Excerpt from Dec 14 2010

I'm on a bus going to Pangasinan, Philippines. I'm going to live there someday, but this is my first time going. Right now I'm on vacation in the Philippines but it's really more than just a vacation, because it's probably the most life changing trip that could ever happen :-). Apparently I'm Filipino on the inside or something. I always dreamed I would be whisked away by someone from a foreign country, and that's a pretty darn good description of what's happening to me. (Can we say, "dream come true?"). I met Sylves through the Internet; but if I hadn't served a mission it wouldn't have happened because he also served in my mission in Quezon City, Philippines. That's where he saw me first and then he found the way to contact me after he returned home to Pangasinan and I returned home to America. It wasn't like other creepy people who try to catch your attention online, he was different. I can't say what made it so different except that I felt differently. After a while, through prayer and temple worship and many other inspiring experiences, I realized that I had a dream coming true! I searched through many different kinds of travel plans to actually meet this sweet guy that wanted to be my "shining armor" for time and all eternity. The way it ended up working out is that I flew here by myself and he and his family picked me up. No decision that I have made in the course of this relationship has been made lightly. I emphasize, I knew full well what might lay in store before making my decisions. The only surprise was what time he chose to pull out the ring. That story will be told some other time. But I accept Sylves Datuin to be my companion for time and all eternity, and the two of us are ready to face all the challenges that lay ahead. But I feel comfortable where I am at this moment, and that is in the arms of the man I love, on a bus going to my future home in Pangasinan, Philippines.


Sent from my iPod

What you may or may not have been waiting for!

So my triathlon is over!!! I lived through it!! My uncle who also did it with me and my dad drove us down to St. George. I took my one sweatshirt just in case I wanted it on the bikeride (and I did!). We got our stuff and they wrote our numbers on our arms Friday night. On Saturday we got there to set up around 8 and it was COLD! It was nice inside waiting to start, and lucky we were there so early 'cause it took almost that long before the race started at 9 for me to be able to feel my toes again. The water was nice, and when I had to run outside again to get on my bike the temperature was fine. I wore my sweater on the bike but took it off for the 5K run. Here are my stats.

What stinks is that swimming is my best event. I came to the conclusion that when that is the case, it doesn't help you at all. The amount of time in the water is so tiny compared to everything else that it gives you no advantage to be fast there. Also because afterwards, having spent so much energy doing well in the pool, getting on a bike is THE WORST. I just felt sick the almost the whole time on my bike. I wouldn't look at my watch, even on the run, which is slightly sad because I even went back to get it out of my jacket pocket on the bike/run transition after almost getting out of the zone without it. If not for that, I would have been exactly on time with what I said in the previous post---I guessed 1:35, and my final time was 1:36! I am totally happy with that, though :-) It was fun when it was over, and now I can say that I've done it, but I probably won't do it again. Unless I get a real racing bike, then I'll consider it; for now I'll gladly enter as a relay member only. The run was fine and so I might consider doing just a 5K in the future too.

my uncle, my dad, my uncle's friend, and me (in no particular order)

We each posed by a cactus when it was over. The actual race was on paved surfaces. I'm amazing!

Wednesday

First of all, I'm eating dried fish. My mom didn't complain about me making the house smell like Iceland again but there were other murmurings from my brother.

I went swimming and running tonight. I timed my 400 yard swim at 7min 15sec. Then I went down to the regular track and ran (mostly) 3 miles. I can say that since I know how many laps are in a mile on that track. It took less than 40 minutes with a bathroom break. I'm going to guess my bike time will be around 45 minutes. I've timed myself twice on 10 miles and it was about 52 minutes each time, but there won't be any stoplights and I'm going to use my iPod to help me keep going at a good pace. I don't want to be too generous because I know it will be hard to get started on the bike after swimming.

Using those times I'm going to make a guess as to how I will do.

7.5 min swim

45 min bike

40 min run

and rounding up for transition times gives

1 hour 35 min

Now I have a goal to keep in my head while I go--that will help too :-) Everyone cheer for me this Saturday!

well, they brought up journals...

...and since this is pretty much my journal I felt guilty for not posting in a while. I'm planning a spoof report about how my sight is going bad, and it's going to be fun, so every time I think about writing on my blog, I think of how I want to finish that so I can post it. But I suppose I do have other things to say too!

My triathlon is next weekend. This past week I did double workouts--swimming and running. I managed just fine. The week before (or two weeks...) I worked up my running. I ran 2 miles without stopping, then 2.5, then I switched tracks and thought I did three but there is no way that's how long it was. I guess I don't know how many laps to a mile are in the small track at the gym. So there's a breach in my keeping track of progress.

I realized also that the weather might be cooler than I had imagined. I don't know what I'm going to do in the way of apparel for the race! I thought I knew but it may not be enough! I have ideas. Maybe if everyone crosses their fingers that I won't freeze, I won't :P

The following is a sequence of events that makes me happy, but took me off guard at it's swiftness

-Katie complained about needing an accompanist, I mentioned that I am one...

-Symphonic Band needed a piano player, I walked in at an opportune time

-Katie actually gave me music

-Wendy needed an accompanist, Katie told her to go to me

-I was approached with a request to be an on hand accompanist at a musical audition

-Grandma's choir started again (I play for that)

-After the musical audition they had me come back to help with callbacks...

-...And asked if I would be in the pit orchestra for another musical

-Colby's accompanist totally fell through and he came to me for help

-Wind Ensemble started

-And I have to learn and practice exciting duets for accompanying class

I love to share my talents! It's totally fun for me but in the next 5ish weeks I have over 10 performances, which is fine, but getting in all my other work and schoolwork is going to be interesting. I am on the verge of resorting to caffeine! Aaahhhh! Oh well, what can you do.

Physics Pays Off

This weekend was the American Society of Physics, 4 Corners Section conference. It happened to be held at WSU so the HARBOR director pretty much made all of us do presentations of some kind. This is the "poster" I've mentioned before. Murielle and I, the "camera team" submitted a poster for the conference and had some fun making it beautiful and awesome (like science fair for grown-ups, I suppose), but little did we expect in the awards ceremony mine was the first name read off! There were 50 posters and 5 of them won. This apparently was a real kind of contest and so they gave us $100! Who knew?

Our project was using a still camera to verify data taken from other instruments on High Altitude weather-balloon-type flights. We proved that our camera was reliable and then used it to prove the other science-y equipment was reliable. We discovered something we like to call the "crud-o-pause" in the atmosphere and there's still plenty of research to do to understand it more. Science rocks, people! And who knew it would actually pay off so soon? I recommend it to anyone. And not because it pays off, but, in the words of Dr. Palen, "because it is so fantastic!" Happy Day :-)

all-nighter, etc.

I just got home from institute, it was wonderful! I missed two weeks of class and I was SO glad to get back there today. It really makes a difference in life. There was one quote I copied down: "Every tribulation is 'the shade of His Hand outstretched unceasingly'." It was great.

