October 30-November 1, 2012

With it being Halloween time, I'm going to recall the things that went on on and around Halloween last year.

October 30, 2012. While I was getting ready to go to my jogging class, I was listening to my music, and my newly bought "Bad Romance" came on. But I heard something in the song I hadn't noticed before, and I looked up and found out it was swearing, so I deleted the song from my computer. (I later reinstated the song when I learned it was edited.) I believe that I wore the jack-o-lantern t-shirt that I got from a Halloween 5k to my jogging class. After jogging, I came home and probably watched the devotional. I showered and changed into the jack-o-lantern t-shirt I got from Walmart before my mission. I think I wore my yellow shoes. I went to the newly opened Mountain West Burrito across the street, since they just opened the day before and I wanted to try them. I got a chicken burrito, and the hot sauce was really hot. Russell Ochoa, who had previously been in my ward, walked by and said hi. That afternoon, I walked up to the JFSB (my geomorphology class was cancelled for the day). Near the MARB I saw Taylor Bean, who was working grounds crew. He told me that I should be wearing my shirt the next day, but I told him I would be wearing a different shirt. Then I went into the kindergarten observation booth to observe the kids' language for my Empirical Methods in English Linguistics class (ELang 273). I think I wanted to observe the preschool, but there were too many people in that observation room, so I moved to kindergarten. At first it was recess, so the kids were just playing. They were pretending to make a present  for their teacher. She offered to help, but they said no, "because then you'll know what we're getting you!" (Never mind that it was just pretend.) At one point I remember a teacher asked the kids, "Is the sun blue?" "No! The sun is yellow!" After recess, all the teachers came in, and they sang a wiggle song. Then they settled down for storytime. The teacher (Mr. "Bwad," as some kids called him) asked whether they wanted a Halloween story or another story. At one point a girl said something irrelevant, and the teacher said, "You already told me that." When I went into work, Annette the secretary commented on my yellow shoes (if that was the day I wore them). That night after I came home, my roommate Scott asked me if I could take him to University Mall so he could exchange some shoes and then to D.I. so he could drop off some stuff. I agreed to it, but worried about my time schedule that night. I looked at the box of things Scott wanted to take to D.I., and while he was in the other room I took out the measuring spoons and put them back in the kitchen, since he had a real need to get rid of things that were useful and keep things that weren't. We got in the car and he sang along to "Go Down Moses" on my Lower Lights CD. We got to the mall, and he went into his shoe store, saying it wouldn't take long. While he was in there, I went and looked through a Halloween store (which was busy, since it was Halloween Eve). Then I walked past some other stores and at one point I looked in the Disney store but didn't find anything interesting. Scott took a lot longer than he said. Once I walked through a boutique store, not knowing that Scott was following me. I walked in one door and out the other, and he told me that he expected I would stop and he would alert me that he was done, but I just kept walking. As we were leaving the parking lot, he told me to go one way, but I knew there was a lawn barrier, so I couldn't. He told me I should go out to the light to get on State Street to D.I., but I already knew that. While we were in the car, for some reason it came up that I really like Cherie Call. He said that he knew her songs "Where Faith Lives" and "It Passes All My Understanding." We dropped off stuff at D.I. and then drove home. I drove on Bulldog until it went down past the Wilk. Scott said, "Look at that!" and pointed out the lit Christmas trees at the front of the Wilk. I said, "I didn't know Satan was at BYU!" Then I said, "That was going too far," since I realized it was a little much to say that Satan was responsible for Christmas trees, and Scott said something like, "I didn't know he was responsible for that." Then I watched Mad Monster Party? My roommates Cameron and Bryton came home from home teaching while I was watching it, and Bryton said, "Oh, entertainment!" Both of them joined me in watching it; they came in at the part when all the monsters arrive on the island. They were amused when the chef pinched Yetch the zombie. Bryton asked if it was a kid's movie, because it had some more adult themes. Cameron didn't stay for the rest of the movie, but Bryton did. He laughed at the special effects at the end of the movie. (Mad Monster Party? is one of the strangest movies I've ever seen.) Then I went to bed, and when I woke up, it was

