shazzamber

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  • Sister Hickman

    One of the absolute greatest members of the Oaks Hills First ward passed away last Saturday. I was her favorite Primary kid, so I feel like I should write a tribute to her, out of duty.

    I think every neighborhood has at least one “crazy lady”. (I’m totally gonna be the one in my ward.) Well, Sister Hickman was our’s. And when I say crazy, I also mean hilarious, energetic, loving, friendly, and pretty much awesome. (Hoping for some of those qualities as well.) She was the fire in our ward, as well as the neighborhood “gossip”, if you will. I mean that in a very kind way. She just liked to be in on everything, not unlike myself. (That will unquestionably be me.) I remember one time she opposed a calling, and I have respected her for that ever since.

    She was the Primary pianist when I was in Primary, and I remember her spouting out different things during the lessons, and I just always thought she was incredibly cool. As evidenced by that calling, she was obviously a pianist, which means she had a piano, which means Lucy and I made our monthly rounds of pre-Master Class performances to her every month. And she always seemed happy to hear us! How cool is that? I got to play for her when the cancer started to get bad, and that was really special.

    For some reason, Bishop Holcombe called Lucy and me to be co-choir presidents, which means we had to call EVERY SINGLE CHOIR MEMBER, EVERY SINGLE WEEK. And you know how I love talking on the phone…. Yeah. But I always did members A-L, which included Sister Hickman, so she got the “Hi Sister Hickman, I’m just calling to remind you–” “I’ll be there.” Every week? Seriously? Baffles me. (I still love Bishop Holcombe, though.) So she was a rock in the alto section, and I think we were really blessed to have her. She and Sister Christiansen and the Monsons and Brother Marlowe were the constants. Oh boy.

    She was and is a wonderful example to me, and when I say I want to be like her when I’m old, I absolutely mean it. Her husband died like 30 years ago, and although I’m definitely not planning on that, (please no) I admire her attitude of service and compassion and love, even when she had experienced such a tremendous loss. I think I’ll recognize Brother Hickman when I get to the next life, because she talked so much about him. I hope to have that kind of love for everyone.

    Sister Hickman was so great. And she made everyone feel loved. I guess that’s why I think I was her favorite Primary kid.

    This is her real and very well-written obituary.

  • My Single Most Defining Feature

    “You wore your hair down!”
    Well, this is my very own hair. And to be quite honest, I had a rather terrible relationship with it for several years of my life. (This was of course after my bald phase, which lasted approximately two years.) I am well aware than many girls would die to have hair like mine, and they spend large amounts of money to artificially curl it, as I’ve been told multiple times. But it’s just not the same if wild and crazy hair is forced upon you. I used to tie it up EVERY SINGLE DAY, and then I’d randomly wear it down, and I’d get, “You wore your hair down!” all day. Still do. Because I still tie it up EVERY SINGLE DAY. —See pictured:
    “How did you do that?”

    This I could not do in high school. Somehow I discovered in Hawaii that my hair would stay tied in a knot without an elastic, and there was no going back from there. I don’t know if there’s been a day that my hair hasn’t ended up in a knot, even with all the friendly comments I get about how they love that I wore my hair down. I have, however, been asked about fifty times how I do that cool style. But then there’s the fancier way, which is a combination of my two signature styles: 
    “I really like how you did your hair.” [Why, thank you!]

    That’s the very kind comment I always get when I do this. And it’s kind of weird that you can tell my hair only occasionally goes up like that, because it’s not bleached in the middle.
    “Did you straighten your hair?/ Did you get extensions?/ Your hair is SO LONG!”

    Well surprise, surprise. My hair is much longer than anyone ever knew. That’s all. This task takes roughly 40 minutes, or a large portion of a movie, to accomplish. I can’t keep my hands out of it, because I don’t know how to deal with that much hair! And it just doesn’t tie up like it should!
    “uhhhhhhhh” 
    Finals Week tradition. Please choose to be impressed. That’s all.

