Reflection on Narrative Story

The Narrative Story was the most fun paper to write out of all of them that we've done in class. I love reading novels, and to me writing a story was the most comfortable of them. And there was little research done outside of writing the paper, because the story was personal and came from myself. I was able to write it all in one sitting within a short period of time. And when I am to the stage of comfort that I was with writing the narrative everything flowed out naturally, and the only difficulty in the assignment is making sure that I can keep it only to five pages XD And I could really tell that the quality of my writing was better, again because I was not worried about it and I just, I don't know, came from me!

Growth From Aboard the Train (Narrative Story)

            The sun was already staying out through the later hours of the evening, and the blooming flowers were bathing in its light. The air was filled the fresh scent of grass mixed with the smell of grilled korv coming from a house around the corner. As I walked along I couldn’t help but try to gather it all in. Just being outside in nature filled me with life. “Someday I’m going to move back here,” I quietly thought to myself. My companion and I were really used to the quiet, we never really talked all that much. There were no hard feelings, nor was anything that barricaded the space between us. Simply put, we were just two people quite opposite from each other in most everything. One day we made mention that we both had experience in computer programming, and when we did come out and talk it was filled with conversation about computers.

            We finally had made it back to our apartment after about a half hours walk, we had been contacting on the way back as a few Swedes walked past. Yet again we had little success with them. As always we started off our nightly planning my companion opened up with the usual question, “anything better that we can do?” In fact there was something that was etching at my mind a lot these past weeks. I told him that I’d like to leave the apartment a little earlier than we had been. It would seem that he’d be the one that would throw at that statement, he was the hardest working missionary in the field. But that was the problem, he always sat behind our area book while at home. He would sacrifice lunch to go through the old contacts in that book, he would take one minute showers so as to not waste time away from that book, when we had our few minutes at home to ourselves each night, he would have that book open to the very second when we had to turn out the lights and turn in for the night. I wish that he wouldn’t worry as much as he did, but also it was outstanding how much work and care he had for his calling.

However the thing was that he wanted to work in “That Book” as long as possible before running out to catch a bus that would take us to our area of work for the day. While the bus was a ten minute walk from our apartment, he wanted to not leave the apartment any earlier than two minutes before. It definitely gave me a good workout, I thought that after returning home from my mission I could compete as an Olympic athlete with all the running we did. We would make it to the bus, barely, most of the time. But it was something that still irritated me. He knew it did so, but it didn’t really change much. And even that evening when I mentioned again how I’d like to leave a couple minutes earlier, as to avoid the panic of missing transportation, he disregarded the idea. Again he lived his life those couple of months behind that area book. After finishing up for the night we threw ourselves into bed and were instantly overcome by the warm embrace of sleep.

            The next morning was again the same as every other morning. We woke up, we showered and had breakfast, and we sat down to our studies and planning for the day. This however was going to be a really special day! There was a less active family that we were working with, and we agreed to come out to their village and help them with some service activities. They lived about 20 minutes by train outside the city we worked in, but still service was the best and we weren’t going to miss out on this opportunity! It meant that I didn’t need to wear my tie, and such leisure was rarely enjoyed by those in the service of God. Today was going to be a day that I would enjoy to the fullest.

            But again, just like every other day my companion pushed reading That Book to the very last second before we had to literally jump up and run like the wind. Finally after we made it out I was running down that path that I had ran down a couple hundred times already. The train station was a couple minutes farther than the buses though, and it wasn’t long before I burst out into sweat from the pulsing sun, and could feel my calves ripping beneath me as I jolted step after step after step. We made it to the station and almost to the tower of stairs that we had to ascend when we heard the piercing cry of the train’s whistle. I didn’t think that we could run much faster than we were, but angles must have given an extra push because we just had to make this train!! Stair after stair went by, I didn’t recall the station having this many, but somehow that day the steps doubled in number. Time was frozen during that run, but we finally made it to the top of Babel’s tower! We saw the train and I had the feeling that we might just make it. Running towards it I saw the doors closing, I was so close! Just as I was a couple steps from it I launched myself, but came to a complete halt when I slammed against the train doors. On the other side of the door was a pale faced companion, being carried away by a train leaving town.

I did the only thing I could, I borrowed a phone from a nearby person and called my companion. After talking we realized that I did not have the keys to our apartment, the members that were in our branch lived a couple hours away from the main town, and the next train that left to the city we were headed to didn’t leave for another two hours. And for my companion to turn around and come back would take more even more time. There was nothing to be done but for me to sit there at the station and wait for the next train.         

            Naturally the thoughts ran through my mind on how I knew that something like this would happen. There was a mixed feeling of being right, and feeling sorry because of how sad my companion would be, and also a feeling of excitement as I sat alone at the station, dressed in jeans and a t-shirt due to service. If there was any time during my two years of service that I felt like a normal person, it was here. But the feelings didn’t stick around too long as a pulled out my scriptures and waited for the train.

            Soon enough it came and took me to the destination. Soon I was standing and staring at my companion. Neither of us knew at first what to expect, but after a couple quiet seconds we both burst out in laughter and embraced each other. “Dang Elder, I didn’t know that you hated me that much that you were willing to hop aboard a train and take off without me!” I said to my Companion. “You have no idea Elder Tangren” he responded. And we continued laughing for another couple minutes, losing our breath as we did so. After all, it was a simple random encounter, nothing much either of us could do about it. These experiences and stories are worth much, and one learns that they must sit back and enjoy them, laugh at them. We carried out the rest of the day, helped out the less actives, made it back in time to take the train back to our city, and this time as we headed back to our apartment along the all too familiar path, it was done so slowly and enjoyably. We had our weekly planning, when my companion asked the same question “What could be done better” we both knew the answer, we finished the planning, and I took an early hop into bed as I watched my companion open up the area book once again.

