People who throw glass houses shouldn't get stoned.

My brother used to be in a hip hop band. Now that he's in college and playing Division I sports, he has little time for such foolishness. Despite the fact that his group wasn't particularly talented, they got quite a few gigs. I'm not sure why exactly, except that the competition was slim. One thing for which I give them credit is that they performed only original music. Their most-requested local hit was probably People Who Throw Glass Houses Shouldn't Get Stoned. It was, of course, a take-off on the proverb, "People who lived in glass houses shouldn't throw stones."  The song itself made little sense, which was basically the same with all their songs, but their audiences didn't seem to mind.

Proverbs -- not necessarily as in Psalms. Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations, etc.  -- but those old sayings that have been passed down through generations, are a favorite subject of mine.  Now, if you wonder about the origin of one, you can simply google it and come up with about twenty differing explanations as to the origin of any given proverb, and you can use your powers of reasoning to decide which explanation makes the most sense. Before the Age of Technology, your public library was your only decent source of explanation, and your odds there weren't even all that great. There was always some old geezer who had an answer for your question, but the answer was as likely rooted in the contents of a whiskey bottle as in reality.

My favorite proverb is probably the following: "In the country of the blind, the one-eyed man is king."  I haven't yet researched its origin, but it sounds vaguely Asian to me.  In my younger, more angst-ridden days, when I frequently sparred verbally with my father, it was one of my favorite ways to attempt to end an argument. When he claimed that he knew more than I did either due to education or life experience, I'd throw that one out. My dad must have thought it had an Asian ring to it as well, as whenever I said it, he (the King of Political Correctness) would bow his head and press his hands together in what he perceived to be an Asian gesture, and would begin to speak in mock Chinese or Japanese. It didn't sound all that much like either, so it's hard to know which it was supposed to be. One night after I said that, he wore an eye patch to dinner.

We have a smoother relationship now, and if we argue at all, we do so in a rational manner. I no longer figuratively accuse him of being the smartest of the stupid people around him, and he no longer mocks Asians in an attempt to get to me. In an odd way, I sort of miss the old days.

Where do most proverbs have their roots? Many are Biblical in origin, although "Do unto others" supposedly has a paraphrase in every major world religion. "Spare the rod and spoil the child," appears in various Biblical translations beginning in 1377.  "Love they neighbor as thyself " is also obviously Biblical in origin.

I've  wondered about other proverbs for other reasons. "You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear." Duh. What Einstein wannabe  came up with that one? You can't make boysenberry pie out of cow dung, either. Some things go without saying, and don't merit a proverb.

Ben Franklin can take credit for a few widespread sayings, the most famous of which is probably "Early to bed and early to rise makes a man health and wealthy and wise." My personal favorites from Poor Richard's Almanac are probably  "He that lies down with dogs shall rise up with fleas," and "He's a fool that makes his doctor his heir." That last one hits home a bit. My dad's a doctor now, and I'll presumably inherit a reasonable chunk of the wealth he accrues. Go ahead and make him your heir, leukemia and lymphoma patients, if you want. I won't complain. Likewise, if I survive medial school, patients are welcome to name me in their wills as well, although I would think it could potentially create the very epitome of  "conflict of interest."

Some sayings make perfect sense, but who knows from where they came? "A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush" is an example of this.  An even better example is "A chain is as strong as is weakest link." The person who came up with that little proverb, however obvious it seems, was  wise indeed.

I like the proverb, "A jack of all trades is a master of none." It reminded me of a music teacher in my former city of residence. He gave lessons in piano, brass and woodwind instruments, and string instruments. The only instrument he played even passably well was the guitar, and he only knew about eight guitar chords and didn't play by note at all. This lends itself to another proverb: "A fool and his money are soon parted."

I'll end with a proverb I just read. I'm quoting it here primarily because I think it's funny, in addition to the fact that it reminds me of some of my classmates, including several with whom I am stuck doing a group project (which will end up being a project done by one [me] because I will not jeopardize my grade in the course just to make a point or to avoid carrying more than my share of the load).  Anyway, the concluding proverb: "A lazy sheep thinks its wool is heavy."

Isn't that incredibly fitting when applied to a few people in all our lives?

Does this guy think his wool is heavy? We'll never know, and he'll be sheared soon enough, anyway.

The Many Banes of My Existence by Alexis: It happened sooner than expected.

The Many Banes of My Existence by Alexis: It happened sooner than expected.: Qu Wanting is still great, but this song is even better than hers . Give it a listen. Cue ahead to about 39 seconds for the real song. I...

It happened sooner than expected.

Qu Wanting is still great, but this song is even better than hers . Give it a listen. Cue ahead to about 39 seconds for the real song. It's off the book and CD "Dog Train" by Sandra Boynton. The singer is John Ondrasik of Five for Fighting. It should be a classic. It's probably wasted on children. Seriously, this song is great, and the video isn't bad, either.

Suggestion

                                              

Robert Kirby, who should be a role model for Morbots (most of whom are probably related to me) who come to this site to whine about anything I say in jest about their religion

For Mormons so thoroughly lacking in a sense of humor when it comes to the most benign or banal aspect of their church that they must rant at any mention I make of it if I don't figuratively drool about the Church's one-true-church-ness ,  read some of the writings of Salt Lake Tribune columnist Robert Kirby. Yes, he does work for the publication that used to be considered the opposition, as the Deseret News was owned, operated, ad very much controlled by the LDS church, while the trib had no church ties.

Since that time, the Tribune has been purchased by a church-held corporation.  It has exercised some editorial control. kirby is still typing away, and it appears still to be esswntially from the heart, although I don't see the original copy of each column before the editors have had their chance to hack away at it. he may be even more of a radical than I think, and he may be more censored than I'd like to believe.

Regardless, read as far back as you are able without paying subscription fees (or pay the fees if you have money to throw around and you're so inclined). Kirby is one of yourown. Listen to the opinion of a temple-recommend-holding Mormon who can laugh about things.

link: http://www.sltrib.com/columnists/Kirby

Note to my readers: I promise to move on. This is not going to become a one-issue blog, with the issue being my discordance with a church to which I've never formally belonged.

Who wants to go to Fiji, anyway, unless they're doing touristy things maybe?

It seems that tattoos in visible places on the body can pretty much get people banned from serving LDS missions.  I had never given this topic much thought, but my former on again/off again relationship knew this. I'm not sure about the rule if the tattoo appears on one's buttocks or some similarly not-normally-visible in Mormon-acceptable clothing. Maybe it's on the health form one takes when one has the required physical before a mission. Then again, maybe it's not.  I'll have to research that.

In Jared's case, it wouldn't have mattered anyway, as his tattoo (with my name on it; isn't that just special?) is in a place where at least part of it is visible in a standard T-shirt.

Jared was formally told by his bishop that he would not be serving a mission. no one told the hedge hogs in Provo or salt lake City or wherever the divine inspiration takes place as to whom will be sent where. So on Wednesday, Jared got his envelope. he and some friends, including my brother, got together and had a party at which they opened the thing. I think it's posted on youtube somewhere, but I cannot give more details because I'm supposed to be semi-anonymous, and reveling such details would reduce my chances of anonymity.

So Jared opened his white envelope and read aloud (I saw it all on skype) that he had been assigned to the Fiji Suva mission. (They almost always call each mission by first the nation, then the city  or region.0) So Jared would've been in Fiji, where the roads may be too sandy even for bicycles. I really don't know much about the Fijian islands. there's another topic I'll have to research.

My brother had been planning this demonstration or show of support for Jared, where a whole lot of people would put temporary tattoos on their arms, keep them covered until right in the middle of the sacrament, then take off their jackets and display their tattoos. Once my brother heard that Jared had been called to serve in Fiji, he wanted, instead, for the whole crew to dress up in Fijian attire, whatever that might be --probably floral patterns and those lava lava skirt things that men wear in other parts of Polynesia. Tim, a family friend, told Matthew that while it would be funny, it would be less effective, because the Fijian-attired people either wouldn't be allowed in the door or would be asked to leave shortly after entering. So they went with Plan A.

