I Asked Out a Boy (and I Liked It)

I had creative nonfiction this morning, and managed to swing by the writing lab in between it and Institute in order to print out the essays I need to peer-review by Thursday. I ended up on Quinton's bus after Institute was over. At some point or other, he ended up asking how my group chocolate project was coming along. I paused, then said, "Well, we present this Thursday, and then we'll finally be done. Actually, I was thinking I might go down to Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory by the Cold Stone and celebrate after it's all over, and I was wondering if you might be interested in joining me."

He paused for a second too and said, "This Thursday, right?" He told me when he got off work (7:30), and that he would love to join me. We exchanged contact information and learned each other's last names for the first time. When he heard mine, he said, "Oh, that's my mom's maiden name. Maybe we're related." There were a few seconds of silence. I said, "Well, I hope not, because that's going to make Thursday awkward." Laughs were had.

Since Quinton was driving and couldn't put in my information, I sent him a text so he would know it was me, and clarified that I was flexible as to where we went out, because I wasn't sure what his food tastes were. Later, he texted back, suggesting either the underground pizza restaurant that I enjoy, or Angie's Diner. I noticed that he suggested both a more casual location and a more formal one, and left the final decision up to me. I can work with that. So, I guess we're going to Angie's now. He upgraded my chocolate shop / potential ice cream trip to a full-on dinner. Smooth.

I stepped off the bus at Blue Square and paid a visit to the Aggie Chocolate Factory. To my disappointment, it was shut down at this time, so I couldn't see the sacks of beans on display very well (I'd been hoping to learn which countries the beans were coming from for the product line my group is creating). Oh well.

While I was staring through the window, a boy sitting on one of the restaurant benches ended up taking to me. His name was Braden. He was nice, and talked to me for about half an hour about chocolate and school and things. I was able to interview him for research purposes, and he offered some interesting insights my group hadn't considered. Apparently, he's heard rumors that the large wall in the middle of the downstairs area might be knocked down soon, which would open the entire room up and create a more social environment. When my group met with the owners of the Chocolate Factory, creating a social "coffee shop" environment was high on their list. Braden also mentioned that he often comes here to study because it's quiet, but that once the Factory opens, he might not hang around anymore if it's too loud. Good things to know.

Back in my room, I completed four assignments and quizzes for my Sensation and Perception class. I'm now officially finished with that class, except for a presentation I'm giving on November 14th, and the participation points I'll earn for attending everyone else's presentations. Not bad!

My chocolate group were meeting up again tonight with the hopes of finishing as much of our project as absolutely possible. Quinton was driving the evening bus, so we were able to talk and finalize plans a bit more. My chocolate group worked for 5-6 hours tonight, designing our graphics and organizing the results of our survey. It was 10:00 by the time I headed home on the evening bus (not driven by Quinton this time). It will be very nice to have this project over and done with, but it has to be done. At least it's an enjoyable topic!

Chocolate 'Til 11

Last Friday in Literary Analysis, everyone signed up to meet with a "writing fellow" (one of two girls about our age who would peer-review our papers with us). These writing fellows would critique our essay drafts and nudge us in the right direction if we needed help. This morning, I met with mine. Not... my best work there, to put it lightly. It's coherent, but as we went through it together, I was internally screaming the entire time. There's a lot to fix there. The essay is heavier on the summary side than the analysis side, but it's workable. At least it got done before the deadline.

We had a guest lecturer speak to us in the actual Literary Analysis class today. It was the professor who teaches Native American Studies- a class that I considered taking, but dropped from my schedule after Day 1. That was interesting.

Sensation and Perception came after that. We're beginning presentations now. I don't give my presentation on split-brain syndrome until November 14th. That'll be interesting. I'll definitely want to keep that on my radar, because I wouldn't want to show up to class that day unprepared.

After Sensation and Perception, I ate at the Marketplace, then headed back to Blue Square (via Quinton's bus) and from there headed out to Logan High School. Since my plan to purchase tickets for the school play online had failed, and calling the office had failed, I decided to see what would happen if I showed up in person. As it turns out, tickets won't be going on sale for another week or two. But, I needed to head out to the grocery store anyway, so the trip wasn't a total waste.

I met with my chocolate marketing group tonight so we could work on our project. I ended up staying until 11:00, but we did get our survey sent out and work on some good ideas. There's a lot to do with this case competition. Crazy how we're given only one week to do our research, design a product, and put everything together.

I'm feeling good about my group. One of them was in the group that won the case competition last year (which was for a real estate agency, I believe). Rumor has it that one of the groups we're competing with already fell apart, because several of its members dropped the class. Another group can't get in contact with its group leader, in a bizarre twist of fate. So far my group has gotten along together well, and it seems like we have a good balance of skill sets. It will be interesting to see how things turn out.

Steak Conference

Dad whipped up a breakfast of crepes today, and then we attended Stake Conference. This was, of course, followed by a steak dinner (with some spaghetti on the side). After dinner, I worked on designing my schedule for next semester with Mom. We've set it up so that theoretically, if I wanted to, I could graduate next May with a major in Psychology. However, I do plan to continue my education for another year so I can obtain my English major as well. That will be nice to have.

This evening, I drove back up to school with Stockton. It's nice that we can do things like this together. Switching drivers one way or the other sure makes the trip easier than driving both ways, especially when it's late at night and navigating is hard.

Western Octave

Mom was sick today. I did lots of writing. That's basically how it went. I got some use out of my thermos for the first time this weekend, enjoying how icy cold the water was. It definitely does stay cold for 24 hours if you chill it properly, so I'm happy with my birthday purchase.

I took an online quiz for our unit on sound in Sensation and Perception today, although I did get a little stumped on the question, "In Western music, which of the following is NOT a note in the octave?" My answer choices were A, F, E, and G, which I could have sworn were all in the octave. I stared at the question for a long time, wondering if I should ask my family members for advice, but worried they would tease me for not knowing the answer to a question that was surely obvious. I just kept staring at it and thinking, Maybe I'm just an idiot. What am I missing? Anyway, it turns out that G is not in the octave, despite being the 7th letter of the alphabet. Who knew?

Music is not my thing.

Dad cored a lot of apples today, and watched a few movies while he did. He decided to finish off the night watching The Incredibles II, which he never saw in theaters with the rest of us. It's a nice movie and I enjoyed getting to watch it with Dad. It's nice to have these lazy Saturdays every now and again.

She's Siiixteen

I didn't have any classes today, which was nice. It gave me the opportunity to work on my assignments. Specifically, I had a very difficult assignment for Literary Analysis due tonight. The writing prompt was released at midnight, and we only have 24 hours to read and respond to the assignment. I read through it several times this morning, but only grew more confused. Finally, I gave up struggling with it and did some laundry. I washed my sheets so I would have a nice, fresh bed to come home to after my trip home this weekend. That's nice to do every once in awhile.

Stockton and I drove down for Jorja's surprise birthday party today. Traffic was horrid in a "we went 1 mile in 5 minutes and were forced to stop in the middle of an intersection on a green light" kind of way, but we made it eventually- and before Jorja arrived, too. Mom had rented a pavilion and hired a D.J., and Dad whipped up cotton candy for everyone. There were colorful cards for everyone to write notes and leave them in a basket. I was in the middle of writing mine when Jorja arrived at the party with her last few friends. Everyone cheered and shouted "Happy birthday." I hurried up to give her a hug. By the time I reached her, she was in tears. I think she enjoyed the surprise.

I spent most of the party playing with Preston, spinning him around and things. We slipped out to the playground at one point. I wanted to try the monkey bars, but when I saw them, I said, "Oh, I don't know if I can do this." Preston scoffed and said, "They're just monkey bars," until he climbed up beside me, reached out his hands, and said, "Oh." The monkey bars weren't your average, straightforward monkey bars. They branched off in two directions to form a circle in the middle. Doable, but unexpected. At Preston's request, I gave him a boost and he crawled across the top. He said his hands were shivering by the end, but he enjoyed it.

