Regret

The chocolates. Bad. Not meant to be eaten all at once. Why do I always forget.

Rewards of teaching

I love yearbook day! This came as a thank you from one of my favorites.

me!

maybe this is better for a profile page. but i need blogging material. this came from one of those mass forwards my granny likes to send. feel free to use and send your own mass emails or post on your blog like i did.

Hit forward and place an X by all the things you've done and remove the X from the ones you have not. Answer the 30 questions at the end and send it to your friends (including me).

(x) Skipped school - only sort of but with mom's permission and it was to go to the library to do research for a school assignment.
(x) Watched someone die - the memory is still too fresh. it'll be the anniversary next week.
(x) Gone on a blind date - i get a kick out of them
(x) Been to Mexico - lived there 5 years
(x ) Been to Florida - wish i could remember - i was only about 2
(x ) Been to the Caribbean - doesn't puerto rico count? i'm counting it.
(x) Been overseas
(x) Been on a plane
( ) Jumped out of a plane
( ) Been on a Helicopter
(x) Been on a train - took one to ny with my 7th grade math class - crazy fun - what were the teachers thinking????
(x) Been lost - metaphorically and all
(x) Been on the opposite side of the country - every side imaginable except alaska and hawaii
(x) Gone to Washington, DC - heck i'll be there in two weeks to visit the sis - hooray!
(x) Swam in the ocean - learned to swim in shark infested waters no less!
(x) Cried yourself to sleep - tears happen
( ) Played cops and robbers
(x) Recently colored with crayons - does the last year count as recent? i'm hoping so
(x) Sang Karaoke - ah, those college days of residence halls association conferences
(x) Paid for a meal with coins only - my parents bought me breakfast of good 'n plenties out of a vending machine when i was a kid - we were on the road - it was food.
(x) Done something you told yourself you wouldn't - the only thing coming to mind was getting my master's - how did that happen?
(x) Made prank phone calls - i imagine i did this when i was kid - pre caller id days - but it sure was a long time ago.
( ) Laughed until some kind of beverage came out of your nose
(x) Caught a snowflake on your tongue - well, i've tried to plenty, but i can't say i was totally successful - that i can remember.
(x) Danced in the rain - i love the rain! but never formally danced with a partner - just solo danced. it would be a dream. where's that jesse?
( ) Written a letter to Santa Claus
( ) Been kissed under the mistletoe
( ) Watched the sunrise with someone you care about
(x) Blown bubbles
(x) Gone ice-skating
(x) Gone water Skiing - tried. failed. oh well.
(x) Gone to the movies - duh!

and that is all.

it's all coming back to me now

that song is playing. i love it. i had to share. something about the era in which i first became familiar with it. "when you touch me like this...." well, those words are just terribly provocative and make me a bit embarrassed. basically what comes back to me are memories of youth dances - efy in particular. yes, there was that first real mormon boy crush i had. his friend liked my sister so he danced with me. he had that charm and style that makes a girl melt. he made me feel amazing - like a duckling turned swan. somehow he managed to make me believe for the length of a song that i was the most amazing and desirable girl on the dance floor. he smelled like dentyn. happy memories. jesse was his name. he was a bit short - but boy could he dance. yep, it's all coming back to me now. where or where has jesse gone? i can't help but wonder.

okay - back to life now. really.

blogging

i'm having a hard time wanting to blog these days. i'm not sure why. it's not like my life is any LESS interesting than before. it's just life like usual. i hope i'm still noticing as much as i normally do. blogging is often my way of sharing all the things i notice about the world around me. i think i still notice - why don't i share? over the weekend i read a long article in the ny times by a woman who was a little too public, even for her taste, yet was compelled to be. it reminded me of the lessons i've taught lately in class. i keep asking the students, "why write?" only i usually ask, "why did this author write?" in almost all cases the authors felt compelled to write. it was a hunger or need they couldn't avoid. i can't say i've ever felt that way, but i also don't exactly consider myself a writer in the truest sense. the woman's article left me feeling the pain of too much self disclosure. that is one thing i feel i tend to be guilty of so i really try to watch myself. more importantly i try to be sure i dont' disclose too much of those around me. their privacy is even more important, but when it's intertwined with my own and i choose to share about myself i wonder at what point i've violated their rights. who knows. now this is useless rambling. let's just say i wish i had more to say. for now this will have to suffice.

