Thirty, Flirty, and Thriving

My sister turned 30 over Martin Luther King, Jr. weekend so to celebrate we went to Disneyland. It was a blast. As we were getting ready in the hotel the morning of Lindsay's birthday she said, "I think I'm going to wear my good life experience shirt today." When she said that I assumed she was talking about a shirt that she wore when she had good life experiences, but when she put it on I say that it was just a shirt for the band The Goodlife Experience. We also created some new inside jokes. My favorite is dancing like a turtle. There are some turtles in the new Little Mermaid ride that have some really awesome moves and we recreated those moves daily. We got pretty good at it.

Lindsay and I were so excited to be at Disneyland that we clicked our heels. We're really just big kids.

Lindsay insisted that we get real Mexican food for her birthday dinner. I asked a Hispanic cast member at Disneyland where we could get authentic Mexican food near the park. She said, “Real Mexican food? By Disneyland? There isn’t any.” She recommended a place called Los Sanchez about 10 minutes away. We followed her sage advice and it was good (we were the only non-Hispanics in the place). They had the whole restaurant sing Happy Birthday to Lindsay and they even gave her a mug that just happened to say “Happy 30th Anniversay” on it. They also had a Mexican mannequin that we took our picture with. There was a sign on him that said: “My name is Mr. Sanchez. You can take your picture with me.” How could we resist?

We all love Splash Mountain (except for my mom) and got extremely wet the first time we went on it. That's usually not a problem because we usually go to Disneyland in the summer, but it was really cold and being wet was not fun. Lindsay decided to by a poncho to keep herself dry. I was far too cheap to spend $8.50 on a poncho so when Lindsay bought hers I asked the cashier for a big plastic bag. I cut it up with my keys and used it to shield myself from the water. It worked like a charm. Since it was so cold no one wanted to ride Splash Mountain and we rode it multiple times without waiting at all. Notice how wet we are in the picture.

My nephew and sister-in-law came too and it was so fun to have them there. Bowen had never been before and it was great to see how excited he was about everything. When we first saw them the first thing Bowen said to me was, “My birthday’s in five days!” I had expected hello, but that worked too. When you're six birthdays are a big deal. Bowen doesn’t like fast rides, but his mom does. She convinced him to go on a number of rides by saying, “Just try it once and if you don’t like it you don’t have to do it again.” She successfully got him on Space Mountain and Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, but he wised up to her plan and avoided all the other fast rides. We sent Bowen off with grandma while we thrill seeking adults went on the fast rides.

Bowen and I waiting in line at the Toy Story Mania ride.

One of my favorite things we did was canoeing on the Rivers of America. Sometimes the simplest things are the best.

It was such a fun trip and I don't know how I'm going to top it when I turn thirty. Also, I wrote Lindsay a parody song for her birthday. I tried to upload it, but realized that I don't know how to upload videos. It's to the tune of Dynamite by Taio Cruz. Use your imagination.

On a completely unrelated note, my parents stopped by my house briefly yesterday. My dad tripped as he was going down the stairs, tumbled down six stairs, and crashed into the wall before hitting the ground. It was a frightening few seconds before we found out that he was okay. He was pretty lucky and escaped with only bruises. It could have been really bad if he had landed differently, but he’s fine. The wall, however, now has a huge hole in it.

Solving the hole problem turned out to be super-simple. Not only did I cover up the hole, but now I want to go to Brazil.

Bursting My Bubble

BYU students often refer to Provo as “the bubble” since we’re somewhat isolated from the real world. I loved living in Provo, but it’s definitely not the real world. I would often go weeks without hearing someone swear or seeing a girl’s exposed shoulder. That is not the real world. Even though I grew up outside of the bubble I still tend to surround myself with Mormons thus creating my own bubble. A few experiences lately have helped me burst out of my bubble. On an unrelated note, on Friday night my roommate and his girlfriend told me they were going to a poetry reading. Jesse wasn’t excited to go and I agreed that it sounded super-boring. After expressing how I’d rather do almost anything than go to a poetry reading, I added, “However, I think a limerick reading would be awesome.” I’ve decided to write a limerick to go along with each of my bubble bursting experiences.

I have a coworker who lovingly and frequently calls me lazy, cheap, boring, etc. I was texting with her one day and she responded to my text by writing: lmao. When I saw that I thought she had misspelled the word “lame-o” because I could totally see her calling me that. I forgot about it for a few minutes until I suddenly remembered someone telling me that it stood for “laughing my *rear* off.” That made a lot more sense. Here’s limerick about that story:

Lol, g2g, brb,
All of these make sense to me,
But add in a swear word
And I’ll think I misheard
Cursing’s not my cup of tea.

