No, I Didn't Drop Off the Map

I'm surprised to be were I am today. Honestly. 2-3 years ago, I would've said I didn't associate with girls, I wouldn't be caught dead dancing, my parents aren't as smart as people say they are, and electronic entertainment is the only thing that's fun to do in my spare time. Now, I couldn't even begin to imagine life without dance, most of my best friends are girls, I hardly ever touch game systems in any form (for games, since I obviously use the computer fairly frequently), and I have a deep respect for my parents and their cumulative wisdom.

I haven't really been posting very much... I know I said I would, but well, I got busy, forgot, and only remembered when I couldn't do anything about it. Hence, I'm now writing about things that happened clear back in December and bringing anybody who reads this up to speed with how I've been up until now.

I'll start with the Christmas Dance. I had been forewarned actually. I knew I was going to be asked the day before I was. My contact wasn't specific on who it was who was asking me. This annoyed me to no end. I hate surprises, I always have. I'd be much more content if people would just tell me and then have me act surprised, it would make things much more enjoyable. Anyway, it was a Saturday. Since I'm a bagger, I have to work Saturday, unless I have a really good reason to miss. I got off work and called my mom to come pick me up. No sooner do I hop in the car, than my mom says, "Brian, you have a surprise waiting for you at home." I guess you'd have to know my mom in order to understand how she said it, but I could guess everything except who asked me on the car ride home. When I got home, I found a bag of Salt Water taffy. I had to search through all the taffy's in order to peice together the message. I'd been asked by Susana. I said "yes", of course, there's a no brainer. Ironically, even though I talked to Susana on a regular basis, we never talked about/planned the dance at school. In fact, to my eternal regret, the first time either of us mentioned it again, was a week before the dance. By this time it was too late to put in my schedule for work and I ended up missing the day activity because of work. This made me sad, because I was really looking forward to this, as my first dance. Oh my, I'm getting carried away with details that nobody really wants too read... Well, to make a long story short, I had one of the best times of my life that day, and I wish that I could've videoed it so I could play it over again and again. Our dance group was great and I've made more friends because of it.

It was around this time that I started becoming friends with the people I had titled "The Susana and Brennon group". They were the only two people in the group that I was really friends with, but I was acquainted with all of them. I've gotten to be quite close with these people by now, and, if I had to choose a group to hang with all day every day, which is what happens frequently at Davis, it'd probably be them. Fortuanately, that kind of behavior isn't in my nature.

After Christmas time, life rolled on in it's normal, usual manner. I don't know whether it's a blessing or a curse that I don't deal with drama like the rest of people my age do. Sometimes I wish I did, because I feel kinda left out, but then I remind myself how miserable some people get because of it and how it changes people. I don't want to change dramatically like that, I want to be constant. I want to be someone who, no matter what, will alway's be close to the same, so that when someone else goes through a hard time, they can have the assurance that someone hasn't changed. In the book "To Kill a Mockingbird" by Harper Lee, theres a quote, "Some men in this world have been born to do unpleasant things..." (or something to that effect, since I'm going off memory here). I think that's actually a really good discription of me. Some people say that I've got it easy, not having drama and all, but I think they aren't counting there blessings, because being the odd one out is just as bad, and in my opinion worse.

Anyway, Sweethearts dance came, and with it, another host of fond memories. I got to meet a ton of cool people at Layton High that I didn't know until then. I was the only Davis kid there for the day activity, which was seeing the Pink Panther 2. At the dance I saw a ton of old friends. It actually made me sad. I was hoping that my friends would be the same, or at least, close to it. Nope. Go take a flying leap, Brian, cause that isn't the way it was. Don't get me wrong, I was glad to see them, and I love them still the same, but there was distance, and a change that was subtlely unsubtle. Oh well, part of high school I guess.

Sometime around this time, I started becoming...I guess a little more vain. I'm not really sure what brought it on, but all of a sudden I was using hair gel, buying designer clothes (AM's my favorite, I think), and I don't really know, but lot's of other really small changes. I guess this is what pushed the tables against me with my lunch group. All of a sudden I was drifting away from them. I didn't notice until later that all of a sudden, I didn't know how some of them were doing, because I just hadn't seen them. I've tried to make amends to that, with limited success, since the damage was done. Anyway, it's around this time that I developed my main philosophy on life (which I will be writing a blog on shortly), and swore myself to follow it always.

