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| If you can't read it, the sign says "College of Science Room 245. Elevator and stairs" |
Wednesday, January 29, 2014
Helpful Sign I Saw Today
Tuesday, January 28, 2014
Cars really do just make life more complicated
First of all, I am not used to driving this vehicle. For the last year and a half, the only vehicle I have driven has been this baby:
The dark grey Toyota Corolla. I drove four different cars on my mission and all of them were this.
The vehicle which I currently have as a long-term loan from my grandparents is not a Toyota Corolla (is Corolla really spelled with double l because now I'm wanting to say "co-ro-ya" and I know that's not right). It's a red land boat--well, no, it's an old Buic and a lovely car, and I'm sincerely grateful to be allowed to use it right now, but it's slow to turn, slow to break, and drives nothing like a Toyota. My friend that I dropped off in Wellsville shortly before my meeting with Wellsville's finest couldn't stop laughing at me because I kept turning the windshield wipers on by accident the entire drive up. Also, the lights stay on for about three minutes after the car has been vacated and locked, and I don't know whether or not I should be concerned.
Anyway, tonight was finally a night when my landlady would be home and so would I, so I drove out to get my parking sticker tonight. Sadly, about halfway there from Logan my GPS gave up on me, and I ended up driving around the wrong town. It worked out alright, thanks to the very logical way that Utah streets are numbered--had I been in Texas I guess I would've had to find my way back out to the main road to buy a map, but I didn't get too horribly lost before I got back on the right track.
So it turns out that parking a car in Logan is about as complicated as can be.
You see, the city has some kind of regulation that prohibits cars parked on the streets between 1AM and 6AM, but there aren't actually enough parking spaces for all the tenants in this apartment, so if you are unlucky enough to not get a spot then the plan is that you scooch into a really awkward space that doesn't permit any of the other cars to leave, and then get up at 6AM the next morning to move the car out into the street. (Frankly, if it comes to that I might go park in the church parking lot again, even if it means walking back in the cold.) Also, you are required to move your car every 96 hours, or else you'll get booted. And you can get booted for parking crooked. The crooked parking could be problematic, I have a bit of a reputation for my lousy parking jobs. As for the 96 hours rule, it might tell you something about my car usage that I didn't touch my car for 8 days and only used it tonight so that I could get a parking sticker; this might turn into one of those ringamaroles where every four days I move the car to a different parking space in the same parking lot just to avoid trouble.
Regardless, I managed to get back in one piece. I was a little concerned I'd come back to a full parking lot and, with comedic inevitability, leave my car in the church parking lot again--but for once the late-night lifestyle of the common college student interposed in my favor, and the parking lot at 8PM was more than half empty. So for now, at least, my transportation problems are under control.
Though walking to class at 7 this morning with wet hair (don't do that! Bad idea!) made me about wish I used my car more often. My hair froze into solid chunks that clicked against each other, and every time the wind blew I got a brain freeze. And I thought I had it bad when it got as low as 38 in Laredo. Oh well, at least there's hot chocolate.
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| That's the Laredo model, displaying my mad parking skills. Gorgeous, I know. |
The vehicle which I currently have as a long-term loan from my grandparents is not a Toyota Corolla (is Corolla really spelled with double l because now I'm wanting to say "co-ro-ya" and I know that's not right). It's a red land boat--well, no, it's an old Buic and a lovely car, and I'm sincerely grateful to be allowed to use it right now, but it's slow to turn, slow to break, and drives nothing like a Toyota. My friend that I dropped off in Wellsville shortly before my meeting with Wellsville's finest couldn't stop laughing at me because I kept turning the windshield wipers on by accident the entire drive up. Also, the lights stay on for about three minutes after the car has been vacated and locked, and I don't know whether or not I should be concerned.
