Flat Tire

Leaving wal-mart, Jena and i heard a thumping noise.
“I have a flat”
“Yup, you do. You know how to change one right?”
“Yeah but we can’t do it. We need boys.”* So we call Stephen and Kurtis.
“We have a flat tire.” -long pause-
“So do you want us to come fix it?”
“Uh yeah.”

Which left us chilling in the parking lot feeling bad because it’s approximately 30 degrees outside and the guys were in the middle of watching what would turn out to be an excellent basketball game.
“We should get them coffee.”
“Do they like coffee?”
“Uhh i don’t think so?”
“Chick-fil-a is open and they have great hot chocolate.” There was a new guy working at Chick-fil-a who got to make hot chocolate for the first time

Eventually the guys showed up, and we stood around watching them change the tire for approximately ten minutes before heading in to wal-mart to pick up cranberry juice for Kurtis and face moisturizer for Stephen. Men’s Moisturizer. Say that ten times fast and then try to find it in wal-mart. Turns out it doesn’t exist. You can buy moisturizer in lilac, pink, or yellow bottles. We searched up and down the aisles for something red or black, but it doesn’t exist. Finally we went with yellow as the most masculine of the colors and returned to find the tire changed and ready to go. I still sorta felt bad for making the guys miss the basketball game, but in all honesty running around wal-mart with Jena on a quest for Men’s Moisturizer (meeeeeens Moooooiiiiiiiiisturizer haha say it again) was super fun!

*Guys: know how to change a tire because it’s a great way to impress girls.

Becky vs The Mountain

About a week ago i sojourned to the great state of Tennessee to hang with the lovely Jena, since the end of school was also the end of our daily visits, and i was suffering from withdrawal. In my extensive research (aka facebook stalking) i had discovered pictures of Jena with a giant waterfall, and i got her to promise to take me to said waterfall during my visit. On Tuesday that promise was fulfilled as Jena, six of her closest friends, and i made our way to the mountain.

© Ben Verzi

At the top of this mountain there was a trail, and at the end of this trail there was a waterfall. At the top of this waterfall there were five or six rocks sticking out of the water in a nice line that almost reached to the other side of the river. I (in my infinite genius) decided it would be fun to cross this river. I took off my shoes and confidently hopped from one rock to the next until i ran out of rocks. I was wearing shorts and the water was not deep, so i figured i could just wade the rest of the way no problem.

Strangely enough the rocks under the water were not like the rocks above the water. The rocks above the water were dry and had your basic rock-type traction. The rocks under the water were frisbee-sized, round like eggs, and as smooth as a dirty politician. In other words, they were impossible to walk on. Nevertheless i tried and promptly fell on my face. I then swam the remainder of the river (approximately four feet) where i emerged dripping and shivering like crazy. (What? You mean mountain rivers aren’t warm in May?) Because i was freezing (and i wanted to feel like i had had some reason for crossing the river in the first place) i began climbing the cliff in front of me. This cliff was covered in brambles, and after fighting my way up thirty-five feet or so it became evident that there wasn’t really anywhere to go.

It was at this point that i realized i had my phone in my pocket. I took it out. Yep, completely soaked. Wonderful. Well i might as well head back down. On the way down i noticed blood dripping from my shin, and i shook my head and laughed at my epic brilliance.

After we had all returned to the bottom of the waterfall, we decided to make our way back up the trail. I was still soaked, and consequently freezing, so i took this opportunity to jog up the “giant stairs” as Jena called them. Apparently i’m not that in shape. I made it only a short way before my need for oxygen outweighed my need for warmth and i had to settle for a brisk walk.

©Ben Verzi

At the top of the “giant stairs” there was a nice out-cropping of rocks partway up the mountain near where the group stopped to wait for the slower, less-motivated, and/or late starters. Someone (Jena?) said we should climb up there for pictures. Another someone (Kyle?) proposed a race, and we began the assent. I had had a bit of a head start since i began at Jena’s comment rather than Kyle’s, but i still pretty much beasted it up the mountain, won without much competition, and regained a bit of my pride.

Going up has always been easier than going down, however, and the bottom twenty feet were a close-to-vertical hill of dirt and loose leaves. At the top of these twenty feet, the small tree that i was holding on to while i planned my descent broke.

Instead of looking for another handhold, i tried a running approach with a short leap at the bottom. It was very graceful in my head. Not so much in reality. Instead of the stuck landing with hands held high you see in gymnastics, i did a feet to knees to hands type landing all in the general direction of the steep trail i had previously attempted to run up. Yeah, that pride i had regained? Completely gone. Shattered. I was actually laughing, as a fell head-long toward the edge, at the ridiculous amount of klutziness and monumental discernment i was capable of displaying in only a few short hours.

Mountain:2  Becky:0

Alarm Clock Adventures

I am posting this story at Jena’s request.

It was the Sunday everyone returned from spring break, and we were all catching up with each other. Jena and i were sitting in the hallway on upper third talking when we hear beeping. It was that horribly loud and unpleasant alarm clock beeping. We attempt to ignore it and continue talking until the owner turns it off, but he never does. “Hmmm” i think, “whoever’s alarm clock that is must have mixed up their AMs and PMs and isn’t even in the room right now because no one could possibly sleep through all that racket.” Jena seemed to agree with my reasoning, so i looked for a way into the offending room. Obviously knocking on the door would be pointless. We knocked on the offender’s suitemate’s door (who Jena thankfully knew) and Don answered the door.

