Around the Bloggernacle - Volume 5

School has kept me swamped, so I haven't had time to write. Here's a sampling of blog posts I've found interesting lately.

Ronan has written a post at By Common Consent about the Latin phrase Ad maiorem Dei gloriam, translated as "For the Greater Glory of God."

KC Kern wrote at Mormon Matters on The Mormon Trinity.

Zenadia wrote at The Exponent on the topic of being an endowed single woman.

And, last, but not least, there's a Bloggersnacker tomorrow evening in Walnut Creek, CA. Kaimi Wenger is going to be putting on a fireside sponsored by the J. Reuben Clark Society analyzing the recent California Supreme Court decision in re Marriage Cases. It will be held at the Overlook building in Walnut Creek. (Address info can be found at lds.org)

Meeting Mom

I have several cousins who are adopted. They love my aunt and uncle and consider them their parents. They are in every way a part of the family, just as those who share a genetic link. That being said, they have each come to a point where they begin to wonder about their biological parents. They want to have a relationship with them, even though they don't wish to replace their adoptive parents.

I have an eternal longing that is similar. I love my Father in Heaven. He has been an ever-present force in my life. However, I long to know my Mother. Who is She? What is She like? What does she do? Did She have a hand in creation? (I believe She did, but I don't know.) What does Her eternal state have to say about what mine can eventually be? Why don't we know more about Her?

I have wondered for several years, but I have been afraid to ask the questions. I get the impression that the subject is somewhat taboo.

I placed this longing on the back burner for a while, but General Conference brought it back to the forefront. On Sunday morning, the choir sang one of my favorite hymns, #286 Oh What Songs of the Heart. The fourth verse particularly struck me.

Oh, what songs we'll employ!
Oh, what welcome we'll hear!
When we kneel at our dear Savior's feet.
And the heart swells with joy
In embraces most dear
When our heavenly parents we meet!
Oh, what songs we'll employ
As the heart swells with joy,
When our heavenly parents we meet!

I was reminded that one day I'll get to meet Her. Before I do, I want to know more about Her. Once again, the fear cropped up. As I was driving to school today, I was pondering. James 1:5 came to my mind. We often focus on the part that promises askers that wisdom will be given liberally. However the part that stuck out to me was that when someone seeks wisdom, God "upbraideth not".

I'm going to ask my Father, who I know, for an introduction to my Mother, who I don't know. I'm confident that I will get a warm and loving response. I'm looking forward to the results.

General Conference

I love General Conference. It's like a twice-yearly holiday. I'm usually not a fan of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, but there's something about them singing the hymns with gusto that just says conference to me.

I haven't gotten to see Saturday's talks yet because I have to work on Saturdays. I downloaded the sessions to my iPod to listen to on my commute. Sunday's sessions were quite good. I especially liked President Eyring's talk on Sunday morning. It seemed to me that building Zion was a theme for the conference.

I watched the Sunday morning session online, but it kept buffering, so I decided that online wasn't going to work for the afternoon. I planned on going to the church to watch the afternoon, but my parents invited me over to their house. I headed over to my parents' house, watched the afternoon session, and we had dinner. It was nice. I especially liked having someone to discuss the talks with. As a teenager, I was the only active church member in my family, so it's nice now to be able to have family gospel discussions.

What I Got Out of the Relief Society Broadcast

This post is a few days late. The General Relief Society Broadcast has been discussed in numerous places on the Bloggernacle over the past few days. I got something totally different out of the conference. In fact, it was something I wasn't even actively seeking.

Here's a little bit of background to make things make more sense. I'm single, I'm a grad student, and I'm old enough that if I were a guy, I would be a menace to society, but since I'm a woman, I'm merely the cat lady. Every so often, I wonder why guys are totally interested in being my friend, but totally uninterested in dating me. I got some insight from watching the broadcast.

You'll see above a picture of my right hand. The lighting is bad, but the inscription reads "True Love Waits". It's a chastity ring, a reminder of the promise I've made to abstain from premarital sex. I have worn this ring ever since I got home from my mission. Only a few people have asked me about it, and I'm always happy to explain.

Well, fast-forward to Saturday's broadcast. All of the talks were excellent. My big epiphany came not from any spoken word, however. As President Uchtdorf was giving his talk, he was gesturing animatedly with his hands. I noticed that he was wearing his wedding ring on his right hand instead of his left. I filed this away in my brain to research later.

After the broadcast, I looked on Wikipedia. It turns out that wearing a wedding ring on the right hand is traditional in many European countries. I live in an area that is culturally diverse, with people from all over the world living and working side by side. It occured to me that perhaps I haven't been getting attention from guys because they think I'm already married.

