Something I will probably never do

I say probably instead of definitely because every time I say absolutely definitely never, it always comes back to bite me in the butt.

Like working at Tuacahn, for example. I worked at Tuacahn from 2004-2006 year round (most employees are seasonal, but I worked as an off-season employee as well), and when I moved up to Provo, I parted ways with Tuacahn until I returned home for the 2007 summer season as I was preparing for my mission. After I got home, I worked there for the 2009 summer season then went back up to BYU in the fall. The next summer, I had a break thanks to my study abroad, but this summer here I am, back at Tuacahn. What can I say? It's the perfect summer job (it's hard to find a job that will hire for a three month period of time), I work with people I love, I get to see the shows for free (maybe I should have mentioned that first; it's probably the most important reason), and I can skip training every summer because I already know everything about selling tickets (really). Anyway, I don't know that I'm going to be back in St George next summer, because I'm sick of moving back and forth. We'll see. Again, I'm not going say never.

Anyway, back to the something I will (probably) never do:

Read Finnegan's Wake by James Joyce.

Really though. I've only skimmed a couple of pages in a British lit anthology, and on most pages there were more annotations than there was text. Half of the words are gibberish (idiosyncratic, if you want the technical term), and for heaven's sake, it starts and ends in the middle of a sentence! (It's actually the same sentence, interestingly enough. Where the sentence cuts off at

the end of the book, it picks up at the beginning. If that makes sense.)

I've read The Dead by James Joyce, a short story, and I actually enjoyed it a lot. The Dead, though, is very intelligible. Finnegan's Wake, on the other hand, is a mess. In one of my lit classes, my professor asked the class if anyone had completely read the book, and out of the whole class of 60, only one person raised his hand. The professor seemed surprised, and said "what are you, a masochist?" So I'm not the only person who thinks you would have to be crazy to read it.

It is very interesting to me though, so it's funny that I'm saying I'm not going to read something that is so fascinating to me.

Which is why I don't say definitely never.

I remember several years ago saying that I didn't think I would ever read the unabridged Les Miserables, and a few months later I started it. And finished it, although it took me awhile to get through the whole thing. (I had to take a break halfway through and read something else.) Reading Les Mis was one of the best literary decisions I have ever made; it's a pretty monumental, life changing book. I was glad I didn't hold myself to my previous statement saying I would never read it.

Never, then, doesn't always mean actually never. It might mean maybe possibly never, or absolutely definitely never.

You just never know.