A Weekend Jaunt in SLC

The semester is over! Hallelujah! It was a crazy end to the semester, as always, but everything got finished. Aaron and I have been off of school for the past couple days, and boy we've loved it!

We had a fun excursion in Salt Lake City on Saturday. We started off with a live session at the Salt Lake Temple (my first time inside!) and I loved it! It was, if possible, more beautiful inside than outside! Aaron and I both needed that break from the world.

I dream of one day having a gardens that are a fraction as beautiful as the temples'.

Photogenic.

Love this kid.

When we left the temple, my stomach began to whisper, "Take me to Settebello. We wants it. We needs it." I couldn't say no.

Yes, these are leftovers. I wanted to take a picture of the full pizza, but my stomach took over.

Settebello is this incredible Italian restaurant that serves authentic Italian pizza (this ain't Pizza Hut). The chef is actually from Italy, and they ship almost all of their ingredients straight from Italy because they are a part of this sweet Napoletana society that works to preserve the authentic pizza of Napoli. Boy, is it magnificent! My brother Jared signed off on it, and he served a mission in Milan, Italy. Wonderful. They actually have a sister restaurant in Orem called Terra Mia, which is also excellent, although in my heart, I am still partial to Settebello.

As part of our end-of-the-semester celebratory meal, we got some gelato next door! A wonderful decision.

Mango & sweet cream for Aaron

Mint cookie & sweet cream for me

One of Aaron's cousins had a hotel room in Sandy he had bought, but he wasn't able to use it so he offered it to us! It's a rare treat for us to stay in a hotel room, so we couldn't pass it up. Hello cable television!

It was a wonderful celebration between semesters. The next term starts on Tuesday. Oh boy.

However, on a happier note, today marks the one year anniversary of the day that Aaron proposed to me. What a wonderful, surreal day that was! I can't believe we're starting to hit these year marks! I'm feelin' like an old married woman! Love you, husband.

New Opportunities

As I was looking towards my spring semester, I suddenly felt this anxiety. Yes, I have been blessed to get this job at the Maxwell Institute, but why haven't I been trying to take advantage of all of the other opportunities offered in college? So I made the decision to not take my upper level grammar class I was scheduled to take and I started to look for an internship. I talked to my editing superviser, and he gave me a list of people to contact about internships. I've never made cold calls (or emails, really) before, and I found that most people were looking for someone to stay on for the next school year.

But finally, mercifully, I got a bite.

BYU Religious Studies brought me in for an interview and editing test, and I received an official offer about an hour later! I'll be working on journals, magazines, and books with a group of editors. It's a paid position and I'll be working about 10 hours a week to receive my internship credit. I am so excited to start this additional phase of editing!

Now when I graduate, all I have to do is find a group of religious writers who might be looking for an editor. That should be a large population of people, right?

A light at the end of the tunnel

After nearly 5 years of unidentified stomach pain, (gotta love terms like functional disorders) I finally have a specific reason to blame! Food allergies! Can I just tell you what a relief it is to find out I'm not crazy? Or undefinably abnormal?

Instead of just telling you what I can't eat, I thought I would write a few haikus:

Juicy, dripping, pink.
Gandalf's Elvish word for friend.
Spit out the black seeds.

Nebraska's cash crop.
Steamed, creamed, grilled, boiled, cobbled, and shucked.
Fields of golden maize.

It's the poor man's steak.
I like it Kentucky-fried.
Bawk bawk bawk bawk bawk.

The only green nut.
Nutella's glorious nut.
These nuts grow on trees.

'Loping melons.
No more of these in a pod.
Pink freshwater fish.

There. Those are the big ones. I have also have a slightly smaller allergy to bananas, string beans, carrots, coconut, mushrooms, oats, potatoes, rice, rye, sunflower seeds, peanuts, walnuts and chicken.

I have gone through what I call the stages of allergy acceptance:

1. Acceptance. (OK, so this is what's going on!)
2. Excitement. (Finally, I know what's wrong with me!) 
3. Sadness. (I can't eat. Or that. Or that.)
4. Anger. (Stupid body. Why would you be allergic to all of those things?)
5. Second acceptance. (Sorry about that, body. I know it's not your fault.)
6. Hope. (Yes, substituting turkey for chicken could work. So could substituting quinoa for rice! This could be OK)

In the end, I believe that it's better to know why I'm feeling pain. I'm very grateful for modern day medicine that can me what's going on with my body.

