Stayin' Alive

As of last Saturday, I am now the assistant coach for BYU-Idaho’s dance team. That may sound impressive, but it really only happened because the other assistant coaches dropped out, and the head coach needed someone. Anyone.

So I happily agreed. As this is my last semester, I’m only taking 11 credits, meaning I’m not totally a stressed-out mess and can hopefully handle a little more responsibility. The coach looked completely relieved when I told her I’d do it.

The next day I got the text, “Um, since you’re assistant coach, we’re going to need you to take First Response Training on Wednesday and then CPR training on Thursday or else the team will be cancelled.”

Right. Okay. Okay, I can do this. Our little spirit team may not be much, and we’re lucky to get a crowd of 40 to come our performances, but we have fun, dang it! I couldn’t just let the team die!

Wednesday came and I went to the little hour-long first response training in a class with two other people and a bored student instructor. We learned which forms go where and what to do in case of a potential “head injury” (not concussion), took the written test, and got out of there just in time for country dancing. Not bad.

Thursday came. I walked into the CPR class to find a couple half-dummies lying around (the plastic kind) and a big, happy Tongan guy named T. He was the instructor.

We started out by learning the proper procedure for chest compressions. It just so happens that chest compressions share the exact same beats per minute with the Bee Gees “Stayin’ Alive” or “Another One Bites the Dust” depending on how much faith you have in your CPR abilities. So there we were, all five of us kneeling on the ground, pumping our dummies little hearts out (get it?) to the drum beat provided by the instructional video when suddenly, we all burst into song.

Did you know it’s really hard to pump somebody’s heart when you’re laughing too hard to breathe? Who knew CPR training could be such a party?

Once we’d gone through the three hours of instruction (including what to do if your patient has an abnormally hairy chest), it was time for the certification test. I went out in the hallway to take my test and once I finished, T said, “Well you passed, and I have to say, I think that was probably the most animated demonstration I’ve ever seen.”

I’m still trying to decide whether that’s a good thing or not.

I mean, I had to make sure all the imaginary bystanders of my poor victim lying in the hallway knew “the scene is safe!!” I then had to ensure my little friend was not just resting, but was actually in trouble. I briskly tapped his shoulders while I chanted in his plastic face “Are you okay?! Are you okay?!” He wasn’t.

To let T know this, I exclaimed, “Oh no! He’s not responding! I better begin CPR!” So after shouting for help and demanding my imaginary assistants to “go call 911!” and “fetch me an AED!,” I delighted in the fact that it was a “good thing I have my handy dandy face mask!”

I wanted so badly to sing “Stayin’ Alive” (I was a believer) as I was doing those chest compressions but sadly I couldn’t sing and count to 30 at the same time. I think T got the idea though.

When it was time for the AED, I made certain the patient was totally clear by telling those pesky bystanders to please stand back before I gave that poor soul the biggest buzz of his life.

Although my plastic patient sadly never revived, I like to believe it had nothing to do with my CPR abilities.

What can I say? I’m now a certified life saver. There will be no dust biting on my watch.

Okay, so this picture isn't actually from CPR class, but one day I randomly saw this poor deserted dummy on the sidewalk and I thought he looked so sad and forgotten. I was a little tempted to pack him up and take him home. Then I realized it would be difficult to transport him on my bicycle. That, and it would have been against the law.

Whale Riding

I’ve decided. I’m done with winter. Done with the snow, done with the ice, and so done with the biting air that freezes my nose hairs. Unfortunately however, I don’t think it’s done with me. Sigh…  I suppose I will use this blog post to simply give summer to myself, despite the fact it is the middle of January.

Like I mentioned in my previous post, I traveled to Mexico, Guatemala and Belize for a month this past spring with my school for the Mesoamerica tour. We ended our trip in the beautiful, and touristy, Playa del Carmen, Mexico. It was the night before our one free day of the entire trip in which we could do whatever we wanted, so we were determined to make it good.

One girl had the idea of buying blow-up whales so we could play with them in the water the next day. We thought this idea was beyond genius. The directors of the trip had allotted us each about $50 worth of pesos to spend there, so after walking to Wal-Mart, we figured if we each pitched in about $4, we could get not one, but two of the air-laden mammals. Done.

When we got back to the hotel that night, we took turns blowing them up and like every other animal we had found throughout the trip (be that toads, geckos, tarantulas, etc.) we named them Peggy—Big Peggy and Little Peggy to be exact.

They were identical.

At one point that night, the Peggys went sailing over the hotel balcony somehow and soared down four flights below, but I think that is another story.

