An Argument for Editing

I'm always amazed when I see ads or signs in newspapers, on craigslist, on bilboards or elsewhere. Don't people know how dumb they sound sometimes?!? If only these people would take some time and reread what they submit to print or post . . . If only. These people are why I do what I do. I know I've brought up stupid mistakes before, but I think little reminders every now and then help us remember not to get sloppy or we might stoop to their level.

Braille dictionary for sale. Must see to appreciate.

FOR SALE BY OWNER: Complete set of Encyclopedia Britannica. 45 volumes. Excellent condition. $1,000.00 or best offer. No longer needed. Got married last weekend. Wife knows everything.

Help wanted, singer for rock band. Must be female or male.

Lost: small brown poodle. Reward. Neutered. Like one of the family.

For sale: a quilted high chair that can be made into a table, potty chair, rocking horse, refrigerator, spring coat, size 8 and fur collar.

Man wanted to work in dynamite factory. Must be willing to travel.

Christmas sale. Handmade gifts for the hard-to- find person.

Wanted, man to take care of cows that does not smoke or drink.

Three-year old teacher needed for pre-school. Experience preferred.

Wanted. Widower with school-age children requires person to assume general housekeeping duties. Must be capable of contributing to growth of family.

Tired of working for only $9.75 per hour? We offer profit sharing and flexible hours. Starting pay: $7 -- $9 per hour.

Joining nudist colony! Must sell washer and dryer $300.

Free Yorkshire Terrier: 8 years old. Hateful little dog.

Free puppies: ½ cocker spaniel, ½ sneaky neighbor’s dog.

German Shepherd, 85 lbs. Neutered. Speaks German. Free.

Snow Blower for sale…only used on snowy days.

Dancing Through Life

A few weeks ago, Tracy and I saw this on a bumper sticker in a Wal-mart parking lot. It made us both laugh so hard we had to pull over. We both immediately thought of Alfalfa’s “farfignugen” in Little Rascals. (It turns out, Funkengruven is the name of a band. Who knew? I sure didn’t!) Regardless of the band, who’s music I haven’t heard, we want to use it for other expressions.

How are the Wulfs? We’re funkengruven through life!

Skin

It’s spring!! We reached a scorching 75 degrees today, and I have noticed something new this week. People seem to have more skin here in Pullman, Washington—or at least more people seem to show it off here. I know I don’t live in Florida, Arizona, or California where this problem would be much, much worse, but considering the fact that I’ve lived in Provo, Utah, for the past four years, my eyes have seen more skin than all those four years combined.

As Tracy and I were walking home from WSU campus yesterday, we saw a group of girls lying out on a lawn in the middle of campus in bikinis tanning. Tracy and I looked at each other and whispered, “We not in Provo anymore! That’s for sure.”

It definitely made me conscious and actually proud of my modesty. I admit some thick tank tops or cute summer dresses are cute and a little tempting, but I know I don’t have to show off my body to feel beautiful or attractive.


What I am used to seeing in Utah. (Just kidding. It's not this bad!) I don't think it would be appropriate to post pictures of what I see on campus now. I might attract the wrong crowd. haha

Five Things Thing

My sister Karen "tagged" me five times to do this five things thing. But I'm actually happy to do it. It's fun to think about my responses as well as read the responses of others.
So here we go!

5 things I was doing 5 years ago:
1. finding myself as a junior in high school (this process is ongoing)
2. singing with every available moment
3. playing volleyball
4. applying to BYU (the only university I applied to)
5. dreaming about the future (particularly my future love story--Tracy was already at BYU waiting for me to get there. haha)

5 Things on my to do list today: (Today is busier than some other days.)
1. teach my English 202 class and tutor in the WSU Writing Center
2. work on my music collection
3. make fajitas for dinner
4. make cookies (and of course eat half the dough myself)
5. worry about Tracy (This week, he has three more labs to teach, geophysics homework, a geophysics test, lab papers to grade, and some other assignments that I can't remember)

