New Years Resolutions

Last year, I started out my New Years post by saying "this is the new year and I don't feel any different" (a line borrowed from my absolute favorite band DCFC). This year, I cannot say that.

I feel different. Not so much that it's the New Year, more because a bunch of different aspects of my life are coalescing around the New Year. Which makes the New Year a good target to center my feelings around.

I'll be starting the last semester of my undergraduate degree on Wednesday. I am learning more about myself now than I have ever consciously considered before. I feel like this New Year is the start of a new me, a new phase in my life, a period of new spiritual discovery and intellectual growth. This New Year is the beginning of the rest of my life. :) And I'm ready to embrace it. The good, the bad, the ugly, the divine. I'm ready to face what I have been afraid to really confront before: myself, in all my light and dark and all shades of colors and grays.

And therefore, my resolutions this year are a bit different than the last but before we get to them, let's review last year's and evaluate :) because evaluation is key to success. My resolutions for 2009 were:

1. Go to a class at my school gym at least once a week.
2. Dress up each day that I go to my internship or work
3. Keep my room clean
4. Write Blake regularly
5. Budget

I didn't go to a gym class EVERY week but I definitely improved. Especially last semester, I started going to a rock climbing class on Wednesdays and had a Tennis class on Mondays. I also started taking pole dancing lessons. It felt good to exercise regularly. I didn't do much in December but I plan on getting a membership to a dance place and regularly attending classes there.

I did dress up for my internship and started doing better for work as well.

My room clean? ha ha ha, big fail on that one. But I cleaned it up for New Years and intend to keep it that way.

I did start writing Blake more regularly and then he came home in February. Unfortunately, Blake and I broke up in October. I miss him a lot and hope he is doing well.

Budget, yeah, didn't really do that one either lol but it is hard when all of your money goes to tuition. My study abroad to France didn't help things but I wouldn't trade that for anything. I'm ending up having to take out another loan for school but it will lead to a better quality of life for me and help me not be so frantic at the start of every month when I don't have enough money to make my payments. I figure it will help me more in the long run anyways, because then I will actually be able to learn how to budget instead of having every cent go to tuition.

My resolutions this year focus more on character development and relationships. They're a bit more vague but I hope that they will continue to make me into a better person and influence my long-term future for the better while improving my quality of life and the lives of my friends and family. In no particular order:

1. Continue to take care of my physical body. Exercise regularly, eat well, and present myself in a way that reflects how I feel about my body (which I love) and the situation.
2. Be honest. With myself. With others. I have a tendency to avoid conflict. It's just part of my personality. But sometimes that tendency gets in the way of being completely honest with myself and others. I will learn to be honest while being tactful and respectful. In this way, I will avoid conflict later on by addressing problems as they come up in the most ethical manner possible.
3. Improve my relationships with family. My little sisters are growing up and it is so weird to see. But it is wonderful, too. I feel like we are starting to relate to each other as adults and friends in addition to sisters. I want to treat them kindly and with respect to show my love for them. I will extend this effort to my father, mother, and little brother.
4. Improve my relationships with friends. I will keep plans with friends and be on time. I will show sincere interest in their lives and make an effort to spend quality time with them to get to know them better. In this way, I will communicate that they are important to me and be the kind of friend that I want to have.

To be sure that I will be successful in these goals, I will make a list of ways to do implement the changes and review my efforts monthly. I will need to organize myself and be proactive with the small day to day stuff in order to focus on more important things, so that is kind of a resolution as well.

Happy New Year everyone! I wish you success in your resolutions (if you make them) and in your endeavors of 2010. :)

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Questions

The Faithful Dissident is a blog I've found in the Bloggernacle (see wikipedia for a definition of that term). I am a fan of said blog and particularly was interested in FD's post from yesterday, Orthoprax Mormonism.

My personal experience resonated with the history related and it touched on some topics that have occupied my thoughts of late. And although not directly on topic, it resurfaced some questions I have been struggling with. For instance: Is it wrong to be part of a community when you don't necessarily hold the same beliefs of that community? How do you stay true to yourself within that community while not offending others? And will said community ever truly embrace you as a member while you hold estranging beliefs?

