Filled with a case of "The Phils"

My geology/meteorology teacher is a bit flakey sometimes, and that's giving him a lot of credit. One of the biggest problems in my opinion is after knowing me for well over 6 months, he still doesn't know my name, even though we're in an extremely tiny community college and I'd like to think I stick out like a sore thumb sometimes, especially since I'm a little chatty sometimes. Anyway, let me take you back to around late November 2008...

Last semester, when he was my geology teacher, he had us do these big research projects where we had to write a 5 page paper and do a PowerPoint presentation about, as it turns out, anything we wanted to. I, unlike some of the people in my class, stuck to geology and did my project on diamonds. I didn't know much about them at the time, and thought it would be kind of fun to research. After doing all the research for it though, I'm really glad I picked what I did. Diamonds are pretty fucking cool. I would normally go on about all the awesome things diamonds do, but I'm far too lazy and tired to list everything, or even something, that I researched.

Moving right along, it came time to do our presentations, and I gave mine, and it went along smoothly and I got a good grade. But that's when things started to get weird. My friend Jeff went up to do his presentation on... whatever it was that he did... and my professor said, "Ok Phil, so you're doing _______?" and Jeff replied, not really catching that he called him Phil. I certainly noticed though. I've always felt like if there was one person in the class that the teacher would always forget their name, it would be me. For some reason, I'm used to being called the wrong name in class, but never have I been the person the teacher calls other people. And to be clear, Jeff and I look nothing alike.

Anyway, Jeff finished his presentation, and sat back down. As our professor was talking to the next presenter, I leaned over a little and got Jeff's attention from a few rows down, and mouthed a few words that somehow got across, "You might want to remind our teacher who you are. He called you Phil and he's going to give me your grade because he's an idiot."

Jeff raised his hand: "Hey, who's name did you write down on that paper?"
Professor: "Uh... yours!"
Jeff: "What did you write?"
Professor: "Philip!"
Jeff: "Yeah uh... my name's Jeff."
Professor: "Oh gosh, DUH! I would've caught that eventually!"

Sure you would have, professor, sure you would.

Anyway, normally this wouldn't weird me out as much, but frankly he should know who's who in a class of only 15 or so on the week before finals. Oh well though, it was a simple slip-up I guess... or was it?

Fast forward 5 or so months...

My professor likes variety in his classes, so what better way to do that than to assign the exact same research project in meteorology as he did when I took geology! One day we had to have a summary typed up on what we were going to do our research projects on. I chose lightning. Frankly, there's a lot of information on it, and it's pretty sweet. I also plan to incorporate extremely loud thunder claps when I change each slide on my PowerPoint, just to give my fellow classmates the "full effect". So I gave that to my teacher and he read it and liked it. Then my friend Jeff went after I did. He was going to do his project on the mini ice age that occurred in the 1500's or something, but my professor said it was too vague.

After going through a few other people's ideas, my professor made a few general statements to the class about the subjects people have been picking. He started off by saying...

"Like I was telling Phil, doing the mini ice age of the 1500's is too vague. You need something more specific."

This is coming from the guy who thinks a good research project is comparing a baseball player's batting average to the weather.

After he finished his little lecture on how to pick a research project he hasn't seen done before because he's bored with some subjects (which, I'll have you note, isn't lightning apparently), another student raised his hand and asked a question about the projects. My teacher replied:

"Good question, Phil! Let me explain..."

That's right. All of the sudden there's 3 Phils in my class. Surprise! I'm the only Phil that he has in that class, and probably all of his other classes too (it's not a big college at all).

So I've deduced a few things out of his inability to remember which person I am in the class. It's one of the following options...

1. He doesn't know anyone's name in the class but the name "Phil" sticks with him, so he just decided to stick with that.
2. He knows there's a Phil in the class but has no idea who I am, so he's calling everyone that.

and finally...

3. I do something that really bothers him and makes him think about me.


I hope it's number 3. If that's the case, I need to find out what it is that I do that annoys the snot out of him just so I can do it more. It might seem a little vindictive, but that's just necessary sometimes.

Anyway, if anyone has any other ideas as to why he might be having such a hard time remembering who I am, please leave a comment below. I'm interested to hear your theories!

"Hey Wendy, forgetting something!?"

This happened over a month ago, but since I've been busy with school and stuff lately, I haven't really had a chance to post it.

I was in creative writing one day. Let me tell you, definitely think twice before taking a class like that... especially if you can't stand poems of questionable quality written by your peers. If you answered yes to the proceeding, then that class isn't for you. That said, I really enjoy critiquing them... probably too much.

