I -love- This

A friend of mine came back from the Priesthood session of General Conference and informed me that President Packer told young men to become skilled in homemaking.

HOW AWESOME IS THAT

Things I would/n't change about BYU

Things I would change:

• Spring break. I would gladly spend an extra week in school if it meant having a week off to catch up on homework and spend some time camping.
• More vegetarian options. I'm seriously so tired of L&T in the Cougareat.
• The 2-mile radius rule for housing. Can anyone say monopoly? Seriously; I'm paying about $300 a month for mold in the shower and single pane windows that leak.
• Better bookstore policy. I feel like students should have the right to shop around for cheaper books. Letting us get the ISB number for our books would be nice. Also, higher prices for buyback.
• Weather. Well, there really isn't anything BYU can do about that.
• Landscaping. I wish we could just let things grow as they wish rather than planting and replanting and replanting every year.
• Office of sustainability. Which reminds me, you should go to the Sustainability Summit next week.

Things I wouldn't change:

• $2000 tuition. Three words: seriously freakin' awesome.
• Resources for students. High-end technology, free counseling for everything from how to pick a major to how to get into grad school to how to deal with a spouse with pornography problems, and almost everything free.
• Community. I love that holding doors for the people behind you is a universal unspoken rule here.
• Curriculum. I feel like BYU gets a bad wrap that they don't teach things that matter or pick and choose what to teach. But when I learned about how organic evolution could have easily fit into divine creation in Bio 100, I knew this was the place to be.
• Divine Comedy. Three words: seriously freakin' funny.
• Professors. I've yet to have a professor that I don't feel like appreciates my thoughts and opinions.
  

"Immodesty"=pornography(!?)

Recently, there was a letter to the editor in the Daily Universe in which the author spoke of girls sunbathing in the quad of Helaman Halls. Innocent enough, but these girls were *gasp* wearing short shorts and tank tops.

What harlots! How dare they even own such clothing! Didn't their mothers teach them better!!

The author then accused these girls of being pornography, and that they were detracting from him preparing to serve a mission.

Obviously, I have a few things to say about this.

I was lucky that, through most of my years in the Young Women program, I had teachers who taught me to dress modestly out of respect for my body for God. I hadn't heard the whole "you're pornography if you don't" until I was 16.

The idea that girls should dress modestly simply so they aren't pornography (which, by the way, tank tops and short shorts showing shoulders and knees are pornography?) perpetuates the idea that women should make decisions and take actions only with how they will affect men in mind. This concept is part of the whole idea that women are only here to serve men.

As I'm sure the Daily Universe has received an overwhelming wave of letters responding to this particular letter, I'd like to respond to the author here.

Dear Sam Speer,
I was completely unaware that you aren't the gate keeper of your own sexuality. On behalf of my gender, I apologize for not being more responsible for your thoughts. You are absolutely right; girls have the ability to control your actions. We'll be more careful in the future. In fact, I'm in the process now of writing to the Honor Code Office asking for burkas to be mandatory for all female students.

3.5 weeks

Now is about the time of the semester when I begin making detailed to-do lists for everything.

I did realize, however, that I only have 3 actual finals. 2 of my classes have papers, and the other 2 just don't have finals.

So you know that feeling...

...when you're over your head with things you need to do, and you take a 2-day productivity marathon to try to get things done, and you do.

And so you end up with this free time and you don't know what to do with it.

I think this calls for some Ben and Jerry's and a movie.

Also, explaining logic to students is frustrating in two very different ways. 1) I don't understand how 205 students don't understand proofs. There are some premises, you alter those premises with some rules, and you get to a conclusion. Not difficult. 2) I never learned this 305 stuff when I took it. We never proved x=x; we were given an equality introduction rule that let us assume x=x. What's up with that.

But relearning things like Cantor's Theorem always excites me. Something greater than the infinite set of natural numbers? The universe is broken!!

Seriously

Shelley =/= a big fan of snow

however

sun + dry sidewalks + melting snow + 9:30 class being canceled + sleeping in = something Shelley is a fan of

BYU is much more lonely after today

I feel like I should blame someone. Not the philosophy department; they didn't do anything wrong. BYU Administration, maybe? Maybe I should write a letter. Maybe I should, out of principle, transfer to UVU.

Or maybe, and most likely, I won't do anything.

I'll just pass by that office like no one important was ever there.