The quarter-life crisis

Many people went back to school this week. A year from now, I likewise hope to go back to school.

My life is fine, but it's not where I would have liked it to be at this point. Here I am, thirty years old, living with my parents, single as ever, aging out of the YSA ward at the end of the year. I'm a published author with a bachelor's degree, yet I'm working every Saturday for low pay in no air conditioning, and some of my coworkers are in high school! I've applied to many jobs and interviewed for several, but no permanent jobs have hired me. I'm going back to Sundance this fall, but that's not my ideal either. (Since This Is the Place goes on hiatus, I will make ten times as much at Sundance!)

I never felt that I needed a master's degree. I learned what I needed to know about editing in college, and I hoped to remain an editor. I heard that master's programs in editing weren't any better than BYU's editing minor.

At one point, probably four years ago, my boss at the Church History Library suggested that I could go get a master's degree in history. But why would I do that? I was already an editor, and history was literally my worst subject in high school and college.

In the past, I looked up the requirements for grad school, but it requires a lot of planning in advance. Like, a year or more. So it couldn't really just be a backup plan; you have to be committed. Also, you have to take the GRE, and those math problems looked tricky. So I just disregarded the notion.

In June, I was preparing an elders quorum lesson, and I was thinking how I value education and learning. I heard a voice say, "If you value education, why don't you go to grad school?" I didn't like that question. I don't need it, I thought, and I brushed it aside.

That night I attended the Mormon Miracle Pageant. I was analyzing it as an amateur Mormon historian. And I heard a voice say, "You know, you don't have to be an amateur."

The next day, I looked at requirements for grad school, and I realized that all of them were very doable. I need to submit letters of recommendation, but I have people who would write them for me. I need to submit writing samples, and I'm a published author. I need to pay tuition, but I have enough money saved that I can afford it. The most daunting of all might be the GRE, but I have enough downtime at This Is the Place that I can easily study for it.

So I am in the process of applying to grad school at the University of Utah to get an MS in history. My three choices for letters of recommendation have agreed to write them; I have drafted my statement of purpose and am waiting for feedback from a colleague; I take the GRE on September 17.

I sure will be glad when the GRE is over. I'm tired of practicing from GRE prep books at work when I could be reading academic books instead. I'm especially tired of taking practice tests on my days off. The verbal is easy enough for me, but the math is where I struggle. The math itself isn't hard, but I have to wrap my head around understanding the problems and figuring out how to solve them. Never in my life have I seen questions that look like these questions. I took a practice test on my day off, and my brain was fried from the math. Then I made zucchini soup. I was multiplying the recipe by 1.5, and I was messing up the fractions. I blame it on the test.

I'm only applying to the U because I'm not committed enough to go anywhere else. This way, I can keep living at home and keep working at This Is the Place, if I so choose.

Now, I know that history is the most stereotypically useless degree you can get. But I'm hoping that a master's degree in anything will give me extra skills, credentials, and marketability. I hope to remain primarily an editor. I choose history for several reasons, but among the major reasons are that I'm already published in history, the people who would give me letters of recommendation are (mostly) in history, and I hope it will help me with my Pioneer Day book.

As I said earlier, history was my worst subject. I only got a 2 on the AP US History exam, and my lowest grade in college was in history. (Back in 2012, I had some less-than-flattering things to say about historians.)

But I think part of why I disliked history is that history as taught in schools tends to be centered around wars. Revolutionary War, War of 1812, Civil War, Spanish American War, World War I, World War II, Vietnam War. And I find military history very boring. I had fun writing the footnotes for The Saints Abroad, but my least-favorite footnotes were about the Crimean War. When we talk about World War II, I know that D-Day and Normandy are essential, but I am much more interested in victory gardens and radio programs.

I derive pleasure from combing through old newspapers and magazines, getting a glimpse into life of the past. The political and military stories bore me, but the historical annals are full of interesting and fascinating anecdotes and stories. That's what I hope to get into when I start school next year.

The online persona

I have been thinking this week about the perceptions that people might have about me on the internet versus what my life is actually like.

