my roommate if I could edit one of his papers, but he didn't have it done in time, so he asked one of our home teachees if I could edit a paper of hers. She gave me one. And after I edited it for five hours (all in one day), I found out it's an outdated paper. Oh well. At least it's over. I don't think I did a very good job on the paper, but at least it's over.

I was really worried about Geomorph (that's what all the cool geology people call it). On Monday I went into the geology lab to work on the project, not knowing what I was going to do. We had to measure things and write about what we learn. My thought was, "What will I be able to write about just from measuring stuff?" So I measured a bunch of the cinder cones around Mt. Etna. And I made a discovery! The biggest cinder cones, which are probably the youngest, are the furthest west, which means that the stratovolcano is probably gradually shifting to the east, which is supported by some of the literature I found. I was luckily able to finish it, and it was definitely long enough. I don't know how good it is (it definitely sounds more like a paper from the College of the Humanities, instead of the College of Physical and Mathematical Sciences), but hopefully it's good enough.

I'm worried about finals, because all these projects mean that I haven't been able to do much finals studying. I was thinking, mostly joking, "Why do I do this to myself?"

But then I had a drinking fountain epiphany, and I realized that thinking thoughts like that is a terrible thing to think.

I was done with a class on Monday, and whenever I pass a drinking fountain, I like to take a drink. I passed one fountain, but there was only one fountain at this location. There was a girl filling up her water bottle, and I didn't want to wait, and I thought about how if I had a water bottle with me, I would have also filled mine up. After all, my tuition pays for me using the water.

But then I realized that I don't pay tuition! This semester I have both a scholarship and a federal grant. I say this not to brag, but simply to say how lucky and blessed I feel. I'm getting a free education. How can I possibly say "Why do I do this to myself?" I'm extraordinarily lucky! And since my grant exceeds the amount I needed for tuition, it covers other things as well. So in addition to a free education, I'm getting free room and board.

But the luckiness doesn't stop there. I don't just get to go to classes for free; I get free access to all of the university's facilities. Not only do I get drinking fountain privileges, I get to use the university's computers, the library and its services (like voice recorders), the geology rock and stream table labs, the beautiful grounds, the piano classroom, the tax-exempt food and school supplies, and the exercise facilities (although I'm fat and lazy so I don't use those. But I could.) All of this is for free! (Well, I have to pay for food and school supplies, but I don't have to pay for them to be tax exempt.)

I even got a free, all-expenses-paid trip to Death Valley!

I'm lucky I got the grant. Earlier this year, when I was applying for scholarships, I thought I might as well apply for a grant, but I didn't expect to get one. It seemed to be a lot of work, so I just decided to forget about it. But because I didn't have it complete, it was going to affect my scholarship processing. So I wanted to just withdraw the FAFSA application, but that was going to be more difficult than just fulfilling it.

I was surprised when I got a grant! Apparently I'm so ancient (can you believe I'm 24?!) that my parents' income no longer plays a factor into grant processing. I don't know if I'll apply for a grant again. Sure, I like it, but I don't feel it's ethical when there are other people who are worse off than I am. We'll see what happens.

This weekend my ward had an auction to raise money for a middle-aged woman whose husband left her with four kids. She works full time and goes to school full time and is having a hard time making ends meet. Our auction raised over $1000 for her! I offered editing papers as an item to auction, since I don't really have any other talents. I bought some homemade beanies. I'd say how much I spent, but then I feel like a miser, considering how lucky I am. But I did spend more money than the hats are worth. And I don't even wear hats!

I am a very selfish person. Considering all the blessings I have, I need to be more generous. 

Two boring stories

This week I happened to meet up with people in the most random places.

There is this girl named Mariah who is a geology major. Back in 2010, when I was taking my Dinosaurs! class, I went with my professor out to Dinosaur National Monument to assist with his fossil excavation. Mariah was working there that summer, and I met her there.

Then during winter semester earlier this year, I sat next to her in my piano class. I knew she seemed familiar, but it took a while for it to click how I knew her. I'm really surprised it did click, because although I have a good memory, I have a really hard time remembering faces. (There's a girl in my ward whom I met probably ten times in two or three months because I never remembered her face.)

Then this semester I found out she's kind of a big shot in the geology department. One day in class, our professor showed pictures from a geology trip and several students in the class recognized Mariah in the picture. Except that it wasn't Mariah, it was just another student who wore a similar hat. And then the geology computer lab had a sign on the door having people guess where she was going to be called on her mission.

I was surprised that people knew her because of geology, but I knew her through other means. The first time I met her it was because of geology, but it was before I took it seriously. And then my piano class of course had nothing to do with geology.

This week I was in the geology computer lab, starting my final project. I really don't like having to do this project. I've really liked Geomorphology, except for this project. I have to look at a picture of a volcano, Mt. Etna, and analyze it and measure things and provide images and write a paper about it. I can analyze images (I correctly guessed that it started out as a silicic volcano but has changed to be basaltic) and I can write papers, but I don't know how to do this project. Anyway, Mariah came in to the lab that day and said hi to all the geology people. But I didn't say hi because I didn't think she'd remember me, and because I'm kind of an outsider in geology. The major is so small that everyone knows each other, especially since they've gone to labs and field trips with each other. (I actually wrote a short linguistics paper about the pragmatics of the geology department.)

On Thursday I had to go to the English Learning Center to administer a test/experiment to an ESL student (I conducted an experiment about transition words--I think too many ESL students are taught to use them without quite understanding how to use them). It's fairly far away from the useful buildings on campus (and by useful, I mean the buildings most people use), but I had to walk, because I didn't know if I would be able to park there, and because I don't dare own a bike in Provo. (I wish bicycle thieves would get run over by cars, preferably with the wheel going over their head.) After I left the building, I happened to see this Mariah coming from the Museum of Paleontology. We were both heading the same direction, so I talked to her about geology classes. I hope she wasn't creeped out that I knew her name when she didn't know me; she didn't seem creeped out, and I did, of course, explain how I knew her.

Then last night I went into the geology computer lab. She was the only one in there at the time, although many more jolly geology people came later. I worked for three hours on my project. I didn't do the project itself, but I did lots of research (and wrote about it) so that I filled up an entire page of references. Our project has to be five single-spaced pages, but other things count for the five pages, so having a page full of references means one less page to write! Maybe that's a lazy way to go about it. But I did have to work hard to get that page full of references.

Since my window for eating Christmas desserts is so narrow, I try to take advantage of it while it lasts, and I learned that Arby's has these peppermint shakes, so when I was out doing my errands yesterday, I decided to go there for lunch. When I paid, I remembered why I don't go there. I can get cheaper food and better food and healthier(ish) food and closer food by going to Subway or J-Dawgs. But Subway and J-Dawgs don't have peppermint shakes, so there I was at Arby's, the only time I've ever been to that one, when my former roommate Jeff Clegg walked in! We were flatmates my first year here. He has now graduated and is married, but his wife still goes to school, so he still lives in Provo and works in Salt Lake. He happened to be getting his car fixed right then, and it just so happened that Arby's was one of the closest places to walk while his car was getting fixed. He said he was surprised that I ate there, but I told him that it was the first time I'd ever been there, and he said he doesn't eat there often either. It sure was surprising we both happened to be there at the same time.

