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.