you're welcome, america

Last night at dinner I solved America's problems. Well, most of them. Our dinner topics went through the job crisis, health care, how congress voted to designate pizza as a vegetable, the energy crisis (my dad is an engineer and local and foreign governments want to shut down nuclear power plants because they are freaking out about this clean and pretty safe way of getting energy) among other things. Then I had it, we take all of the fat, unhealthy people and set them on treadmills, cranks, or some machine of some sort, they work the machine all day and the machines in turn make clean energy that can then be used for consumption. And the fattys get paid for it. Boom. Jobs, health care, and energy all in one. I'm a genius.

My dad said he'd vote me president 'cept I'm not 35 yet. Thanks Pops.

"I can see Russia from my house!"-oh man, what gold will election year 2012 bring us?

sometimes i'm 9

Last night I was watching "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang" and found a line that I had never noticed before. It's during the part where Professor Potts (aka Dick Van Dyke) is following Lord Scrumptious around his candy factory trying to convince him how his invention of a sweet is cool and tasty. Scrumptious is distracted and tasting other samples. Potts is explaining how there are holes in his sweets and that when you blow through them a whistling sound comes out:

Potts-"and by blowing through the holes it makes a sound come out that sounds like a...."
Scrumptious (testing a new flavor)-"Raspberry!"
Potts-"No...more like a toot."

And then they proceed to sing a song about Toot Sweets. I mean, come on. That was quite the set-up. Ahahahahahahahahahahaha!!!
Also, I learned that the screenplay was written partly by Roald Dahl. That explains mucho.
PS. The Child Catcher is still scary.

new favorite

So I have a new favorite pastime. I sometimes go on Wikipedia and just read articles about people, things, events and such for long periods of time. It's so informational and I like learning about things. Mostly it's related to movies or singers or actors, I start with someone and then something in the article catches my interest so I go to that one and it leads to another and so on. I learn lots. Because it's all there too. Recently I discovered the "random article" button on the left. You click it and it takes you to a random page within all of wikipedia-dom. Today I learned about the Stalin Letter written after WWII about the reunificaiton of Germany, that led to the Two Plus Four Treaty and the end of the Cold War. So much knowledge. I like it. Also, they have a page for news and current events. Love that too. Learned about this natural gas pipeline that is being constructed from Russia to Germany. I like to think that I'm educating myself, especially since lately I've been feeling like I don't use my brain at all. Like at all. Imagine a paralyzed person's legs that haven been used in a long time, how atrophied they look. That's my brain. I miss the mental workout that is college. Time to pump it up.

In other news, I lost one of my hubcaps somewhere along Clearwater in Kennewick last night. Scott tried to save it, but it got run over three times before he could get there. Now Atticus looks super ghetto. But I think ghetto is destined to be my style.

generation gap

There's something I noticed recently, it has to do with people my age, and people who are old, and by old I mean they didn't grow up with computers and the internet. I've noticed that the older generation doesn't believe in the power of the internet. Or the power of google. This is shown when these people have a question, need information, or directions, and they turn to the old resources to get their answers. Anyone my age would get on their phone or computer and Boom! have the answer in a matter of seconds. The older generation will hem and haw, struggle with the issue until finally they realize they need to go online. Por ejemplo, I have to give people directions to my place of work. Part of me wants to just give the address and say, just google map it, but because these people don't believe in the internets they want me to tell them step by step where to go. Time is money, people. Also, my coworkers will want to do something in Microsoft Word or Excel, so they'll search and ask people how to do a certain thing. When they get to me I tell them to google it and it will be online how to do it. I'm not the computer genius but I do know enough to know that you can pretty much find the answer to anything by googling it. Seriously. I've taken apart sinks and vacuums with instructions from the internets. My generation trusts the internet to have all the answers and it usually does. The reason this fascinates me is because I watch the older people struggle when I just want to yell, "google it!" and then they'll have their answer so much faster. How did people live back in the day?...

The thing I'm interested to see is if people my age take up the call that Elder Bednar gave last General Conference. He told the tech savvy teens and young adults that they can assist in temple work by helping with family history. I loved this. We have such an ability with the technology available and people our age are so good at using it that there is such a huge potential for a lot of things to happen. I'm not quite sure how this will happen but I got the feeling that Elder Bednar knows that once this family history work and technology gets in the hands of my generation that it will skyrocket. I think it will too. And I think that's exciting.

