You know the expression "When Hell freezes over"?
I'm not sure that's a good description, because I'm starting to think that Hell is covered in a permanent sheet of ice.
On Thursday morning, I knew there was freezing rain going on. I get texts from KSL that alert me to news things, and I got lots of texts about accidents and stuff. And then I heard my roommate Scott yelling as he almost slipped outside on the little staircase balcony.
I left to go to school and I could see for myself just how icy it was. At first I thought, "This is crazy!" I watched the girl in front of me nearly fall from slipping. I watched a bunch of people walk on the snow piles on either side of the sidewalk to keep from falling. So I decided to do the same. But one of the snow piles I decided to walk on was compacted and covered with ice. I tried to catch myself on the nearby truck, but I didn't. BOOM! I nearly broke my coccyx.
At this point, the ice wasn't just crazy. It was annoying. And scary.
So then I continued my trek to campus, occasionally slipping but able to keep my balance.
Then I got to the sidewalk on the hill going up to campus. I saw that very few people were on it; most people were walking on the snow-covered field. I tried to walk over to that same field, but as I started on the sidewalk, I just slipped away. I could tell that it wasn't going to work to get on the field there, so I thought I could walk on the snow on the curb until I got somewhere flatter and then cut across to the sidewalk.
Eventually I got someplace that seemed a little flatter and I would safely be able to get to the snow on the other side of the sidewalk.
But I was wrong when I thought "safely." I slipped. And the next thing I knew, I was lying on the ground, my glasses above my head, my right front tooth caved in, and my shoulder hurting.
I was kind of in distress at this point. I have always been afraid of breaking my teeth, and here I was, broken teeth, lying on the cold, hard, wet ground, not knowing if I could move. I worried my arm was broken.
Then a guy came and asked if I was all right. I didn't know how I was. He helped me take my backpack off. I was worried about it, because I thought my arm was injured. But it didn't take me long to figure out my arm was going to be fine, although it was sore. Then he helped me slide over to the snow. There were lots of people around me; the guy who helped told them it was too dangerous to be there. One girl gave me back my glasses. The guy was moving my gloved hand to my face. I didn't know why. It turned out I was bleeding. My water bottle fell off my backpack and rolled way down the icy sidewalk (I later got it back from a girl who picked it up).
A man who was employed at the booth near the gates that go up and down (I don't know what they're called) came out and asked me if I wanted the campus paramedics to come. Everyone seemed so worried about me that I accepted. He called them, but they were pretty busy. I went into the parking booth while we waited for them. They arrived and checked me out and gave me an "adhesive bandage" (it probably wasn't a Band-aid) for the cut on my chin. During all this time, I was most concerned about my tooth, but everyone else didn't seem to care about that. I think they were most worried that I was bleeding. It was just a small cut, but I did bleed quite a bit for the size. The EMTs said there was nothing they could do (maybe if they were less busy they would have) and they sent me on my way. I didn't want to go to class with broken teeth.
Now, it just so happens that there is a dentist's office right by my apartment; in fact, I home teach some guys who live above it. I didn't want to go up to the BYU Health Center--I didn't want to go anywhere--but since Cougar Dental was on my way home anyway, and I was most concerned about my teeth, I stopped in. There are a lot of small businesses by my house, and I've been to most of them. But I never planned on going to Cougar Dental.
While I was filling out the necessary paperwork, I kept feeling little hard pieces floating around in my mouth. It was a little disheartening to pull them out and realize they were pieces of my teeth. Broken bones heal, but teeth keep their chips.
The dentist's assistant took x-rays of my teeth, and then the dentist numbed me up so that he could pull my tooth back into place. I am so thankful for the miracle of modern medicine, that my tooth was restored to its proper position just an hour after it was displaced. But I do have several chips. One of them (on my left front tooth) will have to be filled, while the others can just be smoothed out. But when my tooth got pushed back, it's possible it severed a nerve or a blood vessel, and I may need a root canal. My mom talked to my regular dentist, and he said there's an 80 percent chance I will need one. I'm holding out for the 20 percent.
The ice started melting, but I was terrified of it freezing again later in the day, so I stayed home. I emailed my afternoon professor--she was very understanding--and I did job stuff from home. It turns out I could have gone, but I didn't want to risk it.
