I’m pretty sure this copy machine is out of order. Nowhere in sight, as a matter of fact.

Unless that recycle bin is supposed to do it. Magically.

How do I get to the Humanities reference desk? Anyone?

Hey everyone, I was absent from Music class on Friday January 22. If someone could send me their notes from that day, that would be awesome!

And so on and so forth.

Whoops! Looks like someone didn’t read the paper this morning. The article was on the front page, for crying out loud! Above the fold!

Or maybe he or she just never learned plain old internet etiquette from his or her mother. (Speaking of etiquette, these “politically correct” constructions are, shall I say, quite cumbersome. I digress…)

(I might add that normally I would attribute the above quote to its proud, rightful author. But in favor of preserving his or her anonymity, I forgo that practice here.)

But wait! It gets better. An hour after catching wind of said taboo email, the astute professor of said music class sends the following stern rebuke to the class:

I always assume this is a no-brainer, but I guess I’ll have to spell it out for those of you who are guilty of this behavior.

It is not appropriate use of Blackboard to e-mail the entire class asking for notes because you missed class.

If you miss class, you are more than welcome to ask your friends who are in the class for some help. If you have no friends in the class, please make some. But do not e-mail the entire class asking for notes. It is inconsiderate and annoying to those who attend each day and are actually doing the work.

No, Blackboard will not substitute for your lack of friends.

And no, you may not use it to mooch notes off strangers because you chose not to come to class.

That’s my favorite thing favorite pet peeve about these freshman classes. They’re huge. And everybody and their dog emails everybody else (and their dogs) for notes. And frankly, hardly anyone ever responds to them.

Cuz it’s just that annoying.

For with God nothing shall be impossible
–Luke 1:37

(from Amazon.com)

But the ironic thing is that as long as we let ourselves be bound by such a system, we will constantly be laboring in the realm of “not enough.” We never have quite enough, or we never are quite enough. That can be an incredibly discouraging and crippling thing.

(from Wikipedia.org)

While none of us will ever quite be able to escape this world of measurement, one thing we certainly can do is create our own reality (or perception of reality, if you prefer). If 97% on a test doesn’t satisfy your parents, you can choose to get discouraged about it and draw those imaginary boundaries to that effect around your nine dots. But you can also decide that 97% is “quite good enough,” as Sister Hall put it, and be happy with it by refusing to confine your nine dots to someone else’s perception of success. While you may still be measured by other people, you have the ability to decide for yourself what kind of a reality you wish to have. Removing those unnecessary boundaries enables you to find greater satisfaction and happiness in your achievement at whatever level.

This comes, however, with a cost. Venturing outside the supposed boundaries makes you vulnerable to failure or ridicule if it turns out you were, after all, incorrect in your assumption. But the important thing to remember is that the greatest rewards come at the cost of the greatest sacrifices, and the more you work toward an end, the more valuable it will be to you after the struggles. Extraordinary people are willing to take those risks in order to (perhaps not without falling a few times first) reach higher levels of achievement than they had ever before imagined.

How you draw those boundaries around your nine dots is really only between you and the Lord, not anyone else if your life. While it may be (and often is) valuable to take advice from your loved ones, you are ultimately the one who must live with the reality you create. And you can choose to make that a happy and fulfilling reality or a confined and crippling one.

Sister Hall’s father gave her some excellent advice when she was struggling with an important life decision, simultaneously laboring under that realm of “not enough.” He said, “Why don’t you stop thinking about what you are not and start concentrating on what you are?” That loving counsel changed her life and made possible the career she now vigorously and successfully pursues.

Pursuing the art of possibility is a worthy, indeed, an essential endeavor if you wish to become an extraordinary person and achieve the levels of success you desire. Allowing others to circumscribe your nine dots only limits you. And while there are risks in casting off those artificial shackles, the rewards of success far outweigh the sacrifices.

Oh, the memories.

Below is one of these views from Google Maps here. This one if Q Hall seen from the north side. There’s also a view of the Morris Center, U Hall, and the Dirt Pile.

Maybe some time in the future they’ll redo the images and DT will disappear forever from the annals of history that are Google. But for now, it’s a nice bit of nostalgia.

