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.