I actually had an interesting work experience this week. I have to write abstracts for articles written by Hugh Nibley. Nibley was a very smart guy, and he is a good writer on the sentence level, but on the organization level, he's terrible. It's very hard to write these abstracts, because I don't understand the significance of all the things he's saying. Anyway, in one of these articles, he was praising the work of a certain scholar and saying that "the Latter-day Saints owe a debt of gratitude" to this guy. Well, I wrote the abstract, but I wasn't quite satisfied. So I decided to research this guy, and I found out that the Latter-day Saints should not be grateful to him; he went around preaching anti-Mormon sermons. But even more seriously, he was a total fraud! He got his PhD from a company that would send you one in the mail if you sent them money--a company that was shut down by Washington state for being unethical. In one of his books he has an introduction by a certain man, praising him for his great knowledge and saying that he was friends with presidents and kings. But the man never existed! One of my bosses was quite glad I discovered all this, and instead they had me write an abstract pointing out the problem.
On Friday morning, I looked out the window and saw people slipping again. I decided it wasn't worth going to school. After all, when I tried to go on Thursday, I ended up missing it anyway and ended up in the dentist. I hate missing school; the only other time I've missed college classes was for my field trip back in November. But I didn't dare risk slipping again.
My teeth have gotten better, but they still hurt, and I have to be careful. I can't bite things; I have to put all my food in the back of my mouth.
I don't wanna lose my tooth tonight. It's the only thing that matters.
Sunday, January 27, 2013
Sunday, January 20, 2013
Mind. Blown.
Have you ever just thought about how positively amazing and mindboggling some stuff is?
For example, consider a little black ant on your fingertip. It is just a little tiny creature, a little speck on your body. It would fit on your pupil if you didn't blink. And yet, there are things even tinier than the ant. The ant is made up of cells and is probably covered with single-celled organisms. And these cells contain even smaller things. I'm not a microbiologist, so I can't tell you what. But we're talking tiny, tiny.
But then start thinking outward. You are just one of millions of people in your country and billions in the world. And yet, there is still room for everyone. The earth is so huge that we all fit, and there are still large parts that are uninhabited--oceans, deserts, Antarctica. This planet is enormous!
But there are eight planets in the solar system, and only three of them are smaller than Earth. And the ones that are bigger are much, much bigger. Earth could fit in the Great Red Spot on Jupiter. The Great Red Spot is a storm--a storm as big as our planet! Jupiter is huge! But if I recall correctly, it would take ten Jupiters to be the length of the sun's diameter. And that doesn't account for height or depth. According to the textbook for my Geology of Planets class, the sun makes up 99.87 percent of all the mass in the Solar System! We are part of a mere .13 percent, a .13 percent that has to share with Jupiter, Saturn, and all the other planets and asteroids and moons.
But it doesn't stop there. The sun really isn't all too big. A red giant star is as big as Jupiter's orbit! Our sun is tiny in comparison! But there are billions of stars, just in a galaxy! And galaxies are enormous! And there are billions of galaxies!
You might as well be that little tiny ant on your finger.
But space isn't the only mindboggling thing. Have you ever considered deep time?
In September, I will turn a quarter of a century. That's making me feel kind of old. But when I hear of centenarians, I don't feel so old anymore. Those centenarians were born in a time of no TV and no computers.
But then think about a thousand years ago. A thousand years ago, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam were major religions. The Roman Empire had fallen centuries before. But America was still unknown to Europe (with the exception of maybe a few Vikings), the Normans had not yet conquered England (and therefore there were not all the French words in English), and the printing press had not been invented.
But a million years ago, there weren't any cities or civilizations. At 450 million years ago, the landscape was barren, and most landforms lived in the water. And at about 4.5 billion years ago, planetesimals were accreting from the solar nebula. And many of the elements now present on earth resulted from the deaths of other stars that lived sometime in the preceding ten billion years.
Let's put this in a spatial perspective. Let's say that we are drawing a line in which one inch equals a thousand years. At half an inch, people are exploring the newly found American continent. At two inches, Jesus is offending the Pharisees. At ten inches, our ancestors are fighting woolly mammoths and saber-tooth tigers.
At more than a mile, the dinosaurs are dying off, at the end of the Cretaceous, 65 million years ago. The age of the dinosaurs spreads for a couple of miles.
