Those of you who know me are probably wondering at my tardiness here, so allow me to repent.
It's snowing!!!!
This makes me very, very happy.
Oh, and because I know you were all wondering, snowmobiling in 4 feet of powder is marvelous.
Friday night as I was using my laptop, (an Apple MacBook running OS X 10.5, thank you very much,) the hard drive died on me. This was rather unfortunate as I was hoping to use it in my preparations for finals week. I took it in to the Apple store down at the Gateway Mall in Salt Lake City, figuring that if any place would have a replacement hard drive for me, they would.
Unfortunately, while my laptop is still under warranty and the replacement could take place free of charge, the shop didn't have any hard drives of the correct variety in stock. So on Saturday night I traded my laptop for a piece of paper and came back home lamenting my loss. (Well, really, I drove four blocks to the Church Office Building parking lot in 45 minutes, got there too late to get our actual seats, watched the Mormon Tabernacle Choir concert with Dragon Lady from one of the side rooms used by the ushers, got free pink lemonade out of it, sat in the parking lot for 45 minutes before we moved on our way out, and THEN came back home lamenting my loss. But that's another story.)
In the meantime, I've been using a Windows desktop machine that I picked up early this year in exchange for some help to my cousins. When I got the computer, though, I only got the actual computer. No monitor, no keyboard, no mouse. I had an external monitor which I planned on using, but I still needed the keyboard and mouse. So I made the wise decision to purchase the cheapest keyboard/mouse combo I could find. I didn't realize just how low-quality the keyboard is until I was forced to use it exclusively; both Dragon Lady and Katya can testify that I was having extreme difficulties typing earlier today. (I'm typing this blog post using the cheap keyboard; I was actually hoping that it would start dropping letters so you could see what I'm talking about, but alas, it seems to be working better at the moment. I briefly considered retyping the entire blog post in hopes that it would start acting up, but my wiser half has informed me that this would be a terrible use of time with a 7:00 AM final pending tomorrow morning.)
The Apple technician told me that the hard drive would probably take 3 days to arrive. He told me this at about 6:30 PM on Saturday night, and I was left wondering exactly what three days meant. Saturday to Sunday, Monday, Tuesday? Was it too late to count Saturday, so we'd go Sunday to Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday? Did Sunday not count in such calculations, meaning that the order would go through on Monday and I'd receive it three days later on Thursday? As I had a presentation on Wednesday for which I strongly wanted my laptop, things weren't looking too good for me.
Happily, though, at 3:30 PM today I received a call informing me that my new hard drive had been installed and was ready to go. I called my dad who works up in Salt Lake and asked if he'd pick it up on his way home. He kindly obliged, and after an exchange in an Orem 7-11 parking lot earlier tonight, my laptop is back in my hands. (For those who I know will appreciate this, when I walked into my apartment with my newly received laptop, I immediately held it high above my head with both hands and proudly sang the "You Opened a Treasure Box!" theme from Zelda.)
Of course, the problem with having your hard drive replaced is that your data tends to depart with the old one. And this is the part where I bless Apple's name to my dying breath. With this latest version of OS X, (called Leopard,) Apple included an automated backup solution called Time Machine. When I plugged in my external hard drive, (thanks to Dragon Lady and her brother for picking it up for me,) I was asked if I'd like to use that drive for my backups. I said Yes, and after that point, the only thing I've had to do was make sure to connect my external hard drive when I've been at home. When I received my laptop back today, I simply booted from the OS X installation disk and selected "Restore System from Backup" from the drop-down menu. Leopard found the backup drive, listed the date and time of each of my backups, and is now copying all the files back to my computer.
You'll note that I said nothing about deciding which files to back up or deciding at what time the backup should run, or making sure that I was connected when that time came around, or being unable to use my computer during that backup time. That's because none of these applied to me in the least. (Okay, you can tell it not to back up certain directories, but the default is to back up all the non-volatile data on your hard drive, so it's not a concern.) I simply plugged it in, said "Yes", and now my data is all being restored exactly as I left it.
Bless you, Apple. And your little dog, too.
Most of my dreams either go unremembered or are so off-the-wall illogical that they don't bear remembering. Occasionally, though, I have one that seems to actually have some significance in my life.
