Ode to George

My husband and I are a perfect combination when it comes to goals. I like to plan elaborate structures that will help me get stuff done. I am in love with Excel and the spreadsheet. George, not so much. However, I have no follow-through with my goals (see two posts down on 2008 goals). I tend to plan ways in which I could do and be everything I ever wanted to, and then promptly sit down and play video games or watch reruns of What Not to Wear and Good Eats.

This is where George comes in. Although he couldn't plan his way out of a paper sack (at least by my standards), he doesn't really need to. When he wants to accomplish something, he simply does it. And it's done. I am shocked by the simpleness of this plan, but very often it has the audacity to work. I find this very attractive.

Why do I bring this up? Well, George has already started to help me out with my 2009 resolutions. You know how I mentioned that I might want to start a family blog this year? Well, on January 2nd, George spent all day researching hosting companies, picked a plan and domain name by dinner time, purchased them, and started installing blogging engines.

Accomplishing a New Year's resolution by doing it--inconceivable!

What this means is that over the next few days I'm going to be mucking around in WordPress and whatever dot net blogging engine George has decided on for the family blog. And shortly thereafter, this blog will be migrating and the new blog will be open as well. You can thank my amazing husband for this.

Ring in the New: 2009 Goals

1. Start a new family blog. Face it--I've certainly outgrown my domain name. Plus I would really like to get off free service and into some sort of implementation of something more customizable, like Wordpress on our own domain. I'm rather liking the title "Make Way for Geeklings" right now.
   
2. Read at least 25 books. I find myself a more interesting person when I'm reading. And while Google Reader and Google News have somewhat taken the place of actual books and newspapers, I feel more responsible by seeking out in-depth information in a book. So yes, you may gather that the majority of these will be non-fiction, although I rather should start reading some creative non-fiction again so I can be more familiar with my chosen genre.
   
3. Write for 15 minutes a day on my blog. Or future blogs opened. This is both for writing purposes and for keeping in touch with family upon our August move to Seattle.
   
4. Complete 600 pages of journal writing. Most of my published essays came from the 200 pages of journal writing we were assigned on my study abroad. I can't expect quite as big a ratio (100 pages/month) with real life in the way, but I'm going to shoot for the moon and go for half.
5. Complete an essay each month and submit it for publication. Three writing goals may seem rather obsessive, but it seems I have basically three levels of writing going on, so I might as well distinguish them. I like the idea of basing my publication goals on essays out rather than publications completed. There's something to be said for getting yourself out there.
   
6. Run a half-marathon. At some point during my pregnancy, I was delusional enough to commit to my husband that I would do this to get back into a shape other than round. With our afore mentioned jogging-stroller-of-doom (with speakers!), the three Busbys will be running (or riding in baby G's case) in the Bear Lake Half-Marathon in June. Pray for my cardiovascular system.
7. Take more pictures. Both George and I are slackers about recording our life, and though George doesn't care much about having tangible memories of the past, I know I'll want to have them later.
   
8. Complete scrapbooks for college and marriage, or throw away the box of ticket stubs, programs, ribbons, papers, etc. Either I need to commit to doing this project or get rid of it. It's just not worth hauling to Seattle otherwise. I'm not sure which to do yet. Heh heh.

Happy 2009! In celebration, I highly recommend you read the full version of Tennyson's Ring Out, Wild Bells.

2008 Resolution Redux

A review of last year's resolutions:

1. Write for at 15 minutes a day. Well, so much for this. Between being pregnant and having a baby, I've been high on excuses for not writing. However, I started a new writing notebook last week in hopes of getting on track for next year.
   
2. Post on the blog more regularly. Ha ha ha.
   
3. Read at least 25 books. In terms of starting books, I probably came close. But finishing books is another matter.
   
4. Get published. Yup. 3 times.
   
5. Apply to grad school. As of 12:06 pm, FedEx is overnighting it to Seattle. So technically completed this year.
   
6. Find a job. Well, I spent most of this year jobless (unless you count creating life as a job). My temp job in Seattle was alright, but not ideal. There probably won't be a job goal next year, unless I get into grad school and they let me teach little freshmen.
   
