Ah, fall.

I had grand plans about blogging today, but it didn't happen. I was at home and then I left and got back in Provo about 5:00. On my drive I was amazed at all the huge patches of red on the mountainside--simply [there does not seem to be an adequate word to describe it]! Then I unloaded my stuff and cut out the letters "G E T  D O W N  G O B L I N" to put on my Jan Terri picture, and then my roommate wanted me to go hometeaching with him since my other roommate (his companion) wasn't home. Then tonight I had a visitor named Carissa while I was putting up Halloween decorations in my apartment. I was glad for her ideas; I hadn't planned on putting any lights outside the door.

It was just another fairly ordinary week. At work (BYU Studies) we finished some final proofs for an issue and then one of the editors told me to start working on book notices. That means I'll actually have to write something instead of just editing it. That makes me nervous. He told me that one of the other editors hired me based on my writing skills--so now I have to deliver. It's a little unnerving that I, a lowly undergraduate intern, will have to write something for a magazine about scholarly religious studies!

(This week I did, however, read a BYU Studies article from 1999 that, although scholarly, was incredibly stupid. My editing professor used to be an editor for BYU Studies, so the bulk of our material for the class comes from past issues. One of the options we had for an assignment this week was an article comparing Joseph Smith and Herman Melville. I thought it sounded interesting, so I read it. Boy, was it stupid. So stupid that my professor said that when it was in the process of being published she refused to edit it--I think it was the only one she ever refused. It seemed fairly obvious to me that this scholar was like, "Hey, I like Herman Melville, and I'm a Mormon, so why don't I compare Herman Melville and Joseph Smith?" You could compare anyone to anyone! You could compare me to ol' Hermy Baby. Moby Dick has a chapter about fossilized whales; I like fossils. Herman made a lot of biblical allusions; I like the Bible. We even share the same last name! I was embarrassed that my job would consider publishing such a ridiculous article, even if it was thirteen years ago. The author had a brief section talking about references Melville made to Mormons--I think that would have been a much better topic for a nineteen-page article.)

On Friday night, I went home.

And then...

It came! One of my favorite days of the year--September 15, my arbitrary date to start the Halloween season. Some people believe it's too early, but I find it reasonable enough. I added my Halloween music to my playlist (consisting of the Nightmare Before Christmas soundtrack, a few versions of the "Great Pumpkin Waltz," a little song called "Ghosts," and, of course, "Get Down Goblin"). I started eating Halloween candies. I brought out decorations.

It was a good Saturday for other reasons, as well. My parents took me clothes shopping for my birthday (since they don't know if they'll have time closer to my birthday). I went in the backyard and picked grapes so we could make grape juice. Homemade grape juice is one of my favorite things about September. It's amazing that something that tastes so great is entirely natural. My mom also made a peach pie (if you recall, I can eat desserts made with one's own produce); it was perhaps the best peach pie we've ever had.

The BYU/Utah football game went on, but I have no interest in sports. I support BYU academically because it's my school and I'm proud it's my school. One article I proofread this week compared nine religious universities. While most universities get more secular, BYU gets more religious (although I'd say that's debatable). We have no problem bringing gospel subjects into topics that in other places are seen as anti-religious, such as classes about Dinosaurs! that lived millions--not thousands--of years ago. The article compared tuition at these schools. BYU's tuition for a year is in the $4000 range. The average for the other eight universities is $38,000! Basically I'm saving $34,000 a year, and even more than that with scholarships and grants. I'm so glad to belong to a religion that values education.

I'm glad to be at BYU. And I have nothing against the U. I only have problems with the rivalry itself.

Laborious

 My new calling and a new church schedule has made my Sundays a lot more involved. I have late church, which means I spend more time sleeping. I like sleeping, but it means I have less time. I have had to spend a lot of time getting new membership records into my ward, which also cuts down on my time. I'm presently writing this while watching the CES broadcast. I don't think I'm devoting 100 percent to either.

I'm much better from my sickness, although I have been blowing some peach-colored snot out of my left nostril--the prettiest snot I've ever seen.

Labor Day was rather uneventful. I put a lot of pictures on our online ward directory and then I studied. That was characteristic of my week--studying. I was lazy over the summer, so I'm having a hard time getting back into motivation. But it's especially important for me to study, since it's the most credits I've ever taken, and it's the most I've ever worked while being in school.

I ran three nights this week, plus some running during class. Last night I ran for 51 minutes, which is the longest I've run since April 23, when I ran 59 minutes right before fainting. It somehow seemed easier than usual, which surprised me since I've been on hiatus. Maybe it was the temperature.