5 Things I would do with a million dollars: (the Bare Naked Ladies's song is in my head when I answer this one: "If I had a million dollars, I'd be rich.")
1. go to Britain for as long as I can
2. save for a house (who knows where we'll end up!)
3. pay off all our debts (for school and our car mostly, but also all the unofficial donations)
4. travel to Europe
5. go to Britain again and again :)

5 Places I have lived: (other than Pullman, WA, and College Station, TX, this summer)
1. Provo, Utah
2. Rapid City, South Dakota
3. Ithaca, New York
4. Great Falls, Montana
5. Mesa, Arizona

5 Jobs I have held:
1. magazine writer (so what if the articles were only 500 words long and the total pay of the articles will be $200!!!)
2. store clerk at Pioneer Book
3. BYU Writing Center tutor
4. WSU Writing Center tutor/teacher (they prefer I say that I "facilitate" not teach, but I really do)
5. Religious Studies Center editor (one of the best experiences I've had. I hope I get to use those skills elsewhere)

5 things I want to be doing in 5 Years:
1. starting a family
2. editing for a magazine or book publishing company
3. learning French or Latin
4. living in a somewhat permanent location
5. living my life to the fullest!!

Geology 101 Field Trip

This past Saturday Tracy drove and helped supervise a field trip for his Geology 101 students. I decided to go so I could spend more time with him, learn more about the geology of the area, and do something fun outside (I don’t get out much).

I was surprised because of the locations where we stopped. They weren’t spectacular in terms of magnificent rest stops where you have a mini Grand Canyon. We stopped by what at first looked like a dirt pile, road side rocks, sandy hills, and a waterfall. Little did I know what cool things we would find.

Obviously, there are highly technical and complicated explanations for all these things. I'll just comment on a few that I remember and that I find especially interesting.

Tracy was the first one to race up the hill to take a closer look.

Note the rippled sediment.


Tracy with Dr. Wilke.

This is pillow basalt. But don't be fooled by its name. It is not soft. Do not sleep on the rocks.
This is Brian, one of Tracy's fellow TAs, pointing at pillow basalt.
The white streak is ash from Mount St. Helen's. This ash traveled about 350 miles. I wanted to take some home but didn't.
Untouched sand.

From the moment Dr. Wilke finished his little discussion about sand dunes, students and TAs began jumping and flipping off the steepest parts. Some of them were really steep—much steeper than the pictures make them look. Among these dune jumpers, Tracy decided to jump so he’d roll down (we’ll call it a double axle). He momentarily regained footing but kept running and ran right into the neighboring dune—landing with a beautiful biff. Everyone cheered for the bravest jumper. I laughed and cheered, feeling silently proud of my sandy husband. Luckily a student caught his graceful jump on her camera. Here is a link to the video on Youtube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bSVrSNgOsvQ

Walk it off.

During Tracy's flight down the hill, he lost the van key. We went back and luckily found it on the surface of the sand dune. Whew!

Tracy is sandy but relieved that we found the keys.
The elusive keys.
Us at Palouse Falls.

Once we got to Palouse Falls, it was raining fairly hard. The falls are huge!!

The bowl shape (called a plunge bowl) was formed by the ancient lake the size of all the Great Lakes combined when it was drained in a few weeks. That is not a long time to get that much water drained.

Note the bowl shape.



You probably can't see it, but the crack on the other side of the river matches up perfectly with the crack on this side. They are called joints--not doobies. This geological feature cannot be smoked, even though it shares drug-related terms. :)
As we were taking this picture, a student said we should use it for our engagement pictures. A little late for that, honey!
We had fun and learned a lot.