7. Do 100% of my visiting teaching. Still at 0%. I have an excuse for 3 months in Seattle where we never made it to the VT/HT lists, but I'm still battling my strange aversion to visiting teaching.
   
8. Keep in better touch with my family. I'll say I did a pretty good job at this. This summer we used more than half of our minutes each month. Impressive for us, let me tell you.
9. Figure out how spices work. I'm doing better at this, but it's an on going project.
   
10. Wake up early, and like it. Right now I'm feeling pretty good about mornings, especially since Baby G started sleeping through the night. Running with our new jogging-stroller-of-doom is also helping mornings be a happier time. (Never thought I'd say that.)

New resolutions tomorrow!

So This is the New Year

New Year's was built for people like me. First of all, it's a completely arbitrary celebration. Those who have seen me on St. Patrick's Day know that these are my favorite kind of holidays. I love an excuse to be exuberantly happy for no apparent reason. Second, if the holiday does have a purpose, it's setting extravagant goals for becoming your ideal person with no intention of actually following through on them. Again, this is one of my favorite pastimes--I've been known to make New Year's resolutions four or five times a year, simply because I've given up on the old ones.

Hmm, this sounds a little more pessimistic than my last New Year's post. Perhaps that's because this year has spun in completely different (wonderfully different) directions than I expected and predicted. Last year I set only one solid New Year's goal--to get serious about my writing. And while I failed at the specific steps I set for myself (submitting something each month, keeping a writing notebook, writing for eight hours a week), surprisingly I have accomplished that goal anyway, just not in the ways I expected. The biggest contributor to this was my study abroad program--the year's worth of writing intensive courses have forced my to learn how to write honestly. I've learned how to inspire myself, how to approach required writing in such a way that something useful and interesting will come out. I'm coming to see the wonder of every day things around me, to write about what I know and am. And I've come out of the experience with a few rather nice pieces.

Obviously, the thing that threw off the plan for this year was George. Gosh, George! But, no, I wouldn't trade that minor inconvenience for anything. George's family has this set of ten axioms called the "Busby Bylaws," their family mottos and principles. We've been working on a set of "Muir Maxims" to go along with them, and one that came to me recently was this: "Don't let the schedule get in the way of the plan." What it means to me is that plan and scheme as we might, we never know all of the things that the Lord has in mind for us. When something comes along, we have to be willing to drop the plan and follow His will.

All in all, 2007 has been the best year yet.

In fact, I think that should be everyone's New Year's resolution: make 2008 the best year yet.

But for the sake of being more concrete: the list.

1. Write for at 15 minutes a day. This will be a challenge during the next four months which constitute my last semester at BYU. (Yay!) After that, it should be easier.
   
2. Post on the blog more regularly. Here is where I'd insert a count of the decrease of posts from this year to last year, but a) you can see the counts for yourself on the archive list, and b) my in-laws' firewall blocks my blog, so I can't actually see them. But suffice to say, I'd like to improve. Blogging has been a valuable exercise because it forces me to polish my thoughts into a presentable form, look at myself in a more objective way, obtain feedback, and of course keep in touch with friends. No, I'm not going to set a goal of posting every day, since I don't believe in posts for the sake of posts.
3. Read at least 25 books, outside of assigned reading. I figure 2 books a month is fairly reasonable. Hopefully this will make a dent in my to-read list, which is getting entirely too long.
   
4. Get published. I'm being less specific than last year, but I've got several essays that my professor thinks could get published, and I'd like to continue to write more things of that quality.
5. Apply to grad school. I didn't make time to do it this fall (with all the insanity of being newly married and taking evil classes), but I really want to continue my education. And I don't want to just fall out of the loop because I'm taking a year off.
6. Find a job. My biggest fear this next year is being stuck in a job I hate. The job hunt is problematic right now since I'll be in Seattle for three months after I graduate and who knows what will happen in fall, but hopefully things will work out.
   