My parents had been (in my dream) hosting a foreign exchange student from China. She was roughly my age, and apparently we got along pretty well. I don't really remember that part of the dream very well, but somehow, she and I decided to get married. This, of course, necessitated that her entire family fly over for the wedding. So we were waiting to get married,(in some non-temple-like gathering room with stadium seating,) but she was taking a long time to get dressed. A LONG time. Like, I was out there waiting for her for 45 minutes and she still wasn't ready.
So logically, my dad took my brothers and I to a nearby park to play while we waited for her to get dressed. And while we were out there, I suddenly realized that I really wasn't excited about marrying this girl. I mean, I knew that I liked her (in a cognizant sort of way... I didn't feel that I liked her, but I knew that I did,) but I didn't feel that I loved her. I've always been cautioned that marrying someone from a different culture is difficult; holiday traditions are different, expectations are different, and you generally just have to work a bit harder at things. And I wasn't sure that I was excited enough about this girl to put in that extra work. It probably didn't provide me any reassurance when I realized that I couldn't even remember her name.
At this point, I got a text message from her saying "Why are you not out there? Do you have special entering clothes as well?" (I assume referring to special clothing to be worn when entering the wedding chamber.) This just scared me even more... I wasn't ready for this! What about [insert real-life girl's name here]? Had I ever resolved my feelings about her? I couldn't remember! What about all the other girls in whom I'd been interested? What happened to all of them? Why did I choose to marry someone who I barely knew over one of them? Please let this all be a dream!
Since she'd text messaged me, we assumed that she was ready, and thus got in the car to head back. For some reason my dad was convinced that we needed to pick them up at the airport, so I had to remind him that no, they were all there waiting for us. He drove faster then, since the wedding chamber was even further away than the airport. My trepidation grew with every passing city block. I don't want to marry someone I didn't know! This is such a mistake! I wish this were a dream, but I'm afraid it's not!
Then I woke up. I can't tell you how relieved I was to find myself in my own bed, not getting married to the nameless Chinese exchange student.
Moral of the story: I have nothing against Chinese women, but please don't expect me to marry you when I can't even remember your name.
If you have a favorite book, a treasured pet, an essential device, or some other thing that's important to you, I implore you not to bring it near me for the next couple days. I seem to be breaking everything I touch.
No, seriously.
Today, my brother and I rode TRAX from Sandy up to Salt Lake in order to attend my father's company Christmas Party (to which family members were invited.) We took the 7:00 train northward and arrived just in time. However, the very next train to follow depart northward on that track became derailed. Yes, the very next one. As a result, our filled-way-beyond-capacity south-bound 10:20 train was forced to stop early and unload all it's passengers onto buses, which carried them past the derailed train and on to the next stop, where we re-boarded TRAX and continued our journey. There are dozens of UTA workers who would be cursing my name right now, if only they knew.
"But there were hundreds of riders on TRAX," you say. "How can you possibly take all the blame yourself?"
Very well, allow me to present further evidence. Upon arriving home in Provo, (at a much delayed hour due to the previously related incident,) I pulled out my 6-month-old laptop and was talking to a friend online. When all my windows suddenly stopped responding, I assumed that a simple restart would fix everything. When I rebooted, I discovered that my laptop no longer has a hard drive. Let me be clear. This is not just a partitioning issue, a mounting issue, or a corrupt file on the drive. The entire hard drive apparently no longer exists. I started up from my boot disk and found that the only drive in my computer is the very DVD drive I was using to boot the computer in the first place. This, of course, explained why my computer stopped responding in the first place.
So really. I don't know what's going on, but you may not want to let me drive your car anytime soon.
I've published previously about the Preposition Game and the License Plate Game. Well, I've got another game for you lexiphiles.
After my previous blog on Utah Drivers, I've been reminded that with Winter rapidly falling upon us, many people in Provo will be driving in snowy or icy conditions which they're not used to. In the interest of a preventing a few accidents, I've decided to publish Yellow's Winter Driving Manifesto:
I've heard a lot of people talking about "Utah Drivers" lately, and this doesn't seem to be the type of laudatory title one would wish upon one's own fellow Utahns. In an effort to determine if the title is deserved, I've been listening closely. I found some rather disturbing evidence that suggests that nobody actually knows what a good driver is. Allow me to present a few quotes:
Today:
The following comes from an e-mail I wrote to my cousin just after I had applied to join the Board. I've had occasion to share it twice in the last couple days, so I figured I might as well let everyone else in on the fun.