On Monday I did get a plane ticket for the Philippines in December. Tuesday I finished that poster and then I decided to stay up all night catching up on things. I enjoyed it. I almost got caught up on my sight-reading and transposition, I did an analysis on 2 sonatas, I dusted the piano, I worked on memorizing my pieces, I practiced my accompanying pieces, I found and studied Bach's table of ornamentation, chatted with Sylves, made and ate breakfast, read a bunch of science papers, printed the poster, took two tests, and rode my bike all the way home. The distinction between Tuesday night and Wednesday is completely lost.

On the bike ride home, I remembered my goal of trying to do it in under an hour . . . I kind of cheated to try and do this but it backfired on me. I turned onto Riverdale Road itself to go straight down it instead of in the parking lots--and then every light was red. Well, except for that one. I made it up through the roundabouts without stopping, and then when I got to Main street nearly every light was red for me when I got there, again! Somewhere in Clearfield I gave up on trying to go fast at all anymore because I was too sick of getting up there and then having to stop abruptly. I stopped looking at my watch entirely and I stopped at the import store to get stash food (since I had finished up my stash at breakfast).

And random note, I have a lot of pride. I think sometimes it's okay (like from a performance perspective) but in many ways it's not so good. I just really like to learn and know things and be awesome. If I feel like correcting other people I usually try and do it in a nice way but apparently it doesn't come across like that. I don't know how to fix this problem. I might try some counseling. But I still like to be awesome and yes, I like to brag about it sometimes. Okay, a lot of the time. It has come to my attention yet again and I'm here wondering what the heck I can do about it, and I don't have many ideas. Really. So I'm sorry if I offend people but at this point, that's all I can say.

Good night!

[insert title here]

Events from last week:
-taught boy scouts on Tuesday
-played a concert with my Grandma's choir Wednesday
-taught boy scouts Thursday
-worked on my physics report/poster Friday (and made some sweet scientific discoveries! stay tuned...)
-went to the Symphony Saturday and was most certainly outplayed by that 16 year old kid. Oh well, he'll make a fine living for himself.

Events from today:
-got up at 5:15
-rode the 6am Frontrunner
-went swimming at 7
-"ran" half a mile
-finished my astrophysics take home test
---later: will hopefully finish that physics poster, and buy a plane ticket to the Philippines (lots of exciting things will happen there)

A combination of many things I want to say

The day after the last post, I didn't have to deduce that I beat the bus, I know for a fact that I did, because I passed it!

I finished a project I've been working on all summer, for the Museum of Natural Science at WSU. It is amazing. Here's some pictures.

I just went to the most amazing piano concert, Fan-Ya really is the awesomest player and it was so inspiring, like the other excellent performances I've been to since I've come home. But better. Because she's so freakin' cool. I go to school with this girl!

http://departments.weber.edu/browningcenter/upcoming/10/09/pianofundraiser/pianofundraiser.html

And a peeve moment . . . when you don't do something awesome because you're in a bad mood, you're only going to feel bad again after getting in a good mood once you realize you could have done something awesome and didn't. And it doesn't affect just you!

logical deduction

Today on my bike, I left a bit later than I should have (but that's why I had my bike, so I could do that and not miss the bus). I did not actually see the bus at WSU. I left after it was supposed to come but it tends to be late. I pedaled my heart out and somehow got to the FrontRunner station with 5 (read it FIVE) minutes to spare! The bus got there on time, which is 2 minutes before the train leaves. Actually I didn't look at the clock to know if it was on time, but as people weren't running like mad to the train platform that's my guess. Using my deducing powers that must mean the bus was approximately on time leaving WSU and had a headstart on me. I BEAT THE BUS!!! I so totally rock this bike thing! Too bad the triathlon is longer than 4 miles and not almost completely downhill...

Oh dear, I'm going to get behind

things that have happened:
-One day I rode my bike from WSU to the Frontrunner with a headstart on the bus and I beat it
-the next day the bus had a slight headstart on me and we got there about the same time.
-Thursday I had another amazing institute lesson (details below)
-Friday there were 2 opening socials for my 2 departments. I so love them both.
-I just rode my bike to Kaysville and back. There in 30 minutes, back in 34 (more uphill on the way back). It's somewhere between 5 and 7 miles one way.
-I had another run-in with a staple on Thursday. This time, it was 45 minutes before my piano lesson. Good job, me! I might be banned from staples again.
-After said staple incident, I had a run-in with a water faucet. Also right before my piano lesson. Maybe someone or something doesn't want me doing well in my studies...
-I am a freakin' photoshop master!!! more to follow.

So, institute. I hope I can get this across. The sermon on the mount in Matthew 5 was like a leadership conference for the apostles. He starts right in with the "blessed" things (or beattitudes)--which are amazing like I never really realized before! He gives the same lesson in 3 Nephi 12, but starts it off with the instruction to Follow Him and also to listen to the apostles. That part wasn't included in the NT version because the 12 already knew that, but when He taught the people it's there. And it is so important. As per last week's lesson, If we don't listen to the apostles, it's like we are rejecting Him personally, very important for us to hear that often. Actually in Matthew, they had just received the invitation to "follow Him" in the previous chapter, so it works.

We also learned about the beattitudes, that they are like stair steps, each one on a higher level than the previous one. The last one, though, is "Blessed are they who are persecuted for my sake" and it makes one think "how is persecution the highest level of blessedness?" Well, since Christ was persecuted, it puts us on His level, which is the highest! Then we looked at some translations. The word "blessed" from the Greek means "oh! the happiness/joy of..." and in Old English it means to be marked with blood (like, the blood of Christ from the atonement) and from the Hebrew means adore or kneel, like Christ adores us/Christ kneels to us! He loves us, He really does! So it was basically an amazing lesson yet again.

Pretty much anyone who wants to go to institute can! Do it!

kaunting update

I rode my bike home from WSU again (yesterday) and it only took me 1hr6min! Next time it will only be an hour. I didn't get off and walk at all but I have a definite goal for the future. Oh yeah, I also ran yesterday. I should still work on that one.

I also went to the Symphony on Friday--Beethoven was a flippin' genius! I'm serious, the 6th symphony is pure genius! I enjoyed it greatly.

And my ward got rearranged again, so now I have to find a new one. Yet another adventure! Change is usually an adventure for me, I deal pretty well. Except on certain occasions when it makes me angry. But I like adventures. So, do I go to my parents' ward? Or to another singles ward? Hmmmm...

Epiphany

Something happened at the institute today. I'm taking a class about the New Testament and we had a lesson pretty much about what it means to be an apostle.

Start in Matt 4:18-20
Fuller story in Luke 5:1-11
Then in Matt 10 the first 2 verses the 12 are called. In verse 1 it says "disciples" which comes from a word meaning "to learn." In the 2nd verse it says "apostles" which comes from a word meaning "to send." This makes sense, they are even "sent forth" to preach the word, right?
Yes! Look in verse 5
Then we discussed 7 duties of the apostles as found in the Doctrine&Covenants section 107. The 7 things are found in verses 23, 27, 33, 33 again, 35, 38, and 39. They're all really awesome and important but I'm going to share about the first one, because that's where my epiphany came from. Honestly I probably can't do it justice here but I felt so enlightened!

