Leap Day and Life Goals

Today is the first twenty-ninth of February I've spent with my blog. Yay.

In other news, I have a new goal. My old goal was to receive my mission call. Now that I have, my new goal is to spend as little time in the MTC as possible. Accelerated Spanish class, here I come!

You see, the MTC has cafeteria food, which is a great way for me to lose those last fifteen pounds that are keeping me from being truly emaciated. But cafeteria food is nothing when compared to the other evil of the MTC: gym class.

(I haven't seen this movie, but Billy Bob Thornton is about the most terrifying gym teacher I can imagine.)

I can see it now, the inevitable volleyball game at six in the morning (if sisters' PE is still either at 6:00 a.m. or 10:00 p.m.): Quickly fading into the background while some women who are actually good at volleyball duke it out. Someone says, "We should let Sister Bethylene have the ball!" With heavy heart, I move to where I think the ball will be; the ball hits the ground five feet to my right. No one passes me the ball for the rest of the class. The gym teacher takes me aside, worried that I'm not participating, but I already have formed a Utah-style indirect retort: "Gosh, Brother Gym Teacher, if my hand-eye coordination and depth perception will determine my success as a missionary, then I should just give up now, right?"

Plus I hate being sweaty. Plus I don't like to lie on hard gym floors to do crunches and feel grit chafing my back through my shirt to complement the tailbone pain. Plus somewhere deep down I don't like doing stupid stuff like run in circles around a gym just because someone with a whistle told me to.

I'm a girl! An old-fashioned, pathetic, horrible-at-sports girl! My mother hates that she missed Title IX, that her only chance for athleticism was on the drill team. My high-school sport adventure was one year on the no-cut badminton team, in which I was the lowest-ranked player.

On being a single female relative.

As I like to exclaim many times while reading Jane Austen, the world hasn’t changed very much in two hundred years. For example, ever since I turned sixteen, I am the one called to attend when a relative is sick. My aunt and uncle did take me to Mexico as a reward for one such fulfillment of duty, but still. One of my male cousins is certainly more independent and probably more capable, but he easily refused to spend a week ‘beside a bed of pain’—no guilt-trip-of-the-century calls from North Carolina for him. And I’m feeling guilty about feeling annoyed, for the real reason I don’t want to help this time is because my grandfather might die. And even though I said a couple months ago that I thought I could handle watching someone die better than last time, I don’t want to test that theory. I don’t really want to discover my real potential through adversity—sorry, God, you’ve got the wrong woman.
It’s also hard to watch a strong, brilliant professor become an infirm, confused eighty-year-old. Because that’s what he’ll be like if he survives the surgery, at least for a while. And if he dies I’ll have to be strong for his wife. I became hysterical at my bishop’s viewing! How could I handle seeing Grandpa dead? Arranging the funeral? Guiding the paramedics through a maze of antique junk to his body?
Plus I’ve got to memorize a whole bunch of maps of Encinitas and San Diego so I can drive confidently. In a car with a pillow on the seat so I can see over the dashboard.

But why am I complaining? What am I here for if not to help as many people as I can? Isn’t that what I say I want?

The 20€ in my purse keep getting more valuable.

BBC: Dollar falls to record euro low

More Weird Things My California Bar–Member Mother Says

None of your beeswax! (She says this a lot.)—None of your business.
What an onry face!—I'm mocking your frustration.
That's enough from the peanut gallery.—I didn't ask for your opinion.
This place looks like a hurricane hit it.—Our house is too messy.
I'm oooold and decrepit (at least since she was 32).—I'm frustrated with myself.
Boy, you're falling apart!—Your long list of aches and irritations sounds hypochondriac.
The girls said (something).—One of my two daughters said this, but I can't remember which one.
She's just a crotchety old lady. (Thanks Christa!)—(Um, I'm not really sure what it means.)

Psalm 63

"David thirsts for God, whom he praises with joyful lips."

Matisyahu- Tzama L'chol Nafshi
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Punctuation References in Music

I Hear the Bells – Mike Doughty
(I actually heard this song on the second season of Veronica Mars, but I didn't think to mention how amazing it is until now.)

Jane Austen Men

Rereading Jane Austen's novels has made me aware that Jane Austen's male leads are not the romantic heroes they are portrayed to be in the film adaptations. Neither are they the romantic heroes of her close contemporaries: they are not Vincentio Vivaldi, nor are they Lord Ruthven or Heathcliff.