Today I spent 16 hours on campus. 8:00 AM to 12:00 AM. I think that's a new record for me.
And yet, somehow I feel more invigorated and productive today than I have for weeks.
Hopefully it carries through.
Dear C.S. majors of the BYU,
If you don't know how to use a debugger, please learn. I promise you'll be glad you did.
Please.
-Yellow
Things I dislike:
Having my heart broken preemptively.
Things I can't blame her for:
This particular incidence.
Things I wish were different:
Lots.
By the way, if you aren't sure you know what I'm talking about, then you probably don't. I don't want to inadvertently defame a good friend here.
Okay, so I got some interesting guesses, but nobody correctly guessed the answer to my riddle.
I woke him up when September ended! Green Day style!
It was so cool.
On October 1, 2007 at 12:00 AM, I called my brother's cell phone. In return, he gave me "mad props" and said I "totally made his day."
The first person (who wasn't present) to guess why gets mad props.
And maybe free creamery ice cream, if I happen to know you.
Hint: I expected that he'd be asleep.
Hint #2: This was the only time this year that this would have worked.
I've come up with a new game for all you lexiphiles.
In years past, I've found a need to recognize cars by their license plate. Since strings of letters are especially difficult to remember, I've taken to assigning a word to each license plate as a sort of mnemonic device. For example, MNG becomes mango, RST becomes wrist, and ILR becomes pillar. They don't always sound the same, but the key point is that each letter in the license plate is present in the correct order in the associated mnemonic word.
Originally I only used such devices to recognize my family's cars, but on a recent trip to Salt Lake, I began extending it to a more general scope. I was trying to trace the flow of traffic between the various lanes, so I'd pick a certain car and assign it a mnemonic name. Then, if I saw that car again, I could assume that his lane was going at least as fast as mine.
Coming up with the words was interesting, so before long, my goal was to "name" as many cars as possible on the trip. That's the game. Obviously some are more difficult than others, so it becomes a competition with my traveling companions to mnemonicize each car first. I don't have a scoring structure set up yet, but I'm not sure it needs it. Simply coming up with the words is fun in and of itself.
Enjoy!
As a side note, occasionally I'll run across an exceptionally difficult one, so on Wednesday I finished up a program which searches a dictionary of 293,000 words for me. I'd offer to e-mail it to anyone who's interested, but it only works on OS X and gMail hasn't been cooperating when I've tried to send it previously. Sorry.
I have a history of liking girls who don't return the favor. I'm sure that most of you have had that experience, but let me be clear. I'm not saying "Whenever I liked a girl, she didn't like me back." I'm saying "Always I liked a girl who didn't like me back." I mean it. I'm not the type to say "Oh, I'm not really interested in anyone right now." I'm always interested, and they historically haven't reciprocated. This started when I was 8 and lasted until about a year ago, with only two brief exceptions, so some simple math leads to the conclusion that for 14 years I grew up with constant emotional tension.
I learned to deal with it well, though. I wasn't an angsty, overwrought, emotionally-unstable teenager. I learned to smile at the tension, to laugh at the tragedies, and though I probably created a couple of awkward moments on my more poignant days, I think that overall I was (and am) very pleasant to be around. Though my relationships weren't always what I wanted them to be, I always had hope for better days, and hoping, despaired not. I excelled in my musical and academic pursuits, and I didn't have a sense of low self-worth. I just grew accustomed to the drama and learned to get on with things.
I didn't realize, though, that I had grown dependent on it. Relationship drama usually brings with it an acute emotional response. Excitement, longing, rejection, disappointment, hope, and anticipation all run wild in such situations, and I grew to feed off of these emotions. The excitement and energy I had often pulled from this fount, while the longing and disappointment led me to value my loved ones even more. Odd as it seems, this constant emotional tension served as a sort of anchor for me. It was a steady, sure part of my life. It also served as a barometer to my inter-personal feelings. I knew I still cared about someone so long as these emotions existed, and thus knew I had something to fight for.
