Guys, this is darling and wonderful and important.

Probably you should read it!

Here it is.

I hope I posted that right...my internet skillz are rusty.

This is cool. Check it out.

I got this link from Riley, and I think I actually agreed with it 100%. It completely tallied with my young women's experience, and I think these suggestions here are useful. I wish there were a way to move along the process of revamping the manuals used for the young men and young women: they're (we're) going to be in charge of the church soon, and I really, honestly think this should be a top, top priority.

In other news, I am watching How to Train Your Dragon, am reading Speaker for the Dead, and am about to watch Sherlock. So far I have done 5 minutes worth of homework. BEST WEEKEND EVER YEAH but tomorrow might be a little crappy.

The rest of this is a quote from the article, and something we should probably think about and live by:

http://www.feministmormonhousewives.org/?p=3354

I would like to end with a list of Thirteen suggestions for helping Mormon women have more sex-positive experiences:
1. Overhaul the YW manuals, specifically emphasize chastity, virtue, and modesty as positive powerful choices, affirm the sacred nature of our bodies and our respect for God.
2. Remove the defensive fear-based vignettes, change emphasis from ‘camel-nose-rape-one-slip-n-you’re-toast to the healing power of the Atonement.
3. Ask Youth leaders/teachers specifically to avoid object lessons that demean our divine nature or compare young women to objects (wilted flowers, tainted food, chewed up gum, battered wood, cabbages or licked cake).
4. Stop talking about modestly as anything other than a sign of self respect. Make boys guardians of their own virtue, girls have no stewardship over boys thoughts or actions.
5. Ask teachers not to have activities emphasizing outward appearance (like make overs and fashion shows) because teaching girls they must always be “modestly hot” in order to attract a husband is still teaching the false illusory power of attracting male attention with our bodies.
6. Root out references to the myth of male weakness. Emphasize that men can control themselves.
7. Include nuance in discussions about sex thoughts, sex discussions, sexual desire, and porn. Our Young Women will think about sex, they will see porn, they will feel desire, they need to talk about sex with reliable adults, they need tools, not blanket prohibitions and condemnation.
8. Include lessons on physical sexual and emotional abuse, and unrighteous dominion.
9. Empower girls to listen to personal revelation.
10. Emphasize that girls who are raped and abused are not responsible for their abuse. That there is no loss of chastity or virtue.
11. Train bishops on what date/acquaintance rape looks like. On my small blog alone, I can think of dozens of women who were called to repentance after being raped.
12. Encourage parents to have ongoing explicit age-appropriate discussions with their children about sex. It is vital that we lift the veil of silence and discomfort. Many Mormon parents are naively worried that they will give their children ideas, or somehow corrupt them with facts. The fact is that children are surrounded by sex, lots of bad information, and tons of sexually explicit materials. But it is a proven fact that the more reliable factual knowledge kids have about sex, the more they talk to their parents about sex, the less likely they are to engage in it. It may be too much to ask, but I dream of a day when the church provides parents with age appropriate manuals for a comprehensive factual approach to sex-education that uses words like penis and vagina and sex.
13. I am going to introduce my final and perhaps most pressing suggestion with another comment from fMh by AJ:

Sexual abuse in my childhood had spurred in me an odd fascination with sex, leading to experimentation with masturbation and pornography. These issues were never addressed directly in YW. Everything I knew about the church’s stance on these issues came from reading the priesthood session talks in the conference ensigns. I felt such deep shame–not only was I a sinner, I was sinning in a way only boys were supposed to sin.

Talking to bishops was awkward at best, harmful at worst. I was asked such inappropriate questions as “did you orgasm?” and was even manipulated and seduced into a physical relationship with one of my bishops. More often the issues I faced when trying to confess these transgressions was embarrassment–more on the part of the bishop than myself.

These men intended to help me would turn bright red and stutter that I should just stop these behaviors. They were too embarrassed to provide real support.

Now–I think bishops are in general very good men trying hard to do God’s work. But I was very, very deeply hurt by the actions of some of the bishops I worked with as a teen.

The amount of pain and confusion caused by the bishop who developed a physically romantic relationship with me is immeasurable and ongoing. I believe he was essentially a good man who just made some very, very bad mistakes. He’s received his punishment and forgiveness and he continues to takes steps to ensure that he never hurts anyone that way again.

But after what I endured at his hands I feel it is absolutely 100% inappropriate for YW to be taught that they must discuss sexual transgressions with an untrained older man in order to obtain the Lord’s forgiveness. I won’t pass on that teaching to my daughters, and you can bet I’ll never be turning to a priesthood leader for counsel regarding my sexuality again.

