Will You Mow the Lawn?

So...I've turned into my father. Not that that's a bad thing. My father is my hero. I love him and think he's amazing. Maybe someday I'll write about why he's so cool.

But ever since I was little, my dad has always had a passion - his home. If he had a choice between staying home and going to a party...or out to dinner...or to anything somewhere that wasn't home, he'd choose home. His home truly is his castle. If he doesn't have some kind of home improvement project going on, he's outside working on the yard. And of course, he always wanted me to help out in the yard, but I was never a big fan. Hence, he always had to ask me to mow the lawn (and pay me to get me to do it).

I moved into an apartment in Springville in August, and I really like it. It's an old building, though, so it needed a little work when we first got it. In addition, buying used furniture always requires you to do a little cleaning / refinishing. As a result, we've done a lot of scraping, caulking, painting, hammering, putting together (new furniture that comes in boxes), and moving around. We steam cleaned a couch (that's quite time-consuming, by the way - we did it in spurts), refinished our cabinets, cleaned / refinished 6 oak chairs and a kitchen table, painted three walls of our living room, recaulked around windows and the baseboards in the kitchen...

The list goes on, but I really have become like my father in that respect. I spend lots of time at Home Depot, and I love it. It's a great store, and I love the smell when you first walk in (wood, mmm...). And I'm constantly finding things about my apartment I want to fix up as I go. Then today (Saturday, my day off), what did I do? I pulled out the paving stones in my patio and redid it. I truly have turned into my father. :)

Before and After Pictures

High School Musical 3 - Shooting for the Stars

I’m a nerd. I know. I went to see High School Musical 3 opening morning (aka the midnight showing). And I know I'm kinda writing a review again, but I think the reason I write about movies and plays is because they get me to think.

Well, HSM3 wasn’t super amazing, but if you liked the first two, you’ll like this one. If you didn’t, you probably won’t like this one either. Like the first two, HSM3 is filled with cool dancing and catchy songs that you’ll buy/download and listen to over and over. Also like the first two, it has some cheesy lines, cheesy acting, and cheesy facial expressions. But it’s cute, and if you have ever worried about the future, you’ll be able to relate to what the characters are going through.

I don’t think I ever worried about what I was going to do after high school. I would graduate, go to BYU for a year, then on a mission for two years, back to BYU, get married, get a job, etc. I didn’t have many plans for after my mission/college, but I never worried about that in high school. In fact, I don’t think I ever worried about my future until I was graduated from college with bills to pay and no job. I hadn’t found anything, and I was in a bad spot financially, so I took a job as a server at Olive Garden and one as a courier while I searched for that career job.

I eventually found one, and I’m working for that company now. It’s nice to have a real job with a salary and to feel somewhat like an adult, but I’ve started to think about my future again. I still don’t feel like I’m a real adult – I feel like I’m still pretending, because I don’t know where my life is going. Now I’m just working in a job, trying to do my best, but I never wanted work to be my focus. I see so many people whose work defines them – I don’t want to be like that.

Of all the important things in my future, the most important one was the one for which I couldn’t really prepare. The thing is, without someone to share it with, my life seems so empty. One of my favorite movies is Notting Hill. Hugh Grant says this to his married friends when they’re trying to set him up with someone: “I think you have forgotten what an unusual situation you have here: to find someone you actually love, who'll love you. The chances are...always minuscule.”

Although HSM3 wraps things up nicely, with happy endings all around, real life doesn't work like that, and sometimes it’s hard to believe that things will work out. Let’s be honest, in dating, everything up to this point has been a failure. Because I’ve never known success, I have no reason to believe it (success) actually exists. For other people, sure - I've seen it happen for them. But for me?

I know what I'm supposed to do: to date, to put myself out there. I know that, but I just don't know if it will ever happen for me.

Maybe I just need to stop wishing on shooting stars.

