Evaltuative Conclusion

Well I did not like this assignment. One reason is I don't like posting things on Facebook or on a Blog. Anything I want to remember I'm going to write in my journal and I don't want anyone to see it. The second reason I didn't like this assignment is that it wasn't explained very well. If you wanted it to have a audience and a theme explain that at the beginning not at the end.

Thanksgiving is at a terrible time

Now don't get me wrong. I love Thanksgiving. We as a people don't spend enough time thinking of the things that we should be grateful for so its good that we have at least once a year where we do. It's not the actual holiday that I don't like but the break with it. After not having school for a week I have no desire to do any homework for school. Of course all the homework I'm not doing is stuff for finals which is really important which is not good. Hopefully my after Thanksgiving apathy will not kill my grades at the end.

Dilbert

This has to be the best Dilbert comic ever!

Personal Narrative

Senior Year of high school ended up being a really hard year for me. The reason being my dad was deployed to Afghanistan the entire time. The entire thing began one day towards the end of my Jr. Year when we were at my grandparent’s house on my mother’s side one afternoon. We were all in their front room talking when my dad said that he had something that he needed to tell us.

“Alright everyone sit down there’s something that I need to tell all of you.” I sat on the foot rest of the napping chair wondering what was going on. Dad seemed abnormally serious right then. I started to think and try to figure out what he needed to tell us that he was so serious for.

“I waited to tell this until we were here so that I could tell everyone at once. I wanted to let everyone know that I’m going to be deployed to Afghanistan for the next 15 months come June.” At first what my dad said really did not make sense. It was one of those moments where your brain shuts down and you sit there for a moment while the Windows symbol pops up and your brain reboots.

My brother Luke is the first to break the silence. “What? No!” he blurts out while starting to cry. Braxton as usual doesn’t say anything but you knew that he was feeling torn up inside. By this time my brain was back online and finally realized what was going on. I was sad at the news but what can you do. He’s going and that’s all there is to it.

Seeing my brother cry Dad explained a few things about the mission. “Don’t worry. Afghanistan is safer then Iraq right now. Plus the mission I’m being sent on is the safest there is in that area right now. Plus I’ll be able to come home once during the deployment. I’ll probably try and come home for Seth’s graduation.” It was reassuring to hear it was the safest but right now there wasn’t much of a reaction from me. Luke was doing that enough. Why add more tears.

Of course I had to tell my friends the news ‘cause they’re my friends. If anyone is going to help me get through this it will be my friends. Of course I didn’t just come out and say it. They had to have the lead in.

“You okay Seth?” asked my friends one evening while I was being quiet and not taking part in the conversation.

“Kind of. My dad is being deployed to Afghanistan.”

“Oh my gosh!” they all exclaim. “That’s terrible, are you okay, how horrible” are some of the responses I get from them. They ask if there’s anything they can do. I tell them I’ll be fine. He’s going to the safest mission there is so there shouldn’t be too much to worry about.

Flash forward a month or so and I’m really irritable with everyone and everything. Looking back the reason for the sour mood was I still hadn’t come to terms with Dad leaving. At the time however, I couldn’t figure out what was wrong. Eventually I came to realize that I hadn’t really come to terms with my emotions about him leaving. I had just ignored them and didn’t do anything but run away from them. After having this revelation I came to accept that he was leaving and that I was going to miss him.

After that the school year ended and Dad left. Summer came and went like it always does and the school year started. Senior year was awesome. My friends and family where there for me while my dad was gone. Eventually the school year came to an end and graduation came around. As my dad promised he took his leave so that he could attend my graduation.

“Do I really have to go?” I asked for the millionth time. I really didn’t want to go to graduation. Why sit around to get some piece of paper I’m not going to look at again. It’s summer, let’s go out and do something fun.

“Yes you have to go. You only graduate from high school once so you don’t want to miss it,” was the reply I got from my father. “That and I came home for this so you have to go.” Trying to get out of it was worth a shot.