But for most of the line, there are neither dinosaurs nor people. To go back to the beginning of the earth, our line would be more than 71 miles long!! At one inch equaling a thousand years!
But even on our tiny speck in the universe at our tiny speck in time, there are amazing things going on.
I think language is an amazing thing. The other day I was stopped at a stoplight and I noticed the car next to me trying to get my attention. So I rolled down the window and the passenger said, "Will you let us over?" I said, "All right." I think it's amazing that we, as strangers, were able to communicate with each other. We both speak the same language and we both have American accents but we were not taught to do so. We have been taught language to augment our vocabulary and some matters of communication, but the basics are things that we just naturally picked up on.
I was able to watch my niece grow up for the first four years of her life. She started out as a little baby who could only cry. Then she developed cooing, then babbling. Eventually she was able to pick up a few vocabulary words. She had some problems with overextension, like when she would say apple for any kind of fruit, especially if it was red, or when she would say pie for any dessert, or when she would say bunny for any small mammal (like mice or squirrels). But eventually she got those things straightened out, so that when she was four she was able to construct coherent sentences. Once when we drove past a bowling alley, she said, "If you want to go bowling, just say the word." When she was mad at me, she would say, "You're moving out! Pack up your stuff and go!" Once when she was reproved for telling my mom that she looked like the woman in the weight loss commercial, she said, "I didn't say fat." Or when she said to my sister, "Your belly's getting big. I think you're going to have a girl!" (Unfortunately, I don't have as full of a linguistic history for my nephews, but they still have interesting stories. Like when my nephew Franklin, when he was not quite three, defended himself against scolding by saying, "I not hit you, I punch you!")
My niece was able to develop all this speech, and our native accent, without ever being taught it. She learned it naturally from being exposed to it. It amazes me that we all pick up on regional accents and words and even entire grammars and languages without formally being taught it.
And our langage has been around for a long tim. I am in an Earlie Moderne Englische class right nowe, and euen though the things that we reede are hundreds of yeares old, they are still very similar and we can still vnderstand most of it. Olde Englishe and Middle Englishe are more difficulte to vndesrtande, but that is also amazinge. Iust as it is amazing to see how animales have euolued ouer time, it is amazing to see how wordes haue euolued ouer time.
There are other things that I think are amazing, like technology and the human body. But I don't have any classes relating to those topics, so I think this will suffice for now.
For example, consider a little black ant on your fingertip. It is just a little tiny creature, a little speck on your body. It would fit on your pupil if you didn't blink. And yet, there are things even tinier than the ant. The ant is made up of cells and is probably covered with single-celled organisms. And these cells contain even smaller things. I'm not a microbiologist, so I can't tell you what. But we're talking tiny, tiny.
But then start thinking outward. You are just one of millions of people in your country and billions in the world. And yet, there is still room for everyone. The earth is so huge that we all fit, and there are still large parts that are uninhabited--oceans, deserts, Antarctica. This planet is enormous!
But there are eight planets in the solar system, and only three of them are smaller than Earth. And the ones that are bigger are much, much bigger. Earth could fit in the Great Red Spot on Jupiter. The Great Red Spot is a storm--a storm as big as our planet! Jupiter is huge! But if I recall correctly, it would take ten Jupiters to be the length of the sun's diameter. And that doesn't account for height or depth. According to the textbook for my Geology of Planets class, the sun makes up 99.87 percent of all the mass in the Solar System! We are part of a mere .13 percent, a .13 percent that has to share with Jupiter, Saturn, and all the other planets and asteroids and moons.
But it doesn't stop there. The sun really isn't all too big. A red giant star is as big as Jupiter's orbit! Our sun is tiny in comparison! But there are billions of stars, just in a galaxy! And galaxies are enormous! And there are billions of galaxies!
You might as well be that little tiny ant on your finger.
But space isn't the only mindboggling thing. Have you ever considered deep time?
In September, I will turn a quarter of a century. That's making me feel kind of old. But when I hear of centenarians, I don't feel so old anymore. Those centenarians were born in a time of no TV and no computers.
But then think about a thousand years ago. A thousand years ago, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam were major religions. The Roman Empire had fallen centuries before. But America was still unknown to Europe (with the exception of maybe a few Vikings), the Normans had not yet conquered England (and therefore there were not all the French words in English), and the printing press had not been invented.
