Tell-Tale Heart

This was so crazy, and a friend of mine told me to post about it.

So the other night, I was sleeping (cool, huh?), and usually I don't wake up in the middle of the night.  But this night, I did.  I also don't usually sleep on my back, but this night, I was.  So I woke up, wondering "Why did I wake up?  That's weird."  Usually if I wake up it's because of noises or motion.  So I started listening really attentively.  What did I hear?  A knocking sound - in the constant rhythm of a heartbeat.

Yes, I was creeped out.  I thought of The Tell-Tale Heart by Edgar Allen Poe.  Yeah, kinda crazy.  I wondered "what kind of animal could be right above my head and have that strong of a heartbeat?"  But, I couldn't think of any.  So I felt my own heartbeat.  It was exactly in sync with the knocking heart above my head!!!  I moved a little, and my back came up off the bed for a second, and the knocking stopped in that second.  I finally figured it out - my heartbeat was causing my bed to move just enough to make my helmet (which hangs on my bed-post) to hit the wall!  After this, I was no longer creeped out, but amazed at how cool this was!

So I discovered that I have a really strong heart. :)

Flight of the Arrow

Sorry, it's been a while since I last posted on my blog.  School has started up again, and it's keeping me busy!

As per the Dating Race, I've fallen behind quite a bit!  Shayla is rockin' the planet by dating so many awesome guys, and Jon is right behind her (dating girls though).  Me?  I've run into a couple of "obstacles" that aren't necessarily bad, but just have kept me from asking more girls out and accepting suggestions from others of people to take out.  However, I've decided to not let those obstacles stop me anymore.  Even though I don't expect to catch up to Jon and Shayla, I hope to at least stay in the game.

In school, there have been a few cool things going on for me!  Well, really just one, but it's really pretty awesome.  So you might remember that I started working in a Research Lab at the University of Utah a semester ago.  I picked a really good lab to work in, for a few reasons: 1. It's flexible, 2. It involves doing work that is less mundane than others, and 3. We have had some significant success and are in the process of PUBLISHING A PAPER on it!  How cool is that?  As an undergraduate with a little over 2 years left still, I'll have my name on a published article!  I'm hoping that we will be able to continue to progress and hopefully repeat this process once more before I graduate.  I will, of course, let you all know when the paper is done, but for now, I'm just excited to be involved in something so cool!  I think this will help increase the amount of responsibility that I have in the lab as well, because we want to get some really good images and data out in the next couple of months to include in our Results section.  Yeah, I'm pretty excited.

Also, in our Ward Missionary Committee (I don't remember if I've said that I'm our Ward Mission Leader), we've recently started to go out and visit young single adults within our ward boundaries to invite them to come to our activities and meet new people and come back to Church.  It's been very rewarding to be more involved in the Lord's work, and I hope that we'll be able to reach some people who need the light of the Gospel in their lives.

Basically, my life is wonderful.  The only not-so-good thing that's going on right now is that I have a pretty bad cold that didn't allow me to sleep (like, at all) last night.  But that seems like a minor setback in comparison with all the blessings I have.  Yeah, there are things I would like to change, like being single, not having a steady source of income, etc., but I'm finding that "it's not hitting the target, it's the flight of the arrow".  (I don't know who that quote is by, but it's cool.)

Dating Race Update

So THIS is going well!

It's been a really good experience so far!  It's only the 3rd day in, but it feels like we've been doing this for a while already!  I'm surprised (pleasantly) at the attitude change that I've experienced toward dating, and the great topics that I've had the chance to talk to my friends about with this thing going on.

After reading Elder Oaks' talk, which Jon also posted on our dating blog, I realized that this is a good way for me to take dating more seriously!  I know it probably seems like we're taking dating LESS seriously with this "competition".  But to be honest, I couldn't care less if I lost the race.  I'm just glad to have an extra incentive to ask girls out!  It's already helped me to stay in the mindset of dating as a priority in my life.  I've dated somewhat consistently in the past, but i feel like this is really helping me to focus on it.  Of course, when school starts up again in a week (on the 11th), I'm betting my "date rate" will decrease significantly.  But I will still try to have asking girls out in the forefront of my mind.

I want everyone to know that the people I take out on these dates are people I would normally feel comfortable asking out, not just people around me to take on dates so that I can beat Shayla and Jon.  Jon did a great job of explaining why we're doing this in his post, "Not Just a Number", which I completely agree with, but I wanted to explain my own personal view on it as well.

I'd like to hear what each of you think about our dating idea, whether you like it or not, what you would do differently, etc...  Make your comments as long or short as you like, just try to keep it considerate.  Thanks!