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2010-05-19T21:32:00.000-06:00

I think the first time that I ever heard that phrase was when I first saw the movie Newsies. After that, I always wanted to be a newsie so that I could yell that phrase and get people to listen too. It's sort of empowering.

Now, it doesn't have quite the same effect on a blog as it does handing out "papes" wearing a newsboy cap in 1900s New York City, but I wanted to try it for special effect anyway, because after all, I have some news....

I am getting a new blog. The new address is http://that-redhead.blogspot.com.

The reasons that I am doing this is not to cause heartache and frustration to the whole world. Instead, it is because my current blog has already been causing some heartache and frustration. To me, and to several others, who have for some reason, been unable to comment or see various links or whatever. And I've been having some HTML trouble with it too, which I believe is the result of me trying to play around with HTML when I first got it and I didn't know what I was doing, and well...I think I messed some things up. So we're trying again. So, find me there. Because I won't be here much more.

Never fear, though. The new blog looks identical to this one, so all the thousands of you that read my blog (come on, I know you're out there....somewhere...) can ease into the transition a little more smoothly. Hopefully it won't be too traumatic for any of us.

Catch ya lata at the new address!

To do:

2010-05-13T19:51:00.001-06:00

1. Break right index finger. Preferably while running late to a meeting, making brownies, attempting to remove the beaters, and pressing the button that violently turns the beaters on instead of the non-violent one that pushes them out. Find out that your finger will be crooked for the rest of mortality and that it may be close to a year before it stops hurting. Then tell the story with pride and laugh a lot, because it's a really stupid and funny way to do it.

2. ~~Say goodbye to the best living situation imaginable, especially for a single Mormon girl. With these beautiful women.~~

3. ~~Visit home for a few days at the end of the semester. Introduce a PC-oriented family to the joys of Mac Photobooth~~.

4. ~~Plan a family trip with these people (except for the guy on the far right, unfortunately)~~...

~~to these places.~~

5. ~~Move to Chicago.~~

via

6. ~~Start internship, with this lady...~~

...as your boss. Talk in stupid voices with her, make delicious food, meet all her friends and cause them to wonder about both of your sanity levels, live up Chicago life, and sleep in a really, really good bed for more than two nights.

6. ~~Absent the blogging world for a while.~~

7. Leave for family trip in less than two weeks.

8. See this play with the sister. Also, take lots of goofy pictures like these ones with her as well.

via

9. Finish reading these books.

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10. ~~Return to blogging world, count your blessings, and summarize Important Things in My Life for the Past Two-Three Weeks on blog.~~

Oh yeah, and #11:

11. ~~Post really goofy/potentially blackmailable pictures of self on blog. Shrug it off.~~

Truth.

2010-05-03T17:07:00.000-06:00

I stand by this. I can't say it nearly as eloquently or convincingly as Elder Holland can, but I can tell you that I know it's true too.

Breathing.

2010-04-26T11:07:00.002-06:00

I've had this picture in my inspiration folder on my computer for a while now, and I'm not sure where I got it, unfortunately. Gorgeous, no?

This semester has been one of the hardest I've had since being at college, and for several weeks, I have felt like I had been trying to swim and/or tread water...without ever taking a breath. I've been figuratively holding my breath...and with the end of the semester and moving out, I finally surfaced on Wednesday night as I drove home in torrential rain.

So I haven't blogged because I've been sleeping, reading, exercising, family-ing...oh, and planning our family trip to England. :) I haven't been able to write a whole lot because I feel so intellectually and emotionally fried. Especially having left these beautiful women:

I'll probably return to the blogging world in another day or two. Meanwhile, I'm just enjoying the air above water.

I'm flattered.

2010-04-16T11:11:00.000-06:00

There is this blog that I follow, called theapronstage.com. I love it--the posts are generally not too long, whimsical, well-written, funny and/or meaningful without saying too much, and always clever. Lots of people follow it, and it's often as fun to read everyone's comments as it is to read the posts themselves, because it attracts a talented, educated, Christian (especially LDS) audience, and everyone is so insightful and good at what they do. On Fridays, they have a guest post, and this week, they decided to use one of my previously written posts.

I'm very flattered and really excited about it. You can see it here. But you should probably go to the blog to read all the other things posted, because there are lots of others that are much better written and more beautiful. And funnier. Especially yesterday's post. But it's a lovely confidence booster all the same.

Julie, the yellow flowers are forsythias.

2010-04-12T21:39:00.008-06:00

My smart and good-writer-ly/good-dress-er-ly friend Julie posted on her blog today about one of my favorite things about springtime. My dad used to say that you can always tell when spring is near, because the forsythias are the first thing to bloom. As soon as I see them start (generally in the second or third week of March), I begin to get excited, because it means that springtime-and-butterflies-and-flowers-and-rain-and-good-smelling-things are nearing.

I've learned a lot of life lessons from these guys.

Forsythia bushes have some of the yellowest yellow flowers I have ever seen. Against the backdrop of a whole lotta gray, they make a difference like you wouldn't believe.

via

But forsythias are really brave little guys too. I also know every year, when I see them start to bloom, that it will snow a few more times before they're done...but they do it anyway, every single time. And they beam, brightly brightly through the wet, freezing snow, in spite of themselves.

And when they're finishing up, which is what they're beginning to do now, their goldenness melts into green--not anything too ostentatious. Just a soft, pale, kindly sort of green. Kind of like the background of this blog. The forsythias leave just enough of a hint of the gold blazing against gray there within the green to remind themselves of what they can become, but their day is over, for now. Their job was to lead out--to remind the world of the glory it can become, just when it was beginning to think it was too gray to do it. They last just long enough to give all the other flowers the courage to begin blossoming...and then they pass the baton and stay in the background, a foundation of quiet strength for the other flowers, all the while reminding them to follow their example and be bold in their bloom.

But after their time, they're happy to retire to simply being green, a backdrop for the other flowers to let them shine.

I'd like to be a forsythia.

via

For the next five days...

2010-04-08T21:45:00.003-06:00

...till classes are over, I am writing research papers. And no matter where I look and how much I read, I feel like I'm always searching for the "right" book. I keep trying and trying...when really, I just need to get writing.

And this is a little bit what I feel like.

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How glad I will be when next Tuesday is over.

"It's beautiful Persian poetry!"

2010-04-07T14:55:00.002-06:00

Okay, it's not really, but I just really, really like that scene. (Name that movie, by the way...)

But these two poems are the two that I am deciding between to use for my final paper for Dr. Siegfried's class. And they're both lovely. Any preferences on which to use? They both fit the requirements I need them to fit, I think. I'm leaning toward the first one, but we'll see.

A LECTURE UPON THE SHADOW.
by John DonneSTAND still, and I will read to thee
A lecture, Love, in Love's philosophy.
These three hours that we have spent,
Walking here, two shadows went
Along with us, which we ourselves produced.
But, now the sun is just above our head,
We do those shadows tread,
And to brave clearness all things are reduced.
So whilst our infant loves did grow,
Disguises did, and shadows, flow
From us and our cares ; but now 'tis not so.
That love hath not attain'd the highest degree,
Which is still diligent lest others see.

Except our loves at this noon stay,
We shall new shadows make the other way.
As the first were made to blind
Others, these which come behind
Will work upon ourselves, and blind our eyes.
If our loves faint, and westerwardly decline,
To me thou, falsely, thine
And I to thee mine actions shall disguise.
The morning shadows wear away,
But these grow longer all the day ;
But O ! love's day is short, if love decay.

Love is a growing, or full constant light,
And his short minute, after noon, is night.

THE RELIC.
by John Donne WHEN my grave is broke up again
Some second guest to entertain,
—For graves have learn'd that woman-head,
To be to more than one a bed—
And he that digs it, spies
A bracelet of bright hair about the bone,
Will he not let us alone,
And think that there a loving couple lies,
Who thought that this device might be some way
To make their souls at the last busy day
Meet at this grave, and make a little stay?
If this fall in a time, or land,
Where mass-devotion doth command,
Then he that digs us up will bring
Us to the bishop or the king,
To make us relics ; then
Thou shalt be a Mary Magdalen, and I
A something else thereby ;
All women shall adore us, and some men.
And, since at such time miracles are sought,
I would have that age by this paper taught
What miracles we harmless lovers wrought.

First we loved well and faithfully,
Yet knew not what we loved, nor why ;
Difference of sex we never knew,
No more than guardian angels do ;
Coming and going we
Perchance might kiss, but not between those meals ;
Our hands ne'er touch'd the seals,
Which nature, injured by late law, sets free.
These miracles we did ; but now alas !
All measure, and all language, I should pass,
Should I tell what a miracle she was.

On Guilt Trips for Neglect:

2010-04-05T00:03:00.003-06:00

I always was a weird little kid. I had a rather overactive imagination. Think Anne Shirley--no really, I used to name different trees and walks that I especially liked and dream of a more "romantic" life. Le sigh.

Anyway, in this rather overactive imagination o' mine, I imagined that nonliving things had feelings and imaginations, in the same way that I did. Obviously, my dear stuffed animals Fluffy Kitty and Best Teddy felt and thought and dreamed like me, or else what would be the point of confiding in them or showing them all my secret hideaways as I did? Of course, I didn't confide in people who weren't important. And judging on the number of my five-year-old secrets that Best Teddy and Fluffy Kitty knew, they were the most important people in the universe.

Because I cared so much about what various nonliving toys, objects, and abstract ideas thought of me, I always especially tried to treat all of them equally and fairly. If I played a lot with one particular stuffed animal on Monday, I'd play with a different one on Tuesday, cycling through all of them before I played with Monday's child again. I wanted to be a very, very good and fair mother to all of my little charges, and this desire to be fair and equal with my attention-giving crossed into my treatment of everything in my life. If I couldn't give equal attention to all things that I felt were important, I was obviously doing something wrong or bad or cruel. Obviously.

I don't feel that way anymore. I've learned that sometimes, you just can't get to everything. And sometimes, certain things get neglected.

In the case of the past few weeks, it's been my blog. I'll try to do better at playing with my stuffed animals more fairly. But sometimes, certain ones just get neglected.

Sorry, Best Teddy. Sorry, Blog.

The other day...

2010-03-17T10:32:00.001-06:00

via

...I walked up the stairs to the Maeser building. And, well, I may have been wearing four-inch-gray-suede-heeled-ankle-boots. And I may have been walking very quickly. And it may have been snowing. Maybe.

