If you need a laugh

If you need a laugh, keep reading.

Colleges are places with lots of people. When you have so many people, you're bound to run in to every type. I just had the fortune of running into what I would say in a very sarcastic voice are "high, high class" people.

The very first session of Statistics (Monday) ended with a guy arguing with the professor about an answer for around 10 minutes. It was the kind of question that gave two possible answers and we had to decide which was correct. Wednesday (today) the professor started off class by telling us that the answer that had been argued over was both of the answers and explained why. The boy, meanwhile, was playing on his laptop and I'm sure didn't hear a word she said. Funny how that works!

My next and favorite experiences were in my literature class. Right before class started a girl came and sat in the desk in front of me. I noticed how big her hair was, it looked a little thick but she didn't manage it right. Instead of doing something to try and tame it down even a little bit, how she had it made it come out almost to the sides of her shoulders. It was like looking at a hairy upside down V. Here is the clincher... the professor walked and stood in front of our row and I literally could not see any trace of him. He totally and completely disappeared behind her hair. It was extremely difficult to hold in the giggles.
Meanwhile, diagonal to me, was a black guy wearing a dew rag and his sunglasses. He kept sticking his lips out which was pretty funny in itself. The killer was when he turned to look around the class (facing right in my direction) and had his lips stuck out all the way to his nose. And he wasn't trying to be funny! I really think he thought it was hot!! I was trying sooo hard not to burst out laughing. And as if that wasn't enough, when he turned back around, he proceeded to stroke his lips. Not in the side to side way which is somewhat normal but UP and DOWN. While they were still stuck out. The effort of not laughing was making my whole body tingle.

Just over an hour and a half later I headed to anatomy and physiology lab. I had an advantage since I was one of the only ones who had already had lecture..but still this is funny. The TA went over tissue types and then we were looking at slides of them. I had a microscope to myself and an older woman came over and had muttered something about not being able to find anything and asked me if I had found anything. (That immediately hit me that she probably didn't have a clue how to use a microscope since these were GOOD slides. And at the beginning of class the TA had asked if anyone didn't know how to use one and no one raised their hands...) Anyways. I told her yes and she asked me if she could look, so I let her. Here is the conversation. Excuse my little notes on it, but you really have to know how her voice was to get complete enjoyment out of what she said.

Her, in an utterly and completely dumbfounded voice- "What is that?!"
Me (wondering why she didn't just look at the sticker on the slide)- "Adipose."
Her- "Where is that found??"
Me- "Fat."
Her (absolutely gushing)- "Oh my gosh you are sooooo smart!!!!!! You know sooooo much!!!"
Me- "Well I should be, I've had this stuff over and over again."
Her (in a voice that said, I shouldn't have assumed you were smart since you apparently you have to take this class over again)- "Oh, have you taken this before?"
Me- "No. I took a high school anat and phys class that was taught at a college level, I took a biology class that had a big section on anat and phys, and I'm an EMT."
Her- "OH MY GOSH YOU ARE SOOOOOO SMART!!!!!"
Me- "Umm...not really. With as many times as I've had this stuff I should be better at it."
Her (gushing again)- "Well if you ever want to give me a tip or anything.." as she walked away.

Honestly. How much more awkward can a conversation about a school topic get?!?! I was standing there seriously feeling like a Greek god being hailed or something. Just because I knew what adipose is and where it's found. I guess some people are just incredibly easy to please. I wish she was the one grading my tests... haha!

The things we say..

Here is a quick funny story.

The background: Friday I left for Utah with Doug and his family for his family reunion. I forgot to pack a PJ shirt so last second I put one on top of my bag, under the straps. Saturday I met Missy and went to Lagoon and spent the night in Salt Lake with her, Dan, and Nicole.

The story: Picture this..Saturday night I was completely exhausted from not sleeping well the night before and being very active all day at a water park and then Lagoon. I was getting ready for bed and here is the conversation in a nutshell:

Me: "Crap, my shirt fell off in his car."
Nicole: "Oh it FELL off, did it??"
Me (embarrassed): "Yeah, it was on my bag."
Nicole: "On your back?!"

Okay, so that's pretty dirty but completely innocent at the same time. Don't pretend like you didn't laugh, or at least smile. :)

Chronicles of a Previous Biology Major

You learn things in biology you don't want to know. Trust me. The classes made me a worse germ freak than I already was, which is really truly saying something. But I really did learn some useful things.

