Apples in the library

What do you think the library people would do if they knew that right now, at this very moment, at 4:40 in the afternoon on Tuesday, January 20, 2009, I was eating an apple? You know that eating is very strictly prohibited in the library. They might even kick me out of the library. but do you know what? the girl sitting next to me is eating lettuce and frosted flakes. i think that's about the weirdest combination I have ever seen, but she is korean, so maybe in korean they just eat what they feel like. I wonder if she knows the rule about no food in the library. I'm sure she does. but if she doesn't I sure as heck wasn't a very good example to her because I just finished eating my apple.

But who even made that rule? Who is the person that owns this library that made the rule that I can't eat in here? Whose rule is it? that rule doesn't even belong to a person, it belongs to the insitution. It belongs to the man. And then when the nineteen year old student who is getting paid 7 dollars an hour to work for the library tells me to put the apple away, I respond, "Says who?"
"Says the library."
"Not says what, says WHO."
"The people from the library."
"yah, but who made that rule? The person who made that rule is long dead so is his rule still in effect even though he no longer exists? Does the rule have a longer life than the person who made it? Because it seems to me that all rules die with the person who made them"

That's what I would say, anyway, if the nineteen year old chick came to get mad at me for eating an apple. Turns out no one even noticed.

Water temperature

I went on sabbatical. I dont even know if I spelled that right, but I guess on an informal blog nobody in the world cares. I don't even know if anybody in the world will read this. I went to Argentina for 18 months. That is a long time. That is long enough to have 2 babies. But I didn't. I'm still baby-less. And I think I will be for several more years... mostly because my best friend came over last night and told me all about childbirth and how much her body hurts now that she gave birth four weeks ago. So I'm pretty happy with childless Bon.

The sabbatical was nice but now I dont fit into where I once belonged. And there are a lot of things I dont understand. For example, why is the water always exactly the temperature that I want? I can turn the knob exxactly to the temp that would be perfect for me. In the shower, in the sink, even when I am washing dishes. That is bizarre to me. In Argentina it just came out one temperature, and the temperature of the water depended on the temperature outside. If its hot outside, the water's hot. If it's cold outside, the water's cold. Simple enough. I wonder how they do it with the knob so that it comes out just like I want it.

Some things change and some things never do. I noticed there are still a lot of BYU prudes on BYU campus and I kind of want to stick it to them, but then I decide I dont want to because they are probably insecure and unhappy and nervous so then I just feel bad and decide to be nice. I dont knwo if I am as witty or clever as a writer as I once was. Well, as well as I thought I was, anyway. Who knows if I am really as great as I think I am. There is a tall white guy in a suit down here in this computer lab and I wonder why he's all dressed up. I also wonder why he's white. Everyone here is white. That's weird too. Where I came from I was the only white person and now I am just one of many many many in a group of endless white people.

procrastination

I always blog when I am supposed to be working on papers. I am so over papers. They bug me. It's nice that I never have to take tests, instead I just write massive papers, but I am still tired of it. I love reading and I love writing, but I don't really like the writing I have to do for my classes. Critical analysis is boring. Blah. I'd rather write on my blog all day than analyze short stories or mark twain or bret harte. seriously. that stuff is boring!

I've turned into a hopeless procrastinator. I used to not be quite so bad, but this semester it has turned ridiculous. Re-dunk-ulous as my friend Ben would say. I wonder what happened to Ben? He's probably still procrastinating his homework at BYU Hawaii. He was going to go on a mission but he's probably procrastinated his papers for that.

I wonder what would happen if someone procrastinated their whole life. I think I'm about to find out.

TMI

TMI means too much information. My dad says it all the time. And I like it. Because I think it says perfectly in so little words (or letters?) what I am always thinking. I'm supposed to be writing a paper right now. I am about three quarters of the way done. It needs some serious help, but I think in the 45 minutes that I have left to work on it, I will be able to get it at least to a B paper, which is honestly all I care about. I love Bs. Bs are the new As.

Anyway, it is important that I work on this paper but it is so hard because the people in this computer lab on BYU campus are spilling TMI! All around me people are talking and I just can't help but listen. About thirty minutes ago this crazy frazzled girl came in, say at the computer next to me, and made about a dozen phone calls to people about a wedding she is planning. I don't care where he reception is going to be. I don't care what her dress is going to look like. I don't care how stressed and busy she is and she can't sleep at night. I care about finishing this paper on time! TMI. Don't have private conversations in a public computer lab.