And you know, when it snows, and you have a heavy bag full of STUFF slung over one shoulder, and you're stressed to the max about being late and you're not really watching where you're stepping and you glance over your shoulder to see what-is-that-bright-yellow-thing-on-that-tree-over-there? and you may seem just a little bit ADD because you're looking around at everything else instead of where you're walking and all the while your four-inch heels are clackclackclackclacking down the sidewalk toward the stairs and you're STILL looking around at everything except your path and you decide to take the slippery, snowy, ancient, bumpy stairs in front of the Maeser building TWO at a time because you deceive yourself into thinking you'll get inside faster and be less late than you thought you would and then you L E A P . . .

Well, when you do that...

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this may happen...

After which, of course you immediately pick yourself up, grab the heavy bag full of stuff, sling it over your shoulder again, and scramble up the rest of the stairs, pretending like absolutely nothing happened.

Obviously.

Not that I am speaking from experience. This is purely hypothetical.

mmm...

There is just no way to regain the dignity lost from falling down the stairs. There is no graceful way to recover from that.

That's what I've heard from OTHER people who have lost said dignity, of course. I've never done this myself, of course. Of course.

The forsythias are almost blooming or, Notes to Self:

2010-03-15T17:11:00.003-06:00

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1. Roommates are not meant for surgery. Try to keep them in good enough health that they can stay out of the Emergency Room.

2. Papers are all well and good, but doing them the day they're due is not a practice I generally endorse. And today I remembered why.

3. Hats work wonders for messy hair. (Siblings--hats are good for Jesse Bear?) :)

4. Jason Mraz, Carla Bruni, and Corrine Bailey Rae are excellent musics to listen to when you're feeling springtimeish.

5. Task completion is the absolute best stress reliever ever. That could be because very few things stress me out that are not obscenely long lists of tasks to complete...

6. Happiness is a choice.

7. Whatever It is, It is probably not as big a deal as you think.

8. Lovely weather makes all the difference.

I'm excited for a lot of things today. :)

"Happiness is excitement that has found a settling down place. But there is always a little corner that keeps flapping around." ~E.L. Konigsburg

Happy Holidays

2010-03-03T12:03:00.000-07:00

http://blog.holidays.net/index.php/2010/03/03/march-03-today-were-celebrating-what-if-cats-and-dogs-had-opposable-thumbs-day/

Apparently, today is "What if Cats and Dogs had Opposable Thumbs" Day. Who knew? All I can say is, I'm glad they don't.

What do you guys think of crazy weird "holidays" like these?

One of THOSE days.

2010-03-01T20:22:00.002-07:00

(found here.)

Dear Stuffy Nose,

I respectfully request that you abstain from hindering my intellectual and physical progress any longer. You have already overstayed your contract (which I NEVER signed, by the way), and I insist that you allow me to attend to other more pressing matters in my life. I think this struggle has gone on quite long enough. Think of this as an order of eviction.

Cordially,
Your landlord(ette)

Dear Theraflu,

Please work? I know that Stuffy Nose is an inexorable guest, but please do your best to get rid of him.

Encouragingly,
Lisa's head (aka, the annoyed neighbor upstairs)

Dear Pile of Papers on my Desk,

I apologize for not giving you the attention I promised you a week ago. I really do plan to get to sorting you all out and assigning you your proper places. Stuffy Nose and Paper to Write have been more tenacious guests than I'd originally planned on. Meanwhile, if you felt like getting started on putting yourselves away, that would be fine with me.

Sincerely,
A Disorganized Student

Dear Robert Shaw and Samuel Barber,

Thank you for beautiful choral music that heals the soul. You still do more good than you know.

Gratefully,
That Tired One

Dear Dr. Siegfried's Midterm,

Even though you are disgustingly intimidating and a frightening monster to behold, and even though my research group does not wish to study together, and even though I am extremely fearful to attempt accomplishing you, I intend to rock your world. So just quit trying to scare me, because it's already worked, and now I'm going to throw my fear to the winds. Or something.

Unabashedly yours,
A Resolved Student That's Quivering in Her Sneakers

Dear Will,

I never do this. But...Come home? I miss you terribly.

Yours,
Lisa

I have a testimony of nerdiness.

2010-02-18T18:45:00.008-07:00

I have spent most of my time lately doing this:

(found here.)

I would love to be as classy as that lady when I study. But I sit here in the library...with unkempt hair, a floral hat paired with a striped shirt, and pants that are unfortunately short on me when I sit down, revealing my blindingly white, bony ankles. Sigh. It seems I missed an appointment with the fashion deities this morning.

Perhaps because of my extraordinary ability to be un-put-together, I've noticed lately my extraordinary affinity for all things generally classified as nerdy. I don't believe that nerdiness is a negative thing, however. I certainly hope it isn't anyway, because lately, I've developed a powerful testimony of my own nerdiness.

*Exemplary examples:

-In my Writing Fellows class today, I was asked to show the class how to use JSTOR database, because I use it for every paper that I write. I got really excited about showing them the wonders of JSTOR's bounties...and I also got blank stares from most everyone in the class. Oh well.

-I like to use weird words like "scintillating" in casual conversation, even though I don't always know what they mean. I'm generally talking about English-y things when I use these words, but still. (I do actually know what scintillating means though. I looked it up. Go on. Look it up yourself. It'll be scintillating, I guarantee you.)

-I ecstatically read the title of a scholarly article out loud to my roommate last night...before I realized she was staring at me with raised eyebrows and starting to laugh.

-I go to academic conferences and lectures for fun. Why do I do this?!? It's just like more class! (And the one today about Milton's treatment of temples and sacred spaces was awesome. Even though John S. Tanner is lots smarter than I am and I didn't understand nearly everything he said.)

However, despite my nerdiness, I feel like I am so behind and stupid in most of my classes. Everyone else always has better ideas. But I love their ideas, and I love finding out all these cool things from everybody else, so I'm just the nerdy class slowpoke, trying to keep up with everyone else. Hopefully I'll have things more figured out by the time I have to graduate. It kind of goes back to something the speaker at a stake RS meeting last night talked about--we have these crazy difficult weaknesses, but we want so badly for them to become strengths that we just keep attacking them, no matter how weak we feel when we do it. I want so much to learn and know all these cool things that I hear about in my classes that I just keep clinging on to the hot-air-balloon of smartness by my fingertips and try to stay on. Even though I'm closer to falling off than actually being the basket, I still want to go along for the ride and see wider vistas.

Sigh. Is it normal to love your major this much?

P.S. This is a more accurate depiction of me most of the time, I think. Minus the glamor. :)

(found here.)

P.P.S. I really am a relatively normal person who likes fluffy chick flicks, stupid YouTube videos, and playing Rockband on occasion.

The. Best.

2010-02-15T09:27:00.009-07:00

(via http://maryelizabethinspire.tumblr.com/page/7 on vi.sualize.us.)

By the way, I was going to post this along with yesterday's post. But I forgot. This is, in my opinion, the most understatedly beautiful love poem that I can think of. In addition to what it says outright, talk to me about gold and concentric circles, and it adds a whole new meaning to the last couple stanzas. It's a little tricky to understand the first time through, but I promise you, that if you haven't read it before, it is totally worth reading it a couple of times--the more you read it, the more beautiful it becomes.

A VALEDICTION FORBIDDING MOURNING.
by John Donne
AS virtuous men pass mildly away,
    And whisper to their souls to go,
Whilst some of their sad friends do say,
    "Now his breath goes," and some say, "No."

So let us melt, and make no noise,                                       5
    No tear-floods, nor sigh-tempests move ;
'Twere profanation of our joys
    To tell the laity our love.

Moving of th' earth brings harms and fears ;
    Men reckon what it did, and meant ;                              10
But trepidation of the spheres,
    Though greater far, is innocent.

Dull sublunary lovers' love
    —Whose soul is sense—cannot admit
Of absence, 'cause it doth remove                                     15
    The thing which elemented it.

But we by a love so much refined,
    That ourselves know not what it is,
Inter-assurèd of the mind,
    Care less, eyes, lips and hands to miss.                           20

Our two souls therefore, which are one,
    Though I must go, endure not yet
A breach, but an expansion,
    Like gold to aery thinness beat.

If they be two, they are two so                                          25
    As stiff twin compasses are two ;
Thy soul, the fix'd foot, makes no show
    To move, but doth, if th' other do.

And though it in the centre sit,
    Yet, when the other far doth roam,                                30
It leans, and hearkens after it,
    And grows erect, as that comes home.

Such wilt thou be to me, who must,
    Like th' other foot, obliquely run ;
Thy firmness makes my circle just,                                    35
    And makes me end where I begun.

(via http://www.stumbleupon.com/refer.php?url=http://todaysp....83.jpg on

vi.sualize.us.)

In honor of the day...

2010-02-14T21:54:00.002-07:00

I went to the house of one of my best friends from high school tonight to hang out and catch up with several people I haven’t seen in a while—mostly with the friend whose house it was, as he just got back from a mission a short while ago. It was really great to see everyone, but I left with a funny feeling in the pit of my stomach.

As I drove home, I was thinking of high school and was reminded me of some negative memories from then that I haven’t thought about in a long time. Don’t get me wrong—my high school years were really quite easy, compared to many. I didn’t get involved in he-saids and she-saids, so they were pretty drama-free on the emotional/friendship end of things. But I guess the feeling that came back to me as I drove home tonight was remembering all those times that I didn’t live up to my real self or what I knew I could be because I felt insecure and vulnerable. I remembered what it felt like to be a teenager, driving home from a party, replaying something I said in passing over and over again because I was afraid others would misunderstand and think I was been critical or rude or stuck up. I remembered being afraid to talk to certain girls because I wasn’t sure if they liked me. I remember the general feeling of being a teenager that I didn’t know was there until it left later—a feeling as though I was on trial, and that if I did or said the wrong thing at the wrong time, that would count against me in my final sentence.

I haven’t thought about the emotional insecurities of being a teenager in a long time. (Which is good, I think.) I’m definitely past most of those feelings now, even though I really wasn’t in high school that long ago.

But why am I past that? I think that answer is the whole reason for today’s holiday: love. I went away to college, and I remember consciously deciding to love whatever I liked and to love myself, no matter what other people thought. I remember being tired of letting other people influence my emotional health, like I did in high school, and though it took some doing (old habits die hard), I feel like I’ve finally learned to love all of myself, insecurities and stupidity included, in a way that I didn’t know was possible as a teenager. More importantly, I surrounded myself with loving people, who accepted me unconditionally. It’s not that no one I knew in high school was truly loving—all the people I was with tonight were certainly like that, plus many others. I think it was more that I wasn’t ready then to learn the things I did in college through others’ love. Because the people I associate with now loved me like that, they unknowingly granted me the freedom to change who I was and to become who I wanted to be. I didn’t have to fill any particular role for them; I didn’t have to act a certain way. The love of these beautiful people even freed me from the inhibitions and expectations I’d placed on myself. And thanks to their love and confidence in me, I gained that myself.

