Pres. UCHTDORF!

Fireside for Young Adults
Marriot Center
Nov. 1, 2009

Dear Pres. Uchtdorf:


Way to stand up for questioners! Way to have such a positive outlook, and be genuinely eternally centered and uplifting! After a hard day of church I really needed that Pres. Uchtdorf!

Excellent Conference talk by the way. If you don't do anything too crazy during your administration, I'll name one of my house plants and/or adopted orphans ( sorry, I try not to do dogs, out of kindness to the dogs. I mean have you seen my houseplants? Me neither. I would take care of orphans though, cause they are fresh minds to mold.) after you.

Though I am glad I had a date to your talk, so that I didn't have a guilt trip. :)


-Ms. Megan Harris

Bright Star

There are very few movies I would see twice.

This one qualifies.

Not to say it was the single most brilliant piece of cinematic craft I've ever seen. It is simple and beautiful yet ridiculously compelling. Ridiculously. What the Japanese would call "wabi sabi".

While painfully beautiful it is not devoid of human lightness, irony and humor- including a rather hilarious sequence involving a Valentine...well, at least hilarious to me. It's still up for debate whether Valentines ( or emotions) were really that insanely serious back then. But then again, I've seen and heard funnier things in this *ahem* most rational and exalted day. Bright Star shows that life was just as strange and invigorating, slow and fast, as it is today.

On another note- Jane Campion's cinematography, will you marry me?


Quick, seriously. Grab a date and go! Seriously! Go by yourself if you must! There is enough hot English chastity in this film to compensate for any actual hot American chastity you might be experiencing with a date.



Seperately, regarding "Let the right one in."- Swedish Film

Bright Star is much more romantic than "Let the right one in.", though it is also painfully beautiful.

"Right One" seemed, to me, to delve gently into areas of sexual ambiguity ,not of orientation but of actual organs. What is a person when you can't define them but love them? How does the ambitiousness change your relationship?

The Ambiguity theme carried on into the violence of the vampire child. Can two children share a tender kiss while one is completely covered in the blood of its last victim? Can you hurt someone simply by putting them where they are not invited? To the point of bleeding out of the ears, mouth and eyes? "Right One" challenged me with paradoxical images...at least paradoxical on the mainstream screen. Beautiful violent children. Humans making vampires bleed. A daughter sucking her father's blood and throwing him out of a seventh story window, out of love. A romance without sexual organs.
Dang, I haven't been so confused since the bound-to-fail dating techniques of Nosferatu.


Dang, I've got to go. I'm having people over soon!

Something to Consider FW:

http://pintosbeans.wordpress.com/2009/10/29/something-to-consider/

GREG MORTENSON!

Greg Mortenson is here at BYU. At this very minute.



Homework....you'll have to wait.

Worst Week in a Long While

Sunday: Cruising down from the Salt Lake temple, not really paying attention in the carpool lane. First ticket. 15 miles over the speed limit. I was just lucky I guess. Even luckier that I didn't have my license with me (it was in the scanner at work, where I had scanned it for a government document). Even luckier that it had expired. Lucky Lucky me. Day one....then

every check I've written in the last three months was apparently cashed, all in one weekend. Not expecting this, I didn't check my account. Two "overdraft protection notice" alerts later...I'm like, who ate my entire checking account!

I've officially had to get a ride to the DMV...twice...in order to get a new license. And each time I sat there for two hours and have had to leave before being served due to work or class.

Two Exams.

Miata falls terribly ill. Uncool. Uncool. Especially because I can do nothing about it.

Decided to get my mind off things by going to the gym. The gym has, apparently, been renovating and has been charging 15 bucks every six months ...to my old credit card, which is now expired. They have not been telling me this. I have apparently been charged a late fee as well, since the uninformed charges to the expired card have seemed to come up with nothing. Once I got in the weight room, I noticed my shirt was on backwards. I worked out in it anyway. On the way home, as I crossed the crosswalk, someone honked at me. I shot her/him a look of death. They probably cried on the way home, that look was so dark.

That and various young love emotional garbage betwixt me and his highness The Prince of Monaco, have left me feeling a little ragged. I think that I just get all my pain at once, so that the rest of the month can sail smoothly.

Dream or Nightmare?

I'm currently out on the town with my sister and mom. I've just come from a stake and shrimp dinner, complete with key lime pie. I am about to go to the theater, and I am staying in nice, posh quarters. Is my life a dream or what?

The woman in charge of setting up my schedule for the upcoming semester has not e-mailed me back. I've still got to finish my NZ application. It seems very unlikely that I will be able to finish my schooling by the end of next summer due to a university inspired lack of available spots. The resulting unnecessary extra semester throws off many large plans. This blog has been acting freake' when opened on explorer, so I may have to go without witty pictures for a while. I haven't written on my other blogs in forever. I'm still stuck in my old job. Is my life a nightmare or what?

My relationship is making me "fluffy."

--"Yummy"
-thought that goes through Megan's head the most when hanging out with her significant other...for more reasons than one.

The realization started when a beloved high school friend decided to tag me in some photos from the illustrious Ohio senior year. At the time, I was all but romantically involved with a suitor I shall call "School." Now School and hung out all the time . When I wasn't at School's place, I was thinking about School, planning when I'd see School again, and trying desperately to stay in School's good graces. To be fair, School was pretty into me. There were weeks, months, nay....semesters, when it felt like I couldn't get School off of me. School and I were tight. My parents and a good number of my friends were very supportive of my strong relationship with School. I really invested in School my senior year though, and much to my horror, it showed. Photographically, it showed. Since I really wasn't attempting to attract other potential relationships, all the pictures of School and I featured yours truly in dreadful sweats, hair amok. The worst part though was the general increase in how...um....cuddly I looked in some of these photos. Now, nothing grotesque, and I was probably about the same size as now...it was really more of a lack of sportswomanish physique than anything. School and I used to have a very active relationship, playing sports, jogging to school...but beginning in my junior year, and culminating in the senior one, School and I resigned ourselves to more...sedentary/literary pastimes. I kindly untagged (wince).
But really, who could blame me! Such extravagant lunches. So many competition brunches, long debate trips graced with celebration dinners, and not to mention every kid with a cupcake-happy mom had a birthday...and six periods of birthday-laden classes at that!
Once I got to college I started dating gentlemen of a less metaphorical variety. This was even worse. People Relationships are the homes of the dreaded trifecta-

A: Boys are nice. Attractive boys are nicer. I would not be in a relationship with unattractive boys. Being near attractive boys fills me with fuzzy endorphins, contentment and a “smile while rolling around in the sun for hours” feeling seldom seen since the Land of the Lotus Eaters. So, after spending an afternoon or evening with a boyfriend I usually spend the next three hours draped over a couch eating chocolates and humming romantic show tunes. This is not conducive to an active, healthy lifestyle.

B. Relationships are accompanied by a bizarre, but unavoidable, desire to be with the other almost all of the time. I have a gym membership. The significant other does not. Due to dietary choices and genetic lottery winnings, he is blessed with things like “upper-body strength” and “a lean, sexy core”, naturally. Once a relationship is entered into, the gym becomes part of the “utterly undesirable activities which require separation from boyfriend” list, right between “Shoot self in thigh.” and “Go to the moon.”

C. Boyfriends reciprocally tend to find me attractive. This leads to the doubly detrimental behavior of providing me with food and telling me they find me attractive no matter what. So now, instead of my single life, plagued with with an imaginary voice forever warning me of health-depleting caloric intake and potential boy- repulsing “fluffiness”, I am now plagued with an actual voice inviting me over for cheesecake, while commenting how much he enjoys how “soft” my stomach is.