Ciao

My dear fellow Americans... I will be out of the country in less than 24 hours!

And in a little more than that, I'll be in France. Wish us luck on our trip!

Awesome

The Mountain from Terje Sorgjerd on Vimeo.

The day I've been waiting for

Well, one of them...

Today I finally got digital copies of all our family films growing up, and I am oh so excited. They are hilarious. And I will probably be posting some excerpts, so you'll have to indulge me :)

Also, we're in Las Vegas with Andrew's parents and we saw my mom and sisters, and I'll see the rest of my family next week. School is out, I'll be spending a summer in Paris, I only have one more semester of classes left... Life is awesome.

Good Friday

(For the update: we got all our stuff moved out and the apartment cleaned out yesterday! I am very grateful for all the wonderful people that came to help us. We're leaving Provo for Las Vegas tomorrow and we'll fly out for Madrid from Las Vegas next Thursday)

Someday, I would like to go to Rome for Holy Week. I'm sure it must be an incredible sight to see, and it would be amazing to celebrate Easter with thousands of other Christians--after all, the biggest thing that we all share is a faith in Jesus Christ (although some people would have us kicked out of the club... seriously people?). I don't have much to say, but I thought this video was clear and simple, and the music is absolutely beautiful.



Happy Easter, and we'll miss you all!

Also, on a somewhat related note: this was a great article on the theme of unity. I enjoyed it.

Furnace of doubt

Just came across an interesting quote from Dostoevsky:


“It is not as a child that I believe and confess Jesus Christ. My hosanna is born of a furnace of doubt.”

I kind of like this. You can sense the process and the struggle, the fearlessness of trying to discover absolute truth, with the satisfaction of having come out of the struggle with stronger faith and confirmation of your belief.

I have to admit, sometimes I'm a little... annoyed? (OK, that was no secret).

I know plenty of girls who came to BYU supposedly to learn something but really only desperately latched on to the first man they could find. They got married and started having babies, maybe took the trouble to finish their degree, and then all you see is Facebook updates about their baby's latest blowout or how hard it is to be a mom.

Barf.

First of all.... honestly, I don't really care how often your precious angel poops. Or how sore your nipples are. Sheesh people, Facebook is public! If we're good friends chatting, of course I'd love to hear about your life. But public venues are so not an intimate friend-to-friend chat.

Second... enough with the self-validating comments about how tough motherhood is or how wonderful your stay-at-home life is!

And this is where I'm most conflicted. I truly believe that motherhood is an incredibly challenging and ultimately (hopefully) rewarding task. It's a divine calling, all that jazz... I get it. But sometimes, maybe this is society corrupting me, I feel like a lot of these people just took the cop-out route. I mean, how self-righteous does it sound to say that you sacrificed your education to raise your little one? Of course, we need to keep in mind eternal priorities and all, but don't you sometimes feel that deep down, just a wee little bit... it's awfully convenient that baby came before you had to actually work to help support your family?

And to my dear friends who read my blog and have babies--I promise I'm not talking about you. I think you are wonderful mothers :) I'm just irritated at this general attitude; it really makes me uncomfortable sometimes.

I get that motherhood is probably one of the most thankless tasks, but its nauseating when people do everything they possibly can to try to convince the world of how fulfilled they are and how much harder their job is than anything else. Really? There are working women who rock motherhood too: Valerie Hudson, world-renowned political scientist and mother of... seven children, I believe? Did I mention her kids are HOME-SCHOOLED?

Of course, it's easy for me to say this, because I've never experienced it. I get that, maybe I'll change my mind. But I hope that the day I become a mother I don't start talking nonstop and exclusively about every mundane and boring detail of my (and baby's) life. Hopefully my life will never be boring anyway.

I also realize full well that women aren't "just" stay-at-home moms. I get that it's a full-time job, and I value it highly. I don't think I want to be working like a maniac while having children, and I'm pretty sure I want to be a full-time mom for at least a period of my life. But I don't think I want it to be permanent. As much as I realize it's a crucial role on earth and in eternity, I don't think I'm meant to not work my whole life either. I love working in the media, and I may not follow the most conventional path but I want to stay active in the news my whole life, whether it's freelancing or doing documentaries every once in a while. Or writing a book or two... who knows. I just don't ever want to be static: that's probably what I fear the most, arriving at a point and realizing this is what I'll be for the rest of my life. I'd probably end up ridiculously depressed. I don't know, call me crazy but I feel like I have a contribution to make to the world too (and yes, I know, raising awesome kids is an enormous contribution, but I'm talking about contribution to my peers)

Anyway... this was my twisted way of saying that sometimes I don't know what to think about all this... and I especially can't bear the idea of being the girl who "just" did something because it was the easy route.