AJ’s life unfortunately encapsulates all the problems that exist in the current system of women confessing to men. Even in the best case scenario, it is deeply inorganic, brutally awkward, and let’s be frank, it’s just plain old’ creepy. Young women should not be locked in a small office with a middle aged man who has not been trained in any way to counsel young people about sex, and then asked explicit questions about her sex life. Even if he is the most spiritual kindly man in the world, the situation is just wrong. And when he is not that man, when he is a weaker man, the situation is ripe for abuse, and it is abused, far too frequently.

I can see two possible solutions to this problem, the first is to require that young women have a parent or YW leader present in her interviews with the bishop. I still see this as an imperfect solution, because while it does protect her, it also intrudes further on a her privacy.

My preferred solution would be to turn the stewardship of women’s sexuality over to women. Just as in the temple there are certain settings where it is inappropriate for a man to interact with women, and in those situations women are given stewardship. So too is it inappropriate for men to be taking sexual confessions from women and to be asking sexually explicit questions of women. Relief Society presidents and Young Women’s presidents could be given this stewardship as part of their calling, to exercise those keys in a limited way, just as matrons do in the temple.

We Mormon’s have a well-deserved reputation as some of the most innocent/uptight people on the planet. Which is ironic considering our beliefs about sex and marriage. unlike many other faiths we believe that sex should be enjoyed and even celebrated between a wife and her husband. And given that Mormonism is a religion of embodied parent Gods, and we believe our bodies are a sacred gift and that sex may just be an eternal part of our celestial existence (rather than a Catholic-style sin encrusted burden to be cast off with this mortal coil), I think we need to look at this problem with profound seriousness. And make the changes necessary for Mormon women to feel empowered by their positive sex choices and celebrate their bodies as divine sexual beings.

Thank goodness.

http://mormonsformarriage.com/?p=299

Anagrams

So I was having a good time with this website trying to decide what I would do if I needed to suddenly anagram my name to, say, take over the known world while using a catchy made-up name that resembled my real name in that it used the same letters. Like Voldemort. The best options I have found are:

Miracle Ye Quirk
Acquire Rye Milk
Lace Rime Quirky
Creamy Lie Quirk
Clam Eyrie Quirk
Email Rick Query
Lea Quicker Miry
Air Quick Merely
La Quickie Merry
A Mercy Lie Quirk
Eclair Key Qi Rum
Camel Rye I Quirk
Uremia Cry Elk Qi
Lake Cry Quire Mi
Make Icy Ruler Qi

All in all there were 4207 anagrams for my name. No news on if some of them featured words like Qi, which, according to wikipedia, is a Chinese principle referring to an active principle forming part of any living thing. Chi, I guess? Just spelled different?

BEWARE THE DARK LORD EMAIL RICK QUERY. ALL SHALL LOVE ME AND DESPAIR.

Also I am so amused that my last name could be Rum or Quirky or Quirk and that my first name could be Camel. Hee.

Superhero

My thighs are very, very sunburned. HOW THEY BURN. So last night Nathan decided I should have a superhero name:

THUNDAH THIGHS OF FIRE

My arch nemesis is ICY BICEPS.

THUNDAH THIGHS OF FIRE
VS
ICY BICEPS

And Miranda rewrote that ridiculous (ly popular) Owl City song to say, "blah blah blah ten thousand fire thighs light up the world as I fall asleep."

MORE PITCHERS LATER <333

Where I was and Where I am

SORRY THE PITCHERS ARE SO SMALL.

Where I was last summer:



Where I was a month and a half (two months? Two and a half months?) ago:






Where I am now:







None of these pictures is of me. Also, I just discovered the white and black option on my camera. Whee!

Still here for another week, so maybe I'll take some more pictures and put them here.

THE END!

A WORD TO THE WISE

Be careful what you say on facebook. I'm sure you already knew this, but did you know that your ultra-conservative relatives might read your words and try to persuade you of the error of your ways? It is just the worst.

...Now I'm gonna find out they read my blog, too, and then I WILL NEVER BE FREE AGAIN. As much as I love them, I sometimes do not like them on the internets. But I like them at other times, I promise.

Rhetorical Analysis #THE LAST ONE.

Topic: An encounter with a salesperson.

Scenario, as happened to me the last time I was at the mall: The saleswoman for some weird kind of lotion tries to nab me and Margaret as we walk out of some clothing store by saying, "Let me rub some of this on your hands! It has shea butter in it; it will make your hands feel like new!" I say, "No thanks," and we walk away.

#1: What is the saleswoman's goal?
To sell us her product, meaning the fancy lotion.

#2: What is her argument?
We should try some of her product because once we do, we'll be unable to not buy the product because we'll be so in love with how it will make our skin feel.

#3: Who is her audience?
Her broad audience is anyone who walks past her at the mall; her more specific audience is women who like to wear yummy-smelling lotion or men with wives/girlfriends who like to wear yummy-smelling lotion.

