Lynette-The College Years and Beyond

2 Secrets and a Truth.

2012-02-14T11:55:00.001-07:00

1. I used to hate Valentines Day. Also pink.

The pink thing changed when my mom gave me a huge, puffy, pink, Jigglypuff looking winter coat. I decided to like it. As for Valentines Day, I attribute much of it to my beautiful sister Shiree. Her love for it was infectious and adorable and cool.

I did NOT approve of that coat. At first.

2. There is a point on Valentines Day when I'm just as sad and lonely as everyone else gets/has been.

Yep. I'm human. But here's the thing. This happens at the end of the day, after I've done my normal day things but always, always before I hand out Valentines. I highly encourage buying those paper valentines that you hand out in 4th grade because you may be amazed at how delighted people are to get these silly things. I'm sure nostalgia plays a large role in it. The other factor may be that they were sitting in their apartment feeling just like I was pre-Valentine handing out. I don't think I need to point out the moral of this story.

These were my valentines last year.

This year I procrastinated to much to get anything this cool.

If you've never seen this show...um...watch it.

Here's one of my fav episodes. ONE of the many.

1. Truth:
God is love. Here's the deal, this will always be my message on Valentines Day. There may be many facets of love but in God all of them are contained. It is no coincidence that the Disciple who so clearly stated this is called John the Beloved.

Let's just face it, the Beatles got it right. All you need is love.

It all comes back to you.

2012-02-13T18:50:00.000-07:00

You give a little love and it all comes back to you.

You know you're gonna be remembered for the things you say and do.

Karma is truth folks. You want love? Give it. Now here's the deal, just because you want a certain kind of love doesn't mean you will get that specifically. Just because you love a person doesn't mean they will love you back romantically, or even as a friend. Or even as a person! But if you put love out there you WILL receive love in return. Somehow. The world is balanced. Promise.

Also. You should definitely watch Bugsy Malone if you never have. It's too good.

Love YOU.

2012-02-12T14:21:00.000-07:00

So today I decided the most important thing for me to talk about would be loving yourself. Because let's face it, that is one of the hardest things to do.

A quote I found from a Young Women's lesson lds.org "We are children of God, and when we do not love ourselves, we are not respecting the things God has created."

I have friends who have a hard time with this and I find myself getting almost angry about it. Not loving yourself means you're not fully loving God! He truly sent his Son to die out of love for you. And his son and your Savior died (and lived) because of his love for you.

Also, he created you. Individually he made you and is the father of your spirit. How proud are you of things you have created? He has that much love and more for you! He is proud of what you are and sees your eternal worth and when you don't see it, just think how hard that is for Him to see.

Have you ever had a friend who you just adore. You know how wonderful they are and what they are capable of. But then they don't see it and they get discouraged. Isn't that just about the most frustrating thing ever? Magnify that a hundred fold. That's the frustration from an Eternal Father who sees your potential. And He knows exactly what your potential is because He gave it to you!

Now remember, self love doesn't mean you only consider yourself and not other people, or that you accept your faults as is and not work on them. The Lord chasteneth those whom he loves. We can and should still be self critical while at the same time keeping in mind our self worth. They must exist together though they seem opposite. Like justice and mercy. Sound familiar?

You're wonderful. Now go do some soul (and scripture, and prayer) searching until you believe it.

Love it.

2012-02-11T20:48:00.000-07:00

Today I had this extremely interesting day. It was full of a great variety of things and experiences and I loved it.

Now, while I had a day that was fairly easy to love, it helped me remember another thing to love. LIFE. Recently we learned a new Mexican dance on my folk team (Jalisco! It's so cool!). The dance was hard and tiring and different than I expected. Rehearsals were frustrating at first, but then I decided to LOVE it.

By our last rehearsal with the choreographer, I legitimately loved the dance. Le.git. It was fantastic. All because I chose to.

So today I say to you. Love life. LOVE what life gives you.

Come what may, and love it.

Have you noticed that I love Elder Wirthlin? He is my favorite Apostle of all time, I miss hearing his sweet testimony in General Conferences.

Friendship.

2012-02-10T19:07:00.001-07:00

So I know my philosophy of Valentine's Day is that it isn't just about romantic love but I realize that I haven't shown much evidence for that yet on my blog. Other than religious love (which really...let's be honest, encompasses all the kinds of love, but still) and romantic love (including the sub-genre of crushes, etc) I haven't really ventured anywhere else. So let's talk about friend love shall we?

I have been amazingly blessed in my life to have about 98% more friends than I have ever deserved in my life. No. Make that 99%. The only people who have to like me are my family. And even they like me more than they need to/perhaps should. Here are some ways my friends have shown their love for me.

Making me dinner when I don't feel well even though I never would have asked them to.

Making my bed in the morning when they can tell I'm stressed.

Answering crazy ranting text messages when I'm trying to sort out my life.

Listening to me complain about people who complain and not calling me a hypocrite.

Letting me eat their delicious cheescake cookies.

Bringing me ice cream.

~~Talking~~ Listening to me.

Having a sleepover with me the night before an AP Psych test.

Being my best friend even when I legitimately had 0 other friends in school. (I was not liked in elementary school, simply put.)

Giving me a chance to be funny even when I was viewed as "nerdy".

Bonding in a hotel room at dance conventions. Even when the only thing I had to say was something silly about math.

Including me.

Thinking I'm talented.

Telling me the truth.

Lying to me when the truth will devastate me.

Doing my dishes for me.

Not thinking I hate them when I'm focused on homework.

Teaching me things. All kinds of things. And being patient when I don't get it.

Remembering what's going on in my life and asking me about it.

Noticing when I'm tired or sick or frustrated.

Being a spy when I'm with whichever boy I like so they can tell me afterward if they think he likes me or not.

Always telling me he likes me, even though that's basically never true. :)

Reading my lame-o blog.

Buying me presents even though they know I never buy people presents because I'm terrible.

LOVING ME.

This list could go on for days. I just hope to high heavens that I do this for my friends also. I should probably not hope and just do. People. Love, like faith, is a principle of action. Love not acted upon is just a false feeling, it's the ghost of what it would be with action. We know this. We know that upon serving someone you love them more, but knowledge is just data until it's put into our life. Love is just a sham until it's acted upon.

Soapbox over.

Let's just be a little juvenile again shall we?

2012-02-09T18:57:00.000-07:00

So this post won't be as juvenile as yesterday's but I'm harking back to teenage years. I'm sorry guys, I know. But here's the deal, I do spend all day with teenagers. And let's be honest, teenage crushes were just so fun!

Plus, my song of the day was Phantom Planet "Always on My Mind" and that was most def my go-to crush song my senior year of high school. So I've decided to devote today to crushes. To that moment in jr high and high school when student council comes around on Valentines Day with the carnations that I never got but for one second...it really looks like they are headed for you and you are pretty delighted. And it was exciting (and devastating...but let's keep our eye on the prize here).

Long story short, I saw this fantastic video the other day and I thought "the 15 year old me would have EATEN UP this video". It still makes me feel 15 and all life-inexperienced inside. And fuzzy. It's like when you have that one best guy friend in jr. high and high school and they always tell you that boys don't like you just because you're not easy or they're intimidated by you, etc. And then you turn 23 and they still tell you that (or maybe that's only me...). And so when I watch this I feel all Young-Women-feel-good-bookmark inside. And I laugh, because this kid is funny. I don't know who he is but he is a winner in my book.

Okay. A few things.
1. Please tell me this is true. Because the Young Woman in me wants her bookmarks to be true.
2. This boy is a stud. He probably would have been my best friend in high school.
3. He could maybe use some differing volumes. Anyone?

And here is one that I can verify is true because I, my dear, am a woman. Or a girl. I never know which one to use. I'm just barely getting used to Miss at school so...give it some time.

Except for the Twilight thing...that's hit or miss.

So there you go! You looking to get some points with a crush by/before Valentines and/or whenever? Listen to this boy. He is wise beyond his years. I am guessing his years to be about 17. So if I'm wrong, now I'm awkwardly wrong all over the internet.

Any questions? This kid also has a BOMBIN' video on Valentine's Day that I would love to talk about but there are only 14 days of Valentines Day and I don't know if it will make the cut. We'll see kid. We'll see.

Puppy love.

2012-02-08T06:29:00.001-07:00

Kids' Ideas About Love

Kids, aged 5 to 10, were asked questions about what they thought of love and marriage. Here's what they said.

Love and Marriage:

"If falling in love is anything like learning how to spell, I don't want to do it. It takes too long." -- Glenn, age 7
"Love is like an avalanche where you have to run for your life." -- John, age 9
"I think you're supposed to get shot with an arrow or something, but the rest of it isn't supposed to be so painful." -- Manuel, age 8
"No one is sure why it happens, but I heard it has something to do with how you smell. That's why perfume and deodorant are so popular." -- Mae, age 9
"Love is the most important thing in the world, but baseball is pretty good too." -- Greg, age 8
"Once I'm done with kindergarten, I'm going to find me a wife." -- Tom, age 5
"On the first date, they just tell each other lies, and that usually gets them interested enough to go for a second date." -- Mike, 10
"I'm in favor of love as long as it doesn't happen when Dinosaurs is on television." -- Jill, age 6
"One of the people has freckles, and so he finds somebody else who has freckles too." -- Andrew, age 6
"My mother says to look for a man who is kind. That's what I'll do. I'll find somebody who's kinda tall and handsome." -- Carolyn, age 8
"It gives me a headache to think about that stuff. I'm just a kid. I don't need that kind of trouble." -- Kenny, age 7
"One of you should know how to write a check. Because, even if you have tons of love, there is still going to be a lot of bills." -- Ava, age 8

"When somebody's been dating for a while, the boy might propose to the girl. He says to her, 'I'll take you for a whole life, or at least until we have kids and get divorced.'" -- Anita, 9
"I'm not rushing into being in love. I'm finding fourth grade hard enough." -- Regina, age 10
"Most men are brainless, so you might have to try more than once to find a live one." -- Angie, age 10
"A man and a woman promise to go through sickness and illness and diseases together." -- Marlon, age 10
"[Being] single is better . . . for the simple reason that I wouldn't want to change no diapers. Of course, if I did get married, I'd figure something out. I'd just phone my mother and have her come over for some coffee and diaper-changing." -- Kirsten, age 10
"Love is foolish...but I still might try it sometime." -- Floyd, age 9
"Love will find you, even if you are trying to hide from it. I been trying to hide from it since I was five, but the girls keep finding me." -- Dave, age 8

Kissing:

"When a person gets kissed for the first time, they fall down, and they don't get up for at least an hour." -- Wendy, age 8
"You should never kiss a girl unless you have enough bucks to buy her a big ring and her own VCR, 'cause she'll want to have videos of the wedding." -- Jim, age 10
"Never kiss in front of other people. It's a big embarrassing thing if anybody sees you. But if nobody sees you, I might be willing to try it with a handsome boy, but just for a few hours." -- Kally, age 9
"You learn [how to kiss] right on the spot when the gooshy feelings get the best of you." -- Doug, age 7
"If it's your mother, you can kiss her anytime. But if it's a new person, you have to ask permission." -- Roger, age 6
"It's never okay to kiss a boy. They always slobber all over you. That's why I stopped doing it." -- Tammy, age 10
"I know one reason kissing was created. It makes you feel warm all over, and they didn't always have electric heat or fireplaces or even stoves in their houses." -- Gina, age 8
"The law says you have to be eighteen, so I wouldn't want to mess with that." -- Curt, age 7
"The rules goes like this: if you kiss someone, then you should marry her and have kids with her. It's the right thing to do." -- Howard, age 8
(on seeing a couple kissing) "He is trying to steal her chewing gum!" -- Boy, age 6

Beauty:

"If you want to be loved by somebody who isn't already in your family, it doesn't hurt to be beautiful." -- Anita, age 8
"Beauty is skin deep. But how rich you are can last a long time." -- Christine, age 9
"It isn't always how you look. Look at me. I'm handsome like anything, and I haven't got anybody to marry me yet." -- Brian, age 7

How People In Love Act:

"Lovers will just be staring at each other and their food will get cold. Other people care more about the food." -- Brad, age 8
"They act mooshy. Like puppy dogs, except puppy dogs don't wag their tails nearly as much." -- Arnold, age 10
"All of a sudden, the people get movies fever so they can sit together in the dark." -- Sherm, age 8
"Romantic adults usually are all dressed up, so if they are just wearing jeans it might mean they used to go out or they just broke up." -- Sarah, age 9
"It's love if they order one of those desserts that are on fire. They like to order those because it's just like how their hearts are -- on fire." -- Christine, age 9
"See if the man picks up the check. That's how you can tell if he's in love." -- John, age 9
"Many daters just eat pork chops and french fries and talk about love." -- Craig, age 9

What Mom and Dad Have In Common:

"Both don't want no more kids." -- Lori, age 8

How To Tell If Two People Are Married:

"Married people usually look happy to talk to other people." -- Eddie, age 6
"You might have to guess based on whether they seem to be yelling at the same kids." -- Derrick, age 8

Deciding Who To Marry:

"You got to find somebody who likes the same stuff. Like if you like sports, she should like it that you like sports, and she should keep the chips and dip coming." -- Allan, age 10
"No person really decides before they grow up who they're going to marry. God decides it all way before, and you get to find out later who you're stuck with." -- Kirsten, age 10

Strategies For Making People Fall In Love With You:

"Tell them that you own a whole bunch of candy stores." -- Del, age 6
"Shake your hips and hope for the best." -- Camille, age 9
"Yell out that you love them at the top of your lungs...and don't worry if their parents are right there." -- Manuel, age 8
"Don't do things like have smelly, green sneakers. You might get attention, but attention ain't the same thing as love." -- Alonzo, age 9
"One way is to take the girl out to eat. Make sure it's something she likes to eat. French fries usually works for me." -- Bart, age 9

