A productive sunday

I'm a terrible person

More London

Blammo, one week left. Things happen quickly.

Some of us went on a two day trip to Oxford the other week. We stopped on the way to visit the house of William Morris, 19th century artist/writer/socialist, but discovered that the house actually belonged to William Morris, 20th century automobile mogul/philanthropist. All the English people laughed cruelly at our mistake and I accidentally punched some stinging nettle. The trip improved greatly after that, however, and I once again ate an entire block of cheese.

We saw Batman and it was dumb. Our lives have been greatly brightened by everyone's Bane impressions, though.

The Olympics are starting and I am currently in my second hour of europop being blasted from across the street in the Russia camp. We saw a Russian athlete the other day, but he wasn't very muscley so we figured he was a shooter or something equally unimportant. We also went to watch the torch go by and it was truly a jolly occasion.

We missed the bus.

Logjam

Best friends forever.

Olympic butts

THERE IT IS!

London Update

So I was skipping across a bridge, feeling footloose and fancy free. As I skipped, I looked out over the mighty Thames. Such power! Such majesty! Such cleanliness! I then wrenched myself away from the rapturous view in order to avoid stepping on the heavily bandaged legs of a homeless fellow sitting on the bridge.

Things are going great. I'm seeing lots of films, watching lots of plays, and going lots of places, and watching many ethically questionable dating shows. I even ate a whole block of cheese in one sitting the other day. So many milestones!

Bangers and mash!

Terrible comedy clubs!

Picture ruiners!

Sexual tension!

Bums!

Okay

Oh yeah blog what.

Here's what's happening. I'm off on another study abroad.

London. So, that's fun. I know you I've done nothing to deserve your blogging trust and I'm a terrible dancer and everything, but I promise that I will write this time. Stay tuned.

So...

It's been a while. Sorry.
I started another blog that I update more often, so you should probably follow that one as well. If you want.
My sister got married and moved to Rexburg, so this happened.

Fielding Compliments

I'm sitting outside the Bishop's office, talking to some friends and not going to sunday school.

Unknown boy at the other end of the hallway: "Hey! I think you look like Audrey Hepburn from the side!"

Me, taken aback and responding impulsively to unknown boy's unexpected comment: "Why, because I'm bland and have giant cartoon eyes?"

Unknown boy, with a single tear rolling down his cheek: "I'll never speak to a woman again."

Me: Dammit.

I'm Back

I have survived my adventure and am now back in school.  However, I don't particularly feel like writing about it right now.  So, instead of telling stories, I will post a film that I and three other kids made for school last year.

It's about wrestling, so prepare yourselves.

A Post

I know you're all dying to find out what's happening in my life, so I shall tell you.  First things first, I'm leaving to go on a study abroad tomorrow.  Destinations include Australia, New Zealand, and Fiji.  The program is offered through the recreation management program.

"But Drew," you say, "you're not a part of the rec. management program."
"Quite right." I reply while stirring my tea, monocle perched daintily upon my cheek.
"So you mean to say that you're going on a completely superfluous study abroad?" you gasp, "Don't you know how wasteful that is?!"

Yes, going on a study abroad where I get no credit that is of use to me is quite unnecessary, if not wasteful.  But guys.  What about FUN?  We camp, backpack, scuba dive, snorkel, skydive, black water raft, eat stuff and go to beaches.  It's a very rigorous academic program, to be sure.  So, when I get back, I'm sure I'll have all sorts of fun happenings to blog about.

But for now, a story.  I wanted to get my hair cut pretty short for this trip so I wouldn't have to deal with it very much.  1 and a 1/2 inches, probably.  So, I waltzed on over to my friend's (Annie)  house to utilize her mom's (Susan) sweet hair cutting skills.  When I got there, Susan was on the phone.  Annie said that Susan was probably going to be talking for a while, so Annie suggested that she do the cutting herself.  We got the buzzer out, selected what we thought was the appropriate extension for my desired hair length, and went out to the backyard.  I sat down and Annie ran the buzzer across the top of my head.  She got a look on her face.
"What? Is it pretty short?" I ask.
"Oh, it looks fine." she says.  She finished the rest of my head and I looked in a mirror.

As it turns out, we severely miscalculated the length of the buzzer extension.  My desired short pixie turned into a straight up Sinead O'Connor.
Annie reassured me that it looked fine while I had a series of tiny panic attacks.  Susan, finally freed from her conversation, suggested that I stay away from collared shirts for a while.

But behold! I have recovered from my initial shock and now accept my situation.  Zero maintenance!  I look forward to several weeks of being mistaken for a boy, a recovering cancer patient, and a lesbian, in that order.

