Amazing

I don't understand this word.

Nothing like finishing at....1?

So I had this little 12 page paper due...well later on today actually.
How long have I known about this....well um....since the first week of the semester actually. Did I do anything with it until tonight? Nope not a chance.
There's something strange that motivates you when you know you HAVE to get it done. When you don't have to get it done then you don't try. I promise, I didn't try until tonight.
I feel like I have a pretty well done paper on the Israel-Palestinian conflict, plus I feel pretty proud for finishing.
Now should I really be on my blog at 1:15 a.m. Probably not. Oh well. I have been neglecting this thing the past couple of days. I promise I have a few funny stories I will at some point have to put up. Someday when I find time....yeah that'll happen.

Your Hand in Mine by Allred

This is pretty  much the entire reason I bought this album. This song is incredible. You can hear it here.



She feels the wind blow wherever she goes,
And it's been so cold all these days.
She took my hand when she was abandoned,
Like I would understand when she'd say:

"Don't give up on me now," she said,
"Don't give up on me now."
Oh no

She searched for sunlight it seems her whole life,
She's been caught on the dark side so many years.
She looked in my eyes and saw the sunrise,
But she's been so blind she can't stay here.

"Don't give up on me now," she said,
"Don't give up on me now."
'Cause we'll make it out somehow,
With your hand in mine.
With your hand in mine.

She feels the wind blow whereever she goes,
And it's been so cold all these days.

Once upon a time.....

I lived in the days full of high school angst. With boys that broke hearts, and some best friends who decided never to take crap from anyone. I made a rediscovery of this yesterday in the form of Unwritten Sympathy.
My favorite part is still the rambling on prom night where Kait and I were both a little bummed we didn't get to go. At 16 it seemed pretty important.
Oh what those 16 year old girls didn't know.
Kait would eventually end up with Casey....but then life would happen and of course it wouldn't work out.
Morgan would still be a douche...he probably isn't today, but he's imprinted in my mind as such.
We would eventually go to way more dances that we really wanted to. So missing prom really wouldn't seem like a big deal.
We never did anything else with Unwritten Sympathy...mostly because we moved on and lived our lives.
Kait would still be in love someone who didn't know it. I would deal with things totally unexpected....at least to me.

And we would still be best friends more than three years, several hundred miles, and lots of broken hearts later.
Love ya Kait!

Diet Coke with Lime

This was left on my porch. I'm pretending to be pissed. It actually makes me VERY happy.

Institute

For those of  you who have never attended this wondrous place, I really suggest you try it out. There are a few things to note, however.

1. It is not Seminary. There is this blonde girl (which I assume is a freshman) who seems to have missed this memo. You see, she likes sharing a lot...but never anything of depth just stupid little seminary things or quotes she was handed back in high school. She's very loud. She also doesn't really have a sense of what is and is not appropriate to share in class. Today for instance she took out her camera and was showing some pictures to her friend. Mark and I just look at each other both thinking, "WTF?" Brother Evanson notices and asks her if it's a camera, she says yes and proceeds in explaining that they are pictures of her dog JingleBell who has a purple cast on it's leg. I'm not sure how that relates back to the worth of souls...but I was pretty annoyed.

2. You will hear about marriage. A LOT. Remember back in high school seminary where your teacher was like, group date! Now they're all saying MARRIAGE! Mark and I have a bet some class periods of how long it will take before Brother Evanson brings up marriage. Usually it's closer to the first minute and a half. Brother Evanson was a mission president out in Georgia. A lot of the boys in the class were missionaries out there. So Brother Evanson is distinctly interested in making sure they get married off. It doesn't help  that we have a slightly annoying married couple in our class that only talk about how they knew they were going to marry each other. I feel as though in the church married people should be segregated. Like in institute. Oh and maybe the other couple that scoots their desks right next to each other and stares into each others' eyes all class shouldn't be allowed in either.