#4: How does she sell her argument?
The saleswoman was mostly relying on ethos to sell her argument; she only had a few brief seconds to build up her credibility before Margaret and I walked away, and the main way she did this was by trying to get us to try the lotion for ourselves. Her argument was that if we tried the lotion, then we would know for ourselves that we couldn't not buy it. She thus tried to use the product itself to establish her credibility by claiming that if we tried it, we'd fall instantly in love with it.

She thus also relied on pathos to sell her product by telling us that if we tried it, our hands would feel like new. She relied on her belief that we, as average college-age girls browsing the mall, naturally want yummy-smelling, smooth hands. She was therefore trying to create in us a sense of beauty or maybe maturity, and by trying to rub the lotion on us herself she was probably trying to create in us a sense of being coddled and pampered, which she hoped would warm us up to her and her product.

STAR
Sufficient--nope. All she had to go on was her own advertisement, which evidently didn't work since Margaret and I didn't try on the lotion. She offered us no evidence other than her own advice that we should even try the lotion, which wasn't sufficient evidence to persuade your average person to try on the lotion.

Typical--Margaret and I are both fairly reasonable, and we didn't accept her evidence, so I would say no, it wasn't typical.

Accurate--nope. She didn't present enough evidence to combat our counterargument that we were busy and that trying on the lotion would be an inconvenience.

#5: Effective?
Nope. Margaret and I didn't give the lady any time to explain her product because she didn't sell it well enough in the few seconds she had to convince us. Analysis: fail.

Rhetorical Analysis #5: Analysis of Aragorn's speech.

I forgot to do #4. I am fail :(

The speech I'm analyzing for this analysis is Aragorn's speech to the Men of the West in The Return of the King movie. It goes like this:

"Sons of Gondor, of Rohan, my brothers! I see in your eyes the same fear that would take the heart of me. A day may come when the courage of men fails, when we forsake our friends, and break all bonds of fellowship; but it is not this day! An hour of wolves, and shattered shields, when the Age of Men comes crashing down; but it is not this day! This day we fight! By all that you you hold dear on this good earth, I bid you stand, Men of the West!"
-Aragorn.

I got that transcript off of wikipedia, which is cool.

#1: What is the speech's goal?
The goal is to persuade the Men of the West to make a last stand against Sauron, the Dark Lord of Mordor.

#2: What is the speech's argument?
That the Men of the West should stand and fight because they will be victorious--the Age of Men will come crashing down at one point but, if they fight, that won't happen today. Ergo, they should fight to salvage the Age of Men.

#3: Who is the audience?
The audience is the small group of men of Gondor and Rohan (and also some hobbits and a dwarf and an elf and also Gandalf) who are gathered on the field in front of the Black Gate of Mordor who are about to fight Sauron's forces in the culminating battle of the war against Sauron.

#4: How?
Aragorn first appeals to ethos by establishing his credibility with his audience. He reminds them that he shares similar values with his audience by calling them his "brothers." He also appeals to pathos by reminding them of "all that [they] hold dear on this good earth." Aragorn thus appeals to their sense of rightness and justice, but, most importantly, to their desire to defend Middle Earth's goodness against Mordor's evilness. He also addresses the audience's fear that they will fail by describing the day when the Age of Men will finally fail as "a day of wolves and shattered shields when the Age of Men comes crashing down." However, he uses this fear to spur the audience to fight: "It is not this day. This day, we fight." Aragorn thus successfully uses both ethos and pathos in his short speech to encourage his men to fight for their freedom.

STAR:

Sufficient--Aragorn doesn't really offer any evidence that the Men of the West will succeed and Mordor will fail. His role as Elessar perhaps encourages his men to believe that since Aragorn says that the Age of Men won't fail today, he's probably right. Aragorn's speech is mostly emotional and not logical; he doesn't draw from facts, since the army of Mordor is much larger than his own army. Therefore, the evidence he gives is all emotional--because they believe in their cause, the men of the West will prevail. Therefore, depending on how you look at it, Aragorn either fails to give sufficient logical evidence, or he succeeds at giving sufficient emotional evidence to encourage the Men of the West to fight.

Typical--the Men of the West are all pretty typical people, and they all accept the speech, so the evidence Aragorn gives obviously worked for them. I don't know that a rational person under less emotional duress would accept the argument, though, since the odds are obviously against them. However, a cause-driven person wanting to believe that they aren't about to be massacred by the overwhelmingly large opposing forces would probably still buy into Aragorn's argument.

Accurate--He does present the counterargument that one day the Age of Men will fail, and his frightening description of that day doesn't set the counterargument up as an easy thing that he can just push over. Instead, he assuages his men's fears by conveying the idea that while the Age of Men will one day fail, if they fight, they can stave off that time until later, which seems to be pretty effective.