Tim's temporary tat featured the medical insignia. Matthew found a ridiculous one that was a stop sign. I don't know what would be the point, but Matthew said that was the beauty of it, that there was no point.  Other people got all sorts of interesting artwork. one guy even got a picture of his kindergarten teacher, who was a nun. I didn't know you could have temporary tattoos custom made.
Jared said that the whole thing was going to look a bit suspicious no matter how it went down, but the main thing was that everyone couldn't arrive and sit by him, and everybody couldn't show up in one large group. He said they had to act as though they knew what they were doing, sort of like no genuflecting. You just walk in, shake somebody's hand if they offer it, say either that you're an investigator or that  you're visiting from some made-up ward in any part of the country.

People arrived alone or in groups of two or three.  There were, Matthew believes, a total of forty-nine of them. Seventeen were female, and thirty-two were male. Most of them knew each other, or knew someone in the group. people sat mostly with one or two other co-conspirators, rather than clustering.

First in the Mormon service, the bishop or one of his counselors welcomes everyone. Next comes an opening hymn, for which no one stands, followed by an opening prayer, for which the members also remain seated. then the bishop or one of his counselors conducts any ward business. this might be a change in callings (jobs) for anyone, a new membership, a confirmation of a new member if it wasn't done at the time of the baptism, or that sort of thing. then comes the Sacrament hymn, after which they pretty much barricade the chapel as though they were the Branch Davidians in Waco with David Koresh in charge. The sacramental prayer, read or ideally recited verbatim by someone who holds at lest the office of priest, is said. then someone who is at lest a deacon passes the white wonder bread around. In a normal family wards, it would be mostly 12-year-olds passing the bread around, but there are no 12-year-old deacons in a student ward, so it was ordinary young men passing the trays of bread so that worthy members could partake,

At this point, sweaters, blazers, and jackets started to come off.  It was choreographed so that each person knew when to remove his outer garment rather than everything coming off simultaneously. it was almost like doing the wave, Matthew said. It wasn't until midway through the passing of the water (virtually every other denomination uses grape juice or wine) that the bishop, who had noticed Jared with his visible tattoo and was staring him down, started to notice others. It must have been a tough choice for him: interrupt the sanctity of the Sacrament or let it go for a few additional seconds. Rationality won in the end. The bishop allowed the sacrament distribution to proceed.

At the completion of the sacrament, once the doors were un-barricaded and the place ceased to resemble the Branch Davidian Compound, the Bishop approached the pulpit with an angrily red face. He said that all those present  who were bearing tattoos were invited to cover them with clothing and to keep them covered, or to leave immediately. Everyone watched Jared for his cue. He slowly  picked up his suit jacket -- it looked almost as though he was going to put it on -- then suddenly stood up, walked down the aisle, and out the door. The remaining forty-six followed. Matthew estimated that the forty-seven tattoo bearers comprised probably a third of those resent, so it was a noticeable departure.

Matthew and Jared said they both regret not plating a spy to sit through the rest of the meeting to see what was said and done.  one guy said he drive by shortly thereafter, and it looked as though people were leaving early, s in about two hours early. (The entire meeting trilogy is a three-hour marathon.)

Who knows what really happened?

I wish I'd been there, but Jared's father hates me enough as it is, and I didn't even do anything.  If I'd actually gone to the mini-protest, I would have given him legitimate reason to despise me.

Happy Mother's Day

      my  mommy's favorite flowers; please don't think I'm a cheapskate; the real thing is coming

To all the mothers in cyberland, please pardon the typos (I have ointment in my eyes this morning; I still haven't edited the typos from my last post, when I also had ointment in my eyes; sorry!) as i wish you all a very happy Happy Mother's Day.  I hesitate to mention names, as iknow I'll forget someone cricial either in my real life or my online life, but here it goes, and if I missed you, hit me in the head figuratively via some sort of reminder so that as i am editing my typos later today, I may edit you in as well.

Happy Mother's Day to my own mom, to my Aunt Victoria, to my Aunt Kathleen, to my Aunt Colleen, to my Aunt Ilianna, to my Aunt Jillian who is not yet a mother but WILL  be, to my aunt Andrea, to myAunt Joanne, and to myAunt Cristelle, to hoonorary aunts Aunt Maria and  Aunt Becky  (all of you, please take note that I have a whole lot of aunts who didn't merit mention; YOU are special.)

Happy mother's Day to my Grandma Anne, who is no longer with us 9mom and AuntVicotira took our flowers earlier in the week. I hope you could see them from wherever you are), and to my Grandma  Victoire, whose flowers should already have been delivered in Utah. Matthew and I pooled our resources for your flowers because Matthew has limited resources. I know your house must be full of flowers by this point. I hope our bouquet was at least nice enough to cause you to pause and look at it for a moment if you were not the one who answered the door when it was delivered.

Also meriting special mention are Tina, Amelia Ambyland, Knotty (stepmothers count even if your husband's psycho ex won't allow you or he to have contact with them), to Becca's mom and Grandma B. and her mom's twin and othr sister, and to her step-sister-in-law, to dr. Jeff;s wife who sometimes takes care of me when I have headaches even though it;s neither her profession nor her subspecialty, to Setphanie )Jared's mom, with whom I hope to always have a relationship regardless of the status of any relationship i do or don;t have with Jared, to Stephanie's sisters-in-law, whom I'll try to name" Brooke, Laura, Karina, and Alison amd to Jared's grandmother Verlene (none of whom read my blog, and we want to keep it that way, but I'll send my good wishes just the same) to Amelia who has something in common with my own mother, to Donna, to Amy,  to Paul's mother and to the mother of any children he may have, to Mr. Wright's mother and to the mother of his child, to Lauren,  to Minnesota joy, to Nimish, to Jennifer, to faery, to Mrs. Catherine, to shanduh the panduh, to Ellie, to kelly, to tiger, to Matt's mum, to his wife who has probably mothered a pet or two along the way, and, for that mattr, for anyone who has mothered a pet or two along the way. a special shout out goes to aanyone who's taken in a stray. ne it caniine, feline, human, or whatever.

Teachers -- even those less-than-great in my opinion, do more than their share of parenting. Happy Mother's day to all of them as well. And Happy Mother's day to Nurses in genreal, and particularly to those who help to bring new babies into the world and to ease new mothers from that transition from pregnancy to actual motherhood.

I think I've alluded to this earlier, but a special good wish goes out to anyone who has ever formally functioned as a foster parent or who has informally taken in someone else's child. Ther is a special place inheaven for those so willing to give ouf their time, their love, nd of themselves.

The world as we know it would never have come into existence without mothers, nor would it continue to revolve as we know it, both literally and in a more metaphysical sense, without the continued presence and functioning of the mothers of the planet.  to anyone who's ever nurtured a child (related or unrelated -- even to the  extent of  consoling a child whose family has wandered away from him at an amusement park or big box store) or a pet, it's your day to enjoy. I don't really care what the conservative critics had to say about ideas implied by  Mrs. Clinton's book title, It Takes a Village.  It takes avillage and more to sustain a child physically, mentally, and emotionally to adulthood. (Happy Mother' Day to Hilary Clinton as well, who, whether one likes her politics or not, if the fruit of one's labor is any indication, did a hell of a job as a mother.) Happy Mother's day also to our nation's first mother, Mrs. Obama.

Again, i'm sorry if I missed  anyone, and let me know if such has been the case. and, once more, i'll fix the typos when my eyes are clear.

P.S. Some of us are enjoying this day in more locales than are the rest of us.

Mother's Day Is Almost Here

This is my mother playing the piano, not what she looks like                                 

                                         Note: I recorded her surreptitiously, and there are a few errors                                 wh       

         which that probably would not have been there if she'd known she 

                                                   was being recorded. She's a game player, not  a practice player:
                                                   Her performances are always better than her practices.

If I don't take the time now to say something nice about my mom, the holiday will pass and I'll move onto other pressing matters such as tattoos, Mormons, and missions, and I'll forget all about my mom. She deserves more than that.

As much as she wanted to be a mother and to have and raise children, I don't think my mom was meant to be a stay-at-home mother on a long-term basis.  I think even the few years she spent totally at home, while she enjoyed them, were difficult for her.  She was more inclined to argue in court on  behalf of a school district that a student with a barely detectable if even existent case of ADHD (he had to be taken to seven doctors before one could be found who would give the ADHD diagnosis)  whose parents were not willing even to to try one of the many medications on the market was not entitled to his own personal one-to-one paraprofessional assistant  than she was to mediate disputes about whether or not a Fisher Price Popper could be hammered until it broke to see if the colored balls on the inside were actually bubble gum. (They weren't.)

