I have the best (former) students!

I've had a tough teaching year.  I could blame it on lots of things, some of which are my fault and some that are not.  I have a few class periods that I like and a few students that I absolutely adore, but let me just say that I am not sad to see a major chunk of these kids move on.  Who it is hard to see move on often times is students that I taught years ago, the ones that are graduating.  Because I teach 9th graders, I often have these students at their neediest and most brainless.  I somehow manage to keep my sanity while helping them gain theirs.  As they get older, I watch as they come into their own, finding success in their social, athletic, academic  and extracurricular lives.  Some of them continue to talk to me, but the majority move on and even stop saying hello in the hallways.  Part of me aches for the days when we had inside jokes as class periods, would laugh and tell stories, but I also understand the need for them to move on.  I think some of them don't realize how much I still care for them and their success, so they stop acknowledging me because they think that I don't care anymore.  I'm sure a lot in all actuality do not care.  But there are always the ones who don't forget, or after a year of the silent treatment work their way back into hello's and teasing.  Of this year's seniors, there were a lot of girls that I really got to know, girls that are smart and beautiful and talented and good and motivated.  Girls that will accomplish things in their lives, whether that be in their homes or in academics or careers.  About a year ago, one of those former students started to greet me each morning with "Team Hensel!"  I'm not sure why, but she stuck with it.  As students often do, they swear they will do something for me to remember them by - a gift or some such thing.  Most don't and I don't expect them to, so when Brittany said she was going to make a Team Hensel t-shirt for me, I smiled and said my obligatory but unconvinced "Cool!"  To my surprise, she actually did.  I wear it and smile.  I will keep it, along with the doodles and notes and series-finale "Lost" party supplies and thank-you cards and senior pictures that I've collected over the years, close to my heart, a heart full of the marks of hundreds of the best former students ever.

Easter, General Conference, and Soccer

It's April.  One day it'll be sunny and 70's warm, and the next it will be windy and raining or snowing.  Regardless of the forecast, April is the start of things - literally and figuratively.  Literally, spring activities start.  People are anxious to get outdoors, put shorts and sandals on, and enjoy the sun, however fleeting it is.  The trees and flowers are showing their newly sprouted faces of vibrant greens and yellows and pinks.  Figuratively, it is a time of spiritual awakening as the Easter holiday and the resurrection of Jesus Christ is celebrated and those of the Latter-Day-Saint faith gather in person or at the closest television screen to watch General Conference, as the leaders of the church, including the Prophet Thomas S. Monson, speak and share inspired messages to those willing to listen.  It is that time of year, and here is how I have been participating in the great awakening of this spring.

1) Easter Sunday:  I love my nieces and nephews.  I spend a lot of time with Mikey, Rori and Sarah because they live up the street from me. I even try to go to church with them, just so I can see them. I don't recall what was said during church on Easter day because, well, as anyone sitting with little kids at church will tell you, it's really hard to hear and focus.  But their sweet faces remain emblazoned in my mind, and I feel the need to be a better person so I can be a better example to them.  Somehow, being with them in the small way that I am feels like doing  a small part of what the Savior's life was all about - loving people, serving, teaching, being an example.

2)  General Conference:  Thanks to an amazing home teacher who snagged us tickets, my friend Lisa and I were able to attend the Saturday morning session of General Conference.  We were there to hear in person the announcement of the Cedar City Temple.  Rumors had been circulating for quite a while, but I refused to believe them until I heard it announced by the Prophet himself.  As he approached the pulpit, my heart started to race and I could feel my eyes welling up even before he said anything.  Then he said that he was pleased to announce two new temples.  "Only two?" I thought.  That doesn't give much leeway!  Then he announced said the words, and I started crying.  Lisa did a double-fisted victory arm pump.  There were audible gasps and shrieks of joy.  It was great. I had to ask where the second announced temple was, I was that overcome. Over the entirety of the four sessions of Conference, the message I came away with was to be committed to the gospel, and to get ready for the temple here, of course.  

This was not part of Conference, but a pleasant side affect.  So was visiting with great friends who live                                  in the Salt Lake area.