Gheez, could I sound any more like Kip? I love technology, but not as much as you, you see...

this song's for you

There are certain songs that when they come on my iPod in my car, I just get excited to listen to them.

Cecilia-by Simon & Garfunkel, all the banging on the drums and lines line "makin' love in the afternoon with Cecilia up in my bedroom" and "Jubulation! She love me again!" make this a fun song to sing along to. It's just fun.

My Girl-by The Temptations, a happy song, smooth melodies, harmonious voices. "Nothing can make you feel as good as fast as 'I got sunshine on a cloudy day, when it's cold outside, I got the month of May'"-Hugh Grant on Music and Lyrics

Pretty much anything by Neil Diamond; especially Forever in Blue Jeans, Crunchy Granola Suite, I Am I Said, Solitary Man...who am I kidding, everything by this man is gold.

Where You At?-by Jennifer Hudson. This girl got mad pipes. Also No One Gonna Love You is quite good too.

Pretty much anything by Sara Bareilles. I love her music. Gots some good ones for all occasions, happy, sad, rockin' and slow. Plus she can sing.

Last Christmas-by Wham! I don't know why, but this is one of my all time favorite songs ever.

The Greatest Day-by Take That, when I hear it, I feel energized and really believe that it could be the greatest day.

I also love Kenny Loggins, Journey, Stevie Wonder, and Josh Groban;
ps. I have a lot broader tastes, but these are some of the best.

i love when i cheat the system

En serio. Especially when cheating the system saves me money. Methinks I've already posted on this too. But like I said, I love it. This round is through my music website: gomusicnow.com, I call it my Russian music website because it used to have a .ru domain, but don't worry, I've never had any scams or viruses or anything. Music is super cheap, 15 cents a song for new stuff, 9 cents for old stuff, and even cheaper if you buy the whole album.

Recently I've been awaiting the cd release of my fave Brit singer, James Morrison.His new album is called The Awakening. (Yeah, I met him once and he was really nice and it was magical.) But being British, his cd comes out there first and then later in the US because of dumb laws and money and crap. So it came out in England last week, and I've been bummed because all the Limeys were exulting and praising the cd and I didn't have access to it yet. But guess what, his cd showed up on the Russian website today, I checked. 15 cents a song, a week before iTunes and no dumb iTunes lock on it so I can burn it as much as I want. I WIN.

Seriously though, I listened to the cd on Grooveshark today at work, and it's really good. He really diversified his sound on this album and there are a lot of great tracks. I love the soul and motown influences, there's also one that has a Spanish vibe, and a lot of his stuff starts out soft and mellow but surprise you in the middle with a bang to get it rockin'. He wrote it after his dad passed away so several songs are influenced by that event. He also incorporates more instruments into his music besides just the guitar and piano. It's just good fun music and I really disfrutar it. So go buy it now! Because it will help bring James over to America where us Yankees will show him a good time.

contagion

Haven't seen the movie, but this word seemed somewhat appropriate to my thought's I'd like to express, they kind of go two different ways, so be patient: This past weekend I went up to Ensign Ranch, which is a church owned property in the mountains of central Washington, for a multi-stake YSA retreat. I knew that a whole night and day of YSA-dom would be setting myself up for weirdness and potential boredom but I missed the event last year so I thought I'd give it a try. It ended up being exactly like I thought it would, a little lame, a little weird but what was I going to do with that Friday night anyway?, and I had some fun because I tried to have a positive attitude. Probably my favorite was when this kid showed up to the super ultra conservative mormon dance in his karate gi, and no it was not a costume party. Anway, they ended the dance at 11 and then had a short devotional and then people dispersed to go to bed. Well, I have been to Ensign Ranch for Girl's Camp many a time, so I knew the lake had an island on it accessible by bridge that would be cool to check out. So me and some peeps headed down to the lake. Then two of the "adults" come rolling up in their car and tried to tell us it was time to go to bed, there was a "curfew" and they wanted to go to bed. It was 11:45 on a Friday night, and we were camping. So, no, we didn't want to go to bed. We told them that we had 15 minutes to midnight and we'd be hanging out till then. One of the "adults" also happened to be my old bishop from when I was 14 who is now in the stake presidency and also home teaches my parents. They then drove down to ferret out any other hooligans who have been sneaking off to do bad things by moonlight or set fire to the forests. NOT. We went through various plans of hiding and sneaking, but didn't do anything and then the "adults" came back and told us again to scram and go to bed. We took our time and eventually went back to our cabins; but we did not let them win, we waited for awhile and then went back out to explore just because we could. Nothing bad happened.