Mom allowed me to duck out of the party early, which was nice of her. I spent the rest of the night struggling through my literary analysis assignment. It was a lot of work to do in a very short time, but I'm glad to have it done.

Super Chickens

Creative Nonfiction was cancelled today. I worked on my seven-page essay that was due tonight, which I of course hadn't started despite the fact that I knew putting it off to the last day was a terrible idea. Actually, our prompt was "Seven pages of completed essays" with the decision of whether they were the same large essay or several small essays left up to us. Having bounced several ideas around earlier this week, I'd finally decided to simply write about my experience writing, from starting when I was seven years old to working my way up until now, and the decisions I have to make in my future.

Institute was my only class today. I didn't bail out. As an added bonus, I bumped into Quinton at the bus stop when I left. A few weeks ago, I'd been sitting on the bench at the TSC bus stop when Quinton walked past and said hello. After a brief pause, he doubled back and sat by me, and we talked for a few minutes. Then, spotting the Red bus pulling up across the street (its one virtue being that it's the fastest way to my apartment from the TSC), I bid him good-bye and hurried to catch it. Only after I sat down again did I glance out the window, see Quinton leave the bench to stand by himself, and realize I'd just ditched him while he was flirting with me. Oops. That probably gave off a signal that I didn't intend.

So today, I was determined to take my time and talk with him. I passed on taking the Orange bus, which takes the long route to my apartment. Quinton noticed this, smiled, and said he was about to start driving the Purple bus. So, I was able to hop on with him and talk some more, which was kind of nice.

I didn't have my Huntsman Marketing Association class today. We've divided into groups to work on the marketing for the Aggie Chocolate Factory. My group met up yesterday to touch base and determine what questions about the product we needed to get clarification on. Today, we didn't have a regular class, because all HMA students came down to Blue Square to interview the owners of the soon-to-be-opened Aggie Chocolate Factory one group at a time. Dr. Martini was excited to see me, saying that she recognized me from sitting at the front of her class all the time. Impressive, considering that was two years ago. Each group had about 12 minutes to interview her and Steve Shelton. Then, I invited my group to meet upstairs in my apartment. They stayed for almost two hours, and we bounced marketing ideas off each other and prepared some survey questions for our project. It's a big project, but we're off to a promising start.

After everyone left, I worked on my essays some more. I was keeping a close eye on the clock, because a guest speaker was coming to the university today to talk about "The science of animal personalities," and I'd been excited about this for awhile, since that's my field of interest. Quinton was just starting his shift on the Evening bus when I got on, so I told him about the guest speaker. His name is John Shivik, and he's the author of a book called Mousy Cats and Sheepish Coyotes: The Science of Animal Personalities. When I took the bus home, Quinton was still driving. The Evening bus has the longest route, so I had a good twenty minutes to chat with him about my interests and possible career options, and things like that.

Also, I took a picture of the sunset as I was walking to the library where the lecture was held, because it was quite lovely:

I really enjoyed the lecture. Shivik discussed a research assignment he was once a part of where the researchers' goal was to keep coyotes away from hot dogs. They set up a machine that blared noise and flashed lights when the coyote approached, and graphed the reactions for the individual animals across the next 30 days. Some coyotes didn't care about the potential threat, while others were skittish for a few days, and some didn't approach at all. He also explained how variation in animal personalities is beneficial in nature. Bluebirds are territorial, but if the males are too aggressive, then they spend all their time fighting with other bluebirds, which forces their mate to leave the nest and feed herself. This in turn reduces the survival rate of the eggs. Passive bluebirds had greater reproductive success, but weren't able to maintain their territories. Having variation in personalities between individuals has allowed the species as a whole to survive. Up north where temperatures are colder, female spiders share webs and raise all their children together. Having one huge web spread over a large area allows them to catch more insects, and increases their offspring's chance of survival.

Finally, he told us about "The Super-Chicken Experiment." Some researchers once thought it would be a brilliant idea to take all the chickens that laid the most eggs and put them in the same flock, so they would churn out tons of eggs and become a flock of "super-chickens." The control group ended up laying more eggs, because the "super-chickens" were also super aggressive and just killed each other off. I was proud of myself for predicting the outcome to this story before the guy revealed it, since the only other person to raise her hand when he asked us why we thought the control group did better was his own daughter, who presumably knew the answer from him telling her beforehand.

Shivik was engaging and friendly, and definitely had a sense of humor. His wife sat near me with their two daughters, and I heard her whispering to a friend before the lecture started that every time he does a lecture, his girls give him several random words that he's supposed to incorporate somehow while still sounding natural. Some words in the past have been "unibrow" and "bubbles." Judging from the muffled giggles of his family members during his speech, the words on the agenda today were "Tra la la," "Permanent marker," and "Glitter." I have to say, he did an impressive job weaving them in.

Because animal behavior is my field of interest, I took notes throughout the lecture and stayed for several minutes after to network with the speaker and gain advice on my potential career path. I received some good advice about not being afraid to read lots of research papers, and encouragement to reach out to the authors of those papers and ask them if they had any research positions available that I could fill. Definitely something I'll have to keep in mind over the next few years as I graduate from college and begin to search for a job.

Fluid

This last week was... a strange week for me emotionally, and it's partially the reason why I ended up falling behind on my blog. I've always considered my personality to be a little fluid between the two halves I see in myself: My "pleasure" self (whom I refer to in my head as "Kima") and my "rational" self (whom I refer to in my head as "Riddle"). 90% of the time my personality is strictly what Riddle embodies, but every once in awhile, Kima springs up to cause a little chaos.

It's definitely not to a bipolar or a dissociative identity disorder extreme, and I would never try to avoid responsibility by pushing it off on my other "side," because it's always ME, but there's been a distinct divide in my head between the two for years. Riddle and Kima have different interpretations of things, and a few personality traits simply don't overlap between them. They also have distinctly different writing styles, so I can look at a piece of writing I've done and instantly recognize whether I was "Riddle-dominant" or "Kima-dominant" when I wrote it.

Put simply, Kima is my "write drunk" brain, and Riddle is my "edit sober" one. Their inability to agree on consistent character portrayals makes revision a nightmare, so about two years ago, I cut off Kima's access to my main writing by setting aside a Google Docs file that is specifically for her to play in. When I'm "Kima-dominant," I write sex scenes all the time. When I'm "Riddle-dominant," I have full memory of writing those scenes, and I know the exact word choice found in certain sentences, but I can't stand to open the file and read anything because it grosses me out. It's a weird experience, and with no scientific evidence to back me up, I usually just blame it on my fertility cycle. I guess there's a small part of me that's boy-crazy after all.

Kima is usually only dominant for an evening or two every few weeks, and it's not normally a problem. She'll fixate on something, stay up for hours working on it, and either not eat dinner or indulge on dessert, but it's not a big deal. 

But this last week... Kima was the dominant half of my brain for multiple days straight, which has never happened before. It was incredibly weird. I had the distinct sense of the "Riddle" half of my personality being "offline." During my Sensation and Perception class today, I actually opened eight different documents and wrote eight different "letters" to myself, trying to describe the experience. For example:

Kima brain was dominant for multiple days straight this week for the first time ever and I’m kind of freaking out because I legitimately feel my self control slipping away and I can feel myself not caring about consequences and that’s gonna be a problem if it goes on but I… don’t… care.

and

Literally writing this in class instead of paying attention, which is NOT USUAL and Riddle would NEVER ALLOW THIS. We’re watching a video. Why am I not watching it. It’s a super interesting video. 

I don’t know how I feel about this. Curious more than anything. Still legit not concerned about social consequences. That’s… foreign… to me… 

Distinct sense of Riddle being absent. Like. He’s literally off right now. Has been for days. This never happens. Where is he.

and

I’m gonna have to cut myself cold turkey and reassess my priorities holy wow this is weird and I should probably be freaking out more than I am.

and of course 

I legit don't know where Riddle is. What is he doing. Where is he. RIDDLE WE'RE GONNA CRASH KIMA NEVER THIIIIINKS. Guys I'm thinking rationally I swear I 100% know what I'm doing. You don't need sleep. Ahaha I'm okay making jokes about this. I totally know what I'm saying and we can talk about this openly when Riddle comes back ok.

