There's a new smarty pants in town...

Last week I got glasses. It was bound to happen. I mean, I did make it to 30. The first couple of hours I was second guessing if I really needed them because it was so weird and uncomfortable...and then the distraction of the frames and the feeling that I was looking through glass ('cause I am looking through glass) subsided. Now when I take them off I realize just how much I needed them. I don't like this feeling. It is just so...permanent.
Go ahead, let me get you started.
Four eyes.
Book worm.
Loser (that was my sister's contribution.)

So here is my thought process. A bigger brain pushes on your ocular nerves and makes you go blind. And by bigger brain, I mean one brimming with intelligence. Therefore, everyone that wears glasses is smarter than everyone else. And blind people are the smartest of them all.
You'd think that I was segwaying into how smart I am. Fooled you. I am actually perplexed that this theory has some holes. Me getting glasses just doesn't line up with my next segment entitled:

"I know I am not that smart and I'm OK with that."

I could cough up a list right now a mile long of instances where I proved that I am not book smart, but I won't...OK, I couldn't but only because my poor memory forbids it...not to mention the fact that I have had 4 kids...kids that have robbed me of the ability to think or remember anything other than the fact that they simply must wear tennis shoes for PE and if I use detangler spray to do their hair then it smells like they were actually bathed in a bathtub with water and soap.
There. That's my confession. It feels so nice to have that out in the open. I have a compulsive need sometimes to point out certain things before other people can...or before they can even think it. Does that make me insecure? I don't really care. It helps me feel as though I have cleared the air of certain mysteries. Don't be misled to believe that I don't know anything at all. I am actually quite smart in few random areas (and NO I don't just mean movie quotes and memorized restaurant phone numbers.) Besides knowing 101 ways to cook pasta and potatoes, I also know a lot about familial dynamics, relationships, human development and parenting. Not to imply that I am really good at all of those things...I just know a lot about them. Somehow BYU saw it fit to give me a degree. I only failed one class, but I'll get to that in a second. I graduated half-way through the academic year so I didn't do a graduation ceremony. (I graduated in 3 1/2 years...so I may not be super intelligent, but I am a hard worker.) I never walked across a stage wearing a gown and a tassel laden pointy hat. They mailed me my diploma. For years I dreamed that I didn't really graduate from college or high school. No closure, I guess. In those dreams, I also could never find my locker (different issue.)
I failed Physical Science in college. We're talking basic, freshman, Physical Science...one of those classes like American Heritage that they make all the freshman take to make sure they pass therefore proving to themselves, meaning the college admissions board, that they didn't actually admit any imbeciles. Boy, did I fool them! But here is the strangest thing. The first time I took the class with my sister and a best friend. We went to every class, took copious notes and studied. That resulted in a fat F. The second time I took it was with a different sister. We went to 20 minutes of the first lecture and then decided that Taco Bell was a better fit for us. I never went to another class and yet somehow passed with a B. I'll tell you the secret. You gotta kiss up to the TA's. You have to learn exactly what they want to read in your essays and even which words to use. If you cater precisely to their wishes then they pass you...you have to make them feel beautiful and powerful because they wear those blue vests that scream "Look at me! I'm so smart that I don't care how I look in this vest!" But those vests were way back in the 90's...maybe in this new century they get to wear pimped out lab coats or something shiny.
My friend and I used to sit and make fun of the people in Freshman Academy. Don't be offended if you were part of Freshman Academy. Only the dumb people make fun of you...and why would you care about that? We figured that everyone in Freshman Academy was smart because they all seemed to wear glasses. Again, sometimes stupid people come to irrational conclusions. It's just what we do. We would keep tabs on how many times they pushed their glasses up in one class because we figured that each time they did, they got a little smarter.
So here's to you Freshman Academy, Physical Science and TA's in dorky, blue vests!! How do you like me now?!!

(Haley insisted that I then pose with a pencil...and not doing that freaky thing with my eye. Because as we all know, pencils make us look smarter too...)

These are actual notes from my first attempt at the class. When weeding through college papers I just couldn't part with them. Not because they were filled with information and knowledge that I [kind of] possessed at one time...but because they made me laugh and remember that even though it's the only class in my life that I ever FAILED, it sure was fun. I mean, look how neat my handwriting was! Awesome. I give myself an "A" in penmanship (for spending a lot of time perfecting my handwriting and less time listening to the professor or checking the clock to see how many more minutes I had until getting Hostess coffee cakes from the vending machine and taking a nap in the girls bathroom on the 3rd floor of the library.)