TBT: Baxter the Rock

I am totally embracing the Throwback Thursday thing even though I'm about 5 years behind the times in doing so. First, I have a question: How old does a picture have to be to count as a 'throwback?' Hopefully not more than a decade because I don't have anything that old handy right now. 

Today I would like to reminisce, give a shout-out, hollaback girl (I'm told that doesn't work here - whatever), about my Physical Science class my Freshman year at BYU. Almost everybody at the university had one required semester of physical science or something equivalent to that. If you were working on prerequisites for the Elementary Education program you had to take two semesters, and the second semester was dedicated solely to rocks. Geology I guess, but rocks. Seriously. Rocks. 

Please direct your eyes below to view a picture of me with my favorite rock: Baxter.

I liked Baxter because he was a big one and he was pretty inside. The lab also had a massive piece of pumice, but it was ugly and poky and hurt my hands when I'd pick it up and carry it around over my head (it made me look like Wonder Woman, or just weird, but I was cheating because it's stupidly light). Most of the rock samples were very tiny and fit in tiny little storage compartments, but not Baxter. Baxter was huge.

My roommate took this picture our last night of studying in the rock lab before the final exam where we had to identify 100 rocks. Not pictured in this TBT post, but happened only moments later, is when my roommate shot some sort of chemical up her nose that is supposed to test the effervescence of the rock. It's a fond Freshman memory. (Not so fond is thinking about how many rocks I licked and how many other tongues were on those rocks.)

My TA for lab time was in love with rocks. She would disappear on little studies to various rockeous places in the world to study more rocks. I imagine her house is covered in rocks both inside and out. As I recall she was engaged, but I think she mentioned her fiance once when someone asked about the ring on her finger. Everything else she ever said was about rocks. 

Anyways, I spent more time around rocks that semester than I will probably spend around rocks for the rest of my life. I studied rocks like crazy, and I aced that stupid final exam. I now remember nothing. I'm not sure why they felt such an intensive study of rocks was necessary, but, oh, the times we had in that rock lab.