Evaluative Conclusion

Keeping the blog has been a cool experience. Even though over 50 percent of my blogs were written yesterday, it was still cool to look back at the blogs I wrote at the beginning of the semester. It is fun to see how you change over a period like a semester of college. I am sure I will look back at the blogs I wrote yesterday in the future and have fun reading those as well. A blog can really help you document your thoughts and feelings towards certain subjects during specific times of your life. This was my first blog and even though I did not treat it like a journal, I still feel I put a lot of work into it. I wrote about a variety of random subjects that did have importance to me as well as influence on my life.
I learned a bit about writing and how people like to write when they are just expressing their thoughts freely by reading my own posts and especially by reading other people's blog posts. Of course we are all a bit conscious that other people will be able to read what we are writing so we are limited somewhat. The blogs I wrote about the most freely were also my favorites which were the Yosemite post, Bishop post, and Breakfast post. I love those three places/things so much I could just write truthfully and happily about them. The breakfast post even made me hungry as I was writing it. The other two brought a yearning to go to those places inside of me.
Being able to just write about whatever you want is a unique and fun thing. A lot of people do not even consider it because we already have to do too much writing throughout school so why do anymore than we have to? Writing like this helps us understand ourselves and this blog has helped me see that now. Writing this blog was a great experience and will have an influence on the rest of my life.

Finals

Finals are just around the corner and they are going to be terrible. I do not like tests at all and I have to take five massive finals. Worst part is I have a borderline grade in most of my classes so I have to do really well on all of them. This next week before finals I have a ton of work to do as well. A bunch of projects and year long assignments and more. It is going to be a stressful next two weeks. Finals week is going to be just utterly terrible. I will be so stressed out, worried, anxious and scared for my grades. If I make it through the week I will be so happy. I just want to be done with this semester so I can return home and feel relieved. The worst final I will have is probably going to be my Engineering Graphics final. It has a written portion and a practical portion on the computer. It is going to take hours and I still will not have anytime to complete it if it is anything like the midterm. The next worst one is going to be my Intro to Roman and Greek Literature final. The two midterms have been 3 hours long so I can only imagine the final is going to be extremely long. Finals are going to be terrible, but hopefully all worth it if I get good grades.

Utah Weather

Utah weather is a strange thing. It is very different then Clovis's weather. It never snows in Clovis. Utah has a weird thing of being colder in the afternoon then in the morning which never happens where I am from either. The snow is cool but sometimes I really do not want to cross campus because it is so cold outside. It is nice though there there are so many ski resorts close by. I love snowboarding and to have the luxury of nice resorts close by you have to suffer the cold. It is also much drier hear than in Clovis. The Central Valley where I am from is known for fog and that is because are winters are more humid. Here it is so dry that it cracks my lips and I get some dry skin. It does cause it to feeler a little warmer than if it were more humid though. Days in Clovis with highs in the forties can feel the same temperature as days here when it is snowing. It is a bit odd but it is all due to  the dryness. Another strange thing about the weather here is that it feels like the sun does a lot less to warm me than it did in Clovis. At home if the sun was out then it usually felt pretty good, but here it does not seem to change a thing. The best part of the weather here though is that in the Summer it i not nearly as hot as it is in Clovis. There it is usually 100+ degrees but here its around 80's and 90's. Both places have there pluses and minuses but I think I do prefer the weather here, at least so far I do...

Breakfast

Breakfast is my favorite meal. I just love all the breakfast foods there are and could eat them all day if given the chance. First there is cereal. My staple for breakfast. I love almost every cereal, except most knock-offs like the crud they have in the Cannon, and when living at home I eat up to four bowls a day. It is just so delicious. Second, basically in the same category, there is hot cereal like oatmeal, cream of wheat, and cracked wheat. All three are so delicious with a big scoop of brown sugar and a bit of condensed milk. I love hot cereal. Third there is waffles, pancakes, french toast, crepes and rice cakes. They all generally go in the same category in my opinion. I love them all with syrup and whip cream. So good. I also love a delicious crepe filled with Nutella and smothered in whip cream and powdered sugar. They are the most delicious of the breakfast deliciousness. Then fourth we have eggs, hash browns, and sausage. Delicious sides to any breakfast meal. Put them all together with some cheese in a tortilla and you've got a delicious breakfast burrito. With all of these things it is so nice to have a cold glass of chocolate milk. Yum. I love breakfast and always will because it is the best tasting meal with the best tasting foods.