 October 31. I put on my Peanuts "Happy Halloween" shirt and my skull socks and went up to my first class, Empirical Methods in English Linguistics. Our professor complimented the people who had costumes. For some reason, she had some of us stand up for some demonstration, and when she did, she realized that I did have a Halloween shirt on. After class I went towards the library and there were people giving out candy, but I didn't consider it Halloween candy so I didn't take any. I went to my environmental biology class. There was this awkward kid who always sat at the front of the class, and he was wearing a homemade dog or wolf costume. He had a baseball cap with ears on it, and he had a dog snout mask, and gloves with claws. It was obvious he wanted to show off his costume, because he held the door open for the previous class and waved his hand up at everyone, showing off his claws. Some people remarked about his claws, but some ignored him. He asked a question during class and kept his snout mask on when he asked it. I overheard some people by me talking about his mask. I went to work and was just working away when suddenly Annette exclaimed. There was a man in a grim reaper costume just staring in our office window. Once she finally realized it and looked up, he left. Then she looked out the door and saw that he was doing the same thing to the other offices in our hall.Then I went home. At some point that day, Scott was making something out of construction paper. Scott and I hadn't finished home teaching, so we went and visited Nestor at South End Market. It was kind of awkward. I wanted to carve my pumpkin, and I set up my Halloween playlist on the stereo. At first I had it on shuffle, but I meant to just play it through. I began carving my pumpkin. Cameron came home when one of the versions of "The Great Pumpkin Waltz" was playing. I saved the pumpkin seeds and asked Cameron if he thought they would be good with spices like nutmeg and cinnamon; he said yes. I told Cameron that I was going to carve a pumpkin that said Obama, since I resented the Romney sign someone put up at our complex. He told me he also resented it. I asked whether I should make a modified flag under Obama or say "2012"; he said I should put a flag design. I messed up the "m" in Obama. At one point Scott came into the room, and he seemed shocked that I was doing something like making an Obama pumpkin (I learned his political opinions shortly before then while watching a presidential debate). As my playlist got to the Original Monster Mash album, it started skipping, so I had to restart my computer. I finished my pumpkin and took it outside in front of the Romney sign.

After that, I went to my room and listened to my playlist (which had to be started over after restarting the computer) while working on geomorphology homework. At some point our friend Amberly knocked on the door; I hadn't seen her for a while. They came in and looked at my Halloween stuff. They noticed my fall-wrapped chocolates and had some. Cameron mentioned that we had already eaten all the Caramel Apple Pops and taffy. Amberly was surprised we ate those before the chocolate, so I had to clarify that I didn't buy the chocolate until the other candy was gone. Since I had my Jan Terri picture up, the conversation turned to her. I went and got my laptop so that I could show Amberly's friend "Get Down Goblin." Afterwards, her friend said, "I love how serious she is." Amberly agreed, and said that she was even more serious in "the one with the motorcycle" ("Losing You"). I think Amberly was the only person to notice that my socks had skulls. While I was doing homework, my friend Kristen texted me and told me that I should go over to the Halloween party that Shayli was having. I was going to have to be late. I went there and ate a little Halloween brownie, one of the few Halloween treats there. Mackenzie Gregerson was wearing an Energizer Bunny costume; I asked her if she borrowed it from her roommate Leilani. I saw Scott's costume; the thing he had made was a little tag that said "To: Women, From: God." I was surprised that he would wear such a costume, because it seemed a little irreverent and vain, not what I expected from him. They took a picture, but I didn't join in because I wasn't wearing a costume. (It wasn't worth putting on my costume since I wouldn't be long at the party.) Then I came home and watched The Munsters' Revenge. Cameron came out and watched it for a few minutes. Then I went to bed (Bryton had gone home that day) and wrote in my journal:
"A mediocre Halloween. Scott and I 'home' taught Nestor at the store. I made an Obama pumpkin while listening to Halloween music. Amberly York and her friend stopped by and then I finished geology homework. I made a brief appearance at Shayli's party; then I watched The Munsters' Revenge." 