Yesterday my parents picked me up and took me to breakfast; they almost became thieves and left the restaurant without paying. I averted their life of crime. Then we went up a mountain and saw Cascade Springs. We saw a bull moose and several females as well.

Elder Holland is giving a really great fireside. I think he's my favorite apostolic speaker. He's distracting me from making this a better/more informative post. Don't check your religion at the door!

School days

It has been six years since I have been in school during the fall--and here it is. It's not really back to school for me, since I did summer classes. But it's back for everyone else--it amazes me how many people there are! I'm used to a summer population, so it's pretty crowded now. I could be wrong, but it seems like there are more people than there were in the winter. I don't remember as many traffic jams.

Unfortunately, I got sick this week. I pride myself on not getting sick, but I did. I woke up on Wednesday with a sore throat, on Thursday it transferred to my nose, and Friday was the worst day--I went to class but I didn't go to work. I think it may have been the sickest I've been since junior high. Since my working career is so much shorter than my school career, this was the first time I've ever missed work because of being sick. But I think I'm on the mend now. I almost ended up going to Idaho this weekend, but I stayed here because of my calling. I'm glad I did; it would have been no fun going while I was sick.

I started my new classes this week; I have six of them.

Empirical Methods in English Linguistics (ELang 273) is basically a class about researching ELang stuff. I don't think it will be too bad.

Varieties of English (ELang 468) is about dialects and even some pidgins and creoles. In a class of twenty-something students, there are only four or five guys. I think all the other guys are Linguistics majors; I'm the only male ELang major in the class. I think most of the girls are ELang majors, and I'd say well over half of them (maybe even more than three fourths) are Editing minors. That makes me glad I decided on the geology minor, so that I'm not like all those girls...

Genre and Substantive Editing (ELang 410) has the same professor and the same TA as my editing class during the winter. It's a lot bigger than that one was. Hopefully it will be easier, because ELang 350 (the one I took in the winter) was way too much work for a three-credit class. I think this one will be better, though; in 350 we had six midterms but in this one we only have one.

Environmental Biology (PWS 150) is a GE class and is the biggest class I've had since Music 101 my first semester. The professor looks and sounds like he could be an apostle. I thought it would be more interesting than Bio 100, but now I'm not so sure. We'll see how it goes.

Jogging (STAC 139) is an activity class I'm just taking for fun. Tuesday was the introductory class; Thursday I was sick so I couldn't participate, even though I attended. I felt pretty dumb. Hopefully I'll be well enough on Tuesday to participate. 

Geomorphology (Geol 411) is the study of landforms. Not only am I the only ELang major in the class, I'm the only major from the College of the Humanities. There are a couple of geography majors and some other science majors, but most of the students are geology majors. I hope it doesn't put me at too much of a disadvantage.

On Monday this week our ward had an opening social at the home of the second counselor in the bishopric, up in Alpine. They had dinner and then that night there was karaoke. Someone called the cops, which I find a little ridiculous. It wasn't even 10:00, and the backyards in that neighborhood are huge, so it's not like everyone's on top of everyone. Furthermore, police have better things to do than to respond to complaints of "I don't like the music that's going on next door." Really, people?

August has traditionally been my least favorite month, although its status is getting higher. We are presently in my second favorite month, although the first half of the month is pretty boring. I'm so excited for September!

(I'm sorry this was so choppy today.)

It Was a Short Summer, Charlie Brown

My vacation has come to an end.

My second week of vacation was pretty fun. Normally I plan out my days the night before, but I didn't plan a single day while I was on vacation. Which left plenty of time for leisure and semi-productive things.

Since she got me plane tickets so that I didn't have to take the train home from California, my mom asked me to help her at her school. So on Tuesday and Thursday, I classified and organized books. It was kind of weird being in an elementary school at the start of a school year--it made it seem like I could have been going to grade school again. Colleges certainly don't have as many colors as elementary schools.

One of the things I wanted to do on vacation was finish Moby Dick. I did it! I started it two years ago when I moved home for fall. It took me so long for several reasons: 1) It is a very long book, 2) I don't read very often, and 3) it's not a book that calls my name. Some people might just read an abridged version. That's all right, but I don't think Moby Dick is so much about the story. It's a full treatise on whales. There's a chapter about a whale's tail, a chapter about a whale's eye, a chapter about a whale's mouth--seriously. I wish this Melville could be as smart as that Melville. Ol' Herman was obviously very intelligent, with all he knew about whales, and all the big words he knew, and the book is packed with biblical and historical allusions. I opted not to start or bring another book because I know at this point I'll only do sporadic reading.

