Fresh French

While in Roanoke, I bought a lot of books. I can't help myself. I felt proud of myself for not going to the Green Valley book fair. That's an awful temptation. O didn't even buy any books after the author visits. But I still bought a good handful of other books at the faculty reading. I figured these people I knew and I was happy to get their signatures in the books, too. And then I also received a few gift books from a sweet teacher for my tutorial, in effort to help me with my Sleeping Beauty story by giving me some Medieval history books. Oh boy, history. Yes, I will have to read some history. I actually did read some library medieval history while I was in Roanoke, and it was pretty interesting. You should be proud of me.

But after receiving all these books, I came home thinking I was eager to read so many of them. I just couldn't decide.

Well, because I had taken so many of my own books with me down to Roanoke, and then with the acquisitions, I had a lot of reorganizing to do. I took just about all my books, even the ones that stayed, off the shelves to re-order and even changed the shelves for some topics. I did another project too to make room, but that's another story.

Anyway, in all of this self-enforced rummaging, I ran across this French book that I'd bought in Princeton like about a year and a half ago--le Petit Nicolas. And that was suddenly what I wanted to read. French. All of a sudden English didn't interest me at all. I felt this certain tiredness of English. All of these silly American stories, blah! They all seemed the same. Why couldn't English be like French?

Well, I just finished it tonight, and I have to say it was pretty sweet. Funny, clever, sometimes a little sad--as you'd expect from the culture. Sometimes it was a little predictable. I guess that kind of comes with all kinds of literature. But overall definitely enjoyable. I think I'm going to have to go get some more French books. Is that Green Valley Book Fair still going on?

Just kidding, I think I can read some English again, but I will be reading more French. It's just Fresh. What can I say?

Another Happy Birthday to Me!

Many thanks to my amazing roommate Carrie for organizing a surprise party for me. Someone did accidentally tell me at Church, but it was a surprise then, so that still worked for me! Either way, I felt very loved and what a wonderful way to help me ease my way back into Alexandria life after just arriving from Roanoke.

We had lots of fun with the biggest game of Apples to Apples I think I might ever have played. Mm, there might have been a time or too similar, but this was also unique in the widest age range I've ever played with as well. In any case, tons of fun!



Then after the largest selection of the crowd left, a few more guests came and we had a little Karaoke! Carrie recorded a little of the singing, so you'll have to check this out (last picture is the video): Picasa Karaoke


Here are some of the Karaoke friends:
Karen Knight (pretty flowery dress), Angelee Stamps (blue jeans and shirt, roommate) Javier (only male), and Carrie Johansen(flowery skirt and shirt, roommate)

Things in the Wash

What's the most unusual thing you've found in your wash? Coins? Dollar bills? Notes? Receipts?
I'm sure people have found other things, though those were the extent of my experience until yesterday.

After I arrived back in Alexandria, one of the first things I did was my laundry, happy not to have to pay quarters for it now, and having some things I needed for today. ahem. Anyway, well, when I opened the washing machine after my second load had gone through, what was my surprise to find my reading lamp right looking up at me. Yes, a little lamp. Lightbulb and all.

I hadn't remembered when I'd dumped the load, but yes, since that was one of the last things I'd packed and the dirty laundry bag was ready and a nice soft place for the lamp to go undamaged, I'd tossed it in that bag and covered it over--for protection. Ha!

Well, even funnier, it didn't look the least bit damaged--not even the lightbulb. I wondered if I was an idiot for even thinking about trying, but well, I did. I plugged it in, and tada! It actually works still. Absolutely amazing!

Happy Birthday to Me!

Can you believe it? Probably. It happens to everyone. Okay, maybe not everyone. But I'm glad not to be among those it doesn't happen to--turning 35, entering the new age category.

I'm not sure how this age category is qualified, but it does tend to happen that you see forms where 35 marks as you as older than those 20-to-young 30-somethings. Not long ago 35 would have been middle age, when life expectancy was only 70. It really isn't that much older now, but for some reason, and fortunately so, that middle age nomen tends to refer to older folks than I. In any case, I am inching closer to the top of that hill.

So how do I feel? Well, my back really hurts today. I think it's from lifting this incredibly heavy museum case for the student publications on Friday. But otherwise, not too bad. Tired too. That's a perpetual case, all summer at Hollins. But you mean the feelings, like, don't you? Like am I feeling old and decrepit? Sad? Forgotten? No, I'm okay there. I feel actually pretty happy today.