“Hey Don, can you go in your suitemate’s room and turn off his alarm clock? It’s really annoying.”

He was unwilling to do so, but said that we could go in if we wanted to. Jena didn’t want to, but i had no problem with it; it’s not like there would be anyone in there. I confidently crossed through the bathroom into the adjacent room. All the lights were out, so i headed for the light switch. After i turned on the lights i walked back over to the bed where the hideous screeching was coming from. The bed was lofted and the alarm clock was sitting on one of those loft-side table things. I reached over my head for the alarm clock, turned off the alarm, and reached back up to replace the clock. As i put the clock back, a head peaked over the side of the loft. My heart stopped. And then it raced.

“I’m so sorry,” i stammered as my face flushed red. “I didn’t think anyone was in here.”
“It’s cool,” the offender murmured sleepily.
“I’m sorry,” i stammered again and escaped through the bathroom where i immediately burst in to laughter. Jena found the whole event hysterical, and we have been laughing ever since.

The Music Expedition

There i was, sitting comfortably in my room. I was eating my lunch and reading wikipedia (who knew that the world record for most spoken words per minute is 595?) when i got a call from Jena. It went something like this:

Jena: Hey, do you want to go to the music building…practice…need sheet music…STEPHEN, HEY STEEEEEEEEPHEEEEEEEEEEEEN!!!!!
Me: You can get sheet music online.
Jena: …hymns…i’ll call you back later.

Normally a phone conversation like this would be confusing and possibly even worrisome. With Jena, however, i have learned to just ignore it, and if she really needs me for something she’ll make herself clear. So i was unruffled when i returned to my lunch and wikipedia, and unsurprised when Jena called back, more clearly this time:

Jena: Where can you find sheet music online? I want a hymn….eight measures…
Me: Musicnotes.com has the first page of pretty much any song you could want.
Jena: Ok thanks.

My lunch was not quite as warm as it had been, but it still tasted good.

Jena: How do i get the music off the internet?
Me: You’re going to have to take a screen shot. Use the print screen key.
Jena: uuuuh

(Jena has a mac. I don’t. Consequently i have no idea where the print screen button is on her computer.)

Me: It’ll have “Print Screen” “Prt Sc” or something similar on it. Just look for it. (Meanwhile i google “printscreen on mac”)
Jena: Maybe Kurtis knows where it is.
Me: It’s on the F3 key.
Jena: I don’t have F keys.
Me: Yes you do, they’re along the top.
Jena: No i don’t!
Me: *sigh* Fine. I’m coming up.

I look regretfully at the rest of my lunch and head up the stairs to Jena’s room. I take one look at her computer, and there on the top row are the function keys. On F3 is a picture of a screen (stupid macs can’t just use words that people might actually be able to understand). After taking a screen shot, i ask Jena what her default image program is so i can paste it somewhere (who’da thunk you’d miss paint?). She, of course, had no idea.

Me: *sigh* Screw this. We’re doing it my room with my computer.

I return to my room, push the remains of my lunch aside and open a new tab over wikipedia. I am on the verge of printing the first page of her chosen hymn when Jena remembers that she’s supposed to get the song in four vocal parts cause of something Anna said that she never really fully explained, but i gathered that it had something to do with Jena’s total loss in the world of computers and her zero experience with Finale. Mildly annoyed, i just search for songs with four vocal parts and grab the first one (Jena also seemed to be in a bit of a rush, but she didn’t explain that either). I printed it while shoveling down the last bits of food, and we head to the Music Building to play with Finale.

I don’t ever use the music library. In fact i never do anything with the school of music at all, so when we got on the computer and it wanted some password to use Finale, i didn’t know what you were supposed to do. Twenty minutes later (i was going around asking all the people who were pretty much useless) Dizzy comes in and informs us that you need an account and saves us the hassle of creating one by letting us use his. We open Finale and it has a nice “new piece wizard” which i tell Jena to use. We had fun finding all the instruments, and then started sticking notes on the page. I think we had all of one note down before Jena realized the tenor part was written in treble clef.

Jena: *Panic attack. Call Robby.*
Me: Dude chill. Let’s see if one of these buttons will fix it, if not we can just put it on the piano part and copy it over to the tenor part, and Finale will transpose it.

It’s around this point that Jena informs me the music library closes at five. Which gives us about ten more minutes. I roll my eyes and we start putting more notes on the page. Every new things is an adventure. Where are the rests? How do i make a note dotted? AH! That’s not what i meant to do! How do i fix it? Jena is definitely out of her element when it comes to computers.

From the day’s adventure i have two pieces of advice for all the non-computer people.

1. Don’t try to rush. Even computer experts are unable to make a computer perform under a rapidly aproaching deadline.
2. Breathe and don’t be afraid to try buttons or search the help menus. That’s how you learn a program. You don’t need nearly as much hand-holding as you think you do if you just take the time to play with it a bit and try it on your own.