Provo Driving

Driving around in Provo is one of the most annoying things in the city. The layout is just terrible and the lights are bad and do not quicken travel times at all. There are tons of cars on the road most of the time and the bad layout only worsens the traffic. I have been stuck in some insane traffic while I have been here and it is frustrating. Another thing is that there is always road work going on somewhere in the city that hinders your travel and the freeways here are loaded with road work that has been here for years and will probably stay for years to come. I think that all this help contribute to my want to speed whenever I am not stuck behind a car. Back home I never sped and I was always patient when traveling. Now that I am always being stalled by other cars once I break free I just want to speed away to make up for all how slow I have been going. Through it all traffic here is a whole lot worse than it was back in my home town where there was a perfect grid system that I felt sped traffic along just fine. Provo driving is not fun and I wish it were better but seeing how that would take years of roadwork, I think it will have to settle.

Mechanical Engineering

Mechanical Engineering is the major that I chose when I came here to BYU. There are some great  things about it, but there also some really hard things about it. One good thing about it is that BYU does not offer Aerospace Engineering and Mechanical is the best thing to do as undergraduate in case I want to transfer schools to get my masters in Aerospace. I really enjoy Aerospace stuff so that is my main reasons for doing this. The hard things about Mechanical is that it takes a lot of work and is one of the most time consuming majors. Already I spend tons of time in a lab for one of my Mechanical classes. It is graded harshly and the assignments are the most vague and ambiguous things I have ever seen. Hopefully the rest of the classes will not be similar to this one because the vagueness is what makes it take so long. Another hard thing is that I have to get accepted into the program to even start being a Mechanical Engineer. To get in also requires a 3.5 which is really hard to get. I like what Mechanical Engineering is, but I do not like how long it takes.

Sleep

I have found that I tend to be much more tired here at BYU then ever before in my life. I find myself wanting to take or taking a nap once a day. Before I would never take naps, I just did not like to ruin my sleep schedule and I just never really was that tired. I hated feeling all drowsy like I do when I wake up from naps. Now I can't help it. I just take naps whenever I feel tired. It may be that proximity in which I live to my bed seeing how no matter where I am in my dorm I can only be up to ten feet away. Combine that with the long nights staying up watching a movie or talking to my roommate and I am gone.

 It would be nice if I was not tired so much because I could get a lot more work done. It is hard to work hard when sleepiness is always haunting me. Naps do help a bit, but you lose so much time in the process that probably they do not help much. Also that night I will not be able to go to bed until much later than usual because I will not be tired until later. This will undermine my sleep especially when I have a set time I have to wake up in the morning. Naps are no good, and they have a lot of repercussions for what little peace they bring, but I probably could not get by without them.

Dumb Rules

There are a lot of dumb rules on campus. A lot of rules that do not make any sense at all. The other day me my roommate and two friends were playing racquetball and in the middle of a heated game when a employee of the RB came into the room. The court only has one small 4 foot tall door with a tiny window so He had to be spying on us from the outside for quite a while. He came through the door and told us that all of us had to leave and be done for the night because my roommate was wearing a tank top. He wore a sweater into the room and he wore a sweater out so the only people who saw him wearing it were us and that little spy. We were so angry because we could not finish the game. Why can we not wear a tank top in that room. It gets pretty hot in there and nobody besides us can see it. We can wear tank tops all we want in our dorms or even go shirtless. What is the problem. Swimmers do not have to where a shirt so why do we. It is not any different. That is just one of the many dumb rules on campus. Don't even get me started on hair.

Racquetball

Racquetball is a very fun sport. It involves a racket that is similar to a tennis racket, a very bouncy ball, and a boxed room with concrete walls. You and your opponent take turns hitting the ball at the front wall and the first to not hit the front wall before it hits the ground loses. One bounce is allowed before you hit it but not after. It is a cool game because you can just swing your racket as hard as you can unlike tennis where you have o be good to do so and actually aim for a certain spot. BYU has plenty of racquetball courts in the RB and they are all in great condition. All you need is an ID card and you can play all you want.