In other news, I made this tasty cookies for choir today:

Chocolate Crinkle Cookies

Ingredients

1 c. unsweetened cocoa powder

2 c. white sugar

1/2 c. vegetable oil

4 eggs

2 tsp vanilla extract

2 c. all-purpose flour

2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 c. confectioners' sugar

Directions

Mix together the cocoa powder, sugar, and vegetable oil in a large bowl. Beat eggs into the cocoa mixture, one at a time. Stir in the vanilla extract.

Combine the flour, baking powder, and salt in a small bowl. Stir this mixture into the cocoa mixture.

Cover the dough with plastic wrap and chill in the refrigerator for at least 4 hours. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and grease a baking sheet.

Fill a shall bowl with confectioners' sugar. Roll dough into 1-inch balls. Roll the balls in the confectioners' sugar and place on the baking sheet.

Bake for 10-12 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Remove from  the oven and allow to sit on cookie sheet for 1-2 minutes. Transfer to wire racks to cool completely.

Thank goodness I can still eat these. Mmhm.

Oh, you say February's almost over?

It has been a busy month so far! Time to catch up on all the fun things in February!

First up, Aaron turned 25 at the beginning of this month! A whole quarter-of-a-century old! I love birthdays! We had a fun, food-filled day! Breakfast started out with these beauties:

I bought this adorable donut pan from Target last year, and I'm finally finding some recipes that I enjoy to make! Baked donuts are so much better than glazed donuts (unless you decide to buy Krispy Kreme), so I highly recommend them! They're healthier than fried donuts at any rate. These were sweet and cake-like, and because they were in donut form, I could pretend that they were breakfast food and make them for Aaron's breakfast. 

Chocolate Baked Donuts
Makes 12 donuts
Adapted from Prepared Pantry

Ingredients
For the Donuts
1 1/2 c. all-purpose flour
1/3 c. cocoa powder
1 tsp. baking powder
1 pinch salt
2 large eggs
2/3 c. granulated sugar
1 tsp. vanilla
1/2 c. milk
2 Tbsp. butter, melted

For the Glaze
1 c. powdered sugar
2 Tbsp. water
1/2 tsp. vanilla

Directions
Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Grease a baked donut pan.

Combine the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, and salt in a large bowl. In another bowl, whisk the eggs with the sugar, vanilla, milk, and melted butter. Add the liquid mixture to the flour mixture a third at a time, stirring after each addition. Stir until the batter is smooth.

Fill the donut cavities 2/3 full of batter. Bake for 8 minutes. Cool for several minutes in the pan and then place the donuts on a cooling rack.

For the glaze, mix the water a little at a time into the powdered sugar until it is the desired consistency, adding the vanilla.

Glaze the donuts and let the glaze dry while the donuts are sitting on a rack. Be sure to store in an airtight container so they don't get stale.

We invited some of Aaron's cousins over, and made a mountain of food for dinner. We made 3 spaghetti loaves, 2 1/2 batches of Bri's famous breadsticks, corn, broccoli, and oven roasted potatoes. Mountains of delicious food.

In my family, we grew up eating Dairy Queen ice cream cake for our birthdays. I found a great recipe to replicate it, and bought some of Aaron's favorite ice cream from the BYU Creamery, Graham Canyon. It started with a layer of fudgy chocolate wafers, a layer of ice cream, a layer of chocolate ganache, another layer of ice cream, a final layer of ganache, and topped with milk chocolate shavings. We about died of joy when we took our first bites. Here's the recipe I used: Tin Roof Ice Cream Cake. Very doable! I highly recommend it!

We ate and we ate. Oh, what a feast it was!

It was wonderful to spend the day with my best friend and to be surrounded by friends and family! I love you Aaron, and I can't wait to spend every birthday with you for the rest of our lives!

I'll do some more catching up in the next few posts!

Mismatched but with Good Intentions

I hate sewing buttons. I suppose that makes me a poor candidate for home maker of the year, but I can't help it. The button holes are far too small and the needles are much too sharp and I'm left with index fingers dotted with red pin prick marks.