Sometime in the last couple years, I figured a few things out socially. I no longer pine for the unattainable. I no longer hope and wish and pray after something, just to have it taken away despite my best efforts. My hopes and desires are acheivable. Things have been going well, and now I'm dating a girl that I really care about. We're so similar that it's uncanny. We get along excellently, and though no relationship is without a bump or two, the gates are open and the road is clear.
I'm lost, though. I don't have my anchor. The emotional tension I grew to expect is gone. I feel a bit like Joseph Smith when he said "I should feel a bit like a fish out of water, if I were out of persecutions." I'm not sure which way is up anymore. I've found myself reluctant to move on, searching for anything to recreate those acute emotions I've grown to expect. I've got what I always hoped for, and now that I'm here, I don't know where to go. My anchor is lost and my barometer is broken.
My impossible dream has been attainable after all, and now I have no stars to follow, no hell to march into for a heavenly cause. I'm just not sure where I'm going anymore.
I now present you with a collection of brief thoughts, events, or points of interest from my life. I didn't really feel that any deserved a post on its own, but together they're fun.
While entering Dragon Lady's house a couple weeks ago, I opened the storm door door. Or rather, I attempted to open the door. I immediately pulled my hand back when I felt a sharp prick and saw a bee fly out of the handle. I'm cautious every time now, but apparently it's earned me the title of "Gallant Knight" who protects the inhabitants from guerrilla bee stakeouts.And so it goes, and so it goes, and you're the only one who knows.
If you lay your hand flat on a table and close the thumb in toward the rest of the hand, you'll see a small area of skin poke up near the base of your thumb. That area of skin contains almost no nerves, and somewhere along the way I developed the habit of biting it when I'm thinking. Did you know you can bite hard enough to leave significant teeth marks without much pain? Yep, it's pretty fun. (Make sure to just get the skin, and not the veins, arteries, tendons, or muscles underneath. Also, I take no responsibility for any personal harm caused by your own experimentation. Don't be stupid, okay?)
In a recent move to secure control, China has declared it illegal to reincarnate within their borders without express government approval. This caused me to laugh for hours.
I recently finished my internship at a local software company. As I rode the elevator the seven floors down to the main entrance for the last time, I couldn't help but hum the theme from Europe's "The Final Countdown." Optimistic. would have been proud of me.
The other day I was at work at my rather technical job. During a bit of down-time, I started on some research for a question and before long found myself reading the Wikipedia page on the Teletubbies.
Sometimes I wonder at the things we do.
I was talking with a friend today and the name "Amber" was mentioned. I decided that I think it's a pretty name, and if I were the type to keep a notebook of potential names for children, I'd write it in there. I'm not that type, but it dawned on me that the name would be quite appropriate, since it's also a color. It then became my quest to find other colors that could also be used as real names. I figure if I'm going to have children, I might as well continue the family tradition.
So far, I've got:
One year ago today I was accepted as a probational writer for the 100 Hour Board. I suppose that makes today my "Boardiversary," so Happy Boardiversary to me. For curiosity's sake, my first answer ever appears on a question about our appearance in the Spirit World. My favorite answer so far is still one I answered in my first week about GatoRain, but I'm also very happy with the following:
The other day while I was feeling gross and sick and unwell, I decided that fruit juice of some kind would be a good idea. Vitamin C is supposed to be good for your immune system or something, right? So I opened up the freezer and found a can of frozen "Dole Orange Strawberry Banana" juice concentrate.
In my mind, I immediately saw Hermione Granger swishing her wand toward an empty glass and chanting Orangius Strawberius Bananum.*
It didn't work.
*Yes, I'm quite aware that magically creating food is one of the five exceptions to Gamp's Law of Elemental Transfiguration and as such is quite impossible. I still thought it.
I'm not an accident-prone type of guy. I've never broken a bone, I've never been at the wheel during a car accident, I don't drop things all over the floor on a regular basis, and I rarely get sick. Lately, though, I've been wondering if the universe isn't trying to balance things out a bit.
I'll use an example.
A few months ago, my friend dimmi got run over by a motorcycle. Yes, that's right. A motorcycle. (A few of you probably remember this.) We kept hoping for a nice bruise on her leg, since with a story like that you've earned the right to have something to show for it, but nothing really ever showed up. Sure, she was sore for a bit, but looking at her you never would have known it.
