Cha-Cha-Cha-Chia!

There is something about Chia Pets that makes you feel the need to own one. It's not useful in any way. It really just sits there, doing nothing. but every time I saw a commercial for one, I wanted one. Maybe because you could get it shaped like almost any animal you wanted, maybe because it just made something so otherwise dull [A Plant] exciting and fun.
Either way, here is the original commercial for it, just to remind you that you too, need to go out and buy one.





SO...
I got a Chia Pet for Christmas (I've been waiting years for one). Tonight being the end of the very first day of the semester I decided to start growing it. Or, as I prefer, Chia-ing it.


1. Chia Pets are smaller than I imagined
2. Contrary to my initial belief, the seeds go on the outside, not the inside. (Weird right?)


I had to soak my elephant and seeds in water for an hour first. Then Brooke and I took the seeds (which had turned into a watered-down goo-like substance) and slathered them over his ridges. It was pretty cool.

Now getting seeds to stick to something is tricky, but no where near as hard as naming him. Skipping the long details of that process, it is sufficient to say that we decided upon

Pushpabhadra

We didn't make this up. It's a real name.
Train of thought:

Elephant --> India--> Hindu Gods--> Ganesha [Elephant Headed God]--> Pushpabhadra [The river where his head was found]

Learn more about Ganesha here.

Being named after a Hindu God we only thought it appropriate to make sure that Pushpabhadra sat in a proper place. We dug up dirt [From the FROZEN ground] and planted his ceramic feet firmly in place.















Day 1

Not all Roads lead to Center Street...

Monday was a wet day. Rain in the morning, rain in the afternoon, and rain in the evening-- all the way up till just before 7:00 when Brooke, Hilary, Heather and I headed to the Bishops house in Providence for FHE. Now none of us had ever been to that lovely house on Center Street, but we were pretty confident in our ability to locate it.

The intended left turn right before Maceys came and went faster than expected so we just decided to take the one right after. No worries, “All Roads Lead to Center Street”.

The next road fortunately seemed quite promising… for the first 30 seconds.
The pavement soon ended and we were driving on dirt and rocks. Well, not so much dirt and rocks as much as mud and puddles. We then noticed a Road Closed sign at the end of the road and decided it was about time we turned around.

Now there comes a time in every rainstorm, when the water amount exceeds the ability of the dirt to absorb it. When this happens, it puddles. The large murky one on the right of us seemed like a good one to try and avoid.

I tried to maneuver a tight U-turn, but as great as the turning radius of my car is, it didn’t quite cut it. The puddle was successfully avoided, but the ditch on the left side of the road. No Bueno.

I just assumed being stuck in mud was like being stuck in snow, reverse and then shoot forward into drive. Back and Forth and Back and Forth, at all different angles. We didn’t get out.

Hilary jumped out of the car and tried to push us out. Still, no Bueno.

Next I came out of the car to help push and Heather became the designated driver. Unfortunately she was in the back seat and just as she started to climb forward I closed the driver side door and my amazing automatic seat-belts shot her backwards. No Bueno. Hilary had to walk around and open the door again so that she could even slip in. Now that doesn’t sound difficult, but it’s because you are forgetting that we are trudging through mounds of mud.

MOUNDS.

Shoes and mud are like ionic bonds – there is no easy way of separating them. Each carefully placed step takes thought, effort and energy.

Calf-deep in mud we pushed behind the car until we were lightly misted with ‘mineral water’. We moved a surprisingly heavy traffic barrel out of the way and even tried pulling weeds to shove under the tires.



Being well past 7:00 and realizing that I had the game plan for FHE, we decided we should call the Bishop’s house and tell them that we were running late. Immediately they offered help, but we declined and said if we weren’t out in another 10 min. we would call back. For some strange reason we never doubted our ability to get out.

Heather, in her very clean, very white shirt next came out and Brooke, the last one with clean feet, moved over to the driver’s seat. Even with all three of us pushing, we couldn’t get it out.
Our next plan of action was to call AAA.

