It's a Wonderful Life

Since I watched this movie in its seasonal norm a few weeks ago, I've been thinking a lot about it. I've always liked it, since I was little and it played on regular TV every Christmas time. I especially liked the end, where George got to see what a wonderful life he led. How different the world would have been without him. And now as an adult, I watch it, and I still like the end. I got the tingly happy feeling watching all his neighbors bring their few dollars and tell him how grateful they are for him.

But I'm a little more perplexed as an adult, particularly by one of the last lines of the narrator that reminds us of the everyman spin onto it. Let me see if I can explain. There are a number of reasons that people enjoy pieces of fiction (books, movies, etc.) For some pieces, it's the escapist quality, the adventure, and for others its the pulls at the heart strings.  In most cases, though, regardless the genre, there is an appeal to the everyman. In an adventure, it's a temporary opportunity to imagine yourself heroically, or doing something out of the mundane. The heart string pullers are a little closer to reality, having the "this really could happen to you" feel about them. But still, they're a pull from the mundane. Whatever the case, the audience pulls themselves into the story. Facebook quizmakers are very well aware of this as they don't seem to have an end to the number of "Which character are you?" quizzes and people continue to love taking them.

So what is the everyman take home from It's a Wonderful Life? It's not too much of a great adventure. In fact, one of the great conflicts is that George never gets to go on the travelling adventures he's always wanted to. So, it seems to fit more tidily into the "This could happen to you." And indeed, as the narrator tries to convince us in his summary, who, in their everyday everyman life doesn't want to feel like their pittance of an existence has made a great mark on the world?

This is what perplexes me, though. See, it's not quite as tidy as that. Although a young person watching it can be inspired to live a selfless life, as George did, giving to others for the sake of his love for them, not everyone will be able to look back on their life with the same results. How many people can say they've saved the life of a war hero who went on to save hundreds of other lives? How many people are able to save a city from being clutched in the grasp of a greedy monopolizer? Seeing these big things as the marks of a "wonderful life" can leave the everyman feeling his life is not quite so big a stick as that.

Nonetheless, I don't think we can stop here and write off the movie as not up to snuff. There's something that's just under the surface that needs to come up. And that is what makes it a great story. That is, what is it that makes George feel as if his life is wonderful? Is it realizing the good he's done? No, I don't think so. He does have some kind of recognition here. But that's not what brings about his change of heart. It comes to a culmination when he sees Mary unhappy and his heart yearns to have her and make her happy again, when he realizes how happy she's made him. And then it continues there to his other friends--it's not how much good he's done for them that he rejoices in, but how happy they made him: the reasons that he did the good deeds he spent his life doing, because he loved them.

This too is why this is such a great Christmas movie. Many movies have a Christmas scene in them, and sometimes they get lumped into the Christmas movie category and sometimes they don't. It's a Wonderful Life, as far as setting goes, could fall in with those. It has a Christmas scene, which happens to be at the end. But it's the focus of the whole movie. No, what makes this a Christmas movie is the theme--the demonstration of the Savior's love through a single person. There was an angel, though not a Christmas angel, but he served to represent how the Savior makes our lives wonderful, by providing us with people we can love, if we choose to, by providing us with opportunities to help each other. Not all of us will have life-saving opportunities, not in the grandiose sense, but we can all in our small ways make our lives wonderful by choosing to be grateful for the lives of the loved ones around us.

Fun with French

My first NOVA class is finished and I haven't written anything about it since I started! How did that happen? Well, it's called--this isn't my only journal. I have written elsewhere. But maybe I should share a few things with you about it. I had seven wonderful students enrolled in my Introductory French course, and we covered a lot of ground together.

So much ground that I'm positive some of the things that came up as questions or during my preparations as seemingly significant to teach, I'm positive I didn't learn in my introductory French course back in 8th grade, and yet we met in that class for an hour every week day for an entire semester. What on earth did we do in all that time we had? I have to confess that I wonder that about a lot of subjects. But that is for a different conversation.

I think those things came up just because of this man named Murphy. You've probably heard of him. He has a law. That is, as I feared, students asked me questions I didn't know the answers to. It has been a few years since I was regularly conversing in French, and even more since I studied it.

Still, I think I didn't do too badly.  After all, it's not like they were asking these questions because we moved  so quickly as to bypass my abilities. No, they still had a hard enough time learning the things I was trying to teach them--things I did know. I think that's a unique problem to teaching adults. They just know enough to ask obscure questions--like the gentleman who had a litany of military-related questions. I'm not really much of a historian, let alone a military historian, and much less a French military historian. True, I probably should have brushed up a bit on the masculine/feminine case of a few words I got stumped on, but no, I'm not so sure it was all that big of a slight that I didn't know all the answers.

At least they were learning something, and I could definitely tell in this case. That's a nice thing about taking people who start with next to nothing in a subject--you know when they make progress.

And still, in spite of the embarrassing questions, I had fun--even learning answers to those questions, as well as finding things as I prepared for the classes that I didn't know. For example, I had thought that lavabo was the word for sink, of any kind. So when I was in France, I never completely understood the funny looks I got when I used the word to refer to the kitchen sink. Eventually I stopped using it and just used  "bobiné" if necessary, since I'd at least gathered as much as to know that that probably meant tap, since when they gave me tap water they said it was "du bobiné." But I learned that evier is the word for a kitchen sink. Who knew? What's the big difference, I don't know. But there you have it.

There were a few other obscure words I learned, as well as I had refreshers of lessons I learned back in the 8th grade that for whatever reason haven't come up as significant since then. Isn't language interesting?


One of the best things I learned from teaching, however, is that some students can actually be forgiving of blunders and embarrassments, and keep on smiling as you push forward. Maybe because French is such a beautiful language, it's a little easier to see le prof en rose.

Substitute Teaching

Why are Substitute like diapers? Because they catch a lot of crap from kids

But it's a lot harder to change these diapers because these kids are old enough they should know how to act by now. So with that, and the load I take on from them, I can't always change the diaper quickly enough, so I start to stink.

Okay, that wasn't terribly pleasant an opener, was it?
Well, I'll try to be more positive. I have had some good experiences subbing lately, but it is pretty tough.

A few weeks ago, while a Spanish class was Venn diagraming the differences between the US and Spain, I thought I'd draw my own Venn Diagram (They seem to be popular in this district--I've subbed for several classes who have had to make one for something or other). Mine is on the similarities and differences between my school experience between elementary and high school, and the schools where I've been subbing. The things that are somewhat in the middle but hanging over into the Con Ball side mean that those things are at some PG schools but not all.

Can you get a little bit of a sense of what difficulties I've encountered? There was no such thing as an ipod or a cell phone or a PDS when I was in school, so no teachers had to take these things away. There were toys, of course, and you can be sure teachers took them away. Why students think they "need" their phones for emergencies now when we've gotten by without them for so long is beyond me. But it's not just student silliness that causes problems, as you can see. It's the nature of the whole beast. In the first class I subbed for this school year, a class I had for three weeks, several kids consistently did not bring their books to class. So I tried getting into their brain that this class was ESOL and the most important book for them to bring to ESOL was the ESOL book. Get your other books from your locker after class. But then I heard an administrator in the hall get after a kid for getting into his locker between classes. There's no winning. I can see to a degree why they have minimal time in their lockers. But it's also a pretty tough burden on those kids to make them carry all of their books to every class.