And that’s how God loves. God places people in our lives that will love us in ways we can’t love ourselves. Thanks to them, and even more, to Him, we love more deeply and fully than we ever could on our own. Our relationships and interactions with everyone we meet have the potential to become mini “love stories.” And these love stories can happen every day, no matter where we are, no matter our romantic relationship status, all depending on the kind of love we choose to radiate.

And as much as the romantic in me wants a “happily ever after,” these God-given, pure love-inspired love stories are the ones I want my whole life to become.

...and these are some of those people that I was talking about. I love them.

2010-02-10T21:46:00.001-07:00

(photo from http://kari-shma.tumblr.com/post/84670863/quote-book-via-ventisette, via vi.sualize.us)

This is how I've felt the past week or so. I cannot wait for the first block of this semester to be over on Feb. 24th. I've been treading water, barely keeping my nose above for breath, and I'm getting tired.

A real post will come soon, I hope. It's been crazy enough that I just haven't been able to think about for-real writing. Oh boy.

For Jen...

2010-02-04T17:02:00.001-07:00

...not to mention the fact that I am super, super stoked for the Charity Ball this year too. It's on March 26, 2010, everybody. Mark it on your calendars, and everyone come. It's going to rock. It always does.

More information forthcoming.

(P.S. Michele, I totally get brownie points for plugging it like this.)

Last year's Charity Ball, March 27, 2009

macmacmacmacmacmacmac, part 2

2010-02-02T13:05:00.000-07:00

I did it.

It'll be here by Feb. 8th at the latest.

Cue angels singing.

macmacmacmacmacmacmac

2010-02-01T14:41:00.000-07:00

When I was in London, my computer died a very dead death. And I was sad, but not too much because I got a lot of really good usage out of it and it had served me very well and I was planning on not needing a computer too much after this coming semester. Not to mention the fact that my cousin had an extra laptop that he wasn't using and that he said I could use for this semester. And although this laptop is pretty old (6 years--which is old as far as laptops go), I figured it would be fine.

As it turns out, this laptop doesn't get wireless, doesn't have an authentic version of Windows on it, doesn't play CDs or DVDs, and has a lot of software that isn't even compatible with most other softwares and program functionings and such. The trouble is, I don't know how to fix these problems, and I don't even know if many of them are fixable. I'm sure they are, but I also don't know how much they would cost and I don't know if they would be worth fixing for the cost.

And I just recently had a large expense removed from my life that I thought would be in my life. (That makes it sound like a tumor. That's probably pretty apt. I think many expenses feel like tumors. Or they at least serve the same purpose.) But since this expense-tumor is gone, I have more money than I thought I did...

So this is what I've been dreaming of...

http://www.apple.com/macbook/

Wouldn't it be nice if we could guarantee that dreams come true?

This is how I feel today...

2010-01-30T13:03:00.000-07:00

Feel, not tell.

2010-01-27T22:22:00.009-07:00

One of my best friends recently read a book by Mitch Albom (it was one of his obscure ones, I don't remember which), and expressed to me his slight disappointment with it. To be entirely honest, I’m not a huge fan of Mitch Albom either. I’ve tried to read Tuesdays with Morrie a number of times, but I just can never manage to finish it. (Granted, that is the only Mitch Albom book I've ever tried, so that is probably a slightly unjust statement.) It feels overly sentimental to me, I guess. Don’t get me wrong—I love sentiment and emotion—but over-the-top sentimentality and warm-fuzziness are two things that make me uncomfortable and that I would generally rather do without. Maybe I just need to try it again or read something else by Mitch Albom.

I just reread that paragraph, and I realized that it makes me sound like a cold, heartless old bat without any imagination or love in her heart. Trust me, I’m not. Let me explain. These are some things that I’ve been learning about myself in the past seven or eight months. I’m discovering in recent months that emotion and feelings are things that are very private and very special to me, so I don’t like to talk about/flaunt them in a showy or especially verbose way. (Besides, I’m verbose enough in other areas to more than make up for my lack of discussion on the very confusing subject of emotion.) I wasn’t always like this—I used to be very dramatic and emotional almost all the time (i.e., when I was about age 14-15 and earlier--just ask my sister and brothers), but then I decided I didn’t want to be like that anymore. So now, I generally keep my deepest emotions hidden, except from those people concerned with said deep emotions. I think that since I’ve learned how to save my display of that kind of feeling for occasions and situations that truly merit it, I’ve learned how to increase my capacity for love and how to feel even more deeply than before. For me, it’s a kind of “don’t cast your pearls before swine” kind of thing—by talking too much about very special, sacred emotions and experiences, it feels like I profane them with the inadequacy of my mortal language. Often, it seems to me that the simplest, most straightforward of language best describes what I’m actually feeling. Rather than attempting to eloquently describe how I feel about the gospel, the Savior, or someone I love very deeply, it seems to make so much more sense to me to just say it in the simplest way possible, and not try to use imperfect words to describe something so large and abstract as human emotion.

I sound like a modernist. Modernism in all art, literature especially, emphasizes man’s inability to use words or art to describe human experience. They called it “the crisis of meaning”—believing that there is so much meaning in human life, experience, and emotion that man’s flawed usage of words and creative art can’t accurately describe it at all. So why try? Well, the modernists replied, trying, even in the simplest of terms, is better than not trying to express that meaning at all. So there you have it. Maybe all of this is the reason that I like songs like “I Feel My Savior’s Love” and “My Heavenly Father Loves Me” so much more than songs like “O Divine Redeemer.” Hm. Anyway, that was a really long and convoluted and abstract way of saying that I don't like some art forms that seem to try too hard to depict emotion—so much that they feel a little bit overdone and “pearls before swine”-ish to me. And maybe a little emotionally manipulative too? I’m not sure about that one. I’d have to take that one case by case, probably, before I cast that aspersion on them all.

Um, I feel a little bit emotionally exposed now, just by explaining all that. I hope it didn’t come out (my fingers, that is) wrong. Because so often, I feel like Moroni—that “when [I] write, I behold [my] weakness and stumble because of the placing of [my] words” (Ether 12:25). Granted, I don’t “fear lest the Gentiles [or you, for that matter] shall mock at [my] words” or anything, but I do often feel my great inadequacies in writing, and that I’m not able to clearly say what I’m trying to. I’m trying to explain things in just the right way so that perhaps through all those words, something came through that actually got at what I meant. Other times, I use a few words as possible with as much meaning packed into each one as I can get, and hopefully it’ll show through at some point.

As I’ve thought more about this idea of keeping emotional displays entirely honest and sacred when necessary, I’ve tried to learn more about how to do like the Savior did. He hid great, precious truths in parables, and then those who were ready for them could accept them, and those who weren’t didn’t even know the difference. I think poetry serves a very similar function. So I’ve been trying my hand at writing poetry on occasion. I’m really, really not very good, but I’m learning just how intentional I can be with my words, how to save them and make every one of them really mean something, and thus, to not be wasteful with my words. I guess in terms of modernist writers, my prose is like Faulkner (verbose and wordy), and my poetry is more in the style of Hemingway (succinct and using very few words to say a lot). But since I’m still trying to figure out the Hemingway side of things, I’m even more insecure about my poetry than my prose. Sigh. Maybe one day I’ll figure it out.

It goes back to honesty, I guess. I just want to be so, so honest. And I guess situations specifically designed to create excessive or contrived emotion just make me a little wary. The fortunate difference is that everyone has different sensitivities to emotionally manipulative situations, and we're all different enough to have unique tolerance levels for that kind of thing. Thank goodness.

Thoughts?

Wordless

2010-01-25T17:10:00.002-07:00

(from vi.sualize.us)

I think I write the least when I'm feeling the most. Interesting, because isn't writing supposed to be this cathartic release of all one's emotions? Isn't it by very nature supposed to be a beautiful and liberating process through which I explicate all the complicated, convoluted workings of my inner soul?

Ha.

But it's not. And I think most people who "like" to write will agree--writing can be wonderfully cathartic, but most of the time, it's not. Most of the time it's just hard work, and the end result is never quite as good as it sounded when you were talking about it with one of your dearest friends for three hours last night. So you feel silly and frustrated, and you delete what you've written and try again to explain it. But you keep on keepin' on, mostly just because you know that sometimes, sometimes you feel like you actually did say what you meant, even if no one actually reads that writing where you said what you meant. And the words worked for once. And that, my friends, is where the liberating beauty comes in. That's when writing serves as purgative source of peace, cleansing out your soul and restoring whatever it was missing in the first place. Or the second place. Or what it never really had and didn't know it needed until now, when your previous misconceptions are gloriously cast aside.

Or, you just write and write whatever thoughts are in your head and you don't even know what you mean by them. Like this.

I made a decision on Saturday that galactically changed my microscopic universe. I'm pretty insignificant, but it was big for me. And this post was originally me trying to write about it, but apparently I can't do that yet, except in exceedingly abstract terms.

I guess I just need more time.

Give a listen...

2010-01-11T21:04:00.001-07:00

I rediscovered this song again the other day. And I was re-enchanted all over again...and for those of you who don't know it, SHAME!

It makes me want to dance cheek to cheek with a really handsome man. Which probably won't be happening any time soon, but it's fun to imagine.

Thank you, Etta James.

Book suggestions?

2010-01-08T11:44:00.002-07:00

For my secondary ed class, I have to do a project where I do fifteen bazillion lesson plans on a specific novel. (Okay, take off the bazillion, and you'd have it right, but it seems like a lot.) And I can't decide on which book to do. It has to be a book that is commonly taught or could easily be taught in high school or junior high, but I'd prefer it not to be too terribly long (as I have to read it twice in the next month) and something that I've not read several times before (having read it once is okay by me). Both classics and young adult lit are acceptable. So, with that....

Any good recommendations?

Provo, oh, Provo.

2010-01-05T13:01:00.001-07:00

Like so many other people posting these days, I'm feeling like a back to school post is in order. Yesterday I thought that my semester wasn't going to turn out to be as hard as I thought it would be. It sure seemed like that yesterday. But upon revisiting at my new and improved schedule, (with English 363 dropped--sad, and Women's Chorus and my Writing Fellows classes added--happy) I realized that there is a seriously large chance that I Will Be Taking Eighteen Credits This Semester. Yikes. And not just eighteen normal credits, ladies and gentlemen. But the eighteen-much-more-work-and-class-time-than-the-actual-amount-of-credits-you-get kind of credits. Plus my job. Yet, I'm strangely not freaked out about it.