I have called AAA three times in my life. The first time was very successful. Last year a certain roommate of mine… we’ll call her Jill, locked her keys in her car while she was out shopping. AAA came within 15 min. of placing the call! It was Grand, I thought AAA was the best thing in the world!

The Second time was just a few weeks ago when coming home from some function or other, my roommates and I saw our neighbors hovered around their car looking gloomily at their locked-in keys. I volunteered to call AAA, and after a very lengthy and “Let me just put you on hold” conversation, AAA promised to send someone soon. So we waited, and waited, got to know our neighbors, then waited and then 50 min. later decided to call Campus Police. Campus police showed up in seriously 2 min. and solved the problem. I called AAA and canceled the request.



This third time I explained the situation and they said they could easily help. I gave the street that we were on in Providence, told her it was the one just south of Maceys, and waited for the ‘OK, we’re coming!’ Instead I got “hmmm… I don’t see a Maceys around there… Where are you again?”

While I was still on the phone with this very polite, but very pessimistic young lady, we saw two trucks coming towards us from two different directions. Our FHE Brethren :) I explained that we had someone there to help us and canceled the call. I think she was relieved.

Boys from our FHE family had come in their clean and shiny shoes, anxious to help, but dubious of stepping into the mud, and almost positive that we would need a tow.



The other car that pulled up was being driven by a boy named Mike Thompson who fortunately had a Tow-Rope aka (Rope of Salvation*) in his car.

Tow rope, attached to his truck, attached to my front bumper and Brooke’s mad driving skills = My unstuck car.

Overall I must say that this experience was a success.



*Naming credit goes 100% FULLY to Brooke.

This one time when I was in the bathroom...

As Columbia University's Health Promotion Program sums up: "Because toilet seats are not major culprits in spreading disease, paper or plastic seat covers offer little more than peace of mind." In fact, you have more to fear from bathroom door handles and faucets than from commodes.

I don't like to sit on public toilet seats. It's weird. I just am not a fan of using someone else's bathroom. Anyway I try not to go to the bathroom on campus too much. I'm not crazy worried about germs, but I do use the hand sanitizer in my backpack a lot...
The only bathroom that I try to intentionally use is the Girls bathroom on the fourth floor of Old Main. It is just about the best bathroom around. First, no one is ever in there because that section of the building is all about computer science. Not a lot of girls frequent that corner of campus. Second. It’s a complete hassle to get all the way up there.
Multiple other reasons include the fact that it seems to be the cleanest restroom around, the layout is fantastic! It’s color coordinated and has natural lighting from the hidden-view windows.


ANYWAYS, there I was in class, (which unfortunately is ages away from Old Main) already well into my second liter of water for the day when I realized, I really needed to go the bathroom.
I had another class right after and knew that I wouldn't have time to make it all the way up to the fourth floor of old main, so I decided to venture to the bathroom in that building. After being directed at which hall it was in I slowly peered my head down the unknown hall.
The first thing I saw was a big dark backpack, horizontally laying across someone’s back as they sipped gracefully from one of those overly loud drinking fountains,
“Hey, sorry, but do you know where the bathrooms…”
I trailed off as I turned the rest of the corner and spotted the men’s restroom at the end of the hall.
They directed me vaguely down the hall, still horizontal with the newly polished tile floor and went back to slurping as I returned a polite nod and thanks.