3)  Soccer:  My nephew Mikey has started soccer.  After the game I Saturday afternoon, it's debatable if he really likes it or not.  But two weeks ago, he was giddy, especially when his dad showed up.  He is a little timid still; Beth and I were wondering when competitiveness starts in kids.  Some kids playing already seem to get it, but on Mikey's team, the boys seem to still be under the impression that they need to take turn between teams kicking the ball, or that if another kids is winding up to kick it that they need to wait for him to be done.  There were a few minutes when Mikey got in there though.  If he will stick with it, it will be fun to watch him as he evolves athletically.

My Life in Numbers

180 days (6 months) - How long the high school debate season has been going on
 32 - Number of hours on a school bus traveling to and from debate tournaments
 1 - Number of days since the end of the high school debate tournament (Cedar High took 5th overall)
 1 - Number of days left of debate practice
 5 - Number of days before the end of 3rd quarter
 139 - Number of essays i need to grade before the end of 3rd quarter
 24 - Number of actual lessons I have to prepare for my regular English classes. Number of actual lessons I need to prepare for my honors class.
 13 - Number of class periods I will see each of my classes before the End of Level test
 27 - Number of school days before the End of Level test begins
 52 - Number of school days left before the end of the year.
 75 - Number of days before I get on a plane to Italy
 3 - Approximate number of seconds between thoughts somehow related to getting on a plane to and/or being in Italy

A Halloween Miracle

Let's play a game, the one where it's a few days from a holiday and I'm just posting about the previous one and you just get to watch me. ;)

I love Halloween.I know it's not a real holiday, but I love the decorations, the spookiness, the candy, having a reason to enjoy getting scared, the trick-or-treaters, pumpkins, fall weather,  haunted houses...it's just fun!

So maybe you can imagine my dismay when I got my Halloween decorations out of the storage unit and smelled something funny in the plastic bin, only to discover black mold had overtaken a lot of my decorations and costumes.  Since the decorations are mostly wood, a little water went a long way on the organic materials.  Finding black mold in a plastic container really is spooky, and the physical effects of inhaling it, though brief, where pretty quick.  The bin and its contents quickly went outside

Some of the worst victims of the mold

A gray fuzz covered these guys

the canvas on this wall hanging became a petri dish of sorts

A little green mixed in for variety

I was pretty bummed in between my coughs and had to throw out a table cloth, half of my decorations (I was too scared to attempt to clean most of them and bring them back into the house), and three costumes.  I was able to salvage a few though, as they were at the top of the bin.  A little vinegar solution (hopefully) did the trick on the wooden items, and a shopping trip and birthday gift took care of the rest.  Mix in a trip to the pumpkin patch with my nieces and nephew, some trick-or-treating action, and Halloween was saved!

It's Facebook's Fault

I'm about done with social media.  Not like blog social media, but the kind where I know about people's bowel movements, party schedule, countdown to marriage of every former student I've ever taught, and political bashing.  Facebook has become a burden, so much so that my beloved blogging has fallen by the wayside.  And since it is easier to blame Facebook for my problems than take accountability for it myself, I vow here, publicly, in front of the 8 of you who show up on my news feed as having looked at my blog, that I will devote more time to blogging - which actually brings me joy - and less time Facebooking - which brings me grief - until I can figure out a way to get rid of Facebook altogether while keeping in contact with the people I'd really like to keep up with.

The Grown Up

When I was in middle schould, I thought being a grown up would be so cool because I could do whatever I wanted whenever I wanted to.  I wouldn't be bossed around anymore.  I could eat as many Oreo's as I wanted.  I would have all this money I could spend on all the things I wanted to do (my parents were just being selfish and stingy; I knew they just HAD to be ROLLING in money and they wouldn't buy me the stuff I wanted because they just didn't want to share).  Life would be glamorous starting at about high school (Beverly Hills 90210) and would just get better from there (Melrose Place, which, interestingly enough, I never watched.  But they sure looked like they had important stuff going on!)  I didn't know what that would look like, but it would be so much better than what I had at the moment.

When I was in middle and high school, I thought being a grown up would be so boring because I'd have to go to work and I wouldn't have any friends anymore.  College was the pinnacle of life, so I just had to get there.  Getting out of Green Bay would make me happy because, let's face it, anything HAD to be more exciting than Green Bay, Wisconsin.  There, I would really start living life to the fullest (Friends).  Friends, boys, parties, and classes that I actually was interested in would be so awesome...I couldn't wait!  I didn't know what it would look like, but I would be so happy because it would be so much better than what I had at the moment.

