I highly enjoy General Conference, but even though I pay attention and take occasional notes, I have trouble recalling specifics from the various talks. I can speak generally about what was said, but I think the hard part is that there are so many amazing talks one right after another that I don't have time to digest the messages and ponder how I will implement the teachings into my life. This is why I am thankful that the church publishes the talks, so that I can review them and study each one in depth. However, reviewing the notes I took during the broadcast and comparing them to the printed talks is always interesting because sometimes the things I have written down have nothing to do with what the person was talking about. The discrepancies let me know that I wasn't just writing down the exact words of the speaker, but writing the thoughts and impressions the Spirit brings to my mind. During the Sunday morning session, I had a random thought and just daydreamed about it for a bit subconsciously while watching the speaker, and the thought was a really good one that helped me out a bit, but when I snapped out of it, I had pretty much missed the whole talk. I think doing this is ok because the Spirit is the one that is supposed to teach us and bring the message to our heart and mind.

Tonight Shannon and I went to her co-worker's, Ming-Tzong, house for a nice Sunday dinner. Her children were there, who are all around the same age as Shannon and I. One of her sons works for BYU police as well as city police in Sandy, and man he had some good stories. Just a word to the wise, don't pick your nose or do anything else on campus that may be embarrassing even if you don't think anyone is looking, because there are thousands of cameras inside and out. The campus police save all the funny tidbits for later. Anyways, after dinner he gave everyone a little self-defense training and gave Shannon and I a can of pepper spray as well as a kubotan, which is a small self-defense weapon keychain for close-quarters. He gave us some good training on how to use it if we are attacked, but in all reality I question its effectiveness. I realize that having and using it is a lot better than nothing at all, but I can think of something else that is a lot better (a concealed gun). I am glad Shannon has this stuff, but I think for it to be effective in actual practice you need quite a bit more training and strength to fend off an attack.

Friday night started out relatively boring, mainly due to the fact that my wife took me to her brother's high school cheerleading exhibition. I myself would never bother choose to be a male cheerleader, but my wife and I support her brother, Joel, in his endeavors. The exhibition played out as normal, a few cheer routines from the cheer squad, a couple of risque sexual-themed dances from the drill teams. You know, the usual. But at the end of the last routine where Joel was catching one of the flyer girls, he got nailed in the face by the girl's elbow as she came down. His head was knocked back violently but he played it cool by cupping his nose and causally walking off the mat. But I knew something was up, judging by the impact. My wife and I jogged over to him and saw that his cupped hands were filled to the brim with blood and his nose was gushing blood from both inside and out. After cleaning up the mess and stemming the blood flow as much as possible, we went back to his house for a checking with his parents, then off to the hospital. When the X-ray came back, the doctor stated that "this the the most broken nose I have ever seen!" His nose bone was completely sheered off and pushed back a good amount. This was quite interesting, and after the swelling started to increase he looked like Lord Voldemort. We all got a good laugh at that. The break was so bad that the doctor dared not set it and referred him to a specialist, who he will see on Monday. Exciting night!

I took the big plunge this week and signed the next 8 years of my life away to the Army. As described in many of my past entries, I have been in somewhat of a pickle because the Army had offered me the scholarship but I was waiting to hear back from the Air Force as to whether or not I received their scholarship. I couldn't just wait forever to hear back because the Army has a 2-week decision period, and if you do accept or reject by the end of that 2- week period, the scholarship is automatically revoked. So on Friday the 2nd, I had to make the choice to either accept the Army scholarship, or reject it and bank on getting the Air Force scholarship. In essence, that was a $500,000 bet. I decided to play it safe, so I signed with the Army. Even though I would have rather gone with the Air Force, the Army is basically the same only without the Air Force culture (which is a little bit more laid back and relaxed). And to be honest, I am not sure I would want to be part of an organization that never meets its deadlines. The notification deadline for the Air Force scholarship was February 17, and they have yet to release anything. The Army, on the other hand, met their deadline. I like it when people/organizations actually do what they say they are going to do. So now I am in the Army!

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.