Some of the best

Many of you know that I have taken a lot of photos the past few years. A lot. Here are a few of my favorites.

Taiwan






































Israel





























Jordan
















Egypt





















America

Brunei Darussalam

I am sure by now that my more faithful blog readers have noticed I have several blogs. This is in part because I very much like categorization, and I think certain topics deserve a blog all of their own. Like lame stories from my life, or stints in other countries.

Anyway, I have a blog entitled "My Arabic Mission." And with a name like that, and the subject matter (my semester living in Jordan), I expected to get a lot of Arab country hits on that blog. (You can see the list of places around the world that have accessed my blog here. I think it's quite impressive.)

And so yesterday I checked my "world map" to see what interesting countries had been added. And I saw "Brunei Darussalam."

I have never heard of that country. And I felt quite embarrassed. Here I am, about to graduate from college, having studied and lived in the Middle East for extensive periods of time, and I haven't even heard of Brunei Darussalam?

In case you haven't either, here are a few figures:
Population: 395, 027
Square Miles: 2,228
Capital (and largest city): Bandar Seri Begawan, with 78,000 residents

I hear that it is one of the smallest countries in the world. Which makes me think to myself, which countries are smaller? Any guesses?

And just think. Somewhere in this tiny country, someone could be reading my blog.

The Radiator

I know you have all been worried about me, my car, and most especially the radiator in my car. Particularly since the radiator had a crack in it. I thought I would share pictures.

If that one's not enough to see that crack, here is a close-up:

Yes, friends, that is a crack that is over 8 inches long.

I don't know how it happened. All I know is one Saturday I drove up to Lehi to babysit my nephew. And I parked, walked into my brother and sister-in-law's house, chatted for about 20 minutes, and then they walked out the door to leave.

My brother was back in the house in less than 2 minutes, asking for my keys because "Your car is leaking all over the driveway."

My heart sinking, I followed him out to see my car resting in a puddle of antifreeze. I knew my antifreeze had been leaking in small drips, but I thought it had stopped. Well, I guess it had stopped for a week or two, only to dramatically dump the contents of the radiator in one rush when I was in the one place that someone could actually do something about it without breaking my bank account. (Isn't God so merciful?)

Well, my brother inspected my car and quickly found the leak--a big one. He told me to be careful and fill up the antifreeze tank with water each time I drove it.

So I drove it home the next day, and then to campus the next day. When I returned to campus after our nightly "Chinese house dinner" (more about the FLSR later) I was shocked to see my car leaking water all the way in to the parking lot. And a puddle in the parking lot.

After a 3 day hiatus of not driving it so it would make it up to Lehi that Friday without exploding (I'm too spoiled these days. But it is way too hot to walk back and forth to campus 18 times because I have to go home for dinner!!) I bought a new radiator and took it up to Lehi to have my brother replace it, watching the rear view mirror the whole way to make sure I wasn't gushing water (the temperature gauge in my car is broken, and I didn't want my radiator to explode or my engine to crack!). When I parked in his driveway and got out, I heard the sound of gushing water. If only I had had a camera. My car was gushing water like a waterfall. This was no small leak!

Thankfully my brother replaced the radiator with the new one I had purchased. And the best news? The cost of the radiator was less than the cost of taking the GRE.

The Cell Phone Girl

You know who they are. Those people that don't seem to know when, because of the time and the place, a cell phone conversation is not socially acceptable.

Like in the middle of church. Or while taking a test. Or while sitting in a "no cell phone" area of the library. Or in the middle of class if your class has less than 50 people. Or when sitting at the dinner table.

The list goes on and on. Sometimes I want to turn and look at those people and say, "Not here. It's not socially acceptable." But I just give them "the look" instead, which they usually ignore because, well, they are on the phone.

So anyway. Today I was taking a survey. A paid survey. Can I just say that I have run into this sweet setup where I get emails about surveys that the BYU business school will pay me to take and if I want to participate, I just sign up for a time and go? I get $5 a survey, too, and they usually take less than half an hour. Lunch money for a week!

