November 2, 2014

    Now that cross country is over, I felt a little lost during the first part of this week, so productivity was weak. My stake choir practices on Tuesdays. I am trying to work with tutors to learn more efficiently, but I don't know how accurate their knowledge is. On Thursday, we had our cross country banquet, and I Skyped an intern from LDS.net after because she wrote an article about me, and she attends BYU Idaho. On Friday my friends and I had a Halloween party. We had a temple day yesterday, and I have not had a temple day with the gang, which is Rachel Dunlap, Paige Dexter, and Jesse Kaupert. I have been stressing out all week about a midterm for my Mechanical Systems class because it is comprehensive. Although it is a take home test, it is not an open book and note. I did my first DTR on Saturday after the temple day. I told Jesse that the relationship that I had with the girl has not developed enough to be journal worthy, but it is my first "Determine the Relationship" conversation. I don't want to write about every girl that I date. Most in the past semesters have only been one date, but this semester has been better dating. My dating relationships are more enduring and realistic. My grades are improving slightly. I did not think that this journal entry would be that long. I am a simple, yet I took advice from a complicated, who is Jesse.

     This is a joke that we have because I made a PowerPoint for one of my classes last semester, introducing myself to a teacher. At the end of the presentation, I answered a question "What type of guy are you?" I said that "I am a simple." After showing it to a few people before I turned it in, Jesse was the only person to notice my grammar error. After my simple nature was revealed, I realized how complicated that Jesse makes life. Now because of him, my journal entry will probably be double in length.

    I love our stake choir conductor. She is the most amazing instructor that I have ever had. Her name is sister Andrews. She told her story of how she got into singing this week. I believe that she said that her singing range was so limiting that she took it as a challenge, enrolling herself into music classes at BYU Provo. There is a belief that the people that struggle the most to develop skills are the best teachers because they understand why people would not get things easily, and they are able to approach their instruction more personally. Sister Andrews is so funny because she describes the way to sing properly so explicitly most every day of practice. I have tried to explain it before. I am grateful to have been in her choir the past few semesters. The choir this semester is more exclusive, and she attended our sessional, having us sing to her as individuals in order for her to know our voices. The knowledge of our voices and talent will give her the ability to call us up to sing for conferences as a solo or duet. The Stake Priesthood session had a duet from the practice of this idea by Sister Andrews.

    The aid of a tutor seems to be a hit or a miss. I was hanging out with my roommate at the Math Lab, and a tutor of his was trying to help him with a problem for about ten minutes; all confused. The next tutor that he asked another question to answered his previous and current question in less than 20 seconds. I asked my tutor for my mechanical systems class about how to size pipes and the rules, but he had no idea where the theory comes from; although, he got an A- in the class. The one time that I had an accounting tutor session was effective.

    The cross country banquet was a lot better than the track banquet from last semester. It was very formal; not clothing wise though. I was wearing a normal t shirt, and I thought that it was funny because I was getting a lot of compliments for a fur hoodie that my older brother got me on his mission in Ecuador. I liked that my team all sat at the same table, and we were all goofing off. I am not really good in big groups that are not very personal, so I did not say much. We announced the top five boys and girls for their races and gave championship shirts. I should share the video of the race in this article. I look a lot more weak that I thought when I run. I think that I should work out my core more like I used to. Brother Stutz said that this season was one of the most successful, and he wanted to carry this over to track season next spring. After my last experience I don't think that I will do track this Spring. I am thinking of doing a relay race season, since a good friend of mine wants to run a Ragnar and I usually have a temple to temple relay team. This race has been designated to the Spring.  After the dinner and a slideshow of photographs, the coaches said speeches, and one was a little awkward and funny. My goofball team was not afraid to laugh at him. He basically said that he had fun and the season was the most fun that he had. My speech was good. I thanked my team captains and the team for enduring to the end, letting friendships develop. I won the championship race last season, but I did not get a championship shirt; plus, I did not have a full team.

     After the banquet, I Skyped with Natalie New. She is super cool. She is actually a writer, who is too good for blogging. She is interning at LDS.net, and she wrote an article about me. (http://lds.net/blog/buzz/entertainment/arts-and-culture/lds-singles-making-big-difference-world-blogging/) I like pushing the limits of who I can be friends with, so I gave it a try. She is a sci-fi novel writer like me, but she actually completed books, rewriting them multiple times. It was basically a first date. I hope to Skype with her more and meet her in the Spring.