107:23 The twelve traveling councilors are called to be the Twelve Apostles, or special witnesses of the name of Christ in all the world—thus differing from other officers in the church in the duties of their calling.

Of course I knew they were special witnesses but it does not just say "of Christ" but "of the name of Christ" and the teacher brought this up and made us think about it. There are so many other verses that put it this way:
...that they are willing to take upon them the name of thy Son...
...and there is none other way nor name given under heaven whereby man can be saved in the kingdom of God.
many instances of "believe on His name"
and more

So, why is it so specific to be the name and not the person Christ? Well, because "Christ" is a title, it became His name because He earned it, and in that earning of a title is where He can grant us salvation (i.e. the Atonement). In Matt 16:20, there is an interesting statement 20 Then charged he his disciples that they should tell no man that he was Jesus the Christ. This was before he completed the atonement! He hadn't earned the title yet! After that, in the book of Acts of course the apostles are freely teaching to all that Jesus is the Christ (see Acts 17:3)

There is also another reason for this. The "apostle" being a "special witness" is better defined in Acts chapter 1 specifically in verse 22 "...must one be ordained to be a witness with us of his resurrection." Yes, if one could witness of His resurrection, one could witness that He had fulfilled His mission to save mankind, a special witness of the name of Christ. How could one witness that He was truly resurrected? How would one know that the Risen Lord had a glorified body of flesh and bone? Really the only sure way to know is to touch and feel the truth for oneself. This means that anyone called to be an apostle MUST be able to witness of this!

...and indeed they do. There are 12 men today that are true apostles of the Lord Jesus Christ, you can find it in their words. Our teacher shared many of their words with us but I don't have a copy. I do remember some of the more famous ones, from Bruce R. McConkie and Jeffrey R. Holland, such powerful witnesses! So anyway, I learned something tonight. I could go on, but I think I've gotten my point across. If not, feel free to ask for more.

What a difference well-inflated tires makes

Yes, yes, once I realized what the problem really was, I pumped up my bike tires and it works much better now! I had also oiled the chain and adjusted the rear derailleur, good things, but until the tires were at proper inflation it just wasn't quite right.

Anyway, these pictures are good, too
HAR100818 from the ground
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=31493337&l=e1b590f1e1&id=1335984666
HAR100819 from the ground
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2076344&id=1335984666&l=b42d921638
HAR100820 from the ground
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2076471&id=1335984666&l=dffaa56752

And I believe there was a request to hear about the Pepsi incident and certain evening adventures from the HARBOR trip:

On Tuesday, I drank a can of Pepsi. Wednesday morning we were supposed to get up by 5 so we could leave camp by 5:30, so we went to bed I think around 10ish. The other girls in my tent fell asleep pretty quick. I lay there, rolling over every couple minutes trying to get comfortable (my pillow was really hard), for quite some time. somewhere around 11:30 I finally pulled out my iPod and started a classical album in the hopes it would relax me enough to fall asleep. Well, one hour later the album was over and I was still wide awake! I kept rolling over every while and even tried using my sweater to soften up my pillow but it didn't work. I don't think I slept a wink. The best part even, I was not remotely tired all of Wednesday, never took a nap, and people were going to bed before I had even considered it. (I did buy a new pillow, though, which seemed to help, although I'm pretty sure it was the caffeine. Unless you actually CAN get high off of science and no one ever told me . . . )

Thursday it got really cold, and I guess some of the guys set up all their stuff in their bathroom in order to work more comfortably. I retaliated by setting up my laptop in the girl's bathroom and watching a movie with Linsey. (I had bought it in town on Tuesday, "The Curse of the Pink Panther") I enjoyed it. I think Linsey slept through most of it. I do not have a picture of us watching the movie, but I have acquired one from the other side (so awesomely hilarious!):

I like what I do, really

So, from HARBOR, we flew balloons on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. All very successful flights. links to the pictures can be found here, here, and here,

HAR100818
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=473481&id=902415461&l=9e4c8de252

HAR100819
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=473883&id=902415461&l=ebd603f6e7

HAR100820
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=474318&id=902415461&l=86ef68eaa6

I was in charge of the onboard camera, and we got some great stuff! Thursday was really really cool, we used a bigger balloon than before (and had some interesting turbulence, seen in the pictures) and it went higher than any balloon this program has ever flown! We received data from the GPS radios that told us heights of 101,575' and 101,949' and from that and other information *I* extrapolated a true bursting height of 102,089'. (I don't know why anyone else didn't do it, but at some point someone asked me to, but I was busy with my picture stuff, although when I was done no one had done it still so I did).

On Friday we played a game of sorts, guessing what height the balloon would reach before burst. I sort of won, in a way, that I'm not sure I understand, because really Murielle won... anyway, they let the two of us have first pick at paraphernalia and I got a pin from the package that went the highest. I've been wearing it all week, calling it my "space pin" and it makes me really happy.

At some point during the trip, Charla brought up that I only need 8 more credits to be a physic minor. . . a very convincing argument. I'm sure she was targeting me . . . but I did start thinking about and have done so all week and finally broke down and signed up. Now I have Astrophysics with Dr. Palen, the most amazing professor in the world! Most people probably won't understand the significance of this, but now I get to draw all sorts of awesome pictures and it's only too bad there aren't more tests in that class :-) I really need to do something super-amazing for her. She helped make me who I am today. I suppose I have about 2 years to think about it.

I will say I love the entire physics department, and the entire music department. I'm super glad to part of Weber's piano program, they just bought us 4 brand new Steinway model B's to practice on! Also, one of our students won 1st place in a national competition, over a ton of graduate students. Now we have a transfer student from Oberlin Conservatory, and she told me she thinks the pianists at Weber are better. I will stay right where I am, thank you!

The Job Search...

Okay, so I applied for this music teaching job at the beginning of August, and never heard back from the people. I know someone who works there already and she gave me a name, so I emailed that person, who at first still didn't reply. I then found a flyer for the same kind of job at school so I took the guy's number and then when I checked my email, the other lady had replied! But they aren't hiring teachers now. Although, they are hiring people for the front desk and pretty much invited me to the interview for that. It's tomorrow. I think I'll go. If I don't get the job, which I probably won't, at least they'll know my face and a bit about me already for when they decide they want to hire teachers again. I hope it's a good plan... (and if absolutely nothing happens, I can at least call that other guy!)

And now for something completely different...