My winter coat is a wonderful coat with one notable exception: the buttons fall off by the dozen. Fall off is not an adequate description, perhaps. More like escape or abandon ship. I honestly believe I can hear them giggle gleefully as they triumphantly break free of their threaded bonds.

I've sewn these buttons on many times before but with poor results in the long run. After continued discouragement, I chose to simply forgo my annual appointment with the thread and needle and instead leave them to sit in my coat pocket together to think about what they had done. Meanwhile, my coat only buttoned halfway. It was a sorry sight indeed.

Over winter break, I decided amidst all of my laying around and doing nothing, I should sneak in a productive endeavor such as sewing buttons. I sat there for a full hour and kept sewing and sewing and sewing. I kept the black thread rolling and I refused to quit until each button was securely fastened. We're talking about a LOT of thread here. A lot.

I was very pleased with myself afterwards and I couldn't help but show my mother my handiwork with pride. However, as I began to button up my coat, I came to a horrifying conclusion. While I had sewn the buttons in the right place to fill the holes, each button sat either too close together or just far enough apart so that the coat bunched and pulled in minute ways that only I would notice.

There have been a lot of mismatched buttons in my life. Majors that seemed right in my head but just didn't feel right in my heart. There have been loss of friendships, endings of activities and unfinished novels on my shelf. There have been adjustments and careful placements. Worry and heartache. Uneasiness and the subtle feeling that something was missing. Above all, the purpose of a button is not to merely close a coat; there is a perfect placement for each button that allows the coat to close perfectly. Perfect buttons like an English Language major and classes that teach me about Phonetics, best friends who helps me look for Gilmore Girls DVDs I accidentally throw under their bed, family members who listen to all of my future plans, and a boyfriend who quotes T.S. Eliot to prove his point in an argument and takes me to French International Films on the weekend.

It's not that the other buttons were wrong or unusable. In fact, I might have gone through life quite easily thinking that life was the best it would ever be. All it would take is a little adjustment. A new thread in the needle. Ah, there it is. Perfect fit.

Sad but mostly true

I know there will be many of my friends who will appreciate this. I'm not a mental case, I promise.

She's a Killer

Sometimes I accidentally destroy things like shoes, pans, Winnie the Pooh mugs, picture frames, and the hopes and dreams of little children. Ok, maybe the last one was an exaggeration, but sadly, the rest are not.

Today, I talked to the shoe shop guy fixing my boots and I listened to him, half amused and half slightly embarrassed, as he told me in a hushed whisper all of the things that were wrong with them.

"The zipper is obviously broken, and um, well the heels are in pretty bad shape...the soles will, um, also need to replaced as well. They, well, the boots have been pretty worn out. Lots of wear. Lots of it. Oh boy, there has been a whole bunch of wear and tear."

Alright, alright. They're shoes, ok? There is no need to pull out that voice of fear when we're talking about inanimate objects who cannot think or feel! And you know what? I walk a lot. I walk to work in the morning, to campus several times a day, past the duck pond at least 5 times, and I've only run a few half marathons in the boots, ok? Not that big of a deal. Perhaps my boots need to simply man up. I felt like I was getting a phone call from a concerned teacher calling to tell me that my kid has a bunch of scrapes, bruises, and a split lip and the principal was concerned for my child's safety. I'd like to publicly set the record straight: I am not abusing my boots. To the contrary, I love my boots very, very much and dare I say it? Sometimes love hurts.

When I go to pick up my boots on Friday, I fully intend to walk into the store proudly and without shame. I'll walk past all of the sales people shrieking in fear and shielding handfuls of boots in their arms and the shocked customers clutching their out-of-style Sketchers, all the way back to the emergency room, I mean, the repair shop. My boots just needed a little break, a little R&R, and then it's business as usual on Saturday. I love these boots and they love me back, I assure you. They do. Really.

Smile and Nod

Some of my favorite encounters in life are ones with people who don't remember my name. Now, let's be clear. I don't remember every person I meet and I certainly don't remember everyone's name. However, I have what some might call catlike reflexes. I have gotten pretty good at pretending I know who someone is. When I was a Drum Major in high school, I would have this experience quite often where someone from band would say hi to me in the hallway or smile at me while leaving school, and because there were 180 members of the band, I didn't always know who they were. There were a lot of flutes in the band. Now, when this would occur, I had a few options:

1. Jerk my head away and immediately begin walking in the opposite direction at a quick, brisk pace.
2. Look bewilderingly at them and mumble something indistinguishable.
3. Smile and say, "Hi!"