I also spent some time cleaning up my room. It's not clean, but it's cleaner. I haven't really cleaned much in it since I lived at home last fall, and even then I didn't do enough.

One of my goals was to finish my Rudolph blanket. Alas, I didn't finish it; I only got to work on it one night (while watching the Frozen Planet documentary series, which is excellent). But I was able to finish a St. Patrick's Day rug I've been working on for twelve years. One day in fifth grade we had a pioneer day and they showed us pioneer things, such as making candles. One thing they showed us was corking, making rope-like things to make rugs, and suddenly corking became a fifth-grade fad. I hopped in on the bandwagon and made Christmas and Valentine's Day rugs. Then I started a green, white, and orange one, but the fad died and I lost interest and it took me ten years to finish it. They're not very good rugs, and this one is the worst yet. But what else will I do with a long chain of Irish-colored yarn?

I was able to buy a new seat for my bicycle. It cost $40 for the post and $20 for the seat. It was a used seat with some scratches but the store guy said it's usually worth around $90, so I got a good deal. I'm just sad it's black instead of white like the original one. I hate thieves. I wish we could just throw thieves off of cliffs and forget about them forever. I didn't bring my bike back down; I'm going to see what the new semester is like to see if I'll have time to do biking. Provo is a very dangerous place for bikes (just read any Police Beat and you'll see what I mean), so it's not worth having a bike down here if I won't use it. (I would have used my bike more this summer if the seat hadn't been stolen! If I find the thief, he should have to pay not only for the seat but also compensation for my getting fat--I couldn't run this summer, so biking was going to be the replacement. I gained ten pounds!)

I was able to run 43 minutes this week, the longest I've run since the night I fainted. I feel like I'm back in the running game, which makes me quite pleased. It's just in time, too, since I start a jogging class this week.

Yesterday (Saturday) I went to Lagoon with my parents, since it was my dad's work's day there. I rode Rattlesnake Rapids, the Log Flume, the Sky Ride, and the Skyscraper with my parents, but I had to ride a lot of rides by myself: the white Roller Coaster, the Wild Mouse, the Spider, Wicked, Colossus, Tidal Wave, Turn of the Century, and the new Air Race. That was all we had time for. Lagoon really is inferior to Disneyland, even though it's almost as much money.

I'm back in Provo, and today I was given a new calling. I am an assistant ward clerk, which means I have my work cut out for me, getting the records of all the new people in the ward. I suppose this will be a good thing for me, since I'm so introverted.

Classes start tomorrow. I'm taking 15.5 credit hours, the most I've ever taken. I'm taking Empirical Methods in English Linguistics, Varieties of English, Genre and Substantive Editing, Environmental Biology, Jogging, and Geomorphology. I'm probably most excited about geomorphology, even if it's going to make me miss four classes on November 2. (I've never missed a college class before.)

It's hard for me to believe that we're starting to get into my favorite time of year. My second-favorite month starts on Saturday. In three weeks, I'll start getting ready for Halloween. And when it's finals week, it will be Christmastime. Christmastime! It's crazy. Leaves are already falling from their trees. This will be an entirely unique fall for me. But as I was walking home from church at 6:30 (I had to stay late because of my calling) and it was raining, it got me thinking. I'm excited for cooler weather. I'm ready for longer nights. I'm looking forward to chilly rains and snow. (But not ice.) Wow. It's really here.

(Incidentally, I accidentally published this on my other blog, so I had to copy and paste and delete it from there!)

You inky!

As I read blogs, I have found that vacation posts tend to be a little more boring. People write them because vacations themselves are interesting, but the posts are not usually. I'm sorry to tell you that this is a vacation post. But I hope it won't be too boring, because it wasn't a very touristy vacation. And because I don't post pictures of food.

If you read my last post, you know that I was in the Bay Area of California, visiting my brother David and his wife Ya-ping. But really I was there to visit my nephews, Preston Xiang-an, Franklin Ze-an, and Nathaniel Qi-en. I actually don't know how to spell Nathaniel's Chinese name (it's pronounced chee un), and no one calls him Nathaniel. It's such a cumbersome name that we all just call him Baby.