On Monday, I received my sample of Zombie Skittles to review. I had been looking at various stores to review them, but then the editor of The Impulsive Buy emailed me, asking if I wanted to review them, because Mars had just sent him some samples. So he sent one to me and I reviewed it.

I don't know what the readership of that blog is, but it is a little unnerving to me that (presumably) thousands of people across the nation are reading what I write. Once my reviews are published, I can't read them anymore, because I'm too embarrassed—is that too personal? Does that joke work? Is my writing stilted? Are my pictures good enough?

And I wonder if people think I'm a professional reviewer, when really I'm just an average guy doing it for fun.

I don't have a Twitter account, but sometimes I look at other accounts, because there can be funny or interesting stuff on it. Yesterday, I was randomly looking at Twitter, which led me to a Deseret News article (interesting it's just Deseret.com now). And then, at the top of a list of related stories, there just happened to be a review of my own book! I'm more eager for a review from a scholar, but this is a nice start.

But the review erroneously says I work for the Church History Department. I can understand why the reviewer thought that, since I wrote my bio to be vague. They surely didn't know that my career has in fact taken a step backwards instead of forwards. I can only hope that I will once again get a job as good as that one was. I have a bit of impostor syndrome when it comes to these books I have published. I suppose the reviewer thinks I'm a professional academic. I like to fancy myself as an academic, but really I feel like I'm not.

As I share these accomplishments on social media, I suppose some people think I'm something of a magnificent person, a published author and regular contributor to a national food blog. But really I think of myself as an ordinary person who hates doing housework and lives with his parents.

There is a tendency to compare ourselves with others on social media, as social media is where we share the highlights of our lives. I suppose this blog also emphasizes the positive things in my life, while overlooking the mundane and even negative.

So, if you are feeling like your life is somehow inferior to mine, I want to assure you that I have struggles and challenges too. I'm a deeply insecure person; I remember every dumb thing I ever did in life; I'm socially awkward; I overthink everything; I'm very good at convincing myself that people don't like me.

To be sure, I have had some tremendous blessings and accomplishments in my life. But my life is far from perfect.

August delights

If you're a long-time reader of my blog, you know that every year at this time, I tell you all about how I used to hate August, but I don't hate it anymore. Some of my best memories are from August. And not only is August not the worst month, it's a pretty fantastic month in its own right. (Really, I like every month except January and February.)

This is the time of year of fields of wild sunflowers, the last weeks of shaved ice shacks, food trucks, fresh home-grown produce, and monsoonal thunderstorms. I'm not a fan of the heat, but at least there's enough good things to counter it.

My day off this week was Thursday, and since it was cooler and overcast, I ran up my favorite trail of North Canyon. It wasn't raining when I started, but it rained most of the run. Sometimes it made it hard to see because of my glasses, but mostly it was fine. Except running in a wet shirt can be painful.

I don't recall a more wildflowery August, and there were many wildflowers I don't recall seeing before, including fireweed. I didn't get very good pictures, but let me tell you, few things are more striking than a massive patch of blue chicory flowers on a cloudy morning. They almost glow.

Richardson's geraniums are in full bloom.

They put up a new sign! There are no longer X's through the undesirable trailmates.  

I found a wild thimbleberry and had to taste it.

August is nice, but I will forever be a fall-ophile, so red leaves are always meaningful to me.

Here's some fireweed towering over thimbleberry plants.

 In the last few weeks, we have accumulated zucchini from a few different places. For Christmas, I got an herb garden, and most of the herbs died, but I have more basil than I know what to do with. So I used ingredients to make tomato zucchini cobbler, one of my favorite summertime dishes, but I added basil to the topping, and it was wonderful as usual.

 When we have abundant plum crops, I enjoy making plum rosemary upside-down cake. Our plum crop is bad this year, but we have lots of apricots, so instead I made apricot basil upside-down cake. The apricots weren't very prominent, but it was still a delightful cake.