I went running this evening. Good stuff. It's getting dark earlier so I didn't get to go real far, but that's okay. My toe hurts a little bit and so it reminded me of another mission story: well, it's not much of a story, uh, ok, I'll make it one. There's these rubber shoes, okay, and they're really really comfortable AND super convenient of you're going to get wet or dirty. The day I found them was interesting, my comp Sister Cepe and I were planning on going shoe-shopping but it didn't happen because we attended our zone activity and then she got a migraine. At some point it was decided I could go on a split with Sister Erasmo. She and I tried to go into town to this big shoe company, and it took a while to find, and then they didn't have anything that felt good. Then we walked around and found the palengke (market) and stopped by a couple shoe vendors. nothing, nothing, nothing, until--I tried the rubber shoes. Other missionaries had been using some but I wasn't yet sold on the idea. Until I tried them. It was the most amazing shoe-try-on-experience I've ever had! They're so squishy and awesome, I bought them right away. Then Sister Cepe was jealous. And I bought many pairs of them through the rest of my mission (being rubber, they do wear out easily--but they're cheap, so it's okay).

My "story" is this: one of the pairs I got I was convinced had a needle in it. Sure, one could have fallen into the mold or something. I could feel it just poking through when I stepped on a rock or something. After about 2 months I was feeling it all the time in my foot and not too incredibly happy about it. But every time I looked for it I could feel nothing with my hands. One day, I must have been rinsing them off and picking rocks off the bottom, then one particular rock didn't want to come off. With good reason, too, it was engrained so bad in the sole that it had reached to the other side . . . and it was rather pointy. I taped it to a sticky-note and put it in my PMG under the companions list :P The end.

I should do some updating

Many things have happened in the past week:

HARBOR campout
flying helium balloons to near-space
They let me be Launch Coordinator (I got a checklist!)
I have a souvenir from 102,000'
Science in the Parks at the Davis County Fair
getting sick Friday night
watched a movie in the girls bathroom while the guys used theirs as a science lab
Pepsi incident
cleaning pools of water out of my tent
yeah, mostly it's about HARBOR so I'll have to write about it in more detail sometime
Someone decided he wants to court me from long-distance
it was my mom's birthday (I'm taking her to a show tomorrow)
AND school starts tomorrow so I might be pret-ty busy for about the next 2 years

Feeling Productive

First a short bike update: I rode 13 miles up the hill to WSU on Friday in 1 hr 29 min. Hmm, I think that's longer than last time. Maybe because neither the bus nor I had any head start and so it passed me much sooner, then there was not as much motivation? That's my only idea. But honestly, I can feel myself getting better . . . happiness!

All right, today. I did feel very productive today. We went to my sister's house and helped her out with many projects. The things I did include:
painting the walls of the stairs to the basement
shimming a door and adjusting the door handle to make it latch right
painting a door frame
Removing various hooks, a towel dispenser, and a cabinet from the walls of the laundry room
holding a clamped rod while my sister cut it
hanging a rod in the coat closet
painting the door frame again
painting one of the stair walls again

Yeah, it was exciting :-) It reminded me of the time I built a house. This calls for a mission story! So, there's this family, and the father died. In the Philippines the viewing is often at the person's house. This family was very poor and their house wasn't that big, it was like, one room built of cinder blocks and then extended out with wood and tarps and stuff. In order to get the coffin into the house they kind of disassembled half of it (but it was still too small so they ended up putting him in their neighbor's house). Then they were still left with a half-disassembled house . . . so after the funeral for a service project my companions (Sister Molino and Sister Lemonsito) and I helped them build it back up! It was great. We found some long boards and nailed them up to things like a tree and an old bed frame, and filled in gaps with odd sized wood and tarps. Then we put some long boards up vertically and made a roof with one piece of corrugated steel, some pieces of bamboo, and more tarps. It was wonderful to be out working and serving like that, and they loved it too. Anyway, here's a picture.

On the left is a member that helped us, Regie. In the back is a neighbor, Dolores. There at the right is Sister Loreta David and 3 of her kids, Jennifer, Lorna and her youngest boy

push ups

I went swimming today and did my spitfires again. That makes 48 pushups! And 15 extra wall-push-ups this time, too. Weird thing--I think I do this weird twisty something when I'm doing push ups so that somehow my right arm does most of the work. I tried to straighten out a little and I felt like I was going to fall over left-ways. Hmmm.

And I bought textbooks today. This is how I squoze through this semester: 3 borrowed, 1 new, 1 used, and 3 from Amazon. Still over $300. I hate spending money. But I am applying for another job to boost my income! I need funding for my many adventures: trip to Chicago, trip to Europe, trip to Philippines, and next year my happy Presidential full-tuition scholarship runs out... This is why I don't drive places or go to the movies. Anything to save a buck ;-)

This number went down, and other stories

I rode my 10 miles to Farmington today, and it took 51 minutes. (last time it took 52). Last Tuesday was exciting, I swam for almost an hour and did numerous pushups, then I went running right after and did 2 miles! *evil laughter* I'm working my way up heh heh, and throughout the day I did over 8 miles on my bike. I was pretty proud of myself. Yesterday I took it easy and then I did my bike today, as already mentioned. I think I'm gonna get this running thing, ya know? It felt pretty good. At this point I think my weakest event will be the bike part--yes, I do it all the time, but that hasn't made me FAST.

And in other random news:
-I'm re-reading the Harry Potter series, now on book 4.
-I sewed curtains and mounted the rod in a cement wall using a new drill bit and some plastic thingies and the wall did not want to cooperate with me but I showed it who was boss!
-I'm applying for jobs, because I need money.
-The Ott planetarium is open this Saturday from 12-6 for free so come on down! Or, in most cases, up!

Oh, I almost forgot to mention what I did when I came home Tuesday. I made a halo-halo. It's cold and delicious, perfect for after all that work I did. Here's a picture. It was delicious.

Yeah I did stuff

Yesterday I rode my bike 7.5 miles and it took 36 minutes.

Answers to prayers...

can come in strange forms.

I've heard it put, that there are 3 different kinds of answers: 1.Yes 2.No 3.Wait a while. I might venture to put forth another--4.You decide. Or something like that. I've been trying to figure something out for a while and on 2 separate occasions while seeking guidance, the inspiration I was given came in the form of a scripture found in Alma 42:27

"Therefore, O my son, whosoever will come may come and partake of the waters of life freely; and whosoever will not come the same is not compelled to come; but in the last day it shall be restored unto him according to his deeds."

The first time, it felt pretty good. The second time, I can't describe. But mentally that's kind of hard to figure out anyway--searching for answers and that's what you get. It's okay now, the issue is resolved, but there's got to be a better way to understand what God is trying to say to me the next time around.

P.S. that happens to be my favorite scripture, back from the mish... (it's hard for me to quote it in English, lol) It has many applications and I hope you may find it useful someday.

Success! and double fail... with another success!

I ultimately decided to go to Bountiful again to try and get athletic shoes, and I did! It was as awesome as my cousin said! Then I tried to go to the temple and it was closed. Come to think of it, I tried to go swimming today and the pool was closed. But then I went to the mall to get some nice black sandals and I did!