Golly gee, when you put it like that, the choice is very difficult, isn't it? Sometimes, I even threw in a generic greeting like, "Hey girl!" "Hey buddy!" I find that speaking like I'm Fat Albert, "Hey hey hey!" is a great choice to alleviate tension. There are a myriad of options.

I'm not always perfect at this. There are days when I somehow manage to look through people and not respond to their greetings until a full 3 seconds have passed or when I'm exhausted, I have on occasion spent 5 seconds trying to figure out where I know someone from. Overall, I have been on the receiving end far more than the giving end.

There are a few reactions over the years that have been my favorite.

• Look at me with a blank face, saying nothing and giving no acknowledgement that they heard what I said. 
• With a straight face, no hint of a smile, they tell me they don't know my name.
• Awkwardly dodging my gaze and pretending they couldn't hear me.
• Giggling for a moment. Silence. "What's your name?"
• Silence. "Um. Hi?"
• Stuttering different sounds to see which one I respond to. "D-d-d...no...T-t-t...nope..."

You get the picture. This isn't an individual problem; it happens to all of us. I only wish that our culture were more comfortable with acknowledging the existence of others even if you don't know their name. Sometimes I play a game on campus where I smile at people I don't know, just to see their different reactions. I see a variety: fear, bewilderment, astonishment, mocking, the entire range. My favorite, however, is when they look at me and smile back. I'm calling for a social movement here where society will come to acknowledge people other than their roommates or people they know directly. 

Or perhaps I will simply fall back into the mindset of the masses, where people walk around with their eyes glued to the ground, dodging glances everywhere they go. Perhaps I will choose to only talk to people I know and ignore everyone else. Maybe I'll choose to live as a hermit and only talk to my plants.

Nah.

I Wanna Grow Up Happy

"When I was 5 years old, my mother always told me that happiness was they key to life. When I went to school, they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wrote down 'happy'. They told me I didn't understand the assignment, and I told them they didn't understand life."

John Lennon

A Nice Aftertaste

Serving a mission for my church has always seemed so exciting to me. As a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, I have grown up watching my older cousins, boys in my ward and eventually my brothers, leave when they were 19 to spend 2 years in a completely different part of the world. Some were called to Brazil, others to Taiwan or Italy. Two of my sisters have also served missions as well. They are all such a beautiful example to me.

When I was younger, I used to tell people I was going to go on a mission but usually in the same breath that I'd also declare my intention to grow up to be a ballerina in the Nutcracker all of my life. I'm glad I abandoned that plan a while ago. Planning for a mission seemed a bit fruitless growing up, however, because it seemed so very far away. 21 years old; it'll be FOREVER until I become that old! I've got plenty of time to think about. Right?

Hold onto your hats, ladies and gentlemen, because I'm turning 20 in 3 months. That means at this point next year, if I've put in my papers, I will probably know where I will be serving.

Did your head explode just a little bit? I was a little dizzy once I realized this fact. Me, a missionary? Is this really happening? One of my best friends, Kevin, is currently serving in Sapporo, Japan and has just passed the half way mark. His letters are my favorite thing to get and I usually end up reading parts of them to everyone I know even though they have no real interest. They are so exciting to read as I watch the progression of his testimony and the missionary work in Japan; it's absolutely incredible! One of my friends, Whitney, who I met last year in Symphonic Band, is currently serving in Berlin, Germany and absolutely thriving in the work. They inspire me so much and help me realize that I can handle a mission too!

Let me just say that I realize things could change in a year. A mission is certainly not for every woman. But I've got to be honest: thinking about a mission gave me one of the happiest feelings I have had in a long time. A really good feeling.

Sister Bailey, a missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. It's got a nice ring to it, doesn't it?

What a Strange Little Creature

There are several truths I have found in my life recently. Pears take an inordinate amount of time to ripen and by the time they are ready to eat, I've usually forgotten about them leaving them to rot in my cupboard. Secondly, I have the strange ability of being able to wake up in the morning and be in the shower before I actually realize I am awake. Lastly, shoe repairmen are very, very odd people.