And there's this other issue. Aside from typical disruptive students, one of the big disruptions is having several children one after the other raise their hand, or approach you without raising their hand, to ask to use the restroom. You think you're onto something good and then bop--it's only a restroom break. Maybe the children need some more diapers in these classrooms.

Socks

As the cold weather has hit again, I've had socks on the brain quite a bit. Why? Because I'm not terribly fond of socks. Generally speaking. There are some socks that I like, however, and I love getting warm, fun socks as gifts. But generally, I'm a barefoot baby, quite happy to run around with pebbles poking my arches.

Why do I not like socks?

1. They're the key to letting people know my pants are sometimes not long enough

2. Finding the right ones to match whatever I'm wearing is tricking and expensive

3. Wearing shoes and socks makes my feet stink.

4. They're either too thick or too thin--either can't fit into my shoes, or so thin they're falling down my ankles all the time.

5. When they get holes, I'm annoyed with the hole all day, and probably longer because I don't want to throw them out and pay money to replace them, especially if they happen to match something.

6. They look funny with skirts and dresses which means I have to have pantyhose, which are even worse.

7. Pairs get split up all over the place

in the wash

in the bed

behind the bed

between the shower and the hamper

8. If I'm wearing only socks and I have to go outside, they get dirtier or sopping wet a lot faster than if I'm only wearing shoes.

9. I have nice looking ankles without the socks.

Why do I, therefore, like socks that are gifts, or fun socks?

1. These socks are cute, so it doesn't matter if they match anything. I'm not wearing them for that.

2. They keep my feet warm enough that I don't have to wear shoes, too.

3. They make people smile.

4. Of course, they still get lost and separated. Especially because these are often night socks that are bound to be worn into bed. But because they're colorful and fun, I can usually notice readily when they're missing and see them as they stand out in the mess of sheets, etc.

Happy Birthday Cyndi!

The last but not least, my sister Cyndi. That is, since I started with John whose birthday is later this month, Cyndi is the final immediate family member to be recognized in her birthday month.

Cyndi is the child right after me in birth order, number four. We're just over two years apart, and so we tended to play dolls and house together a lot. We also had next door neighbors that had girls each of our ages, so we went together over to the Menkes a lot to play with Jenny and Becky. But even on Sundays, when we didn't play with neighbors, we had our box houses in the basement and played quite a bit. Although I think I shared a room longer with Kim, I did also share with Cyndi, especially after Kim moved out.

This is not to say, however, that we were best of friends. No, I was probably more often the annoying big sister who liked things quiet so I could get my homework done, and who didn't always like her music, and was jealous of her popularity, jealous that our big brother seemed to like her better, that she was cuter, or something. Typical sibling rivalries. And yet she still loved me and missed me when I went away to college. Will wonders never cease.

But Cyndi has always been a cheerful person and she turned out quite all right.

I have nice memories of her coming with my mom to help out when I had my car accident back in 1993--her senior year in high school. The next year, when she was at Ricks, she came down with a friend to visit me, and we braved a little car wreck together. Poor Cyndi, sitting up front, got a taste of air bag face. She still looked cute, of course.

Since her husband and I are about the same age, we both graduate with bachelors' at about the same time, so when I moved home after BYU, he was starting his graduate work, and it just happened to be at Denver University, so in 1998 and 99, we were once again in the same state, and not that far apart. I went down there a few times to watch her oldest and then second after he was born. And they, of course, came up from time to time. Those were fun times.

Now, she's on the other side of the country from me, but we talk occasionally on the phone, and communicate through our myfamily website. She's a fun and bubbly mom of five wonderful kids, four of whom she has enrolled in soccer right now. Plus she's doing a pre-school again for her fourth child, and taking care of a one year old (her fifth). Amazing!

Most recently, I saw her at the reunion in Colorado this summer. I had fun playing with her kids and laughing with Cyndi at things. She has a very fun, catchy laugh, and I love her to death! Happy Birthday, Cyndi!

Busy-ness!

The last two weeks I've had what I wrote awhile ago about only hoping for--busy-ness. And I've learned to be careful what you wish for. Well, it's actually been a blessing in a few ways. A week after the Korean kids left, school started in PG's county, where I subbed and will sub. But, as you can imagine, it will take some time before teachers need subs. So, although I had a few tutoring assignments that carried through for a week or two after (and picked up a new one that will go through the school year), it wasn't really a lot of work. Fortunately, however, as I was volunteering at the library that week, a man came in looking for a typist for a book he's working on. Although the librarians are technically not supposed to recommend companies or people--endorsement concerns--since the librarian knew I was in need of work and figured that I was probably a decent typist considering my experiences and interests (she was right, of course--I can do 70 wpm)--she went over to where I was shelf-reading and asked if I wanted to talk to him. So I did, and to make it short--for the last two weeks I've had typing work. The timing, as indicated, was of course, fantastic as far as employment in general, but also because I've started teaching my NOVA continuing ed (workforce development) courses this week, so I've needed time at home to get those ready, so working from home these two weeks has been great. It's also good because I tend to like to mess around on the computer, and so it's nice to have something productive to do--typing at home--which has more or less forced me to drop out of some silly farming games on Facebook that I was really looking for an excuse to drop.

The things I've been typing, too, have been kind of interesting. But also kind of depressing. It's about this man's efforts to change the name of one of the Senate buildings because the name after whom it's named was a terrible racist. When that effort didn't bring the immediate desired results, after a year, he switched gears to seeking for an apology from the Senate for not passing anti-lynching legislation in spite of several efforts to pass such a bill. I don't have a lot of experience or understanding about the workings of the government, so this has been educational in that regard, too, but it seems, based on my reading, that the Senate was seriously messed up considering the ability of one senator to block bills through filibustering. I think filibustering laws/rules have changed since that time, so hopefully they're better. But seriously, seriously, that was messed up. To think that one man could basically throw a temper tantrum--though a "mature" version of one-- just talking for hours on end--in order to get his way, well, as I'm indicating, it's all rather childish. Considering my lack of knowledge on the subject, this post might seem a little childish, though hopefully more child-"like," but I seriously hope that laws have changed to make it a lot harder for one hard-headed, hair-brained nut to keep a good bill from passing.

The man for whom I've been doing this typing asked me, after the first batch of typing--last week--if I would collaborate with him on bringing this book about, and I agreed. As I've typed this second half, though, I've been wondering if that was the right decision. It's all rather complicated to know, sometimes, what's really good and what's specious. Reading about the terrible things this man did, and about the terrible things themselves--the lynchings--is all rather depressing. These are terrible, terrible things--is there a word strong enough to describe the horribleness of it?--that people in American history did. If I understand correctly, the man's point in writing is to bring these aspects of our history to more people's attention--for history's sake. On one hand, I can see the value of that. It is good to know even the negative things about our history, isn't it? But why? Before I can move forward with the collaboration, I need to understand the why more clearly, more thoroughly. So we don't repeat it, of course, is one of the standard reasons for history, but I think I need a better understanding than that. Something to help me understand how "If there is anything virtuous lovely, of good report, or praiseworthy" applies to this situation. So that I understand how to present it in a non-hypocritical way--with love rather than hate.