I had a big issue with this. BIG. 1. I am freaking 24 years old, so I get to decide when to go to bed. I'm not trying to destroy property, burn something down, be super loud, or run off with a boy. I am a responsible ADULT and I will tell myself when to go to bed. 2. Don't tell me what to do. I do what I want. And when you tell me not to do something then I will want to do that even more. 3. 10 years later and I'm still getting in trouble from my bishop. And you know what? He'll probably tattle on me when he home teaches my parents. I'm not even kidding. I've had other adults tattle on me this year, and guess what? My parents don't care. Whatevs.

The next day had a featured speaker and then break out sessions. Guess what the speaker got assigned as his topic? You'll only need one guess. Yup. Dating and Eternal Marriage. How many times do we have to hear that?! Now, I try not to automatically tune it out, because some people actually have good things to say and you come away feeling better about yourself. This guy was not one of those people. The thing that got me was when he was saying that you need to be selective and hold the person you choose to marry to the high standards that you have on that metaphorical "list." My friend Will turned to me and said that that was the exact opposite of what his institute teacher tells him; that you can't be too picky and you won't find anyone that's perfect. Ha ha! I have my own thoughts on this matter: (you do have to be picky about a few certain things, but other than that, be open to many different kinds of people because the person you end up with will not be the exact replica of your expectations). So Will and I just had to leave for a moment and get out of there. I also felt super awkward during the dance because there were all these "leaders" and "adults" watching all that weirdness go down, seriously, they just stood there on the outside and watched. Which is ok when you are monitoring squirrley 12-year olds but really stop watching me, go over there and leave me alone.

Which brings me to my other point of this little diatribe, as a Young Single Adult, in the LDS church, I feel like I am treated like I have some sort of disease. (Hence "contagion"). This disease is singleness and it has to be eradicated. I'm treated differently because I am single. Two married 21-year olds would not ever be told to go to bed at a church camp out. But me, because I am single, am under a curfew. We are treated differently on many occasions. My best example of this is when the YSAs are told to go to the firesides and institute-they stepped it up this week by decreeing that institute is for all YSAs whether you went to a church school or graduated institute, you should still go. Before, we were "highly encouraged" to go, but now the tone is different. We are heathens if we do not attend institute. We are "less spiritual" or "in danger" or something if we don't attend institute. Now I'm all for religious education, it's good stuff, and I have my own personal reasons/vendetta that I resort to when it comes to making me go or not go (usually not go) to institute. But here's what I don't get-why do I, a single 24-year old female who went to BYU and has taken all the institute classes twice over, need more religious education than another girl I know, who is 20 years old and married? The difference here is that she is married and I am not. I am a heathen and she is married. I need more education and she is married. I get corralled and she is married. I dislike this a lot. Institute attendance is not requisite to attend the temple. So stop making me out to be a heathen or treating me like I have a contagious disease.

I know that one reason they encourage attendance at these things is so the "young people" can get a change to mingle. And, you never know, you "might meet someone." Biggest Lie Ever. Life is not like that commercial they run before the CES firesides. We usually only talk to people we already know anyway. No one new comes around, not in the TC anyway. And you are also subjecting yourself to putting up with 60-90 minutes of dealing with squirrely, weird and noncoherent people. Thanks, but I'll pass. 

Please note that I am not trying to be a bitter female who is sad because she is not married. I'm really fine with my singlehood right now, and I am a happy person who is capable of a lot in life. I've got other good and worthwhile things to do with my life right now. But don't get too close, my germs my rub off on you.