So close!

Funny quote I saw today:
Some men are born with healthcare, some men achieve healthcare, some men have healthcare thrust upon them.
I liked it.
This is me procrastinating my paper. still. I still have to write at least another seven pages, and yet, I'm writing in my blog. Looking back, it appears that I started this blog as a way to procrastinate studying, so I suppose that this is an appropriate use of it. It snowed today. A lot. I love the snow so much... My roommates and I went crazy today. I think everyone is high off stress...this week is killing me slowly, and it's only Monday. Well, Tuesday morning now. And finals are next week. Meh.
I have mixed feelings about going home...I love my family, but we're going to California for Christmas and I was kind of looking forward to a nice quiet Christmas at home. Oh well. I do love California. It just doesn't have snow. I just can't wait until next semester. I have a feeling it's going to be great. I don't know why...maybe because winter semester was so great last year.
Jenae and I went to the Doyle's house for dinner on Sunday. They were in my family's ward in Texas...so I've known them forever. Longer than I've known most people. Anyway...we're going to their house again the day we get back from vacation. It's gonna be big. Sounds like a great way to start the semester, huh? Oh. Right. I remember why I brought them up. Apparently my dad, when talking to Brother Doyle, said that I have a boyfriend. So when I got there, Brother and Sister Doyle interrogated me about my "boyfriend." Separately. I don't think that two sort of dates a month ago count as a boyfriend, and I don't know who else he could have meant. I'm tired of my parents spreading rumors about me. I have no boyfriend because no one wants me. Because I fail at flirting. Or talking to guys I like. Sometimes I wish I had the skills I seemed to have so easily in high school...but then I remember why I don't have these "gifts" anymore: I abused them. Funny how that works. Ok. No more male bitterness. This is why I don't really mention that sort of thing anymore. The other day in the Wilk, every single conversation I heard for an HOUR was about marriage. There's a reason that sort of thing is hard to get out of your head here...BYU is such a special place.
Well, I should write my paper. Fare thee well, whoever you are.

20 Books that Changed America

So this is a list of books that supposedly changed America forever, in order of influence. I've never read any of them all the way through, but I've read parts of a good many of them. I'm in the process of reading one, though. I should have read that one many years ago...I'm glad that it's on this list though. It is the best book.

Common Sense (1776) by Thomas Paine

A Vindication of the Rights of Women (1792) by Mary Wollstonecraft

The Book of Mormon (1830)

The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave (1845) by

Frederick Douglass

The Communist Manifesto (1848) by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels

Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852) by Harriet Beecher Stowe

Leaves of Grass (1855) by Walt Whitman

The Interpretation of Dreams (1900) by Sigmund Freud

The Clansman (1905) by Thomas Dixon, Jr.

The Jungle (1906) by Upton Sinclair

The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money (1936) by John

Maynard Keynes

The Grapes of Wrath (1939) by John Steinbeck

Invisible Man (1952) by Ralph Ellison

Howl (1956) by Allen Ginsberg

Atlas Shrugged (1957) by Ayn Rand

Silent Spring (1962) by Rachel Carson

The Feminine Mystique (1963) by Betty Friedan

The Autobiography of Malcolm X (1965) by Malcolm X as told to Alex Haley

On Death and Dying (1969) by Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

All the President’s Men (1974) by Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein

God Bless America...

So today in my Humanities 262 class (American Humanities 1865-Present) we talked about the Vietnam war and the effects it had on American society. It was really around this time that we stopped trusting our politicians. I wonder what it would be like to be able to trust our president...that would be a strange concept to today's America. The morality of our culture has declined so drastically since then that I often find it hard to imagine a world worse than this.
Then I remember the Book of Mormon and the Bible.
There were times in Earth's society when people were so bad that God had to destroy them. Sodom and Gomorrah must have been completely wretched, as well as the people of the Earth before the flood. Some of the things that are described in the Book of Mormon are simply barbaric. These things, to me, show that the world still has a long way to fall before the Second Coming. I don't think that's a good thing.

Epic. Win.

We won the Utah game, 26-23 in overtime. It was intense.

Samwise Gamgee

My roommates and I have been watching all of the Lord of the Rings since I got them in the mail the other day. Before this, I'd never really liked Sam for some reason, but watching it this time I started to come to respect and admire him, especially for his line at the end of the third movie, as he and Frodo are trying to climb Mount Doom when he says to Frodo: "Well, I can't carry it [the ring] for you, but I can carry you!" That line really struck me this time. Sam was a perfect friend to Frodo, sticking with him through everything, even when Frodo was making decisions that Sam knew were bad for the both of them (keeping with Gollum for so long). Sam supported all of Frodo's decisions, following him to help Frodo with the hardest thing he would ever have to do: carry the ring to Mount Doom and destroy it. Samwise Gamgee is one of the most unselfish characters ever written. He is completely honest and loving to Frodo, even when Frodo is rude and selfish in return.

BYU -- I Do!

I understand why there is such a pressure to get married here. The church is centered around families, therefore we're encouraged, nay pushed to date, get engaged, and get married. It's all very subtle, the church's influence on that aspect of BYU student life. At first glance, it's simply the sheer numbers of people that are in relationships, of both the permanent and transient variety. But when a member of the stake presidency spends three-quarters of a lesson that was supposed to introduce the stake theme talking about how guys need to ask more girls out without batting an eyelash...well, the root cause is found. These "subtle hints" create a culture where everyone feels like they need to be in a relationship as soon as they become sophomores, if not as soon as possible. If they're not, there's something wrong with them. If they're not married by the time they graduate...there's next to no hope.

I do admit that, if given the opportunity, I would get married. I'm sure I'd be very happy. I'm not going to go jumping into any relationships with jerks, though. Too many people here succumb to the pressure by marrying someone they hardly know. Yes, sometimes it is "right," but nine times out of ten they've worked themselves up into "love" with someone they barely know. Some of these marriages work out with lots of effort and God's help, and some of them don't. They mix up the Spirit and love, or they simply are completely different people after they're married.

Dear God, don't let that happen to me. I'll do my best to not let it happen.

New Semester

Back at school. Ward's alright finally, roommates are crazy (but good), classes are interesting. Still don't know what to major in. I'm tired. I have hypothyroidism, so I have to take medication every morning. Maddie got her birthmark removed from her forehead. No guys in my life, as usual. The end.