Bad Bus Luck

This morning there were already 2 bikes on the 603, so I ended up riding my bike up the hill to WSU. No, not all the way, just to Harrison where I caught the 455. Then I rode down the hill when I was done. That's like, a little over 8 miles when you include the distance from my house to the Frontrunner. The plan was, I would take the train to Farmington and ride down main street to Bountiful where there is a nice shoe store so I could buy running shoes. I did not see the store on the way down and ended up in Woods Cross before I turned around. When I found it and got there, it is apparently closed on Mondays. And Sharon was not happy. Then the rest of the plan was that I would take the 470 home. I waited 10 minutes for the next one, which had 2 bikes on it again. Ew. Instead of just waiting 25 minutes for the next one, I took off. At some point it started to rain. As unhappy as it seems, it was good because if it weren't raining, the next bus driver wouldn't have let me on either because there were TWO BIKES already on the front! But he took pity on me and let me bring it on board. I kick myself now for not paying attention to where the bus picked me up, so I don't know really how far I went. With my best google-mapping skills, I'm guessing that part took me over 11 miles, possibly 12. Which makes for about a 20 mile day! But I'm pretty angry that I still don't have any new shoes. Fixing this problem will take an indeterminate amount of time.

One video I promised: "Waking A Dream" in concert

Friday

It began in the morning, I really didn't want to get up. I did at the last minute and got ready to go in order to catch the FrontRunner with my bike. Well, I didn't make it. When that's the case, I could wait about 15 minutes for the 640 bus to come by and still be on time to work. I elected this time to take off on my bike down Main St. and see how far I could get before the bus caught up to me. I am training for a triathlon! Little did I know how incredibly slow the bus is. I almost caught up to the one ahead of the one I was racing . . . and the one I gave a 15 minute head start to only passed me when I was halfway up the WSU campus! No point in getting on :-) So the bike ride I did last week in 1 hour and 19 minutes I just did the opposite way in about that long. I wasn't wearing my watch this time so I fail at being exact. I was pretty impressed with myself, though. Accidentally biking 13 miles to Weber State.

It was also the last day of Science in the Parks. Fridays are usually pretty cool. I got to play with the dry ice bubbles again. We tried dyeing some red but the bubbles were still white . . . That's real science right there. Then one small child, in his attempt to pop the awesome smoking bubbles, slammed the cup so hard it fell and all the soap went on my shoe. Oh well. We always make some super awesome fountains of Diet Coke and Mentos, and this time they convinced me to pull one of the strings. The plan was to do three at once from a small distance, and aim towards a central point. We shortly realized why that was a dumb idea. Everyone forgot that the Mentos don't all fall in if the thing isn't straight . . . so I'm standing there holding a bottle of Diet Coke (and wearing an apron!) and all it does is just spew all over me. Then the kids come over and want to hold it--it was a trick to keep them away. But then some got it and just wanted more of the Coke to spray out so they squeeze it and everything runs down my arm again. Rrrrr. Oh well. I believe this event was videoed. But don't get me wrong here, I had fun and everyone should see this video if and when it finds its way onto the internet. I just had to wash my arms and the apron saved my clothes so it's all good.

Back at the school, we wanted to make a giant thing of silly putty and drop it off the roof. For the kids they get to use a small baggie of glue and a squirt of borax to do this. For us, we used an entire gallon of glue and a large beaker full of borax! It was awesome! It took a long time to mix up, and we split it into two bags so then one got real stiff and the other was more flowy and then it was a job recombining them. But awesome. We put red food coloring in, and at times it sort of looked like organs. We had some FUN with that I tell you. ("This is your lungs. This is your lungs on drugs" and "This is your heart. This is your heart on drugs.") It got to a pretty good consistency and they took it upstairs. I offered to catch it at the bottom. We positioned a kiddie pool nicely at the bottom and just waited for it. The idea was to let it stretch itself downward and see how far it would go. Sadly, the farthest it ever got was about one story, but the whole plummeting to the earth part was pretty cool too. I saved some of this putty. It must live out an adventurous, epic life. Hope you enjoyed the stories!

I forgot to post about this one... Now three

Saturday was good. I got up early and rode 10 miles to Farmington in 52 minutes for a parade. We went about 2 miles back to my uncle's house for lunch and then rode the rest of the way home, I'm only guessing 8 miles, in 47 minutes. It's pretty much uphill all the way back. I think I've only ridden that once before, a long time ago,andI felt much better this time!

Monday I went running. My mom has this book "how to train for a marathon" orsomething, anyway, it told me howto start from the beginning (which is what I'm doing) so I only ran for 15 minutes. That only amounted to a mile but I feel good about it.Verygradually I will get better.

Tuesday I went swimmingagain and remembered to do some spitfires. Those are where you swim, do pushups, swim, do crunches, and repeat.After Saturday and Monday I wasn't really sore or anything much, but I'm pretty sure this time I will be! I started looking at books about "how to train for atriathlon" but haven't bought any or been to the library. I'm just sort of doing what feels appropriate for now.

Now about the other cool thingsI've done...

Saturday I had a mission reunion and it was a blast to see everyone. Sister Ho Ching asked me when my next concert was and I said "right now" because then I went to a concert. I did a piece withmy sister and some other with other people and had a bit of fun. Then I went to my sister's house and we jammedall night again. Monday I played with the HARBOR camera. Anyway, things are happy and I still love my iPod.

Sent from my iPod

Sister Maiello

Nanay Terrell & Tatay Kabalan

President & Sister Ho Ching

bike rides, bike rides...

There's going to be a lot of posts like this one coming in the future! I officially signed up for the triathlon and am going to much more seriously be training from now on. Today, I rode my bike all the way home from work. That's somewhere between 12 and 13 miles according to google maps (but we know how much I trust that!). For one thing, I wish my bike would go into the highest gear so I could take those downhill stretches just a little faster--but that can be fixed! Of course, well, at least I think, that if I do that, I may not be able to go into the lowest gear . . . but I'd rather use all the speed I can going down if there's a choice. Which there is. I might change my mind eventually, but for now that's what I want to do. For the randomness, I was attacked by a flying cotton puff that went straight up my nose and was in no way a pleasant experience--but it was a short experience so I'm fine. The uphill part did get me pretty bad, but with practice I expect to improve. So I will not be taking as much advantage of the FrontRunner as I have been anymore. I completed the ride in 1 hour and 19 minutes (with a short phone call in the middle). Watch for this number to go down!

Oh, the insanity!

I think I'm going to do it. I can't believe I'm gonna do it! But I kind of sort of want to!

http://www.sgcity.org/recreation/races/details.php?id=629

And lately I've been training. I go swimming once a week, and I take my bike to work. Today, though, I tried something. Enjoy the story: I work at WSU and I have to fill out a boy scout application as part of my job, so I had this bright idea that I would take it to the scout office on my way home. I looked up the address and took off down the hill, thinking it would be about all downhill. Well, I misjudged where one street was and went down this nice hill and then realized I wasn't on the street I thought I was on and had to go back up. (did I mention the one time a week I go swimming was on Tuesday? I was already sort of tired). Blah.