  • Sumer 2012 Quotes

    I can never remember quotes. Like ever. So this is probably about 15% of the funny things that were said this term, even with all my “remind me to write that down! Don’t forget!”s. So yeah. Behold.

    “I can’t believe you didn’t pay for any of your music! I’m so scandalized.” “Well, someone paid for it. And I did pay for some of it, like when someone gave me an itunes gift card.” -M

    “Vienna is wine.” -L

    “Clayton, do you know ‘He Lives in You’?” “Well yeah. I sing it in the shower like everyday!”

    “Ah, do we have to sit by a vegetarian?” -Marie

    “Us singing at the same time is a tender moment? If that’s a tender moment, then every moment is a tender moment for us.” “Yeah, our lives are tender moments.” -A and M

    “If the Jazz were playing the Red Sox, I would be biased towards the Jazz.” -M

    “Conlan has turned a new tree!” -Leen

    “His last name’s Karate? I want to marry him, so I can have that last name.” “No you don’t. He has webbed feet.” -Clayton and Chelsea

    “My whole life is based on Hook and Fantasia.” -Dan

    “I wonder if facebook supports polygamy?” -Clayton [It doesn’t. We found out.]

    “May the 5th be with you!” -Matthew

    “Due to my current physiological state, I will not be swimming today.” -A

    “I will be Alpha! Just wait and see.” -A

    “There are two things I know for sure: I’m going to die, and the gospel is true.” -ward member, in Sac. Mtg. talk

    “If I wasn’t in the show, I’d probably go once, then be disgusted with myself and go home and take a shower and watch Lord of the Rings while I cry myself to sleep.” -Clayton

    “Don’t count your grandkids before they hatch.” -Dell

    “I have to marry a trombone player.” -Lug [Freudian slip! Freudian slip!]

    “Married life is awesome. My wife hasn’t elbowed me in the eye for like a month!” -Michael

    “Often I look at the armies of EFY kids, and the first word that comes to mind is ‘WHY?’, and right after ‘Lord of the Rings orks’.” -Lug

    “You are good. But it is not enough just to be good. You must be good for something. You must contribute good to the world. The world myst be a better plance for our presence.” -Pres. Hinckley

    “I’ve ordered some Confucius Family Liquor for us all.” -Bro. Lane

    “Don’t worry that people won’t recognize your merits. Worry that you won’t recognize theirs.” 

    -Confucius

    “Every time I go to bed at night, I remind myself how cool I am because I sleep with a stuffed animal.” -M

    “Until FoodFest, I didn’t realize how popular I was!” -Brooke

    “I only got two cold wings and a meatball. But it’s okay. I need to watch my figure anyway.” -Dan

    “When I finish eating something, my wife takes the plate immediately and puts it in the dishwasher, whereas I would like to just put it in the sink and let it enjoy life for a while.” -Bro. Lane

    “When the best rulers achieve their purpose, their subjects claim the achievement as their own.” 

    -Taoist teaching

    “I really love men’s choirs. They’re pretty much my favorite thing in the world.” -A

    “I just really like men in general. They’re up there with my favorite things.” -Suzie

    “I haven’t seen The Little Mermaid in forever!” -A

    “I try to watch it about once a week.” -Chelsea

    “Oh blast! I forgot to write my tithing check!” -A

    “You can borrow one of my checks, if you’d like.” -M

     “So, I was preparing the roast pig for Luau a few years ago, and a took a bite of it, and I turned to my co-worker, and I was like, ‘Hey! This tastes just like bacon!’ and he thought I was an idiot.” -Shaun

    “The only things I love are Canadians.” -Lug

    “I am sad that my phone, I mean my car, I mean my house…I mean my fan…!!” -Amber
                                                              

  • Recipe #1

    I had this idea to occasionally blog about the food I make, since I don’t really make food. If all goes well, there will hopefully be more of these someday, because that means that I’m cooking a bit more. This potential series will cater to college students like unto myself, who may have small means with which to create the nutrients necessary to live that sort of life. 