But a million years ago, there weren't any cities or civilizations. At 450 million years ago, the landscape was barren, and most landforms lived in the water. And at about 4.5 billion years ago, planetesimals were accreting from the solar nebula. And many of the elements now present on earth resulted from the deaths of other stars that lived sometime in the preceding ten billion years.
Let's put this in a spatial perspective. Let's say that we are drawing a line in which one inch equals a thousand years. At half an inch, people are exploring the newly found American continent. At two inches, Jesus is offending the Pharisees. At ten inches, our ancestors are fighting woolly mammoths and saber-tooth tigers.
At more than a mile, the dinosaurs are dying off, at the end of the Cretaceous, 65 million years ago. The age of the dinosaurs spreads for a couple of miles.
But for most of the line, there are neither dinosaurs nor people. To go back to the beginning of the earth, our line would be more than 71 miles long!! At one inch equaling a thousand years!
But even on our tiny speck in the universe at our tiny speck in time, there are amazing things going on.
I think language is an amazing thing. The other day I was stopped at a stoplight and I noticed the car next to me trying to get my attention. So I rolled down the window and the passenger said, "Will you let us over?" I said, "All right." I think it's amazing that we, as strangers, were able to communicate with each other. We both speak the same language and we both have American accents but we were not taught to do so. We have been taught language to augment our vocabulary and some matters of communication, but the basics are things that we just naturally picked up on.
I was able to watch my niece grow up for the first four years of her life. She started out as a little baby who could only cry. Then she developed cooing, then babbling. Eventually she was able to pick up a few vocabulary words. She had some problems with overextension, like when she would say apple for any kind of fruit, especially if it was red, or when she would say pie for any dessert, or when she would say bunny for any small mammal (like mice or squirrels). But eventually she got those things straightened out, so that when she was four she was able to construct coherent sentences. Once when we drove past a bowling alley, she said, "If you want to go bowling, just say the word." When she was mad at me, she would say, "You're moving out! Pack up your stuff and go!" Once when she was reproved for telling my mom that she looked like the woman in the weight loss commercial, she said, "I didn't say fat." Or when she said to my sister, "Your belly's getting big. I think you're going to have a girl!" (Unfortunately, I don't have as full of a linguistic history for my nephews, but they still have interesting stories. Like when my nephew Franklin, when he was not quite three, defended himself against scolding by saying, "I not hit you, I punch you!")
My niece was able to develop all this speech, and our native accent, without ever being taught it. She learned it naturally from being exposed to it. It amazes me that we all pick up on regional accents and words and even entire grammars and languages without formally being taught it.
And our langage has been around for a long tim. I am in an Earlie Moderne Englische class right nowe, and euen though the things that we reede are hundreds of yeares old, they are still very similar and we can still vnderstand most of it. Olde Englishe and Middle Englishe are more difficulte to vndesrtande, but that is also amazinge. Iust as it is amazing to see how animales have euolued ouer time, it is amazing to see how wordes haue euolued ouer time.
There are other things that I think are amazing, like technology and the human body. But I don't have any classes relating to those topics, so I think this will suffice for now.
Sunday, January 13, 2013
A Character-Driven Description of My Week
This has been a very interesting week, full of some interesting characters. Rather than just describe events, I'm going to describe characters to describe events. In no particular order.
Dr. Brooks Britt is the professor of my Historical Geology class. He's quite a character. I had him for my Dinosaurs! class back in 2010. In fact, he is the reason I'm a geology minor, because I loved that class. I've heard that other professors of this class prefer microorganisms and invertebrates, so I'm glad I got one who teaches about dinosaurs. It's going to be a great semester!
