And etc…

I’m flying back to Ames (actually, Des Moines, since I lack a pilot’s license and a personal aircraft) next week to defend my thesis, so it was really nice of the terrorists to all get together in an effort to raise the terror-alert level to orange (high, for those of us without a neat little refrigerator magnet o’terror alerts). Because, you know, I didn’t already dislike flying enough. Also, Logan hasn’t figured out that you can print driver’s licenses at the DMV yet, so I only have a temporary one that appears as though it was printed on a dot matrix in someone’s back room. So…yeah. Great.

So I’ll be in Ames Monday night through Saturday morning. I defend Wednesday at an undisclosed time in an undisclosed location. I miss Ames. People here are different from people there. They’re really…nice. But not always nice, so it’s confusing. Since I’m not used to this “niceness,” I keep wondering what people’s secret agendas are. Also, they like to drive in the turn lanes here, which is disconcerting. Sometimes they like to drive the wrong way in the turn lanes. Frankly, it’s scary. It’s made more scary by the fact that to get my license changed, I had to take a test. So…these people have passed this test. Unfortunately, the test had no questions about where on the road one should drive or which direction one should drive in. However, there were multilple questions about who needs a license to drive and how old one must be to drive in Utah. Clearly, changes are necessary.

And if you’re wondering (because I know at least a few of you are), no, I have not been converted to Mormonism. Do you like how I used the passive voice there, as if changing (or declaring) a religion is out of one’s own control? I think that’s influenced by my living in Utah for a few weeks.