My Ultimate Opposite

I look at her in the eyes. She is my total opposite. I'm green, she's purple. She asks me if I'm a swimmer. She can probably tell by the miserable state my hair is in. I reply casually, "Yeah." She comments on how she has never gotten wrong in guessing if someone is a swimmer or not. She laments the day she'll be mistaken. I tell her a key factor to help her realize if someone is truly a swimmer or not: Look at the hair on the neck, if it's short and there's a lot of it, they're probably swimmers because that hair gets broken off by the swim cap. I watch her in the mirror. She looks at my disheveled destroyed disgusting hair in horror. She's brave to ask ANOTHER question: "Did you like, try to highlight your hair, or something?" Duh. If I'm a swimmer, I'm probably in chlorine a lot. Hmm...maybe I'm in the sun too. I explain to her that the sun loves to highlight my hair when I'm not looking. She says, "Yeah, at the roots, your hair is like, a totally different color, I just thought that some coloring experiment went wrong."
Those two pieces of conversation were the deepest parts of the entire conversation I had with her. Everything else was small talk. In fact, the entire conversation was small talk. I must have seemed hostile, as I HATE small talk, and I just don't want to talk to you if you are cutting my hair. Just cut it. I'll pay you and leave. Just don't talk to me, please!
So, you probably have alluded the fact that I cut my hair. Yes I did. No, it wasn't dramatic, you can't tell. I'm just trying to grow it out, but it never makes it past the point I was at, so I am hoping a trim will get it going again.
I forgot why I HATE getting my hair cut. The small talk. The fake smiles. The grimaces at my hair. The price. Looking at myself in the mirror. (When I look in the mirror, occasionally I want a friend, so I give a knowingly grin at my friend in the mirror, only to realize the hair person is watching me. Ugh.) Et cetera.
Anyhow, just thought I would tell you. Have a good day, as I must go do some coaching now. Ta ta toodles.

Utter...Embarrassment.

Oh, my goodness. I didn't know I'd spend my evening looking at honest Abe's face...or trying to put together three identical puzzles, but all of the pieces are slightly different by a bilimeter or two.
Yes. I did something awful. But I have hope. I ran to the hungry paper shredder to shred up my information, when I felt my left hand being tugged toward the angry mouth. Yes. It ate up three five dollar bills, and my only hope is to save every five-eighths and the serial number. That way I can messily tape it together, and get some money back If I trade it with the bank.
How embarassing. Why does that have to happen? I was tempted to paste them together, and hang it on the wall to remind me how ugly and pointless money is. Really, what is it worth? Nothing. Just...service for service. It's like trading...only you use some ugly green paper to ensure the other person happiness.
I'm tempted to take a picture of this chaos, but I'm too lazy to take a picture, connect the camera to the computer, find the picture, save the picture, browse the picture, upload the picture, then place it somewhere perfect. Eh. You can imagine what a shredded five-dollar bill looks like.

In Mourning

Brittanica thought he was a ballroom dancer. Someone that I used to love watching on TV is now dead. Sure, he had crazy hair, and strange outfits, but he had a sweet Australian accent. He didn't die in a very normal way. He was killed by a stingray, whose barb punctured his heart and killed him. So, who is this guy? Steve Irwin. The Crocodile Guy. "Crikey" is what comes to mind.
I'm sure you can find the story of his death anywhere, but if you can't, here it is. Yes, the person who helped me love watching animals and animal documentaries is never going to entertain me again.
The world seems a little bit more empty, as one of the most enthusiastic and exciting people met his match--a stingray.
I guess that's what happens when you decide to choose a hazardous occupation, such as, oh, only playing around with some of the most dangerous animals in the world. Eventually, they show just how dangerous they are.
Of course as you read stories about him, they will start with all the positive things about him and his life, then they will start on the negative, point out all the bad things he has done, the risks and failures. I think the media always tries to leave a bad taste in your mouth.
My favorite memory of him? One year for valentine's day, I used The Crocodile Guy valentine cards. They had radical inscriptions, such as, you guessed it: "Crikey!"
His legend will live on in our hearts, and on tv.