So I went and sat, listening to a principle I didn’t like drone on about how great this was that we were moving on with our lives. Yeah, yeah, let’s just get this over with. Finally it was time for us to go row by row to receive our diploma. They had us get up and go around back so we could enter from the front in front of the big T so everyone could see us.

Now during class, at the practice, and before graduation started they gave us this warning. Do anything stupid and you won’t get your diploma. They didn’t want anything happening and they kept saying it over and over.

With this idea in mind I was walking with everyone and there were teachers along the way making sure we were in order so they called the right name out. “Seth Church. Oh, here’s Seth Church,” one of the teachers say to the next teacher down the line. Wait what? Why do you need to know that I’m here? I started to panic. I didn’t think I had done anything to make me not eligible for my diploma. What could be the problem?

My tension mounded with each teacher we passed. Each one would say my name and say something to the effect they were waiting for me. Oh great. I really must have done something stupid that I’m getting all this attention. I was not feeling good by the end of it.

Then to finally make my fears present I get up to the next one in line to go out. They grab my arm and tell the announcer, “This is Seth Church.” Great. I really must have messed up somehow. But whatever I did they still let me walk out in front of the big T. I smile into the camera and move to walk up the ramp to get my diploma.

As I walk out and head to the stage they announce who I am, “Seth Church. And today Seth Church will be awarded his diploma by his father who has been serving in Afghanistan for the past 12 months.” Wait what? I then look up to see my dad in his dress uniform on the stage ready to hand me my diploma. At this point everyone, parents and students, stands up and claps for me and my dad.

“I love you,” is what my dad tells me when I get up and receive my diploma.

“I love you too.”

“Was your dad really in Afghanistan for the past year?” was the question I got from my classmates when we were in our seats again. They were the popular kids that I’m pretty sure only knew my name because they had just called it out two seconds ago so of course they didn’t know my dad was gone. I answered that he had been which they say was pretty cool.

Of course, me who doesn’t like the spot light had another surprise in store after graduation was done. One of the news stations was there to interview me about my experience. Great. More spot light time, just what I wanted.

“Was it hard having your dad gone your senior year?” was one of the questions that the reporter asked me.

I thought about it before I answered. “Yeah it was hard. Not having him around to talk to was tough. But my family was there for me as well as my friends. Both always made sure to ask how I was doing and to see if there was anything they could do for me. I also knew that my dad was doing something to help other people have a better life so I didn’t mind having him gone. It gave me someone to look up to. It was hard but I’m glad that he did what he did and had a good attitude about it. It gives me an example for when I leave to go on my two year LDS mission come next year. I wouldn’t trade it for anything.”

Thanksgiving Break

Well Thanksgiving break is over and I'm ready for another break. Working over 30 hours last weekend was not fun. Actually Black Friday was a ton of fun. It was great seeing those crazy people run in and grab the TV's. That was worth it. Other then that it was a long week of working at least 7 hours each day. Blah!

100%

I got a 100% on my Accounting test!!! I've never gotten a 100 on any test in college. What a test to get it on. Especially considering that I only got a 69 on the practice test.

Writer's Block

I wish I had one of these for my research project.

I love busy TA's

So for Anthropology we had a 3 page single space paper due. As I was writing it the day before I gave up and decided to do it double spaced and take whatever points that I could get. Well I just checked my grade and I got 100%. Half the work for the full credit.

Registration

Blah! I've never liked registering for classes. You either find a class you want to take but there isn't any seats left, it conflicts with other classes you are taken, don't know if you really want to take this stupid course and so on. What makes it worse is trying to get classes that let you work nights, be awake in the evening, get you enough credits, don't overlap, aren't already full and aren't some stupid class you aren't actually going to do anything for.

Holiday Candy

8 pallets in two nights of nothing but Christmas Candy. Blah! There had better not be more holiday candy tonight because there isn't any room for it.

Work Cited

I remember why I hate work cited so much. I can't ever find the information that is needed to cite stuff. I think there should be some law that requires everything to have some spot that lists all the info you need to cite a work.

