First loves don't count

This wholy depends on one's interpretation of the word "love" so I'm going to go with a loose one. My first love was books.

But really, in preschool, there was a kid named Dan Perlof. We were going to get married. This is no longer the case. Thank goodness.

My incredibly nerdy past

When I was a freshmen in High School, it was a schoolwide requirement to take an Earth Science class. There was one teacher that everyone didn't like and always did poorly in his class, and of course I had him; most of the kids did. After a year with Mr. Evans, I still loved the subject when everyone else thought rocks were dumb. Well, they're all dumb because rocks are cool. Because I still liked rocks after that class, it was kind of a testament that I was really passionate about the subject, and pretty much from that point on I knew I wanted to major in geology.

Maybe it predates that though. In the 4th grade we watched a really cool video on volcanoes. I remember going to the OC public library and checking out books on Pompeii and stuff afterward and being completely captivated by the subject. And now, eleven years later, I still love volcanoes.

I've always been so amazed by open-majors because I've always known what I would do when I got to college. I can't imagine people studying in a subject they're not passionate about; I think that would just be the most horrible thing. Luckily for me, I love rocks.

Scar story

Ok, I have a few scars, but the stories are like, I looked down at my ankle and it was bleeding during a youth car wash for the Church, and it scarred. Or my cat scratched me under my left eye when I was maybe 2. Or I had chicken pox. Lame. But my most recently acquired scar (which hopefully won't end up scarring) is kind of a funny story. So while I was in Hawaii, there's a popular hike in Laie that a lot of students take, so two of my friends and I decided we needed to go before our trip ended. It had been raining that day, but it always rains in Hawaii so we figured we were good and set out at about 3:30. We were told it takes about 3-4 hours, at the most, so even though it starts getting dark around 7:30, we thought we'd be ending just in time. We set out and at the trailhead, it said it took about 1.5 hours to get to the Falls, where our hike ended. Granted, we're just 3 girls and we might have been going slower than average, but we looked at the time and it was 5:30. We decided to go til 6 or so before turning back to avoid getting caught in the dark. We kept going, and the trail got muddier from the rain earlier that day. At a few points, we were shin-deep in mud. 6 turned into 6:15, then 6:30, and finally, as we noticed the sun was setting, we decided that something was off and we needed to head back. Lo and behold, it got dark just as we got out of the muddy part. But there was still an hour or so left of hiking ahead of us. Although we had no flashlight, I did have the sense to bring a small booklamp about an inch in diameter. By light of the lamp, we managed to get ourselves lost in the middle of a field where the trail abruptly ended. We were lost for maybe an hour or so before finally getting back on the right trail. And there was fog and no moon, so it was very dark. It started raining about 3o seconds after we reached the trailhead, so we walked to food for the 15 minutes or so that it takes in the rain. Anyway, the scar comes in because my shoe rubbed my right ankle raw from being wet and wearing short socks. My friend Allison had both ankles rubbed raw. We were awesomely muddy. And then we ate at Taco Bell. In retrospect, it was really fun. And apparently, we missed the turnoff to the waterfalls and were on our way to summit instead, which is a 3.5 hour hike. So I don't think we're ridiculously slow hikers, and that makes me feel better.

Rocks

My favorite rock is basalt, so anything to do with basalt, I love. While in Hawaii last semester, I bought an olivine necklace (or peridotite, same deal), but that's not really a sample, but it is the "basalt mineral." But while at Shark's Cove, I took a piece of vesicular basalt. I think that's illegal because it's a state beach park, but it's basalt from Hawaii, and I couldn't resist. I have some other basalt too. A lot of it looks similar, because basalt often looks the same, but it's just so cool. I saw some basalt once with lots of olivine and pyroxene phenocrysts and I really liked that, so maybe one day I can have a sample like that one.

It's all relative

Today we learned about tabs and things in Word, and that's really helpful to me.

My family is relatively tame. Maybe I would say my grandpa. He is a nuclear physicist and one time I was helping him with some stuff in his office, answering phone calls and stuff, and both the White House and FBI called for him. He's been to Czechoslovakia before it split, and Russia and the U.S.S.R., which is a dream of mine that will forever be unfulfilled, as the U.S.S.R. no longer exists. He's heavily involved in the Yucca Mountain project, and even though I know very little about it, I know people talk about it all the time and it sounds important. He's written books, and sometimes with geologists. And he just bought a boat. Oh wait, the question was for craziest, not most awesome. Nevermind then.

Once I went to band camp

I learned about column breaks, which is something I have always wanted to know. The page breaks I learned how to use the hard way last Spring and it was really frustrating, so perhaps column breaks should have been intuitive but it wasn't, so I'm glad we discussed it today.

I play the flute. I started in the 4th grade and let it go by the wayside when I became more heavily involved in dance 4 or 5 years later, but in High School I was still asked to play maybe once a year in sacrament. I used to be pretty good in 6th grade or whatever, but these days, probably not so much.

Cars and things

Today I learned that driving to school is not, in fact, faster than walking. I also learned about the importance of having technical writing skills.
This is easy. I would definitely want a Hummer H3. It's the smaller one, so it's like the soccer mom's glorified suburban. I'm certainly no soccer mom, I just really like Arnold Schwarzenegger. And if he can own a fleet of hummers (mostly H2s though), surely I could have one for myself. I actually think it's ridiculous to see young moms driving hummers around suburban Orange County, where I'm from, but I see it all the time and I laugh. I'd actually maybe want a lighter blue BMW convertible, but not in Utah where it snows. Audi makes a nice one too.