Happy Birthday Thom

As is becoming my habit, I'm a few days late, but I can't forget my brother Thom! He's the brother who is exactly like me in every way! Okay, no, he's not my twin. He's actually about nine years younger. Ten for a month. But we both have summer birthdays! And we were both English majors, both are creative writers, and like fantasy. I tend to like lower fantasy, which he does too, but I think he might like some higher fantasy too. Anyway, we also both served missions, and we're both the third child. Yes, I can hear your "huh?" According to some birth order theories, there are only four possible children in every family and then it starts over. It can also start over a certain amount of time passes between births--like a lot of time. Anyway, since my parents had eight children, Thom and I are both the third child. Get it? I might even have explained this before on here. I have had to explain it on occasion.

Anyway, obviously, we have many differences, too, even aside from the boy-girl thing. He's married and has a wonderful wife and a sweet daughter and another on the way. He's got a very upbeat personality, loves to sing, and act. He even just got hired as the acting coach for the high school where he lives. Otherwise, he teaches middle grade English. So, we're both teachers, too--though he actually has a certification. Anyway, anyway, so I really love my brother Thom.

Let's see, what's one of my favorite memories? Well, going to his house over Christmas break in 2007, when he was still finishing up his degree and they lived in a tiny apartment down in Alamosa, was a good memory. We even had each other's names for the gift exchange, and he condescended to liking the aprons I made for him and his wife. I actually like them, too, but you never know with homemade things and particularly aprons for me. I had tried to make a bow tie for him, but it didn't work. I thought he looked cute in the apron anyway. He got me a couple books, one from Elder Wirthlin, who passed away recently, so that was good timing, and the other was the first in the FableHaven series which I'm continuing on now as we speak--very good series. Captivating.

I also have nice memories of Thom when he was little. He was an adorable little boy. I left home for college when he was young, like 8 or so, I think, though I bounced in and out of the house during his middle school and high school years. During that time, I remember shaving his face--yes he was quite brave. It wasn't like I was inexperienced, though. I shaved the faces of many willing young men in my ward at BYU around that time. With a women's razor even. Beat that! I also did the little braid things in Thom's hair once, as I did John's, and I might even have dyed his hair a tinge. Yes, I think I did.

Most recently, I saw him at the family reunion, which I neglected to document on the blog, for various reasons, but anyway, we had a great time. He was in charge of the Q-lympics and did a fantastic job with that. We partnered in an event of doing word puzzles and rocked the house with that one! (How could two such intelligent English major types not?) :)

Anyway, Thom is great, Thom is awesome. I hope he had a great birthday!

Summer Summary

From the end of June to the end of August, about 10 weeks, I taught English to some Korean kids who came over for the summer specifically to learn English through a Tae Kwon Do program. With some exceptions where I've shared the teaching with a friend, such as for the week break for my family reunion, I taught for three hours a day Monday through Thursday, so four times a week. In addition to this job, I also had at least two tutoring jobs going on at a time. so it's been a summer of teaching. And I've learned a lot, I think.

For the first three weeks of teaching the Koreans, I think, I had only four students. Three of them were at the same level, twelve-year old kids who had an advanced beginner level. And the other was an eight-nine year old who was very, very beginner; she knew some words. In the middle of week three, I received three new students. They were mostly at the same level as the three advanced beginners. Then the week after they came, I got one more student, the day before I left on vacation actually. She was the same age as the other children, but her level seemed to be closer to the one very beginning student, though not quite as low.

Needless to say, the situation provided numerous challenges for me as well as for them. To begin with, filling three hours four times a week with English lessons is quite a bit, particularly since I don't speak a lick of Korean. Most schools usually try to switch the subject every hour or hour and a half. Well, in university, you might get some three hour seminars, but overall, for these children, three hours is pretty intense on a foreign language they're not very proficient in, and tough on a teacher to find things to do to fill that time.

By the second week, much thanks to my friend Marissa, I got down a bit of a routine, and so for the middle hour of every day from then on out, we spent reading, writing about the reading, and doing some listening comprehension. Of course that meant spending quite a bit of time in the library, trying to find not only books at their reading level, but books that weren't too babyish. If there's one thing I've learned this summer, it's that there is a definite need for early readers geared to learners of English as a foreign language. Twelve-year olds generally don't enjoy the same reading materials as first and second grade children do. Fortunately, there were a handful that fit the bill, and the children were otherwise compliant because they didn't have any other choice. I remain convicted, nonetheless, that reading is an excellent way to acquire a familiarity that paves the way to a better understanding of language in several facets.

Since two of the kids I tutored this summer were working on writing, I used books a lot to help them as well. As long as the books follow basic grammar rules (not all do, since many try to mimic colloquial speech), they're very helpful for early writers.

Even for the children for whom the subject matter was more appropriate (and even for them there was a degree of challenge as each child has different tastes), there also seems to be a need for standardization of reading levels. There are a number of books that have numbers on them to indicate the reading level--one to three, mostly. Only saw one level four. These numbers were sometimes helpful, but sometimes woefully misleading. Because publishers have no obligation to follow prescribed government educational standards, the numbers have relatively little meaning comparing across publishers. Although I don't have a teaching certificate, I imagine that even if publishers wanted to follow government standards, there would be problems since education is administered and governed on three different standard levels--federal, state, and school district. Aside from that, or maybe along with that, though I understand completely why it doesn't happen, it would also have helped a lot if the library had different sections for the different reader levels. Ah, oh well.

So, for the Korean, although the reading hour did have its challenges, I still felt like that was one of the easiest things about the day--it was set that that's what we would do for the second hour, which made planning easier. And I enjoyed looking for books and finding so many new things out there. Another good thing was that it enabled me to devote about a half an hour of the time per day in a one-on-one reading with the beginner, while everyone else read silently.

The program at Hollins didn't have any classes on early/easy readers. These kind of books are not generally very "literary" so I can understand to a certain degree. But I think there is room to include the kind of book in a children's literature program. They definitely contribute to the culture of children learning through books. Even the Korean kids had seen Frog and Toad before. That should tell you something.

Things got more complicated, though, when I came back from vacation and had basically two beginners. For a couple days after I got back, the new beginner (Mary--not her real name) sat with me and the young girl (Angela--not her real name), but Mary wasn't patient with Angela's reading and kept telling her what all the words were. Angela didn't mind. It didn't seem mean, but that really wasn't helping her. Since Mary was able to read by herself without help, I sent her back to her seat. But she wasn't very happy there. Although she could read, the writing assignments were very hard for her, and she had a terrible time understanding me during the rest of the time, so I felt like I wasn't very helpful to her at all. At least while the other newer arrivals were there, though, she was getting some help from them as I paired them off for study techniques.

But then, a week or so after I came back, the three students who had come in the third week left, leaving me with my four originals plus Mary. And well, by this time, my three more advanced originals were doing pretty well, and I wanted to build on the momentum they were gathering, but the beginners didn't seem to making a whole lot of progress. In some ways, even the easy things I introduced became daunting to them because they had come to assume that if I was teaching the other kids, it was too hard for them, which certainly wasn't true for everything. I did a whole week that was entirely vocabulary, for example--well, maybe a little grammar mixed in, but review more than introducing new grammar.

I ended up lessening my time with Angela in reading, though I started to help her write simple things about what she'd read. But this enabled me to be closer to Mary and the other kids, so while Angela would write a word or two, I could help Mary with her assignments. For the most part, I think Mary still felt frustrated, and I don't blame her at all. This all was only for a summer and a few hours a day, but it gave me a little taste of some of the frustrations both students and teachers must have felt, and I suppose in many places in the world still do--as they use one room school houses.