Anyway, tonight was finally a night when my landlady would be home and so would I, so I drove out to get my parking sticker tonight. Sadly, about halfway there from Logan my GPS gave up on me, and I ended up driving around the wrong town. It worked out alright, thanks to the very logical way that Utah streets are numbered--had I been in Texas I guess I would've had to find my way back out to the main road to buy a map, but I didn't get too horribly lost before I got back on the right track.
So it turns out that parking a car in Logan is about as complicated as can be.
You see, the city has some kind of regulation that prohibits cars parked on the streets between 1AM and 6AM, but there aren't actually enough parking spaces for all the tenants in this apartment, so if you are unlucky enough to not get a spot then the plan is that you scooch into a really awkward space that doesn't permit any of the other cars to leave, and then get up at 6AM the next morning to move the car out into the street. (Frankly, if it comes to that I might go park in the church parking lot again, even if it means walking back in the cold.) Also, you are required to move your car every 96 hours, or else you'll get booted. And you can get booted for parking crooked. The crooked parking could be problematic, I have a bit of a reputation for my lousy parking jobs. As for the 96 hours rule, it might tell you something about my car usage that I didn't touch my car for 8 days and only used it tonight so that I could get a parking sticker; this might turn into one of those ringamaroles where every four days I move the car to a different parking space in the same parking lot just to avoid trouble.
Regardless, I managed to get back in one piece. I was a little concerned I'd come back to a full parking lot and, with comedic inevitability, leave my car in the church parking lot again--but for once the late-night lifestyle of the common college student interposed in my favor, and the parking lot at 8PM was more than half empty. So for now, at least, my transportation problems are under control.
Though walking to class at 7 this morning with wet hair (don't do that! Bad idea!) made me about wish I used my car more often. My hair froze into solid chunks that clicked against each other, and every time the wind blew I got a brain freeze. And I thought I had it bad when it got as low as 38 in Laredo. Oh well, at least there's hot chocolate.
Monday, January 27, 2014
Comings and Goings
Well, I'm clearly slacking off in keeping this updated, though I suppose that it's forgivable at the moment seeing as I don't have any readers yet.
Being in Utah has been strange, though little by little it's starting to feel more normal. For the first couple of weeks everything felt like a dream--already Texas feels too far away to be reality, but here everything is a mix of the unfamiliar and the very familiar and the end result is confusing, to say the least. But routine is good for reality checks and I'm starting to figure things out.
Temperatures have been in the 20s and 30s, which leads me to believe that Utah is trying to kill me.
But, anyway, storytime.
The 19th (two weekends ago) was my Homecoming talk. Well, sort of, I guess we're not supposed to call it that anymore? My certainly-not-a-homecoming-talk, then. Either way, I think I deserve some sort of title for worst returned missionary in regards to inviting people--the only person in the world that I invited was my old Mission President's wife, because she asked me when it was, and I gave her the wrong time. Other than that, at around 11 PM Thursday night I remembered that I even was giving a talk, I didn't even get on a computer on Friday, and I spent most of Saturday yelling unintelligibly at the photograph downloader on Facebook and realized, late that night, that I needed to write a talk. Even later that night I realized that I hadn't invited any of my companions. My mom had sent out some kind of notification around, but the only one who actually received it was my old mission president's wife (who missed the different time on this invitation). I felt pretty awful later when I heard from a few people who had wanted to come but didn't know it was going on, including my trainer. Ouch.
But one of my old companions was able to make it, and my old Mission President and his wife and another of my companions did make it to the house afterwards for sandwiches and Texas-shaped cookies. The talk went alright, I guess, for something thrown together so last minute. I dunno, I've heard a lot of returned missionaries talk (especially because I have a huge family with about 80 cousins, all older than me, so I spent my entire childhood going to missionary farewells and homecomings and wedding receptions for all those cousins) and it seems to me like most of them sound a little more confident up there than I did. (Ironically, I think I got asked to give less talks on my mission than any other missionary I met, and was never asked to give a talk in Spanish. I did teach Gospel Principles many times, even in Spanish, but teaching a class is so much easier than giving a talk for me) But I talked mostly about the missionary purpose--ie inviting people to come closer to Christ--and overcoming our fear of doing that, something that was a pretty big theme of my mission.
