Leaving Provo

I've been a leeeetle bit emotional lately. This is weird for me because I don't tend to have a lot of emotions....

I cried over a State Farm commercial the other night.

I'll admit it. I'm starting to get way nostalgic about leaving Provo. I know some people have had less than pleasant experiences at BYU, but I've loved almost everything about it. I wasn't sad when I left home to come to BYU, but I'm definitely getting sad about leaving.

Things I'm going to miss:
The beautiful mountains and the waterfalls.
Being a phone call away from a hangout with my friends
Being able to give directions based on N,S,E,W
The beautiful campus
Dry winter (makes the cold much more bearable, although I do go through a lot of lotion)
Dry summers (humidity is not my friend)
Living around a bunch of people who are in the same phase of life
Hanging out with Shelbey every Tuesday during devotional
Greg's hockey games
The perfect grid system
The big Y on the mountain
BYU sports (live)
The Tanner Building
Free lunch from Beta Alpha Psi
Watching TV shows in the Jr. Core Grader's room when I didn't want to do homework
Greg driving me to and from school
Our teeny little apartment with its quirky green stove
Being so close to Greg's siblings who are always down for a game night
Being so close to my nephews and niece!
All the special places from meeting Greg and falling in love
Knowing my way around like the back of my hand
Being comfortable leaving our apartment unlocked when we leave for a few hours (yes... I have fallen into that naive trap)

I'm mostly just going to miss the comfort. I've lived here for five years! I have this place figured out. I know that, with time, I will feel just as comfortable in NE, but it's still hard knowing I won't feel comfortable for quite awhile. There are so many unknowns about Nebraska!! What grocery store will we like? What restaurants will we like? What kind of bugs are there? What will the weather be like (it will be different from Utah and Georgia!)? Will we have any friends? Will there be people our age? Gah!

I'm comfortable disagreeing with people and sharing my opinion... probably a little too  comfortable. But I don't speak up about my controversial opinions a lot. I write things here and there on my blog, but I rarely discuss them with people who aren't my friends (and my friends tend to agree with me, so that's an easy discussion).

Part of my silence is because I can be kind of apathetic - there aren't a lot of issues that I am so hung up on that I'm willing to go out and advocate to change. This isn't something I'm proud of, it's basically laziness.

Another reason is that I'm not extremely tactful. I don't know how to say what I want to say and it ends up coming out really harsh and blunt... not at all educated or sincere. I have a hard time drawing upon why I feel the way I do - I just word vomit.

My silence has spared me from the line of fire that most Mormon feminists face. I haven't argued with many people about these issues because they've really never come up. That's a major perk of people not knowing your opinions, or at least not knowing how strong they are. I read blogs and facebook posts from people who do speak up, and they deal with so much pain and rejection.

Today I spoke up. Way too forcefully, as usual. But I tried to explain what I felt.

And I fell on my face.

The Job

I cannot tell you how excited I am to start working full time... or how nervous I am! I don't want to mention the name of the company here in case it shows up in a Google search or something so here's a picture from when I went out to interview:

I found out about this company at an accounting major career fair I went to. After creeping around the booths of the Big4 (everyone knows they have the best swag), I started visiting the booths of the non public accounting companies, and this booth was one of the first ones I went to. I didn't know a single thing about them! I literally went up to the guy at the booth and said "I did an internship with E&Y and I didn't like it, so I'm basically looking for anyone who's not Big4." Smooth, huh? So I got all of the information and went to an info session a few weeks later.

I really started to get excited about this company after the info session. I love small towns, so the idea of living in Omaha was actually really appealing to me. Even though it's small, it's big enough that Greg has a good chance of finding a good job also. The company was doing really well and the people who worked there genuinely seemed to like their work. They love their company - contrast this to so many people who do public accounting and consider it "doing time" before they can really start their career. The company is very "promote from within," so I knew I could have a career there. I went home that night and was telling Greg all about it- I was pretty excited.

When I flew out to interview, I loved it even more. The office building is seriously huge. They have a catered cafeteria, a gym, a doctor's office,a  pharmacy, and a post office all in the building. Something that really stood out to me was the day care center a few blocks away. It's almost certain that our children will be in day care, and having it so close by is amazing to me. The people I met were all really friendly and down to earth, something I had not experience at E&Y or other companies I had interviewed for (*cough*Dell*cough*).