The 18th credit of these fell into my lap (figuratively speaking--college credits, unfortunately, do not fall from the sky) last night, when my dear friend Jordan came over, and offered to take a dance class with me, since I ended up having to drop the one I'd signed up for. The trick is, Jordan wants to take Social Dance 280, for which the pre-requisite is Dance 180....which Lisa has not taken. Hm. However, my brother, Will, and several other gentlemanly gentlemen have taught me most of the basics to the dances in the class, along with several other steps only taught in 280, and I've learned dancing in other places...so hopefully that will work out. Technically, I don't even know if they'll let me add it. Hopefully since a boy is coming with me, they will. And hopefully they don't ask if I've taken the pre-req. Or maybe I'll just audit it. We'll see.

On a slightly different note, here are some ponders I have been pondering lately:

I wonder how many times I have been on Facebook on campus when the person whose Facebook profile I was perusing has walked past right behind me. Or worse, I wonder how many times people have been Facebook stalking friends of friends/people they don't know and the not-known person walks by and sees that someone they don't know is creeping their profile. That would be really...disconcerting, I think.

When writing a sentence with parentheses in it that needs a comma on the clause before the parentheses, does the comma go right before the parentheses or after the parentheses, just outside them? I've seen it the second way a number of times (like this is), but I think that's kind of weird looking. Thoughts? (Note: I am an English major, so yes, I do wonder about grammatical placement of commas on occasion.)

For those of you who have taken Dance 280, how hard is it? Is it extremely unadviseable for me to take it without having taken 180, even if I've taken a different 100-level dance class and have done quite a bit of dancing informally with several different friends?

Why is my hair decently curly still, even though I'm back from London and no longer in a humid climate?

Fairly often, I will be looking at someone or something or somewhere that I love very much and have a lot of really good associations with, and I'll feel like kind of surge of feeling for whomever/whatever/wherever I'm looking at. The best way I can think to describe it is that it's this kind of bubbling over of love, just bursting out of me and soaking the other person, thing, or place in love. I'm just really happy lately, I guess, and I'm feeling a lot of love. :) Does everyone get that, or am I just weird?

And, the age-old question...

What should I make for dinner this week?

Oh Provo. I've missed you the past six months. :)

P.S.

2009-12-15T16:29:00.002-07:00

How do you embed videos in a blog post? Many of you friends of mine often do that, and I want to know how to do it too. Help?

Absence makes the heart grow fonder

2009-12-15T15:25:00.000-07:00

I've had a lot of absence and un-absencing in my life lately. I was absent from this blog for so long because about two days after my last post, my computer decided to be absent (figuratively--I still have it) from my life and hasn't been working. Which was a big barrel of fun during finals and the end of the semester, but I learned how not to be as dependent on my computer, so it was good. It's still not working, but I came home. So computers are no longer absent from my life. Therefore, I can blog again.

I was absent from the U.S. for four months. (Almost four, anyway.) And I'm not absent anymore. I am returned and accounted for, with all my limbs intact, even. And I love England. But I'm still glad to be back. It's nice to realize how much I really do love my home as well.

Oscar my camera was absent too, but because I flew through Dublin, I got him and all his pictures back. I'm so, so happy about that too.

I've been absent from a lot of people's lives lately too--people that I really care about. And now I'm trying to fix that absence and make myself present again. Some of that was because I was across the world, but some of it is just my own silly fault. But I'll just try again.

I'm glad that finals and tests and papers are now absent--for a few weeks anyway.

I learned that I actually really like the traveling process. People traveling are absent from things and people that they know and love. They're absent from the real world. And that absence causes some upheaval and insecurity and a desire to feel grounded somehow. So a lot of times, travelers are willing to open up and reach out to their fellow real-world-absentees in the absence of the familiarity they know. All you have to do is show an interest in the life your fellow travelers are absent from, and you make new friends. I made ten new friends on my trip back to the U.S. just because we were all absent together. And I learned a lot about all those people, from the little two-year-old Irish girl making faces at me all the way across the Atlantic to the Bostonian man on my flight to Salt Lake, who just wanted to talk non-stop about how much he missed his wife and three kids.

Though traveling made me absent, I think I was more present with other people than I have been in a long time.

It's so good to be home.

"Paris is always a good idea."

2009-11-28T14:59:00.002-07:00

For those of you who don't know, the title of this is from the movie Sabrina. About a week and a half ago, our study abroad program went to Paris for a few days. I thought that pictures could describe my experiences there better than I could, so this post will mostly just be pictures. Also, since a picture is worth a thousand words, the pictures here should save me some time and talking...and then maybe I can go spend those thousands of words on the final Shakespeare paper that I'm in the middle of right now. :) The above picture is just behind the Louvre, in the garden behind it called the Tuileries.

I thought this couple embracing behind a girder on the Eiffel Tower at sunset was entirely romantic and rather quintessentially Paris. So I didn't bother cropping them out of the frame when they showed up in my picture. :)

This picture is for Will. They had flags and such from countries around the world inside the top of the Eiffel Tower.
This is at Versailles, where I found out that Louis XIV really knows how to build a palace.Notre Dame is even more awe-inspiring and beautiful and cooler than everyone says it is. Make sure you go there before you die.

This is Emma, my friend currently in Paris on study abroad whom I met up with. She is beautiful. The gargoyle isn't Emma though. We'll call him Pierre.

Someone else's honesty changed my life.

2009-11-19T18:27:00.002-07:00

Isn't that funny how that works? I realize that this title sounds a bit melodramatic, which I usually try very hard not to be. But, I'm writing this very late at night, and to be entirely truthful, the title is very accurate for how I feel both now and when it is perfectly sunny outside and I am thinking exactly clearly. I was reading a recent blog post by my beautiful friend Michele, when I realized that I've had a similar experience lately that I hadn't quite processed yet.

At the end of October, I had the incredible opportunity to go to Ireland and Scotland. Right before we boarded the plane from Dublin to Edinburgh, I put my camera in my coat pocket, since we were kind of in a hurry. The plane was over an hour and a half late, and even if it had been on time, we wouldn't have arrived until after midnight. Before we boarded, I'd had a number of my things out next to me in the waiting area. I gathered them all up, but because my backpack was very full and because we were in a hurry and because I get sometimes get nervous when I'm tired and don't know exactly how things will work out, in a moment of foolishness, I put my camera in my coat pocket. Both my coat pockets have very large holes in them, which I didn't know then. Sure enough, I put my camera in it, and it fell out of my pocket as I gathered my things and waddled and bustled up and down the sixty-something stairs and steps to get up, down, and up again into the plane. I didn't use the camera for the rest of the night, and by the time I woke up the next morning in Edinburgh, it was long gone.

Now, this would have been terribly heartbreaking no matter what, but it was especially so then, because I had over 400 pictures on it, full of beautiful memories from Stonehenge, Stourhead, Bath, and our two days in Ireland. I'd been looking forward to visiting and taking picture of Stourhead since I was eleven years old. I had been searching for pictures of gardens on our speedy dial-up internet, and I stumbled across one of Stourhead. I fell in love, and when I was there a few days before going to Ireland, I managed to get some truly breathtaking shots--none of which were anywhere in my possession...except on the memory card inside my lost camera.

Well, I frantically called the airline and the airport, filed two or three lost property forms in several different places, and waited to hear back from any of my sources. But as the days went by, I eventually gave up on Oscar, my red Nikon Coolpix camera. Allie and Sicong, two other girls in my program, are amateur photographers with two cameras they like to use. And both generously offered to let me borrow their spare cameras for the rest of my time here. So kind.

Then, about a week and a half ago (maybe two weeks?), I received an email from the Dublin Airport, saying that a match for my lost property had possibly been found, and would I please call them to verify it? I did. And after much difficulty interpreting Sharon's (the nice lady on the phone) rather thick Irish brogue through Skype's less-than-ideal phone connection, we determined that it is indeed my dear Oscar. And the best part of all is that I don't even have to pay the 60 or 70 pounds to have them ship it to me. I have a layover in Dublin when I go home in three weeks, and they said they'd be happy to hold it for me until I fly through and I can retrieve it in person. After I got off the phone, every person that I told the story to was shocked and amazed that it had actually been found. How sad, that our world has become like that. And yet, how wonderful, that it isn't all bad.

I don't know who that person was that picked up my camera in the Dublin Airport. I don't know why they turned it in, when it would have been so easy to just keep it themselves. But, they didn't. Or rather, they did. Turn it in, I mean. I'm so grateful. It's a very, very nice camera, as I discovered last summer, when I started experimenting with other cameras. They don't even know how happy they've made me, because having Oscar back means that I can keep all those pictures--all those memories from places I've dreamed of visiting nearly my whole life.

Thank you, nice person at the Dublin Airport. Thank you for giving me Stonehenge and Stourhead and Bath and Ireland back. Thank you for being honest.

P.S. Paris update and beautiful friend stories to come.

Token: I'm thankful for...

2009-11-12T10:07:00.000-07:00

When I clicked on the "Blogger: Dashboard" link on my Favorites tab a few minutes ago, I had no intention of posting right now. But then I started scrolling through the short overviews of the many blogs I follow, and I noticed that almost every single one of these nice people I'm friends with have been listing things they're thankful for. And I thought, "My goodness! I am so thankful for these nice people who help me want to be nicer too." They all set the good example to be thankful for things, and I just thought, I'm thankful for them too. And I wanted to tell somebody about it. I've had a lot of people be especially nice to me lately, and I think they deserve some credit. Even if they never actually read this post, because to be honest, I'm not entirely sure who actually does read these.

So...

I'm thankful for the nice people whose blogs I follow who talked about things they're thankful for and made me want to to that too. (Rachel, Tracy, Michele, Julie, Natalie, and all the others too.)

I'm thankful for my nice roommate Julene who took notes for me in class today because I was too sick to go and checked on me later to make sure I was doing okay.

I'm thankful for my nice roommate Nicole who checked on me three times to see if I was doing okay and went to Tuk Tuk to bring me back some delicious Thai food so I wouldn't go hungry.

I'm thankful for my nice mother who actually considered sending me medicine overnight even though it would cost a ridiculous amount of money (I told her not to--I can get medicine here). :)

I'm thankful for my nice friend Mary-Celeste who made me some cranberry-vanilla-orange tea (or something delicious like that) this morning even though it was going to make her a little bit late for class.

With friends like these, being sick is not bad at all. What nice people I have. I felt a bit like this woman, grateful and calm, serenely sipping my tea.

Revived again.

2009-11-10T17:14:00.000-07:00

I haven't posted in a while. At first, it was because our internet stopped working. And then it was because I was in Ireland and Scotland for a week. And then it was because I got back and things started happening and I realized that I was learning a lot and thinking a lot and needing to figure a lot of things out.