Anyway, the weekend went well and it was nice to spend some time with friends and family. The big downer came Monday night as I went back up to Logan. First, as I was driving along through Wellsville, I saw the speed limit sign was at 60 and thought to myself, "Oh, whoops, I'm going a little too fast. Better slow down." Almost immediately I saw the flashing lights behind me; I was pulled over and got my very first speeding ticket. Sigh.
But it gets better! Shortly after that I called my landlady who lives out in Millville to ask if I could get the parking sticker for my car (I hadn't gotten it before because I didn't have the car yet and she prefers not to risk students loosing them) but it was already too late for her that night for me to go by. Thus, when I did get up to Logan I spent a merry hour trying to find some kind of parking lot where I wouldn't get another ticket--a disappointing venture. When you spend four years as a pedestrian, you don't really think about parking lots, so I hadn't ever realized before the complicated system of which cars are allowed to park where and when on a college campus. Finally I parked in the only free legal parking space I could find--in front of a church four blocks away from my apartment--and grabbed what I could carry to get the rest of the way back on foot, grumbling all the way that this is why I never asked my parents to let me use a car at school--they really just make life complicated.
Actually, my car's still there, haven't been able to get the parking sticker yet.
And all the plates and bowls and a set of shelves I brought up are still in there too.
Hm.
Being in Utah has been strange, though little by little it's starting to feel more normal. For the first couple of weeks everything felt like a dream--already Texas feels too far away to be reality, but here everything is a mix of the unfamiliar and the very familiar and the end result is confusing, to say the least. But routine is good for reality checks and I'm starting to figure things out.
Temperatures have been in the 20s and 30s, which leads me to believe that Utah is trying to kill me.
But, anyway, storytime.
The 19th (two weekends ago) was my Homecoming talk. Well, sort of, I guess we're not supposed to call it that anymore? My certainly-not-a-homecoming-talk, then. Either way, I think I deserve some sort of title for worst returned missionary in regards to inviting people--the only person in the world that I invited was my old Mission President's wife, because she asked me when it was, and I gave her the wrong time. Other than that, at around 11 PM Thursday night I remembered that I even was giving a talk, I didn't even get on a computer on Friday, and I spent most of Saturday yelling unintelligibly at the photograph downloader on Facebook and realized, late that night, that I needed to write a talk. Even later that night I realized that I hadn't invited any of my companions. My mom had sent out some kind of notification around, but the only one who actually received it was my old mission president's wife (who missed the different time on this invitation). I felt pretty awful later when I heard from a few people who had wanted to come but didn't know it was going on, including my trainer. Ouch.
But one of my old companions was able to make it, and my old Mission President and his wife and another of my companions did make it to the house afterwards for sandwiches and Texas-shaped cookies. The talk went alright, I guess, for something thrown together so last minute. I dunno, I've heard a lot of returned missionaries talk (especially because I have a huge family with about 80 cousins, all older than me, so I spent my entire childhood going to missionary farewells and homecomings and wedding receptions for all those cousins) and it seems to me like most of them sound a little more confident up there than I did. (Ironically, I think I got asked to give less talks on my mission than any other missionary I met, and was never asked to give a talk in Spanish. I did teach Gospel Principles many times, even in Spanish, but teaching a class is so much easier than giving a talk for me) But I talked mostly about the missionary purpose--ie inviting people to come closer to Christ--and overcoming our fear of doing that, something that was a pretty big theme of my mission.
Anyway, the weekend went well and it was nice to spend some time with friends and family. The big downer came Monday night as I went back up to Logan. First, as I was driving along through Wellsville, I saw the speed limit sign was at 60 and thought to myself, "Oh, whoops, I'm going a little too fast. Better slow down." Almost immediately I saw the flashing lights behind me; I was pulled over and got my very first speeding ticket. Sigh.