I could tell that they were very selective in who they hired. I felt like I had to actually work to show them who I am and what I can do. More importantly, I wanted to put that effort in because I was really excited about the prospects of working for them. When I interviewed for E&Y, I honestly couldn't get excited about it. I did zero preparation. I didn't network. When they asked me why I wanted to work for E&Y.... nothing. It's a miracle I got an internship. Part of my lack of enthusiasm is because deep down, I dreaded that career path. Another (bigger) part is because of how many people the public accounting firms hire. I knew my chances were good just from being a warm body with a degree.

I fell so lucky to be going down this path, lucky to be genuinely excited about my career and to not already have an exit plan. If I had done public accounting, I already had an exit plan. How lame is that? I'm so excited to be start somewhere where I know I can have a future that I will be happy with.

My Faith Journey: Part 2

Part 1

One of my clearest memories of attending church as a child was stopping at Taco Bell on the way home. Also, skipping sacrament meeting and just going for Primary. 

Each time I went to church, I picked up on little tidbits of what was right and wrong. It was always very clear that we should be going to church every week. I knew what it meant to keep the Sabbath day holy and that it wasn’t good to eat Taco Bell after church. But that’s just the way we lived. One day, my teacher was taking roll in Primary and she asked me if I attended church when I was at my mom’s house every other weekend. Eventually, I brought this up with my mom and she told me that she would take me to church, so I started going to church by myself when I was at my mom’s house. I would go to all three hours, all by myself, at a new church where I didn’t know anyone, all because I felt this desire to do what was right. I tried to participate. I memorized Articles of Faith. I sang the songs. And I continued learning what was right and wrong.

I was too scared to speak up in church. It was like a foreign language, and I was terrified of saying something wrong. Even praying made me uncomfortable because it wasn’t something I had a lot of practice with (I still don’t like being called on to pray).

When people would bear their testimonies of the truthfulness of the church and share stories about the spirit speaking to them or comforting them, I was very interested. I really believe them, believed that they knew the church was true. A small part of me wanted to feel that way.

I used to drink coffee when I was at my mom’s house. One day, we were driving to the store and we were almost out of gas and my mom was worried that she wouldn’t make it to the gas station. I prayed with all my little heart that if we made it to the gas station, I would never drink coffee again. And we made it.

When I was in seventh grade, my social studies teacher taught us that Mormons currently practice polygamy and talked about how wrong that was. I knew it wasn’t true, and it really bothered me, so I went home and read Joseph Smith History… like that has anything to do with polygamy, but whatever. That was probably my first real experience with reading the scriptures. The next day, I went up to my teacher and told her that Mormons don’t practice polygamy anymore and proceeded to tell her the story of the first vision. Awkward.

I think my parents always intended for my brother and I to grow up connected to the church in some way. When we were older, they would take us to mutual (a weeknight activity for the teenagers) and support us in anything did with church. But I didn’t have any friends. After being in this ward (congregation) for years, I still didn’t have any friends. Most of this was due to the fact that I was a super brat when I was younger and a lot of it was because I didn’t spend very much time around people from church. So I quickly learned to resent them.

I played the fun game of “These people think they’re soooo good, so I’m gonna be a rebel and act all hard core.” Believe me, I wasn’t hardcore. But I hated how good they all were, how they acted like everything was so perfect. They had family home evening, attended church with their families every week, read the scriptures and prayed, and knew all the answers to the questions. These feelings still linger to this day and I have a hard time being around super spiritual people (which makes BYU a barrel of laughs sometimes).

Stove popped popcorn

Have you ever had fresh popped popcorn? Like not from the microwave? It's pretty awesome. But when I think of popping popcorn, I generally think of an air popper, and I don't need another random kitchen appliance, thank you very much.

So imagine my surprise when I learned that you could pop popcorn on your stove. When I was in high school, I had a friend whose family made popcorn on the stove and it was de-licious. I had never had it before in my life and it really tastes a billion times better than the microwave popped popcorn, and its healthier. I fell in love with it.

When I came to college, I decided to try to make some on my own. I followed the instructions on the popcorn kernel bag and it was a fail. Time after time. I had to ask my friend's mom for a lesson and now I am professional. I introduced Greg to it, and he loves it. He is now the designated popcorn maker, and he makes it ALL THE TIME. People we've shared it with have seemed to really like it, so I figured I'd do a little post about how to make it.

