yay ocelots <3

Christmas List

These are things I would not mind getting for Christmas:

-2008 Writer's Market
-Ideas Have Consequences
-Letters to a Young Conservative
-a membership to Gold's Gym

Anyway. Thanksgiving was good. I spent the past few days up in Woodland, UT, celebrating my head off with my grandparents and DS aunt. It was a unique experience.

My great grandma came up for the meal, which was a little scary. She's bald. Old bald women are creepy, let's not lie to ourselves. However, she said that in comparison to her other 93 Thanksgivings, this one was the best ever.

On the plus side, my grandparents are way cool, and my aunt and uncle came up with their kids. We played Settlers of Catan and had a rockin time.

Yay Thanksgiving.

john donne

"No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were: any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee."
John Donne

It's been a while since I read this quotation, but my one aunt in Ethiopia just sent it to me.

I think if we all realized how very truly we are connected to one another, this world would be a very different place.

and then i saw the light

I went to another interview for Washington Seminar yesterday. PS, I don't remember if I mentioned it here, but I was accepted, and I'm going back home to DC for an internship in the summer. But anyway. I and Dr. G were talking about what internships I'd like to do. I have my heart set on the Competitive Enterprise Institute, to be honest. But I needed 10 on this paper, so I had some stuff with the EPA, the Climate Institute, some other random ones. And he asked me, ideally, where I would be in five years.

And I thought about it for like 1.24 seconds and said, "Ideally, I'd be writing political books, probably about the environment."

He was shocked; this whole time he'd been trying to convince me to go work in soil labs or whatever and couldn't understand why I was focused so much on congressional environmental stuff. I think he thought it was just because those were the things on the WS database. But no, that's really what I want to do.

I feel very much more confident about my future knowing that. I never realized what I wanted to do until he asked.

mmh

Life is so strange.

I terminated my housing contract yesterday. It's really nice to know I'm free from that one. I haven't figured out where I'm going to live yet; I really want a place with my friend L. She is definitely the coolest person I know, just really ambitious and assertive and so on. We've made plans to be millionaires together. The thing is, with her, I know it's going to happen.

I'm tired of living in a house that is always in disrepair, with management that facilitates that and doesn't even care. And I need a place whose atmosphere is one of industriousness, cleanliness, and conscientiousness. Here, I just remember high school, and how I would wake up at 4:00 am every single day just for the moments when the TV wouldn't be on. I can't do that these days. I just need to move away and live with people who want to help the world, and who live in accordance with that. That's all.

I guess I'm kind of learning how truly important environment is. I love my little house, but I can't live in a place where my lifestyle isn't appreciated. I mean, I found soda cans in the trash the other day. Lots of them. A blatant statement: "I don't care about God's earth and even though the recycling is right next to the trash I am going to put this can somewhere where it can never be used again." Sick. God told us to take care of His earth. Read the Doctrine and Covenants. Recycling is so important to being a good steward. So it was made up by leftist pinkos, but "reduce, reuse, and recycle" is actually a pretty good motto for any good Mormon.

Or, let's talk about Ezra Taft Benson. From his "Our Immediate Responsibility:"

"Do not think the members of the Church shall escape. The Lord has assured us that the Church will still be here when He comes again. But has the Lord assured us that we can avoid fighting for freedom and still escape unscathed both temporally and spiritually? We could not escape the eternal consequences of our pre-existent position on freedom. What makes us think we can escape it here?...

For years we have heard of the role the elders could play in saving the Constitution from total destruction. But how can the elders be expected to save it if they have not studied it and are not sure if it is being destroyed or what is destroying it?...

Now Satan is anxious to neutralize the inspired counsel of the Prophet... For example, he will argue, "There is no need to get involved in the fight for freedom--all you need to do is live the Gospel." Of course this is a contradiction, because we cannot fully live the Gospel and not be involved in the fight for freedom."

Yes, that was the Prophet. Probably something Harry Reid thinks was misguided and has led us astray, but the fact is, that's a fact. It just rends my heart that so many of the people I love so much are so... deceived! They honestly don't feel guilt at all when it comes to the fact that they are blatantly disregarding the commandment to fight.

I've been talking to a bunch of them about this, and the reasons I hear that they can't get involved:
-time
-it's boring
-too complicated
-don't know what to do.

All I have to say is, to hell with that. To absolute hell, and literally. Literally, that is what will happen if you keep holding onto that. Just ask Ezra Taft Benson.

1. Everyone has the same amount of time in the day. I promise, I am taking more credits and working more hours and running more clubs than anyone else I have ever met. And yet, I still find the time to go to CRs once a week for an hour, and I still find the time to go stand for an hour before an election with a sign. Not that hard. If you don't have enough time, it's because you are lazy, and laziness is a sin. Ask Brigham Young.

2. Um, politics isn't meant to be entertaining. Neither is Church. Bad excuse.

3. Life is complicated. There are people out there who can explain things to you if you'll be open enough to hear it, and believe it or not, you could get off your rear and read a book on those matters. I even own like a zillion of them. I will personally help you find a book that answers your questions.

4. Hi. I know what to do. I will tell you what you can do. It's really not that difficult. You don't even have to figure this one out on your own (I did).
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Ok, I'm done. The end.