Checking out of the Hotel California

I moved into a house called the Hotel California last June and spent a good 10 months living there, but I was ready for a change. In fact, I already moved. That means that I said good-bye to the Hotel California. Overall, it's been a great place to live. I loved having two fridges, a washer and dryer, and always having a parking space. I also loved my enormous bedroom and the extremely comfy couch on cinder-blocks. However, there are a few things that I do not miss.

The first is the hallway to my bedroom. As I was moving my stuff in I quickly noticed that while I am 6'3.5", the entry to the hallway is about 6'3". That means that every time I wanted to go to my room I had to duck. I was pretty peeved about that for a few days and complained profusely to my friends. I got used to it pretty quickly, but unfortunately developed the habit of ducking every time I walked through a doorway. Now when I walk through a doorway I briefly resemble a Muppet due to my slumped shoulders and bouncy walk.

The Hotel California discriminated against my height in another unfortunate way. When I looked at myself in the bathroom mirror I could only see from my shoulders down. This meant that I had to bend down if I ever wanted to see my face. Although annoying, this has had a pleasant side effect. Since I rarely saw my face I started to care less and less about my appearance and I think I even became a little less vain for a brief period of time.

The Hotel California has a weird golf picture on the wall in the living room. Not only is the picture weird, but it's hung about a foot off the ground. Not a typical place to hang a picture. One day I decided to take it down only to realize that it was covering up a large hole. I left the picture there.

My new place is great and also has a name, but telling the internet where I currently live just doesn't seem like a good idea. I like that I can see my face in the bathroom mirror, I don't have to duck to enter any rooms, and there aren't any holes in the wall covered up by pictures (that I've discovered yet). It's nice.

Adventures in Substitute Teaching

I’ve been in Washington for the last few weeks working as a substitute teacher until Summer term starts at BYU. Today I subbed at Everett High which is fun because it's where I attended high school. Also, my brother is a counselor here so the kids that know him automatically think I'm cool (and with good reason). The funny thing is that almost everyday I'm told "you look just like your brother" and "you look nothing like your brother." I'm not quite sure how I manage to look just like my brother and at the same time looking nothing like him, but it's a feat that I've achieved nonetheless.

Class elections were today and I was assigned to go to the sophomore class assembly. One of the kids who was running for class treasurer started his speech by saying, "Um, this probably isn't gonna be very good and I'm probably gonna screw up a lot." He looked at the floor during his entire speech which included him saying, "I want to be the treasurer because I like math and I'm good with numbers." I felt sorry for the kid and realized that a class in public speaking would do him a world of good.

Last week I subbed for a 6th grade class and it was awful. Probably the worst day I've ever had subbing. I'm subbing for a different 6th grade class today, but I have many of the same 6th graders as before. My biggest issue with 6th graders is that they don't seem to understand that I understand what they're up to. For example, one kid, I'll call him Luke, said he couldn't do his work because he didn't have a pencil. I gave him a give-me-a-break kind of look and told him to borrow a pencil from his neighbors. He said that no one would lend him a pencil so I bent over and picked up a grey colored pencil that was lying on the ground and handed it to him. I came back a few minutes later and he still hadn't written anything. When I asked why he hadn't done any of his work he said that the pencil didn't work. I took it from him and with it wrote in big letters on his paper "Hi Luke =)" and said, "Seems to work just fine."

Many of the 6th graders remembered me from last week. One of them said upon entering the classroom said, "Dude, Mr. Shality, remember me." It might be because I was tired or it might be because he pronounced Schilaty wrong, but I responded truthfully and said, "I meet 150 new kids everyday. Sorry, but I don't remember you." He looked rather crushed and said, "Spaghetti. Spaghetti! Don't you remember spaghetti?" "No," I replied, "I'm really not sure what you're talking about." He then sat down with an incredulous look on his face that seemed to say "How could he forget spaghetti?" However, once class started I remember him as being the loud mouth from the previous week.

Slightly awkward

Graduate school is more or less what I expected: busy. However, I’m enjoying it very much. While I enjoy the classes that I’m taking I much prefer the classes that I’m teaching. Not that I’m a better teacher than my professors, I just really enjoy teaching. I teach two sections of Spanish 105 and the vast majority of my students are freshmen. That means that while I can still remember the 80’s, they were born in the 90’s. I realize that being 25 does not make me old, but age is definitely relative and I’ve felt a little old lately.

A fellow Spanish teacher approached me today and asked me how to say “awkward” in Spanish. I told her that I didn’t think there was an exact word and the closest I could come to saying awkward would be to say incómodo (uncomfortable). I overheard her ask a native Spanish speaker the same question and she recommended that my friend use the word extraño (weird/strange). I personally feel that my word is more appropriate. However, if I’m ever asked that question again, instead of answering by simply saying a word I’ll respond by sharing a story such as the one that happened to me tonight.