Later I'll go do dinner and have cake with a few friends, which is nice. But it's been interesting to ponder because I haven't lived on campus the past three years and so haven't been as close to the students, in both ways. But when I was putting together a list of friends to ask to join me, which was also a notch up in the bravery on my part--I've never thrown my own birthday party--I found it hard to parse down to a non-overwhelming number. So many good people and friends here.

I've had friends do things with me and for me the past three years, and I'm so glad for them! But a couple times it's been very last minute, so I've tended toward celebrating by myself earlier in the day. And, oddly, I suppose I kind of miss those self-indulgent days--allowing myself to buy whichever piece of cake I want at the grocery store. I suppose I could still do that. But really, I think I much prefer this having friends around thing.

Good and weary

Tomorrow is the Francelia Butler Conference for which we have been planning for just about a year now. I've been the co-chair for the Food/Decorations committee with my friend Dorina, and what a blessing it's been to work with her! I have to say.

Because of her cooking talents, we easily divided the duties so she was over food and I over decorations, though we still did a lot of planning and working together.

But so today, the title--good and weary. As it's the day before the conference, we had to get the place ready. So I've been back and forth between my apartment and the Visual Arts Center (VAC) where the conference will be, three or four times today, and then finally settling in to decorate for about, well, probably two and half hours, I guess. Counting the back and forth and the waiting for people, though, I was busy with it for a little over four hours.

But it was good and fun! I'm not complaining at all. My body is very tired and sore in a few places, probably from laying the construction paper feet to mark the path, and then the other stuff, walking around on an uncushioned cement floor.

The body needs those weary moments, though. I loved the decorating part, seeing things come together. I think it really does look good in there. I'll post some pictures.

And I was so glad for all of my helpers, most of whom had lots of better ideas for things than I did. I was glad for their initiative and willingness to be there. What great people! I wish I'd taken pictures of all of them working--just got a few.

And now I'm ready to write again!

New Cookies

Last night, wanting some cookies but not having brown sugar--which I actually don't have on purpose so I wouldn't make cookies--I saw that I did have an Angel Food cake mix and wondered what I could do with that. No bundt pan, but I know some people turn cake mixes into cookies, so I thought I'd give it a try. I flipped through the old BYU 11th ward cookbook that I thought had such a recipe, but didn't see anything, so I decided just to guess at something that might work.
So here's what I did.

1 Angel Food cake mix
a handful of cocoa
a few pinches of apple pie spice
about 3/4 cup of water

Mix it all up. It takes a bit of work--this is half the water that the cake recipe calls for

Oven at 350 for maybe 10 minutes.
And yea, it was actually pretty good. Yum, yum.

A Realization about Faith

A few days ago I was reading in the book of Ether about when the Brother of Jared saw the Lord. It's one of my favorite stories, as I think it is for many. But something stuck out in particular to me this time when I read that he had faith no longer because he knew. Of course, it would seem natural that seeing the Lord would make it so that a person would know. Seeing is believing? That's probably why I hadn't thought too much about this in particular before. But I have thought about that seeing is believing thing before. We know our eyes can trick us. We know there are people who see things that aren't really there. And we know that some people who have seen things, such as Laman and Lemuel who saw an angel (or two?), and did not believe--let alone "know." How is that?

We know they didn't have faith, but seeing is believing right? Well, they couldn't "know" because this is a different layer or meaning of knowing than book knowledge. At institute awhile ago, a few months ago, the teacher gave a lesson that addressed this layers/meanings of knowing. The way it worked for me to understand was to consider the two verbs in French for "to know": savoir and connaitre. To know things and to know people, or to know more internly.

The brother of Jared at this point came to know his Savior at this point in a completely internal way. (Turn your sick mind off, that's not what I mean.) As the scriptures say, to know Him is to be like Him. The Lord wouldn't have trusted BofJ to see Him and say BofJ knew Him if BofJared hadn't been striving to be like Him--having faith. That is why faith absolutely is not faith without works. Faith is inseparable from works because it's part of the process of becoming like the Savior --the way that we can know Him, in the connaitre way.