I have taken in my leather boots two times now to either fix a seam or this time to fix a zipper and add a protective shield to my heel. Turns out, if you wear the same boots day after day, you can wear down the heel until it becomes so slippery that you find yourself sliding across the ice covered street to a possible death by an incapable Provo driver. True story. I took in my boots to a different repair shop this time and for a moment, I thought I was back in the other shop.

Everything was the same. Dark, slightly claustrophobic shop with old wood and dust covered shoes of every style and color. An assaulting odor of shoe polish and dried prunes. A large grey cat with bulbous black eyes and a strange fascination for licking my shoes.

For a moment, I even thought that this was the other shoe repairman's brother or close cousin, at least. He had the same frizzy brown hair, small smudged spectacles, scruffy beard, and clothes stained with either age or perhaps the prunes I had been smelling. Shoe repairmen don't talk much. He spoke in small phrases and in such a quiet manner that I wondered if he was trying not to wake up the shoes. He avoided all eye contact and chose instead to address his questions to my shoes. I wonder if he was waiting for them to reply.

Oh yes, shoe repairmen are odd people. I don't think they were always this way; I imagine they are the result of too much time spent with the shoe polisher and glue and too many hours spent alone talking to the resident cat.

I said goodbye as I left, turning to see him holding my shoes in one hand and stroking the hind leg of the cat. He said nothing.

What About the Ducks?

I have a strange affinity for ducks. It probably started with my roommate Krista who would scream with joy every time she saw one and tell us in a high-pitched squeal how she wanted to steal them all and take them home with us.

The ducks in the duck pond near my apartment are not normal ducks. They are what my Biology teacher calls "psychotic ducks". It's true. They would never fit in with wild ducks because they have grown too accustomed to human interaction and they expect an offering of bread or some sort of food if you are around. After my afternoon classes, I love to stop and sit by the duck pond or the river that trails the southern end of campus to watch their quirky antics as they fight over pieces of bread, run away from exuberant children, and try to quack louder than all the other ducks. Besides the giant tortoises at the zoo, these ducks are probably my favorite creatures.

Today, I was walking towards the stairs on the south end of campus when I saw one lone duck by the MARB. I was perplexed at how it had managed to come that far on campus. I can barely travel up the 131 flights of stairs it takes to get up to south campus but I suppose possessing wings would remedy that problem. The duck was contentedly scavenging through the leaves in search for food, trying to gnaw on an acorn over here, trying to eat a girl's shoe over there.

As I began to walk down the stairs, I saw something that explained the strange appearance of the duck. The river, usually a flowing current of water passing over rocks and plants, had been drained. The poor duck had probably woken up this morning and discovered that his favorite fishing point had been taken away. I realize that it was drained to prepare for the inevitable freeze and that winter's cruel temperatures are already upon us, but it was strangely sad to me to see the empty river.

The passage of time is irrevocable as are the events that transpire during that time. You can't avoid it. You cannot wake up one day in December and simply decide that it is summer or that it is Friday when it is really Wednesday. Despite what the Peter Pan song tells us, you cannot simply wish upon a star and expect all of your dreams to come true.

I've discovered that the most important things do not come instantaneously. They come after lots of planning, sleepless nights spent studying for a midterm, and some really bad days. That doesn't mean the important things will never happen; it just means we have to patient and wait out the storm.

Don't worry, little duck. Your river will not always be empty. One day, when winter has passed and the sun is more than a suggestion, you will find that your river will be filled once more and it will be more wonderful to you than it was before you had lost it.

I am Edmond Dantes

I'm rereading The Count of Monte Cristo (again) and to my delight, I keep finding new nuggets of wisdom every time I read it. I read it once when I was 13, another time when I was 17 and now I am the wise old age of 19. People don't always understand why I reread books, but I love it because each time you read a book, you are under completely different circumstances and are ready to learn different things. Things I wasn't ready for 2 years ago, I am absolutely ready to hear now. 


Growth. Development. Loss of naiveté. Understanding.


Here are a few wonderful quotes that I picked up before, but who knows what I'll find this time around!


“There is neither happiness nor unhappiness in this world; there is only the comparison of one state with another. Only a man who has felt ultimate despair is capable of feeling ultimate bliss. It is necessary to have wished for death in order to know how good it is to live.....the sum of all human wisdom will be contained in these two words: Wait and Hope.” 