The game can get pretty scary though when the ball is flying around 80+ miles per hour. We have only had a few casualties though in the weeks we have been playing racquetball. First my roommate's racket did not have a wrist strap on it and his hand was so sweaty that when he swung with all his might at the ball it slipped out of his hand and hit my friend in the arm leaving a huge bruise. Then I was saving a ball real close to the front wall and I did not have enough time to back up and when my opponent hit the ball I turned around and got hit square in the sternum by the ball going super fast. That hurt. But through it all racquetball is a blast and also a good workout.

Bishop, California

While Yosemite is the most beautiful place I have been, Bishop Is my favorite place on Earth. It is so amazing. To most people it is a small town in the middle of nowhere but to me it is an epic place with the best bouldering I have ever been to. It has thousands of boulders layed out between The Buttermilks, The Happies, and The Sads all with amazingly fun, technical, and or highball problems.Sending hard or scary problems is just so much fun and there are so many there that the fun never ends. Walking through The Happies or driving up to The Buttermilks is just so epicly exciting it cannot be described. I have too much fun. I have only been there twice on three day trips each time and they were such fun times. I was there with both times with a huge group of climbers and we were all good friends. It was just so fun. We just boulder all day then sit around a giant bonfire at night. I love Bishop and want to go back there so bad. Hopefully I will be able to make the trip back there before my mission to enjoy one more time before I leave.

The Cancer Center

The Cannon Center is sometimes nicknamed The Cancer Center and that is some meals rightfully so. For example, Every fast Sunday you only have enough time to at there for one meal and they serve the worst food during that meal than any other meal. They always have this disgusting thing call Chicken Cordon Bleu which is some kind of fake chicken that is breaded and stuffed with this nasty white sauce that when you poke the outside it bursts out. I do not know why they serve this for every Sunday meal but I hate it. On fast Sundays I jut want to eat a huge delicious meal after fasting for most of the day but that is not possible at the Cancer Center. Another reason they could be called the Cancer Center is because they serve burgers every lunch and dinner every day. That is disgusting. And there are people that eat them all the time. Burgers are so greasy you should only eat them once a month not twice a day. The food they give these people is gonna come back and destroy them. They should only serve burgers once a week to at least help the kids out a bit. Cannon... Cancer... Whats the difference?

I Miss Yosemite

When I was at home living in Clovis, CA I was only two hours from Yosemite Valley. Yosemite is the most beautiful place I have ever been. In 2010 I went to Yosemite around 15 times. I mainly go there to boulder in various parts of the valley  but a few times I also went on some hikes. It is an amazing place with very cool waterfalls and super cool rock faces like El Capitan.

There are an infinite amount of places to explore and sights to see that you never get bored while you are there. I cannot wait to return in the spring when the falls are overflowing and so powerful they mist you from extremely far away. Yosemite is a wonderful place and is a perfect example of the greatness of God that he created something so insanely beautiful. I love Yosemite and if any of you have not been yet you should plan to take a trip there in you're lifetime because it is worth it. There are plenty of places to camp, but if you are feeling lazy you can just rent a little place to sleep for the night as well. Beware of the bears though and stash your food because they will come. Also make sure to check out Lower Yosemite Falls because it is only a half mile hike for a wonderful view. This is why I love Yosemite so much and all these things are just wonderful, I miss Yosemite.

Commenting

Commenting on blogs can be a lot of fun. If you can relate to anything the blog post is about, just comment on it and let the person know how you feel. You can just spread your thoughts on subjects to other people. Or you can give them some insight into something they have not thought of before. With some posts the blogger wants feedback so you can give them some kind constructive criticism. It is always important to remember to be respectful of the blogger and to not post anything negative towards them or their post. Internet bashing is annoying and can cause the blogger to be unhappy and maybe even influence them to stop blogging. So whenever you're posting a comment, think about how it will sound to them before posting.

