futures made & fortunes lost

I've been having some car trouble & boy success lately:

On Monday my friend, Park City (the aforementioned boy in the post about my weekend), and I went to FHE & my car wouldn't start afterwards. It eventually did after trying for 5 minutes & we went on our merry way.

Last night I went to get the sister missionaries for dinner & it wouldn't start again. This time it took about 15 minutes of trying to get it going. On our way home we got in an accident with a nice British man who didn't see us & slammed his fancy Jaguar into the side of my car. I knew if I turned my car off it wouldn't start again so I made the sisters stay in it with it running while we did the insurance exchange thing. After sorting all that out, I still had to go to the grocery store to buy some food for the sisters. Still worried my car wouldn't start, I made them stay in the car again while I ran in & got the stuff.
By the time we got to my house the sisters had been sitting in my car for 45 minutes. Definitely an effective use of their time.

In my distress after the accident I called PC for emotional support. He offered to come up and take the sisters & me to institute. After institute we took the sisters home and went back to my house. In an attempt to cheer me up he told me stories about awkward moments with girls (example: once to avoid a kissing situation with a girl he ended up shoving a can of chili into her stomach instead). As the evening ended, I decided once again that he does actually like me.

So, the key to getting attention from boys is to have such a pathetically awful day that they are forced to feel sorry for you. If only I'd known how easy it is earlier...

Things I Did This Weekend

in chronological order:

1. Talked to a best friend from high school who just got back from Iraq (yay!!)
2. Braved a rock climbing wall (1st time since the big fall)
3. Went to an Emory soccer game (3-1)
4. Ate at a Mexican bar
5. Watched multiple episodes of The Office (hilarious)
6. Decided a certain boy does in fact like me
7. Went hiking with friends
8. Played frisbee in the pool
9. Took a trip to Costco
10. Returned cell phone left at my house (only an extra hour driving in atlanta traffic...)
11. Ate some BBQ (Smokehouse is better)
12. Watched "The Labyrinth"
13. Convinced said boy to be David Bowie for Halloween
14. Decided said boy does not like me
15. Church
16. Nap
17. Talked to multiple friends on the phone
18. Decided maybe said boy likes me
19. Thought about doing homework
20. Wasted time on the internet

conclusion: highly unproductive, but fun

Things I've Learned 2

One of my teachers happens to be a world expert on iodine deficiency so yesterday we had a lecture about it. Iodine is essential for development & if children don't get enough they'll have lower IQs (even to the point of being mentally retarded). In adults a lack of iodine exhibits as a swollen thyroid gland, commonly known as a goiter.
I worked with IDD in the Philippines so I know a bit about it in other countries. I assumed America iodized all its salt because we're rich. We don't. You can buy iodized salt at the store, but you can buy non-iodized as well so you have to pay attention. More importantly, this whole time I thought that eating chips was giving me adequate iodine so I could pretend it was healthy. Alas, no salt is iodized if it is in processed food. Most shocking though was when our teacher examined about 8 of the girls for goiters. Seven of them had them (albeit very small ones). Slightly disturbing.... Maybe this mass lack of iodine explains why most Americans seem so stupid to me?
Don't worry though - I have a solution: I am going to bake cookies with iodized salt every week & eat them all so I will have a healthy thyroid. It is a sacrifice I'm willing to make for my health.

good news

I tried out institute again this week. I decided I couldn't complain about not knowing anyone in the ward if I didn't go to FHE & institute. When I got to the church, I found out there is an Old Testament class. The teacher is a older dude who actually reads the scriptures & the people in the class don't make totally off topic comments. I guess God does love me after all.

i'd rather go to hell than shake your hand & wish you well*

I decided to go home last weekend. My brother & dad left for Ireland on Sunday and we were getting a new Stake President so I figured this was a good weekend to be home. Overall, it was a nice weekend - only slightly marred by the fact that I saw my arch enemy at stake conference. You are probably thinking, "Brooke, you are always so accepting and cuddly. How could you have an arch enemy?" Quite easily, in fact.