Time rolled on. Work was being brutal to me at 13 hours reliably every week, school was driving me insane, and a previously fast school year started becoming incredibly slow. My only relief was came in the form of Ballroom dancing. We were practicing quite hard for our upcoming performance and was the most relaxing thing I had... sad, huh? The performance rolled around, was an absolute success, and my performing high helped me restore an attitude of optimism. Within the week I had gone from and emotional Bottom, to Top, and then leveled out.

Amidst all the confusion, some of my Layton friends had 2 movie night party things. It was interesting times. I'd always know Morgan McDaniel, but I became better friends with her because of these party things. I eventually went to Morp with her, which was really fun, except that they played really terrible music that I don't really want to listen to ever again. I saw friends, who had changed even more, and promised myself that I'd have a get-together kind of thing sometime.

Now schools ended. I'll be honest, I'm worried. I'm not looking forward to next year... It'll be my hardest year in school, since I'm going from 0 AP tests to 5. I don't want to see my friends grow anymore distant. On top of all this, I'll be working, doing even more competetive ballroom, and who knows what else. You know what, though, I take that all back. I want these things to come. This is my challenge, my test. It's up to me to decide how I handle this. I need these things to happen to me. Why? Because they're happening to me for a reason. This is the way things were meant to be.


P.S. I'm sure that I made quite a few grammatical errors and such. Try not to let it bug you too much, because I'm not going to edit through this... to little time, so much to do, you know the drill.

Time is a Roller Coaster...unfortunately...

I'm not sure what it is about time, but I'm getting increasingly frustrated with it... I wish that it would just slow down. Life is like those amusement park rides. You spend half your time walking around deciding what rides to go on, 3/4's of the remaining time is spent waiting in line, and only 2-4 minutes of actual enjoyment are your rewards.

Personality Quiz

A while back, Jojo posted a Personality Profiler to her blog and asked if anyone else had done it. Well, I have now! I was really rather skeptical that it would be able to accurately describe me...and I was part right. It didn't get me exactly, but it did get close. I've edited the parts that don't describe me.

ENTAs are forceful, direct, driven, and adventurous. As an ENTA you place significant importance on your ability to solve complex, abstract challenges through analysis and mental effort. You value intellectual independence above all. You are willing to consider new information and differing points of view only when you think it strategically advantageous to do so.You enjoy being around people who are as highly motivated as you are, but you also like to spend time with people who recognize and need your natural leadership ability. However, you may become frustrated when people do not display a minimal amount of competence in their areas of responsibility (or act just plain stupid). You enjoy a good debate or intellectual discussion, and you are often able to come up with novel solutions for complex problems. Participating in group activities does energize you, but you may contribute the most by working autonomously.

You like to establish goals and then motivate people to work towards them with you. You believe that power is earned through superior leadership and competence. You like to work as part of a group with people you identify as experts in their respective fields. You always think of ways to improve things, people, processes, and outcomes. You pursue new ideas with great enthusiasm. However, you are easily bored once the idea is in place and the job becomes one of administration only or involves mundane tasks. You always have a new thought on the subject at hand and a willingness to tell others what it is. This sometimes manifests itself as a tendency to change your mind repeatedly, sometimes to a fault.

You are a broadly curious, innovative, autonomous thinker and an energetic, enterprising, and voracious learner. You enjoy fitting broadly defined ideas into larger patterns and theories. You like to conform to society's norms, but often don't, and may emphasize the importance of doing so to others, especially as a means of realizing your own goals and ambitions.

ENTAs are most often found in career fields that are adventurous and intellectual. As an ENTA you will be most satisfied and productive when you are involved in work that emphasizes your leadership ability and creative vision for the future. You are interested in jobs that allow you to continually develop your base of knowledge, exercise your imagination and maintain autonomy.

It's a little weird that it could even get this accurate, but I still hold to my opinion that I'm the only one who can say who I AM.

Kinda Odd Story

The world is a confusing place; full of confusing people, doing confusing things at the most peculiar times. For example, I was just recently working myself to death at Bowman's grocery store. I work there as a bagger so obviously I get quite a lot of contact with the world outside of high school (jr. high for some of you) politics and such. Anyway, I was just pushing a cart back into the store for about the thousandth time that day, when some random, weird person jumps out of a SUV and starts yelling at nobody in particular. As you can probably imagine, I was just standing there looking like a dufus with my mouth open in wonder.