Fact #1 If your mom does home canning, do you remember how she would always freak out about boiling the green beans for 15 minutes without touching it with the spoon or anything, to kill any BOTULISM? Guess what? That is a complete MYTH! If the botulism is not killed during the actual bottling process, you will die. Sad but true. Boiling the green beans will kill the organisms, but not the toxin...which just so happens to be (I'm not kidding) literally the most deadly substance known to mankind. So for at least for my cousins, you remember that growing up, getting scolded if you stirred them before 15 minutes and having to get out a new spoon. I know I did. I was pleased as could be to tell that to my mom and Debra...and I bet you wouldn't be able to guess that really didn't believe me. :) Apparently they have been bottling properly though, since we are all still alive (and boiling them never did anything).

Fact #2 The label reads "kills 99.9% of germs" and you think hooray. I know I used to, being the germ freak that I am. Haaa. I am happy to say since this day in class, I haven't used anything with that on the label. Here is why. Say you have a modest amount of germs...say 10,000 and we will pretend like we are cleaning the bathroom. You use something that kills 99.9% of germs, and have 100 left now. 100 that are now resistant to that antibacterial product. Now someone hops in the shower and the bathroom gets steamy and warm...which speeds up bacteria's reproduction significantly. They reproduce at a crazy fast rate under this condition and suddenly your bathroom is filled with bacteria that is completely resistant to whatever product you used. So next time you clean with that, no germs are killed and they keep reproducing. Sickening thought, isn't it?

Fact #3 (Disclaimer to Mattskie: if you continue reading you CANNOT get mad at me, I warned you!!!!) Melaleuca oil is not a good antibacterial product! In our lab we had to do a final project and one group chose to test different antibacterial products. They put disks soaked in the product into the petri dish that had been swiped from someplace germy. Some of the petri dishes didn't really have anything, some of them had a dot or two here and there... but the Melaleuca oil petri dish GREW bacteria everywhere! Not that it matters, since you now know cleaning with antibacterial products isn't a good idea anyway. :)


The two morals of the story:

Bottle properly or you will die. :)
AND
Soap and water is the best cleaning agent.

The Miracle of the Keys

It never ceases to amaze me how little things can turn out to be incredible miracles. Yesterday a friend and I headed to a place about half an hour away to go swimming for the afternoon. We pulled in the parking lot and she parked her car and went to pull the keys out of the ignition and they wouldn't even turn to the point where you pull them out. We tugged on them and they wouldn't come out or even budge to where we could pull them out. We drove around the parking lot a little, reparked and tried to get them out again. We tried everything we could think of for awhile until we decided to start calling people. She called her grandpa first, but he wasn't home so she ended up chatting with her grandma for a minute. I called my dad and talked to him for a few minutes. We tried what they said and nothing worked. She called one more person and he told us something to try and a couple minutes later it worked and we got the keys out and headed in to pay to get in. I had ignored a call from someone because I thought I knew what he was calling about and I didn't want to talk for a long time when we just got to the pool. Boy did I turn out to be wrong. He then sent me a text asking if my best friend was okay. I told him as far as I knew she was, and asked what happened. He called me, and this time I answered. He told me that my best friend's fiance had committed suicide. We were able to leave the pool before we had paid and I really think if it weren't for the problem with the keys that delayed us a long time, I would have been in the pool and not gotten that phone call. Because of being delayed by a dumb key, I was able to turn around and come straight back to town to my friend's house to be with her during the worst time of her life. I will forever be grateful for that little key and the loving Heavenly Father who made it stick.

We miss you like crazy Anthony. You'll never be forgotten.

I Love My Family!

I've always known I have the best family ever but lately I've gotten lots of good reminders.

My parents are two of the rocks in my life. They love and support me and have taught me to do the same for others. My dad can always make me laugh and my mom is there when I need someone to cry on.

My grandparents, although they are all gone now, have left an amazing legacy. They knew how important family was and passed that value to all of us.

My cousins are amazing examples to me. I love being around them! Thanks for letting me grow up with you.

My aunts and uncles are so supportive. They are always there when we need them.

I have the best family in the whole wide world!

Why I'm Not Married

The topic of "why I'm not married" is a common one amongst my single best friends. We laugh about it, joke about, make fun of each other for it..the works. I think I am the lucky one of the bunch however, because I know the probably number one reason why I'm not married or engaged. I'm not ready yet.

Tons of girls my age or a year older are engaged, already married, pregnant, already have a kid, you get the idea. Both of my best friends from high school are engaged, and one of my other best friends has a promise ring. I'm so excited for them! That is what is right for them, but that just isn't what is right for me personally. I have a lot of learning and growing left to do. I'm glad my Heavenly Father knows me perfectly and knows I still need time to prepare before he sends the right guy my way.