Memory Challenge, Childhood sickness

On one of the author blogs I follow, the blogger has a weekly memory challenge, and today's was a little interesting. Maybe I'm just anxious to write, take a break from all the re-writing I'm doing. There is really so much a difference.

The memory challenge is this--what do you remember about being sick as a kid?
I remember when I had the chicken pox I was allowed to sleep on the hide-a-bed in the living room, and that I didn't have to go to school--kindergarten I believe. Unless I'm remembering when someone else had them. But it was pretty cool to sleep on the hide-a-bed. And then stay on it all day. Right there in the middle of the living room where everyone has to see you and feel sorry for you. Those red dots all over were pretty sweet too.

Reading about kids who got ice cream and pudding and stuff made me kind of wish I could get my tonsils out or something, but I was never that lucky. I actually had a pretty healthy childhood, didn't miss much school. I did miss a day in 3rd grade though. I don't remember what it was, probably just a cold or something. But the teacher still gave me a perfect attendance award at the end of the year. And that actually made me sad--she hadn't missed me, I thought.

Then in fourth grade, I had this, um, issue, I guess. It wasn't really sickness. I had warts. I know I counted them at the time, but I don't remember exactly how many--in the range of 10, I think, though most were pretty small. Three or four were pretty big though. Getting those frozen off, though--that little "surgery" wasn't anything like getting your tonsils out. This was just embarrassing. But I still got a day off for it. And this time, I didn't want to stay on the hide-a-bed in the middle of the living room. As soon as I got home, I went straight to my own bed and cried myself to sleep. Oh that hurt really bad. I might have got pudding or something. I don't remember. I just remember it hurt, really bad.

Other things I remember about being sick was that if you stayed home from school you couldn't play with your friends later, so you'd better really be sick if you wanted the day off. Sometimes I felt better at the end of the day, but I learned to suck it up. What about you? What are you memories about being sick?


I have to add this post script that my mother emailed me: So it seems I wasn't in kindergarten. But I do remember the couch. Funny. Maybe it was coming home to it when the others had it, or maybe a combination. A three-year-old can have memories, but since it was so long ago, it also makes sense that it would be jumbled a bit:

The Quist family endured the chicken pox twice. The first time was in Canada before John was born. One child got it and two weeks later the other three did. So in about a month’s time all four of my kids had chicken pox. If you do the math, you’ll know that you had chicken pox as a three year old, more or less six months. It’s interesting that during this same month, Kim had rubella, otherwise called German measles.

The second round was in Loveland when Nancy was two months old. One child came down with it and two weeks later the other three(including Nancy) got it.

So, your hide-a-bed confinement, if it was chicken pox, would have been in Calgary.

Logic? You bet. I do sudoku.

Same Sunday School

This morning I slept in and missed the Roanoke 1st ward meetings, which start at 9:00. I guess it's fortunate in a way not to be living near my home ward while I'm in school because it really does mess up my sleeping schedule. I went to the Salem ward at 11:30 without guilty feelings, well not too bad. I did feel bad when the girl I give rides to showed up at 8:45 and I woke up to her knocking. Fortunately she was fine with going at 11:30 too.

Curiously, although the two wards are in the same stake, the Salem ward is a week behind on their Sunday School lesson. So we got the same lesson we had last week. But of course this was fine. It always is, somehow. This teacher didn't cover some of the topics that were covered last week and covered some that weren't. But even in the cases when the same topic was covered, there was a different light that opened in my mind, and such that pertained to my life at the moment. Fascinating how the study of the scriptures can do that, isn't it?

One of those things that pertains to my life at this time actually came up again later this evening when I was talking with my little brother on the phone. I moaned about the possibilities of having to deal with "people's certain freedoms" as pertains to their writing. Maybe I said "freeness" I don't remember. But I was getting at the nuisance that their being too free and easy with their language and situations.

My brother reminded me that people died so we could have those freedoms in this country, and my response was that I just wish they didn't have to subject me to their freedoms. Interestingly this reminded me of the subject of the people in Ammonihah that Alma and Amulek taught who were burned for their beliefs. This was one of the subjects taught both weeks. Why did the Lord allow them to be burned? Because He had to allow the wicked to exercise their free agency.