I put the ring on a chain to wear as a necklace yesterday. Maybe my un-ringed fingers will make a difference.

Anyway, the point of this story isn't about my ring at all. The point of the story is that inspiration can come at any time, even when the subject of the inspiration is totally distinct from the subject of the circumstances, and even when we aren't actively seeking answers on a particular subject. I love the Spirit.

I'm looking forward to General Conference next weekend to see what other inspiration I can receive.

Around the Bloggernacle - Volume 4

There have been several interesting posts around the Bloggernacle lately.

Over at Feminist Mormon Housewives, there is a post about ideas for coming-of-age rituals for 12 year old girls. There is also a post about alternatives to disposable plastic water bottles.

Mormon Matters has a post about the use of the term "brainwashed".

On the lighter side, By Common Consent has the 4th installment of their Police Beat Roundtable series, and The Ninth Ward has a comic about missionaries getting lost.

Things are going well in school. I'm going to keep this post short because the A key on my keyboard keeps sticking and it takes me extra time to type because I have to hit it harder.

A Busy Few Weeks

I'm still around, but school and work are keeping me busy, so I haven't been able to blog. Work has been filled with drama. A few of my co-workers got (well-deservedly) fired, and I've had to pick up a lot of the slack. (Happy overtime to me!) I don't much like my job, but in this economy, I'm quite grateful to have it.

School is going great. I'm taking contracts, torts, and writing and research. I've taken all of these classes before, so I wasn't expecting much. I've been pleasantly surprised, though. My professors are great, and I understand the material far better than I ever did before. My writing and research professor is specifically exemplary. He takes an otherwise dull class and makes it interesting because he is passionate about the subject. I've gotten good feedback on how I can improve my writing. Torts is fun, too. My professor likes to have skits for landmark cases, and I got to act out the part of Mrs. Palsgraf. I made a fool of myself, but it was a blast.

I finally found another roommate, and she moved in last week. We haven't seen much of each other because we keep separate schedules. The construction at my apartment complex is really getting annoying. Parking is a nightmare, and I had no living room windows all day on Monday. I had to shut my cat in the bathroom today because my bedroom window was being replaced and I didn't want her to jump out and fall 3 stories. So, now my cat is mad at me. She's pretty forgiving, though, so I'm expecting she'll get over it soon.

My random stomach nausea has gone away! It turns out that the ultrasound came back negative for gallbladder disease. I got sent to a specialist and he gave me medicine for acid reflux. The medicine made me even sicker, so I stopped taking it. I'm now taking mastic gum, and it's cured me. I've only had two bouts of nausea since then, and mint herbal tea has cured them. I've decided to canonize Bigelow because Mint Medley has performed many miracles. Here's to St. Bigelow!

I've got a few spiritual posts in the queue for when I have more time to devote to them. (Hopefully on Sunday.) Have a great week!

First Day of School

It really happened. After a two year struggle, yesterday was my first day back in law school! I was really nervous about it, but it turned out fine.

I arrived about 15 minutes before my first class, and I sat down in the big lecture hall. I was sitting in between two people I had met over the weekend at new student orientation. Most people had their laptops out, but I had my trusty notebook and pen. (I tried the laptop thing the first time around. The temptation of the internet and solitaire is too great.) When class started (contracts), the professor asked us to each introduce ourselves and say what we did immediately before law school. I'm in the part-time program, so there is a wide range of experience represented in my classmates. About half of them are engineers, and we have a few paralegals and a few people in the medical field. (I'm not sure who I fit in with. I'm licensed as a paralegal, but I work in the medical field in a non-legal capacity.) My challenge in that class will be that she wants us to think about contracts in a totally different way than my previous contracts professor. I'm probably going to have to un-learn some things.

After class got out, I had a half hour break before my next class (legal writing and research), so I grabbed some food from the vending machine and skimmed the introduction to my textbook. The professor e-mailed us the syllabus over the weekend and asked us to bring it to class today. When I headed to the classroom, I sat down and booted up my laptop because I hadn't printed the syllabus. (I can say it's because I'm saving a tree, but really it's because I lose papers.) I used my laptop during class whenever I needed to refer to the syllabus, and I didn't surf the web or play solitaire. I did, however, write my grocery shopping list while the professor was explaining the difference between federal and state courts. It probably looked like I was taking notes. :-) I really like my professor. He's excited about the subject matter, and his excitement is contagious. (My previous writing and research professor didn't care. He was just as bored with the class as we were, and it showed in the quality of his teaching.)

I have torts tonight, so we'll see how that goes. I had a fabulous torts professor the first time around, so that will be a hard act to follow. I think I'm going to have to reign in my enthusiasm. I volunteered to speak in each of my classes last night, and my writing and research professor already knows my name. (He met everyone at orientation, and he remembered me.)