Nonetheless, in spite of all this, I had a lot of fun, both with the kids and with the putting lessons together and learning more about the grammar I thought I knew. A lot of the lessons I prepared, grammar that is, were based on things that I'd heard or seen in their writing that they were doing incorrectly. From this, I knew a teacher at some point must have introduced the concept to them and either the teacher or the student had missed some of the finer points. Nonetheless, since they'd established a basis, I knew I could build on it.

But it stretched my brain to think about why the things they were saying or writing were wrong. I've been correcting incorrect things for a long time, editing papers and such, and I've even been able to explain a lot of things to my peers to help them understand their mistakes. But since in most of those cases, my peers were native English speakers, there were a number of basic mistakes in the Korean's work I've never had to address. How, for example, do we use "many" "any" "much" "some" etc. And when do we use "was/were" plus "ing" rather than the simple past tense? In the beginning, they seemed to prefer using the was/were plus ing whenever I told them to use past tense, but 99% of the time, it wasn't right. After a couple weeks or so of that, I just told them not to use was/were plus ing at all so they could get the simple past down. And that in itself was important since even more than using the ing, they preferred to use the present tense. In fact, even up to the final spoke test I gave them on the last day of class, even though we've worked on past tense all summer, still when I asked them to verbalize a summary of a story we've read or listened to, or tell me about their trips or weekends, they related it in the present tense. They definitely learned things, though, and I definitely saw improvement, even in how they used past tense when they did use it. They used was and were less often--present or past tense. (They tended to put it after the subject just about all the time at first.) And their vocabulary increased. And, as their Tae Kwon Do master said, they increased in confidence.

That was actually an interesting conversation. Many times during the summer, every day for some stretches, I went to the studio before class to make copies and from time to time ran into the Tae Kwon Do master. He was always very gracious and grateful with me, which I appreciated, particularly since I felt somewhat self-conscious about my abilities, particularly with the students' different levels. But just before the last week, I ran into him and he told me they were doing very well and that he felt they would return to Korea with greater confidence. And that was the most important thing. He didn't say greater confidence in their abilities with English--just greater confidence. Coming from a Tae Kown Do master, that made sense that that would the ultimate aim, but I hadn't actually thought about it that way before.

The children obviously struggled. They didn't learn everything I tried teaching them. But they had matured. Is that what learning is about? Improving our confidence? I have to say that's a pretty good observation. Pretty wise, even. In all that we go about learning, even if we don't get things down 100%, we gain experience and maturity. In the end, well, speaking of languages specifically, God knows so many languages--and, well, he understands everyone, even if they don't have any language--learning one other language to our native tongue is hardly a chink in the wall toward thoroughly understanding everyone. But still, it's a chink, and we can start to see that God's helping us little by little, we can gain confidence and maturity and that's something. It really is.

Independence and Independence

The irony didn't occur to me until just now, as I tried to think of a title for this post. That is, as we as a nation celebrated our independence, a group of LDS singles between 31 and 45 gathered in the DC area for a conference, and for many of us the purpose of attending was at least in part as a means of seeking a diminishment of our independence. Is there a contradiction here? Not really. Absolute independence isn't anyone's aim, and shouldn't be. I happened to catch the last 10 minutes of a Twilight Zone episode on Friday, part of a Twilight Zone marathon day on the SciFi channel, wherein a man had a stop watch that allowed him to stop time completely, so that everyone became inanimate but himself until he clicked to start the watch again. It enabled him to get out of a little trouble, which he needed as he seemed to be a bit curmudgeonly, but just as he decided to take advantage of the gift and rob a bank, the watch fell, he stepped on it and it broke, leaving everyone inanimate forever but himself. Not much need for the money then, but not much happiness either. We need each other.

This truth is also part of the story of our nation. As part of the conference, one of the activities I chose to attend was a tour of the Capitol. We started this tour by watching a 10-15 minute video presentation with a little bit of history about the building. It was interesting for me to learn that during the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln made an optimistic decision about the war by asking that construction of the dome to top the capitol continue. The nation wouldn't be a nation if every state were completely independent. Ours is a history of interdependence.

And so the desire to marry and leave a bit of the independence aside is not so contradictory to the nation's history nor this celebration. Families with united parents, too, make up a big part of the success of this nation.

But independence is, of course, a good value to have. We rightly celebrate our nation's freedom from tyranny and injustice. And as people, too, we can follow this example of seeking and maintaining and being grateful for the independence we have, even as we seek to marry--such as by not settling for someone who will be a tyrant or injust, as well as by being grateful that inasmuch as marriage isn't always possible, we still have several freedoms, including the rights now for women to hold better and better positions and maintain our living,

Also the freedoms to worship as we want to. I found it altogether appropriate to find the statue of Brigham Young in the Capitol, one of Utah's two contributions, but also on the independence day holiday, since he did quite a bit toward the end of our religion's independence, as well as to the growth of the nation. He also had quite a bit to do with the educational growth and thereby independence, of many of the individuals attending the conference. You might even say he had quite a bit of influence, though indirectly, of bringing this group together.

So, moving on. The Capitol tour was only a minor part of the conference and of my 4th of July experience, though it was likely the most patriotic-related thing. After the tour, there was a barbecue at the stake center, with real barbecue--not bbq'd hamburgers and hot dogs, but barbecued pork and beef. Yum. I also watched some fireworks, but due to some of my own mishap, not with the group. Perhaps it was somewhat appropriate for me, given my independent personality, to be a little more independent as part of my independence day celebration. After the barbecue, I went home and did a few things, including reading something and falling asleep. Only, I slept a little longer than I intended, woke up a half an hour after I was supposed to meet people at Iwo Jima, in other words, probably 1 hour and 1/2 after I should have left the house to catch a metro. Well, I thought I could still drive in. It wasn't too dark, and it wasn't in DC. But even Arlington had roads blocked off and I just didn't feel like driving back to a metro stop and huffing it in to catch people at the last minute then getting back onto a crowded metro some short time later. Instead, I went home and watched the fireworks in my neighborhood. I didn't have that bad of a view here either, and I got to watch the neighborhood kids doing street fireworks, which is one thing that kind of makes the 4th feel more like my childhood memories, and which I haven't had the opportunity to experience for several years because of the laws of the places I've been. So, all in all, it was a good independence day. Hope it was for you too!

God's Sense of Humor

About three weeks ago I started volunteering at the local library. The children's librarian was excited to have me as her special volunteer, and I was excited for the opportunity. The first day she gave me a full tour of everything. The library's main part, I was already pretty familiar with, but she took me in the back and showed me everyone's cubicle and told me about all of their functions. That was interesting, kind of. Didn't meet too many of them since it's evening hours, but eye opening still to get an idea of the inner functionings of a library.

Otherwise, my tasks have been fairly mundane, or it would seem. Every time I go I work a little on shelf reading the YA section. That means I look for misplaced books and put them where they go. I also verify that all the books are from Sherwood Hall rather than another branch. See, it sounds fairly mundane. But since I like YA and have heard of a number of these authors, it's interesting to see authors I haven't heard of, or to see books by authors I didn't know they'd written. So, it's kind of exciting for strange little me.

I've also done a few other things--preparing carts to be shelved by putting them in order--Dewey for nonfiction and alphabetical for fiction. Also fairly mundane, bu I get a little pleasure out of it, I guess. I've always been one for order. Some might look at my bedroom and disagree, but really I like order. I remember a friend in junior high called me Tidy Heidi because I straigtened things in a grocery store.

