WIMotW: Edict #3

When I'm Master of the World, my third declaration will be the healthy ceasing of cigarette smoking. We'll turn the area of the factories into reclaimed areas for after school learning and rec places where kids can explore their talents. All of the money whored up by the companies will become our funds for this process. Factory workers can be transitioned to different jobs created by the construction of the building.
I see this as a win-win-win-win for all involved. More wellness trips to the dr than the current alternative. Punishment would be tree or flower planting or something. Or maybe hugging trees... Something like that.
All's I know is that we gotta keep growing tobacco to help out those cows in some way.


Now, to make this WIMofW less boring, you should all want this.

a gum wrapper and a match (in portuguese)

One day I was walking up a street during my mission and there was a couple with their two sons walking toward us. Perfect street contact. I walked up to them and introduced myself. I asked them their names and the dad said his name was João Batista, his wife was Maria, their sons was José and their other son was Macguyver.

Remembering a realization

Tonight while we were at my grandma's watching TED.com videos, I was reminded of a realization that I had one day near the end of 7.5 month stint in my first mission area.

I was walking up a hill that I had walked up I can't tell you how many times previously when something crossed my mind. I thought back on this man that we'd taught months earlier, Rivaildo, who'd ditched us on discussion #5 and how much we'd hurt because of it. And then I thought of the girls that had just crossed to the other side of the street when they saw me coming. (I was quite the known quantity after 7 months.)
I realized that we'd get totally bummed after losing someone that we'd been teaching for a while, but we'd chuckle over the ones who'd cross the street (what else you gonna do?). Heavenly Father, however, would be sad over the ones who'd crossed the street because they'd lost out on an opportunity.
I also realized in that moment that since obviously not everyone was going to get baptized, it was my job to make sure that every time I talked with someone, they would feel hope for their future and heavenly love.

Anyway, that just popped into my mind tonight, so I thought I'd share the story.

Favorites of the 20th Century

A few weeks ago I set out to make a list of my 100 favorite songs of the 20th century. It sorta blew up in my face because I couldn't keep it at 100. It's now at 139.
This link should take you to the Google Doc so that you can see all 139. Oh blast. 140. I forgot that Cher song. Long live mesh clothing.

My love for Gladys Knight and the Pips, the Staples Singers, Marvin Gay, Van Morrison, Smokey Robinson and Aretha Franklin has already been expressed.
I do need to add in Jackson Browne right here.

So can you recognize what Ralph Vaughn Williams' Five Variants of Dives and Lazarus doubles as in Mormondom?

And how about those cameos in Walking on Broken Glass. I think Annie Lennox chose poorly.
You've gotta love Biz Markie.
I can still remember my 5th grade teacher complaining about Bonnie Raitt winning the grammy for this song. He's crazy. Do you know her Angel From Montgomery?

If you're not familiar with the Estonian Arvo Pärt, you need to listen to his music. Wow.

How does one narrow down a list of Beatles songs? Well, one rotates through favorites.

And I've already mentioned Tears For Fears on my blog before. Shout and Sowing the Seeds of Love have no odd ties to my childhood, but the songs rock.

I went a bit Sondheim crazy and sorta broke my own rule of no more than 5, but I'm justifying it because they come from different musicals. Children Will Listen, No One Is Alone, Finishing the Hat, Beautiful, Pretty Lady, Children and Art, Move On and Johanna are works of genius.
Double Blast: 141. Not a Day Goes By.

Kashmir is almost universally loved.

So, yes, I'm admitting that Will Smith's Miami and Deee-Lite's Groove is in the Heart both make the list. This may change if I ever completely mature out of high school. Whitney Houston's It's Not Right But It's OK will likely never leave. I've been a closet Whitney fan for over 20 years. Rupaul's Supermodel and Right Said Fred's I'm Too Sexy were oh so close, but in the end, there wasn't enough mustard. But I'm sure you're VERY glad that I linked those two fairly awkward videos.



I'll leave it right there for now. I'm sure I'll be coming back to the list on my blog, adding more links to good songs, etc. etc. Did you make it to this sentence? Wow.

3:36am

I am awake and can't sleep. So, why not put up a blog post mentioning how tonight I really miss Brazil and wish I were there talking with my friends and making stupid vocab mistakes* that make them laugh at me...

Sigh...

I miss Brazil.

*Look for "mate"

8

Mom and I tonight were watching Strictly Ballroom for FHE, when I turned to her and asked if today was the 23rd. It's been 8 years since I got back from the mission. Huh. Que velha sou.
The change in temperature that I went thru in a 24 hour period was 85º in Londrina, 0º in Chicago when we arrived at 5am and 20º in SLC when we finally landed. I'd forgotten my sweater in my suitcase. hmmph.

This is from my last proselyting day in the mission:

Me (bottom left) at the bus station with a bunch of the sisters.

Our grupo de saída with the mission president and wife. I bawled like a baby during the meeting.

And this is me in the middle of what only seems to be nowhere in my third area:

hmmmmm
I love Brasil.

Graduation + Pictures

Receiving a master's degree does not mean that you are smart enough to figure out how to put on your regalia. Don't worry, though, I finally figured it out, probably. The sleeves for a master's have this goofy extra bit of fabric that you might as well store stuff in. I should've hidden a bagel or something. However, I was in the front row, so that would've been tacky.