My last post talked about going to the Golden Gate Bridge and Muir Woods. The only other touristy thing we did was on Sunday (yes, we were apostates) we went to a beach. It was a chilly beach, but still enjoyable. I'm ashamed to admit that I took my shirt off to go swimming for the first time since June 9, 2001. We did also explore a Chinatown or two, since Ya-ping is from Taiwan.

The weather felt more like September or October, which is good because I hate August. But overall I was unimpressed with the state. Everyone always complains about Utah drivers, but I don't think they're any worse than California drivers. And California roads are ridiculous. Lanes end and merge all over the place and roads don't make sense and it's all very confusing--which is not helpful when there is such a continual stream of traffic. Also, Preston's school gave the parents a list of things they have to buy for school. When I was in elementary school, the school gave us our crayons and our pencils and our glue. Not so in California. I thought public education was supposed to be free.

Another thing I was not impressed with was Ikea. I have heard everyone rave about the store, but I'd never been until this trip. Frankly, I don't see what all the fuss is about. I found it to be a terrible store, so terrible that I want it to go out of business. I don't know what things are like in Sweden, but in America we like our stores to make sense. My opinion of it went down even further when an expensive couch that had been purchased there just a month and a half ago broke, and Ikea would only give store credit that couldn't be used on food.

One day we were just sitting in the living room when the house started shaking. A large truck had driven past and apparently caught the overhead telephone line and ripped it from the house. Not only did it rip the phone line, it ripped the rain gutter half off:

How does that happen!? Unfortunately, we weren't able to catch the truck.

Mostly we just stayed home with the boys. Baby seemed to be most open to me. Isn't he cute?

His two-year-old speech is adorable. In June, something happened so that the boys started calling my cousin Peter (who's now, oddly enough, living with them) Stinky Pete. I'm not sure why--a Toy Story 2 reference perhaps? Baby has held on to that more than anyone, and he has also extended it to more people. If you look at him for long enough, he will proclaim, "You inky!" He leaves off a lot of consonants, and the cluster st of stinky is no exception. He says it to Peter, to me, and sometimes to others. Sometimes he even says, "I inky!" He likes to ride his bike. But he mostly rides it only if he's on the pavement in the back. Otherwise he just likes to walk the bike, with his helmet on.

(Thanks to Ya-ping for the picture!)

One day Franklin and Preston were playing with homemade play dough. I made a jack-o-lantern with the orange dough I made, so they were inspired to make Halloween-themed Angry Birds. Then they made green pigs and Preston even started using a spoon to hurl the bird at the pigs. (I've actually never played Angry Birds, but pop culture has given me an idea of what it is.)

Baby likes to have people pretend to be slides so that he can slide down them. Once he even made me slide down him. On another occasion, Baby and Franklin took turns being slides for each other.
 I got exposed to some culture. I got to watch Citizen Kane because my brother's a movie nerd. I rarely watch TV, but one night after the boys were in bed I was able to watch some Get Smart which I've never watched on TV before. Then one night we watched some YouTube videos and I was exposed to this hilarious video:
 But Saturday eventually came and it was time to say adieu and come home. I was hoping to be able to finish Moby Dick on the way home but the plane ride was too short. The train may have been more comfortable than the plane, but the plane made up for it because it was about 1/18 the length.

Take the last train to Emeryville

I am so glad summer term is over! Finally a break!

I think I did pretty well on my Book of Mormon and French tests. My Isaiah test...not so much. It was the first time for this professor to teach the class, and I think the midterm ended up too easy, so he wanted to make the final harder. But he made it too much harder. He added "None of the above" options to all of the questions, and those were often the correct answer. I knew the test would be comprehensive, but I didn't think the questions from the first half of class would be so specific. He sent an email saying that he curved everyone's test scores up. I guess I got my wish that he feel like a terrible person.

Thursday night I boarded a train to come visit my brother in Berkeley, CA. The train left Salt Lake at 11:30 p.m. and arrived at 5:40 p.m. the following day. I brought my laptop to use on the train, but my adapter quit working, so it was a waste to bring it. But I read about 100 pages of Moby Dick. My goal is to get it finished before Fall starts, since I started it two years ago (I don't read often). I think I'll do it. I did not like sleeping on the train, and I don't think the bathrooms were cleaned once in the eighteen hours I was on the train. Gross.

I've been enjoying seeing my three nephews, Preston (7), Franklin (4), and "Baby" (2). Yesterday we went to the Golden Gate Bridge and Muir Woods. I hijacked this picture of me and Baby from my sister-in-law's Facebook:

Today we went to church at my brother's ward. It was the weirdest meeting I've ever been to. It started with Sunday School, in which the comments included that schools ruin kids and that people are depressed because they are wicked. Then in sacrament meeting we sang the most depressing version of "There Is Sunshine in My Soul Today" that I've ever sung. The organ player must have been wicked.