Relevant--The speech is short and to the point, so I think there isn't any extraneous material here. Everything he says is directly related to encouraging the Men of the West to fight; there isn't anything extraneous or anything that could be interpreted as a red herring.

#5: Effective?
Yes. The speech is obviously effective in that it does rally the Men of the West in the movie, encourage them, and enable them to fight and win. I think the speech is largely emotional and doesn't draw from anything logical except for Aragorn's drive to win, which might not make it effective to any other audience; however, for this particular audience, the speech is just perfect.

Here is a picture demonstrating the speech's effectiveness:



THE END!

Ps. The best part of this experience was that I wrote this post while watching this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ltps17if3t8&feature=related
Watch it until you start to really understand the intensity of that hair. It kept surprising me all the way through, springing out at me in every screen shot like a tiger. A terrifying, but engaging, experience.

Rhetorical Analysis #3: Source for Paper B

I forgot to do #2. :(

The article I am analyzing is this one:
Golub, Lester S. “The New American Revolution: Multi-Cultural Literature, in the English
Program.” The English Journal 64.6 (Sep. 1975): 23-26. Web.

#1: What is the article's goal?
The article's goal is to persuade the reader that literature written in English by ethnic groups who didn't originally speak English should be taught in secondary schools.

#2: What is the article's argument?
Literature written in English by different ethnic groups should be taught in high school classes because it reflects the mutlicultural roots of our society, validates other cultural groups, and helps students live in and deal with a pluralistic reality.

#3: Who is the audience?
The narrowest audience is readers of The English Journal. In other words, the main audience is high school English teachers across America who have the power to change their curricula to include multicultural literature.

#4: How?
The author appeals to logos by presenting a clearly outlined map of how teachers could change their curricula to include other English language literatures in their courses. One of the biggest arguments against including multicultural literature in the high school English classrooms is that it would take a very, very long time for individual teachers to rearrange the course curriculum and to figure out how to teach literature from a culture the teacher isn't familiar with. By presenting a clear outline for how the teacher should teach this literature and by outlining literary and psychological concepts that the teacher should consider while teaching this literature, the author makes it clear that teaching so-called "ethnic" literature isn't as hard as it appears. His logical outline of how to apply the concepts he lists appeals to the reader's sense of logic. It also establishes his credibility as an educator and leads the reader to trust him more, thus appealing to ethos. Finally, it also plays on the reader's emotions by making them feel more at ease with this topic, thus appealing to pathos.

The author also appeals to the reader's sense of logic by emphasizing that this literature deserves to be a part of the high school teaching canon by virtue of history. He quotes Chinua Achebe as saying, "I have been given this language [English] and intend to use it." The author continues that for many cultural groups, English is not their original language, but it has of necessity become the tongue that many of them use. Therefore, it doesn't make sense to exclude other literatures from high school English classes--all groups who write in English ought to be taught in English classes, rather than solely American or British writers. This also appeals to the reader's sense of injustice, since he argues that other writers should be included in the canon because, he says, "Fifty years ago, no African literature was discussed in the school and universities of the Western world." By emphasizing that many African writers write in English and therefore should be included in the English language canon, Golub implies that it would be unjust to continue to exclude and neglect them, as they have been for so many years.

STAR:

Sufficient: I think the evidence the author gives is sufficient for his audience. His outlined curriculum, his quotes from authors like Chinua Achebe, and his examples of multicultural works with themes that are important to high school students but that aren't usually taught in high school all evidence his main point: that this literature needs to be taught in high school.

Typical: I think a reasonable person would accept this evidence, especially in his section on "national and ethnic literature," where he lists several authors and works of note that should be included in high school curricula. The author establishes himself as credible and provides, I think, enough evidence to support his claim.

Accurate: He's fair. He addresses the counterarguments, especially that changing the curriculum of any class takes time and that Western readers might not identify as readily with non-Western literature. He doesn't set these up as easy questions to topple over easily; instead, he spends the majority of the paper addressing these questions and proposing viable solutionsl.

Relevant: I think everything in this article applies. It's short--only 5 pages long--and stays on-topic the whole time.

#5: Effective
Yes, I think the piece is effective. It outlines viable solutions and addresses the counterarguments in a logical way, making his way seem very smart and very doable.

The end.

Rhetorical Analysis #1

The ad I'm advertising comes from the back of the May National Geographic and is an advertisement for the iPad. In the ad, the iPad is in the foreground. On the screen is a page from Nicholas Sparks' novel The Last Song. A woman is holding the iPad on her lap and has her feet up on the couch while she reads the electronic book.

#1: What as the ad's goal?
-To sell the iPad.

#2: What is the argument?
-You should buy the iPad because it's classy, fashionable, and comfortable, allowing you to do relaxing things around the home, like read a book, with greater ease.