Library

I love it! I try to go once a week. Today I picked up many things but this book may be the prize. I was just trying to let the "flow" guide me - open to any truth - and right at the end, in a section i've never visited before, big boom's "how to duck a suckah" spoke to me. I tried to put it back down but next thing I knew I was walking out with it. So far i've discovered some great truths in it!

Note: this post was started a couple weeks ago - somehow I never finished it until now. Oops.

walruses

it's been awhile since i blogged. i always wonder what that means. i do know i've been busy with "stuff" - the sort that isn't ever very blog worthy. last night for fhe we listened to a couple men in the ward who have served in the military. it was nice to be connected to the war on a personal level and remember that they are all just people out there. anyway, that's about as good as my blog material gets. but this morning i was reading in the ny times about walruses. cool animals! but this detail i came across is especially cool in my opinion:

Walruses want so much to be with other walruses that if there are no other walruses around, they will make do with the next available large object.

Bird!

I visited the tracy aviary today - so very nice! I played avian olympics and learned I flap as fast as a vulture and my wing span is that of a male osprey. This is a bird from argentina whose name starts with a "t" - really I can't remember his name but let's pretend this is a game and you have to name it! I got to enjoy the aviary courtesy of my sis-in-law who is in charge of their educational program - the olympics was her idea. My brother gave us (plewe came with me) a tour. He told us about the black headed swans who have had trouble having children this year - a blasted raccoon took their last egg. That same racoon is to blame for scaring the emu causing him to slice his neck open on the fence - a freak accident for sure. Marshall told us they have freezers full of frozen mice. He also showed us the twiggy next built by some green birds - they bit off all the branches ends in their cage to build it. The whole outing was exciting. Sorry this is the only decent photo I got. Plewe may blog better ones if we're lucky.

vocab word for the day

contrite \KON-tryt; kuhn-TRYT\, adjective:
1. Deeply affected with grief and regret for having done wrong; penitent; as, "a contrite sinner."2. Expressing or arising from contrition; as, "contrite words."
Contrite sinners forgiven, yes.-- Richard de Mille, My Secret Mother
Within days, a contrite Clarence Arthur was sending her roses and violets, even a bad poem.-- Paul Mariani, The Broken Tower
Often he'd look contrite and even apologize.-- Rafer Johnson with Philip Goldberg, The Best That I Can Be
Contrite derives from Latin conterere, "to rub away, to grind," hence "to obliterate, to abase," from con- + terere, "to rub, to rub away."

so i'm thinking this word has gospel applications - right? if we are to have a contrite heart and the root is "rub away" - it's like a total lack of any self pride.

humans vs. fruit flies

my reading students are doing a unit on the brain. we just read an article about a mouse that was genetically engineered to be smarter. the kids and i discussed for a bit if that was possible with humans - they weren't too quick to agree. anyway, this morning in the ny times i read an article about the science of making animals smarter and whether or not that was a good thing. one particular passage grabbed my attention because of a conversation i had last night with my home teacher newly turned eq pres. he said in his new position as eq pres people tell him things they never did before. he has heard stories about stupid people who seem to lack any sort of knowledge about the dating process and basic etiquette. the article made me wonder if humans really are all that smart - are we any smarter than a fruit fly?

"Research by Dr. Dukas and others has shown that insects deserve more respect. Dr. Dukas has found that the larvae of one of the all-time favorite lab animals, the fruit fly, Drosophila melanogaster, could learn to associate certain odors with food and other odors with predators.
In another set of experiments, Dr. Dukas discovered that young male flies wasted a lot of time trying to court unreceptive females. It takes time to learn the signs of a receptive fly."

pearls

don't mock me, but i wore pearls to church yesterday. i've decided i want it to be my new gimmick. i want to wear pearls to church every week if i can. i remember a woman who used to be in the ward that got married to one of the best guys ever (my home teacher - really he was the BEST) would always wear pearls. i'll never have her personality, nor her fashion sense (she was a bit stuck in the nineties i thought) but i can wear pearls. i don't know. call it an experiment.

i'm also trying to eat more carrots. they sometimes make my stomach go...hnnnghh... but maybe combined with certain other foods i'll enjoy the experience. i just miss the crunch factor.

