Charitable deed.

I participate the crap out of my night class. Not because the grad student who teaches it is any good. Nor is it because my classmates make it the best two and a half hours of my life. It is because my teacher is so bad, and my classmates so dull, that I feel the need to pipe up in class like never before. If I don't, the silence that causes my teacher's face to look so crestfallen makes me almost want to cry.

Moment #237

The number of embarrassing moments continue to climb as I finish up my last year at BYU. The Outlaw has good reason to be afraid of spending time with me in public. Here's a conversation I had with one of the many helpful librarians at school.

Librarian: Hi! Can I help you?

Me: Yes. I'm looking for Sex With Kings.

Librarian:.... (silence).

Me: Let me clarify. The title of the book I cannot find is called "Sex with Kings."

Librarian: Um...sure. Let me look that up for you...and you're sure we have it?

Me: Absolutely.

Librarian: That sure is an interesting title.

Me: Yep.

We did find the book in the history section. We had a nice chat about the contents of the book. He was even nice enough to wave the hefty twenty-two dollar fine that I had on my account. So, next time you guys have a library fine... You know what to do.

Ugly duckling....wait, I'm an adult. So...just an ugly swan.

I had two blisters on my hand from cooking. I walked up behind my mom to show her. I stuck out my hand and said, "look how ugly!" She turned and without glancing at my hand, immediately scrutinized my face and said, "no, it's not that bad." Thanks mom.

This MUST be Addressed

I've returned...for now. But, I've noticed a troubling trend among men in their mid to late 50's which must be mentioned. It is NEVER ok, no matter how classy it may look, to wear a Disney wrist watch. Now that that is in the open, I think I can attempt to blog again. (That is if I ever get internet at my house and stop bumming around Starbucks.)

Contentment

Courtesy of the Outlaw, I now have in my possession an adorable recipe box. I wish I could put into words what I feel every time I put in a recipe card. I imagine the feeling to be similar to what Paula Deen experiences every time she unwraps another stick of butter.

Celebrities....almost.

During dinner last night, my roommates were bragging about church authorities that they've met. One kept trying to top the other.

"I saw Elder Uchtdorf at a conference six months ago."
"Oh, really? That's awesome! I shook President Hinckley's hand at a devotional last year."
"No kidding! You got to shake his hand?? Elder Packer gave me a hug once. AND, this was pretty exciting, but Mitt Romney was in my room while I was in Jerusalem for study abroad. I wasn't in my room, but he was in it."

After a few minutes of this, I felt like I needed to chip in my two cents as well. But then I was slightly panicked because I couldn't think of any general authorities that I've met. I mean, of course I saw president Hinckley at a devotional once, but that sounds super lame after all of the AWESOME meet and greets the others were boasting about. Finally, I could feel the eyes turning towards me, all of them just waiting for me to top all of their comments with some spectacular revelation about the experience I had. For a split second, I thought about making something up. I mean, it's not like they'd ever find out whether or not I really sat next to President Monson on the bus once. Or that after the bus ride, he took such an interest in me he just had to invite me to dinner with his family. But, alas, I remembered that I am a terrible liar. So I spit out the truth. The truth being that the only "celebrity" experience I have ever had was when Donny Osmond shook my hand and thanked me for playing so well in the pit during his son's performance in Secret Garden.

Lessons

To those of you who didn't know, I've been living in the FLSR (or as Bret likes to say, The FLISH) for the summer. I am the native speaker for the Chinese house. It's been an interesting experience so far. I'd like to think that they've been learning lots from me. But I'll be honest. After being forced (for my own good) to move from Taiwan to the United States when I was in second grade, I wasn't left with a lot of language skills to teach. I'm actually certain that I've been learning more from them than they've been learning from me. A couple of lessons I've learned are:

1. It's a fun game to see just how high you can stack the garbage on top of the garbage can before it's necessary to start putting trash on the ground NEXT to the garbage can.

2. It is incredibly difficult to put a new roll of toilet paper on the toilet roll dispenser. it's much easier to put the new roll on the ground and bend down each time you need it to use it.

Those were really the only ones worth mentioning. I can't wait to share these lessons with my family when I move home.