Imagine Michael Scott from the Office as a real person. Now imagine him as one of your friend's fathers. And there you have my Arch Enemy. He used to live in my ward, but sometime while I was at BYU, he & his wife (I don't like her either) moved to Virgina (still in the stake, sadly). So I only remember that this man exists when I go to stake conference. I could go into the multiple reasons I hate him, but suffice it to say that he is a self-righteous bastard. All the people that I claimed to hate at BYU are like good friends compared to Arch Enemy.


For some reason he thinks that it is okay to talk to me. Maybe because, when he proved incompetent of caring for his own children, his son moved in with my family for a year so he thinks we have a bond or something. More likely, I think he has forgotten the last conversation we had (I was 17). It ended with me saying "I don't like you & I refuse to talk to you ever again" & from that point on until he moved out of the ward if he tried to talk to me I would simply walk past without acknowledging his existence.

Its been 7 years since that conversation & I would like to think I've matured a bit. I guess not since when he came over & insisted on shaking hands with everyone in my family (most of us seething with hatred as we did so), the only cognitive thoughts that came to my mind were swear words. I can honestly say I am rarely filled with such loathing as I was in that moment. My little brother, Boy, asked, "What was on his tie?" I stared at him blankly for a few moments before I could formulate the sentence, "I'm sorry, the only words I can think of right now are vulgar." And then Boy, Babes (my little sister), the kid in front of us, & I all gossiped about how utterly atrocious Arch Enemy is.

I like to think that I am the type of person who doesn't hold grudges. Well, I'm not. I think I will detest this man until I die. I'll probably still be avoiding him in the celestial kingdom. But, even if I couldn't actually look at or speak to him, I did shake his hand. I think that is pretty good progress for 7 years.


*these are lyrics from an excellent song called "I Hate You" by John Oszajca. i recommend it if you are pissed at someone

tell me lies, tell me sweet little lies

I decided to try out my ward's institute options to counter-balance the rather secular school that I attend. Unfortunately, thus far I have been highly unimpressed by the experience. My options are either Provident Living or Book of Mormon. Since the words "provident living" only bring to mind images of my parents' food storage room, I decided to stick with BoM. The class is taught by senior couple missionaries & the first week was the lady's turn. The topic was the tree of life dream - pretty hard to misunderstand considering that the explanations of the symbols are explained in the next chapter. However, she is a remarkable lady & was able to spew so much false doctrine that my roommate (who joined the church 3 months ago) was totally lost. My favorite was a ten minute discussion on the semantics of the words "clinging to the rod of iron" - which this lady had convinced herself were negative. I spent most of the hour muttering "that is just her opinion, NOT doctrine" to my confused roommate.

The next week my roommate had something to do so I went alone. I was going to try the provident living class, but it still intimidated me so I went back to BoM. This time the husband was teaching and I thought "Well, maybe she is crazy, but he is voice of reason in this companionship". Ahhh, the hope of wishful thinking. This guy starts out with a 20 minute speculation on things Nephi's boat could symbolize. I was very tempted to raise my hand and say, "What the hell is wrong with you people? It is just a boat. It took them across the sea. It is an f-ing boat!" But, swearing at institute is usually frowned on so I just listened in disbelief to the many things that were enthusiastically fabricated. Since we wasted so much time talking about the boat (maybe its the power of God!) we only had time to mention that Jesus said the words of Isaiah are great & we should study them. Of course, we didn't actually have time to even read them because we'd been too busy making up crap about a boat (maybe its life!) We finished off with the wife telling all about dancing in the temple.

The only lesson I learned from the past 2 weeks at insitute is that false doctine hour seriously pisses me off. Not exactly the desired repsonse to institute. So even if it is how to can peaches and store water for the rest of the year, I'll be going to Provident Living.