And when I need to figure things out, my response typically isn't to broadcast it to the blogging world. And I didn't know how to write about and process the things that needed figuring in a way that would make it bloggable...so I stuck to my journal instead. So, forgive my excessively lengthy absence, and know that I'm trying again. Disclaimer though: the internet on my computer still doesn't work, so I can only blog when I can access other computers in peace and quiet...so there may still be lengthy gaps on occasion. :)

Now, as for what I’ve done this month, there are enough things that I think I’ll just write a list, because there are too many.

1.       Went to Stonehenge! And it rocked. :)
2.       Visited Stourhead gardens—one of the most famous and most beautiful gardens in the world.
3.       Went to Bath, home of many Jane Austen characters, and bought a Jane Austen book (Emma) in honor of it.
4.       Visited the War Cabinet Rooms and the Churchill Museum—all about WWII in London, and really moving.
5.       Went to Ireland and had an Irish man in a pub dedicate a song to me! (It’s a good story.)
6.       Unintentionally slept all night long under a huge underwear poster on the tile in the London Stansted Airport in order to fly to Dublin the next morning. We didn’t see the rather sensuous ad above us till we woke up. Oops. Oh well.
7.       Lost my camera on the way to Edinburgh, Scotland. (So sad.) But have just found out that the Dublin Airport has it! Unfortunately, over 400 pictures are on it, but at least it is found. :)

8.       Went to Scotland and hiked Arthur’s Seat, where Orson Pratt dedicated Scotland for the preaching of the gospel. It’s also (I think) where Eric Liddell and his sister talk about serving God on top of that mountain in Chariots of Fire. It was awesome, because a lot of my family comes from Scotland. I loved Scotland.
9.       Went to Cardiff, Wales, and Herefordshire, where a lot of my other ancestors came from.
10.   Went to a Muslim mosque for the first time, which was SO cool. Learned a lot about their faith, which I loved. They’re really similar to Mormons, in even more ways than I thought.

11.   Went to the premiere of Disney’s The Christmas Carol two days ago, and stood three feet from Jim Carrey. It really wasn’t all that great, but it was fun to see what a movie premiere is like, I guess. Unfortunately, I left before Colin Firth got there, but my friend got his autograph.
12.   Also went to Les Miserablés, a concert with Royal Scottish National Orchestra, and a play in a dark, dank, rather sketchy little pub. Think, The Hog’s Head from Harry Potter. It was great.

Anywho, I'll post again soon. More thoughts to come--another girl needs this computer, so again, I've got to sign out.

If you don't know what Stourhead is, you should find out real quick.

2009-10-14T17:29:00.000-06:00

When I was twelve or thirteen, I was searching the internet for pictures of beautiful places I wanted to go someday. I stumbled across a picture of a beautiful garden, and I decided that although I had no idea what and where Stourhead Gardens were, I wanted to go there someday.

Today I did. :)

Pictures and more commentary to come.

Night Thames

2009-10-12T02:17:00.005-06:00

The tide is out
and I can see the dryness
of the grimy river bed below.

Murky mashed potato clouds glimmer below
Leftovers from sunset's dazzling feast.
Cozy, delicious darkness swathes me
Oozing like melted chocolate under the bridge where I stand
over that perfect Wren-dome
between buildings and people
glittery lights dotting the cocoa-dark.

Voices gurgle through this chocolate night
Here to sample this feast of the city.

Like me.

And below them all, shadowy water lap-lap-laps
against concrete girders.

I devour this place
With crisp air that smells like Christmas
making my fingers and face shivery.

I get goosebumps
Inhale more Christmas-air
I swallow it whole.
It leaves me weak with wonder
And wanting more.

York and Fountains Abbey

2009-10-10T12:30:00.001-06:00

I haven't blogged in a very long time. However, this is primarily because our internet here has been so spotty that I haven't been able to get onto blogger. So these next few posts will attempt to catch up a bit.

We took a trip to the north of England for a week, and it was everything I'd hoped it would be. Since I first learned what the Lake District was as starry-eyed thirteen-year-old, I've wanted to go there. Isn't it funny how it feels when we start realizing our dreams? That week in the north was a fulfillment of a dream I've had for years, and now that I've accomplished it, I continue on, making and living more dreams.

While we were in the north, two of my favorite stops were Fountains Abbey, and Yorkminster Cathedral. I love going to these old Christian churches—it’s wonderful to see the kinds of things they did to worship back before the church was restored. While we were at Yorkminster, there was a choir there practicing, and after our tour, it was time for the Evensong service. So we went to it. I haven’t been to very many other Christian religious services—mostly just non-Christian ones. Yorkminster Cathedral is the largest cathedral north of the Alps, and it’s quite famous, apparently. I really loved touring it and learning about its history with the choir singing in the background. It made me want to sing again. I don’t get to do much of that here. Just hearing the choir sing transformed the whole experience from "just another church tour" to a kind of spiritual experience.

Fountains Abbey has become one of my favorite places I've ever been. Seeing that magnificent structure at its bare minimum was awe-inspiring, and thought-provoking too. I had lots of deep thoughts. You know, about the transience of humanity, the perpetuation of nature and life in spite of man’s impact on the earth, and our divine natures—our (I think) innate desire to learn of and draw closer to God or whatever people all over the world call Deity. However, they were deep thoughts that can't really be recaptured and constrained to a blog post, so you'll just have to believe me without knowing what the thoughts actually were. :) I was able to write down some of my thoughts, go exploring around the ruins and surrounding gardens, and spend some time with the other girls in the program. All in all, a fabulous day. I plan to go back there the next time I come to England.

Schizophrenia

2009-09-26T17:20:00.000-06:00

I'm experimenting with new blog titles. I don't love the one I had, so I'm trying on new ones for size. It's likely that my blog title will change many times in the next several days. I doubt that I'll want to keep this one, which I thought of because I was singing George Gershwin's "Summertime" in my head after midnight as I was getting ready for bed tonight. We'll see.

A real update coming tomorrow. Cheers!

Loving a half-done Post-it

2009-09-18T17:23:00.008-06:00

I wrote this post on Monday, but the internet hasn't been working very well, so I couldn't get it up. We went to the New Globe Theatre to see Shakespeare's As You Like It, but I just wrote this about the journey over to the theatre. I was so impressed by how beautiful everything was, and I felt a bit like a sponge, soaking in the beauty of the evening and feeling so grateful to be here.

We started off by getting off the tube at the St. Paul’s Tube stop. I love getting off at St. Paul’s, because the station is just behind the cathedral. So, you walk up and around to get out of the station…and BOOM. There is St. Paul’s Cathedral, in all of Christopher Wren’s ingenious glory. No matter how many times I walk by, I can’t help but stop for at least a few seconds and stare up at it. Tonight, it was especially magnificent; we arrived right during sunset, so the clouds created puffy-looking streaks across the sky, in varying shades of violets, blues, and greys. (I’m in Britain. I’m spelling grey like a Brit. “Gray” is American and so much less refined looking, I think.) I cannot walk past St. Paul’s without singing the song, “Feed the Birds,” from Mary Poppins. So, I always inevitably have that song going through my head for the rest of the day or night whenever I walk past that lovely edifice. I love St. Paul’s.

(Picture stolen from my roommate, Caitlin. She's the middle one. Roommate Whitney is the one on the right.)

After walking past St. Paul’s, we had to cross the street and walk over to Millennium Bridge, which is a pedestrian bridge only (I did not know this) and is also in several movies, including a scene in the latest Harry Potter movie where it gets destroyed. On the bridge, I naturally got distracted again and we paused to take many, many pictures of ourselves and other girls in the program, taking full advantage of what Dr. Soper (the Humanities professor) termed “the golden hour” when we were learning about basic principles of landscape photography the other day. It’s that hour just before the sun sets when it casts a golden light over everything and in which everything looks more vibrant and beautiful. I love that kind of light. But I am a little bit vain about why—someone told me once that my red hair looked really lovely in that glowing, golden light of the setting sun…and I was narcissistic enough to believe it. So I love being in that golden light, unfortunately because I’m a silly, vain little girl sometimes. Not to mention it makes everything pretty. Oh well.

The play was excellent, but I guess I was a little wrapped up in the simpler things tonight. I think I tend to forget to pay attention to some of those things as I hustle and scurry around to get to the next thing. It's easy to feel that way in London. It's easy to think of and hear about all the fabulous things there are to do and to realize that you probably won't get to see or do half of them, even though you do try to go out and take advantage of your location at least (and often more) once a day. I'm very much a list-maker--almost nightly for the past couple of years, I have made a to-do list (Generally on Post-it notes. I'm obsessed with them.) for the next day...and the highlight of any week is looking at a completed post-it note list at the end of a day. I list things that have to be done, things that would be nice to get done, and just things I want to indulge in because I'd like to do them. (There are a lot of that last category on my London Post-its.)

But tonight I remembered how beautiful it is to rejoice in the doing of my Post-it items, because though the item on the list was "Go to As You Like It," I think I learned just as much from the journey as I did the play itself and the completion of the task. Reminds me of President Monson's "Finding Joy in the Journey" talk from October 2008 General Conference. It's nice to stop and smell the roses. Even if I don't finish all the things on my daily to-do list, I'm remembering to enjoy the process. If I can learn to "suck the marrow" out of this experience, as Brother and Sister Shuler advised, and truly live in the things that I do accomplish, then I might even learn to revel in my half-done Post-it note.

Because really, by doing less and living more, we don't lose that much after all.

It's been one week since you looked at me...

2009-09-08T14:18:00.008-06:00

...or, in some of your cases, a little longer than that. But, that doesn't fit very well with the BNL song, now does it?

Now, for an update. I'm just going list the things I'm thinking, as connecting them all with enough words to make them flow would just be a longer post than any of you are interested in reading.

1. I flew over the Atlantic all on my own, sitting next to a nice Muslim Bangladeshi man who often visits Chicago (where I was) and lives in Saudi Arabia and has a Mormon colleague from Utah. Random. He was a really nice guy though. This is my first view of London. At 6 a.m. It was beautiful. :)

2. I arrived at number 27 Palace Court last Wednesday at about 9:00 a.m. London time. I met up with 8 other girls in my program at the airport, and we took a shuttle bus to the London Centre. I sat by a very, very cute Scottish boy (with an even cuter accent) and our driver was a wonderfully charming old man who narrated for us the neighborhoods of London as we passed.

