Half Way to AZ

Phase II of my move to Arizona has included a few days hanging out with my college friends in Provo, Utah. To be efficient in my visits I stopped and visited friends along the way to Provo to avoid backtracking stopping in Salt Lake, Taylorsville, and Pleasant Grove before arriving in Provo.

The Reasor girls and I had a delicious lunch at Ruth’s Diner in Emigration Canyon. It was super-delicioso. As I pulled out my wallet to pay my bill Courtlin said, “That’s your wallet? It looks like a teenage boy’s wallet.” She was right, it was a teenage boy’s wallet – me as a teenage boy. I got the wallet when I was 14 or 15 and have used it ever since. For years now I’ve been meaning to upgrade to a more adult wallet, but buying a new wallet is so easy to put off until tomorrow and tomorrow turned into multiple years. The wallet still holds all my stuff, but it isn't in very good shape. The Velcro doesn't work any more and the plastic sleeve for my ID ripped a long time ago. Both Jordan and Courtlin insisted that I buy a new wallet that very day even going so far as to say that my wallet is the reason I’m not married. They assumed any girl who saw her date pull out a wallet like mine to pay for dinner would run for the hills. On a side note, I’ve been getting a lot of “you’re not married because” comments lately. I’ve recently been told that I’m not married because I shop at Old Navy, I don’t buy girls popcorn at the movies, and my hair is graying.

Here's my outdated, teenage wallet.

Here’s my nifty new wallet.

Last night I went out to dinner with Sean, Cari Sue, Josh, and Kelsee. I told them my exciting story about buying a new wallet (it was exciting, right?) and Josh said, “Why’d you get a new wallet? Quiksilver is a cool brand. Seventh graders love it.” So yes, getting a new wallet was way overdue.

I met up with Marcie Glad a few days ago. She told me that since I showed her all around Seattle she was going to show me the sites of Provo. When she said this I said, “Uh, I lived here for six years. I think I’ve seen everything already.” She managed to find a fun toy store that I didn’t know existed and we ran through the new fountains at the Riverwoods. We visited some other places that I’d already been and Marcie recounted the history of the area for me. It was very fun.

My friend Melissa from Washington was in Provo for the summer taking a Portuguese course. She went back to Washington yesterday and had a going away breakfast that included pancakes, French toast, egg muffins, and a really delicious food that I had never tried before that is basically a peanut butter sandwich turned into French toast. I was awakened yesterday by a text from Melissa. She had forgotten to buy some stuff at the store and asked me to pick those items up on my way over to her house. She treats me like her husband. She had forgotten to get bread, milk, eggs, plates, and cups. When I got this text I asked myself, what did she remember to buy? As I was driving to the store she asked me to pick up syrup too. I didn’t mind and I was happy to help. Apparently the French toast ingredient she remembered was the cinnamon.

I’ve had such a blast this week hanging out with my old friends. And I apologize for not mentioning everyone on my blog. My friends here are awesome, and funny, and I appreciate them so much. Provo feels like home.

Forgetting Knitting

I left my beloved Washington yesterday and am currently in Boise visiting my friend Tim. Tomorrow I'm off to Utah for a few days and then my final destination of Arizona. Washington really likes to rub in my face how awesome it can be whenever I abandon it for another state. For instance, when I moved to Utah in 2009 to start my master’s it had been in the 70s and sunny for almost three weeks straight and yesterday as I drove away it was sunny and beautiful again. I felt less bad about leaving Washington, however, when I reached Ellensburg and there were suddenly no more trees. While I love how pretty Washington is, I’m mostly going to miss it because of all of the awesome folks that live there (my folks in particular). Washington will always be home.

Before I left Washington I spent four days at Fort Flagler with 31 of my closest friends. It was quite a motley crew of children, retirees, young adults, regular adults, and two pregnant women. We had a blast. Some of my women friends are really, really into knitting and someone was knitting almost the entire time (Megan is going to make Lisa a pair of Mitt Romney mittens. I said they should call them Mittens Romney).

While I was reading on my Kindle, Carolyn said to me, “Would you like to learn how to knit?” I was a little caught off guard, but said that I would. Why not, right? She handed me the knitting needles (which I briefly used to pretend that I was leading an orchestra) and explained how knitting works. It was really complicated at first and strained my brain.

Then I got the hang of it and a proud smile emerged on my face. An even prouder smile surfaced on Carolyn’s (but I have photographic proof of that).