Anyway, so I'm contemplating getting a Master of Library Science degree, though I'm somewhat hesitant to go back to school, but working in a library might not be such a bad thing for me. So since I kind of need work now, I've been praying a lot for the best opportunities, and even said, "like maybe in a library" a few times recently.

Well, I haven't gotten any library jobs, but fortunately I have had some small opportunities for a little cash.. I created a profile for Wyzant tutoring quite awhile ago, and finally I've been getting close to tutoring some people. Yeah! It's kind of interesting because I'd supposed the school year would have a greater demand for such. But it turns out, I'm having more luck now that school is out. Not that I'm complaining.

I actually even got my first tutoring gig through Wyzant this last Saturday. Yeah! It was for a nice Korean girl, college-aged, who needed some help with some writing assignments. Since I'd worked with Koreans at FSI a few years ago while they were creating Korean Express and Out & About Seoul, I had some experience and looked forward to helping her. It went really well, too. She was a good learner and better in English than she gave herself credit for, though I could understand her frustrations.

We met in the Fairfax County Regional Library, which I'd never been to, but that was fine. It's quite the library! Anyway, as I was driving home, it occurred to me, I'd just had a job in a library. My prayers were answered. Very funny. Thank you Heavenly Father.

Mom and Dad Visit

Last weekend my parents came out to visit me! I'd been looking forward to it for a very long time, and it was well worth the wait. They arrived on Thursday night then left the following Tuesday afternoon, so we had a few full days to fill. I had to work on Friday and on Monday, but they got themselves around on the Metro those days and took in a few museums and the memorials. Saturday and Sunday, though, I had all day with them.

On Friday afternoon, I picked them up from the King Street Metro and drove us up to the temple, a beautiful drive, and we did a session, which was pretty nice. When I graduated with my B.A. they came to Provo to celebrate and we did a temple session then, too. Curiously, though, both then and at this one, a hearing impaired person was in our session so we got to watch the sign language video. I wonder if that will happen again if I get another degree?
Anyway, they took a picture of me in front of the temple, too, but it's pretty funny looking, so this one will do.

Saturday, we went to the Udvar Hazy Air and Space Museum over by Dulles Airport. I hadn't been to that one yet, so that was a good opportunity for me, too. But it was undoubtedly most enjoyed by my dad. His dad was a pilot in WWII in the Canadian Air Force, and my dad himself had at one point wanted to be a pilot but his color blindness wouldn't allow for it. He's obviously studied a lot about the aviation field, nonetheless, because he had quite a bit to share about just about all of the airplanes in that place, and some that weren't. Mom's comment was approprite--he was in hog heaven! When I asked, he said he wouldn't mind being a tour guide, but he wouldn't want to live out here. Too bad!

Aside from the tour my dad gave us of the museum he'd never been to before, we also saw an IMAX movie about fighter planes. That was pretty interesting. Those people have some pretty rigorous training. A real eye opener. The whole tour of the place was kind of an eye opener. When we were coming out of the space air, my mom made the comment" "You know how sometimes they say, 'it isn't rocket science?' Well, this is." It was a funny comment, but it made me think a little more as I wandered around looking at the engines that otherwise didn't do much for me. To think about making those, coming up with all of the intricate parts and finally get them to work, all together is pretty amazing, even if they did have to do a thousand failed runs. You remember how I was talking about different smarts? Well, um, I think there's a lot more smarts than I had in mind going on in the making of these machines. In fact, I would have to say that there's so much smarts that it had to be inspired. Except the guy who was showing us the rocks that were asteroids that he claimed came from the Big Bang. That wasn't inspired. Saying they were millions of years old would have sufficed.

We had planned to go from Udvar Hazy out to the Arlington Cemetery, but we had a bit too much fun out there, so we came straight back to Alexandria, did a little shopping and came home to get ready for my graduation party. Yeah me! I don't think I took any pictures of it though. Dang. Carrie had put up some cute little graduation window stickers on the back door and the front closet mirror. Cute, Thanks Carrie! And she also made some chocolate-covered pretzels that were a big hit. My mom made some chili which was awesome, and then after a little relaxation, we had about 12 or so friends come over and we chatted for awhile and played a couple games. Good times it was.

Sunday, then, we did make it to Arlngton Cemetery. We had planned to do the monuments tour, but we couldn't find parking. That's why they did that on Monday instead of more museums. Oh well. I've actually been to both before--the Cemetery and the monuments, so it didn't make too much difference to me. I was glad to go to the Cemetery though, I'll confess. It just felt a little more Sabbath-like. The monuments would have been fine, probably. Still free, and historic stuff, but with so many people wandering around it felt too city-like. There were a lot of peeps at the Cemetery, too, but it still felt a little more reverent. Anyway, so we saw JFK's site and the unknown soldier's changing of the guard, and even this time to Arlington House, which I hadn't seen before. It was all right. Not spectacular, but I got to hear a little French boy there oohing and awing in French over the number of pebbles he was collecting. Yes, indeed, as a follow-up to my last post, children are children wherever they may be.

Monday after work I had intended to take my parents to the river front in Alexandria, but they were beat, and I was beat. The school I'd worked at that day had broken A/C, and as always, I'd been on my feet a lot. My parents had walked at least 4 miles hither and yon around DC, so we took the evening to relax and watch some movies.

After the movies, around 12:00 or so, I still didn't have a job for the next day, so I assumed I'd have the morning with my parents. Yet, for some reason, I got a call around 8:30 on Tuesday morning, and I found 4 job possibilities online for that. Dang! Well, I was a little stressed, distressed, and my dad pulled mom into the kitchen and they said they'd pay me to teach them that day. Aren't they the best? Well, I think so, but I'm a little partial. We went down to Mt. Vernon, hoping that I could at least show them the view if we didn't do a tour, but since I've been down there, they've built a big entry thing so that you can't even see anything unless you do a tour, so we just wandered around the bookshop for a bit, which was fun anyway. They had some fun children's books that teach a bit of American history that I found delightful and my parents bought me one: We, the Children--straight text from the preamble to the Constitution, but with pictures that told a modern childhood story. Very cute. Then we went to the Post Office and to Subway and that was about all we had time for.

As with any vacation, there's always so much more to it than the events that give it structure. I had some great conversations and learned about my parents and my family, too, things I'd never known before. And the feelings shared, of course, are the highlight of it all. I love my parents so much! How blessed I am to have them.

Substitute Teaching

I haven't written much in awhile, and I do kind of miss it. It's not that I've been too busy. It never is, of course, though I can always hope. :) But I have the past couple weeks had a job that has kept me off the computers, and I'm actually quite grateful about that. It's a little rough to be on my feet as much as I am, but I'm pretty grateful for the opportunity to be subbing again, now in the Prince George's County Public schools. I say again because I did it about 10 years ago in Alpine School District, which is the northern half of Utah Valley, Utah--from Orem to Alpine.

I have to confess I expected some differences in this area, and I've met up with a little bit of that, but there are definitely similarities. Kids are cute and have a lot of the same antics from one side of the country to the next, though it seems they start a little younger with some of the antics over here. There are students who are really bright, really eager for approval, really eager for attention, really eager for doing the right thing, and those who don't care quite as much everywhere you go.

Aside from the stresses of handling different classrooms of kids every day and spending the first half of the day trying to get everyone's name down and the second half writing those names on a a paper or the blackboard for later discipline from their teacher, it's also a little stressful not to know from day to day if I have a job, as well as to know that this is only until the end of the school year, therefore for about three more weeks. But the Lord has provided me with work as I've needed it, well, for the most part. I've had times when I could have used a little more income, but I've learned important lessons from those times as well. In any case, I'm sure things will work out.