It sure took me a long time to tell two uninteresting stories...

Merry Thanksgiving

The week of Thanksgiving is one of my favorite weeks of the year. Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday, and I'm sad it's over. At least we have the Christmas season to cushion the blow.

Only one of my classes was scheduled on Tuesday, and that just consisted of group work--the professor wasn't even there. After work, I got prepared to leave. I had offered to take a girl in my ward, Larissa, up to Salt Lake to meet her aunt for Thanksgiving. Even with my GPS, I managed to get lost a few times. But then I went home. And it was great to be home--I did no homework whatsoever during my time at home! I'm excited that in two and a half weeks I will be home again for longer, and I won't even need to feel guilty about not doing homework! I'm just worried about all the muddy homework projects I have to wade through before that time.

Wednesday consisted of getting ready for Thanksgiving. I went running in Bountiful. It was great to run on Bountiful Boulevard again; on that day and on Saturday I ran the furthest I've ever run in Bountiful. I discovered a cord I could use to hook up my laptop to the stereo, which meant that I could play my Thanksgiving music on good, loud speakers. (If only I had more good, loud Thanksgiving music!)

We had a bunch of family over to our house for Thanksgiving. We brought up a folding table and a former eating table (it got replaced by a smaller table and was banished downstairs) in order to fit everyone. We had all sorts of Thanksgiving foods; it was great to wake up to the smell of turkey cooking. After dinner and after some people had left, I introduced my family to Loaded Questions, a game that some equine acquaintances introduced me to this summer. It's like a combination of Apples to Apples and the Ungame, which makes it ideal for my family. That evening we watched A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving and an episode of The Munsters, "Low Cal Munster," which I have had for eight years but haven't yet counted as a Thanksgiving show (because it originally aired in October).

Then Friday started the Christmas season! We didn't do a whole lot of decorating, in part because we are planning to be out of town for Christmas Day. But we did some. I have been glad to start listening to Christmas music. I have four Christmas albums this year that I didn't have last year. One is the Lower Lights' Christmas album, which I bought at their concert in October. I also listened to the MoTab's latest Christmas concert album, Once upon a Christmas with Nathan Gunn. I'm kind of disappointed. A long time ago, they mostly had operatic guests for their Christmas concerts. The only one of their concerts I've seen was in 2005, when they had Renee Fleming. I didn't care much for her because she was so operatic. I think the only people who like that kind of singing are those who have been educated to like it, and what's the point of that? This was back in the day before they started releasing entire concerts as albums. Then something changed, and for five years in a row they had non-operatic guests: Sissel, the King's Singers, Brian Stokes Mitchell, Natalie Cole, and David Archuleta. I've collected all of their Christmas concert albums, and some of them are great. But Nathan Gunn is operatic, and I think their guest for this year is also operatic. I hope they return to non-opera singers next year. The new president of the MoTab has said he wants to be on  "young people's playlists," but picking opera singers is not the way to do that.

But I don't just listen to religious Christmas music. Amazon gave me $2 of MP3 credit, and I had $2 on the Amazon gift card my sister got me, and they had Colbie Caillat's new album Christmas in the Sand for download for just $4. I usually like to get physical CDs, but since I could get an entire Christmas album without paying anything, I just decided to go ahead and download it. It's good, although I'd say I'm neither impressed nor unimpressed. By far my favorite new collection this year is Christina Perri's EP A Very Merry Perri Christmas.
 

I also made a discovery. Last week I ranted about how terrible Christmas radio stations are. Well, I discovered that 98.7 is now an all-Christmas station, and it is much better than FM 100 and 106.5. In all my time listening to it the last few days (which admittedly isn't a whole lot), including my hour drive to Provo, there have only been five songs I've heard before, and one of those is Cherie Call's song "Gifts." I've only heard it because I own it; I've never heard it on the radio before. The other four were fairly typical (Beach Boys, Mannheim Steamroller, Carpenters, and "Feliz Navidad"), but at least they weren't "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree," "Jingle Bell Rock," or "Christmas Canon." So if you are a Wasatch Front person who likes all-Christmas stations, I recommend 98.7 instead of the old standbys. I think they are more likely to play local artists than FM 100, which is ironic because FM 100 is owned by Deseret Media Companies, which also owns Deseret Book and some of those Mormon recording labels. I don't usually like all-Christmas stations, but I might convert to this one. (I only discovered it because they are usually a mainstream station and I went to listen to them.)

I'm sorry this post has sounded like an advertisement for Christmas music. I'm sure this week was more interesting than I make it sound.

My annual rant

I was quite disappointed to see all the Christmas stuff up on campus this week. Lit Christmas trees in the rooms where we have church. Hanging ornaments at the Cougareat. Large trees in the library. I don't understand why the only holiday BYU decorates for is Christmas, because Christmas is the holiday when there will be the smallest amount of people on campus. The only times when there are big breaks from classes are August and December, and in August there is education week. I think BYU should spend that time and money for holidays when people will actually be around. Like Easter. Or the Fourth of July. Or--here's a novel idea--Thanksgiving.

This is what bothers me most about early Christmas. It's like people forget all about Thanksgiving. Some might say, "I can still enjoy Thanksgiving while having up Christmas decorations and listening to Christmas music." But I don't think that's completely possible. I don't think it's possible to do that without saying, at least to some degree, "Thanksgiving, you're nice, but you're just not good enough for me."

A lot of people seem to think that as soon as Halloween is over (or even before it's over), it's time to start thinking about Christmas stuff. They either think, "Halloween is over, which means it's Christmastime," or else they think, "Halloween is over, which means it's Thanksgiving, which means it's time for Christmas stuff." Either way, it's overlooking Thanksgiving. And they're celebrating Christmas nearly two months early!

I abstain from Christmas until after Thanksgiving to respect Thanksgiving. But I also do it to respect Christmas. Some people think I must be a grinch or hate Christmas. On the contrary, I love Christmas. Christmas is a special time, so I don't want to bastardize it by celebrating it early. If I did, I would no longer associate Christmas stuff with Christmas. I want to keep special, so I keep it in its proper time frame.

Some people say, "Shouldn't we have Christmas in our hearts all year round?" Well, we should have feelings of peace on earth, goodwill to men and love and joy and happiness and all that year round. But if you think we need Christmas to have those things, then that's sad.

