I Bless the Rains Down in Africa

I love Toto, thus the title of this blog. I'm currently enjoying one of the best songs, I think, ever made. Haha. "It's going to take a lot to take me away from you, there's nothing that a hundred men or more could ever do. I bless the rains down in Africa." Maybe I don't quite get that last line, but I still love it. I'm sure it's something profound. If you have any idea, enlighten me.

So my date went well. We went to his work barbecue and it was fun. There was a raffle and I won a $5 gift card to subway. YUM! And then we went to Bridal veil falls and hiked up to the falls and just talked by the mistiness. And then we went back to his apartment and he showed me some photography he's done. He had a flag football game to go to, so it ended early, but I appreciated that. I hate when guys feel like they have to drag out dates. When it's done, it's done. It doesn't have to go till midnight or later. So then I went to Kat's house and we chatted. And then I went to my old mission companions place and we hung out with some people. It was a ghetto-American party, that's what they called it. Basically we sat around talking about ghetto moments from our missions with rap playing in the background. But it was fun.

Today I had my first tennis experience. My roommate plays and she knows I like sports (even though I'm not very good at most of them) and so she wanted to teach me to play tennis. I thought, "Piece of CAKE. How hard can tennis be?" Boy was I humbled! It was a complete disaster. I kept wanting to hold the racket like a baseball bat. Anytime I tried to back swing it, on my left side, I missed it. Every time I hit with my right hand, I sent it flying. It was chaos. Anarchy. I was out of control. I sent two balls over a fence and we couldn't get them back. My poor roomie was so patient, but the whole time we played I just didn't improve. I had fun, I was laughing ridiculously the whole time. So my new goal is to keep playing and eventually be able to hit the ball with good tennis technique.

Scott Westerfeld
The Midnighters
The Peeps

I read The Uglies by Westerfeld and I really enjoyed it. So I decided to read some of his other books. I like the way he writes, but didn't particularly love these books. The Midnighters is a series and I only read the first book, and the fact that I'm not rushing out to find the sequels should tell you something. It was interesting and fun (I almost think every book is interesting and fun) but a little hard to believe in the world he created. The Peeps is a twisted vampire book, and I actually liked his take on it. However, it could get skanky and I didn't appreciate the language. When profanity enhances the characters of the book and helps me understand them better I can understand it, I don't like it, but I can handle it. But I felt the swearing, etc. of this book was just thrown in there for the sake of swearing, etc. Therefore, I didn't like it. I don't really recommend The Peeps, even though it is interesting.