What does it mean to be Smart?

This is my response to this article that I found through Wilson Quarterly:
http://www.wilsoncenter.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=wq.essay&essay_id=452772

I'm guilty of confessing that I sometimes think I'm smart, even this week. But reading this article and only the first sentence of the first comment at the bottom really made me wonder what people mean when they refer to smart people--particularly when they're surprised or perturbed that supposedly smart people can't figure something out that seems clear to them.

I suppose it got me thinking because I don't like insults. But also because the context made it somewhat clear why supposedly smart people couldn't figure something out--the smarts referred to were quite different. Science smarts vs. artistic smarts. Not a person on this earth knows everything, nor is wise about everything, nor understands everything. Particularly there is no one who has all of these wrapped up together.

In Church, we often look at the verses describing the body of the Church in Corinthians 12, as we talk about the different gifts of the Spirit, and the application is clear that we need each other because of our different talents. Because it's contexted to the Church, it's fairly easy to apply it to our callings, but it seems the lesson should extend beyond the body of the Church. We need scientific minds as we need artistic minds, as well as all other kinds as well. So when we write about our specialties, we should treat the others with respect and understanding rather than with contempt. Right-o?

I think this idea of "smarts" was also on my mind because of last week's Sunday School lesson on the law of consecration. One thing I really like about the law of consecration is that it equalizes everyone. Not just financially, but for value of their talents. I'm not surprised that the United Order failed, not only because of the imperfect people within it and their various levels of pride, but also because it was not entirely independent. Being dependent on an external society with an economic and social system that did not equalize all of the members, kept ideas imbedded in the members of the United Order's minds. Additionally, not having a large enough population nor area so as to account for every needed talent and resource, even had the people had perfect hearts, they could not have thrived. But if they had been independent and had sufficient resources and people, then such a system as would recognize the value of every member's abilities would certainly have thrived such as the one did in the Americas following the reign of Christ, as recorded in 4 Nephi where there were no poor among them.

Presently, however, there is not an economic system in place on the Earth that really treats every member of its governing society equally. In capitalism, with which I am most familiar, and which my society does tend to value, even though men are free to develop their own talents, the pay scale people receive based on the supposed value of their contribution is so unequal as to set up ideas in way too many minds that some talents and skills are more valuable than others.

This is in fact, probably the basis that got these commentors into the line of thinking that certain people were smart and yet not as smart as they should be. They had succeeded in their field, made good money, so they must be intelligent. Right? This is the line of thinking that led Stanley Fish, to whom the writer of the article is responding, to state that the humanities are a useless field because they do not produce valuable commodities as the sciences do. Commodities and progress toward ease of life equals intelligence. Right?

For these reasons, I really liked the author's, Wilfred McClay's, response, particularly her use of Huxley's Brave New World. Very appropriate.

If I would add anything, it would be to respond to the logical fallacy in Fish's thinking that if the humanities were of value then humanities professors or professionals would be the most humane people, and yet they are not. I was actually along this line of thinking myself a few weeks prior to reading this, particularly pondering some English professors who are not nearly as goodly-hearted as I would have hoped their literary studies would have led them to be. Nonetheless, there is error in this thinking.

We face this question often as members of my Church, actually, though on a non-parallel level, which I'll explain in a minute. Some would say that if the Church is the only true Church on the Earth than its members should be better than those of any other Church. But this is not true. And we would never say it was. There are many people outside of the Church, though we would warmly welcome them, as anyone, into the Church, who are better than many of the members.
The test of the Church's truth isn't in the "better"ness of the members than of those in other churches. The idea of such comparison is based on competitive thinking, which has connections to capitalistic thinking, but also tends to be an unfortunate human tendency.

Life is not a competition! We are not on Earth to compete against everyone and be better than everyone. And God does not and will not judge is in relation to other people. The point is to be better than we were.

If the humanities have value, or if parts of the humanities have value, it is because they make the people who ponder them better than they would be without having studied them. If the Church is true, then the people who apply the principles are better than they would be.

Of course, it seems such tests are fairly unproductive. Many churches make people better than they would be, so how can we know if the Church is the only true one? Perhaps the way to judge this isn't through the people but from God. Although the people will definitely help, God will be the one to tell you.

Likewise, I would add, that if the humanities are of value, then one should ask God. He does know all, unlike any human, and can tell you what is of value and what is not.

However, as to the question about the humanities vs. the sciences, the rationale isn't on a parallel to comparing churches to churches. Churches to churches may be apples to apples, but humanities to sciences is apples to oranges. Both the sciences and the humanities can make people better than they would be without them, and yet we can and should have them both.

So how can we know if the humanities are valuable? While I will not interrupt your prayers about the subject, I will add that the Lord usually tells us to study things out in our minds before we ask, so I'll give you a little to think about--the body.

14 For the body is not one member, but many.

15 If the foot shall say, Because I am not the hand, I am not of the body; is it therefore not of the body?

16 And if the ear shall say, Because I am not the eye, I am not of the body; is it therefore not of the body?

17 If the whole body were an eye, where were the hearing? If the whole were hearing, where were the smelling?

18 But now hath God set the members every one of them in the body, as it hath pleased him.

19 And if they were all one member, where were the body?

20 But now are they many members, yet but one body.

21 And the eye cannot say unto the hand, I have no need of thee: nor again the ^ahead to the feet, I have no need of you.

22 Nay, much more those members of the body, which seem to be ^amore feeble, are necessary:

23 And those members of the body, which we think to be less honourable, upon these we bestow more abundant honour; and our uncomely parts have more abundant comeliness.

24 For our comely parts have no need: but God hath tempered the body together, having given more abundant honour to that part which lacked:

25 That there should be no schism in the body; but that the members should have the same ^acare one for another.

26 And whether one member ^asuffer, all the members ^bsuffer with it; or one member be honoured, all the members rejoice with it.

It would seem to me that everyone needs both the sciences and the humanities.

Repetition

Two weeks ago I taught primary for the first time in probably 10 years--so probably before the 9-10 year olds I was teaching were born. But it was fun. I don't know if I had enough material for the time, or if I didn't prepare well enough, but it turned out okay. They were pretty good kids.

The lesson was interesting--included some stories I didn't remember or may not have heard before. It was about the Saints moving to Ohio because of the prayers of Brother Whitney. This story was familiar--when Joseph arrived in Kirtland, he went into Brother Newel Whitney's story and said to him: "Newel K. Whitney! Thou art the man! . . . I am Joseph the Prophet. . . . You've prayed me here; now what do you want of me?"

So why did the Lord choose to answer Bro. Whitney's prayers by bringing the prophet to him? Well, as the lesson went on, it was because the saints in Ohio, mostly recent converts from missionary efforts, needed some training in the running and operations of the Church, so they needed the prophet to teach them. One of the object lessons that I chose to use for this was to bring some yarn and needles to the class, hand it to a child and tell them to knit something for me. So I handed it to the poor 9-year-old boy and told him to knit me a scarf. He looked at the yarn and needles a little dumbstruck, as expected. So I took it back. Yes, even though you know that yarn and needles can knit a scarf, doesn't mean you know how to do it. So the Saints, though converted, didn't necessarily know how to make everything work.