November 1. This was a crazy day. I remember that in geomorph, I was doodling some Thanksgiving images on my notes. Our professor asked if people could go to Costco with them that afternoon to get food for our field trip that weekend. But there was no way I would be able to. That evening I took a test for my editing class--the first time I had been in the testing center that semester. There's a small whiteboard in the testing center that always has some message and drawing on it; there was some kind of Thanksgiving message on it. I called my parents and asked if they could bring me some stuff for my trip. I think they brought me a tent, a bag, and a flashlight. I gave them a big bag of some of my Halloween stuff to take home. I was really grateful to them for coming all the way to Provo for me. The bag they brought was bulkier than I had hoped, so I asked Cameron if he had a bag I could borrow. He did, and he was nice enough to let me borrow it. I wanted to go the grocery store to get some things. I went out to Fresh Market and was shocked to see that almost all of their Halloween candy was already sold out, meaning that I couldn't get Thanksgiving candy. I bought some Kashi pumpkin spice granola bars. I picked out a BYU hat, and when I went to the self-checkout, the barcode on the hat didn't work. The worker helped me, but the price on the tag was much more expensive than the price the sign said, so I told her it was cheaper. I told her a lower price and she put it in, but I think that even that was more expensive than what it really was. After that I stopped at Smith's to see their clearance candy selection. All the leftover candy they had was only Halloween candy; it couldn't be used for Thanksgiving. When I got home, there weren't any parking spaces, so I had to park far away. Then later I remembered that I had my sleeping bag in my car, so I had to run over to the car (I was wearing my Converse shoes) and retrieve the sleeping bag. At one point that night I saw my former roommate, Zach Zimmerman, on the stairs. I told him how I had a field trip in the morning. The conversation went like this:
"Where to?"
"I'm actually not sure. The rumor is Death Valley."
"In California!?"
He also complimented me on my Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds shirt. That night I also had to fill out my absentee ballot. There was no way I was voting either Republican or Democrat, so I asked Bryton what he knew about the other parties. I just picked one--maybe Gary Johnson?--and stuck with that. Our bipartisan culture is destroying our country, so I want to make third parties a viable option. I asked Bryton if he could drop off my ballot for me the next morning (since I didn't know then that my complex had an outgoing mailbox). I might have been listening to my Thanksgiving playlist while I did the voting. I think I also had to finish a take-home midterm for ELang 273. Then I went to bed, knowing I would have to get up early the next morning.

September 30

With it almost being my birthday, I found it fitting to remember the various things that have happened on the day after my birthday.

2012. At church, Michael Wyatt was talking to me about something after sacrament meeting. While he was talking to me, Shayli Simmons came up to me and wished me happy birthday. So then when Michael was done talking to me, he also told me happy birthday. After church, I made a blog post.

2011. That night we went to El Matador for my birthday dinner. When we got at the restaurant, I noticed a terrible goathead patch, and Allie was standing in it. I said, "Don't stand on those plants." She said, "Sorry." She probably thought it was because she wasn't supposed to step on them, but I just didn't want her to get them stuck to her shoes. While we were waiting for food, I mentioned that I had the stupid "I Wanna Go" Britney Spears song stuck in my head. Then my mom told Susanne that they had got me Lady Antebellum and Kelly "Clarkston" for my birthday. I said to my mom, "What did you call her?" since she had inserted a t.

2010. I think this was the time my mom and I went down to the Legacy Parkway trail so I could use my new bicycle. I was wearing my Snoopy "Party like a Rockstar" shirt. I think I brought a Gatorade in the car. My mom just walked on the trail while I biked. I was annoyed when I came across some bikers stopped and having a conversation in both lanes of traffic. Another woman alerted me when she was passing me, but I stayed in my lane, although I might have slightly swerved and made it look like I was switching lanes. Then I came home and ate some Jelly Bellys and I think I turned on the TV for some reason. I think I started making pillowcases from the holiday material my mom had bought me.

