Busy week...(from Saturday, April 29)

This has been a really busy week. At the moment I’m on an American Airlines flight from Dallas/Fort Worth to Salt Lake City, thinking about how much I’m gonna miss Fort Worth and my family, and imagining what the next few months will be like in California. I’m flying into SLC, then driving down to Provo, picking up my stuff for the summer, crashing tonight with my aunt, then driving on down to Riverside tomorrow, approximately 8 hours or so. I think I’m gonna buy me an iTrip to take down with me so I don’t fall asleep from boredom.

These last few days have been so much fun for me, and I really didn’t go anywhere except be with my family! Isn’t it incredible how much fun one can have just with his family? I mean, Wednesday night we spent the whole evening within our house or front yard, and it’s one of the funnest nights I’ve ever had! My siblings and I played “Sorry” for the first time in YEARS after dinner, and laughed so hard. Then all 7 of us (Mom, Dad, 5 kids) went to the front yard where we played our own version of baseball, with girls (4) against guys (3). We ended with 13-13, which was a great and awfully unlucky score to end with, but we survived. The game was so much fun, though. If you could call fouls in baseball, then we would have all been ejected from the game! I remember at one point picking up and carrying my youngest sister over home plate – she was trying to keep me from scoring, or to delay me enough to be tagged out by my mom, that she grabbed onto my leg and wouldn’t let go. So, I picked her up and scored with her in my arms! After the baseball, when twilight set in, us 4 oldest kids had a long jump competition in the front yard, which was so much fun. I won, of course. Then we all went inside and watched a movie.

I know that that last paragraph sounds pretty boring, but with the family it was memories that I won’t forget. My family is so important to me, and it’s so much fun just to be with them and do things together, even if it’s not the most creative or “exotic” thing possible. Just playing baseball in the front yard became a cherished memory. I’m gonna miss them.

Now I’m off to a totally different life for the next 4 months. Even though I’m already missing Texas and my family, I’m uber excited for the summer. As Bublé put it, “It’s a new dawn, it’s a new day, it’s a new life – and I’m feeling good.” This summer’s gonna be a blast, and I’ll do my best to keep y’all informed of what’s going on. Tchau

End of a long day

Ok, I finished everything tonight, with about 12 minutes to go. That was like half an hour ago. I've spent some time just surfing the net, letting my brain just kindof sag in my head. It feels so overused at the moment. Ughh. Let it be known that this is the last 7:00am class I will ever take!!

Going on about Easter - it was a great day. I sang, played the piano, and played my cello in church yesterday (not all at the same time, mind you) and then headed up to Salt Lake with my sister and some friends of mine. Up there we ate a glorious meal (but then, anything that takes more than 20 minutes to prepare is glorious to a college student) and hung out with friends and family. Haha, we got there at about 2:30-ish and left just before midnight. :-)

Oh, speaking of my cello, I had to drop my bow off at a violin shop today for them to refinish it. Here's the scoop - one of my friends in choir here needed a cello to play in their choir concert. He's a good guy, honest, clean cut, you know, the trustable kind. So I lent it to him, just barely deciding to not make him sign his life away for it. (From now on, I will refer to my cello as Olivia: that's her name) Anyways, he took Olivia to the concert, she did great, and then he put her back in her case and dropped her off in the choir director's office. I was busy for the next week and left her there - it was fine for her. Anyways, I took her home after a week but didn't have the time to practice that entire week. So, 2 weeks after the concert, the choir director comes up to me in the music building and asks, handing me a scratched up bow, "Is this yours?"

I just stared at the scratched wood, wood that looked so familiar yet not with the damage. But it looked so familiar...

"Uhh..I don't think so. Mine didn't have any damage on it when I turned it in."
"Well," he replied, "the stage manager says that this has been floating backstage for the last 2 weeks. He said they found it on the stand."
"It looks alot like mine," I said, "but mine didn't have any damage on it..."

Sprinter, or Wing (take your pick)

It's april everybody! And what does that mean?!?!? Finals, studying, finals, reviews, and a hormonal mother nature. Yeah, complete with mood swings from the sweet, beautiful, and benign to the downright ornery and ugly.

Yesterday was one of most beautiful Easter Sundays that I've ever seen. It was so beautiful that our Sunday school class was held outside, in the ever-so-pleasant spring air, slight breeze, and full sunshine. Man, was it a gorgeous day. Everything was great yesterday.

Then we go to this morning. Things were a little wet upon waking up, but starting at about 9 it began to snow. It snowed lightly until about 4:30-5:00 in the afternoon, when it just dumped. It snowed very hard for about an hour, racking up about 2 inches of heavy, wet snow before it quasi cleared up. But that was enough.

Enough to bump the day's classification from gloomy to awful. I was driving to and from Salt Lake City during the snow, and first off, Utah drivers have a difficult time driving in the snow, and second, I was so tired that I was just staring off into space and wondering about random things. I almost wrecked twice, literally. Plus I've taken one final and have a quiz left to take tonight online, and in addition to those stupid quizzes, I have 18 reading summaries to read and post online tonight. ARRRGGHH!!!! Life is difficult at times.

