Publication #3

Not available for reading online, but as you can see in the table of contents, a critical essay I wrote on Chaim Potok and Mormon literature is being published in the upcoming issue of Irreantum, the journal of the Association for Mormon Letters. I'm really excited about this, especially since I now have a nicely edited piece of critical writing to use on my graduate school application.

Unfortunately, this is the last of my currently lined-up publications, so I guess I better get to work on some more essays! That is, after the baby comes and I recover and find something to force me to write instead of just waste time . . . .

Family Portrait, 39 weeks, Medium: Pumpkin

A perfect likeness, except my belly doesn't glow so much.

Functionality

Since my transition from full-time student to full-time stay-at-home almost-mom, I've become obsessed with creating functionality in my home. My previous roommates will think I was already like this, but they don't know the extent things have gotten to at this point. A few of my functional innovations (which you may want to try for yourself):

• Physical "In," "Pending," and "Out" boxes - One thing that used to drive me crazy at home was the piles of paper sitting around in various places. Now whenever I check the mail, receive coupons, receipts, invitations, or find a cool article to read later, I make sure it isn't urgent and then stick it in the inbox. Anything I need to file or mail goes in the outbox. Pending is for projects I'm not doing right now or things I have to wait for a response on. On Mondays, I go through and deal with everything in all three at once, as well as updating our financial information on Quicken. This may sound like the most basic organizing technique, but do you actually have one?
• Date idea folder - Speaking of the outbox, it also contains the date idea folder where I stash any fliers about local events.
  
• Pantry checklist - I've created a list of all the food and non-food items we need to buy on a regular basis organized by area, stuck it in a sheet protector, and placed a dry erase marker next to it. It's like the old "pad on the fridge" shopping list approach, except that when I go to make my list, I can quickly go over the list to make sure I'm not missing anything that's just about to run out. Plus I like having a list of all the stuff we need to live.
• Cord organization - The plague of modern technology is a little thing called cords. Every device you have comes with a whole plethora of cables, most of which you won't use frequently but which you have to keep somewhere just in case you ever want to plug your digital camera into the TV. Solution: wrap cords with elastic to prevent tangling, then sort according to what they input into. I have three boxes: power cords, USB cords, and A/V cords. The A/V cords are by the TV, where we might actually remember to use them.

And that's just the more creative stuff. I don't know how a household would really survive without a dedicated homemaker. The more I stay at home, the more necessary I think it is to do so. Sure, I kept on my feet pretty well as a student, but there was always a little chaos in the areas of keeping myself running. With one person per household dedicated to do these tasks full-time, the rest of your life becomes completely free. Anyway, I like it, even if I don't particularly like housework.

And no, I haven't had the baby yet.

Yatta!

Many people expressed doubts that it could be done in time, but I have yet to go into labor and here it is: the Wild Stripes baby blanket in all its glory!


Doing the hand sewing and embroidery was definitely the most difficult part. Now I know why people (women) invented quilting frames. I'm still unsatisfied with the bagginess of some parts of the backing, but since it's my first time I'm cutting myself a break.
I think the colors go pretty well with the baby bumpers my mom bought. So cute and so not pastel.

Publication #2

Check me out! This essay is available online and it's my favorite of my honors thesis. Plus the editing done by Segullah is awesome.

If you haven't heard of Segullah, it's a Mormon women's literary magazine. How's that for a specialized market? But really, it's a high quality publication; the print edition they sent to me is great. Someone should buy me a subscription for Christmas.

Obsessive Compulsive M&M Eating

An excellent post on OCD M&M eating disease on Light Refreshments Served:

Here’s what always happens when I tear into the bag:

1. I count the M&Ms. There are usually 21. Sometimes there are 20; occasionally there are 22. I give myself a mental high-five when I get 22, as if it were some kind of bonus or something.

2. I separate the M&Ms according to color.

3. I arrange the M&Ms in patterns, depending on what color combinations I end up with. If I have relatively equal numbers of the different colors, for example, I’ll probably do one line of each. If I have some colors with lots of candies and some with few, I’ll make flowers with the scarcer colors as the centers and the more plentiful ones as the petals.

4. Each time I eat an M&M, I rearrange the patterns to restore the symmetry or the artistry or whatever governing principle I have selected for arranging them in the first place.

5. As for the M&M that goes into my mouth, I generally prop it upright between my front top and bottom teeth, apply just enough pressure to split the colorful candy shell in half, and then let the exposed chocolate surface fall onto my tongue. Alternatively, sometimes I dissolve the candy in my mouth until the shell is all gone and I have just that tiny drop of pure chocolate left.