I scanned the rest of the hall, family bathroom… random poster about who knows what… more completely useless stuff, and then my eyes drifted back to the family bathroom. Why was there no girl’s bathroom! I’m sure this has created serious problems in the past, Grant it, there has to be some female restroom in the building hidden in some unknown corner; unfortunately, the directions that I received were from a boy who likely never noticed what a sexist corner he had directed me to. I stumbled towards the door, muttering ever so quietly to myself how I hated these bathrooms because you could never tell if someone was already in there, and how I had a terrible fear of walking in on someone.
Talk about Irony.
I slowly turned the handle and pressed my weight against the door to open it up, It budged an inch and my eyes were greeted with darkness. Relief swept over me with the fact that I hadn’t unexpectedly created an awkward situation. I stepped inside, flipped the switch and dropped my excessively large mass of stuff down. I turned around and eyed the lock carefully, a simple push in lock.
I locked it, looking at how far it went in. Unlocked it, compared heights, Locked it, Unlocked it, and locked it one final time.
So there I was, awkwardly crouched over the toilet seat, unwilling to touch it
when I heard the handle jiggle.
I take that back, I think the vibrations of it hit me first and started my heart beating in a terrified twitter.
I don’t know why I think it’s awkward if someone is waiting for you to get out of the bathroom, but it makes me uncomfortable knowing that someone is outside in the hall, tapping their foot, thinking about how long I have been in there and how desperately they need to use the facilities.
The jiggling stopped and I smiled, thinking about the awkward two seconds that would accompany me leaving the bathroom and eyeing the disturber of my peace.
I had this complete thought. And then the door started to open.
Way too fast for me to react or yell, this ‘supposedly’ locked door opened.



The weird thing is that as the door quickly swung shut after being open for only point two seconds. I started laughing. Complete lack of shame on my part.
You know those times when you are by yourself and you remember something, or see some situational irony that is so funny that you can’t help from bursting out in ugly, uninhibited laughter?
This was one of those times for me.

I hurried as fast as I could to see the person that I had made feel probably more awkward than any other time this whole week, but as I yanked the door open and threw my head out, I saw that I was alone in the hall.
It could have been my wild laughter that made them feel awkward, or the fact that they had seen more of me then they probably had ever wanted, but regardless, they had probably hurried off in shame to another bathroom that I can guarantee they knocked on before opening.

The Weekend

One boring day after class as Marissa and I put off doing our homework (a regular occurrence),we started daydreaming about what we wanted to do this school year that would not be school related.
Number one on the list: Go see Les Mis at the Tuacahn theatre.

At first it seemed like one of those things that you know you will never actually do, the idea itself is satisfying enough. But as the excitement of the idea increased I found myself pinky-swearing to Marissa that we would actually do it... Bad move.

The urban dictionary explains a pinky-swear perfectly:

"An eternally binding promise (made by two people hooking their pinky thumbs together), which, if broken, will result in the culprit losing his or her pinky."

Now I don't actually believe in the part about your finger falling off, but eternally binding, yes. And in one quick move we were going.

Labor Day weekend was the weekend to go. We picked up Braedon (For some strange reason his family lives down there in the blistering heat) put on our Spanish-Learning CD, and headed on our way, stopping for gas quite often as my little old car has a little old tank.

On occasion I use my credit card multiple times a day, this being one of them, but apparently I don't use it enough.
At our third 'fill up' (Which doesn't exactly look like a fill-up because the gas gauge is broken and it only looks 3/4 the way full) in a little town, I got a phone call.

Previous to our leaving I had told my family that I had 'plans' over the weekend with my roommate and would not be coming home. I just didn't think that telling my mom I was going to St. George on a whim to stay with someone I had never met before would be a great thing for her to know. But Mom's always have a way of knowing, and credit for her discovery goes to Visa.

Unknown to me at the time, visa had kindly been keeping track of my transactions, and buying gas three times in one day is a red flag for someone with my spending history.

"Hi Mom!"
"Where are you?"
"... Nowhere... why?"
"Oh well what are you doing?"
"uhh... nothing. why?"
"Well have you been using your card? Visa called and was asking"
(Now why in the world would I have given Visa my home phone to call instead of me!)
"Oh yeah I have...what did they ask?"
"Well I don't know, they won't talk to me, but WHERE ARE YOU?"
"Um... (fill in the blank of that town we were in)...Southern Utah, Marissa's family is down there and we are visiting." (Lie #1)
To sum it up I then received a small lecture about how I was too young to be doing things like that without permission and that we were going to 'have a talking" when I got home, which would be on the way back up. In the background I could here my sister Christy yelling, "No you are not too young! You can do what ever you want, you are in college!"
Hahaha, talk about some sound advice...