My Physical Science Chair is Physically Not There

I should have taken Geology.

Reason #1: My roommates in the class
Reason #2: I hate physics

But no, I had to go and choose just the general Physical Science. Thankfully my teacher tries to make class as fun and interesting as Physics can be. I think it helps that he worked in the real world before he got into teaching. He applies the science instead of focusing so much on the theoretical like my teachers in high school.

So the first section we are on is Physics and I hate Physics. It's the application of Calculus and, well, when I found that out it was pretty much doomed to never be liked by me.

I think my disdain for Physics is fully reciprocated. You might not think that a school subject could have emotions, but apparently they can and Physics hates me. The first day of class I choose a seat near the front mainly because I don't like tripping over bags to get to the back seats.

The the next time we had class I came in and my seat was missing! Physically not there...no where to be found. Thankfully since no one else likes sitting in the front the seat next to it was free and the teacher just changed the seating chart.

However today I went to class and not only was my original chair missing but also the new one I had chosen. The professor counted the chairs, but it was just not there. Physics is trying to kick me out of the class...or at least to the very back corner seat.

"They Freak Out Down Here"

After nine and a half hours of driving with only one gas/bathroom/food break I made it back to the good ole Natural State. I was just in time to help in the three year old class at church and to see the start of the snow falling. An hour later with the last child bundled up for the snow and the classroom closed up I stepped outside to over an inch of snow covering my Jeep. I was super smart and used red tissue paper from a gift bag to clear the snow off all the side windows. At the first sign of slipping in the parking lot I threw the vehicle into four-wheel drive, thankful that I had it.

I got on the main road through town to go pick up pizza and head to the apartment of the friend who I am staying with until school starts. I forgot that people in the south don’t drive on snow. Ice sometimes, but snow is a phenomenon that rarely frequents the place. I have heard rumored that the entire state of Arkansas has somewhere around three snow plows…for the whole state.

I drove down the road at a five mile an hour pace despite melted tracks revealing the road from previous vehicles, because no one would move any faster. My console glowed that I was getting seven miles to the gallon. The oddest occurrence was people were not even attempting to stop at red lights. I watched as three vehicles rolled through a red light at five miles and hour with no attempt of braking.

When I got to the pizza place the girl taking my money exclaimed, “What’s wrong with your hand!”

“Oh I’m allergic to the cold, so my hands break out in hives when they are cold.” It’s a generic answer I am used to giving ever since the condition started in seventh grade gym class.

“That is not hives!” She replied matter-of-factly.

I looked down and the palm of my right hand was blaring red, like the stoplights no one was adhering to. I freaked out for moment until I realized what had happened.

“Crap, I used red tissue paper to knock the snow off my windows. Fail.”

Fast forward to the next day. My friend Kayla and I went out because she needed a shirt for a wedding she was going to. Schools were out despite the snow on the roads being melted, because they had called the cancellations at five pm the day before. One of the shops we went to the lady at the cash register was stunned at our presences.

“What are you doing out?” She said in a shocked voice.

“There is no snow on the road. They are completely clear.”

“But there is snow.”

I’m not even sure how to respond to this reaction. Maybe because I am from the north, but snow on the grass just does not seem like a viable reason for everything to come to a complete halt. However, that night we went out for a Walmart run then we were going to get Subway.

As we drove down the main road all the fast food restaurants were closed despite the roads being clear…all day. So when we got to the Walgreens at the end we stopped in and got a box of cereal for supper. When we told the cashier that everywhere was closed, he replied “Yeah they freak out down here.”

My emotional reaction to the South's reaction to snow.

The Reality of Facebook

The Most Amazing Game I Never Watched!

This took place my senior year at the Academy. I thought I would edit and post it in celebration of the Colts play-off game against the Jets tonight. I wrote it back in 2007.

So here I begin the tale of the Colts game that took place last night. These last few weeks my father has been making me memorize football facts (useless information like Rex Grossman was from Bloomington Indiana and played for the Florida Gators) especially about the four qauterbacks playing in the play offs. (Actually this information proved not to be useless. I ended up answering several trivia questions that came up in classes about some of the players and coaches in the playoffs). Plus living in central Indiana my entire life I do like to see the Colts win (especially since they have never been to a superbowl, while in Indianapolis). But if any of you have ever seen my room you would understand it takes a while to clean so instead of watching the game I New-York-Timed it by hitting the refresh button.

When the score was 3 to 14 I decided my time would be better used in a deep slumber. I settled down for a nap. When I woke up I hit the refresh button and the score was 21 to 6 Pats. Still pretty much depressing, I went to the bathroom and through the window I could hear screaming from the courtyard that leads into the lounge where gathers the fans to watch the Colts. Sure enough they had scored a touch down. Thus began the catch up of the Colts and the little lets-see-how-many-times-we can-tie-the-game-and-then-go-back-to-losing. I continually hit the refresh button reading the play by play and receiving phone calls from my dad telling me more.

I ended up having to stuff stuff instead of cleaning. (Stuff-stuff was a process where I stuffed everything into my closet and hoped it wouldn't burst open when my room was checked). Now we come to the last few minutes of the game and the COLTS SCORED putting themselves for the first time in the lead. I called my dad all excited but then he told me that the Pats had the ball, one minute, and three time outs and the goal a touch down. My dad said the Pats were good at scoring in the last minute, what we needed was an interception. I heard my dad yelling and I hit the refresh button and the only word I saw was interception.