And this is what my creation looked like. I'm not sure what it was supposed to be.

I don’t see knitting in my future, but it was fun learning how to do it. And unfortunately, I think I’ve already forgotten how to do it. It looks like I won’t be wearing any Mittens Romney this winter.

I'm Glad You Visited

Marcie Glad, my friend from BYU who looks great in headbands, came up for a visit last weekend. Marcie is the best person to show around town because she was super-excited to see everything.

One of Marcie’s must see locations was the gum wall at the Pike Place Market. She doesn’t have a camera and I didn’t bring one so we had to take pictures with our minds and our cheap cell phones. Marcie planned ahead and brought gum for us to deposit on the wall which I had never done despite the many times I’ve visited the gum wall. After getting our picture taken with Marcie’s flip phone and depositing our gum on the wall, a German girl traveling alone asked us to take of picture of her. Marcie took her camera and said, “Would you like some gum?” and the girl accepted. We then awkwardly stood around for what felt like two minutes watching a stranger chomp on a piece of gum until it was wet enough and stretching enough to be blown into a bubble. Marcie snapped a picture of the girl blowing a disappointingly small bubble and another of her placing her gum on the wall and then we parted ways.

While at the Pike Place Market we bought some of those little donuts that I love to eat. The place only takes cash and we were a little short on change so we paid the difference with a stick of apple pie flavored gum (you can taste the crust!). The guys working there were the coolest donut people ever.

We then went to the observation deck on the Columbia Tower, the tallest building in Washington. As we walked around admiring the view we saw a sign that said: “Quiet please. Recording in progress.” Turns out there’s a radio station up there. The door to the recording studio was wide open (if they want quiet they should shut the door) and we could hear a woman giving traffic updates. At one point the woman walked out of the recording booth with some binoculars to peer on the traffic situation below. We struck up a conversation with her which was fascinating. We learned that she works for multiple stations and has a few pseudonyms, but her real name is Bev. She also taught us that Seattle has the 4th worst traffic in the nation. She was super-kind to us and we were a little star struck after, but only a little because we’d never heard of her. Later that night we were talking to Chantelle and we told her that we’d met some traffic lady named Bev and she said, “Oh, Bev Devlin! I listen to her all the time!” I was surprised that someone knew who Bev was and I instantly felt 10 times cooler for having spoken with the illustrious Bev Devlin.

Me, Marcie, Tyler, and Chantelle at the beach

The next day Marcie and I drove up north to see Mt. Erie and Deception Pass. I took my camera along so we actually have some pictures of that outing. Mt. Erie is great because you can drive to the top. There were a lot of elderly folk up there. Marcie really liked Deception Pass because she saw a crab.

Marcie standing in the ocean next to a crab at Deception Pass


All in all, we had a blast last weekend and I’m glad (pun intended) that Marcie came to visit.

Parting Words

In August I’ll be moving to Tucson where I don't know anyone. Since no one there knows me, I thought it might be fun to change something about myself. I discussed changing my name with some friends and the top contenders for my new title were Benny, Benji, Benjamin, and B-dog. Referring to myself as Benny or Benji makes me feel like a little kid, Benjamin sounds like I take myself too seriously, and B-dog makes me sound like a tool. I’ve decided to stick with Ben.

Someone suggested that I consider dressing differently (a very subtle hint), but that would cost way more money than I’m willing to spend. As Suze Orman would say: Denied! My frugality (aka Scrooge McDuckery) is something that I don’t plan on changing.

There is, however, something that I might change – my hair. And no, I’m not going to dye it, just grownupfy it. I’ve been spiking my hair for many years and now that I’ve passed from my mid-twenties to my late twenties it might be time to have a more adult hairdo. Last week I started parting my hair and asking people what they thought. My mom and my aunt loved it, absolutely loved it. That was encouraging. On Friday I went to a bonfire hosted by a 19 year old girl from church. The 19 year old’s 15 year old sister and her friend were there (as well as people my age too). All three of them agreed that the part made me look too old (I would have assumed that the grey hairs would have already done that). I went into the bathroom and spiked my hair and they liked it a lot better. That was discouraging.

This left me with a tough decision: do I try and attract 60 year old women with parted hair or teenage girls with spiked hair? Neither option was very appealing. I parted my hair today and when I got home from church my brother and sister-in-law were at the house and they both raved about how much they loved my hair. Jay even said that he wanted to part his hair like mine. That was not the reaction that I was expecting from my brother because he’s already so handsome (just ask my mother). And I really respect my sister-in-law's opinion especially since she was smart enough to marry my brother. So it looks like the part may be here to stay, but I’ll let you judge for yourselves. Here’s a picture of me with my hair spiked last summer in Portugal.