7. Do 100% of my visiting teaching. Okay, so I haven't done my visiting teaching for about a year and a half. It's high time that stopped. I know that it's important; I'm just lazy and worried about what people think. Don't ask what that means.
8. Keep in better touch with my family. As George and I are moving to Seattle this summer (did I mention he has an internship with Microsoft to work on their search?), I'll be living away from my base in Utah for the longest period in my life. I'm really bad about calling people on the phone or writing personal (not business) emails because I take the people close to me for granted. If I don't see them, I forget they are there. I need to work on that.
9. Figure out how spices work. I'm a fairly decent cook, but I really don't use spices because they scare me and I don't know how to do it without a recipe.
10. Wake up early, and like it. My inner morning person got lost somewhere on the way between high school and college. I used to wake up easily (no snooze buttons!) at 5:30 am for my paper route, but now I whack my husband when he tries to wake me up at 6. I miss liking mornings.
    

Notice no exercising related goals--I'm letting George take care of the running this year. It's his problem if I get fat. (This is called reliance on others.)

Reflection & Resolution

I'm a thorough believer in New Year's resolutions. Actually, I believe in new start resolutions any time you feel motivated to do them. There's something very human about putting your life into perspective and looking for changes. As rhetoric class taught me, so much of what man is is based around our ability to tell stories: we are the ones with the logos, the ability to make up causes and effects, to say why and attempt an answer. And New Year's resolutions are a form of that story telling. We look at our lives to determine what's causing problems for us and decide how we should fix it. Even the repetitiveness of our goals is an important part of that. To double quote myself, humanity is inherently optimistic because even in a situation which we have faced a thousand times and failed, we always see the possibility for success.

As for my story, this has been a very interesting year for me. Lot of first things happened this year: the first time I really hated someone (in a long time anyway), the first time I finished an entire journal, the first semester I really loved all my classes, the first time I seriously thought about being a writer (as a career), the first time I fell in (and out) of love. I certainly picked the right year to become more serious about writing because this year has needed recording. (Or is it the seriousness about writing that has caused the changes?) So many learning experiences and new things . . . I'm a very different person than I was when I stepped into 2006. I think I've become more confident, more ambitious, and more open than I was before. I've had my share of pain and devastation this year, and yet I still continue on, even when sometimes I don't know the reasons.

That's the reflection; now about the resolution. The New Year's goals we make often more about being than doing. We resolve to be in better shape, to be kinder, to be an harder worker. Granted, these state of being goals are connected to actions--working out, doing nice things, putting forth more effort--but they are essentially connected to a desire to change who we are. In the past, my goals have definitely fit this pattern. I think this could be because of the "cleanse the inner vessel first" mentality I gained from reading Covey's Seven Habits. I've never felt like I could act externally until I fixed up the inner workings.

Now, I'm not saying this perspective is bad because it's obviously necessary to secure yourself some semblance of consistence and identity before you can do things. But if I had to pull one lesson from this year, it would be "You are never ready." You will never feel like you are on top of everything, but that doesn't mean you should stand still until you are. Sometimes, the only way to get on top of everything you have is to add more.

So this year, yes, I'm making all of my usual self-improvement "becoming" goals I've been making since I was eight: eating right, exercising more, reading my scriptures, etc. But I'm going to try to focus on doing something more and see if that doesn't help the rest fall into place. So this is my goal: 2007 will be the Year of the Writer. This year, I will find out if it could be possible for me to consider writing as a serious career. I've made a commitment to submit at least one piece for publication somewhere each month, to set aside eight hours a week for personal, non-school related writing projects, and to keep a writing notebook again. This goal scares me like none other, and putting it up here is just inviting you all to mock me when I drop it. (No one is allowed to mention the NaNoWriMo incident.) But maybe public mockery is the only real motivation. To quote another aspiring writer in the Little Women musical,

Here I go
And there's no turning back
My great adventure has begun
I may be small
But I've got giant plans
To shine as greatly as the sun

I will blaze until I find my time and place
I will be fearless,
Surrendering modesty and grace
I will not disappear without a trace
I'll shout and start a riot
Be anything but quiet
Christopher Columbus
I'll be Astonishing
Astonishing
Astonishing

At Last

Insecurities of a Jack

There are only two kinds of people who are really fascinating: people who know absolutely everything, and people who know absolutely nothing.
- Oscar Wilde

Ever since I was five years old, I've known what I wanted to do with my life. No, not in terms of a career or practical goals--if you've been reading this blog, you may have noticed I still have no idea what I want in that area. I'm talking about a bigger, more general picture. I have one of those: when I started school, I decided my goal was to know everything.