As we speak there are two people to the left of me. They are analyzing her life. I think the guy is her brother but it could be a boyfriend, but whoever he is, he is very kind to her and very concerned for her happiness. He keeps saying that she causes her problems herself and that she wants the drama and she wants the unhappiness that she is bringing upon herself. She agrees that maybe she is not as comfortable with herself as she should be, that maybe... oh this is great. He just said, "You are fighting it. You need to stop... you just... you know... you fight it." and she said "I can't help it" and he just said, "Every time we do something with guys you try to stop it, you try to fight it. You wouldn't do that with someone else, so why would you do it to me?" and then she said, "I don't know Aaron, I am being stupid. I am sorry, okay." I don't think she is really sorry do you?

I'm sorry that her useless bantering and her TMI is causing me to not write my paper!

Mele Kalikimaka is the thing to say...

..on a bright Hawaiian Christmas Day.

So I guess I miss Hawaii. Weird because when I was in Hawaii I missed home and now I'm home and I miss Hawaii. I hate that.

But I got an awesome Christmas present this year. Do you want to know what it was? Three As and Two A-s. a 3.87 to round off the semester. Pretty freaking cool.

I also got a harmonica. It was almost as sweet.

Baby it's cold outside!

I've been back in the state for four days. And do you know what? It is cold. Damn cold. And I don't even feel bad for cussing because that is how cold it is. I couldn't believe it when I stepped off the airplane and felt that gust of wind. I wa wearing flip flops and a short sleeved t-shirt with my casual jeans. It was more than warm enough in Hawaii. But now the wind cut through that paper thin material fast as lightening. My bags didn't come in from Honolulu. That's Hawaii for you. No one does what they are supposed to do when they are supposed to do it. So my bags were delayed a few days. I was stuck wearing the same cold T-shirt until my roommate and my sister let me wear some of their warm clothes.

I am already sick. I always brag about having the most incredible immune system in the world. Guess not. I'm sick. Four days in Utah and already coughing up mucus and a burning sore throat and stuffed up head... Can I go back to Hawaii now?

Favorite things to do in the cold:
1. Sledding
2. Go inside and warm up.

Favorite things to do in the heat:
1. Swim
2. Body surf
3. Hike
4. Lay out
5. Catch crabs
6. Slip n Slide
7. Jump off things
8. Take naps
9. Alright it's settled- I'm moving back to warm weather!

Ignorance and Indifference

What is the difference between ignorance and indifference? I don't know and I don't care.

Witty, don't you think?

Today I am both ignorant and indifferent. I have one more final left. I want an A. I need an A. I have to get an A in this class. But when it comes to the subject of study- I don't know and I don't care. Am I willing to put forth the hours of focused and dedicated study to ace this baby? Probably not. So what will happen? I will study half heartedly for thirty minutes, take it, and get an 85. a B. I always get Bs. It's like saying, "Yah, you don't suck, but it's definitely not good work." Bring on the Bs. It's hard to care when you only have one final left and then you have plans for the night and plans for tomorrow and then you're flying home to see all your friends and family...

So finals this is to you- I don't know and I don't care.

Nine months

I've taken a nine month break from this blog. Nine months. I could have had a baby. But I didn't. I finished a semester of school at the Y, worked all summer at the stupid restaurant, and then packed my bags and moved to Hawaii. Do you really think that living in Hawaii caters to writing every day on this online blog? It doesn't. That's why the blog has been inactive. But I am moving back to Utah in five days so I thought it was time to get it restarted. Actually, in all honesty, one of my best friends H (the only person who ever reads this blog) reminded me that I hadn't written since March. Wow, March. That is a long time.

Maybe I just don't have anything to blog about. But that is not true. There are so many things to write about that it is impossible to know where to start after nine months of inactivity. So I'll just say this. I enjoy hitchiking. I honestly enjoy it, look forward to it, like doing it. I don't have a car and I live five miles from campus and the bus is unreliable and my roommate is a brat and I am left to one option for getting to class on time: hitchiking. At first I hated it and was embarrased and barely stuck my thumb out there, feeling like a beggar and a bum. Now I stick it out with confidence. I even shake it around a little bit if the car looks like it won't stop. Sometimes I walk as I hitchike. Sometimes I run after the car if I am feeling hyper. I like hitchicking with my roommates, Ak or Am, but if I can't then I just do it by myself.

One person who picked me up was a lady visiting from North Carolina who just got a bitter divorce. She was a basketcase and kept telling me to make sure to finish school since men are unreliable pigs and as soon as they love you and leave you, you got to be able to support yourself.

One man stopped at 7/11 to grab a coffee and left me in his truck with the keys. I was tempted I admit.

I've had countless discussions about my religion and my beliefs.