3. By Saturday, I had seen Big Ben, Trafalgar Square, Piccadilly Circus, the London Eye (only I'm not going ride it--its 17 pounds! And everything that I would see from it, I can see myself. As Rachel said, it's a rip-off.), the Thames, several houses of state, Kensington Gardens, Hyde Park, all around my neighborhood, and also Westminster Abbey and the Houses of Parliament from a distance. I had also visited the British Museum and the National Gallery and been to Phantom of the Opera. (Phantom was amazing. We had an absolutely excellent cast. Mostly because the Phantom was incredible. I loved him.) :) Woo-hoo!

My roommate Nicole and I in front of the British Museum.
I saw the Elgin Marbles! Gaaahhh!!! :)

4. Sunday, I went to church. I attend the Mitcham ward, in an area of London waaaaay south of the main city (about 1 1/2 hours one way) and there are only 6 or 8 people in the ward who are white. And 4 of them are missionaries. Most of the people are from Ghana, I think. I work in the Primary, and it is going to be so cool! :)

5. Monday, classes started for real. I like them already, and the faculty especially.

6. I am almost done with my English Teaching Application. I'm emailing it to my mom to send in on Thursday, and when I finish, it will be cause for GREAT celebration. It's been kind of an ordeal to get it all done. I worked on it almost all day today, and finally after dinner tonight I took a break and went to Gelato Mio with a couple of my roommates. It was lovely to get out.

It's been fabulous so far. I'm so excited for the rest of this week! But more on that later.... it'll be a surprise.

TODAY.

2009-09-01T10:09:00.001-06:00

This is it. What I've been waiting for since the age of ten.

I'm flying to London today.

And I can't even articulate real words or real thoughts to attempt expression of how I feel.

I'm so excited. Oh boy. :)

:) :) :) :) :)

Drip, drip, drop, little...August showers...

2009-08-28T13:49:00.006-06:00

I'm in Chicago for a few days before I head to London, and it's been rain-ish-cloudy-ish-weather the whole time I've been here. I love the rain. Sun is nice and all, but growing up where I did, we were always very grateful for the rain, since we always needed more of it. I associate it with being calm, pondering, and curling up with a cozy blanket on a couch. During the fall and winter months, rain is my favorite kind of weather. It's a good thing I'm going to England. I'll get lots of rain there. :)

And I love this painting of Chicago in the rain. It's called "Chicago Hancock November Rain," by John Houston.

Waiting

2009-08-24T17:31:00.010-06:00

I am waiting to go to London. It's just about all I can think about. I feel like these people, just waiting, waiting, waiting.

Only, this is what I am waiting for:

I think Andy Warhol is right.

His words are a very fantastical banquet...

2009-08-18T21:43:00.004-06:00

I used to think English wasn’t a very pretty language. I think I began changing my mind last fall when I took my first university-level English class. The more poetry, stories, novels, plays, etc. written in English that I read, I find myself appreciating more and more the beauty of it. However, I think it’s a different kind of beautiful than other languages that we think of. The actual sounds of English may not be, to some ears, as melodious and resonant as Spanish, Greek, or Italian, but to me, its variety of sounds, both discordant and tuneful, makes it that much more beautiful. The variety is beauty.

The more I think and get to know myself, the more I wonder why I ever considered not studying English. I love words. (Obviously. I wouldn’t talk so much if I didn’t.) But really—it used to be that music was the one thing that could always move me to tears, inspire me when nothing else could, or make me want to be better more than anything else. But as I’ve studied literature and the craft of writing this past year, I’ve become more and more aware of my love affair with words. I love to read, write, talk, listen, and participate in all communication that involves words. With the use of words, there is such power and potential to do good and to increase understanding between people. And I guess that’s why I love words so much. They provide so much room and opportunity for expression and insight into other people’s lives, thoughts, and hearts. Not to mention the fact that the possibilities words offer are limitless. Each word has many disparate meanings, and like cooking, when you combine different words together in different ways, each combination creates endless flavors and experiences, no two of which are ever identical. As Benedick says of Claudio in Much Ado About Nothing, in the care of a gifted speaker, "his words are a very fantastical banquet."

Even when two people use the same words, it’s still unique because each person has his or her own voice that preserves itself in their sentence and paragraph structure and diction of other things they speak. I am such an English major—here I am rhapsodizing about the power of words…but it’s true—and it’s something that I have come to absolutely love as I’ve studied more. The funny thing is that I even see it in the Book of Mormon—Jacob is one of my favorite prophets as far as writing style goes. I think he is so eloquent and expresses the truths of Christ's grace and unconditional love through His sacrifice for us so beautifully (see Jacob 4). Alma and Mormon are pretty good too.

I think the capacity for communication and understanding between people when words are used well is the best part. When I'm reading a work that moves me, it's because the author has communicated something to me through his or her words that resonates with my soul. I come to a deeper appreciation and understanding for the ideas conveyed via his or her powerful words. That is why we read. That is why we write. To help each other understand experiences, thoughts, ideas, and ways of life. And that's why I study English. I want to understand.

And then when a work of literature does that for me, I feel kind of like like this girl. The words just kind of jump right off the page and enfold me in a great big word-a-licious hug. Yum. :)

(photo courtesy of: http://media.photobucket.com/image/art%20words/jim131314/words-1.jpg)

Toes

2009-08-17T22:33:00.005-06:00

These are my toes.

I have painted my toes dozens of times in my young life. Yet I have never painted them red. Bright orange, glittery green, electric blue with sparkles, yes. But never bright red. I am a redhead. Someone told me once when I was about six years old that redheads should not wear red. So I've had a complex ever since, and thought that this caveat even extended to my toenails.

It doesn't. Tracy proves it.

They are cute. I especially like how when I wear my black flip flops, they accent the color nicely. I think I shall do this more often.

Isn't it great to try new things? Even if they are as uneventful as painting my toes red? After all, it's he little things that matter, right? I think I'll keep it up. Like, maybe I'll cross the Atlantic in 15 days.

Yeah, that sounds fun.

Reformation

2009-08-02T22:50:00.003-06:00

I'm having a Martin Luther moment.

I'm ridding myself of the old not-writing-very-often-Lisa and beginning anew. (Reminds me of hymn #217.) And I don't just mean writing on my blog--I'm starting afresh and writing more in all of my dozens of notebooks and journals and thought pads and post-its...in hopes that doing so will help me understand more about myself and become a better writer in the bargain.

I guess part of what has helped me re-commit to doing this has to do with many of the blogs I've read lately. They're by people I know and by people I don't, and they have have collectively caused me to have so many thoughts and learn so much about myself and their writers, and now I want to do that better too.

I also think I'll take a leaf out of Tracy's book and start posting more pictures as well. I'm an incredibly visual person (like, can't remember how a piece of music sounds very well unless I've seen it written on a page) and so much inspires me about the things I see in the world around me, that it seems silly not to.

In other words: I'm revamping my blog. Making it worth using. Maybe even worth reading? I guess other people are the judge of that. I just spit out my thoughts--that's all. It'll take a few days before it looks pretty, as I know nothing about HTML and such, but we'll get there.

And meanwhile, I love this photograph at the top. It represents so much of where I am in my life right now--country/Idaho, ready to start down a new road and explore new vistas, and yet the simple things are still all around, ready to calm and soothe the traveler's (me) troubled spirits when things get tough.

Hm. I really do have a lot of thoughts. This is why I need to write/blog more, so I get more in the habit of expressing them better. It's much more interesting when you're able to say what you think.

Thus begins my Reformation. :)

Thoughts on arriving to another decade

2009-05-18T00:03:00.000-06:00

It is now 12:04 a.m. on May 18th, 2009.

I've been twenty years old for four whole minutes. And I don't feel any different than before.

Well, technically, I suppose that I'm not REALLY twenty yet. That won't happen till 12:41 p.m., and even then, since I was born in California, I won't really be twenty till 1:41 p.m. here in Provo, if we're going by actual California time.

I think for a lot of people, turning twenty is a milestone--a big deal that they're no longer a teenager and all of that--but I guess for me, it's not so much. My teenager years were great and all, but I'm not terribly nostalgic and wistful for them to return. Also, since my dear friend Tracy turned twenty, I've been contemplating the prospect and I'm pretty used to the idea. In fact, when people have asked me how old I am for the past few months, I've answered, "Twenty," without realizing that that wasn't exactly truthful yet. I think more than anything, I am anxious and anticipating what's ahead in the coming decade. Though I don't know what exactly will happen, some definite possibilities include: graduating with a bachelor's, (that's definite though--I will definitely graduate) go on a mission, learn another language, get married, go to grad school, get a real job in the professional world, have children, (whoa.) buy my own car and health insurance, live in my first place without my wonderful roommates (best friends) or my family, and a bajillion other things. Wow. And I look at that list, and I start getting both really excited and nervous.

However, though it is a little frightening, I also look at that list and I realize how incredibly blessed I am to even have those things as possibilities and opportunities. That list includes the catalysts to nearly everything that I have hoped and dreamed for all of my life (minus the insurance purchases, naturally). And look--they're all things that could very feasibly happen in this decade. So whether they do or don't, the future is holding a whole bunch of possibilities. And that is enough to get a girl excited about turning twenty.

In the style of Humphrey Bogart, I say:

"Here's lookin' at you, world."

Give me your best shot. I'm ready to take it on.

The End for REAL.

2009-04-14T21:14:00.000-06:00

Today was the LAST day of classes! Woohoo! I wrote my blog response essay for D&C. We were just basically assigned to write a response to our experience blogging this semester. As I thought about all of my blogs, I realized that I really didn't have any life changing experiences blogging this semester, but I did learn a lot. I looked through my blog and the things I had written, and I realized that most everything that I had written was just an application of little things. I wrote about little things and how important they are in my life. Blogging this semester has been a really good experience, because it's provided an opportunity for me to reflect on the importance of little things. Whether it's learning to be kinder, learning to be grateful, or applying the lessons from the scriptures into my life, I've just been grateful to learn and grow through the reflection that blogging has provided. It's been a really good opportunity.

P.S. Just cause the semester is over, doesn't mean that I'm done blogging. I'll still do it. It just won't be an assignment. :)

The End of All Things...sort of...

2009-04-07T17:39:00.000-06:00

The end of a semester or school term is always a really interesting time for me. On the one hand, I feel very stressed and under the gun, thanks to all the papers, projects, and tests to complete, in order to ensure that I did, indeed, learn something. When I think about all of these things, I start to feel claustrophobic. Every year, it seems that there is more to do and harder papers, projects, and tests than the previous semesters, which I suppose only makes sense since I'm only getting older and more advanced in my education.

