Just a few funny things

I haven't said anything in a while, but I see little things all the time that make me laugh so I thought I would do a short post about them.

A few weeks ago, I saw a sign in the FOB that said "One in three people need blood during their lifetime." How cool would that be to be one of the two thirds who don't need blood? And how does one find out that they don't need their blood? I'm pretty sure we are all born with it.

Crolace was talking to me the other day about how she heard on the radio that this year half of the United States will become Hispanic. It would've been convenient to have been in the half that changed since I've been applying to graduate schools recently and all of them ask about that.

I saw a banner about a regional Singles Christmas Fireside that said that only those 8 years and older are invited. I'm trying to think of why a 9 year-old would go. They must just be planning way in advance.

I asked my mother today if being nicer to people was a good goal. She told me that it wasn't since I couldn't attain it. It's good to have a mother who believes in me. (In her defense, I think that she meant that it's not a good goal since it is something that is not measurable.)

That's not quite right

Yesterday, I went to visit a friend of mine. I had never been to his apartment before, and when I walked in I saw this poster on the wall:


"Your apartment comes complete with Marilyn Manson, I see," I said as I walked in.

He looked at me a little funny and said "Yeah."

That night, I tried to go to bed early because I've been a little sick recently, and I'm trying to get better. After lying there for about 30 minutes, I suddenly realized why he had looked at me funny: Marilyn Manson is a very different person than Marilyn Monroe. I don't know if it is more funny that I made the mistake or that I realized it spontaneously 4 hours later. It wasn't like it was on my mind or anything.

In any case, it was nice of my friend to not say anything about it to avoid an embarrassing circumstance for me. It doesn't even occur to me most of the time not to correct someone when I know they are wrong. In fact, in a lot of circumstances I feel like I'm doing them a favor. (Like the other day, someone told me that the only baptismal fonts on campus were in the JSB and the JKB, and I was pretty sure that there was only one in the JSB. So I called the BYU operators and they confirmed my suspicion and told me that if I wanted to schedule it, I could do it through Campus Scheduling, but not until Monday because they aren't open on Saturdays and Sundays.)

Maybe I should be more willing to let people be wrong for the purpose of more harmony. I need to think about this some more.

People watching

I know lots of people who like to sit in the CougarEat or Brigham Square and just watch people go by. Me too. In fact, I occasionally take it even further and I follow people around to see what they are doing and talking about. This is more tricky because they can't know you are following them. If they are hard to understand, I will sometimes walk in front of them and try to guess where they are going. This tactic usually doesn't work as well.

This being said, I do have a little respect for privacy, and if they are talking about something really personal, I don't listen in. However, I have taken detours for discussions of health-care, anti-matter, and literature. People are really interesting.

Speaking of interesting people, a friend showed me this link today. The first one is about a Mormon missionary. I've listened to 2 of them now and they were both amazing.

Word Play

I'm a fan. I suppose I can't claim to have never groaned at a forced pun, but I really do appreciate that sort of thing most of the time.

Tonight, I was talking to my roommates about massages and one of them told us about a lady that once gave him a great one.

"She's a really good. . . massager. . . massoose. . ." he said.

"Misogynist," I said. No one laughed. They either didn't get it or didn't think it was funny. Either way, it made me sad.

Two things I've learned this summer

To keep my mouth shut more:
At the beginning of the summer, I was working away at my desk listening to my iPod when my cubicle neighbor came over, tapped me on the shoulder, and said, "Your humming is very nice, but I'm having a hard time focusing over here." What made it even worse is that I knew she was there and was making a conscience effort not to hum or sing or tap my desk in time to the music. And I did it anyways. I've been trying really hard since then, and I think that I'm better at not bothering people anymore. Or perhaps they've all decided to work in other places since it seems that my area of the cubicle farm is relatively vacant recently.

To open my mouth more:
One thing that I love about Boston is that more than 10% of the people I know aren't Mormon, so I get to be a sort of liason for the Church. I've had all sorts of great experiences talking to people about it, and I love it. My favorite story from this summer so far is helping a Norweigan stranger break into someone's house and then inviting him to church.

Alarm Days

I've realized that I really enjoy waking up to an alarm. Here is what happens in an alarm and a non-alarm scenario:

Non-alarm: I wake up briefly as the light starts pouring in the windows. I don't need to get up, so I pull my blanket over my head and try to fall back asleep. I wake up again when I start to hear other people bustling around the house. I don't need to get up, so I put my pillow over my head and try to fall back asleep. I wake up again because I've been lying in bed a long time. I don't need to get up, so I just lie there awake. I get bored so I eventually get out of bed and climb into the shower. Eventually, I make it work an hour and a half or two hours later and sluggishly work on the projects that I've been assigned. After 8 hours at work, I've done about 6 hours of work. I leave that evening, telling myself that I will work an extra hour the next day to fill the 7 hours of work that I'm supposed to be doing each day. (Lest anyone worry, I do work the extra hour the next day.)

Alarm: I wake up to the gentle buzzing of my cell phone on vibrate mode. If I'm concerned that I'm tired and won't wake up to the buzzing of my phone, I put my phone on my desk, and I wake up to the buzzing of my phone on my desk (which is louder). Since it is time to get up, I hop out of bed, hop in the shower, eat a quick breakfast and I'm at my office in under an hour. Maintaining the pace of the day, I make all sorts of beautiful figures and amazing discoveries at work and can leave at 3 pm since I got to work so early and have been so effective all day long. If the previous day was a non-alarm day, I happily work till 4 pm because time flies when you are effective. Life is great.

Sometimes non-alarm days are a little more effective than this, and alarm days are a little less effective than this, but this is the general idea.

The Charles River

This picture shows how good of a photographer I am. Look at my beautiful fingers on the left. The big problem was that this photo was taken from the inside of the Boston Metro (the T), and I was trying to cover the flash so the camera could actually see through the window.

Another sign of how good of a photographer I am is that I really wanted this picture to focus on the sailboats in the river, and I'm not sure you can even tell that is what they are. Oh well.

One really fun thing about Boston is that they love their river, the Charles. Even in this dreary weather that we've been having lately, there are always people out rowing or sailing or doing whatever else you might do in a river. They have a really nice trail that runs along both sides of the river too, so bikers and joggers can enjoy it. I don't blame them for how much they like it. It really is very calm and majestic.

I think that most people think of rivers as inconveniences these days since they get in the way of where we want to go, and we don't get the commercial use out of them that we used to. I have to admit, a couple weeks ago I was trying to take advantage of the beautiful trails along the river and took the one bridge that doesn't connect the trails on both sides. Instead it brought me into the middle of Boston University (which is a nice place, but not where I wanted to be right then). What I wanted to be a brief 3 mile jog turned into a 6.5 mile one as I ran around the Boston area lost, trying to find my way back across the river. This, though, was not the fault of the river, but of the person who thought that since I wanted to cross the river, I also wanted to cross the freeway and the railroad.

In any case, perhaps I'll get a better river picture one of these days, and post that one, so you can see it a bit better.

Today, I'm leaving to California, so I probably will have to post my daily pictures all at once on Sunday.