Chemistry is the worst

Chemistry… Chemistry is the hardest class I've ever experienced.  I don't know if it's BYU chemistry or chemistry in general.  I know that BYU is notorious for having a rigorous chemistry department but I still thought it would be possible for non-super human people like me.  I study the material I do the homework, I go to class but it just doesn't seem to pay off any.  Once I get into the testing center it's like seeing a different language for the first time.  Not only that but everything I seemed to have studied is not recognizable on the test.  Anyway I could just say, "Oh my brain doesn't work that way."  But I don't want to believe that.  I want to believe that I can do this chemistry stuff in the testing center.

I have heard many people say, "I can't help it, that's just the way I am."  I never have believed that people "can't do" or "have to do" because, "that's just the way they are."  In my case with the chemistry stuff, I obviously know there's more I can do to understand better.  Even though I've tried long hours to understand sometimes it doesn't work out, which means to me that I need to try harder.

Coming Home

Coming home from a mission was one of the most bitter sweet experiences of my life.  I can remember thinking when I was about to come back to the states, "I don't feel likes it's time to go back home."  I really did feel that way although I was excited to see my family and such.  When I said goodbye to my family at the MTC I wasn't too sad because I knew I was going to see them again.  When I said goodbye to my Peruvians I was a mess because I knew I probably wasn't going see them again.  Going home meant goodbye to everything that I had grown to love.  I didn't want to leave.  Never the less I did come home and it has been great although it wasn't when I first got home.

When I got off of the plane I had knots in my stomach and I didn't understand why.  Before turning the corner where I knew I'd see my family I let out a big sigh.  I made the corner and saw my mother jumping up and down when we made eye contact.  I couldn't help but feel a little emotional with a smirk on my face.  She gave me a big long hug.

Being home I realized I wasn't an "important" person to people anymore.  I wasn't thinking about people anymore.  Mainly just thinking about myself.  Where was I going to go to school?  Where was I going to work?  How was I going to make money?  After my mission it all became about me.  I had a problem, because for two years my thoughts had been him, her, they, them ect.  All I wanted to do for a while was take a one way plane ride to Peru and keep going where I left off.  

5th Wheeling

This year is the first year of my little brother's college career.  He goes to UVU and before we both got up here, we agreed that we were going to be roommates.  While I was doing summer sales in Texas he called notifying me that he sold his contract and was living elsewhere closer to UVU.  I couldn't help but feel angry, because now I was going to get some random kid for a roommate that I didn't know.  I tried to tell him that he would have a better social and a overall better college experience if he lived in Provo with me.  He told me that it didn't matter, but that he wanted to live closer to UVU.  Despite my trying to change his mind he didn't.  Come a semester later he hates where he lives and his roommate situation.  He admitted to me that if he could choose again he would have roomed with me.  So now he feels home sick, and misses his girlfriend back home.  During thanksgiving break my parents and I along with Hayden and his girlfriend (when we go to Boise I never seen him because he's always with her) all went to a movie.  I was totally 5th wheeling with them all but we all had a great time.  So now when my bother and I are in Boise he's the happy camper where as I'm the happier camper when we're at school.  I took a little picture just to give you a visual of my movie night with the family.

Grandpa Kissing Nurses

My grandpa on my mom's side never said much.  Not to me, not to anyone, he was just a quiet man.  Before I left on my mission he told me I has going to have two of the best years of my life.  I came back two years later to find him crying at the airport.  We were quite excited to see each other.  I noticed that my grandpa had grown old in those two years I was away.  I noticed that he couldn't keep his balance hardly at all.  In fact when I saw him in the airport he was falling over and I had to catch him, just to let you in on his physical state.  

It was the day of my home coming talk that it had happened.  My grandpa's balance was so bad that when he went to go get the mail that afternoon he fell and hit his head on the side walk curb.  My uncle got the call from my grandma and we all went to the emergency room.  Grandpa had never been the same since.  He recognizes people but he can't remember anyone.  He is much more out going in his state now than he was in his fully conscious state.  He will laugh and try to make jokes, but really they never make sense.  It's quite funny actually.  