However, something that is also interesting to me is that as I get older and begin more difficult scholastic endeavors, I also find that my stress level and nervousness about upcoming events decreases as well. This week, I have 3 finals, a piano recital, about 240 papers to grade for work, and two concerts this weekend, plus 2 dress rehearsals for said concerts on Wednesday and Thursday nights. Honestly, there are simply not enough hours in the week to get it all done. And yet, I feel strangely relaxed about it. I've been wondering why I've felt so relaxed, and in D&C today it hit me: I think I'm learning to see the bigger picture. Yes, doing well in school is very important to me. I used to be a perfectionist and refuse to accept the possibility that I might get a "B" in one of my classes. But in the grand scheme of things, grades really don't matter that much. I know that they are important for grad school and further education, but in the long run, what happens will happen, and Heavenly Father will make it all work out. I was talking with a friend the other day, and she said that she can't stand to get B's or even A-'s because she can't stand the thought of not doing her best on school. When she said that, it rubbed me the wrong way--I disagreed, but I wasn't sure why. As I've done some thinking about it, I guess it's because I believe that while my best efforts in schoolwork could theoretically bring the "A" grade I desire, while I am busy earning my A's, I could miss out on other things that are equally, if not more important for my growth. To me, it's not worth sacrificing good health or being flexible enough to do what I feel is most important with my time.

Now, don't get me wrong--right now, other than my relationships with Heavenly Father, my family, and few close friends, school is the biggest, most important, all-consuming aspect of my life, and sometimes, it even precludes the relationships with my family and friends. I spend most evenings (unless I have a prior committment, which is rare) and spare time studying. I'm known to often read a book while walking to and from classes, because I can't stand to waste the 10 minutes in walking time. It's not that school is low on my priority list--I guess it's just that I don't worry about the numbers and letters that supposedly "measure" my learning. I know that if I am trying my best to learn, and I give it my very best effort within reason, Heavenly Father will bless me. If I get a B or two and can't get into the very best grad school program I was hoping to get into, He'll make it okay, and it'll all work for my good. He loves me, and He wants me to succeed.

Now, to come full circle: I realized this in D&C today because we were talking about the ordinances of the temple. As I was thinking about the implications of achieving my eternal potential and becoming how Father needs me to be for eternity, I re-realized that that is why grades don't matter. That is why I can relax, do my very best, struggle through and do everything in my power to succeed as best I can, and then He will make up the difference. "It is not requisite that [I] should run faster than [I have] strength," after all. In the next life, Heavenly Father won't care whether or not I got good grades, but He will care that I trusted Him. Instead of taking everything upon myself to make me succeed by my own strength, I can just trust Him. What a beautiful idea. I don't, none of us has to worry, because we can just trust Him to give us the rest we seek and believe in His power to do so. I love this gospel. :)

Inspired People

2009-03-31T23:32:00.000-06:00

It's amazing to me how much the Lord inspires His children when He has things that He needs them to do.

We went to the Special Collections section in the library for D&C class last week, and the man lecturing taught us about the origin of many of the books that they have in the Special Collections. He showed us ancient papyrus manuscripts, some of the earliest translations of the Bible into English, examples of the first books to be printed with a printing press, and some first edition copies of the Book of Commandments (the first edition of the Doctrine and Covenants) and the Book of Mormon. As he taught us about what happened historically to bring about the evolution of books and printing and literacy, I kept thinking of how important these developments were to the growth of dozens of cultures and societies, Christianity, and the Restoration of the gospel as it was when Christ was on the earth. None of these things could have happened without the aid and enhancement that the printed word provides. These books and pamphlets were how Christians and early Latter-day Saints learned the doctrines of their religions, not to mention how they gained any kind of secular knowledge or education. Heavenly Father needs His children to learn and grow in order for Him to be able to use them as His instruments. And when He helps inspired men like Gutenberg, Wycliffe, Tyndale, Luther, Calvin, Joseph Smith, Oliver Cowdery, and all the other religious leaders who helped bring forth these important documents, His children can learn and grow and draw closer to Him. What a gift--He inspires His children to find ways to draw near to Him and to help others do the same. :)

Symbolism and Differences

2009-03-17T22:00:00.000-06:00

We've been talking a lot about symbols and the function of symbolism in my D&C class lately. One of the interesting things that we've discussed a lot in class is how the meanings of different symbols change depending on their usage. Many people have pointed out that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has a lot of similar symbolism to Freemasonry. It's true--we do. However, we also have a lot of the same symbols used in Catholicism, Judaism, Protestantism, and many other religions and organizations. I guess it just struck me, because I'd never really thought about how much the symbolism of various groups overlap. I think a lot of times we as humans tend to look for the differences between others' beliefs and our own, and then when comparing two sets of beliefs that we don't necessarily uphold, we tend to lump them together and not value their distinguishing characteristics. In reality, I think we all have a lot more in common than we give ourselves credit for.

I guess it made me realize how important it is to recognize that many religions really do share the same beliefs. Because I am a Latter-day Saint, or a Mormon, as we're so often called, I believe that Jesus Christ is my Savior, and that I cannot be saved without Him. I believe that each person on earth is a child of God and that He loves each of us individually more than we can comprehend. I believe that families are the most important social unit on the earth today and that strong families can only help society. I believe that by being honest, kind, selfless, and aware of other people, individuals will be much happier in this life. I believe that God has something greater in mind for us in the life after this one. I believe He wants us to take care of this amazing earth that He created for us. I believe a lot of things that a lot of other people in a lot of other religions believe as well, but when I or other people focus on our differences and refuse to try to see each other around the differences, that's when animosity, miscommunication, and prejudice on either side happen. I believe a lot of things that others may think are weird or untrue, but that's okay. People are allowed to think what they please--I'm allowed to believe what I do, and they're allowed to believe I'm crazy or deluded, if they wish. :)

In our symbolism discussion, we discussed how although the icons of the symbols overlap, the meanings of them are often very different. Thus, it's very important to ask people what their symbols mean before judging them. I guess that's where the differences thing comes in again. Though we all believe different things in addition to those we have in common, if we just seek to understand others' beliefs and see things from their point of view, the animosity, miscommunication, and prejudice all but disappears. That's because we're seeking to understand them before trying to make them see our point of view.

The whole discussion just reminded me over and over again of how important it is to accept and be slow to judge. And all of those thoughts about similarities and differences stemmed from a discussion about symbols. I had a lot of other cool thoughts about the power of and importance of symbols, but I'll save those for another time. (This is already getting long.) However, I know I keep looking for symbols in my life and the world around me as a result of the discussion--but I hope I become a little more patient and understanding in the process as well. After all, if I can't live the way I wish the world were myself, what's the point of wishing it? Gandhi said, "You must be the change you wish to see in the world." It's got to start somewhere. Why not with me?

"Big Love" Issue...

2009-03-10T22:53:00.000-06:00

I forgot I wanted to say this too:

I've been wondering what to do about this issue, with HBO's TV series "Big Love" advertising to show an episode where they show what happens in the endowment ceremony. I've received forwards about it, Facebook group invitations, messages encouraging me to boycott the station, and a number of other things concerning the issue.

Obviously, I'm very sorry that the producers of the series have chosen to broadcast things over national television that are of such a sacred, sensitive nature to over 13 million people worldwide. However, I am grateful for the Church's official statement on the issue, highlighting what the correct response from members is, and describing its official stance on the matter.

Here it is:

"The Publicity Dilemma," LDS Newsroom, lds.org.

Please read it, and let's all keep acting like Christians, regardless of the individual sects of our faiths.

History and Record Keeping

2009-03-10T22:04:00.000-06:00

Wow--it's been a while since I've posted. I wanted to blog about the Church History Symposium that I went to for Doctrine and Covenants, even though it's been a little while since it happened. The symposium was on Feb. 27, and although it was all very interesting and informative, my favorite talk was the final one, given by Elder Marlin K. Jensen, of the Seventy. (Most of the other talks I attended were about the various forms of record-keeping throughout Church history and about trends and patterns in different periods of the Church's history.) Elder Jensen is the current Church Historian for my church, and he oversees all the records for the ordinances and major events that happen within it, and he makes sure that accurate and up-to-date histories on the Church throughout the world are kept.

Elder Jensen's talk was so good. He basically addressed the topic, "Why the Study and Enjoyment of Church History is an Important Part of a Full Life in the Gospel." It was really interesting for me to hear, because I guess I had never really thought of a knowledge of Church history as absolutely essential for one's participation and experiences in the gospel. I'd not really given the matter much thought, and I think if I had, I would have said something along the lines of "it's a nice-to-know" thing, but not as important and understanding something like the scriptures or something.

One of the reasons that he gave for Church history being so essential to our lives in the gospel was because over and over again in the scriptures, the prophets have asked us to keep a record of our doings, and to "[retain] in remembrance the captivity of our fathers" (Alma 5:6). It's not like I didn't know this either, because I've been hearing about the importance of keeping a journal since I was old enough to scratch out letters in my very first Precious Moments journal at age four. However, Elder Jensen points out that remembering the past cannot be passively done. He said, "Continuing our love affair with the past enables us to more fully appreciate the present and to take better advantage of the future." As I thought about this quote and the talk as a whole, I realized how essential remembrance is to our individual relationships with Heavenly Father. Remembering is not a passive act--it does not mean that I can just think of these important things, (whether history, my covenants with God, or the words of the prophets) every now and again and have it bring powerful meaning to my soul. Remembering requires effort. After all, each week when we take the sacrament, we promise Heavenly Father "to always remember Him," which is much more than just a fleeting thought now and again (D&C 20:77). Studying Church history, and any history, really, should draw us closer to Christ. The purpose of learning this history is to help us learn from the events of the past so that we can understand how to become closer to Jesus Christ ourselves.

In that light, I guess I feel like I understand so much more why it's so important to study history and record it while it's happening. It reminds me of the talk by President Henry B. Eyring a few General Conferences ago, when he discussed how in the act of recording the events of our own daily histories that we can see the hand of the Lord in our personal lives. The talk is called, "O Remember, Remember," interestingly enough. :) The same is true of Church and general history. As we prayerfully and diligently seek to study and learn the things of the past, we will become more able to identify the hand of the Lord in the lives of His children, thus improving our personal relationships with Him and helping to give direction and purpose to our actions in the future.