A Reflective Essay I Wrote on Honors English 9 for my Honors English 10 Class

One of the most earth shattering changes in my life, that I actually remember, was when I decided to do the Honors English program in 9th grade. This was probably one of the biggest academic breakthroughs that I have ever made. It not only helped me to get more organized, but it introduced me to a part of myself I never knew I had. I discovered in me a place for the English language. I’d hated English all the way through school. Until then, I had a really hard time with all of the essays and other assignments that were done in class.
7th and 8th grade were one of my least favorite periods of time as far as English was concerned. I had several essays and research papers which I only did well on because of the constant pressure at home to do well. I was also very disorganized. I never knew when my assignments were due, and when I did, they were done sloppily.
In 9th grade I did better. “This is the year,” I would tell myself during ninth grade. “This year I will shape up, I will get good grades because this year counts. Colleges are going to look at this year and judge me by it.” It was then that I decided that, even though I loathed English, I was going to enroll in the honors program that was offered.
My first impression of the Honors English program wasn’t too good. All the enrolled kids filled into the computer lab and we were introduced by Mr. Thompson, or, as we students called him, Mr. T. We were told that it would be an online course and it would have to be done on our own time. We spent the rest of the time setting up our various online accounts for the class.
The class was by no means easy. It was very thought-provoking and tough, unlike a regular English class. We were required to write at least 500 words on an online blog every week, as well as respond to various questions that Mr. T would see fit to throw at us. We always had required reading for the term and there was often some sort of essay that had to be written about the story. We had to enter writing contests on two occasions and several people’s poems or short stories won prizes and got published, mine included.
The most amazing thing about this was that it all had to be done in addition to everything else. I was already on the math “fast-track” and had several days of what seemed like straight homework. Somehow, though, I always got my stuff in by their due dates.
I believe I mentioned earlier that it was a thought-provoking class. Now, I don’t actually think that the phrase “thought provoking” is strong enough for how hard it really was, and how much effort you had to put into your thoughts. I remember one of the questions that Mr. T asked us one day. It went something like this: Read my blog and tell me what you think about the issue that is discussed. The blog was about how kids are needing to have things handed to them on a silver platter. The reason I remember this question is because not only did it point to a real truth in how human beings have degraded themselves, but I spent the better part of two hours writing a reply to it. Another way in which the class was thought provoking was with the blogs. We were NEVER given a topic. We never had anything specific to write about. That may not sound all that hard, and for some of us it’s not. But for the large majority of us, it will be. You see, that class is what really showed me what our society and public education has done to us. It has brainwashed us, you could say, because most of us require someone else to do the actual thinking. Society and public education have done this by small, seemingly insignificant stuff like providing us detailed topics for writing assignments and restricting what we can or can’t write.
Anyway, as the year progressed, I found writing was becoming more and more enjoyable. I didn’t love it, and I still don’t, but I definitely have opened up myself to it. I no longer loathe English, and I actually learn during class now. I was also able to meet a bunch of kids, with whom I am still friends with even though we now attend separate high schools. I sometimes think that it wasn’t me that got me through the class, but rather my friends and, of course, my family’s friendship and support. Finally the school year ended. The class was now less than half the size that it once was and those of us who hadn’t dropped out had earned our credits. This says something about how hard it was!
Now, although I am no longer in Honors English 9, I still have my blog, which I post on occasionally. It’s no longer 500 words a week, but still, it’s there. That fact, I think, is in and of itself a very big, major change in my character. In seventh and eighth grade, you wouldn’t ever have caught me writing. Now, all of a sudden, I’m doing it for fun in my spare time...Go figure!

It's So Much Better!

I love high school compared to jr. high! My classes are as follows:

1. Computer Tech- Not my choice class, but I guess it's not too bad. The teacher (Mrs. Gooch) isn't the nicest teacher in the school, but she's nicer than the some, so I'm not complaining.
2. Debate 1- Way cool course, with the coolest teacher in the entire school. Mrs. Hyer is way funny, and she actually does teach us. I haven't actually had Mr. T, but I imagine that her personality and teaching ethic is very similar to his.
3. Fit For Life- This is the only class I think I'll have problems in, but not because it's hard. The teacher is very, very disorganized. On the first day, she spent twenty-thirty minutes trying to sound out everybody's name. It made her look, um....well, like a high school drop-out or something. It's not very nice I know, but...
4. Chemistry Honors- This class is the only science class that didn't sound boring to me. I'd fall asleep in biology really, really fast, and physics isn't much better. Chemistry, on the other hand, sounds somewhat fun, and very helpful. It also helps that a lot of my friends are doing it. My chemistry teacher is good and fun, but she talks a little on the fast side, so we have to ask her to repeat things occasionally.
   