“Life is a storm, my young friend. You will bask in the sunlight one moment, be shattered on the rocks the next. What makes you a man is what you do when that storm comes.” 


“Abbe Faria: Here is your final lesson - do not commit the crime for which you now serve the sentence. God said, Vengeance is mine. 
Edmond Dantes: I don't believe in God. 
Abbe Faria: It doesn't matter. He believes in you. ” 

Beautiful.

Give Me Victory or Give Me Death

Things are a little tense in Park Place #10. We have an infestation. Yes, an infestfreakingstation of fruit flies. Because I am an English Language major, I did, in fact, look up the definition for infestation in the dictionary: a harassing or troublesome invasion. Do they harass me? Yes. Every time I'm in the shower and one begins to circle my head, I do in fact feel very harassed. Are they troublesome? Just ask my roommate, Jill, who had to throw out her new loaf of bread that was being eaten alive by flies.

Things are a little out of control over here.

We were desperate for help, advice, or perhaps a fumigation company to tent our apartment when Samantha's sister gave us magical advice. Apparently, if you combine apple cider vinegar with dish soap, cover it with cling wrap with several holes poked through, and then you leave it out in the open, the flies will be attracted by the sweet smell of the apples and consequently die from the soap. Doesn't that just put a little smile on your face?

Good news: it works. Samantha and I watched eagerly as the first victim fell prey to our deception. Sure enough, it went down into the liquid mixture and we watched with bated breath as it remained, never to rise again. In that moment, we also created our battle cry, our slogan for war.

"Die, fly. Cry and die." That probably sounded really stupid when you read that to yourself but trying reading it again in a menacing Scottish brogue. Gave you chills, right?

With relief, we have found that after only one day, we have killed dozens of the menacing creatures. With a little luck, things will be a little more normal and a little less "The Fly"around here. (Don't look up "The Fly". The pictures are disgusting and just take my word for it; flies are bad, bad creatures.) Enjoy your last hours of life, unsuspecting flies. Your hours are numbered.

A Fearful Love of Needles

I love to donate blood. Say what you will about me; call me a Hemophilic, needle loving, mentally unstable person but I have my reasons. Come to think of it, there are a lot of reasons why I should really hate giving blood.

1. I really dislike needles. I'm not afraid of them but I absolutely have to look away when they poke me.
2. I have passed out 1 1/2 times after donating. (I have donated successfully since that point.)
3. I get queasy when I look at my bag of blood, rocking back and forth. Bleh.
4. I end up wearing long sleeves for about 2 weeks because I don't like the bruise I get on the inside of my elbow.

And yet, I love it. It's unnatural, I know. There is something so unique about walking out of a blood donation and realizing that even though I was slightly uncomfortable for 10 minutes and a little weak for a few hours afterwards, I had helped save 3 people's lives. 

I was supposed to donate blood today for my stake, but alas, they got extremely behind and they actually turned me away when I showed up for my appointed time. Needless to say, I was very disappointed. I have been loading up on my multivitamins all week, I had drank about 60 oz. of water today, and I had 2 iron rich meals. I walked home feeling all of a sudden very heavy. I had an extra pint of blood in my body that I hadn't counted on. What purpose is that pint of blood actually serving for me? It feels wasteful. 

My sister-in-law offered to stab me to get rid of that extra pint but that seemed like a bad idea. How about this: if anyone knows any hungry vampires, send them 'round my neck of the woods. Mind you, I'll only let them take one pint of blood, no more, no less. At least then I will know my pint of blood is helping someone.

Serendipity

Monday morning, about two weeks ago, I woke up to the beeping of my alarm at the usual time, 6:40 AM. Never a minute later or earlier. I have thankfully maintained the habit of leaping out of bed the moment I hear my alarm so I can go turn it off. This particular morning, I stood there awhile by my alarm and started taking some deep breaths as I thought about the events of the coming week. Tests. Homework. Band practice. Classes. Trying to see friends. Work. Little sleep. It seemed very daunting in that moment as I stood by alarm. Part of me wished I could could just crawl back into bed and wake up on Saturday. Nevertheless, I resisted that urge and knelt down by my bed to pray when I felt a crunch of paper under my knees. Looking down, I saw this piece of paper. 