In the ensuing years, I've been confronted many times with the fact that this goal is not precisely realistic. But that hasn't stopped me from trying. Evidence: majoring in Chemistry and English, watching PBS all the time, surfing Wikipedia, and reading *gasp* non-fiction in my spare time.

And in general, I like my way of doing things--gathering random bits of knowledge and stringing them together so they catch the light of truth in new ways. I'm personally not in favor of our current system of education, wherein we teach people more and more about less and less. In the end, society ends up with a bunch of people who excel in their one little area, but are so entrenched in their dogma that they have difficultly seeing the connections and applications to other areas. And since the rest of us are equally busy in our little cells of knowledge, we can't learn from anything the others find. It seems to me to be a very inefficient method of discovering knowledge. (Yes, I realize there's some necessity for specialization in order to get in deep enough to really push the envelope, but I think we take it too far.)

Gathering knowledge from all these different areas has allowed me to think and learn in so many different ways. However, there's a definite problem with being a jack of all trades, and master of none. And that is that I feel very insecure about my knowledge. I know just enough in almost any area (excepting perhaps music) to know exactly how ignorant I actually am. I feel fine holding a conversation with someone who isn't familiar with the subject, but if I'm forced into a conversation in someone else's area of expertise--almost everything is--then I'm junk. I'm good at thinking about all sorts of problems, but I lack the well of facts necessary to match wits with someone who knows the territory. Sometimes I can get around this problem by drawing analogies to other areas of knowledge that they aren't as familiar with, but sometimes not.

It's quite disconcerting because I know I'm a knowledgeable, intelligent person, and yet so many times, I find myself stuck on the listening end of a rant because I lack the specialization to combat it. So irritating, yet I still feel no desire to specialize. Somewhere inside I'm absolutely convinced that I just need more time to gather more facts, that I'll eventually find an end to my quest for knowledge of everything.

But it seems an awfully long way away.

No Love of Words

You might think that because I'm an English major that I have a love of words. If you had asked me a few weeks ago, I probably would have paused a bit and tentatively agreed with you. But the other day I was asked to write down my vision. Not for anything in particular, just in general, and what came out of my head was not at all what I had expected. I'll spare you the details, but the general idea was this: I want to spend my life helping people realize their potential, to use my talents to help them become more fully themselves.

This is a particularly odd mission for several reasons. First, as I've lamented several times, I'm not generally a people person--that is, people hold no innate attraction for me. So why I have this idea stuck in my head of doing something for other people for the rest of my life is beyond me. Also, English seems like a silly thing to be going into if you want to make an impact in the lives of people. Like Las Vegas, what goes on in the English department, tends to stay in the English department. As Katherine and I have discussed, not many people care about what English majors care about. Not that Chemistry is any better. Granted, science has a slightly more direct impact on your life than lit crit, but it's less suited to help with philosophical things like reaching your potential.

It started me thinking about what kind of impact I wanted to have on people's lives and how that relates to a love of writing and of words. What I've realized is that the words don't matter. Or, more precisely, that words matter tremendously, but not because of themselves. Let me explain by an example. Rhetoric, as I understand it, is the study of how you can put words together--how the practical relationships between words and ideas can be best exploited to convince someone to do something. But I have to agree with Plato's Phaedrus when he says that there's no point in teaching rhetoric unless we can also answer questions about what we should do with this power of words. Tools are useless unless we also teach "what," and "to whom," and "when," and "how much." If rhetoric, or words in general, aren't studied in conjunction with the truths they should convey, then who cares?

I also realized that many of the subjects I dislike lack this ability to convey truth. Music and dance have always seemed a little strange to me because there's no way to get any specific message across. A general message, yes, but overall it's difficult to have a melody change your perspective on life. Also, grammar and usage of English seem a little pointless to study. Yes, they can help convey meaning more precisely, but can studying the details of how paint is made get the Sistine Chapel painted? Granted, some knowledge of these things is necessary, but spending too much time on them and you miss the point entirely. Same thing with studying a foreign language. Too much time spent on the medium rather than the message.

