Can I Have It Back Now?

-A man wants money for the kidney he gave his ex-wife. READ
-Journey is amazing. The End.

"Hi, I'm Dr. So-and-so but call me Mike"

This is the phrase I have heard so often this week. All of my teachers have told us to call them by their first names which is kind of cool but unsettling at the same time. For me it's really weird to go up to an adult and address them by their first name. Especially adults who have worked so hard professionally to get where they are at. Don't they enjoy being called doctor? Also I think using their first names puts us on the same level, which we are so not. They are smarter, older and wiser than I am. I still feel like I am their "student" not their friend or even colleague. There was only one teacher who didn't tell me to use his first name. He is young and still wants to rub his title in people's faces. But you can call me Meagan. :)

Please Excuse My Attitude

I need an attitude adjustment and I need it now. I am having major issues for the following reasons.
-I biffed it in the snow today and fell hard
-It has been snowing all day, now this is not usually a problem but when you don't have covered parking or have to walk around in all day/be wet when you finally get inside it makes life less enjoyable
-I know that this said snow could linger until April, it is very possible, and my anger at snow could also last that long
-I lost my catchphrase game in the snow and won't find it until the snow melts in July, it could also be run over by cars
-I am having my quarter life crisis because I will be 22 in a month
-I am not trying hard to be social and am having an attitude about it

A bright spot is that Jenn and Aaron are giving me a ride to school tomorrow.
Apologies to Marissa for having to deal with me.

I'm so excited!

I just wanted to say that I am pumped at being able to go see James Morrison in concert on January 23rd in Murray! He is a British singer that I have recently (two months ago) discovered because he sang on Jason Mraz's latest album. I don't think he's that big in the U.S. yet and I was certainly not expecting him to come tour this soon especially not to Utah! But he is coming and will play in a dinky little Murray theater for 500 people opening for another singer Adele.

He is a pretty young, talented musician from England. Morrsion's music is fun to listen to and groove to. He has a funk R&B style but can also jam out on the guitar. Morrsion's voice is also unique with a kind of scratchy soul sound. I can't wait to see him live because he is sure to be better in person. I love when musicians are that good. I hope Utah gives him a good welcome. His latest single is "Broken Strings" a duet with Nelly Furtatdo. *Listen to it on my player.

Although I am more excited for James Morrsion he is opening for another singer, Adele. She is also from England and is even younger than Morrison. Her soulful voice has been compared to Amy Winhouse (who I don't listen to). I believe Adele is nominated for three Grammy's. I've never heard of her before but I don't want to go to her concert uneducated. I have listened to two of her songs and really enjoy them. I plan on getting more familiar with Adele so it should be a really great concert. I plan on dragging Marissa with me ;)

Another bonus is that this concert will only be 30 minutes away and the tickets are cheap. I missed out on seeing Maroon 5 back when they were good. My friend went and ended up getting one of their guitar picks. I told myself back then that I would not miss out on a concert that I wanted because "you only live once". And that is good...within reason. My big name concerts include 'NSYNC, The Fray, Josh Groban, and Billy Joel. The Fray was kind of boring because I wasn't a huge fan so I try to go to those I really know. But it was cheap. I was also supposed to go see Michael Buble but (ha ha) I kind of broke my femur, dropped out of college and moved home the week before. Add this concert to Thoroughly Modern Millie, the Japanese puppets, and the Draper Temple open house and I have a pretty big January already!

