Read All About It!

When I was younger (as if I am old) I used to read a lot.  I love a good fantasy, science fiction, and what not.  I found that reading helped me in my writing assignments at school and improved my vocabulary.  But unfortunately, I have gotten out of the habit.  I have decided I am going to do something to fix this.  With the help of some friends I have been developing a mental list of books that I would like to read.  

Some of the books I have read and enjoyed in the past have been:

Enders Game (Orson Scott Card) 

Alvin Maker (Orson Scott Card)

Harry Potter

The 5 People You Meet in Heaven

The Alchemist 

and much, much more!

Since I have been home from my mission there has been much talk about Twilight.   I watched the movie the other night with my sister Rachel and Toni.  They made sure to point out the differences between the movie and the book.  I am kinda interested in reading the book for myself.  I am in the process of rereading the Harry Potter books (I am about 15 pages from finishing the 1st book now.)  My mom handed me a book that my grandma just told her I would enjoy, The Enoch Letters, by Neal A. Maxwell.  It will be a quick read I will tackle that in the next few days.   I have added a list of books that I am planning on reading to the left.  

I am hopping to get back in good reading habits.  Please feel free to suggest good books to add to my list, ask me about how my reading is going or what not.

Maupay Nga Kulop!

In the Philippines (I love starting stories out this way) it is very common to be greeted, or to great random strangers in passing with one or more of the following:

Good morning/noon/afternoon/evening.

Where are you coming from?

Where are you going?

How are you?

It's hot out/raining.  Whey are you out?

Oy! Friend (followed by an above question)

My favorite: Hey Joe, kaon ka tae!

It's not that they really care how you are, or where you are going.  It's just a greeting.  A friendly aspect to their culture that I loved.

Coming home it felt so odd to walk down the street and have someone walk by with out even looking at me.  Now I have a teacher that is Armenian.  She said that she loves how friendly everyone is her in America, how we all greet each other as we pass on the street with a "hi" or "good morning" or what not.  This confused me.  Now I realize that America is not as friendly as some places, but more so than a lot of places.  

Today, as I was walking home for lunch, I passed a house just as an older women was walking out the door.  She immediately struck up a conversation with me as we walked a few house lengths to where her car was parked and I continued home.  I felt so uplifted from this encounter.  It was so nice to have a complete stranger greet me and care about me for that two minutes.  

I am not sure what the moral of the story is.  But I just thought it was a neat experience and who knows, maybe one of the few people who read my blog will think so to.

In Sickness and in Health

There comes a time in every man’s life that they realize that they are mortal. (That's why we put the goblet with the poison farther away from ourselves.)  This week I had another reminder that I too am mortal. (I know, shocking)

 I have always prided myself with being the healthy one in the family, even if I do have a weak stomach.  Going through school I stayed home sick much less than my brothers and sisters.  But this week I was quite sick.  Monday and Tuesday I went to bed with a sore throat, but otherwise I felt fine.  Wednesday I woke up with a sore throat and began to feel pretty sick as the day went on.  My mom told me not to go to institute that night.  And we ALL know that Mom knows best, but I went anyway and it proved disastrous!  I had to leave in the middle of class and it was not pretty!

 That night and the following day were no fun at all.  But I finally took enough Imodium to stop my LBM.  I stayed home Thursday from school and Friday from work.  I have been slowly getting better since.  Saturday through today I have just felt like I have a bad cold, and my voice is finally coming back!

 Oh, wait...I lied!  I did manage to have some fun in my sick days.  Toni and I were able to check some things off out "to-do-list.”  We watched "Music and Lyrics," played Guitar Hero, got ice cream and unicycled.  Toni's mom is quite the unicycler if I do say so myself.  Saturday day was an amazing day!  For one, I started to feel better that day.  I got out of the house to clean the church and even made it to the institute for broom hockey, but that to proved fatal.  I managed to cut open my thumb, the left one, pretty deep.  It bled a lot, but I lived!  Then Toni and I headed over to her place for unicycle mania!  It was great.  It was so fun to see her mom ride and Toni wasn't bad either, and I got to show off some of my skills.  We then went to dinner, picked up the movie and watched "Music and Lyrics" at my house.  It was FUN FUN FUN  :)