Tonight was BYU’s annual Fall Fest. That includes free food, dancing, magic show, laser tag, and salsa dancing. I generally feel like I outgrew dances about six years ago, but I went to Fall Fest anyway. You know, for the free food. Within five minutes of being at Fall Fest I spotted four of my students. I reacted by pretending not to see them as I figured that they were probably not too interested in hanging out with their teacher whose seven years their senior. One girl was only feet from me and she obviously saw me, but was polite enough to simply ignore me as well. With the risk level of feeling like a peer to freshmen being extremely high, I told my friends that I had gone with that I wanted to leave and we left.

Seeing my students and other freshmen at Fall Fest reminded me of being at an EFY dance. Something I’m definitely too old for. I felt uncomfortable, strange, and weird. I felt awkward.

The Purple Dinosaur

I'm going to be teaching SPAN 105 at BYU this fall and I'm stoked. However, I realized that I might need some more clothes that look a little more professional for this job. Since I have very little style or fashion sense I recruited Joleen to help me pick out some new clothes.

Our first stop was the Gap. We found a nice yellow shirt for me to wear (don't worry, it looks good) and proceeded to look at some sweaters to wear with it. Some guy working at the store wearing a purple shirt recommended that I try on a purple sweater. I think he was biased. I looked at the sweater he was referring to and it was a shade of purple that you might expect to see on a blanket that your grandma would buy. Being open minded I decided to try it on. I had a surprisingly hard time getting it on and emerged from the dressing room with a crooked sweater on which caused Joleen to erupt with laughter. She helped me straighten it out and to everyone's surprise it looked great! I was the most shocked of all. However, the yellow shirt with the purple sweater made me look like a preppy Huskies fan so I just left the sweater in the dressing room.

Our next stop was American Eagle. A little too trendy for my taste, but if a girl tells you to go into a store, you go. While Joleen was trying some clothes on I decided to try on a purple polo shirt just for laughs. Imagine our surprise when it looked good too! I couldn't believe it. Me, looking good in purple? I briefly considered buying it, but I bought the gray version of it instead for fear of looking "metro" or "light in the loafers."

We ended the evening by going to Jamba Juice where Joleen ordered a drink called the "purple dinosaur." I tried it and it was delicious. I guess I like purple more than I thought.

Nicknames

I had originally planned on writing about all my adventures in Europe, but the task was so daunting that I gave up on blogging altogether. Now it's been six months since I went to Europe and blogging about Europe now would just be silly. So I'll just write about current events in my life instead.

I moved back to Utah in June to attend BYU yet again and it has been exactly as pleasant as I had suspected. I moved in with some random guys that I didn't know and much to my horror one of them is named Ben. What makes matters worse is that we get along and hang out! Having two Bens live together and hang out caused instant problems and confusion.

The other Ben is currently in a movie for which he had to grow a beard. To remedy the confusion caused by us having the same name we decided that he would go by Hairy Ben and I'd be Tall Ben. That's all well and good, but Tall Ben was promptly shortened to TB. This is the normal reaction when my roommates introduce me to people as TB: "TB? Doesn't that stand for tuberculosis?" to which I reply, "Yes, and it means Tall Ben too." I like being called TB.

I have a super awesome teacher from the Dominican Republic whose English isn't perfect. On the first day of class he was struggling trying to pronounce my last name and finally settled on guessing that it was pronounced "Swahili." Since then I've been known in that class as Swahili. One day in class we were discussing one of the many differences between English and Spanish and at the end of the discussion my teacher said, "In the end English and Spanish are both good languages...and Swahili too." It was very endearing.

The girls from the Relief Society in my ward recently had a Relief Society sleepover (a.k.a. gossipfest) at the Bishop's house. I was latter informed that at one point the girls were gossiping about me and decided that my last name reminded them of the song "Shipoopi" from The Music Man and they have now started calling me Shipoopi.

I've never had so many nicknames in my life. So if you randomly see me walking down the street feel free to shout TB, Swahili, or Shipoopi and I'll probably turn my head.

Europe! Pronounced: your up

Over the weekend I was kindly reminded by two of my friends that I haven't posted for a while and they were interested in hearing about my trip to Europe. I hope this post makes up for the long hiatus.