Brother Andrew Skinner is the professor of my Old Testament class. For this class, we're supposed to look at the student manual published by the Church. Reading the commentary for Genesis 1-3 in the manual really frustrated me. We have to write a little summary about what we read in the readings, so this is what I wrote for Genesis 1-3:
"As I learn about science from geology and astronomy classes, I am often surprised at how much science strengthens my testimony of the Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ. We believe that God created worlds without number from unorganized matter. This goes along with the vastness of the universe and the idea of solar nebulae being created from past stars and being formed into new ones. We believe that God created plants and animals so that the world would be prepared for man. Believe it or not, this goes along with the theory of evolution; we humans are newcomers to the world. We believe in embracing truth no matter where it comes from. The author of Jesus the Christ, one of the seminal scholarly works in the Church, was written by a science-loving geologist. Alma said that all things denote there is a God, and I believe this includes science. However, when I read the Old Testament student manual, I get the impression that the manual was compiled by a bunch of old, biased science haters who find statements to support their views but conveniently regard statements of neutrality. I feel like this is the attitude of many antievolutionists and antiscience people. They pick and choose what parts of science they will believe. I suppose this is reasonable to an extent, since scientific studies are not perfect (and sometimes contradictory), but sometimes it's silly. Some people are willing to accept that the Earth is billions of years old, and they can accept the idea of plate tectonics. But they cannot accept the two together and insist that Pangaea existed until the days of Peleg, even though the Earth is billions of years old. This idea is frankly ridiculous!When Genesis says that the earth was divided, there are numerous possible interpretations for that passage, and I think the dividing up of continents is one of the most far fetched interpretations. Some people insist that you can't believe in evolution and in God. I agree that our creation is so miraculous for it to have occurred by chance, but I think there's still room to believe in evolution. Taking an all-or-nothing approach is likely to lead people away from the gospel, rather than to it. Science is a beautiful thing, and it is not opposed to religion."
Fortunately, our professor didn't even bring up the issue in class.
President Dieter F. Uchtdorf is the second counselor in the First Presidency, and he gave a great fireside tonight about truth, that we unfortunately are often reluctant to accept truth if it goes against long-held beliefs or seems to contradict what we know. I don't know how he was intending it, but I certainly was thinking of science as one interpretation. I was feeling guilty for not going to see it at the Marriott Center, since I've never been there for a CES broadcast, but then I realized it was just President Uchtdorf. He's one of my favorite speakers, but I've seen him numerous times walking with his wife in Bountiful. I've even seen him at Costco!
Dr. Jani Radebaugh teaches my Geology of Planets class. I had her for Geomorphology last semester, and there are several of the Geomorph folks in my class now. I'm excited about this class; it's my fun class for the semester. It's simply fascinating! Partly in honor of this class, yesterday I bought a clearance t-shirt for $3. It has a cat in an astronaut suit.
Interplanet Janet is a galaxy girl whose video I watched this week in honor of the above class.
Jan Terri is a singer who brings me joy and whose video I also watched because of the above class.
This week on Facebook she said she is writing "a ualtine day song," which I am excited for. "Get Down Goblin" and "Excuse My Christmas" really made my holidays, so I hope she gets her new song out in time for Ualtine Day.
Dirk Elzinga is my Phonetics and Phonology professor. It seems like the class may be more boring than I expected, but it'll probably be my easiest class.
Dr. Cynthia Hallen is one of my favorite professors. I had her for History of the English Language, and now I have her for Early Modern English. She is so sweet and so happy and enthusiastic. Her happiness is contagious; I think I'm smiling the whole class period. We have time-consuming assignments due every class, but they're not difficult, and--get this--we will have no projects or midterms! And our final will be writing a hymn (since the KJV is all EME)!
Christopher Barlow is the name of a creeper who's been on my ward's Facebook page. Earlier this week he posted a testimony about how he once was in the ward, but he's not now and is going to UVU, and how he loves the gospel and was reading Moroni 10, and how he loves all of us. None of us know this guy. Then he posted that he needed a ride. Then he posted that he needed a blessing. My roommate Scott agreed to that and started communicating through a Facebook message with him. He recruited my roommate Bryton to go with him, but I said it seemed suspicious. There's this guy no one in the ward knows, suddenly bearing his testimony and asking for things. So at Bryton's suggestion, Scott sent Mr. Barlow a message asking for his phone number. Well, Chris forgot his phone. So he asked for the number of a relative or something so he could confirm his identity. At which point Chris said not to worry about it. But the next day, he asked on the page for a blessing again. He asked like five times! Also, during all this time, I kept thinking the name and the scenario sounded familiar. I looked through old posts but couldn't find anything, but fortunately Bryton found an email from Facebook from November in which this same guy did the same thing but with a different profile. So if you Provo people see a Christopher Barlow asking for things online--don't trust him!