For me there is no love of words, except in the power that words have to link two minds together. A well written novel or essay takes you through another person's logic and emotions. For one instant, you can be wholely understood by another person, to completely share their thoughts and feelings. Words are very much the power of God in that way--the ability to know and understand something independently animate and outside yourself. Maybe that's why I don't like debaters or purple prose or long-winded descriptions. There's no particular glory in an eloquent arrangement of letters; only the idea behind them matters to me. Words are simply words, but when they convey powerful ideas, they gain the power to change people.

Gorgias, in his Encomium of Helen, compares words to love because these two alone have the tools necessary to change the soul, to lift it up or bring it down.

I like that. No love of words, but words=love.

Life Suspended

I've been thinking a lot lately about what I want to do with the rest of my life. I mean in terms of a career. Assuming I have one.

And that's precisely the problem. I really dislike my position at this point in life because there isn't enough certainty to build any sort of plan on. Basically, I feel like I'm caught in a Murphy's-Law-like situation, with no way to avoid having my heart broken. If I base my dreams on a brilliant public career, I will probably be happily married and stay at home in obscurity. If I set my heart on marriage, I will become the sweet old maid Primary teacher of some family ward (Katherine, you know who I'm thinking of).

Of course, my preoccupation with this topic has a lot to do with my anxiety about myself not being marriageable material. I think I've wallowed in that trough of self-pity and what-if-ing enough to bore you readers--if you still exist--to death.

But a fear of being miserable in life is not really the problem right now. I have no (or little) doubt that, with Heavenly Father's guidance, I will end up in a situation that will make me happy. The problem is that the two possible natures of that situation leave no room for a certain course. And so in trying to cover all my bases and prepare for either possibility, I worry that I will pay too much attention to the wrong one, or fall in the cracks between. Basically, it's an issue of cosmic suspense--like being in the middle of a novel and just wanting to know how this one thing will turn out so that you can relax and enjoy the rest of the book. I just wish someone would tell me which way I should set my heart.

In Elder Oaks' famous Anti-Hanging-Out Talk, he says this to the single women:

If you are just marking time waiting for a marriage prospect, stop waiting. You may never have the opportunity for a suitable marriage in this life, so stop waiting and start moving. Prepare yourself for life—even a single life—by education, experience, and planning. Don’t wait for happiness to be thrust upon you. Seek it out in service and learning. Make a life for yourself. And trust in the Lord. Your dedication of a lifetime should follow King Benjamin’s advice to be “calling on the name of the Lord daily, and standing steadfastly in the faith of that which is to come” (Mosiah 4:11).

Good advice by any standard. Even most dating-tip books tell you to go out and be involved since that's inherently more interesting than sitting around and waiting. Good for either plan, right?

So I attempt to plan my future: Grad school in either English or Chemistry is out. Though I love each subject dearly, I couldn't take being steeped so thoroughly in the dogma of any one specific area--especially considering grad school requires specialization, which I tend to abhor. I adore and covet the idea of going to law school, but not because I would enjoy a career in law--I would probably hate it. I would go there just for the experience, and to learn to think more analytically. But could I really justify spending that much money just because I find it fascinating? (Especially if I did get married . . . .)

If I were to pursue a career, it would be probably be writing--everything and anything, fiction, non-fiction, articles, novels, everything. But if I did that, I couldn't settle for obscurity. I have an innate thirst for fame--I'm sort of ego-centric that way. I would want to be big. I would want to write things that would change the world. (Thus, I'm currently reading Writing to Change the World, and thoroughly anticipating the chapter on blogs. Great book thus far, though the attempt to hide Pipher's liberal bias is quite superficial . . . but a more thorough review later.)