Bumper sticker

I saw a funny one on my drive home tonight. I'd have taken a photo, but it was too dark, so i'll have to rely on words only. It said, "i am not a republican." does it make you laugh? It did me. Joy for some silly reason. Well I know someone who'd love it and so I share it here with the masses.

snow

may 1 and there's snow. normally i might be annoyed, but i'm going through an emotional funk of sorts and the snow made my morning. i went to the gym, as usual, only to find it unopened - i tell you - sometimes....! anyway, i went to liberty park instead and decided to go around once and call it good - despite the early hour and relative darkness. well once i got started i noticed it was snowing. i was determined to get some exercise in, though, so i pushed forward. i figured i'd get out of the cold faster if i did a bit of running. i believe i did more running this morning than i ever have before - i am not a runner, but i guess it's all about motivation. as i was going it felt really good to be out there alone (cars going down 7th east don't count) and enduring the snow and pushing myself to run a bit more. then as i walked into work this morning and the flakes were bigger and coming down gently i was reminded of a walk i took long ago back in college. i had night classes and one night on the way home the snow was coming down just like that - slow and gentle in big flakes. it felt like god patting me on the head comforting me after a long hard day of school. this morning, i guess it was a pat comforting me for the day ahead. nothing like a bit of a pat from god - morning or night - reassurance is always a wonderful thing.

Loathing

Numbers 21 - I learned today that it's best not to loathe that which god gives you.

east wind

last weekend we had some wind. well, i think we weren't the only ones. earlier i posted a bit of a letter from some guy who is in charge of the busses used by the army in iraq. i got another letter this morning (my sister gets them from his wife - same ward - and forwards them). apparently he had some wind. there's a good gospel lesson in it and since it's sunday - here i am sharing it with you all!

I've spent the week wondering at the quiet of this new place. Then, night before last, in the dead of night, there came a howling wind that rocked my hooch! I looked out the window and was astonished at the thick dust that blew through the camp, nearly blotting out my porch light completely. I have a new appreciation for the scriptural phrase, "the east wind." ("...if my people shall sow filthiness they shall reap the east wind, which bringeth immediate destruction.")

"In the Middle East this east wind is called a "kham-SEEN." The 'kh' sound is a hard 'H' that's forced through a narrowed throat, as if clearing the throat lightly. Besides the obvious destructive force of the wind itself, it brings thick dust that does three things worth thinking about, especially if you can see the symbolic nature of the phrase. First, it stings and blinds the eyes immediately. Second, the fine dust gets into your lungs and literally chokes you. Third, it darkens the sky and surrounds you with 'thick' darkness that you can feel.

"As morning came, the dust had abated, but the wind continued to rage throughout the day. By afternoon, as it began to subside, it had left destruction in its wake. It had strewn garbage all across the base, it had blown the plywood bus stops over and moved them around and broken some of them up, it had blown the Porta-Johns over and left human waste in big pools on the ground, it had even moved many of the heavy orange Jersey barriers from one spot to another! Some of the brave souls who had ventured out in the wind had opened their vehicle doors and had them wrenched from their grip, springing the hinges and making the doors unusable. Inside the closed buildings there was a layer of thick dust on everything. Going through one of these dust storms is an astonishing experience, though not nearly as astonishing as looking at the destruction after Hurricane Katrina."

Night on the town

For fun this evening I attended the utah symphony to hear carmina burana - oh heaven!!!! Best music ever, possibly. Then I took trax towards home with these ladies. Lena's fashion pain convinced me to insist on borrowing this homeless grocery cart. Trish was good enough to push. Lena only let us do it for about a block but i'm glad she did. It made for a party. Leann is the other happy partier in the photo. The rest of our symphony going group opted for red rock treats. Everyone has to follow their own drummer. Did I tell you the show wasawesome? It was.

For betsy

I tried to post last night but it didn't take - most of my posts are done by mobile - maybe mobile posting is broken. So i'll try again.
Read hebrews 10 & 11. Oh so good. Faith and patience. Rely on your testimony and keep up the hope!

I'm a winner!

Look what I got from my tax job! We had the celebration party tonight - I also got my bonus check. All together, my gross income for this job just barely covers the cost of my trip to dc I plan to take in june. My store was number 9 out of 27 stores in utah for most returns. Or some cool statistic like that. Our franchise was number 1 in the state. Our sister store was number 1 in the state barely beating st george. We're winners! And I think I made a connection for my next minimum wage job - I may get to be a cashier this summer at albertson's! That was one of my dream jobs since I was 6. A cashier, a teacher, a nurse, and a hot air balloonist. I think options 3 and 4 are off the list.

bias

as a lover of social studies i just ate up this article - like it was cheesecake! (or in my world ice cream.) see what you think. it comes courtesy of the ny times. one good paper.