Cool. :)

Crandall Printing Museum

2009-02-24T22:18:00.000-07:00

This week for my Doctrine and Covenants class, we went to the Crandall Printing Museum to learn about the process for the printing of the Bible, Book of Mormon, and important American historical documents. I wasn't really sure what to expect out of the tour, but it ended up being one of the coolest things I've done/seen while I've been here at BYU. The tour was about two hours long, and basically they took us through several different rooms in which there were various printing presses. The first room was about Gutenberg and the invention of the printing press, and they showed us how each part of the printing process worked before culminating that presentation with actually printing some pages. The second room was about the role of the printing press in the formation of the United States and how essential it was for the colonists to have the capabilities to print things in order to bring about the independence of the nation. The man who led that presentation dressed up as Benjamin Franklin and taught us quite a bit about his life and role in the American Revolution as a printer. Finally, the third room was where we learned about the printing and bringing forth of the Book of Mormon. That presentation was truly amazing--I learned that because of the number of copies they were printing (5,000 copies, which was more than almost any other book that had been printed at one time in that day) and the short amount of time they had to complete the printing process, they had to have averaged two pages per minute. And after all the things we had learned in the previous rooms about the work involved in the printing process, that number was staggering. I agree with the men who were giving the presentations: they asserted that angels were helping to speed the printing process. It was a miracle that the Book of Mormon was printed in the short time that it was. That couldn't have happened without heaven's help. I don't remember the exact statistics of the starting and finishing date, but I'll try to look into that and post that next week.

I guess overall, I was just extremely impressed with how much the Lord has His hand in what happens here on earth. He truly does inspire men and women to do the things that will help bring to pass His work. Both historically and now, God knows what is going on in our lives and on this earth. He wants us to succeed and to fulfill the things He has in store for us, because those are the things that will bring us the most happiness anyway.

Here is the link to the museum. It was pretty cool--I highly recommend it to anyone who might be in the area, whether living here or just passing through.
http://crandallmuseum.org/

Bits of wisdom, seven days a week

2009-02-17T21:28:00.000-07:00

It's always interesting to me to follow our discussions in my Doctrine and Covenants class, because on the very first day of class, my professor said that he wouldn't be focusing on teaching us how to apply the scriptures in our lives, but rather on the historical context of them. However, as I look through my notes later after class is over, my notes seem to be more similar to the way I would write in my scripture journal--full of thoughts, impressions, and applications to my own life. Sure, I also have the historical context of what we talk about in class, but my teacher is right: once we learn the how's and why's and what's of the historical aspects of the text, applying it becomes that much easier.

Last Tuesday, my notes for the day consisted mostly of these applications--bits of wisdom to help me in my life. I know we actually discussed some of them in class, but I think others of them were just things I decided to jot down. One of the things that I've thought a lot about recently is the idea of being a Sunday-only member of your faith--whether Catholic, Lutheran, Mormon, Jewish, Muslim, or whatever. I guess it basically just comes down to living up to your convictions. We were talking about how in the early days of the church, a lot of people were angry with Joseph Smith for being a prophet who influenced the way they lived their lives on the other days of the week besides just Sunday. I think this is more common than just an issue in the early days of the Latter-day Saints--I think it's present in every religion, all throughout history. I'm certainly guilty of it at times. Though I have very specific, certain things that I believe and I believe in them wholeheartedly, there are times where in the moment I don't want to act like I believe the things I do.

Technically speaking, I believe that being messy isn't a very good thing, that procrastinating is kind of lame, and that it's important to really study the scriptures every day--more than just reading them. However, I am sitting in a messy room, I procrastinated beginning my homework for quite a while earlier tonight, and I haven't studied scriptures yet today. So why do I do this?

I'm not perfect. I mess up. I don't always live up to my convictions. And you know, even though I believe very strongly in the values and standards that my church espouses, just like those early Latter-day Saints, I too have a hard time living them every day of the week. I guess that's why I'm here. I have to learn to do the best I can with what I have. I need to learn to live my religion seven days a week, as best as I possibly can. Even though I mess up, I'll just keep trying. Though the early Saints sometimes got angry with Joseph Smith for telling them things that the Lord wanted them to do that were "too hard," I'm going to try harder not to do that. I'm going to try harder not to grumble, mumble, and inwardly rebel against my beliefs and convictions that I know to be true. Hopefully one of these days I'll actually be able to tell a difference.

In the meantime, I guess I just beg the rest of the world to remember that I'm still trying. Please remember that I'm human too and I'm just trying like everyone else to do the right thing..and that I'll mess up every now and again.

I feel kind of like the Little Engine that Could: I think I can, I think I can, I think I can...

LONDON!

2009-02-07T00:33:00.001-07:00

It's official. The big one. The one I've been waiting for since I was nine and ten years old.

Are you ready?

It might be too big to handle.

.......

I'm going to study in LONDON for Fall semester 2009!!!!!!

AAAH!!!

Ever since I was Mary Lennox in The Secret Garden at age nine, and ever since my sister did a study abroad in London in the year 2000, I have wanted to go to Great Britain. I didn't want to just visit there, mind you. I knew visiting wouldn't be long enough. In fact, when I was considering which London program to apply to, I didn't even really want to apply to the summer or spring terms, because then I'd only be there for six weeks. Fall. That was the right semester. I'd be there while the weather was still nice for a little bit, I'd see autumn and Christmas in England, and I'd be able to do and see and take in more while I was there. (Hm. I'm speaking in future past tense. Odd.)

As it turns out, my interview with my professor to determine whether or not I would get into the program must have gone pretty well, because they (the faculty in charge of the program) offered me a position as the student facilitator for the program. That means I'll be kind of like a TA/secretary for the program; any questions students have in preparation to go have to go through me, all passport/travel/financial arrangements have to go through me, and I'll be helping some (I think--as far as I understand) with planning and helping with the preparation class that everyone takes in order to get ready to go. Sweet. And once we get there, I'll do those same kinds of logistical and administrative things. The nice thing is, it is another job, so I will be making some extra money, but it's only 5-10 hours a week, so it won't keep me from having a lovely time in Britain. I was really surprised that they asked me--I didn't think the interview went that well, but I guess they're nice, and so is God. Good grief, this world is full of good people. Hope I do okay.

All in all, I'm stoked. Beyond all reason. And it's only going to get better from here, folks. Look out, Queen Elizabeth...here I come! :)

That's the way it is. Now what are you going to do about it?

2009-02-03T09:24:00.000-07:00

This weekend, my sister Sharon came to visit me. It was so, so fun to have her here. And as fun as it would be to give a travel log of everything that we did, I'm actually not going to do that. But while she was here, we had some really good conversations about a plethora of different things. (Yes, I did just say plethora. I like that word.)

In one of these conversations, we were discussing how often people get upset at situations that are less than ideal. We tend to blame other people for a situation that we don't like or are uncomfortable with, and a lot of times, we aren't willing to do anything about it to change it. Then we looked at people who seem to be in control of their lives, who don't get angry about stupid little things, and what the difference was between the two. And you know, the difference is just in the attitude. Having an attitude of complaining or criticism about people or things does not do any good. The people that I know that are most in control of their lives don't get wrapped up in their little frustrations. They seem to take the attitude of, "Well, that's just the way it is. Now what am I going to do about it?" It seems so simple. And really, everyone knows that it doesn't do any good to complain and whine. Taking the proactive attitude and refusing to let yourself be acted on is so much better--but we all do it from time to time anyway.

We talked about this the other day in D&C. We were talking about when to give and receive advice, and in the course of the conversation, someone said, "You know, it's easy to serve people you like. What about when you rub against people?" Since no one is perfectly happy with anyone else all the time, we just kind of have to figure out that disagreements and frustrations and annoyances are going to arise. The key is, what do we do when we do rub against people like that? What do I do when I'm starting to be critical of other people? It's an interesting thought. And what we do in these situations is extraordinarily revealing about our character, I think.

That's just the way it is. Now what are we going to do about it?

Words, words, words...

2009-01-26T22:10:00.000-07:00

I've been thinking a lot lately about the significance of words. I guess you could say that making sure that I have the right word in the right place at the right time is a minor obsession of mine. (And yet I still make mistakes in expressing myself so, so often...hmm...) Most of what I've been thinking about has been in relation to words in communication and conversation with others. Now, I am not a quiet, sit-on-the-sidelines kind of person, especially if a subject comes up that I feel strongly about. Generally, if I have an opinion about something and it's important to me, I am anxious to voice it and explain what I think and why. The interesting thing is, nearly all of my dearest friends are the same way. We love to discuss things--anything from politics to books to what we can and can't wear to whether butter on your bread is better at room temperature or refrigerated. (Definitely room temp, by the way.) And yet, we have never fought or dealt with typical roommate girl drama. Naturally, we disagree about many things and sometimes try to make the other person understand our point of view a little too hard (I think I'm probably the most guilty here), but we've never really fought or been angry with one another. So why? Why is it that six girls who have such strong opinions about so many things and who know each other so well manage to get out of arguments like that?

I think it kind of has to do with something that we talked about in Doctrine and Covenants the other day. We read a verse talking about "jarrings" in the scriptural context, and someone asked what that words meant. After a bit of discussion, someone else said that they thought it meant getting into heated discussions or debates that feel contentious and unkind, even if they aren't straight-up arguments. I agree with that. And I guess that's why I've felt like my discussions with my wonderful roommates don't turn into fights or arguments--they aren't "jarrings." As soon as it starts to feel unkind or like any one of us is being too pushy, everyone present seems to take the cue to back off. We all try to calm down the tone of our words, and everyone apologizes for getting too worked up. I even received a text message the other day from one of these lovely, beautiful girls apologizing for beginning to be contentious in a conversation we'd had. And really, I was the one who was more at fault than she.

I guess it just boils down to how important sensitivity in our communication is. I don't think you have to sacrifice clarity or opinion for the sake of speaking kindly. I don't think you have to be a doormat either. But I look at the people with whom I feel the safest and that I trust the most, and invariably, they are the people that are the kindest in their manner of speaking to me. Unfortunately, the reason I've been thinking about it and noticing it so much is because it's something that I am trying desperately to work on--to be more gentle in my speech and more loving and accepting in my words. Speaking of which, this is getting long. Guess I've waxed a little eloquent. It's interesting to notice though. Maybe the more I notice the kindness of others, the better I'll be able to be at ridding my conversation of these "jarrings" and critical, contentious words.

Embarking.

2009-01-24T23:50:00.000-07:00

Well, hello world. :) Here I am. I've been meaning to set up a blog for myself for quite some time, now. I don't know why I haven't done it sooner, but there it is. Finally, when my teacher for Doctrine and Covenants here at the Y made a weekly blog post a required part of our grade, I mustered up the incentive to create a blog. For the class, we're required to respond to our class readings and write our personal thoughts, so my first several posts will contain a lot of my thoughts about those things, but I anticipate using it for other thoughts too. Heaven knows I have plenty of them. There are so many things that I want to mull over and think and talk about that I rarely get to discuss with anyone. Maybe this will be a way to do that. Whether it is or not, here I go.