This thanksgiving my older brother and I went to go pick him up at his nursing home.  I'm a fan of the nurses that take care of my grandpa, they're very good to him.  And he seems to like the girls because every time he leaves he'll give them a fat kiss.  . . . Now I've always like to tease my grandpa by playing with his ears.  I do this because he doesn't like to be touched.  For some time during the car ride to thanksgiving dinner I was playing with his ears.  He was sitting in the front seat while I was sitting in the back, so I had an unfair advantage.  Just because Grandpa isn't the same anymore doesn't mean I can't still have fun with him.

Nike Headband

            We walked outside only to walk into a flood of anxiety, well, only me.  It occurred to me at that moment that I had lost my Nike headband.  It was lost, gone forever.  “Dude, Cameron I need to go buy a Nike headband.”  Without question he replied, “Yeah yeah no problem.”  Everyone on the team wore a Nike headband, and me being the youngest I didn’t want to look lesser then I already was.  I wanted to be a part of the crew.  Cameron knew this and graciously accepted my appeal to go out of the way to purchase one.

We never knew how to lose.  My friends and I in the ward were always the most tenacious when it came to church basketball.  My favorite player on the team was my older brother.  He was everyone’s favorite, and everyone knew he was the meanest dude on the court.  I always trusted him with the ball.  If anyone ever got rough with me he was very quick to defend me.  My brother and I had played with our friends growing up for years, which gave us a favorable advantage every season.  We had played hard and made it to the championship game.  We never missed a basketball game, but that particular day would force us to miss the important game. 

            It was six o’ clock on a snowy November night.  During the month of November we had church basketball.  I was a fourteen-year-old boy in the teachers’ quorum.  That meant that I was playing with kids much older than I was, two of them were my older brother Cameron and his friend Micah.  They were both seniors in high school and priests in the priest quorum respectively.  Our ward had a trend as a basketball team.  We would always wear Nike headbands with the Nike symbol above our right eyebrow with the Nike symbol upside down.

            I was feeling very exuberant walking out of Fred Meyer with my new headband.  As we were walking out to Cameron’s old beat up car with its dented in doors, we talked about what songs we were going to listen to, to pump us up for the game. That particular song would be the demise of our day.  We all got in the car and started to race to the game, we didn’t want to be late.  The car was hurling towards the game at forty-five miles an hour.  Micah couldn’t quite figure out how to work the radio and iPod at the same time (Micah never did have an iPod).  The system on the car radio was so intriguing with its changing colorful lights that I myself was getting sucked into the black hole.  Nothing outside existed, until I looked up.  Meanwhile, Cameron started to help Micah with getting a song to work on the iPod so we would get pumped up for the game.  Cameron was in the driver seat, Micah in the front passenger seat, and me in the back seat.  I wanted to be part of the conversations they were having, so I scooted myself kind of to the front in-between them to feel a little more included.  All this time I realized that nobody was looking at the road; not even me for the distracting neon lights inside the car.  I looked up only to meet two shiny red, and because of the distance, very scary lights.

            We were going forty-five miles an hour toward a stopped car in front of us.  I knew we were going to crash; it was inevitable.  There was no time to put on a seat belt, not for any of us.  The red taillights were so big and bright that it engulfed the entire car I was in.  The black hole was now a red hole.  Yet, I was the only one to see that we were about to meet those taillights with a very vicious impact.  I couldn’t slam on the breaks for Cameron, because I was in the back middle seat.  There was only enough time for me to yell, “Cameron!”  As I yelled his name I wedged myself in-between the back seat and the driver seat.  I hugged Cameron’s seat as tight as I could to prevent getting tossed out of the window dash.  I clenched my mouth, and squinted my eyes shut.  For some reason I thought it could have been over so I decided to peak across the right shoulder of the chocolate milk stained seat.  At that same instant I was violently hurled towards the front of the car and yet still managed to hang on to the seat.  On impact the car hit so hard that the back tires came up like the legs of a bucking bronco.  When they came back down was when I got tossed with such ease from almost hitting the dash to ending up in the trunk space.  We were all in so much shock but at this point I was the only one in the car that knew what had happened. 