The Best Age To Get Married:

"Twenty three is the best age because you know the person forever by then." -- Cam, age 10
"No age is good to get married at. You got to be a fool to get married!" -- Freddie, age 6

Good Advice About Love:

"Spend most of your time loving instead of going to work." -- Dick, age 7
"Dates are for having fun, and people should use them to get to know each other. Even boys have something to say if you listen long enough." -- Lynnette, age 8
"Tell your wife that she looks pretty even if she looks like a truck!" -- Ricky, age 7
"Don't forget your wife's name. That will mess up the love." -- Erin, age 8
"Sensitivity don't hurt." -- Robbie, age 8
"Be a good kisser. It might make your wife forget that you never take out the trash." -- Erin, age 8
"Don't say you love somebody and then change your mind. Love isn't like picking what movie you want to watch." -- Natalie, age 9

What To Do When a First Date Turns Sour:

"I'd run home and play dead. The next day I would call all the newspapers and make sure they wrote about me in all the dead columns." -- Craig, age 9

What Most People Are Thinking When They Say "I Love You":

"The person is thinking: 'Yeah, I really do love him. But I hope he showers at least once a day.'" -- Michelle, age 9
"Some lovers might be real nervous, so they are glad that they finally got it out and said it, and now they can go eat." -- Dick, age 7

Why People In Love Often Hold Hands:

"They want to make sure their rings don't fall off, because they paid good money for them." -- Gavin, age 8
"They are just practicing for when they might have to walk down the aisle someday and do the holy matchimony thing." -- John, age 9

Titles of Love Ballads You Can Sing To Your Loved One:

"'I Love Hamburgers, I Like You!'" -- Eddie, age 6
"'You Are My Darling Even Though You Also Know My Sister.'" -- Larry, age 8
"'I Am In Love With You Most of the Time, But Don't Bother Me When I'm With My Friends.'" -- Bob, age 9
"'How Do I Love Thee When You're Always Picking Your Nose?'" -- Arnold, age 10
"'Honey, I Got Your Curly Hair and Your Nintendo On My Mind.'" -- Sharon, age 9
"'Hey, Baby, I Don't Like Girls, But I'm Willing To Forget You Are One!'" -- Will, age 7

From http://www.rinkworks.com/said/kidlove.shtml

And to finish it off...

Yes, please.

2012-02-07T19:47:00.000-07:00

Here are some of my favorite lines from a particular playlist in my iTunes (that I have also made available to everyone on Spotify, your welcome). This playlist is called "Yes, please". I'm sure you can figure out why.

You're the melody of a symphony by Strauss. I wanna be your last first kiss. So like I wanna get married, I never asked you to kiss me, just don't want you to be sorry you didn't try. No I won't stop loving you, why should I? Far longer than forever, like no love's ever known. If you would win my heart, sing me a love song. Full of love and understanding, beautiful inside. It must be love because we are too afraid to say it. A tiny bit nervous, cuz I've never been kissed, did you open your eyes, cuz I never did. Starts in my toes makes me crinkle my nose. You've got the most unbelievable blue eyes I've ever seen. Take every chance you dare, I'll still be there when you come back down. And when you smile, the whole world stops and stares for a while. Now every February you'll be my Valentine. Why all at once my heart took flight. Oh you, it's always you. All the times I have sat and stared as she thoughtfully thumbs through her hair. I can only give you love that lasts forever. There's no gravity up here, it's kind of hard to explain. She is love, and she is all I need. And yet, you make me smile, you make me laugh, you care. Say yes, make me more than I am. For always, forever, beyond here and on to eternity. Everybody knows but you, so here it goes. I could go across the world and see everything and never be satisfied if I couldn't see those eyes. If someone like you found someone like then suddenly nothing would ever be the same. You know who I am, take me as I am. Tonight I need exactly who she is, we're going to be perfect. But right now there's you and me. You touch me and time has no meaning at all. I love the way you love the way I love you. I'm a superman thanks to Lois Lane. I took the good times, I'll take the bad times, I'll take you just the way you are. Can hardly wait 'til our next kiss, you're so cool. You watched me grow up I watched you change, thought one day we'd share a last name. I keep holding out for what I don't know, to be with you, just to be with you. I've been sleeping in way to late for the past 3 days straight cuz I've been talking to you. It takes somebody special to make me say I do. I want to love you madly, I want to love you now. Can't wait to live my life with you can't wait to start. Oh no, it's just the nearness of you. When you say you love me for a moment I know why I'm alive. This will be an everlasting love. It's not the way you look it's the way you look at me. It might not be suitable for greeting cards and such but it's a true and honest feeling. There's a golden ring and I want you to have it. I must admit I still don't understand why I lose my head holding your hand. I think I fell in love with the 8th world wonder. So I'm hiding what I'm feeling but I'm tired of holding this inside my head. Smiling just to see the smile upon your face. 'S marvelous that you should care for me. Then I saw her face. I don't want my love to go to waste I want you. Love will make my spirit grow. So keep me awake to memorize you. At last my love has come along. If you're listening Mary, this is for you. What you've got boy, is hard to find. That girl is fire, that's why I desire her. Beautiful girls all over the world I could be chasing but my time would wasted. Oh please say to me, you'll let me be your man. And I can't move, so I sing.

Um guys, and I totally cut this playlist down today. And this is only a small playlist compared to my FULL playlist of love music (currently 528 songs...) I'm a lover of music what can I say?

How many songs can you identify?

This speaks for itself.

2012-02-06T19:53:00.000-07:00

If.

2012-02-05T11:50:00.000-07:00

This post is a little more of an admonition than a declaration. I will be using some scriptures in John that are a little out of order, but there is purpose to this.

John 15
Verse 10: If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father's commandments, and abide in his love.
11: These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full.
12: This is my commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you.
13: Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.
14: Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you.
Chapter 14
Verse 15: If ye love me, keep my commandments.
21: He that hath my commandments and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him.

First of all, some of the things I've already blogged about came into this. I wanted to remind you (and myself) that all of this is connected. When love is speaking of Truth with a capital T, it's all connected.

I also included my highlighted moments of the scriptures, trying to translate to you how I read those scriptures, with italicized things being general highlighting, bold being circled words, and yellow meaning things that give me joy.

Ye are my friends if ye do whatsoever I command you; if ye keep my commandments ye shall abide in my love; if ye love me keep my commandments; He that hath my commandments and keepeth them, he is is that loveth me.

How do you show your parents that you love them? You obey them. How do you show a teacher that you care about them and their subject? You do the homework, you listen in class, ie. you obey them. (Student teaching really does take over my entire brain most of the time.) So how do you show Christ that you love Him? You keep his commandments. Why does he give commandments?

Why do your parents give you rules? Because they love you and want you to be safe and happy. Why do teachers give you work and homework? Because they love you and want you to learn. Why does Christ give us commandments? Because He loves us and desperately wants us to be able to live with Him and Our Father again. So desperately.

But that isn't all, He doesn't just give us a long-off promise that we will gain eternal life, though that is the ultimate gift. In verse 21 of chapter 14 He says "...he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and I will manifest myself unto him." We receive the love of two perfect beings who see us outside of time, they see our potential and our abilities that we can't even comprehend. We also receive the promise that Christ will manifest Himself unto us. What glorious promises.

Ye are my friends. If.

Teenage dream

2012-02-04T14:50:00.000-07:00

So I spend all week in a high school teaching teenagers, it's fun.

Then I come home and watch Jane By Design. (Um, Nick Fadden is a dang babe. A dang. babe. Consequently I cannot for the life of me find the birth year of the actor Matthew Atkinson, I really need to know if me finding him a babe should be creepy or not.)

It's this weird double perspective teaching teenagers and then watching (and maybe obsessing over) a show about teenagers in high school with scenes where they talk/text/whatevs in class.

And then I put these two experiences together and what do I think about? Teenage love. Obviously.

Remember how giddy it is? And the butterflies in your stomach? And how simple it was? And how important it was? And how dramatic it was? And how FUN it was?

I remember once when my crush wore my jacket at school to be ridiculous. For the rest of the week I kept that jacket on my bed not touching anything so it kept it's smell. I couldn't wait to get home every night so I could smell it.

Adorable.

Remember?

And now behold, my joy is full.

2012-02-03T18:51:00.000-07:00

So I know all the blogs thus far have been much more on the serious side. I promise I'll get lighter, but this was the first blog post so far that was inspired without any prompting or studying on my part so I really wanted to go with it.

I woke up to a terrible, no good, very bad morning. Off I went to school at too early in the morning and thankfully I didn't have to teach the first period of the day. I "planned" at my computer but mostly just stared and tried to text people (hard to do when you wake up and are two hours into your day when most college students wake up) and ended up mostly ruining my hair and completely removing my makeup by the amount of running my hands over them that I did. (That sentence is seriously awkwardly worded but sorry, I don't think there is any way around it.)

I helped teach one period and interacting with the students helped, but since it wasn't "my" class (my co-teacher and I split up the classes) I mostly snuck away every once in a while to see if anyone had texted me back yet and took a looooong bathroom break to calm down. Seriously, it was that bad of a morning.

This bad mood continued and I was DREADING 8th period. My 8th period class is more chaotic then I would personally choose, but they can also just be so amazingly fantastic. So I was pretty worried about them on a Friday afternoon, but I knew I had to get through it. No other choice.

And guess what? It was amazing. Once I was teaching and interacting with those students and helping them I was so happy. And they were great and inquisitive and fun today and the class ended and I just looked at my co-teacher and said "That was great!" Bad mood gone.

What does this have to do with love you say? Un momento por favor.

One of my very favorite scriptures in all of the world is found in 3 Nephi 17. I mean, how can you ever go wrong with the Savior's visit to the Americas? But in this chapter, in verse 20, Christ says that His joy is full. The first time I read this as an understanding, thirsting for knowledge adult, I was so struck by that phrase. How could your joy be full? Brimming? Completamente? It sounded so wonderful. Since that time I have found that phrase other times in the scriptures and I always perk up when something gives me an indication as to how my joy could be full.

But in this particular scripture, Christ's joy is full because of those He was visiting. Because of His people. Seeing their faith gave him un-add-to-able joy. And their faith did this because He so thoroughly loved them.

Insert inquisitiveness and on-task-ness for faith and then you may understand why my joy was filled (perhaps not full, that's a pretty tall order) when I saw these students who I have come to love, show such promise. Full joy. Lots of love. Day 3 of love.

By this shall men know.

2012-02-02T21:11:00.000-07:00

God has given us many commandments. And these commandments seem to stress us out. One of the commandments oft brought up in the light of stress is "Be ye therefore perfect...". Obviously this is a difficult commandment as we are all imperfect beings. I am going to move on from this point even though I know that the discussion of this verse is incomplete and could take ages to fully address. But for my purposes. this verse is an example of a seemingly impossible commandment.

I found another commandment today. Another seemingly impossible commandment. "A new commandment that I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you..."

When speaking of Christ's love for us it is an unthinkable, unimaginable thing. Even though I don't understand the depth of his love I am to surely glad it is so deep.

And it is by the showing of this love, love in parallel to the love of Christ, that we are seen as His disciples.

This post surely isn't to discourage you. But to me it is a reminder that there is always more depth that my love can explore and reach and attain. Just because you love someone or show your love to them, it doesn't mean you have reached love that is as pure and as deep as we are commanded to have. Like all commandments this isn't a check off on your to-do list but a system of development. That must be why those who work hard in marriage say their love for their spouse grows the longer they are married. This love is the way we become like Christ.

Or. Is it that as we become like Christ this love comes with it?

Or. Is it both?

Our ministry is one of love

2012-02-01T06:23:00.000-07:00

To start off my 14 Days of Valentines I wanted to use the first couple of chapters in the Teachings of the Presidents of the Church manual for this year on George Albert Smith.

The first week we started talking about George Albert Smith I was mostly like, oh! He was a prophet wasn't he? In fact all I really knew about him was where he fell in the song. (Bragging moment, my aunt Vanja totally wrote that song. Boo-ya.) So I was pretty interested to hear what his particular teachings were.

Another side note, ever since I started really studying the gospel for myself in high school I fell in love with love. (Starting to see why I love Valentine's Day?) I remember the day I read that "perfect love casteth out all fear" I was completely astounded! Who wouldn't want that? So ever since then the gospel study of love has fascinated and delighted me.

So when I went home and read for myself the introduction which was the Life and Ministry of George Albert Smith, I quickly realized that he is my new favorite prophet that isn't alive. (I mean, you can't have a favorite over President Monson, that just seems wrong.) But here is my favorite quote about my new hero shortly after he passed away.

"...God attracts the godly, and I am sure that the shortest journey this man of God ever made in all of his travels has been the journey which he has just taken. God is love. George Albert Smith is love. His is godly. God has taken him unto himself."

Wouldn't it be so wonderful to be thought of as such a man or woman? My favorite scripture for Valentine's Day is always "God is love" and to see that powerful scripture equated with an earthly man was astounding to me.

The first chapter of this manual talks about living what we believe, and how President Smith truly lived his beliefs, he lived the gospel and didn't just teach it. And in the second chapter it more specifically talks about how he lived his beliefs of love in the chapter entitled "Love Thy Neighbour as Thyself". It is from this chapter that I got the quote after which this blog is titled. And doesn't this just sum up what our lives should be about? Shouldn't we be where we are to spread love?

When you know wonderful things that would make someone else eternally happy. When you have understandings that bring deep peace to your soul? When you have come to know an inkling of the love of God. Shouldn't you share that love? Shouldn't you share that IN love?

Love quote of the day: "Our ministry is one of love" - George Albert Smith

Love song of the day: "Everything to Me" by David Lehr

Love picture of the day:

Get. Ready.