#3: Who is the audience?
-The broad audience is people, mainly women, who are reading National Geographic; the narrower audience is people reading the magazine who are 1) women, 3) middle-class, 2) enjoy doing things associated with relaxing around the house, like reading romance novels, and 4) perceive the iPad as something that only businessmen would want to buy and use.

#4: How? What rhetoric does the ad use?
The ad uses pathos to sell its argument by appealing to the reader's sense of comfort, relaxation, and ease. The woman in the ad has her feet up and is obviously relaxing in her own home; we can see the curtains billowing in the window by her feet and light streams into what is presumably her living room. She is wearing fashionable shoes and a classy skirt but is relaxing on the couch, enjoying her romance novel. Her hands are smooth and she holds the iPad up easily. By making the ad so we can't see the woman's face, the reader automatically becomes the viewer and steps into the woman's shoes, making the reader feel like they, too, can enjoy this sense of peace and relaxation by holding the iPad in their hands and relaxing in their own home. The ad also uses pathos to appeal to readers of romance novels by putting Nicholas Sparks' novel on the computer screen; the romance-obsessed reader (or the reader of pulp fiction or the viewer of popular movies) is thus automatically hooked and feels connected to the iPad right off the bat. The novel also uses pathos by establishing that the iPad isn't just for computer geeks or for people who need to work on some computery project. Instead, it's also for people who just want to relax and read a book.

The ad also uses logos by logically connecting the reader to the woman in the ad. The woman is relaxed and is obviously enjoying herself; by placing the iPad in the foreground and making the words on the page large enough for the viewer of the ad to read, the ad places the viewer of the ad in the place of the relaxed, comfortable woman with classy shoes who is relaxing in her home. We can't see any part of the woman but her hands, legs, and skirt, which makes us, the reader, her face; the iPad looks comfortable for the woman and thus logically looks comfortable to us. Therefore, the ad's use of logos connects the reader to the woman, making them feel (using pathos) that, logically, whoever holds the iPad will also experience the same sense of comfort and relaxation as the woman in the ad.

Evaluating the evidence:
Sufficient: I don't think the evidence the ad gives is sufficient. There isn't anything in the ad about the iPad itself; the ad relies wholly on pictures to sell its product. It portrays the product as being easy to hold and comfortable, and it demonstrates that the iPad can be used for more things than just business, and so it might seem credible to people who need to be persuaded that the iPad can be used to do fun recreational things, not just business-y things. However, the ad doesn't list any statistics or facts about how much the iPad costs, how to download ebooks, how much those cost, and what kinds of books are available to be read on the iPad. Thus, the evidence as for why you should buy the iPad doesn't seem sufficient for me.

Typical: I don't know that a reasonable person would accept this ad, because a reasonable person probably a) does not read Nicholas Sparks, and b) needs more evidence than just a woman with fashionable shoes reading a Nicholas Sparks novel to be persuaded into buying something as expensive as the iPad.

Accurate: There isn't really a counterargument presented here, except for the idea that only wealthy businessmen buy the iPad. In that case, I think it addresses the counterargument fairly by presenting a middle-class woman who is obviously enjoying herself. I don't know if "accurate" applies to this argument in other ways, though, since fashionable shoes doesn't automatically mean you want to read The Last Song on your iPad.

Relevant: I think everything in here is directly connected to the argument that middle-class women who like romance novels should also consider buying the iPad.

#5: Is it effective?
I think the argument would probably be affective for its target audience. However, I think it's trying to sell itself to too narrow an audience (i.e., women who like Nicholas Sparks) to be effective in any broader way.

YAY

I dropped my D&C class!
I am taking adolescent lit instead!

EEE!!

My life has improved dramatically.

I have to read thirty books for this class over the next seven weeks, so I'm going to try to keep track of them on here. So far I have read:



UNWIND, by Neil Shustermann. THIS IS ONE THE BEST BOOKS I HAVE READ IN A LONG TIME. GO FIND OUT ABOUT IT AND READ IT PLEASE I AM BEGGING YOU. OH MY GOSH.

Also I have read



Guinea Pig Scientists, which was boring and gross but informative, I guess, and



Shipwreck at the Bottom of the World, which I've read before and which I love, and



I'll be seeing you, by Lurlene McDaniel. Guys. First of all I have to point out that in the copy I read, Kyle on the front cover has long, stringy, billowy Fabio hair. Apparently they later altered this physical feature. Sad.

"Carley Mattea never expected to meet a boy as handsome as Kyle Westin--certainly not in the hospital. Seventeen-year-old Kyle was blinded when a chemistry experiment exploded. His doctors don't know if he'll get his vision back, and he's deeply depressed. Sixteen-year-old Carley understands how miserable it is to be in the hospital. She's had plenty of experience. soon Carley and Kyle become good friends. But Carley is keeping a secret from Kyle. She knows that boys like girls who are pretty--and she is not. Scarred by a facial deformity, she has, over the years, used her sense of humor to cope. But now that she's become so close to Kyle, she's worried that once his bandages are removed...and he sees her, it will be the end of their relationship."