But I digress. We were in a rather large room with about 50 computers. And there were 4 of us. And we were waiting for the survey person to give us the instructions. One girl there, eager to take advantage of the silence, got on her cell phone. After 2 or 3 minutes, the survey person said, "Ok, let's get started." The girl on the phone didn't even look up. The survey person cleared her throat and said a little louder, "Ok, we're going to get started. Please put everything else away." Still nothing but loud cell phone conversation from the cell phone girl.

The survey person glanced over at me and I snickered, trying to let her know that I, too, thought this awkward situation was incredibly funny.

Finally, the survey person walked over to the cell phone girl and said, "We're going to get started, if you could put that away." "Oh, ok," was the reply.

And then she said into her phone, "Look, I'm taking a survey right now, so I'll call you later." And all 4 of the rest of us just snickered, thinking, that is so not socially acceptable.

Is there a time when in situations like this a cell phone conversation (loud, not even whispered!) is ok?

"You can replace the chicken with snake"

Why do all of my crazy stories involve Taco Bell?

Today I went to Taco Bell at BYU to get my regular--a chicken burrito. This is my regular because it is only 99 cents, which is a steal, if you ask me. Especially since they raised the price of bagels from 69 cents to 99 cents, and one of the only things you can get for less than 99 cents that can even kind of be considered a meal is a corn dog. I used to get a cheesy bean and rice burrito, but then the price went up from 99 cents to $1.50. And that is just way too expensive for my starvation budget.

But ANYWAY, I went to get a chicken burrito, and just as I stepped up to order I noticed a sign that said, "Sorry, we are out of chicken." Taken aback (now I would actually have to choose something...and maybe even have to pay more than 99 cents) I told the man behind the counter that was waiting to take my order that he would have to wait a minute because now I had to choose something that didn't involve chicken.

And the girl standing next to him, trying to be helpful, said, "You can replace chicken with snake in any menu item!"

Snake? Snake?! Was she joking? I laughed out loud, and when she looked confused as to why I was laughing, I thought to myself, am I back in Taiwan? Snake tacos...really?

So then when I told them I usually get a chicken burrito, the man said, "You can try a steak burrito instead!"

Oh. Steak, not snake. I burst out laughing again and told them, "I thought you said snake, not steak! I thought you were joking!"

And when my cheesy rice and bean burrito (I guess it was worth the 50 extra cents) came out, the girl handed it to me and said, "I apologize for any snake you find in there..."

Ah, Taco Bell. Where the fun never ends.

2 videos, brought to you by Mormon Messages

I hope you enjoy these as much as I did.

Matilda and the Lake

My kind sister (Matilda, but know to the blogging world as Chicken Dust) reminded me that I left several important things out of my trip to Bear Lake. Namely, that she, her husband, and son came and stayed the night with us in the sweet cabin with the porch swing. And I could tell you that story and how awesome it was that they came up because I was going to go with 4 friends but 1 cancelled and 1 couldn't go and NO ONE ELSE that I even remotely knew could go either and I was really worried about paying for the 4-person cabin when we only had 2 people and then the night before I went up I called her and she and her family were going to be up at Bear Lake on Saturday anyway so it was like it was meant to be, but I will spare you the details. Just know that Peter, her son, spent a lovely night sleeping in the cabin and then wanted to get up and play at 5:45 am. But not with anyone else--Peter only lets his mother and father look at him. I looked at him a couple of times but he started screaming so I stopped. :)

Before they came up, though, my sister Losaunne and I were cruising around looking for a place to eat. And by "a place to eat" I mean a place with hamburgers that were less than $7 or chicken nuggets that were less than $5. We were appalled by the prices in town so we decided to drive out to this little diner I had seen near the north shore.

(If you want to know how to get sweet pictures like this, take a picture of something with your phone, then take a picture of the screen of your phone because you realize you can't upload from your phone to a computer. :)

We walked into the glaringly empty diner, saw the condition of the kitchen and dining area, and looked for a quick and non-awkward escape (oh, you guys don't serve filet mignon here? graceful exit). However, by this time a girl/woman (maybe 18 or 19--or 23, I couldn't tell) arose from where she was sitting in the dark corner of the restaurant, came over to us, and asked if we wanted menus.