2008. Elder Duncan and I waited to get the car from the other elders. We were dressed in our suits to go to district meeting, but when the other elders arrived, they asked why we were wearing our suit coats. They told us that district meeting had been moved to Wednesday, but we had missed the memo. Those elders informed us that we still had more than a hundred miles we could use and it was the last day of the month. We worried that if we didn't use our monthly allotment of miles, they would take miles away from us, so we considered going to Waterville, a small town twenty-five miles north. Elder Duncan and I went home and changed our plans for the day. We went through the area book and looked up people we could see in Waterville. Elder Duncan started having second thoughts, but I persuaded him that it was a good idea, since we had never worked in Waterville. Before we left, we fueled up at 7-11 and bought candy for the ride. I got peach rings. It was a nice drive, but I think I was driving slow. We were at a place where the road was curving, and I began singing "The Long and Winding Road." When we got to Waterville, we stopped at a Shell station to see if they had maps of the town. They didn't have any for sale, but they gave us a paper one that wasn't very good. We parked in front of the house of a part-member family. Apparently the wife was semi-active, but I didn't know her. We walked around to try to find people, but we had a hard time figuring out where we were. We wanted to see one less-active who was a mortician, but we could only find the funeral home, and we didn't know how appropriate it was to knock on a funeral home. We looked for one former investigator, but we couldn't find the house. (I later realized what we did wrong.) Later we got back in the car. We went to one house to try to see if they were the right people, but the guy either slammed his door shut when we got out of our car or else was very short when we knocked on the door. That surprised me, since I had this perception that small towns would be more receptive since they didn't have missionaries there as often. (Odessa, WA, and Winchester, ID, later proved to me that that wasn't true.) We stopped at the house of Billy Byington's father, and there were lots of little annoying dogs, but no one was home. Like all small towns, Waterville had its abandoned buildings.

Eventually we left, not having had a terribly productive time in Waterville. But I figured that it would be a good way for us to be familiar with the town for the next time we went up there (but I was transferred the next week and never went back until I drove through the town after my mission). I was driving when I realized I hadn't put on my prescription sunglasses, so Elder Duncan opened them for me so I could trade glasses while I was driving. While we were driving back, Elder Bates, the district leader, called us. He told us that district meeting the next day was cancelled because President Clark wanted to have a special meeting with us on Friday. We didn't know why he would be visiting us, since it was the week that he would be planning transfers, so it would be really busy for him, and we had already had interviews. We began speculating about what crazy things could be happening for this meeting to happen. When we got back to East Wenatchee, we had fried chicken from the elderly Schoenmakers, and we got a call from a less-active, Brian Latimer, who wanted us to help him move across the river to Wenatchee. We were glad he called us, and we were more than happy to help him move, since it would help us ratchet up miles on the car. We were only sad that he was moving out of our area. When we got to his new house, they had problems getting the couch through the door and didn't think it would work. But Elder Duncan had served in the college town of Pullman, so he was used to moving things, and he was able to get it through the door. I think we drove over to Wenatchee twice that night. When we did our miles that night, our daily miles turned out to be 77.7. Here is my journal entry for the day:
"Today was a very weird day. Firstly we thought we had district meeting so we were surprised when we didn't. So we did our mission survey. Then we mowed the Schonemakers' lawn. We had over 100 miles to use, so we went up to Waterville. We couldn't find many addresses, and the few we found weren't home. One address was a 210, but it wasn't there, so we knocked on 201, but we don't know if it was right because he just closed the door on us. On our way back we received a call that President is unexpectedly meeting with the mission.

"We had dinner with the Schoenmakers--Bill is sadly almost gone--and helped Brian Latimer move. We went over to Wenatchee twice, and in total we went 77.7 miles.

2006. I think this was the evening that I watched The Munsters' Revenge with my dad. While we were watching, there was a knock on the door, and my dad and sister made me get it. It was an old guy telling us about something, but I don't remember what. He was there a long time.

2005. It was the night before I was singing in general conference. I believe this was the time I went to Great Clips to get a haircut, thus beginning a pattern of getting professional cuts instead of having my mom cut it. I went home and tried to catch what I could of the I Dream of Jeannie mini-marathon, and for some reason my aunt was there. The only thing that makes me unsure about this is that I don't know why I would have gotten a haircut the night before singing in conference, but I think this is what happened.

2004. I remember going to my theater class in the morning and burping up the flavor of Mexican chocolate cake. It made me remember the weird Munsters pilot I had watched the previous night while eating cake.

2003. When I showed up to gym class, Coach Hyde showed me that my binder that had gone missing the day before was in the garbage can. I was relieved to have it back, but I wondered what kind of evil person would do that.

2000. I think we went to my sister's house and she gave me a birthday present of the soundtrack to Chicken Run, which I had seen the night before for my birthday. I thought it was a strange present, but I went home and listened to the Flip, Flop, and Fly song. (I think I still have that CD, but I never listen to it.)