5. World Civ- Ha ha! I was going to do AP Euro, but I decided that I didn't want 4 hours of homework, so I switched to World Civ. Now I only have 2 hours of homework a day (kidding)!
6. Pre-Calc Honors-Sooooo much better than last year. My teacher, Mrs. Brough, is way nice. She allows us to actually work during close, which is a luxury that I wasn't giving last year. The teacher actually teaches us, instead of giving us examples and saying "go figure it out".
7. Seminary- Good old seminary! My teacher is Brother Clayton, and is the first person from Idaho that I've ever met with no Idahoan accent. He's pretty cool, too.
8. English Honors-This class is kinda wierd, since we have a substitute for three-four more weeks. The substitute isn't too bad though, since when she was a teacher, she taught 10th grade English Honors. We're expected to do quite a lot in this class, but it's not too bad.
   

School...again

I've never been one who likes or enjoys school, but I can't help but be a little excited for high school. I'm not saying I have school spirit or anything, because I don't. It's just that I like to try new stuff, which is odd because I don't like change either (in fact, I get extremely stubborn when it comes to changing). High school has a lot more options too. I'm still sad about my friends who I'm leaving. Although hopefully we'll be able to get together often!

My Vacation

These are pictures that were taken on my vacation to California! On my vacation I went to Lassen Volcanic National Park, Calaveras Big Trees State Park(Sequoia trees), and two different gold mines that one of my ancestors worked in.

This is the peak of Mt. Lassen, a volcano, which my dad, brother (Dan) and I all hiked

My brother and I climbing to the peak of Lassen.

A snowball fight on the top of a volcano!

A lizard friend that followed us all over the park.

My brother and I by a cool machine at the top of the volcano!

A place called Bumpass Hell in Lassen which had boiling pools and bubbling mudpots.

My dad, sister (Emily), and myself at the Kentucky Gold Mine.

I get to turn on a watermill! These were very powerful!

A different, bigger gold mine-Kennedy Gold Mine.

My brothers and I on a cement platform at the Kennedy Gold Mine.

My brother (Ammon) and sister (Emily) doing a silly dance in an Indian house.

My brother and I dueling with sticks at Big Trees State Park.

Some of my family posing inside an uprooted giant tree.

I was the self-proclaimed fire master on the trip. I built and maintained every fire made.

My family, minus parents, at the root of a giant Sequoia.

Laser Tag

Amidst all the boredom of summer, there are some days where I actually can do something fun! LASER TAG!!!!!!! As you might have guessed, I really like it. It's kind of like paintball, with an arena and obstacles and stuff, but it doesn't hurt! You run around so much (which is technically against the rules), but you don't even really notice! If you haven't tried it, you HAVE to!

Driving

Well, I got my permit yesterday! It's kind of exciting to finally be driving, although to tell the truth I'm not nearly as excited as people are telling me I should be. Anyway, I got to drive around a church parking lot for a little while yesterday and I'm going to be learning the ways of the stick shift today! Hope you're all doing well!

The Parting of Ways

Isn't it ironic that every ray of sunshine has a shadow to counter it? This year has been my favorite year in school. I learned how to focus better in school so I'd do well, I made way more friends, and had relatively good classes and teachers (with a few exceptions). This has also been my least favorite school year. A lot of my friends (including my best friend) are going to go to Layton HS next year, while I go to Davis. Also, I've now got an overloaded 10th grade year to look forward to next year! Still, I wouldn't do 9th grade over again, as it was as close to a perfect year as I'll ever get. And anyway, if all goes as planned, I'll stay in contact with my friends and we'll get together frequently over the next few years.

Because it was my last year in Jr. High, my parents bought me a yearbook this year! At the signing, I was kind of shocked at how many people I knew! I spent forever getting all my friends and favorite teachers to sign my yearbook. Thank you everyone for signing! You're all amazing people! Keep reading my blogs!

Letter From Mr. T

This is my letter from Mr. T written by myself. The assignment was to write a letter from Mr. T's perspective and give yourself an analysis on how you did in the course. I personally think that this letter is not all that far off from the truth and I'm sure Mr. T agrees as well!

Dear Moe,
Bravo! There is nothing that I like more in a student, especially when in honors, than having a student who will stick it through to the very end. In your case, what makes sticking it through even more incredible, is you posted everything on time for both your blog and your forum. You also did every writing contest and essay on time, too! This is not something that I can say about every student, which makes the praise that much more special. The only problem that I have to admonish you on is that while you did everything on time, occasionally it wasn't your VERY best work. I would imagine that this would be a result of procrastination and encourage you to change such behavior as you move on to a less forgiving high school. Overall, however, I believe that you deserve an "A" for the class for on time, relatively creative blogs and forum posts. I could tell that as the year passed, your posts become a lot more organized and the errors in them lessened. Once again, Bravo!