Still, my mother stayed at home with my twin brother and me full-time until we turned four.  She did the play group exchange, the mommy-and-me swimming and gymnastics lessons, and many things that might by some have been considered beneath her when considering that she could have paid someone else to do it for a fraction of the salary she would have earned  doing the work for which she was educated to do.  Her point of view is that if one wishes to have children and one expects them to grow into the type of adults one would choose for them to become, there's nothing quite like doing the job oneself.

When my brother and I  turned four in early December of the year before we started kindergarten, my mother sent us to preschool for to days a week, five hours each day so that we could become properly socialized and learn to take direction from adults other than herself and our father, and so that she could return to work on a slight basis as a consultant. Many mothers would have packed us off to daycare and take the money they would have earned long before that, but my mom felt that we needed the bare minimum of preschool, and that kindergarten was soon enough for us to go to school every day. Even then, she chose for us to attend half-day kindergarten and worked only half-time so that she could pick us up each day at the conclusion of kindergarten.   When we were first-graders, she added two additional hours to her work day early in the school year, but was still there to pick us up each day until she developed leukemia, and her life had to be devoted to fighting the dreaded illness while we were shuffled from one relative to another.

Educationally speaking, that was very much a wasted year in our lives, as we traveled from one state to another to be cared by relatives  after a live-in babysitter who was a relative of a relative stood by, paying no attention as I, at the age of five, nearly starved myself to death.  Fortunately school came easily both to Matthew and to me, and we withstood the interruption to our education. Fortunately also,  I was a perfect donor match for bone marrow for my mom. She didn't want to take bone marrow from me because I was tiny and had been ill, but my father lied to her and used my bone marrow anyway, telling her at the time that it was an adequate match from a random donor..  More tha   Twelve years later, we're both alive and well, so I'd have to say he made the right decision.

The decision to conceive my brother and me was a tough one for my mom to have made. less than two years earlier, because  of placenta abruptae, she gave birth to premature twins whose lungs were not sufficiently developed for them to survive beyond a few minutes in one case and a few days in the other case.  Eventually she decided she really wanted at least one child. She had seen the adoption process not work out well for a few close friends, and concluded that it was time to try conception and pregnancy all over again.

Four months into her second pregnancy, my mother learned that she was again carrying twins. The reason she learned relatively late that there were two of us was that I was conceived in a later cycle. my mother's HCG levels dropped low enough that she ovulated again roughly eight weeks after her original conception. The idea that she was again carrying twins did nothing give my mother peace of mind. At about  24 weeks gestation with Matthew  and approximately sixteen weeks gestation with me, she was put on bed rest. she read, did some work from bed (laptops weren't then what  they are now) and tried her best to occupy her thoughts with anything and everything except what was going on inside her uterus at the time. She told me not long ago that during that time, she became convinced that she would cone out of this pregnancy with one baby if she was lucky, and it wasn't going to be the baby she conceived second.  s/he didn't speak to anyone -- even my father -- of this,because she thought actually voicing it might jinx even the larger baby's chances.

the plan was to keep the pregnancy going as long as it could reasonably go, but hen the more  gestationally mature baby needed to come out, I would have to come out as well, ready  or not.  she was being examined weekly by ultrasound. When Matthew's weight according to the ultrasound estimation dropped by three ounces in one week and when the amount of amniotic fluid was shown to decrease, it was time for the babies to be born.

My father's best friend in Florida, whom I call my Uncle Jerry, is a highly respected obstetrician. He had been on call, preparing to fly to California to, if possible, deliver the babies.  Call it doctor's intuition, a hunch, or just dumb luck, but he'd somehow felt the day before that it was time and had hopped a plane to California. He was present for the final ultrasound, and took part in the decision to take the babies immediately.

The ultrasound had taken place in the hospital,  so all that was needed was to move my mom to the operating room and prep her for immediate surgery.  it wasn't an emergency C-section in the sense that  obvious distress was present for either fetus, but it was obvious that conditions inside our little makeshift hotel in out mother's womb were deteriorating by the minute.  We'd gone from  a Best Western or Holiday Inn to something worse than a Motel 6 in less than a week.  There was no reason for the surgeons and other personnel to act recklessly, by time was of the essence.

Within forty-five minutes of the conclusion of the ultrasound, my mother had been given a spinal anaesthetic, and the first incision was being made by my Uncle Jerry. He then incised the uterus.The decision had been, if feasible, to get the smaller baby out first, and I was the more accessible of the to of us. My uncle Jerry told my dad to grab me. my dad's not an OBGYN, but all doctors have received some training in delivering babies -- even surgical deliveries -- so my dad didn't hesitate as he reached in with his rubber-gloved hands to pull me out. With a minimal amount of suctioning, I was screaming away. "I think you have a singer " my Uncle Jerry said to my mom as he lifted my brother out of my mom's uterus.  There was less than a minute between the time my brother and I were removed, which has our birth certificates listing the identical time of 11:43, which, I've been told, is highly unusual.

Some drama occurred with my mom announcing a change to the name previously decided on for me that I won't go into at this time. I was small -- two pounds, two ounces, while my brother was a robust six pounds, nine ounces. My mom still wasn't convinced she was going to end up with tow babies out of this experience, but chances looked good for her getting at least one baby that survived. What she didn't know was that the neonatologist called in for the delivery ad few worries about me despite my size and early  birth. He saw premature births every day that he worked. nothing about my condition seemed overly alarming to him.  my mother was going to be raising twins whether or not she had yet accepted the idea.

It took loner for my mother and me to bond than it did for her and Matthew to do the same, as he accompanied her home from the hospital five days after we were born. I was there about five additional weeks. We eventually bonded, though I have been more difficult for her to manage, i part, according to my mother's siblings, because I am so much like her.  Her mother always told her,. "I hope someday you have a daughter just like you," and she didn't say it at peaceful times when things were going especially well. to a large degree it seems that my grandmother got her wish.

I look like my mother, although I don't think I'll ever be as pretty as she is. I wish I could share a picture of her that actually shows what she looks like, but she will not allow it. I have much of my mother's musical ability, although my dad, too, is a musician, so it's hard to say what came from where. I can sing a little, but not the way my mother can. She says she used to sound just like me, but I think that was when she was younger. I believe her full voice was beginning to come in before she reached my age. My mother's singing  voice  is indescribable, so I won't even try except to say that she can sing to the back row of an auditorium without a microphone  but also can lull the crankiest baby in the world (which was me in my day) to sleep with her voice. To this day, if I'm having difficulty sleeping, she can sing and I'll usually be unconscious before two minutes have passed.

She taught me to play the piano. Many pianists won't teach their own children, as they find it creates too much conflict. For some reason, even though we butted heads in other areas, we had no trouble in my learning piano from her. I studied with her until I was twelve. It wasn't like a once- or twice-a-week lesson. It was more like she would be cooking while I was playing, and she'd hear that a fingering was awkward, so she'd come in and fix it for me. Since I practiced daily with her listening and providing suggestions or corrections when necessary, it was actually far more productive than going for a lesson once or twice a week. Even after I began studying with a professor at the university in the town in which we lived, she continues to help me, and her help was probably more beneficial at the time than were the lessons.

Interestingly enough, she couldn't teach Matthew to play the piano. Playing the piano had come very easily to her, as it did to me.  For Matthew it was more of a struggle, nd she found herself growing impatient in trying to teach him. She rightly  felt that a mother-son relationship mattered more than having a son who could play the piano, so she left it alone, thinking that maybe in a year or two she would find a private piano teacher for him.  Strangely, what she was not able to accomplish, I was.  He would listen to me when I taught him something on the piano, and I was too young to know that he wasn't moving a long at a terribly rapid pace.  He eventually got it down.  her doesn't play as well as my mother or even as well as I, but he can play several works of the masters and can sightread modern sheet music. m/y mom said she wouldn't have believed it was possible for one sibling so young to teach another one, but it worked.

My mother is brilliant beyond what I can express. I'm not, despite what a commenter said recently in another post, "an idiot," but I have a little more than a shred of the intelligence my mother has. My father is a research physician, and he readily admits that my mother is more intelligent than he is. I'm not sure why she chose educational psychology, school administration, and music performance as fields of study when she could have done things so much more cerebral, but I suppose it was what made her happy. She retired briefly when we relocate from northern California to the central coast of california, but is now an adjunct professor in the music department of the university I attend, and is considering an offer to join the faculty on a full-time basis.  If she takes the offer, I hope it's because it's what she really wants to do and not because she thinks she should work and it's the most convenient offer.