Christmas Thought

I know I'm on a blogging spree but I have some thoughts I need to share. The other week in my international health class we learned about the Humanitarian Aid branch of the LDS church. They focus on two main areas. One is disaster relief and the other includes 4 programs. The programs consist of neonatal resuscitation programs, wheelchairs, vision and wells. The resuscitation is training to help health professionals help babies. They give wheelchairs to the crippled and glasses to the poor in vision. They also build wells so communities could have clean drinking water. It struck me that these services are very related to the miracles that Jesus Christ performed during his ministry. He healed the lame and helped the blind to see. He blessed the little children and took a special interest in them. Christ is known as the "Living Water". It really impressed me and I'm glad the church is doing this work. I saw a video of people receiving their wheelchairs. These people were dragging themselves around on their hands and shriveled legs. They were so happy to get a wheelchair that would make their lives so much easier. There was also a father who brought his son and placed him in a chair. What I thought of was how much easier his life would be with an easier way to transport his son. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints may not be able to completely heal the bodies of these people but they can still perfom small miracles for these people. I cried when I watched the video because it was such a great showing of compassion and love for others. It will bless their lives. And it taught me that I want to do things like that for other people. It also helps my testimony because if I want to help these people then I am also wanting to become more like Jesus Christ. Today I donated $10 to the Humanitarian Aid in my tithing envelope. I wanted to be able to give something that I have been blessed with and now that money will be used to help others like Christ did. I hope to be able to continue to donate to Humanitarian Aid.

I also liked these quotes from the First Presidency message in the December 2008 Ensign.

"Giving, not getting, brings to full bloom the Christmas spirit. Enemies are forgiven, friends remembered, and God obeyed. The spirit of Christmas illuminates the picture window of the soul, and we look out upon the world's busy life and become more interested in people than things. To catch the real meaning of the "spirit of Christmas," we need only drop the last syllable, and it becomes the "Spirit of Christ."-President Monson

“Again Christmas, abiding point of return. Set apart by its mystery, mood and magic, the season seems, in a way to stand outside time. All that is dear, that is lasting, renews its hold on us: we are home again.”-Elizabeth Bowen

“True happiness comes only by making others happy—the practical application of the Savior’s doctrine of losing one’s life to gain it. In short, the Christmas spirit is the Christ spirit, that makes our hearts glow in brotherly love and friendship and prompts us to kind deeds of service.
“It is the spirit of the gospel of Jesus Christ, obedience to which will bring ‘peace on earth,’ because it means—good will toward all men.”-President David O. McKay

Thoughts of the Moment

-99 cent pantyhose from the bookstore are not a good idea. They have no "control top" function, get stretched out during the day and then get baggy. But they do work if there is no other option.

-I am so full right now it disgusts me to even think about food. These past couple of days I have: eaten at the Skyroom with Jillian, gone to a work dinner party, gone to another party where I had cookies and those pirouette waffers with the chocolate in the middle, eaten at Happy Sumo, eaten cupcakes and candy at Jenn's bachelorette party, had 4 gingerbread cookies after church from Sis. Edlefsen the Bishop's wife, and gone to a ward waffle party where I had 1 1/2 waffles with bananna, strawberries and whipped cream, fresh pineapple and cocca. Food is great but I may have to lay off it for a couple days.

-Josh Groban singing "Noche de Paz" =amazing, he should sing in spanish more often

-Jenn is getting married on Friday!! In the words of Monica WTF??!!

-I get to go home in a week, see my mom, hang out with old peeps and see Kameron who is coming home from his mission!!!

-Finals. Beh, what finals?...no really they shouldn't be too bad.

The End

The Story Behind the Song

Today I watched Music and the Spoken Word. They did part of their Christmas progam. They had an actor recount the story of how the song "I Heard The Bells On Christmas Day" was written by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. It was very powerful and touching. I felt the emotion that stirred Longfellow to write these words and the true hope of Christmas that Christ will enable all of us to overcome death and sin and be triumphant over all.

One of America's best known poets, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882), contributed to the wealth of carols sung each Christmas season, when he composed the words to "I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day" on December 25th 1864. The carol was originally a poem, "Christmas Bells," containing seven stanzas. Two stanzas were omitted, which contained references to the American Civil War, thus giving us the carol in its present form. The poem gave birth to the carol, "I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day," and the remaining five stanzas were slightly rearranged in 1872 by John Baptiste Calkin (1827-1905), who also gave us the memorable tune. When Longfellow penned the words to his poem, America was still months away from Lee's surrender to Grant at Appomattox Court House on April 9th 1865; and, his poem reflected the prior years of the war's despair, while ending with a confident hope of triumphant peace.