1998. I think David took me to Winegar's to get my birthday present of a Veggie Friend Seedie. He gave me exact change to get it, and he sent me inside to get it myself. I got "Ima Farmer Corn," the one that had overalls. I went to pay for it, but David had miscalculated the tax, and I was a few cents too short. I informed the cashier that I had to go get some more money. She seemed both amused and annoyed. I ran to the car and got some more coins from David, then went back in and bought it (the cashier had kept it at her register).

1994. It was my birthday party. I (more likely my mom) had invited a bunch of my kindergarten friends over.  We took my friend Wesley (I think that was his name) home with us. I really liked Wesley, but I think I just liked him for his mullet. While we were waiting for more kids to show up, I got on the fireplace and put one of the pumpkin lights in my hand and said, "I, Jack, the pumpkin king." Hillary Ulmer was there, and she really liked The Lion King, which came out that year. She imitated me, but said, "I, Nala, the pumpkin queen," which didn't make sense. After the kids all got there, I got my various presents. I think I got a Lion King puzzle. I got a candy bar with a gold wrapper, so I started singing, "I got a golden ticket!" We had lots of Halloween party favors. Then it was time for Pin the Tail on the Donkey. I went first, and everyone laughed when I got the tail far from the donkey. That didn't bother me--but it bothered me that they didn't laugh as much at the other kids, even when they got the tail even further than I did. Looking back, I realize that they thought mine was funny, since I was the first one, but as more kids did it, they realized it wasn't really funny. But I took it as a personal offense, and I had a fit and went and hid under my bed. The kids kept coming to my room to try to get me to come out, but I would just yell at them. Except when Wesley, came, I nicely asked him to leave. Eventually I was coaxed out, but I don't remember what happened. We had to take Wesley home, and there was a broken sprinkler shooting water everywhere on the apartment complex lawn. This might have been the night that the Thompsons stayed longer to watch The Nightmare Before Christmas. In the "What's This?" sequence, when Jack runs into the Christmas Town sign, Wayne said to two-year-old Peter, "Did Jack fall down?"

September 28

With my birthday coming up in two weeks, I'm going to remember what I can about the day before my birthday.

2012. I was at work listening to Pandora, and Lady Gaga's "Marry the Night" came on. Then I went to go running, but I got caught in post-game traffic. I had to walk for a lot of the time because there were too many people. It was a bad idea to go by the stadium. Then I came home and there was a knock on the door. Hanna Dunn, one of my "horse" friends from the previous summer, was down in Provo visiting. I changed out of my running clothes and went across the hall to Alex Masterson's apartment, where they were visiting. It was Hanna, Kristen Jensen, and Olivia Mayer. Hanna said that she was glad she had made cinnamon rolls the previous May, because that was how she learned that I only ate seasonal desserts. Kristen pointed out that I could have Halloween treats, and I mentioned that I could have anything I wanted that week, since it was my birthday. I mentioned that I had gone to the French bakery, and Olivia was excited to learn there was a French bakery in Orem. The girls were excited it was my birthday, so they made birthday cards for me. Hanna's said she wished Jan Terri were here to wish me happy birthday. There was a running joke that Hanna and I should get married (simply for the fact that we both go by our middle names), so Kristen wrote about all the kids Hanna and I would have. Then we discussed getting some kind of dessert for me. We left, and as we were leaving, Kristen and Hanna called Alex "Alejandro" and began singing, "Ale, Alejandro." Alex said he loved Lady Gaga. We went to South End Market, but they were closed. Then Carissa (who had come over at some point) drove us to Smith's. I think it turned to midnight, so they talked about it being my birthday. Alex started singing the "Happy Happy Birthday" song from The Emperor's New Groove, and Carissa said, "Heh heh, it's your birthday?" like Kronk says. I went through the ice cream aisle and found some birthday cake "ice cream," which Hanna bought (I later learned it was a "frozen dairy dessert," not ice cream). Carissa found some clearance flower-shaped cookies, which weren't that great. Kristen bought me a sticker from a little vending machine; it was that Domo character. Then we parked across from the duck pond and went and ate by the stream on campus. At one point, for some reason Alex was singing the "Monster Mash," so I sang the relevant lyrics from "Get Down Goblin." Then we all went home and I went to bed.