    Behold the first installment: my signature meal. My friends really like to tease me about my food tastes, but they just don’t try them, so they don’t know what they’re missing.

    Are you searching for a simple, healthy, low-budget meal? Try the peanut butter and jelly and cheese sandwich! Sound weird?  Go ahead and try it, and send it back to me if you aren’t satisfied. I dare you. [The pictured brands are the best, in my humble opinion.]

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  • Semester/ Life Conclusion

    ·      “Our faith must be alive. It cannot be just a set of ridged beliefs and notions. Our faith must evolve every day and bring us joy, peace, freedom, and love. Faith implies practice, living our daily life in mindfulness. Some people think that prayer or meditation involves only our minds or our hearts. But we also have to pray with our bodies, with our actions in the world. And our actions must be modeled after those of the living Buddha or the living Christ. If we live as they did, we will have deep understanding and pure actions, and we will do our share to help create a more peaceful world for our children and all of the children of God” –The Living Buddha, the Living Christ, p. 136

  • It’s true.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nLO0DrlvLX4&feature=colike

    I wrote earlier about how I’ve been studying world religions, specifically Buddhism. I just read What the Buddha Taught and Living Buddha, Living Christ, which are excellent, and it’s really got me thinking about our church. I know I already wrote about this, but these are further thoughts.

    Joseph Smith saw Heavenly Father and Jesus. No question. It’s been really interesting to learn about when Suddharta Guatama became was visited and became enlightened, or when Guru Nanak had his vision before founding the Jain religion, or when the Holy Spirit appeared to Mahavira, but when Heavenly Father and Jesus appeared to the boy Joseph Smith, they brought him the true and living gospel that has the FULLNESS of truth that we need to return to them, and there is life after death.

    Jesus Christ is our Lord and Savior, and He really lived and died for us, and He knows each of us personally, and is the head of our church today. He loves us. He is real.

    We have all this knowledge that so many don’t have! We have a prophet that speaks to us directly from Him! We don’t have dozens of break-offs of our religion because of various doctrinal discrepancies, because there is nothing missing. I’ve found many truths in these other religions I’ve studied, and it really has been very educational.

    There is truth everywhere, and we can most definitely learn and benefit from those of other faiths, and by seeking truth everywhere, but we have the only complete and full truth. And we need to share it! AND I GET TO DO THAT IN 7 MONTHS!!!!!

    Our church is perfect, and it is perfect because Jesus is the head of it. I’ve loved reading about the structures of other churches, and the different ideas they had for proper order and hierarchy, but everything about our church is exactly right. The people are imperfect, but the church is perfect.

    There is no doubt in my mind that ours is the true church. I know it with all my heart. I have a lot to learn, and I’ve learned a lot from these other religions, and gained respect for each of them, but I would love to be able to add to their beliefs in the same way they’ve added to mine. Eternal life in the Celestial Kingdom with our Heavenly Father is a lot more exciting that Nirvana, which is essentially a state of simple existence/ nothingness. I’m down with Celestial glory. And we know how to get there!

    I’m starting my papers as soon as I get home, which is in 2 weeks. Oh yes. Here I come. I hope I get to interact with some Buddhists, because I owe them a lot. I’d like to talk to some Jains and Sikhs as well. They are really wonderful people.

  • Hana Hou!

     Hana Hou
    (Hawai’ian Pidgin ) Translates as “Do it again” ; “One more time”. 
    An appreciative response to an event: usage similar to “Bravo”. Often as an exclamation.