Sometimes the speeches can be fairly boring. But it was as if the speech at my convocation had been tailored for me. One of my favorite professors gave a talk that included many etymologies of words. Talk about awesomeness.

Walking out afterward, I saw my mom who was already tearing up. I hugged her and started to cry, of course, but mostly remained tuff. My dad cried pretty hard when he hugged me, which caught me off guard, thus destroying my composure. I am a bawl baby. Again, I reference this video.

Anyway, pictures:

Notice the nifty temari ball in my hands, that Aunt Suezie (Gretchen and Kathy's mom) made me. I'd received another one from her at the 5K that I'd kept by my computer as I finished the thesis.

Me and my mom:

Dad, me, Mom:

Dad and Mom showing the love:

My friends (Gretchen, Aunt Suezie, Kathy, me, Shannon):

I graduated at the same time as my friend Patrícia. Arwen, on the right, is the graduate secretary. She is a huge reason why a lot of us graduate, I think.

Later, my coworkers stealthily decorated my cubicle. They also gave me dried mangoes and a bag of broccoli. They know me well.

Joe:

So there you have it. I finally graduated. After 25 years of being a student, I find myself still feeling like I have homework to do at night, flummoxed when I realize that I have nothing due. I think I might take UVU up on their free 3 course credits a semester. I love learning.

City pictures key:

Bordeaux

Salzburg

Bucuresti

Londrina

Ecuador

Porto

Argentina

Lansing

9 years ago today

It's *really* weird to think that nine years ago today I entered the MTC. Man, I loved my time in the MTC.

I was well supported by friends and family when I entered the MTC.

I'll try to come up with a good MTC story and post it. My best MTC stories came from the things I heard when I worked there for those 7 1/2 years. Good times, Good times. Genna's heard tons of them.


The last, I dunno, 4 months of my mission, this song was always playing on the radio. For a sisters activity, my companion, two sisters and I changed the lyrics to "Dormi na palestra," I fell asleep in the discussion. It was a wild success:

Brazilians tend to use larger spoons to eat, you know like the serving spoons that we use in the U.S.
So I'm telling Scottie about this a while back and I tell him that I got converted to the idea, that now I'm a big spoon-er



oops.

Cinco de Mayo--quebrado

So I had this long-standing tradition for Cinco de Mayo, mostly before my 20s: Every few years, I would break things. By break things, I mean my left hand (1989), my right hand (1994), my boss's car (1997 [accident not my fault]). My mom was understandably freaked out about my one and only Cinco de Mayo in Brazil in the mission field in 2001. Luckily it passed without incident.
Although, I think sometimes that my body was trying to channel a piñata on these Cincos de Mayo.

Since this year was yet another with no grand breakings, let's celebrate with some music:

a quick note on prayer

aka, it's late but I want to blog. Although this might be more impactful of a story to me and nothing short of goofy, every time I've lost something and prayed to find it, it's been found. In fact, when I was 12, my Fine Young Cannibals cassette tape went missing. Anyone who knows the song She Drives me Crazy and how awesome it is, recognizes how bummed I would be. I looked and looked, but couldn't find it. So I said a prayer...
Years later my mom was reorganizing her room and she came across the tape. I'm really not trying to be facetious. Every time I've prayed to find something, I've found it. Sometimes it's just taken years.
This includes the time that I thought I lost my camera in the middle of nowhere Brazil while traveling with Melissa and Tom. I said a prayer knowing that I was probably a good 6 hours from the place where it would've gone missing. The camera was found the next morning in my stuff in a place where I'm fairly certain I looked.
I'm just saying that prayer works, especially for my lost items.


As a linguistic side note, if you click on the impactful word from above, the link takes you to urbandictionary. Beneath the word impactful is the phrase "A non-existent word coined by..." Um? Non-existent? I'm fairly certain it exists because we can use it and both you and I know what it means. The person might not like the word, but it really does exist. Sorta like heighth.

Saturday

Anyone else nervous about BYU's football team? What's happened to them? They used to play like a well-oiled machine and now they're playing haphazard and their defense makes me wanna go crazy. I'm struggling with the knowledge that'd it'd be better for the U to go undefeated this year (beating BYU) and making it to a BCS game. I might have to do a Megan Neeley and pray about the game.
(She's home on Thursday!!!!)

The TB Rays lost tonight to the Phillies. This makes me sad.

I hit the wall today in thesis writing. Today was more like the camel through the needle syndrome.

I saw the 4th Indiana Jones this weekend for the first time. I ended up rolling my eyes at various moments, fastforwarding at others and then simply freaking out about this:
Iguaçu Falls is NOT in the Amazon. I know this doesn't really matter a whole lot, because they were stupid enough to bring in aliens, thus unwisely destroying the believability of the show (yes, I totally believe the others are possible). But seriously! They're thousands of miles from each other.

Sign that Sarah Palin is mailing it in, not believing the ticket can win, and setting herself up for later political and television opportunities.

But, honestly, they should have had a better feel for her politics before they tapped her out of nearly nowhere. Then they should've let her talk to people rather than muzzling her, just making sure that she doesn't stray too far off the reservation.
Speaking of, wouldn't it have been nice to have a campaign where McCain was also McCain?