This post1. I just took a humanities test in the testing lab downstairs. Shortly after I arrived, some guy came in and sat down in the row in front of me to take the same test. (I heard him tell the girl up front which class he was in.) Not two minutes had passed when the proctor walked up to him and said, “Hand me that.” To my surprise, the kid handed over an index card full of notes. He had to go up to the front while they apparently took down his ID number, and then he left. Now, my first reaction was, “How dumb!” And I still think that. :) But while I was watching him stand up at the front, confronted by the proctors, I couldn’t help but feel some small measure of compassion for him. Not to excuse his guilt, mind you, but rather a sorrow for his choice and a fervent hope that he’ll change. My heart was crying out to him, “No grade is worth the loss of your integrity!”
2. Two cool sites Liz told me about: first, the polyglot Book of Mormon. Mark Davies (a linguistics professor here; I had a class from him a year or two ago) has compiled the texts of the English, German, French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Italian Book of Mormons (yes, not Books of Mormon! :P), and you can view them side by side. Very, very cool. He also has a polyglot Bible, which is the Gospel of Luke in 30 languages (including such coolness as Old English, Gothic, and Swahili). Second, check out the Wheel of Lunch. :)
3. In her sacrament meeting talk last week, my friend Chelsy read a quote that I’d never heard before but like very much: “Stop telling God how great the storm is and start telling the storm how great your God is.” I’m not sure who it originates with, though.
4. Have I mentioned that my driver’s license got lost a couple weeks ago? (I know it’s technically “driver license,” but everyone says “driver’s,” so…) Luckily in Utah you don’t have to file a police report, so all I have to do is show up at the DMV with two forms of identification and a couple hours of time to kill. :P I’m not in any great hurry, though, since I don’t own a car.
5. I was reading in the third volume of the collected letters of C.S. Lewis the other night and came across this interesting tidbit: “Boys are now taught to regard Ambition as a virtue. I think we shall find that up to the XVIIIth Century, and back into Pagan times, all moralists regarded it as a vice and dealt with it accordingly” (page 17). We definitely think of ambition as a virtue these days; how odd to think that for most of the world’s history it was regarded as something bad! I think I can kind of see why, but this is definitely something I need to spend more time thinking about.
6. Mindy Gledhill, an award-winning LDS singer, came to our family history fireside a couple weeks ago. (Her father was the speaker.) Originally she was going to bring an accompanist, but they bailed, so I was asked to accompany her on “Love One Another.” After going through it a couple of times with me, though, she decided to play it herself. A wise decision. :) (She understandably wanted some “chops” at the beginning and end, but I’m so rusty that all I could do was play the notes on the page.) Anyway, she did wonderfully, and it was very good. (She also sang “Emma” with an accompaniment track on CD.) And I can say that I’ve played the piano for her, for whatever that’s worth. :) (I’m also accompanying one of my fellow ward members in his arrangement of “For the Beauty of the Earth” on Sunday in our stake music fireside.)
7. Wednesday morning I made my usual sandwiches, then hid them under the cushion so my roommate wouldn’t jokingly hide them elsewhere before I left. (Granted, it’s only happened once, but I figured I’d be careful. :)) Well, lunchtime rolled around, and I eagerly opened the pouch on my backpack, hungry as all get out. No sandwiches. With dismay I pictured them still under the cushion. ~sigh~
8. Also on Wednesday morning, I was sitting at my desk at work checking my e-mail. I realized that I needed to read a couple sections of the D&C for my class (which started in 20 minutes), so I looked down underneath to where I thought I’d put my triple. It wasn’t there. I checked my backpack. Also not there. Rats, I thought, I left them at home. Looking around the room, I couldn’t see any scriptures anywhere. “Anybody have some scriptures I could borrow?” I asked my co-workers. They said no. I then turned back to my desk and almost dropped my jaw. My triple was there, open to the very section I was supposed to be reading. And then I remembered that I’d been reading it for the past ten minutes. Early onset of Alzheimer’s? I’m seriously starting to think I’m losing my mind. ~shudder~ ;)
9. Last but certainly not least, there’s a cool article up at Meridian Magazine from the president of Walden Media, Michael Flaherty (who incidentally spoke at BYU not too long ago). It’s called “Let Them At Least Have Heard of Brave Knights and Heroic Courage”, and I knew as soon as I saw the title that I’d like it. :) The quote comes from Lewis’s essay “On Three Ways of Writing for Children”:
A far more serious attack on the fairy tale as children’s literature comes from those who do not wish children to be frightened. I suffered too much from night-fears myself in childhood to undervalue this objection. I would not wish to heat the fires of that private hell for any child.
On the other hand, none of my fears came from fairy tales… Since it is so likely that they will meet cruel enemies, let them at least have heard of brave knights and heroic courage. Otherwise you are making their destiny not brighter but darker… Let there be wicked kings and beheadings, battles and dungeons, giants and dragons, and let villains be soundly killed at the end of the book. Nothing will persuade me that this causes an ordinary child any kind of degree of fear beyond what it wants, and needs, to feel.
(I’m copying this from some other site, since I don’t have my copy of Lewis’s essays with me; apologies if there are errors.) Anyway, I’m really liking Walden Media. In fact, I’m very particular about the movies I watch, but I’m looking forward to seeing Charlotte’s Web, The Bridge to Terabithia, and today’s new release, Amazing Grace (all by Walden). It’s great to see a studio making wholesome films.
