Just a Shout Out to my Favorite Superhero of All Time

Today is my mother's 40th birthday. Now she might be really embarrassed that the whole world now knows how old she is. It's not embarrassing Mom, I promise. Also, she looks like she is 27. We went to New York this summer (which was the best week of my entire life, no joke) and 40 people asked us if we were sisters. People don't ask that to a teenager and a woman who looks like she is 40. I rest my case.
I've realized over the last couple of weeks just how much my mom did for me. Everyone says that you realize this when you go to college, but I never quite took those people seriously. Beyond the normal matriarchal duties, she taught me how to read and write and do math before I entered kindergarten. Some people accuse me of being smart because I skipped a grade. I'm really not, it is all in the fact my mom taught me from a young age that education was important.
My mom also gave me my love for music. She started teaching me piano and ever since then, music and I have been inseparable. She taught me how to work, even when I really did not want to learn.
Most of all though, she has been an incredible example of service. She is the mother of seven children and has whole heartily dedicated her life to us, even when it meant putting every aspect of her life on the back burner. We watched this movie in a service class I have and it reminded me completely of her. She has always been that one person to stand up and help others when many people sat and watched. She takes on the impossible, and prays that Heavenly Father will help with the rest.

She is my #1 inspiration. 

I love you, Mom!

Proving that Movement is Impossible..

I would like to start with an apology. My last post had lots of bad grammar and spelling issues. I am sorry! I am not going to go fix it though. So when you see I am in the grove of things rather then the groove of things, well, just go with it. :)

Okay so my inspiration of the day was something really cool that I learned. In ancient Greece, there was this philosopher named Xeno. He created an issue that is now known as Xeno's dillema. *People are just so creative when they name these kind of things..* So imagine you are facing a wall. In order to cross to get to the wall, you would have to go half way first. That makes sense! But in order to get to that half, you would have to walk half of that distance. And in order to get there, you would have to get to half of that distance. It keeps breaking down further but you get the point. Think about it though, if you half to go half the distance before you could move but that would be prevented because you would have to go that half first. So according to Xeno, any movement is impossible. 

Now we know this isn't true. At least all of the sensory information flooding our brain for our whole lives tells us that isn't true. But how can you prove it? 

WELL. There was this guy named Democritus. He discovered a particle which cannot be divided into a half. It is called an atom. Perhaps you have heard of it? Democritus reasoned that because you can't split an atom in half, you would have to move the distance of a whole atom and must go the whole way. And thus, you have conquered Xeno's dilemma. 

Okay, so that's just a lot of talk. The reason why that inspired me is because someone philosophically proved something, and then it was countered with another argument. When you keep studying and searching for answers, you can disprove other things that might have been previously proven true. It gives me hope that world issues, incurable diseases of the body and mind, and philosophy proving that man is evil might someday be reversed. 

Today is the 10 year anniversary of 9/11. Since then, terrorism and fear has racked the world. Perhaps one day they will go the same route of Xeno's dilemma and someone will be able to find a way to reverse the illogicality of the situation. It blows my mind the hatred people have for each other. The world needs a modern day Democritus who will step up to the plate and find a solution that no one has thought of before. Who knows? Maybe it will be you. :)

Just a quick plug to my best friend, Angie Roushar. My blog is dedicated to you. ;) Now go write something!! :)

Some pictures of life over the last couple of weeks :)

Word.

Life Transplant.. NBD.