--
I guess I must be wishing on someone else's star.
Seems like someone else keeps getting what I'm wishing for.
Why can't I be as lucky as those other people are?
Oh I guess I must be wishing on someone else's star.

Sunday School

I once had an interesting assignment in a Sunday School class. The teacher passed out note cards, and told us to imagine ourselves in this scenario. We are on an airplane which is going to crash in a few minutes. Having that knowledge, what would be our last message? It could be to whomever we wanted, and we were given some time to write down on the note card what we would say. I was given someone’s remarks addressed to me, and they have helped me, even to this day, to be strong in the face of adversity:

"I know that whatever happens to me is the Lord’s plan. That He has something in store for me and for you. Life will continue and I know that you can be happy. I know this because I know the Church is true. And I know that our Heavenly Father loves us individually. He knows our wants and our needs. He knows what we are capable of and He knows what is best for us. He misses us and wants us to return back to Him. So please continue to live the Gospel and allow the Lord to have His hand in your life to guide and bless you. I love you so much. Thank you for your influence in my life. I am a different, better person because of you. My life has been blessed because of you. I love you very much."

I share that with you because it has made an impact in my life. Something so simple that the teacher (and this individual) did, but it is still something I re-read at least once a week, and which gives me strength and peace. That having been said, I have also seen many poor examples of teaching in church. Here is a list of suggestions I’ve written which I think, if applied generally, could help us all get more out of lessons.

Adam’s List of Effective Teaching Skills v. 1.0

• Dress appropriately so as not to distract from the message you are trying to teach. Guys – button your cuffs. I’ve seen several people not button their shirt cuffs (but yet, not roll them up). It doesn’t look good, and is just a distraction (and annoyance) for me.
• Ask questions, and ask lots of them. Only rarely ask close-ended questions with which you’re trying to elicit a particular response (unless maybe you’re in Primary, but that’s a whole different ball game). Instead, ask open-ended questions. Then take what is said and run with it. Use what your students say and incorporate it into your lesson.
• Don’t be afraid to ask a question you might not know the answer to.
• And when you ask a question, don’t answer it yourself. Wait. Wait for a minute or two if you have to, even if the silence gets really uncomfortable. If it gets uncomfortable enough, someone’s hand will go up. This will usually even work if your class has a tendency of not answering questions. Waiting will give them more of an incentive to answer – no one likes uncomfortable silences. It also shows how much you value input (and if you don’t, you should – see D&C 50:22).
• Don’t read the whole lesson / all the scriptures. Pick key excerpts / scriptures to focus on.
• Have a direction / theme on which you want to focus (especially in Sunday School, where you’re just going through the scriptures in order).
• Use quotes from modern prophets / apostles.
• Never ever EVER go over time, no matter how important “this one last point” is. You just lost more than half your audience.
• Remember that you are in Christ’s place. You’re going to be saying “In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen,” at the end of your lesson. Make sure you’re teaching what He wants you to teach.

Forgiveness

I’ve come to some realizations in the last couple days, through a series of unfortunate events. But I’ll tell you about the events before I tell you about the realizations.

One of my co-workers is on vacation in Europe for the next two weeks (she left on Saturday). Last Thursday, she got upset with me, and then I was upset with her too because...well, it doesn't really matter, but we'll leave it at that. Work was frustrating.

On Saturday (and again on Monday), there was an exchange (that I won’t go into) that involved my roommate and someone else, but which had a significant impact on me. My roommate was very upset with this other person and everything that happened in that exchange. It was rough on both sides.

Then there’s work. Because my co-worker is gone, and I'm covering a few of her projects, Monday was a beast, and Tuesday was just as bad. Monday I realized that there was a huge error on one of my projects that had just finished, and although it wasn’t directly my fault (it was a programming error), I could have prevented it if I had been more thorough when the study went into field, by doing a check on the data (which is supposed to be routinely done while a project is in field). So I felt horrible about that, didn’t take lunch, and was at work until 6:30 p.m.