But it gets better! Shortly after that I called my landlady who lives out in Millville to ask if I could get the parking sticker for my car (I hadn't gotten it before because I didn't have the car yet and she prefers not to risk students loosing them) but it was already too late for her that night for me to go by. Thus, when I did get up to Logan I spent a merry hour trying to find some kind of parking lot where I wouldn't get another ticket--a disappointing venture. When you spend four years as a pedestrian, you don't really think about parking lots, so I hadn't ever realized before the complicated system of which cars are allowed to park where and when on a college campus. Finally I parked in the only free legal parking space I could find--in front of a church four blocks away from my apartment--and grabbed what I could carry to get the rest of the way back on foot, grumbling all the way that this is why I never asked my parents to let me use a car at school--they really just make life complicated.
Actually, my car's still there, haven't been able to get the parking sticker yet.
And all the plates and bowls and a set of shelves I brought up are still in there too.
Hm.
Tuesday, January 7, 2014
Introduction
So here's the deal.
For those of you who don't already know me, I'm a 20 something college student. I'm studying Music Therapy. I'm one of those people who has too many hobbies and isn't really good at any of them.
I got back less than a week ago from serving a year-and-a-half proselyting mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints in southern Texas, and I never would have guessed that the transition back to normal life would be so much harder than the transition of becoming a missionary was.
And I keep breaking into TexMex without thinking about it, too. Sometimes you just reach for a word and the Spanish word comes easier than the English one does.
Also, I have an adventurous life. Not the kind of adventurous where I'm always taking off to go skydiving (only once, and it was indoors...) or rafting the Nile. The kind of adventurous where I crash my bike into a tree and then rip my skirt and then somebody gets Shingles and it just gets weirder from there. I just seem to attract weirdness.
Anyway, I've written up "newsletters" for friends and family off and on to fill people in on my crazy life, and particularly during my mission I know those letters had a bit of a growing audience, so I suppose people like to read me rambling? Well, I'm assuming that's why you're here. I'm not completely sure what I'm doing with this thing yet, I've never written a Blog, but it seems like a good idea and I'm always curious to try out a new way to tell stories.
So let's consider this an experiment in progress. When you take a crazy bilingual recently returned missionary slash trouble magnet, an unbearably cold college campus, and an inexperienced blogger that promises some kind of entertainment, what do you get?
Presumably something weird.
For those of you who don't already know me, I'm a 20 something college student. I'm studying Music Therapy. I'm one of those people who has too many hobbies and isn't really good at any of them.
I got back less than a week ago from serving a year-and-a-half proselyting mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints in southern Texas, and I never would have guessed that the transition back to normal life would be so much harder than the transition of becoming a missionary was.
And I keep breaking into TexMex without thinking about it, too. Sometimes you just reach for a word and the Spanish word comes easier than the English one does.
Also, I have an adventurous life. Not the kind of adventurous where I'm always taking off to go skydiving (only once, and it was indoors...) or rafting the Nile. The kind of adventurous where I crash my bike into a tree and then rip my skirt and then somebody gets Shingles and it just gets weirder from there. I just seem to attract weirdness.
Anyway, I've written up "newsletters" for friends and family off and on to fill people in on my crazy life, and particularly during my mission I know those letters had a bit of a growing audience, so I suppose people like to read me rambling? Well, I'm assuming that's why you're here. I'm not completely sure what I'm doing with this thing yet, I've never written a Blog, but it seems like a good idea and I'm always curious to try out a new way to tell stories.
So let's consider this an experiment in progress. When you take a crazy bilingual recently returned missionary slash trouble magnet, an unbearably cold college campus, and an inexperienced blogger that promises some kind of entertainment, what do you get?
Presumably something weird.
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