Here’s a picture that I took for this blog post. I have to admit that I’ve always thought it was a little tacky when people take pictures of themselves in the bathroom mirror, but I couldn’t think of a better way to get a picture of my hair. I apologize for being a tacky hypocrite.

I also may try using a new word when I move to Tucson. I’ve been trying to reintroduce the word rad back into popular usage for years and it hasn’t caught on. I think it’s time to give up on that one.

My Life with Jay

On the last day of school not only did I have to wrap up the school year (maybe next year I'll rap up the school year), but I also moved out of my house and flew to New York. It was a busy day, but the trip to the east coast with my family was supreme. One of my favorite parts of the trip was spending time with my brother Jay (I can talk about him on my blog because I know he doesn’t read it). He’s five years older than me, got married at 23 and has five kids ages 9 to 1. We see each other frequently, but our lives are very different. I find it a lot easier to relate to Lindsay since we’re at a similar stage in our lives. When I see Jay he’s usually fulfilling his roles as husband and father and it was great to spend time with him as my brother and just have fun together. I hate to admit it, but Jay is the funniest Schilaty and thanks to his wittiness the two of us created numerous inside jokes during our east coast adventure.

New York City doesn’t have a lot of public restrooms. I’ve learned on my travels that when there is no public bathroom, you can always find a free bathroom in McDonald’s. Unfortunately I have the bladder of a pregnant woman so we stopped by many McDonald’s as well as other restaurants. Sometimes we bought food and sometimes we didn’t which made us feel a little shameful. We came up with some terms to describe using a restroom without buying food. Here are my favorites: sneak a leak, duke and dash, relieve and leave.

When we were in Washington, DC we were on our way to take a tour of the Capitol building. I was driving our rental car and the closest place to park it was at Union Station which is a few blocks away. We had just arrived from a five hour road trip and Jay and I both had to use the bathroom pretty bad. The GPS took us down a busy road with lots of construction and it took forever. By the time we got close to Union Station my potty situation was at emergency levels and I just wanted to park the car and find a bathroom. There’s a roundabout in front of the station and I wasn’t sure which way to go. I was also driving an SUV which was nerve racking in the city because I’m not used to driving such a big vehicle and taxi drivers were doing all kinds of aggressive maneuvers around me. I missed the parking lot entrance and had to circle around the roundabout again. I was freaking out and Jay was saying all kinds of funny things and telling me to be more aggressive so I yelled, “Stop being funny! You’re gonna make me pee my pants!” That, of course, made us laugh like crazy and it was only with great willpower that I managed to not wet myself.

We finally got to the parking garage and had to park on the top floor. I did a poor job parking and I usually would have reparked, but there was no time. Jay had to go to the bathroom really badly too and when we got on the elevator we both looked at each other, saw the pained looks on each other's faces and burst into laughter. I nearly lost it, but somehow maintained my composure. We made it to the restrooms and – relief.

Jay and I during the Capitol tour.

As we walked around the Capitol whenever we passed someone in a suit we’d say, “Hello, congressman,” or “Good afternoon, senator.” Addressing strangers as congressman and senator really gave us the giggles. Ironically, when we were in the Supreme Court building, Justice Sonia Sotomayor walked right by us. Instead of saying, “Hello, Justice Sotomayor,” all I managed to say was, “Isn’t that Sonia Sotomayor?” and then she was gone. It’s a pity that I addressed many non-congressmen as congressman yet couldn’t appropriately greet the only Supreme Court justice that I would actually recognize. Still, seeing her in person was awesome.

Jay, myself and Lindsay in front of the Capitol.

On two different days two different people came up to Jay and me and said, “Are you two twins?” This was both a compliment and an insult. A compliment because Jay is very handsome (just ask my mother) and an insult because Jay is 33 and how dare they insinuate that I look like I’m 33! I’ll admit that we do look a lot alike, but twins? I don’t think so.

BLOG ABOUT ME!

I have a pair of shoes and a pair of slacks that I frequently wear to school (too frequently, actually). A few weeks ago the shoes started falling apart and the pants started to fray. I thought about replacing them, but the school year is so close to being done that I decided to not worry about looking a little shabby. There are only three days left in the school year and I feel very much like my clothes – worn out. It’s been a good year, but I’m really exhausted and I’m ready for reduced-stress summer.