They're weird to look at now that I'm "Riddle-dominant" again, because like I said, the writing style difference is distinct. It's just... usually channeled through an actual narrative, not at my future self.

Kima is the "pleasure" brain. She's energetic, ambitious, a babbler, and I don't always make the best decisions when she's "dominant." Don't want to fold laundry? Leaving it on the end of the bed for two days is probably fine. I skipped breakfast, skipped dinner, and stayed up until 3:00 in the morning for several days in a row. I pushed off an essay until the last few hours before it was due, but thankfully it was intended to be a messy first draft and I still have a week before the final needs to be turned in. I was fully aware of the poor decisions I was making, but nothing felt important to me unless it was immediately going to make me happy. Like eating candy, looking at pictures of pretty animals, and just drawing things that I wouldn't have prioritized when in my "Riddle" mindset.

It was... an interesting week all in all. Riddle "clicked back into place" this afternoon for the first time in days. Thankfully. We did our usual laid-back rational thing. Dishes were washed. Laundry was put away. Food was eaten. I read through all the "write drunk" writing I did this week with my "edit sober" brain, shaking my head in frustration. On Tuesday mornings, I share bits of my writing with my online friends, and we spend our free time in the next several days bonding with one another and offering critique on each other's works. Before he went offline, "Riddle" had gotten 6,000 words into the new chapter I was working on. Kima decided it wasn't good enough for her, tossed it aside, and pounded out 15,000 words this weekend using HER interpretations of characters instead of the established "Riddle canon" versions, and submitted it to the group yesterday, so that's our new canon and I have to work with that now. It's not a big deal story-wise, but I was uncomfortably aware today of how I need to put this energy to better use. If Kima would stop writing things that Riddle has to rework or entirely undo, maybe I could actually get somewhere in my writing career.

My "personality fluidity" has never been a problem before, and hopefully it doesn't develop into anything serious. Maybe this is just a girl thing- some girls get moody and snappy at a certain time of the month, and I get energetic and hyper-fixated. It's never been a big deal to me, so I hope I'm just being overly paranoid because of my psychology classes. I've been writing a bipolar narrator in one of my stories for the last year, and I recently picked up the project again after being on break from it during the summer, so maybe my recent research is just messing with my head.

It's probably best to make a written record of this odd week anyway...

Avoid Contact With Skin

We discussed humor in creative nonfiction today, mostly by doing "boring" things like trying to analyze our individual senses of humor and write out our thoughts in the most scientific, jargon-heavy way possible. After Institute today, I ate lunch at the Marketplace, and headed home at just the right time, because I ended up on Quinton's bus for the first time in two weeks, so that was cool.

I did lots of homework this afternoon, especially essays. I washed my towels today, and happened to glance at the tag on one as I put it in the machine. It read, "Avoid contact with skin." What? I read it three times over, but sure enough, that's what it said. I was very uncomfortable for the next thirty minutes, but when I took the towels out of the washing machine, I checked the tag again. At the very bottom, where the tag bent against the towel, it said, "Avoid contact with skin treatment products." Oh. That makes more sense.

Lots of Time With Laptop

I got my test back in Literary Analysis today, so I was finally able to see what I missed. All the questions I'd gone back and changed were wrong, so I was annoyed at myself for not sticking with my gut instincts. I was pleased, however, to see that I'd gotten everything in the allegedly hardest section of the test - the scansion part where you indicate the stressed and unstressed syllables - completely right. I spent a long time on that section, so I'm glad it paid off.

Had a busy evening today. My workload is picking up again. I'm glad I've already done almost all my Sensation and Perception assignments in advance. Doing assignments is rarely fun, but Rule Number 1 of college life is to keep on top of your work. Things take longer than you expect, more stuff will always pile on, something unexpected will come up, etc. It's just a relief to look at my list of assignments due for the day and see I'd finished all of them a week ago. There's just something very nice about having buffers.

Cheddar Cheese Soup

I tried to make cheddar cheese soup today. This was one of the first soups I'd picked up at the store, when I was just grabbing interesting flavors I thought I might like rather than checking for protein. I'm definitely going to want more pans up here, because all the soups I've made so far have left scorched glop in the bottom of the one pot I do have, so I can't make other soups or spaghetti without either running the dishwasher or doing some serious scraping and scrubbing. Dickyi hand washes her dishes, so the dishwasher doesn't fill up fast.

Anyhow, I opened the soup can and poured the gloppy stuff inside into my pot. I'll be honest, it looked pretty disgusting. Like literal nacho cheese- same color, same texture. Adding milk didn't help, because there were just little chunks of gross-looking cheese floating around. When I finally boiled the soup, let it cool, and went to eat it, it still looked like nacho cheese mixed with milk. That's pretty much what it tasted like, too. Since it was gross and not healthy anyway, I finally dumped it all down the sink and made something else to eat. That's definitely one I won't pick up again.

Rest

I love the sight of a freshly cleaned fish tank. There's just something immensely satisfying about waking up to something pretty that you're directly responsible for.

Dickyi and I made a quick run to the grocery store this morning. She was a good sport about it even after realizing my plan was to go to Lee's and not Wal-Mart. She picked up some fruit drinks and I grabbed almond milk and bananas. That should last me for awhile.

I did a lot of writing today, both for schoolwork and recreation. It's been busy. Not having Consumer Behavior even once next week will be pretty nice.

Fall Break 2018

Today, I took the Sensation and Perception quiz supposedly meant for Chapter 12, which actually quizzed me on content found in Chapter 13 (not that I knew that when I clicked 'Start'). With a sigh, I grabbed my textbook and began flipping pages. I did fine, apart from this question:

I was pretty sure that I knew the answer, but I wanted to have proof (partially out of spite). I couldn't find any trace of this "Letterman" in my book, and I managed a pretty good skim for only having ten minutes to look over Chapter 13. Finally, I decided to Google the question. Lo and behold, it appeared on some other professor's test, which was based on some other textbook. The answers listed to that question were exactly the same, including that last one. I'm not sure if my instructor pays attention to what he is doing AT ALL, but at least I scored 100% on the quiz.

Dickyi invited some friends over to cook dumplings with her today. She let me know about this this morning, but I may have misunderstood the invitation, because when I came out of my room to introduce myself and offer to help, she said she would "call me out when they were done." Oh well. I think she and her friends enjoyed cooking. I heard a lot of chatting and giggling. I hope that next year, I have a chance to cook alongside a roommate. I think I'd enjoy that. 

Truth be told, I was surprised she was even in the apartment today, because she and her friend Sally have been making plans for months to visit Yellowstone over Fall Break. Maybe they leave for that tomorrow, in which case I admire their confidence. Dickyi did invite me back in August to join them on their roadtrip, but I think I'm glad I turned down the offer. I've always wanted to go to Yellowstone and have never been, and it sounds like it would be a cool adventure, but between all the assignments I have to work on and the awkwardness of not connecting with my roommate as well as I'd like to, it's probably best that I stay here.

The rest of my afternoon was spent alternating between cleaning my fish tank and finishing my Much Ado About Nothing essay for Arts Symposium. Neither was super fun, but they had to be done.

Gross

After Institute today, Stockton asked me if I wanted to eat lunch with him. At the Marketplace, he tried a Captain Crunch smoothie flavor. It looked pretty gross to me, but I waited until he was finished drinking what he wanted before I asked him if it tasted like a little kid had just taken pieces of cereal and left them to sit in a gallon of milk. The look of horrified realization that crossed his face is impossible for words to describe.

When I got home, I tried to be a grown-up and order tickets for the high school play Stockton and I are planning to see to meet our theater assignment for the Arts class. The tickets said they were being sold online, and I jumped through all the hoops of creating an account to buy them, only to grind to a halt at the end because "payment had not been set up yet." The tickets were charging me $0 when they were supposed to charge me $7 for an adult ticket, so the order was automatically prevented. I guess they weren't ready to sell yet. They shouldn't have a giant "Buy tickets here" button on their site, then. 

