two rings

So it's over a thousand years old. It probably spent the last several centuries buried in soil somewhere near the ancient Byzantine Empire city of Constantinople. It has two handcut rubies which were handcrafted in or near a Russian city during the nineteenth century. And then it ends up on my finger. But how?

Well, so the story goes that on the eve of the fall 2010 equinox a certain Thomas Stone asked me to go for a walk. When we first started dating six months ago, we went on quite a few walks, but lately not so much. So it was a pleasant surprise to be going on a short stroll again. But then I noticed that we were heading in a northeast direction from my apartment complex to a location that we had been to only once before quite a while ago. This was all very interesting to me because a few months prior it had dawned on me that Tom seemed to be saving this place for something--perhaps something special?

We were just heading back to my apartment when a small box conveniently fell out of Tom's pocket and onto the sidewalk just in front of us. He knelt down and opened it to reveal a Captain Planet ring. And then he asked me to marry him. I said yes, of course, and apparently passed the test. Because then I got my real ring--the one that is way older than Captain Planet.

So as a result of no doubt some careful planning on Tom's part, we were engaged on the equinox and plan to be married on the winter solstice (December 21st). The former was a happy day and I am sure the latter will be even more so.


Hmmm. . . and we really need to take some new pictures of the two of us. Guess that's what engagement pictures are for?

work

Life as an enrollment and service support representative at Powerspeak is a nice conglomerate of frustration and amusement. Each day presents some similar scenarios with some unusual ones thrown in here and there.

First is the parent calling in about a URL error message that they get when the student tries to access their course. This error message is related to an enrollment issue that we have no control of because we don't do the enrollments for these schools. But every day at least one customer will call in and say that they called their school. But instead of resolving the problem, the school sends them to us--the people who can NOT resolve the problem. Even more frustrating (mostly for the parent who is getting tossed back and forth like. . . umm. . . a hot potato?) is when the customer contacts the teacher about an enrollment issue, who then refers them to us; we refer them to their school's enrollment officer, but then often the school refers them right back to us. Uh, hello?!

Second is the student with a recording issue. I hate these because the problems are so various and there is no one solution. The problem can be related to the web browser they are using (Internet Explorer 8 is just bad news), the microphone or headset (is it plugged in to the right port? is the volume turned up? Is it functional?), a firewall blocking port 1935, the time of the day they are trying to do the recording (are 500 other students trying to do a recording at the same time?), their operating system (why was Windows Vista ever created?), and their computer (if it's a Mac then you want to use Safari for recordings and Mozilla Firefox for all other activities; if it's a very very old computer then you probably should throw it out and get a new one).

Third is the parent or student calling in and saying that all of their work has tragically disappeared. This tragedy can be related to the operating system on their computer; but too often it is a fancy tale the student is telling the parent--a tale that they have done all this work in the course when they really haven't. I've learned that parents are often very defensive of their child's integrity--after all, their child is very bright and diligent and would never think of telling a lie! Well, student's do tell lies and cheat. (One student even took screen shots of her course, cropped those images, and modified them in Photoshop so it appeared that she had done the work.)

The nice part of my work? When a teacher calls up with a very confusing task that they want you to help them out with and then after a few minutes on the phone, they resolve the problem themselves. Or when a student needs a password reset--it's such a simple and easy problem to resolve and most of the time the recipient is extremely gracious and thankful. Or when you hear from a parent who wants to tell you how great Powerspeak is and how their child just can't get enough of "that avatar thing." Or when you get to transfer the call to someone else either directly (pressing their extension) or indirectly (not answering your phone so it automatically get's passed on to them--it's a good way to get your coworkers annoyed at you if you try this tactic too often).

Oh, and the best part is working with Joan!

my age dilemma

I'm not sure exactly when it started. . . perhaps in my mid-teens is when it became most apparent. Since then it has become progressively and amusingly worse. I am referring the tendency people have to think I am several years younger than I really am.

It is an interesting dichotomy: mid-teens and adulthood. Put them together in one person. . . And that's me! I get to see a little bit of both worlds. In one world, I have people talking down to me and then in the other world, I have people showing much greater respect. Often the transition happens in a matter of seconds.

Here are some of my favorite examples:

When Mom and I first moved up to Utah for me to begin school at BYU, we went to the our new home ward. That first Sunday Mom and I went to Sunday School and then Relief Society and afterward some of the members came up to my mom and asked her if I shouldn't be in Young Women's. They didn't think that I looked old enough to be in Relief Society! I'm just glad they weren't going to send me to Primary--though they did that later when I was called to be the Sunbeam teacher.

I still remember my first day in Honors 300 Advanced writing. Here I was just finishing up my sophomore year at the big and mighty BYU-Provo. I was just a bit nervous about being in an advanced writing for publication course. As I looked around, everyone seemed so much older than I was (I later learned that some of them were but quite a few were my same age or a bit younger). The teachers were going around handing out the syllabi. One of them walked up to where I was sitting, peered at me over the syllabus she was handing to me and said mid-sentence, ". . .and you look like you are too young to be in this class!" She was joking of course; and made that clear. We laugh about it now.

Probably one of the funniest experiences was just a month or so after my mission when my sole source of transportation from Mapleton to Provo and then around Provo was my bike and the bus. I was riding up 9th east one day, and I got to the intersection by the creamery on ninth. As I approached, I saw a crossing guard who I guessed was in his later twenties. He finished helping a student across the intersection in the opposite direction I was going and then he approached me. I was sitting there on my bike waiting for the light to turn. He came up and asked me if I thought I could cross the intersection O.K. on my own when the light changed. I assured him that I thought I could. He stood there for a minute though, looking at me and I could tell he was trying to resolve some sort of quandary in his mind . After a moment, he asked, "What grade are you in?" I smiled and realized what the problem was. . . "I'm actually a senior at BYU," I said. The light changed just at that moment, so I took off very much amused.