Um, I do all those things except the counting, although I now realize this seems like an excellent idea. If only I weren't in such a hurry for chocolate when I open the package! Also, I don't do flowers; if I have too few of a color, I usually create multi-color pyramids and eat the extras that don’t conform to the pattern. Also, I like to lick the rim of the candy shell until I get to the chocolate and then pry both halves off.

Further to this: is anyone else annoyed by the lack of purple M&Ms? They totally promised them in that "new color" contest a few years back and I still don't have them. :( It’s almost as bad as the lack of blue Skittles. Why can’t these candy makers cater to my OCD desires for rainbow colored candy?

(Light Refreshments Served is an interesting blog, BTW. I highly encourage visiting and subscribing to their RSS.)

On Business, Politics, and Morality

"Not one suggested I should simply hire honest people."
- A man in Sunday School on preparing to teach a seminar on reducing business fraud and risk

If you haven't read/heard/seen the recent chaos in the Wall Street economy, I highly suggest this essay on the Freakonomics blog (incidentally one of the most interesting books I've read and one of the most interesting blogs I follow). But as Doug Wright said today on his show, the basics of this economic crunch come down to this: people have spent the past decade or two buying more than they can really afford, on the level of individuals and businesses and multi-trillion dollar organizations.

And they have been allowed to do it because everyone has banked on things going exactly right, the economy continuing to expand and grow at rates ridiculous enough to cover their unwise investment today. It's become the mindset of our country that it's better to borrow the equivalent of a year's salary to lease a new luxury car now than to spend a few months or years saving in order to own a used car flat out. The kinds of decisions business owners are encouraged to make are the same ones we panic to see children with no financial education making in their own lives: spending the Christmas bonus in November before you actually have it, treating credit cards like free money, and having absolutely no long-term plan for what to do if they were in an accident or lost a job.

I admit to being one of the last people who should write an essay having anything to do with business. I received the lowest passing score on my IB Business test, I took no business classes in college, and I don't pretend to understand why some stocks rise and some fall, excepting the obvious bad products and frauds. What I do know about business comes from growing up in a house where money was tight. In our home, we didn't eat out even once a week, much less the rumored 1-in-4 meals that school aged children consume at fast food restaurants. I certainly didn't grow up in poverty, as the fact that I was able to attend college attests, but as a child I certainly felt deprived because my parents were frugal in a spending-mad world. I didn't understand why I should have a hamburger with communal drink and fries rather than the shiny Happy Meal with the cool toys.

But it seems that my upbringing has given me a better education in business finance than much of Wall Street. When I have an excess, I don't go blow it on some new gadget or, worse, commit it to a monthly payment which I won't be able to make on my regular income. I avoid risky deals except with expendable income I can afford to lose. (This is mostly theoretical--as a young married couple in grad school about to have a baby, expendable income isn't something we have lying around, but that's my future investment strategy regardless.) And most importantly, I know to avoid debt except for reasonable investments in education and a home (which I expect to actually pay off someday, thank you very much).

This last point is interesting, because one of the places I learned this principle is perhaps the least likely business school in the world: the pews of my local church. Have not the prophets been warning us for years against the very thing which caused this credit crunch? It's not all that recent; this quote from 1979 seems like it could have been written today:

Those who structure their standard of living to allow a little surplus, control their circumstances. Those who spend a little more than they earn are controlled by their circumstances. They are in bondage (President N. Eldon Tanner, "Constancy Amid Change," Ensign, Nov. 1979, 81).

Yet one of the classic ironies of Mormondom is that Utah has one of, if not the highest rate of bankruptcy in the nation. Even in the land of "Zion," it appears that we are unable to listen to the voice of the prophets. If we had, we would not be in the position that we find ourselves waking up to this week.

And the more I think about it, the more I see obedience to gospel laws as the key to solving all the major problems of our society. Corrupt CEOs and businesses with no foundation could be elimated and thousands of those without jobs or without satisfactory jobs could be rescued if we could only live according to Jacob 2:17-19. Problems with our education system could largely be solved by parental involvement and children who truly valued education. Obviously, crime could be abolished as in Fourth Nephi with charity, trust, and righteousness.