Personal Narrative: A Float Next to Tragedy

A Float Next to Tragedy

            Despite being told our whole lives we should never get into the water of a canal, my cousin and I were floating down a canal on inner tubes. We had started at his house in the country, the middle of nowhere, and we were having a blast. The water felt cool in the 105 degree heat of Sanger, CA, and what is better than floating down a river with your cousin on a hot day. We had done it already only a month previously. Plus the water was lower this time. We were not worried about anything out of the ordinary happening. Little did we know that our pleasant time floating on the water would soon come to a rapid halt and only sheer luck would get us out of a bitter end.

            “Hey we better get on the side and check out that rapid before we attempt to go down it,” I said to my cousin. He agreed and we paddled ourselves over to the edge of the canal and clambered up the angled dirt walls. Both of us took a look at the slight drop in elevation of the canal where the rapid was created and remembered how just a month ago when the water was higher it was a churning death trap for any who braved its course. We both had known the swirling of the water would have trapped us and drowned us.

            “It looks so fun now! Not nearly as bad as it was last time,” said my cousin.

            “You first,” I exclaimed.

            “If I die, tell my hamster I loved him,” he said jokingly. He then walked back and hopped on his inner tube in the water. He then floated towards the rapid looking frightened, but excited. He went down… and passed through it smoothly and fine, the rapid was not powerful enough to trap him. All was well and we both went down the rapid a few times until we decided to continue on our journey down the canal.

            We were nearing the end of our trip located just after one of many bridges we cross when we remembered the second rapid that we descended on our previous trip. Surely if this trip the big rapid was safe then the rapid we descended last trip is perfectly fine. That is what we were both thinking at least.

To this day I still cannot remember why my cousin and I were so spread apart on our inner tubes. I was leading about 50 feet in front of him and that would prove to be my lifesaver. I quickly approached the final white water rapid and glanced back at my cousin falling behind on his tube. The wind sped past my face as I descended the rapid. “Ha-ha!” I yelled. Then it all came to a stop and I knew something was wrong. “Get out of the canal now!” I shouted towards my cousin.

Luckily he did not question why and he had enough time to get out of the canal before hitting the rapid. I was stuck. The water from the canal was going down the slant and traveling along the concrete floor for a distance then was being pulled back on top heading back towards the rapid creating an eddy. It was impossible to observe what was happening from an external view but that did not matter. It was too late and I was stuck being pushed repeatedly back and forth on my tube by the eddy and the rapid.

“What the heck is happening? Why can’t you keep moving?” my cousin yelled down from the side of the canal.

“I have no flippin idea! I just need to try and get out of here!” I replied.

“Just get out of your tube and swim out of the current!” he cried over the roar of the water.

“It’s not that easy, if I get out and swim but can’t make out of the current pulling me back, I might get stuck here being flipped over and over until I drown!” I responded. Now that that was settled I paddled to the side of the canal to attempt to climb up the sides. Then I realized they were 70 degree 15 foot tall, concrete walls. That was not an option. I then kicked off the concrete slant that created the rapid in attempt to surpass the current that was pulling me back. I paddled away from the rapid with all my force. I did not make it and I floated back and hit the rapid. I tried a few more times then I yelled over to my cousin, “Hey throw me a stick or something that I can use to push off the concrete!”

“Okay one sec, let me look for one,” he replied. He walked away for a while and then came back with a thick, long stick. “You think this will do?” he shouted.

“Throw it over to me!” I said. He threw into the water and I retrieved it. This was it, the last idea I could think of. I got mentally prepared for what I had to do. I cocked my arms and placed the end of the stick on the concrete slant. Then, with all my might, I pushed off the slant with the stick and… “snaaaaap!” a foot of the stick broke off. “Shoot!” I cried. I quickly, with what was remaining of the stick, pushed off the slant over and over paddling as hard as I could to get away from the reversed current. All my attempts were futile. I dropped the stick back in the water feeling hopeless. “It appears that it seems, that it seems to appear, I am stuck,” I sadly joked to my cousin.

I was scared and worried about how long I would have to sit there until somebody found us. Let alone that it is illegal to even be in a canal, so if I needed professional help I would be in huge trouble. I then wished I had listened to all the people that warned us of the dangers of canals.