Jacqueline Kennedy once made the comment, "If you bungle raising your children, I don't think whatever else you do well matters very much."  My mother was a Kennedy aficionado as a child, so she's surely familiar with this quote. I suspect, though she's never spoken it within my hearing, it's been a  silent mantra to her and to how she's lived her life, not because it was Jacqueline Kennedy who said it but because it epitomizes how important she considered us, the seriousness she took in the job of  being our mother, and the precision with which she raised us.  I'm not claiming that either Matthew or I is perfect. I'm merely saying that if anything about us is bungled, we did it to ourselves. Our mother was and is  practically perfect.

My New Favorite Song

You Exist in My Song

词曲及演唱：曲婉婷
Composer, Lyrics and Singer: Qu Wanting

I change favorite songs with only sligly less frequency than most people change their soncks. This is my new favorite song, but it probably won't be next week. Still, I keep track, so it will be on my list forever.   It's sung in Mandarin, and while the English words are still nice,I suspect it loses considerable depth in the English translation. As much as I love the melody, I hope no one comes along and wrtes English lyrics for the tune, because I sense it was meant to be sung in Chinese.

My dad came into my room as I was playing it on the piano and singing it in Mandarin to the best of my very limited ability. With his characteristic tact, he asked, "What in the hell are you trying to sing?"  I explained that it was a song by a Taiwanese singer. He suggested it sounded more like I was trying to sing in Klingon, and that if I intended to keep singing in Mandarin, a course in the language would be a good place to start.

I don't especially want t learn to speak or even sing in Chinese. I just want to sing this one song and just for myself, not for the world. I'll try to sing more quietly in my room so my dad doesn't have to be offended by my pitiful attempt at at Mandarin in song.

Loss of essence in translation notwithostanding, I think it's a lovely song.  I also think the dress Qu Wanting is wearing as she plays the piano is gorgeous, and I'd buy it in a minute if i could find it.

    méiyǒu yìdiǎndiǎn fángbèi, yě méiyǒu yì sī gùlǜ
没有   一点点   防备，也 没有 一 丝 顾虑
Without any precaution, and without a trace of apprehension

nǐ jiù zhèyàng chūxiàn zài wǒ de  shìjiè lǐ , dàigěi wǒ jīngxǐ , qíngbúzìyǐ
你 就 这样  出现  在  我 的 世界 里，带给 我 惊喜，情不自已
you appeared in my world as you did, bringing me a pleasant surprise, that I couldn’t resist

kěshì nǐ piān yòu zhèyàng, zài wǒ bùzhībùjué zhōng
可是 你 偏 又  这样，在  我 不知不觉 中
But like this, without me knowing

qiāoqiāo de xiāoshī , cóng wǒ de shìjiè lǐ ,   méiyǒu yīnxùn , shèngxià de zhǐshì huíyì
悄悄  的  消失，  从  我 的 世界 里，没有   音讯，剩下    的 只是  回忆

you quietly disappeared, from my world, without a word, leaving behind only my memories

nǐ cúnzài, wǒ shēnshēn de nǎohǎi lǐ,  wǒ de mènglǐ, wǒ de xīnlǐ ,  wǒ de gēshēng lǐ
你 存在，我 深深   的 脑海 里，我 的 梦里，我 的 心里，我 的 歌声 里
You exist, deep in my mind, in my dreams, in my heart, and in my song

nǐ cúnzài, wǒ shēnshēn de nǎohǎi lǐ,  wǒ de mènglǐ, wǒ de xīnlǐ ,  wǒ de gēshēng lǐ
你 存在，我 深深   的 脑海 里，我 的 梦里，我 的 心里，我 的 歌声 里
You exist, deep in my mind, in my dreams, in my heart, and in my song

nǐ cúnzài, wǒ shēnshēn de nǎohǎi lǐ,  wǒ de mènglǐ, wǒ de xīnlǐ ,  wǒ de gēshēng lǐ

你 存在，我 深深   的 脑海 里，我 的 梦里，我 的 心里，我 的 歌声 里
You exist, deep in my mind, in my dreams, in my heart, and in my song

hái jìdé wǒmen céngjīng, jiānbìngjiān yì qǐ zǒuguò, nà duàn fánhuá xiàngkǒu
还 记得 我们 曾经， 肩并肩    一 起 走过，那 段  繁华  巷口
Still remember us once walking side by side together past that bustling alley

jìnguǎn nǐ wǒ shì mòshēngrén, shì guòlùrén, dàn bǐcǐ háishì gǎnjué dào le duìfāng de 

尽管  你 我 是 陌生人，  是 过路人，但 彼此 还是 感觉 到 了 对方  的
Even though we were strangers, just passing by each other, we still felt each other

yí gè yǎnshén, yí gè xīntiào ….
一个 眼神，一个 心跳….
One look, one beat of the heart

yì zhǒng yìxiǎngbúdào de kuàilè, hǎoxiàng shì
一 种   意想不到   的 快乐，好像   是
one unexpected delight. It’s like

nándào shì yuánfèn?
难道  是  缘分
Could it have been chance?

nándào shì tiānyì?
难道  是 天意…
Could it have been destiny?

yì chǎng mèngjìng, mìngzhōngzhùdìng

一 场   梦境，   命中注定
a dream, that was destined.

shìjiè zhī dà wéihé wǒmen xiāngyù
世界 之 大 为何 我们   相遇
The world is so big, why did we meet?

A Little Less Contentious Than Last Night; Guinness Has That Effect

                                           a Mormon nun if there were such a thing

Last night's post was a bit of a downer, though necessary. It isn;r easy to deal with those who  feel that they have eer right to be angry andto resort to name-calling when a joke makes any reference to their religion, /perhaps they should try reading the writings of robert Kirby of the Salt Lake Trib. Then again, they'd probably just spew vitriol at him,call him an idiot, and tell him he doesn;t know what he's talking about despite his unofficial distinction as the historian of LDS reality.

Right noRight now I'm having three-quarters of a Guiness in honor of all the Anonoymous posters,who may have been just one responder with mutiple personalitieshea. As much as I would like to help this perso,  there is none so blind as he or she who will not see, I'll just keep drinking a eekly Giness on their behalf every week or so.  It may not do a damned tihing for the one or various anonymous poster.

My mom watched Jared's little brthers and sisters today so his mom could drive in to Los Angeles to see him and his tatto. When I finally got home this evening, she was already crashed for the night. It's been ahwile since she's been responsible for so many kids, some of them all day because htheor too young for school. I can't wait ot hear what Jared's mom rhinks about the tattoo,

I'm figuratively falling asleep at the wheel here. I'll talk to you tomorrow night.

Beware of falling coconuts.
 #

The Sacred and Profane (or The Sacred and The Sense of Humor)

Are there things too sacred about which to make jokes? Ask a Muslim that, and your answer will surely be "yes."  Make a joke about what is most sacred to those who practice Islam (I'm not  mentioning it because I don't want a bounty on my head if anyone ever actually figures out who I am) and you'll find out just how lacking in humor are members of their faith when it comes to what they consider holy. Those who practice Islam aren't overly blessed with the gift of humor when it comes to their faith.

Ask a Mormon the same question as to the existence of topics too sacred to be discussed with any hint of humor. Again, the answer will be yes.  I can go along with this to a degree.  I know what goes on during LDS temple endowment ceremonies, as well as what occurred within them pre-1991, or whenever the most recent big change was. I don't write about those things, either seriously or in jest. I may make the odd joke about the magic underwear, but that's about as far as it goes. And as far as that goes, if a church goes so far as to dictate to its upper-echelon (temple-endowed) members   what kind of underwear they must wear, that church should be prepared for at least a little mirth at their own expense. Laugh it off or let it roll right off one's back.

Special undergarments  notwithstanding, other than writing of my experience at being baptized for the dead in a Mormon temple, I generally don't joke about temples all that much.  I will say in seriousness that holding weddings in places where not all close family members, including even a bride's or groom's parents in some cases, are allowed to attend, is contradictory to the ideology of any church which professes that family comes first. I'm not saying that for the sake of humor, though.  I'm dead serious.