Here is an example of Carley's sense of humor: after Kyle flies over the school on Valentine's Day with an airplane trailing a banner that reads, "CARLEY, BE MINE, K.W.," Carley says, "I think I will make that call. I'd hate to leave that guy hanging." Following this statement, Carley's sister Janelle "groaned over Carley's bad joke, but Carley scarcely heard her. She looked up to see the plane cut a wide circle, dip its wing as if in greeting, and head off. The sign fluttered behind it in the wind, the large crimson letters stamped across the face of the sky, bright as the flare of a rocket."

I don't know if the final sentence was supposed to refer to the rocket that exploded and thus temporarily blinded poor Kyle. Also, Carley gets plastic surgery in the end, and thus she will once again be beautiful.

Yay!

I'll never get that half an hour of my life back.
Also, while typing this, I had to listen to a BYU tutorial about using the library. I learned all about internet safety. At long last! Thanks, BYU, for this valuable, timely information.

CHEERS.

Heeeeey BYU: stop controlling my life.

Or rather, stop controlling my electronic life, because for some reason, I have a new class that assigns me to post rhetorical analyses of various things on my blog. Guys. This is not the purpose of a blog. The purpose of this blog is to write random things about my random life, and, as Jon pointed out the other day, professors might think they're being hip with the kids by having us blog assignments and crap, but they're messing up the format and purposes of "the blog" by making it into a freaking analysis. FYI: THAT IS NOT A BLOG. Anyway. I'm annoyed. GAH. So when there are random things that are boring posted on this blog, feel free not to read them, because they really are assignments that should be typed up and turned in, not randomly posted on a blog FOR NO REASON other than that BYU likes to control everything I ever do ever.

WHAT LARKS!

Anyway, lots of ranting in recent times because English 312 is boring and my D&C class sucks. This is because, for some reason, every religion class at BYU (basically) is like glorified seminary. HEY D&C TEACHER: stop making jokes about marriage! Stop inviting all of us to get married! Stop being so in-your-face and American! Stop making the D&C so damn trite!

These words were actually said in class today: "So go out and find that right girl or that right boy and get married! Now! As soon as you can!" Yeah. When his son brought home a girlfriend for the first time, this man taught an FHE lesson to them about temple marriage and then sat down with the girlfriend and talked to her about the importance of marriage. Can you say creeper?

Okay. End/rant. I will try to be positive and optimistic and all that crap, but it's a liiiittle tricky when your smiling old man religion professor keeps trying to shove marriage down your face.

On a happier note, even though I really, really do not want to be doing all this stuff spring semester, it is at least a little bit more chill, which means my life can go back to being all about tv! Making tv my life is maybe not so great, since there was lots of tv trauma this week (Joyce dying, Gabriel dying, House being emo. You know. The usual). However, I do so like it when my world revolves around television. This includes these people:



This person:



And perhaps these wonderful people, since I have been craving some good Sci-Fi recently:



Also, if this man dies next Thursday:



I will be seriously pissed.

Anyway.

In closing, this actual conversation was had in class yesterday. I wrote it down because I thought it was funny.

Student: "I just think it's important when arguing to remember that in this life, there is no absolute truth. We just can't find one absolute truth in this world, there isn't any ideal truth."
Teacher: "That's great. I think that's absolutely true."

...

KIDS I LOVE YOU I will go and do my oodles of D&C homework now and perhaps eat lunch. Maybe I'll have to take this down later because I don't want the teacher who grades my rhetorical analyses to see this. At least not really. Theoretically.

GO OUTSIDE NOW AND ENJOY THE SPRINGTIME SUN I mean the snow. :(

Ps when I hit "publish post" and it went to the splash page or whatever, there was an ad on the side for an online dating side for gay Asian singles. Alas, none of those terms apply to me, but I appreciate the ad anyway.

A JANE AUSTEN BLOGFEST!

Most people on BYU campus are familiar with this woman:



Contrary to popular belief, she is neither this woman:



Nor this woman:



She is, however, the authoress of these items, which, alas, many people on BYU campus are not familiar with:



However, many BYU students, particularly girls, are familiar with these items:



Lots of girls on BYU campus get together with their family members, friends, or roommates to watch the above films. In the research paper I wrote on this BYU ritual, I decided to call this phenomenon the "Jane Austen Movie Night."

Why do a research project about Jane Austen movies on BYU campus?