But if I try to go for my dream, try to be famous, revolutionary, life-changing, at what point have I gone to far and ruined my chances of ever truly being satisfied with being quietly at home? And what if I wasn't done with school before my husband needed to go somewhere else for grad school or work? And would I still be able to pursue even higher education, for no other purpose than self-enlightenment and fulfillment? Could I really spend our time and money that way? And as much as I tell myself that I could still write if I got married, that I could do both, I'm not sure it would really happen. I would get so wrapped up in the joys of a family--and it would be joyous, probably more than any fame--that writing, real writing, would get pushed out of the way.

Guys don't have this problem. At least, not the way I see it. Correct me if I'm wrong, but the path to a fulfilling life looks exactly the same, whether you end up single or not. You will need a career you can enjoy, regardless. If you happen to get married, than all the better. If not, then you just keep working on it on the side. But for women it is different--marriage is a life-redirecting experience, for good or ill.

All I want is to know what avenue to throw my passion into, and then to be able to let that passion run full throttle, without the risk of crashing and burning when I attempt to turn.

But it's clearly too much to ask: Heavenly Father apparently writes great suspense novels.

Top 10 Things I Learned while Attempting to Hike Timp Today

10-The Romantic poets were right.
9-Water bottles left at home don't quench thirst
8-Mountains are steep. Very steep.
7-I need to pick up photography again. If only I still had that camera . . . .
6-I need to memorize more poetry.
5-Why mountains are so closely tied to temples.
4-Nature can overcome anything.
3-Stop and look at the beauty around you . . . .
2-But watch for rocks.
1-Know your limits.

I have my reasons...

Yesterday at the Writing Center, I was talking with Jon about my blog, and he asked me if I write what I write "to criticize or to be criticized"--meaning a review of life or a creative work, I suppose. That caused me to think for a while about what this blog really is, thus far.

I guess the main purpose is to keep me writing. Daily practice makes any skill better, and writing is no exception. (Neither is chemistry, if you ask Dr. Shirts.) The exercise of condensing my thoughts into (semi-)coherent paragraphs with structure is like lifting weights for my writing brain.

From this purpose springs a secondary one: I use this blog to get my thoughts out of my head. I have a habit of having great epiphanies and never writing them down. As a result, my brain becomes so clogged with trying to remember the things that it knows that I don't have anymore space to write something new. Writing these ideas down is a way of saving them to permanent memory, freeing up 'brain-RAM' to work on expanding these ideas with further connections and thoughts.

Writing also allows me to clear up in my head what my position is. Take my as-yet-unfinished trilogy of posts on homosexuality. My main purpose in writing it was to clarify to myself exactly why I believe what I believe. (Which is probably why parts 2 and 3 haven't been written. Merely planning them clarified my position in my head, which sort of used up my motivation for writing them.)

I guess that doesn't really answer the question. To criticize or be criticized? Hmm. Can't I have both? Really, I have no desire to separate my thoughts on the world from my creative writing. There's no reason that a work shouldn't be both critical and creative.

Post # the Fiftith One

Ha ha! I have actually succeeded in creating a blog with 50 posts in it! This is probably more entries than are in any one of my journals. I am notoriously bad at keeping habits going (well, not notoriously, I guess, since that would imply that other people know/care about it), especially ones that involve as much introspective effort as journaling.

Habits and I have a love-hate relationship. On the one hand, I love the feeling that I know what I need to do at every moment of the day, and that everything I need to do will get done if I just stick to the routine. It makes me feel gloriously productive, and I feel excited to wake up and accomplish things. And there's something inherently satisfying about an unbroken, consistent flow of action.

On the other hand, I resent the way habits take over my life. When I actually schedule in time for all the things I am supposed to do (exercising, blogging, journaling, cleaning, etc.) I have almost no time left in my day. Ask me to show you my schedule if you want proof. Today's schedule, outside of routine actions, has just enough time for FHE and one hour of math studying. (No, I'm not in classes, but I'm studying up on my calculus so I can take Math 302 in the fall. Wish me luck!) As much as I love the structure of a day well-planned, I also bask in the glory of a deliciously unscheduled life.

Ah, the conflict. To habit or not to habit? Perhaps this is once again a question of balance.

P.S. Anyone want to take a road trip to New York? The new Hill Cumorah pagent, written by none other than the Card himself, is now in theatres . . . or hilltops, as the case may be.