For starters, you'll want a pot about this size. You can do taller, but I wouldn't go much smaller.

You'll also need oil (vegetable or canola), butter or margarine (whichever you prefer), and popcorn kernels. I haven't noticed any differences between white and yellow kernels.

Pour a flat layer of kernels into the bottom of the pan, covering the bottom of the pan. Add enough oil to coat the kernels, tilting the pan until all the kernels are covered by oil. Don't add too much oil! The oil will thin and spread when you start heating it, and the kernels will burn if you use too much oil.

Cover the pot and turn the heat on high. Eventually, some kernels will start to pop!

Every now and then, shake the pot side to side, but leave the heat on. Eventually, you will have a full pot of popcorn! Take the pot off the heat once it is full or when the popping has slowed to every few seconds. Empty the popcorn into a big bowl.

Greg and I like to use the residual heat from the coils to melt the butter/margarine (we use 2 1/2 tsp). If you have a gas stove you can use low heat. Of course the microwave is always an option.

Carefully drizzle the butter over the popcorn, stirring it in. Then salt it to taste!

Mmmmm

My Faith Journey: Part 1

{For this to make sense, you might need a briefing on my family: my parents got divorced when I was little and I grew up with my dad and stepmom. I consider all three of them - mom, dad, stepmom - my parents}

All of my parents were raised in the church, to varying degrees. I don't know all of the details of how they were raised, so a lot of this is just inferred  I think my dad's parents were not super active in the church, same with my stepmom. My mom's family was pretty classic Mormon with oodles and oodles of children who were all pretty active in the church through their young lives.

After my parents got divorced, there was a routine that my brother and I would go to my mom's house every other weekend. I do have early memories of attending church with my dad as a very young child. I can remember my dad dropping me off at nursery and telling me he would "be right back," so I would stop crying and go play. I know that we didn't attend regularly because I remember being in Primary and feeling really shy because I didn't know any of the other kids or the songs they were singing.

I was baptized when I was 8 and I had a pretty clear idea of what was expected of me. I remember trying to read my brand new set of scriptures... I started in Hebrews because Hebrew is one of the origins of my name.... big mistake!

I was aware that my family was Mormon. It wasn't until I was in about 2nd grade that I realized that not everyone was Mormon. I remember a primary program where kids got up and read stories about people making fun of them for being Mormon and how they stood up for what they believed. I was so confused because I didn't know that there were hundreds of different religions.

Even as a young child, I was aware that my family didn't live like the other families at church. One day at school, a friend told me that Mormons couldn't go to six flags. Later that week, at church, everyone was talking about how people think such weird things about Mormons, even though we're obviously just so normal, and I brought that story up - "Yeah, my friend thought that Mormons can't go to Six Flags!" As soon as I said it, my heart sank and I started to panic... maybe Mormons really aren't supposed to go to Six Flags and I just admitted something I shouldn't have. Luckily, the other girls giggled and agreed that it was silly.

I didn't like going to church. I didn't know anyone there, I didn't know my teachers, and I liked sleeping in and playing video games on Sundays. I was perfectly content to not go to church.

Grrrr....

I found this gem on facebook, with the caption, "I'd be happy to see a woman pray in General Conference. But this is ridiculous."

My wonderful friend Annette responded, " If you would really be happy to see a woman pray in general conference...then why on earth do you think this is ridiculous?"

Amen. But really... I don't understand why someone who would be happy to see women pray in General Conference would post this meme. Maybe what he meant to say is that he is indifferent to the concept of women praying in GC so he doesn't understand why some people care enough to put effort into this cause? Because if it would really make him happy to see a woman pray in conference, then he would understand that this effort is a way to help make that happen...

Later, someone responded to Annette and said that this effort is making a mountain out of a molehill.

Seriously?! Do people really think that other people just sit around, find things that aren't a big deal to them, and then put time and effort into them? Like, hmm, this doesn't seem like a very big deal, but I'm just super bored so I'm going to organize an event, make a facebook page, and put time and effort into writing several letters?????? Meh, it’s not like I have any other pressures on my time, like work, school, and relationships... might as well adopt a lame cause!

Dude. Just because this doesn't seem like a big deal to you does not mean it isn't allowed to be a big deal to anyone else. You can't tell me what is a mountain and what is a molehill. Please, define what is and isn't important to you. Try to not waste time on unimportant things and focus on what is important to you.

But don't try and tell me that something I care about is a molehill.