I got on the right street and it turned out to be full of loose gravel. A nice hill, but covered in loose gravel so I couldn't have any fun at the risk of violating rule number steve ("no dying"). Then I found the other street I wanted to turn on and it would have taken me back up a hill so I walked a little bit. Then I went down a nice hill again and this other biker came and passed me going super fast--so much for motivation, right? I kept going back up the hill on the other side but had to walk it a little too.

Then I crossed Washington Boulevard and went the way I thought I was supposed to but the numbers weren't matching up to the address I needed so I turned around and searched for a while and have ultimately decided that 1200 E 5400 S South Ogden does not exist. At least I didn't want to go up one more hill to keep looking. Google maps failed me.

I could find comfort in the fact that Washington is pretty much downhill all the way to the FrontRunner station where I still needed to go quickly and took off. I no longer find comfort in that fact if I need to go fast, because nearly all the lights were RED! When I wasn't stopped I was booking it as hard as I could so the train wouldn't leave me. I thought of the irony as I passed Riverdale Road because I had been planning to ride down it tomorrow or Thursday--I even said out loud "might as well do it now!" but I thought I'd make the train. Well the lights were mean. I was pleading and praying the last few blocks for the train to wait for me but alas, right as I was coming up to the UTA pass scanner it pulled away. Gah! Not a happy Sharon! No, I didn't cry, but I wanted to.

Then I hurriedly went through all my bus schedules and decided to take the 470 home (also ironic because I passed one on my way there). I did some more Google mapping when I got home to figure out what I did and it was somewhere around 8 miles just this afternoon! After I did nearly 2000 yards in the pool! Now I have to figure out how and when to start running. I hate running. Insane, yes--but I think this is do-able, and it will make me happy somehow. Excuse me while I go eat more chocolate and food.

I had an interesting week

My first week of summer was sure exciting, I wanted to share. Monday I forgot my lunch and realized when I got to work that I hadn't eaten breakfast either. We went out for Science in the Park and I was doing fine, I was even spinning around with the corrugated pipe for a few minutes, but I spent most of the day under one of the tents. I slowly got tired and then I got lightheaded (which isn't so uncommon for me) but then it didn't get better really even when I sat down. I told the director I wasn't okay and she brought me some water (in a cup with a hole in it--we're nerds--it was intended for use as a cup phone anyway). i just wanted to go to the car and rest but I didn't think I could walk to it, so two of them took me over. I barely made it in and had help leaning the seat back and apparently I blacked out for a few minutes after that! Scary! She drove me back to campus and called my mom when I was awake again. I spent the rest of the day laying down and reading. I did go to the doctor and have some tests done but they were all fine. So I'm trying to eat breakfast now and I'm sort of super paranoid about this.

Tuesday I did something smart, I rode my bike to work (note the sarcasm. But I was fine). The rear tire went flat as I got to the FrontRunner station. I only did planetarium stuff, not Science in the Parks, being slightly paranoid. I pumped up my tire at the WRC before trying to go home but I didn't make it down the hill before the tire was flat again. Understand this--my tire should NOT go flat. It has a thorn shield around the inner tube and slime inside the tube. I walked for a while until a bus was supposed to go by that I caught to the FrontRunner again, I rode that home, and another bus, and walked the rest of the way, so I could remove the wheel and check out what happened. The inner tube was split along one of the seams! I'm gonna call that defective and I wanted some warranty service from Wal-Mart. I wasn't able to get there that day. There was a stake pool party that evening and I've sort of been dating a guy so I talked him into taking me there so I wouldn't have to drive (paranoid) and since I couldn't take my bike. Then after that we went to another friends' house to watch a movie and it came out that yeah, we've been dating!

Wednesday was all right, it was cold in the science building so I went outside and sat on a rock under a tree to study for my project at the planetarium. Then I went to my sister's house in Draper to play the piano and make music which didn't happen because her husband was too excited about telling me about the Torah (cool) and how the moon landings are fake (not so interesting). But oh well.

Thursday there was no traffic and I got back to Ogden in good time. I stayed under the tent for Science in the Parks. That evening I ended up going on another date and we went to a show called the 3 Redneck Tenors. It was pretty awesome! We played a game on paper before the show which I will post here as soon as I can get my scanner to work. And we realized after the show that we were pretty much the youngest people there. But the show was so cool! A lot of people missed out apparently. When he took me home the light wasn't on which I thought was weird, then I went inside and tried to turn it on, and it wouldn't. My mom came in and said the power was out. Weird. But it came back on after about 2 hours so not bad.

Friday was good too, I played with the HARBOR cameras and during the HARBOR meeting we joked about trying to get a beer company to sponsor us--if we try to use one of those cup-holder/beer-cosy things as insulation on the cameras. It was funny. That night was the full moon and a lunar eclipse so we had a night-hike. The usual happened--we were on the wrong side of the mountain and pretty much didn't see the moon at all. It was windy at the top of the mountain but we had the usual sushi and music. The eclipse would have been at 4:30 am and no one was about to wait for it! I got home a little before 3 and was in bed a little after 3.

Saturday I was able to go to Wal-Mart and claim my new inner tube. I decided to try a "is there anything you can do to help me" approach rather than a "fix my problem--now!" type of approach, and it went real smooth and I walked out with a free inner tube minutes later! It better not be faulty too... I got it installed with my thorn shield and slime to be "invincible" again and it should be fine now. I was supposed to go teach a lesson with the missionaries but it was cancelled. There was a ward picnic for my parents' ward; I went and ate quickly and then ditched to go out again. It was a much better evening than I could say I've ever had before. And that's all the details I'm going to share! haha! This post is long enough.

iPod touch! Sweet!

I bought some new toys. If you wish, take this as a plug for Apple. Being a student, I can use an education discount and some other sweet deals meaning I COULD have bought a computer, an iPod, and a printer for about $2000, but I DID buy all those things for only $1250. Can you understand how cool this is? I have an iMac! And an iPod touch! And I still have my PowerBook. Apple power! At my work we also use Apples. The school library has all iMacs and I'm just super happy to have my hands on such amazing technology.

It was sad, and somewhat amusing, the other day when the thing I was trying to download would not work on a Mac. I complained about the windows machine I had to use rather loudly and whined that I wanted my Macs back. For the record, I'm typing this post using my new iPod touch. I will give windows something though, at the time it was my first experience using the windows 7 OS and since then I've figured out a few new things about it and I suppose it's not that bad. Admittedly I'm not used to it at all. What can I say? Apple is way cool! And you might expect a few of these posts to be written from my iPod because it's a great use of time while I'm riding public transportation! THIS new toy has convenientized my life. Thanks, Apple!


Sent from my iPod

Another Jam

We had a guest jammer this time. I hope the sound is okay, it sounded great while we were playing. Comments?

Ano . . . I mean what do you think you're doing! The "I can't speak English today" post

Today, I had trouble speaking English. It was an interesting phenomenon. I suppose it was a somewhat stressful situation and I just couldn't express myself in English!