The next morning, it was time for the beach, and with our new purchases, that also meant it was time to take our Peggys for their maiden voyages. They sure made it easy to find my friends on the beach among the many other swimmers. Just look for the two giant whales bobbing around.

I waded through the warm salty water as I watched my friends try to catch a few waves with them for awhile before it was my turn to give them a go. I grabbed hold of Big Peggy (or was it Little?) and took her out in the water. I have to say, as I timidly mounted that whale, I felt a little ridiculous. Nevertheless, I paddled myself over to the surf and waited under that gorgeously golden sun for the perfect wave.

After a few teasers that were just big enough to tip me off balance, there appeared the mother of all whale-riding waves. In one swift motion, the wave lifted me up, and I began to soar.

 Any bashfulness I may have felt before evaporated and floated through the air along with my squeals of delight. I held onto that whale for dear life as she picked up speed. It was quite liberating, really.

Flying on a whale. There isn’t a feeling like it.

Suddenly, Peggy got a bit squirmy and kicked me off balance. I toppled into the surf, the water churning me head over heels in the wave, shooting salt water in my eyes, nose and mouth. After a few somersaults, I finally popped up, covered in sand and sputtering, partly because of the salt water and partly because I couldn’t stop laughing.

Amid my tumbling, however, Peggy had escaped my grasp and began blowing down the beach faster than I could run. “Oh no!” I shouted, and this is where I commenced my rescue attempt. I started splashing through two feet of water, past the topless sunbathers and jealous 5 year-olds as I waved my arms yelling, “Come back, Peggy!”

Suddenly I was plagued with a vision of how I must have looked. A 20 year-old college student stumbling through knee-deep water after a blow-up whale named Peggy skimming across the beach just out of reach was simply too much for me. I doubled over in laughter and gasped for air as Peggy continued her escapade with ever-growing vigor.

Have no fear though; I eventually caught Peggy by some unexplainable phenomenon. With head held high, I marched her back to safety. I think I almost killed 15 students that day who were near drowning from excessive laughter.

Who knew a blow-up whale could provide such wholesome beach entertainment?

A Real Education. With love, from Mexico.

I’m now beginning my last semester of my Bachelor’s degree. Although my education thus far has been valuable and enlightening, I think a time when I learned the most occurred in a tiny children’s school that barely had running water.

While I was in Mexico over the summer, I had the unique opportunity of leaving the busy cities and tourist sites to visit the Indigenous people who live high up in the mountains. We were going to bring sweaters, backpacks, and toothbrushes we had all packed in our suitcases to the school children there.

Our ninja of a bus driver, Ricardo (seriously, this guy has skills comparable to none, except maybe Chuck Norris) followed two men in a rickety red pickup truck up a dirt road to this school in the middle of nowhere. He navigated through steep hillsides that were completely farmed by Indigenous Maya in their traditional clothes who peered at us curiously in our giant bus. We drove through windy dirt roads with cliff edges and no guard rail to be seen. We passed tiny tin or thatch-roof houses with clotheslines in the yards, chickens running around the lush gardens, sheep tied to short posts, hammocks hanging from the porches and old bicycles leaned up against the walls. If it weren’t for the Coca Cola signs and satellite dishes everywhere, I would have thought we had gone back in time.

When we finally made it to the school, we jumped out of the bus to see many apprehensive children lining the driveway in different traditional clothes depending on their cultural group. We gave them all high-fives as we passed, but I think that just scared them more than anything. What was a group of tall, white people wearing funny clothes doing at their school?

They welcomed us in Spanish over a loud speaker in their dirt yard, and then a girl from my tour did a jump-rope demonstration for them to break the ice. While that was happening, two of my friends, Ryan and Steven, were attempting to fix a broken set of giant teeth that came with the toothbrushes we were going to give them.

At this point, one of my directors leaned over to me and pointed out a funny thing. He said, “Can this be real? I’m standing here in the mountains of Mexico watching a white girl jump rope for a bunch of Indians while a giant set of teeth just said, ‘Me llamo Stevo.’ This is surreal.” And it was.

When she finished her little show, we started handing the stuff out to the kids. At first, they were hesitant, but pretty soon I was completely surrounded by children with their tiny outstretched hands desperately reaching for a toothbrush. The really young kids were completely filthy, and my heart simply broke. Seeing such eager expressions for a toothbrush or backpack caused me to reflect on my childhood. Why didn’t I grow up in the highlands of Mexico where receiving a sweater would have made my world? Why was I, instead, complaining that I didn’t get a Nintendo 64 like my friends amid my shelves and shelves of untouched toys and games these kids couldn’t imagine having? It just wasn’t fair, and it made me want to cry as I heard the children’s voices plead, “Uno para mi. One for me.”