Stupid Hand

My right hand for the past forever has been giving me some problems. It doesn't hurt until somebody shakes it. Then I have to keep myself from collapsing onto the floor. Anyway I have to wear a brace to church so nobody will shake it and undo all the healing I've done for the week. Of course that means that every week I have to explain why my hand is bandaged up. I have to explain it to somebody new and to those who have seen it before why its still on. Blah!

No Turck!

There was no truck at work last night! Yeah! So instead they decided to replace the normal candy with Halloween candy. That's fine cause it needs to be sold but where does the candy that was out there go? That's right. Into the backroom. That means that I have to back-stock an entire shopping cart of the same item. To make that more fun I don't have any space to put 100 bags of peanut M&M's so I have to be creative keeping in mind that I have another cart of 100 bags of regular M&M's I'll have to find a place for as well.

Birthday

Yeah it's my birthday! And this year I was able to be awake when I turned 22 exactly. Wow. 5:08 in the morning. Not that my mom was happy about that. He he.

Work, Again

Well last night there was no truck! Yeah! Of course that meant that they had us doing projects. This time it didn't bother me cause I was rearranging grocery backroom which is where I work. Parts of it look nice now. Three things bother me about doing it. One is that nobody but backroom will get to see and and appreciate what I did. The second is the stupid day side people are going to mess it up today. They always do it. I'm amazed at how it only takes them 12 hours to completely mess the back stock up. And lastly there was so much stuff that was put in the wrong spot. How hard is put the right stuff in the right place? Apparently it's to hard for some people. Stupid day side.
Oh and I didn't hug the van. It was depressed last night.

Research Topic

My research topic is why do some people need more or less sleep than others. In connection with that are people's sleep schedule programmed into us or can we train ourselves to sleep during the day.

General Conference

Well work was crazy last weekend with Halloween and Christmas coming around. As such I wasn't awake during any of the sessions but Priesthood. Actually that isn't really all that different from any other year except I had an excuses this time around. I was fine with just getting to see Priesthood because that has always been my favorite. Almost every talk seems to be something I need to hear. My favorite one was Elder Kearon's about the scorpion.
I loved this talk because of what he said at the very beginning and end of his talk. He talks to those who feel that they've used up their last chance for repentence and tells them that they still have a chance. I've meet a lot of people who feel that it's to late for them. They've done or not done to many things and that there isn't any hope for them. His talk really didn't address that issue directly but he definatly was inspirred to start and end his talk that way.

Work in battle with Conference

Well it's 8:20 and Conference starts in less than two hours. Yeah!!! Problem is I just got back from work a half hour ago and haven't gotten any sleep since 2 yesterday. Good thing the men have Priesthood session.

Class Connection

Yesterday both my Writing Class and Humanities Class talked about similar things. In writing we listened to music and how it was trying to portray the four seasons and we analyzed if it did a good job. Then fifteen minutes later I was in my humanities class listen to music and seeing if we could get what the artist was trying to portray. If was nice to have been doing it a class before.

Elder Eyring's A Child of God Talk

Elder Eyring's talk did a really good job of catching the students attention and teaching us something the all of us are trying to get which is good grades. I really enjoyed how he used a military story to get people listening to the rest of the talk. Most of us are fascinated with war stories so when people start telling about them we usually wake up and pay attention. It was also great that right from the end of the story he went into the point of his talk. That way those that might stop listening after the story is over at least know what he's going to speak on and either continue to pay attention or go back to sleep cause they don't care.
Of course what his topic was on I don't know why they wouldn't pay attention. He told us to to be successful in school and get good grades. That's something all of us here at BYU want to get and do better at.
I also how with each characteristic of someone that does well in school and life he said, the first characteristic and then the second characteristic and so on. That helps those of us like myself that have a hard time figuring out when they've moved on from one item to the next. It helped me keep on track of what he was talking about and if he'd gone onto a new topic.
What was even cooler about the characteristics was where he went after naming his characteristic. He went straight into the Gospel and how the different topics he was talking about tied into it. That was impressive to show how school and the Gospel really are tied into each other. It was a great talk for anyone who wants to keep getting good grades.