Lots of people all over the country watch Jane Austen movies obsessively, but I wanted to know why, specifically, Jane Austen movies appeal so strongly to BYU audiences. I concluded that BYU's fascination with Jane Austen movies has something to do with this:



I.e., MARRIAGE.

How do these three things (marriage, Jane Austen, and BYU culture) connect?
Well, this novel:



was written by a woman who lives in Utah Valley, and her novel describes the "Jane Austen Movie Night" perfectly. The story's protagonist, Jane, had

"first read Pride and Prejudice when she was sixteen…But it wasn’t until the BBC put a face on the story that those gentlemen in tight breeches had stepped out of her reader’s imagination and into her nonfiction hopes" (Hale 2).

Jane’s behavior mimics that of many Mormon female students at BYU or in Utah Valley, who frequently get together with their roommates, friends, or family members to watch Jane Austen movies and fall in love themselves with the film's versions of various Romantic gentlemen, like this man:



And like this one:



Jane watches Jane Austen movies because she sees in them the man of her dreams--i.e., this man:



Behavior like Jane's is also evident in many BYU students' behavior, particularly among girls. For instance, when this movie came out:



my friends and I went and saw the movie and obsessed over this beautiful man:



We squealed so much so that the woman sitting next to us at the movie theater asked us to be quiet. However, the movie theater was packed (mostly with women), and we were definitely not the only ones squealing during this scene:



We weren't BYU students then, although we all are now--we all grew up in Utah Valley, though, and were familiar with BYU's marriage culture. I can only speak for myself, but I know that while watching the movie, I was thinking about how much I wanted my own "Mr. Darcy" and a similarly romantic love story to play out in my own life, even though I was only 15. I wanted a boyfriend, dangit! I wanted to be kissed like Elizabeth Bennet in a dramatically romantic fashion!



I attribute my early obsession with marriage to the culture I grew up in. Even at age 15, I had already had a lot of lessons in church about the importance of marriage, and I knew a lot of girls who were only 19 who had gone to BYU or UVSC and had immediately gotten married. Based on this, then, it didn't seem like marriage was that far off for me.



I think the mentality that me and my friends exhibited through our squeals and rapture while watching various Jane Austen movies connects Jane Austen movies with BYU's marriage culture: BYU students watch Jane Austen movies on campus at least in part because they are obsessed with marriage, and watching the characters' romances played out on screen enables them to live out their own mental fantasies of marriage and romance, which, they hope, will eventually end in marriage.



HOWEVER, not all students are comfortable with BYU's marriage culture OR with BYU's perception of Jane Austen.

The girl on the left of this picture



is named Tiffany. She said that both Jane Austen and BYU

"put way too much pressure/emphasis on marriage and not enough on education and thinking before doing something stupid that will affect the rest of your life."

She thus sees a connection between BYU's obsession with Jane Austen movies, and BYU's obsession with marriage, and she doesn't particularly like or agree with the connection.

This boy



is named Jon. He is an English major at BYU. He said,

"I don’t think [BYU students] read [Jane Austen] correctly, that she’s misunderstood and misinterpreted by a BYU…she’s been like 'chickified' somehow and it’s turned into some sort of… teenage thing where everyone’s just 'yay Jane Austen yay!' and it’s funny and it’s cute and all the girls squeal and the social critique has sort of been lost."

He doesn't like how BYU interprets Jane Austen movies and novels. This doesn't mean that he doesn't like either marriage or Jane Austen, though. In fact, he still believes Jane Austen novels and movies are important to BYU culture and to understanding marriage and relationships:

"[Austen’s] stuff on relationships and how we see people and how we treat people and what is appropriate and inappropriate and everybody interacting with one another and why they marry or don’t and why they do or don’t like people is I think very important for BYU."

IN CONCLUSION:

I decided with my project that many people on BYU campus are a part of the "Jane Austen Movie Night," especially girls like me and my friends.



I also think that BYU's obsession with Jane Austen movies highlights its obsession with marriage.



However, many people are opposed to BYU's interpretation of both marriage and Jane Austen, which doesn't mean that they don't like marriage or Jane Austen--it only means that they have a different view of both of them.

BUT DON'T FEEL BAD, NO MATTER WHICH GROUP YOU'RE A PART OF!

The girl in this picture



is me. I believe that, based on my own experience, it's possible to be a member of both groups. I watch and like Jane Austen movies and I fantasize about marriage like a lot of girls on BYU campus. However, I also dislike parts of BYU's emphasis on marriage. For instance, even though I'm only twenty, lots of people I know ask me if I'm dating anyone and if I'm planning on getting married soon.



I don't know why they ask me this when I'm only twenty.



I also think there's more to Jane Austen than just marriage. Marriage is certainly an important part of her novels, but what she's saying about marriage--Is it always a good thing? Why do people get married? What makes a good marriage? Is love as important as wealth?--isn't always simple or straightforward.