April 17, 2008
Op-Ed Columnist
Divided They Fall
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF

If you’re a Democrat, your candidate won in Wednesday night’s presidential debate — that was obvious, and most neutral observers would recognize that. But the other candidate issued appalling distortions, and the news commentary afterward was shamefully biased.
So you’re madder than ever at the other candidate. You may even be more likely to vote for John McCain if your candidate loses.
That prediction is based on psychological research that helps to explain the recriminations between supporters of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama — and the reasons why Senator McCain should be smiling as the Democratic campaign drags on.
To understand your feelings about Wednesday night’s debate, consider the Dartmouth-Princeton football game in 1951. That bitterly fought contest was the subject of a landmark study about how our biases shape our understanding of reality.
Psychologists showed a film clip of the football game to groups of students at each college and asked them to act as unbiased referees and note every instance of cheating. The results were striking. Each group, watching the same clip, was convinced that the other side had cheated worse — and this was not deliberate bias or just for show.
“Their eyes were taking in the same game, but their brains seemed to be processing the events in two distinct ways,” Farhad Manjoo writes in his terrific new book, “True Enough: Learning to Live in a Post-Fact Society.” It’s the best political book so far this year.
Mr. Manjoo cites a more recent study by Stanford University psychologists of students who either favored or opposed capital punishment. The students were shown the same two studies: one suggested that executions have a deterrent effect that reduces subsequent murders, and the other doubted that.
Whatever their stance, the students found the study that supported their position to be well-conducted and persuasive and the other one to be profoundly flawed.
“That led to a funny result,” Mr. Manjoo writes. “People in the study became polarized.”
A fair reading of the two studies might have led the students to question whether any strong conclusions could be drawn about deterrence, and thus to tone down their views on the death penalty. But the opposite happened. Students on each side accepted the evidence that conformed to their original views while rejecting the contrary evidence — and so afterward students on both sides were more passionate and confident than ever of their views.
That’s what we seem to be seeing in the Democratic primaries. Even though the policy differences between the two candidates are minimal, each camp is becoming increasingly aggravated at the other. A Washington Post poll published Wednesday found that more than one-third of Democrats say that they may not support their party’s nominee if it is not their own choice.
Another challenge is the biased way in which we gather information. We seek out information that reinforces our prejudices. One study presented listeners with static-filled recordings of speeches that they believed they were judging on persuasive power. Listeners could push a button to tweak the signal, reducing the static to make it easier to understand. When smokers heard a speech connecting tobacco with cancer, they didn’t try to improve the clarity to hear it more easily. But they pushed the button to get a clearer version of a speech saying that there was no link between smoking and cancer. Nonsmokers were the exact opposite.
This resistance to information that doesn’t mesh with our preconceived beliefs afflicts both liberals and conservatives, but a raft of studies shows that it is a particular problem with conservatives. For example, when voters receive mailings offering them free pamphlets on various political topics, liberals show some interest in getting conservative views. In contrast, conservatives seek only those pamphlets that echo their own views.
Likewise, liberal blogs overwhelmingly link to other liberal blogs or news sources. But with conservative blogs, the tendency is much more pronounced; it is almost a sealed universe.
The situation isn’t hopeless. Similar psychological processes govern our perceptions of race, yet we’ve made great progress in revising our views and reducing prejudices. The same is true of attitudes towards gays.
The only solutions I see are personal ones, to work out daily to build our mental muscles. Just as we force ourselves to nibble on greens and decline cheesecake, we should seek an information diet that includes a salad bar of information sources — with a special focus on unpalatable rubbish from fools. The worse it tastes, the better it may be for us.
If that’s why you’re reading this, congratulations! And thanks!

Doorway

There was something sad about this doorway to a big empty pit. It's the corner of 2100 s 1100 e where the blue cat cafe used to be. Now a dirt hole. Hopefully soon it will be something worth looking at besides this ruin. I visited this corner on Friday (last) when I was feeling a degree of ruin myself. I'd taken the day off to regroup. I believe in holidays - take them!