An Open Letter to the Women at the Pool Last Night

Hello.  I'm not sure if you noticed me, or if you've seen me around.  I know I have seen you before, and while I don't know your names, I have come to know you as "They Who Lack Volume Control".  I had hoped that was your only vice.

Last night I encountered you at the BYU-H swimming pool, where three of you had decided to inhabit one of the swimming lanes.  As a person who swims laps, I and my ken are rather dependent on the existence of available lanes.  You, meanwhile, seem to have chosen to not only take up this lane, but to remain at the shallow end, wrapped cozily in floatation devices, talking to one another in the piercing voices that have become your trademark.

I could have excused this if there were an abundance of open lanes; if there were no area where you could sit besides the lanes; or if you were even occasionally swimming what could be called a "lap", but alas you fulfilled none of these exonerating criteria.  While there are many health advantages to swimming, there are relatively fewer to standing around shouting jovially at one another while partially submerged in water.  Your inactivity rather defeats the purpose of whatever you hoped to accomplish--as a matter of fact, I do not even have a clue what you were trying to do, but I do know you failed, so useless was whatever it is you were--and I use this word loosely--"doing".

I could see quite clearly that all three other lanes were doubled up for nearly the entire time I was there.  I noticed this while swimming back and forth, so you have no excuse for not noticing it while you were doing little but existing in a particular space, unless for you the mere act of existing takes up so much of your energy and focus you are unable to consider that others exist.  I have considered this possibility, as your existing moniker suggests.  Some people, myself included, even attempted to use the rest of the lane to work around you, functionally making you inanimate obstacles.  However, an inanimate object does not occasionally shift and shout and sway and cast dirty looks in just such a way to make working around it more difficult.  From this I can extrapolate that you are more useless than literally useless things.

I think you fail to understand that you could have stood just about anywhere in the pool.  Frankly, the pool was extraneous for what you were doing.  I'd wonder if you know how chairs work.

If you haven't gotten the gist, I hate you, mesdames.  You might not the worst people in the world, but your faults--that is, being so self-involved and stupid and stubborn that you are unable to recognize that you are not only being inconsiderate to others but gaining utterly no benefit from it--are the kinds of thing that I consider the worst traits a person could have.  You're the same kind of people who speed in residential zones and join pyramid schemes and I hate you.

The Best Things About College

BYU-Hawaii: The classes are easy, the people are friendly, and the weather is warm and sunny.  It's my personal hell.


However, my therapist encouraged me to think more positively, so here's the list of what I do like about my college.


-I live on-campus.  This means I can roll out of bed at 7:00 and make it to my 7:30 class with time for a leisurely breakfast in between.  "Community college has everything a four-year has"--never fall for this lie!
-Also on-campus, the health center.  Never before has my hypochondria felt so enabled.  Unlike high school, I'm quite certain these people have received actual medical training.
-Sometimes I legitimately forget whether or not my roommate is in the room.  It's the housing arrangement of my dreams.
-College textbooks are great.  No longer am I distracted by why a demographically-diverse group of people is so manically excited about chemistry.
-My campus is so diverse!  I'm always amazed at the different cultures, ways of life, and perspectives that can be homogenized into oblivion on a religious campus.
-Bulletin boards are everywhere, and with them, the possibility for pranks.  It's good to be alive and mildly sociopathic!
-The library may not have a fiction section (seriously, what?), but today they were giving away their old anthropology books.  FOR FREE.  I got five.
-Film class is pretty neat.  Last Friday we watched La Jetee, a French post-modern soft science-fiction psychological/body horror romantic tragicomic mind-bending photo-roman.  I defy you to name another film that demands that many adjectives.
-"If you don't learn to keep your room clean, what will you do with your dorm when you go to college?"  Hahahahahahahahahahaha.
-I still keep in contact with my friends who are still in high school.  I like to stroke my scraggly neckbeard and act sage over Facebook.
-I have to take the bus just about anywhere outside my 300-person town.  Taking the bus means standing in one place for several hours, doing nothing interesting, and being polite to rude idiots.  This means I can check on my job applications that I have retail experience.