Well, I've wasted enough time posting this. But it made my brain feel better. I've gotta get crackin' now to finish all this blasted homework before the clock strikes 12!

Mixed Feelings

So earlier this week we had the groups Soulforce come make a pitstop at our university and talk about their issues. I for one thought it was pretty cool for them to come over. I mean, here in Utah we don't see too much of protests or demonstrations or anything like that (cause we're all pretty similar, I guess), so this was something big. The administration had been sending emails for a few weeks about how we need to treat Soulforce with respect and dignity, and not to fight against them verbally and certainly not physically.

Either way, they came on Monday. And you know what? It was a very peaceful, relaxed day with tons of people talking to eachother in the main courtyard/commons area. There weren't any people yelling, waving their arms, or even raising their voices. I was very impressed. But I wasn't the only one. Even some of the Soulforce people were impressed. One said "It was truly remarkable. I don't think we've had crowds like this at any other school where we weren't openly welcome on campus." I seriously think that they didn't expect anything close to the welcome they received - instead of harshness, they received kind youth who respected their decisions and lifestyles. We may believe that how they live is wrong, but we still accepted them as youth and fellow members of the community, and treated them as such.

The thing that bothers me is that some Equality Riders (as they call themselves) couldn't take the fact that nothing was going wrong. At least it seemed that way to me and others. The majority were well behaved and maybe even a little taken back with our hospitality, but there were a few that seemed bent on making a scene. There were 5 on Monday that breached their agreement with the administration and began making speeches about discrimination and what-not, and were quietly escorted off of the campus. On Tuesday there were many that opposed the administration and were once again quietly escorted off campus. Each of those escorted off were cited trespassing violations by police officers and allowed to go on their merry way.

Now, that would have been fine with me, if they hadn't blown up the story on their website. The headlings for both days that they were on our campus start off with something about Equality Riders being arrested. First off there were no handcuffs, and second they were only citations. They seemed to be looking for some way to make a splash in the news, somehow, and went ahead and broke their agreement to do so. Their website is also pretty inaccurate about the history of this university's sponsoring religion.

I guess my point is that we received them all with open minds and peaceful dialogue, and when a few saw that they couldn't rile us up to any action, they went ahead and made some noise (literally). Then they made big news about the consequential discipline enforced (part of the agreement they had made) and inaccurately stated the sponsoring religion's past actions. I kind of feel a little unappreciated, or betrayed, after we tried hard to include them. Hopefully all that was only the actions of a few, and most of them are really grateful about the way we treated them. Some even mentioned how this was one of their best stops. I hope it changed their views about us.

Premed Drama

I'm a premed student at the university I attend, and this morning in our 7am premed seminar we had an oral maxillofacial surgeon come in and speak to us, accompanied by a slide show containing a rather wide plethora of surgical procedures covered in great detail thanks to graphic photos of the operations. And boy, did we get a kick out of it. After 20 minutes of gasps and audible shudders of horror, the guest doctor was interrupted by a perplexed student.

"Uhh...the guy next to me just passed out..."

Though shocking for the other 198 people in the class, the doctor appeared as if just given a promotion, cracking a huge smile and approaching the fallen student. (Mistake #1: He left the gruesome 20'x15' picture on the screen)

"Hey, buddy, you ok? Have you eaten breakfast?"
"uhh...no...I..haven't."
"Let's lie you down here." (to the class) "Anybody got some juice to give him?"

From the mass of rubber-necking students there arose one who pulled a half-gallon jug of orange juice out of his backpack (who carries jugs of orange juice in their backpacks???), who proceeded up to the doctor amid shouts and laughter from fellow students. After a few minutes of doctoring the pale-green kid, the doctor returned to the front of the room. He explained how many of his first-year dental students pass out weekly, and he's totally prepared for it. (Mistake #2: He didn't change the gruesome picture the entire time)

"Get ready to pass out at least once," he announced to the class. "It happens to most first-years of dental or medicine. Now, where was I..."

At precisely this moment another shout pierced the awkward silence.

"Another guy just passed out!"


Not ten feet from me a kid just slumped over to one side and appeared to start seizing for a moment before lying still again. Doctor made his way over to him (he was much closer this time) and was in front of the kid when he suddenly sat up, acheived a great deer-in-the-headlights gaze, and looked suspiciously around the room. His gaze continued as he laid eyes on everyone else's, including the doctor's.

"How you doin'?" asked the doctor.
"Umm...o...k....." he replied.
"D'you fall asleep?" (scattered chuckling)
"I don't think so..."
"D'you wanna lie down?" (more laughter)
"...Yeah, that'd be a good idea..."

The next few minutes doc and a few guys helped the now green sophomore stagger to the back where the other prostrate student was, and placed him in similar fashion next to his fallen comrade.

Needless to say, the doc didn't show any more pictures the rest of the morning.