I tried calling the provided number to speak with the box office, but was directed to voicemail. Once again I jumped through all their hoops, only to get redirected to the receptionist's voicemail. No one picked up, even though I'd called during their stated business hours. I left a message, but no one called me back. Maybe next week, Stockton and I can drive down to the high school in person to get our tickets. I just don't want to wait too long and find they're all sold out. We'll get an automatic 0% on our assignment if we don't attend a performance.

A lot of time yesterday and today was spent working on my PowerPoint for Sensation and Perception. It was due today at 5:00. I'm speaking on split-brain syndrome, a topic I'm already familiar with from previous research, so I was glad about that. I was also glad I'd finished the majority of my PowerPoint yesterday, because my stomach hurt from breakfast throughout the entire day. It finally stopped hurting at exactly 5:00, when the assignment was due, and I was able to get an hour's peace before it began hurting again. Finally, I gave up trying to work on my Shakespeare essay and just lay in bed with my warm laptop on my stomach for a few hours, feeling very gross and dreading the difficulties of trying to write that big essay with a hurting stomach tomorrow. Oh, the joys of being a girl.

Literary Midterm

I ate breakfast and reviewed my notes for Literary Analysis before class this morning. We took our midterm today. I was finished within half an hour, even taking my time and double-checking all my answers. I texted Mom to let her know how I thought I did, then headed to Sensation and Perception to enjoy my break before class. Afterwards, I texted Mom again to say that all my classes were done for the day. For the first time, Wednesday, usually my busiest day, was finished by 1:30.

Our midterm scores were up by mid-afternoon. I was shocked and disappointed to see I had only scored 85%. That was below the mean of 87.5%. I'd thought the test was easy. I'd only struggled on one question, when I'd made the choice to check "All of the above" instead of picking one of the other answers. I guess I have to wait until Monday to find out what went wrong. There were only about 20 questions, so I guess I missed 3. At the end of the test, we had to show we understood scansion by determining the number of stressed and unstressed syllables in several poems. I spent the majority of my time on that section, but it's possible I still lost some points there. Oh well.

Hero Wins By Doing Absolutely Nothing

My morning wasn't particularly exciting, but Stockton and I met up this afternoon so he could drive me to the DMV. I had some paperwork to fill out, but not as much as I was expecting in order to receive a new driver's license valid for the next several years. I have a temporary paper one valid for the next six months until my new license arrives by mail. Funny. The next time I renew my license, I could be married and putting a different last name on it

Stockton and I picked up food to-go at Morty's Cafe, at the base of my apartment. At first, we'd parted ways and I'd gone inside the Bull's Head Bar and Grill instead, because I'd been told they offered pizza there. Only, I'd never tried to eat there before. The man at the front desk was very confused and told me they hadn't sold pizza there for four years. Oh. I could have sworn that two years ago when I swung by with Mom on tour, they did. I guess I just remembered wrong. 

I bought a grilled cheese at Morty's instead for just under $4, which wasn't too bad. Only, when I did open the sandwich, I was a little disappointed because it was pretty burnt. Oh well. It still tasted good. I didn't know how many calories this particular sandwich was, so when I logged it in my meal-tracking app, I searched "grilled cheese" and selected a pre-filled option. A warning message popped up telling me that my sandwich was "high in saturated fat." Yeah, I figured. Definitely not a food you'd want to indulge in regularly. I don't think I'll buy it at Morty's again. The grilled cheese they make at the Marketplace is way better, and so are the fries. 

Stockton and I lounged in my room on beanbags and watched the 1993 version of Much Ado About Nothing from my laptop for our Arts Symposium assignment. I wasn't too impressed. I didn't like the play itself to begin with, but the film itself was just very... silly. As in, "Benedick sits on an anachronistic beach chair in the garden and it collapses underneath him" and "Benedick jumps in the fountain and kicks the water around during a dramatic montage" silly. I told Stockton that it definitely felt like the humor was aimed for an audience 20 years ago, but in modern times, it felt a bit... "cringe-y." The semi-slapstick aspects just didn't match up to the super dramatic and poetic dialogue. Although, it was quite interesting to see a black actor play Don Pedro, since Don Pedro's entire plotline revolves around pretending to be Claudio (a white man without a beard). No attention was ever called to this fact. He just... apparently did a stellar job of being Claudio and the other characters just totally went with it.

Stockton and I also laughed a lot about one of the play's supposed main characters, Hero, who didn't have any speaking lines until 40 minutes into the film, despite all the times she was onscreen. She mostly stood around and smiled awkwardly. Seriously, Stockton leaned over to me in one scene when Hero whispered in another character's ear and said, "When you have to give Hero lines." Many jokes were made about Beatrice's follow-up dialogue, where she announces to everyone what she somehow overheard Hero say despite being several feet away from her. If she could hear her cousin's dialogue, it seems like everyone else should have been able to. It was a big deal when we heard her giggle. Half an hour in, Hero even had her first kiss before she had any lines, which Stockton described as, "Hero wins by doing absolutely nothing," in reference to the famous "Luigi wins various Mario Party minigames by doing absolutely nothing" videos on YouTube. Many laughs were had all around.

I guess I'm just not very good at appreciating Shakespeare's oh-so-wonderful masterpieces. Didn't help that I by default dislike stories that revolve around two characters who claim they aren't in love and don't want to get married, but who finally decide that despite the fact they fight constantly, they're actually totally in love and are totally capable of having a healthy relationship without any further character development on either side. As someone who just wants to be taken seriously if I tell someone I'm not attracted to someone they think I'm attracted to... it's always an annoying story plot to swallow. Is it too much to ask to see a character who claims not to be attracted to someone actually NOT end up with that person by the end of the movie, for reasons BESIDES the fact that there's another romantic interest involved? Can I just see a character someday realizing that they aren't compatible with the other character everyone expects them to be with, and that's it? No love triangle? Just an understanding that you don't click with that other person, and that's okay? Seriously, that's an interesting relationship dynamic I want to see, and I don't think I ever have. Ever. Well, beyond my own writing, I mean...

After finishing our film, Stockton and I headed down to Lee's to buy some groceries. I bought a lot of canned soup. I was specifically studying the nutrition labels and trying to find soups with at least 5 grams of protein and 3 grams of fiber, which my online research about soup had told me was what passed for healthy canned soup, but most of the soups I picked up had only 1 or 2 grams of protein. Until I picked one up that had 8. Oh. Okay. Someone showed up to this party beefed up and ready to take their job seriously. Get with the program, other soups.

I dropped Stockton off at his dorm, then spent the rest of my day resting and reviewing notes for my Literary Analysis midterm tomorrow. I'm not worried about it, but it will be nice not to have it hanging over my to-do list anymore. I also gathered some clips of Cupid from "Fairly OddParents" and emailed them to Erica, since she'd asked for some good ones she could use in her project on different portrayals of Cupid. Hopefully she finds those useful.

Final Thoughts on Consumer Behavior

I received an email last night alerting me that I hadn't yet picked up a package from the office downstairs, and I needed to do so as soon as possible. I received my thermos on Friday, so I couldn't imagine what else I could have. I stopped by this morning, and the lady at the desk said there seems to be a glitch in their system, because a lot of people have been getting emails like that. At least there isn't an automatic fine or something if you don't collect your packages.

I had Literary Analysis this morning, and we talked about Nathaniel Hawthorne's short story, "The Birthmark." I swear, we always have to read the weirdest short stories in college. At first, I was excited to move on from poetry and study fiction in this class, but I haven't enjoyed it. The last part of the class will cover plays and dramas, which doesn't sound exciting, either.