On New Year’s Eve my friend Christian and I went to the YSA dance in Seattle. We were stuck in heavy traffic at 10:00 pm when Christian said, “Wow, look at that girl puke.” I looked at the sidewalk on the left and didn’t see her. I looked to the right and didn’t see her. And then I looked straight ahead and she was puking out of the backseat window of the car right in front of us. She puked a lot and for a long time. When she was done she opened the car door and stumbled into the street obviously quite drunk. She was covered in vomit as was the car door. Another girl got out of the same door to help her friend find her way out of the street. As they walked away the other back door of the car opened up and another girl got out. I quickly saw that that girl was not wearing pants or underwear and appeared to only have a jacket on. Then she just walked off down the street, still not wearing pants. Not the kind of thing you would typically see in Provo. And honestly, not the kind of thing I expected to see in Seattle. Here’s the limerick:

If you’re going to go to a dance
You need to plan in advance
Don’t get drunk before 10:00
Or puke in front of Ben
And always remember your pants.

I went to Starbucks with some coworkers a few weeks ago. I think it was my fifth time ever going to Starbucks. One of my coworkers ordered a tall something-or-other and the other ordered a grande something-or-other. I was very unfamiliar with the names of the different sizes at Starbucks so I said, “Can I get a medium size hot chocolate?” and the cashier said, “A grande?” and I said, “Uh, sure.” My coworker looked at me and said, “Not used to the Seattle lingo yet?” I replied, “Actually, I grew up here.” Somehow I managed to live in the Seattle area for two decades without learning how to order at Starbucks. I have since learned that Starbucks drinks, from smallest to largest, are: short, tall, grande, and venti. And the final limerick:

Should I order a tall or a short?
Will my drink be an ounce or a quart?
I stand here confused
And rather bemused
I need some Starbucks support.

And those are my bubble bursting experiences. Now instead of saying that I’m naïve, I feel like I could confidently say that I’m simply uninformed.

I Stand Resolute

On New Year's Eve I got together with eight of my friends to embark on a quest to find the best French fry and shake in the area. We split up into teams of three and went to different restaurants buying fries and a shake from each one. My team was called the Crafty Stallions because Vu and I are stallions and Becky likes to do crafts. We all met up at Vu's house and tried all the fries and shakes to determine which one was the best. I feel that the best fry comes from XXX Burger in Issaquah and the best shake is the Oreo shake from Jack in the Box. We bought way too much food and could not finish it all. The main flaw in the plan was that we couldn't eat the food until we were all together at Vu's place and ended up with a lot of cold, soggy fries and melted shakes. It was still fun, though.

Time for New Year's resolutions. Every year I hear people say things like, "New Year's resolutions are a waste of time because no one ever keeps them." To those negative Nancys I say, "You obviously haven't met Ben Schilaty." For the last few years I've chosen three goals and then have done them all year. Last year my first two goals were to read my scriptures everyday and to write in my journal everyday. I was already basically doing those things so they weren't too much of stretch. My third goal, however, was quite a stretch. I decided to make my bed everyday which I knew would be tough since I never made my bed. There were a few days where I was running late and thought, crap, I still need to make my bed. I managed to stick to each of my three goals last year and I feel that I'm a better person for it (and my room always looks a little cleaner, too! And I have a very detailed record of my life in 2011).

I have three goals for 2012. They are 1) memorize one scripture a week, 2) cook a meal for someone else once a week, and 3) run a marathon. I decided to memorize a scripture a week because of Elder Scott's last conference talk. You can read it by clicking here (I find Elder Scott a little too soothing to listen to and prefer to read them). The cooking goal stems from my desire to learn how to cook. I can prepare food for myself, but I really wouldn't call it cooking and it's about time that I became a full-fledged adult and learned to cook. As for the marathon, I've wanted to run a marathon for years and now is the time to finally do it. I haven't gone running since May so it will take quite a bit of training. All in all, I'm super-excited about my 2012 goals.

In 2010 I decided to have a theme song and my theme song for that year was I Get Around by the Beach Boys ("getting around" referring to going places) and I sadly didn't pick a theme song for 2011. However, looking back I think the best song would have been Me Party from The Muppet Movie. I had a blast in 2011, but spent more time alone than usual. After much deliberation with my brain I've decided that Make 'Em Laugh from Singin' in the Rain will be my theme song for 2012. I picked that song because no matter what happens this year I hope it's funny and that I can make others laugh along the way. Making people laugh is pretty easy. Fart! Poop! Stink! See? Making you laugh (or cringe) was easy. Happy 2012!

O Christmas Tree

After watching the Christmas devotional this year I got into the Christmas spirit a little bit more and wanted to set up a Christmas tree in my house. I emailed Kris to see if they had a fake Christmas tree in their house and she told that they did and that I could set it up. She did warn me, however, that they only have WSU ornaments. I don’t think I’ve mentioned this before, but Kris and her husband are huge WSU fans (not huge-fat, but huge-devoted).