It's weird how fast you adjust to a whole new life. The transition between high school and college was hard, I'll admit. But once you get here and starting getting in the grove, it's hard to remember you've only been here a few weeks. You learn to cook and go grocery shopping when you no longer have food. You force yourself to do homework when you don't have a mom telling you need to do it. You wake yourself up, go to class at a school that is 16x bigger then your high school. And you do all of that with different friends and teachers then you had just a month ago.
I'm telling you, it's weird. It amazes me just how resilient the brain is. You don't really have a choice to go back home, so you force yourself onward. I do miss home, and I miss it a lot. I miss the dumb things we did in Politics each day, singing in choir. I miss the predictability of church at home; you knew where you were going to sit in Sunday School, what everyone's names were and where to hide when you didn't want your family to find you just quite yet. I miss trying to block out my little brother's screams as I did my homework every night. I miss my family and my friends faces, personalities and how well they knew you.
But even with all of this, you don't have a choice to live in the past. You float, swim, or drown. I'm just starting to float and feel comfortable with my new life. Soon, it will be time to swim to the edge of where  college can put me.
So here is the thing. Don't give up. Keep swimming, even when the tide is against you. At least you aren't in a foreign country with bad guys trying to kill you. And if you are... well why are you reading this? You should be running right now!!!
One more thing; I love Disney movies. A lot. But we had to analyze The Little Mermaid for three minutes in film today. The themes were; If you run away, disobey your parents and sell part of yourself to a witch, a handsome young prince will sweep you off your feet and fall in love with you anyways. Apparently the seaweed is always greener in somebody else's lake.
Whatever Disney, I'm perfectly content with my own life thank you very much! I already ran away from home and well I probably stay out later then my parents would care to know. But there is no way I'm selling my voice for some dude. Do you know how many guys are here? Ariel, you got it all wrong. Love your life.

Weak Things Become Strong- And we aren't talking about the impressive size of your biceps. Sorry. :)

I would like to start off today by telling you something important: You can indeed overcook Ramen noodles. 

I did not know this. I just left them cooking while I cooked some chicken. And as a result, they turned to mush. My roomates and I feasted on mushy Ramen stir fry. It was not our most stellar meal, but you live and learn.  

My inspiration of the day is completely unrelated the art of cooking Ramen. Being enrolled in the 2nd largest private university in the world tends to occasionally make you feel small and insignificant. The things you did in high school doesn't really matter other then the fact that they made you who you are. The friend you had in high school are very much part of your life and your personality, but you don't get to see them every day. Your family you've been living with for the last 18 years is 1500 miles away. Some good comes out of the large abundance of people however, In the process of making a whole new set of friends and meeting new people every day, I've realized something important. Every single person has distinct strengths and weaknesses. My personal belief is that God gave each individual person their own unique set of gifts and talents to achieve what He would need them to do. Even if our opinions differ on this, this distinct set of talents each person owns truly makes the world unique. 

I am coming to appreciate my own talents more every day. You should as well. Think about what you are good at and how you can use those to your advantage, as well as how you can use them to help other people. You might also want to consider your weaknesses and how you can make them strong. 

I was reminded at church today of one of my favorite scriptures. It reads, "And if men come unto me, I will show unto them their weakness. I give unto men weakness that they my be humble; and my grace is sufficient for all men that humble themselves before me; for if they humble themselves before m, and have faith in m, then will I make weak things become strong unto them."

Amen to that, brother. 

I thought this was lovely. Happy Sunday!

The Truth Behind Atlantis

There's this thing called college. I'm not sure if you've heard about it yet. For those of you that haven't, I'll explain it to you. College: noun. Step 1: Leave everything you have known for the last 18 years. Step 2: Pay someone a lot of money to learn things from expensive textbooks. And on the side, pay more money to sleep and eat. (Whoever invented this thing was an economic mastermind.) Step 3a: Take advantage of the expensive education you just payed for and do homework. 3b: Follow the calls of happy people outside and have fun. 4: Say you will go to sleep early. 5: Not go to sleep early. 6: Wake up to go to your 8 a.m. dance class. 7: Repeat.

So that is college. 

But sometimes, you learn cool little bits of knowledge that make life interesting. (This is my inspiration of the day. By the way.)

In my History of Creativity class, I was reading about the Minoans. Their culture suddenly died off around 1600 B.C. and scholars debate what caused this fall out. One of the theories is Thera, a large volcano in close proximity to the island where the Minoans lived, exploded. This is what the textbook was explaining when it went off on a small tangent and explained another conspiracy theory. 