    Last night, I went to one of the most amazing concerts I’ve ever been to. My friend Clayton and I got tickets to the Honolulu Symphony, and I almost died when I saw the program. They were playing the Eroica Symphony, Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, Rhapsody in Blue, and Pictures at an Exhibition. Yes, it was incredible. The pianist was phenomenal, and I was actually the first one to stand up after the Rachmaninov, because I was so moved. 
    However, as impressed as I was by the Gershwin, I chose not to give him another standing ovation, because I hold that gesture sacred. Clayton, on the other hand, said he felt rude not standing along with the rest of the audience, and it got me thinking about how different our expressions of appreciation have become. What if something is absolutely and breath-taking-ly surreal in beauty? How do we differentiate between that and an excellent performance? Do we jump on the stage and bestow 5 leis upon each player and give them all free tickets to Disneyland? 
    Truth be told, I don’t know if many people really can differentiate. If they enjoy it, or maybe even if they don’t, they’ll stand. If they hate it, and it’s the absolute worst performance they’ve ever witnessed, they might grudgingly get to their feet and clap along with the rest of the audience. But music is music, and whatever.
    Oh, no.
    As pictured above, we have grown to value individuals like unto Justin Bieber more highly than artists like unto Queen. WHY? Oh, maybe because our ears can’t handle more than a 4-chord song with a whiny voice, coming from a boy that looks like a 14 year-old girl.
    Sorry about that. But I do think we need to do some serious reconsideration by way of what we value.
    It seems that a lot of the goodness in this world gets mixed in with everything else, and then we just get a big bowl of melted ice cream, and you can’t pick out the cookie dough bits or the peanut butter trails or the pralines, or the strawberries, because it’s all been stashed together for so long that you wouldn’t be able to recognize those individual delicious ingredients. Many people haven’t even been introduced to flavors like Sweet Cream or Praline Pecan or German Chocolate Crunch or Haupia. They’re just living life with a melted container of Western Family vanilla with brown sprinkles and peanuts. And it’s all in the same carton, so how is anyone supposed to stand up and cry out in ecstasy at the cascade of flavor from a single, life-changing bite? They can’t, so they just give every bite “2 Thumbs up!” and call it a day.
    You know, the same thing applies to modesty and life styles and all kinds of other things, but I’ll stop here, since this has already gone on long enough.
    Bottom line, I don’t believe in giving a standing ovation for any old average performance. But I do believe in giving a huge one if the performance is completely spectacular. That’s all I ask. Let’s encourage greatness, and stop celebrating mediocrity. 



  • Superwoman

    My mom is Superwoman. Do you want to know why? Let me tell you a story.

    One upon a time, about twenty-two years ago, there were two college students, a boy and a girl, and the girl was in about the same life position I’m in right now. She was an Elementary Education major at BYU. Then the boy came home from his mission, and they ran into each other in the RB. The rest is history.

    If you didn’t guess, they got married! She got further into the education program, but nine months after they were married (in the Salt Lake temple, in April. It snowed.) a baby came along. Just perfect timing for the girl be doing her student teaching! That in itself is a big deal, because I can tell you that student teaching is extremely stressful and time-consuming– some of my single friends doing it now are on the breaking point– but the bigger deal is those previous nine months. The baby literally almost killed the girl, caused living hell, and almost kept the her from graduating. But she persevered! She graduated! And she stayed at home to raise her baby as much as she possibly could. She read to her, and sang to her, and played with her, and taught her about Jesus, and set the greatest example of the kind of woman her baby should become that any mother ever has.

    The next twenty years were pretty crazy. When the baby was two, she had a seizure, which was the first indicator that she had epilepsy. This entailed expensive health insurance, countless doctors appointments and medical bills, expensive medicine, and eventually a major brain surgery. The girl, who had of course become a very wise woman and mother, was with her baby, who was by this point almost a grown-up girl, literally through the entire process– at every single doctors appointment, from that first seizure, up to the very last day she was in the hospital after her surgery. There was never a single minute during those twenty years that she wasn’t serving her baby girl.

    Guess what? The girl is my mom, and the baby is me! Because of my epilepsy, I wasn’t able to get a drivers license, so my mama had to drive everywhere, including early-morning seminary, summer cross-country, concerts, and about a million times down Timpview Drive for everything. She also always kept the house clean, and made good and healthy meals everyday. She practiced the piano with me everyday, even when I complained and threw my theory books on the floor next to the piano. And she never ever ever complained a single time. Ever. Oh, and she also raised three other girls.

