Disney Pandora and Phonetics

Try to picture a black trashcan filled with tissues...used of course. Score! One more has been shot in. My aim has not been so consistent all day until that last one.

Being sick is worth it when you are at home and your Mom can take care of you, when you don't have finals or work...that or any real responsibilities. Home is in Virginia.

But, right now, life is not too bad because I have Pandora and Disney songs keeping my mind occupied--You'll Be In My Heart...ahhh...memories of 1999.

Phonetics...test...why do you do this to me? It boggles my puny mind that God has all understanding. I'm so tip of the iceberg it's not even funny....

Thanks Pandora...you make me feel better by distracting me:

Critic

When I was a kid I thought that I should truly consider being a movie critic. I would go to the movies constantly, my Mom--the movie goer as she was and still is-- would always bring her sidekicks with her: mainly me, as she escaped the world with the dim lights, popcorn, and, if the movie was good, an escape into a different realm. When you forget about life for a bit then you know the movie was a good one.


I feel like my critical inclinations have followed me into my latter years. I walk around campus and things pop into my mind. As you can tell by the title of my blog, they are on occasion--critical. Let's define my type of critical as the kind that dictionary.com describes as: of essential importance. So, if my drift isn't caught, this blog and the things written are of essential importance. :D


I want to appoint myself to a patrol position: to the modesty police. Yes, I made up that title. No, I'm not part of the police force, nor will I ever be. 


I get opinionated about such things when I get interviewed for an ecclesiastical endorsement to go to the University in which I attend, which includes signing an Honor Code. The Honor Code consists in giving your word and your signature to follow and obey certain principles of the gospel, one of which is MODESTY. 


Modesty --"Modesty is an attitude of propriety and decency in dress, grooming, language, and behavior. If we are modest, we do not draw undue attention to ourselves. Instead, we seek to “glorify God in [our] body, and in [our] spirit” (1 Corinthians 6:20; see also 1 Corinthians 6:19)."


What is great is being taught details in which modesty can be followed as in wearing skirts,shorts, etc that cover the legs up til the knee and from not wearing cut off shirts but to have a sleeve. Basically: no short skirts no sleeveless shirts. Yes, we voluntarily sign up for this.This is part of modesty, but we do it because we respect our bodies and we know that Heavenly Father wants us to care for ourselves and have that respect for what He has given us. Also, to be obedient to his rules.  I could go on but, let's get to the rest, shall we?


Wednesday.5:15 p.m. There I was. In a glass building. Yes, people were looking in...I was in the library waiting there with Andrea for anyone who wanted to come find us to go watch the Ten Commandments. We were standing there and talking and laughing and people watching. (No, the laughing did not come from the people watching, or so I say. :) ) But, this was probably the 6th time of the day that I saw a girl walking with a beautiful outfit on and she seemed like a nice gal but, her skirt was very short. I really wanted to walk up to her and say, "Hey, how you doin'? You know what, that skirt is immodest (very short).Do you want to go home and change and then come back? Awesome."


Who enforces the honor code? Is it enforced? Are the consequences dispersed in personal blessing form--or the lack thereof? 


I'm just wondering how things work on campus.


 Let's not bottle up our feelings.

If there is a BYU Modesty Police I'd like to meet them. If they need volunteers, I have a busy schedule, but, I have plenty of time to speak up as I walk to and from work, campus, and home.

Not a prob.


I won't go into my feelings about the blue hair I see...nope...not today.

A Day of Ephiphanies

Today I found myself re-evaluating my life. I have no conclusion for the swarm of ideas that entered into my mind but I am brainstorming.

What are your thoughts about dreams? Perhaps my day of reflection came from how I woke up. I never say I had a nightmare, but I will say that I had a bad dream. One decision affected my entire happiness or lack thereof.

I saw myself in the temple kneeling at the altar about to be sealed for time and all eternity to a man. I did not know who he was, I did not see a face--which is already sort of freaky but makes sense since I'm not dating anyone. An idea crossed my mind of who it was but it entered and left as ideas usually do. As I dreamt I felt as thought it was real and then at other moments I felt like I was watching, standing behind myself, in the very same room. I do not recall the exact words that were spoken, but, I remember my feelings. There came a moment where I could exercise my agency and make it known that I changed my mind, that "no" I do not want this...and the feeling reconfirmed itself and it said, "Diana, no, this is not right". For a second I thought about it...and then I told myself that it would be okay, and I ignored my feeling. The second after I affirmatively consented to this eternal union and after the ceremony was over I knew with 100% surety that I had made the biggest mistake of my existence and did not know if there was something I could do to change what occurred.

