How Mormons Celebrate Easter

Our relationship began like any other. We checked each other out in passing, occasionally pausing to wave or say "hi". It sort of evolved from there. Each of us courting each other in the way that strangers do. Slowly, we became more comfortable with the notion of the people living on the other side of our walls. I'm talking about our neighbors. They seem nice. Young. 3 kids. Mormon.

We had our suspicions when they put a Mitt Romney sign in their front yard. We thought, "hmm...young, lots of kids, supporting a Mormon candidate...most likely Mormon. We were right. As our daily hellos became a little more extended we all thought, ok, well, that's nice. Then our neighbor asked one of the roommates about the people in our house. We may or may not have more people than are legally allowed. At any rate, we all decided to be a little more guarded - ok to be fair- I decided to be a little more guarded. Everyone else thought it was fine.

Then it happened. One day the door bell rang. I went down to answer it and there was the male half of the neighbor couple. He asked if we weren't doing anything for Easter dinner if we would like to come over to their house. I said lamely, "Uh, I'll check with everyone and let you know." Generally Zach and I have an Easter tradition of a picnic type day. I make a bunch of things and we pick at them all day. But we didn't want to alienate the neighbors and risk some sort of recourse, so we all decided we needed to go over there for Easter.

On Saturday Zach and I ended up doing our regular picnic fair. The menu included Black Bean Salad, Southwestern coleslaw, Hummus and veggies (made by Zach), deviled eggs, pizza made from scratch, and fruit dipped into melted chocolate. It was pretty darn delicious.

On Sunday we went over to the neighbors. The Germans (roommate and her visiting boyfriend) Zach and I showed up with some little gifts for the kids and some Chocolate Mousse. It was nice. Pretty fun. There were missionaries present as well. Everything was pretty nice. Not even that awkward. Then at the end of dinner we were treated to a passage from the Bible and one from the Book of Mormon. That's fine. A little much for the first time meeting people, but what are you gonna do? I've had Mormon friends over the years. They are always very nice people. There's just a little something strange about people who are all about the conversion of others to their beliefs. I'm really more of a "live and let live" kind of gal. Sure I may be judging you and judging you harshly. Yeah, you can pretty much bet that I am doing that. But at the end of the day, I'm all about you doing whatever you want to do and going on your way. That's cool. Don't try to change me and I'll extend the same courtesy to you.

I have always been fascinated by converts and the people that loathe them. It seems like there are many issues which people feel really strongly about. Vegetarians or Vegans vs. Carnivores for one. I don't know how many times I have witnessed or heard about a carnivore berating and trying to change the mind of vegetarian. "What? Why don't you eat meat? That's so stupid...blah, blah. Natural order, blah blah. King of the food chain." It's just bizarre. What the hell do you care? How can you meet someone at a party and instantly decide that you must change their lifestyle? It's insanity. But it happens with a lot of things I suppose. And then there are the people that have made a change and now want everyone else to join the bandwagon. Just live your own life dude, it's all cool.

Anyway, that's how Easter went. I don't have any pictures. I should just start drawing pictures of the things I am describing. That would be pretty awesome.

Also...I'm running some participants in my experiment and I had another one show up with mouth herpes. Oh man, now I have to throw out the pen s/he used and sterilize the computer and button box. I'm pretty much a zealot on the issue of mouth herpes, but I'm not trying to convert anyone. You have mouth herpes, fine by me. Just don't aim them in my general direction and we're cool.

A Sad Commentary

I guess I will do these posts somewhat out of order. Just go with me on this one.

I got an alert from the Hawkalert System today. It's an automatic system around campus that let's us know if there is some sort of danger or something present. Today's alert said,

"An active shooter is in the Iowa City Area. White male, mid 40s in 98 Tan Toyota Sienna van. IA plate 501 BLO. Call 911 if seen."

Then they called back later to say that there was no specific threat to U of I buildings or people and to only call the police if you had seen something.

I found out then that there was a shooting on campus here in 1991. Not really confidence inspiring. Additionally, can I just mention that it seems a bit strange that so many shooters that I hear about lately are graduate students? I'm not saying this as a cry for help or anything, but I am just mentioning that it does seem strange. And not that I would ever be driven to kill, but I do understand the sense of desperation. I have taken to beating puppies to relieve the feelings of anxiety, self-doubt and general horribleness brought on by graduate school. Just kidding, I'm not beating puppies. I could never do that. I do verbally berate them. But I don't think they really get what I'm saying and I use a nice friendly tone, so I think they think I'm being nice.

At any rate, I sort of feel compelled to stay in the office for now. I want to go run some errands so that I don't have to keep writing this horrible paper, but I don't know if it is worth taking my life into my hands. I guess I will go for now and work on this paper. Feel free to check back soon and I will try to get back on the posting.

Announcement

I have a lot of things I should blog about and considering that I haven't really been doing that as of late, I'd like to get back into the swing of things. I'm working on some posts, but I thought I would mention that now. You can check back, I'm working on it. Don't lose the faith. Don't think this blog is going to let you down. It's not. This blog is always here for you.