As my meager stash got smaller and smaller, my panic rose. How could I confess to these hopeful brown eyes it was all gone? How could I leave these hands empty? It nearly killed me when my hand scrambled for just one more toothbrush at the bottom of my bag to find none left.

Once everything was gone, the priests of the town served us a lunch of beef (at least I think it was beef) stew. Seeing as how they aren’t very big fans of foreigners—especially Americans—this was a pretty big deal.

The meal was simple. It was bland. It was watery. It was the best lunch I’ve ever had.

I was overcome with gratitude.

Toward the end of lunch, we suddenly heard techno-sounding music blaring over the speakers, and peered out the window to see what was the cause of such out-of-place commotion. The same girl who jumped rope was now dancing. It didn’t take long before a huge dance party erupted in that dusty yard surrounded by a bunch of curious Maya. Some of us tried to get them to dance with us, but I think they just thought we were freaks.

We played soccer with them too. The teams were pretty equally matched. We were college kids; they were 8 year-olds. It’s funny how a ragged, lumpy ball can penetrate all culture barriers. We were no longer “rich, American college students” and they were no longer “poor, Mexican school children” but we were just a bunch of kids trying to kick a ball in between two posts more times than the other team.

When our precious time with them had run out, our professors struggled in herding us back on the bus. We simply didn’t want to leave our new friends. With much effort, our teachers pushed the last of us aboard, and we could see the kids smiling and waving to us through the bus windows.

As we pulled away, we watched a little boy flossing with the new floss we gave him for perhaps the first time in his life.

Photos from Christmas Break

Ringing in the New Year with Style

While the rest of the population in Pacific Standard Time was welcoming 2011 with countdowns, toasts, kisses, and watching that giant ball drop on TV (which, by the way, is about the most anticlimactic thing I’ve ever seen), I was chasing a wet, nightgown-clad 19 year-old boy through a snow covered trail in 3 degree weather with a video camera.

Allow me to explain.

First, I will begin by saying that yes, I did in fact get permission from my little brother to post this.

It was 11:30 PM, New Years Eve, Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. We were staying at our friends’ cabin and we had just begun the annual task of trying to convince our friend Eric to jump in the lake, saying things like, “But Eric, you have to. It’s tradition.” Sometimes it works; sometimes it doesn’t, but this night, we were in for a surprise.

He said something like, “I’ll do it if Lance [my dad] does it.” My dad gave a little laugh before telling us he would do it for $10,000 because that is how much it would cost to be worth it. That’s when Tyler’s ears perked up. ‘Money? I’d do it for money!’ he thought. And so, the bidding began.

“I’ll give you $5!” someone shouted.

“I’ll give you $5 too, but you have to run all the way down the little trail with only socks on your feet and you don’t get a towel until you make it back to the cabin.” Ooh, that was tempting.

And then suddenly, the kicker… “I’ll give you $10, BUT” pause for dramatic effect “you have to wear Grandma Joyce’s old nightgown.” Silence.

Tyler’s eyes grew wide, his mouth dropped open, and then, “DEAL!”

And so, the stakes had reached $20, the time was now 11:49, and everyone was getting in on the ordeal. We had towel holders, photographers, videographers, flashlight operators, hot cocoa-makers, and fire kindlers. This event was not your average dip in the lake. Oh no, this was serious business.

As this was all being organized, Tyler emerged from the back room wearing an old, green, flannel nightgown complete with lace and frills. His expression was that of a sad puppy.

Enough with the nonsense though. It was show time. Everyone took their places down the dark little trail to the lake, and Tyler was given the “all’s clear for takeoff.” He burst through the doors of that cabin and flew down the stairs as fast as one can run in a nightgown and socks. Once he hit the snow they turned into short little high steps with, “Who! Haw! Eek! Ah!” coming out of his mouth, but I don’t think anyone could hear that over their laughter.

He rounded the last corner, let out a scream, and plowed straight into the lake. I think he may have reached a high C as he hit the frigid water and then plunged his head under. He practically took flight coming out of that lake and began the trek up to the cabin. I don’t think his screaming stopped the whole way up. As we all ran behind him, we watched ice flick off the hem of his nightgown and his feet stick to the snow.

I took a second to glace at my watch. 12:00. Midnight. Yes, Happy New Year indeed.

Tyler lunged through the cabin door where he was chased by an aforementioned towel holder, but didn’t stop until he was safely in the shower. When he came out a few minutes later, he was awarded the $20, and a cup of toasty cocoa.

Was it worth it, we asked? “Psh, yeah!” he said, like the alternative was not even an option.

Well, 2011, I have a feeling you’re going to be a very good year, or if nothing else, at least entertaining.