Day 5 -- Monday

Our Friendliness and its Demise
Natalie and I have made a concerted effort here to make freinds and get to know people, despite our inherent pariahdom. We made considerable strides today by befriending Adam's fiancee (Celsey), helping Sis. Patterson with her baby, and having a friendly discussion with the people we sat by at dinner (which included a lot of laughing, believe it or not). Despite this, there are two cast members we've tried to befriend who we can't seem to connect with.

The first is Clint, a recently returned missionary and the son of the lead actor who plays Mary Ann Young. It turns out that my next door neighbor and he served in the same mission at the same time. Using this conversation-starter to break the ice, we discovered that, although he seems very shy, he is perfectly fine to talk to. As long as you're the one starting the conversation, that is. With such a promising beginning, we didn't know a friendship could be this hard to build. We purposely sat by him at a cast meeting, but he never said a word past any conversation we started. We've passed him in the halls and said "hi" with no response. What on earth are we doing wrong?

The second person will remain nameless until I have the opportunity to read his namebadge to find out what name he owns. Anyway, this kid had a shirt on with one word on the back: Bagelicious. This piqued our interests since we are both avid bagel-lovers. So I struck up a conversation with him abouit bagels and asked if Natalie and I could get a picture with the back of his shirt sometime (after all, we are in the business of taking funny pictures on this trip). He graciously agreed. . . and then we forgot to ever get the picture. I f that ends our connection with Bagel Boy, then it's our own fault, I suppose.

FHE: How it shouldn't be
The first half of our FHE this evening was very awkward. See Natalie's blog posting about this event for the details. However, after this, we went to "Sunset By the Mississippi," where we had a great time. All's well that ends well, I suppose.