2008. This is my journal entry for the day:
"Today was a mediocre day. We did have some good QGIs. We talked with a friendly Pentecostal woman named Alma. She married a minister, but we might be able to talk to them sometime. 

"I can't believe I'm ten today [in mission years; I was out ten months] and twenty tomorrow!"

2005. I know that we juniors had to go to school early for testing, but I don't remember what else happened.

1999. My mom gave me one early present after school; it was the Moy Mushroom from the Vegetable Friends collection. (I had the spinoff collection, the Veggie Friend Seedies, but not the Vegetable Friends.) I was excited to take my new toy to my Webelos meeting. Chantelle Christensen later called my mom and asked where she got it to see if she could get me something like that for my birthday, but my mom had already ordered the rest of them for me (I got them the next day).

1997. I asked if I could have my birthday presents that night, since it was right before my birthday. My dad said, "Should we break tradition?" My mom pointed out that we had always gotten our presents the night before our birthday. I think this was the time they brought out my Magnadoodle keychain, and I told them that I had sneaked and already seen it. I thought it was funny, but they were shocked that I did such a thing, and said that no one else in the family had ever done that. I got a turkey magnet that gobbled.

1996. I got my various presents: a purple Koosh ball witch keychain, the Warioland GameBoy game, and The Sound of Music on VHS. My mom told me she wanted me to start singing the songs from the movie again. David started playing my game. We went downstairs to watch the movie, and David told me that he had gotten to Lake Asparagus in my game (I was enthralled by the map in the instruction manual).

1994. I got my presents, but the only one I remember is the VHS of The Nightmare Before Christmas. I was surprised I got it. I remembered seeing the trailers on TV the previous year, but I figured it was too violent for my parents to let me see it, and here they got it for me. We went downstairs and watched it. That may have been the most influential birthday present I ever got.

Bats

This week I was at the devotional in the Marriott Center, and there were two bats flying around the entire auditorium. They would fly near the rafters, fly above various levels of the audience, and sometimes even fly near the stand where the speakers and all the officials sit. I was surprised that no one speaking said anything about them, because we could all see them. People were pointing at them; even someone sitting on the stand pointed at them. I found it hilarious.

It got me thinking about the other times in my life when I have seen bats in the wild (by "in the wild," I mean "not at a zoo.")

The earliest I can remember is at "The Pond," where my great-grandma used to live in upstate New York, in 2001. It was evening, and there were some bats flying in the sky.

The next time was in November 2002 in Taiwan. I think it was our last night there. We were in a park and there were bats flying above us during the evening. On that same trip my dad bought a bat figurine, since bats are considered good luck. I thought it was fitting, therefore, to see bats on that trip.

The next time I can remember didn't happen clear until September 2006. I was standing near the back door of Woods Cross High School, waiting for my carpool buddy, David Christensen. I was standing there when I saw something flying down the hall. You don't usually see flying things in buildings, so I thought it was funny. I thought it was a bird, but as it got close I realized it was a bat. It was so surprising that many of us were laughing. One girl pulled out her phone to snap pictures. Someone tried to swat it. The bat seemed kind of confused. When David came, I told him about it (I can't remember if he had seen it) and I was laughing. As we walked out to my car, I kept laughing. David told me he worried I wouldn't be able to drive because I was laughing so much. I even wrote about it on my family's blog.

The next bat incident I remember was June 26, 2009 (my journal helps me remember that). My companion and I went to visit a family, the Denisons, in Lapwai, ID, every week. They were quite poor (as was everyone in Lapwai) and lived in a single-wide trailer with lots of cats. We would visit them in their bedroom. On that day, James was wearing a glove with a bat on it. It had flown into a window at his work and knocked itself out, so he picked it up and took it home. It was just sitting on his hand, barely living. Bloody things were coming out of it. He said we could touch it, so I did (it was soft), but Elder Warren didn't. Soon, however, the bat began reviving. Then it began flying around the room. It brushed against Elder Warren as it flew. Then it would occasionally stop and hang on the wall. All the cats in the house were very attentive and interested in it. Since it was flying again, James caught it and took it outside. He told us that it flew off.

