Welcome to the Magical Kingdom

Friday night, (well, it was Friday night when I started this post, so now that's about three weeks ago,) Laser Jock and I took dates to the Mormon Tabernacle Choir Christmas concert, featuring Norwegian singer Sissel. The music was absolutely incredible, and I highly recommend everyone find a copy of Sissel's "Like an Angel Passing Through My Room." It's breathtakingly beautiful. Really. Search for Sissel listen on Google, and click the first link. It's right there. Go. You won't regret it.

As we made our way toward the exits of the Conference Center after the concert, I looked outside and saw that it was snowing. I was happy. Very happy. Inordinately happy, in fact. You might not believe how excited I get about snow. Fortunately for you, I'm going to tell you all about it.

There’s something magical about looking out the window and seeing thousands of snowflakes falling from the sky. Looking outside and seeing the world transform right in front of your eyes is a bit like watching Tinkerbell sprinkle pixie dust over the ship and seeing it fly away. It’s the same old ship underneath, but suddenly it’s so much more.

When I was back in Elementary School, snow meant snowmen, snowball fights, and sledding in our own front yard. Just looking outside and seeing the world turn white gave me a thrill, and I still haven’t lost that feeling. There are things you just can’t do without snow, things that I love. Have you ever skied down a mountain covered in fresh powder and laughed for joy at the rush? Have you ever snowmobiled to the top of a peak and marveled at the view? Have you ever noticed how beautiful a girl can be when little snowflakes lie nestled in her hair? Have you ever made a snow angel just for the fun of it, even though it never ends up looking anything like an angel? Have you ever tried to catch snowflakes on your tongue, even though they’re so small that you usually can’t tell when you’ve caught one? There are so many simple pleasures of life in the winter to enjoy that I hardly know where to begin.

There’s a peaceful feeling that comes with a new snowfall. Suddenly, everything is calm and silent. The world is hushed, almost in reverence. The first lasting snowfall usually comes right around Christmas, and I find that taking a long walk in falling or freshly fallen snow draws my mind to pondering. I begin to marvel at the Creation brought about by our Father and his Son. The delicate snowflakes and exquisite crystalline icicles humble me. Here am I, a student at a well-respected school of higher learning, and I can’t even draw a decent snowflake, much less create one. The intricacies involved in the world around us fascinate me, and I feel greater love for my Father in Heaven.

Welcome to the Magical Kingdom. I hope you all enjoy it.

The Impossible Dream

Get ready for a long one, folks.

There are some books, plays, and movies that, I might say, "redefine" my view of the world. When I first see / read them they don't seem to apply much to my life. They often are interesting or entertaining, but I just don't see much of myself in any of the characters. However, in the days afterwards, I begin to see things in a new light that I had never before considered.

I just added a play to this category today. Over Thanksgiving break I saw "The Man of La Mancha" at Hale Center Theater in West Valley City with my family. I enjoyed it, and especially liked the Spanish guitar that intermittently accompanied the actors. I didn't, however, really see how the ideals presented had application to my life. Let me explain. No, there is too much. Let me sum up.

Don Quixote is the deranged but optimistic alter ego of Spanish gentleman Alonso Quijana, who has gone mad. Championing virtues of chivalry, courage, bravery, and honor, Quixote gallantly attacks giants, seeks proper knighting, and courts the high lady Dulcinea. (In reality, he charges against a windmill, is knighted by the local tavern keeper, and "courts" the local wench Audanza.) Near the end of the play, Quijana comes to his senses and forsakes the idealistic views of Don Quixote. We then see, however, that Quixote's idealistic views, (which have nothing to do with reality,) have actually inspired hope and happiness in the lives of those formerly hopeless.

The main anthem from the play is "The Impossible Dream." Many have heard the song, but few actually understand the phrase. Many use it to describe perfectly possible things, such as better technology or an underdog sports team hoping to take the championship. Dale Wasserman, the writer of the play, said the following:

When I see these references – and I see them every day – my impulse is to holler, “Pay attention, ...the operative word is not ‘dream,’ the operative word is ‘impossible!’”

Of course no one listens. But “impossible” is exactly what I meant: the dream, to be valid, must be impossible. Not just difficult. Impossible. Which implies an ideal never attainable but nevertheless stubbornly to be pursued. A striving for what cannot be achieved but still is worth the effort. As, for instance, peace on earth. Or a gentleness for all who breathe, and breathing, suffer. Or a hope that we may mitigate the horrors paraded for us on the news every hour of every day of every week. That we may reduce the tidal surge of wars, crimes, cruelties to humans and to animals, and the orgies of atrocities that sicken the earth.