Back to Life

It's amazing how fast time flies, even when you're not particularly having fun. It's hard to believe that Tracy is six weeks away from his first semester in grad school.
Well, the first part of spring break was pretty boring. Tracy just did homework, and I worked on a few projects at home. He finished a take-home test that is due on Thursday and that a lot of grad students are just barely starting. On St. Patrick’s Day, I dressed up in green (with my Ninja Turtles shirt and clashing IMUA sweatshirt), put on silly things that my mom sent us in a package, and took pictures. Told you I was bored. (Mom, you'll notice that I even had the green gum in my mouth for this picture!)

The real action began on Wednesday when we went to Spokane. The temple was much smaller than either of us imagined. The Angel Moroni looked huge, and the neighboring stake center was twice as big as the temple. When we went in, the temple worker told us that we needed our own names and the temple was open for only half the day every day. We were too late for a session, even if we had our own names. With half our plans ruined for the day, I thought we would have nothing to do. But Tracy planned secret adventures and surprised me.


His secret plans weren't expensive or dramatic, but I felt loved when he took me to a beautiful park (I love walking in parks) and to two malls (he hates going to one, and he took me to two!). But before that, we found a street with my name. But I don’t think I want to live there even though living on a street bearing my noble name would be pretty cool, because it looked pretty sketchy. Too bad!

My favorite part of the day was going to Riverfront Park, which, yep, is by the river. My favorite place was the playground area where they had giant playground equipment. We had fun taking pictures.

It was too heavy to pick up. ;) Good thing, because that was the slide.
Some perspective on the size of the wagon.

No, we didn't arrange the cement blocks. They are stuck that way.

The river. We took tons of pictures of the rapids. Tracy loves scenery and landscape pictures.

Then we went to the Riverfront Mall which, yep, was by the Riverfront Park, which was by the river. This mall was in the middle of downtown, and while Spokane isn’t the biggest city, I felt like everyone in the city crowded into downtown right as we were trying to navigate the streets and park. All the stores in this mall were hoity-toity and highfalutin with designer stores which had not one product under $100 except a bar of soap. (A little dramatic, but seriously—too expensive) No thank you!

We then went the next mall, which had a Kohl’s and JCPenny’s. I felt at home. We bought a Wii game called Chicken Shoot. It’s like Duck Hunt but with chickens and a Wii remote instead of a cool gun. It’s fun if you want to shoot things, but more than anything I just missed Duck Hunt.

We went out to dinner, which is now a rare occurrence. We lived it up and ate as much as we could, almost to the point of feeling as large as Buddha. We rubbed our bellies for luck to get home without falling asleep.

Tracy’s parents came on Friday to spend the weekend with us. Tracy seemed to reverse time and became a five-year-old. He showed them the Wii, his geophysics book, his new iPod Touch, and every other toy or sign of accomplishment he could. On Saturday, Tracy showed his parents his office and classrooms. It was good to spend some time with just them.

On Sunday, just like the Sunday before, Tracy played the organ in church. He did really well. He didn’t really use the pedals, but last week was his first time playing. I’m sure he’ll work up to using them.

Overall, it was a good spring break. We could get used to having one of these for the next two years.

Spring Break

For the first time in four years (even longer for Tracy), Tracy and I get a spring break! Finally—the chance just to relax and do whatever we want or catch up on homework or housework. Wait… That’s my life all the time now. Nevermind.

Although I’m sad that I couldn’t truly appreciate a free week during my college years, I am excited that Tracy will have more time to get things done and that we’ll be able to spend more time together. Although we won’t be going to Miami, Hawaii, or Mexico to party like crazy, we’ll have fun and get things done.

First of all, Tracy will work on homework (which will be boring for me but oh well). Next, we’ll get our taxes done, hopefully to reveal our large refund. Probably several times next week, I (and maybe Tracy too) will help Tracy’s professor paint his house. But the biggest adventure we have planned is spending a day in Spokane to go to the temple there and window shop. On Sunday, Tracy will play the organ in church, a new experience for him, but I’m sure he’ll be great.

I'll let you know how our week off goes!