Sunday, March 15, 2009

Graduation Announcement

Whoa! Michelle's Clogging!!

Watch this video of me clogging in my ward talent show! I said, "Whoa!" because most of you know that I am not a very good dancer. This was a dance that I learned for a test in my class a couple of weeks ago. I didn't do so hot on the test, but I can proudly say that this video is the best I've performed it, so I am happy about my progress. Clogging is hard at times, but overall it's fun and good exercise! I received a lot of compliments after the show and people thought I have been clogging for a lot longer than I have, so that's good, right? I tried to post the video directly on here, but it's giving me problems, so just go to this page:

http://gallery.me.com/shell_belle/100272

Monday, March 9, 2009

Mid-Semester Madness!

     This week I ordered my cap and gown for graduation!! I also had an ingenious idea! I decided that I want to start scrapbooking again! I haven't scrapbooked since my freshman year in college and so I decided to scrapbook college highlights and put my diploma at the end of it. I didn't realize how hard it would be to narrow down the pictures. There are so many good things that have happened each year. It has been a lot of fun looking through pictures and revisiting things that have happened, though.
     Good news!! I am hired to work for APX Alarms! Because there are so many people getting hired, for now I will have to take only 20 hours a week, but I am on a waiting list for full-time. I was just told that I am the next person on the list should someone drop. I have been hired to do data entry for them. I probably won't stay there forever, but it is a good job for now. It's something at least!! I plan to start the week after I graduate and I have training on April 13th. I am also considering volunteering as a mentor at the residential treatment center which is right next door to APX.
     Last Friday I went on a date to BYU's Hunger Banquet. It's purpose is to increase people's awareness of the poverty in the world and encourage people to help. The theme for the night was literacy, so they told us facts about education as well as telling us about what is going on. Basically, everyone buys a ticket for the same price, but they are randomly put into three classes, lower, middle, and upper--just as we are when we are born. When we came to the event, those with lower class tickets are seated on the floor that is covered with cardboard and newspaper. They are fed last and have to eat a bowl of rice, beans, and chips shared between five people. Sixty percent of those who bought tickets were placed in this class. This is the percentage of those in this class in the world. Middle class was 25 % of the guests and we (I was in this class) sat in chairs with no table and really close to one another. Middle class is living on the edge (anything bad happening could take them down to poverty) and they have only a little bit of education (we could read one sentence in a paragraph they gave us). We were fed second and we ate a slice of pizza and a hot dog (a really, really good one from a place called J-Dawgs). High class was fed first, a three course meal, including pulled pork, spaghetti, salad, mash potatoes, and ice cream. They were seated at tables and had servers. They were 15 % of the guests and educated. We, at BYU are a part of this 15 %. Before people were served, they asked those with stars on the back of their tickets to stand up and move over to the high class tables. These were all from lower class and they represented the few who manage to do something great to get themselves out of poverty. In addition to this, there were two people who went around named "greed" and "corruption" that did different things throughout the night, mostly showing off their food and stealing food. There were also two really funny people acting as tourists do in third world countries. It was interesting, funny, but kind of sad, too. As we were eating they had a bunch of performances and then a speaker who talked about a local program to help adults who are illiterate.
      Last Wednesday I went with my ward to the Draper Temple open house. It was amazing! It was so beautiful! The last open house I went to I was a junior in high school, so this time it meant so much more to me. I felt the spirit greatly while I was there. Going to the open house made my desire to go to the temple to receive my own endowments (and be sealed for eternity) increase tenfold. I could feel the power that was there and sensed how that power and the blessings could effect my life. The rooms that impressed me the most were the Celestial room and the Sealing room. The first thing you do when you walk into the Celestial room is look up at the huge, beautiful chandelier that hangs in there. It causes you look up at the really high ceiling that is decorated really nice, too. If you don't look up, you miss so much. The room looks kind of plain, but if you follow the light of the chandelier and look up, you take in everything.  It made me think about how it is important for us to "look to God and live" and to "look up" like it says in the scriptures. If you don't, you miss seeing the beauty and blessings that God has to give. The tour ended at the sealing room. This temple has the largest sealing room of all the temples in the church--it can seat 85 people. In a couple of weeks, I will have the opportunity to watch the temple dedication at my stake center. I am very excited to see another one.
     One last thing. A group of friends and I have a new tradition of going tunnel singing every Sunday night in the tunnel by the Marriot Center. I hadn't done tunnel singing since I was in Nauvoo. I think it may be a freshman thing to do because it seems like it's mostly freshman that go, but it has been a lot of fun. Afterwards, everyone comes to my apartment for hot chocolate.
 
Draper Temple

 
Adam and I eating middle class pizza.
Here you can see the lower class on the floor, high class at the tables, and middle class in chairs.

 
Jared, Stephanie, Lynnae, James, Me, Savannah, Janelle, and Jon.