Fulfilling my promise

I promised that I will do my best to keep up my blog, even though school has started, and here I am, fulfilling that promise.
I had a significant experience today. Something I had never experienced before, and something I probably won't experience again. Unless I become a tornado chaser. Something I've always wanted to be, though I'm not sure why. Anyhow, back to my experience. It was a normal, sweltering day at my school, and when the final bell rang, I was relieved because I then could walk to the pool and get cooled off. I got cooled off before I even took 30 steps from the school. Then it spotted me and attacked me before killing itself on the school building.
Yes, I was, for the first time in my life hurled (well, technically it hurled itself into me...) into a dust devil. At first I thought it was a gust of wind attacking everyone ahead of me, but I realized there was debris flying in circles everywhere up to 50 feet high!
When it got to me, I realize how silly I was. My first thought was, "My backpack!" I grip my backpack fiercely, refusing to let the wind hurl my precious homework away. Dirt had never hit me so hard. It kind of hurt, but left no marks, so I am not allowed to complain.
Anyhow, how is your school coming along?

Summer, where hast thou gone?

Today is my last day of summer. All I can remember is that it flew by my ear, (so that I could hear it was here) then it hovered above my head, and just now, it shot off like a rocket.

My accomplishments this summer:
1. I worked for 1 and a half months.
2. I rode 60 mile bike rides, twice.
3. I competed in Long Course State Swim Meet and did fairly well.
4. I went on a vacation for the first time. (To Pullman, WA).
5. I made some new friends.

My goals that I had, but did not accomplish:
1. Balancing a spoon on my nose for longer than 17 seconds.
2. Sticking out my tongue and touch my nose.
3. Running at least 2-3x a week.
4. Reading all those books that I wanted to read.
5. Organizing my new scriptures. (This includes putting quotes where they belong in the scriptures, highlighting, notes, etc.)
6. Building a coffee table for my sister, who asked for one, but failed to give me dimensions. (I will probably make it in woods this year...)
7. Visiting my Grandma more often.
8. Didn't improve my smelling ability. (Ooh! Ohh! Good story! Ahem: I was talking to one of my YW leaders, somehow we got on the subject of sniffing cell phones...and she has the most aMAZing nose! She is an appraiser, so she sees lots of houses, and she can walk into a room, and tell you how old the person's son is. [I don't know if you can tell with gals...] She can tell from ages 11-19 or so. Apparently, boys smell different at every age. I guess I was wrong. I thought they all stunk.)
9. Overcoming my fear of talking on the phone to strangers.
10. Last, but not least, I still haven't honed my skills of confusing and terrifying new lifeguards...Oh, I got quite a few laughs, but I could've done better.

Goals for school:
1. Graduate. (Because of seminary, it cuts it kinda close, plus I'm taking classes on EHS, and I'd better finish them, or I probably won't graduate...eek!)

Not utter agony this time.

I didn't get as many salt lines on my face this time. I don't have sore lungs that burn when I breathe in deeply. I don't even have a crappy tan from my bike shorts!
I rode the 100 k. Again. Today. At Cache Valley. Where it smells sweet as you pass the corn and alfalfa, then it smells nasty from the animal manure. I went a lot faster this time. (Probably because I drafted off of my pa.)
But do you want to know the best thing ever about the ride today? There were only 2 hard climbs. Instead of 20. Like in Pullman. Other good things were: very, very good trail bars at the rest stops. The swedish fish and good food at the rest stops. And this tour gave you lunch after! Such good food. Probably because I was hungry. The other nice thing? Lots and lots of people. Means you get to draft off of them. (If you can keep up, that is.)
The sweetest moment of the ride: A nice long downhill where I hit 40 MPH for the first time.
The worst: The climb up the nice long uphill.
Scary moment: Didn't notice an U.R., and almost ran over it. (U.R. stands for "unidentifiable roadkill".) The other scary moment was that I was drafting off my pa too closely, his back tire and my front tire were overlapping, just inches away. (My tire is on the right...) then he swerves to the right, and to avoid hitting him, I almost hit the deadly gravel drop-off by literal millimeters.
Anyhow...I still exclaim in my head during the hard moments (I did it constantly in Pullman) "I PAID to do this!?!?!"

Have a good start of school, y'all, and keep on track to graduate!