2012-01-29T13:57:00.000-07:00

Here's just a reminder that the best month (February) and the best holiday (Valentine's Day) are coming up. So get ready people. I'm probably going to ramp it up this year by posting a blog entry every day. Just because I can.

Here's how you celebrate the 14 days of Valentines (the 1-14 of February. Obviously.)

1. Wear something pink or red every day (purple counts if you're desperate)
2. Eat some chocolate every day.
3. Find a new love quote everyday (any kind of love, romantic love, friend love, gospel love, it all works)
4. Read other talks, articles, etc. on love.
5. Listen to love songs. Obviously. NO breakup songs. That is like the cardinal sin of Valentine's day, only slightly behind wearing black on V-day, that's just blasphemous people.
And finally.
6. SHOW love by doing at least one nice thing for someone every day.

Valentine's Day is true people. And I truly believe that if you practice it with love in your heart for EVERYONE and really give service (and eat chocolate) then you will love Valentine's Day as much as I.

Oh Valentine's boxes. The ultimate V-Day tradition.

In conjunction with the 14 Days of Valentines here is a great activity to play. If you play it well, it can help you fulfill your duty of eating chocolate everyday too.

First get some candy (chocolate is clearly preferred) and put it in a bowl in a place MOST tempting for you.

Next get some writing utensils and surfaces ie. notecards and pens or paper and pencils, etc.

Now, whenever you want to eat some of that delicious chocolate you must write down one thing you love for ONE piece of chocolate. Try not to do repeats. Cheaters.

The rewards for this game are many.
1. You get chocolate
2. You get to count your many blessings.
3. If you are like me and crave chocolate when you are depressed you are forced to think of happy things before you eat said chocolate.
"Now think lovely thoughts..."

A student of teachers. A teacher of students.

2012-01-27T22:49:00.000-07:00

For this, my final semester, I am student teaching in a 9th grade geography classroom at Timpview High School. Yes. It's going well. Thank you for asking.

It's an awkward stage to be in. Student teaching. Did you ever think about those two words together? And why is it that the second word is the verb? We never say we're studenting. But I've gotta say, that as much as I'm teaching, I'm studenting much more.

It seems ironic that when teaching we learn the very most. In fact we talk about this often in the education major. If you want students to really learn the material, have them teach it to someone else. Seems backwards-ish. But teaching is the most active form of learning. I always understood that. Ethereally. (Is that a word too? I'm not getting a red squiggle under it. So I'm trusting spellcheck here. But can anyone actually say that out loud? Ethereally. That's not easy.Try it.)

But now I am beginning to really understand. The other day I taught about landform production. Subduction. Plate tectonics. Weathering. Yawn. Keep in mind folks, I'm actually a history teaching major. History ≠ Geography. I mean I love the human element of geography but the physical element? Let's just say that was one of my less good grades in college. So my mentor teacher, after watching me lecture on it the first time, told me to study it until I cared about it.

So home I went and National Geographics I did study. At one point, while reading about subduction and tsunamis, all of the sudden I wanted to, nay, had to see a video of a tsunami. I was interested! I watched Youtube videos of tsunamis for a while then quickly wanted to finish the article I was reading and move on to another I'd found about earthquakes.

So basically what I'm saying is. So far I've learned a lot of things through student teaching. Mostly, however, so far I've learned to learn. Even though I thought that was what college was all about. My mentor teacher put it well today when she said that's what is great about being a teacher, you have to study continually.

Well good. Because I love to learn. I just have to remind myself every once in a while.

Also.

2012-01-13T17:55:00.001-07:00

When people tell me to relax.

Things that make me angry for no rational reason

2012-01-12T17:50:00.000-07:00

1. Girls in boy clothes. The worst offenders

Ties. Just. Just don't.
Fedoras.

To be totally honest I'm not even a fan of them on males either. But then you put it on a girl? And irrational anger floods through my body.
All male hats on girls are unacceptable really. Fedoras are just the biggest repeat offender

(I was going to put a picture but then I realized that every time I looked at this post I would get angry. And I really didn't want that.)

2. The internet usage of the term *facepalm*

3. When pants are too short on people. Now. I understand that I, as a shorty, should probably be more lenient to the pants-finding needs of tall people out there. But remember how this is irrational anger? Ballroom men are the very worst offenders for this.

4. Dirty dishes right by but not in the kitchen sink. This creates a roommate issue when your roommate doesn't like them IN the kitchen sink. Both of these scenarios (in and out of the sink) are equally acceptable and rational. What isn't rational is my anger toward out of the sink. I'm working on it.

I'm a nice person I promise.

Sadly true

2012-01-07T23:12:00.000-07:00

I saw this picture on Facebook today.

I'm kind of embarrassed that this is not only true in most cases but kind of extremely/really/ridiculously true for me.

I know guys get hounded on a lot for not asking girls out. While I'm not against that hounding and in fact sometimes provide some of it myself, I do know girls could do a lot better. Girls=me. And better=something and/or anything.

But really. Why is it a truth universally acknowledged that if you like a boy you can't look at him. And if you don't like a boy you can't look at him. Um. No wonder they're confused! For reals.

Let's work on this. Let's=me. You could do it too if you want.

I guess this is the closest you've gotten to the obligatory New Year's Resolution post. Maybe I'll work on that too.

PC for life!

2012-01-02T23:41:00.000-07:00

PC in this case does not in fact stand for personal computer. No. It stands for Plain City.

Tonight I was driving to a friend's house and it was the first time in quite a while that I have been driving through Plain City. All of the sudden I realized that once I was graduated from college, that was probably it for me and Plain City. When I graduated from Fremont High and went to college I was still only an hour and a half away and came home often enough that my home ward Relief Society doesn't consider me a "visitor" anymore. But once I get a job somewhere, even if it is relatively close, I will begin making my life there. I will be creating a life in a different place. Something about college makes it feel very transitory. It's a highly temporary situation. But once I get a job? That's life right there.

So I decided to make a list to celebrate this transition point. A list of what I will miss about Plain City

1. Giving directions by referencing people's houses ie "it's by the Orton's" or "it's on the corner by all the Jenkins' ".

2. Fields

3. The confectionary which is actually a bar

4. The fact that the confectionary for my entire school life was right across the street from the elementary school and is now connected to both a Bible church and a daycare center.

5. That building next to the confectionary that has been so many different businesses and each of them has failed.

6. Hearing the FHS marching band practicing on summer mornings and football games on Friday nights.

7. Fourth of July's. Plain City has THE best Fourth of July ever. I missed it for the first time last year and it was devastating.

8. Founders Day! It's a treat. I've had to miss it the last few years but they have a program and everything. My favorite is when they change the words to well-known songs to make them about Plain City. So quality.

9. Three LDS churches in one tiny town.

10. The Dance Establishment, where I learned everything I know and gained such dear friends.

11. Fremont High School. I'm one of those nuts who absolutely loved high school. That school holds a lot of really positive memories for me.

12. Hearing the mosquito truck coming so you knew you could finally play outside without being eaten by those little buggers

13. PC 4th! The ward I grew up in may not still be around in its original form but it remains close to my heart.

14. The house I grew up in.

15. Boone's. Yes. We have a restaurant aptly named Boone's.

16. Driving through that town and seeing the roads I rode my bike on, seeing where the old market and drugstore was, seeing my elementary school, and all the houses I visited throughout my life.

Oh sweet nostalgia.

I can't necessarily endorse all the lyrics of this video as specifically pertaining to Plain City. But you get my drift.

The forgotten verse of a remembered carol

2011-12-25T15:53:00.000-07:00

Then let us all with one accord
Sing praises to our heav'nly Lord
That hath made heav'n and earth of naught
And with His blood mankind hath bought
Noel!

My junior year of high school we sang The First Nowell arranged by Mack Wilberg and it had a third verse which I'd never seen before anywhere. I didn't think much of it.

Later that Christmas season our Chamber Choir (Legacy) sang at the Church Administration Building, which we had been invited to a few months earlier and had been eagerly anticipating the opportunity. Of course we were all hoping to see Apostles and President Hinckley but most of the morning was Mormon celebrity free. Then we began to sing this song which I always loved. Between the second and third verses there is a musical interlude which our choir director Mr. Anderson played beautifully and as the chords swelled the mood in the room completely changed. The prophet was there. We didn't see him, but we knew he was there.

In fact, we couldn't even see him until the end of the song. He stayed in the doorway while we sang. I noticed him out of the corner of my eye but refused to look over for fear of crying. It was then that I listened to these words for the first time. I realized that the first two verses were lovely, but this third verse, for me, is what cements them in importance and beauty.

Ever since then this has become my favorite Christmas carol, but I always feel unfinished without this verse. But I ponder on its words often. And this Christmas, with this amazing holiday falling on a Sunday, I have thought about them even more. I am realizing that I wish Christmas was on Sunday every year. I have forgotten about the worship component attached. I am realizing that remembering Christ and worshiping Him are not always the same. Perhaps I'll pretend every Christmas is Sunday from now on.

This is the best video I could find with my favorite lyrics. For some reason in all the MoTab videos they sing a different penultimate line (they sing "That He this glorious world hath wrought"). It's nice and all, just not what I sang. The above version is lovely (the strings especially sound beautiful) but no one has the spirit of MoTab.

But I'll still include MoTab. :)

Merry Christmas.

Kim Jong Il: I can't help it.

2011-12-19T22:17:00.000-07:00

So I can't help but be intensely fascinated by Kim Jong Il and his recent death. Seriously. Ask my coworkers I wouldn't shut up about it today.

I took a course a couple of years ago just about current events. It was probably one of THE best classes ever on campus. This class is also something I don't shut up about (especially the professor, Valerie Hudson who you can coincidentally read an article about in the Student Review. That's where I was going to be cool and give you a link but for some reason it is unfindable on the Student Review website). It was in this class that I first learned about North Korea and the incredible anomaly that it is in the world. Wow. One of the students in the class found this treasure with some fascinating facts about North Korea and the Dear Leader.

Fast forward a couple of years and I'm chillaxin' in an AP World Civ class at Timpview High School, observing a teacher. She shows a documentary on North Korea made by National Geographic. The class didn't finish the video and I didn't go back the next class period. I was hooked so thankfully I found it online. Give it a watch, it's only 45 minutes and I swear to you, you will sure wish it was longer.

Then a couple of months later, there I am checking my news on Google Reader (ps I recently learned about RSS feeds, who forgot to tell me about that?) and there it was. Kim Jong Il has died. I immediately wanted to be happy but then I couldn't because I had no idea what would happen next. His son Kim Jong Un will succeed him and like everything else in North Korea, we know next to nothing.

HISTORY IS HAPPENING PEOPLE. This is fantastic. And it could be terrible. Real life is so much better than t.v.

If you want to know more about this. Go here. The New York Times has put together an assortment of articles, videos, and other materials for educators to teach their students. Oh man, if I was a history teacher today, all my lesson plans would have been abandoned to talk about this.

Alright. Current events binge over. At ease.

Mmmm...Books.

2011-12-15T21:15:00.000-07:00

At the end of every semester a wonderful thing happens. Textbook sell-back. Now I know most people complain about textbook sell-back because they don't get back the money they paid for their overpriced books. Believe me, I also feel that textbooks are overpriced (secret combinations anyone?). However, I have such a weird sense of money that by the time I sell back my textbooks it has nothing to do with paying me back for those books I already bought. Instead it is a "you-finished-finals!" bonus.

After selling back my books in order to exit the building I have to pass this evil/amazing section entitled "Bargain Books". I usually spend at least an hour there. My loot this year includes:

After The Darkness: Reflections on the Holocaust by Elie Wiesel (and it's illustrated with pictures from the US Holocaust Museum!)
Words That Ring Through Time: From Moses and Pericles to Obama, Fifty-One of the Most Important Speeches in History and How They Changed our World
P.J. O'Rourke on the Wealth of Nations
Great Issues in American History Volume II (collection of primary documents, win for the history nerd!)
Time-line History of the World by Gordon Kerr
Mesoamerican Myth: A Treasury of Central American Legends, Art, and History by Anita Ganeri
November General Conference Ensign

This is a great haul. All for $30!

Of course as soon as I left I saw Daniel Pink's Drive for $16. Do you know how much I want that book? You want it too you just don't know it yet.

Also.

2011-12-13T22:44:00.001-07:00

Cobrastyle by Robyn.

Things I do when I'm not doing schoolwork/preparing for finals.

2011-12-08T19:57:00.001-07:00

When I am not preparing for finals I think of things like music, and what my all-time favorite songs are. I've also been prompted into thinking about this by an unknowing friend who recently commented on my great musical taste. So here it is. SOME of the best songs that I feel exist on this planet. Songs that, when they come up on iTunes/Spotify/Marge(my iPod) I usually repeat them at least once.

1. Advice from Them - Aaron Espe
This might be the best bad day song everrrrrrr.

2. In Caelum Fero - Adiemus
My dance studio did an epic pointe dance to this when I was younger. Epic.

3. If All She Has is You - Anuna
This is a recent love. I don't know why I love it. I'm not even sure what it means. My poetic senses don't exist. Is he sad? Is he a jerk? Did she do something? No idea.

4. I Want it All/A Night to Remember/High School Musical - High School Musical 3
:)

5. You're the Top - Barbara Streisand
Love Barbara. Love this movie (What's up Doc?). LOVE this song.

6. Old Joe Clark - Barrage
Just because it brings back wonderful European tour memories.

7. City is Ours - Big Time Rush
I may or may not wake up to this song every morning. It never gets old. Infectious Bubble Gum Pop.

8. American Wake (Nova Scotia Set) - Riverdance
My studio also did a pointe dance to this. Of course now that I know Irish I have no idea how they accomplished it...

9. Ain't no Rest for the Wicked - Cage the Elephant
You should all buy this song now. This song will be a wicked dance one day. It looks pretty great in my head.