Roger Terry is one of the editors at BYU Studies and one of my bosses. I had heard about a work dinner party we were having, so when I turned in a source check to him, I asked him about it. He told me it was our Christmas party. I figured he meant that it was to replace the Christmas party we didn't have in December. (We actually had a Christmas party in December, but it was just our little office. It was a YouTube party. They could only handle half of "Rock N Roll Santa.") But when I went to the party on Friday, I learned it really was a Christmas party, complete with red and green tablecloths and napkins and chiming Christmas carols! Most of the people there were religious scholars who contribute to the journal; it was weird to have all these PhDs there chiming "White Christmas" in January and watching an animated Christmas clip. It was supposed to be an Epiphany party, but Epiphany was on Sunday and the party was Friday. Christmas is 11 months away. They should have had a Ualtine party instead.
Peace on Earth Man is an elderly foreign man in a power chair whom I met at the grocery store. I was looking at a cart of clearance Christmas potato chips when he approached me. He showed me a card that had a dove on it that said "Peace." He told me to read it (it said "Peace on Earth" inside) and said, "Give me a dollar, please!" in his European accent. It was really random. I took pity on him, since he didn't have any legs, and gave him a dollar. But it was really strange.
Jack Frost is the weirdo who's been nipping at my nose and ears and fingers all week. He's the one responsible for the frigid temperatures, which led to the smog, which led to me not running since before Christmas. On Thursday (I think) a snowstorm blew out the smog, but then it snowed, so I couldn't run. But I was finally able to run again yesterday (Saturday). It was between 14 and 17 degrees. That's not my ideal running temperature (I had to wear pants, gloves, a jacket, and earmuffs), but I still like it better than 80 degrees!
What new characters will I meet this week?
Dr. Brooks Britt is the professor of my Historical Geology class. He's quite a character. I had him for my Dinosaurs! class back in 2010. In fact, he is the reason I'm a geology minor, because I loved that class. I've heard that other professors of this class prefer microorganisms and invertebrates, so I'm glad I got one who teaches about dinosaurs. It's going to be a great semester!
Brother Andrew Skinner is the professor of my Old Testament class. For this class, we're supposed to look at the student manual published by the Church. Reading the commentary for Genesis 1-3 in the manual really frustrated me. We have to write a little summary about what we read in the readings, so this is what I wrote for Genesis 1-3:
"As I learn about science from geology and astronomy classes, I am often surprised at how much science strengthens my testimony of the Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ. We believe that God created worlds without number from unorganized matter. This goes along with the vastness of the universe and the idea of solar nebulae being created from past stars and being formed into new ones. We believe that God created plants and animals so that the world would be prepared for man. Believe it or not, this goes along with the theory of evolution; we humans are newcomers to the world. We believe in embracing truth no matter where it comes from. The author of Jesus the Christ, one of the seminal scholarly works in the Church, was written by a science-loving geologist. Alma said that all things denote there is a God, and I believe this includes science. However, when I read the Old Testament student manual, I get the impression that the manual was compiled by a bunch of old, biased science haters who find statements to support their views but conveniently regard statements of neutrality. I feel like this is the attitude of many antievolutionists and antiscience people. They pick and choose what parts of science they will believe. I suppose this is reasonable to an extent, since scientific studies are not perfect (and sometimes contradictory), but sometimes it's silly. Some people are willing to accept that the Earth is billions of years old, and they can accept the idea of plate tectonics. But they cannot accept the two together and insist that Pangaea existed until the days of Peleg, even though the Earth is billions of years old. This idea is frankly ridiculous!When Genesis says that the earth was divided, there are numerous possible interpretations for that passage, and I think the dividing up of continents is one of the most far fetched interpretations. Some people insist that you can't believe in evolution and in God. I agree that our creation is so miraculous for it to have occurred by chance, but I think there's still room to believe in evolution. Taking an all-or-nothing approach is likely to lead people away from the gospel, rather than to it. Science is a beautiful thing, and it is not opposed to religion."
Fortunately, our professor didn't even bring up the issue in class.
President Dieter F. Uchtdorf is the second counselor in the First Presidency, and he gave a great fireside tonight about truth, that we unfortunately are often reluctant to accept truth if it goes against long-held beliefs or seems to contradict what we know. I don't know how he was intending it, but I certainly was thinking of science as one interpretation. I was feeling guilty for not going to see it at the Marriott Center, since I've never been there for a CES broadcast, but then I realized it was just President Uchtdorf. He's one of my favorite speakers, but I've seen him numerous times walking with his wife in Bountiful. I've even seen him at Costco!