From that point of my dream on it went through more emotions and scenarios but the bottom line is that I woke up grateful I am not close to that kind of decision, but, do hope that when that time to marry becomes a reality that I will have no doubts or such feelings and that I will feel nothing but peace and hope in the decision made.

Today I have been analyzing my life and had some interesting experiences. I watched the you tube videos on my wall about the man who truly experienced what we watched in the movie The Pursuit of Happyness. He made me re-evaluate myself because during his darkest days he constantly asked himself where he was going to be and where he was going. Today I've been thinking about what I want for myself. I listened to Elder Christoffersen's talk, he is an apostle of God, and his talk is called, Living a Consecrated Life. Life is short and we given the gift of time and the ability to use it how we will but we will be held accountable for how we use it. I started to think, What are you going to do with your life? How are you going to do it? How are you going to get there?

I know the purpose of life and the eternal perspective because my Heavenly Father made it known to me through his church--The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, but, what I refer to as in how I will live my life is about the quality of my earthly existence and trying to make sure and reflecting how I will use the time the Lord gives me on this earth until I will be judged for my works to be able to live with him someday. I want to use the time the Lord gives me well and not waste it and I do not want to look back and regret not building my talents and not using my time well. Opportunities are out there but so many loose them.

There are things I will be doing to give more of myself to a better cause. Here are my conclusions up 'til now:

-Start working on a writing project. I love to write. I have had dreams where I have written a book and maybe that's what I need to do, but, for now, I will write a biography of a woman that I truly look up to and admire. Her life has been character building and admirable and I know that there are not many people like her. It is my Mom.

- I need to volunteer somewhere. I have 3 options in mind and I am working toward figuring out where I will be giving my time

I will be working full-time this summer all I know that I need to do is look beyond myself and find and do what is required of me.

There are tons of other things but I need to think more about them. I'm pretty exhausted. I'm blogged out.

Pizza Hut & Spider Bites

Something is seriously wrong with me, the world, with what spiders are dining on OR D. all of the above because in less than a week I have gotten unwanted decorations on both of my arms.

With barely any sleep and with my eye lids extra droopy I went to work.I remember being taught by three Elders: Elder Preece, Elder Jones, and Elder Smith this morning. They were teaching me about the atonement of Jesus Christ and how with God anything is possible. I remember reaching and scratching my elbow and thinking...that feels funny...but then went back trying to focus on my task at hand. My day has been super busy. After clocking out I set up my laptop a few doors down from where I teach to have a room to take an online quiz...which i found out was cancelled! Time to go home...

Walking home and texting "Gina" (one of my best friends and I call each other the same name--a story will explain it in the near future). We met up at home, chatted, and planned on going out to eat.

Pizza Hut and Dairy Queen are not very far from my apartment so we went and took Jeff ("Gino") along with us. As we were waiting in line in Dairly Queen while our Pizza Hut pizza was making it's way towards our estomagos by it's preparation. While we were waiting we decided to all get a cone-- dipped of course (just say no to butterscotch, it's not real!). That's when Gina noticed the grossness of my elbow. I felt it, looked at it, and internalized it.  Questioning myself...what is seriously wrong with me? Why do these things get attracted to me? I am a spider magnet. Joy. They find me while i sleep and then stick their fangs into my defenseless elbow and arm. Should I be scared to go to bed tonight? What if I wake up and my face has a giant hive on it? Oh goodness...

...maybe I have elephantitis, or, lepracy? -______-

guestimated size: a deformed baseball

to be continued....

A Surprise Convo

~ I was walking to school one freezing cold morning and I saw this aged man running quite far off behind me. My first thoughts were, "You crazy old man, you have more discipline and drive than I do and I am half your age. I hope you don't fall. I turned my head back toward the direction I was going and fiddling with my headphones as to untangle them to put them in my cold ears, the runner caught up with me. I knew that because he spoke saying:

"Do you want good news?"

Fighting with myself since I prefer not to speak in the morning due to tiredness I forced out my polite response:

"Of course," with which he replied:

"There is only 49 days left until spring!"

