Surprise!

The last week or so has been one of various surprises of various impact. Since I've realized this blog doesn't give much of an account of my day-to-day activities, this post should give some insight.

To start with, one of the surprises this week and a bit was finding out that people besides my loyal parents read my blog! All sorts of family members and friends now claim to have read it. But I've have been informed that last week's quiz was a bit daunting, from those with no German to those with degrees in German. My husband was the only one to complete it with a passing mark, which I think just proves that it is more a product of my mania than an authoritative survey of German culture. I mean, it didn't even reference the great philosophers Kant, Nietzsche or Peter Lustig!

That being, I decided that the Urkunde should be awarded to whomever I know at least read the questions. Here for Thora, Camilla, and Carolyn are then their Urkunden:

Carolyn gets a special kudos for actually ruminating on Wagner and coming up with some great original answers like "Well, I'd have to invite Hindemith to dinner because I just wouldn't know what to say to Orff or Stockhausen" and to which Strauss she said "What, like who would I have with me on desert island? (long pause) I guess I could do without 'The Beautiful Danube'."

If you have read every question and want an Urkunde, let me know and I will award you also with a Certificate of German Cultural Knowledge.

Another surprise this week was that my colleague at work, who had my equivalent position and was acting as my mentor, had to quit unexpectedly due to personal issues and is moving far far away this weekend. Since my job is with a local institute of higher learning and this week is/was in the middle of finals, I've been working 9-10 hour shifts to make up for her loss. So instead of being in charge of about 40-50 classes, I've got all 150+ classes under our jurisdiction until a new person is hired. Did I mention that the new term begins next week, too?

Actually, its not too terrible. I like my job, partly because I have great co-workers and mostly because I get to work with professors and students. Maybe because I was in school forever and a student instructor, I feel like I have a unique perspective on the situation. (Actually, I find that I'm more sympathetic with instructors than my co-workers, which I attribute to either that as an SI/TA I understood what instructors go through or that many of my co-workers are still in school and still very in student mode).

For whatever reason, students just crack me up. Even the ones who make me cranky, and they're a number of those, it being the end of the semester. Lots of people trying to take an incomplete or drop on the last day possible. Here's a couple of good lines I got on the phone:

"My husband's too upset to talk so I'm calling for him."

"My name is -------. That's spelled just like the country in Africa."

Students never cease to surprise me. I suppose some day they will, but until then, I just enjoy laughing at them.

Second biggest surprise this week was that my car battery was dying. Fortunately we caught it early and I was able to get about and home without it dying or needing a jump. Matt helped me get it out and to the store to get a new one. Afterwards over hamburgers we discussed what I find important in a car, namely acceleration. I don't care if the car can go over 90, just as long as I can get there faster than anyone else. The reason for this are somewhat complicated and very dependent on where I live and drive, but Matt has suggested a Lotus 7 or a Caterham. So you may see me someday in this little number escaping the enormous trucks of Utah County:



As an Emma Peel fan I already like the Lotus, so I think this could work out. And it seems it would double quite nicely as a coffin.

The car I wouldn't want to drive is the one I saw as a surprise on Monday. When I driving home from band practice on Monday, I hadn't even gone one block from Greg and Maria's house when this rolled in front of me:



Not what I was expecting in a what I thought was a typical Orem neighborhood.

A rather nice surprise was that we found out that one of Matt's McKay cousins is getting married in June, so we'll probably get to go to Mesa a quick visit. Always nice, even if in the summer.

This surprise is a bit old, but I'm throwing it in for good measure. A couple of weeks ago Heidi came home and announced that she had met the woman who coordinates the organists in the temple and who invited Heidi to a meeting about it. Since I play some organ, Heidi told me to come. I went and then found out at the very end that we were going to have a mini audition with a girl who just graduated with her master's in organ last year. I was nervous since it had been a year since I'd played and I didn't have any of my music or my shoes with me. So I found a hymn I thought I could manage and hoped she didn't ask for a second one. I'm not sure what she had been listening to before me, but all she said was "Great! You're fine and we need you. Order your white organ shoes." Relief. So I ordered my shoes and am now trying to come up with an half-hour medley type arrangement of approved hymns.



A sad surprise was that one of the old brick house just a block or two away from us was torn down this week. Heidi and I thought it was a charming old house, and would have pooled our resources to save it. However, it seems the old man who lived there has died, and it wasn't for sale, so we imagine that the family has done this. Sigh. I wish I had before and after photos, but it happened too quickly for that. No doubt it will be replaced with some gabled monstrosity which prominantly features the three car garage in front. But enough ranting.

A nice surpise was to find out that a state champion flat-picker on mandolin and guitar lives in my ward. And she's accompanying me in the ward talent show. If I'd known she was state champion I wouldn't have asked. But now she's trying to convince me to compete in this competition in Salt Lake next weekend. We'll have to see.

Speaking of church, another huge surprise was that I got a visiting teaching assignment and a calling. I have a hunch this is because my in-laws were surprised on their most recent visit that Matt and I are something like ciphers in the ward. So now I'm a primary worker, with a good portion of the younger crowd, ie children and their parents. I will miss the old ladies in Relief Society, though.

Well, I can't think of any more of the surprises, so I just have one last one that will have to do. The most written about subjects are in order: Jesus, Hitler and Wagner. I feel as a Germanist with a music background I've got the last two covered and since I'm Christian and, as Avram says, German is a semitic language, I've got the first one too!