As with any composition that touches the heart of the hearer, "I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day" flowed from the experience of Longfellow-- involving the tragic death of his wife Fanny and the crippling injury of his son Charles from war wounds. Henry married Frances Appleton on July 13th 1843, and they settled down in the historic Craigie House overlooking the Charles River in Cambridge, Massachusetts. They were blessed with the birth of their first child, Charles, on June 9th 1844, and eventually, the Longfellow household numbered five children-- Charles, Ernest, Alice, Edith, and Allegra. Alice, the Longfellows' third child and first daughter, was delivered, while her mother was under the anesthetic influence of ether-- the first in North America. Tragedy struck both the nation and the Longfellow family in 1861. Confederate Gen. Pierre G. T. Beauregard fired the opening salvos of the American Civil War on April 12th, and Fanny Longfellow was fatally burned in an accident in the library of Craigie House on July 10th. The day before the accident, Fanny Longfellow recorded in her journal: "We are all sighing for the good sea breeze instead of this stifling land one filled with dust. Poor Allegra is very droopy with heat, and Edie has to get her hair in a net to free her neck from the weight. After trimming some of seven year old Edith's beautiful curls, Fanny decided to preserve the clippings in sealing wax. Melting a bar of sealing wax with a candle, a few drops fell unnoticed upon her dress. The longed for sea breeze gusted through the window, igniting the light material of Fanny's dress-- immediately wrapping her in flames. In her attempt to protect Edith and Allegra, she ran to Henry's study in the next room, where Henry frantically attempted to extinguish the flames with a nearby, but undersized throw rug. Failing to stop the fire with the rug, he tried to smother the flames by throwing his arms around Frances-- severely burning his face, arms, and hands. Fanny Longfellow died the next morning. Too ill from his burns and grief, Henry did not attend her funeral. (Incidentally, the trademark full beard of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow arose from his inability to shave after this tragedy.)

The first Christmas after Fanny's death, Longfellow wrote, "How inexpressibly sad are all holidays." A year after the incident, he wrote, "I can make no record of these days. Better leave them wrapped in silence. Perhaps someday God will give me peace." Longfellow's journal entry for December 25th 1862 reads: "'A merry Christmas' say the children, but that is no more for me." Almost a year later, Longfellow received word that his oldest son Charles, a lieutenant in the Army of the Potomac, had been severely wounded with a bullet passing under his shoulder blades and taking off one of the spinal processes. The Christmas of 1863 was silent in Longfellow's journal. Finally, on Christmas Day of 1864, he wrote the words of the poem, "Christmas Bells." The reelection of Abraham Lincoln or the possible end of the terrible war may have been the occasion for the poem. Lt. Charles Longfellow did not die that Christmas, but lived. So, contrary to popular belief, the occasion of writing that much loved Christmas carol was not due to Charles' death. Longfellow's Christmas bells loudly proclaimed, "God is not dead." Even more, the bells announced, "Nor doth He sleep." God's Truth, Power, and Justice are affirmed, when Longfellow wrote: "The wrong shall fail, the right prevail." The message that the Living God is a God of Peace is proclaimed in the close of the carol: "Of peace on Earth, good will to men."

And here is the song as we sing it now:

I heard the bells on Christmas day

Their old familiar carols play,

And wild and sweet the words repeat

Of peace on earth, good will to men.

I thought how, as the day had come,

The belfries of all Christendom

Had rolled along the unbroken song

Of peace on earth, good will to men.

And in despair I bowed my head

'There is no peace on earth,' I said,

'For hate is strong and mocks the song

Of peace on earth, good will to men.'

Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:

'God is not dead, nor doth He sleep;

The wrong shall fail, the right prevail

With peace on earth, good will to men.'

Till ringing, singing on its way

The world revolved from night to day,

A voice, a chime, a chant sublime
Of peace on earth, good will to men.