Sincerely,
Mr. T

"So Long And Thanks For All The Fish"!

Well, since this is probably among the last posts I'll ever make on my blog, I'll take this chance to say good-bye to all the friends and family who ever bothered to read what I wrote. I'd also like to wish the worst of luck to anyone who didn' t read what I wrote! OK, I'm just kidding there! I'll probably still post on my blog every once and a while, but I doubt I'll ever write a 500 word post again! Phew!

Literary Comparison

Literary Comparison: To Kill A Mockingbird and Walk Two Moons

Scout and Salamanca are two very interesting, girl characters from two different books. Scout is the main character from To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee. Salamanca is the main character from Walk Two Moons by Sharon Creech. Both girls, however, have lots of similarities and differences between them. Both characters are brave, but while Scout is a tomboy and close to her father, Salamanca is a normal girl who is distanced from her father.

One of the ways in which the two characters are different is in their views of their fathers. In To Kill A Mockingbird, Atticus, the father, is someone who Scout admires a lot. This is a quote that I thought brought this point together really well. “It was times like these when I thought my father, who hated guns and had never been to any wars, was the bravest man who ever lived.”(Scout’s thoughts from Chapter 11, pg. 105). In this passage, Scout is admiring her father because he acted nobly in shooting the rabid dog. Salamanca, from Walk Two Moons, on the other hand, seemed to think that her dad was good, but not the best. This is done more with a regretful tone rather than outrightly stating it. A quote that sort of shows this is as follows. “I wish my father had not been such a good man so I could have had someone to blame for my mother’s leaving.” (Salamanca’s thoughts from chapter 18, pg. 113). All throughout the chapter, you get hints such as this one which pretty much say that Salamanca thinks he’s a respectable guy, but not an outstanding character. As you can see, Scout worships her father, while Salamanca only respects hers.

Another difference between the two characters, Scout and Salamanca, is their upbringing. Scout was raised as a tomboy. She beat up people she didn’t like, wore overalls, and hated dresses. A quote that illustrates this from To Kill aA Mockingbird states, “She seemed glad to see me when I appeared in the kitchen, and by watching her I began to think there was some skill involved in being a girl.” (Scout’s thoughts from Chapter 12, pg. 124) Scout knows that she is a girl, but she hasn’t been brought up to act like it. Salamanca, on the other hand, never had that problem and grew up as a normal girl. Sal has long hair, so in Walk Two Moons, Salamanca thought, “Everyone kept touching my hair...”(Salamanca’s thoughts from Chapter 3, pg. 12) If Sal had been like Scout, she would never have tolerated that.

These two different characters do have some similarities though. For example, both were were expected to be brave. Scout was expected to be brave by her family. In To Kill A Mockingbird, Scout’s father said, "It's when you know you're licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what. You rarely win, but sometimes you do." (Atticus from Chapter 11, pg. 106) In this excerpt, Atticus is telling Scout that sometimes you have to be brave and do dangerous things. Likewise, for Salamanca, everybody seemed to look to her for bravery. A quote that illustrates this from Walk Two Moons follows. “All around the room, people were acting as if I had single-handedly taken on a fire-breathing dragon.” (Salamanca’s thought’s from Chapter 3, pg. 14) In this passage, Salamanca takes care of a bug that is terrorizing the class. Salamanca doesn’t let fear get in the way of common sense, which makes her brave. Both Scout and Salamanca are very brave characters.


While both Scout and Salamanca are brave, both of these characters have their differences. Scout and Salamanca are different in how they feel about their fathers and in the style of their upbringing as girls. Even though they are different, they are still both really strong, stoic girls raised by their fathers. I liked the books, Walk Two Moons and To Kill A Mockingbird.

Factory Teens: The Thinking Dilemma

Most of us have by now heard the opinion that the current generation of kids are becoming a mindless generation. We act and think like we're off an assembly line. We all do virtually the same types of things, eat the same types of food, wear the same types of clothes, etc. But what about the people responsible for the creation of these factory-kids? In today's factories (in the U.S.), who is it that usually makes the goods? Normally, it's a machine, programmed to do only a couple of things. In fact, the number of machines in a factory usually outnumber the human beings by a vast majority. This is the world that adults have created for us. So lets, as factory teens, take a good look at our creators...the robot adults. Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to be disrespectful to adults, I'm just simply pointing out that the reason that we aren't being individual is because the adults in our lives aren't acting any differently. Recently at school, with all the End Of Level testing going on, I'm seeing more and more examples to support this theory. For example, this year in my English class, we have just started the Romeo and Juliet unit. As a part of the unit, we were supposed to learn a dance. It was a dance that was actually created a couple hundred years AFTER Shakespeare's time. While we were in the circle learning the dance, I asked the teacher,"Why are we doing this? Is there any point behind it?" My teacher then rounds on me and says curtly,"I don't know, just do it." I doubt very much that my teacher even thought for a couple of seconds about what to say to me when I asked her that, and that is exactly the problem that I have with adults these days. I'm not even going to pretend to have an idea on how the adults ended up this way, but it has happened.