An excerpt from my civ class

I interrupt my English take-home final to bring to you a very interesting quote we've studied in this class. J. Reuben Clark got up in General Conference and spoke about the then-recent destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by the American atomic bomb. There must have been quite the electric atmosphere in the Tabernacle... 

"Now do not forget that all of the nations had prepared before World War II to use aircraft; they had already used submarines in World War I; and we in this area know we were prepared to use poison gases. Then as the crowning savagery of the war, we Americans wiped out hundreds of thousands of civilian population with the atom bomb in Japan, few if any of the ordinary civilians being any more responsible for the war than were we, and perhaps most of them no more aiding Japan in the war than we were aiding America.
Military men are now saying that the atom bomb was a mistake. It was more than that: it was a world tragedy. Thus we have lost all that we gained during the years from Grotius (1625) to 1912. And the worst of this atomic bomb tragedy is not that not only did the people of the United States not rise up in protest against this savagery, not only did it not shock us to read of this wholesale destruction of men, women, and children, and cripples, but that it actually drew from the nation at large a general approval of this fiendish butchery.
…
[W]e in America are now deliberately searching out and developing the most savage, murderous means of exterminating peoples that Satan can plant in our minds. We do it not only shamelessly, but with a boast. God will not forgive us for this.
If we are to avoid extermination, if the world is not to be wiped out, we must find some way to curb the fiendish ingenuity of men who have apparently no fear of God, man, or the devil, and who are willing to plot and plan and invent instrumentalities that will wipe out all the flesh of the earth. And, as one American citizen of one hundred thirty millions, as one in one billion population of the world, I protest with all of the energy I possess against this fiendish activity, and as an American citizen, I call upon our government and its agencies to see that these unholy experimentations are stopped, and that somehow we get into the minds of our war-minded general staff and its satellites, and into the general staffs of all the world, a proper respect for human life."


Intense

By the way

I'm on Pinterest.

It's a pretty cool site where you pin photos/links on various boards (i.e. "home inspiration," "fashion," etc.) It really helps me keep my email drafts under control :)

Come check it out!

Bye bye

I'm leaving a lot of things behind right now.

America, for one. Not permanently, and I am terribly glad to be returning to France, but I'm leaving the country for three months--that's a long time away from what I've come to consider a home. It'll be really good for me to go back to my roots for a time though.

Dance too. That one's really depressing. I know I'm the one who decided to quit, but I'm still pretty bitter to be honest. Oh well.

We finally took the plunge and threw out most of our trophies (after pulling off the labels--I plan on putting them on a plaque so we can have a little something to remember it all, but that will have to wait till after France).

Most of mine are bogus ones from mini comps, but some of them represent real achievements for both of us--like the time Andrew and I placed higher in standard than we had ever done separately. That was awesome. And the first time I placed in an open final ever--one week after my wedding by the way! Oh and there's the one shaped like a cruise boat we got on our honeymoon for performing in the talent show. Ha, we're such stage hams that we couldn't resist showing off even on vacation :)

It was pretty depressing to see them picked apart and thrown away just like that. It felt like some sort of metaphor for my dance life...

Our apartment is another thing we're leaving behind. We're starting to pack in earnest now and it's a little overwhelming. It's also a lot of fun to go through our stuff and remember things we had forgotten.

This was the first-year-of-marriage-newlyweds apartment. They say you never forget it. And as glad as I am to be leaving this ward (nice people and all, but 8 AM church combined with people with whom we have little in common made it a pretty miserable experience.) and getting a place with a bedroom that actually has space not entirely filled by the bed, I'm sure I'll miss it very fast--or maybe a better term is nostalgia. I'm sure I'll feel a great deal of nostalgia about it. Someday, we'll drive our kids to Provo and show them BYU and drive by here and say "we lived in that apartment right there!"

On the other hand I will be seeing my family again, and it has been a long time. And I really get to see everyone: my aunts, my grandmother, both of my uncles, and I plan on visiting more extended family that I haven't seen since I left home.

And of course, I'm moving towards a future with a much greater potential for success than the BDC ever gave me: if I can really pull off this documentary, I can make a valuable contribution to journalism. And of course, how awesome will it look on my resume?! "Oh, I spent a summer talking to French Muslims and government officials about Islam in France and the implications for western societies like the U.S."  BOOYAH!
And hopefully, next year after an internship in Salt Lake (I'm dead set on KSL. It's also the most competitive internship in the market... but dang it they'd better take me! I'll just have to prove to them I'm their woman) we'll be heading to D.C. for another short internship, and how awesome will that be--D.C. the summer of an election year? Gah! I'm excited out of my mind just thinking about it.