Some people say they could listen to Christmas music year round. If you did that, then it would no longer be Christmas music. It would just be ordinary music. I think that the draw of Christmas music is the emotions attached to it, and listening to it when it's not Christmas dilutes those emotions.

I sincerely doubt it's the quality of the music that people like, since most popular Christmas music you hear isn't very good. This is a rant I could explain even during Christmastime, but it's especially annoying at Thanksgiving. It seems that most Christmas music falls into three main categories:

1. Good music that is overplayed. Everyone likes Nat King Cole, but do we really need to hear "The Christmas Song" yet again? He sang other songs, you know.
2. Music that might have been good at some point, but it is outdated. I cringe whenever "Jingle Bell Rock" comes on. Both the voice and the instruments are annoying. Maybe it was cool in the 1950s, but it's not anymore. There is some music that is good after fifty or sixty years. This is not an example of such music.
3. Music that was never good to begin with. The best example of this is that [expletive] awful "Christmas Canon": "Merry Christmas Merry Christmas Merry Christmas on this night on this night on this Merry Christmas night" AAUGH! As far as I'm concerned, this song should have never been made. And if it was made, it shouldn't have been recorded. And if it was recorded, it shouldn't be played. And if it's played, it most certainly should not be played FIFTEEN TIMES A DAY FOR TWO MONTHS OF THE YEAR!!! Whoever decided it was a good idea to record the song should be shot with a BB gun. Whoever decided it was a good idea to play it over and over should be slowly, painfully tortured by being required to listen to this dreadful song on repeat 24 hours a day for three months, which is almost what they do to us. I have never met one solitary person who actually likes this song, but I've met plenty of people who hate it.

Now, if these songs were the only Christmas songs that existed, I could understand it. But they're not. Think about all the musicians there are who have recorded Christmas albums; and if not albums, EPs; and if not EPs, singles. Why, just this year there are new Christmas albums by Rod Stewart, Cee Lo Green, Lady Antebellum, Colbie Caillat, Scotty McCreery, Blake Shelton, and Christina Perri. (Funny side story--Last weekend I told my mom I wanted Christina Perri's new Christmas EP [which I bought this weekend], so she said she'd keep an eye out when she went to the store. She came back and said, "No Jan Perri." Only in my life could Christina Perri be called Jan Perri!) There's seemingly an infinite supply of Christmas music. But what do we get? "Jingle Bell Rock" and "Christmas Canon."Over and over and over.

I choose to respect both Thanksgiving and Christmas by observing Thanksgiving. People in my ward have been impressed with my two Thanksgiving ties. I went home last weekend to put up Thanksgiving decor, such as Pilgrim lights and inflatable turkeys. I've been eating candy corn and fall-colored M&Ms (I bought six bags of Thanksgiving candy on November 5). And I've been listening to Thanksgiving music.

Unfortunately, I don't have a lot of Thanksgiving music (only 25 songs), and a lot of it isn't very good. But considering the quality of the above mentioned Christmas music, that's not much of a loss. Hymns 91-95 are Thanksgiving songs. Most of my recordings of them are those terrible recordings from LDS.org. I don't understand how they possibly made them so terrible; they could have visited any BYU ward and asked for a few volunteers to sing and play piano and it would have been ten times better than what they have. But it's free Thanksgiving music.

Hymns make up a significant amount of my Thanksgiving music, and I have a few other odds and ends. But the other bulk of my music is songs from A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving. I love listening to those songs--not so much because of the musical quality (although it's certainly not bad), but because of the strong emotions attached to them. I believe I have every song available from that special, but it took me four CDs to collect them all, and there are still three pieces of music unavailable: the music that plays when Franklin and Marcie meet Peppermint Patty at her house, the music that plays when Snoopy and Woodstock dress as Pilgrims, and the brass version of "Linus and Lucy" that plays when they make their popcorn-and-toast feast.

I didn't download this song, because I don't use iTunes and I can't find it on Amazon. I can't decide whether I should be disappointed or relieved. 

I am so excited for Thanksgiving this week. It's one of my favorite days of the year. The family gets together, there's lots of good food, the weather's wonderful, and it's just a good day to relax and be thankful.

And I will happily start listening to good (non-radio) Christmas music. The day after Thanksgiving.

A tarantula story

I'm making this post because it's something that has simply amazed me this past week, and I kind of want to vent.

You may recall that I have a tarantula problem. Now, this tarantula is kind and benevolent. But scary. And very, very weird.

This past week and a half has been especially weird. It must have eaten a radioactive cricket or something with all the weird stuff. For simplicity in this post, I am going to use the term roommate to refer to my roommate who shares my room, and the term flatmate to refer to my roommate who does not share my room. These are things the tarantula has done in just over a week:

• My flatmate came home at 2:00 a.m. and wanted to go to bed, but the tarantula had placed all of its stuff all over his bed. This tarantula owns an incredible amount of stuff. It's especially incredible when you consider that it's a creature that doesn't even own a car. I would guess it owns 75% of the stuff in the apartment. Or at least 50%.
• A girl made cookies for that same flatmate. The tarantula gave those cookies to its dinner group. Without asking my flatmate.
• It also gave the pumpkin seeds I made on Halloween to its dinner group. Without asking.
• My flatmate's boss had made my flatmate some banana bread or something. That disappeared too without my flatmate getting any. That wasn't even something that was ever mentioned to be shared with anyone, and there wasn't enough to share anyway. 
• And by the way, this was a dinner group the tarantula recently joined. It left its previous dinner group because it didn't like the food they made. 
• It opened my and my roommate's bedroom door early in the morning and then closed it again, without any explanation. (This was at least the second time it has done so.) 
• It was on a date in our apartment in which he and the female made pumpkin pies and construction paper leaves. During this date, it listened to Christmas music and even blasted "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree" really loud.
• For this date, it used my pumpkin-shaped pie dish, which is fine with me. But then it lent the dish to the girl without asking me, when it could have just as easily sent her home with the other one.
• And in this date (which involved long periods of silence, and lasted until after 12:30, which is cutting it close to the Friday night curfew of 1:00), it used my flatmate's construction paper. Without asking him.
• A few weeks ago, it added a bookshelf to our kitchen (it already has two whole shelf cases in the kitchen, each consisting of four shelves completely full of stuff that belong to it). This week it moved that new bookshelf and put it on its desk. At least it's out of our way now.
• It has placed a large pile of boxes in front of my flatmate's side of the closet.
• It folded my underwear.
• It moved some of my roommate's clothes from a closet outside our bedroom into his bedroom closet. Without asking my roommate.
• It put some random stuff inside our bedroom door. One of the things is a "Welcome to Paradise" sign it itself bought at DI this summer.
• After an extensive redecoration this summer before it even moved in, this weekend it put up two new posters in the kitchen. One is a Mormonad, and the other is a poster seemingly bragging about the St. George Marathon. 
• When a neighbor came looking for evaporated milk, it asked (however tarantulas speak) my flatmate if he had any evaporated milk. My flatmate was thinking of powdered milk instead, and responded that he didn't have any. To which the tarantula said, "Yes you do," and pulled a can out of my flatmate's cupboard to give to the neighbor.