You don't believe me that adults are responsible for the mindless teen generation? Well, take a look outside and tell me how many kids over the age of 5-6 you see actually playing. Think back to the stories that all the senior citizens tell you about how when they were 9 years old, they'd build tree houses and act out Robin Hood or something else like that. Now you don't even see very many 9 year olds doing that kind of thing, let alone teens. The reason that kids are like this is because adults are like this. With mass media and instant communication, impressionable kids are given the example of how to go through life like a mindless drone. Kids try to mimic the adult world of being overscheduled and no time to think for themselves. It's a well known fact that kids try to do the things their parents do, and if you're a mindless drone, chances are the apple doesn't fall far from the tree.

In my geography class, we are learning about South Africa and the Apartheid. We recently watched and learned about Stephen Biko, a revolutionary black man who helped changed South Africa. While watching a the movie called Cry Freedom, a quote that Steve Biko said jumped out at me. It was,"Change the way people think and things will never be the same." This bit of wisdom is like a two-edged sword; it can move to cut down your enemies, or it can cut you down. If you change the way people think, which in this case is by turning people into mindless drones, then you come out with a braindead population and a easily manipulated society. Is this what we, as Americans, want?

Night at the Museum

My trip to the Museum of Natural History was a fun, little adventure. When I had been in elementary school I had gone there on a field trip. So basically, the entire time I was there this time, I was trying to remember things from the last time I had been there. It didn’t work, which is okay because if I had, I probably would have rushed the trip and not learned what I did learned.

The reason that I chose to go to the Museum of Natural History was because my family had an annual membership there. My sister had her birthday party there and my parents bought a membership to save money. This means that we can all get in there for free and in the effort of saving money, I decided to do my field trip for free.

As I walked into the Museum of Natural History, I immediately noticed the glass cases at the front of the museum. Some of the artifacts were interesting and I looked at them for a little while, but I never read the little plaques that they held. I then went into the room on the left hand side of the front desk. This was the area of the museum where they had their ancient man and Native American exhibits. Of all the areas in the entire museum, this was probably my least favorite. I’ve always respected my forebearers and I think it is really amazing and cool that they could survive the rough conditions of the untamed world. At the same time however, I find the exact details of how and why they were able to do this a bit dull. That’s why I rarely read any of the plaques in this section of the museum.

My next stop in the museum was the animal life section. This area was slightly more interesting and I read a lot of the plaques. This area also partly extended upstairs and to the right. However, because my preschool sister, Silly(name has been changed), was there, she found this spot to be the least interesting and put a time restraint on being there. Outside of that display is where I found my favorite exhibit on the first floor. It was a little, old-fashioned telephone booth which you could go into, pick up the telephone, and hear nature sounds through the phone. My sister and I enjoyed it a lot.

Next we went upstairs to where my favorite part of the museum was. In the Rocks and Minerals section they had a gigantic, glass case in which there must have been a million billion rocks and minerals. They then explained the formation of rocks, what minerals were, and how to tell a rock from a mineral. They even showed you the atomic patterns of the different rocks and minerals. My all time favorite part of the museum was the decay meter where you pressed a button over different rocks and it spat out a static sound. The static sound would tell you the decay rate of a rock!

The next section that I went to had all the prehistoric dinosaur stuff, along with the creation of the world and Earth’s history. This was especially interesting because of the fact that we just learned most of this in science class. After looking through this section, I decided that I had seen enough and after a brief stop at the gift shop (where I bought nothing whatsoever) I decided to go home. Even though I enjoyed this museum, I probably won’t enjoy going there again until I forget everything about it for the second time.

Utah House

I decided that I was going to do the field trip project for my term project. So I went to the Utah House. The Utah House is an ecology safe modern marvel. It is a really expensive and modernized house that keeps up with all the modern trends, yet it’s still environmentally friendly and energy conservant.