These are impossible dreams. Still, quixotically, they must be dreamed.

The impossible dream. The things we hope and strive and fight for, no matter how impossible they are. As I was watching the play, I couldn't identify any truly impossible dreams in my life. I have my pursuits, but they're usually quite achievable. So the play, I thought, was good but just didn't really speak to me.

Then I started seeing with new eyes. A (quite pleasant) conversation with a certain girl heretofore known as M finally put an end to my above-average interest in her. Though I was a bit disappointed, closure on the issue is nice. I've been holding out hope for a while, but I think it's time to move on, and now that I know how she feels, it's easier to do so.

There's only one problem, though. I find myself not wanting to let go. I know she's not interested. I know I need to concentrate elsewhere and not be stuck in the past. But I don't want to. It's like my own impossible dream. In fact, as I look back on my life, I realize that somewhere inside of me is a need to have an impossible dream. I like having something I can't reach, but hope for nonetheless. This quixotic optimism has defined a lot of my life. In 8th grade, back when I sat at the very bottom of the social totem pole, I had a major crush on one of the cutest girls in the school, Jenny. In high school, I had impossible dreams named Kati, Michelle, Jenna, and others. There were girls that liked me back then, and some I even liked in return. One I dated for a time. But overall, I couldn't stop myself from striving after the unachievable. And now I'm doing it again. I need to find a few dreams that are a bit more "possible."

Yes, my impossible dreams are all female. Do you have a problem with that?

A can of alphabet soup

The semester before my mission, I began to realize that I'm a bit of a human dictionary. I can't always define a word, but if I've ever heard a word chances are pretty good that I can spell it. It's not really a conscious thing, though. If I try to think about how a word is spelled, I'll have trouble with it. However, if I just turn off my brain and rattle off a series of letters, chances are very good that it will be correct.

A few weeks ago, I began seeing posters around campus for a BYU Spelling Bee. Having fond memories of elementary school spelling bees, I decided to sign up. In fact, I got really excited about it. All my co-workers and friends knew where I would be that night.

As the night of the Spelling Bee arrived, myself and ten other contestants showed up. After a few rounds spelling words such as "dog" and "kaleidescope", the contestants were narrowed down to two. I and one girl remained. We were very equally matched, sparring back and forth for a number of rounds.

The rules declared that in order be declared champion, the winner had to both win the final round and correctly spell one last championship word. Both of us had reached the championship word a few times, only to misspell by one letter. I was especially disappointed to misspell "ursprache", since I had run across it in my perusals of spelling bee lists just earlier that day. ("Ersprache" is not correct, in case you were wondering.)

Finally, the judges declared the elimination of the championship word in order to finish the spelling bee at a reasonable hour. My opponent, (whose name I would give if I could remember it,) managed to best me the next round, and was thus declared the winner.

This was actually okay, though. The first prize was a factory-sealed game of Scrabble. Second place received a can of alphabet soup. I already have Scrabble. I did not, however, have a single can of alphabet soup. So in the end, things all worked out for the best. Congratulations to whatever-her-name-is that won. You did great.

It must be time to find some new writers.

P.S. To the girl whose name I can't remember: Congratulations. You did great, and it was a lot of fun. I look forward to a rematch next year.

Christmas in November

Santa Claus came to town last week. I hope none of you missed him.

I was over at Optimistic.'s apartment a couple weeks ago and started playing on his roommate's very nice electric piano. As a life-long pianist and near-miss Piano Performance major, I like to play the piano just about any chance I get. After playing some great William Joseph music that Optimistic.'s roommate had for a while, I was thoroughly in love with pianos again.

So I did what any self-respecting kid would do. I called up Santa Claus (aka Dad) in a nearby Utah town and asked if I could have the now-unused piano at their place moved down here for the year. I even offered to help pay for the moving. It was an offer that Santa simply couldn't refuse.

So now I have a piano in my apartment. A real, live*, Steinway and Sons upright piano. And I love it. Honestly, I've been bouncing around like a little kid on December 25th at about 6:58 AM. It's great. The first day I had it, Uffish Thought and Novel Concept came over to enjoy. I pulled out my Billy Joel piano book and started playing. Before long, we were all singing along, and Novel Concept was draped along the top of the piano like you'd expect to see in a Jazz bar.