10. I'll Make a Man Out of You - Mulan
Okay, this is just a classic. I always listen to it at least like 5 times in a row.

11. Viva la Vida and Strawberry Swing - Coldplay
I will never stop saying that this is just about the best album ever to exist on the planet.

12. For You - Duncan Sheik
Fantastic love song. Men, take note. (For all girls in general not just me sillies)

13. Stiff Jazz - Dzihan and Kamien
I can't describe this song to you. At all. Not in real words at least.

14. Let's Groove - Earth, Wind and Fire
There is nothing better than a good disco song.

15. Best of My Love - The Emotions
Disco & love? Two of my favorite things.

16. At Last - Etta James
This requires no explanation

17. Club Can't Handle Me - Flo Rida
Mostly because of this video. And it makes me think about graduating. And they made it for last year's class which I was kind of supposed to be in technically...so really...they made it for me.

18. Christ the Lord is Ris'n Today - Geslison & Groberg arrangement
I played this a lot in the last year with the beautiful Alina Geslison and Ashlee Carroll, and the arrangement is so gorgeous.

19. Don't Stand so Close to Me/Young Girl - Glee Cast
Partially because I have a slight fear of this general situation happening to me as a young/single teacher. And because these songs are awesome.

20. We Could Love - Goot
"If we could just free up the laws that bind our lives then we could love."

21. Ice Cream Freeze (Let's Chill) - Hannah Montana
It's better than the Hoedown Throwdown. Promise.

22. Your Biggest Fan - Nick Jonas
From the delightful and short lived Jonas L.A. I love those boys.

23. Divide Me - Kalai

24. Stronger - Kanye West
I can't stand Kanye. But man this song is fantastic.

25. Love Today - Mika
Is this a music video yet? It needs to be one. If it isn't one, I'll gladly choreograph it.

26. This Will be An Everlasting Love - Natalie Cole
Oh hey guess what, also a dance number from my studio. And it was also amazing. Two of the three of three girls who were in it are now Utah Jazz Dancers.

27. Young - Nickel Creek
There is nothing better than good bluegrass.

28. High of 75 - Relient K
This dance is almost completely choreographed in my head. One day...

29. Oh oh oh oh oh oh oh - Say Hi
I may have missed some oh's.

I never told you when this list was going to end did I? Sucka's!

30. Waka Waka (This Time for Africa) - Shakira
Also because of a Divine Comedy skit

31. Dora the Female Explorer - Stackridge
You guys. This song is so good. I can never decide if these people are for real or not. Like, is this song bad-good? Or good-good?

32. That's Not my Name - The Ting Tings
I flipping love these ladies. This is such a great girl power song.

33. We No Speak Americano - Yolanda Be Cool & DCup
Another choreographed-in-my-head dance. And isn't it required for folk dancers to love this song? I think it might be.

34. Come Get it - Aaron Carter
Admit it. You love it too.

PHEW. You made it. And I didn't even look at my Spotify playlists.

Oh wait. 35. Can't Touch This - MC Hammer.
You know why Lar'n. You know why.

Is that you Mitt?

2011-12-01T01:02:00.001-07:00

So one time, during the last presidential elections/nominations (uh-oh, this is showing how long I've been in college...) on 820 N. in Provo, right above Thai Ruby, there was this empty office that filled itself to support Mitt Romney and later the Republican party when he didn't get the nomination.

Don't worry guys, this isn't even going to get political. Promise.

So, another time, about two days ago, I was walking down 820 N. to my apartment and there was a man standing in the window of the aforementioned empty place that was once a Republican haven, and he was waving at people. Even though I knew this space had recently been converted into restaurant, I definitely thought it was Mitt. For a good 20 seconds.

Oh hey Mitt! Just waving to me on my walk home from campus? So thoughtful, that's some real good campaigning right there.

Don't worry guys, it wasn't really him.

But if it had been him, he probably would have looked like this.

With the flag in the back and everything I'm sure.

Sometimes I have the best day ever.

2011-11-20T21:55:00.001-07:00

Once upon a November, I had the best day of my life. For 3 reasons.

1. Savion Glover (THE best tap dancer alive) in real life in front of my face. This number has two parts.
Part A: A workshop. Savion agreed to come and teach us a workshop. My friend Justin Kelly said it well in his Facebook status after the event when he said "Still in a stupor after one of the coolest dance lessons I have ever had the privilege to attend. How awesome is it that Savion can achieve that distinction without even teaching a single step?"

That's right, all he did was talk. He did eventually put his tap shoes on about 45 minutes after everything started, but he barely did anything in them. He just talked.

About time, and groove, and the pocket, melodicizing, tapping your life, reminding me that tap isn't just a dance, it isn't even just an artform, it is a way of life and a philosophy. But really. Anyway, I'm going to write more about this in its own post later on, because I have a lot to say in this post.

Part B: Savion's concert that night. Him, two other tappers, no music, three miked platforms. Genius.

2. I was helping a professor move out of his office (which by the way, is my job, I get paid to help theater and media arts professors) and he was getting rid of some of his books.

He turned to me at one point and said "Do you want a nice new copy of the Complete Encyclopedia of Joseph Smith's Teachings?"

Um. Why yes Eric, I would.

10 minutes later.
"What about these leather bound books the university gives me for Christmas"
Now people, I put these white boxes in the professor's mailboxes for Christmas every year and I always covet the beautiful leather bound Church books hidden inside and want to steal them from people that never pick them up. But I don't. So the good karma is coming back to me.
Yes! I want those too!

My loot ended up being, the Encyclopedia of Joseph Smith's Teachings, and leather bound copies of an LDS hymnal, The Bible, and Jesus the Christ. Especially cool because Jesus the Christ was totally on my Christmas list. Now I have it. In fancy form.

3. Whilst I was helping Eric in his office I had a missed call on my phone from my sister, which was interesting. I checked the voicemail when I was done with work and it was from my niece Ella. She looks like this Ella and I get along pretty well. She's a lot like me, only she happens to be younger and a lot cuter than I was. Believe me.

Anydangway, she left me a long voicemail about an essay she wanted me to help her write. I figure it must be a history essay or something, until she said they were supposed to write about their hero, so she chose me.
!
I almost cried a little bit. I definitely had that "awwwwww" face on

This is an example of the "precious" face with Michelle even though it kind of looks like a disgusted face. It is very similar to the "aww" face I had except mine registered more surprise, so think this with an open mouth. Not necessarily attractive, but effective.

So there you have it. Savion Glover, free wonderful books, and my niece calling me her hero. This is a perfect Thanksgiving post. Yes?

Little white girl from an intellectual family.

2011-11-01T19:36:00.000-06:00

I have been encouraged to find three things that describe me culturally and reflect on them. Okay so it's a school assignment, that's encouragement right?

First we have one of my heavily highlighted textbooks. Anyone who knows me well knows that studying and learning is probably my favorite thing ever. I love nothing more than spending a Saturday morning studying. This has deep roots from my family and my upbringing. My grandfather, father, and all of my siblings are very interested in learning and learning was always a value very appreciated and endorsed in my home. This aspect of my life reflects very clearly in my priorities and not always in a good way. Even though I am usually praised in my scholastic achievements and hard work, I often put homework and studying in front of giving time to people and friends and that can be a problem.

Second, even though this is also a book, it is a representation of wit. I know, this sounds a little egotistical of me but I think a story will help you understand. Being the youngest of 8 children and a very headstrong person, I picked up quite a large vocabulary, and, according to my sister Patti, I used it correctly! In addition to my loquacity, I picked up a love for quick wit and intellectual banter from my siblings. I perfected this for many years, hoping my brothers and sisters would notice, but that affirmation didn't come until I was at least a teenager. I remember distinctly at a family gathering one day when one of my siblings said to me "Lynette! You're funny!" Since that time I have seen that as an attribute that I have and many people who know me know that I have a peculiar way of speaking and expressing myself, which stems from that wit and intellectual banter ingrained in me. The way I speak, write, and express myself has a lot to do with that.

Finally, we have a picture (of a picture) of me dancing in a recent choreography project of a friend. Dance is an extremely important part of my life, and has had a large impact on my life in quite a few ways. Art is very important in my family, especially singing and playing the piano. All of my siblings sing and play the piano and I join them in doing that. However, even though I love music very much, it has always come fairly easy to me and didn't present enough challenge for my personality. I had to work hard to be a good dancer however, it is not a natural thing for my body. However, I have worked hard enough that it has started to become more natural, and that has given me an even greater appreciation for it. I have been able to participate in many kinds of dance from ballet to hip-hop to contemporary to folk dance, and my love for dance just increases with each genre I take on. Dancing is something that is nearly always on my mind, as soon as a song comes on, you'll see my eyes glaze over and you'll know that I'm choreographing.

Tagged, I'm it.

2011-10-30T22:00:00.000-06:00

So my nephew just did a tagging blog post. His fifth tag was "Lots of Aunts", so I feel like I was definitely included.

Three joys:
1. Valentines Day. It's only the best holiday of them all.
2. People who genuinely care about me (how can there really be that many of them?)
3. Learning

Three fears:
1. Vomiting (me or others, don't even tease me about it, seriously)
2. Rejection
3. Embarrassment (I totally stole that one from my nephew, but it's legit, don't worry)

Three goals
1. Get a real-life teaching job and be good at it
2. Get married and have a beautiful family
3. Teach and choreograph dance

This is what the Ogden Temple shall look like. I miss the spaceship because that's what I grew up with but a temple is temple, no matter what shape.

Three current collections/obsessions
1. FOLK DANCE.
2. Dr. Who
3. Watching Vocal Point on the Sing-Off

Three random surprising facts about myself
1. My eyes can go in different directions
2. I have never seen a shooting star
3. I loooooove the smell of chlorine. But I can't swim.

I am supposed to tag 5 more people. So I choose
1. Laurn Jones (I purposefully didn't put the e in there, it's how I say your name in my head...)
2. Celeste Godfrey
3. Marissa Reynolds
4. Michelle Sonognini
5. Ryan Sonognini

A coup!

2011-10-28T22:55:00.000-06:00

If you do a google image search on coup d'etat this is what comes up. Keep these images in mind. A coup d'etat is, according to Wikipedia "the sudden, extrajudicial deposition of a government".

This week of my life I experience a coup of sorts. My emotions were sick of being subservient to my Louis XIVth logic. This parallel may not be chronologically or factually accurate, but conceptually I promise it makes sense, just stay with me.

So for reasons that I attribute mostly to stress, not enough sleep and, let's be honest, hormones, my emotions were bolstered enough to stand up to my reason. I thought it was bad at the first of the week, things were tricky, difficult, hard to handle, etc. But THEN, then my friends, came the Reign of Terror. That's right, Robespierre made an appearance, in the form of complete hysterics. I have never felt like I'm completely not in control of my emotions, it was terrifying (thus the reign of terror...).

Thankfully Napoleon didn't factor into this (this turned from a coup to the French Revolution somehow, probably because the word is French). So there was no conquering and there was definitely no disaster in Russia (because we all you know you should never get involved in a land war in Asia). In fact I think my coup d'etat/French Revolution ended with Marie Antoinette telling me to eat cake. And I complied.

Maybe I will be a good history teacher...

Great ideas.

2011-10-06T16:48:00.001-06:00

Sometimes I have fantastic ideas. Like when it's cold outside and I decide to come home, fry a tortilla in some olive oil and cinnamon and top it with honey. THAT is a good idea.

But seriously.

2011-10-03T21:25:00.000-06:00

You could probably drown a small child in the gutters of Provo.

Why they thought this was a necessary thing we may never know.

Sweet relief!

2011-09-30T22:27:00.000-06:00

You may not be able to tell this...but I'm typing this blog post from a brand new computer. A computer that I do NOT have to pay $35 a month to BYU for thank you very much. A computer that is an early and very generous birthday present from parents who love me a lot. Clearly.

Before having this computer I went for a whole 2 weeks without a computer of my own. I am embarrassed to talk about how hard it was. Uh, it was really hard. How ridiculous am I? But I will tell you what, when I came home from campus I did my homework and went to bed. Because that was my only option. How else can you waste time? Wasting time only happens effectively with a computer.

But now here I sit, wasting time with technology. Sitting in my family room wearing my mom's jacket because everyone's always hot and I'm always cold. Drinking home-stirred chocolate milk with my favorite long-stemmed spoon that's been my favorite since childhood. And smelling late-summer smells of the countryside of Plain City. Love. Couldn't get better.

Oh Conference is tomorrow? JK. Just got better.

S.p.a.z.

2011-09-28T12:20:00.000-06:00

You know how sometimes you're really anxious about something (or nothing) and you simultaneously want to bounce up and down and move around and do things while also just wanting to sit and do nothing?

Usually in times like these I just take a nap. However today I am booked through until 9 tonight. At least. And I have a paper to write that's gonna be... Oh well, I only need a B in that class right?

The worst part is I know why I'm anxious and I just can't do anything about it.

This is approximately what I felt like at work today. Just substitute coffee for a jolly rancher. Surprisingly sugar helped. It's a mystery.

Vi.en.na.

2011-09-11T18:30:00.000-06:00

Here we are, the end of the road. The last stop on the trip I took months ago that it has taken me ages to blog about. Here is the TBE list for Vienna. 1. The view from our hotel. Wow. Welcome to Vienna man.

2. Finding this store on our first night of exploring and finding out that the translation basically means "Wolf pants". I just like the word pants okay?

3. Seeing Schonbrunn Palace and walking through their amazing gardens for FREE! Yesss.... But their gardens were so gorgeous I couldn't even take it. And huge! And with random statues and obelisks and the like in every which corner. I'm really glad Jay made me get my picture taken there.

4. The best picture of me all tour. Thanks Erin! This is in front of the Imperial Palace. No big.

5. A DRINKING FOUNTAIN. Anyone who has been to Europe knows this is a rarity. And we even saw two that day! Wow Vienna, you are 200% more hydrated than the rest of Europe as far as I can tell.

