To be honest, i've been really busy lately. I work a lot and am going to school. Today I was feeling a little overwhelmed with all the things I have to do. I felt like I was rushing all over to be able to get things done. Especially when I was leaving work today. My mind was racing to think of all the things that I had to do today when I saw a man hitchhiking on the side of the road. All I could see was that he was in his mid to late 50's and had no shirt on. I didn't care. I pulled over and told him to get in.

He smelt like cheap hard alcohol and I noticed that he had no front teeth. "How far are you goin," he asked.

"Oh, just up here into town," I said. "Where are you going?"

"Well, I'm just going up to the Smiths over there on Freedom Blvd."

Even though I wasn't going all the way to Smiths, I said, "Perfect. I'm going right by there."

We were off. I felt like talking to him, but the car remained silent. I after a few seconds I turned up the music I was listening to so that it wouldn't be so quiet. I was listening to the Counting Crows. He seemed to like it as I could see him tapping his fingers to the beat in approval. Or maybe he was just doing that to seem like he was obligated to like my music because I picked him up. Either way we both listened to the music the whole way; him tapping his fingers on the door with his hand out the window and me drumming on the steering wheel.

We got to Smiths and he got out. "Thanks man," he said.

"No problem. Any time," I answered back.

When I arrived to work today, I found that our phones were offline. There was a lot of lightning today and it shut off the power for a little while. That knocked out our phone lines for a little while. My job deals exclusively with being on the phone and today I couldn'd make any calls. They said it would be fixed soon, so I did some homework. I felt a little uneasy about being on the clock and not doing anything. Everyone else seemed to be fine with that. I just felt that it was unethical to just sit there and do nothing and get paid for it. For two hours I tried to do something productive. Finally our boss came and told us that the phones wouldn't be coming back on and that we could leave if we wanted. I clocked off and started doing my homework. I most everyone else left except those who really had things that they could do that didn't require a phone. The girl next to me seemed to be busy and stayed for another two hours. I was a little shocked to see that what she was really doing was chatting online and playing minesweeper. I could't believe that. I didn't say anything to her when she left. She just left. I've been thinking about that all day long. The thought of her sitting there on the clock after being told that the phones wouldn't be working and that she should go home makes me a little angry. I can't help but think less of her.

Early last December I was diagnosed with testicular cancer. Yes it was quite a shock. I was at the time only 21 and had never heard of anyone my age that had cancer. It took the whole month for them to find out exactly what kind of cancer it was and how far it had spread, or what the best approach would be to treat it. I am not going to go into full detail here for times sake, but just wanted to put onto paper some thoughts. I will though give a brief background of how things went.

I was diagnosed out here in Utah, and in January had to move home back to California. The cancer had spread to my lungs so I had to undergo chemotherapy. Chemo lasted for 9 weeks and was one of the most intense treatments out there. Needless to say that it wasn't the funnest time of my life. To be honest, it wasn't as bad as everyone thinks it is. Yeah, you get sick, but I wasn't on my death-bed.

When the chemo treatments were done in late March, the tests showed that the cancer was gone, so I moved back out here to Utah to go back to school for the Spring/Summer terms. Now understand that before I moved out to California to do treatments, I was financially stable. I had a job that covered all my expenses and even earned me enough to have some spending cash. Chemo changed all that. I gave all my money to my parents because for four months I was going to be unemployed and would need them to support me. Now that I am back out here, I am starting from scratch with my finances and trying to get back to financial stability as soon as I can. I now have a job, but am still relying on my parents to cover my bills until I start getting paychecks.

From this I am learning that I hate depending on others for support. I can't wait to free my parents of the responsibility of paying for things that they don't have the money to pay for. It makes me sick to have to make that phone call to Mom telling her that my tuition is almost late. I am forcing myself to live within my means and even hate calling to say that I have no food or gas and am at my ropes end. I love my parents for helping me, but can't wait and am working hard so I can live off of my own money and they can enjoy theirs.

Im in charge of ward prayer in my ward. Usually we have an apartment spotlight where a whole apartment stands up and introduces themselves to the ward. Since Im in charge of everything, I require that the spotlightees tell us their name, where they are from, what they do right now, and what their favorite thing about life is.

Tonight we had two girls who lived in the residential part of our ward boundries be spotlighted. They stood up and did the usual introduction, but because there were only two of them and we had some time to kill I decided to have the ward ask them any three questions. They seemed a little uneasy about letting the ward have a free stab at asking them anything. I thought it was funny to see their reaction to the first question. The question was: When you get married, what will your husban find out about you that he won't know before you are married? I thought it was great that one of the girls immidiately walked over and sat down as if she was going to avoid having to answer the question. The other girl reluctantly answered and then sat down knowing well that they were going to answer three questions. Usually I would have made them stand back up and enjoy the uneasyness of being up in front of a bunch of people, but I let them off the hook and let them answer the rest of the questions from their seat. I could tell that they were not excited about having to be up there. I chuckled to myself to think that they were squirming in their seats.

Making people feel uncomfortable is actually an art.

Its one thing to make someone that you don't know at all uncomfortable, but its another thing to be able to make some one that you know well very uncomfortable.

I have a roommate who currently doesn't do anything. He has no job, and isn't going to school, so very often he is home lounging around when I come home from school or work. He's kinda like a little dog friend who waits at the door for you to walk in. Anyway, we know eachother pretty well and joke around often. Sometimes we will be the only ones in the house. Suddenly Ill start to do some very well crafted interpretive dance, and really put on my game face to pull it off. My room mate will just get really embarrassed and wont even look at me. He won't know what to do and will say things like Aww, I hate you. I think its very funny.