    Now you must agree with me when I say that my mama is Superwoman.

  • If I didn’t have a testimony…

    I’m in a Mormonism and World Religions class right now, and so far we’ve studied Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism, and Sikhism. Each religion has interesting doctrines and philosophies, each has important values to teach and ideas to consider, and each has been enlightening to learn about. (hahaha that was a pun. Enlightening, get it?)

    At first I found it fairly easy to judge them, because I’m very confident in my own beliefs (yes, I do have a very firm testimony of the truthfulness of the gospel of JESUS CHRIST),
    and could easily spot the doctrinal differences and maybe compare them in the wrong ways. But that only lasted like a week. The way my class is structured invites us to discuss the doctrines of the different religions, and then put a Latter-Day Saint light on them to further our understanding. Interestingly enough, the early history of Jainism started in a way very similar to our’s, not unlike Joseph Smith’s First Vision.

    I’ve especially enjoyed learning about Buddhism, because the Buddhist teachings just really resonate with me. One thing that the original/ Supreme Buddha, Siddhartha Guatama, said after he first became enlightened, was, “I am neither an angel or a saint. I am awake.” Interesting, eh? The goal of the well-known Buddhist meditation exercises, which I’ve been doing on the beach early in the morning for my class, is to become awake. I love that! I love the idea of coming to your most natural and self-controlled state (this means literally only thinking about your breathing. Nothing else. This is harder than you might think.) and seeking knowledge in order to gain enlightenment. It feels so good.

    HOWEVER. Although I’m intrigued by this and all the other religions I’ve studied so far, they all have something missing. It occurred to me just a few days ago. They don’t have a living prophet who continues to give them revelation and guidance! They also, of course don’t have the same scriptures we do, that just happen to contain the fulness of the living gospel. The Hindu scriptures that I’ve studied so far are actually very interesting. But I’m just observing the huge difference that came to me.

    In the end, if I didn’t have a testimony, I would love to practice Buddhism. But I do have a testimony! And that’s that. I can still meditate, and work on ahimsa, and, more than anything else, develop understanding and compassion that will help me understand others, so I can share my gospel with them, and they can share their’s with me. I think we’d both benefit immensely.

  • Oh you know, just food

    Remember how I wrote about the cleanse Madison and I did? Well, be prepared to be impressed: I consumed nothing by 100% juice for an entire 3 days. She went longer than me, but my parents’ concern, as well as my great desire to consume the expensive food of which I had been deprived for so long, as well as the tantalizing cereal bar my bishop gave me, pretty much forced me to return to the old meal plan. And by that, I mean cheese and peanut butter and strawberries. [You’d be amazed at the concoctions these three foods can produce. Strawberries were on sale at Foodland.]

    This return to food brings me to what I think is one of the greatest ward traditions ever: Linger-Longers. I don’t know why the 1st ward never had these, but they are awesome. And if your Polynesian bishop has a Polynesian wife who makes very delicious food in very large quantities, then you are set for an entire day. And if your Polynesian bishop also comes to FHE, and brings good food to that, you have another meal or two provided.

    So you’re a college student. So you have a slim budget. So you find yourself searching for any method of obtaining any source of nutrients to satisfy your natural cravings. These are methods that have been proven to provide/ conserve enough food to keep a student alive and well:

    1. Go on a juice fast… (I didn’t have to buy groceries for a week!)
    2. Linger-Longers (if you have morning church, this is enough for the whole day)
    3. Fast Sundays (this makes your food supply last at least one day longer!)
    4. FHE (depending on the assigned ward member, this could take the place of one of more meals)
    5. Left-overs from Break-the-Fast (another amazing ward tradition that somehow got skipped over in the dear Oak Hills 1st ward)
    6. Bread heels at the end of the day from the Seasider (This could apply to many other locations. Just find out where they give out free food at the end of the day. You’d be surprised.)
    7. Watch for sales!
    8. Certain types of home/visiting teachers pay dividends very nicely