I never planned for this to happen, but a lot of my students read my blog. Apparently it’s seen as a great honor to be mentioned by me on the internet. Occasionally students will come to class saying that I mentioned them on my blog, but unfortunately more than once a student has been mistaken thinking that I was talking about them when I wasn’t. One of the pitfalls of anonymity.

One of my students tells me almost every day to write about her on my blog. One conversation went something like this:
Student: Write about me on your blog!
Me: No.
Student: Why not?!
Me: You have to do something funny or interesting to end up on my blog.
Student: But I am funny and interesting.
Me: That’s true, but you haven’t done anything blog worthy yet.

She later told me a gross story from her childhood hoping that I would think it was funny and put it on my blog. It wasn’t that funny and I won’t be writing about it.

After writing my last post about karaoke in my car I told this student that I had written about her. The conversation went something like this:
Me: Hey, I wrote about you on my blog.
Student: Really?
Me: Yeah, I wrote about how Asians like karaoke.
Student: That’s a racist stereotype!
Me: Do you like karaoke?
Student: Well, yeah.
Me: I told you, I wrote about you. You’re an Asian who likes karaoke.

I was trying to be annoying and judging from her reaction I was rather successful. Here’s a limerick I just wrote about karaoke:

I don’t like to sing karaoke
I can only sing in a low key
I don’t like to perform
It’s out of my norm
And I’m sure to pick a song that is hokey

I feel like each of my classes likes me progressively less. My first class absolutely adores me and my last class basically hates me. The other two periods fall somewhere in between. If I had a dollar for every time a student in my last class rolled their eyes, told me I was being unfair, or complained about my class I would have enough money for my tuition next year. At the opposite end of the spectrum, students from my first class often try to hug me or squeeze my bicep. It feels weird to be so loved and so despised every day, but that’s my reality. Two girls from my first class made me a huge poster that says “We’ll miss you Señor Schilaty” and had everyone in the class sign it. It was really heartwarming and they even spelled Schilaty correctly.

One girl wrote: “You’re great. Just great. I’m going to miss you so much. You are such a great teacher and I learned so much from you! Umm, yeah. Have a good summer in Arizona! Go on Match.com!

I particularly liked the “Umm, yeah.” It's usually not necessary to write pauses like that.

Another girl wrote: “Don’t go to stupid Arizona! Since you are so pale you need to apply a lot of sunscreen like 110 SPF!”

Match.com and pale skin. In the nine months my students have known me it appears that they will remember me as a single albino. They are very perceptive and I’m going to miss them.

Traveling Karaoke

My car isn’t old, but it is aging. It’s so old, in fact, that when I was 15 it became the first car I ever drove. 13 years later it feels like an extension of me. Because of its age, it lacks all those fancy things that new cars have that allow you to plug an iPod into the car speakers. To remedy this, I have a magic cassette tape with a cord. I put the tape in the tape deck, plug the cord into my iPod, and music magically plays through the speakers. It’s worked well for the last seven years – until last week,

I was driving home from work listening to a podcast and suddenly I couldn’t hear anything. I grabbed my iPod and the sound cut in and out so fast it sounded like a telegraph. When I wiggled the jack in the iPod the sound would sometimes play clearly and sometimes it wouldn’t. It was frustrating so I put my iPod away and listened to talk radio for the rest of the drive home.

A few days later I plugged my iPod in again hoping that the problem had magically fixed itself (as electronic problems sometimes do). This time instead of playing a podcast I played a song. My hopes soared as music started playing loud and clear. It really had magically fixed itself. However, when the singing was supposed to start the music continued, but I heard no words. I tried some other songs and the same thing happened – music, but no vocals (except for backup vocals). For some reason my magic tape no longer plays the vocals from my iPod (which makes podcasts much less exciting).

Like most people, I enjoy singing along to songs while I drive. The odd malfunction of my magic tape has turned my car into a traveling karaoke booth. I don’t consider myself to be a good singer so I've never cared for karaoke. To like karaoke you either have to be fairly good at singing or Asian and I am neither of those. But solo karaoke in my car is actually pretty fun. Sometimes I don’t know the lyrics very well and I just mumble a little, but no one else can hear so I don’t care. So if you’re up for some traveling karaoke, feel free to ride along with me in my car. I don’t have the lyrics to the songs available, but you can sing along if you know the words. I have all the good Disney songs and yes, I know all words.