6. Seeing a statue of someone being flayed. Enough said. I have no idea why this is awesome to me. But...it is, I guess I'm morbid.

7. Roman ruins in the middle of the city 3 stories below the street. I saw this random thing in the middle of the street and I thought huh...what's that? I got there and looked down and BAM, Roman ruins were just chillin' there.

8. Magnum McFlurry. I ate at McDonald's twice that day. :)

9. Ending the day with a trip to see the world's oldest running ferris wheel. And a trip to the most large and random amusement park. This park was awesome, hilarious, random, and kind of creepy depending on which ride you were looking at. There was a Jack the Ripper ride, a Michael Jackson fun-house, some amazing looking rides, and some seriously creepy statues. Overall, it was one of the most awesome experiences ever.

10. Finding a stagecoach in the aforementioned amusement park. Earlier at Schonbrunn Palace, Marianne Ohran (one of the chaperones/tech people) had said stagecoach instead of carriage and felt silly. I said if I found one I would take a picture of it for her. And I did. And it was awesome.

11. Having dinner the night before our day in Vienna in our hotel. It was our last time together as a whole team because our travel plans home were not all the same. I really enjoyed my time with this particular team, I learned a lot from them and had some amazing/funny/spiritual experiences.

TBE in Porec

2011-08-28T21:13:00.000-06:00

We're almost done people. For a week we stayed in Porec, Croatia, right on the Adriatic Sea. But really, you could see it from our hotel and we walked past it every day on our way to shows/animations.

1. 1 show a day (or none!). This was the most chill festival ever. We would have an "animation" in the morning, where we'd do a little show in a town square setting where we could like dance with the people who came kind of a thing and we'd just do like 2 numbers. And then we had 1 show at night. However, not everyone did the animations every day, everyone only did it three times out of 7 days. And there was one night when I wasn't in our night show at all because I wasn't in the dances they were doing! Yeehaw! And one day we had NOTHING, 0 shows, 0 animations, total day off. Best, festival, ever.

2. The buffet at the hotel. Um, it was amazing. A huge salad bar, amazing fries, ice cream, adorable desserts, and just all around amazing food. We ate at this place for all three meals people. Everyday. So good.

3. Water aerobics!

Here is a good portion of the team (and some of our chaperons) doing water aerobics on the last day we could. They had them everyday at 11 am. That day the aerobics were led by Ivana (who came to one of our shows, she is so great!) and her special guest Greg! Seriously, this was so fun, and quite a bonding activity. I think every single person on the team/chaperon did it at some point.

4. Getting a tan.

5. Getting into the Adriatic Sea. I do not yet have a picture of this, I think Liahona took one. And I only went in once, and I didn't stay in it long...but it was good enough for me. :)

6. Our awesome day off and boat tour. We weren't planning on doing anything on our day off. The emcee Tim found that out and was not having any of that. He hooked us up with his friend who does boat tours and got us booked for a little tour around the Adriatic. We stopped at a couple of places, passed a nudist colony or two, and had some interesting lunch. One of the towns we stopped in was where Casanova was cast out to after being kicked out of Venice. As for the nudist colonies, thankfully they were far enough away to be not scarring. And lunch? Let's just say if you ordered fish, you sure got fish, all of the fish. And the waiters were SERIOUSLY confused when we gave them back their alcohol they had put on our tables.

Here's a picture I stole from someone taken on our boat tour. Really, everywhere looked like this, it was so beautiful it couldn't even be real life to me.

7. Hanging out with Justin to re-cement our Elkridge partnership. Justin and I were having some clogging partnership issues in which we couldn't hold on to each other for some reason. It all started when he let go too early in Prague for the men's and women's solos. So we decided to stick together during our first stop on the boat tour. We looked for antique books. We found some wooden cats. We went to the top of a really high tower in a church while admitting to each other how much we hate heights (but really, we could have died on those steps), and we almost didn't make it back to the boat but thankfully stumbled upon Michael Steele who laughed at us because we were sort of frantically running. In the wrong direction.

8. Having Jared telling me I was plenty pretty. :) Oh Jared, our banjo player is the bomb and one of my favorite people ever, and the people of Oklahoma will love that boy while he gets to serve them for two years.

9. Carrying Jared's banjo because I wanted to, and having everyone get mad at him for it. The night I wasn't in the show I didn't have anything to carry so I decided to carry Jared's banjo because he always complains about how heavy (fat) she is. However, when people saw me carrying it they assumed that Jared had made me carry it and got mad at him. It was entertaining.

9.5. Always wearing Jared's hat. Seriously, he put it on me like 50% of the time.

10 and 11 really don't need to be published on the internet.

12. Watching the awesome Chinese war epic movie and gaining a new love for eastern warfare. Really, all this time I thought war was stupid, now I realize, western war tactics are stupid.

13. Having no leaders with us for the last parade so we revolted and did songs other than Oh Susanna and Back up and Push! Some of these included Country Roads, ...yeah I can't remember anything else, but they were great! And fun! And everyone loved us and we weren't bored out of our minds.

13.5. Having the leaders show up at various points in the parade with drinks or ice cream right in front of us. Taunting us. It was mean. And funny.

14. Hit cookies after said parade. Those cookies are amazing.

15. Walking down old Roman streets and seeing beautiful old buildings.

No big deal. Just beyond gorgeous.

16. How picturesque everything was. Really, everything made a perfect picture. I kept feeling like I was dreaming.

17. Funny chips. Drew and Tim understand this, and they are the only people on that tour who have ever heard me giggle.

18. "I bet it's cooler outside!" Once upon a time, we had a show and our dressing room was in an abandoned store. It was crazy hot in there, this was clearly the case. But just in case our personal temperature gauges weren't working, Ed continually reminded us to change really quickly and go outside because it's much cooler outside. It became an inside joke between Katrina and I, we said it to each other quite a bit that night, and continued to do so when things got ridiculous throughout the tour.

PS, just for kicks, this was what our stage looked like for that show.

19. Watching a British inspirational movie about education. It was rare to find programming in English that wasn't just news, so this was exciting on a morning when I felt ill to be able to just chill in my room and watch this. Did I mention yet how this week was like a vacation? Seriously.

20. Being in paradise.

21. Eating kalimari, fish, and shark.

22. Finding out Tim (our emcee) seemed interested in the Gospel, especially our focus on families. Ed left him with a Proclamation to the Family.

23. When Tim (our emcee) told us we were the talk of the town. Everyone loved the BYU group! This was so flattering.

24. Going to this awesome mosaic church that has bits of it from really...really old times. 6th century BC? Maybe? I'm not big into history pre-Medieval ages so I don't know. BUT I went with Drew, which was great because we both took forever. However sadly those who joined us were probably bored out of our minds. But at least they could smile long enough for this picture. Thanks for putting up with us Justin, Jay, and Lia. :)

Zagreb

2011-08-07T16:42:00.000-06:00

Our next stop was Zagreb, Croatia, which is the capital of Croatia! I thoroughly enjoyed this place, and here are some reasons why.

1. The most delicious, warm hazelnut pastry was eaten here. And I found it at an awesome cheap bakery that was much loved in our time in Zagreb. It was so good I took a picture of it.

2. Our first (and only) air-conditioned hotel. I was even cold for a little bit!

3. Cheap food.

4. Kebabs. Mine actually wasn't even that amazing compared to the other kebabs people got. But it was still super good.

5. The Cathedral and seeing a depiction of Christ and God as separate and embodied individuals. Don't you love it when nuggets of truth show up places where they shouldn't technically be? Reminds me of the Sistine Chapel, oh Michelangelo, you sly dog.

6. The impromptu show in a town square with the missionaries. Upon arriving in Zagreb we learned our one show there had been cancelled. So instead we ended up getting a show arranged in a town square through religious laws so that the missionaries of the area could come and proselyte while we danced. It was amazing. Probably one of the best shows of the entire tour. We did the whole thing in one costume and we were originally going to do like 3 numbers, but ended up doing almost our whole show. It was a really cool opportunity.

Here we are doing Elkridge clog in character shoes and Appalachian dresses.

I include this picture solely for Josh's face, he's the one in red in the middle. This is the boys doing Texas Fandango. For about half the dance they just beat each other up.

Here are the dancing...things...that joined us in the show. Greg messed up in Appalachian Running Sets that day and blamed it on the dancing banana, you can't see it in this shot but there definitely was one.

One of the greatest parts about this show as that while it was being set up, our translator asked the Police Dept. (where he was setting this up) if they wanted help with their English, so they will now be getting English classes from the missionaries!

7. At that same show, between numbers I got to chat with the people watching. I met these siblings from Bosnia who loved to talk to me (they liked improving their English) and then getting to tell some senior humanitarian missionaries about them because Bosnia is in their area! I also told the siblings about English classes through the missionaries.

8. Finding things in the market for the first time that I actually loved and unashamedly buying them. Even though I'd liked things in Hungary, I mostly bought traditional things to remember being there. But in Zagreb I truly loved the things I bought them and didn't get them because they were traditional. I bought a small and a large tablecloth with a traditional heart print on it and a beautiful carving of Christ. I use the tablecloths as blankets. I also spent more than David Lewis, which was a feat because he was clearly the big spender of the trip.

9. Rooming with Emily Bills again. Love her.

10. Watching Man on Fire with Drew and Jay. It was nice to just stay in and watch a movie one of the nights we were there. I was sick of being a tourist.

11. Staying in and watching funny youtube videos with Liahona. My personal favorite was http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h-Lx2ihpGbc She also showed me some great Friends clips.

12. Spending an afternoon at the park watching some of our team play soccer while eating a kebab. It was nice just to relax. And entertaining because the grass they were playing on was super slippery. In fact most surfaces in Croatia were slippery...

13. Eating a hot pepper just because Justin wanted me to. I have never taken a food dare in my life, but something about Justin made me want to do it. That's quite a talent...hope he doesn't take advantage of it. ;)

14. Speaking in the ward and knowing as soon as I entered the building who the talk was for and getting to meet her afterward. Giving a talk through an interpreter wasn't as difficult as I expected, and it was probably one of the most intense spiritual experiences of my life and I will never be grateful enough to Ed for giving me that chance.

Prague.

2011-08-04T21:55:00.000-06:00

So it turns out Prague is not my fav place in the world. People may delight in it, but I am not people. It was kind of a let-down after the wonderful-ness of Budapest. But don't worry, good experiences were still had, and a TBE list was still made.

1. The guy from a recent Ensign article about the saints in Czech Republic was one of the translator/leaders. Here is a video of him from the Church website. https://lds.org/youth/video/the-first-step-english?lang=eng

2. People caring about me enough to notice that I was having a horrible night our first night while Jon was showing us through Prague. It really was a terrible night but some wonderful friends noticed and even though I didn't want them to talk to me at first, I was glad they made the effort, it really helped.

3. Czech goulash. SO good. And SO different from the Hungarian version.

4. The Charles Bridge. Easily my favorite thing there.

5. Seeing a real Gothic cathedral in front of my face for the first time ever. This almost rivals the Charles Bridge. It was breathtaking!

6. Hanging out with a different group of people the last night in Prague. It's really easy on tour to end up with the same people the whole time. There's nothing wrong with them, but in large doses people can get annoying. So my last night I was spontaneous and went out late at night in a city I didn't like with people I hadn't hung out with the whole time on tour so far. And it was amazing! One of my favorite adventures. And I got to see this sunset...

The first glimpse

Getting closer.

The whole view

7. Magnum bars after our show. That ice cream was needed in my life.

8. Seeing fireworks on the Moldau River after our show.

9. Discovering great friends in Whitney and Stephanie, the Daily Universe Reporters that got to tag along with us for a while.

10. The clogging workshop we got to do. We were supposed to be the "experienced ones" but...yeah I don't think I ever got that combination. And the pizza they fed us here was AMAZING! The Czech Republic had this really delicious super thin crust pizza, and this kind had the most amazing cheese.

11. A gorgeous thunderstorm.

12. Political discussions with J-red. My favorite banjo player. Who knew someone else felt the same way as I about the 17th Amendment?

13. Walking through the concentration camp with Justin in complete silence. We both just ended up walking together even though we started in different groups. It was a great experience. :)

14. Gelatto for the first time (hazelnut and chocolate) in the tiniest scoops I've ever seen.

TBE in Slovakia

2011-07-19T21:37:00.000-06:00

We were in Slovakia but a short time. We only stopped for about an hour in order to get lunch. HOWEVER, we were there long enough for me to have a TBE list. Obviously.

1. Scotty and I realizing we were Slovakian partners (for our International Show during the year) IN Slovakia while taking a picture in front of McDonald's. PS this picture was totally candid, Liahona just has amazing skills.

2. The doodle of a girl on the bathroom doors. You know, to bypass confusion for non-Slovakian speakers. I appreciated it.

3. Eating salad/fresh vegetables. I love produce.

4. Eating a McChicken after hearing Lia talk about it for so long. Apparently this is a sandwich that used to be in American McDonald's but no longer is for whatever reason, and it is Liahona's favorite thing. So when we saw it in Europe she was quite excited. And it really was pretty good.

Europa Part A: Hungary

2011-07-13T16:00:00.000-06:00

So I've decided the best way for me to sum up Europe would be in the TBE lists I made with my rockin' roommate Ashlee Carroll. TBE stands for "the best ever". It stems from an experience at Lagoon when Ashlee was getting freaked out by each roller coaster we went on, and every time I assured her by saying it would be the best ever. I accidentally repeated myself at least 5 times, and then it just stuck.

1.Hungarian State Folk Ensemble dress rehearsal
These are just, oh the best Hungarian folk dancers in the universe. Their director has choreographed for us before and we have collaborated with them on past trips so they invited us to the dress rehearsal of a show we couldn't attend and it was PHENOMENAL. I mostly sat there and thought, "Oh that's what Hungarian folk dance is supposed to look like". Now I have the bug.