"Do you have more than shakes?" I asked, as if this would be our easy out. When she nodded in the affirmative, we both took a menu and browsed our options. The menu had 3 folds and had breakfast, lunch, and dinner menus. As we were looking for cheap options and they only had 5 dinner items, all of which were over $7, I turned to the woman and asked, "Can we still order lunch items?"

She looked slowly at the clock, squinted at if for at least 5 seconds (it was 7:30 pm), and turned back and said, "Yeah."

Like it was a big deal or something. At this point we knew that we had to eat here--this place had real character.

Even after we saw the state of the kitchen.

Since we were the only ones in the diner, she brought out our water in large glass boot-shaped mugs. I turned to my sister and said, "This place is a dream!"

"Or a nightmare" she added.

Finally two other families came in (they must have thought it safe since we were eating there) and Losaunne and I were quick to observe that they got small brown plastic cups for their water. Ha.

And then they brought out our burgers. A cheeseburger, a hamburger, and a plate full of onion rings. I don't know what these onion rings were made out of, but they had very little onion and a lot of ring. A LOT of ring.

And don't worry--when I prayed I especially blessed my food so I would not get food poisoning, despite the filth in the kitchen, and it worked. The food was delicious and I probably only ate about 5 cups of oil and grease.

The killer story, however, involves my other Matilda--my car.

This is a picture of the space from the ground to the bottom of my car. Now picture my car buried in sand and rocks up to that rim. (Unfortunately, I didn't have my camera so didn't take a picture.)

This is how it happened: my sister and I wanted to go swimming before the tourists crowded the shores. So early Saturday morning we headed to a beach that was more secluded than the others--and thus less crowded. Problem: I wasn't wearing my contacts because I didn't want to swim with them in and it was fine driving like that because I can see any sort of object that would be a danger. I just couldn't see things like textures or have much depth perception. Therefore, I was really grateful when a car turned onto the dirt path to the beach right before I did so I could follow it.

Unfortunately, I turned in one path too soon. And this path was not for cars. It was for ATV's, or walkers, or animals, or anything that doesn't immediately sink into soft sand upon impact.

After getting halfway through the path (it connected to the main path after about 15 feet) I was up to my axel in sand and rock. My tires were buried and there was no getting out of this mess. Even so, I knew I had to do something, so I started digging my tires out with my hands and my sister and I tried to push the car while it was in neutral.

Seeing our fruitless effort (we were right next to the paved road) a large truck pulled over and a man got out and walked over to us.

"You guys stuck?" he asked.

I answered in the affirmative, thinking he would offer to pull us out.

"It is not our day. My truck's overheating."

I had been wrong. He wasn't coming over to help us, he was coming over to comiserate with us!!!

Thankfully, though, a jeep from on the beach saw our predicament (the people in the jeep, not the car) and came up to help us. They drove up, looked at the guy, and asked, "Are you going to help them?"

"I can't, man," he answered, and then walked back to his truck.

Things were getting quite comical by this point. A man with a truck comiserates with us about our bad day as I try to dig my car out of the sand with a small rock and my sister, in her pajamas and swimsuit, stands by looking on. The men with the jeep grapped a rope and quickly pulled my car out, for which I was thankful, but also so embarassed (especially since when they attached the rope, I asked if they wanted me to get in and steer. And they were like, yeah, while laughing in derision. It was awkward. I'm sorry! I've never been stuck before! I didn't know if they wanted to first get it unstuck and then have me steer!) that I parked down on the beach and we quickly ran as far away as possible from them so they couldn't see my red face. So thank you, two jeep-owning Samaritans, and I hope you don't recognize me if you ever see me again. I sure won't recognize you, because I wasn't wearing my contacts so couldn't determine your facial features.

All in all it was a thrill and a half to go to Bear Lake. And I was relieved that we had such odd experiences so I had something to blog (and laugh) about.