• From Chrono Trigger, based on “Guardia’s Millenial Fair”:
  • “Blue Skies Over Guardia” The original one introduced to me. It’s in an unusual 7/4 meter. Very intriguing.
  • “Jethro and Vash at the Fair” Also in 7/4
  • “Millenial Fair 2001″ A techno version of the same theme
  • “Millenial Mountain (Delightful Disco Mix)”
• Other games:
  • Metroid Prime 2: Echoes “Torvus Clockwork”
  • Super Metroid “Heat Vision”

Below you can listen to “Blue Skies Over Guardia”:

The piece I enjoyed the most was titled “Gabriel’s Oboe,” a song written by Ennio Morricone for the film The Mission. The arrangement they performed featured Brenden McQuay on the tuba, playing a transcription of the oboe part. The song was beautifully arranged and featured well the lovely, full brass sound for which UPB is so well-known.

In researching the origin of the song after leaving the concert I discovered a vocal version entitled “Nella Fantasia“. It features a beautiful Italian text which conveys a longing for a world of peace and mutual understanding. The lyrics are so intriguing, both in the Italian and in the English transcription, that I find it fitting to reproduce it here in both languages:

Nella fantasia io vedo un mondo giusto,
Li tutti vivono in pace e in onestà.
Io sogno d’anime che sono sempre libere,
Come le nuvole che volano,
Pien’ d’umanità in fondo l’anima.

Nella fantasia io vedo un mondo chiaro,
Li anche la notte è meno oscura.
Io sogno d’anime che sono sempre libere,
Come le nuvole che volano,
Pien’ d’umanità.

Nella fantasia esiste un vento caldo,
Che soffia sulle città, come amico.
Io sogno d’anime che sono sempre libere,
Come le nuvole che volano,
Pien’ d’umanità in fondo l’anima.

In my fantasy I see a just world,
Where everyone lives in peace and in honesty.
I dream of spirits that are always free,
Like the clouds that fly,
Full of humanity in the depths of the spirit.

In my fantasy I see a bright world,
Where each night there is less darkness.
I dream of spirits that are always free,
Like the clouds that fly,
Full of humanity.

In my fantasy exists a warm wind,
That breathes into the city, like a friend.
I dream of spirits that are always free,
Like the clouds that fly,
Full of humanity in the depths of the spirit.

Below is a recording of Paul Potts singing Nella Fantasia:

Lean on My Ample Arm

Lean on my ample arm,
O thou depressed!
And I will bid the storm
Cease in thy breast.
Whate’er thy lot may be
On life’s complaining sea,
If thou wilt come to me,
Thou shalt have rest.

Lift up thy tearful eyes,
Sad heart, to me;
I am the sacrifice
Offered for thee.
In me thy pain shall cease,
In me is thy release,
In me thou shalt have peace
Eternally.

–Theodore E. Curtis

The storm in the breast, the depression, the difficulties of one’s lot on life’s complaining sea–all these can be soothed by the Savior’s rest as we come to Him in humility. After all, Christ is the One who could and did take upon Himself our sins and infirmities (see Alma 7:11-13).

In Christ we can have peace, both in the storms of this life and in the eternities.

Joel contends that Craig Newmark has, in effect, stolen classified advertising from the newspaper industry and made it something freely available to everyone. Advertising is the method newspapers use to fund professional journalism. But if people can advertise their stuff for free on the internet and reach a wide audience, they have no financial motivation to pay money to a newspaper to publish their ad in print. Instead, people are taking the money they would have spent on advertising and putting it to back into their businesses or their own wallets.

Professional journalism is something that keeps citizens informed and keeps governments transparent (or at least tries to). While it sounds like an appealing alternative to professional journalism, citizen journalism simply doesn’t work. Bloggers link to each other, tweeters retweet things they like. But amateurs simply don’t have the financial motivation that a professional has to do original research and report objectively. Citizen journalists simply aren’t doing justice to journalism. Their work is useful and relevant, but it just can’t replace professional journalism.

The net effect of Newmark’s decision not to charge for his service is that he’s taking all that advertising revenue out of the pockets of the newspapers and putting it back into the hands of the citizens or businesses, who do with it as they please. That means that a large sum of money is being taken away from an entity that performs a public service essential to a vibrant democracy and freedom of speech.

Newmark says he doesn’t know what he’d do with all that money. But Joel suggests that if Newmark doesn’t want the money, he should put it to use for some public good. After all, that’s where the money would have gone in the first place: the public good of investigative, professional journalism.

Let’s consider some of the practical implications of friendship.

What are the deepest desires underlying friendship? You want to love someone, and, in turn, be loved. You want someone you can trust and talk to. You want to help this other human being progress. Indeed, seeing the progress he makes as a result of the influence you have had on him is incredibly rewarding.