King of cool story, and neat object lesson. The boys weren't actually too interested in learning to knit, but in the spare time we had after the lesson materials were covered, I showed the four girls how to knit, and they generally really enjoyed it.

Then, last week, I taught Relief Society, as it was my Sunday to do so. This lesson was about a different migration of the Saints, from Missouri to Illinois, because of persecution. The title of it was "Responding to Persecution with Faith and Courage." The last lesson I taught in R.S., the month previous was, "Valiant in the Cause of Christ" and the lesson the previous week, when I was in primary, had been, ""God Shall Be with You Forever and Ever": The Prophet in Liberty Jail." Basically, slightly different approaches, but all three lessons about handling persecution.

I do appreciate lessons about that. It's always helpful to remember, and it did come at an interesting time in my life, as well. I also think, in general, I have some fears about missionary work because of some slight persecution I've felt when trying before--nothing as serious as the early saints in this dispensation experienced, but some negativity and verbal abuse anyway. So, being reminded that it's not my fault--that I'm not doing something wrong and even will be blessed for my righteous efforts to promote the truth, does help give me faith and courage and help me to be valiant.

Still, although it's a good topic, I was still struggling with how to make this lesson unique from the previous two. Sure, the historical pieces were different and the quotes were different, but I wasn't sure how to extract the significant points from the quotes in such a way as to make the lesson feel different. And particulary when it came to class participation, I was having a hard time coming up with questions for discussion that would yield fresh comments from those already shared last month.

Well, I gave the lesson, and we had some participation, and some of it was indeed the same stories from class members that they shared last month. Fortunately, they didn't seem to mind. And there were some new ones too, which was nice.

So moving on. Yesterday was a stake activity, a picnic with some outdoor games, mostly for kids, though there was a "Pace N Race"--walking race, for everyone. I didn't do that, mostly hung out with the other families from my ward who came. One of those families was a family that I'd babysat for back in December, and from which one of their little girls had been in my primary class. She had seemed particularly interested in learning to knit because she was into other yarn crafts. So I asked if she'd done any more knitting. She said she'd tried to do it again, but it was hard to remember everything so it came apart. That was actually really understandable because, since there were four girls and not a lot of time, none of them got a lot of one-on-one time to engrain the lessons, and I explained that to her, understanding.

While I was in the temple later yesterday afternoon, watching the same video I've seen hundreds of times, since I've been endowed since 1995 and, with the exception of my mission, been to the temple pretty much monthly at least since then. Of course, sometimes I don't do an endowment when I go, but anyway--I've still seen it a lot. Other people have seen it more, however, and yet for them as for me (most of the time), I still feel the Spirit and am glad to do it again and again. I even learn new things a lot of the time. But as I was sitting there yesterday, remembering what I'd told my little would-be-knitter and the lesson that prompted my teaching her to knit in the first place, and my frustration about teaching a similar lesson in R.S., things started to come together. We're preparing to be gods. We know it can be done because God has told us so, but we don't know how to do it, so we need lessons, and yes, we need the same lesson over and over, hundreds of times, particularly with a bit of one-on-one time. And sometimes, it's even better if those lessons are close together because they sink in a little better that way. So, yes, I'm glad I had a little of that one-on-one time as I feel when preparing a lesson, as well as some group time, with the class.

Thesis Complete!

Let's see, after how many years? It's kind of an interesting story, so I'll tell it to you, even if I have before. I mean, some of it is interesting, and some might bore you, but I'll write it anyway for history's sake:

Having had wonderful experiences at Monticello apartments just off BYU campus, during my undergraduate years, I had some "meeting scenarios" in my head--some romantic, some more humorous and some even awkward, I guess, for many years--probably since I lived there. Some of these were scenarios that I hoped would work for me, to be "my story." Some were real, some imaginary and would make good stories. But obviously, none of the real ones ever amounted to anything, they just stuck in my head as beginnings only.

Well, driving home from work one fall evening in 2005, after my first summer at Hollins, I was thinking about what I could write about, knowing that I needed to start whetting my whistle to creative writing again, I had an internal conversation that went something like this: "No! I will not write a romance novel. I have not had any success in romance. I don't think I have enough experience to capture romance successfully." I think things like that were repeated to myself several times, for effect. But as I pulled up in front of my house, I finally told myself, "Maybe I'm having these thoughts because the Spirit is prompting me. I don't know, but fine, I'll try writing a romance novel." So I wrote a few pages. Then stopped.

Those few pages sat in my computer untouched after that night --until the following summer. In my first creative writing class at Hollins, the professor, Hillary Homzie, assigned us to bring 10 pages to class every week. Well, I was going to write picture books, so I brought a few attempts of that type. But it just wasn't flowing like I'd hoped. So on the third or fourth week, I think, of the 6 weeks, I was scouring my computer for ideas and things I could work on and happened upon those few pages. What the heck, I told myself, what can it hurt? I flushed those few out into 10 pages, thinking that would be that, and I'd try something else for the rest of the time.

Well, lo and behold, my peers and my professor actually liked it. I mean, it needed a lot of work. I'm not sure anything remains of those first few pages, actually--which I think I have written about before. But anyway, the concept was interesting to them--even though none of them were members of the Church and this was a story clearly about members in the height and depth of our own culture.

So I wrote ten more for the next week, and ten more for the following week. And before I knew it, I had motivated myself to keep writing during the normal year, away from Hollins, so that by the time I returned the following summer, I had over 100 pages of working text. I'm not remembering well all of the sequences of events, but it had some work in the motivation of my choosing to switch from the MA to the MFA, although I didn't know for sure that this would be my thesis. I wasn't sure it was "young" enough for children's literature, nor that I could successfully finish it.

Well, I had the same professor again for my creative writing seminar that summer, and this time, because it was a more advanced class, we had to write 20 pages per week. I was kind of set, with those 100 pages. Actually, of course, what I'd written required reworking, and although we didn't bring in rewrites through the term, the suggestions for changes based on class discussions did translate into changes into the following pages as well as the pages discussed. And for six weeks, I needed also the last 20 pages, which might have come in the middle. In short, I made progress.

At the same time, however, I had an idea for a much younger book, about a duck with some magic, and a little boy. It flowed out pretty well and I submitted it piece by piece for my other class that term. One of my fellow students was in both classes and she much preferred Dave the Duck. I liked it too. But I also knew it would be shorter, so I'd have to come up with additional stories to get it to thesis length. But it was definitely under the rubric of "children's" literature. So, I talked to Hillary about it, showing her that manuscript, and her opinion was very firm that my BYU story was the better fit for the thesis. Wow. So there you have it! I registered it with her as my advisor shortly after that.

Then continued working at it for the next several months and finally mailed a complete ms to her in the late winter/early spring of 08. She had it back to me with lots of revision suggestions just in time for me to work on it at Hollins last summer, then I mailed it back to her again by September, a deadline she'd given me, which was actually really good for me, to push me. She had a few more suggestions, but otherwise said she trusted me to make the changes and said it was good to go!

And that was the easy part. Well, not entirely. But to some extent. It was definitely not over though.

When I started at Hollins, students in their last term had to take a comprehensive exam, so you had to buy all of these books in case there might be questions involving them, covering the major critical approaches and significant books in the history of children's literature. So I had bought many of them, but then last year they got rid of the comps and replaced it with an essay. Those who had been in the program for a couple years, like myself, were given the option of still doing the comps. But having time to look over what I write and with it only being 10-15 pages, I thought it not a huge deal to write a paper comparing my book to others in the field.