I then had an hour break before Sensation and Perception, so I spent it working on my film review for Much Ado About Nothing, for my Arts class. For our essay, we're supposed to examine and cite a review for a different film in the same genre: In this case, either drama or romantic comedy would be acceptable. I searched the "reviews" section on the Chicago Tribune website and came up with a few reviews for the recent film, "Crazy Rich Asians." I haven't seen the film myself, but I'd seen enough trailers to get the gist of it. After I'd clicked on a few articles, Chicago Tribune blocked me, saying I'd reached my free limit and needed to sign up for a subscription to continue browsing. No problem. I opened an incognito browser in a new window so the site couldn't track my cookies, copied and pasted the URL of the article I'd tried to open, and wallah. No more problem. You have to try harder than that to catch me!

We began project presentations in Sensation and Perception. The kid who went today had prepared a PowerPoint on music, and had also brought his cello to do an activity. He called 8 people to the front of the room and gave them a ball to pass between them as they stood in a row. As they passed the ball, he would play the note on his cello that corresponded with what note in the scale the people in the row would be. The fourth and seventh people weren't allowed to touch the ball because their notes aren't actually in the cello's pentatonic scale, though.

After Sensation and Perception, I chose to go home for lunch instead of eating in the Marketplace. I thought I'd have an easier time focusing on my notes that way. I made some microwaveable pizzas and reviewed my notes until it was time to take my final in Consumer Behavior. Although I struggled with a question about temporal antecedence, I think I did well. It's nice to have that off my plate.

I've enjoyed this class. I learned some fascinating things about marketing, such as the time Apple Jacks secretly reduced the size of their box from 11 oz to 8.7 while still charging the same price, and that Dove and Axe are owned by the same company even though the brands portray drastically opposite messages about women, and that grocery store tiles are placed closer together at certain points in the store so your shopping cart's wheels will sound like they're going too fast as shoppers drive over the cracks in the tiles so shoppers will automatically pull back and slow down near certain items, and that 99% of all sunglasses in the entire world are actually owned by a single company called Luxottica, and (my personal favorite to eye-roll at) that around Christmas time, some toy manufacturers intentionally give toy stores a low supply of popular toys when demand is high because they know children will want the popular toys, moms will promise to buy the toys, then not be able to find the toys when they get sold out and will buy a different toy for Christmas, then the toys will "mysteriously" become available again and moms will then buy that toy in order to keep their earlier promise to their hopeful child, thus winning extra purchases for the toy store.

Just to clarify, my instructor made clear that he despised all the practices I listed above, and that he considers marketers to be some of the most devious people on the planet. When he isn't teaching class, he spends his time as a researcher trying to find ways to convince people to recycle more, by studying how often people recycle things that hold meaning to them (like papers with their school's name or country's flag, or a plastic cup with their name written on it) vs. things that don't hold meaning to them (like papers with the name of an Australian university or the flag of Eritrea, or a plastic cup with their name spelled horribly wrong). His research so far has found that people tend not to recycle "useless" things like crumpled paper or dented cans, and he's partially responsible for all the Coke ads that encourage you to recycle damaged soda cans.

Consumer Behavior was a really interesting class that fit well with my interest in psychology. It was enjoyable to take, but it's also a huge relief to be done.

Dickyi Goes to Church

While I was eating breakfast, Dickyi surprised me by announcing she was going to church today. Not sure how to react to that, I asked her whether she meant my church, or some sort of Buddhist church in the area. She said that she was going to attend a Chinese-speaking ward with her friend Maddie, because she thought it would be fun. She said Maddie had told her to wear a dress, but that she didn't have any. I offered to let her wear one of my dresses or at least one of my skirts, but she said she'd just go with what she had. I crossed my fingers that she would have a good experience, sweating silently.

I for one enjoyed church, and finally met face-to-face with the girl I've been assigned to minister to. We've communicated through email and texting so far. Her name is Whitney, and she's working to become a teacher and teach 7th/8th-grade math. She's also getting married on December 15th down in St. George, and both she and her sister made passing comments to those nearby that "If anyone wanted to come down and enjoy the warm weather, they were welcome to." I'd love to try and manage that.

This afternoon, I carefully asked Dickyi how her day had been. She enthusiastically explained that "everyone in the Church is super nice" and they talked about "the woman with the baby," which was possibly Mary and Jesus. I don't know if she'll attend again, but it was a relief to hear about a positive experience after a long two weeks of hearing my religion bashed in essays and online comments.

I spent the evening alternating between writing, adding to my scripture journal, and reviewing my notes for my Consumer Behavior final tomorrow. I feel like I know all the material I expect to be tested on... I just hope I haven't missed anything. Maybe studying for this class came super easily to me because it overlaps so much with psychology. I already knew 90% of the vocabulary terms, which gives me an automatic leg up. I think I'm just fretting because in college-level classes, I expect to struggle with the material a bit, but this class was a breeze except for a few quiz questions that were super picky about years and numbers. 

I'm going to get plenty of sleep tonight. Hopefully my final goes well.

Tracking App

I had planned to clean the church at 9:00 today. I woke up at 8:47. I hurried out the door without bothering to eat anything, since they always have donuts and bagels there. I was assigned to dust the pews in the chapel. A lot of people came to clean today, supposedly the most we've "ever" had (although I'm not sure whether that includes previous semesters), so we finished pretty quickly. Our building contains two chapels, but fewer classrooms than most do, so that probably helped.

Otherwise, the day wasn't very eventful. I downloaded an app to help me track what I eat. It's a little clunkier than I'd like it to be, but it should serve its purpose. Then I did some studying for my Consumer Behavior final on Monday, spaced out with a little time to draw and write to keep me entertained. It's funny how sometimes, I learn so much more about psychology in this class than in my actual psychology courses.

Storming the Bandit Camp

Fridays have always been nice this semester because my afternoons are free. Consumer Behavior is a 7-week course, and is only held two days a week. So, I attended Literary Analysis and Sensation and Perception today. Recently we've been discussing sound in Sensation and Perception, including the anatomy of the ear, what sound waves look like (amplitude, wavelength, elevation, etc.), and examples of blind people finding their way around using echolocation. I've done plenty of research on human echolocation, so it was a pretty slow lecture for me. At least there were some video clips I hadn't actually seen.

Several days ago, I ordered a thermos for my birthday. It was supposed to be delivered on the 11th, but Amazon and I seem to have different definitions of "two-day shipping," because I received an email saying it was delivered around 10:00 at night. So today, I stopped by and picked it up. I'm pretty happy with it. I bought one that holds 25 oz, because it was $10 cheaper than the one that only held 16 oz.

My hand included for size comparison

Supposedly, if used properly, this thermos can keep hot drinks hot and cold drinks cold for 24 hours. The cap is a small cup. I've been wanting to eat healthier, and I decided to add more soups to my diet. I hate eating meat, but my biggest problem with meat (besides not liking the taste) is that I find it dry and chewy. Having small pieces of meat flavored by (wet) soup definitely helps with that. I heard that it's already started snowing in Salt Lake, so having a thermos of warm soup to keep with me on campus sounds like a great idea.

My thermos needed to be washed and dried thoroughly before its first use. I decided not to use it today, but I wanted to practice making soup anyway. The last time I went grocery shopping, I bought a few Campbell's canned soups. I've never actually made soup myself before. I'd noticed that I'd bought "condensed" soup, and I wasn't sure how to prepare that. "Condensed" sounded to me like it was missing some ingredients. The can had instructions for preparing in the microwave as well as on the stove, but they simply said to "Add a can of milk and stir."

The instructions seemed simple enough, but I'm a planner and since I only have morning classes on Fridays, I had an entire afternoon to kill. I ran several Google searches, checked WikiHow, and looked up YouTube videos to be sure I wasn't going to miss some obvious step in the process. I wanted an absolute basic walkthrough. I was shocked when both my Google and WikiHow searches turned up next to nothing on preparing canned soup. I guess I finally found something they can't answer. Maybe most people learn how to prepare soup from their parents or just from the can itself, and never write How-Tos for it online.