By contrast, a week or so later, I was in the front yard at home tossing a frisbee around with my sister just before dinner, one of those Aerobie Superdiscs with the soft plastic edge. Mind, now, this wasn't a grueling game of Ultimate, just an easy game of catch at a distance of no more than 20 feet. We'd been playing for maybe ten minutes when one of her throws was a bit weak and hit my right shin just above the ankle. I thought nothing of it until we went inside 20 minutes later when I discovered a swollen deep-purple bruise the size of my palm spreading up my leg.
Another example. A few nights ago I was having a lot of trouble sleeping. I'd been feeling fine when I sent to bed, but at about 3:00 AM, I decided I'd had enough of not sleeping and got up to get up and get a drink. Before I ever got to the kitchen, my legs gave out on me and I hit the ground. Hard. I caught myself mostly with my head and got an ugly carpet burn all around my right eye.
Has anybody noticed something here? I get monstrous bruises from soft-edged frisbees and get car-crash-worthy head wounds from an attempt to get a glass of water, while dimmi gets run over by a motorcylce and gets nothing to show for it. Is that normal?
I think someone's after me.
I've discovered recently that you can find immense fun in prepositions. It's an easy game; simply replace one preposition with another in any common phrase. A few examples follow, but please read aloud. They're about fifteen times funnier that way.
Mike Tyson's Punch-out:
I'm realizing that sometimes I have really strong urges do really stupid things. It's the kind of stuff where you know it's not a good idea. There's no question. But something inside me just craves it.
Every day at work, I walk by a certain fire alarm box. I pass it coming from the elevator. I pass it going to the bathroom. I pass it on the way to lunch, and again on the way back. I pass it on the way to the stairs that take me to the vending machine, and on the way back, and when I'm leaving for the day, and at least two other times in the day. And every single time, I want to pull it. A lot. It almost seems like the natural thing to do, just like you flip a light switch when you enter a room. Every time I walk by, I can envision myself reaching out, pulling it down, and continuing on my merry way. It's not that I have a desire to create chaos and havoc; I'm generally a very peaceful, orderly kind of guy. I've never even been toilet-papering. But there something about that fire alarm that tempts me. I constantly have to remind myself that it's not a good idea, that the company would lose tens of thousands of dollars in productivity, and that they'd probably not be too happy with me for it.
Maybe it's just my desire to know what it feels like. How stiff is the spring? At what point does the alarm go off? Is the handle textured so that sweaty hands don't slip? What about after you pull it? Does the lever reset itself? Could it immediately be pulled again, or is there something that physically breaks in order to set off the alarm? All these mysteries are wrapped in a little red box mounted on a wall.
This isn't the only time it happens. Ever since seventh grade, I've had a nagging desire to stick my tongue an electric socket. Just to see what it feels like. I think this started about the same time that I realized you could lick a 9V battery. I know it's a bad idea; one electronics teacher told us that a janitor he knew had lost all use of his arm after a loose staple had short-circuited an outlet when he was trying to remove it. I imagine that licking an electric socket would probably kill me, or at least place me in the hospital for a couple years. But despite it all, I'm curious. I want to know.
They say curiosity killed the cat. I just hope it went out in style.
This post poses a much greater risk of revealing my identity than any posted previously on my blog. I'm aware of that. But the story has to be told.
Since 2003, Microsoft has run an annual international competition known as the Imagine Cup. It was initially a software design competition, but has expanded each year such that there are now nine events. A friend of mine heard about their short film competition and decided that he wanted to enter. He's been making movies for years now and does some pretty impressive work.
My friend the "Sea Colonel" (a blatantly false name, I assure you) approached me a few months ago and asked me to write the music for his entry. The Imagine Cup competition rules prohibit the use of copyrighted material without express written permission, which includes all that wonderful music by John Williams, Hans Zimmer, Alan Menken, Howard Shore, etc. If the competitors want to have a soundtrack to their movie, they have to create it themselves. He came up with a few themes and had some ideas for how to use them, but it was up to me to turn those few ideas into a full piano score.
The first round of the competition involved the creation of a storyboard, laying out in quasi-comic-book style the story our team's idea. Of the 365 teams that signed up for the competition, the top thirty storyboards were selected to progress to round two. Our team came out in 12th place worldwide. Round two involves the actual creation of the movie, and as the filming progressed, I began working on the music. A lot of my work couldn't be done until I knew how long each scene would be, so I ended up cramming much of the work into the last two weeks. It's amazing how long it can take to write and transcribe music; one 45-second segment took me two hours from start to finish.