Some readers (or one reader posing as some readers) came across a blog from many months ago in which I made references to Mormons who drink coffee, Mormons who practically worship Mitt Romney (this was before the election; Mitt has lost even most of his Latter-day Saint flock by now), and stake presidents,   and took umbrage  in a not particularly articulate manner at all that I had to say. I was bored so I responded. It was a waste of computer life span, health of my wrists (pianists and those who type excessively are at risk for carpal tunnel syndrome), and perhaps even of  function of my brain, as one's brain is only going to think so many thoughts before it decides it has had enough and ceases to function. My dad says there is no scientific basis to support my "maximum brain function" hypothesis, but he's an oncologist and hematologist. What makes him think he knows any more about brains than does the next person?

Anyway, what is truly too sacred to be the subject or object of humor?  The answer  varies from one person to the next. As much of a cafeteria-variety Catholic as I am (pick and choose what aspects of the faith you want to follow just as you pick your entree and side dishes), I can't find anything about Jesus' final week as a half-mortal remotely amusing. (I wouldn't put anyone else on a death list for disagreeing and creating a cartoon about the crucifixion, although I probably wouldn't choose to be that person's friend.)  Anyone's death is something about which I'm not comfortable making jokes, whether because of the sanctity of death or merely out  of respect to the survivors or the deceased himself or herself.  I  don't find the suffering of very many people to be particularly amusing anyway, but the lack of humor factor rises exponentially when it's the suffering of a child or an animal involved.  I can't watch either St. Jude's Hospital commercials or those Sarah McLachlan SPCA ads or Humane Society ads or whatever they are. My inability to watch them is probably because I'm squeamish, but the subject matter itself really bothers me. Is that because it is sacred, though? Maybe it is. Perhaps we have a sacred obligation as a society to protect animals and children to the very best of our ability. Or perhaps I just have PMS and had to click off one too many Sarah McLachlan or st. Jude's Hospital commercials tonight.

I think it runs in the family. My mom has the same tendency. I remember once when I was about ten. It was December and  she was driving us to practice for a Christmas program, and the radio station was playing Christmas stuff.  The Littlest Angel , which isn't even a song, was read dramatically by someone like William Shatner over a musical background. My mother got all weepy, and she had to drive around the block about sixteen times until she could get her emotions under control. We were about five minutes late, and there were people outside the church auditorium standing in the fog, waiting for her to unlock the door to the auditorium.

My brother has the same tendency, though, and he can't even blame PMS, or if he can, he has problems far beyond anything I can hope to cover in this blog or anywhere else. Anyway, once during the end of one of those Cerebral Palsy or Muscular Dystrophy telethons, he got really caught up in the moment and called the number on the screen and pledged one thousand dollars. He got his name announced on TV, which is how my mom found out about it. You'd think the volunteers answering the phones on those telethons would be trained to recognize a young child's voice-- I think Matthew was five -- and ask to speak to an adult before processing the donation. Those pledges aren't legally binding, or certainly not when made by a five-year-old. My parents wrote out a one-hundred-dollar check and called it even.  The telethon people would have liked more, but they were lucky to get the hundred bucks.

It seems perfectly appropriate for anyone to take his or her religion seriously at least to some degree (in this regard as in many other, my dad is inappropriate). It is probably reasonable to expect others to refrain from desecrating the things you consider most holy if they know that you consider those things as such.   On the other hand,  if the things you consider holy beyond desecration are undergarments, drinking or not drinking coffee, Mitt Romney and his entire family, or even the protection of the family (!!!)  and the sanctity of marriage, it might be a bit of a stretch to assume that everyone who posts or blogs on the Internet knows your feelings and will avoid these topics as though they're the ebola virus.

The Internet contains a wealth of views on virtually any topic one could imagine.  Pick any topic. If youcan't think of one, grab a magazine and randomly open it to a page. Google, it, Bing it, ask Jeeves about it , MSNsearch it, or  check it out on the Internet in whatever way suits your fancy. If  the topic is gravity, there may not be too much disagreement or controversy. On almost any other topic, probably one will find controversy and divergent viewpoints. The comments after the main entry are often where the greatest controversy can be found , but even the main body of the article may be controversial or even offensive from your viewpoint. If your purpose for searching is to learn more about something or if, in searching blogs,  perhaps wishing to learn about others' viewpoints, it might be fruiful to read what the author has to say. If, on the other hand, one wishes to find facts and beliefs that support one's already existing belief system and one might be offended by anything to the contrary,  one might do well  to quickly scan the article, or at least the opening and closing paragraphs, to see if what has been written is something that will annoy, offend, incense, or otherwise ruin one's day. If such is the case,  it would behoove one to bypass the article.

If, on the other hand, one derives pleasure from reading blogs or other posts at message boards and looking for places to disagree with a poster or blogger, criticize the person not just for his or her writings and point of view  but for his intelligence, character, usefulness as a human being, and general right to occupy space on the planet, by all means use the various search engines available on the Internet  for such purposes. Find blogs or posts with which to disagree, using the most vitriolic non-expletive words of which you can think. (It's not wrong in the eyes of God to call someone a worthless piece of poop as long as you say poop rather than shit. It's all in the technicalities. Jesus doesn't really care what's in your heart. It's the little things -- like not wearing a cross around one's neck or ,heaven forbid, getting more than one piercing in your ear, that will make a difference in the end.

Don't just stick to your feelings regarding what was written in a person's blog wen criticizing in response. Read between the lines. It's probably The Spirit telling you what to write and just how to insult the person. Call the writer an idiot. It will let him or her know the truthfulness of the gospel if you speak to him or her in such a way. Tell the person he or she does not know what he or she is talking about. It isn't remotely possible that the person may know more about the topic of discussion than you do.

This is the Internet. You can say or do anything, or claim to be anyone with  The Spirit on your side. Tell the original author that you cannot understand why everyone who knows him or her does not hate his or her guts. He or she needs to hear this. Choose the right! This is righteous indignation, just like when Jesus threw the money changers out of the temple.  Tell the writer that no one cares what he or she thinks.  It doesn't matter that you have no way of knowing how many people care about what he or she thinks, that you have no idea how many people like or love the person, or what the person's actual intellectual capacity is.
Afterwards, if you feel that you may have erred in judgement ever so slightly, apologize for maybe just one of the many  things you said, but try not to sound too sincere, and let the blogger know you were angry and you had every right to be. (Don't forget about the temple and the money changers and righteous indignation.)

Then when you go to church or Young Women's meetings, or to Sunday School, speak about the iniquity of bullying (except when doing so in defense of the church; then it's ok) or the importance of being a shining example of righteousness to non-members. No one knows what you wrote on the Internet.

Consider that on the outside chance, the person to whom you are writing was in a shaky emotional state when he or she wrote what he did. Consider that your responses sent him or her over the edge, and perhaps he or she downed an entier bottle of tylenol, then drove, thirty miles to a dry lke bed that isn't often visted until water is released into it in the summer. Perhaps the writer stayed there so nonone would fine him or her until the writer died of liver failure. First of all, the person was breaking the word of wisdom, so he or she was not a very worthy person. second, everyone knows suicide is a serious sin, and the person will probably spend eternity  in outer darkness. How could this be your fault? Were you supposed to read the entire Doctrine and Covenants to this idiot just to make sure you hit section 89. And one person can't be responsible for another's harmikng himself or herself. you are NOT your brother's or sister's keeper.

The outside chance didn't happen, of course. The blogger is alive, well, and acetaminophen free, and plans to remain that way for a long time,  But how could you have known?

Congratulations in choosing the right and in being one of Zion's youth in Latter Days, triumphant, pure, and strong.

skateboarding to class, Matthew's increase in height, Savior Twin Day (a new holiday slated for August 13) and Jared's healing tattoo

       This is the only form of "humor" that will actually get a laugh out of Jared's father. He sat all the way through Napoleon Dynamite which people my age don't actually admit is funny anymore, but only because the parents co-opted it and made it their personal funniest movie ever, so we had to pretend to fail to see the humor in it anymore, but even old people, especially old Mormon people, think Napoleon Dynamite is funny now, except for Jared's father. He also watched The Hangover without the corners of his mouth turning up ever so slightly.. This I would understand if he'd been watching it in the presence of any of his kids, because he might have thought it improper to admit in the presence of his offspring that he found borderine-offensive material amusing. If he were forced to watch Borat, i'm fairly certqin the man would go into cardiac arrest. Mark Russel, on the other hand, is funny to him to the extent that tears roll down his face as he laughs at one after another of Mark Russell's too clever jokes. Even my parents, and even Jared's grandparents, for that matter, find no humor in Mark Russell. It's possible to be so not funny that you are actually funny, and Mark Russell is proof of this.