2. Dancing with a beautiful Hungarian named Norbert.
At a Gala performance on Margaret Island at the end of the week we danced with a combination of the Hungarian State Folk Ensemble and Duna Art Ensemble, both amazing groups. Norbert was my partner for the finale and he said very few words to me but when the rehearsal was being run in Hungarian he would keep his arm around me and lead to me where we needed to go. And at the final performance when we finished he said "Cusi, cusi! Thank you!" Cusi is short for the Hungarian word for thank you. I'm sure I spelled it terribly wrong but hey, I don't speak Hungarian.

3. Chick-flick moment - ice cream shoppe afternoon with the girls.
Once upon a time we were given 5 hours of free time and we were shopped/touristed out. While some people went to some random underground tunnels which they still insist were cool, me, Ashlee, Jessica, Emily Dance(Fish), Liahona, and Erin went to the most precious little confectionery shop. It was pink and the servers knew English and we talked about life and boys and mostly boys. And it was so good.

4. Making great friends with Anna from the Hungarian State Folk Ensemble.
Anna was in my group from the same Gala where I danced with Norbert. After the show I got to know her a lot better and she was AMAZED to hear that I had 8 brothers and sisters and refused to believe it for some time. She is from a "large family of 3 kids", so it kind of blew her mind. :)

5. Having Hungarian facebook friends.

6. The view from Fisherman's Bastion at sunset.

Thank you Hungarian missionaries for taking us here at sunset and when it was free. I owe you.

7. The missionaries and Timi and all of the members we met.
But really, Budapest was just about everyone on the team's favorite and I feel like it was definitely because of the friendships we created with the members. Timi was our interpreter for the ward/informal tour guide/groupie. :)

8. Our groupies (Attila, Nikki, Aggie, Timi, other members)
We had so many people following us and coming to multiple shows. It was very flattering.

9. Andrea and Andi our tour guides.
They were the bomb and funny and knowledgeable and great. And I love them.

10. Parliament.

11. Going inside of St. Matthias Church.
Beside the fact that this was my first European cathedral was the fact that the day before had been our first tour Sunday. It had been fairly horrible for me, mostly owing to the fact that I hadn't realized what it would be like so I didn't get to worship as I would have liked to. So I made up for it this day by taking some time, sitting by myself, and just having some personal worship time in this beautiful cathedral. So clearly it has a special place in my heart.

12. Firesides.
They were just amazing. Fun, spirit-filled, perfect.

13. Water conservative toilets and stalls that actually cover you.
Europeans really know how to do bathrooms man. The stalls are a real honest-to-goodness door. And their toilets are just so water-conscious. Delightful.

14. Cobblestone streets.

15. Singing to the hosts and Aundrea/Janos' speeches.
On our last night we took some time to sing God Be With You 'Till We Meet Again to Aundrea/Andi/Janos/Attila/Nikki and the Spirit was incredibly strong. We gave them presents, they gave us presents, then Aundrea gave a memorable speech about how great we are. But she realized in the middle of the speech that she wasn't talking about us as dancers, but us as individuals.

16. Andi's singing.
Sometimes (twice to be exact) Andi would sing to us on the bus. Once for a birthday, she sang a Hungarian birthday song. The last night she sang us a traditional song after we had sung for her (see 15). She was just so sweet.

17. Learning Hungarian dancing from Miklos.
Did I mention we learned Hungarian dancing in a studio right on the Danube? Yeah.

18. Paprika crackers and Bueno bars and Milka chocolate.
Paprika flavored things are the bomb. And everyone knows European chocolate rocks.

19. Cheap souvenirs.

20. Jared coming into the girl's dressing room!
We lured our pre-missionary banjo player into the girls dressing room before the performance started with cheese rolls. There is photographic evidence on facebook.

21. The schoolroom moment at our last show.
In waiting for our last show our dressing room was this quaint schoolroom. Since we were dressed in Appalachian and Emily Dance(Fish) was in pioneer she naturally pretended to be the teacher. Then Tesha taught us to ask for ice cream in Hungarian while we chanted it at the top of our lungs. There was dancing in the aisles, and wailing, and then Jon walked in (our tour manager who is the one that buys us ice cream)and it was a perfect moment that can never be beat.

22. Terror House.

This was the house of both the Hungarian Nazis and the Soviets and is now a museum to the terror that both regimes inflicted. It was amazing. And if I spoke Hungarian, it would have been even better.

23. My dating talk with the boys at Trofea Grill.
It was great. But don't ask my any details, because I'm pinky-sworn to secrecy.

24. Rita telling us about politics and the Church.
Let's just say amazing things are happening in Hungary with the church.

25. Fat arms.
This is a humorous story in which basically Liahona said I had fat arms. She was talking about the arms on my watch, but momentarily I was incredibly offended.

26. Being called "dahling" by a Hungarian woman whose English sounded British.
Often the older people who knew English knew it because of Great Britain. Therefore, British accents.

27. Doing Running Sets with Nikki and hiding her from Ed.
We have this friend Nikki from the Hungarian State Folk Ensemble. She wanted to dance with us, so we taught her our easiest dance and she did it with us in the Gala performance. The trick was hiding her from Ed before the show when he insisted on standing with us and talking to us the entire time before the show.
Ed is the man with grey hair on the left, and Nikki is the furthest girl on the right. That's how close they were! But we kept our secret. Until...we got on stage.

28. Ed delightedly playing the bones
This is the reason we thought he might not notice Nikki, he really gets into playing the bones with the band. It's quite adorable actually.

29. My first Magnum bar.
Double caramel. So. Good.

30. Paprika and Paprikash chicken (and tons of potatoes)
Meat and potatoes for every meal after starting with a delicious soup. The food in Hungary made me absolutely delighted.

31. Getting to know Jay Tibbits our percussionist for the tour.
One day we sat next to each other on the bus all day and generally chilled out a lot. It was great.

Estoy in Europa

2011-06-27T03:43:00.001-06:00

I shall update soon with epic adventures. Until then, prepare yourselves for the tales of Europa.

So that I don't forget.

2011-06-03T19:00:00.001-06:00

Here is the best salad I have ever eaten.

-lettuce
-chicken
-corn chips
-black beans
-cilantro
-barbecue sauce
-ranch dressing

So I never forget. Now it's on cyberspace. The one thing I can't lose.

Dreams.

2011-05-26T21:54:00.000-06:00

I have a lot of dream jobs. Even though I feel 110% about the whole teaching thing, I also have quite a few other ideas for my life. Here are the things I want to do in my life before I die. In no particular order.

1. Diplomat
2. Senator
3. Choreographer
4. Stand-up comedian
5. Delynne (aka being in charge of SPAC)
6. Lawyer
7. Adoptive mother
8. Philanthropist
9. Journalist
10. Novelist/Essayist

Think I can fit it all in?

Running?

2011-05-04T10:45:00.000-06:00

Once upon a time, when I wasn't dancing anymore because it's summah-time, I decided I should probably still stay in shape. In particular, I would like to stay in my shape, I have a nice shape. My idea is not to strengthen muscles, they seem pretty good the way they are, what I want to do is have great endurance. So I say to myself, running, this is a good choice.

Now for those of you who know me, running is not so much on the top of my list of wonderful things. It may or may not be somewhere near the middle of the list of anti-wonderful things (my ideas about running were akin to the not-so-excited look on this poor girls face.) However! In the last few years I have learned that running on a treadmill greatly helps this because I can then concentrate on how long I'm running as opposed to how far/fast I run. Because far and fast are the two worst words to me in running. Therefore, since I'm in fairly good shape because folk dance is ridiculous (!) I figure, I can run.

Guess what I was right! And it was a great run. My goal was, just keep going for at least 10 minutes, but let me tell you, by the time I hit 3 minutes I knew that would be too easy. So at the end of every carefully-selected-running-playlist song I increased my speed and I ended up running 15 minutes instead of 10 and even ran over a mile! And it really wasn't even that bad. In fact it was delightful.

This is great news, I say to myself. This means I can run every day and get a little better and maybe shave a little off my shape (I mean, I like the general shape but it could be a tinge smaller in places, you know what I'm saying?) and be happy and healthy and vegetable eating! (This has to do with a mantra of mine that if I'm working out I eat healthier. It's kind of amazing and you should try it.)

The great news didn't last long. By the next day I had a slight problem. Just kind of a shooting pain in my foot when I...walked on it. I was trying to play it off to my co-workers and I told my boss "well yeah it hurts but only when I walk on it." His reply was "that's like saying, my eye hurts, but only when I look at it." Touche. So maybe this is a problem. Thankfully BYU's the bomb and there is a dance training room I can go to so that this problem can be fixed before the great trek to Europa for me. So we've figured out the problem, it's highly fixable and everything's cool. I mean the shooting pain isn't gone yet but all in due time. And lots of massages. And stretching.

But I still can't run. I tried riding a bike today, just not the same. Who would have ever imagined me saying those words? Nobody that's who.

But if my silence made you leave, then that would be my worst mistake.

2011-04-15T14:31:00.001-06:00

I must admit, my silence is very rarely a problem, usually more of a welcome occurrence. I have always been one to speak my mind and I can surely never keep my own secrets. All my life if I had a crush, people knew. Including him. Oops.

However I will not deny that this line from "And So It Goes" from Billy Joel has applied to me before. I wonder how many times there are things I didn't say but wanted to. I wonder how many times saying them would have helped, or perhaps it would have hindered? Trying to decide which is fairly impossible. I can think of both negative and positive feelings associated with people that were never shared. I wonder if that was the best choice?

I got a Dove chocolate wrapper that said "Express what's in your heart". Since Dove chocolate wrappers always include absolute truths (right?) I have been thinking about this lately. What do I keep in my heart and what do I let out? Is there a time for everything in there to come out and if so how do I know when it approaches?

Slowly. Losing. Momentum.

2011-03-23T21:56:00.000-06:00

To all of you spring-break-less Cougars out there, this is for you.

It's always about this time in the semester that I start getting addicted to TV shows or reading a book for fun (scandalous!) in lieu of the homework/studying that should be happen. Sure it isn't warm yet because springtime is Mother Nature's equivalent of a menstrual cycle but it looks like it could be warm. And birds sing sometimes.

This is all compounded by the fact that this Saturday I have my very first Saturday, of the entire semester, in which I have absolutely nothing scheduled. No out-of-town shows with the folk dance team, no rehearsals, nothing.

The anticipation of this Saturday has an interesting effect on me. It doesn't push me to finish homework before then so I can relax. No, you see I have a disease, it's called "Saturday-morning-is-the-best-flippin-time-for-homework-on-earth". Dont' fear, it's not catching. But because of it, instead of doing my homework every night I do things like writing in my blog. Or dancing to the Jo Bros. (You better believe I just made that reference.)

Total control. Total freedom.

2011-02-10T15:44:00.001-07:00

I am joining the ranks of ideological bloggers today, I hope no one minds. Oh who am I kidding, who even reads this?

I have been in Humanities 101 with Lauri Haddock for 4 semesters, once as a student and three times as a TA/mentor. Every time we talk about dance this quote by Edward Villella is introduced to the students. And every year I hear about it, it resonates with me more and more and causes me to think for weeks on end about it. I have had about 3 perspectives of thought regarding this quote. The first just has to do with dance itself. The second regards to the Gospel. The third and the one that has come most recently, has to do with creativity.

As for dance. I am a dancer, and this quote was said by a dancer, so clearly this was my first train of thought in hearing this quote. And I don't think there is a dancer out there that would argue of the truthfulness of this idea. Once you gain complete control over your bodily faculties, the possibilities are endless. When a ballerina has mastered the technique of her art form, she then becomes free to execute moves that would be impossible otherwise. I usually think of this in term of my core or balance. If I don't have control over my core or my balance, I can't do any of the dance moves I want, and thus my freedom is much less.

The Gospel implication are very clear in this to me. It brings about the mind-boggling concept of human agency and obedience and how it is that they fit together as they must because they are both eternal truths. It is interesting to me how while this concept of total control and total freedom will make sense to people when applied to something temporal such as dance, but when the concept is introduced in a Gospel sense they scoff at it. "It just doesn't make sense," they say "that in giving me a list of rules to obey constantly (i.e. The Ten Commandments) I gain more freedom." How often do we hear as Latter-day Saints or just religious people in general that the commandments, both scriptural and modern, take away their freedom and doesn't allow them to "do what they want to do". But for those of us who have adhered to those commandments we have been given, we have seen the blessings in our lives. This is, I think, even bigger than the usual answer given that when we keep our bodies free of certain substances we are more free to make better choices and have better control of our faculties. When you are making choices that are conducive to the Spirit and to the Light of Christ, how can your freedom not be enlarged? With these two instruments you are able to be inspired and see things that you cannot see without it. Furthermore, how much more clear is your mind when you are happy than when you are not? With obedience to commandments, that internal happiness can always be present and can always be effective. This argument is only the tip of the iceberg, but I must move on.

The last idea I have had concerning this quote has come very recently and it struck me today in a beautiful tangent we went on in my American Christianity class. (I could probably write an entire blog post on that tangent. After hearing what my professor said I just wanted to walk up to him and say, Professor Fluhman, I LIVE in there I am so with you on this. Does this intrigue you?) So the phrase that was said that got me thinking was when Professor Fluhman mentioned that he liked the fenced-in-ness of the Mormon Church because it forces us to bloom where we are planted. Suddenly something clicked! I grew up feeling like creativity would come when I was given a metaphorical blank sheet of paper and told to go at it. However, for me this never produced very good results. The more parameters and rules I was given, the more creative I became because I had to become so. I experienced this a lot in the modern dance classes I have taken at BYU. For a final in one of my composition classes we were told to base our dance on a painting and I was so annoyed by this because I had so many ideas that I wanted to use! But once I dug into the assignment not only did I love the end result, but it was an end result that NEVER would have happened had I not been given the parameters. So in fact I was introduced to new opportunities and new avenues that I wouldn't have even known existed had I not followed the rules. Isn't that amazing? New opportunities just for following the rules? It kind of melts my brain a little. But it's pretty true. :)

More folk dance blogging.