I see not much difference between the two men running for president other than which bandaid they choose to stick on the problem, because the only true way to solve the problem is the change the people. And the only way to change the people is through following the commandments that God has given us:

True doctrine, understood, changes attitudes and behavior. The study of the doctrines of the gospel will improve behavior quicker than a study of behavior will improve behavior (President Boyd K. Packer, “Do Not Fear,” Ensign, May 2004, 79).

A moral people is the true solution to almost every issue on the presidential platforms, and unfortunately, it's one of the few things that neither of them would dare have the courage to campaign on. I probably sound a lot more dogmatic than I mean to: in reality, this is no fault of Obama or McCain. The only true solution is one that no one can campaign on because it cannot be effected by a government. Righteousness cannot be mandated upon those who are unwilling. A Zion society cannot be legislated, it must be chosen. When Zion is achieved, politics is superfluous. But without righteousness, politics will always be the least effective solution to our problems.

And because of this, sitting at home lately watching and listening and reading the news, I begin to feel like Mormon lamenting his fallen people:

O that ye had repented before this great destruction had come upon you!

Cravings

Books. Where have all the good ones gone?

Rubix Cube: The Cake. 'Nuff said.

Now that's a baby blanket I can handle being seen with


My brain still hasn't figured out that I'm not going to class this semester. I miss classes.

Technically complies with my recent decision to buy more vests, but allows me to wear as a sweater, though I'm not particularly fond of the bobbles on the front

Disturbing

Every night for the past week, my dreams have ended with me having to kill someone. Not in a war or anything. Usually some serial killer or burglar who I know will kill everyone else if I don't handle them first. Often, they've killed off people I know right before. I have no weapons, so I usually end up strangling them, bashing their head on something, or drowning them (most recently). It's slow and scary and methodical and drawn out. Often times I half wake-up but force the dream to continue because I know it's so important for them to be gone and I need closure.

I don't think we need an expert in dream interpretation to say that this is a little disturbing. Thoughts on what this could mean about my psyche?

Baby By Numbers: Distance and Pain

• 1.3 - miles between our new apartment in Springville and George's family's house. This is nice because we can hop over there when we need things, and when the baby comes they will be close by to help, but bad because . . .
• 8 - miles between our apartment and campus. Yeah, the commute is going to suck, and I confess to being a bit worried about what will happen when I go into labor and have to call George back from campus. :( Ah well.
  
• 2 - Extra Strength Tylenol I have taken today. On Saturday my back started hurting like the devil. The kind of feeling like you've been hunched over too long, only much worse. Ever since, I've been trying to decide which is worse, popping pills or dealing with the pain. Did I mention that both George and I are anti-medication? This doesn't mean I don't want an epidural or anything, just that we don't like taking medicine for everyday pain.
  
• 770 - dollars we spent on dental work for George yesterday: 2 wisdom teeth pulled, 4 cavities filled. About the same time my back pain hit, George's teeth started hurting; I eventually convinced him we had to do something about it, despite not having dental coverage. Hurray for the Discounted Service Plan from BYU--I'm sure it could have cost a lot more. And the dentist we went to had the coolest office I've ever seen: massage chairs and free food! Pregnant lady paradise! But let me tell you, it's not been fun having a pregnant lady with back pain and her husband hopped up on painkillers in the same house. Nobody wants to be responsible. Everyone wants to guilt trip the other person into figuring out what to make for dinner. But to be fair, George has been really great about it. He's actually healing well (meaning no longer on prescription pain meds) and pushing me to keep doing things through the pain, which has helped. Now he's talking about having the wisdom teeth made into earrings for me. (Think again, silly brain.)
• 4 - pounds I gained over the three weeks between my prenatal appointments. No wonder my back is hurting. And all my maternity clothes aren't fitting any more either. I take comfort in the fact that I still weigh about 15 pounds less than I did when I graduated from high school, so obviously my body can handle it. It's just the distribution that's awkward.
• 4 - first names we've narrowed down to. Luke and Lucas are tied for first (I'm still not convinced about Lucus), with Adam and Quincy as runners-up. As for middle names, who knows.
  
• 1 - years George and I will have been married as of Saturday! Come to think of it, George also had dental work the Wednesday before we got married. This better not become a tradition. Anyway, we're headed up to Logan for the weekend to celebrate, to check out the trail for the Top of Utah Marathon George will be running in September, and to get a Bear Lake Raspberry shake that I've been craving all summer.
• 9 - weeks left until my due date! Wow, things are going fast.
  

The Coolest Page on the Web Ever

Go here and search for me.

Now if only they would catalog it so I could coerce people into checking it out.