Bright Lights, Big City

Moving from Bubble-ville to a city of 5.3 million was bound to be a big change. I expected things like horrible traffic (check), getting lost daily (check), & a better night life (the jury is out - it would probably be cool if i had some friends...). There have been some unexpected perks though:

1. Getting hit up by bums for money anytime I venture away from my house or Emory's campus. One dude even accosted me as I was getting in my car at the grocery store. Not that I have anything against people eating, but when you can smell the alcohol on them, you know it is not going to "food".

2. People borrowing my cell phone. In the past 2 weeks, 3 random people on MARTA (the train system) have asked me if they could borrow my phone. Note that I had not used my phone in their presence & they had no way of knowing that I actually owed one. Yesterday the lady next to me used hers & then a girl asked me to borrow mine. WTF?

3. Fun stuff to stare at on the street. Last week a friend & I drove by a car being torched in the middle of the road. Why? No idea. But, I never saw interesting stuff like that in Bubble-ville.

As one of my friends down here told me, "Atlanta is great. You can have all the high cultural experiences of other cities & the all excitement of dodging bullets on the way home. It is the best of both worlds!"

Things I've Learned

I've decided to introduce a section in my blog about the scary things I learn at school everyday. I have a feeling my parasitic diseases class will provide prime material for this. Here are the highlights from this week:

• There are lots of parasites in water. The one above is called cryptosporidium. It is responsible for 60% of gastroenteritis outbreaks in the US. You've probably had it before.
  

• Chlorine doesn't kill parasites
  

• Public pools are not filtered well & are basically just big vats of parasitic water b/c of the people that swim without showering first

all these people are probably infecting each other. sick.

• 82% of people think that if you have diarrhea you should never swim at a public pool. Great. What about the other 18%? What are those people thinking??? "Hmmmm, I have the runs today. Maybe a nice dip at the public pool will clear it up!"
  

singing songs about the southland

Over Labor Day weekend I went to Stone Mountain with some friends. Stone Mountain is mostly a big rock dome right outside Atlanta, but it also has a large relief carving of 3 Confederate heroes - Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee, & Stonewall Jackson. The group I happened to be with hailed from Utah, China, New Jersey, & Canada. A few of them seemed to feel that having a tribute to anything Confederate was inherently racist. I have spent a lot of time in the past years thinking about the South's obsession with "The War of Northern Aggression" & its ties to racist. These are my conclusions:


People who have not lived in the South cannot understand the impact the Civil War had on it. The economy, culture, & society were all irrevocably altered. The South went from being the most prosperous part of the nation to the poorest, sickest, & least educated. And it has never recovered. The affects of the Civil War are still a part of daily life down here. Of course people still talk about it, dwell on it, & honor the people who lead the fight against becoming what the South is today. In educated Southern society, the fall of the South is not about slavery, it is about the destruction of a once successful land. Equating the acknowledgement of the most definitive event of an area’s history with racism is simply ignorant.


Disclaimer: It is obviously a good thing that the South lost the war. A society built on gross violations of human rights needs to be uprooted. And judging people based on the color of their skin (whatever is may be) is ridiculous.

freaks & geeks

so i've lived in the city of Atlanta for about a week now & thus far have not been too impressed with the cultural offerings. everything changed tonight when i happened upon Dragon*Con, Atlanta's premier pop culture/sci-fi/fantasy convention. while wandering downtown with some friends, i saw a man dressed as a star wars storm trooper. and then i saw a harry potter, a man with a large wooden sword, & a plethora of nerds with dragons or wizards on their over-sized t-shirts. eventually i made my way down to a veritable parade of characters. my favorites were the 7 foot tall Chewbacca, 4 guys that collectively made up a tetris game, the lego man, & a girl dressed as the house that killed the witch in the wizard of oz (completely with ruby slippers).

the best part about the event was how excited all the participants seemed to be. i've been hunting for a new hobby lately & i think this might just be the perfect thing. the social implications may be a bit negative. i always thought those people were fringe members of society, but apparently there are enough of them to fill 3 large hotels. and they did all seem very happy. i could always wear a storm trooper mask so no one would know it was actually me...