See you in 5 weeks!

An Easter Treat

On this Easter weekend, I would like to share with you all a story from the March 2008 issue of that fine LDS children's publication The Friend.  I hope it will give you cause for some fruitful introspection.

Candy, or Kindess?
By Annette Alger
(Based on a true story)

It was almost time for the town’s annual Easter egg hunt. Children lined up along the edge of the lawn, waiting for the signal to begin hunting for candy that had been scattered everywhere. This year there were other prizes too. Brightly colored plastic eggs had been hidden in the grass, and whoever found one could redeem it for a big candy bar.

Eight-year-old Justin saw one of those eggs lying not far away. As soon as the signal was given, he ran straight for it. He grabbed the egg, then noticed another one close by. Quickly, he retrieved it too. He gazed down at his hands, each now holding a plastic egg. He was so excited. He was not only going to get one, but two delicious, gigantic candy bars!

Then he looked up and saw a mother with her two sons. He could see that the boys were blind, and their mother was holding their hands trying to help them find some treats. As Justin watched them, he noticed that before the mother could lead her sons to candy, another child would spy it and promptly scoop it up. This happened again and again. The hunt was almost over and the boys’ hands were still empty.

Once more, Justin looked down at his hands and his treasured eggs. Then he quietly tiptoed over to the boys, bent down, and placed an egg on the ground by each of them. The mother, with a tear streaming down her cheek, mouthed the words, “Thank you.” She guided her sons’ hands downward and they discovered the precious eggs. Their faces lit up with excitement. Justin got a big grin on his face. He didn’t get any candy bars that day, but he still felt like a winner.


Have a great easter weekend, everyone. 

Update

Test results are back.  Litha does NOT have tuberculosis, just a raging chest infection that apparently leaves holes in her lungs.  So, that's unfortunate.  But at least it's not TB.




In other news, this.

What's Been Happening

I turned 20 on monday, so that means the blog gets an update.

I was going to write a post about how my Cambodian roommate's Brazilian fiance always pees on our toilet seat and doesn't wipe it up, but then something way more interesting occurred.

Although I might have fabricated some dialogue, the following events really happened.



Tuesday Night, 9:00 pm.  Provo, Utah.

Mary and Rachel are sitting on a couch in their dingy apartment.  A Mary Kay representative sits opposite them, attempting to hawk her wares.

"Don't be afraid to really rub it in, ladies.  This exfoliant is military grade.  It's what the Marines use!" she chirps.

"Yes, I can feel the freedom seeping through my pores!" enthuses Rachel.  The women laugh heartily.  Just then, their happy gathering is interrupted by the sound of violent coughing from the other room.  The coughing is followed by a voice.

"Mary, can you come here?"  Mary obeys the voice.  She rounds the corner to find Litha standing over a blood spattered sink looking confused.

"Huh." Mary says.  "I think we need to go to the emergency room."

Mary summons Rachel to come and assist her.  Litha runs to the toilet and vomits bloody mucus.  Mary takes a sample.  Rachel attempts to help Litha put her coat on.  Renee emerges from her bedroom looking confused.  The Mary Kay representative hurriedly gathers up her things and leaves in a panic.  Mary, cursing The Fates as she does so, grabs her good mixing bowl and holds it in front of Litha's face.

"Let's roll."

Cut to black.

Two Hours Later...


Drew stumbles into the apartment.  It's strangely quiet.  She adjusts her glasses and hikes up her pants.

"Hey! Where is everybody?!"

Renee, sitting cross legged on the floor while watching Treasure Planet, whips her head around violently.

"Did you hear what happened to Litha?!"

Renee relates the nights happenings to Drew.  Drew immediately calls Mary.  Mary answers.  Drew asks her what the hell.  Mary, sniffing in disdain at Drew's foul language, tells her not to worry, that the doctor thinks it's just bronchitis or something, says that she will call back when they know more.  She hangs up.  Drew and Renee converse.

'Bronchitis,' they say, 'You don't cough up blood when you have bronchitis, do you?' 'I'm not a doctor.' 'I'm aware of that.'

 Renee goes back to Treasure Planet while Drew logs onto her trusty medical diagnosis sites.  At one point, she makes her way to bathroom, where she finds a glass of what looks like Kool-Aid on the counter.

"What's in this glass?" she asks.

"Oh," says Renee, "That's Litha's water."

"It's red."

"Yeah."

Drew throws the glass and its contents in the dumpster.

One Hour Later (12:00)...


Mary calls Drew.

"So," she says. "The doctors were pretty sure it was Bronchitis until they took a chest x-ray.  I guess the x-ray wasn't normal, because they came back and said they wanted a CT scan.  They took one and found a cavity in her lung."