I hadn't seen it before. Perhaps it had slipped from under my bed from a previous owner, or it had fallen out of some crack under my mattress. I like to think of it as a sign, a little piece of encouragement that I really needed that morning. It's been my mantra ever since, whenever tasks start piling up, I think of it. Taking that French test is possible. Finishing that essay is possible. Completing all of my homework is possible.

Anything is possible.

The Last Leaf

There I was, sitting on the lawn in front of the JKB on campus trying to think of a project to complete for my Biology class. I could think of nothing. My professor constantly berates us for losing our "Sense of Wonder" in the world but I can't help it if I don't walk around campus and sit watching ant colonies like my professor does. There was a point in my life where my cynicism must have overtaken my curiosity of  nature. It was probably about the point where we stopped watching Bill Nye the Science Guy in science classes and my sleep deprivation from seminary caused me to stop caring about everything for a while. 

There I sat, picking off pieces of grass and willing myself to care about something in nature. Something I could conduct an experiment on in the Provo area. I was about to give up when I looked up to see the mountains. Hm, I thought vaguely, the leaves are changing. I guess fall is really here now. Bam. It hit me. Why do leaves change? Are there certain factors in the trees themselves or their environments that cause them to change before other leaves? What causes the first shift in pigmentation?

The longer I sat there, the more I thought about how quickly this semester seems to be already flying by. We're already a month into the semester, midterms are creeping up maliciously, and I am beginning to check the temperature in the morning to decide what I'm going to wear that day. When did summer begin to bleed in fall and how long until winter bares down on us all? Is it really possible I'm in my sophomore year of college? How is possible that my sister, Allison, is going to be married in just 2 1/2 months? Has my friend, Kevin, really been on his mission in Japan for 11 months now? 

I had a conversation with someone yesterday that I've been thinking about today. When listening to a song in church, he commented that the most powerful part of the song was when the key modulated. It seems to be true for most songs that it's the sudden change that seems to strike a chord in us. (Pun intended) Isn't the same true about life in general? We can't stay in one moment of time nor should we ever want to. Things change so softly from day to day that it's sometimes hard to see the shift until you look at how different the colors of your leaves have become. 

Time seems to be slipping away in a strangely wonderful way.

I'm not sure that was what my Biology teacher intended me to get out of the Nature Experiment, but I think I'm starting to regain my Sense of Wonder. I think he'd be proud.

i carry it in my heart

E.E. Cummings is the only poet I know that can manipulate the english language this beautifully. It's incredible.

[i carry your heart with me(i carry it in]

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)
                                                i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

Take 2

Top reasons why being a sophomore is going to be better than a freshman:

1. Finding my classes on the first day of the semester has been a breeze. I've even given a couple of freshman directions! 
2. Living right next to campus is already 15384729 times better than living at Wy View. No more waiting for the bus or begging my brother for rides late at night. Just one safe walk home in the dark down "rape hill", and I'm good to go!
3. Finally starting my major classes. Sitting in my ELANG 223 class listening to Professor Oaks talk about the syllabus, I was filled with an overwhelming feeling of peace. Sigh. This is what I'm supposed to be doing. 
4. New room mates, new social dynamics, new ward. Love it.
5. New sports seasons. Even without my favorite player, Jimmer Fredette, I know this season is going to be incredible. 
6. I love reuniting with friends and room mates. Everything feels familiar, like everything is falling into place. 

"There are far, far better things ahead than any we leave behind." -C.S. Lewis

Yahweh!

I haven't always paid a lot of attention to politics in the past. In the last presidential election, I tried to follow more of the debates, but I didn't really like either of the candidates. I just knew I disliked Obama more than McCain. This coming election will be the first one I can vote in and I feel a greater responsibility to follow the candidate's positions and start figuring out where I stand.

This election looks promising, however. I'm naturally drawn to Mitt Romney, of course, not only because he is a Mormon but because of his morals and the way he openly admits his religious affiliation. Being a Mormon could really hurt him in this election (which continues to baffle me) but he doesn't hide his beliefs. I applaud that. This is why Mormons might have a shot in this election

I have a shallow thing to admit. I sometimes make first opinions on how presidential a candidate looks. Can I visually see him/her leading this country?

Candidate #1

 Candidate #2

 Candidate #3

 Candidate #4

Candidate #5

Something to ponder.