Then during the summer of 2010, I had come home from running when I noticed a bat hanging above the door of another apartment in my complex. I was so surprised that I ran up to my apartment, threw open the door, grabbed my camera, and told my roommate Alex about the bat. He and the girl he was with came down with me to look. I took pictures, but apparently they're on my home computer. Alex had some popcorn in his hand, so he put it on the door ledge near the bat, as a food offering.  The next afternoon it was still there; it may have been there for two or three days.

One night in the summer of 2011, I went running. I saw something flying above me, but it seemed to be flying a little erratically, and it suddenly changed direction. Although I wasn't sure, I assumed it was a bat, since it was late in the evening and birds don't usually fly like that.

Then last summer, I had opened the door of my apartment to go do some knee exercises on the stairs. It was probably 10 or 11 at night. I was so surprised to see a bat flying toward me (in the little hallway connecting apartments) that I jumped back into the apartment, slamming the door against the wall. The bat went on its way, but I was glad to have seen it, even if it had freaked me out.

And that brings me up to the present!

Southern Utah, 2002

Since I just visited Bryce Canyon this week, I thought I would blog about the vacation the last time I went there.

If I recall correctly, it was June of 2002, a month or so before I got my tonsils taken out.

We set up our tent trailer at Ruby's Inn Campground and hooked it up to the electrical outlets. I can't remember if we took a TV or if I just thought about how we could have had a TV. I do think we had a TV, but we couldn't get any channels on it.

We had bathrooms with plumbing and lights. I remember one time when I was washing my hands. I had wet my hands with water and left the water running while I rubbed soap on my hands. This guy told me that I shouldn't waste water because we were in a drought. I just ignored him. One morning, there was a middle-aged mustachioed man wearing a shirt and a Speedo walking into the bathroom.

I was an awkward thirteen-year-old and liked show tunes. I remember once singing "Shipoopi" from The Music Man outside our trailer; my mom and sister said they didn't like that song.

There was a little store near our campground. My parents wanted to ride a little train-like shuttle to get to it, but Susanne and I just walked over there, thinking the shuttle was dumb. But we rode the shuttle back to our campsite. At some point in that gift shop, we bought a night light made with a polished rock.

We were able to take showers at our campsite. I remember one night my dad and I were walking to the showers. I overheard some teenagers yelling some very profane words, and I said, "Watch your phraseology"--a quote from The Music Man.

One day, my dad and I (and I think Susanne) hiked from Sunrise Point to Sunset Point in Bryce. It was very hot and steep coming out of the canyon. Our hike led us to sing "Sunrise, Sunset" from Fiddler on the Roof.

We spent a day in Zion. We visited the Weeping Rock. My dad and sister and I started on a hike near the Narrows (not planning to go in them, of course), but I got really hot, so we stopped. (In addition to being awkward and liking show tunes, I was also quite chubby.) We bought a Narrows magnet in a gift shop, and I think we also bought Zion playing cards.

When we were driving home after the trip, I was sleeping in the car. I was snoring, and once I snored so loud I woke myself up. Susanne thought that was really funny.

My more recent trip was more interesting than this one was. And my more recent trip was surely more interesting to read about.

One of my most shameful moments

The problem with having a good memory (as everyone tells me I have) is that sometimes I remember things that I don't want to remember.

And when I think about my life, the time when I did the stupidest, worst things when I was in ninth grade. A decade later, I'm glad I'm not that age anymore.

There is one event that when I think about it now, I am filled with so much guilt and embarrassment that I want to close my eyes in shame (which means I can't think about it when I'm driving).

It was towards the end of the school year in 2004. In my Earth Systems class, we were working in the computer lab. It was school policy that you weren't allowed to play games online, and if you did, you could lose your computer access. Well, the girl sitting next to me was playing games.

Call me what you will--a tattle-tale, a nark, a squealer--I went and told the teacher, "Jennifer Bakker* is playing computer games," and then I went and sat in my seat.

[*Names have been changed.]

The teacher then said out loud, "Jennifer Bakker, shut down your computer." The girl next to me said, "Do you think she knows?" and closed out of her computer game.

Then I noticed the computer lady walking with a girl down to the office.