     We had a Halloween Party on Friday night, and it took forever to get started and people left before that actual activity started. Rachel makes events slow, when she hosts. We played a murder mystery game of clue. We have done the same thing for the past three Halloween parties, so it is kind of annoying for me. Each year has a completely new group of people though, so I am the only person that have endured it every time. At least the game was different. I never played Clue before, so I was confused. Many people were confused. I did not get a clue, so I was supposed to couple up with another person. I was originally with my home teaching companion, and I saw his clue; however, Jessica, the date that I had a DTR with, became my partner. The clue game was held at the i-center. I think that the game was more interesting that it was set out to be. The clue that Sam Orr, my roommate and home teaching companion said that a individual was going to die next. Jessica and I decided that we watch out for her. It was funny because we went looking for our clue, having no success. We walked up some stairs and she was out of our sight for about ten seconds, and I remembered to look out for her. When I got her in my sight again, Sam was there, and he looked like she was about to kill her by a tap of the finger. We saved her though. He left us, and looking at clues, we had no idea what was going on; however, another group was totally dominating the game discovering ang understanding a majority of the clues. Jessica; Mystique, who was supposed to die; and I decided to set a trap to witness the crime of Mystique's murder. She set herself as a bait, and we watched from a far. Sam did come in about five minutes, and he was trying to lure her into an elevator. She did not follow him though. We spoke to Mystique about what he said to her, and she said that he was going up to the fourth floor. We decided with this information to go up to the fourth floor to see what he is doing, but Mystique wanted to go on her own to the other elevator on the other side of the I center. I don't know why she thought of that risk, but we did it. Jessica and I went up to the fourth floor, and we did not see her, hearing a disturbing noise from a lower floor. We assumed that she died, but we did not hear of it; then, walking around, we found that she did not die. The game was kind of messed up because other people had another game going on; plus, we did not know all the places and weapons that the original person could have died at and with. The conclusion was interesting because we needed to prove that it was Sam; although, we had little evidence besides his odd acts. We communed with the other group, and they said that Sam was acting weird around them too. We were grateful that they figured it out because we would have lost; plus, it turned out that Sam did not know that he was a murder.

     Yesterday Rachel, Paige, Jesse, and I went to the temple, and we attended an endowment session. I made an effort to commune with God and be prepared for the ordinance. My accounting teacher taught that Adam is a type of Christ because Adam chose to die for Eve, the bridegroom and church. The endowment was interesting with that knowledge. I had to go to the bathroom after the session, so I left the Celestial room with urgency. I waited after changing to my street clothing, and they were talking forever. I actually read a whole chapter out of the Book of Mormon. I told you last entry of my reading weakness. I went in to the dressing room to see, if they are even out of the celestial room. Jesse was surprised to see me still in the temple because they were in the Celestial Room until the next session came in. I did not intent for the temple trip to go until three o' clock in the afternoon, but we went to the Hickory after, and I got my favorite Big "S" burger.

     Jesse asked me to tell Rachel and Paige about a gift that I gave to Jessica. We were all thinking that our relationship was going well, and we were both interested in each other. My mother invited me to ask if Jessica would like to have lunch with me. I already had that planned, but she also invited me to purchase a small cute plant to give her. Since the Halloween Party was Peter Pan themed, I went on a run to find a savage necklace because I was going to be Rufio. When I was running home, I ran across a guy walking with a little cactus, so I stopped him, asking where he got the plant. He said that he got it at the MC. When I arrived there, they were about to close. I purchased a small plant to give to Jessica. Jesse wanted me to tell the best part. I did not know that there was a best part. The best part seemed to be that Jessica and I decided that I would need to remind her to water the plant weekly. I thought that Jesse was going to ask me about my plans and Jessica, when he asked about Jessica and my plant.

     During the endowment, I decided that I was going to have a DTR conversation with Jessica and introduce her to my mother, since it is her birthday today. My plan was to just visit her. It was kind of perfect because she came out when we met up, and we went on a walk. We had a casual conversation, and I asked her if she would like to date more steadily, since we have dated and hung out about eight times. She said that she doesn't have feeling for me, and she actually has a crush on another person. When Jesse told me that I should write about my first "Determine the Relationship" conversation, I said that I would have to write about my opinion on it, which is a big can of beans. I have a secret group of my closest friends on Facebook, and I said to them that "My DTR with Jessica proved once again that I should never date a Freshman." Straight up; Freshman are not mature. They are about having fun. I thought that Jessica would be different because she is twenty because teenagers are lumped into this opinion. Never date a freshman or a teenager. Let them do their crazy activities with themselves. The older generation, which I am a part of, does not have time to fiddle with inexperienced people in dating. If she was experienced, she would not that dating me more than twice, which is a good sign that she is interested in me, not hanging out with me so easily. She was somewhat a distraction from another friendship that I would like to have developed, wasting a few weeks. A couple signs that I saw before that indicated that she was not interested in me is that she readily paid for her ice cream yogurt and things when we went out. Also she said I had fun most times after I walked her home.

     One last thing that I have to write about that is happening in my life is that many people are producing media about me. Natalie was one. Malcolm, the founder's blog of the LDS Single Friends Facebook page, released a blog article about me. (http://malcolmravenclaw.com/spiritual-experiences/mormonysablogspot/) During the first week of school, Tamara Rawson, an athlete that was considering joining my cross country team, interviewed me for a Scroll article. Devin Collins is a film student, and he produced a film on me. The most recent project done on me is a project by Sam Orr. He interviewed me about my education experiences. He typed my words for a series of fifty question on 6 pages. I can put Devin's video below.