One of the reasons I haven't posted for so long is that I fill up my free time with things other than posting my life on the internet. Most of those things are complete wastes of time. One of my biggest time fillers which is definitely NOT a waste of time is Lost. I don't know how many of you watch Lost, but it's pretty great. A few years ago I spoke with some people at BYU who were absolutely addicted to the show and they lamented that they had to wait three more years for the show to end and for everything to finally be explain (Lost is very confusing). Thinking that I was smarter than the average bear I decided to not watch Lost at all until the right before the last season was to start. My plan was to watch the first five seasons on DVD and then to watch the sixth and final season on TV. My plan is working out splendidly. I’m currently in the middle of the 5th season and the 6th season starts in a few months. Turns out I’m smarter than the average human too! Sad fact: I once watched 20 episodes of Lost in 24 hour period. Not my proudest day.

When I got back from Europe I had loads of free time. I filled it by looking for jobs and watching TV. A friend of mine works as a substitute teacher and she recommended that I do the same. My initial thoughts were, I’d rather sell my plasma, but I signed up to be a substitute teacher anyway. The way I get sub jobs is through an automated phone message. I get a call from a machine, the job is described and I can push 1 to accept and 2 to decline. As soon as I signed up to be a sub I started getting job offers all the time, but I was too afraid to accept any of them. One morning I was awakened at 5:00 am by a sub call. Just as before I was too nervous to accept the job, but it was dark and I was only mildly coherent and I accidentally pushed the wrong button and accepted the job. I angrily rolled out of bed, got ready, and drove to work. Now I sub all the time and it’s fantastic. I think that everyone should get paid to take attendance and read a book.

The automated sub message is voice activated so when I answer the phone the machine doesn’t start talking until I say something. For a while I just said hello like a normal person. But I quickly learned to recognize the sub finder number on my caller ID and sometimes I’d answer the phone and wait 10 seconds and then say hello. Now I answer those calls by making noises. Most of them are grunts that sound like uh, duh, muh. So if you ever call me and I answer the phone by grunting I just thought that you were the sub finder calling me and I was trying to make myself laugh by grunting into the phone.

I’d like to think that I’m the “cool sub.” The fact that I’m a cool sub goes without saying since I am a sub and I’m most definitely cool. But being cool and being a sub does not simply make you a “cool sub.” That takes a little something I like to call “picking your battles.” It works fairly well. I was subbing in a middle school math class and a girl who was supposed to be doing a worksheet was talking to me about something that I didn’t care about and I feigned interest. At one point she asked, “Are you making fun of me in your mind?” I leaned in a little and replied, “Yes.” Then she said, “I’m going to tell on you” to which I replied, “Fine, tell the principal that the sub was making fun of you in his mind and see what happens.” She laughed and I won and then I got paid for doing it.

I was subbing a few weeks ago and after introducing myself one of the students asked me what my first name is. At first I made it seem like I wasn’t supposed to tell them just to add to the fun. Then I said, "Guess! I’ll give you a clue, my name’s in the Bible." The first guess was Joseph and I said, "Close, I'm named after Joseph's youngest brother." That was followed by perplexed looks. Then people started guessing names like John and Jesus and a boy even guessed Joseph again which was followed by many other students informing that boy of how stupid he was for guessing a guess that had already been guessed. I finally gave up and said, "I have the same name as the leader of the Others on Lost," and a girl instantly shouted "It's Ben!" I guess teenagers are more familiar with pop culture than biblical genealogy. Who’d of thought?

I’ll write about your up in my next post.

Probably Paris

After a few days in London Ezra and I took the Eurostar train to Paris. It was fast. Arriving in Paris took me out of my comfort zone. I couldn't understand what people were saying or read signs and I was unfamiliar with the public transportation system. It all worked out just fine and we rarely got lost and confused. Ezra and I aren't really that interested in art, but we still felt an obligation to go to the Louvre and see the Mona Lisa. I'd heard that it wasn't too excited, but felt compelled to see it anyway. We arrived at the Louvre a little after 6:00 and were delighted to see that there was no line. We walked around the main entrance for a few minutes and then found out that the exhibits closed at 6:00. I was disappointed, but not heartbroken. The only thing that bummed me out was that now my only opportunity to see the Mona Lisa would be by looking at the millions of recreations of it around the world.

We visited Versailles palace which was absolutely stunning. It was filled with art and is probably the most ornate building I've ever seen. My reaction to the first room I saw was, "WOW!" and the second room, "WOW!" and the third room, "Wow" and the fourth room, "wow..." and the fifth room, "This looks like all the other rooms." There is no denying that Versailles is incredibly spectacular, but it all kind of looks the same and it's difficult to be blown away by the same thing over and over again. I really enjoyed touring the palace, but I think I would have really loved it had I been an art lover or a lover of French history. However, I am neither of those things.