2011-01-23T19:27:00.000-07:00

So I have avoided blogging for some time for several reasons.

1. I'm lazy. (this is perhaps the most prominent point)
2. I don't take pictures anymore because...well refer to number 1. For some reason I feel like blogs are required to include pictures. However, I am quite sure this is not required.

Okay so that was only two reasons and not several. Oh well. It is now time to tell you about my crazy folk dance adventure of the last few weeks.

Coming back from Christmas break, I knew there would be a time crunch. We finished Christmas Around the World last month and after that we just rested after all the hard work. However, our first show for this semester was this weekend, and so starting at the beginning of this semester (January 4) we had about 5 dances to learn and get ready for this performance. So the first two weeks of school were fairly folk dance devoted. We had Saturday rehearsals and last week had two tech/dress rehearsals, the first being horrendous and the second being slightly more heartening. But let's be honest, we were still all pretty nervous about our show in Mesquite.

So we finally get everything together and off we go to Mesquite. That night we were split up, half of us spent the night at a hotel and half went to stay with host families. Lucky me, I got a host family! This was my first show like this (out of state) with the Performing Arts Company (PAC), so I wasn't sure what to expect. But I was paired with one of our band's violinists Ashley Carroll (who soon basically became my new BFF) and we went off with the Bowdens, the sweetest little retired couple ever. Deloy and Denece Bowden. Adorable alliteration!

First Denece fed us a full meal even though we'd already had dinner because we didn't have the heart to say no. She finished that up with a huge piece of pie. I prayed my way through eating it all. No joke. Seems silly now but I was feeling in dire need then.

After the full meal, Ashlee and I went into our lovely little guest room and talked for about 2 hours instead of doing the homework we both had. However, it was worth it because we bonded! Human bonding is way more important than homework.

The next day was spent in setting up the stage, rehearsing outside in the BEAUTIFUL weather, and being fed amazing meals by the amazing members of Mesquite. Our lunch was provided by some lovely ladies and there was probably just as much dessert as there was lunch. And for dinner we went to this ranch right on the border with Arizona and they fed us this amazing grilled meat (some of it was chicken, the rest was beef). I asked for it to be very well done and I got my wish and I was soooo happy. They also gave us apple pie and ice cream!

The best part about the dinner were the people I was sitting with. Tim, our bass player, was asking group questions for everyone to answer. His last question was, if you could combine two animals and have it for a pet what would it be? The best answer of all was Liahona's, she wanted a kitten and a mole because kittens are cute and moles are blind and slow. So basically, as Jared our banjo player pointed out, she wanted a handicapped kitten. Apparently they're cuter that way.

We then rush back to do our performance and it goes SWIMMINGLY! I can't believe it worked. Mind you there were hiccups, like maybe my curly wig fell off in the first 24 counts of the first dance and swung by my bun for the opening dance but hey, things happen. After the performance our audience (which was not only sold out but OVER sold, they brought chairs in for people) LOVED us. I had a dancer from Las Vegas who told me it was amazing and she'd never seen anything like it. I had someone else from Vegas tell me it was better than any show they'd ever seen there. I had a sweet old grandpa put his arm around me and say he just wanted to take me home. It was amazing! My mouth hurt from smiling, truly.

The real adventure is coming. We take down our show and wait for our bus driver who is an hour and twenty minutes late. So, this is already feeling sketchy. Jon Wood, our manager and Ed Austin, our director, were a little worried when the bus came that the driver was intoxicated because he didn't look quite right and they weren't feeling good about the situation. But they couldn't smell any alcohol on him. So off we go. As soon as I got on the bus and saw our bus drivers face I knew something was wrong. I didn't feel good about the situation and knew in my heart he was under the influence of something. So for the next forty minutes of this situation I could be found in my seat, cranking up the classical music, and in the prayer position.

Quickly, Jon and Ed could tell that this man wasn't fit to drive as he was never really in a lane, driving on the rumble strip, getting really close to people in front of us, etc. Ed sat right up next to him ready to take the wheel if need be, and Jon and Brian, a dancer from our team, got together and tried to figure out what to do. Thankfully, the man who had booked our show was following us because he felt like he needed to. The Church is true! He could tell our bus driver was under the influence of something by his driving, so he called the highway patrol who called the port of entry into Utah who stopped us and made the driver come in for a "routine check".

At this point most of the bus still didn't know what was going on and had no idea anything was even wrong. The troopers then speed up and go in and sure enough he isn't drunk. However, upon getting his backpack they realize that his prescription of Oxycontin, which was filled yesterday, is now empty. So not only was it a miracle that we got to this point alive (after driving through the gorge by the way...) but that he was even conscious. About an hour after sitting at the port of entry our bus driver is arrested, and members from the St. George area are coming to shuttle us to a hotel. Even the workers at the port of entry volunteered to shuttle us over after their shifts. The world is so full of nice people!

The next day we just chilled in the hotel, had the best continental breakfast of my life, and waited for our new bus driver who was checked for EVERYTHING before they let him drive us. We had Sunday School on the bus, which was amazing. It's so cool that because of the Church website we were able to have the same lesson that everyone else was having. Can't technology be wonderful? So after that we had a long drive and got back to Provo by about 5:30 PM instead of 4 AM. No big.

Sometimes, I folk dance.

2010-06-20T22:38:00.000-06:00

So this past May and a smidgen of April, I was on tour with the World Dance Showcase folk dance team at Brigham Young University. Sound impressive? Good.

But really. For one semester, this team, WDS (a name we are still getting used to, as we were formerly called Spring Performing Arts Company or SPAC, pronounced like spackle with the -kle) prepared 14 dances between 2 teams within the team (I know, it's getting complicated stay with me here). We split into 2 teams, a 7-couple team and a 9-couple team, so the transitions in our shows can go smoothly. Where do we perform these shows you ask? I will tell you, and you will love it.

For CHILDREN! You got that right dude. We don't dance for distinguished old people who pay for tickets and sit in an auditorium. Oh no, we dance for children who laugh when we shimmy, think the Mexican costumes are ninjas, and pick their noses whilst watching us dance. It gets even better, we don't even dance on stages, oh no, we dance on cafeteria floors. And we dance right up in their FACES! Oh the number of times I made children blush and hide behind their friends.

An example of the children.

A normal day of a folk dancer on this team is something like this.

5:30- Wake up. Ish. If you're a girl, braid and/or get your hair braided.
6:30- Meet outside of the apartment building we all live in to pile into four BYU-issue vans. This years models were named: Silver Bullet, Gunther/Dilworth (depending on who you talked to), Clifford (the lesser known name of the cargo van with all our gear), and Lesta.
6:45- Listen to an inspirational thought and Delynne's (our teacher/coach/mother) layout for the day and other random thoughts that she decides to give us. Also. More braiding.
7:00- Drive. Forever. Dance in the vans. Sleep in the vans. Listen to Delynne talk for hours in the vans.
9:15- Arrive at the first school, layout your costumes, braid some more.
9:45- Warm up in the children's cafeteria while the kids eating their breakfast wonder what's up with the people dressed in black running in circles to Holding Out For A Hero.
10:15- Dance for children.
10:45- Give high fives to the children after dancing for them.
10:50- Pack up your costumes, make the boys take your costume bag to the van, get in the van, drive to the next school, do it again.
5:00- Arrive back at the apartments. Hot tub. Swim. Watch movies. With the same people you dance with everyday. :)

You may wonder what's up with all the braiding? I shall explain. You see as a female folk dancer, it is not enough to have your own lovely hair, it is fairly necessary to add a couple feet of fake hair so that your french braid is unnaturally long. And so, the art of french-braiding with real and fake hair is an art that must be mastered by at least 5-6 girls on the team. Once the art is mastered, braiding can take place at any time and in just about any situation.

Here are some other fun things that tend to happen/happened on my tour.

-The creation of new words, such as squidgeon. Use of squidgeon in a sentence, "Pass me a squidgeon, I need to gas the rockets."
-Nicknames. I myself who have only successfully had one nickname (Little Lynette, also given to me by a folk dancer), gained at least 4 more: Internet, Nettie, Delynne (though that one was unintentional, or so they say...) and my favorite, Stinging Nettle. Other great nicknames given include but are not limited to: Sheppy, Granton, V-Rap, T-Rex, Porkchop and/or Portiadka, Tandi, Canteen, Marriage, Reedifer, The Kikster, Samwise.
- Massages. They happen all over the place. This is an ideal time for you to experience a calf massage for the first time.
- Pranks. About the 3rd week, when you could and maybe actually DO the dances in your sleep...the pranks begin. As long as they don't affect the dance Delynne is down with them, and even encourages them. Sometimes she even dares all the girls to include the word moist in their narrations before each dance.
- Also, sometimes we dance for old people. This is actually quite similar to dancing for children. Though when we dance for old people we bring our own stage and set it up on the grass, and it falls apart while we dance. It's pretty funny/dangerous.
- Friendship. Did you know you can make 32 best friends in under one month? Possible.

And so, for my dear fellow SPACers, I love and/or miss you. You pick. (I pick both). For past/present/future folk dancers, enjoy the folk danciness of this post. For others, if you have no idea what any of this is about...sorry...at least it was witty right?

Look, I can dance Puerto Rican AND find it on a map!

High School Habitation: High School Personality

2010-06-07T16:51:00.000-06:00

Ever since moving to college I have learned to be a very independent, self-motivated, and accomplished young woman. And then I came home.

Has anyone else realized that upon coming home for the summer/Christmas break/that break in the springtime that BYU refuses to grant its sleep and sun deprived students, etc., no matter how great of a person you have become outside of the walls of your childhood habitation, you suddenly act 16 years old again?

Maybe I'm the only one experiencing this. It's always been bearable, as I've just come home for no more than two weeks at a time between semesters, etc. However, this summer I have decided no more of this educating myself during the summer nonsense, I am going home to eat my momma's food and watch free satellite! Well, actually my plan was to come home, learn to sew, learn to play the organ, stay in shape, eat healthy, socialize well in my singles ward, go to institute, earn some money at a fabulous summer job, etc.

The only problem is, my plan is not working out so well, no, not well at all. The problem really lies in the fact that my 16 year old self would never be able to stick to that plan. I mean, 21 and a half year old me, perfect plan! Make some to-do lists and go at it. Sadly, the 16 year old me would just end up watching a lot of TV, eating too much chocolate, being completely unsuccessful in landing a summer job, and mostly just stay home and avoid the whole...social scene.

I am determined to not be 16. Determined I tell you. Therefore I have brought a 21 and a half year old technique to 16 year old land and have decided to use it as a weapon against chocolate, satellite TV, and a fridge full of food that I didn't buy. That's right, Google Tasks! So when I'm at school I make these amazing task lists on Google Calendar. I usually do it with my school assignments, because when you finish it you click on it and draws a line through it and it is thoroughly satisfying. Thoroughly. Therefore, I have broken up my lofty summer goals into daily tasks, and put them into lists for each day.

Impressed?

You should be.

Do you believe in me?

You probably shouldn't. But you could at least pretend to, so that I feel like this is going somewhere.

SYTYCD Top 25 Part III

2009-08-19T19:41:00.000-06:00

We now come to Season 3, probably my personal favorite season of them all. The dancers this season were hilarious, probably the most funny the show has ever seen. Now, this isn't my favorite simply because a Utah dancer (Sabra) won...but that helped.

The first dance I am highlighting is another great lyrical hip hop by Sabra and Dominic. Dominic was the rockinest, this guy just kept pulling ballroom out of the hat and still rockin' those dances even though he came on the show as a breaker. However, in this dance, we not only got to see his hip hop talent, but we also got to see just why Sabra won, this girl is amazing. Choreographed by Shane Sparks.

Here is another breakout performance, much like Why danced by Allison and Ivan, where Neil, who had previously been getting less than awesome reviews from the judges wowed them with this Wade Robson routine that he danced with Lauren. (Neil is one of my favorites, so there may be some bias in picking this as a top 25.)

Next is probably the first dance on this show to make me cry, it wasn't nominated for an Emmy but I sure don't know why. Choreographed by Mia Michaels, this is her vision of what it will be like for her to meet her father in Heaven when the time comes. The concept, song, costuming, dancing, and on and on are just inspired and very refreshing. It is danced by Neil and Lacey

Now, this dance is classic and so super awesome. Danced by Sabra and Neil and choreographed by the lovely Mandy Moore (not the singer people), it is danced to Sweet Dreams by the Eurhythmics. Mandy seems to be on an 80's kick for the last...uh...10 years? But it's working for her! This is also known as...the table dance. Enjoy.

This next dance was performed in the finale, and was choreographed by Mia Michaels and danced by Neil and Danny, the final 2 boys on the show. It was pitting the two guys against each other and making them really compete against each other. I thought it was a great to see sheer masculine athleticism in dance and get some character out of the two guys.

Another SYTYCD classic that came from this season, something everyone seemed to be talking about, was another Wade Robson piece, anyone surprised? This one was performed the very first week of the competition by Sara and Jesus. The concept of homeless people that perform for themselves at night...is truly something only Wade could come up with. And we love him for it.

Last, but clearly not least, is the lone Emmy award winner for the 3rd season. Once again choreographed by Wade Robson, this dance, The Chairman's Waltz danced by Jaimie and Hok, is more commonly called the 'hummingbird and flower dance'. One of the coolest things about this dance was the way Wade was able to use Jaimie's gorgeous lines and technique while also emphasizing Hok's unique breaking capabilities and movement qualities. An Emmy worthy dance.