Any of these things by itself would be unusual by itself, but relatively innocuous. But all of them happening in one week--it's insane!

I sometimes think I'm the strangest being on the planet. But all this makes me realize that might not be the case. 

A note: The tarantula is a good being and I like it. This post focused on the negative, but there are good things as well. They just don't always balance out...

Death Valley Days

You will have to forgive me for this post. I am actually posting something that happened last weekend, even though I mentioned it in my post last weekend. But I'm going to tell you about my field trip to Death Valley.

You will also have to forgive me because I know that blog posts about vacations are boring. When I read vacation posts, I think, "Well, that's nice for them, but so what for me?" But I understand why people like to post them, because they are interesting to the poster. So since I find it interesting, I'm going to post it.

You also have to forgive me because I am not a photographer. I just have a cheap point-and-shoot camera I got five years ago, and I'm not good at taking pictures anyway. Also, I think some sand got in my camera, causing the little lens screen thing to not function quite properly, so sometimes the pictures are a little obscured.

On Friday, November 2, our class met at 7:30 a.m. to prepare to go on our trip. We all (about thirty of us) piled into four vans and one pickup truck. These are twelve-passenger vans, so it was pretty roomy. I was in the van with my professor, our TA, and four classmates, one of whom is the TA's younger brother. We headed south, our professor pointing out faceted spurs and cinder cones along the way.

We stopped at a church parking lot in St. George for lunch. We had to go to the St. George Temple Visitors' Center to use the restrooms. Then we got back in the vans until we got to our next resting spot at a Las Vegas gas station.

Then we made it to our destination in Death Valley. For some reason they kept our location quite hush-hush all through the semester, but I knew where we were going because of rumors. Thus when our professor said, "Welcome to Death Valley," there were some jokes like, "Oh, is that where we are?" This was our first stop. I think it's called Dante's View. You can see all the deposited sediments on the valley floor and the alluvial fans. Death Valley is in the Basin and Range Province. The valleys form because the continent is extending. As air from the coast hits the mountains, it rises up, dries out, and comes down again drier and warmer. Hence the reason Death Valley is the warmest place in the U.S.

We went to our campsite near Stovepipe Wells. We set up our tents (I was about to set mine up but someone invited me to share a tent) and we had a dinner of hot dogs and bratwurst. There was a kangaroo rat running around trying to catch any food we dropped. That night, many of us went out to the Mesquite Flat Sand Dunes. The moon was bright, and since we weren't near a city, it was easy to see the stars. It was a beautiful night, and as I was lying in the sand with my shoes off, I looked up at the night sky and thought of how amazing it was. It's amazing to think that there are billions and billions of stars out there and we can see them, even though they're so far away!

The next morning, all of us went back to the dunes. We had to analyze the sand formation. The dunes--at least part of them--are pretty young, which we know because they have a lot of things besides quartz, such as feldspar and magnetite. The dunes had varying sizes and directions of ripple marks. Unfortunately, I'm not too good at understanding the relationship between saltation and ripple formation. We looked at the sand particles, and at the interdunes (the flat place between dunes) some of us licked pieces of the ground to discover that it had a clayey texture (it stuck to our tongues). We found a kangaroo rat den, which shows differing layers of the dune.

We climbed to the biggest dune. I'm glad I'm in better shape than I used to be!

The Mesquite dunes are transverse dunes, which means that there's a lot of sand and one prevailing wind direction. As a kid, we used to go to some dunes near Flowell (Fillmore) at Easter. Those were barchan dunes. Barchan and transverse dunes basically form the same way, except that transverse dunes have a large sand supply.

We went and saw this formation. I believe these are clays, which is why they erode like this. And there is igneous material (I can't remember if it's ash or cinders or something else) on the top.

We went and ate lunch on a road. That location had very soft ground that consisted of volcanic cinders underlain by volcanic ash.

Then we drove for about an hour on an extremely bumpy road to get to my favorite location on the trip. This place is called the Racetrack. It's a playa (a dry lake bed, from the Spanish word for beach). Which is pretty cool by itself.

But this is no ordinary playa. All over the ground are rocks, some of which apparently are as big as 800 pounds. And they move! No one has ever seen them move, and no one is quite sure why they do. But they definitely move and leave tracks. One theory is that it is so flat that when it gets wet, it gets really slick and wind can push the rocks along. Another theory (which makes more sense to me) is that it freezes over on occasion, which obviously reduces the friction and the rocks can slide. But it still remains a mystery.

The woman in the pink is our professor.

We stood on a mountain (covered in rocks with a "rip-your-pants" texture--I think it was chemically eroded limestone, but I could be remembering wrong) from which these rocks originated. I think the photographer on the right side of this picture is the one someone apologized to (since there were thirty of us in his picture), but he said he needed us in his pictures because he worked with a BYU grad.

The texture of this playa was different from what we would see in other places.

Then we drove back on the bumpy road for another hour. I'm kind of glad the road is so bumpy because it prevents dumb, irresponsible people from messing with such an awesome place. Then we went and looked at some volcanic craters. There were sediments deposited, and a magma chamber came up through the sediments. It was mafic magma (meaning it has a lot of magnesium and iron), which tends to be more peaceful than silicic magma (like Mt. St. Helens), but there was a lake here, which resulted in a big explosion (when mafic magma mixes with water, it becomes explosive, which is why the Iceland volcano a few years ago was so disastrous). On top of all the sediments are cinders and I think ash.

We headed back to our campground and ate fajitas and visited with a transient (in a positive sense) named Ken at the next campsite over. I guess he was lonely so he came and visited us for a long time.

The next day was Sunday, and surprisingly we as BYU students were out doing things. We followed the roads on alluvial fans. We came and visited this area, called the Devil's Golf Course (one of my classmates said, "We're so mean to the devil"). I believe this is also a playa, and I think these are basaltic rocks. Water occasionally deposits halite on top. I couldn't help licking the deposits a few times.

This is a bad picture, but I was glad to see an example of olivine in its natural habitat. Olivine is a green mineral in mafic lava--the more mafic it is, the more olivine there is. I hope this is olivine--if it's not, I'll be disappointed.

Then we headed to another playa, Badwater Basin. If you look closely, you can see a sign on the mountain that indicates where sea level is.

Badwater Basin gets more water than Devil's Golf Course (probably because of its elevation), so the salt is more a result of dissolution than it is of deposition. The halite was easier to lick here. Strangely, this week I was in the geology computer lab, and the computers around me had screensavers of different locations, one of which was here. It gave me the strangest cravings. I think it was the first time I've had a craving for an entire location. It sure was tasty!