Random Tidbits Galore

• Today is the first day of the rest of your life. I guess that's supposed to make you feel better.
• I'm at work again. It's Spring Break for the rest of the campus, but I'm a hard worker...not really, I'm just like forcing myself to get here every morning by 7 AM and then I sit here at my computer not doing the work I should be doing. Well, I am doing it, but I fear I'm doing it badly. Oh, woe is me, I know.
• The wedding planning marches on. Slowly, slowly like an Army that has been marching too long. Slowly like the tortoise which eventually wins the race.
• Today I'm going to work on the draft of my paper again. Then I hope to work on invitations with Zach and then we're going to go out downtown I think. Although the weather does not seem favorable for that plan. It's supposed to rain. I guess we'll see.
  
• I'm pretty much devoid of interesting content right now. I just wanted everyone to know that I am still alive.
  
• I'm really looking forward to spring and daylight and all that good stuff. We'll see if I can improve my mood then.
• Ok, I'll work on posting things again soon. I promise. Really, just believe me this time.
  

A Morsel

Hello and welcome to my blog. It's been awhile, no? I'd like to say that I plan to get better, but I'm in the middle of reading about a million pages (no, closer to 1,000) and writing (hard for me, I'm none too bright), and so, dear readers, I'm sorry. I'm sorry because this blog suffers. It was the blog or me and I chose me. Alright. I chose me. Well, I sort of chose me. I don't really get a lot of say in what I do lately. It's all, read this, write here. Edit that. Oh, no, work harder, blah, blah. See? Even if I had time to write I lack entertaining material. Oh well.

Enjoy some (or all) of the blogs on the side bar. Keep dreaming your dreams. I'll still be here when you get back. Mostly likely in this same place. Reading until I go blind and writing my heart out. Yea for higher education (no, not really).

Randomness

Today I have nothing but random bits to report and I'm sort of tired of stringing together coherent thoughts so I'm just going to go with a bulleted list and hope that it makes some semblance of sense.

1. I love alliteration. See above for proof. I would title every paper I ever wrote with a snappy alliterative title, but I think that's frowned upon for the most part...or I'm just not that clever. Hard to say.
2. I've been working out. I can bench about 20 now. 20 lbs. I feel pretty good about it. I do a lot of reps. Stop judging me.
3. I wrote one of my comps topic papers and so now I just have to edit it and turn it in in a month or so. I also have to read for and write on the entire second topic. But I guess if we are dwelling only on the good stuff...one down, one to go, that's a 50% right there...I'm at an F, so I can only go up from here I guess.
4. Daylight savings starts this weekend. I guess that's good news. I mean, it stays lighter later, but now it will be dark again when I am going to work. That's sort of sad. I like having the sun up when I leave for work. Oh well, I suppose you can't have everything.
   
5. We also lose an hour of sleep and I gain an hour difference (making it 2 hours) from the people I know in Arizona. I guess the positivity can only last so long for me. Apparently about 1 minute and then I'm back to normal cranky Rose.
   
6. That's ok. I'm used to normal cranky Rose. I'd be too shocked if she turned into Happy-Go-Lucky-Rose. Also, what the hell does "happy go lucky" mean? I mean I know what the words individually mean. And I know what the phrase implies, but really? Huh.
7. I went to the Amana Colonies this past weekend on Sunday with Zach. It was sunny when we went too. It might have been the greatest day ever. It was a lot of fun and we didn't even get to go to all the cool stuff. We did get to stuff ourselves with Schnitzel and Spaetzal and all sorts of goodies. So that was fun.
   
8. We also forgot the camera. It was like a scene from Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle...we were about 10 feet from the house in the car when we remembered and we decided that we'd gone too far to go back. Next time hopefully there will be pictures.
9. We finally saw The Darjeeling Limited. We liked it. I bought the soundtrack to it. It's pretty sweet.
10. I have to get going now. I have to read for my second topic and see if I get any writing done. It's very exciting to be me. Are you all jealous?
    

You can go check out this post and be entertained. Then you can check out the other stuff on the site. It's pretty funny.

A New Low

So as many of you might have read before I had a prison pen pal. As part of his rehabilitation work, his parole officer wanted him to get involved in some community activities. He wanted to reach large numbers of community members at a time. So when I told him of the success of his guest spot on my blog and that it was really easy to sign up for a blog on the internet he was "intrigued and a little aroused" - his words, not mine. I was a little put off by this, but I decided that it's not my place to judge. Not that I don't judge, but it's not really my place. Anyway, he's finally got his own blog off and running. You can check it out by going to the side bar and clicking on "A Low Life". Or I'll make it real easy for you, you can click here and then bookmark it for yourself. I'm sure you'll want to read it again and again. The current entry up there right now appeared on my blog before, but it's worth a read and the entry before that explains a little more about the blog and his ideas. So go check it out and get off my back about not posting.

I'm working on another entry for tomorrow. We'll see. TTFN.