I need to be asleep because I have a 9:00 a.m. class, which means if I'm not out the door at 8:20 at the very latest, I won't have time to park and make it to class. I do have my skateboard in my trunk, and skateboards are allowed in the bike lane as long as we yield to bicyclists, but the cyclists are not supposed to run us over. Bicyclists are legally allowed to run over pedestrians in the bike lanes, because it's like a freeway except that pedestrians have the right to cross as expeditiously as possible when it is safe to do so.  I've never witnessed a bicycle/pedestrian collision  and hope I never do. As long as pedestrians aren't stupid, it shouldn't happen, but still, I'd hate to see a cyclist so lacking in concern for another's well-being that he or she would collide with a pedestrian when it was in any way avoidable, including (gasp!) stopping one's bicycle.

I don't wear the protective gear my parents think I should be wearing when I skateboard to class, but it would take so much time to put it all on that I'd lose any advantage I had in skateboarding as opposed to walking to class. Furthermore, through the entire route to my first class, where I do my most intense skateboarding, there's a long grassy strip. I ride right next to it so that if I have to take a fall, I'm on grass. Chances are that I won't land on my head. With the risk of potential head and neck injuries being negligible on grass as long as I don't land on my head on grass with someone else on top of me, the other injury risks are minimal. A sprained ankle could happen, but the same injury or worse could occur walking down the stairs of the parking structure. Danger lurks everyone. Remember what Monk said about how this very Earth you love might just kill you.  The moral of this paragraph is that my parents are paranoid.

My younger brother (younger by less than a minute) is oh so proud of himself because he has reached the majestic height of six feet, two inches. My dad is 6"1'. My mom is 5'3". How did they produce an offspring who is 6'2"? The rest of my mom's family is taller than she is, but the tallest female is 5'6" and the tallest male is 5'11". On my dad's side, my Uncle Steve is 6' 3", but Uncle Michael has to stretch to be six feet. And their parents, in their prime, were 5'10" and 5'3" respectively. (They've shrunk practically to Oompah Loompah size now. Drink your milk, people.) The female offspring on that side are all pretty tall,  too -- ranging from 5'6" to 5'8".  Still, it doesn't add up. There's something strange going on here, and I intend to get to the bottom of it.

Matthew had to share my mother's uterus with me, so he didn't get the nutrition he would have gotten had he been a singleton. Still, he was the hog twin. Often there's one hog twin who takes more than his or her share and deprives his womb-mate of much-needed nutrition. (The root of it is greed. Some people begin displaying the trait of greed in utero, and it's usually a life-long characteristic unless intervention happens.) This can happen whether there are one or two placentas. Matthew and I had two placentas because we are fraternal or dizygotic twins (hint: if twins are of different genders, they're not identical; this may seem obvious, but some people get pretty far through life without knowing it), but our placentas sort of fused together, and he ate until he was full, then let me have what little was left over. (If Matthew had been a member of the Donner Party, he would have been a survivor no matter what he had to do to achieve that status.). He had mom's uterus to himself for roughly eight weeks, depending upon how soon my mother had her second ovulation after conceiving Matthew, so he had plenty of time to eat himself to virtual obesity before I even came along.

I love to remind Matthew that the reason our mother ovulated while she was pregnant was that her hormone levels were insufficient to sustain a pregnancy, and had I not been conceived, he would have been miscarried. I literally saved his life.

One would think he might show his gratitude on a more regular basis. There should be a special day -- almost like Mother's Day and Father's Day -- for siblings who saved their twins' lives in utero by being conceived and born. Hallmark,this is a great opportunity for you to sell more merchandise! I'll even pick a date for the holiday.  August 13 sounds good.  There don't seem to be any actual holidays in August, although, coincidentally, August 13 is the late Alfred Hitchcock's birthday.  Gift giving would be more or less mandatory (gift-giving is never 100% mandatory, but if one has a normal relationship with one's parents, it is considered something of a faux pas not to acknowledge Mother's Day or Father's Day; birthdays fall under the same category in most families) from the Beneficiary Twin to the Savior Twin. For the circle of family and friends,  it would be optional, but it would be well within the bounds of propriety for parents to give the Savior Twin a gift or two, or for the spouse, fiancee,  or serious girlfriend of the Beneficiary Twin to do the same. Get married or get a girlfriend, Matthew, and do it before August 13.  The more I think about this, the more convinced I  am of the greatness of this idea.

Jared's tattoo is apparently healing nicely and looking good as tattoos go. He's doing all the things the guy at the parlour told him to do to take care of it, whatever those things might be. I was never a major fan of tattoos, but I have to have a certain degree of appreciation when it's my name on the guy's bicep. So what's he going to do if we do not end up together when all is said and done?  He plans to go to medical school, too, but he'll be one year behind me even if he finishes college in three years as he plans to do. Chances are that we'll end up at different medical schools and that we'll each meet a whole lot of new people before we finish. I'm not committing to anything this far in advance, and I hope he's smart enough to feel the same way.

So once the threat of a mission has long passed -- and I don't really know precisely at what age that would be -- does he try to dig up the money to have the thing removed? I heard it's not cheap and also that it's painful.  Or, even if he doesn't end up with me, does he look for girls named Alexis to date so they won't be offended by the tattoo? With Jared's luck, the girl would probably end up spelling it "Alexys" or something similarly bizarre, still leaving a conflict. Perhaps it would be easier, though, to change one letter of the tattoo than to have the whole thing removed. Regardless, it's really not my problem. It's merely something about which I may speculate at times when I have nothing more pressing on which my mind must dwell.

Under the heading of gossip that's totally none of my business (a small distinction that's never stood in my way before) Jared's parents' marital relationship has gone from Antarctica-in-July-frigid to something more like Edmonton, Alberta, Canada in mid-March. Part of the problem is that Jared's mother has come to think that Jared getting a tattoo to avoid a serving  a mission is rolling-on-the-floor hilarious, while Jared's father is a phlegmatic sort who doesn't think anything is truly funny except knock-knock jokes and videotapes or CDs of this lame comedian named Mark Russell who used to play the piano while he made up really lame lyrics that only old Republicans thought were remotely amusing. Jared's father has the sense of humor of a man about thirty years older than his chronological age. Sometimes I wonder why Stephanie married him. Then I remember that they have six children, which both answers the question and renders further speculation on my part most improper.

# the non-artist still known as Alexis

I Can Say What I Want Again!

             This is the way I like to imagine that my tucks look. Fat chance!

My dad told me to keep a low profile in terms of Jared and the blog, as Kent (Jared's father)
had made an offhand comment that led him to believe Kent might have read my blog. I had little else to talk about other than Jared, his mission or, more correctly, non-mission, and his new tattoo.
I used the time I might have spend blogging to pursue various athletic activities from my past. I hurdled, I went to the gym and did a little of the gymnastics and tumbling stunts (for lack of a better word; I'm not yet good enough to call what I do a routine, but I'm slowly regaining lost skills.)

Incidentally, I've since learned that neither Kent nor Jared has any knowledge of this blog. Kent kent Kent. Jared Jared Jared. Mormon Mormon Mormon. Mission Mission Mission. Tattoo Tattoo Tattoo.So there! I can say anything about them I want, and they'll never klnow the difference as long as Jared's mother doesn't tell.  I'll be cautious even there, though,  as I know that the mother/son umbilical cord is never fully severed.

My gymnastics instructor was watching me a month or so ago when  I was doing what is now for me a particularly difficult vault but something I would have nailed with ease back in the day.   Something in the height and the manner in which i quickly rotated a quarter turn into a flip indicated to him that I had likely been a diver at some point in my athletic career. He asked about it.  I told him I dove for three years in high school. He told me that an adjunct staff member had been the university's dicing coach before the dicing team was a a casualty of  the major budget cuts that hit the UCs. He said the guy would be interested in watching me dive. Why is a mystery to me, as our school has no diving team.

Regardless, when I went to the gym  to workout, the gymnastics instructor or professor (I don't really know which he is) told me the diving instructor was on the premises. I mentioned not having a swimsuit with me. He looked at my leotard somewhat critically. He was always complaining the a gymnast of my skill level should have higher quality leotards than those I wore. He said that my leotard looked more like a swimsuit than a leotard, and that regardless. it obviously wasn't expensive enough for me to be concerned about the chlorine damaging it. I agreed to meet up with the guy. He called the guy on his cell phone.