I started screaming and ran out of the room at the same time the girl in the room next door ran around the corner. We hit each other and started screaming (my dad was still on the phone). We ran to her room and screamed then counted down with my dad the last ten seconds, then screamed some more. I hung up the phone and ran downstairs and screamed and screamed with everyone watching in the lobby before coming back up stairs.

I tried to call my best friend, but it wouldn't go through (my phone, my dads phone, my roomie's phone, and her moms phone were all having trouble, probably because everyone was calling and using the towers) finally it went through and I screamed on her answering machine. I called her home to see if she was there and she wasn't so I screamed while her dad laughed at me. I finally got a hold of her, she had been at Damon's, and we screamed and screamed. My roomie and I danced around the room, because she is a Bears fan, which is going to be sad for her when we beat them. So ends the tale of the most amazing game I never watched...

Update: We beat the Bears :) Which makes me happy.

I'm pretty excited about the game against the Jets tonight! Go Colts!

Seven Saltines

Warning: If you are my brother, the one that is younger than me, don’t disregard this post just because it has no pictures. At the very least have your computer read it to you.

For some reason when people dare me to do something I have to do it. Not illegal or dangerous tasks just dumb ones. I have balanced myself over a couch arm on my stomach for an hour, kept my right arm raised for several hours, and stayed silent for an hour (which was actually the most challenging for me). All these were because of dares. One of the dumbest was trying to eat a tablespoon of cinnamon. It didn’t end well, especially since I refused to open my mouth. The cinnamon decided to exit through my nose. The best, however, was the time I tried to eat seven saltine crackers in a minute.

I traveled to Egypt during the semester I went abroad to Greece. We took a train from Cairo down south in order to take a cruise up the Nile. The train ride/station need a post of their own, so I am going to jump ahead.

While on the train, we were given some unappetizing meal. Think airplane food, just worse. (Slightly better was breakfast, which consisted of five different pieces of dried out bread). But back to dinner, I ate the roll and pear and stuffed portions of everything else into a ziploc bag that I place in the small waste holder built into the wall. I didn’t want the attendant who brought the food to think I was a picky American. But I am a picky American and I’m sure he found that out when emptying the trash the next day. 

It was late, because our train wasn’t on time, so my roommate and I were still hungry. She pulled out saltine crackers for us to eat. This triggered a memory of the guys in our study abroad group discussing a challenge: eating 7 saltine crackers in a minute.

I told my roommate about it and she was all in. We got our watches ready and stuffed all seven crackers in our mouths in a matter of seconds.  After twenty seconds of chewing, to our dismay, the attendant, an older man, came by to pick up our food trays. Our door was open and when he saw us we started laughing because of how ridiculous we looked. Every chuckle brought spews of crackers from our mouth all over our trays and luggage. We couldn’t get ourselves under control and he said, “I come back later when you are done” after standing there for a while. When he came back we spewed crackers again, but the third time was the charm. We finally had the cracker situation under control.

The amazing thing is he seemed to like us better than some of the other people in our group. He smiled when he passed us on the train, despite the fact that we spewed crackers all over him.

So in the end we failed at eating seven saltines in a minute, but I still laugh when I remember the man just staring at us with our cheeks full of crackers and pieces flying all over the room.

Inside a Pyramid

I have been inside a pyramid. It was the second largest of the Giza pyramids in Egypt, the tomb of Khafre. I am still amazed that I was able to have such an experience, but it was not quite the adventure I had envisioned it would be.

            When I found out I was going to get to go inside a pyramid I was ecstatic. I have learned about these structures all throughout school and I have seen several shows about them on the Discovery and National Geographic Channels, because, let’s face it, these days the shows on the History Channel are about aliens or the end of the world. Or aliens causing the end of the world.

            Our tour guide told us that if we wanted a picture of the inside chamber of the pyramid to go into a dark room and take a picture. Turns out he was right, I don’t remember anything about the inner chamber of the pyramid, apparently there was a sarcophagus. I vaguely remember that, however there was so much more going on that the actual inner chamber is what my memory has failed to retain.

Rough Drawing from my memory of the path inside the pyramid.

When I first entered the pyramid I basically felt like this: 

However, as I went on the situation began to go downhill (metaphorically...and literally). I soon realized that this trek into the inner sanctum of they pyramid was not going to be a very comfortable adventure. I crunched my body down and walked down the slope. It was okay at first, probably because of my excitement, but then it began to be an awkward and uncomfortable way to walk. 

 

Add in the heat. It was hot and disgusting and if I remember right, humid from people’s breath. Sweat began to generate from every pore. (I find this extremely disgusting.)

Then, just as it could not seem to get worse, the path angled upward and I kept hitting my head. Over and over again. 

The handle bar on the side of the wall, which was for balancing, smelled beyond revolting. Imagine taking a bunch of sweaty socks from different people tying them up in a bag then ripping open the bag a week later and smearing it all over the railing. That’s what it smelled like…only worse. I disinfected my hands with Purell several times after I exited they pyramid and it still took a day for the remnants of the stench to leave my hands.

Why does it smell like that? Well, because everyone is sweating from every pore. And then to make everything worse someone’s butt is in your face. and your butt is in someone’s face. And people are passing the opposite direction to get out of the pyramid and their sweaty arms rub up against yours. It’s gross.

 

When I finally exited the pyramid. The desert sun’s rays actually cooled my skin, because of the stifling heat that was inside. The desert sun should not feel cool.

This was how I looked when I came out of the pyramid:

However, usually I just tell people: “I’ve been inside a pyramid. It was so cool!” And act like this:

And that's the truth about being inside a pyramid.