When I was in college, I thought being a grown up would be cool because I would finally have money to do what I wanted to do while I was in college; I would have a husband and home of my own, which would be great.  It would be clean and picked up because it's always easier to keep things clean when you don't have roommates and you know which messes are yours.  It would be well decorated, this house of mine.  I didn't necessarily want to have to go to work, but when I or my husband had time off, we would explore the world - my own new little family, of which I would be the coolest involved most easy going wife and mother ever.  And we would always have enough money that we would never have to say no to anything really amazing.  I didn't know what that would look like, but things would fall into place in a way that was very different than the way they were at the moment.

Now I'm here, I guess.  Adulthood.  The problem is that I still don't know what it means to be an adult.  I still feel like college was just a few years ago, and my lifestyle hasn't changed too much since that time.  There is no husband or children or home of my own.  I keep late hours (sleeping and rising).  I answer to parents (of my students).  I have homework (to grade) and tests to prepare for (the standardized variety).  I have summers full of lazy boredom off.  I eat a lot of the same easy to make meals like mac 'n cheese, sandwiches, and breakfast for dinner, just like I did in - wait for it - college.  I am neither motivated to regularly plan meals ahead of time, nor do I usually eat at the table.  I am not great with money.  I'm actually becoming more selfish than I used to be, if that is at all possible. I still have a roommate, there is no rush to keep things super clean, and I am not even close to owning my own home. And when activities are planned for LDS singles of my age to meet other singles, they usually end up being dances - the same activity that was planned for 14 year olds.  I think the only thing that has really "grown up" over the years is the way I dress.  To be succinct, I am not an adult, or at least what I pictured one to be.

This has led to a lot of dissatisfaction with my life. In a side by side comparison of success,  I am a stunted cougar/college student hybrid (not in the dating younger men way, just in the too old to be a coed but still being one anyway) minus the cool parties and tropical spring break.  My former students are more likely to comment on my Facebook page than people my own age, in part  because of my hypothesis that there is an unspoken club that women are invited to join when they get married that separates the women from the girls, and yet another when they have children, and I am now two VIP passes behind.  In all actuality, I am in a different world than my peers, which makes us not really peers anymore, does it.  

So what is this eternally single, emotionally and motivationally immature woman-child to do?  How do I become a real boy...er, adult?  According to Wikipedia, "one may legally be an adult but possess none of the maturity and responsibility that define adult character."  I worry where I fit within that framework, or more accurately where other people would say the details of my life fit.  It actually frightens me a little bit.  That being said, I am determined to feel comfortable in my own skin.  The last few years I have been trying to love me, or at least the outside of me.  While that is still a work in progress, I am determined to not just like the physical shell, but also the life I have created for myself.  Sure, it isn't what I would have chosen for my pseudo-adulthood, but I've got to make it work somehow until it changes or doesn't change.  Being productive, having a daily purpose, contributing to the greater good of the world around oneself - I think these are all things that transition a person into an adult.  I have had moments of each of these, but I don't know if it's been simultaneous.  I need to meld these things together,  in addition to changing behaviors that I thought I would be forced to change when my relationship status would when I still thought my relationship status would change ever so many years ago.  I shouldn't be waiting for that to happen first - what a ridiculous thought after all the times I've stopped waiting for other things!  I will figure out how to be proud of the life that I have  now.    I will grow up.

I judge books by their covers.

http://30.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lxk2gl4xHq1r726ojo1_500.jpg