So one of my jobs is called Science in the Parks. We take cool sciencey stuff to parks in Ogden so kids can play with it and be excited to learn. Today what we took were things you fly. Like paper airplanes, and air rockets, and alka-seltzer in film canisters. I was at the alka-seltzer table. First we were letting the kids put their volatile film canisters on the sidewalk. I ended up being the person keeping people away from the explosion zone. Kids can be brats, you know? you tell them over and over and over "DO NOT get close to the other canisters" but they still do. One way we tried to solve this was by getting a second table, and then they could only put their volatile canisters on the table, and then BACK AWAY. It's quite a job keeping a bunch of kids AWAY from this type of thing. If they're not reaching their arms over and getting their face close to the others already going, they're trying to pick up the pieces from off the table or grab theirs again if it's a dud. There were also countless canisters that went off in kids' hands while they were watching it instead of putting it on the table, but no serious injuries.

I was talking constantly saying most of the same things over and over, "stay back" and "they could explode at any time" and "only adults can take things off the table" and at a couple points my frustration level got pretty high and my English just deteriorated. It doesn't help that most of them know Spanish, and may not be great at English. I knew I needed to communicate in simple English but the words would not string together. A couple times I really did slip and say "ano" or "iyon" which no one would understand but maybe it's good I couldn't say much other than "stay back from the table" and no one was offended. It was a great trial of patience, and I guess I survived :-)

I concluded the day with telling our advisor that we need shirts that say "I survived Science in the Parks." Then he said the bookstore will probably donate shirts to us, so arranging the printing won't be too hard. I'm excited for this. 1 park down (well, tomorrow), 5 more to go. If I really do survive through July I'll let you know.

"A Dream to Some, A Nightmare to Others" poetry jam

here's another of my brother-in-law's poems, that we put to music on the spot.

A day in HARBOR

that's High Altitude Reconnaissance Balloon for Outreach and Research

It began last night, when deciding not to have a slumber party at WSU I just showered and went to sleep in my clothes to facilitate a 2:30 ish wake up time. Because the team had to meet at WSU by 3:30 am to depart for Duchesne, Utah, about a 3 hour drive. The whole drive was dark, cold, cloudy, and rainy, much to our dismay, but it's a darn good thing we didn't turn back because once we came out of the canyon and as the sun came up all those things disappeared. It was a perfect day to fly a giant helium balloon! After some hot cocoa and donuts at the airport we had a hurried balloon worshipping session (that's just what it looks like as we steady the thing while inflating it with helium) and got it off into the atmosphere before 9am so the FAA couldn't have a fit with us.

We then drove to Roosevelt, where there is conveniently located a satellite of, well, Utah State University, but it's okay because one of their staff and a student were with us. Still was fun to parade in there with all our purple shirts on. The computer people watched it with their computers, and some of us watched it with our eyes, until the GPS transmitter (aka BATS) indicated the thing was now falling back down to earth (after reaching a height above 92,000').

I guess they did a quick flight prediction and found a bunch of Google maps in the area we thought it would land and started driving that way. So after this, we stopped receiving data from BATS long before the thing hit the ground. That's bad. There was a lot of communication that tried to happen but mostly succeeding by way of MY cell phone, which included new flight predictions, good and faulty GPS locations, and shortage of maps in the actual fall zone to name a few. Some of us met up and we tried to chase the other group but with such limited communication out there in the Utah wilderness it didn't work well.

We ended up an hour down this dirt road with still no sight or GPS of the equipment, when what happens but one of the trucks dies. This is also bad. Cell phone coverage was sooo sketchy someone suggested we try texting, which did work, and we asked for some phone numbers to get a tow truck. Although what ended up happening was (eventually) we went to the Ford dealership in town and gave them the GPS coordinates of the truck we left in the wilderness and they'll go get it. We reorganized ourselves into 2 cars and shortly thereafter who do we meet on the road but the other chase group! They also had no sign of the equipment and said they'd keep looking for a few hours.

We went back to town and then to the airport to move the equipment trailer when what do we realize the trailer keys were still in the truck . . . oops. It's okay. We then proceeded to Heber where we had a nice Mexican dinner (thank you!) and then on home. The other group called while we were eating and said they were unable to locate the stuff or ever get a GPS transmission from BATS. So we have a pretty big area to search where it could have landed (although one [very unlikely] explanation why it stopped after 11,000' is that it unwonderfully happened upon an airplane) and someone realized somewhere that we didn't actually put the "please return to WSU" labels on anything . . . oops again. A friend from the airport will do a flyover tomorrow and team members are willing to go back up another day, like Saturday, to go looking again. But if anyone happens in the Utah wilderness off of U.S.88 past Ft. Duchesne and finds a couple boxes with a parachute, please return to WSU!

Hence
Launch: check.
Flight: check.
Landing: uh, hmmmm.
Recovery: definitely UNcheck

"Waking a Dream" jamming to poetry

This is a poem my sister's husband wrote, and we made a song out of it. Totally made up (except for the words) so post your comments again!

Another test 1.....

We've been jamming for a while, my sister and I, this is in reminiscence of one of our first jam sessions. Please write your comments! What you like, don't like, etc. on all of these

testing... 2...3...4...

Testing... 1...2...3...

I'm working on it

So I have a job, I went back to the planetarium and Dr. Palen was real excited to put me back on the list. This was three weeks ago. Somehow I'm still not on the system. It's weird. I thought it went straight through, because I went to the info desk for an unrelated matter and my name showed up as "hourly," so supposedly it was all good. Oddly though, I was never able to clock in for the first week, so I gave my hours to the secretary and she was confused why I couldn't clock in so she made some calls and it seemed like it would take about a week more... so I continued. The next week I gave her my hours again because I still hadn't been able to clock in. And then this week my boss and secretary and someone in payroll were madly sending emails because it was the end of the pay period (and they want to pay me). One of them was entitled "pointless paperwork" and I was instructed to go to a certain website and fill out a job application. For the job I'd already been working at for two weeks. Uh-huh. Interesting. It was very strange writing a cover letter saying why I should get the job seeing as I already had it! I was summoned to the payroll office yesterday to fill out more paperwork thanks to the Department of Homeland Security. Then I had to go back today so they could see my passport (don't ask me why I need a passport to work on campus!) and so HOPEFULLY tomorrow I get a paycheck... I'm still working at any rate.