Tuesday I was woken up by a phone call at 7 a.m. (and had 2 missed calls before that) about a project for which I was covering. There was a major issue, but since I don’t have the internet at home yet, and no one was at the office, and I live 20 minutes from work, I couldn’t get the problem fixed right away. Thus, the client got ticked off, and once again I skipped lunch and worked 10 hours. But because I was essentially working since 7 that morning, I at least managed to get off at 5.

But the point is, it’s been a pretty crappy past several days. Last night my roommate was still upset about the exchange that happened this weekend, and in the course of meeting for a BYU ecclesiastical endorsement, asked for some advice. We were hanging out with a friend last night, and my roommate was telling us about the experience he had with the stake president, and how much better he feels now.

(Now we’re getting into the realizations part of this blog – thanks for bearing with me.)

He said that the stake president told him no matter what perceived victories we stand to lose, forgiveness is worth it. To let your “enemies” have their perceived victories if they want them. Hopefully they’ll be able to forgive you too, and if not right away, perhaps in time they will see things in a different light.

My roommate said he didn’t want anyone to hold hate in their hearts for him. That he felt bad things had worked out the way they did, but that he refused to hold hate in his heart, and hoped they would feel the same. He said the process is still difficult, though. The stake president told him that maybe he needed to repent first, and then he would be able to forgive.

That’s what I’ve realized. That I’d been sheltering similar feelings in my heart for a long time, and for which I needed to repent. My roommate taught me that no matter what we feel someone has done to us or to someone we love, we cannot let it become an excuse for harboring evil feelings toward that person. They will destroy us, and we need to forgive unconditionally, without expecting anything in return.

I think I’m there now, and it feels much better.

Update On My Life

So…I met this cute girl. :) 

Okay, so that was just an attention-grabber. But really, what is it with us human beings and being obsessed with each other’s love lives? I don’t get it either. 

Now seriously, I’ve been having a pretty good time lately. I AM still sleeping on the floor in my new apartment, because I don’t have a mattress yet (although I do have a bed which is completely put together in my room). Oh well. Baby steps, right? And no internet access at home, with just limited access at work - this is being posted from my Blackberry actually. 

Saturday night was the closing night of one of my shows, and I had some of the cast of Beauty and the Beast come watch. Then they invited me to come to ice cream with them afterwards. It was way fun, even if I did sit next to Tyler instead of Mary or Deba…grr Tyler! :) 

And Mary has been trying to get me to go into film. She loves it, and keeps encouraging me to get into it too. So I went with her to Salt Lake on Monday for a small class she’s been taking on film auditions. It’s taught by Jeff Johnson, a guy who is one of the primary casting directors in Utah. For those of you who love High School Musical 1-3, he was one of the casting directors for those films. In fact, I met one of the cheerleaders from it, who's also in the class (she’s also in 2 and 3 – her name’s Bayli Baker). 

It was a cool class, and it was good to get some pointers on auditioning for film. I’ve never done a film audition, but I’d like to. We all did one-liners in front of the camera, and when we were watching them at the end of class, Jeff said mine was really good, then asked, “Do you have an agent?” I said no. He said, “Why not??!” That made me feel really good. I think Mary was as excited for me as I was (or moreso). She told Jeff that I was just starting in film, and that we would get all that stuff taken care of. 

 And P.S. Can I just give a shout out to Mary? She’s totally cool. She’s my age (which is different – I’m usually hanging around people who are a bit younger than me, or some who are a little older), she works in the temple, she’s been in a couple seminary movies and at least one regular movie, she’s beautiful (she was Miss Springville/Mapleton 2007 and competed in Miss Utah last year), and she’s studying anthropology at BYU and wants to do a field study in Africa. Just totally awesome. She’d probably be embarrassed by all that, but I don’t think she reads this blog. Haha. :D

Dating...ugh

Every once and a while, I seem to get this urge to write something, anything. Even if there’s nothing in particular on my mind I want to talk about. For example, it’s only been since 6 days since I last posted, and yet I really want to write something.