So plenty of good things, but it's still sad to leave a lot behind.

The love of a student

I knew my husband was well-liked by his dance students... but I had no idea to what extent: They made a website in his honor! And it's seriously awesome: Check it out!

When reporting goes wrong

Ok, I just have to post some of these...

Seriously don't blame this woman.



And I hope this never happens to me. Ever.



What the heck??



Watching other colleges' newscasts always makes me feel better about myself:



This is what you call a professional look?!

Ah, the classic "boom goes the dynamite"...


Poor kid.

And teleprompter failure is miserable. Pure terror ensues.



This one always cracks me up. The funny thing is this sort of thing really helps get the nerves out before going on.

Hilarious

Twin babies holding a conversation.

Des bébés jumeaux en grande discussion - Koreus

Aw, we're a grumpy dictator aren't we. Somebody take your power?

That's what happens when you throw a hissy fit and don't share with your brother.

*EDIT: someone pointed out to me that 1) Ouattara probably isn't much better than Gbagbo, and 2) it's none of France's business to go in and depose someone else's leader. Ok, not false. I guess my sentiment was more along the lines of "finally, someone did something decisive about a dictator thinking he can be above the law and just do whatever he wants." And by the way, it was France, the so-called wusses. Anyway.

Link of the day

For a good laugh: http://thisislifeinaustin.com/2009/08/20/and-this-is-our-generation/


Some of my favorites

Lol has gone from meaning, “laugh out loud” to “I have nothing else to say”.


More often than not, when someone is telling me a story all I can think about is that I can’t wait for them to finish so that I can tell my own story that’s not only better, but also more directly involves me.

Have you ever been walking down the street and realized that you’re going in the complete opposite direction of where you are supposed to be going? But instead of just turning a 180 and walking back in the direction from which you came, you have to first do something like check your watch or phone or make a grand arm gesture and mutter to yourself to ensure that no one in the surrounding area thinks you’re crazy by randomly switching directions on the sidewalk.

I totally take back all those times I didn’t want to nap when I was younger.

My brother’s Municipal League baseball team is named the Stepdads. Seeing as none of the guys on the team are actual stepdads, I inquired about the name. He explained, “Cuz we beat you, and you hate us.” Classy, bro.

How many times is it appropriate to say “What?” before you just nod and smile because you still didn’t hear what they said?

I can’t remember the last time I wasn’t at least kind of tired.

Can we all just agree to ignore whatever comes after DVDs? I don’t want to have to restart my collection.

Sometimes I’ll look down at my watch 3 consecutive times and still not know what time it is.

Oops

I should've remembered how just working on a 1 1/2 minute news story stressed me out before I got myself into a months-long production effort. I've been on hyper-active brain/hyper-stress mode ever since deciding. Yikes.

Here's to a summer of panic.

Ha. How's this for scripture of the day?

33¶And if a stranger sojourn with thee in your land, ye shall not^avex him.

 34But the ^astranger that dwelleth with you shall be unto you ^bas one born among you, and thou shalt ^clove him as thyself; for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.

More research

I came across this fascinating article in doing some research for my documentary (thank you, Tracy Hall).

The title is "When Islam Breaks Down" and it's a pretty critical view of Islam, but it's also very thought-provoking.

I don't plan on even getting close to questioning Islam's legitimacy/value in my work this summer--that's not my place--but it is very interesting to read about. It will provide me with some interesting questions to ask.

The author questions whether Islam is capable of adjusting to a modern world. He decides that it is, in fact, inherently incompatible with our western cultures.

Excerpt from the text:


Anyone who lives in a city like mine and interests himself in the fate of the world cannot help wondering whether, deeper than this immediate cultural desperation, there is anything intrinsic to Islam—beyond the devout Muslim’s instinctive understanding that secularization, once it starts, is like an unstoppable chain reaction—that renders it unable to adapt itself comfortably to the modern world. Is there an essential element that condemns the Dar al-Islam [literally "House of Islam," refers to those countries where Muslims can practice their religion freely, aka Islamic countries] to permanent backwardness with regard to the Dar al-Harb ["House of War" countries where the Muslim law is not in force, aka the western world], a backwardness that is felt as a deep humiliation, and is exemplified, though not proved, by the fact that the whole of the Arab world, minus its oil, matters less to the rest of the world economically than the Nokia telephone company of Finland?


What do you think about all this? 


And now, as much as I would rather continue researching for my documentary... I really need to go write a paper. Ciao!