Our final stop in Death Valley was near this ghost mine (Death Valley used to be used to mine borax). It was really hot; I would guess it was in the 90s. We ate some lunch and had a brief devotional before heading out.

On our way back, I introduced my fellow passengers to the Lower Lights. We stopped in Vegas at an In-N-Out. I was surprised that the one day we went out to eat was a Sunday. I was a heathen with my class and bought some food (some others just ate leftover food on the truck); I justified it because I needed to use the restroom and I would feel bad doing so without being a customer. Someone jokingly said that we might as well be drinking coffee, since we were already breaking a commandment. Then we headed back (making another gas station stop in Beaver), and we arrived in Provo at about 9:00.

I know you might not think it sounded that fun, but it really was. I think there's just something fun about a weekend-long field trip with a class. It was fun to be with all these geology people when I'm an English Language major. I could pick up a rock and examine it without anyone looking at me funny. It kind of made me sad I'm not a scientist. But then I think of all the chemistry, physics, and math I would have to take, and I think, "Nah. I'm good."

Fin Octobre, Début Novembre

Yay! It is my favorite month! But I'll have to skip all the celebrating tonight because I'm very tired and I want to go to bed, and I have to take a shower because there's sand in that part of my body I don't like talking about, namely my hair. So I'll keep it short today.

I had an OK Halloween. I had to do homework and studying. I turned on some Halloween music while I carved the Obama pumpkin you may have seen on Facebook. A girl I knew this summer, Amberly, stopped by with a friend of hers. Amberly admired our Jan Terri picture and told her friend she would have to show her Jan Terri, so I brought my computer out and we watched "Get Down Goblin." I took a short break from homework to make an appearance at an informal Halloween party. And then I watched that ridiculously cheesy TV movie The Munsters' Revenge.

But November 1 was a crazy day because I had to take two tests and do some other odds and ends (including voting). I was glad when I got everything that day.

And the reason I had to do all of that on Thursday and why I am so tired now is because I went on a field trip! My geomorphology class all went out to Death Valley. It was really, really fun. I was thinking about what a good decision it was to become a geology minor. We saw transverse sand dunes, volcanic craters, and mysterious moving rocks. Maybe I'll tell you all about Death Valley sometime. But not tonight.

As we were driving home I texted my roommate Scott to ask if he could meet me on campus to help carry some stuff back. Well, he showed up with seven other people from my ward. I didn't expect a welcoming committee!

Bewitched, Bewitched, you've got me in your spell

It seems like it could have been several holidays this week!

I was really excited to see it snow for the first time this season! That made it kind of like Christmas. It also seemed like Christmas because there were already Christmas lights on some of the trees on campus (I certainly hope they light them no earlier than November 23), and coming home from church I saw some people across the street putting lights up. (Come on...even if you don't turn them on, don't you think it's a little early?) But there wasn't a lot of snow, and it didn't last too long. Some of the chilly weather with the half-naked trees and leaves around made it seem like November. But honestly, our monthly designations are quite arbitrary and it is almost November.

It kind of seemed like St. Patrick's Day because I had to write a report on Irish English. That's how I spent my "free" time on Monday and Tuesday, writing about how they speak in Ireland. One feature I found particularly interesting is that the Irish use ye as a second person plural pronoun. I used to use that because I knew it was used in Early Modern English, but I didn't think any present-day speakers used it. Well, in Ireland they do! I think I want to start using ye more often.

But of course it seemed much like it's supposed to, with all the Halloween things that went on this week. I started wearing my Halloween clothes. And I've been watching my Halloween shows. I have five Halloween episodes of Bewitched, and I actually got all of my roommates to watch Bewitched, although not all at the same time. It's a rare thing to get three college-age guys sitting together watching Bewitched. (I actually remember an episode of The Simpsons in which Bart saw the future, where he was grown up and loved watching Bewitched.) One of my roommates works at the MTC (well, two do but the other one is irrelevant to this story) and he said that he talked about Bewitched with a missionary. He said something like, "You can't just disappear, like on Bewitched," and the missionary said, "I don't know what Bewitched is." Of all the silly 60s shows I watch, I think Bewitched is the most sophisticated and, despite all its primitive special effects, the most timeless. How else could you explain that all four of us wanted to watch it? (The roommate who mentioned it to a missionary actually asked me when I was going to be watching it.)

This week I registered for classes. It's possible it could change, but probably not. I'm taking Phonetics and Phonology, Early Modern English, Historical Geology, Geology of Planets, and Old Testament. This will actually finish up my geology minor, although I might want to take some more geology classes later. I will have three professors I've previously had: Cynthia Hallen taught my History of the English Language class and I will have her for EME, Brooks Britt taught my Dinosaurs! class (which is what made me decide to do the geology minor) and I will have the historical class from him, and Jani Radebaugh is my current Geomorphology professor and I will have her for the planets class. (I know she really loves other planets, especially Titan, Saturn's moon.)

Speaking of Geomorphology, I have a field trip for that class this weekend. And I have two tests this week. And it's Halloween. I actually went ahead and planned the next few days to make sure I'll be able to get everything done. Halloween's supposed to be a time just to have fun--why does everything have to happen at the same time?

Yesterday my ward's Relief Society had a brunch thing, and they asked us elders to be servers. So I helped out with that. And then I ran for an hour. Other runners often baffle me. It was in the upper 50s, so it was good running weather. If anything, it was too warm. But I saw some runners in hoodies or long sleeves or pants. I was sweating in my shorts and (jack-o-lantern) t-shirt! I wouldn't need to wear those warm clothes even if I were just walking! But if people like getting hot and sweating, whatever.

This week I got my copy of Mapping Mormonism. It's a book that is for sale at Deseret Book and I think even Costco. And my name is in it! Yes siree, there is a PDF of the front matter that proves it. So my name is available for sale at Costco. I think it was my favorite thing I've worked on for BYU Studies. But when I look at the pages, they are so familiar to me that I can't help thinking, "Did we change all the hyphens to en dashes? Did we catch all the typos?"

Happy  Halloween!

Why I hate politics

I watched part of the debate on Tuesday.

I'm an undecided voter, and the debate certainly didn't help me decide who to vote for. In fact, I kind of don't want to vote for either of them. The candidates just talked over one another and spoke in partial truths and vague accusations. Romney kept saying, "When the president took office, he promised such and such and he hasn't kept those promises." Come on Mitt, really? I wonder how many presidents actually keep all their promises. A lot can happen in four years. If Mitt's elected, I doubt he'll live up to all of his promises. The last question of the debate asked about misconceptions of the candidates. Both candidates used the time to bash on their opponent.