YouTube, however, was helpful. I finally had my question regarding "How much is a can of milk?" answered. Turns out, what you're supposed to do when preparing Campbell's soups is, pour the soupy contents of the can into your pot, then fill the now-empty can with either water or milk (depending on what the instructions on the can calls for) and add that in too. Ohhh, that makes sense. Obviously, I don't cook much beyond spaghetti, macaroni, and cake. I felt a little silly for not figuring that out myself, but this is one reason to be grateful for the Internet- I didn't have to ask a human person for basic help and risk being laughed at for not knowing what to do.

After October 15th, my afternoons will be free every day but Thursday. I'm hoping to sign up for a regular exercise class at the campus gym, and spend a lot of time learning how to cook, too. Since "learning how to cook" is a broad concept, I'm going to spend my semester trying to become an expert at making soup. I'll practice with canned soups and experiment with different flavors, but over winter break, I'd like to buy some vegetables and chop them up to make soup from scratch. It's just a good life skill to have. Then in spring semester, I can learn to cook something else. Maybe some actual meat and vegetable dishes, which would be a step up from soup. Tacos, chicken, steak... We'll see.

Soup boiling on the stove-

I sent this picture to Mom to show her I had no size of pot between "large" and "frying pan"

My clam chowder turned out well, although a little less flavorful than I was hoping for. In some of the video tutorials I watched, I saw people adding additional vegetables and spices to the canned soup, which in all honesty probably wouldn't have occurred to me for awhile, either, since I would have just assumed everything I'd want in the soup was already in the can. I don't have spices around my apartment right now, but I'll have to experiment in the future.

I worked on some homework and writing this afternoon, then went up to campus for my weekly D&D session. It was a night of stories all around. Where we left off, bandits had burst into the refugee camp where our characters were staying, and in a "scripted battle", managed to make off with several captives. Today, we approached the bandit camp under strict instructions to gather information only, and not engage. Yeah, that never works out.

Two of our players ended up failing their stealth checks by rolling 1s on the twenty-sided die. The instant "fail terribly" number. They tumbled down the hill. At least it was dawn, so no one in the bandit camp was really awake... Until these two fallen players had a brilliant idea. The first one picked herself up, brushed herself down, and then bolted into the bandit camp flailing her arms and screaming at the top of her lungs, "HELP! It's after me! Banshee!" Her fellow who'd tumbled after her followed suit.

One of our other players instantly got in on this action. He plays a wizard, and one of his spells is Dancing Lights. The lights are supposed to be used like flashlights, but apparently he was able to assemble them into a giant wall of light that looked like a ghost. He sent it running after them. Another player realized that she also had a spell called Thamaturgy that allows her character's voice to become "three times as loud as normal for one minute." She fell into step behind the "ghost" and began to wail. My character, as well as the two professional NPCs we had arrived with, stood in shock at the top of the hill for a moment and tried to figure out what to do. Especially when 35 bandits bolted out of bed and swarmed the camp. Our DM, Nicole, was stunned to say the least. She'd expected us to sneak about and try to free the prisoners while creating as little noise as possible... not this. Not this.

 Our game map, about 15 minutes after the bandits first came out.

Blue dice represent bandits; my character is the magnetic rock on the left.

One character is raiding a large tent. A nearby tent is on fire.

Each square represents 5x5 feet.

The players controlling the ghost lights and the wailing rolled 20s on their Intimidation attempts, the highest number on the die and the instant "Something amazing happens" outcome. In fact, we rolled so many 20s and 1s tonight that Nicole walked away from the table with her hands up crying, "Guys, there are other numbers!" All the bandits failed to see through the illusion for several rounds of combat. 90% of them spent the entire event bolting as far away as possible. They left all their gold and supplies behind. A few bandits went insane from pure terror, which Nicole described as, "If they live through this, they're probably going to need to see a bandit therapist." One of our players also caught a tent on fire and a long debate was had over wind direction and how far fire can travel, prompting Nicole to grumble, "Do I have to play the fire now?"

In the end, we chased 34 of 35 bandits out of camp, rescued our prisoners without taking more than one hit of damage between all six of us, and only having killed one bandit who'd been guarding the hostages. We raided the tents for bandit gold, important documents, magic spellbooks, and packed the tents up to bring to the refugee camp for shelters. Nicole couldn't believe this had happened, since she'd designed this part of the story to be an unwinnable battle- after all, the plan had been for us to gather information and go back to collect reinforcements. She'd thought maybe we would find a way to sneak in, rescue prisoners, and sneak out- then have one of the prisoners insist that we search the other tents and find her stolen spellbook, which would of course incite more encounters with bandits. 

Well, that's D&D for you. Player actions guide the story. Even the experienced players around the table were laughing and talking about how this was such a great story and they'd be talking about this with their friends for a long time. I appreciated Nicole's willingness to go along with our shenanigans. She did her best to make the bandits a threat, but alas, they kept rolling low numbers and running off in terror. It will be interesting to see what she comes up with next week. She spent her summer building up a deep, rich world and complex NPCs for us to play with. Our adventure was fun, but I do think I'd enjoy being a DM much more than being a player. Creating worlds and characters is more my speed. Standing awkwardly on a hill trying to improvise when my only good option is shooting arrows at people out of range? Not so much.

It was a dramatic night, to say the least. We'd arrived to play at 7:00 and were finished before 10:30. I appreciated that, because while D&D can be fun, I wouldn't really want to play from 7:00 until 2:00 in the morning with a group of people I'm still largely unfamiliar with. I remember Dad expressing interest in starting a family D&D game, which might be a fun thing to try this summer, even if we don't buy all the books and just make things up ourselves. Stockton and I were actually talking recently about how Preston would probably love D&D because there are so many complicated rules, and the strategy element really exercises your brain. Preston loves games with complicated rules and maybe he'd enjoy having that creative outlet. I guess we'll have to see how it goes.

21, All Day Long

No pictures on this post. Just many, many words.

I arrived a few minutes late to Creative Nonfiction today, which frustratingly knocked my grade from 100% to 99.6%. But at least I showed up, and with all my peer review assignments stapled, too.

We finished class early today, and then I headed over to Institute for Mission Prep. Stockton and I made plans to meet on Saturday so he could drive me to the DMV for my driver's license renewal. We'll probably have lunch together, then watch "Much Ado About Nothing" and finally wipe our hands of that play and all the boring assignments that go with it.

I ate in the Aggie Marketplace today. To my surprise I bumped into Stockton there, since I'd assumed he'd gone back to his apartment. He could only stay for about twenty minutes, but it was cool to see him. I ended up staying in the Marketplace for several hours, working on assignments and just generally passing the time until my marketing class at 3:00.

The marketing class revolved around the importance of Pinterest, as told to us by some guest speakers from Pinterest itself (including some holders of high marketing positions, as well as some USU graduates who had gone on to get jobs there). Personally, I don't use Pinterest because it targets a different market- the market of people who like to "plan ahead using aesthetic pictures" and "don't want to do a lot of reading when they shop, because no one wants to spend hours researching a product before they buy it." I'm meticulous about my spending habits and actually do enjoy doing that, as evidenced by the days of research I poured into picking out the exact thermos I wanted to buy myself as a self-indulgent birthday gift.

I'm not in the group participating in the Pinterest case study, so most of the lecture wasn't geared towards me, but it was still interesting to learn why people even bother with Pinterest in the first place, especially since I've always found the website clunky and frustrating to navigate. At the end of class, we were given a heads-up on our next major group project. We were given time to meet and exchange contact information, which was when I realized my phone was nowhere to be found.

Of course, this definitely wasn't good- losing not only my brand new phone and my new wallet case, but all the cards that were IN my wallet case- my student ID, my (now expired) driver's license, and of course, my debit card. I couldn't imagine where I'd left it. I'd thought it was in my hoody pocket, or maybe in my backpack. I'd only spent time in two rooms of the business building, and I couldn't find it anywhere. 