"Some scholars have equated this event with the legendary destruction of the island of Atlantis as reported by Plato. . . These scholars believe that if the distance from the Greek mainland is corrected, along with the size of the island and the time, the disappearance of Atlantis would correspond closely with the eruption of Thera."

I don't know what the chances of this actually being true, but it's interesting to think about. Myths often start with some grain of truth in them. What if Atlantis was real? It's probably hiding under the ocean and now all of the people have evolved into a hybrid of mermaids!!!

(Based off of a true story...)

I appreciate the fact that the world has mysteries that aren't uncovered. It makes the living way more interesting because you will never know what you will learn or hear about. Or what new discovery will change the world. Or what invention will revolutionize human life. 

I guess that's why you go to college. 

ELISE

I asked my wonderful roomate Elise what was inspiring and she answered herself. So I will tell you about Elise and the other AWESOME girls I live with. Besides Elise, their names are Emily, Ellen, Alysha and Rachael. We have so much fun together. Probably too much fun. :D We have a roomate code of conduct called "Roomie Rules." Super original, right?!? But they are decorated pretty and have rules dealing with food and making dessert for each other. We dance with bananas and brooms, have secret dances early in the morning when we tell people to give us their money, have awesome pancake breakfasts, make people kneel on the one prayer rug, have spontaneous dance parties, meet people by waving to them through our kitchen windows, dance in the rain, and talk about everything under the sun. And when I say under the sun, I mean it. Utah is a tad bit warmer then Minnesota.

So they rock. End of story.

Also, I'm learning how to cook. NOTE: When making chicken alfredo, thaw the chicken before you start frying it. I did not know this. So I did not thaw it. It still worked though with a little bit of creativity in cutting the cooked part off in little sections. It was very yummy. 

Also, boys that cook make life so much better. Today, I got free tacos. They were very delicious. 

Take home lesson from tonight: Pick awesome roomates, thaw frozen chicken and persuade people to make you free tacos.

Tomorrow I start classes so then I might actually have something inspirational to say. Stay tuned. :D

Tainted Lens

I have an inspiration of the day for you. It is the beautiful song I Love You Because from the musical, I Love You Because. Super creative, right?

So clearly this is a love song. But you can apply it to any relationship or friendship. Love people because of their flaws, not despite them. This system does have it's flaws and you in no means want to be blind to someone's rougher spots, but realize that you have rough spots too. I'm slowly trying to learn this lesson. That's the way to live!

Two days ago, I heard from a speaker through an honors program I am enrolled in. He came up wearing a nice suit and an African hat and started speaking in a very heavy African accent. I got a little antsy and started checking the clock. He then asked where all of us were from, and after asked us where we thought he was from. People threw out ideas like Morocco, South Africa, Nigeria, and such. He would laugh and say "No. But bery bery close." Finally we gave up and asked for him to tell us. He took off his hat and in a very clear American voice said, "I'm from Brooklyn." He went on telling us that on average, you make 11 judgments about someone in 7 seconds. You factor in things like attract-ability, intelligence, social status, the works. What he just proved to us though was a first impression on someone can be completely wrong, and you won't really know unless you give someone the chance to prove who they are. 

Last year in an amazing English class I took, our teacher took us to a website that scientifically measured our bias towards different religions, races, social status, genders, everything! I think it was through Harvard. They would assign one group positive words and another group negative words. They would then show you pictures of various people or words that fit into the group you were testing on. Depending on how fast you would click good or bad, and whether you clicked the right corresponding word, they would judge how biased you were towards that certain group. It was so interesting to find out how subconsciously biased everyone is to lifestyles that don't match their own! 

I have a challenge. Take someone you don't like or don't know yet. It could be a roomate, a sibling you can't get along with, or that crazy girl in your chem class that just won't shut up. Don't judge them, just chill out and try to find out their back story as to why they act the way they do. See what they see, and make an effort for them to see what you see. Only then will you be able to appreciate the world for it's true beauty. 

Finally, if you love acoustic music, go to this site. I'm obsessed. :D

BEAUTIFUL MUSIC HERE.