This is exactly why I hate politics. You have these two political parties, and once someone claims their allegiance to one, they turn into mindless robots who support every measure their party supports. What's worse, they will attack any measure the opposite party supports, even if they otherwise might agree with it. People may have particular reasons for adhering to a party. Some may stick to a party because it is a family tradition. Others might stick to a party precisely because it is not a family tradition. The problem is not with the parties themselves; the problem lies with sacrificing your reasoning to other people and having them tell you what you should believe and do.

If I were to generalize the Republican Party, it would be that they are ignorant. If they hear facts that disagree with their party, they put their fingers in their ears and deny the facts. I think the quintessential example of this is global warming. They can't bear to think that we have a problem, so they pretend it doesn't exist. (I wrote a blog post back in April that goes into more detail about my views on the matter.)

If I were to generalize the Democratic Party, it would be that they like to characterize others as being bigoted and hateful, but in so doing they themselves are even more so. A recent example of this is the Chic-Fil-A incident. The owner of a restaurant chain expresses his opinion about gay marriage. Suddenly the country is in an uproar, and everyone is accusing him of being hateful because of his opinion. I do think that there are a lot of opponents of gay marriage who are bigoted and homophobic. But I think there are a lot of opponents of it who have other reasons for opposing it, none of which are homophobic. Automatically saying he is hateful because of his view seems just as hateful to me. It's as if you're saying, "You can believe whatever you want, as long as it agrees with me." Some people even went as far as to say that his restaurants were unwelcome in their cities. What do chicken sandwiches have to do with marriage? Following the incident, a lot of people ate at his restaurant in support of him. And once again, Democrats were labeling these patrons as hateful. But in this case I don't think the reason people supported him was because of the marriage issue. They supported him because America should be a place where we can express our opinions. So automatically accusing everyone of being intolerant seems very intolerant to me. Remember when gay marriage advocates graffitied Mormon temples after Proposition 8? How is that tolerant? (By the way, I'm not trying to say whether gay marriage is right or wrong. I'm simply saying that it is irrational to assume someone is hateful because they happen to disagree with you.)

Now, I realize that in making these generalizations, I'm being just as bad as the behaviors I'm condemning. And I recognize some might say I'm intolerant for saying that Democrats are intolerant for saying that Republicans are intolerant. I do realize that these perceptions are shaped by a very vocal minority. But because these minorities are so vocal, they have the potential to drag more people into their robotic organizations.

These irrational ties to party lines lead people to deplorable and childish behavior. People begin making unfounded accusations. Remember how Romney doesn't pay his taxes and how Obama is a Muslim born outside of the U.S.?

Other times people will take something and blow it out of proportion. Take the "you didn't build that" thing. The Republicans blew that out of proportion. If Romney had said it, they wouldn't have reacted. And take Romney's remarks about women on Tuesday night. I watched that, and I didn't find it misogynic. Maybe I didn't catch it because I'm not a woman, but I feel like the Democrats jumped on it because it was Romney who said and not Obama. And if Obama had said it, then the Republicans would be all over him.

Sometimes people will take something that is neither good nor bad but they will turn it into something bad. Mitt Romney is rich. So what? Well, he doesn't understand middle classes. That just sounds like an excuse for turning richness into a bad thing. Some people have been very adamant about how Mitt Romney said students should borrow money from their parents, therefore he doesn't understand the middle class. Um, I'm a middle class student, and I get help from my parents. I realize that not everyone has that opportunity, but I don't think Romney was insinuating that that's an option for everyone. It's just one possible suggestion out of many.

Good grief, if I were running for president, I'd have all sorts of ridiculous things said to oppose me:
"Governor Melville believes we should dip criminals in boiling oil."
"Governor Melville is a Mormon. Isn't that reason enough not to vote for him?"
"Mr. Melville is a descendant of Puritanical Pilgrims and Mormon pioneers. How can he understand a minority?"
"In high school, Melville claimed he was a werewolf. Do you want a deranged individual running our country?"
"How can someone who doesn't watch popular TV shows know what's going on in the world?"
"Mr. Melville has Snoopy on his pajamas!"

Then there's the effects party lines have had on the candidates themselves. Mitt Romney has changed his mind (or at least appears to) many times in order to align himself with the Republican Party, instead of sticking with what he really believes to be right. I can only hope that if he gets elected, he will switch back to what he knows to be right, not what the party tells him to--if he can switch once, surely he can switch again. I also think Obama has done similar things. Our corrupt party system has led candidates to believe that catering to their voters is more important than sticking up for what is right.

I would also like to point out some additional unfounded attacks this season, ones that are directed against Obama. One of these relates to gas prices. The highest I can ever remember gas prices was the summer of 2008, when gas was nearly $5 a gallon in East Wenatchee, WA. That was before Obama even got elected.

The other is kind of related, and that is that the economy hasn't gotten better. I could understand if you said that Obama perhaps didn't do enough for the economy, or else he went about it the wrong way. I don't know if these would be accurate statements, but I could understand how you might make them. But I do know that the economy has gotten better. How do I know this? Simple observation.

During my first year at BYU, I was searching for jobs. I applied to jobs all over the place. The BYU job listings page was only two or three pages long, even during spring. It was four pages on a good day. Once I saw a job listing on the board in the Wilk, so I immediately went to the library to submit an electronic application. While I was in the process of filling out the application, the position was filled, even though it was only posted that morning. I got so desperate that I even applied at the MTC. But I couldn't find a Provo job, so I took fall semester off in order to live at home and find a job. For two months I applied to jobs right and left. I applied to every job I felt qualified for, and even some I knew I wasn't qualified for. I applied to stores, restaurants, warehouses, and other businesses. Out of all the dozens of applications I submitted, I only got a few interviews, and I didn't get those jobs. It took me two months before I finally got a job. (In hindsight, I'm grateful the job market was the way it was, because I got a really good job that I wouldn't have even thought of if I hadn't been desperate. It was so good that I went back there last year, and sometimes I miss it even now. But just because it worked out for me doesn't mean the job market was good.)

Two years later, I know the job market is better. BYU's job listings currently take up five pages and it's the middle of the semester, and five pages is actually pretty low compared to what it usually is. But five pages is still better than it was over two years ago. I also keep getting emails from Sears (apparently one of the stores I applied to) about my application from two years ago! Unfortunately for them, but fortunately for me, I have a better job now. So I know the economy has gotten better.

But I still don't know who I'm going to vote for. My consolation, however, is that with the way the electoral college works, it doesn't matter who I vote for anyway.

How can you not like fall?

This week was pretty enjoyable.

I felt like it was the first time we really had chilly weather. It was in the low 30s on Monday morning, and then it was rainy and a little chilly Friday and Saturday. It has me so excited!  Friday was a wonderful day. I was in awe as I walked home and looked at the mountain. It has entirely changed colors!