Funny Traveling Stories

I've done a lot of traveling and something funny always happens on trips so I'll share a few stories.

In Australia- I was on my homestay and the girl said, "Hey, do you want a -----?"(I can't remember the word now). And I said, "A what?" So she repeated, "A ------." I did not understand her so we walked out to the freezer and she got me an ice cream.

In Mexico- We were staying in a hotel that was literally on the edge of a cliff. It was a weird little motel, all the rooms faced an outdoor courtyard type thing so the doors from the rooms went to outside. One night me and one of my room mates were up pretty late and it had started to storm pretty bad. We decided to get towels to stuff under the door because there was a huge gap between the door and the ground so we didn't want our room flooding with rain overnight. We were both just standing up from stuffing towels under the door when either the hotel or the cliff was struck by lightning. It was one of the craziest things ever. We looked at each other and started to scream bloody murder and just stood there screaming and hugging each other.

In Ohio- I got checked out by more girls than guys. I was highly disturbed.

In Indiana- A guy I smiled at (because I'm a nice person and smile at random people) started talking to me and following me all over the convention center and wouldn't leave me alone. I would even say things like "Well, I better go find my parents." and he said, "Oh, can I walk you?" Yikes!

In Texas- I checked into the convention and got my paperwork and walked off. I waited a few minutes and wondered what was taking Missy so long so I walked back to the desk to find her saying in an extremely exasperated tone, "My last name is BARKER!! BAAARRRRKKKKEEERRRR!!!!" The lady kept saying she didn't understand what Missy was saying and was looking in the E's for her paperwork. It took Missy and I saying her last name over and over and me finally spelling it out for the lady to understand Barker through our accents.

Also in Texas, a few days later, Missy got way sick so we had to take her to a doctor. The closest one we could find was about half an hour away. We took her there and she got a shot that made her super sleepy so she crashed in the car on the way back to the hotel. She couldn't walk by herself because the medicine made her THAT sleepy so walking into the hotel we just wrapped arms around each other's shoulders and she staggered along with me. In the elevator she kept swaying and an old lady was glaring me down. Finally, when Missy swayed really hard, she said, "Is she okay?!" in this way rude voice, like I was bringing her back drunk or something. I explained. So we got to our floor and we were almost to our room and Missy tripped and she WOKE UP and asked me where we were. She had been sleep walking.

In Georgia- We stopped at a gas station that had a small ice cream parlor type thing too. I saw they had peach ice cream, and since they are famous for their peaches, I decided to try it. I knew our accents were hard for them to understand, so I spoke as clearly as I possibly could when I ordered my peach ice cream. This huge black lady was behind the counter and after I told her what I wanted, she just said, "WHAT?" In Georgia, peaches are "payches".

In Couer d'Alene- Right after I got back from Mexico we took a trip to northern Idaho. I was so tan from being in Mexico that I didn't look like I was caucasian anymore. We were in a gas station and this guy and my mom started talking. He had swastikas tattooed on his elbows (amongst a ton of other tattoos) and the classic buzzed blond hair and pale pale skin. I was freeeaking out.

On the way home from Michigan- This was around 11 at night and we had been driving since about 7 in the morning, so we were all exhausted. I knew we weren't supposed to drive through Colorado at all but I looked at a road sign as we passed it and realized all the mileages were for cities in Colorado. "Dad, why were all those cities for Colorado???" I asked. He didn't completely buy it but sure enough, we hadn't taken a turn we needed to and were in Colorado. We had to go about 10 miles into the state before we could turn around.

Colorado- On a different trip when we were in Colorado and meant to be in Colorado, we were staying in a teeny tiny little town. We were driving along and saw the sign for the town's tiny high school and on the sign was announcing the FFA meeting. That's Future Farmers of America. I cracked up because it was a town small enough to have an FFA meeting posted on the high school marquee.

In an airport (I can't remember which)- Our flight to taking us to that airport was extremely late so we got into this airport like 15 minutes before our next connecting flight was supposed to take off. My parents told me to run and tell them to hold the plane, literally. I scrambled out and found a map, and naturally our terminal was the LAST one in the hall. And this was a gigantic airport mind you. So here I am, sprinting through the airport in my flip flops and backpack so it sounds like a herd of elephants coming through. Everyone stared at me and it was seriously like a classic scene from movies.