I'm not afraid to admit it.  I judge books by their covers.  Titles are highly instrumental in forcing my hand to reach out for the binding, but the cover can make me think twice.  Or not at all, I suppose.  Like a man with beautiful eyes and lips but teeth that are nasty.  Or jeans that make you look and feel like you work out a lot when you don't, but are distressed in places that are completely unnatural spots to be worn out unless you are the Tin Man.  I have cuddled in bed with a few titles in my day, and I couldn't help but notice that the choice of cover art on a book is often indicative of what's between it's sheets (pun intended).  I read a wide variety of literature, but as of late I read a little more young adult literature, being that it's the middle of the school year and all.  Therefore, I have an unofficial list of rules that I have created to help me weed through the plethora of teen-oriented titles.  This list qualifies a book for a few seconds longer of consideration of my time.  There are always exceptions to the rules - books that have the right cover but the wrong content.  Of course, there are also those books that I've pigeon-holed though I haven't read them yet.  But the thing is, because of my rules, I probably never will.  I've had to read some of "those" books - you know, the ones that have made you realize you will never get the time spent reading it back - to come up with my conclusions of course, and as a result have judged books of similar coverage as a result.  Forgive me, dear reader, if you disagree with my verdicts.  These are my rules, after all.  Here they are - my guidelines for choosing whether or not I will consider reading a YA novel:

1.  I try to avoid books with black backgrounds and

a) lone blossoms or pieces of fruit.  These images tend to appear in the YA section of your local Barnes & Nobel and symbolize sex/sexual tension.  Sex equals romance.  Romance equals love triangles, and consequently hours spent reading painful verbal exchanges between people who don't yet buy their own underwear but think that they know enough about life to be unable to go on living it without John Doe vampire. Think Twilight and it's sequels.   The Truth About Forever has a white background, but a flower that is being plucked.  Just as guilty as the black background, and just as unreadable.

b) a mouth, often with blood dripping from the cosmetically altered lips. Oh, or a craned neck, often with blood dripping from it (the neck may have a husky male face-planted in it).  Again, this cover is found in the YA section, but should not be confused with the corset-busters adult women read.  Those steamy little morsels don't have black backgrounds.  In the black background version, the mouth may be open or closed, shot head on or from any variety of angles;  regardless, those lips and exposed necks are also symbolic of sex (which equals romance which equals...).  Or death after sex...no, not BECAUSE of the sex, just somewhere in there.  Most likely after the love triangle which will most definitely be present, where any number of John Doe vampires may or may not be present.  Think Envy or The Vampire Diaries and most other paranormal romances (yes, there is now a section in B & N devoted just to them).  And I guess most
teen romances in general.

2.  I try to pick up books with black covers and objects you wouldn't expect to be floating on a black background.  Like a playing card.  Or a plastic cowboy and indian.  Or words.  Or Walter Dean Meyers' name on it.  Or just a black silhouette.  These usually are coming of age stories with male protagonists that somewhat replicate the problems real teenagers have.  Think I Am the Cheese,  The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian, Underdogs, The Outsiders, Playground, or Twisted.

3.  I try to avoid books with full-body pictures of teenage girls on the cover.  I especially stay away if they are lying on their backs, arms stretched above their head in a "Take me, I'm yours" pose, staring behind them at the camera.  Often they are wearing prom-dressy, corsety, sun-dress sort of things.  Their faces may be out of view or chopped off above the nose.  These books will most definitly contain a love triangle and pretty cheesy writing.  But rarely a prom, interestingly enough. Think Fallen in Love, Abandon, Dreaming Awake, or Everneath (which I am currently trying out but skeptical).  This also applies to full-body pictures of guys wearing jeans but no shirt, like Hush, Hush, or full-body make-out's on the cover, like he Rules of Attraction series.

4.  I proceed with caution around books with a close-up half-face shot of a teenage girl on the cover.  I've had some luck here, but I am nevertheless wary.  This is when the title and the dust-jacket summary act as deal-breakers, as they should.  There will still be a love triangle and a most likely a female protagonist who must get beyond her weak ankles to challenge her society, but the story may be more developed and thought provoking.  Think Delirium and The Uglies series, but beweare of others like The Vampire Diaries, Pretty Little Liars series, or If I Stay.

5.  I try to pick up and read books with what looks like rusted metal on the cover and/or the colors of rusted metal.  Or fire.  Or the colors of fire.  They haven't let me down yet. They tend to have male protagonists, moral dilemmas, and a girl who is slightly less annoying.  Maybe because she doesn't talk as much.  Think Ship Breaker, The Hunger Games, The Knife of Never Letting go, Divergent, or The Book Thief.