Writing the music was fun. Creating music that matches the mood, story, and timing of the video is a challenge I'd not yet experienced. I felt confident about the music I had written, and was only more so when we arranged for a well-known composer (a relation of the Sea Colonel's) to orchestrate my piano score. The plan was to get a local high school orchestra to record it for us, adding that epic feel to our story. Imagine my excitement when the BYU String Orchestra agreed to perform and record for us. The recording took place about a week ago, and our film has been submitted online. We feel very confident that we'll be selected to progress to the final round.
That, of course, is the coolest part of all. You see, the top six teams get an all-expenses-paid week-long trip to Seoul, South Korea. Wouldn't that be amazing? And yeah, there are some decent cash prizes for the winners, but... South Korea! I might get to go to South Korea just because I wrote some music!
I am so excited.
As I was packing my things up to move, I ran across some work from my freshman Honors 200 writing class. I'm exceedingly pleased by it. Enjoy!
Have you ever noticed that certain words always seem to go with other words? Despite the fact that a word has its own independent meaning, some words seem to be inextricably attached to others.
For example, I challenge you to use the word 'fraught' without continuing on to say 'with danger' or 'with peril'. Do it without sounding awkward or forced. Once you've done that, try 'Duly' without 'noted'. I can't think of a common usage, thought the dictionary suggests some that I've never heard.
A recent home teaching visit brought to light another one. This young lady is getting married shortly, and as we left my companion said "Good luck with finals. Oh, and good luck with the impending marriage." Impending marriage? Doesn't the word 'impending' usually bring along words like 'doom' or 'destruction'?
Heh. I like it.
Sometimes it's really hard to do the right thing, even when you know without any doubt that it's what you need to do.
Sometimes you're really grateful for people who help make it easier.
Thanks.
I'm aware that 99% of my readers won't know what I'm talking about here. If you don't already know, don't bother asking; I'm not going to elaborate any more than this..
In an effort to increase perspicaciousness and obfuscation, I have updated my Summer '06 Words of the Day post to include definitions for each.
Go read them, or I'll call you a termagant.
I was talking to Krebscout the other night about relationships. I told her that I really want someone. Krebscout responded that she didn’t really understand that line of thinking:
“[I just don’t understand the idea of wanting] someone, as opposed to wanting a specific someone. To me, that means wanting someone for the wrong reasons. Wanting someone to fill a void or for action or something. I don't like the idea of seeking a boyfriend. I like the idea of going through life making friends until I fall in love with one of them, and then seeking that person, because of the qualities they have.”I agreed, but I’m not just looking for “action.” It’s something apart from that. I want someone I can love. I want someone I can be with, someone to walk along the path of life with me. I want to be able to give the best of myself wholeheartedly and know that she’ll be happier for it.
So it's my birthday. Today. While I don't really expect anything for my birthday, I've been thinking that if I were to make a list of things I wanted for my birthday, you could all get a feel for how nerdy I truly am. So, without further ado, I present my birthday list, in order of approximately decreasing likelihood that anyone will actually give it to me.
| Coldplay's A Rush of Blood to the Head (Optimistic. won't be giving me this one.) Coldplay's Parachutes (Optimistic. objects only slightly less to this one.) |   |
 | This really nerdy shirt from xkcd.com |
| Any of the following Rubik's Cubes: (They're available at the Bookstore) |   |   |
 | This LED binary clock from ThinkGeek. |
| Any of the Star Wars prequel movies on DVD, just to round out my collection. (Widescreen, please.) Any of the Lord of the Rings movies on DVD. (Extended edition and widescreen, please.) |   |
 | A couple Gamecube controllers for my newly acquired Gamecube. |
| A television for use with the Gamecube. |  |
  | An iPod of any variety. I kinda like the green ones, if you're buying. |
| A tuning for the upright piano in my apartment. |  |
 | A voucher for a new MacBook once OS X Leopard comes out. |
For the past year and a half or so, I've had a certain on-campus job. It's been a great fit, as I've been paid to do what I've been doing my whole life anyway. I've had great co-workers, (including bismark and Wally III,) great clients, a fun work environment, periodic raises, and pretty much anything I could ask for.