One man took me and Ak around the whole island because he didn't have anything better to do so we just went for a little ride. We saw our friends and they wondered whose car we were in and where we were going but we just had to answer that he didn't know. That man gave us avocados that he had stored in the back of his truck. We cooked them with chicken, ranch dressing and melted cheese.

I've given out probably a dozen fake numbers from perverts who think picking up a hitchiker is a way to get a date.

One time a truck picked me up and had no room in the cab but said I could hop in the bed. There wasn't really any room in the bed either. He was carrying about ten bikes. I sat with a pedal jammed against my head and a tire rubbing on my leg. I was going commando in a skirt. Fun ride.

I've never felt threatened, scared, or in harm's way hitchiking. I've enjoyed every ride and gotten to know a variety of people from all over the world, coming to visit this weird island in the middle of nowhere. I'm told there are weirdos out there who rape and kill girl hitchikers, but I haven't found one yet. Most people who stop are maybe a little lonely, but very kind and selfless. It almost gives you hope in the human race.

My Biggest Fear

I have been on more first dates than there are stars in the sky. Sometimes they are fun and lead to more dates. Most of the time they are with weirdos who I never want to see again. The weirdos always ask pretty intimate, weird/awkward questions. Just recently I was asked, "What is your biggest fear?" I thought about replying, "Bad breath!" but I knew this prude of a guy wouldn't think it was funny at all. So I thought. And thought. And thought. I never gave him an answer, but I've been thinking ever since.

My biggest fear is of missing out. It is why I am so insistent that I don't get married young- getting married at 19 is a guaranteed way to miss out on loads of fun single experiences. It is why I want to study in Hawaii next year and why I want to travel the world- I don't want to miss out on a thing. My fear of missing out explains why I want to go on a mission so bad- so that I can have that experience and not miss out on so great of an opportunity.

Once I figured this out, some of my greatest problems suddenly seemed much less complex. I have often wondered why I can't hold a job for more than three months. I get bored. I want a change. I don't want to miss out on any other jobs. I have worked every type of job possible: laundry, teaching piano, retail, food service, tutoring, waiting tables, banquets, etc. I don't want to miss out on experiencing any of these dinky part time jobs. My fear of missing out explains why I have to be the last to leave the party, why I date so many different types of guys, and why I am making no significant progress toward graduating. I am too busy taking all sorts of classes so that I don't miss out, that I am not concentrating on my major enough.

My mom says I need to be more content with my life. I don't know how I can when I am so worried that the whole world is passing me by and that I am missing out on something very important. Someone somewhere is experiencing more and having more fun than me. It is this thought that I simply can not stand.

Law school decision

My dad wants me to go to law school. I want to teach English to bratty high school punks. A lawyer would make at least $100,000 a year. A teacher will be lucky to scrape by with $30,000. As much as I would like to think I don't care what they say, I am very much so influenced by my parents. So as my father pushes me to go to law school- I consider it. It has occupied a lot of my thought lately- if gonig to law school in two years is really what I want to do. I already knew I probably didn't want to go because I dated a guy in law school and his school life seemed like torture, but today my question was answered once and for all. I was going in the law building for an undergradute class. As I was passing a group of law students I noticed the attire of all of them. None were well dressed and none seemed at all aware of any kind of fashion laws. One was wearing a baggy T-shirt tugged into his jeans. The jeans came to about mid stomach. The jeans were also too big for this scrawny looking law student. He held them up with none other then a braided belt. He was wearing sneakers.

The group was standing outside a classroom, waiting for the other class to vacate so they could hold their class. It was almost 11:00 and the group was anxious to get in. Braided belt commented, "Well, we'll just have to use adverse possession and go on in there! Their time is up!" What makes the whole situation worse is that everybody laughed at this comment. Never in my life do I want to be a part of lame law jokes. The group, unaware that they had just convinced an innocent underclassmen into avoiding law forever, marched into the class, excited to learn about property laws. Call me vain if you want. Call me stupid for basing my decision to go to law school on this one experience. Call me whatever you want, but I am decided. I'll teach high school punks any day rather than hang out with the likes of the law school students.

The terror of bad breath

My first experience with bad breath was in fourth grade. I was on the bus sitting next to Nicole Willey- a freckled faced pug nosed girl with glasses. She was telling me excitedly about who knows what. I couldn't pay attention because she had terrible breath. I can still smell it today. She was breathing so heavily and sitting so close to me and all I could think of was "When can I get off this bus??? Nicole- your breath REEKS!!!" I'll probably remember that day for the rest of my life. It has triggered an intense fear that runs to my very bones. I hate bad breath.