I have been running on the Bonneville Shoreline Trail for five years now (not continuously, obviously!), and occasionally I have noticed a strange fenced area on top of one of the hills. It's not prominent, and you can only see it from certain perspectives. Three years ago, I tried to find it, but I missed it. I figured they must have removed it. But more recently I spotted it again, so on Friday night I tried to find it.

 I found it. I don't know what it is. It appears somewhat old, as much of the fence is rusted over. It wasn't locked, so I went inside, but I don't know what it's for. There was barbed wire on the ground, so I didn't want to do much exploring. The tall grass and weeds were itchy enough; I didn't need any barbs!

 I decided to proceed to a random fenced area in a hidden meadow, which I discovered three years ago when I was looking for the fenced area I just found. These fence posts surround a small grove of trees that don't look like native trees, and the wiring has fallen off the posts.

 I also found some kind of trough or something in the ground.

 I have no idea what that was for either. Are these part of North Salt Lake's agricultural past?

One of the best parts of August is picking fruit. A wet spring means that our apricots are later than usual. They are also buggier than usual. We'll have an occasional earwig, but this year lots of the fruits are full of worms and eggs.

I also picked some plums and grapes. (Grape season is just in its beginning stages; plum season is right now, but we don't have many.)

The fruit trees take care of themselves. We are not gardeners; most vegetables we try just end up dying. But we do have some tomatoes!

August might not have any holidays, but I like to live in the moment and appreciate what it does have.

Lake again

This week I received my copy of BYU Magazine with my PB&J spaghetti story. It turns out I wasn't the only one, because I got two separate messages from people who had seen it in the magazine.

That wasn't my only publication, as my latest review, Creepy Cocoa Crisp M&M's, went up on Wednesday, the day after I submitted it. It is too early to eat Halloween candy normally, but I can have things early if I'm reviewing them. The life of a junk food reviewer involves going to random stores to look for specific items, not even knowing if they're going to have them. I had to review this one because of the plush M&M vampire I had. When I got it in Las Vegas fourteen years ago, I had no idea how handy it would come in one day.

 The same can be said for the plastic coffin I got in elementary school. I don't even know where I got it—MacFrugal's (Big Lots)?

But even though those things are first in my blog, they really aren't the highlight of the week.

For longer than I have been alive, my family has camped most summers at Moosehorn Lake in the Uintas, usually in August. But because of school and work, I haven't been up there since 2010, and I haven't camped there since 2006 or 2007.

But I requested a few days off so I could go camping with my folks. They bought a trailer on Labor Day, so we took it up and spent three nights there (Wednesday night to Saturday afternoon).

I don't sleep particularly well in the trailer, but it's better than a tent.

On Thursday, my dad and I walked up the side of a ledge to a charming meadow over the lake. It was full of wildflowers and meandering streams. All around, the ground was fairly wet from natural springs, melting snow, and fresh rain.

Colorado columbine

This is Moosehorn Lake.

There is a boulder in the lake that triggers regret from an incident when I was eight years old. (Initially I thought I was nine, but that's impossible because I had a broken leg then.) There were rocks and logs leading out to the rock, and I thought it was cool and fun to go and sit on the rock in the lake. One time, as I was going to the rock, a girl was ahead of me, and she was also walking out to the rock. I didn't want her to take my spot, so I walked around her on the stepping stones, and I might have made her step in the lake. So I made it to the rock first, and she turned around and might have made some kind of exclamation. And I feel sad when I think about that girl, probably returning to her family and telling them how she wanted to sit on the rock but some rude kid made her step in the lake. What a jerk!

 On Friday, my dad and I went to the trailhead to hike Bald Mountain, which I climbed back in 2005. It was three miles round trip, with a climb of more than 1,000 feet. I didn't run it (for several reasons), but we still passed several groups, and yet no groups passed us. When I'm my dad's age, I hope I'm in as good a shape as he is.

 That evening, I took our inflatable boat out on the lake, but it was leaking. The next day, we replaced a patch and went on the lake again.

A lot of the time was spent reading Saints, studying, and playing games.

I really don't know what else to tell you. It was nice to get away; the scenery was lovely; I did some hiking and boating. I guess that's it.