Nu Skin Christmas!

Well, it's the time of year again, when the Nu Skin Christmas party comes around. Maybe you remember last year's party? So, needless to say, I was excited for this year's party. And, irony of all ironies, Christmastime came around and I actually had a boyfriend, but his living 1,300 miles away kind of ruined all Christmas-party plans. Luckily my ol' back-up date is always there for me. Thanks for coming, Meg!

So right when we got in, there were tables filled with these cute presents:

 They weren't so much presents as they were cute little appetizer boxes. Either way, it was good :) 

 We were having a really hard time looking cute in our pictures. Plus I forgot my camera in the car, so we were relying on my crappy cell phone camera... Somehow the ones on this setting looked the best. 

 We got there a little bit too early...

So for the entertainment, Nu Skin booked The Forgotten Carols with Michael McLean. 

It was SO GOOD! I can't believe I've never seen it before. We laughed, we cried, and we finally understood all those random songs that we hear so often on the radio. 

After the show, it was present time.

I was so set to win a laptop. Didn't happen. I was consoled by the fact that they didn't give away any laptops, so at least nobody won one and not just me. 

However, we did get a lot of great presents anyway:

$100 gift card to Costco

$250 American Express giftcard

some huge donation in our name to some charity (obviously I paid a lot of attention to this one)

more free Nu Skin stuff (more than we usually get every month, that is)

two weeks' pay (woot!)

an Apple TV... 

maybe one day I'll take it out of the box and figure out exactly what it does. As a not-huge-Apple-user, I don't know how much use this is going to be to me... but I'll try to make it work...? Thanks, Nu Skin! Just wish I had the iPhone, iPad, and money (for downloads) to make this thing worth it. :)

I love my job!! Thanks Nu Skin!

You know you've got a good friend when...

she'll not only come to your French choir concert, but she'll make a sign specifically for you and stand up in the middle of the concert to hold it up and show you that you are, indeed, top.

I almost couldn't sing for laughing so hard. 

Anyway, so remember how I took French choir this semester? And how I would sometimes remember to go? Well it was actually pretty fun, and I enjoyed performing in our final concert. Now I'm not a huge Christmas music lover (especially pre-day-after-Thanksgiving), but it was kind of nice being able to sing Christmas hymns throughout the semester.

This was my favorite song that we sang: Minuit Chrétien (O Holy Night in English). I don't know how great this recording of it is, but maybe it was better in real life...? Oh, and don't try to look for me, because I'm on the second row, hidden behind a tall girl who decided to stand in the front. Merci beaucoup (haha, just kidding).

The line that really got me in this song was, "qui Lui dira notre reconnaissance? C'est pour nous tous qu'il nait, qu'il souffre et meurt" ("Who will tell him our gratitude? It was for all of us that he was born, that he suffered and died"). I just love that. 

So, maybe my message is, qui Lui dira VOTRE reconnaissance this year? And how will you show your gratitude to our Savior for coming down to earth to suffer and die for our sins? May He always be the most important part of our holiday celebrations. 

Gotta love...

the Festival of Trees!!

We go every year, and have since as long as I remember. When we were little, my dad built playhouses for the Festival every year, so we would always go to check out dad's playhouse. Is it just me, or do they not do playhouses anymore? Maybe I just don't notice anymore. The only problem with the Festival anymore is that it's so huge, and unless you get a giant cinnamon roll halfway through to get you through it (which I can't... so obviously that didn't happen), it's a challenge to make it to the end. Another thing is that it can kind of make you sad if you think about it too much, because these trees are done in memory of someone who has died... So apart from those two things, you really gotta love it. I mean, where else can you go and walk around for hours looking at decorated trees and gingerbread houses? 

Especially in Utah. There were TWO gingerbread temples. Loved it. I must've taken the picture of the Provo Tabernacle temple with Lisa's camera...

Love this bumbo baby.

We love the Festival of Trees!

And she loves grandpa!

We are totally fluent...

... in Middle English. 

NBD. 

This is our group for our Middle English class's performance of Herod, this really awful 16th-century play depicting that time when Herod had all the little boys in Bethlehem killed. Yeah... 

Tell me we are not totally legit with our swords though. Luckily one of the girls in our group is dating a boy who is in the fencing club. Quelle chance!

3 knights, 3 Herods, Nuncius

 So we each got assigned a part (or two parts, for the three of us below, who each had two or three roles), and we had to memorize our lines IN Middle English. No easy task, my friend, when you consider the fact that the great vowel shift took place after this play was written. Luckily for me, French vowels are pretty similar, and we had a great TA who helped us with some of the trickier pronunciation problems. After a solid week (cough, cough, day) of memorizing, I was ready to go!