I'm looking forward to the next few years. I plan on getting it right this time. A few weeks ago, I was praying, and I was concerned about what this whole law school debacle was going to do to my life. I realized that when all is said and done, I will be graduating five years after I would have graduated if I hadn't been kicked out the first time around. I know that the Atonement covers not just our wrongs, but also the effects of being wronged. I was praying for relief from being wronged at my previous school. I was expressing gratitude that I got into another school, one better suited for me, but also pain at being set back so far.

Later that day, I was sitting in a particularly boring sacrament meeting. Instead of fidgeting and daydreaming as I'm often tempted to do, I opened my scriptures and began to read. This passage in Joel stood out to me. The book details the desolation that is coming, but then offers these words of comfort:

Fear not, O land; be glad and rejoice: for the Lord will do great things...And the floors shall be full of wheat, and the fats shall overflow with wine and oil. And I will restore to you the years that the locust hath eaten... And ye shall know that I am in the midst of Israel, and that I am the Lord your God, and none else: and my people shall never be ashamed.

~Joel 2:21-27, emphasis added

The Spirit touched me as I read these words. I don't know how, but I know the Lord is going to give me back the years I've lost. He has power to make right things which have gone wrong. I worship the God of miracles, who overcame sin and death. Surely He can overcome something like this.

Hearing the Word

O earth, earth, earth, hear the word of the Lord.
~Jeremiah 22:29

I love studying the scriptures. I'll admit that I've been less diligent about it lately, but I definitely feel a difference in my life when I pay more attention to scripture study. A few years ago, when President Hinckley invited the membership of the church to read the Book of Mormon by the end of the year, I wasn't sure how I was going to be able to do it. I was working and going to school, and it seemed that I spent more time in my car than at home. I discovered that the scriptures were online in .mp3 format, so I downloaded them to my ipod and began listening.

I found that having audio scriptures gave me the chance to make my commute productive, but there were some annoying factors as well. First was that if I wanted to listen to actual music, I had to scroll through screens and screens of scriptures before getting to songs. Second was that if I had to stop in the middle of a chapter, I would lose my place if I waited too long to pick it back up again. Third was that the narrator is irritating.

I'm pleased to say that last week I found solutions to the first two problems. (No help on the annoying narrator voice, though.) I downloaded some audio books, and I was pleased to notice that they were in a separate section of my ipod, labeled conveniently "audiobooks". They didn't clutter up my music playlists, and best of all, they were bookmarkable. I wouldn't lose my place even if I plugged my ipod in, listened to other audiobooks, or listened to music.

I googled to see if anyone had made the scriptures in audiobook format. I wasn't able to find it, but I found the next best thing. There is a free computer program available that will convert .mp3 files into .m4b files, the ipod audiobook format. It also allows you to take multiple .mp3s and make them into a large audiobook. I downloaded it and it works great. Instead of having hundreds of files across 87 playlists in my music section (one for each book in the standard works), I have 12 files sitting in my audiobook section. My ipod is neat and tidy and I can find my music again.

The Gall of Bitterness

For the past few months, I've had random nausea and stomach pain after eating. It didn't happen all the time, or even consistently with the same foods. Mostly it has been fatty foods, spicy foods, and onions. I finally decided to go to the doctor yesterday, and he thinks it's my gallbladder. I need to get an ultrasound to see if that's the problem, and if it is, I'll probably need surgery.

I'm extremely nervous about this. I was hoping it was something easy like an ulcer. (My mom had ulcers a few years ago, and she just took some medicine for a few months and recovered with no problems.) I've never had surgery before, unless you count getting my wisdom teeth removed. I'm still keeping my fingers crossed that whatever is wrong won't require surgery, and that I'll have it all taken care of before I start school again in 3 weeks.

Around the Bloggernacle- Volume 3

Here is another installment of posts around the Bloggernacle that I found to be interesting.

Ronan at By Common Consent has a post about recurring dreams. It seems that many people dream about returning to their mission area.

Kiskilili at Zelophehad's Daughters has a random survey post where the commenters are encouraged to respond to a set of questions. Apparently the cello is quite popular among readers of that blog.

The Baron at The Waters of Mormon is doing a series of posts on movies. It contains a discussion of what our standards of propriety really mean, what the ratings mean, etc. I found it interesting.

In other news, I've completely rearranged my bedroom furniture, and both of my roommates are moving out. My cat is upset by this development because her tidy little world has been upended. I'm sure she'll be happier once my roommate's cat is gone. (Those two cats can't stand one another.) Now I get to go through the hassle of finding new roommates.