Dr. Jani Radebaugh teaches my Geology of Planets class. I had her for Geomorphology last semester, and there are several of the Geomorph folks in my class now. I'm excited about this class; it's my fun class for the semester. It's simply fascinating! Partly in honor of this class, yesterday I bought a clearance t-shirt for $3. It has a cat in an astronaut suit.
Interplanet Janet is a galaxy girl whose video I watched this week in honor of the above class.
Jan Terri is a singer who brings me joy and whose video I also watched because of the above class.
This week on Facebook she said she is writing "a ualtine day song," which I am excited for. "Get Down Goblin" and "Excuse My Christmas" really made my holidays, so I hope she gets her new song out in time for Ualtine Day.
Dirk Elzinga is my Phonetics and Phonology professor. It seems like the class may be more boring than I expected, but it'll probably be my easiest class.
Dr. Cynthia Hallen is one of my favorite professors. I had her for History of the English Language, and now I have her for Early Modern English. She is so sweet and so happy and enthusiastic. Her happiness is contagious; I think I'm smiling the whole class period. We have time-consuming assignments due every class, but they're not difficult, and--get this--we will have no projects or midterms! And our final will be writing a hymn (since the KJV is all EME)!
Christopher Barlow is the name of a creeper who's been on my ward's Facebook page. Earlier this week he posted a testimony about how he once was in the ward, but he's not now and is going to UVU, and how he loves the gospel and was reading Moroni 10, and how he loves all of us. None of us know this guy. Then he posted that he needed a ride. Then he posted that he needed a blessing. My roommate Scott agreed to that and started communicating through a Facebook message with him. He recruited my roommate Bryton to go with him, but I said it seemed suspicious. There's this guy no one in the ward knows, suddenly bearing his testimony and asking for things. So at Bryton's suggestion, Scott sent Mr. Barlow a message asking for his phone number. Well, Chris forgot his phone. So he asked for the number of a relative or something so he could confirm his identity. At which point Chris said not to worry about it. But the next day, he asked on the page for a blessing again. He asked like five times! Also, during all this time, I kept thinking the name and the scenario sounded familiar. I looked through old posts but couldn't find anything, but fortunately Bryton found an email from Facebook from November in which this same guy did the same thing but with a different profile. So if you Provo people see a Christopher Barlow asking for things online--don't trust him!
Roger Terry is one of the editors at BYU Studies and one of my bosses. I had heard about a work dinner party we were having, so when I turned in a source check to him, I asked him about it. He told me it was our Christmas party. I figured he meant that it was to replace the Christmas party we didn't have in December. (We actually had a Christmas party in December, but it was just our little office. It was a YouTube party. They could only handle half of "Rock N Roll Santa.") But when I went to the party on Friday, I learned it really was a Christmas party, complete with red and green tablecloths and napkins and chiming Christmas carols! Most of the people there were religious scholars who contribute to the journal; it was weird to have all these PhDs there chiming "White Christmas" in January and watching an animated Christmas clip. It was supposed to be an Epiphany party, but Epiphany was on Sunday and the party was Friday. Christmas is 11 months away. They should have had a Ualtine party instead.
Peace on Earth Man is an elderly foreign man in a power chair whom I met at the grocery store. I was looking at a cart of clearance Christmas potato chips when he approached me. He showed me a card that had a dove on it that said "Peace." He told me to read it (it said "Peace on Earth" inside) and said, "Give me a dollar, please!" in his European accent. It was really random. I took pity on him, since he didn't have any legs, and gave him a dollar. But it was really strange.
Jack Frost is the weirdo who's been nipping at my nose and ears and fingers all week. He's the one responsible for the frigid temperatures, which led to the smog, which led to me not running since before Christmas. On Thursday (I think) a snowstorm blew out the smog, but then it snowed, so I couldn't run. But I was finally able to run again yesterday (Saturday). It was between 14 and 17 degrees. That's not my ideal running temperature (I had to wear pants, gloves, a jacket, and earmuffs), but I still like it better than 80 degrees!
What new characters will I meet this week?
Sunday, January 6, 2013
Randomness
I feel like I have so many things going on in my mind that I don't know what to focus on.
