My Quirks

- It's always good for me to talk to someone intermittently throughout the day.  If I don't I tend to engage in what I call a "spewing session" with some poor unfortunate soul I happen to come across at the end of the day.  By the way, the definition of spew in the dictionary reads, "to come forth in a flood or gush."  The poor unfortunate soul I mentioned earlier has to listen to a flood of words gushing from my mouth for quite some time, leaving me feeling relieved and the listener overwhelmed.

• Example:  I was walking back to my apartment after watching Game 3 of the Spurs vs. Thunder series.  As I was crossing the road, I heard a voice calling my name from one of the cars passing by and realized it was my friends Russell and Tiffany.  They pulled over, probably expecting to be there for only a couple of minutes to say hello.  To their surprise, however, I proceeded to tell them all about my vacation over Memorial Day weekend, my plans for the Fall, etc.  The monologue finally came to an end when Russell said he had to go to the bathroom.

- I love British period drama and I love the nineteenth-century British literature it's usually based off of.  When I was five or six, my sisters and I would watch the six-hour long Pride and Prejudice twice a day.  (Yeah, I started early.)  I received a collection of all of Jane Austen's books for Christmas one year and I've read each book at least twice.  I love Jane Eyre, both the novel and the most recent film adaptation.  I've come to appreciate and love Elizabeth Gaskell's works.  I've checked out the DVDs for Cranford, North and South, and Wives and Daughters quite a few times from the Provo Library.  And even though Downton Abbey is set in the twentieth century, I definitely won't pass that up either.  What can I say?  I'm a girl.

- I really like to play sports.  I love volleyball, basketball, tennis, ultimate frisbee, softball, hockey (non-ice), flag football, etc.  If I were any good at soccer, I would like that one too.  The only problem is I hate to get sweaty and gross.  So I have a love of sports and an aversion to getting all nasty.  Bad combination?  Yes, but luckily my love of sports wins out most of the time so I get some exercise throughout the week :)

- I like to read history books and watch documentaries in my spare time 'cuz I'm cool like that.

- I am not the type of person that opens up blinds and windows as soon as I wake up in the morning.  I do not have to be in the sunlight every hour of every day.  It is pleasant to be in the nice warm sunlight every once in a while but I'd much rather be in the shade.  Some people may find this depressing but an area with dim lighting can sometimes be my happy place.  The downside to having a fair-skinned, red-headed parent is that I burn fairly easily so, needless to say, the sun is not always on my side.  Give me a partly cloudy day where the sun is periodically covered by fluffy white clouds and I'm a happy camper :)

- I am a very organized person.  Some people probably think I'm borderline OCD.  So I like my room to be clean.  And I like my movies to be in alphabetical order.  I like my books to be organized by genre.  I like all of my food to be on one side of the fridge.  Yeah, maybe I am a little overly-zealous about organization, but you will all be jealous when it only takes me one second to find my Bourne Ultimatum DVD and it takes you five seconds to find yours :) 

- I notice things about people that others find kind of strange.  I once met a person who said that the first thing she noticed about a person was their eyebrows (which made me very self-conscious about mine for the rest of the time I was in her company).  So at least what I notice first about someone isn't something like that.

• I notice the way people talk.  Since I'm kind of a mumbler myself, I notice how people enunciate words.  I also like to see how people talk depending on where they are from.  People from Southern California speak differently than those who have grown up in Utah, for example.
• I notice the way people eat.  I grew up in a home where my mother always told us to chew (both food and gum) with our mouths closed.  Because of that, I notice when other people don't and it GROSSES me out!  This is something I probably need to get over :)

Disclaimer: this is not a clever or witty post

I have been feeling rather uninspired lately when it comes to coming up with clever topics for my blog posts.  So this is not a witty post (as I explained in the title) but I thought I might share an entry from my scripture journal.  I receive much of my inspiration when I'm pondering the verses I just read and, for some reason, this entry has meant a lot to me in the past few weeks.

5/6/12

2 Nephi 12:17 - "And the loftiness of man shall be bowed down, and the haughtiness of men shall be made low; and the Lord alone shall be exalted in that day."

   This whole chapter is basically about humility.  This verse reminded me that what is most important in this life is our spiritual success and growth.  Someone may have been very successful in business and may have acquired a lot of earthly treasures and wealth.  That's not a bad thing but if they attribute all of that success to their own merit and refuse to recognize the hand of the Lord, I think they will get a rude awakening when they stand before the judgment seat of Christ.  If all you care about is earthly rewards, how can you expect to receive spiritual and eternal rewards?  Being self-sufficient temporally is important, but it will all count for nothing if we aren't self-sufficient spiritually.  In essence, we must realize our divine nature and accept the fact that without God, we are nothing.
   As I wrote that phrase (without God, we are nothing) a thought came into my head that made me reevaluate the deeper meaning of that phrase.  I've always thought of the phrase strictly in a sense of gratitude, that we need to attribute our successes to God and give credit where credit is due.  That's a true statement but it also has to do with the very existence of God.  Without God, we are nothing.  If God did not exist, we would be exactly what some scientists and atheists say we are: the result of a random and coincidental 'Big Bang,' a random species that will fade into nothingness when we die,  But I want to testify that God does exist, that He created us and we are His children.  Because of that, we are something.  We matter to Him.
   This topic reminded me of a song that I sang as a member of the Balcony Chorus in the Oakland Temple Pageant.  After a period of nine years, I still remember most (if not all) of the words: "By happen chance have I come about by some ornate confusion?  By happen chance have I grown from rudimentary species eons past evolved?  By happen chance?  By happen chance am I a worthless piece of thing so dross, so void, so much of nothingness that when I pass my passing is just passing into past?  Who am I?  This is who I am.  My spirit lived with my Father before the earth was formed.  I chose the path to follow when my first estate was done.  I came to earth for a body, created like my Father to unite my spirit and body, to make my soul divine.  This is who I am.  I am a child of my Father, my Father in Heaven.  This is who I am.  I am a child of God."
   Because God exists, we are something.  In fact, we are everything to God. So live your life with a purpose because you do have one.