The Ramen Comparison

There are some people that I will listen to and then do whatever they say.

Katherine Kang is one of these people. I ran into Katherine on the street outside the Institute one day and asked her, "Are you smarter than me?"

She said, "No."

She's clearly smarter than I am.

So when she told me, an Arabic Language and Literature major and Middle Eastern Studies minor, to take an accounting class, I did it without a second thought. Turned out to be one of the best classes in which I learned the most practical material out of my entire college experience.

When Katherine found out that I skipped a test to play Ultimate Frisbee, she got so mad. She told me to knock that off, and without question I did. I got a B in that class, and when I did the math I realized that if I had gone to that test I would've gotten an A.

When Katherine Kang tells me to do something, I just do it.

Some people have similar effects on me, not quite to the same extent. One of those people is a guy, which is weird for me. Mostly because I instinctively just trust guys less than I trust girls. My poor roommate Michael couldn't convince me at all to buy certain fabrics for shirts because it was so hard for me to trust his perspective as a guy. Contrast that to Abinadi Ayerdis, who has a pretty good success rate at getting me to do things that he says. He convinced me not to ask a friend to photograph my wedding for free, citing that it'd be like someone asking me to take a non-paid day off to do some hard core Arabic translation. He has stopped me from dating girls that would be terrible for me, when I couldn't see the forest through the trees. He helps me stop being such a jerk whenever he asks me about Christ-like attributes.

Then there's Stephanie Hall, who gets frustrated when she tells me to do things because I argue with her the entire time. I don't think she knows how often I know she's right and I'm just being a belligerent jerkface, and I end up doing what she tells me to anyway.

Poor Andrew Taylor has a dismal success rate in this area. We've been best friends for, what, thirteen years now? I don't know how we've made it at all. Probably because he's such a good person.

Shamefully, I've had Bishops who've had a hard time getting me to do things. They do have a better success rate than most, though. They should probably just call Katherine and tell her to tell me what to do.

Molly Lewis is another example of someone who can get me to do most things. I'd say her success rate is roughly the same as Abinadi's. She tells me not to talk in a surgery, and the next time I was a lot quieter than the last time. She tells me to eat more carbohydrates because my protein only diet is unhealthy, so I do.

And that's the long version of how John and I came to be eating Ramen noodles tonight. I needed to eat some carbohydrates because Molly told me to.

I ate the chicken curry flavor, and John ate the plain chicken flavor. He's decided that the plain chicken flavor is just a bit tastier than all of the others. I'm going to have to taste them all now to find out.