March 19

I'm going to remember what I can about March 19 from years past.

2014. I think I went home after my weight training class so I could change for the Linguistics and English Language graduation banquet. I put on a button-up shirt, a tie, tan pants, and grey and blue shoes. Then I walked up to the Hinckley Center, where I had never been. I went and got a drink before I went into the banquet room. I sat down at a table, and soon other people came in and sat at my table. One person was a master's student who had been in my corpus linguistics class; I think Olivia Corey might also have sat at my table. I didn't care for the dinner; I thought it was too fancy. There were desserts next to every plate, and they told us we could choose what one we wanted. One of them was a round thing covered in chocolate; another had little pink round things on top. Some of the people at the table knew I only eat seasonal desserts, so they asked if I could have it. I told them I was trying to decide whether the pink candies made that dessert suitable for Easter; they said it was, and they also tried to convince me the chocolate dessert was egg shaped, but that was too much. They announced different awards for people with good GPAs. The only recognition I got was when Dr. Cynthia Hallen read off my name for participating on the student journal Schwa. The entertainment for the evening was a gamelan performance, since Dr. Elzinga was part of BYU's gamelan group. After the banquet was over, I went and talked to Dr. Mel Thorne because I was running out of mandatory hours for the student journal class. He told me not to worry about it and to send him an email reminding him I had talked to him. Then I walked back to my apartment, and I seem to remember seeing my roommate Scott, but he was becoming weird at that point in time.

2013. That afternoon I had a field trip at the Museum of Paleontology, so before it happened, I walked near the museum. I sat on the lawn by the football stadium and ate my lunch, which included an Easter marshmallow 3 Musketeers mini, while reading my geology textbook. Then I went over to the museum and waited for my classmates to show up. We went inside and had the tour from Dr. Britt. He criticized the mural of the Jurassic animals. He told us what the definition of a dinosaur was; he pointed to the humerus crest that was the diagnostic feature of dinosaurs, and he told us that if you take Triceratops and birds and find their common ancestor, then that dinosaur and all its descendants are dinosaurs. We went in the back where volunteers and geology students were working with fossils. A geology major named Josie told us something about "Quarternary rocks," and I was surprised she would use the outdated "Quarternary" instead of the more modern "Neogene." The "mature student" in our class was asking a lot of questions when we were being shown a turtle fossil. The tour lasted late, so I asked my classmate, Michael Arnold, if he could drive me up to the JFSB, since I would be late to class. He agreed, so I got in his van, and a shirtless guy was running along Canyon Road. I felt bad for Michael dropping me off, because it was awkward for him to turn around. I went down in the basement to go to class, and I saw Geoffrey Palmer, the son of my second mission president. He recognized me and talked to me, and I think he asked if I was going to the upcoming reunion. When I went to the classroom, there was a sign on the door saying that class was cancelled, so I didn't need to have Michael take me after all!

2012. That evening I went to Smith's so that I could get some Easter candy to put in my Easter jar. In the parking lot, I saw a guy named Andrew who had worked at the Distribution Center where I worked. I wanted to talk to him, but I didn't get a chance and I didn't think he would really know me, since we hadn't worked together too much. I got Hershey's cookies 'n' cream eggs.

2011. I went to Famous Footwear because I needed new Sunday shoes and new running shoes. I remember running down the aisles in the store to see how the shoes felt, and I felt really foolish doing so. My shoes total cost over $100. I thought that Famous did buy one, get one half off, but now I know that's only sometimes. I got all signed up in their system. That evening, my roommate Derek saw my new green and silver K-Swiss Tubes shoes and said it was hard for him to imagine me wearing something that looked that crazy.

2010. I drove home from Provo for the weekend. I had just gotten a DVD of the Peanuts Motion Comics Collection, so we watched them that night, I think while eating pizza. Each clip was three minutes long, so by the time we had watched the twentieth, we had the theme music memorized.

2009. I'm pretty sure this was the day when in the morning I got a package from my mom. It had mint Oreos, which I could no longer eat because St. Patrick's Day was over. It had Noah's Ark Easter eggs, each egg looking like an animal with cheap candy inside. It had two CDs, the MoTab's Consider the Lilies (since my mom had an extra copy) and Cherie Call's He Gives Flowers to Everyone. Thus it was this day that began my continual adoration of Cherie Call. I looked at the lyric booklet and really liked how "When I Sang" incorporated lyrics from hymns. During our lunch break, Elder Betenson turned on the Cherie Call CD in the Dans' stereo upstairs (the Dans were the members we lived with). He turned it up really loud, and Sister Dan asked if he could turn it down. He was embarrassed because he didn't know she was home. That afternoon we went to a members' home, the Jameses', to help them with a service project, and then they were going to feed us dinner. When we were done with the service project, there was still a long time before dinner, so I think we biked home and changed out of our service clothes. Then we went back to the Jameses'. Their sixteen-year-old daughter was pregnant, and the nonmember "F.O.B.," as Sister James said, "father of baby," was coming over. While we were waiting, we played Farkle with the teenage kids, including the F.O.B. Dinner took a very long time. Finally the corned beef and cabbage was done, and Sister James explained to her kids that corned beef and cabbage was a traditional Irish dish, so it went on sale at St. Patrick's Day. I had never had it before, but Elder Betenson was really excited to have it. At some point we had a conversation about scriptures and Elder Betenson shared one from the Law of Moses that had to do with bodily functions. We were there a long time, and we felt bad that we didn't do anything else that night. Looking back, however, I think our time there was very well spent, because that was a very difficult area to work in, and we helped forge a good relationship with the F.O.B. (he later gave us a ride one rainy evening). Then we had to go back to our house, where Elders Nixon and Bobo met us for an exchange.