Jingle Bells... Jingle Bells...

*Well, not really live...

GoogleFest

Last night Brooklyn, Dimmi, and I went up to Park City to watch The Trials of Darryl Hunt, part of the Sundance Documentary series. Dimmi already wrote a great summary of the experience, so I won't bother reviewing that. Suffice it to say that we had a great time and that it was a very eye-opening experience to racism, unfairness, and prejudice in the US today, both in North Carolina (the locale of the film) and in our own lives. But that's not the point of this post.

On the way up, we were trying to contact someone that could give us exact directions to the Park City Library when Dimmi mentioned that you can send a text to GOOGL (46645) and get driving directions to any destination, along with lots of other information. We ended up getting hold of one of Brooklyn's friends, so we didn't have to use Google, but we were still impressed that it was possible.

After the show, Brooklyn saw a couple of her friends, so we met up with them. We eventually made our way outside and talked for a bit. Brooklyn remembered what Dimmi had showed us about Google and started telling her friends about it. We all ended up talking about the amazing things that Google does for about ten minutes. The producer of the movie walked past us on her way out and probably felt like she'd been a total failure; ten minutes after the show we're not even thinking about it.

Then it hit us. There we were, a group of five college students standing in the cold Park City air at 10:00 PM raving about Google for minutes on end.

What more could they ask for?

Intuation

Dear Readers,

As recompense for your patience in waiting for an update, I have a marvelous story for you all. Seriously. It's wonderful. It might even make up for the delay.

A couple days before Halloween, I received a phone call from a couple girls in my FHE group last year. Instead of starting off with the usual "Hello, how are you," she sang the following á la Chicago:

You're the meaning in my life
You're my intuation...

I immediately broke out in laughter. There's a whole story behind that inside joke.

Last year, I had a friend from Salt Lake down at my apartment. We were just about to begin a game of Rummikub when my cell phone rang. Looking at my phone, I saw an (801) number that I didn't recognize. The following conversation ensued:

Me: Hello?
Girl with fake, breathy accent: Is Brant there?
Me: Brant? Do you mean [insert Yellow's proper first name here, which is vaguely similar to Brant, but not terribly so.]
Girl with fake accent: No. Is Brant there?
Me: Umm... If you don't mean [insert Yellow's name], then I don't know who you're looking for. Are you sure you have the right number?
Girl with fake accent: [Insistently] Is Brant there?
Me: Umm... No.
Girl with fake accent: Can you take a message?
Me: [Figuring that something weird is going on] ...Sure.
Girl with fake accent: Good. Do you have a pen?
Me: Sure.
Girl with fake accent: All right. It's a singing message.
Me: A singing message?
Girl with fake accent: Yes. Here it is. [Hands phone to friend.]
Singing Girl: [Singing to the tune of Chicago's "You're my Inspiration"]

You're the meaning in my life,
You're the inspiration.
You bring feeling to my life,
You're the inspiration.

Me: Okay...
Girl with fake accent: Did you get it?
Me: I think so, yes.
Girl with fake accent: Sing it back to me.
Me: What???
Girl with fake accent: Sing it back to me!

(I should mention at this point that my friend was looking on very curiously, being able to hear bits of the conversation due to the phone's volume.)

Me: I don't think I can. I don't think I can get the accent right.
Girl with fake accent: Would you like to hear it again?
Me: Umm... sure.
Girl with fake accent: Okay. [Hands phone to Singing Girl, who repeats her performance]
Girl with fake accent: Did you get it?
Me: I think so.
Girl with fake accent: Well, then read it back to me.
Me: ...Okay. [Reads the lyrics back]
Girl with fake accent: No, no, no. Listen carefully. [Passes the phone to Singing Girl again]
Singing Girl:

You're the meaning in my life,
You're my intuation...

Me: Intuation???
Girl with fake accent: Yes. It's a Slavic word. I am from Slovakia.
Me: [Seriously doubting that Girl is from Slovakia] Oh. I see.
Girl with fake accent: Did you get the rest of it?
Me: [Giving up on trying to make any sense of this phone call] Nope. I guess you'd better sing it again.
Singing Girl:

You're the meaning in my life,
You're my intuation.
You're the meaning in my life,
You're my dispensation.