And this is where it starts to sink in

Oh my gosh oh my gosh oh my gosh. I'm so excited. This documentary is going to ROCK your socks off.

Also, I'm completely overwhelmed. I'm nervous about getting everything I need in just three short months. Gah!

And also getting everything I need before leaving. Holy cow.

Lots to say

Just finished writing a paper about Virginia Woolf. She's pretty much my hero. I love her style. I love what she has to say. I love having some money and a room of my own. I am so grateful for the independence I have, for the fact that I grew up in a time where I can chose to do what I want, even though it may not always be all that easy.

On another note (I think I use that phrase too often) I just came across this article. Go read it, it's good read and a fast one too. It was kind of nice to get a Mormon shout-out, but I can't help but think about something else. It must be lame to always be known for your more wacko elements. When some crazy polygamist gets arrested for raping little girls, nobody pickets on temple square and talks about the evils of Mormonism--not really that I can think of. But in the case of Islam, the stories of terrorists and extremists paint our every day perception of a religion many Americans know nothing about, and then our representatives go on jihad (ha ha) to expose the dangers of Islam or something. Extremism in any religion or political orientation is dangerous, but somehow Muslims got the raw end of the deal on that one. There's a lot I don't understand, and there's also a lot I don't know. I'm just trying to figure it all out here.

And this is part of the reason I've decided to embark on my next project. I am VERY excited about this.

I've gotten the permission to take a camera with me to France, and I have started preliminary work on a documentary (how much I can get done will dictate how long it is) about the integration (or lack thereof) of Arabic populations in France. Of course, with a culture so intimately tied to Islam there will be discussion of Islam and how modern-day Muslims mix religion and work, school... I'm still working on focusing down my topic.

I just feel that this would be very relevant to Americans because we're at a point where we're wondering how to live with this unique culture in our midst--people are scared, don't know, maybe don't understand... In France, there has been a large Arab population for decades--the last number I heard was that France had a 13% Muslim population, and that was several years ago, I'm sure it's grown quite a bit since then. The cohabitation has not always been smooth, and there are many issues that I hope to explore, but I think it would be enlightening for any American as well to see how Arab populations have transitioned into a very western culture. I think that this topic is extremely relevant given what we see in the news every day right now, and looking at how the transition was made in France could give us perspectives on how it will, perhaps should or shouldn't, happen here. My intent is not to pass judgment on a religion or a culture but simply to observe how it's being lived in a country not so different from our own.

Anyway, that's my big project for the summer. I just hope I haven't bitten off more than I can chew. I may just come out of it with a few two minute news stories, and maybe I'll get a half hour out of it, but either way it will be very interesting and a great experience. And maybe, just maybe, I can pull this off and it'll be amazing.

And some people say slavery is a thing of the past

No, no it's not.


http://thecnnfreedomproject.blogs.cnn.com/2011/03/06/modern-day-slavery-shadowy-figures-lurking-on-the-fringe/?hpt=C1&utm_source=tw040611am&utm_medium=trafficking&utm_campaign=cnn

It's very real.

Yesterday I noticed the daffodils (jonquils? I can't really tell the difference. Pathetic, I know) on my colleague's desk (she has ten green fingers, it's unbelievable how she can make stuff grow) and said how pretty they were. I mentioned that they were probably my favorite flowers but didn't think much of it.

She did though, and today I arrived at work to find these on my desk.

It was quite nice.

Wow.

This whole leggings thing has gotten a lot of comments, on Facebook as well as the original post.

I'm glad I'm not the only one who feels this way, but I also hope nobody misinterprets my words either. I didn't meant to be harsh with the columnist, and I'm not trying to be rude or self-righteous either. I'm curious to see if my letter even gets published. My real motivation behind responding to the column is that there is danger in focusing on outward representations of personal/religious beliefs. If my studies in journalism have taught me one thing, it's that you don't know the whole story so sometimes it's better to just be quiet and listen. I used to be a lot quicker to judge as recently as last year. But after a lot of good reading, discussions and listening to people with very different lives, I'm learning to hesitate before expressing judgment or being stubborn in my opinions. There's always something I don't know about a person. I'm still working on that, mind you, but I'm trying.