I spent the next hour searching frantically. I remembered setting my phone on the table at the Marketplace, so I traveled to the TSC to search for it. No luck. Next I tried the main office next door. No luck there either. Logging into the Find My iPhone site showed me my phone was still in the business building. Thankfully, that app had transferred to my new phone along with the rest of my stuff! I suppose I should have checked it first. One option on the site allows you to send a message to your phone that shows on the screen, so you could say, "This phone is lost, please call my brother at [his phone number] to return it." Unfortunately, I couldn't remember Stockton's number at the top of my head. Instead, I decided to send the message, "Location tracking tells me where this phone is. If you've already found it, please bring it to the main office ASAP and I will be SUPER grateful. Thanks!" Hopefully the fear of being tracked would deter someone from making off with my phone... Though my debit card was still fair game.

I headed back to the business building and searched around again. I knew my phone was still here, because the Find My iPhone site constantly updated its position every minute. The site allows you to click a button and set off a loud pinging noise on your phone at full volume. First, I checked to see if there was a class going on in the marketing classroom (there wasn't) and then set off the noise. No luck, either in there or in the hall just outside. I tried the "office" (Well, the desk) on the fourth floor to see if it had been turned in. No luck there, either. Again, I tried the couch on the first floor where I'd sat down while waiting for class to start. Still no luck. 

Frustrated, I opened my laptop and, for some reason, opened my email. I don't even know why I did that, since it was so random, but I found an email saying that someone had turned my phone into the third floor office, and they would only be open until 5:00. I checked the time. Yikes! It was 4:56. I rushed upstairs and made it just in time. The old woman behind the desk handed me my phone and said that she had "Turned it off for me." Whoops. My guess is that the full-volume pinging got on her nerves. I flipped open the wallet and to my delight found all my cards still there. It would have been so, so easy for someone to steal my debit card. Who knows? Maybe they jotted down my information, but really, I'm just glad to get it back. With my phone snuggly in hand, I headed out to catch the bus back to my apartment.

Recap: At the beginning of the semester, I struck up a friendship with one of the bus drivers who usually drives the evening shift. He's wanted to write books for a long time and he's considering majoring in marketing, so one day I grabbed a note card and wrote him some advice about the marketing classes I've taken. Hopefully that was useful for him. We also found out he was driving buses in Juneau, Alaska at the same time my family were vacationing there this August, which is pretty cool. When he introduced himself as Quinton, I laughed because for a long time now, I've wanted to name my future son Quinton. Seriously, it's the only name I've "decided" on for my children at this point and it's not like it's a super common name, so what are the odds? Quinton and I have since become friends and our paths cross on a regular basis- sometimes on the bus and sometimes randomly around campus.

Today, I missed the Purple bus by just a few seconds. The Blue bus was just pulling up. Disappointed that I wouldn't be dropped off right outside my building today, I waved my fist in the air and shouted Quinton's name. I wasn't sure if he was driving at that time, especially that particular bus, but it turns out, he was. I rode the Blue bus to the Stadium, and as I crossed the crosswalk to my apartment, the Purple bus pulled to a stop at the stoplight. Quinton was in the driver's seat, so we exchanged enthusiastic waves.

I returned to my room for only a few minutes to grab the mail key, as well as the recycling bin since the dumpster is right next to our mailbox. The thermos I ordered as a birthday gift for myself was supposed to arrive today, so I was disappointed that it wasn't there. When packages are too big for the mailbox, they get delivered to the front office. I doubted the thermos would be that big, but it was worth a shot. Turns out, my home teacher / minister Gable was the RA on duty. No package for me, but it was cool to check in with him. Plus I finally had the chance to empty the recycling bin, so at least it wasn't a wasted trip.

After returning to my room, I did a lot of thinking. General Conference was this last weekend, of course, and in the final talk, Russel M. Nelson emphasized the importance of referring to members of the Church as exactly that- Members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Not Mormons. It's weird how many members I've heard express surprise at this information, since it definitely isn't new. The same instruction has been given for several years now, and I for one have made an active effort to avoid using terms like "Mormons" ever since. Maybe my peers were just too young to remember.

Now, so far in Creative Nonfiction class, we've peer-reviewed several essays that mock the Church. I've complained about this to Stockton a few times, because it seems to me like it definitely wouldn't be viewed as acceptable to write an essay about how all Jews are evil, abusive, and deserve to die. Not with the Holocaust in our past. And it seems like people would react equally badly if you wrote an essay about how Islam is 100% terrible and you hate all Muslims. Some viewpoints are seen as socially acceptable, and sadly, when you live in Utah, hating "Mormons" is definitely one of those acceptable viewpoints. I just don't think I could stand to live in Utah any longer than I had to. I would absolutely prefer to live in an area where the Church isn't well known if it means I don't have to deal with being the "majority group" that's socially acceptable to bash. It will be interesting to hear what viewpoints Stockton comes across while on his mission in Arizona.

The experience of leaving the "cruel, sexist, bigoted constraints" of the "Mormon Church" was a popular essay topic in Creative Nonfiction this week. We peer-reviewed a particularly bitter essay on Tuesday. And of course, the word "Mormon" was thrown about constantly, from the atheists in the class to the Catholics. The other students in the room constantly told the author that they were so glad she had written this strongly-worded essay because it was "all the things they had always wanted to say about the Mormon Church" and how, "No offense to you Mormons, but from the perspective of an outsider, this is exactly how your Church is."

The entire time, I sat in my chair, wracked with guilt. It had literally been two short days since Conference. The prophet had just given us a long talk on the importance of correcting those who choose to use terms such as "Mormons" and "Mormon Church" instead of "The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints." After all, we don't worship Mormon. We worship God and Jesus Christ. It was obvious the other members in the room were uncomfortable too, but no one said anything. I agonized for a long time over what to do. Raise my hand and request that everyone switch terms mid-discussion? Quietly tear off a corner of notebook paper and leave an anonymous note on my teacher's desk on the way out? 

In the end, I stayed quiet. After all, we HAD to use the word "Mormon" in this discussion, right? It was all over this 10-page paper- It was meant to be from her point of view- The discussion was already messy enough with all the explicit sexual content we were shuffling through- Feelings in the room were already heated- It just "wasn't" the right time to bring it up. Et cetera, et cetera. Besides, it was just one essay, and now it was over. 

So I groaned this morning when I checked to see next week's essays to peer-review. You can guess what the topic was: The story of a missionary (who happens to be very closely related to Dallin H. Oaks) who decided to leave the Church without leaving it alone. Which was fine, but a few pages in, his bashing really begins to wear on you. And that word was everywhere. Mormons. Mormons who belong to the Mormon Church.

This didn't feel right.

I spent some time thinking. I watched some cartoons and ate some chocolate, and continued thinking for awhile. Finally, I grabbed my laptop and wrote a message to my Creative Nonfiction teacher that went like this:

Professor, 

Before we review [Name]’s essay on Tuesday, I was hoping you could respectfully ask the class to refrain from using terms like “Mormons” and “Mormon Church.”

“Mormons” is officially considered a slur, and hearing the word tossed around last week was notably awkward for many of us in the class. The appropriate term to use is “Members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.” “Members” would be acceptable during our Tuesday discussion. Our religion is not called Mormonism, and we worship God our father and his son Jesus Christ, not Mormon. I am perfectly fine with objectively discussing essays that happen to critique my religion, but I would prefer to do it without the slur attached. 

I understand that the rest of the class may struggle to make the switch, especially since [Name]’s essay does use the term “Mormons,” but I thought it would be more appropriate for you to address the issue than for me to stand up and do so. Bringing this up will make several people in the class 100% more comfortable, and we would immensely appreciate it.

I realize I am emailing you on Thursday and you won't see us again for several days. If you forget to mention it on Tuesday, I won't hold it against you, but I and several others in the class would be very grateful for your support in creating a comfortable environment for everyone.  

Thank you very much,

Maysen Smith

Later he responded,

Thanks, Maysen. I will.

(I really appreciate this email and will have to adjust!)

I was pretty satisfied with that answer. I felt a lot better after the message was sent. After thinking it over for awhile, I wondered if Heavenly Father helping me find my phone - and everything in my wallet - might have been a blessing granted to me because He knew I would make a stand for Him and His church tonight. I don't believe there was necessarily a cause-and-effect relationship there, but I was very grateful I could prove to Heavenly Father that I am willing to follow His commandments, even when I have to step outside my comfort zone to do so. We'll see how things go on Tuesday.