The three of us played the knights sent to kill the babies as well as the mothers of the babies (or in our cases, our beloved stuffed animals. Mine was a giraffe)... kind of awkward, yes, but what can you do. 

I played Miles (knight) #1 and Muliers (woman) #2. To give you an idea of how unintelligible this text is, here is one of my passages:

Go lightly!

Gett out of this wonys, 

Ye trattys, all at onys,

Or by Cokys dere bonys

I make you go wyghtly!

Thay ar flayd now, I wote; thay will not abyde.

So, I mean, you can make sense of it... kind of. I only wish that you could read it in the Middle English accent that I have no choice but to read it in, in my head.  It just makes it so much better! I thought that I was going to hate this assignment, but I ended up really liking it. Not that I'm good at acting, by any means, but it was still kind of fun. Oh, but the best part was that afterward, our professor was saying something about how he didn't think this shy girl had it in her to be Herod, and then he goes, "And I get the impression that Mindy just grew up speaking Middle English." Haha! Love it. So, if you need any help with Middle English pronunciation anytime, just let me know!

Perspective

So I'm developing this bad habit of starting blog posts and then not finishing. But really, it always seems to happen that they would have been missing something anyway. I started this post a few weeks ago, but when this painting was brought up in one of my classes today, I knew it needed to be included.

"La Condition Humaine" René Magritte, 1933

On my mission, my trainer would often talk about her desire to be "quick to observe," as it talks about in the scriptures. I, being the naive little greenie, was so proud of myself for having this trait down. I mean, I noticed everything. We would leave someone's house, and I'd be like, "did you notice that sign on the side of their door?" (or something equally trivial), and of course she hadn't, which only furthered my foolish pride in the matter. This scenario replayed several times, and I was content in knowing that I was, indeed, quick to observe. 

Well, naturally, as life is only too happy to teach us, I found out that I wasn't as great as I thought I was. I wasn't so much quick to observe as I was quick to judge, and that often got (gets) me in trouble. Turns out, it's something that I really struggle with! I am starting to realize that my problem here has more to do about perspective than anything. I am quick to observe, that is true, but then I am prone to making snap judgments about what I see, without pausing to consider any alternatives. So this is my 2 cents about perspective. Take it for what it's worth...

You probably know how much I love Harry Potter. You may remember in HP 7.1 when Hermione, Ron, and Harry narrowly escape a brush with the wedding-crashing death eaters,

and Hermione gets so upset that they didn't celebrate Harry's birthday. Harry reminds her that they had just avoided being killed a few minutes previous, to which Hermione responds, simply, "Right. Perspective." (Here's the scene, in case you wanted a visual:)

A few weeks ago in my random honors lecture class, this art professor was giving a presentation, and he told us about something that completely blew his mind. He was at the park playing with his kids when he realized that the shadows you see while you're on the merry-go-round are totally different from the shadows you see when you're on the ground, and it hit him: God can see everything. At the same time.

And here we are, like little kids, just hanging on to the merry-go-round, and seeing the shadows and thinking we know everything. We think that we can see everything that's going on, but we can really only see part of what's going on--even when a different perspective doesn't even seem like a possibility to us. Perspective!

Okay. On to my stories.
So while on our little weekend Boston trip, I had three experiences that, much like with this art professor, kind of blew my mind.

#1
We were on the bus coming back from church. We were sitting in the very back, and I was sitting in one of those aisle-facing seats. I noticed this old Asian man sitting a few rows up. He was laughing to himself and throwing his hands up in the air and clapping, like any good loon would do. And I just thought to myself, "I love crazy people." So that would have been the end of the story: the crazy old Asian man I saw on the bus. Until Megan nudged me. She was sitting on the back row and had a good view of the whole bus. She told me to lean forward so I could see what she was looking at. It turns out that just in front of that old man was a cute little kid in a stroller... who was in desperate need of someone to play peek-a-boo with. That old man had obliged, and they were engaged in the cutest game of peek-a-boo I've ever seen. The old man would seriously do anything to make the little boy laugh. Most adorable thing I've ever seen.

(creeper picture from Megan's phone)

#2

We were walking through this outdoor market one night just as it was closing down. There was a woman walking in front of us, and I noticed that her produce kept falling out of her little metal rolling cart. She would stop every once in a while to collect her renegade items, swiftly stooping almost without missing a step. I commented to Megan, "Man, that stuff just won't stay in her cart, will it?" To which she responded, "Those things weren't in her cart--she's stealing them from off the ground." The silence of my stupidity ensued.