I invited my new friend Kelli over last Saturday morning to help me set up the tree and decorate it. Before she came over I located the tree and Christmas ornaments in the garage and hauled them into the living room. I didn’t see the tree stand right away, but everything in the house is so well labeled that I didn’t think it’d be hard to find. Kelli showed up while I was looking for the stand and we had delicious Belgian waffles for breakfast. We then started to look for the stand, but couldn’t find it. I eventually called Kris and she explained where she thought it was in the garage, but I didn’t find it. As I said before, there are labels everywhere and the box the tree came in had a sticky note on it that said, “stand in downstairs closet ’01.” It seemed that the note was telling me that in 2001 the stand had been stored in the downstairs closet, but was it still there or was the note outdated? The other problem was that there are multiple closets downstairs.

Kelli and I started snooping through the closets and we found some pretty interesting stuff. My favorite item was an ET mask. I also found a box that was labeled “Sacks: cutesy & handles.” I opened up the box and it was filled with cutesy sacks with handles which was exactly what I had expected to find. Like I said, everything is labeled. Kris was sure that the stand was in the garage so Kelli and I searched in there for quite some time, but it was really cold that morning and we couldn’t find it. I don’t know Kelli super-well and I felt like a total dork for inviting her over and then not being able to find the stand. She was gracious about the whole tree stand catastrophe and eventually had to leave leaving me with a treeless living room. I had hoped to have a decorated tree by the time Kelli left, but this was all I had.

That night when I got home I was walking through the garage and thought popped into my head and I thought, the tree stand is behind the shop vac. I walked over to the shelf that had the shop vac on it, moved it aside and there was that bleepity bleep tree stand. It was a moment of pure triumph.

Kelli’s usually busy when I invite her to do things so I decided to just set up the tree by myself. However, I feel like my life is more and more becoming the male version of this song so yesterday I decided to invite my friend Colleen over to help me set up the tree. She agreed to come over and while we were making plans through texting I got a text from Kelli asking me if I’d set up the tree yet. I had texted Kelli on Saturday right after I found the stand and hadn’t heard from her since so I assumed that she had moved on from the whole let’s-set-up-a-Christmas-tree thing and was no longer interested. I texted her back saying that I was going to set it up that night. I then received a text saying, “I’m on my way. See you in 10 minutes.” Thinking that Kelli had taken my mention of setting up the tree as an invitation for her to join me I panicked slightly thinking that I had inadvertently invited two different girls to my house at the same time. Also, I now had the awkward task of explaining to Kelli that I had invited someone else to help me do what I had originally invited her to help me do. This was the kind of mess that people like me don’t usually get themselves into. I looked at the text a little more closely and saw that it was from Colleen and was instantly relieved. I then got a text from Kelli that said simply, “OK have fun.” Awkward moment averted.

Colleen and I had a blast decorating the Christmas tree with WSU ornaments. Even the tree skirt says WSU on it. It’s a bit much, but if you don’t look too closely the tree just looks red and you can’t tell that everything says WSU. We decided not to hang up the little WSU footballs. That was just too much. We also ate two Cinnabons.

This is what the tree finally looked like when we were done.

Notice all the WSU themed ornaments.

Even the ornaments that weren't originally WSU ornaments were painted to fit the theme. Like I said, they are huge fans.

Now every time I look at my Christmas tree I'm filled just a little bit more with the Christmas Spirit. I also feel like shouting, "Go COUGS!"

A World of Pure Imagination

For FHE on Monday we toured the Seattle Chocolates factory. A girl from church’s dad is the president of the company and he took us on a little tour. Lots of people, myself included, made lots of Willy Wonka jokes. Yes, I know that making Willy Wonka jokes in a chocolate factory is a bit cliché, but it was hard to resist. I later saw Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory playing on a TV in the tasting room and felt a little less guilty about my Wonka jokes. The factory does not employ any oompa loompas (that we were told about), but they do employ a number of people of Mexican descent who, sadly, did not teach us any morality lessons through song and dance.

The area of the factory where they actually make the chocolate wasn’t super-interesting and could easily be mistaken for a box factory, but the tasting room was awesome. The decor was very modern with white plastic chairs that swivel around and a carpet made of leather strips. We were told that we could eat as much chocolate and we wanted and I ate a lot. Since we were all Mormon the guy passing out the samples told us that all the alcohol flavored chocolates had no alcohol, but all the coffee flavored chocolates did have coffee in them. Good information. My favorite chocolate was the mimosa filled one and I’m convinced that if I were a drinker I would enjoy a tasting mimosa every now and then. Well, as long as it’s covered in chocolate.

