March 15-18, 2013

Now that Valentine's Day is over, I'm going to remember last year's St. Patrick's Day and surrounding days.

March 15 was a Friday. That evening, I went to a historical geology test review. There was a problem with the review, because the TA had one answer on her key that was wrong. One girl had gone to take the test immediately after the review, and she told us of the problem. That night I walked home, talking to one of my classmates, Cameron, and as I got home, I told him I would see him in the morning, since we were going on a field trip.

We met at the ESC early on March 16. We loaded up in vans and drove off to go to Spanish Fork Canyon. One of my classmates, Chris, was driving, but he was nervous to do so, and he put his iPod in. We drove through Springville, and one of my classmates said we had passed his house--he could have slept in and just been picked up, rather than him having to drive to campus. We stopped by the windmills of Spanish Fork, and a freezing wind was blowing. A memorial cross was on the hill, and Dr. Britt joked, "Once there was a BYU student who froze to death on this field trip, and she is buried under that cross." Before we left that place, I asked Dr. Britt, "Are those faceted spurs?" and he confirmed that they were. Some vans took off, but they were driving in the wrong direction. Dr. Britt motioned for them to turn around, but they kept going in that direction. We drove to our next stop on the side of the road, where we looked at red shale with a few fossils in it. When we left, my van's driver was annoyed with Dr. Britt for driving fast onto the highway around a curve. We stopped at another place nearby, and we walked along looking at red, gray, and green shale. (I realized I couldn't see the green shale because I'm a little colorblind.) They showed us how to use geologic compasses; our TA said, "Is anyone here not a geology major?" I said I was just a minor, and she said, "I think geology minors need to take 210." I said they didn't, but I was going to take it anyway, so she said that everyone there needed to learn to use the compasses. Then we left and kept going to different places. oAt We went to a place with Triassic limestone, and we got out to find fossils. During a bathroom break, some girls brought back a toilet they had found at an abandoned house nearby. Finding fossils was a little rough. I found a small shell fossil, and when someone said they couldn't find any fossils, I told them I found a shell, but they thought I was talking about a snail shell that was not a fossil. I showed my findings to Dr. Britt, but not all of them were fossils. We were on a steep mountain near a pond that smelled like sulfur, and it was a very nice day. I found some very nice ripple marks, but I decided not to take the rock, so someone else did. That made me feel better. Eventually we had to stop someplace where we had to climb through a barbed wire fence to look at a tufa deposit--I had never heard of tufa before. I found a nice leaf fossil in the tufa, but the rock was too big for me to want to take it with me, especially since tufa is sharp. There was a fault across the road. Closer to Price, we saw some coal. We even stopped at a place where they had a bunch of salt for salting roads, and being geologists we licked some. Near the coal, my classmate Bart complimented me on my St. Patrick's Day shirt--he asked if it was St. Patrick's Day and if I was Irish. We looked at a formation in Price, and I thought it was wasteful for us to drive that far when we hardly did anything. On our way back to campus, I wrote my writeup for the field trip.

When I got home, I was sunburned and dirty, so I was glad to take a shower. I think I went grocery shopping. At one point, there was a knock on the door, and there was this black guy there. He was really nice, and I invited him in. He had some broken teeth, and he explained that he was trying to raise money to go to college. I decided to buy a children's dictionary to donate to charity. He explained that some girls he had been talking to arranged an appointment with him with missionaries. He saw the picture of the First Presidency on our wall, and I explained who they were. He said that many years before, he had met President Hinckley, who had given him a Book of Mormon, and he said that he afterwards learned that he was the Mormon equivalent of the Pope.

That night, I asked my roommates if they wanted to get mint Blizzards from Dairy Queen, since it would be my last time to have a milkshake until Halloween time, since I've never heard of Easter or Fourth of July shakes. They seemed keen on the idea. However, later, some girls came by with food from Sammy's to thank Scott for something. So Bryton and I went out, barely making it to Dairy Queen before they closed. "Some Nights" by fun. was playing on the radio, and Bryton said, "These are edgy lyrics," but it turned out he had misheard the lyrics. (It's still edgy, though.) We both got medium mint brownie Blizzards. When I got my change from the drive-thru window, they dropped it and I had to pick it up off the ground. Then Bryton and I went home, and we watched the "Leprechaun" episode of Bewitched. Scott came in too, and he said he could tell the actor wasn't Irish.

The next day, St. Patrick's Day, Scott was playing Handel music because he thought one song sounded jig-like. I put on my green pants and green socks, my orange belt, and my shamrock tie, and we went to church. Scott wanted to walk one particular way, but then he ended up talking with other girls, so I left him behind. I was looking at the ground, and my former home teachee Emily (who had moved out of the ward) said she loved me when she saw my outfit. I think I gave an inappropriate response. (Maybe that's why she unfriended me.) As I was walking up to church, David Jones complimented me on my pants, and then again on my socks. As I got up to our church room, Bishop saw me and said I was his hero for my outfit. When I was counting attendance, my horse friend Kristen gestured to my glasses and said she liked all my green. After sacrament meeting, a girl named Hannah said she liked that I was wearing orange as well, and she said St. Patrick's Day was one of her favorite holidays, and I said it was my least favorite. I had to go do something at some of the other Sunday School classes, so when I went to them, the teachers liked my outfit, and as I was walking in the Wilk, I heard someone say, "I think we have a winner," and I only assumed she was talking about me. When I left church, I was walking home and some people were yelling from a car. I couldn't hear them, but I assumed they were yelling at me. My elitist roommate Cameron was making green minty cookies for a party, but he couldn't find his food coloring (since Scott had used it to color milk and orange juice green), so I lent him mine. He told me that he liked that I had made everything in the fridge green, but I told him it wasn't me, so he said he would have to untag me from the picture on Facebook. Later I made dinner, and I listened to the Lower Lights while I did so. I had some trouble getting Scott's stereo to work, but I got it, and Cameron came home and told me he liked the music. I made a blog post about my day before.

The next day, I remember getting on Facebook at the library, since I had been fasting from it for a few days. After school, I pulled out my Easter decorations and put them out, and then I went to Smith's to get some Easter candy to put in my Easter jar. I think Cameron asked me if I was going to put out Easter stuff, not realizing that I had already done so.