For some reason, I hadn't put the two together that that might be simply a good enough reason that I have to endure reading through people's profane and blasphemous use of language--and that I feel bad not because I'm being condemned for reading it and need to stop them from doing it, but because sin really does make other people feel bad. That's why it's sin. But God can't take away their agency.

On the other hand, I also know that sometimes people sin--act contrary to the will of God--because they don't know better. And so I don't think it's entirely out of place to let people know they are hurting you. Alma and Amulek did tell the wicked people beforehand that they were being wicked--and some of them even repented--those who were burned, unfortunately. Not everything has a happy earth-life ending. But there does come a certain point when you just have to say like Jacob in another part of the Book of Mormon--well, rearranging the tense effectually--that he's saying or said the things he said to remove the blood from his cloak and once his job is done, it's done--the blood isn't on his cloak any more, and he has to let them do what they'll do.

Though I do feel some kind of torture at times for my religious beliefs--not just putting up with profanity (there's actually more to this story than I'm telling here, so you don't think I'm exaggerating something that doesn't seem like persecution to you, though even if there weren't more--it still is painful to read God's name taken so brutally so often, as well as the other words. I really HATE it--as long as I'm digressing I'll just mention this funny thing I thought of today while I was talking with my new LDS friend that I take to Church. We were both complaining about people's bad language and other use in things we have to read, and she mentioned the offense someone took to her decision not to read their script, and I said, "How funny that the first offender is offended when you told him he was successful--Profanity is meant to offend, and he did it. She laughed. I thought it was funny, too, not to pat my own back. I might have heard from someone else once). Anyway, so as I was listing the persecutions, which isn't entirely unrighteous. In the D&C there's a section where the Lord commands the people to list the offenses. And so, I'll say, it also terribly rankles me when people insinuate that I'm not a Christian because I'm Mormon, and when people make me feel like I'm too goody-goody--they know other Mormons who wouldn't be bothered, or they're Mormons and they're not bothered. I hate that too. And then there's others who think I'm not goody-goody enough. And granted, I'm not perfect in these areas either, so it's helpful to write them out and become mindful of my own bad judgment habits.

In any case, what I was really getting to in this is that it's all really nothing, absolutely NOTHING, compared to the things many others have suffered, such as the martyrs in Alma and Amulek's time, or the early Saints, as I just mentioned who were commanded to write their grievances. I've never been physically beaten or killed for my beliefs. And in fact, I'm very grateful for the Church and the good it does for me. I can't even tell you how nice it felt today to be in Church, among fellow Saints, even if I didn't know them very well. I'm very blessed for the knowledge I do have of my Savior and of the gospel He has re-established on the Earth today through Joseph Smith. What tremendous blessings to have temples on the Earth now, to be able to take the sacrament every week, to have a loving family. Life really is pretty good for me.

Happy Independence Day!

I don't know that my Canadian family reads this much, but since there independence day is close to ours, in the US, I don't want to leave them out, nor any reader in a happily independent country. Today just happens to be ours, and I'm grateful to celebrate it.

Actually, speaking of Canada, I've found myself a few times in the past accidentally putting on one of my Canada T-shirts on the 4th of July. Sometimes because they happen to have red and white in them and look a little patriotic, other times just because they felt right for my mood that day, like any other day--the colors and fabric and style. And you know, I just realized--here I go again, talking about clothes! Gee whiz!

But anyway, so today I was actually conscious of what I put on and happily found my red Boston T-shirt clean in my drawer. Got the colors and the right country this time. But not only that, Boston has significance in our fight for independence, so I felt even better about wearing it. Nice reminders of the actual wars and fights our forefather and mothers went through for our freedom.

Another difference about this year was my locale. I've been in Roanoke on the 4th for the past three summers, but living on the other end of town. Since I'm on campus this summer, I found myself able to "hang with the Hollins crowd" --attend a little barbecue at the apartments and then watch the fireworks on a hill on campus. From there, we had a view of four or five different firework shows. For none of them did we have the best view, and I think they were also small shows this year. It sprinkled a little while we were on the hill so I wonder if there wasn't more rain down in the valley were most of the shows originated. But all the same, I had fun spending time with friends.

Here are just a few pics. I know they look hazy--it was dusky and dark, so I used the night setting on my camera, but that setting doesn't still movement very well. I kind of like it though--it fits with my appreciate for candidness, like there should be motion depicted when motion is taking place.