SYTYCD Top 25: Part II

2009-08-13T08:32:00.000-06:00

We come to part II, season 2 of the SYTYCD countdown. Let's get right down to business shall we?

Why-Allison and Ivan, a contemporary dance choreographed by Tyce Diorio. This was Tyce's first season with SYTYCD, though not his first dance. He choreographed Unwritten and Steam Heat earlier in the season, both wonderful dances, but not quite rivals to this one. This dance feature Allison, a Utah dancer whose technique/flexibility/core/everything is amazing, and Ivan is a hip hop, pop and locker who kind of moves like...water. At least for me, this dance really surprised me as regards to Ivan, and remains one of my favorites.

Of course, this countdown wouldn't be complete without the famous bench dance. It really doesn't need much introduction. Choreographed by Mia Michaels, danced by Travis and Heidi (both of whom ended up in the top 4), and the winner of an Emmy.

This next dance, Sexy Love, also danced by Allison and Ivan, marked the first use of what the judges like to call lyrical hip hop on the show. It's the first time I'd really seen a slower hip hop song with strong hip hop moves yet a softer feel. This dance was great, but mostly marks the countdown because it is the forerunner to more, and greater, lyrical hip hop dances (just wait until season 4 people, Tabitha and Napolean will blow your mind). But this is a great dance, choreographed by Shane Sparks.

This next dance, Black Mambo danced by Benji and Heidi was great for a number of reasons. First, choreographed by Alex Da Silva, and as I said on my last post, I like that guy. Second, both of these dancers specialize in ballroom. Often in this competition because there aren't usually more than two or three ballroom dancers, it isn't often that they are paired together. So these two, champion ballroom dancers are paired together with one of the greatest mambos this show has seen. Last, but not least, Benji and Heidi are cousins! And that's just cute.

Alright, we've come to the last wonderful dance of Season 2 worthy of this Top 25. This dance launched millions of iTunes browsers looking up Roision Murphy, opened up millions of competition dancers to start dancing a little more awkwardly, and cemented the position of Wade Robson in the hearts of those who hadn't known him before. Ramalama Bang Bang was choreographed for the Top 10, and was recently re-shown on Season 5's 100th show extravaganza, and Wade himself joined the dancers! Awesome right? I am including the original performance of the dance, as done by the top 10 of season 2. Oh yeah, and this dance got an Emmy too. We love us some Emmy's!

5 Seasons. 25 Dances. SYTYCD Countdown: Part I

2009-08-11T18:22:00.000-06:00

It has recently been requested that I, Lynette Yorgason, a true fan since day 1 of So You Think You Can Dance, compile a list of the top 10 dances of all ever. Well that turned out to be impossible so the number was expanded to 25, be grateful I stopped there! I was gunning for 50 but I still have an education to keep up people!

And since it would probably be physically impossible for me to actually rank these and choose a number one (it's like choosing children people, dancing...children...), I'm going by Season.

Season 1

For those of you who have been watching with me since day 1 will remember, the first season was not about the choreography and much more about the dancers. So the Top 16 (yeah, there weren't even 20, wacky right?) were taught routines that were still tricky, but more about showing skills of the dancers than the choreographers. In fact, two different couples were given the same choreography for the first few weeks. I mean come on, hardly even the same show right? Anyway, the choreography became progressively cooler as the season went on, but in the wake of all the other masterpieces this show has created, the only one worth mentioning was from the Season Finale, choreographed by Mia Michaels (her amazing choreography is one thing about the show that has never changed) to Message in a Bottle by the Police and danced by Ashle Dawson and Melody Lacayanga.

Warning, the host of the show is yet another thing that changed, and if you remember Lauren Sanchez you will realize just why I love Cat so...so so much.

Now, Season 1 does deserve a couple of honorable mentions if only for the sole reason that I miss Alex Da Silva...a Latin choreographer that stopped choreographing for the show a few seasons back. However, this mambo and salsa, danced by the same couple the first two weeks of the first season rocked my socks for two reasons. One, Alex Da Silva, I just loved not only his music but his style, very cool and different. Second, Ryan Conferido, a rockin´awesome breaker who blew everyone away when he whipped out this smokin´samba on his first week in the show. So for you Ryan and Alex, I put the mambo and samba from season 1 as honorable mentions.

Nothin' but love for the Jo-Bros

2009-01-26T19:05:00.000-07:00

That's right one and all. I love the Jo Bros. Yep, I'm a self respecting 20 year old college student. A 20 year old college student who knows good music! Alright, much like my lists explaining my love for HSM, here comes the Jo Bro list. The Jo Bro list of love.

1. They have fun, upbeat pop rock songs that unlock the pre-teen in all of us. Admit it.
2. Three, attractive singing brothers. Nothing more to say.
3. They have seriously great hair, I mean really awesome hair. Nice and dark, curly, nicely groomed. Which brings me to my next point which is...
4. Well dressed boys! While I won't deny that I question their fashion sense from time to time...(Velvet suits for the Golden Globes? Really?) I love that they are willing to take risks! A great thing about style these days is that it isn't just wearing the right thing, it's wearing your personal style with the confidence to pull it off. And they definitely do that. It's also refreshing to see boys their age that actually care what they look like.
5. They not only write their own music (good music I might add) but help in the writing process for others with great albums, i.e. Demi Lovato.
6. They really connect with their fans, and express such great humility in the situation they have found themselves in. This is very refreshing to see in stars as HUGE as they are.
7. They do so much with their family, and put emphasis on that. I am a firm believer that family is numero uno, the most important thing we have in this life. They seem to feel that way as well and attribute much of their success and humility to their parents and whole family unit.

And finally
8.Can you say integrity? Thank the heavens there are finally some good role models in the media for the children of today. I can't put enough emphasis on this reason. These boys are one of the reasons I got back into the Disney Channel and I'm so glad that I gave it another chance. With all the junk that can exist in the media I am grateful that I can still find worthwhile entertainment on TV and in music because of Disney, and the Jonas Brothers. Though I know they didn't have much to do with it, they seem to have ushered in this whole new generation of very impressive Disney stars (Selena Gomez, Demi Lovato, etc.) who in addition to being talented in their professions, are simply good people who have values and morals.

These are among some of the reasons that I love these boys. I will definitely be attending their 3-D movie on February 27, along with 4 million 14 year olds not only because I like them, but because I want to support the good media that they are a part of.

And so Jo Bros. Bravo.

2008-07-26T11:11:00.000-06:00

Memories

Here is a fun little game... leave a comment on my blog of a memory that you and I have had together. It doesn't matter if you've known me for a short time or a long time, anything that you remember! Next, re-post these instructions on your blog and see how many people leave a memory about you. It is pretty funny to read the responses. If you leave a memory about me, I'll assume you are playing and I'll come to your blog and leave one about you. On your mark... get set... blog those memories! This will especially be fun since I believe a total of maybe 3 people read this blog. Including...me...

Mawhage is what bwings us togevuh today.

2008-06-24T23:33:00.001-06:00

Now presenting: Renee and Ben Linford.

While today certainly wasn't the first marriage attended (seeing as I'm the youngest of 8 kids), and wasn't even the first marriage of my high school friends, it WAS the first marriage in which I was close enough to the bride to actually wait outside of the temple, be in pictures, and stand around in terrible heat and seriously high pink heels. That's love folks. That's love.

Anyway, today marked my first very close friend marriage. And now, about twelve hours later, it's finally starting to sink in. Renee is married! I am so happy for her, and so weirded out at the same time. Especially when I realized that she is not much older than me. *Shudder* However weird it was to realize she was married, it was a great experience to see her so happy, and to be with my friends who I haven't been able to be with all together in quite some time. Here are some pictures of the crazy bride's friends. (I'm pretty sure that's probably how all the relatives at the luncheon referred to us)This picture encapsulates the boredom one gets from waiting in the heat for those durn married folks to come out. Adam on the left and Kellyn on the right are clearly being entertained by something Milly and I are doing. What we were doing? I don't exactly recall. But it looks pretty entertaining.

PS These pictures are being borrowed from the facebook page of Misty Miller. She is the photographic mastermind seeing as I left my camera in Provo.

Here is the blushing bride formerly Renee Chadwick now Renee Linford (which is weird). She has been one of my best friends since my sophomore year of high school.
And on the right, the goils. Me, Kellyn Peterson, Jessica Lewis, Misty Miller, Renee ...Linford, McKella Sawyer, Kaycee Higgs and Milly Winter. Drama friends rock!

And this? Possibly my favorite picture of the whole day. Renee and Cameroon. Cameron always seems to bring out the absolute most hilarious Renee moments. And we love him for it.

Last but not least, this is my excited marriage face! Marriage is exciting!

Goodbye to the Haines

2008-06-15T14:46:00.000-06:00

Well, my first year of college was survived, and I would like to propose in this post that can be attributed very much to the Haines family. So this is my post of thanks to them! Not only did I get to talk about life for hours and hours on end with my amazing and gorgeous sister Patti (seriously, if I can look as good as she did pregnant with Brooke I will be amazed), and get my life analyzed by Howard (as hard as it was to come up with answers to his questions, once I did I usually learned something about myself, which was very helpful), but I got to babysit the most adorable children in the world.

Dalan, this stud-muffin you see on the left, is amazing. He is probably the smartest little boy I know. He is also so full of love! I have learned a lot from him and am sorry I didn't wrestle with him as much as he always wanted me to.

Ella, is QUITE the little girl. She actually, in some strange ways taught me a lot about myself. Patti told me a few times that Ella reminded her of me when I was younger, and after awhile I could see why. Ella is headstrong and knows what she wants, and while that can be infuriating to deal with when a 4-year old just wants chocolate, that is really going to help her out when she is older and she keeps those values her parents have been teaching her. Ella is so sweet and full of love just like Dalan, even though she sometimes shows it in a different way.

And last, but certainly not least, is Brooke, the happiest baby alive. She just loves people and is so alert. Her brother and sister can make her laugh even when she's crying, and her little laugh is just so real. This whole family is just full of such love! They all love each other so much and are so ready to give love to others! I absolutely am grateful that Howard and Patti taught their kids such love and are such good examples themselves.
Thanks for the free laundry. Patti and Howard thanks for the free therapy sessions. And Ella, Dalan and Brook thanks for being such great examples of love! I love you all and hope you enjoy Kentucky as much as I'm sure it will enjoy you!

Why my Grandpa rocks

2008-03-14T15:40:00.001-06:00

Sad to say I didn't realize how seriously awesome my Grandpa Yorgason was until he passed away. I guess I was too much of a dinky teenager to think I should care. But the older I get the more I realize how awesome this man was! Namely, he was hilarious. I never quite knew where we got our random/witty humor from but now I know. R. Milton Yorgason himself. Here are a couple of examples.
Well, we are Scandinavian (Swedish to be specific) and apparently my Grandpa saw this hat somewhere and decided he had to have it. He then showed everyone at the monthly family meeting for all the grown-ups (depending on your definition of grown-ups...) and my dad snapped a picture of it. How fabulous is that?
And now I will share possibly one of the funniest things I've ever heard of my Grandpa saying. I didn't actually get to hear it, which is too bad, but my cousin told it over the pulpit at his funeral. One of my cousins Marla lived with my Grandpa for a while after my Grandma passed away and helped him clean out the house. One on occasion for some reason something about a subscription to the Ladies' Home Journal came up, I'm not sure if someone called, came or sent something. When Marla asked my Grandpa if he wanted a subscription he said "Well...does it come with the ladies?" Who says that? My hilarious Grandpa that's who.

High School Musical 2

2008-01-26T21:15:00.001-07:00

I am not going to lie, I love High School Musical 2. I will stand by that for the rest of my existence. I will proceed to give you a list of reason as to why I love it.

1.It retains the cheesiness of the first High School Musical ( which I also love ), while also making it more professional and amazing.
2.Lucas Grabeel...need I say more? This guys super cool/awesome/needs to be on Broadway. And I love him. Profusely.
3.The amazing dancing! Of course, I, being a dancer, was highly impressed with the dancing, they stepped it up a notch and it rocked!
4. Filmed in Utah! Rock on! Utah=the coolest, I'm glad Disney has figured that out. Also, since it was filmed here, I actually know some of the dancers IN the movie. Yeah, I'm that cool.
5.It's a musical, and heaven knows the comeback of the movie musical is looooong overdue.
6.Kenny Ortega directed/choreographed it. Also the director/choreographer of Newsies, the other great movie musical of my time. Are you seeing a connection?
7.La musica! I'm a huge fun pop fan. The more upbeat/danceable, the happier I am. And this soundtrack makes me undeniably happy.
8.The most important thing to remember about this movie is that I do not watch it for the acting, the deep content, etc. etc. I watch it because it is a fun, lighthearted, rockin' movie musical that makes you want to dance. What else can one like me ask for? Not much. Except for some chocolate to eat while watching.

So there you are, the 8 reasons Lynette will everlastingly declare her HSM2 love.

The end of the begininng.

2007-12-03T16:59:00.000-07:00

I am quickly approaching the end of my first semester in college and I must say, I'm surprised I'm still alive sometimes. Craziness is my new working definition of college. But I must say that it's a good craziness. A fabulous craziness in fact.
I have learned a few important things so far this semester.
1. 10 page papers aren't as hard as they seem when you have something to say.
2. Sleep is very, very important.
3. Getting along with roommates is harder than it seems sometimes, but in the end a great relationship with a roommate is worth the sacrifice.
4. College boys are just as silly as high school boys. Just older.
5. Important comfort foods to have: chocolate and ice cream.
6. No matter how many credits you have, even if you are technically a sophomore, if it is your first year of college, you look, act, and feel like a freshman. Take joy in it. It only happens once!