Me: You're my dispensation???
Girl with fake accent: Yes. Are you LDS?
Me: [What in the world???] Yes.......
Girl with fake accent: I am LDS too. Thanks for asking.

After the call was over, I pulled out my laptop to do a reverse phone lookup on the phone number. Unfortunately, I was only able to discover that it was a Provo-based cell phone provided by Sprint. I looked through our ward directory and was likewise frustrated. I have no idea who called me.

The following Monday, I told my FHE group the story. They all laughed about it, and a couple of the girls even volunteered to call the number and try to figure out who it was. They tried, but we were never able to figure it out. It remains a mystery to this day. A hilarious mystery.

Dear Girl with Fake Accent,

If you're reading this, thank you. You have no idea how many scores of people have laughed because of your phone call that night.

-Yellow

Be not faithless, but be believing

Dear readers,

Have faith. An update is coming soon.

-Yellow

Rejection: A tutorial

Occasionally on the Board we receive questions that basically come down to this one question: "How can I turn down a date without crushing his heart?" It's never a fun question to answer because the whole time I'm just imagining myself in the place of this poor, love-stricken guy. I don't like participating in his pain.

Ladies, I have the solution. I discovered this in a very recent (read: 5 minutes ago) experience. I happened to have an extra ticket for the Divine Comedy show tomorrow. I've been looking for a date. A couple weeks ago I took a girl to dinner and we had a pretty good time, so I just barely called her up. I explained that I had an extra ticket to the show and asked if she'd like to go.

Before I even finished the question, she cut in with "Actually, I've been wanting to set you up with my roommate for a while. Would you want to go with her?"

Wow. Incredible. It even took me a second to realize that I was pretty much being summarily and irrevocably rejected. Well done. Of course, now I have a blind date for tomorrow night. Hmm. I hope she's fun.

Sir, we have engaged the opposition

So I was over at Johanna Von Bigenstrien's place the other night playing games with a few of the neighbors. First we played Taboo. For those who haven't experienced it, Taboo is a game in which you have to get your team to guess a certain word by describing it. You are not allowed to use certain related words, and gestures are likewise forbidden. As there is also a time limit, the describer sometimes gets rather flustered, which results in hilarity. Everyone had all sorts of fun.

As the night progressed, a few of the neighbors had to leave. The group slowly shrank until just Johanna, A Charitable Ditz, Quandary, and myself were left. Realizing that we were all of the Board persuasion, we began entertaining ourselves as only Board Writers can. From holding hands to holding feet, from teaching Johanna about Rubik's Cubes to playing Little-Mermaid-splashes-on-the-big-rock with a finger puppet to knocking on hips, all craziness broke loose. At one point I mentioned that I was hoping to get a date for an upcoming event. This, of course, led to a discussion of those we know who are setting dates. (See posts from from August for more on that.) Then the following conversation ensued:

Yellow: Maybe I should just set a date.
Charitable Ditz: Maybe you should! Just, like, pick an arbitrary date!
Yellow: Okay. How's April 3, 2009? Charitable Ditz, will you marry me on April 3, 2009?
Charitable Ditz: Okay! Sure!

So there it is. I'm engaged. She later told me that my proposal was very romantic. And if April 3 falls through, we have contingency plans for Pi Day. That's 3/14/15, 9:26:53, nearest temple to 58° S 97° W. (That's Perth Australia. The Regina Saskatchewan and Edmonton Alberta temples in Canada were slightly closer to 58° N 97° E, but Australia's just so much more exotic.) At the wedding reception we'll have pie laid out in non-repeating sequences in place of cake, and since Pi day is of course non-repeating, every 22 of July (that would be 22/7, the smallest fraction close to pi,) we'll celebrate our pinniversary.

See guys? It's not so hard!

Things that make me happy

As the astute reader might note, this entry is all about things that make me happy. Learning to take pleasure in the simple joys of life is probably one of the most important things I've learned to do in my life.

However, before I get to that, I'd just like to mention a something that doesn't make me happy.

• People that bring freshly-popped popcorn to class. Honestly, people. I don't mind if you snack on fruit snacks, nuts, carrots, or chocolate. But popcorn? Do you not notice that it makes the rest of us salivate? Definitely does not make me happy.
  

Anyway, on to the things that make me happy. I've had a very stressful and busy couple of days, and finding little things like these is a great way to relieve the stress.

