New York Air

Dr. Cole, a very brilliant BYU professor, is a little extreme in teaching style. I believe SCARING his students is his motivation for change. I took numerous classes from him during my BYU adventure, my favorite being infectious diseases. Although it was a great class, I am now paranoid about little intricate details found in everyday life that potentially pose risk.

Airplanes. Most people are afraid of airplanes because, let's be real, flying doesn't really make sense unless you are a physics master (ahem Joe Bond). So, let's take a very large cylindrical object that weighs thousands of pounds and stick some wings on it. The wings will be attached with some bolts that are durable and can withstand HOPEFULLY a lot of force. Then we will make this baby go hundreds of miles per hour to hoist it into the air magically (thousands of feet into the air actually, above pointy mountains and chilling seas). Sounds neat. And safe right? Am I afraid of airplanes?

Yes! BUT Not because I am flying in a heavy object that has the potential of crashing into land or sea - heavens no, that's nothing to be afraid of, well, most certainly less frightening than what Dr. Cole offered in lecture! Did you know that you are exposed to hundreds of infectious diseases (including TB, SARS, bird flu, swine flu, and many more) by riding on an airplane? Imagine this - sitting in a confined space with recycled air and infected strangers surrounding you. Gives you the warm fuzzies huh? Me too. Thanks Dr. Cole. I'm not really THAT afraid (at least not enough to get a Hello Kitty mask to wear on the airplane) but I think about it every time I step foot onto an aircraft. Anyway, because of my infectious disease knowledge I was really excited to exit the airplane, step onto the New York soil and fill my lungs with the "fresh" air.

Unfortunately fresh air in New York during the summer doesn't really exist. Well, I don't know that fresh air EVER exists in New York but the humidity and heat reminded me of this very quickly. My body is trained to cope with the Utah mountain air that holds close to 0% humidity. Needless to say, New York was 80 degrees with what felt like 99% humidity. Mmm. It's like a warm blanket of stickiness everywhere I go. Can I say claustrophobia?

Jonathan greeted me at JFK with his hip and trendy glasses with his matching hip and trendy Subaru. Despite all of my existing concerns about flying in the yucky air, I finally felt like I was in good hands. This is my home for the next month.