            I quickly asked everyone if they were all right.  Cameron didn’t reply, only talking to himself stating how much trouble he was in.  I thought to myself, “how am I going to calm him down?”  I then grabbed Micah’s arm to get a good look at him, he told me he was ok in a dazed mutter.  The door was crunched so bad as if it were crumpled paper that I had to kick my way out.  When I got out of the car, to my despair I saw four more cars in front of ours, smashed.  I thought to myself, “Did Cameron start this five car pile up?”  As this thought crosses my mind I looked at the dash of Cameron’s car window where Micah was sitting.  To my alarm I saw a bubble protruding from the window the size of Micah’s head.  His head had shot through the window, due to not being fastened by a seat belt.  Immediately I rushed over to him, and before I could get there he shrieked, “My face is bleeding!”  His face had many lacerations from the glass of the window. 

            When all of the flashing lights surrounded us a fireman took a look and Micah and told us we needed to take him to the hospital.  All of our parents arrived with great relief that we were all in one piece.  Shirley (Micah’s Mom) came running over to his side with a bloody towel on his face scowling at him for not wearing a seatbelt.   She later said that we had been watched over by angels that night.  I believed her.

            I still wanted to go to the basketball game, but instead we went with Micah to the Emergency Room.  All the while I was thinking, “Cameron didn’t handle any of that well at all.”  All he did was stand there with his hands on top of his head.  All this time I wanted to be so much like him, and in one instant put Micah’s life and mine at risk.  I’m the one who was trying to be calm during the whole thing with the lady police officer telling us how much trouble we were in.  Fireman telling us we needed to take Micah to the hospital.  I felt like I had to delegate the whole thing until my parents got there.  I thought to myself, “Am I becoming an equal to Cameron?”  What does someone have to do for you to realize they’re not as Superman as you thought?  When in reality there’s a day we all see each other as equals.  As I shook my head clear of those thoughts Micah was ready to leave.  We all got into my parents’ car to drive home from that awful night.  My mom promptly stated with a chuckle, “Put on your seat belts.”   

Booya Moments

At BYU I've met some awesome people.  People I hope to call my friends for the rest of my life.  A surprise to me when I came down here was how much people are always studying.  It blew my mind.  I thought to myself, "Does anyone have fun down here or are they always in the library?"  I quickly found out that I would have to start doing the same if I was going to be able to compete with anyone.  Although all of your "playing" has to be done on the weekends, BYU isn't a bad place to go to school.  I can say I've learned a lot this semester.  Not only academically but socially as well.  Overall I like BYU, but I think the student section could be better at home games.  About that, have you ever seen the Utah State student section at a basketball game?  Two thirds of the stadium are students.  Everyone knows the chants and everyone chants.  Everyone stands up, and with all of those things combined I think makes for an awesome home game.  If I could change one thing about BYU it would be to better the student section at the home games.  

Reflection on Research Paper

This research paper was one of the more difficult ones I've written.  It was difficult because I didn't find it very argumentative, but rather what I was writing about was too obvious.  I liked that we had a lot of time to write it and brainstorm for a better paper.  The hardest part about his paper was the research.  Finding research to support your idea is actually quite tough, but once you find some good articles the paper begins to organize itself.  I used a lot of tools to write this paper.  I went to the writing center, I talked with my teacher, and I had my friends read it to give me feedback.  I hope that that will help my chances in getting a good grade.  I liked the fact that we started this paper earlier in the semester so that we don't have to be writing it during finals.