But friendship is give-and-take, so to speak. It can’t be one-sided. As such, it takes a lot of effort.

The other day I noticed a train of thought I experienced. It is much easier for me to overlook the faults and foibles of a friend than an enemy. While I may be quick to criticize an enemy (even if not verbally), I tend to be much more patient with my friends. And in such an important relationship, this usually tends to be a good thing. It leads to deep, abiding love despite imperfection. After all, my friends have to put up with a lot of my idiosyncrasies and mistakes. Why shouldn’t I be patient with theirs?

Friendship requires a deep level of trust, which (naturally) takes a long time to develop. Trusting someone could be a rather dangerous thing. Many examples in history illustrate this danger. For example, Julius Caesar is betrayed by his associate Marcus Brutus; Jesus is betrayed by Judas Iscariot, one of his twelve closest friends; Lehonti in the Book of Mormon is poisoned by Amalickiah, a man who had professed to have his best interest at heart.

I would trust my best friend with anything I have, from the dark secrets of my inner self to my passwords or bank card. That doesn’t necessarily mean that I have given him all those things, but the trust exists that I would be comfortable doing it, were it to be necessary. This places me in a very vulnerable situation. Should he betray me, I could lose everything. But the value and benefit of the friendship outweighs that risk.

That is, of course, a very objective way of looking at it. Rarely is emotion absent from analysis of important human relationships. When I’m with my friend, I’m not worried about whether he might betray me at some future time. We trust each other, and the emotion of love breaks down the obscuring walls of objectivity.

While there are great risks, there are great benefits to be had in a friendship. I see this as a manifestation of the age-old principle of the necessity of “opposition in all things,” as Book of Mormon writer Lehi phrases it, or as a relative of Newton’s Third Law that there can be no reaction without an instigating action.

Are we awarding Nobel Peace Prizes on credit now? As cited in this article, the committee awarding the prize had a two-fold motivation: to praise the change in focus Obama has had on the world’s political outlook and to point out some of his initiatives “that have yet to bear fruit.” This sounds like the vice that keeps crashing the stock market.

Obama had only been president for two weeks before the nomination deadline of 1 February this year.

Thorbjørn Jagland, chariman of the Norwegian Nobel Committee since 2009, is quoted here as saying this: “You have to remember that the world has been in a pretty dangerous phase. And anybody who can contribute to getting the world out of this situation deserves a Nobel Peace Prize.”

While America does stand at the forefront of these issues (and Obama ostensibly stands at the head of American foreign policy), there are many political figures in the world who can potentially “contribute to getting the world out of this situation.” Shall we start awarding multiple Peace Prizes for all those people, too?

At the same time, I have no intention of criticizing Obama. I think he’s doing the best he can, and he’s accomplished some laudable things in the short months he’s already been president.

I only wonder a bit about the Nobel Peace Prize committee…

In this part, I’ll address some of the spiritual aspects of friendship.

There are a few passages in the Bible that illustrate friendship. The example that most stands out to me is David and Jonathan in 1 and 2 Samuel. Other references to and maxims about friendship can be found in the Writings (e.g., Proverbs, Psalms).

This July, while I was in the Netherlands, I read several passages in Proverbs and composed a poem based on them. It expresses well the feelings I have toward my friends.

A Faithful Friend

Thy reproach, O friend, is faithful.
What have I to do with the flattery of mine enemies?
They are as naught to me.

The gifts thou hast given me
Endear thy soul to me
And arouse my deepest gratitude.

Though calamity rage and my brother be far,
Thou dost stand close; thou lendest thy strength
To succor me.

What is thy counsel but sweetness to me
That rejoiceth my heart
And sharpeneth my countenance?

Thy counsel, thy strength, thy gifts—
My heart doth soar in thanksgiving to my Maker
For His gift—a faithful friend.

Based on Proverbs 19:6; 27:6, 9, 10, and 17

The counsel, advice, even rebuke of my friends is always done in love. Because I feel that love and know that their intention is to help me become a better person, I accept it gladly. My friends have given me gifts of many types. Most often it was simply spending time with me or giving of themselves in some simple way to help me. They have stood by me in the good times and in the hard times.

Indeed, supportive friends have helped me become the person I am today. They have helped me develop spiritually in the way that was best for me. It has been especially rewarding to reunite with them after we’ve been separated for two years all over the world.

The simple (or simplistic) answer to these questions? Revelation and faith.

But what does that really mean in practice?