3. Even though your class is titled D&C 1-76 or BOM 1 Nephi-Alma 30. You won't make it to D&C 35 or even to Alma. And then when you take the preceding class for BOM, you won't make it out of Alma. Be prepared, it is slow going.

Don't get me wrong. Institute is really great and I fully encourage any one you can go to do so. Just saying that it's a little different. And maybe that poor girl in my class will figure out that she's in college and when we're laughing about your dog breaking its leg...we're really laughing at how stupid you are for sharing it.

Ward Choir

So I don't know if I've told many people what my calling in my ward is....It went a little like this.
"Sister Rich, we would like to extend the calling to you to be the ward organist," said Bishop Beck.
I sat there for a minute taking that in, "Well that's great....but I don't play the organ."
The bishopric starts laughing at me, "I'm just kidding, we would like you to be a member of the ward choir."
That's a calling? You mean you have to call people to be in the ward choir? That's something I've never heard. So my calling is to be a member of the ward choir.
Today was my first choir practice.
I walked into the chapel feeling a little weird as I was one of the only people still dressed up...it's in the chapel guys....you're supposed to be dressed up in there. Oh well, the director is this squeaky red headed kid that gets really excited about well, everything.
I'm an alto, sort of. Meaning I can't actually hit the high notes the sopranos can, but I suck at finding the alto part in hymns.
Well I did try. And I think that if we were playing guitar hero...I probably would have passed. Or at least I hope so. I'm definitely not a singer. Love to sing...suck at it. The squeaky kid says that it doesn't matter what we sound like as long as we bring the spirit. Well I agree with that to a point...but the spirit has ears too.
This choir is pretty legit. They've pretty much written this whole arrangement from scratch and have written the transitions themselves. It's really really pretty...I just hope I don't completely botch it. 

Bus Crash

There's this bus crash in my head. It's a sick symphony of crashing and rolling with metal jutting out, crunching, bending. I'm not exactly sure what causes the crash. I just know that the bus begins rolling down a steep hill one sickening hit at a time. When the bus stops rolling the metal groans and moans as broken glass sprinkles to the ground. There's not one person in the bus. Not one. But I'm sitting there. In my bus seat watching the walls cave and glass break around me.
This symphony of catastrophe resides in my head, putting a visual to every awful thing that has ever occured in my life. This intertwining of all that is awful replays in my mind every so often. Sometimes as the bus crashes I can smell the scent of airbag dust from my car crash. Other times in the windows I see desperate phone calls or hear the pleading the voices around me.
My bus crashing isn't nearly as catastrophic as it could be. That's because most of these awful things come to an end. The bus stops rolling. The metal ceases moaning. I emerged from the bus crash, not unscathed. That would be too much to ask, but with a knowledge and a power that I can get through it.
Sometimes if you're lucky and let the right people in, when your bus is crashing, they allow you to sleep safely through it. So that you can emerge with a numbed sense of what occured. It doesn't change that it happened. It just means that you felt safe enough with them to share in the pain; let them see exactly which windows broke, which metal beams bent. Sometimes the bus crash leads to this. So that makes the crashing worth while.
Everyone has a bus crash in their heads. Everyone watches it happen at different frequencies. I could see mine this week and not again for several months or years. For some the bus crash is almost and everyday reality. There are those who never talk about it. You see the crash behind their eyes and you want to reach out and help them. You can't help if exhausting all you have on them crashes your bus though. Some things are bigger than we are. We learn as we go, and maybe someday that bus makes it all the way up that hill without crashing down to the bottom, and instead of a sick symphony Metallica blasts out of the windows. That's happiness.

Few of the Furlong Variety

Just a few quotes from Professor Furlong:

"Then the bearded wonder took over Cuba."

"Kennedy got himself assasinated, so we got a highly qualified man named Johnson for President."

Today I actually like that class.

Do you know what today is?

Today is the Utah State vs. BYU. Here's the deal...BYU has been sucking it up...and we've been doing pretty well. So what do you think tonight will bring? WE WILL BEAT THEM!
 GO USU! That's all.