• Seeing "100%" next to my Student ID on the Testing Center monitors makes me happy. Nevermind that the 100% only applied to 38% of the test, 100 is a happy number.
• Attending the BYU Devotional and hearing Jon Schmidt live while watching a very well-performed dance makes me happy. I've been talking about it ever since. It makes me happy.
  
• Having good friends makes me happy. Joining the Board has turned out to be a very Good Thing for me this year. Since many of my previous friends are now married, (see previous posts for more information,) I'd been left largely without day-to-day entertainment. Uffish Thought, Novel Concept, Lavish, Optimistic., and others have been a marvelous help in that regard. They make me happy.

Well, there you have them. My three latest reasons to be happy. There may be another one in the makings as well, but only time will tell.

A Board Invasion

Earlier tonight, we Board Writers set into motion our secret plans to take over the world one apartment at a time. With an effective blitzkrieg, we completely overran all local defenses and established a beachhead from which to continue our forward march.

Okay, that wasn't actually true. But we did have a lot of fun tonight. Through a series of events, a certain writer had committed to deliver brownies to a reader's apartment, a reader whom she had never met in person.

Not given to doing things in a small way, this writer invited 10 other writers and a few friends to come along. We all crowded around the front door of the apartment and knocked on the door, muffling our giggles so as to not alert the tenants. They opened the door, (quite shocked to see 13 people standing outside the door at 11 PM), the writer in question introduced herself, and the collective Board invaded the apartment. We laughed about the wonder that is the Board and various Writers for about 30 minutes and then left. Mission accomplished. We did leave them brownies, though.

Watch out; your apartment could be next.

Late Night Special

The other night my friend Lanora and I went over to Lavish's place to watch "Remember the Titans" with a group. I really think it's one of the best sports-centered movies ever made. It's exciting, touching, meaningful, funny, insightful, and powerful all at the same time without feeling forced. The experience, of course, was only made better by Lavish's excellent hosting skills.

Afterward, we pulled out Scattergories and began playing. Since there were 11 in attendance at that point, we played in teams of two. (Quandary played on his own.) You know how things get funnier in proportion to how tired you are? Well, Duchess and dimmi demonstrated this principle to great effect. Lanora and I spent most of the night laughing at their incessant giggles every time their turn to share came around.

For those who don't know, Scattergories is a game in which you are given a list of categories, an alphabet-die is rolled, and everyone competes to produce unique words matching each category beginning with the rolled letter. Hilarity ensues.

• Excuses for being late: Hit by a car, Halitosis, and Hellfire (I'm sorry, teacher. I ran into some hellfire on the way to class.)
• Round: Jewels and Jay Leno. (Poor guy. How would you like to get the first thing we think of when we hear "round"?)
• Bodies of water: Jordanelle Reservoir, Jacuzzis. (Jacuzzis... they've got bodies and water!)
• Bad Habits: Kicking cats and Killing your sister (Response by dimmi: "How many sisters do you have to kill to make it a habit?")

But the ultimate answer of the night came from dimmi:

• Weapons: Jackhammers. (NEVER get dimmi mad at you.)

Oh, the irony

Near the end of Winter Semester 2006 I met a very fun girl. We'll call her M because that's not her name. We dated for a while before the summer, but we're not together at the moment. Things have been a little tense between us, but I think they're getting better.

The other day I got off work and dropped by her work. She works in a fairly public place, so there was a line waiting for her attention. I was just going to stop by quickly and say hi, since she was busy. However, as I was walking by the front of the line, I heard someone calling my name. I turned to look and saw a Sister from my mission waiting in line, so I stopped to talk to her for a second. We'll call her B because that's not her real name either.

Keep in mind that I'm standing about 5 feet away from M at the moment. After the usual chit-chat, she asked:

B: "So, are you..." [leans over a little to look at my left hand]
Yellow: [laughs] "No, I'm not married yet."
B: "Oh. Are you dating anyone? What about that girl you were dating last year?" (Referring to M.)
Yellow: [laughs again, quite hard] "No, I'm not dating anyone at the moment either."

B, of course, had no idea why I was laughing so hard. She had no idea that M was standing within perfect hearing distance of the entire conversation, nor that this was the first time I had actually seen M in a number of months, so I was quite nervous about it. She just saw that I found a question about my current relationship status much more humorous than it deserved.

Oh, the irony of it all.

Are you my friend?