All of a sudden a surge of adrenaline rushed through me. I was determined to make it out of the eddy. I grabbed the stick and with a quick prayer I braced the stick on the slant. I pushed off harder than any attempt before. I then paddled away from the rapid with such quick, powerful strokes I thought my arms would fall off. Then all of a sudden, I was free of the eddy. I felt elated and relieved. Just like that, I was safe, and my cousin and I happily, headed, home.   

Personal Narrative Draft

A Float Next to Tragedy

            Despite being told our whole lives we should never get into the water of a canal, my cousin and I were floating down a canal on inner tubes. We had started at his house in the country, the middle of nowhere, and having a blast. The water felt cool in the 105 degree heat of Sanger, CA, and what is better than floating down a river with your cousin on a hot day. We had done it already only a month previously. Plus the water was lower this time. We were not worried about anything out of the ordinary happening. Little did we know that our pleasant time floating on the water would soon come to a rapid halt and only sheer luck would get us out of a bitter end.

            “Hey we better get on the side and check out the rapid before we attempt to go down it,” I said to my cousin. He agreed and we paddled ourselves over to the edge of the canal and clambered up the angled dirt walls. Both of us took a look at the slight drop in elevation of the canal where the rapid was created and remembered how just a month ago when the water was higher it was a churning death trap for any who braved its course. We both had known the swirling of the water would have trapped us and drowned us.

            “It looks so fun now! Not nearly as bad as it was last time,” said my cousin.

            “You first,” I exclaimed.

            “If I die, tell my hamster I loved him,” he said jokingly. He then walked back and hopped on his inner tube in the water. He then floated towards the rapid looking frightened, but excited. He went down… and passed through it smoothly and fine, the rapid was not powerful enough to trap him. All was well and we both went down the rapid a few times until we decided to continue on our journey down the canal.

            We were nearing the end of our trip located just after one of many bridges we cross when we remembered the second rapid that we descended on our previous trip. Surely if this trip the big rapid was safe then the rapid we descended last trip is perfectly fine. That is what we were both thinking at least.

To this day I still cannot remember why my cousin and I were so spread apart on our inner tubes. I was leading about 50 feet in front of him and that would prove to be my lifesaver. I quickly approached the final white water rapid and glanced back at my cousin falling behind on his tube. The wind sped past my face as I descended the rapid. “Haha!” I yelled. Then it all came to a stop and I knew something was wrong. “Get out of the canal now!” I shouted towards my cousin.

Luckily he did not question why and he had enough time to get out of the canal before hitting the rapid. I was stuck. The water from the canal was going down the slant and traveling along the concrete floor for a distance then was being pulled back on top and headed back towards the rapid creating an eddy. It was impossible to observe what was happening from an external view but that did not matter. It was too late and I was stuck being pushed repeatedly back and forth on my tube by the eddy and the rapid.

“What the heck is happening? Why can’t you keep moving?” my cousin yelled down from the side of the canal.

“I have no flippin idea! I just need to try and get out of here!” I replied.

“Just get out of your tube and swim out of the current!” he cried over the roar of the water.

“It’s not that easy, if I get out and swim but can’t make out of the current pulling me back, I might get stuck here being flipped over and over until I drown!” I responded. Now that that was settled I paddled to the side of the canal to attempt to climb up the sides. Then I realized they were 70 degree 15 foot tall walls. That was not an option. I then kicked off the concrete slant that created the rapid in attempt to surpass the current that was pulling me back. I paddled away from the rapid with all my force. I did not make it and I floated back and hit the rapid. I tried a few more times then I yelled over to my cousin, “Hey throw me a stick or something that I can use to push off the concrete!”

“Okay one sec, let me look for one,” he replied. He walked away for a while and then came back with a thick, long stick. “You think this will do?” he shouted.

