self-esteem sunday

this past sunday the theme in sacrament meeting was "women should feel good about themselves". we had 2 talks on feeling God's love and 1 on the divine role of women. i am impressed with our progressive bishopric for even thinking to assign a talk about women, but the poor awkward boy they chose to give it made it all the better. he is an 18 year old guy going to GA Tech (all guys at GA Tech have meager social skills at best). he was extremely nervous & it was easy to see that he really did love his mom & sisters and wanted women to feel good about themselves, but just didn't quite know how to get that across.

so he started out talking about "gender equality". i perked up at those words and started poking PC (despite his best efforts to be pro-woman, i am convinced he has sexist feelings toward Hillary Clinton). the guy giving the talk was trying to make the point that men & women should be unified; however, instead of using a scripture like "neither is the man without the woman, neither the woman without the man, in the Lord" (1stCor11:11), he busted out with "the head of every woman is the man"(1stCor11:3) .....i'm still not sure how that supports gender equality, but most of the girls in the ward had a good laugh about it later.

he then moved on to modesty. it actually really annoys me that every talk that has anything to do with women always includes modesty. i like to think that womanhood has more complex & relevant issues to discuss that why showing our shoulders is sinful. *sigh*

anyway, at least he had a slightly original take, which was mostly marveling at how girls are so good at altering their clothes to make them modest: "...i mean, you can just add a t-shirt *laughter in the congregation* , um, that is not exactly what i meant, i meant that - well, i know my sisters have a hard time finding modest clothes and they can change clothes and make them modest & the guys should tell the girls they appreciate all the effort the girls do to make their clothes modest because it is hard..." he finished up by talking about how great the women in his family were & how his family would not be as unified without them.

overall, it was a sweet attempt to make girls feel good & i'm glad it was given by such a self-conscious kid. it made it harder for me to be offended :)

i used to sneak in, into your room

Boy came to visit last weekend for a few days. We had a fabulous time seeing the sights of Atlanta & just sitting around. Here are some of the highlights:

The Coke museum - in the tasting room. My favorites were the pineapple drink from South Africa & the green apple soda from Hong Kong.

Boy in the Botanical Gardens. He is even mean to baby frog statues. What a horrible person.

Me riding a sheep in the children's garden.

Maybe next year he'll make it to the 4 foot mark

my first ever purchase of beef

i was finally victorious in the meat section of the supermarket! last week i purchased some kind of raw beef steak thing. Boy, who was visiting for a few days, actually picked them out & cooked them, but it still counts.

Another gem from the Kingsport Times-News

Boy has kindly started cutting out the best of my hometown paper's editorials and saving them for me. i'm not sure if the polar bear letter can ever be topped, but this one is stiff competition. the last sentence says it all:






I write this letter to honor one of America's great men. More important to me, one of the South's greatest men. I am talking about Jefferson Davis. June 3 is his 200th birthday, born in 1808.
He was secretary of war for the USA, but like most wouldn't go against his beloved South. He became the president.
Davis was offered amnesty by Lincoln in 1864. When David heard of it he wrote back. "Amnesty, sir, applies to criminals. We have committed no crime. At your door lies all the misery and crime of this war. We are fighting for independence and that or extermination we will have. You may emancipate every Negro in the Confederacy, but we will be free, we will govern ourselves. If we have to see every Southern plantation sacked and every Southern city in flames."
These words make me proud to say I am a great-grandson of a Southern soldier, and I was born in the Confederate state of Tennessee. Remember one thing. Great people are in the eyes of the winner, though the loser may have greater people.

i am physically incapable of refusing free food

the Manorexic's father said that in sunday school once (i leave it to you to figure out the gospel application). i have to agree with him. this week i've brought in quite the haul from my school. it is national public health week so they are having lots of celebrations (& lots of free stuff for me!)

my spoils in the past 3 days:

muffins & fruit breakfast
bagged lunch (sandwich, chips, orange, cookies)
mexican food lunch
cookies
ice cream
bagel breakfast
local & organic foods picnic (pasta, beans, chicken, corn)
sorbet
pizza
brownies
a myriad of free drinks (beer, coffee, & others!)

4 canvas tote bags (2 blue, 2 green)
coffee cup
hand sanitizer
chapstick
t-shirt
reading light
a few pens
water bottle
2 eco-friendly light bulbs

supermarket, part II

i went back to the store today b/c i ran out of milk. i was tempted to look at the meat again. i almost made it to the meat case, but i was distracted by the ice cream. luckily.

global warming, part 2

i saw an interesting ad on television today. the theme was that america doesn't wait for others to save us. first they cited WWII (i think we did kinda wait a while on that one, but whatever), then the civil rights movement, & finally sending the man to the moon. it ended by saying we can't wait for others to fix climate change either. it was an interesting spin on global warming. as in, if you don't do something about climate change you're unpatriotic. very shrewd, i thought.

adventures in the supermarket

today i bought a 1 lb. box of honey nut cheerios for $2. they were on sale and i had a 75 cent coupon that i swiped from my neighbor's newspaper (they were out of town & had free samples of cereal & coupons in their paper. i couldn't just leave them there!) it was my proudest cereal buying moment ever.

i also spent about 10 minutes staring at the cuts of beef in the meat section. i almost got up my courage to purchase uncooked meat, but in the end i flaked out. i started remembering the things i read about the beef industry in "fast food nation" so i went and bought black beans instead.

movin on up

one of my goals this year was to be more independent. i've done decently well, but i still have a long ways to go. in my continual quest for personal growth, i decided to live alone next year. i felt a bit apprehensive about signing the lease, but the place was pretty much perfect. so i signed without even calling my mother so she could tell me to do it. (she had told me a month earlier to do it when i told her of the possibility, but that doesn't count, right?)
i'm slightly concerned that i might be lonely, go crazy, & start talking to my furniture or shampoo bottles. but, i figure i've made enough friends in atlanta that i'll be okay & i've always wanted to live alone, so i'm going to have a go of it. if my posts start talking about hair products too often though, someone should probably let me know.