Over Labor Day weekend, my family went camping in the mountains of Central Utah. Every year, we go with a few neighbors to spend the weekend in the mountains, relax, and enjoy each other's company. The group grows every year as the young married couples bring new children, "significant others" are invited, and new families are invited. We had a great time.

Since we had a member of our Stake Presidency there, we were able to hold our own Sunday meetings up in the mountains. I was asked to give a brief talk, so about an hour before the meetings started, I wandered away from the rest of the camp to ponder what I should share.

We had a number of horses up at the camp, and I found myself near the horses. A few of the youngest children (ages 2-4) were nearby, trying to throw a frisbee to each other. As I was watching them, the cutest little two-year-old girl looked up at me and asked,

"Are you my friend?"

I just couldn't help smiling. I told her that Yes, I was her friend. For the rest of the weekend, she would run up to me and say "Friend, come play with us!" or "Friend, hold this."

It was the cutest thing ever.

It's a Small World

Two stories.

Story #1: Before my mission, I worked in a BYU cafeteria. Once I got out of the dishroom, I was mostly responsible for restocking drinks and cleaning up spills. Certainly not the most glamorous of jobs, but my co-worked and I got along really well, so the time went pretty quick. He taught me the ropes of the job, and we quickly got a routine down so that most of our time was spent just standing around and talking. We laughed about all the funny things people wore, who sat with whom, and occasionally snuck drinks out of the almost-empty Chocolate milk bags. Mmmmm.

Story #2: I checked into my apartment today to drop off a few things before I move in for good. As I was picking up my key, one of my roommates was there. He said "Oh, you're [insert Yellow's name here]. You know our other roommate [insert roommate's name here] then." I wasn't aware of knowing any such roommate, so I was quite surprised. I got into my apartment, but nobody was there, so I didn't get to find out.

The point of all this: I did some further investigation. They're the same person. Walt Disney was right.

It's a Small World After All

The Best of Times, the Worst of Times

I'm living out of town for the summer, so when I receive mail at home, my mom usually puts it in a larger envelope and forwards it to me here. The other day I received one of these envelopes with two letters inside.

The first was a wedding invitation. (Yes, another. Hence the previous post.) It was from a high school friend I hadn't heard from in a while. He was one of my favorite people in high school and I was very excited to receive his wedding invitation. It's fun to see so many of my friends getting married and generally being very happy.

The second was a letter from a girl we baptized in my mission. I won't be too specific out of respect to privacy, but here are a few snippets:

"...I didn't go to the temple and I don't plan to. I stopped going to church three months ago."

"When you come, you'll find only 4 or 5 people. Nobody goes to church anymore."

"Regarding the Book of Mormon, it's sitting abandoned on the bookshelf. I don't touch it at all, and I'm not interested in it anymore."

Needless to say, I wasn't nearly as excited about receiving this second letter. It was good to hear from her; I hadn't heard anything in a number of months. But this wasn't exactly the news I was hoping for.

She thanked me for writing and said she hopes we can still be friends despite the fact that she's left the church. And of course we can. In my opinion, one of the true tragedies about current church culture, (especially in Utah,) is that we don't know how to deal with those that don't follow the ideal path, so we shun them. Instead of reaching out to them, instead of keeping those relationships open, instead of showing these people the love of Christ, we block them out. These are the people that need our help the most. These are they of whom Christ said "They that be whole need not a physician, but they that are sick."

My mission president taught me something very profound. He said that there are two parts to a testimony of the Church. The first is that the Church is true. This is what we generally think of when we imagine a testimony. It involves a testimony of Christ as the Savior, a testimony of the Restoration of the Gospel through Joseph Smith, a testimony of the Book of Mormon, and other such things. The second is that the Church is good. This means that the Church makes me feel happy inside. This is why we have ward parties and basketball teams. When there is no unity among the members, they won't stay. As missionaires we taught people that the Gospel brings joy. If they don't feel that joy, they'll leave.

I think that's what happened with my friend. The happiness and joy that comes from the Gospel was gone. And if men are that they might have joy... then why go to Church if it doesn't help in that pursuit? Granted, the Church isn't perfect, but if we don't do our part to make it better, it will never get there.

Sixteen

Make that sixteen weddings this year. Just got another one.