Looking back at my last three blogs, I wrote about: a book, a movie, and a play. It would seem that I should turn into a professional or amateur reviewer. But really…they’ve all been about me.

Because typically, blog entries are online diaries where people share their emotions and feelings with the rest of the world. [As a side note, I know that people as far away as the Philippines and Finland read my blog, so you really are speaking to the world in a blog.] But the interesting thing about blogs is that when you share your feelings with the world, you can do so without explicitly saying anything about what you’re really feeling. Sure, it’s a cop-out, but at the same time, it’s a pretty cool cop-out.

You know what (abrupt subject change)? I think I’ve started to like dating again… Just a little bit, though. But let me just say, for the record, that I hate the first date conversations. You know, the ones that are usually so shallow and pointless, that typically start and end with, “Where are you from? What’s your major?” Sure, that information is interesting and part of getting to know someone, but I like going on first dates with someone you’ve already started to get to know – someone you can talk to in more depth than that. I feel in that situation you can really get to know someone better.

Dating is just so obnoxious – especially the games. I think what’s different this time around is that I refuse to play them. Sure, I’ll flirt and everything, but I’m upfront about it. I’m willing to say, “Hey – I like you. Do you want to go out with me?” I have no pretentions and no hidden agendas…and I think that girls can tell the difference.

I mean, I do miss being in a relationship. When you’re in a relationship, you have someone to come home to at night, someone you can always talk to. You almost never have to be alone unless you really want to be. You don’t have to worry whether or not you’ll have plans that weekend (unless she wants to go out with her girlfriends or something). You have someone who cares about you and who misses you when you’re not around, and who loves to just snuggle up on the couch and watch TV with you. You can do fun things together and go on cool dates, but you don’t have to. Because you’re also totally comfortable sitting in silence with your best friend, just enjoying each other’s company.

One of my favorite memories of being in a relationship was sitting on the couch, reading a book, while my girlfriend lay on my lap and held my hand as she watched TV. Later that evening she asked, “Is this what being married is like?” I said, “I think so.” And it may sound weird to people who haven’t had the same experience, but I sure hope marriage is like that, because it was wonderful.

I’ve thought about why things are so difficult for me lately. Whether it’s because we were together for so long that I just miss being in a relationship (let’s face it – I’ve never really enjoyed dating), or if I really just miss being with her.

And I know now...that it’s her.

"Love is an ugly, terrible business, practiced by fools. It'll trample your heart and leave you bleeding on the floor. And what does it really get you in the end? Nothing…but a few incredible memories that you can't ever shake." -- Little Manhattan

Pride and Prejudice

My friend gave me some comp tickets to Pride and Prejudice, a new musical that's showing at the Scera in Orem, so I went tonight. I've never been a die-hard fan of the story, but I will admit that I do like it. I've seen the new movie (with Keira Knightley) twice, and I also really enjoyed watching this play.

There were some cheesy moments - let's be honest. Some of the songs were a little corny, and where they were placed in relation to the dialogue was not always where I would have expected a song. For example, one brief love song between Bingley and Jane made me laugh, because it came right when they declared their love for each other. I expected them to kiss right then, but got a cheesy love song first. But on the whole, it was a good play, and the actors did really well with the material.

My favorite part of the musical was when Elizabeth finds out that Lydia has run off with Wickham. Elizabeth is naturally distraught, but Darcy promises her things will be all right. When she leaves, he sings a song called Ask Me For the Stars. I wish I had the music, because I want to put down exactly what he said. But he essentially said, I love you and I would do absolutely anything you asked me to do. No matter what you need, I will always be there, taking care of you. Even if you don't know I was the one to help you, that doesn't matter to me. I will still be there, your invisible guardian angel. Ask me for the stars, and I'll get them for you.

Joseph Smith once said of Emma, "I would go to hell for such a woman." I would add to that: "and I would get you the stars if you asked me for them."