“Throw it over to me!” I said. He threw into the water and I retrieved it. This was it, the last idea I could think of. I got mentally prepared for what I had to do. I cocked my arms and placed the end of the stick on the concrete slant. Then, with all my might, I pushed off the slant with the stick and… “snaaaaap!” a foot of the stick broke off. “Shoot!” I cried. I quickly, with what was remaining of the stick, pushed off the slant over and over paddling as hard as I could to get away from the reversed current. All my attempts were futile. I dropped the stick back in the water feeling hopeless. “It appears that it seems, that it seems to appear, I am stuck,” I sadly joked to my cousin.

I was scared and worried about how long I would have to sit there until somebody found us. Let alone that it is illegal to even be in a canal, so if I needed professional help I would be in huge trouble. I then wished I had listened to all the people that warned us of the dangers of canals.

All of a sudden a surge of adrenaline rushed through me. I was determined to make it out of the eddy. I grabbed the stick and with a quick prayer I braced the stick on the slant. I pushed off harder than any attempt before. I then paddled away from the rapid with such quick, powerful strokes I thought my arms would fall off. Then all of a sudden, I was free of the eddy. I felt elated and relieved. Just like that, I was safe, and my cousin and I happily, headed, home.   

Research Topic Blog

My research topic is about how NASA just ended the shuttle program. Was it the right thing to do? Do the benefits in technological advances outweigh the costs of the shuttle program? Is the accomplishment alone worth it? All these questions and more will I try to answer in my research paper. I have begun to get sources and there are plenty out there for me to work with. The hardest part will be to just come up with a thesis that will be able to support my paper all the way through the 8-10 pages I need. Next coming up with enough body paragraphs to fill all the space will be a great challenge as well. I will need to get started soon so I can finish the paper on time but procrastination is tough. Doing it the last night possible will probably be my only option.

General Conference

General Conference this last weekend was pretty good. I did not make it to all the sessions but I saw a few. My favorite was priesthood session. There was some really inspiring talks and almost all of it was about missionary work. They want all young men to get ready for a mission and then go in one when there of age. They also want more senior missionaries to be going on missions. They really stressed that the young men need to make themselves worthy to go on a mission so they can when the time comes. President Monson's talk during priesthood was really good too and quite funny. He told of a story when he was on a bus tour and a lady asked about the mormons but nobody knew anything about them. He then did this funny impression of him rocking in a chair waiting for somebody to speak up. Nobody did so he ended up telling the lady about the mormons. This story was an example of missionary work that all o us need to follow. We need to always be willing to share the gospel with anyone who asks. Conference was pretty interesting and I enjoyed what I saw.

Last Week... Again

This last week was a pretty cool week. On Monday the new Blink-182 album came out which was amazing. I have listened to it like a hundred times since and on Wednesday I got my hard copy with a little bunny and t-shirt . Also Thursday night our whole quorum went to a extreme air sports facility where you can jump on these really bouncy tramps into foam pits so you don't get hurt. We had a lot of fun and I only got injured a little bit. Friday night was cool because I went to Beto's with a few friends at like 1:30 in the morning and it was packed. The food was good but I felt  like I was poisoning myself. Then Saturday I met up with my cousin and then met my brothers old roommate and slightly helped them set up a photo booth which was awesome. If you need a photo booth use his. And then conference happened and there were some great messages and  it was inspiring. I was a good week.

Last week

This last week was pretty good, but went by real fast. Got through all my classes and finished my ME 172 homework early, it only took 10 hours. Best part of the week was bouldering in Joe's Valley on Friday. It was a perfect day and extremely good climbing but then a huge thunderstorm came in and soaked everything. Our climbing was cut short, but being in the middle of an electrical storm is quite fun too. And I love rain.

Response to Elder Eyring talk

Elder Eyring's talk is a great talk for us incoming freshman to read. It is all about learning and how to learn. He tells us some very important ideas to consider. We need to be fearful of pride and to recognize and avoid it at all costs. Pride is a destroyer of learning and keeps us close-minded and stubborn. He lets us know that while here at BYU learning, we should care more about what we are learning and what we can learn from our mistakes more than the grade at the top of the page. Even more importantly he tells us that great learners help other people. If we can teach something then we fully know the material and it is also a kind and helpful thing to do for somebody. Elder Eyring has let me know that I need to be more humble and more serving if I want to succed here at BYU.