Summer of Love

Let's begin by stating a few things. I like girls. I really do. I enjoy dating. When I'm in Provo, it's not at all unusual for me to go on 2-3 dates per week, often with different girls. This makes me quite happy, since in high school I probably went on 10 dates total in 3 years. I've been feeling quite good about my social situation. I think I'm about right where I should be.

But evidence would suggest otherwise. Between March 1 and August 5, I have been invited the weddings of no less than 12 friends. These aren't just acquaintances either. My best friend, wonderful mission companions, roommates... these are all the people I hang out with! A few others are getting married, but I haven't heard directly from them yet, bringing the total to over 15. With only 2 exceptions, they're all my age.

I don't know what's gotten into everybody, but apparently Summer 2006 is the designated time for everyone to get married. And I missed the boat. That's perfectly fine with me; I'll get married when I love the girl so much there's no question that I want to be with her forever.

Anyway, if anyone else would like to announce their Summer 2006 engagements, please feel free to comment. Especially if you happen to actually know me.

I made it!

A few months ago I rediscovered BYU's 100 Hour Board, a Q&A board on which any registered user can ask a question and get an answer within 100 hours. It has quickly become my favorite way to fill the empty minutes at work. It's a great way to learn lots of random information and keep yourself entertained. At first I just read the daily posts, but I soon discovered the "I'm Board!" link, which displays a random question from the archives.

Occasionally readers ask the Board a question along the lines of "How do I become a writer for the Board?" The answer is always the same: "Search the archives." This intrigued me a bit, because I'm always looking for more information. I didn't necessarily want to apply, but I wanted to know how in case I had the desire at a future time. However, none of my searches resulted in the necessary information. This only whetted my appetite.

About a month ago, I came across the necessary information. By that time, I was thoroughly addicted to the Board. I had favorite writers, and I even stared reading their blogs. Realizing that I was spending a lot of time on the Board, I decided to jump through the hoops necessary to apply to be a writer. If I'm going to be on the Board that much, I figured, I might as well make a useful contribution.

Monday, I was browsing the archives while waiting for someone at work when suddenly a whole set of links I had never seen before appeared. The Board occasionally has little bugs, so I figured it was just one of those, but this was much more extensive than ever before. I then saw in the top right corner the following text:

Logged in as [insert Yellow's name here].
(Probational Writer)

I was stunned. Could it really be? I poked around a bit. Yes, I could see the Inbox. Yes, I could assign categories to questions. Yes, I could click "Reply" to questions.

I made it!

I did a little semi-elated dance in my chair. I'm sure my cube-mate thought I was quite crazy. But then, I am. And I don't even care!

Row, Row, Row Your Boat

I'm living with my cousins in Albuquerque for the summer. I really quite enjoy it since they live far enough away from Salt Lake that I really haven't had a chance to get to know them as well as I have some other cousins. Last night my 15-year-old cousin "Jeff" and I stayed up until about 11:00 while he played PS2, at which point his mom came downstairs and told him it was time to go to bed. I've been enjoying my position in the house as parent-helper, so when I saw he was hesitant to go to bed, I decided to try my hand.

Me: "Jeff, do you know what you need to do?"
Jeff: "No, what?"
Me: "You need to sing a song."
Jeff: "What???"
Me: "Yeah. You need to sing a good-night song to your teddy bear."
Jeff: "I don't have a teddy bear! He's a monkey!"
Me: "Oh. Well, you need to sing a good-night song to your monkey."
Jeff: "What song?"
Me: "Row, Row, Row Your Boat."
Jeff: "You're weird."

I proceeded to accompany "Jeff" up to his room. I kept on him about it, and eventually, between his giggles, he got out one round of "Row, Row, Row Your Boat." It was awesome. I mean, how often do you hear an almost-16-year-old guy singing "Row, Row, Row Your Boat" to his stuffed monkey?

He then went to bed, so I guess I can count my experiment as a success.

I love my life.

Yellow

Yellow, it was. All of it. Every bit. Nothing I could do about it. So I didn't. My only choice was to write a blog about it. So here I am.

Anyway, welcome to the blog of Yellow. This being my first post, I suppose I should introduce myself. I'm a BYU Junior of the male persuasion. Life for me is all about collecting stories. Some experiences are funny, some are sad, some are just plain silly, but they all become a part of you. So then it's all about learning to see my experiences in a good light so that my stories are happy, not tragic. This being my philosophy on life, I tend to tell a lot of stories. It's almost a favorite pasttime of mine.

Welcome to the repository of Yellow's stories.