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Margaret Merrill Toscano

As I have been contemplating religion, Mormonism, feminism and my place (or lack thereof) in all three of those areas, I have discovered a Mormon history I never knew about. This history includes Margaret Merrill Toscano. She is a wonderfully intelligent and well-spoken woman whose strength of testimony and character is admirable. I'll let you find out about her yourself if you feel so inclined but I wanted to share some of her words that resonated with me.

First is a talk of hers given at the Sunstone Symposium in August 2006:
"Are Boys More Important Than Girls? The conflict of gender difference and equality in Mormonism"
This quote from about halfway through the entire talk is one of the problems I see in Mormonism that I can never fully articulate to my member friends and sisters:

Men define doctrine, policy, and practice. They define normative behaviors. They create the moral context for all departments of Mormon life. They literally hold the keys of the kingdom on earth and in heaven.

The second thing I wanted to share is an interview she gave to PBS for the documentary "The Mormons."
I think the interview is a good summary of her history with the LDS Church and her subsequent excommunication.

I wonder how I never knew there were (and are!) people -- women more specifically -- that had the same concerns I do now. It is a comfort to find them. But the question I struggle with is how to act and react, and where to turn in the future. This is a troubling mess of its own and one too big for me to get into right now, so I'll save it for another day.

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Brandon's Holiday Dinner

While I'm posting pictures, I might as well tell you about this weekend's game night. Brandon got a turkey from his work, so he wanted to have a potluck like dinner party. The only problem was he just randomly decided that it was going to be last night.

He texted his roommate Aaron to put the turkey in the oven to reheat and then told Tashi and I to get some guests and bring some food. It was random and crazy but we pulled it together (mostly because of Aaron's willingness to go to the grocery store 3 times in the course of an hour). I made a butternut squash puree from The Pioneer Woman Cooks. Tashi whipped up some instant potatoes and we had corn, green beans, and stuffing. It was all pulled together in about an hour, ha ha, just in time for when Brandon got home.

For dessert, we went to Baskin Robins then went back and played some games. We played "The Game of Things" and laughed a lot then played "Bang!" It was an enjoyable evening.

Brandon making a toast

Eating pictures are a must, this is Tashi

Robbie

Kaylynn, she was starving and wouldn't look up lol

As close of an eating picture for Aaron as we could get

The dinner, see my squash puree? :)

Brandon's cat, PepperJack transformed into a gangster with a hoodie and blue ponytail

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Pictures from the Lady Gaga Bday Party

So, here are a few pictures from Tashi and I's Lady Gaga themed birthday party :)

No one else got as into is as we did, so we are the only ones really dressed up lol but we had fun. Tashi has some good shots of our full outfits. I'll see if I can get them from her later.

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My Fabulous Weekend

This weekend was great. I really needed it, too. I've been going through a rough time emotionally and feeling depressed for about a month. So this weekend really helped pull me out of the dumps and made me happy so I thought I'd share some of it with you and remind myself about the good things in life.

This post is really really long. So in summary, I went to "New Moon" on Thursday with my good friend. Friday I was hanging out with Tashi. Our original plans fell through but we ended up getting Ben & Jerry's and watching "Brokeback Mountain" at her place. It was a sad movie but good sister time.

Saturday I had AMP which is something I look forward to every month. And later that day, I went to my friends' house warming party for a bit then went to Wendover with Brandon and Tashi. It was my first time there and I feel pretty lucky because I borrowed $20 from a friend and left with $50 in my favor.

Sunday was good too (with the exception of church which I will talk about later), my family had a birthday dinner for me and Tashi. My dad made a delicious vegetarian meal and a red velvet cake for me and a white cake for Tashi.

For a more detailed description along with an overly deep discussion on Twilight, read on :)


So it all started Thursday with my Art History presentation. My group has been great to work with first of all and I've made some friends in the process. Which is pretty awesome considering that sometimes at the end of group projects you end up hating your group members. Our presentation was on the importance and influence of canons in Egyptian and Greek art and the connection between the two canons.

We dressed up in togas and to open our presentation, we did a short interpretive dance showing the evolution of art from the Egyptians to the Greeks. I love that class. The teacher is so great and fun. She was laughing and really engaged. She told us that we "wouldn't get penalized" if we used power point lol but she discouraged it.