Last summer, I took a break from that job to accept an amazing summer internship in Albuquerque, NM. I lived with my cousins down there, and had a great time. I made some good friends, I made a fair bit of money, and added some very nice-looking lines to my résumé. In all, it was a Good Thing.
A few weeks ago, I decided that I should start looking for an internship for this upcoming summer. My family has a bunch of stuff happening this summer, so I wanted to find something more local. In my searchings, I found a post on the Computer Science department job board for an internship at a very well-known company with an office in Provo. I had actually applied at this company last year, so I knew I was interested. The deadline to apply was that Sunday, so on Saturday morning I polished up my résumé and sent in a copy.
Remember, now, this is all on a Saturday.
Within two hours, I received a phone call from a lady in their HR department:
HR Lady: "I just received your application, and I noticed that you wrote on your résumé that you're looking for a summer internship."
Yellow: Yes, that's right.
HR Lady: Well, this position isn't actually for a summer internship; we're looking to fill the position immediately. Would you still be interested?
My initial reaction was to say no. After all, my on-campus job was much more convenient, they treated me well, and they'd even given me a raise just earlier that week. I wasn't out looking for a new job; I liked the one I had. In the end, though, I decided that it wouldn't hurt to apply for the position, so I told her I was still possibly interested, on the condition that they would be willing to work around my class schedule. I could make the final decision later.
About three hours later, I received another call. Again, this is Saturday. Who works on Saturday?
HR Lady: I've just talked to the manager for this internship, and he says he'd be willing to work around your schedule.
Yellow: Oh really? Great!
HR Lady: He'd like to meet with you; do you have time Monday at 10, 11, 2, or 3, or Tuesday at 11, 12, or 1. Would any of those work for you?
I told her I could meet with him on Tuesday at 11. (Yes, I skipped devotional, people. I'm a horrible, wicked person. I know.) I went in, interviewed with a couple different people, and by the end of Tuesday, I had a new job. And I started looking by accident.
Life's just crazy.
Dear world,
I love the snow. As I wandered out to my kitchen at 7:55 AM today, I glanced out the window. It's been so bitterly cold without any fun weather for much too long, so when I saw snow falling from the sky in a veritable snow shower, I was really excited. As in, I did a little dance of joy right there in my kitchen.
I am so excited.
-Yellow
My brother is, without question, the most amazingly cool kid on the face of the planet. He's currently serving a mission in southern Brazil and, like most missionary families, we receive e-mails from him more or less weekly. Usually they're quite focused on the missionary work, but this last week's e-mail also included a brief look into P-Day life. I quote:And now for a P-day report. Well, they dont have legos down here in Brazil so I am out of luck. At least I thought so. Then I found a flashlight that uses a solar panel to charge the battery and two broken cellphones in the office. I cut the phones up today and got the little vibrating motors out. Then I broke the flashlight in half to get the solar panel out. And after a couple of hours cutting up erasers for wheels and wiring everything together, I made a solar hotwheels car that really works. I put it out in the sun and the two wheels in the front just start to turn. When the sun goes behind a cloud and the car doesnt have power, I just pull out a mirror and shine more sun on it to go faster. Isnt that awesome. Its almost better than legos. And it doesnt use any batteries. Anyways, I thought that you guys might think that was pretty cool.
That is why my brother is awesome.
Are you ready for it? For the story? This isn't just any story you're about to hear. This story is a bit like the Mormon Tabernacle Choir weekly broadcast; it started a long, long time ago, and there is no end in sight. Or at least, there wasn't.
On the first day of 2nd grade, my teacher told us that 2nd grade was the year of "puppy love." She prophesied that each of us, at some time during the year, would find ourselves in this "puppy love." We all laughed, of course, at such a ridiculous proposition. She was right. Halfway through the year, I sat at a table with Amy.* Amy was an actress. A good one, at that. When combined with her natural smile, that was enough to hook me. I was, as predicted, in puppy love.
It didn't end in 2nd grade, though. In fact, it didn't end in 3rd grade either. Nor in 4th, 5th, or 6th. This may have been puppy love, but it sure was a persistent puppy love. And, while in 7th and 8th grade I also had a bit of a crush on Julie*, Amy was still high on the list.