What this project shows most of all is that Jane Austen was a smart, complex women. Her novels weren't meant to be merely "chicklit" or romantic fantasy; they were, and still are, deep novels with multiple levels of meaning--although they are, of course, romantic in their turn.



Congratulations, Jane Austen, on a job well done. Your influence is felt near and far, from England to BYU campus, and your books have changed a lot of lives--including mine.

In conclusion, if you are part of the first group (i.e., the whole-hearted Jane Austen Movie Night watchers), this video will make you squeal with glee. If you are part of the second group, or the anti-Jane Austen/BYU culture group, you will probably roll your eyes a lot. If you are part of the third group, who love certain parts of Jane Austen chickflickyness but criticized it at the same time (which, I believe, the majority of the people I interviewed were, including me), then you might outwardly mock this video, but inwardly squeal with joy. Alternatively, you might laugh while watching it but also say things like, "Oh, I love North and South! I love you, Mr. Thornton!!" and then, depending on who you are watching it with, feel embarrassed.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TOFps_Naytg

Works Cited:
Hale, Shannon. Austenland. New York: Bloomsbury, 2007. Print.

P.S.
A shout-out to Kris, who I also interviewed for this project and who would like it to be known that she finds this man



aka, Mr. Rochester, infinitely more attractive than these men:


these men:


or, alas, this man:






Sad!

It's okay, though. Rochester is, yes, pretty dang hot. Kudos to Kris!

Happy Poetry Month!

Ah, the blessed month of April. Fraught with windstorms, snow flurries, ice slicing up your cheeks, your red calves quivering in the wind and longing for sunshine and a good pair of shorts, and a month full of 40% off poetry discounts at the BYU Bookstore! I keep missing my office hours because I'm so distracted by the 40% off display table. It's okay. No one comes anyway. To kick of poetry month (six days late) and to distract myself from the task at hand, namely writing my African lit paper (due tomorrow), here's a snarky little prose poem that I find both pretty and fairly amusing in its own special way.

Metaphors

It is pleasing to know there are so many metaphors in this world. And I'm told the number is growing all the time. Last week an Asian newspaper reported that an immense metaphor surfaced just off the coast of India and was creating quite a stir. Christians and Muslims forbad the faithful to gaze upon it. Hindus showered it with flowers. Buddhists claimed it had been there all along. A single metaphor can upend the world and soon everyone is wearing orange or speaking in falsetto or weeping in the streets. Before they present themselves to mankind, most prophets spend years gathering metaphors in the desert, which is like an orchard where metaphors flourish without a trace of rain.

-David Shumate

Lame civ class. Poem of the Week.

I hate, hate, hate TAing for the civ class I am accidentally TAing this semester. I hate ancient civ. It's awful. And so boring. I REALLY DON'T CARE about ancient Greek dead people. Sorry. Except for some of them, like Aeschylus and Sophocles. Anyway. This is a lovely poem that is better than ancient civilizations and is much better than ancient philosophers, because really? Who cares. The end.

Etymology

Her body by the fire
Mimicked the light-conferring midnights
Of philosophy.
Suppose they are dead now.
Isn't "dead now" an odd expression?
The sound of the owls outside
And the wind soughing in the trees
Catches in their ears, is sent out
In scouting parties of sensation down their spines.
If you say it became language or it was nothing,
Who touched whom?
In what hurtle of starlight?
Poor language, poor theory
Of language. The shards of skull
In the Egyptian museum looked like maps of the wind-eroded
Canyon labyrinths from which,
Standing on the verge
In the yellow of a dwindling fall, you hear
Echo and re-echo the cries of terns
Fishing the worked silver of a rapids.
And what to say of her wetness? The Anglo-Saxons
Had a name for it. They called it silm.
They were navigators. It was also
Their word for the look of moonlight on the sea.

-Robert Hass



That was a picture I took of the place mat that the nice lady who owned the rockin bed and breakfast in Weymouth had at her breakfast table. I took a picture because I thought it was the prettiest place mat I had ever seen and I did not want to leave the ocean. I am spending a lot of time torturing myself because I WANT TO BE AT THE OCEAN and not here, where I need to write two papers that are due next week, since we only have one more week of school which is SCARY. To cheer myself up about not being at the ocean, here are some pictures that make me happy.


On the cliffs at that place where Arthur's castle was. What was that place called? The New Age place where Nicholas Cage randomly was. TINTAGEL. It was gorgeous there.


Jon, after surmounting the tallest peak of the epic Jurassic Coast.


Glastonbury is a beautiful place full of beautiful people.

AND IT'S ALMOST SUMMER SO IT'S ALMOST TIME FOR US TO GO BACK HERE! :



Here meaning Bryce Canyon, which is LOVELY.
And truly, it is almost SUMMERTIMES, which are exciting times.