Week Six

Wow it's already been six weeks! I'm writing less (or so I hope) because my work life is getting less exciting and because I bet nobody reads these whole things.

Work: I'm doing Acid Degree Value testing. I hopefully will get it down a lot better. It involves extracting the fat and then doing a titration. I have had a lot of issues with the buret I'm using. Good equipment is a necessity! I'll work on my cheesecakes at some point this summer. I will have something presentable by August or so I hope.


Beth and I went to Hershey, PA which is like 15 minutes away. Beth and I went to the museum and then to ice cream and one of the rides. Ice cream was ridiculous. We didn't realize how much they were giving us and we got a lot. Beth's came first and the immediate thought for both of us was that we should have shared. After awhile, I just couldn't eat any more. Beth suggested that I drink it and because I'm crazy I did. I am really giggly and giddy like a little girl when I'm with Beth. I was laughing the whole time so I'm not sure how I managed to drink any of the ice cream sloop without spilling it.

A couple weeks back I brought in apples because my coworkers decided they wanted to take advantage of my hotel breakfast. They keep joking I need to bring in other things so I brought in dish soap for the lab.

Anyone who has dined at my apartment knows Anna and I use garlic or garlic powder a lot and love garlic flavored things. Awhile ago I moved the decimal place over in one of my dressings so I added 2% garlic powder instead of .2%. It turned out pretty nasty.

Studying Spanish for my mission. One flashcard set I found online has "la música de Justin Bieber" on there. I was so confused why, but whatever, hilarious.

I quit facebook for a second time... I'm not sure for how long though. I think I really could go awhile, maybe the rest of the summer. I guess we'll see what I want to do. My quitting honestly went like this: "Self, it's 11 at night. Why are you on facebook? Get off, in fact you should quit so you don't get on late again."

There were a couple of long car rides this weekend. Friday we went to a picnic in the park but sadly very few people came. Later one of the guys sprained his ankle and was too stressed to drive. Beth and I volunteered to drive his car back with me following. In the middle of the drive we hit a huge storm. He lives about an hour away so we had to take the free way and just go slowly so we wouldn't hit anyone. I drove with my hazards on going 35mph, and even with my wipers up the entire way it wasn't enough. One thing about me is that I don't like driving unless I have to, so this was quite interesting. I've never been in a storm that bad but as long as I went slow it wasn't awful.

Saturday Beth and I went to the temple. On our way there we went to... Cafe Rio! It was delicious, I just love that there is one in DC. We even saw sister missionaries there which made me laugh. That was one of our whims, we were on the way then decided to go so we had to call my mom to get the address. As I went in to do baptisms I saw familiar faces, Sarah Andrew's parents! They went with the YSA branch, but Sarah wasn't there which made me sad. This same exact thing happened last summer so it was a funny coincidence. After baptisms I went to the visitor's center to wait for Beth. I ended up reading some of the Book of Mormon in Spanish. I was surprised, I remember a lot of Spanish from high school when I see it which is good news. I'll just have to learn to speak it better, since I can't say exactly what I want to yet, plus I need to relearn conjugating... that makes my brain hurt.

We took a detour to a creepy mall to get Chic-fil-a. We were driving when Beth said she wanted their lemonade so I found one on her GPS. When we got there, we were confused as we didn't realize it was in a mall. It had few store entrances on the outside and we were so confused whether it was open or not. Beth wanted to just drive home but I was bound and determined to get food there since we came out for it. It was less creepy inside the mall though so the delicious food was worth it.


Notice in the picture the creepy man reflected in the glass. It really was creepy.


It seems like whenever Beth and I drive anywhere with food nobody eats the food at the party so we eat like half of whatever we brought in the car. It happened with chips and cookies a few weeks back, this week it was lemon cookies!

Attack of the Movies

The summer after my freshman year, I lived in Provo for the summer. I lived half a block from my sister so we were always doing things together. I went to a few of her ward activities including a jello fight, and a pie making contest. Her old complex, Campus Plaza, has a pool and is very social. The complex put on a movie night in the pool which was sweet. They set up a projector onto a screen so we could watch Finding Nemo. The screen was made of a whiteboard type material and was supported by PVC pipes.

It was really fun for the most part. It was actually cold due to the wind and the fact that it was night and the pool was unheated. I had to stay mostly underwater minus my head or I would freeze. Halfway through the movie, it got a little too windy and the screen actually fell over into the pool. Lucky for me, I was standing near the back of the pool. There was a couple watching right at the edge that wasn't so lucky. There wasn't enough time for them to move out of the way so they dove to the bottom of the pool since it landed right where they were. The majority of the people laughed at the weird scene. It kind of floated at first but then slowly started sinking. We all grabbed hold of it and pushed the screen back onto the poolside. After learning the hard way, the screen was secured with cinder blocks. The movie was not quite the same after that sudden interruption. I could not stop my random bursts of laughter during parts that were not particularly funny.

A month or so later, I went to a movie in the park. I went with Anna and some friends from her ward. We went to see Planet 51, a movie about what else, aliens! A human lands on the planet and the aliens go all crazy. They can't decide if he is safe or going to attack. 