And soon thereafter, the teacher came up to me and said, "Did you mean the girl sitting by you?"

You see, there was a girl named Jennifer Bakker in my class. But it wasn't the girl next to me playing video games. Her name was Janelle Evans*. I had condemned an innocent girl.

The teacher said to me that she did notice that the girl next to me had closed out of her game. I don't remember exactly what she said, but it sounded like when I told her Jennifer Bakker, she thought I was talking about Janelle Evans.

I think it got sorted out that Jennifer hadn't done anything wrong. But I felt so terrible and dumb.

I suppose it wasn't any of my business what Janelle was doing on her computer. It wasn't my place to tattle. Maybe it would have been if she were looking at porn or learning how to build a bomb, but not for just playing games. But even if I was justified in telling on her, I definitely should not have done so without knowing her name.

Last summer, I told this story to some classmates in my French class. One of them said to me, "We would have shoved you in a locker for that."

And that would have been fitting. (Except that I was too big to fit in the lockers.)

An embarrassing first-grade February day

Note: The following story is a little bit gross, but hopefully in an amusing way.

I can remember one day in February 1996 when I was at recess. I'm not sure if I had had a cold, or if the cold weather was affecting me. Whatever the case was, I had a runny nose.

But when I say "runny," I don't mean the kind in which the mucus is almost like water so that it drips out of your nose. I mean the kind where it is thick and gloopy and yellowish-greenish.

(Interesting side note: I just learned that mucus is the noun form, while mucous is the adjective form. I had no idea!)

Anyway, I was down on the field with two female friends, Destani Mata and I don't remember who else. I had a runny nose, and apparently I didn't have a tissue, because the snot was just hanging out of my nose.


The bell rang, so we went up to go back in. But since it was February, there was a layer of snow on the ground, just slippery enough to make it difficult to walk up the grassy hill portion of the field. We tried to walk up, but we kept slipping back, while the boogers hanging from my face kept getting longer and longer.

Eventually we made it up the hill, but all the other kids had already made it inside, so my friends and I had to hurry up to get back to class. As we ascended the concrete steps at the entrance of the school (steps that have since been demolished and replaced), I stooped down to see if I could wipe the dangling snot off on the ground. Destani said to me, "Come on!" But as I lifted my head, I was dismayed to find that the boogers were so deep in my nasal cavity that when I lifted my head, the dangling portion would not break off and stick to the ground as I had hoped.

So I walked into the school with large "noodles" dangling out of my nose, my hand under my nose in case they fell off.

That is what I looked like as I walked into my first grade classroom. Since we were late, the whole class was already seated and the teacher was giving a lecture. I had to walk across the front of the room in order to grab a tissue from the tissue box. "Ewww!" was the response I heard from my class as I walked across the room.

The class policy was that anyone who was late from recess would have their name written on the board and they would have to stay in for afternoon recess.

I don't think I had ever been late from recess before. When afternoon recess rolled around, I was actually content to stay in, because it would give me more time to work on my Presidents' Day art project. (That's how I know this was in February.) I think the policy might have been that you actually had to put your head down and not do anything, but I didn't know that. My teacher, Mrs. Taylor, came over to me and asked me why I had been late. She seemed annoyed, maybe because I wasn't supposed to be working on the project. I explained to her how we tried to come up the hill but kept slipping. I know that seems like an unlikely excuse, but it was true. Mrs. Taylor accepted my explanation and told me to go outside. I'm not sure whether she thought it a reasonable reason, or whether she just knew I had a good track record of being on time, or whether she just didn't want any kids in the room that recess. I was a little disappointed to go out to recess, because I worried I wouldn't finish my art project.

That day, my friends David Christensen and Kennie Christiansen came over after school. We were in my bedroom, and they were discussing my moment from earlier in the day. David started exhaling so that the contents of his nose would come out, in imitation of me. Kennie told him that was gross.

I was surprised that David did that, because I thought of him as a fine, moral person. You see, back then I didn't realize that there were varying degrees was grossness; I thought that gross was gross. Now I know that some things are grosser than others. There's unchastity gross, bathroom gross, and all sorts of grossness. Snot is only a little bit grosser than earwax or those particles you rub out of your eyes when you wake up.

Which is why I can devote a whole post to that kind of grossness.