English 115

I know what you're thinking, and the answer is yes. I have a special knack in life. I have the amazing ablilty to make people feel a little uncomfortable. I think it is because I really enjoy getting that akward reaction from people who don't know what to do when something out of the ordinary presents itself.

I remember once I went to a BYU football game with some friend. It was a friday night, and we were all single and ready to mingle. On this particular night I was in such a mood that I didn't seem to care at all what other people thought of me. My friends and I sat ourselves down and began to enjoy the game. There approached two girls who my friends had met a few weeks ago. My friends and the girls began to talk. They were both good looking girls who in fact looked a lot like barbie dolls. I could tell just by observing them that they weren't too bright. I thought, I have no desire to impress these girls. Let's see what kind of reaction they get.

I began to dish out random questions to see how they would react. I asked questions like, so what was to greatest event of the day? or On a scale of monkey to leprechaun, how excited are you about this football game? They answered none of my questions and when I blerted out the next question I made sure that it was loud enough that they had to have heard me. They both looked right at me and then suddenly got that deer in the headlights look like they were looking through me all of a sudden. Then their eyes slowly shifted to something just beyond and to the side of me, and kept moving until they weren't even facing me. They seemed really uncomfortable like they didn't know what to do, so, without even saying one word to me just started walking away. I thought it was pretty funny. Ive never seen those girls again, and Im sure if I did, I would do the same thing.

Those questions worked that time, and they have worked since, and Im sure that they'll work again.

Seriously, Im really a nice guy. Don't get the wrong impression.

Dusk was falling fast. It was a long day at the office, and Jim was happy to momentarally leave it behind. The wind blew scattered fattened raindrops from the dark clouds above that caused him walk briskly to his car. With his collar up, he unlocked it, opened the door and sat down with a sigh of relief. Although all alone, he felt a sense of companionship. Not the kind of companionship that one would have with his dog, or with a friend, but the kind that comes from a higher power; from diety. Jim had a unique sense of spirituality that seemed to never leave him. He could recall many times in his life where he could sense His presence. It always seemed to be in strange situations too. He would feel a divine presence when he would be watching his favorite TV show, or when he was paying for his groceries. Quite often in fact did he feel a higher power accompanying him. Oddly enough, Jim wasn't a religious man. He was not the church going type, and in fact felt a sense of disgust towards the present day religions. Many times he dispised his gift. He used to curse God for it. Now he has gotten used to the idea and rarely speaks of it or even gives it second thought.
(to be continued)

Sometimes when I go camping or do things where Im outside a lot. I really enjoy outdoor activities. The fresh air is always a pleasure to breathe. The serene sense of nature all around gives me a wonderful feeling inside. There are times when I go about my outdoor activities and there is nothing that bothers me at all. The experience is flawless. But other times I am plaged with the thing that I hate most in the world. Mosquitos.
I hate mosquitoes. They are by far the most annoying things on this planet. There is nothing that ruins a good time outdoors like mosquitos buzzing around your ears and biting you. Its funny, because I'll be having a good time doing whatever and suddenly I'll see a mosquito biting me. Immidiately I become hostile and paranoid. I can't help but be constantly searching for some sneaky insect to be trying to use me. I can't stand the thought of these little creatures sucking my blood and giving me an itchy spot somewhere on my body. The thought sends shivers down my spine.
I must admit that it does give me some real satisfaction to smash one, especially if he was almost done filling himself with my blood. I feel like I am a police man and catching the little blood theif who is stealing my blood. I of course show no mercy and quickly sentence him to death, squashing him and causing him to let his collection of deep red blood be smeared on the skin.
I know that this seems all pretty gross, but I'm not sure if I really care. I know that they were put here to torment and afflict man, but I see no reason to afflict them as often as the occation arises.

Today I started a new job. I got the job from a friend who works there too. I went in for an interview last week and had a start date for today. This weekend tough the company went on a trip to Lake Powell. I was able to go and spend Thursday through Sunday with all the people that I would be working with. It was a good chance to get to know them and spend time on a more personal level with them. Today when I went in to work there wasn't any awkwardness at all because I had just spent four days with most of the employees.
The first thing that we did was fill out all the paperwork that goes with starting a new job. We also got a brief overview about what it was we were going to do. I am going to be working as a business consultant and my job is to find new clients to add to our clientel. Once I have found a potential client and explained to them the services that the company offers, I turn them over to my consulting partner who sells them the service.
I have done this type of work before so I have some experience with my previous job. The fun thing is that the company is still starting out and really growing too, so that leaves a lot of room for me to be promoted and because their sales stradegy is by no means concrete, I get to develop it and find the best way for us to sell our service. I am working together with the oldest employee to do so. My goal is to really contribute to the company and provide them with an effective sales script and to of course prove that it works by increasing sales. I am positive that if I do that I will be able to make more money and help new employees be more succesful much faster than they would if they were to try to figure out everything on their own.
Tomorrow Dixie will have been gone for a whole week. Even though we were never dating exclusively before she left, it feels like that will be the case when she gets home. I know that I am supposed to date other people and all, but right now I don't have much of a desire to do so. I guess Im scared that if I go on some dates and who knows, kiss a girl, that she will somehow still be around when Dixie gets back. I don't want that to happen, so I seem to have been very standoffish towards the opposite sex. Oh well.
I talked to her today. Even though there wasn't much to talk about with her being in Louisiana and all, I still seemed to miss her. I know that sounds lame and cliche, but its true. I really can't wait for her to get back so we can spend more time together.
Don't judge me because Im writing this at 2:00 in the morning. Thanks.