6.  I try to pick up books with maps, city street scenes, or cars on the cover.  Not like the red race car type; more like the NYC taxi cab.  Think It's Kind of a Funny Story, I Am the Messenger, or Maze Runner.

7.  Books with all sorts of strangeness on the cover usually get my second glance, and often my read.  Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children, and The Replacement come to mind.   So far, these novels have not been amazing, but I've read them solely for the weirdness factor.

8.  Last but not least, there are the books with little to no picture on the cover.  Just the title and maybe the hint of a picture - Milkweed, Stargirl, The Catcher In the Rye, The Boy In the Striped Pajamas.  I find them intriguing, these paperbacks with minimalistic tendencies.  Is the book hiding something?  Teasing me?  Testing me to see if I am one of the noble of heart that deserves the treasures within, hidden underneath its humble facade?  I will most definitely pick up this book for further exploration.  I may still choose not to read it, but it will stew in my hand for a moment or two, calling to me.  I only have to decide if I'm up for the challenge.

Change

       For the last few years in a row, there has been a day where I literally notice it - the change that has taken place. While there are many moments scattered through the weeks of spring of sunny days and warmer weather, the smell of thawing ground and the appearance of tulips, there is still one day that surprises me:  the day I notice that the trees have leaves.  And not just one or two trees here and there, but all of them.  I'll drive over a hill or around a bend and it will just hit me that it's no longer just the start of spring, rather a full swing of a scenario.

        Why it is such a surprise I'm not sure.  Am I too close to the situation that I'm not able to step back far enough to see trees the forest?  Am I too busy to notice the fledgling leaves that are bursting their buds, the process so slow it would take time elapsed photography to really notice the snails-pace evolution of the season?  Or is the change of the leaves instantaneous in their impatience for the sun?  Whatever the truth is, it is still a miraculous discovery each time.  I never noticed it as a child, but I'm so glad in all of my busyness that I notice it now.  These things need to be noticed by someone, and it is a burden I will gladly bear.

           The thing is, my life changes the same way spring does.  There are changes I hope for and wait for and pray for, and sometimes they just never seem to come.  Or they seem to be coming and then there is cold setback, chilly enough to make me question whether things will ever turn around.  But more often, it seems, the biggest changes - the ones I wait for most eagerly - are just one day....here.  I've waited so long that I can't believe that what I wanted is now the reality - it just is!  And I am in the middle of it, though I never really noticed how or when it happened.  Too close to the situation that the process of change was imperceptible until the course was complete, leaving me reeling to understand what has happened.  

     I'm not speaking in code or breaking any news here.  But I am waiting.  I hope I am in the middle of changes, but right now I can't see past the bridge of my nose.  I am impatient for the changes to occur but must reconcile that, while not today or tomorrow, this year or next, that something will be different eventually.  That I will wake up one day, and I will find myself in the reality of surprises I didn't see coming but were slowly taking place all along.

Fernweh

I like to look up what words mean.  Conversely,  I hated it as a child and teenager.  My least favorite response of those formative years, usually spoken by my dad, when I asked what a word meant was "Look it up in the dictionary."  If I needed to know badly enough, I would trudge over to the 1940's bookcase, pull open the sticking door, and pull out the red-covered Webster.  Flipping through the onionskin-thin pages, I would eventually find what I was looking for, and would probably find the definitions to a few more words I had stored up on a mental list as well.

What I'm not sure of is where the shift between hating the words and loving the words came.  Was it from the competition in my literature classes in college to sound equally as smart as all of those know-it-alls we all hated...OK, were jealous of...in high school that were now in ALL of my classes?  Was it the desire to find different words so as not to sound redundant in the million and one essays I had to write?  Was it to prove to the professors that I did know enough to be at an institution of higher learning even though my last three essays were disappointing at best?  Writing poetry for a creative writing class and diving in to a thesaurus to find the perfect word to replace the mundane, but needing to make sure the word I chose was the one I really wanted?  I can't say.  Maybe it was developed a little bit by all of them.  But whatever the reason, I'm not ashamed to say that my parents taught me so.  I wish I now had in my own possession that faded canvas covered dictionary that is slightly beat-up from use.  

