If this doesn't get you in the mood for Conference...

October 2011 General Conference of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

Holding on and letting go

Imagine.
Imagine a dream the size of the ocean--
Build it and breathe it and let it go.

And letting go, then dream again.
Dream a dream as high as a mountain--
Build it and breathe it and watch it go.

Then one time more,
Forge a dream as grand as the sky--
Build it and breathe it and never let it go.

Economics Class is Fun

“It’s funny how this major changes you. We make you socially inept. You’re much more likely to cause problems in future Relief Society or Elder's Quorum meetings. You’re much more likely to say something that will just bring everybody’s wrath down upon you.” Dr. Showalter

“I’m in the operating room, and a little disconcerting, cause they were just blaring country music…somehow that didn’t fit the picture I had in mind…” Dr. Showalter

"How do you say 'sun umbrella' in English?"

Today I saw something I never thought I'd see. I walked out of my afternoon class to see a woman carrying an umbrella to protect herself from the sun. This is a sight I've seen many times before, but usually in Taiwan or mainland China and always, always the woman is Asian. But this woman looked more Nordic than anything with her blonde hair and tall nose. I would have stopped to take a picture if I had thought I could get away with it, but even so, she had me smiling all the way home.

Once I was asked by a Taiwanese person what the English equivalent for "sun umbrella" is. I told the person that we don't have such a thing. Maybe I'd better go find that person and revise my statement.

Here?

Of all the things they planted here,
        the ones in this lone corner
                  seem most queer.
Stuff young and old
and black and white--
Both everything of day and night.

Of all the places far and near,
How did I end up here?

If

"If" by Rudyard Kipling. I like it. Some parts really felt fitting. Some parts at first read had me hinged on the cusp of acceptance and rejection. But I like it. 

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too:
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;
If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim,
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same:
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss:
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much:
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!

Funny Saying

The other day I tutored a student in intermediate algebra. This student has a tendency to panic when she sees too many letters and numbers in one place. I gave her a problem that required her to incorporate her recently acquired knowledge of imaginary numbers. When she reached that step, she froze.

"You can do it," I told her.
"Says the Easter bunny!" she exclaimed.

My other favorite saying of hers? Instead of saying "no way!" she says, "shut the front door!"