Still, it was a little tricky, particularly since I was not all that familiar with other LDS works. I mean, I knew some, and I regretted knowing more than those that I liked. But it was a good opportunity for me to familiarize myself with the genre, so over the past year I bought a few books (I think I read up to 10? t's still not a huge genre--somewhere around there) and eventually pumped out a first draft and emailed it to my second reader by November 30.

I didn't get it back until February, which was a little disheartening, and discouraging, particularly since the comments weren't making a whole lot of sense to me. I discussed them a bit with the reader and eventually found that an entirely LDS approach would probably work better than what I had done, so almost completely re-wrote and submitted near the end of March.

Well, he liked this version much better, though he still had a few reservations, but he finally said if my director accepted it, he'd be fine. Well, Hillary said it was fine with her, so by mid-April, just a month before "graduation" I'm officially good to go! What a relief.

April Birthdays

I have been very negligent about acknowledging my siblings with April birthdays. David's was the 5th and Susie Q (no longer Q, actually) had hers the 16th.

I'll start with David, since he's older and his birthday was first. David is my one and only big brother. At only a few years older than me, when we were growing up, we had an interesting love-hate relationship. Sometimes I idolized him, and sometimes I fought with him. Maybe I fought with him because he didn't (and who could?) live up to my idol standards. But time and prayers have worn away the scars and now I think he's a great man. Some of my favorite memories with David include some nice gifts he made for me at Christmas exchanges. One was a little wagon that I kept on my dresser until it fell into complete direpair, and the other was a doll's bed for a baby doll I coveted and got for Christmas maybe the same year, maybe the year before. I still have that bed, though it might be at my parents' house. Another fond memory would be driving to Greeley for some youth leadership meeting in his dinged up, old yellow truck. Greeley being about 20-30 miles away, across mostly bare open highway at that time (though there's been a lot built there since that time), we probably had the road pretty much to ourselves so he showed off for me by taking the truck faster than the speedometer could record. Probably not the best thing to be doing on our way to a Church thing, but I enjoyed laughing with him.

Now, he's a mature father of two baby girls and fathering two of his wife's children--all of them adorable. He loves hunting and fishing and pampering his dog, and weren't we surprised when he first told us about Sariah, shortly after they met, that she loves hunting too! It was a match made in heaven.

Now for Susie Q. She's kind of my middle child. I mean, not really, but since I'm third and she's 6th, she's in the middle of the five children younger than me. While I was growing up, she was just a kid, so I had fun babysitting her and passing on my hand-me-downs to her. But before too long, she seemed to catch up to me and we even worked at the same place for awhile, her just after high school, and me just after college. She was actually the one who got me the job, even, at Kids' Harbor. After that, she moved to Provo to go to college and a year or so after that, I returned to Provo, too, for a graduate program that I didn't finish, so we were adults there and hung out sometimes. We had some good memories there, making sock monkeys Mom gave us kits for so we could do something together, and she was good about remembering the holidays and giving me cute gifts.

After awhile there together, I moved out East, but she stayed there and got to know Mike, got married and now they're the proud parents of three cute little girls with a fourth on the way. But not only do they have children to tend, they're also now helping Mike's parents with some sheep farming! I love hearing about their adventures with the sheep and little girls on the farm on our myfamily site.

So, although I'm a little bit late, I hope you both had wonderful birthdays!
(Pictures coming soon)

Spring Pics

I finally used my camera for the purposes for which I had it kept in my car....
Tuesday and Wednesday I took walks around Old Town Alexandria during my lunch hour and was able to take some spring pics. Enjoy!

Happy Birthday to the Relief Society!

So I'm a little off as far as the date goes, but it's pretty good of me to recognize this birthday all together on here, I think, especially since it's not a sibling. But the truth be known, I happened to have my camera in my car because it's spring and I've been contemplating spring shots. So when I saw it on my seat on my way out of the car to this birthday celebration, I thought that sounded like a good idea to bring it. The pictures didn't turn out terrifically, but at least it made me think to post them here.

So, a little history. The Relief Society's birthday date, which we were reminded of in a trivia game we played, is March 17, 1842. It was organized because the men working on the Nauvoo temple needed shirts to wear for their work, so the women organized themselves and got Joseph Smith, Jr., the prophet, to thinking and praying on the subject, and from that came an organization with far broader purposes than its origination imagined. Currently, it's the largest women's organization in the world, and it's been around for quite awhile too. Every female member of the Church who is 18 years or older, or who is married, if younger, is a member. If a younger woman has a child, she is invited to join, but she does not have to.

The motto of the Relief Society is "Charity Never Faileth," taken from the Book of Mormon, the Book of Moroni. As the words indicate, the purpose of the Relief Society is to bless lives. The way this is done is manifold. The party indicated in the pictures above is from an Enrichment night. Every quarter (four times a year), each ward unit's Relief Society has an Enrichment night and in March, it is to be in celebration of the R.S. birthday. Enrichment activities are typically a night for women to get away from the daily grind and socialize with each other. Often, they involve dinner, a craft, and a little lesson. Sometimes they might involve a broader service project. Sometimes, particularly around Christmas time, it's predominantly crafts. (These are often, too, in the morning, rather, so the meal is breakfast.) In addition to these quarterly activities, there are also "groups" or "clubs" of special interests for the sisters to attend. Some common ones are book clubs, play group for mothers to bring their kids together, excursion groups, dinner groups. All women are invited to all of these, but usually because they're focused on special interests, attendance is pretty small--it's just nice to get together with a few women, get to know them better, learn more, be enriched, you know.

Another thing the Relief Society does is Visiting Teaching. Every woman is assigned a visiting teacher from her ward unit. Ideally, she has at least two, and sometimes even three--but at least one. Most women are visiting teachers, too, though if someone doesn't want to be one, they don't have to. As a visiting teacher, a woman has at least one sister, typically around 3, but depending on the size of the ward or branch, she may have more sisters, whom she is assigned to visit and teach a lesson. (The general presidency and committee in Salt Lake put the lessons together in each month's Ensign, the Church magazine.) If she's not able to visit, she can also write a letter or call the sister(s) just to see how she's doing and kind of be a friend. It's a neat program and blesses a lot of people when it works well.

The Relief Society also has a Compassionate Service committee in each unit, a group that helps provide meals, most commonly, to new mothers and others with health needs. They are often also in charge of making sure each sister's birthday is recognized. Other things might fall under this category depending on the imaginations and inspirations of the particular members.

Each ward/branch unit also meets every Sunday and has a lesson and sings together.

So you're wondering, if everything is done at the ward/branch level, how is it the largest organization? Isn't it more like thousands of small organizations? Well, no. It really is organized and run from Church headquarters. The general presidency speaks to the entire Relief Society once a year, a week before the general conference of the Church in October. They also prepare training materials and give training sessions for the unit leaders. Then, in addition to the general level, there is also the stake level--the umbrella over a group of wards/branches, between 5 and 12. Prior to the general Relief Society session at the end of September, the stake leaders usually organize a dinner and activity and a service project. Also, they visit each ward once or twice a year, as well as the leaders meet with the ward level leaders on a semi-regular basis, for trickle down training as well as for area-specific counsel.

Anyway, most of my readers are probably familiar with all of that and might not have read this far, but I think a few people who aren't members of the Church might visit, so what the heck. In any case, it's a great organization, and I'm glad to be a part of it. Happy Birthday Relief Society!