This brings me to the term Wanderlust.  It's a German word that gets used in America to describe the desire to travel and explore.  It's literal translation means to enjoy hiking.  What Wikipedia (hey, hold your snorts and snickers!) told me about it though was that the word is no longer used in Germany.  A new word has taken its place.  Fernweh: an ache for distance.  What wonderful words, both of them!  I wish the English language had its own equivalents, as I suffer from Wanderlust quite frequently now, and if it goes too long it turns into Fernweh.  Don't get me wrong - I love my home.  But the more I travel, the more I want to see.  Like my mental list of words I was saving to look up, I'm adding places to my travel list that I never really wanted to see before because my confidence and sense of adventure is expanding the more places I go.  Morocco, Thailand, Egypt, Kenya, the Netherlands and Denmark are all creeping up on Italy, Greece, D.C., and India.  I think I'm gonna need another job...

Erin the Spy

from blindgossip.com

When I was in fifth grade I read Harriet the Spy by Louise Fitzhugh.  I loved that book.  Harriet carried a notebook and wrote her observations of people, sometimes looking through windows, hiding in dumbwaiters, lurking outside of doorways...I carried a notebook around with me for DAYS, hoping I would find interesting things to write down.  Unfortunately, Harriet's intuition for finding interesting subjects to study and her snarky comments and ability to get out of hairy situations did not rub off on me like the book's concept did.  What I did pick up, though, was my love of observing people.  In recent years, the world's love of social networking sites, more specifically Facebook, has only fueled my passion.  Some may say they like to participate too, while others may call it stalking or spying.  However you look at it, I like to do it.

In the microcosm of my Facebook friendships, I have had an abundant opportunity to do some people watching - getting into their photos, seeing what things they 'like', and more importantly,  getting to read their status updates - one-line public journal entries, as I like to think of them.  In my roughly three years as a Facebooker, I have recently begun to categorize people based on what they choose to write in their status updates.  You may see yourself in my observations.  You may not.  I myself have participated in many of the status-update categories at least once (asterisked).  But in the social experiment that is Facebook, people's compulsive tendencies start to become apparent and as a spy and amateur social scientist, I must share what I have observed.  I do not claim that all or any of these categories are negative or positive, but I do claim that all of them have been observed at least a dozen times each.

Exhibit A - The Game Player:  We know them and sometimes hate them for clogging up our feed updates with their requests for help building a Farmville barn or invites to the party in Sorority Life.   And there seems to be no rhyme or reason as to who chooses to play at being a boss in Mob Wars or an undead in Vampire Wars.  Now help me earn a lead stake or you're dead.

Exhibit B* - The Mysteriously Vague:  These status updates are often only one word long, but rarely exceed three to keep the questions flying.  "Yipee," "Sad","Unleashed", "People suck" and "I dare you" are some examples that drive many people so deep into curiosity that they just have to ask about it.  Of course, while many of us have updated our status's like this, to be a member of Mysteriously Vague, you may NEVER respond with an explanation.  E-V-E-R.  "Hhmmmmm".

Exhibit C - The Lush:  This is the person who talks about wine or parties a lot and does so frequently enough in his/her updates that even though he/she may just really like wine or parties like I like a cold glass of milk, the frequency of her status updates containing something about wine or how often he has a hangover seems a little, well, tipsy toward a needed intervention.

Exhibit D* - The Vacationer:  The person who counts down daily  (or semi-weekly) to the estimated day of departure of the big trip.  Most of the people in this category don't take trips very often, so their excitement is understandable.  Others always seem to be going on a trip.  Then we just hate them.  And they don't let us forget that they always go on trips because they tell us what they are doing from their Blackberry or iPhone every day of the trip.  At least it save us all from having to ask how the trip actually was after the fact.

Exhibit E - The Self Promoter:  These are the graphic designers/musicians/comedians/home-based salespersons that take every chance they get to use our electronic friendship to sell their merch, which might just be themselves.

Exhibit F* - The Song Lyricist/Movie One-Liner:  These people consistently update status with a line from a song or movie. Quite a few rarely if ever tell us their own thoughts in their own words.  Similar to the Mysteriously Vague, as readers we are never sure whether the lyric reflects the mood of the writer or if those lyrics just spoke to the person and they felt the need to share.  Sometimes the lyrics or quote are so obscure or random that we're not sure how they could either speak to or reflect a person in any way - or leave you wondering if it's even a quote because these people rarely if ever use quotation marks.  But quote away, my "friend".  Quote away.