"What does that mean?"

"Like a hole."

"Oh."

"Anyway, that wasn't good, so they drained her lungs and ran some tests on her blood and stuff.  At this point, they had taken out all the other patients in the room and closed the doors.  The nurses were wearing full on body suits.  Rachel and I were breathing through our shirts because we didn't know what was going on and they didn't give us masks.  Then a lung specialist came in and told us that they had narrowed it down to three things; fungal infection, tuberculosis, or lung cancer.  Since Litha's Cambodian, they think tuberculosis is the most likely.  Now we're waiting for them to take her to her own room because she has to be quarantined for three days.  Litha's crying and freaking out because she doesn't have insurance and I had to throw away my mixing bowl because it was full of lung blood."

Drew gets off the phone.  She relays the information to Renee.  They begin to laugh nervously.

"Why are you laughing?" asks Renee.

"I don't know, this isn't funny"

"Well, what should we do?"

"I have no idea."

"Do you know any doctors?"

"Yeah, but I don't think that's going to do us any good.  Also, it's almost 1:00."

"Yeah, but what do we DO?"

"Clean?"

So, Renee and Drew turn on The White Album, break out the bleach and the latex gloves, and begin scrubbing.  They scrub the blood off the sinks.  They fill the toilet with Comet.  They throw away Litha's toothbrush.  They eat a whole chocolate cake.  They clean into the wee hours of the morning, getting high off cleaner fumes while feeling more and more panicky, a feeling that is not exactly eased by the less than soothing sounds of Revolution 9.

Mary and Rachel arrive back at the apartment at 3:00.  The four girls go to bed soon after, resigned to the fact that they will probably be dead in a few weeks.



So, that's what happened.  Litha is still in the hospital.  The tests are still inconclusive, so we don't know if we're slowly dying or not.  We'll see.  Stay tuned.  The good new is that the Brazilian fiance won't be by to pee on our toilet for three days.

Wolverine Has A Moment: The Movie

Wolverine from Drew Duncan on Vimeo.

Damascus

Oh I'm so happy to be home for the holidays after that tough semester now I can rest and sleep in till 10 and all that kind of stuff I wonder how my friend Damascus is doing I haven't seen her for a while I'll just go downstairs and OH MY WHAT THE HELL?!?!

Molted.

Don't worry, she survived.

Christmas is Coming...

The film department offered a $1,000 prize for the best department Christmas card design...

Concept my me, art by Sarah.  I think we have a good chance of winning.

Bonus points if you can see the erased outline of Santa.  He's the best ladder spotter around.

A Cautionary Tale.

My roommate, Mary, has a friend who somehow got a bunch of tickets to the Sunday afternoon session of general conference.  He invited her and told her she could bring a friend.  I was chosen to be that friend.  Huzzah.  So, after I came back from the first-session-breakfast-casserole party at my aunt's house, we left to drive up to Salt Lake.  Mary and her friend, Tolson, were in the front.  I was in the back with two of Tolson's female friends whose names escape me now.  Things were going as well as an awkward car ride with strangers can be expected to go.  However, as we were passing American Fork, I felt a familiar sensation coming on. 

In case you didn't know, I don't have the strongest stomach when it comes to motion.  Or existing, for that matter.  I'm always nauseous in the morning.  Car rides are a nightmare.  I can't go on swing sets.  Roller coasters are not an option.  Even shaking my head semi-vigorously is not an option.  I'm convinced that I'm missing something in my inner ear.  Heaven forbid I ever get pregnant.

Anyway, that familiar nauseating feeling set in near American Fork.  At this point, we still had about 30 minutes left in the car.  I didn't want to draw attention to myself by asking to switch seats or anything, so I started settling in for the long haul.  I am, after all, a pro at this kind of thing.  I leaned back, focused on the horizon, breathed deeply, applied pressure to my inner wrist, tried not to think about bacon, etc.  I was uncomfortable, but I felt like everything was under control.  

Time passed.  We entered South Salt Lake.  I felt my handle on the situation starting to slip.  'But we're so close,' I thought, 'I can make it'.  A few minutes later, I felt something start to come up.  It became clear that I probably wasn't going to make it.  I reluctantly began to ask Tolson if he had a bag in his car when I was stopped short.  My mouth had suddenly become occupied with something else.  I attempted to keep as calm as it is possible to be when one's mouth is full of vomit.  I looked around for somewhere to vacate the contents of my mouth without anybody noticing.  I briefly considered swallowing, but that thought was interrupted by a second wave from my distressed stomach.  I gave up all hope of being inconspicuous as I started throwing up on the floor of the car.