Just as 8th grade was ending, my family moved away from that area, and Amy's father was called to be a mission president in Europe. It was pretty apparent that we wouldn't be seeing much of each other for the next few years. I'd liked her for quite a while, and though I don't know that I was ever her biggest crush, I'm pretty sure she'd at least somewhat liked me too. I was sad to see her go. Over time, though, I moved on. I met a couple girls at my new school that I really liked, and slowly stopped thinking much about Amy.
Or so I thought. Just when Amy was just about gone from my mind, I had a dream that I was at my brother's track meet (none of my brothers were in track at the time) in the bleachers. In my dream, I turned around and saw Amy there. I was excited to see her in my dream, and I went to talk to her for a few minutes. When I woke up, I was back in love (or something like it).
A few months passed, and had again basically moved on. I went to Seminary one day, where we were talking about the importance of prophets. The teacher showed a brief video, and one of the principal characters in the video was played by Amy. I walked out of class back in love.
Another time, the local newspaper ran an article in the Arts section featuring Amy. I was back in love. Another time I met someone who had met Amy while on his European mission. I was back in love. It just didn't stop. Every time I had just about forgotten all about her, something random would happen to remind me of her, and I was back in love (or something like it). When Amy's family returned home from Europe, I called her up and asked her on a date. We honestly had a wonderful time together; it was one of the most enjoyable dates of my life to that point. However, when we both came to BYU, she started dating another guy, and we had a slightly hurtful (to me) exchange, so I tried to move on. But it still didn't stop.
And let me be clear. It really didn't stop. I went on my mission, and one in one of the first Sunday School lessons I attended, the seminary video was shown. That threw me way out of whack. There's a full two-and-a-half pages in my journal about my feelings that day. It really affected me. But that wasn't the end. A few months later, I moved to a new area and lived with a missionary who had known Amy while living in Europe. A few months later, I moved to another new area and picked up a month-old copy of the Church News (which we received periodically). Inside was a story about a new play they were doing in Nauvoo for younger children. The star? Amy.
This last summer I lived in Albuquerque with my cousins. I hadn't thought of Amy in nearly 7 months, when I had a dream about her. In my dream, we crossed paths at a BYU event, I offered to walk her home, and somehow we ended up on a double date to a play at Abravanel Hall. And we were having a food fight. I woke up thoroughly in love. It. Just. Never. Stops. It's been so persistent that I've on occasion wondered if there were some divine purpose behind it. It's just uncanny. The Amy saga has been one of the defining plot lines of my life. Which is why what you're about to read is so momentous.
A few weeks back, I took one of the female writers out to Cafe Rio. This was our first date, and I was anxious for everything to go well, since I'd been interested in her for a number of months, and arranging a date with her had been a complex affair. We were standing in line, laughing and generally enjoying ourselves, when I turned to see Amy walk in with a date and get in line not far from us. I hadn't seen Amy in nearly four years, and our last actual exchange had been a bit unpleasant, to be honest. I had an idealized version of her living in my head, and I knew it. The meeting of the idealized and the real was about to take place, an event worthy of intense music and hushed silence, and I was on a date I'd been anticipating for weeks. Could things be any worse?
"Amy!" I said, as the line wrapped us around next to them.
"Yellow? How are you?"
"I'm doing well. How are you? I haven't seen you in forever!"
As we continued with the usual "hi, how are you" talk, I realized something. I was over her. It didn't affect me in the least to see her there. My date and I continued our way through line, have a great meal, and a wonderful evening. We've gone on other dates since then, and things seem to be going well.
Amy, I'm glad you're back. I hope to see you around. But, at last, I'm fallen out of love, or something like it.
* Names have been changed to protect privacy.
Over the summer I worked as an intern at an engineering firm. I had my own little cubicle with a phone, drawers, and a whiteboard. Unfortunately, I really had almost no use for any of the above, as I spent most of my time on the computer helping on others' projects. Deciding to break up the monotony, my fellow intern cube-neighbor and I decided to implement a Word of the Day, which was proudly displayed on both whiteboards for all to see. Now, you get to read them too.
Have you ever really hurt someone emotionally through carelessness, and then felt absolutely sick over it?
Have you ever worried you would lose a friend because of something you did, even though you still really treasure the friendship?
Have you ever wished you could go back and undo what you did?
I have.