The movie was pretty entertaining, it was a kids movie but had some funny jokes adults would appreciate. The most entertaining part of the movie was when we had this weird lighting happened across the sky. A thunderstorm was going on in the distance and it was also when the sun went down so it was a strange combination of lightning and the sunset. The sky was purple with an eerie glow across it. Now remember, this was during an alien movie so it really added to the scene. Some people were laughing, saying that aliens were coming to invade and I laughed until I cried.

It truly looked like everything you would imagine an alien invasion would be like. The lightning would occur sporadically and it moved closer as the storm came towards us. It looked like a rocketship coming closer to land. The thunder was overwhelmingly loud and sounded exactly like a rocketship moving through the air. Sadly, our fun was ruined when the storm was too close for comfort so the equipment was taken down. I haven't watched an alien movie since but I definitely have high expectations since this incident.

I Discovered Kara's Dead Fish

During our sophomore year, Kara got a beta fish named Chewy, short for Chewbacca. His fish tank consisted of an upturned pot with a fishbowl on top and a lid, which she bought at DI. It was painted to look like a gumball machine. He was a good fish swimming around. At times he didn’t like to eat his food and sometimes he would stay still long enough so that we honestly wondered if he were dead.

One week during winter semester, Kara was having a really bad day. Lots of stuff had occurred and she was stressed and at school really early. That morning I had gotten up and readied myself for the day. As I was walking past Kara’s desk where her fish was I noticed him looking dead and unmoving. It wasn’t an unusual thing, like I said, but he looked more dead-like than usual. I tapped the glass and he floated to the top. I didn’t know what to do since I had to go to school so I just left him.

I walked through the Wilk to one of my classes and interestingly enough, I saw Kara there. I knew she was stressing but I unduly added to it by asking her, “Kara did Chewy die?” I’m not really sure why I said it this way. It was apparent she would have no reason to know at the time. A look of confusion came across her face as she very questionably said no. I told her that he very much was dead now. And then I left to go to class. That was probably one of the weirdest conversations ever. Sorry Kara!

Did you Staple that Right?

This is the story of how Kara and I decided we were friends.

Freshman year was a little weird at the beginning. It's pretty much the same for everyone. You move in with new roommates you don't know. You talk but don't know how forward to be. It's sometimes a bad thing to reveal how crazy you are too early. New people will not want to get to know you, they will just think of you as an overwhelmingly crazy person.

Kara and I were at the point where we weren't completely open with each other. I was trying to be super normal, to the point where it was really boring. Kara was just not very open so she seemed normal. There were a few times she said strange things so we all knew it was in her.

We usually went to bed around the same time, between eleven and midnight. But this was one of those nights where we both stayed up later than normal, working on homework that had to be printed and stapled. I had just crawled into bed and was waiting for Kara to finish since she was just a couple minutes behind me. I watched as her paper printed, then she stapled it and put it in her folder.

At the moment, I was very exhausted. And apparently delusional. But then again, so was Kara. I looked at her funny when she stapled it and asked her, "Did you staple that right?" I'm not even sure if there is an incorrect way to staple something unless you staple in the middle of the paper. Kara in her tired state didn't question me and pulled out her paper. She examined it and told me that she had indeed stapled it correctly.

The next morning, we both woke up and laughed about that moment. Did I seriously ask that question?? Did Kara really not see anything wrong with that?? That's when we both decided that we are both ridiculous and crazy and we could be friends.

A Strange Fire Dancing, Ear Piercing Birthday Party

It sounds like I have been to some weird parties throughout the years, which is true. That with the fact that I have weird friends (in a good way) makes for some of the most unusual parties ever.

In sixth grade, I went to party of a girl, Hannah, I had known for a few years. We were in some of the same elementary school classes. Then we were on the same team in middle school meaning all the students were the same but we just switched teachers for various classes. I pretty much knew the whole time that she was a little crazy but it didn't ever bother me. I didn't realize until her party just how crazy she was though.

The party started out normal, everyone came ate food and talked. Somewhere in there they said that they had some water balloons already filled up for us to use. They had not told us there would be a water balloon fight so I just got wet in my normal clothes. We were on two sides and took up much of the front yard and driveway to play. I think some kids even hid in trees to get better places to aim from. The unexpected water balloon fight was fun, but a little strange for normal parties.

Hannah had one gift in mind for her 12th birthday. She was in the same boat as me, we both had to wait until we turned 12 to get our ears pierced. While I went to a kiosk at the mall, for her gift, she had her ears pierced at her party.

I remember they gathered everyone into a circle in the living room (I'm not sure why you would want a crowd watching this activity, it's kind of personal and some people even cry during it. It was a little more than just weird). We all sat while they readied everything to pierce her ears. They put sharpie on her ears to get it straight and pulled out the type of ear piercer that you just squeeze and they go in. They had one person do each side, one at a time while everyone watched.

It's one of those moments that you just cringe because you imagine their pain. And just because I keep thinking about it, it was not like The Parent Trap or the Full House episode when Stephanie pierces her ears. This was slightly more professional, because an adult did it, but not by much.

The last weird thing that happened was a firedance demonstration (similar to picture below). Apparently she learned to dance from some friends that (not kidding) worked for the circus so she showed off for us. After her routine, the real party was over and her circus friends performed for fun. My friends all sat in the living room and we played the bongos while watching the firedancing from the window.

I'm not sure where Hannah is now, but I'm sure she's a hipster. This was definitely in my top 5 weirdest parties.