Woodturning is one of my favorite hobbies right now, mainly because I am fascinated by wood with all its various colors and grains. I have mainly focused on making pens, tops, and small trinkets, but on Saturday I decided to take a step up in the woodturning world and make a bowl. It may sound like a simple project, but you must consider that the small bowl must come from a rather large cross-section on timber. What makes the wood harder to turn is that the center of the rough piece is not always the desired center of the bowl. In order to do this, you must mount the wood where the center of the bowl will be between the lathe centers. When you do this, the wood is uneven around the centers, causing wobbles and an uneven cutting surface. And so, when you try to use a gouge to plain the wood into a perfect circle, the uneven sides present quite a problem. This was my experience on Saturday, and at times I thought I would loose a finger or an eye, and the wobbling of the uneven wood even caused my lathe to jump around a bit. But after a few scares and a lot of patience, I successfully completed my first bowl. I put a nice varnish finish on it and now the bowl sits next to the front door and is our key bowl.

The following is from the in-class writing assignment: I hate it when people waste my time when they are in the right-hand lane about to turn right at a red light. It never fails that when someone is in front of me in the turn lane at a red light, they sit there until the light turns green before they even try to turn. I am usually a relatively calm driver, but when the car in front of me wastes my time by sitting in the right turn lane at a red light, I go crazy. There are those few occasions where there is a sign that says "no right turn on red", but 99% of the time no sign is present, and in Utah it is legal to turn on a red. It annoys me so much when people just sit there and waste my time. I often think terrible thoughts about the individuals, mostly concerning their complete and utter lack of consideration for others and their severe incompetence when it comes to driving. I feel that it should be illegal to sit in the right turn lane at a red light and not be aggressively trying to make the turn between traffic.

Ironically enough, on my way home the day I wrote this, the car in front of me stopped at the red light at the first intersection where I was turning right and just sat there until the light turned green, even though there was no cross traffic.

No new news concerning dental school/military scholarships, so I thought I would write my feelings about this last semester. After 5 long years at BYU I'm about 2 months away from leaving Provo behind and starting a new chapter in life. The realization of this has brought on a few different emotions. Firstly, I have been thinking a lot about the experiences and people I've met here, along with all the things I've learned in all the classes. The other night my wife and I watched Contagon and because of all the biochemistry, microbiology, and molecular biology I totally understood everything the movie said about the virus and disease and what not. I even caught a few parts where the movie was complete wrong. So I am very thankful for the knowledge that I have gained here at BYU. I think another emotion I am feeling as I finish up my last semester is what I can only describe as "senioritis." I find myself drifting off in all my classes, procrastinating even more than usual (sometimes to the point of not even doing the assignment), and...now I'm done typing because I lack the motivation to finish.