Not aghast at August

August has traditionally been my least favorite month. It's hot, it's the end of summer break, and there's usually not anything going on. For the last two years it meant I had to sacrifice my BYU life for a few months.

But this year I don't dislike it so much. It is indeed the end of my summer break--but it's also the beginning of my summer break. Finals are this week and I'm so excited--not for the finals but for the term to be over. And August is better than most of July because it's closer to September. August means I will start my first fall semester ever (in college). I kind of miss my fall breaks, but I'm excited for something new. Everyone tells me that fall semester is better than winter, and I believe it. Winter is just so blah and lemitsy.

This week was full of randomness and spontaneity. On Tuesday I had a wedding reception to go to in Taylorsville, but I didn't want to drive all the way up there just for the reception. I think I only spent five minutes at the reception; I spent longer in line to say hi to my former companion than I did after seeing him. There weren't any suitable desserts (i.e. there weren't any popsicles), so I left early. I went and visited my aunt and cousins, since they were close by. I don't usually see family on weeknights!

In my French class on Wednesday, our teacher was gone, and we were discussing how we still needed to do a cultural activity. Everyone wanted to go to the French bakery here (to buy French goods and speak French), and they asked who had a car. I said I had a car if we could be back by 1:00. So five other people went with me and we walked down to my parking lot and drove to the pâtisserie. There weren't any suitable desserts there (i.e. there weren't any popsicles), but they had lunch items and I bought a demie baguette (the sign at the pâtisserie was actually wrong--they left the last e off of demie) and a croque monsieur (embarrassingly, I said une instead of un). A croque monsieur ("Mister Crunchy") is a hot sandwich with ham and cheese. It was as greasy as something off of the McDonald's breakfast menu. When we got back from the pâtisserie, I didn't have time to eat it before class, so I stuffed it in a plastic bag in my backpack and went to campus. After class, I went to eat it, but it had gotten cold, and the microwave in the SWKT didn't work, so I had to eat it cold. I think it would have been good warm, but since it was cold, it got progressively nastier with each bite. Fortunately, the baguette was still good when I got home, since it doesn't matter what temperature you eat it at. Usually I stay on campus all day until classes are over, but that day I went home twice between classes--once because of the pâtisserie, and once to say goodbye to Hanna, one of the horses I got to know this summer.

On Friday, I did perhaps the most unusual thing I've done all summer (and maybe all year!). A girl in my ward, Michelle, invited as many people as she could invite to some event she was super excited about. It was Harry and the Potters, a rock group that sings songs about Harry Potter, and the Potter Puppet Pals, which you may have seen on YouTube:
After her frequent invitations, I decided to just go for it and go. We drove up to this ghetto venue in some alley in Salt Lake where the two groups were performing. There were tons of people crammed inside a little shack with the smells of bodies and Word of Wisdom violations all around. There we were all sitting on the floor watching a puppet show. It was funny, but I personally found it inappropriate for a puppet show; if it were a movie, I wouldn't watch it.

After the puppet show, Harry and the Potters set up. They're just two guys, dressed somewhat like Harry Potter, and a drummer, and they sing short songs about different things from the books. I like Harry Potter as much as anyone else (the books--I don't watch the movies), but I'm not a fanatic, and I felt pretty out of place among all the people who not only were enormous Harry Potter fans but knew all the words to all of the Harry and the Potters songs. It didn't help issues that I'm generally unenthusiastic about everything and that I don't like noise. One of their songs was in honor of Hermione's organization S.P.E.W., and the whole song consisted of them going in the audience and putting microphones to people's mouths and having them say spew. (Yeah, they're not going to win a Grammy anytime soon.)  I knew from the start that they were going to have me say it, because I was surrounded by girls, which meant I was taller than most of them, and because my emotionless state was quite obvious. But I was a good boy and said "Spew!" when they put the mike to my face. During their playing, the Puppet Pals went through the audience, and one touched my head. This summer I got Jan Terri's autograph and the Harry Potter Potter Puppet Pal touched my head. What YouTube star will I have an interaction with next? Harry and the Potters had put up a banner with the Hogwarts logo on it, and during the last song, they were playing so loud that it fell off the wall. Kind of like this:

I'm glad that I went, because if I hadn't, I would have wondered what I missed. But did I enjoy it? That question is harder to answer.