Beauty and A Really Old (-Fashioned) Love Story

I am not usually the type of person for love stories. Perhaps because I have little (read: no) experience in them myself, they've always seemed far more fantastic and unrealistic than the sci-fi and fantasy I prefer. Also, I usually don't empathize very well with the heroines: either charming or naive, but always beautiful, none of which I have pretensions to. I've always defined myself based on a fairly gender-neutral intelligence. Pretty much, I think Jane Austen is boring, and my favorite chic flicks are IQ and You've Got Mail, mostly for Einstein and the witty construction (respectively) rather than the love story, which gets in the way for me.

Leave it to Orson Scott Card to write a romance that I could really enjoy. I'm only half-way through Rebekah, the second in his Women of Genesis series, and if there was anyone who could improve on the beauty of that story in the Old Testament, then it's the OSC. As a friend of mine said (John, this means you) Card is so amazing at understanding people that he makes you feel like a genius just to be witness to his analysis. In Card's religious fiction (Women of Genesis + Stone Tables), I have been continually impressed with his ability to flesh out these iconic figures into realistic characters while still remaining faithful to their place in the religious cannon. Without ruining the story for anyone who hasn't read it, Rebekah has shed much light in my mind on the issue of beauty.

He made me remember that for some beauty can be as much a curse as a blessing when looking for a relationship. (As Tevia would say, may God smite me with it, and may I never recover.) I had sort of realized this in the character of Lina in Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants--kitschy, I know, but true in feeling. Beauty--true beauty, and not just good grooming--is unlike almost any other trait in that it seems to happen almost as an accident, not being an essential part of a person's character. Rebekah's realization of her own beauty and subsequent panic were quite enlightening--I've never had the same worry that someone might want me not for myself but for some accident of birth.

Some will object that beauty is not so much looks as a way of behaving, and this is the other thing Card brings out. As Rebekah meets a particular woman for the first time, she is shocked to realize that though she is as beautiful as this woman, Rebekah has none of the grace, charm, and social skill necessary to really use this to full, feminine advantage. And so she sets out to learn and acquire the ability to make small-talk, flirt (such as it is in biblical times), etc. Until recently, I had mostly assumed that people were either just born with this grace or without: I had never really contemplated it as a skill to be acquired.

Now that I think about it, this is one skill that I could really use, considering my natural tendency is to be blunt or outspokenly passionate about everything. A little charm or grace could do a lot to mediate the bad effects of these two things. I've always avoided being too feminine, but maybe it's time to dabble in that area. I won't hesistate to say I feel quite silly though.

(Aside: I find it ironic that I finish this post while listening to "Astonishing," the song from the Little Women musical in which Jo's refuses Laurie's proposal. Pretty much the antithesis to the woman aspiring to marriage, and currently one of my favorite songs. Hmm.)

Ambition, Planning, and Willpower

So, it's finals week. In other words, my spring break, since BYU doesn't have one and I don't believe in "studying." I've been using this time mostly to catch up on some of the cool stuff out there on the net (read: surfing around wasting time). I did find a few nifty things, like librarything.com, on which I've already cataloged most of the books I own (should finish up on Monday). Thus the cool book thing on my sidebar. :D

Which leads me to the real point of this post. Not really, but anyway. . . . I've come to realize over the years that I am very good at planning things, but extremely poor at actually carrying them out. I spent about 2 hours last Sunday planning out a study schedule, which I had absolutely no intention of keeping. I mean, why should I? I took my Stats exam cold yesterday and got a 95%. Was the other 5% that I possibly could have gotten worth studying for a couple hours that I could have spent taking over Russia on Civ IV? Not really.

So that's not really a problem since I'm not losing anything by it, but in other cases my lack of willpower holds me back. For instance, for the last few years, I have been sketching out plans for a website/zine/wiki about the history of the Harry Potter fandom. Yes, I'm a nerd, I know, but the development of online communities really facinates me. I even went so far as to take a web design class last summer (not that it taught me anything I couldn't have figured out in a couple of hours--what a waste of $50). I brought up my idea on a Harry Potter discussion group and was actually approached by Melissa from TLC, who's only like the most powerful HP fan ever, about developing it as a subsite of the Floo Network. Unfortunately, I just sort of let the project slip. I could have been part of something really cool, that I'm actually interested in, but I just didn't do anything about it.