An Argument against Moral Relativism

I'd like to say I've always held that moral relativism is an illusion, but I can't quite be certain about that--there may have been some places in high school that I succumbed to the pressure of liberal peers all participating in Model United Nations. However, somewhere between all the reading of C.S. Lewis and growing up, I've come to believe that so-called moral relativists are mostly in denial. They fixate on an aspect of morality that most people have known about since biblical times and claim that it's new and enlightened, while those who practiced it in the past were hypocritical.

I bring up this topic because of a very interesting review of Batman: The Dark Knight that I just read in the Wall Street Journal. Quotage:

Leftists frequently complain that right-wing morality is simplistic. Morality is relative, they say; nuanced, complex. They're wrong, of course, even on their own terms.

Left and right, all Americans know that freedom is better than slavery, that love is better than hate, kindness better than cruelty, tolerance better than bigotry. We don't always know how we know these things, and yet mysteriously we know them nonetheless.

The true complexity arises when we must defend these values in a world that does not universally embrace them -- when we reach the place where we must be intolerant in order to defend tolerance, or unkind in order to defend kindness, or hateful in order to defend what we love.

I can't vouch for the accuracy of their analysis of the film, but the moral argument rings true to me.

Baby by Numbers: Beginning of the End

• 2/3 - of the way through my pregnancy on Friday. Third trimester, here we come!
• 1/3 - done with baby Busby's Wild Stripes blanket. And George thought it wouldn't get done in time. I had my doubts about the color substitution, but it looks really nice so far.
• 62 - number of miles I've biked over the past month accompanying George on his long marathon training runs on Saturdays. Don't worry, there's not a lot of physical exertion involved in keeping up with a runner, even an awesome one like my hubby. However, I wish I had some exercise pants with more support for my enlarging maternal tummy. After 3 hours of bumping up and down, little Wilson is very angry.
• 6 - names for baby Busby we brainstormed last week running that start with the letter J: Jack, Jacob, James, Jonathan, Joseph, Jonas. In methodical Busby fashion, we decided it would be most efficient to simply work our way through the alphabet for names we might actually feel comfortable calling our baby. It's very strange to face the prospect of coming up with permanent identification for another human being. Other popular letters include C (Caleb, Christian, Conner, Clayton), G (George, Grant, Gregory, Gabriel), and S (Samuel, Stephen, Saul). Please regard all information as to Wilson's actual name as a rumor pending further confirmation in 3 months. :D
• 2 - times I threw up Saturday. Probably because I ate an entire container of movie popcorn, followed by several Oreos, and an apple. Dang baby won't let me get away with eating junk.
• 1 - cute knitted baby hat a lady in the ward gave to us at the Friday night game night. I love it so much. It made me realize that I'm happy to be having a winter baby. Bundled up babies are so adorable.
• 4 - days left on my temp job and George's internship. Wow, our time in Washington has flown. I'm really excited to go home. Our corporate housing feels like a hotel, right down to the lack of overhead lighting in the living area. (What makes people think that sporadic lamps will be enough? It never works.)
• 1:58 - length of our flight back to Utah. Hopefully I won't feel too sick.

Understanding Washington

In most states, weather advisories are issued when there's going to be heavy rain.

Today in Redmond, there's a non-precipitation advisory in effect. Good to know it's not going to rain until Sunday afternoon.

That, my friends, is Washington.

Temporary Name

So I got sick of referring to baby as Baby; therefore I've given it, er, him, a temporary name: Eggar Albert Wilson Busby. I call him Wilson, ala Cast Away: he looks like a volleyball under my shirt and I feel slightly crazy talking to/about him.

Cute little Wilson.

And my yarn for the Wild Stripes blanket arrived today! Yay for having something to do on the bus that won't make me sick.

The Answer

Even though that last one may look like a dinosaur, the doctors have assured me that it's definitely a baby . . . a baby boy! Wow, my commenters are so smart, or lucky. Any of you want to buy some lottery tickets for me? Anyway, George and I are both really happy and excited.

Now on to the name game. You're welcome to offer suggestions, which I will probably ignore. George's dad says if he's born on Oct 27th, we have to name him after George's grandfather (also George Edward Busby), but George isn't really sure. I personally am fond of the name we found reading the D&C that morning: Ruggles. Draco is also a good possibility if he has his father's hair. Or Earnest?

No, really, we're looking for something normal.