No, Austen's men are deeply flawed. We love them because the heroines love them, for none of them have any extraordinary goodness or tragedy to recommend them. Edward Ferrars is a dilettante—he has neither "abilities nor disposition" to make something of himself, and he really would have starved in the gutter after his mother cut him off if Colonel Brandon had not offered him a living. Colonel Brandon, himself, falls in love with a seventeen-year-old at the ripe old age of thirty-six. And Marianne doesn't love him. Fitzwilliam Darcy's pride softens a bit to win Elizabeth's good opinion, yet even the epilogue shows that he still never forgives or respects her silly relations as a truly kind man should. And what he said about Elizabeth's family really was very, very mean. Charles Bingley seems likely to forget Jane again should they ever spend a week apart. Edmund Bertram, well, marries his cousin, and I never can forgive him for being so taken in with someone so fake. He also switches allegiance pretty quickly to Fanny for all his speeches about his enduring love for Mary Crawford. George Knightley rules over Emma like a schoolmaster, and he performs some of the same matchmaking activities that he scolds Emma for. Henry Tilney, while equipt with an admirable wit, wastes it on an ignorant girl who can only stare at him in awe rather than picking a woman who can actually appreciate and participate. Captain Wentworth, I think, comes closest to the romantic ideal with his undying devotion but manly resentment. The penultimate chapter of Persuasion, however, reveals that he could have written to and married Anne in 1808—and spared them both "six years of separation and suffering"— had he not been "too proud to ask again." As I said, I'm glad that the heroines gained the men they loved—except for Marianne, of course—but I don't understand why we say "Jane Austen Men" and mean "male perfection".

All in all, Elizabeth Gaskell's heroes are more heroic. For example, Roger Hamley is more perfectly suited to Molly, and his unlikely release from his ill-advised engagement to her stepsister has more romance and less reality in it.

A Perfect Storm

Sorry John McCain, your brutal honesty excites me, but a Clinton-Obama ticket is unbeatable. When I told my mother this, she said, "But I would never vote for them!" at which point I wished I could better control my verbal impulses, as my third-grade teacher, Mrs. Go, put it.

Of course the party faithfuls on both sides will vote for their candidates—there's no Ross Perot or Ralph Nader this time. But elections are decided by the people who don't care or are unsure about the issues the candidates have been pushing. A huge number of people will vote for a Clinton-Obama pair just because a woman president and a black vice-president is novel. (It's silly to reduce two whole, complicated people into "a woman" and "a black", isn't it?) Voting for them would be making history simply because of the factors Clinton and Obama can least control.

But it would be kinda fun. Even if it means that we'll have presidents from the same two families for at least 24 to 28 years. That's historical in itself.

On Why I May Not Like Arguing as Much as I Thought I Did

I've said many, many times before that I like to argue about politics and ethics and other murky stuff. However I'm not sure my idea of the word arguing is the same as some people's. I like to hear other people's opinions. I want to know why people think what they think. It's fascinating. Depending on their reasons and their delivery, I may privately respect or despise them; whether they agree with me really does not affect my respect/despise decision (e.g. there are some seriously dumb reasons for supporting green initiatives). To be ungenerous to myself, I also like to tell other people my opinions, and I am perfectly willing to hear theirs if it means they get to hear mine.

And I like to pass on what I learned. For instance, my hippie aunt who works with very poor single mothers as a social worker once told me all of her reasons for supporting broad abortion rights. I didn't agree with everything she said, yet she made some very good points. One day at BYU, someone said in response to my assertion that both sides of almost every argument have good reasons, "But what about abortion? How could anyone have a good reason for killing babies?" After explaining to this poor sheltered young woman that prochoicers are not satanic baby-killers but are genuinely concerned about the well-being of babies and mothers—with quotes from Aunt Alice—I felt like I had opened a door in her mind. I didn't convince her to start up an abortion clinic or anything, I just pointed out that most issues are grayer than political commentators want us to believe.

After taking turns expressing ourselves, if we find common ground or wiggle room or that one party has no strong opinion about something but is interested, I like to keep talking.