I noticed my manager with bad breath the other day. This guy must have had just awful breath because I was in no way shape or form standing close to him. He was telling me how much silverware to roll and I could smell that breath so strong. Don't people realize when they have bad breath? Is it so hard to detect? I can taste when I have bad breath, why can't others? And most importantly- why can't they stop breathing all over me when their breath reeks of onions, sewage, poop, vomit and boogers?

I avoid people with bad breath like the plague. As soon as I notice someone with it, I stop talking to them. If ignoring them is not a possibility, I cover my nose and mouth discreetly and stand as far away as possible. I am terrified of getting stuck in a small enclosed space with a bad breather. Even worse is the thought of kissing someone with bad breath. Luckily it hasn't happened yet, but I am sure that when it does I will absolutely just puke in the other person's mouth.

A necessary eight hours

I have lately made it a priority to get eight hours of sleep each night. Okay, I admit, it is a little more than a priority. It is an absolute freakish obsession! I love hanging out with my friends at night, but as soon as it gets close to midnight or 1:00 in the morning I stare nervously at the clock wondering when things will wrap up so I can bury myself up in my beloved down comforter. I realize that I could always exit the party early and just go to bed, but I love "hanging out" too much to bow out early for sleep. Oh, but I am starting to love sleep more and more. During the day I daydream about that soft hotel pillow from the Marriot in Las Vegas that is now on my bed. (they stole my pillow, I figure it is fair game that I take theirs!) I close my eyes and see the comfort of my pink flowered sheets. For over two weeks now I have been getting a consistent eight hours of sleep. I sleep through my first class if necessary, but I am obsessed with 480 minutes in my bed! Most days I don't even have class until 10:00 so that means I only have to get to bed by 1:30 in order to wake up in time. I plan and stress over how to arrange my school work, my social obligations, and my waiting tables to accommodate my sleeping schedule. Even now my eyes are starting to feel heavy. I am supposed to go see a movie with a cute boy tonight, but I have a sneaky suspicion that throughout the entire movie I will only be thinking about my down comforter and my amazing hotel pillow. Eight hours of sleep a night is so wonderful. Once you start, you can never go back.

The Man Reconsidered

I might be wrong about the man. I thought Kim was the man. Kim is the overweight forty year old woman who has worked at the restuarant for nine years. She has been helping me with any questions I have. All day today Kim kept telling me what to do and how to do it and wouldn't shut up about how it had to be done this certain way. I was becoming so frustrating and in my head was planning all sorts of ways to stick it to her. "Want me to show you a trick how to put all the lids on the kids' jellos really fast?" Kim asked me. And then I realized. Kim is not the man. She is not even close to the man- she just works for him. She has been slaving away for the man her entire life and she doesn't even know it. I am jealous of Kim because she is so content working at the same restaurant for nine years and she does everything exactly how it is supposed to be and never questions. She doesn't even know the man exists, and even if she did, she wouldn't care. She likes the man. She is not an over-analyzer and she simply doesn't care if someone tells her to wash the lemons twice. She doesn't doubt, she just does what she is told. I wonder if I wouldn't be so much happier in life if, like Kim, I just accepted the man and stopped spending my life trying to stick it to him. I have become an incredible ham in the restaurant. I say the cheesiest, lamest things to people. What's worse, I use the same lines over and over. Any time a cute old couple orders the exact same thing I say with a big smile, "Well you are just two peas in a pod, aren't you!" and they laugh and think it's nice and tell me that they've been married for two hundred years. I can't help using the same line over and over again because I always get such a reaction from it. And I always mean it when I say the whole peas in a pod thing- it is cute how old people just sort of mold into one another and always order the same thing. But in any case, I just wish I could stop saying that dumb cheesy line and think of a new one.

Stick it to the man

I have one main purpose in life. It is to stick it to the man. I hate the man. He is ruining everything. The man has given me $110 worth of parking tickets this week. I don't understand why he has such retarded parking laws, so to stick it to him, I am not going to pay the tickets. I don't know what will happen if I don't pay them, but I figure worst case scenario is I will get sent to jail for a couple nights. A couple days in jail never hurt nobody. The man is everywhere. I noticed him at work today. He told me that I have to wash the lemons, even if they have already been washed, and that I have to leave the money on top of the cash register until the transaction is complete. If I understood the man's rules maybe I wouldn't hate him so bad. The problem is that the man is constantly telling me what to do, how to do it, but never why I am doing it. When the man is not looking I don't wash the lemons and I put the money in my cash register immediately. I also sneak sips of diet pepsi from him. My hope is that if I stick it to the man enough times I will eventually be able to get him off my back for good.