The best part of the tour happened rather unexpectedly. The guy giving the tour told us a story about how some famous chocolatier had come to the factory and taken a pitcher of liquid chocolate and poured it right down his throat. The tour guide then said, “It’s a great experience that I want you all to have.” So he grabbed a pitcher of chocolate heated up to 115 degrees and one by one he poured some into our mouths. It was a little messy, but absolutely delicious. We also got to make our own chocolate bars and we were each given a chocolate bar that they recently invented that hasn’t hit stores yet. It was filled with peanut butter and was absolutely delicious.

Interesting fact: chocolate does not have caffeine in it; it’s added in.

All Aboard the Friend Ship

My best friend’s name is Tori. We became best friends about two weeks ago while playing games at her house with a group of friends. The conversation went something like this:
Tori: I don’t have a best friend.
Me: Me neither. It’s sad.
Tori: We should be best friends, Ben!
Me: I can think of three good reasons why we shouldn’t be best friends.
Tori: Like what?
Me: Well, you’re 18, you’re dating someone, and you live far away. Any one of those reasons would be a deal breaker, and there are three of them.
Tori: Did you just reject my best friend request?
Me: … yes …

To placate Tori I told her that we could give it a one week trial. Instead of being Tori’s bff, I was her bffow (best friend for one week). The week went well so we decided we can be bfuslfcij (best friends until she leaves for college in January).


On Saturday some friends and I made gingerbread houses out of real gingerbread at Tori’s house. I’d never used real gingerbread before and it had been years and years since I’d even decorated a graham cracker house. We had loads and loads of candy options for decorating. I’m not very creative when it comes to decorating and I was a little overwhelmed by all the options. Tori, our hostess, does this every year and designed a very intricate house. I designed a peppermint path for my house which I thought was cool, but that Tori described as “cliché.” Not wanting to be cliché anymore I covered my roof in “terracotta tiles” and gave my house a nice “brick” façade. I think it turned out nicely although some of the other houses were much more spectacular than mine. It’s nice to have fun friends to do things with.

In January I will be without a best friend again. If you live in the Seattle area, have graduated from college, and are single, let me know and I'll let you fill out a best friend application. The application is quite simple, you just have to be willing to make me soup and keep me company when I get sick.

Tori's gingerbread house featured a murder scene on the front path.

Candy

School has its ups and downs, but despite the downs I no longer consider quitting. I really like my job and I love the kids I teach. Lately I’ve been realizing that my lessons can be a little boring so I tried some activities today that an awesome, seasoned teacher recommended (she’s seasoned because she’s been teaching for so long, not because she’s been sprinkled with herbs). Today we tried “La U” which is where the students stand in a u-shape around the classroom. I ask them questions in order and if they get it right they get to sit down, but if they get the question wrong they have to stay standing until the next round. They can’t sit down until they get a question right.

I should have seen this coming, but I didn’t. The first period I tried it with started making fun of the kids that were getting answers wrong. Some of them even called one kid a loser while holding their hand to their forehead in the shape of an L. I didn’t realize that people did that in real life. I have loads of self-esteem and a great sense of self-worth, but what they were saying would have even hurt my feelings. I stopped the game and enacted the most severe punishment I could come up with – I removed their candy privileges for the rest of the month.

Taking away candy is a big deal to 13 and 14 year olds. One day in September I gave out fun size Twix as part of a lesson. Every day after that the kids would ask if I would be giving out more candy. It got a little frustrating. One such exchange went like this:

Student: Are we getting candy today?
Me as turn my pockets inside out: I’m a part-time teacher. I can’t afford to buy you candy all the time.
Student: What if we brought it in?
Me, slightly confused by the direction of the conversation: Sure, if you bring in candy I’d be happy to pass it out to you.

I wasn’t quite sure why she needed me to give her the candy. I figured she could just cut out the middle man and keep the candy for herself. But then again candy tastes twice as sweet when it’s also a prize. Much to my surprise and the joy of the other students she did bring in candy and I happily passed it out to even happier students when they did something awesome. Unfortunately I really love my students and it was so fun to see how happy they were to be getting a small piece of candy. So the day after Halloween I went to the store and bought bags and bags of Halloween candy for a generous discount. I’m hoping the candy will last all year.

When the next period came in and I explained how La U worked I also told them that the other class had lost their candy privileges by being rude. One girl perked up and asked, “So if we’re good, do we get candy?” and I said, “If you’re good it’ll be like Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory in here!” I watched their eyes light up as they joyously contemplated this impossible dream. In this class, after each student answered a question all the other kids clapped ecstatically. They clapped and cheered even louder when someone got a question wrong. The classroom nearly exploded with goodwill and camaraderie. I know they were cheering because they wanted candy, but it made me so happy to see them encouraging and cheering for each other. They cheered and cheered and I couldn’t stop laughing. I wish every day could be like today. And every day can be like today -- if there’s candy.