I had several classes cancelled this week. On Monday, I showed up to my second class, varieties of English, and there was a sign at the door saying class was cancelled. Then I showed up to my third class, substantive editing, and we were all sitting there, waiting for the teacher, and then after a few minutes the TA got up and said that she had forgotten that the professor wasn't going to be there and that she had forgotten to look over the lesson for the day, so class was cancelled. Then varieties of English was cancelled again on Wednesday. My empirical methods in English linguistics class, my first class, was cancelled Friday morning so we could work on the midterm (I just slept in). I was preparing to go to my second class (varieties of English) when I checked my email and learned that the professor was still sick. Five classes cancelled in a week? I'll take it!

It was homecoming this week, which didn't really affect me. Sometimes I feel guilty that I don't care more about football. But then I see people whose lives are so consumed by football, and I don't feel guilty. I saw someone post on Facebook something like, "I had a great birthday, except for a stupid call." I see that white-suspendered U fan who accosted BYU's coach. I see riots in other countries over soccer. And I think, Society needs people like me. Just as a well-rooted plant prevents a riverbank from eroding, people like me will keep society from crumbling. I have no ill feelings to people who like football. I just have zero interest in it, and I think such an attitude is helpful for the community at large.

I only got a side effect from homecoming that affected me. My grandparents were in Provo for BYU's homecoming spectacular, so they invited me to dinner. Then we went to the MOA (museum of art). After seeing them, I went home and worked on my research paper for my environmental biology class. I'm writing a paper about the effect of tourism on Antarctic penguins. I worked for several hours on my penguin paper--it was good to be productive.

Before I woke up on Saturday, I was having a really weird dream. Since I had gone on a date, my mom bought me a wedding dress. I think it was for my prospective wife, but I ended up going to church in it. Understandably, I was quite uncomfortable wearing a wedding dress at church, especially when I had to bless or pass the sacrament in it. But later in the dream I discovered that the dress was more like a cape, and I was also wearing a wedding tux, so it was convenient to simply take off the cape/dress and walk around in the tux. When I woke up, I was thinking about marriage. I am a hateful person, so I think I'm incapable of falling in love, which makes it hard to get married. I think I'd have more chances for marriage in a society with arranged marriages.

Usher woke me up on Saturday before 8:00, and I couldn't get back to sleep. Apparently there was a pancake breakfast at the gas station across the street for homecoming, and they thought pop music went with pancakes. Then there was a 5k going on outside my apartment. And then the homecoming parade went past my apartment. I could have watched it, but I have better things to do on a Saturday than watch people walking and cars driving, so I cleaned and occasionally peeked out the window.

I wasn't going to let the fall beauty go to waste, so I put on my shortest shorts and decided to go running. It was cool enough that I was able to go running during the day, the first time I did so since April. I ran up 900 East past the MTC, the first time I did so since April. I ran for an hour, the first time I did so since April. But my old route would take me past the stadium, and I didn't think that would be wise, since there was the football game. So I proceeded to University Ave. and went up the Provo River Parkway a little bit. I was amazed at all the traffic, pedestrian and automobile, there for the game. I had to wait a long time at stoplights because of the traffic, and I had to run on grass to get around the BYU fans of all ages and sizes. I was amazed at how far away people had to park to get to the game. People are willing to walk that far and go through so much hectic traffic just to watch blue- (or black-) clad people chase an oblong object up and down a field? To each their own.

Last night I was able to work on my midterm for my empirical methods in English linguistics class. I analyzed the speech of Obama and Romney from the presidential debate. I don't care about politics, so I figured it was a good opportunity to get exposed to the candidates and their issues. I had an idea of who I was going to vote for, but now that I read some of the debate (I didn't need to read all of it to conduct my tests) I might be leaning the other way. But after four and a half hours at the computer, I was fortunate enough to be able to watch TV for homework. I watched The Beverly Hillbillies for its dialectal stigmas.

You know what are really weird? Tarantulas.

Let the Lower Lights be awesome

I think October is my third-favorite month, sandwiched between my second favorite and my favorite.

I had a few tender mercies this week. I had a midterm in my environmental bio class on Monday and a take-home midterm for my varieties of English class that was due Tuesday. I was also supposed to have a paper due on Friday, and with the tests, I hadn't even started it. But then our varieties of English professor said she felt bad having the paper due the same week as the midterm, so I get more time! I still haven't started the paper itself, but I've done a little more research for it.

The other mercy was that with my studying for the bio test, I forgot that we had a bio quiz that was due before class on Wednesday. But Wednesday happened to be the day that BYU Learning Suite was being especially unfriendly (it kept saying "Fatal error ldfoi hdiu hiuerhgwiufgiuwgehfwgrandomthingsthatdontmeananythingdifh iueht9o8yt98y"), so the professor and the TAs made it due Thursday, which meant I was able to finish it before it was due!

On Thursday, one of my favorite singers, Cherie Call, was singing at an event in the library. It was a photo exhibit by some guy who took pictures of mothers and daughters over the course of thirty days. So he had this little program with four mother writers. I had to sit through four essays (they were good essays, but still) to hear Cherie Call sing one song, "Walk You through the Night." After the program, I mustered up my courage and went and talked to Cherie. I told her that she was the reason I was there that night, and I asked her if she was recording an album anytime soon (it has been three years since she released her last album, Grace). Her answer saddened me. She said that she doesn't have a contract with a record company and she doesn't have a lot of money, so she has to get what proceeds she can from a few singles she records once in a while. In my mind, this is unacceptable! I think she is one of the best--if not the best--singers in the LDS community, yet she is a bit more obscure than, say, Mindy Gledhill or Hilary Weeks. She writes her own songs, which are all creative and tell stories. Her voice is completely unique. Some people might not like it, but I love it. I admit I haven't bought her more recent singles, but I suppose I should. I have, however, bought all seven of her albums. All but the first one are fantastic. (And for those of you who don't like religious music, her first two albums are not religious, and her album Grace has a lot of songs about family life, not necessarily religion.)

But I did get to hear more of her the next night. I had a mission reunion, but after the reunion I went with my childhood friend Hillary Ulmer (who went to the same mission, but at a different time) to see the Lower Lights, of which Cherie Call is a part. I got a Lower Lights CD for my birthday, and I was excited to see that they had a free concert in Provo. It was fun to see them live. At the show I bought their Christmas album and got an added bonus. One thing that made me sad about getting the CD for my birthday was that I saw that if you bought it online, you got free extra songs, so getting the CD for my birthday meant I didn't get the extra songs. But because I bought a different CD at the show, they gave me a code to get the extra eight songs! I like to collect hymns, especially ones that aren't by the MoTab, and now the Lower Lights have greatly contributed to my collection. Getting all that new music this week made me realize the space on my computer is getting low, so I spent some time putting my holiday music on a flash drive so that it will only take space on my computer when I use it. It was a bit of a headache, but now that it's done it will free up space.