The Question

Today's the day we find the answer to the question: is it a baby or an exotic South American parasite? The answer will be posted later this evening. Take a guess if you like.

Baby by Numbers

So after having been chastized directly ("So. . . I just noticed the ratio of posts to your blog in the last three years.") and indirectly ("Now I know the big secret. . . . : Real writers write everyday.") by two of the best writers I know, I'm going to try to bring this blog into a comeback. No, for reals this time. At first, I had too little time to blog (honors thesis/finals), but lately I've had too much time to blog. That may not make sense unless you've spent a month alone in a new apartment in a neighborhood you don't know with no car. That's a recipe for ennui if I ever knew one--I couldn't get up the energy to read, much less write to my witty standard. But now that I have a part-time job, things are a lot better. I still only work 4 hours a day and it's temp work, but it's enough to force my brain to come out of hibernation and think about things.

During all that filing and stapling, I've been contemplating a little feature which I hope to make semi-regular on this blog for the next few months--i.e. until the baby arrives. After reading a bunch of websites and magazines on pregnancy, I'm highly bored with the standard pregnancy story. The excitement, the worries, all of that is all pretty much the same. At the same time, I know my friends want to be informed of my pregnancy progress. I've decided these two problems can be reconciled with the writer's favorite tool for adding interest to standard subjects: innovative formatting! And without further ado, I present "Baby by Numbers":

• 245 - bus I ride to work which still sometimes makes me sick, even though the morning sickness has mostly subsided. It doesn't help when the bus driver is a displaced chain-smoking cowboy.
• 5 - days at my temp job before somebody figured out I was pregnant.
• 12 - colors in this "Wild Stripes" baby blanket I want to knit. Baby things that aren't in pastel? Sign me up! I don't know why I'm so against pastel--probably because they wash me out. Unfortunately, a lot of the recommended colors are discontinued. I'm terrified to try to pick out 12 colors that will work together! Help?
• 3-5 - times I wake up each night. It's getting really hard to sleep. Three factors are combining to ruin my sleep: I am getting bigger and therefore more difficult to position, the bed at our corporate housing is uncomfortable (I miss our IKEA bed), and the sheets and blankets refuse to stay put and get all wrinkley. Did I mention that straight sheets and blankets are my OCD obsession? I cannot sleep on things that are wrinkley and slide around.
• 1 - baby blankets I currently own.
• 1 - baby outfits I currently own. I expect these last two in increase dramatically very soon because . . .
• 14 - days until my ultrasound on June 18th! George and I can't wait to find out it it's a boy or a girl; it'll make the whole we're-going-to-have-a-baby thing a lot more real.
• 21 - weeks until baby is due. For those of you who don't speak pregnancy, that'd be 4-5 months. :D

A Landmark

Yesterday was a landmark day in the history of my pregnancy. I was walking through downtown Seattle by the Space Needle with Julie and her 6 month-old baby, Abby. Some lady noticed Abby--there are very few babies in Seattle--and said, "Oh, what a cute baby! How old is she?" Then she looked at me and said, "And it looks like you're expecting too."

A risky statement I probably wouldn't have made as a by-stander, but nonetheless, yay!

Granted, the shirt I was wearing exaggerates the size of my belly, but nonetheless, yay!

Department Elevators

I've been wondering for a while now if the behavior of the elevators in a building can tell you something about the people who work there.

For example, there is a bank of two elevators in the JKB on BYU campus. One of these elevators will always be on the second floor, the main floor. If you call an elevator on the second floor, step in, and press a button, the elevator doors will remain open until the other elevator has returned to the second floor to take its place. You can actually hear the second elevator dinging down the floors as you stand there in your wide-open elevator looking like an idiot. If you call an elevator on the fourth floor and one elevator is in the basement picking people up while the other is idle on the second floor, which elevator will come to get you? Not the completely unused one on the second floor (remember the importance of manning the main level!), but the one in the basement which is full of people and will probably stop at the second floor anyway on its way up. By the way, this building houses some of the humanities department. In the other humanities building, the elevators talk.

Consider by contrast the elevator in the computer science wing of the TMCB. There is only one elevator, so it always comes to your floor. When it arrives, it dings twice to let you know its there. However, if you push a button before it finishes dinging, the elevator cuts off, mid-ding, closes, and immediately zips you up to the floor you wanted. This elevator is smart enough to know that when you push a button, it means you actually wanted to go to that floor. And quickly. Imagine that.

But then again, the fact that I've taken the time to figure out the elevator behavior tells something about me.