24 Years Under the Belt Without Breaking a Sweat

It's that time again! Funny how it keeps coming up every week, like how birthdays keep coming up every year. Speaking of birthdays, I had mine recently. I am now the grand age of 24 years old. Here at BYU-Idaho, being over 22 and unmarried tends to make the more narrow-minded folk think there's something wrong with you. Being 24 and unmarried makes you ancient and some kind of weirdo, I guess. It's as if people are bewildered that you're not using a walker, powered wheelchair, or at least a cane to get around. That happens to be an exaggeration, but not much of one. It's just the culture of this LDS college town. Our culture is such that we tend to marry young and that confuses most people in the world today. I agree with marrying young. For one thing, as you both figure your way into life, you do so together, strengthening bonds between husband and wife, and getting settled on how you're going to do certain things early on. Anyway, I'm not here to discuss marriage or start any debates on the subject.
The reality is that I'm still young. 24 years of accumulated wisdom (most of it not adhered-to, some of you would say), and just overall growth doesn't feel like one- still looking towards the age instead of back at- would think. Progression is an interesting thing. It's truly a 1:1 ratio, getting out of it what you put into it. It's all relative, anyway. To a 5 yr-old, I'm an omniscient demigod (which may or may not be more exaggeration). To a 50 yr-old, I'm a wet-behind-the-ears kid on wobbly legs in the adult world. Truth is, no matter what stage you are at in life, it's your first time being there and you're trying to figure it out. Some people take to it like a fish takes to water, while for others it's more like a bird learning to fly, and still for others it's more like a rock trying to fly. I see myself somewhere between the rock and the bird sometimes, fish and bird other times. I think it's safe to say we all have that kind of range.
Anyway...
Classes plug along at the usual rate. Zipping through the different kinds of functions in Math 110 leaves my mood sour (mainly because of the structuring of each assignment which involves printing off pages of homework for one function) while flying though physiological process and tissues in Biology 264 leaves my mind spinning. As if that wasn't enough, Chemistry 105 swoops in and churns my insides with atoms, compounds, and laboratory experiments. On top of that, I received a new calling for my ward. I'm one of two assistant executive secretaries. Basically, I'm in charge of Tuesday night interviews and appointments, so I sit outside the Bishopric's offices and make sure people see the Bishopric and everything is organized. I'm finding less and less time to look for work, so my chances of getting any kind of job goes down almost exponentially.
One thing I like about my Human Anatomy and Physiology teacher is that he likes to throw random, interesting facts at us. For example, while we were talking about lipids, he told us two things. One was about the old process of tanning animal hides. It involved squishing the animal's brain and spreading it across the hide while working it into the pores through means of massaging and even chewing to get the fats and oils out of the pores. Every animal, except for the giraffe, has enough brains to tan its own hide. Another interesting fact involves the sperm whale and the triglycerides in its enormous head. The composition of each triglyceride is just right so that the oil in its head matches the density of the water at whatever depth the whale is at. That way, the whale can just float at that depth without having to expend unnecessary energy. The oils also perform another important role. There are huge capillary beds that run through the head. When the whale surfaces from incredible depths (down to (and possibly deeper) 2 miles deep), the nitrogen bubbles forming in the blood run through the capillary beds as the oil is expanding to match the density of the water around the whale. As the oil expands, it "squishes" and pops the nitrogen bubbles, thus preventing the ailment known as The Benz. I warned you that I would regurgitate stuff like this at the beginning of the semester.