Many thoughts flowed into my mind such as: he really must be counting down! and Maybe I look like I really need to know this with my marshmallow snow-beast coat on and a WHO IS THIS GUY? :)

"That is good news." PAUSE

He kept running by me and i closed the conversation with "Thank you", yes, very profound of me.

I don't think any runner can top that very precise informational conversation with a pedestrian.

I have 10 minutes

More than twice this year I've seen people carelessly walking around campus with a giant wad of toilet paper in one of their nostrils. Runny nose? I think that would be a horrific experience to be caught with anything protruding from my face besides my nose itself--attached my most important limb in all it's glory. I will admit, that right now I feel very much tempted to conform to their grossness because there is an unhealthy amount of liquid seeping from my nasal cavity. I hate being sick.

I've had two "epiphanies" this week:

"Does you Mother know you're dressed like that?"

You can interpret that one as you will--I thought that when I saw someone walking in a t-shirt and shorts when it's ridiculously cold outside--winter--snowy mountains...but immodesty on campus bugs me too.

and

"How is it possible that people get paid to play computer games?"

 I was walking to drop off a paper and saw tutors just playing games on their computers in the JKB. If I knew more about video games I'd know the name but they were probably making an army to go kill someone. I'm sure there could be something more productive to do. Am I judging? Yes. Are you judging me? Probably.

I could lie but it's not that kind of blog.

A Dream About Quarters

Waking up in the morning like I had been out and about is not exactly what I was going for when closed my eyes last night. It feels like a dream--wait it was a dream. Sometimes I feel guilty when i wake up after having strange memories of something that I wondered was real or not... like I should be able to know where I had been for the last few hours of my life but could not tell reality from surrealism. My body was in my room but last night my mind had been outside during mid-day walking on the sidewalk on 9th. east going south. As I was walking along I saw a quater.

( I know, it's not a quater. Google pics only can answer so many pleas)

No one should get overly excited, but I did.  With delight in my step I picked up a quater. My eye caught hold of another--really? Another one? Not complaining. I picked it up. Low and behold, as I kept continuing forward I kept finding more of them. They were multiplying and i started to be grateful for math. What I would find were quarters evenly dispersed-- waiting for me. As I came across them it was automatic to pick them and while doing so wondered who was watching and who had "dropped" them here.


As I kid whenever I would find a penny I would scream, sort of obnoxiously, "MINE!" and run to grab it. It was so bad even my family was aware that I was overly obsessed with finding coins on the ground. My brothers, as loving as they are (note the sarcasms?), planted a penny on the carpet in our living room. I was probably doing math problems my Mom gave me as homework (during summer vacation mind you) when my brother Phillip said, "Oh, look, there's a penny right here. I wonder who's it is?"--yep, he said that nonchalantly to himself...I should have known. I screamed, just like the naive and inoccent 8 year old that I was the four letter word: "MINE!". He laughed a while and then said, "Diana, we put that there." The fact that he said we meant that it was a conspiracy three brothers versus one sister. I probably got smug and stuck in it my pocket. I made my own rules as a kid...i chose not to believe but made the mental note: Don't listen to your brothers. Annnnd I stopped getting overly excited about a finding.


Was my subconscious getting to me? Is it from my Human Development class where I'm learning about Fraud and how the subconscious can withhold certain "truths"? If that is the case, then my eduction is paying off--I didn't realize I was learning anything yet and it's been 3 weeks. Woody Allen is right. 80 percent of success really is showing up.


i bent down and collected 2 quarters, then 3, and this process continued on as I with disbelief started to question the wealth I was receiving from the shower of quarters under my feet. Near the end of my quest I was led to a pile of quarters and a thrown and lonely leather wallet who laid upside down yet opened revealing no bills, and by the looks of it had lost it's owner. I picked it up. Distraught that all these silver circles of importance had an owner and was resolved to returning them, I reflected back to my disbelief that I knew that my find had been too good to be true.


When I saw the picture on the I.D. I wondered how this could be. I knew the owner. It was my Pearl of Great Price religion teacher from Winter 2009. DREAM. But, in reality, He always reminded me of a cartoon character, with his white hair and round body--he'd throw his hands in the air when he was tickled--intellectually. 


I think at the end I found him, and he started lecturing me. I woke up how my dream ended...slightly disappointed.