At work one day, one of the people in charge of developing some new courses came up to me and asked if I would be willing to help out with the recordings for one of the courses they were working on. I agreed. A few days later, we went back into the recording room and they gave me the script. It was only then I learned the situation: I was a 10 year old child talking to her mother. Didn't know that I sounded that young!

Speaking of sounding young over the phone, another day at work someone called in with questions about the Middlebury-Monterey Language Academy. I helped answer the man's questions and offered to send him email with more detailed information. The man said, "That would be great, ma'am. . . . Oh sorry. You don't sound old enough to be a 'ma'am.'"

On my mission, my companion and I were doing some tracting in a neighborhood in Pembroke Pines, Florida--my first area. We got to one door and it was my turn to do the door approach. I knocked and a middle-aged man opened the door. I began my explanation about how we were missionaries from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and that we were sharing an important message about how the fullness of Christ's gospel had been restored to the earth. I was halfway through my sentence when the man interrupted me: "How old are you, anyways?" I told him that I was 21. He then told me that he had been thinking how I was awfully smart for someone who looked so young. I wonder how young he thought I was . . . .

In my last area in the mission, my companion and I were out in a neighborhood talking to people. We saw this family in a car with a flat tire. Another man was helping them fix it. I walked up and started talking to them. The man accepted a pass-along card but then said, "How old are you. . . 10?" He thought my junior companion, who was actually one year younger than I, was in her twenties.

When I first went in to see my orthodontist this past fall to get my braces on, the assistant asked me where my parents were. I told her that one of them lived in Hawaii and the other lived here in Provo, but I'm pretty sure that wasn't the answer she was looking for.

Another time when I went to the orthodontist, there was a new assistant. She sat me down on the chair and began making small talk. "So how is school going for you?" "I'm done." "Oh, so are you planning to go to college now?" "I'm actually done with that too." Then she went silent. Guess I killed that conversation. But I didn't mean to! :(

In October of 2009 I went up to Kaysville to attend a farewell for my former seminary teacher and her husband who was my bishop in Hawaii--they were going on a mission to China. After the meeting I was standing there mingling with the other people who had come. A sweet lady came up and asked me if I was part of the group of people who had come to the farewell. I said, yes. She then asked me who my parents were and where they were. I explained that my parents lived in Utah and Hawaii and no, they were not there with me. She asked how I had gotten there all the way from Provo. I said that I had driven. The lady gave me a confused, blank stare. I could tell that she didn't think I was old enough to drive or live away from my parents.

Spring 2010 I went hiking with my roommates Angela and Ann in Provo Canyon. On the way back down the trail I was walking quite a bit ahead of them. I passed a family walking down the trail as well. I said hello to them and the dad looked over at me and asked if I was from the 5th grade camp up the trail. I am pretty sure he thought I was one of the 5th graders and not one of the camp directors.

After my August 2010 graduation from BYU, I began the fall semester not as a student anymore but as a full-time employee. At one our first FHE's in my single's ward FHE group, we did introductions. My roommate Susan introduced me and mentioned that i had just graduated from BYU in English. One of the guys in our group looked at me in extreme disbelief and asked how old I was. I told him I was 23 and asked everyone how old they thought I was. Someone kindly said 18; someone else said 14. The guy who asked me in the first place how old I was still was not convinced. He asked me "Are you really 23?"

the experiment

I'm not sure how I feel about blogs. I'm not sure if I have the time to keep a blog. I'm not sure if anyone will read my blog. I'm not sure if those people who happen to read my blog will even like it. So that is why this is an experiment which may or may not last long. So here goes. . . .

recent highlights

I graduated from BYU with my BA in English and editing minor. It was a great experience, though the prayer part at commencement was a bit nerve-wracking. Saying the prayer in sacrament meeting is ok. Saying the prayer at some larger meeting like stake conference is still ok. But saying the prayer at a BYU commencement which is broadcast over TV? The pressure not to trip over your feet and not to say something odd or humiliating is definitely magnified times 20. All that day I thought I was going to be perfectly fine but then I got to the podium, closed my eyes, and my legs started shaking. What traitors!


I got to sit up here on the stand on the second row right by the flag.

Since graduating, I have discovered that life is less about having the time to do what you have always wanted and talked and thought about doing and more about prioritizing your time. It seems that even though I am done with school, the random projects never quit coming. Not that these projects are bad--they are just more learning experiences that take up time and require effort. Most have been very rewarding.

For example, I was asked to write an article on Internet Security for Frontiers, the alumni magazine for the BYU College of Physical and Mathematical Sciences. Then this past month, they also asked me to do a final copyedit on the entire magazine. This has been a good opportunity to keep up my editing and also earn a little side money.

Right now I am working on condensing my 13,000 + word thesis into a 3,000-4,500 word research article for the Science Editor---a publication by the Council of Science Editors. Surprisingly, it was quite easy for me to condense it down to three words: usage, corpus, manuals. I still don't understand why anyone would want to read my thesis---I certainly don't enjoy rereading it and finding all those mistakes that I knew were hiding there.


Lastly, I have been searching and applying for editing jobs. I am currently working full time at Powerspeak, a company that produce online foreign language courses for students. But I really really want to do something in editing. This past week I had a follow-up interview for an editing position and it went ok. I wasn't prepared for how formal it was though. Yesterday I took a 2 1/2 hour editing test for it. Wow. It was pretty intense. My biggest challenge was the time limit. It felt like I was in school again. I didn't finish everything before the time limit, so I am personally not satisfied with how I did, but I guess we will see that they think. Oh well. The worse they can do is not hire me.