Exhibit G* - The Mother:  I know and love many of them.  They write about their kids.  Just don't ask me to change yet another dirty diaper by writing it online.  I will never say yes. (I participate by either writing about things my nephew and nieces say or do and by writing things my students do.  They're kind of like my children, right?)

Exhibit H - The Fitness Buff:  These people tell you how far and/or how long they worked out and what they did while doing it.  Unfortunately, we're all sitting down staring at a computer screen when these updaters are telling us about it.  Some of us* may have been sitting all day.

Exhibit I -  The Betrayed Friend:  By far my favorite updaters, these people are consistently updating their profiles (sometimes using song lyrics or quotes that have reached the point of cliche or pinnacle of cheesiness) about friends who are unloyal, aren't there to catch them when they fall, and not needing people like them who constantly bring them down.  What I want to know is how these people are such bad judges of character that they are repeatedly choosing such crappy friends?  And why do they never tell us the names of these crappy friends so we can look them up so we will be sure to not accept their friend request in the event that we get them?

Exhibit J - The Gourmet:  Today's menu?  Two English muffins, both with a lot of butter and a smear of strawberry preserves, two glasses of milk, a banana, a white peach, asparagus, a crappy leftover steak (that was also crappy when I made it), and some buttered garlic noodles.  Oh, and some buttered movie theater popcorn.  Will you be over with your family and hope I made enough?

Exhibit K* - The Quizer:  This type of behavior runs the risk of extinction.  It's habitat is being systematically destroyed by Gamers and, more recently, The Liker's, a new trend on the rise but until now little studied.  Closely related to the extremely endangered Pokers,  Superpokers, and Gifters.

Exhibit L - The You Will Be My Friend - These dangerous people don't get it when you don't accept their friend request.  Four times.  And they just keep asking.  Hope you never have a face to face confrontation with this person, because if you won't be friends with them on Facebook of all places, that is one reality-based conversation that may be awkward when they ask you why.  And they will ask you why.

This list is not comprehensive.  Then again, lists rarely are.  If there are any categories of Facebook users you have noticed (such as The Debbie Downers, The Inspirational Quoters and The Friend Whores) and would like to add to this list with a description, please feel free to do so in the comments section of this study.

Thank you for your feedback.

Road Trip: Weddings and National Parks

My former roommate Ida got married in May, and my friends Lisa, Laura, and I traveled to Blanding, UT to wish her well. As an added bonus, we were able to visit three National Parks in two days. Here's what I saw and did!

We started in Moab at Arches National Park. The wind was crazy - wind gusts up to 37 mph! But there were a lot of pretty flowers, and we got a free microderm-abrasion session with all of the sandy wind blowing around, so win-win!

Utah's state flower, the Seigo Lily

After dinner and a little cleanup at our gracious host's house, college acquaintances Haven and Colby, we continued on to Ida's wedding reception.

We headed for home the following morning, taking Highways 95 and 24 back to where we came from. This route first took us through Glen Canyon National Recreation Area. This is the home of Lake Powell (which, after 10 years of living in southern Utah I still have never visited) which we only saw from a distance, and took us across the Columbia River. Thanks to an obligingly empty highway, we were able to stop in the middle of the bridge and throw off rocks because, hey, you're never too old to throw things off of higher things that lead to water!

If you enlarge the picture above, you can see a tiny bit of Lake Powell. This is as close as I got...for now.

The Columbia River

Taking a photo and play break at the Hite City overlook (still in GCNRA). If you look closely on the picture above, you can see the bridge crossing the Columbia and some really cool rock formations in the distance.

Be careful - those rocks can be slippery!

The Highway 24 took us through Wayne County. If you live in southern Utah, people identify themselves as being from WC often, mostly because they are from towns so small that most people from Utah don't even know where they are. It's just easier to name the county they're from! There were some really pretty - and not so pretty - areas. Eventually, though, we came to Capitol Reef National Park. There was a short boardwalk along some rock faces with petroglyphs on them. Really cool!

People crossing? No. Deer? Not really. Cattle? Most definitely. Two words: Open range.

THE END