It made me think of a project I did once in Jr. High where we had to create something to show our understanding of a Greek myth/god instead of writing a paper or presentation. I made a stop motion video using illustrations I had drawn on the computer. It was so much fun and I wish school in general was more open with artistic presentations and alternative ways of presenting what we have learned. Sorry for the tangent but I just think art and creativity are so important and a great way to learn about things and to learn about ourselves.

So, back to my weekend. After my classes ended that evening, I went to "New Moon" with my friend Kelsey. For those of you who know Kelsey and my other girlfriends from High School, you will appreciate the back story here. Kelsey's cousin's friend (ha ha) had rented out an entire theatre for the opening show and given tickets out to her friends. Kelsey didn't ask for any tickets for us girlfriends because we are known to poke fun of Twilight during our annual summer camping trips. Kelsey is a big fan so she doesn't really appreciate our teasing. The other thing is that most of us are Jacob fans and Kelsey is in the Edward camp, which also leaves her standing on her own during our Twilight discussions.

She ended up having an extra ticket, however, and decided that I could be invited because by myself I couldn't tease her too much or make too much fun of the movie. Kelsey's family all came in shirts and sparkles (so they would be like the Stephanie Meyer version of Vampires in the sun). And the theater was full of young girls and middle aged moms in similar get up. When the movie started, the room was filled with screams which continued throughout the film everytime a key character appeared for the first time or whenever a boy removed his shirt.

Overall, I thought the movie was enjoyable. It's almost just fun because of all the hype around it. It is cute, too, despite and maybe even because of the cheesiness and bad acting. I am firmly, however, rooted in the Jacob camp it's time to get a little bit Twilight geeky here which gives me a small amount of shame to admit).

I have too many mixed feelings about Edward. Yes, his connection with Bella is interesting and intense and we all love the idea of true, invincible, eternal love that pretty much knows no limitations but he is also emotionally controlling and capital C creepy. Stalking her and watching her sleep? CREEPY. Telling her that she is the only one who can hurt him and that he only lives for her (where she to leave his life would be meaningless), then turning around and leaving her by lying and saying she isn't good for him, all in an attempt to 'protect' her, and then attempting to kill himself because he thinks she is dead, while slightly romantic and endearing in a vampire kind of way, is, I think, emotionally abusive and controlling.

Is Edward really the kind of guy that teenage girls should be fantacising about? I think Jacob is a much better pick. He's a real guy. He has hobbies and other interests. He has a sense of humor that extends beyond the morbid irony of his relationship with Bella. He makes Bella laugh. He makes her happy. And, honestly, can you really say that Edward is hotter? I don't think so, not after seeing the bare back and smooth chest of Jacob compared to furry pale Edward coming out of the Vulturi strong hold. Jacob's hair is also a million percent better than Edwards, long or short. He also smiles instead of having a pained, sulking face on all the time. And with that I'll get off my Jacob team rant lol.

In other Twilight news, a communications professor at Westminster, Christy Siefert wrote an interesting article about the books for Bitch Magazine called "Bite Me! (Or Don't)". She's getting a lot of attention recently because it was selected for an anthology of writings about sex (which is kind of ironic because the article is actually about abstinence).

Twilight is a fun series and I will see the other movies that come out but I think it's a little scary when people go crazy over it (ha ha, like I just did). I think the huge impact it has had on popular culture deserves some critical attention. But, like I said, I did have a good time and generally enjoyed the movie.

O geez, I am sorry, this whole Twilight rant could have been a post on its own.

So, finally moving to Friday... :) My sister Tashi and I have been taking pole dance lessons. No, it is not a stripping class. Nor is it skanky. It IS a lot of fun, hard work, requires strength, flexibility, stamina, etc. just like any other excercise. We learn a lot of cool tricks like the following:
Fallen Angel (also called the Butterfly)
Scorpio
Gemini (very similar to Scorpio)
Chopper

But we couldn't afford the class for November but we knew of a bar in Odgen that has amateur pole contests on Friday night and we decided to go to bet some practice in. However, our plans were thwarted when I realized I still haven't renewed my liscense. They wouldn't let us in because they thought it was a fake. Lame.