The Utah House was built by Utah State University as the forerunner to their big botanical gardens project. The location of the Utah House, Kaysville, was chosen because it is a nice, little, town smack dab in the middle of Ogden and Salt Lake City. USU decided to build this $600,000+ house because they wanted to show the people of Utah that you can have everything from a normal, not so eco-friendly house put in an eco-friendly house. However, USU does not expect you to upgrade everything in your house. This would cost untold amounts of money which the average Joe doesn’t have. They do encourage you to take advantage of various features- some are inexpensive features. These range from innovative shading of windows, to underground pipe AC systems.

Since the Utah House is so eco-friendly, how does it get its power? Well, that’s a split answer. The Utah House is mostly powered by solar energy. Solar energy is a very clean, abundant energy source. Solar energy is energy that is projected from the sun. The two biggest problems with solar energy are, one, the inconsistency of it, and two, the inability of storing it. Even though one second of its energy is enough to power the entire U.S. for 90,000 years, only a small fraction of that energy gets to Earth’s troposphere. So on a really cloudy day, the solar panels, which are the devices which convert sun energy into electrical energy, pick up next to no usable energy from the sun. Second, even though solar energy is extremely useful, it cannot be stored. If the sun’s energy is not directed somewhere immediately, it is lost. For these reasons, the Utah House is also hooked up to the Davis County Electrical system, so that it can receive extra help if necessary. Because it must sometimes use this kind of energy, the Utah House uses only low power items, like fluorescent bulbs. These, while expensive, have a really long lifetime expectancy and flood the house with as much light as possible.

Now I’ll tell about my personal favorite feature in the house, the underground AC system. Because the surface of the crust reflects most of the thermal energy that it comes in contact with, the sub-levels of earth stay pretty much the same temperature all year round. So, knowing this, some genius inventor decided to stick some pipes underground. Then, all he had to do was get the air pumping through, where it would enter the ground and be either cooled or heated by the surrounding ground. This reliable AC system would keep your house at the same range of temperatures throughout the year. Best of all about this amazing contraption is that it is actually cheaper and more cost effective than a regular AC system.

Personally, I liked touring the Utah House. It has also given me more options to consider when I get old enough to build my own house. I probably wouldn’t go there in my free time or bring my date there for a tour, but it was still good enough to get a decent recommendation from me.

Candy Canes

I think it's safe to say that we all have foods that we really love. For the majority of people, such a food item might be chocolate (milk chocolate). I'm a little different from the majority of people, my favorite thing to eat is a candy cane (original peppermint flavor). This is a kind of shocking revelation for some people for a couple of reasons. One, how many people do you know with a favorite food of candy canes? Two, I think that my entire family's favorite food has something to do with chocolate. And lastly, candy canes are a seasonal treat. Which means that you can't just go to your local grocery store whenever you want and buy them. Oh well, I guess I'm just different from the rest of the world.

Have you ever had a favorite food get tested by another really delicious food that may or may not become your newest favorite? Of course you have! But then, have you ever had your faith in a tasty treat tested by something outside of another food? I think that is a less common occurrence. Yet, with my unlimited luck (I'm being sarcastic there), that's exactly what happened to me. I prefer to call the entire ordeal the Candy Cane Disaster. The events happened as follows...

I was in seminary one morning during the second term. I had walked in and sat down in my seat. At first the class went along normally, and after the devotional was over, I stood up, said my bit, and went back to my desk. Then, Brother Blank says the a kid in the class brought candy canes to seminary to celebrate Christmas being soon. I, loving candy canes so much, took my share and immediately tore off the wrapper to start eating it. Because, for some reason, some people don't like peppermint flavor, there was a lot of candy canes being passed around that no one seemed to want. So, by the end of the class, I had collected three or four candy canes and was happily enjoying life. What I didn't know, was that because I hadn't had breakfast, the four candy canes were too much sugar for my system to handle. About halfway through third period, the class right after seminary, I had nothing but sugar energizing my body. THIS IS VERY BAD. I quickly discovered that having sugar in such quantity is one, very bad for your body, and two, very bad for your citizenship grade. I don't know how to describe the misery that I must have caused in that class that day, but I do know that that was the only time I had ever gotten a red mark in geography. I continued on such a course for the next two periods until I crashed. I pretty much slept through the next couple of classes (which didn't improve how I did in class). So that's my candy cane story...weird, huh?

The Danger of Fun

I recently discovered that skiing is a very dangerous activity. It's really fun and all and I know going down a hill with a forty-five percent grade gives you a thrill like none other. But, how many of you know that while skiing down a hill of just snow, you can slice your knee open so bad you need stitches? Well, I didn't...that is, until this year.