First of all, Windows 8 is dumb. My brother had to set my desktop as the default screen. The regular default screen is a screen of all sorts of stuff I would never use, especially since much of it requires a subscription. For example, it has an icon for Encyclopedia Britannica, but you have to subscribe. I clicked on it to see if it was free or not, but it's not. And now it keeps mysteriously popping up if I do something on the fingerpad. I don't know how I do it, and I don't know how to stop it!
What's really stupid is that it doesn't have a Start button. You have to download a different program just to have a Start button. Dumb, dumb, dumb.
It's a new year now. New Year's was pretty uneventful, and now it seems like it was forever ago.
I had a fun time seeing my three nephews in California. We got home a week ago. They said and did lots of funny things, like when Franklin (who is almost 5) asked me why my neck is thin.
It's freakishly cold outside. And smoggy. I haven't been running this week because of the air quality. I think I gained eight pounds over the holidays!
Traditionally, August has been my least favorite month, but I think it might shift to January. I haven't liked August because it's hot and it has no holidays and summer vacation comes to an end. But I hate heat less now, and for the last three years August has actually meant the start of a break. January has New Year's Day, but that's only the first day, so after it's over, there's nothing going on, and the fun Halloween/Thanksgiving/Christmas/New Year season comes to a crashing, icy halt. Then the Valentine's season starts, which is better than nothing, but Valentine's Day is a dumb holiday for people like me who can't fall in love. Basically the only thing I appreciate about Valentine's Day is the candy.
The new semester starts tomorrow. It's my fourth winter semester and the first time I haven't been moving into a new apartment. I think this will be a pretty busy semester, even busier than last. I can't wait until April! (That's a terrible way to live, waiting for the end before it's even started.)
Tonight my second mission president was in the Wilk, and since I live so close to campus I couldn't not go. But I've been home so long that I didn't know anyone there. So that was awkward. I'm naturally awkward, but my awkwardness became really magnified. It was really, really awkward. I was glad to get out of there.
I went to locate my new classes. There are weird things going on on campus. There are lots of people camped outside the BYU Bookstore. It's going to be in the single digits tonight! Apparently the JSB flooded. And I overheard some girls badmouthing geology.
I just can't seem to focus. Good night!
First of all, Windows 8 is dumb. My brother had to set my desktop as the default screen. The regular default screen is a screen of all sorts of stuff I would never use, especially since much of it requires a subscription. For example, it has an icon for Encyclopedia Britannica, but you have to subscribe. I clicked on it to see if it was free or not, but it's not. And now it keeps mysteriously popping up if I do something on the fingerpad. I don't know how I do it, and I don't know how to stop it!
What's really stupid is that it doesn't have a Start button. You have to download a different program just to have a Start button. Dumb, dumb, dumb.
It's a new year now. New Year's was pretty uneventful, and now it seems like it was forever ago.
I had a fun time seeing my three nephews in California. We got home a week ago. They said and did lots of funny things, like when Franklin (who is almost 5) asked me why my neck is thin.
It's freakishly cold outside. And smoggy. I haven't been running this week because of the air quality. I think I gained eight pounds over the holidays!
Traditionally, August has been my least favorite month, but I think it might shift to January. I haven't liked August because it's hot and it has no holidays and summer vacation comes to an end. But I hate heat less now, and for the last three years August has actually meant the start of a break. January has New Year's Day, but that's only the first day, so after it's over, there's nothing going on, and the fun Halloween/Thanksgiving/Christmas/New Year season comes to a crashing, icy halt. Then the Valentine's season starts, which is better than nothing, but Valentine's Day is a dumb holiday for people like me who can't fall in love. Basically the only thing I appreciate about Valentine's Day is the candy.
The new semester starts tomorrow. It's my fourth winter semester and the first time I haven't been moving into a new apartment. I think this will be a pretty busy semester, even busier than last. I can't wait until April! (That's a terrible way to live, waiting for the end before it's even started.)
Tonight my second mission president was in the Wilk, and since I live so close to campus I couldn't not go. But I've been home so long that I didn't know anyone there. So that was awkward. I'm naturally awkward, but my awkwardness became really magnified. It was really, really awkward. I was glad to get out of there.
I went to locate my new classes. There are weird things going on on campus. There are lots of people camped outside the BYU Bookstore. It's going to be in the single digits tonight! Apparently the JSB flooded. And I overheard some girls badmouthing geology.
I just can't seem to focus. Good night!
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