The most dangerous thing about judging people's clothing, Jimmer-love, hair color, etc. is that we are pushing our personal interpretation of right and wrong on others. Growing up in France, I knew two types of Mormons: the ones like my family and all the other pagan ones. Ha! When I came to BYU, I started seeing a little bit more nuance: believe it or not, there are a lot of different ways of being Mormon. There are the hippie tree-hugging Mormons, there are ultra-feminist Mormons, there are Idaho boy Mormons, there are Book of Mormon-thumping Mormons, there are Coke-drinking Mormons, there are dyed-in-the-wool Republican Mormons, there are Liberal Mormons, there are Mormons who watch movies on Sunday, there are formerly southern-baptist Mormons... and the truth is they're all good Mormons as long as they are trying to be like Jesus and keeping their covenants. And even if they aren't, that's for their bishop to deal with, not me.

There's a reason the Gospel is simple, and that's because we have agency. We are given to chose how we will interpret the principles God has given us. We're not "giving a helping hand" to anybody when we pass judgment on their actions, even if those actions were specifically condemned in the For the Strength of Youth pamphlet (which leggings are not, by the way).

You know what's really ironic: I wrote to the DU  about immodesty as a freshman (at the time though, people's early version of leggings was cropped tights, which definitely couldn't pass for pants...). My opinion hasn't really changed, I still believe if you're LDS you should stick to the standards of modesty you've agreed to--I try to. There are still things and attitudes and people that annoy me. But now I'm not afraid to change my mind or admit I'm wrong. It's ok to give people some time before passing judgment. (I have more to say about this by the way, but that requires a post of its own and I haven't had time to write it yet. Soon, I promise.)

And the biggest thing that bugs me in all of this is the sheer hypocrisy of it all. We're writing in and complaining about the whores of Babylon walking around on campus, but some of the complainers go home and neglect their families to play video games. Some of them haven't been to the temple in months. Some of them lie to their employers about their hours worked, but their choices aren't as obvious for the world to see, so they can still sit smugly in church and look down at the women in leggings. And of course, I'm slightly irked that some men think they get to dictate women's wardrobes, not to mention the perpetuation of the stereotype that men can't control themselves and therefore women are the sole guardians of chastity.

Incidentally, I talked to one of my teachers today about this in class, and he said when he was at BYU the big scandal was men not wearing socks. GASP! And before that, it was women wearing jeans, and before that it was women wearing pants at all... and these were all explicitly mentioned in the honor code too.

Leggings too will pass, and someday we'll look back at old editions of the DU and laugh that anybody ever cared enough to write about them. Leggings aren't even all that new to begin with, remember these?

source

And yes, Jen, I was talking about you in the letter. Thanks for the support :)


Anyway, this subject has been exhausted and has gotten far more coverage than it deserves, so I'm done now. Thanks for listening to the crazy that writes letters to the editor more than once a year.

My letter to the editor

Still more drama about leggings in the Daily Universe... and what's worse, the opinion editor wrote an entire column about it. Here's the link to the PDF version of today's paper: the column is on page 3. I'm tired of it, honestly, so I'm writing in. It's probably too long, and they're probably sick of this subject, but maybe it'll get published, we'll see.


Yes, it's about leggings. Jade McDowell, I think you usually do a good job as opinion editor. That being said, while I appreciated your angle about being compassionate rather than judgmental, the undertones of your 4/5/11 column revealed exactly the judgmental attitudes you wrote about. The honor code does not specifically mention leggings. The posters around campus you cite are published by BYUSA, an organization that has no real authority whatsoever to interpret or enforce the honor code. You (and BYUSA, and all BYU students) do not get to impose your interpretation of modesty on others under the guise of "encouragement." A "transgression?" Really? "Reaching down a helping hand?" Excuse me, I'm sure you're an outstanding citizen and church member, but what makes you think you belong above a girl that (scandalous!) wears leggings? I have a friend who wears almost exclusively leggings: she recently went through the temple to receive her endowment, yet according to you she deserves pity and a "helping hand." I find that incredibly insulting. You know what the funny thing is? Years ago as a freshman, I wrote in to the opinion editor complaining about a DU fashion story that showed a girl in a mini skirt and cropped tights.* Thankfully, I've grown up a little since then, so here's what I propose: let's stop getting our panties all up in a wad about what other people do--it's none of our business.


* I still think there's a very real difference between tights and leggings, but whatever.

Incidentally

I am terrified to run the 5K on Saturday.

I really, really don't want to make a fool of myself. I can't even run two miles in a row at this point, I just hope I can make it through to the end on Saturday.

My husband's new thing

Andrew is a man of many talents, in case you didn't know.

His latest venture is blogging (I've made a convert!). He's writing about local government, so it's a good career move for him too. Anyway, go check it out and become a follower.

Local Government Today

Another thing he's really into right now:

Wearing his Google baseball cap all the time (while blogging of course).

Oh and I forgot one other thing: he now plays me the Marseillaise (French national anthem) every morning to get me out of bed.