My adventure started a couple of weeks ago, when the ski resorts were still open. My dad and I decided that we were going to go skiing the week before the Wolf Mountain Ski Resort closed. So, we get ready and head to Wolf Mountain around 5 pm for an evening of night skiing. About one hour later we arrive, strap on our skis, and head up the mountain. We go down a couple of beginner runs so that we can get in the groove of skiing. Then we go to try some of the intermediate routes. I have almost mastered those. In fact, I was planning on going on some of the black diamonds for my very first time that day.

My dad is a good skier too. He can handle himself on the slopes pretty well. He's a pretty hardy guy too. Unfortunately, the mountain seemed to be against him that day. It was almost as if it was trying to kill him. Every once in a while, for like no reason at all, his skis would come out from underneath him. The weather was against him, too. The snow wasn't very good. It was either extremely slushy or extremely icy. Neither one of those are very good for skiing. The perfect skiing snow is the stuff in the middle. Anyway, so we were going down this somewhat hard hill that we had just discovered. My dad was having an especially hard time and fell once or twice on that run alone. I was having a less difficult time, but it was still pretty hard. So we made it onto the main path and decided to stop at the lodge to grab a bite to eat. Taking the main path, we headed down the now easy hill.

This is the part that is really confusing to me. I decided to go fast, so I sped down the hill as fast as I could. My dad likes to take things slower and by the time I got to the bottom he was about midway down. In any case, I reach the bottom and look back just in time to see my dad make an especially bad fall. (To this day, neither of us have any clue what happened to actually make him fall.) His skis are off and he goes and gets them. Then he continues down the mountain like nothing is wrong. When he reaches the bottom of the mountain he explains to me about the fall and says it scratched his knee and he is going to put a band-aid on it from the car. I decided to wait in the lodge for him to get done. So, for the next five or so minutes, I stay in the lodge.

I get bored. When I go outside to the car to see what's taking him so long, I find he has mysteriously disappeared! I spend the next five to ten minutes exploring the lodge looking for him. I was about to go talk to the lodge staff when one of them approaches me and says,"Are you Moe Joe?" I tell him yes and he says,"Follow me." All the while I'm thinking that this must be a mistake. I didn't do anything wrong. My dad didn't do anything. So where am I going? We end up going to the first aid room, were one of the doctors just finished putting a gauze pad on my dads knee and taping it on. Apparently that scratch was a little more than a scratch. My dad had a huge wound to the knee caused by the ski blade. I then learned that my dad would need to go to the hospital to get stitches. That night he had 13 stitches. Sounds fun, huh?

Grrrrrr, Siblings!

OK, before I get anywhere in this I'd like to just clarify the title. I do NOT dislike my siblings. I'm actually glad that I've got them. (One reason being that if they weren't there I'd be expected to do a lot more around the house.) No, what I meant with the title is that sometimes they can try to pull annoying little phases of irritatingly weirdness on you. Know what I mean?

Like today, my brother got a new game. I had decided that I was going to invite a friend over to go to a BYU Ballroom Dance performance down in Provo. Well, my seventh grade brother decides that he won't let my friend touch the new game during his brief stay at my house. Now, I don't really care about his stupid game, I've already got a game better than his anyway, but I'm one of those people who are all about the principle of "why"*. So I asked him. He then goes on to explain that the reason is because he thinks that my friend is a nerd. Then, pretty much mid-sentence, he say's that my friend isn't a nerd, but a geek. And that's not even the end of it! A little while later he has completely abandonedthe idea of my friend being a geek, and say's that he's just weird. So I ask him, slightly indignantly, "Why do you say that?" He couldn't even give me a half-decent answer! His reasoning was along the lines of, "He just is," or, "Because." Not a very solid response. Nothing bugs me more than a unsolid response to a question.

When you accuse someone or something of something, I believe you'd better have a really good reason to the question, "Why?" Otherwise, your argument is a waste of breath. So, even though I don't intend on playing his game anyway, I argue away with that kid. Finally, realizing that it's pointless to argue with me, as it almost always is, he relents.

I still don't plan on us playing that game...unless my friend wants to play it, but that isn't a terribly likely scenario. Siblings are really weird, huh? I can't even begin to imagine the time that I would've done something like that. I probably did though. Maybe I still do...I don't know. I can't actually remember! So... I will write myself one of those challenges (and hopefully remember to keep it) to devote myself to never being a complete and utter idiot.

*Actually, this is only the case in instances when there are no bad consequences for me. For example, if the principle that I want to debate is a federal, state, city, household or public office law or rule, I will try not to askwhy, because I hate getting in trouble.