Anyway, class got out one day, and I want standing around with my friends Beth and Wendy. The 3 of us were talking while getting our stuff together when I saw a set of keys on the table. At that moment, I thought it'd be funny to take Wendy's keys so she'd freak out later. So I grabbed them and just carried them around a little, thinking a was a smug little bastard who pulled one over on her. I played with the light on the key chain. I even shined it in her face a few times to see if she'd say anything, but to no avail.

A few minutes later, the three of us had gone down 3 floors and went outside and were heading to the cars. While we were in the middle of saying something, I got tired of being anonymously clever, so I took the keys out of my pocket. The conversation went as follows:

"Hey Wendy, forgetting something?!"
"Oh my God, who's are those?"
"They're yours! I took them off the table while you weren't looking!" I replied, grinning ear to ear. Just then, Wendy reached into her pocket and grabbed her keys,
"No... These are my keys!"

The smug look completely washed off my face. I had definitely just stolen some random person's keys. I was borderline horrified. I quickly turned around and literally ran up those three flights of stairs and back into my classroom. I noticed they were my classmate Jodie's on the way up. Thankfully she was still in there.

She looked a little confused when I ran in the room panting practically shouting some story about what I was trying to do, which probably made me look like an even worse person.

At the end of the day though, Jodie has her keys, and I failed to prank Wendy yet again. That's what really matters, right?

"Jewelry, This is Dianne!"

I love pranks. I love plotting them, pulling them on people, and watching their usually horrified reaction. Lets face it, the best pranks are the ones that are borderline mean, but still funny.

One of my all time favorite pranks is one I pulled on my friend Dianne when she and I worked at Sears. I was working in the shoe department, and she was working in the adjacent department, jewelry.

One night, sometime last August, it was really slow I felt like being a little mean, so I devised a brilliant idea.

When you use the phones at Sears, there's numerous nifty things you can do with it. For instance, if you hit "8-1" you go over the intercom. If you hit "*-8", you can talk to another department over the speakerphone on their phone, which usually subsequently scares the crap out of them. Scaring people like that though is a bit tired, but still a little funny, especially when you make noises into the phone. It's also fun to do that and pretend to be a customer and say "Hello, ma'am? Can you help me over here?" and then watch them from afar say "Where are you? How can I help you?" ... It's pretty great.

Anyway, I picked up the phone in my department and hit "8-1" to go over the intercom, and set the phone very carefully on the table. I then went over to Dianne and told her a customer was calling about a watch that had broken and they apparently had a problem using the switchboard to get to the right department. So I asked her to come over and take the call.

As she was leaving her booth, a manager stopped her and asked her to start putting the jewelry away since we were closing soon, but Dianne told her she had to take a call in my department. The manager understood and said to do it after and that she'd wait for her in the department (managers have to watch associates put the jewelry away for security reasons). Dianne came over and I carefully handed her the phone as to not make any noise. When she put the phone up to her face to answer the call, throughout the entire store rang the words...

"JEWELRY, THIS IS DIANNE!"

She then stared straight ahead and hung up the phone quickly. The look on her face was absolutely priceless. I still laugh to myself whenever I picture it. She promised she'd get me back even worse, and I'm still waiting for it. I looked at the manager, who at this point was trying really hard to look angry, but even she couldn't help but grin a little. She did manage to say "Phil! That's not what the phones are for!"

Dianne, thank you for having a sense of humor.

Pics of my hiking trip and my favorite recipe!

Not really. But a lot of people like to talk about that kind of stuff on this website it seems. I think my main issue is that I'm jealous. I'm usually pretty ecstatic if I'm going to the mall, much less going on a hiking trip or something awesome. And lets face it. I can't cook for beans. I couldn't even make beans if I tried.

Anyway, so I've been meaning to write a blog about this for awhile, so here it is.

Lately my Mom has been going on walks every single night. When she started doing it, she probably thought, "Wow I'm being so fit and healthy! I think I'm going to ask Philip to go with me! That way we can talk for an hour about his life and I can be his best friend!"

I had other plans... like not going for walks. She kept asking and I kept turning her down. I feel much more productive laying on the couch and watching Judge Judy. HEY! Don't judge me... that's her job.

So anyway, one day she and I are watching TV in the mid afternoon just, ya know, kind of lounging around. Then when it got really quiet, I was like, "Hey Mom, wanna go for a walk?" and her face lit up like a child getting a lollypop. Then she was like "Really?!" I paused for a moment, then was like, "NOT!"

Now, I know that makes me sound like a terrible person, but I assure you, it was hilarious. She's known me for, what, 19 years now? (obviously)

She gets my humor.