The mission reunion was a little weird. It was the first reunion I've had with my second mission president, who got home in July. I only had him for five months, and it was three years ago. I don't think President and Sister Palmer remembered me very well. I didn't know the vast majority of people there. Strangely, one of the people I knew there did not have a connection to my mission. She was in my ward this summer--she works for catering or something (the reunion was in the Wilk, which is a ten minute walk from my apartment if I walk slow. Best location ever.). I only had two companions there, three if you count my MTC companion. But I only talked to one, Elder Betenson. My MTC companion came late and I didn't feel a great need to talk to him, and the other companion was the evil Elder LaPratt who I wish would disappear. I remember one night during my first semester at BYU in which someone was telling me 21 was a hard age because you still miss your mission. I was skeptical that I would ever stop missing it. But I have reached that point. I mean, I still miss it a little bit (especially at this time of year, since it was four years ago this week that I transferred to my favorite area), but I've moved on with life.

Conference was good. My concern with the new mission ages has to do with our Mormon culture. It seems like we try to get people out on their missions as close to nineteen as possible. I felt like there was something wrong because I didn't leave for two months after I turned nineteen. I hope that people will realize that just because they can leave at 18 doesn't necessarily mean they must or even should. I think I benefited from my six months after high school, and more would have helped as well. I'm not saying we should try to avoid going as soon as possible, but I think we need to diminish the idea of you must go now.

One year older and wiser too

It was my birthday yesterday! It meant that I was allowed to--and did--eat a lot of unhealthy things over the course of the week.

On Friday I had just come back from running (I unwisely ended up "running" through post-football game pedestrian traffic--my run turned into a walk for a period of time) when I learned that Hanna the Idahoan horse was in town. I changed and then visited her and her equine friends. We caught up and talked about my opinions of tarantulas. At some point in the conversation, Hanna said that she was glad she had made cinnamon rolls back in May because it led to her knowledge about my strange diet. Her friend Kristen then pointed out that I can eat things now because of Halloween, and then I mentioned that I could eat anything that week. Then they found out it was my birthday, and we ended up taking a spontaneous late-night trip to Smith's to buy some ice cream (I later learned it was just a "frozen dairy dessert") and then ate it by the stream on campus. It was after midnight, so it was technically my birthday. I realized that if our spontaneous celebration counted as a birthday party, it was the first birthday party I've had since I was twelve.

Saturday morning I had to get up early because my ward was doing a service project. But my GPS didn't have the location of the project, and I knew I would get lost, and I didn't want to get lost, so I went back to bed. I don't really regret it. Then I went home. My parents presented me with a collection of random gifts. First they gave me a non-present of used speakers for my computer (so that I don't have to use the laptop speakers if I take it out of my room) but I don't know if I can get them to work they way I want. I got a Michael Vey book. I'll read it eventually, but not anytime soon. I got a giant fake spider, an insulated cup with a skull on it, and some fall-colored peanut butter M&Ms. (The M&Ms, not the peanut butter, are fall colored.) I got the first season of Hogan's Heroes (a show I haven't seen enough of to decide whether I like it, although I suspect I will). My mom nearly forgot to give me two CDs, but the conversation led her to remember. She got me a CD by the Lower Lights, who put a folksy twist on traditional hymns. Sometimes I feel like the MoTab tries to suck the life out of any song they sing, so it's nice to have these songs reinvigorated again. But don't think I'm too harsh on the MoTab, because the other CD was their newest Christmas concert album. I doubt it'll be very good (who likes opera singers anymore?), but I like to collect them. Their concert albums with Sissel, the Kings Singers, and Brian Stokes Mitchell were all fantastic.

After going to Chili's for lunch and doing grocery shopping, we had cake and ice creams. I showed my parents Mad Monster Party?. With my parents' opinions in play, I decided to count it as a Halloween movie, due to its monstery theme and its October setting. Then I came back to Provo and had to do some studying for my test tomorrow. It was a satisfying birthday.

Sometimes as I get older, I like to reflect on my life and the ways I've changed--hopefully for the better. My mission was obviously the biggest catalyst for change in my life, and I think I changed more during that period than I would have during a normal two-year span.

But even though I haven't been on a mission, I still think I've had some significant changes over the last two years.
This is a picture of me on September 15, 2010.

And this is a picture of me from this August, with my nephew Baby.

Two years ago at this time, I had never even seen Baby!

Two years ago, I had recently finished my first year of college. I was searching for a job. I later got a job, and then returned to it a year ago.

Now I have a paid internship as an "editorial assistant." I'm getting exposure to the kind of work I plan on doing in life.

Two years ago, I still had a lot of prescriptive grammarian in me, although it was diminishing.

Now, I am more of a descriptive grammarian. Some of you may have taken a survey this week about the use of "This is he" vs. "This is him" when you answer the phone. The "correct" way is to say "This is he"--but that's an incredibly stupid rule. They say you should use the subjective pronoun when the verb is to be. Never mind that you use the objective pronoun in most other predicates! Those foolish seventeenth-century grammarians created this rule because Latin would use the subject pronouns. But English isn't Latin! Furthermore, French would use an objective pronoun in this construction, and French is from Latin and is more close to English than Latin is! I was a bit dismayed by all of my survey respondents who said that grammar rules are important. It was practically a dagger to the heart when one of my ELang colleagues said she teaches people to answer the phone the "right" way! She, of all people, should know better!

Two years ago I was content in my ELang and editing studies, and wouldn't have considered studying more.

Now I am also a geology minor, which allows me to do all sorts of fun things. This week I got to play on the stream table, which is a glorified sandbox (with plastic sand) that illustrates fluvial processes. One of the times I observed it, it started out looking like this:

 After thirty or forty minutes, it looked like this.

(It was depositing sediment so fast that we had to keep moving the sand so that the deltas wouldn't go down the drain. Hence the giant sand pile. But overall the river changed mostly naturally.)

Two years ago I was terribly socially awkward.

Today, I'm, well, terribly socially awkward. But I feel God keeps putting me in situations to force me out of my comfort zone. Like my air conditioning going out for six weeks last summer, or my present calling as a ward clerk.

Two years ago I was concerned about being a Halloween tree. If you put a shiny red ball on a green pine tree, it looks good. But if you put that same shiny red ball on a black, dead, ugly Halloween tree, it doesn't look good. Just as I, I would say, am a Halloween tree, therefore I can't have Christmas ornaments. Now I'm more willing to try things that I would consider to be Christmas ornaments. I listen to regular radio stations and even buy songs that I hear. I have some colored pants. And I do some other Christmas ornament things.

On the other hand, two years ago I was kind of ashamed of my Halloween ornaments.

But now I'm not so ashamed. I openly play my music, both Halloween and Christmas ornaments, for anyone to hear. I have my Halloween DVDs, from Peanuts to Bewitched, out on the living room shelf for anyone to see. I'm more comfortable being a Halloween tree, even though I'm less of one.

Maybe there's nothing wrong with being a Nightmare Before Christmas tree.