This is my problem: good ideas that I have no intention of following through with. Books I want to write (I've got three really interesting ideas floating around, one fiction and two non-fiction, but have done no research and written nothing), projects I want to accomplish (organizing my filing cabinet, actually figuring out some more web design stuff, like CCS and maybe PHP), things I want to get involved in (essay contests, volunteer efforts, volunteer in a chem lab, a social life, you know). And the problem is that I seem to be okay with having these things continue to float in my brain, and on paper even, but never materialize. Lots of ambition and planning, but no willpower to actually accomplish anything.

And I'm not really sure how to go about gaining willpower. I mean, the times when I actually feel like accomplishing something coincide with the times when I am too busy to do anything. When I have time, I just want to sit around and play computer games, watch movies and surf the net. Even catching up on my reading list feels like too much effort to put forth. Any ideas? I just want to feel like accomplishing something again.

Now off to conquer Russia.

PS

Oh, I just realized I never actually put down my New Year's Resolutions, so here they are:

1. Keep committments, especially to the Lord and myself.
2. Find peace by working ahead instead of playing catch up.
3. Make time for service.
4. Bring up my grades so I don't have to stress about my scholarship.
5. Visit the temple twice a month.

Falling into Place

Wow, it's amazing how stuff seems to just fall into place when you bother to think about it. Really, like everything today was helping me with what I was worrying about yesterday. For instance, on KBYU there was an Elder Oaks talk about gaining faith even in trials and a talk by President Hinkley that really comforted me about my grades situation. Then, Cherie Thomas gave a talk in church which was also exactly what I needed to hear and pointed me towards reading the rest of Moroni, which was also full of info that I needed. It was totally insane.

I just have a lot of thoughts right now, and I don't really feel like organizing them well. Since this is a blog, I'll just post a list and let you sort it out:


* Optimism v. Pessimism: People tend to look down on optimists because they think they have a poor sense of reality. The general consensus is that if you think life is good, you must be deluding yourself. However, I disagree. I think optimism is the only practical way to live and progress, as long as you do it right. As a pessimist, you are stuck only seeing the bad, looking at your failures and feeling hopeless. If you are what I've decided to call a "realistic optimist," you recognize your failures, but you don't let those things (or circumstances beyond your control) get you down. Instead, you have optimism, or hope, that you can change.

* New Year's Resolutions: On a related note, happy New Year's! Hurrah. Along with this of course come the resolutions, which we are all classically doomed to fail at. A few years ago on January 1, I wrote in my journal something to the effect of this: humanity is inherently optimistic because even in a situation which we have faced a thousand times and failed, we always see the possibility for success. This is either the worst or the best thing about humanity. As awkward as it is to quote myself, I really like how I said that. I thought of writing it into a poem once, but it never turned out. Anyway, I like New Year's Resolutions. Doomed to failure or not, the process has something very human about it.

* Relativism: Which brings me to another idea which has been floating around for a while. I hate people who insist on being absolutely relative about truth, who refuse to draw conclusions out of a sense of angosticism. It just seems so pointless. If we aren't allow to decide and come to conclusions, how in the world can humanity progress? Yes, there's a lot to be said for tolerance, but tolerance is just that: you tolerate the idea that other people have ideas different from ours. However, this does not mean we can't come to a universal perception of truth. In fact, as I see it, the whole point of humanity is come to understand itself and its environment. Moral relativists and agnostics discard this purpose in favor of the ambiguous, ever present diversity. But how can diversity help humanity? How can simply knowing about others help us? Once we learn everything about another culture, what can we gain? Nothing, unless we use our human judgement. If we learn about other cultures and then determine what makes them better or worse than our own (by some moral standard), we can use the things we learn to eliminate our own errors and avoid their pitfalls. (Sorry if this sounds obnoxious. Just remember that I'm typing off the top of my head. If I ever actually get to writing an essay on this, I'm sure it would sound much better. I just needed to get it out of my head.)