The rest of the night was spent finishing some assignments ahead of time and working on these last three blog posts. I have two projects due on October 18th, the day before Fall Break, and one class project due Fall Break at midnight. Those will all require time and energy, so it's nice to knock the small assignments out early and focus on my daily readings.

This post is nice and big, so I'm glad I got it done tonight and didn't push it off any later. Despite my months of inactivity on my blog, I felt especially prompted to tell the story about this day. Not to mention, I just had a birthday I could share as well. I really do believe it will be a blessing for me to get back into the habit of blogging every day. So far, so good.

Ninete- *Cough* Twenty-One

It's kind of crazy to realize I am 21 years old now. I've been on this planet for over two decades. Now I'm a legal adult in this country. It's a surreal sort of feeling. I dressed sharp today, especially since I was giving a presentation in Consumer Behavior class this afternoon. I wore my favorite red and black plaid "lumberjack" shirt, and even pulled back my hair into a ponytail. But I didn't put on any more make-up than a few dots of green concealer to neutralize the redness of my acne. I refused to walk around with my face feeling slimy and gross on my birthday.

Stockton was super nice and agreed to go to The Waffle Iron with me for breakfast this morning. There was no one else there, and personally, I think our waffles today turned out better than the ones I had when I came here with Mom and Dad in September and the place was packed. The waffles were absolutely delicious, and we both enjoyed them immensely.

I dropped Stockton off, then went back to my apartment to gather my things for Literary Analysis. We engaged in a group discussion about the short story "Recitatif." It wasn't one of my favorites, but I could see why it was in a Literary Analysis class. The story is about two girls who lived in an orphanage as children. You see them grow up and take different paths in life. The story plays with the ideas of race and social class by making various characters seem like they're a certain race, but then hinting that they could be another, without ever confirming anything. Basically, there were plenty of subtleties to analyze.

I had an hour between Literary Analysis and my next class, Sensation and Perception, so I found a comfy place to sit and worked on some writing. Sensation and Perception isn't a fun class. Participation isn't required, so many people don't come. I don't blame them. Our teacher is rather scattered, and always teaches four chapters ahead of what our homework assignments are, so it's easy to become lost or overwhelmed. Most of what he says doesn't make much sense or relate to what's on his slides. When he assigns online quizzes, the information we're quizzed on doesn't remotely match the chapter he claims the quiz is for. Thank goodness for smart TAs who are easy to communicate with and who wrote up chapter outlines that actually do match the information on the quizzes. And thank goodness there isn't a final for this course. 

I quickly learned that I get more out of the class if I use my laptop to work on assignments, or my writing. My Wednesdays used to make me feel panicky and overwhelmed, but having something to pick at throughout class, even if I only end up writing two or three lines during the lecture, helps the day not seem so long, and lets me feel productive instead of miserable. I'm pretty sure this was the teacher my friend Melissa once warned me about when she said, "Write down what's on the slides and just plug your ears. You'll learn way more and be less confused." Sounds about right.

I was still full from Waffle Iron by lunch, so I decided to skip it. But after my computer lab class, I ended up stopping by the TSC bakery, since the student center was between me and the business building. To my delight, they actually had giant chocolate chip muffins to sell that WEREN'T pumpkin chocolate chip! I treated myself to one and ate it on the way to Consumer Behavior. Needless to say, I enjoyed it more than the pumpkin chocolate chip muffin I unintentionally bought on my birthday last year.

Today was my final "real" day of my 7-week Consumer Behavior course. We gave our group presentations today. There were some really good ones, including groups who brought Gummi Bears and Oreos. One group even asked three volunteers to participate in an activity where we tried to fit a long list of tasks into our schedule for the day, by using magnets to pin slips of paper to a week-long schedule on the board that was already full of items like "Class" and "Job." I volunteered, naturally. The other two volunteers were boys who were less interested in adding "Laundry" and "Chores" to our schedule than I was. The class started cracking up when one of the boys pointed out that we didn't have to schedule in "meal prep" time if we just ate during "Date night." The moral of the story was, consumers are busy and even if they know about our brand and have the ability to travel to a store, we can't assume they will. Marketers should either sell products online or make it worth a consumer's time to visit the store in person. 

My group was assigned to present last, but I think we did well. We weren't as fun and engaging as the scheduling group, but we should still receive a good score. Our grade will be determined by both the professor's opinion and peer reviews from all our classmates, so here's to hoping. Next Monday, we take the final for this class. It's worth a lot of points, so I certainly hope I do well. After that, I'll finally be done. Except for my marketing class on Thursday, my afternoons will be free.

I met up with Stockton so we could get ice cream at Cold Stone. The original plan had been to use the "Buy one Love-It size, get one free" coupons we picked up during the Taste of Logan event, but on the way there, Stockton told me we had to prove we had Liked Cold Stone on Facebook and were Following them on Instagram. I decided not to play into their hands, especially since I'd been thinking I wasn't hungry enough for a Love-It size anyway. Instead, we picked up the Like-It size, and I ordered cake batter with rainbow sprinkles, as usual.

After our ice cream adventure, Stockton and I drove back up to campus and found the performance hall where the jazz band would be playing. We had bought tickets over a month ago in order to fulfill a requirement for the online Arts class we're in together. The band was cool to listen to, even though music isn't my thing. All the songs blended together after awhile, and I can already tell this write-up we have to do is going to be painful, but the performers sounded great. And now, it's done! It was much more enjoyable to attend the performance with Stockton than it would have been to go alone. And, I was able to drive home instead of walk back in the cold and the dark. That was pretty nice.

It may not have been the most exciting birthday, but it wasn't a bad one, either. Although I did joke with Mom about how I ended up driving Stockton around on my birthday, and how this was probably what my birthdays would be like from here on out as an adult: Driving kids where they need to go. She pointed out that since my driver's license expires tomorrow, Stockton will be driving me for a little bit. Maybe we can coordinate our grocery shopping so I don't have to carve out 2-hour chunks of time to take the bus again like in the olden days of last spring.

I still have essays to print and peer-review for Creative Nonfiction tomorrow, but for tonight, I think I'll just take some time for myself, eat some sweets, and write.

REBOOT GO

It's been much, much too long since I last updated this blog. Life became chaos and as the stress piled up, I ended up pushing blog updates to the bottom of my to-do list, day after day. I have a ton of posts drafted, just nothing that I was eager to sift through at the end of a busy day. Struggling to upload pictures, agonizing over how much personal stuff to share, and constantly fiddling with the dates, tags, and alignment settings just isn't relaxing to me, I guess.

I finally talked to Mom about it, and she assured me it was perfectly okay to pick up my daily blog posts from where I am now, and finish my drafts bit by bit. While I loathe skipping out on massive chunks of my life, the past several months have proved that not moving forward doesn't help me, either. If I'm going to pick up this blog again, I have to dive in from where I am. And what better time to do that than my birthday?

This semester, Tuesday is a light day for me. I only have two classes and am then off for the rest of the day. This morning we did peer reviews in Creative Nonfiction class, and then I had Institute with Stockton. I went home for lunch and feasted on spaghetti (topped with shredded cheese that melts in nicely when the noodles are warm) and finished a few homework assignments. This evening, I met up with the other members working with me on our group project for Consumer Behavior. We present tomorrow, so hopefully that all goes well. It is a 250-point assignment, after all.

Tomorrow, I turn 21. As the night drew on and I found myself still awake, I decided that when it hit midnight, I wanted to be doing something I enjoyed. So, I baked a lemon-flavored mugging cake and topped it with mint ice cream, chocolate syrup, and rainbow sprinkles.

At midnight, I found myself enjoying that deliciousness and working on my writing at the same time, thanks to my laptop. And I was in comfy pajamas, too.

So here I am, turning 21. Here's to a long future of blogging daily once again.