            The next morning was as routine as usual. We got up, we took our showers, we ate our breakfast, had our studies. Afterwards I put on my shoes and went into the study room to inform my companion it was time to go, but he wasn’t there! Confused I walked back near the front door and saw him standing there all ready to go. It was something new I never saw from him.   As we made it to the bus stop I couldn’t help but to smile in victory as we stood there for a minute before the bus came. He saw my expression, but remained silent keeping to himself.  We made it on to the bus, pushed shoulder to shoulder with those standing at the front of the bus, and found a couple of seats in the far back. As we sat down that was when he finally stared me directly in the eyes. With a smug little smirk on his face he pulled the area book out from his backpack!

Look Sister Steadman, No Hands! -Research Paper

As soon as I heard about the research paper I was overwhelmed! Once a paper reaches 3 pages it's too much! And to think that one had to do a lot of research and write a 10 page paper was way too much. But it has improved much since then. It took awhile to come up with the topic for the paper, it is to be about an interesting story from my family. I was debating whether I would research about heredity and cancer since it is passed down a bit from my mom's side of the family, or if I would research the topic of name change.

So, what possible benefits may one receive if they changed their name?
Okay. There may be arguments on both sides about the individuality of the name, if one loses or gains it from changing one's name. However history shows that many immigrants were economically better off with having a more American name. It's easier to immigrate with the current civilians and is easier to obtain jobs.

So what? Is it always the case that immigrants are better off with new names? There are origins in names today.
It is true that there may not be as big an issue today as there was a century ago with surnames. USA is a nation with many origins of people, and having different origins of surnames has become quite common. There is diffently quite a difference in today's world than before. However when there were thousands of people......

TO BE WORKED ON............

beards at byu

I suppose that another fun subject to look into is the whole controversy behind having beards here at BYU campus. It has especially become a topic of conversation within the past year as more and more students have began to protest in favor of being able to grow out beards here on BYU campus. It is rather difficult for me to take a side on this issue, we students definitely have the right to speak out and try to make a change in society as well as the campus having its right to make the rules that students sign to follow as they join here on campus. I do not really take a stance on the subject, I simply stand back and observe. It is defiantly an interesting subject to observe as it goes forward. It is also rather frightening that mustaches are allowed even though beards are not, I feel that way too many students take advantage of this and grow the really creepy pedifiler mustaches, I don't know. It was also fun to hear how BYU campus has recently changed their beard code so that those of religions may have their beards if it is done so in honor of past prophets or whatever it may be that has deep meaning. Within the last year I have put some time into studying this topic. BYU didn't start with the ban, after all did not Brigham Young himself have a beard? Did campus not have contests on who could grow out the longest beard? For those who do not know this topic well, it is definitely interesting study. It all started back in the seventies when the hippies were having their protest against the government. Having beards was really identifiable among the hippies, as well as the all the drugs and sex and mayhem that they were a part of, so BYU put a ban beards and installed higher levels of dress standards so that the students could be more distinguished amongst these hippies. Over time this has ceased to be the case, and while beards were never allowed again somehow mustaches have been able to pry their way in. I'm not sure why, but oh well. I'm incapable of growing a good beard anyway so it does not really matter to me. But I find it all too annoying when other students look down on others who wish to grow beards, even if it is for a medical reasons. Having contention is terrible. Dress standards have changed throughout time. And really when it comes to dress the only thing that really matters, as far as I believe, is the distraction that a so-called dress style has. As fashion changes, sometimes the dress code does as well. Heck, girls for the longest time were not allowed to wear jeans on campus and were forced to wear dresses, which is no longer the case. There were protest about wearing jeans back in those days. It finally ended when a girl was not allowed to enter the testing center due to her wearing jeans, and later went back and got in with wearing no pants at all, and made a deal about how she was allowed to do that and not getting in with jeans. But I suppose that is a whole entire story in and of itself. Again I really do not take a stance on these dress standards or if students wish to have beards or not, but it is always a really fun thing to follow the subject. Anyone who wishes to study further into the subject itself will most likely be as entertained as I was reading up on the different facts behind this situation.

Art!

I have recently picked up the art of drawing! Art has always been a strong passion of mine. However throughout my entire life I have been intimidated by the act of drawing. I can normally pick up something and it doesn't take me too long to figure it out, however I feel like drawing has been the hardest thing in the world for me to grasp. I even do good at some other styles of art such as sculpting. I suppose that a big difference is that I am really good at 3d art but have difficulty at making 2d things on surfaces of paper. However I have spent hours of my life looking at speed paints online and other art sites. But recently I decided that I would tackle art and the past two years I have been filling up sketchbook after sketchbook. And that is even when I decided that I really want to get into the computer science animation. Within the last year my art has been on on an up rise, especially this semester as I have taken several art classes on campus, with drawing and 3d modeling.

 The figure sketching class that I am currently in is hands down the most fun class I have ever taken as a student here at BYU, or even all of my school together. It's a really simple class as well, we come in for 3 hours and sketch live models. Anyone else who may be a student here on campus might be interested to know that there is a three hour open lab for figure sketching on Fridays from 9 to 12 in the afternoon. I suppose honestly that I get stressed out a lot and deal with anxiety on a regular basis, but there has been nothing so far that has proven more relaxing than simply sitting down with a project in hand, even if that involves picking up a pencil or piece of chalk, going at it! Already within the past couple months my skill has exponentially increased majorly. I am constantly searching for new ideas and ways of practice, as well as study the arts of other individuals!