The conversation in the car turned into a shocked silence as emission after emission (6, by my count) issued from the depths.  I attempted to mutter my fervent apologies between streams, but was interrupted every time.  As I was barfing, I noticed that this had to be one of the most productive vomit sessions I'd ever participated in.  I think at one point Mary asked me slightly incredulously if I was finished.  I also noticed that that aforementioned breakfast casserole didn't look nearly as appetizing the second time around. 

I finished and kept my head down until we pulled into a gas station.  I started to put my shoes on, but stopped when I noticed that they were full of barf.  So, I ran in to the gas station bathroom barefoot, green-skinned, and covered in puke. 

I locked the door and walked around in circles like an insane person, cursing myself for not at least attempting to stick my head out the window.  As I came to realize that this wasn't a nightmare, I began to convince myself that I was going to stay in the gas station until everyone left and just ride the bus home.  I figured I'd fit right in on the bus.  At that point, Mary came in the bathroom and informed that I had to hurry because we were still going to conference whether I liked it or not.  She brought a giant t-shirt from Tolson's trunk and helped me wash out my (brand new!) skirt.  

Once back in the car, Mary tried bravely to lighten the mood with some barf-related jokes, but the damage was done.  The girls in the back were practically sitting on top of each other in an attempt to get away from me.  Due to my light-headedness and the faint odor of bile, conference was less than enjoyable.  I'm not even going to talk about the smell that awaited us when we got back to the car.

Casualties: My shirt, my Toms (curses!), and my dignity.  

Props to Mary, who cleaned out the car while I was having a break down in the bathroom and attempted to come up with her own embarrassing story to make me feel better.  A true champ.  Even though her embarrassing story couldn't even begin to eclipse mine.

Leviathan

BYU Police Beat

Excerpts from the Daily Universe police beat:

A female student in her 50s had an issue with the University.  Police showed on the scene and told her it was not OK to yell and scream about it.

A call reported a person lying on the grass on the north end of the Conference Center. When police arrived the person was gone.

A man was reported trespassing on LaVell Edwards Stadium. When police arrived, they found the man was a worker at the stadium.

Officers responded to a report of a person in a gorilla suit at the JSB. The investigation
resulted in the arrest of a 15-year-old visitor for disorderly conduct.

A student reported a group of students picking up a car and moving it to a different parking stall. Police spoke with the owner of the car, who moved it back. There was no damage to the car.

A female student reported a male student showing his bare buttocks out the window of a car on East Campus Drive. An investigation is continuing.

Trespassing was reported at LaVell Edwards Stadium. When an officer arrived, she found it was just the sprinkling system.

A male was reported urinating in a cup outside of the SWKT. The male was stopped and identified. The complainant and victims chose not to press charges. The male was warned not to repeat this action in public again.

Campus Police received a call at 7 a.m. saying a bat was flying around in the Wilkinson Center. An officer was dispatched, who then opened a door, and the bat flew out. 

Four males were reported attempting to catch ducks at the botany pond. The four males were asked to leave by police.

BYU officers responded to a report of a car playing music loudly from its speakers in a parking lot. The officers found students dancing by the vehicle. They were asked to turn down the music. The students complied and left the area.

An officer witnessed a male suspect kick one of the light posts on campus, causing it to go out. When the officer confronted the male, he apologized. Luckily, the light came back on and the male’s frustration didn’t damage the post seriously.

A caller with a Jamaican accent made a call to the police department trying to reach basketball coach Dave Rose. He wanted to inform the coach that he won a contest and to receive his prize he simply had to send them a cashier’s check. Being familiar with the scam, the officer told him to stop calling; the caller was persistent and continued his calls. By coincidence, the coach was in the office during one of his calls and told the secretary to give the caller his number. The coach then took care of the problem by blowing a very loud whistle into the mouthpiece. The caller has not called back since.

A Joke

Courtesy of Sonya, my Korean roommate:

"So, okay.  This doctor has these pipes that break or something, so he calls a plumber.  The plumber comes and fixes the pipes, you know?  The doctor asks to the plumber, 'So, you make pretty good money right?'  The plumber says, 'Yeah it's pretty good.'  Then the doctor says, 'Yeah I wish I was a plumber.'  And so the plumber says, 'Yeah, cause I used to be a doctor!'  Funny, right?"

What I Did This Summer.

3 trips to California
+
1 trip to Alberta
+
1 trip to Poland
=
Approximately:
97 hours in a car
28 hours in a plane
18384 miles traveled.
And some deep vein thrombosis.

Grandpa brings back dinner:













He caught it himself.