And about the title of this post, I working on getting my mission pictures into some kind of organization... here's a teaser:

2 items

1st item
Yesterday I ate boiled eggs for breakfast, pancit canton for lunch, and lumpia for dinner. How Filipino of me :-)

2nd item
Today I went to the pool. It bit me. Happens every time. Even after a two year break! I think it made up for lost time because the gash in my toe is quite large/deep--took 20 minutes to stop bleeding. But I should be fine :-)

culture shock in forms (or phones)

So my adjustment is going pretty well but yes there has been some weirdness for me. I guess that's what culture shock is. At first is was mostly about food. Why is there never rice? And there's the spoon-and-fork thing. There's stories here: so the FIlipinos eat with a spoon and a fork. When I was new out there I tried to watch my trainer eat and copy her. And it was very hard. After 2 or 3 weeks I noticed something--everyone else ate backwards from her. My trainer was left-handed! Once I switched hands, it was SO much easier! Then I always ate like a Filipino, unless there was a shortage of spoons then I ate with a fork like an American but that didn't happen very much. (If there was a shortage of spoons AND forks, I could also eat like a Filipino--with my hands). Here's the real story: On my last day, we ate in the mission home and at one meal we had salad first. I dished up my salad and was thinking (and I probably said something) about how American it is to have salad first. Then I promptly picked up my spoon and fork, and . . . had no idea what to do. Serious, there was some kind of conflict in my mind, "how am I supposed to get this on my spoon?" and "I know forks and lettuce go together but my fork is in the wrong hand" and such, for a few moments really. Then I realized, yes I need to be American and use a fork, and I did and ate my salad successfully. Since I've been home, there was a day we ate meat and I didn't want a knife I just wanted to use my spoon.
My biggest culture shock that I am still going through is the cell phone. In the Philippines Quezon City mission, since I got there, all the sisters have one cell phone per companionship. The senior companion would hold it. I was a senior for the last 11 months and so got quite used to the Filipino style of cell-phoning. This is going to be hard to explain . . . . Most of the time you don't call anyone, but if you do it's usually not because you want to talk with them. You text people. Texting is more efficient money-wise. There are no phone plans in the Philippines, it's all pre-paid--you load your phone with money and as you use it the amount goes down, and talking to people makes it go down faster than texting people. So, you text people. If you text someone and they don't reply, you may call them, but not to talk to them! It's so their phone will make noise, they will hear it, read your text and reply. They call it "missed call". Then if they still don't reply after you missed call them, it means they have no money left on their phone and so if it's pretty urgent then you really call them, and you get straight to the point or you're going to run out of money too. Really, you just say what you need to say, get an answer, and that's it. Introducing who you are and other unnecessary chit-chat are usually omitted. Earlier when I was impatiently waiting for people to reply, because I know I can't do the "missed call", my Dad said "have you CALLED anyone?" And it was just kind of a weird feeling that "yeah, I guess I could call someone--and talk to them." So I did. And it was rather abrupt. But yup, that's my culture shock. I have unlimited text at this point and it's fine with me! If it's not fine with everyone else, sorry, it's just going to take some time to get used to American-style cell-phoning again.

HELLO!!!!!!

Well, I'm back! Time to start internetting again. Sigh. You know, missionary life is so simple-- you can use a computer for one hour a week, that's all. Now it's like, you can use a computer for one hour every hour . . . or something ;-). So I'll be periodically inserting mission stories and other random happenings here for you in the underworld. Let's start with some airplane adventures:

I live in Utah so I didn't have to fly to the MTC although that would have been fun. When we left the MTC it was November 11, 2008. Me and 6 elders. We went straight to the airport and made our way to the gate with stops for pizza and such. We had time so planned to call parentals before we had to board, but what happened is there weren't enough phones so we were going to split the time and the first elders took all the time so the other half of us had to wait until LA or Taipei. Probably Taipei, because we would only have 2 hours in LA but 4 in Taipei. What happened is when we got to LA they changed our flight so we only had 1 hour. I guess that would be all right except it was November (close to Christmas?) and there was some kind of construction on the airport, or something, well anyway there were a couple REALLY long lines we had to stand in and it was an exciting time to put it lightly. We DID make it onto the plane. BUT then we didn't go anywhere. For about an hour we didn't know what was going on. After another hour we still didn't know. It was about midnight at this time so we tried to sleep a little but you know how airplane seats are. Before the third hour was up somehow we learned why we hadn't gone anywhere--there was a bomb threat to our plane! By the end of that hour the police had showed up and boarded the plane and I think they took someone off and/or a few bags. At least they didn't make everyone get off, there were a lot of people on that plane. After another hour we were able to take off. That makes a grand total of sitting in the airplane without even going anywhere for 4 hours! Then the flight was about 13 hours after that. Hooray! Good thing our layover in Taipei was supposed to be 5 hours . . . so yeah then we only had 1 hour which is actually less than that because you have to get on the plane like, half an hour early right? so yeah. We found a bathroom and then the other half of us tried to call home. That was interesting. And then they weren't expecting me anymore so we didn't get to say much and then the elders were like, "we have to get on the plane now!" so yeah. That flight was only an hour. We got out of the airport all right and by the time we got to the mission home it had been 30 hours since we left the MTC, and we did not experience Wednesday November 12, it went straight to Thursday November 13. And that's what I know so we'll leave it there.

When we flew home it was April 1, 2010. I only had one companion this time, an elder again. We left the mission home at 5am and there were no problems getting anywhere we made it onto our flight to Japan right on time. But we didn't leave on time. This was the deal this time, we were supposed to have a 2 hour layover in Tokyo and a longer one in San Francisco. So the plane pulled out from the gate and then it stopped. After half an hour the pilot came on the intercom and told us the check engine light was on . . . and they'd get it fixed in 30-60 minutes . . . hmmmm. Well it was fixed in 30 minutes then there was paperwork for just that long again and so we took off 2 hours later than we were supposed to. Great, we think, we're going to be stuck in Japan. So we get there, and go to land, then suddenly the plane pulls up again. Yeah, that's weird . . . after we're over the ocean again the pilot tells us he doesn't know if we'll be able to land. It's really windy he says. Then, oh, and there's a plane stuck on the runway that blew a tire trying to land. Of course the one runway was closed because there's a plane on it. They closed the other runway because of the wind. We circled around for a while but eventually (after an hour) were able to land. We didn't worry too much about missing our flight since even though no one could land for a while, no one was able to take off either. BUT then they made us go through security AGAIN, I don't know why, but somehow our plane waited for us and we got on and then left--the gate . . . remember there's a plane stuck on one runway and there's only two runways. People are landing and people are taking off but it's a very slow process when you have an international airport like that with so many planes coming and going. Fortunately I guess we only waited in line for 1 hour before taking off, making us 2 hours late. But somehow that nice long flight was 1 hour shorter than it was supposed to be, thank you jet stream. In California we cleared customs just fine and that elder went home and I rechecked my bags and went to the gate to wait another hour before my flight home. So I'm looking out the window enjoying the spring-like weather, and I'm thinking, "yeah, it's probably something like that in Salt Lake, maybe fewer clouds but very nice--because it's April now, that's springtime"and along those lines. I even talked with this guy who was going out there for a ski trip, he asked me what the weather is like in Utah. I told him what I just told you and was ok with the idea that there's snow in the mountains, that's how it's supposed to be. Then when we're on the plane the captain says "now we're headed to snowy Utah" and I wasn't excited anymore. For the weather, that is. Those of you who are also from here know that yes, it snowed, and it was cold. Good thing my mom brought me a coat. So, no more problems, my family was there, we went straight to the church, I got released, and we went home. It took about 28 hours total, leaving April 1 in the morning and getting there/here April 1 in the afternoon.