I asked the former diving coach to give me about three dives before watching me, as I had not been /on a diving board in about eight months. He chatted with the gymnastics instructor/professor as I took my warm-up dives.  Then I took my first real dive, with the instructor watching.  I went with a backward dive with a twist and two-and-on-half somersaults. I wish I could say it was spectacular, which it most definitely was not, but I did complete the required elements and had a relatively clean landing. he told me to do the same dive again.It was about 75% better. i went with a forward dive to a  pike to a somersault. It was better than my first dive, but not as clean as my second.  Without even looking at the former coach, I headed back to the ladder to repeat the dive, which was much more precise than the first. I did a few miscellaneous not overwhelmingly impressive maneuvers with tucks, pikes, somersaults, then decided to be bold.

I went to the platform, climbed the ladder, approached the end of the platform, and did a handstand facing the water. I then did a combination simultaneous half-somersault and twist.  I actually nailed the thing. I'm still not sure what possessed me to even try it.

As I climbed out of the pool, the gymnastics instructor/professor said, "That's probably enough."

I reached for a towel that the former coach had placed on the handle of the pool ladder.  I dried myself and approached them. "I wish you'd been here ten years ago," the former coach commented.

"Ten years ago I was in third grade," I apologized to him.

"Have you thought about transferring to a school with a diving team?" he asked.

"Not really," I answered.  "My plan is to start medical school the year after next, and I'd lose too many units if I transferred."

He looked down at my leg -- at the site of the now-healed but still lightly-scarred fracture. "How'd that happen?" he asked, pointing at my lower leg.

"Freak hurdling accident three years ago," I said. "Another runner tripped over her hurdle, sent it forward into my lane, and then came down on top of the hurdle as it fell on me."

"Compound fracture?" the former coach asked.

"Yup," I nodded. "Both bones. And my right clavicle, too, though at least that one wasn't compound."

He and the gymnastics guy winced in unison.

"looks like it healed pretty well. Kids' bones tend to heal straighter. And  the scarring is pretty faint. I'm guessing it looked like railroad tracks for the first year," the diving coach commented.

I nodded again, thinking silently, "If it's  so damned faint, how did you notice it so easily?" I'm still quite self-conscious about the scarring.

"If you were just a little younger and a little more muscled, I'd say you had Olympic potential, but it's not very realistic with either your age or build unless you really wanted it. And it doesn't sound like you do."

 "No, I don't. Diving has always been something I did for fun," I told him. "And training for the Olympics doesn't sound like much fun even if i had a chance of making it, which I do not."

"Why don't you sign up for club diving? It's competitive but pretty low-key way. People are out there mostly for fun.  We're already  into the quarter, but I could probably get you on a team," the diving coach  said.

"He runs the league," the gymnastics guy said. "He can put you on any team he wants you on."

"When does this happen?" I asked him.

"Tuesdays and Thursdays at 6:00," he replied.

I thought for a moment. "I'll be there," I said to him.

"I'm warning you," he added. "I'm putting you on the worst team. They need all the help they can get."

We said our goodbyes and I headed to my car. I had a blanket in the trunk of my car, which it placed on the seat of my car to protect it from wetness and chlorine.

So I now have a new hobby. I'll probably get swimmer's ear, but there are drugs for that.

Last Night's Post Was Confusing in More Than One Way

So I was called in to the office of one of the deans of academic affairs. The meeting appeared to have something to do with my written work, as she had several of my papers spread out on her desk, as well as one of my papers on the monitor of her laptop. As I looked closer, I was able to recognize for reading titles upside down a couple of papers from high school.  I was beginning to grow concerned. concerned.

Once the dean or assistant dean, or whoever she was  began to speak, I realized I had no cause to be alarmed. She said that initially when professors receive papers  [that they actually read] that seem highly polished, they forward copies to the office of academic affairs. For the most part, the papers are filed, and no one even looks at them. They are only reviewed when more than two or three separate compositions end up in the files. At that point, they are investigated for two reasons. Either the student author has beaten the system and has a parent, older sibling, or someone else close to him or her who has written professionally may be doing work for the student, or the student is a legitimately talented writer. An investigation into possible non-elctronic plagiarism is more likely to ensue if the student is not an English major, as it's less rare for an English major to be a skilled writer.  If the student in question is a math, science, or music major, consistently exceptional papers send up more  red flags.

In my case, both of my parents have been published in journals, but my dad's work in particular wouldn't really pertain as it would fall more closely under the umbrella of technical writing than of expository writing.  My mothr's writings were more suspect, but it didn't take the linguist who was cnonsulted long to conclude while scanning the papers with no names attached to sort them into piles of those authored by mom mom and those authored by me.

Electronic cheating had been ruled out, and any easy method of catching me in plagiarism had also been ruled out. When in-class essay tests were compared, the linguist the consulted told them withn 99.4 5 confidence (I'd love to know how he arrived at that precise figure; my guess is that he pressed random buttons guaranteeing a probability equal to or greator than 98. 5%) and went with it.

When it reaches that point, the negative turns into a positive. The personnel in the office of academic affairs looks at what humanities  foundation awards and other monetary grants most closely mesh with the  particular student's qualifications. Any remaining elective or electives that might give a student a particular edge for a particular award are recommended.

 If it were just a framed certificate, I'd say I have more important fish to fry. There is, however, actual cash in substantial amounts attached to these awards. it's worht my whil to at least listen to what the deans and their assistants have to say.  Since I need totake human phonetics eithr before or during medical school, ifone additional linguistics course would give me a decided advantage in wo separate pravately funded foundation awards, and if winning one does not negatively impact one's chances of winning another, it pays to listen to what these people have to say. moreover, the money ganted with these awards comes with no strings whatsoever attached.

I go back to the office of academic affairs to plan my final courses for the next academic year. With tens of thousands of dollars on the line, I'm open to at least listening to their suggestions.

A friend in my a capella group was awarded in excess of eighty-thousand dollars last year. I'm not counting on anything resembling that amount of money, but I'll take anything that is offered carte blanche.

It's funny how soething that started out as a bit as a negative ended up so positive, although i'm not assuming I'll actually receive anything unil the check with my name on it has cleared the bank from which the check was drawn andhas been deposited into my own account.

I'm really, really glad I knew nothing of any of this until the possibility that I had plagiarized had been removed from consideration as far as the office of academic affairs was concerned. Just the thought of it probably would have brought on a severe attack of trichotillomania, which is the very last thing that either I or Jarede needs. Who wants bald spots all over her head, and who wants the name of a girl with scads of bald spots covering her head  tattooed on his bicep?

All of this may come as something of a shock to someone who stumbles across this blog from time to time. I'm usuallyin a rush when I  blog, and I don't edit with mch care. on the other hand, when doing school work, I print out a hard copy, edit it, and then make the edits on the computer  before printing the final copy.  What you're reading is what comes of the top of my head. I sometimes edit, but seldom are things well-thought before being typed. My academic work is carefully organized.

makes nosens. i;ll clear it up tomorrow, but I wanted t say happy 29th bday to Scott

"To Catch a Thief" anti-plagiarism software  cleared me from all but the most random and obscure of works that could ever be fessaysaround by anyone, much less by the software programs. This was quickly concluded to be unlikely to the point of virtual impossibility.  The remaining possibility was that i had a personal source for my plagiarism. A comparison of my in-class tests involvingvolving short or long essays allowed the ethics committee to reach the conclusion that, unless I happened to be highly sophit

  I was contacted today by an academic dean from the English department. I was easked to bring several work samples with me. Once I arrived, I saw that the dean also had several of my papers in front of her and one on her computer screen.  This was at first a cause of immediate concern for me. Once the dean started talking, I relaxed a bit.

She said my papers were of significant quality that they initially flew directly into the foci of  the radar.  The Internet Most papers are submitted to one of several internet services to cross-check for plagiarism.  these services fulfill multiple purposes. First, they check submitted material against anything available on any major search engine, i.e. one cannot blatantly plagiarize a paragraph at a time from Wikipedia, the Mayo Clinic website  or virtually any other easily accessible online source of information. In such cases, a person is usually only copying excepts here or there, but pre modern Internet, catching a student lifting a few odd paragraphs from a given source or two rarely happened and was usually only a conincidence if it were caugth at all.