On the other hand, if one person, like my mother, just starts to repeat herself over and over, her voice rising louder and louder, and she will never convince me and I will never convince her, I like to change the subject. What's the point? She's not saying anything new. The subject rarely will personally affect us anyway. If that fails, I walk away. I don't like being yelled at. I also don't like being guilted (actual quote: "You always walk away when I'm talking to you. You've done it two or three times in the past month! I listened to what you had to say, so would you please listen to me now!") into spending over an hour repeating, "Yes, you think isolationism would help the economy, and I think it would hurt it, even though you're right that it would be more 'fair' if our guest engineer policy was the same as Singapore's. We disagree. I don't think either of us is going to change our minds," over and over. My head hurts. So do my shoulders. After an hour and change I got up and said, "Okay, we've been over this a thousand times. Can I please go now?" Then I stood up and walked away. I guess I'd finally been attentive enough to be allowed to leave without rebuke.

She did get in the last word though, "But it's unfair!"

Southern Appeal?

Both of my readers live in Louisiana.

P.S. I already feel stupid about my last post.

President Hinckley's Funeral

It's finally real for me.

I rarely write about my deeper emotions on my blog, for it somehow cheapens them. A little bit of irony always creeps in. . . . And it looks like I'm still not going to get into all that.

Anyway I was in Encinitas when I heard about the prophet's passing. My grandpa got off the phone: "Your dad said that the president of your church died this afternoon."

Not knowing what to say, I answered, "Oh, I know one of his grandsons. He must be so sad right now. Should I send him a card?" I haven't, by the way (too weird—I don't want to send him a card just so I can feel like I've done something, just to give myself closure), but it didn't really sink in until I watched the funeral today.

I feel like little ol' me doesn't have the right to be sad that he's gone for now. His family does because they'll miss their father, but I don't. He was very old, and more important, he missed his wife very, very much. And I love President (of the Quorum of the Twelve) Monson too. His style is so different—pathos to President Hinckley's ethos, but his message about God and about love is the same. I know that Jesus Christ is the head of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and I know that the Church will continue to do God's work on earth no matter who is the earthly president. President Hinckley himself, now reunited with Marjorie, will live and work on in a higher sphere. President Hinckley's many teachings will stay with us. The temples he built will stand for centuries. His genuine love and respect for his friends all over the world from all different faiths and backgrounds will (I hope) grow in the hearts of people in the Church and outside it.

I feel a little connected to Alwi Shihab, who made the first call of condolence to Elder Packer, because I saw him speak at BYU, and I would have spoken with him in an intimate Q&A session if his schedule hadn't changed. From his speech, I learned that he holds the same moral and logical sense of compassion and the same deeply held conviction that God loves all of His children as President Hinckley does. If this perfect love continues to spread throughout the world, then we, the people of the earth, will bring on the Millennium ourselves. Perhaps that's how the Millennium is supposed to work anyway.

Hmm, maybe I did get into my deepest emotions. Guiltily rejecting my shallower feeling of sadness is what's really going on in my head and heart. Maybe it's wrong, but that's how I feel.

On Being the Hottest Chick in the Room

Motivated by a massive guilt trip from a woman at church, today I volunteered to help cook and serve lunch at the Sharehouse, a homeless shelter in the area. About an hour into my shift the community service workers showed up. Some of them took their sentence more seriously than they took their jobs, but one good-looking young man (I'll flatter myself and say early twenties so I don't have to consider than he could have been younger than that) was especially lazy. He spent most of his time text messaging. Anyway he went straight for me when he showed up:
"What are you in for?" he asked.
"The love of my fellow man," I answered.
"Huh?"
Before he thought too hard about that one, I told him I was volunteering with other women from my church. They were the women who didn't smell like smoke (I didn't say that part). He didn't say what he was in for when I asked, which made me wonder what he did. Was he really embarrassed to say he was there for marijuana possession like everyone else, or did he do something else? Was it really bad or really stupid?
For some reason, when I moved to a new task, he just happened to want to do that task too. To be more accurate, he happened to want to sit and watch me do that task too. It was pretty funny. He wasn't in love with me or anything, he just wanted to be as close to the hottest chick in the room as possible (fragile ego). He worked harder to make me laugh than he worked to keep his relatively cushy community service gig.
Which boosted my own ego. When surrounded by old women and hobos and when there is no threat of commitment, I am the hottest chick in the room. Under the right circumstances, good-looking young men are willing to be painfully obvious about flirting with me.