I had the idea today that the ability to accept simultaneously the will of the Lord and the trials I’m going through would be a great accomplishment of faith. It would require a recognition of the goals I have for myself and those which the Lord has for me. But at the same time, it requires patience in faith while enduring circumstances and trials that make it temporarily impossible for me to reach those goals.

For example (and this is a situation in which many at BYU find themselves), suppose you have an understanding that the Lord expects you to get married and raise a family. That is a worthy goal, which you have accepted for yourself. But at the same time you don’t seem to find anyone around you with whom you’d want to build a relationship that would eventually lead to such an end.

This is where the quandary of decision comes to play. You have to look very carefully at your life and try to determine which circumstances are caused by your own decisions and which are the result of a test the Lord wishes you to pass first. Can you not find anyone you’d like to date simply because you don’t go out and date, or is it because the Lord wants you to wait for something else in life, some new phase or some other change?

If you can come up with an answer to that, you’ve probably come quite close to your solution. But life’s problems so often elude such clear-cut explanation.

At this stage, you must learn to exercise faith in the Lord: faith that His promises will be fulfilled, as long as you prove faithful to His desires. And faith without works is dead (James 2:20). That means you’ve got to do something about it. You can’t sit still and expect something to happen.

A few passages of scripture may be beneficial. The first is one of my favorites:

For the mountains shall depart, and the hills be removed; but my kindness shall not depart from thee, neither shall the covenant of my peace be removed, saith the Lord that hath mercy on thee.
–Isaiah 54:10 (cf. 3 Nephi 22:10)

The Lord has no intention of forsaking us in all our trials. Indeed, He stands there ready to help us when we call on Him.

And I will wait upon the Lord, that hideth his face from the house of Jacob, and I will look for him.
–Isaiah 8:17

The term waiting on the Lord implies not idle, dormant waiting but active, trusting anticipation–faith that the Lord will fulfill His promises in His own time.

The well-known declaration of the Lord to Joseph Smith adequately summarizes this type of faith:

My son, peace be unto thy soul; thine adversity and thine afflictions shall be but a small moment;

And then, if thou endure it well, God shall exalt thee on high; thou shalt triumph over all thy foes.
–Doctrine and Covenants 121:708

The theme of her talk was “a return to virtue”–the idea that we as youth of this “marked generation” can make a difference in the world.

Mormon writes in the Book of Mormon about how the society of his day had become so degenerate that they had devalued one of humankind’s most valuable possessions: virtue (Moro. 9:9-10). Sister Dalton suggested that our world today has also descended to this degenerate level.

Who will make the difference? If it’s not us, it will be no one. It won’t be easy, but we can have the Lord’s promise, as the Brother of Jared had it: “I prepare you against these things” (Ether 2:25). In order to do that, we need to be virtuous ourselves. Sister Dalton used the example of running a marathon the wrong direction. Once you realize you’re going the wrong way, you want to turn around as quickly as possible. If you don’t, you’re losing valuable time and energy running on a course that, no matter how far you follow it, will never get you successfully to the finish line. The same applies to repentance in our lives. The sooner we turn around, the better off we will be. And continuing in sin will never lead us to the finish line we want to reach.

What are your thoughts? What is expected of us as Latter-day Saints, as the bearers of light to the world?

RT @gardenglen: for those who do not have the BYU v. Tulane game on … BYU 34 Tulane 3 end 3rd quarter #BYU #MWC

34-3?!? That was so astonishing I had to search it out. I clicked on the #BYU link, which opened a separate search panel in TweetDeck. This pulled up all the recent tweets containing that hashtag. Most of those had score or play updates.

So, what do I do with this new-found tenchnological fascination? Follow the football game by listening to what people say about it.

UPDATE: Just a few minutes ago, voler tweeted this:

#BYU Rally event page… http://bit.ly/BYURally. Within minutes 1,155 invited. Bring it, BYU!

A Facebook event was created for the rally at the airport tonight at 9:00 pm to welcome home the triumphant Cougars. And within minutes the word got around to over 1,000 people!

Information travels quickly with Twitter and Facebook, eh?

Chick-Fil-A Labor Day Giveaway: FAIL! – The humorous story of Dr. K’s adventures with a failed Chic-Fil-A Labor Day giveaway promotion.

I Spy – I have no idea if this is a true story or just fiction, but I found it a delightful and engaging read. (This one was on a friend’s “share” list in Google Reader–I would have never found it without that handy feature.)