Secondly, it checks a student's papers against others that are being or have been submitted, thus making it difficult for five students to turn in the same paper to five professors at a given university or even at fifteen different universities across the nation.

This postmakes little or no sense at this oint, and I keep falling sleep with y finger if mn of thr jrdm casuing it tolook like this k]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]].

I'll carify and finish this up tomorrow. In th meantimes, i wanted to wish a belated happy birthday to mysweet Uncle Scottt, one of thr world' truly nicest people. dkfkllb;bll   The babyis not Scott's by the way; he and jillin were abysitting.

same song, second verse (a little louder, but not much worse)

It was almost -- not quite, but almost -- fun to go to today's "Physics of Fractures" lecture and understand exactly  what the professor meant by what he said. he asked if anyone present had ever suffered a compound fracture. I looked around for someone else to raise his or her hand, but no one did, so I raised mine. He asked the nature of my fracture.   I told him it was a tib-fib break incurred in a freak hurdling accident. I was wearing shorts, so he wandered over to look at my leg. A few scars are still visoble. After asking for permission to do so, he probled the site of the fracture briefly. He said it was a little further up the leg that most tibia-fibula fractures are. I told him it was because that was where the hurdle came down on top of my leg with most of the other hurdler's weight directly on  the hurdle.  He asked if I have any of the early xrays of the injury eeasily accessible. I told him I think my dad has copies at home. He asked me to bing them to the next session of class if I can locate them.  It's not exactly something I'm excited about reliving, but in the rand scheme, looking at a coule of xrays is a small price to pay in order to please a professor.

It's not like looking the graphic murder photographs from Jodi Arias' trial, or any such thing.  I was initially being facetious when I suggested that the attorneys and judge were in collusion to gain for themselves inclusion in the Guinness Book of World Records for officiating in the world's longest murder trial. By now, though, I'm starting to belive my own joking conspiracy theories,  They make the number of sidebars in the OJ trial appear minimal by comparison.  a/t the rat things are progressing, Jodi arias' sentence will be a moot point. She'll either be reeased as  very old woman by the time the rial concludes if she's found not guilty, or if she's found guilty and even sentenced to death,  she will succumb to old age long before the Grim Reaper appears in the form of lethal injection, the electric chair, or any other draconian means of capital punishment used by the State of Arizona.

On the Jared front, there's not a great deal of new information. Jared's dad is officially sleeping on the couch in his den. I understand that such falls under the category of either  too much information of a violation of privacy, but it's not like Dr. X's patients read this blog and know who he is. All of Dr. X's siblings have called him to tell him he's being ridiculous and that the last thing the lDS church needs is a missionary in the mision field who truly does not want to be there.   Jared's father's answer to that was that Jared's serving a mission was not necessarily going to do one bit of good for the church, but that it would be good for Jared. He didn't explain how sending someone halfway across the world (assuing Jared was sent to a remote mission; for all we know, he could've ended up in Pocatello, Idaho, where almost everyone is Mormon, harassing  the few nonmormons on almost a daily basis) who had no desire to serve a mission.

Various plans have been proposed for financing Jared's education. Typically my parents ar the first to offer, which is why, even though my dad makes so much money,  we live beneath the standard of poverty. My mom thought it was a good idea idea for us to  ourselves as far removed from this particular family feud as possible. There's a limt to how far we can stay out of it, though, since it's my name emblzoned on Jared's bicep. I cetainly didn't ask him toput it there, though. I hope his future wife likes it. Maybe they can name their first daughter Alexis.

I was thinkng of other names, words, or slogans jared could have used for his tatto. "Mom" is still may favorite. "Jesus Saves" might have been nice as well, as it's a phrase the LDS Church typically eschews. This one's wordy -- more suitable for a bumper sticker, which is where I originally saw it -- "Jesus loves you; everyone else thinks you're an asshole." He might have needed to use both arms for that one.

I think my personal favorite is the following: "I'm serving the same kind of mission that Thomas  Monson did." Tommy, with all his known humanitarian aid to widows far and near, did not serve a mission as a young man. I think he may have done a mission president stint after he had already gotten old and fat and rich, but living the luxurious life of a mission president, residing in a virtual palace with a generous stipend from the church, with his wife there beside him and presumably with rights to all the consortium or conjugal activity or whatever term one might use to euphemistically  refer to s-e-x  as one can fit into his busy schedule, is not the same as the missionary service provided by the young men and women in the mission force. Hell, with enough Viagra, a mission president could conceivably do the horizontal paso doble for the duration of his service as mission president, with an occasional retreat from thr dance floor/bed to  berate the young missionaries under his jurisdiction for any and all hand-to-kielbasa contact, deliberate or otherise,  while his assitants actually kept the mission up and running. The logical explanation for why this doesn't happen, most of us suspect, is that, with some notable exceptions, by the time a man has reached sufficient stature in the church to be called as mission president, he'd need more Viagra than even Conrad Murray could have been persuaded to prescribe to Michael Jackson had that been the King of Pop's magic potion of choice, in addition to a paper bag to put over his head. In fairness, the wife would need something to occlude her vision as well.

The omission of Monson's middle initial was a deliberate act on my part.  I now no longer humor the LDS head honchos  -- my own grandfather or any of the rest of them -- by including their first or middle initials while using their names. It's an affectation that reeks of delusion of grandeur. If the Twelve, the First Presidency , or even the Quorums of the Seventy, (it pains me to hit the shift key as I type the words used for the ruling bodies of the church; perhpas my next step in the progression of my grand apostacy will be to refuse to capitalize anything related to the Church other than the name of Jesus himself) wish to dupe themselves into believeing that they're in possession of some sort of trandendency and that the use of a first or middle initial somehow adds to the mystique (just like the curtain behind which the Wizard of Oz hides),   more power to them,  but the last time I consulted  theU. S. Constitution, amendments included, or any of my state or local laws (I didn't bother consulting Utah laws; I wouldn't be all that shocked to see that the state if Utah, with its reputation for extreme adherence to  the principle of separation of church and state, had passed a law that the Grand Poohbahs of the official State Church be addressed or referenced only with inclusion of the requisite initials.

Jared's grandfather called his son, Jared's father. the grandfather told his son that if his son were to cease to cover the expenses related to Jared's education there was nothing he, the grandfather could do to keep him from paying for his son's education. He reminded Jared's father that his own undergraduate schooling and medical school had been taken care of by his parents with no strings attached, and if his conscience allows him to do otherwise where Jared is concerned,  neither he (the grandfather, nor anyone else, with the possible exception of Jared's mother, can force Jared's father to payJared's college and grad school expenses. The one thing he can and will do if necessary, Jared's  grandfather said, willbe to pay for Jared's educational costs, including living expenses himself, and to do so with funds from Jared's father's share of the inheritance that the grandparents plan to leave their children. It's either pay now or receive less later,  Jared's grandfather told his own son, while reminding Jared's father that children's educational expenses are tax-deductible.  unless Jared's immediate family is in a much less stable financial situation than any of us had any reason to believe, Jared's father will see the light and continue to fork over the funds needed for Jared to cntinue his studies. Moreover, if Jared's family financial situationis so dire, exactly how did Jared's father plan to pay for Jared's mission? By the time the kid's suits have been purchased and the monthly stipends paid to the church, a mission costs a family roughly ten thousand dollars.  It's small change compared to the total cost of a UCLA education, but niether is it chump change.

My prediction: Jared's father will pray about it and will decide, whether because God inspired him or whether he added up the dollars and cents involved in the decision, to do the right thing.  He won't forgive Jared immediately, as Jared's father's image will suffer among his church peers. (So will his mother's, but she doesn't care.)  Jared willbe forgven eventually, but the main thing is that Jared's father will, if my predictions are correct, be off thesofa and back into his own bed within a week.

My brother Matthew is going ahead with his own mini-protest.  He's already had thirty fake tattoos with the name "Alexis" made up by some guy who operates a T-Shirt  kiosk in Venice Beach. He has at least twenty-six people already committed to attending. Persuading so many people to do this cannot have been an easy thing, as it's common knowledge that LDS services are boring as Hell. I'm seriously impressed with Matthew's organizational and persuasive skills. Perhaps he shoould consider a career in sales or even in politics rathr than in medicine, as are his current plans.

# the non-artist still known as Alexis