#3    

Again, on the bus. As the bus came to a bus stop, the guy standing there was obviously intending to get on, but it seemed to me that he was sure taking his sweet time. I was so annoyed that he was holding up the entire bus by being slow to get on. When he finally moseyed onto the bus, I said something about it to Megan. Then she, obviously being the wiser sister, said, "didn't you see the blind man waiting at the bus stop too? That other guy was telling him which bus was arriving." There had been a pole on the sidewalk, conveniently blocking my view of the blind man.


Just like that painting, in each of these situations, something was always blocking my view of reality--even if, in some cases, it was just my own hasty assessment. When looking at that painting within a painting, you really have no idea what could be going on behind the easel. And that lack of perspective is maybe showing the real picture, or it's maybe just keeping you from seeing the real picture. Either way, these are some life lessons, folks. And here's to hoping I'll stop judging things for what they are--or are not. 

Things are sweeter in Tennessee

Remember how I used to be obsessed with this song? Well, it turns out that things are indeed sweeter in Tennessee, and I sure had a great weekend there with some great company! Here are the highlights:

Church in Memphis. Promise we paid attention, despite the warning from 2 different people that this was a "special" ward... as if we couldn't tell from the Elvis look-alike with full-on sideburns and a purple suit. We were loving the whole Southern Baptist feel of testimony meeting and were kind of disappointed not to hear any "hallelujahs" or "amens" being shouted (though Adam considered it)... oh well.

We drove past the Memphis temple (with the adjacent church building that looked much more normal than the one we attended). I think it's the smallest temple I've ever seen, but of course still beautiful.

After lunch where our waitress called me "hot pocket" and offered us her babysitting services (yeah... no idea), we drove the few hours over to Nashville on what has got to be the most beautiful freeway I've ever seen. Trees line the road, but not like the trees in Washington state or Virginia where it's just dense and green. The fall leaves were still hanging on, and the colors were just beautiful. I didn't take a picture because I knew that it wouldn't do it justice, so you're just going to have to imagine that part. 

Nashville: we hit the highlights. The Country Music Hall of Fame & Museum. 

Yeah, Adam likes cars. And guns. So really, this was made for him.

 Elvis's golden car...

 and his golden piano:

 watching a Jeff Foxworthy act about rednecks...

 Rascal Flatts!

 Yeah, they sell crickets. Like, to eat. Southerners...

 Nashville's Broadway

I really should wear hats more often, right?

 The CMT building!

We took a tour of the Ryman auditorium, which is a tabernacle where they used to have the Grand Ole Opry. There was this little video that they show inside, and they were talking about how awesome the acoustics are inside--"second only to the Mormon Tabernacle." Woot! 

Adam's favorite picture from the trip:

The stage. We learned all about Minnie Pearl (which I'd only ever heard of before from the movie Selena) and all the other oldie performers with the Grand Ole Opry.

Hit up the capitol building

 And then had lunch at the Loveless Cafe. 

My yummy Southern meal. Barbeque pork with sweet potatoes and fries? Yes, please. I may be Southern. Or turning it...

 Our marathon day ended at the movies... James Bond? His idea.

We took a tour of this beautiful old Southern plantation called Belle Meade.

The people who owned this house also owned the horse whose posterity includes every horse who has ever competed in the Kentucky derby... or something like that. Pretty cool.

 There was even a carriage house. Obsessed! Megan and Lisa, I know you'll know why... Gables books, anyone?

 Last stop was this park where they have a replica of the Parthenon. We didn't have time to go inside, but it was still cool to see!

 Yeah, we're cute. So then we started out on the beautiful "five hour" drive back to Little Rock... which definitely ended up being longer than five hours. Just long enough that we got to the airport late and I missed my flight! Good times. btw, if you've ever thought it would be fun and exciting to miss a flight, it's really not. It's pretty much just expensive. Haha. But maybe worth it. We went out to this Mexican restaurant and I got some fajitas--my fave, so it ended well :)

 And then we went to Walmart, because you can't go to Arkansas without going to Walmart... it's just not possible. 

So yeah... it was a great road trip! Who knew that Tennessee was so beautiful (when you ignore all its ghetto areas!)? If I go again, I'll have to bring a better camera and get a good picture of that highway. But yeah, I can guarantee: things are sweeter in Tennessee.

I love being on campus...

at 5:30 pm, when they blare the National Anthem while lowering the flag. And I know this is repetitive because I'm positive I've said it before on my blog, but I just love being able to stop and listen to that music and put my hand over my heart and feel like time stops for a few minutes as we appreciate our wonderful country. And I love the feeling of everyone being frozen and then everyone suddenly moving again once the music stops (except for those jerk people who don't have enough respect to stop for two minutes or who pretend not to hear the music over their ipod [yes, Kim, I'm talking about people like you]).  

So I took this horrible picture with my horrible phone as they were folding up the flag because I thought it was so cool. 

Isn't America the best?