We decided to just kick back after that. We got some Ben & Jerry's and watched Brokeback Mountain at her apartment. It is a sad movie. Kind of slow moving and doesn't get deep enough into the characters I thought but it still tugged at your hearstrings for all of the characters.

Saturday morning I had an Alumni Mentoring Program (AMP) meeting. AMP is a program at my school that sets students up with alumnis working in fields they are interested in. The students in the program also meet once a month to talk about personal development. I love AMP. It's like group therapy for me. I don't even know the people in my group on a personal level but I would be willing to share nearly everything about me with them. It's a safe place where we all care about each other and talk about things that you just don't really talk about regularly. Any weekend with AMP in it is a good one.

Saturday night, I went to a housewarming party for my friend Sage and his roommate Ryan. Sage and I met through my best friend Tara. We started all hanging out (me, Sage, and Tara) when we all lost our significant others within three months of each other. Sage and his long time gf broke up and Tara and I periodically lost our bfs to missions. So ever since then, we've been hanging out and supporting each other. Our situations have changed. Sage has a new gf and I lost my love for real, but we still understand each other in ways that other people don't. So it was good to celebrate with him and Ryan and friends and see their new place.

After stopping by for the party, I left for Wendover with my twin sister and her bf. We went to the Rainbow and met with some friends. I don't really have any money, so I borrowed a twenty from a friend. At the end of the night, I left with 50 bucks in my pocket. It was definitely luck. I got some really good hands in black jack. But it was so much fun playing. I could see how gambling would get addictive. Especially if you lost a bunch, because then you'd always be looking to get it back with a bit of luck and the rush of a big win.

Brandon, Tashi and I were all to tired to drive back that night so we stayed in the cheapest hotel we could find. Brandon affectionately nick named it 'crusty sheets'. Gross. lol but really, it wasn't bad.

We drove back Sunday so I could be back in time to go to church with my friend. I will talk about that in a separate post because it was kind of upsetting and will detract from the rest of the weekend.

That night, we had Tashi and I's birthday dinner (only like a week late lol) but it was good. My dad made a yummy vegetarian meal with a great lettuce wrap appetizer. We had cake and ice cream and sat around the table playing games and exchanging birthday wishes (each member of the family wishes something for the birthday girl for the next year). Good times, that. :)

Well, we made it through. I am impressed if you managed the whole thing.

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Of Birthdays and Moms

My twin sister and I were born a month early, which isn't unusual for twins. But because of this, my parents had only attended one class of many that teach new parents about the birthing process. Since my mom and dad didn't really know what they were doing, they decided to just hang out for a while (lol why? I have no idea)before heading to the hospital. My dad began calling his family telling them we would soon be on our way.

When they got around to calling the hospital, they were told to get there quick! They called my mom's parents as they were heading out the door. My Grandma Maddie and Grandpa began the drive from Logan.

Last Tuesday, Grandma Maddie called me to wish me a happy 22 birthday. She said she knew the moment I was born. My mom explained that while Grandma Maddie and Grandpa were on their way to Salt Lake, Grandma had a sudden, sharp pain in her stomach that caused her to buckle forward in pain. When she arrived at the hospital and found that Tashi and I had been delivered by C-section, she discovered that the pain happened at exactly the same time my mom was being cut open.

I love when my mom tells the stories of how her children were born (as happens on our birthdays in a tradition of sorts). In the stories, I sense the spiritual power of life and motherhood. It has given me a desire to learn more about my matriarchal history. I wish I knew more about my Grandma Jar. I wish I took more advantage of how close I live to my Grandma Maddie and even more so, my Mom. God knows I was difficult to her in my teenage years. I think sometimes it was because Tashi and I had each other so we didn't need her as much.

I thought about my mom a lot on this birthday, because she was my age when I was born. Also, because I spent the night with her at the movies. My friends were all working, busy, or are married. My sister was out at dinner with her boyfriend. In my recently single state I felt doomed to spend the night alone after a long day of work and school. But my mom made it special. And even though we don't talk very much, she somehow knows just what to do, which is why I will remember this birthday as one of the best.

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