Magic letters

Over the past 2 or so years I've gotten some fantastic letters from some fantastic people. But here's a little something I never thought I would say: I think letters from sister missionaries are 10 million times better than letters from other missionaries. (No offense to my boys. They wrote some dang good letters.)

On Friday I got a letter from my dear friend Katie. She's eventually going to Hong Kong. (Yes, this is the Katie who inspired this post and the one I went October wakeboarding with.) The letter really wasn't anything that special. There were no crazy stories or experiences shared. But it was so wonderful to hear from her. She's been gone less than a month but I know it'll be weird going back to school and not having the opportunity to randomly run into her on campus. Somehow we always would and it made the days brighter.

I've gotten out of the habit of checking the mail ever since Jordan got home because his arrival meant the arrival of basically everyone else in the months soon after. There wasn't much chance of getting a letter in the last month or two before any of my friends came home. Checking the mail was one of very few constants I had from May 2010 to May 2012. It's interesting how things like that just become a part of you. In some ways I felt like a piece of me was lost when Jordan got home because suddenly there was no need to do the thing I had done for two whole years. And as John Green once wrote and Colin Singleton once said, "I don't think your missing pieces ever fit inside you again once they go missing." Usually I would agree, but in this case I think it has.

Getting that letter from Katie was exhilarating. I love doing semi-irresponsible things (longboarding, wakeboarding, climbing things, staying up until ridiculous o'clock w/ friends etc.) but there's a nifty kind of exhilaration that comes from opening a letter from a close friend. I didn't think I would ever really experience it again, even though I have a number of friends who are girls going off for 18 months, people I'll only communicate with through letters. This exhilaration does come in different forms, depending on who the letter is from, but it is always there in some way. Letter writing is a lost art and I'm so happy that I get to keep changing that.

T-minus 18 days until I return to Utah. Get excited, Utah friends.

Last YouTube video I watched: Rivers and Roads

The second last day of April

What to write about as this month winds down . . . Most days I have at least a little bit of an idea, but tonight my mind is pretty blank. I think today will be dedicated to some of my favorite quotes. The inimitable John Green once said, "Maybe our favorite quotations say more about us than about the stories and people we're quoting." How true this is. So as I share these five quotes and explain why I like them I'm sure you'll learn something about me.


"You are going to live a good and long life filled with great and terrible moments that you cannot even imagine yet." -John Green. This is from John's latest novel The Fault In Our Stars. It's always important to remember how wonderful life will be. You hear people say over and over again about different times that it will be the "greatest time of your life." I've heard this said about high school especially. I don't get why. I would sure hope that high school isn't the greatest time of someone's life. And though of all the terrible moments that will happen to in the rest of life, I'm pretty sure the great ones will be more prominent.


"We can have in life but one great experience at best, and the secret of life is to reproduce that experience as often as possible." -Oscar Wilde. I remember reading this quote maybe a year or so ago. It's stuck with me ever since. I don't necessarily think it's only one great experience in life but there are definitely some moments that define life, moments that truly change us and put us on a different course of action. Sometimes I wonder whether I've had my one great experience, and occasionally I think I have.


"Comedy is simply a funny way of being serious." -Peter Ustinov. I'm not sure who this Peter character is but he's spot on. Humor and comedy are marvelous. I like to think I'm a funny person and along with my whole "happiness is a choice" mantra comes the mechanism of laughing instead of whatever the alternative is, whether that be crying or frowning or being sad in general. I'm not the kind of person who laughs while the situations are going on, like if you tell me your dog died I'm not going to laugh, but I'd much rather deal with problems in a humorous manner than in a strictly serious one.

"What is that expression in your eyes? It seems to me more than all the words I have read in my life." -Walt Whitman. I am quite fond of Whitman, I've realized. Even before I read the book Paper Towns, which is full of Whitman metaphors and analogies and whatnot, I loved this quote. Sometimes you just look at a friend, or even just a random person, and it speaks so loudly about who they are. There can be so much said about simple looks that really cannot be explained, at least not fully, by words.

And this last one is not a quote but rather a word coined by the magnificent CS Lewis. And that words is sehnsucht. It means "the inconsolable longing in the human heart for we know not what;" a yearning for a far, familiar, non-earthly land one can identify as one's home. The foremost scholar on Lewis came to one of my classes this semester and he made the following point: Tolkien said “good literature should awaken a longing for place.” Stories bring up a longing within us, and that longing was often for heaven, Lewis thought. He believed if you feel lonely it makes you a relational being. If you’ve ever felt lonely in a room full of other people, it shows you were made for a relationship no mere human relationship can satisfy. Basically, CS Lewis is the man.

So there you have it. Some quotes I find are awesome. Now go enjoy your lovely Sunday. Or whatever day you happen to be reading this on. 

Last YouTube video I watched: Kids On The Run (Tallest Man On Earth)

One down, two to go

About an hour ago I finished my first exam. I got a 90% so that's pretty great. At this point I'm just eating some angel hair pasta. I hope you guys like when I tell you about all the things I eat in a day. It's a habit I've picked up from HayleyGHoover.

Another great thing about getting a 90% of an exam is knowing that only two others stand in my way before going home for the summer. By this time next week I'll be at least in the Midwest so I'm really excited about that fact. Perhaps the best part about going home is stopping in Iowa to see my best friend Kate. This will be the first time seeing her since early January. It's going to be AWESOME.

So in an effort to blog about something more substantial than what I eat and my plans for driving home to Wisconsin, the rest of this post will be comprised of a few of my favorite quotes:

What is that expression in your eyes? It seems to me more than all the words I have read in my life. -Walt Whitman

Comedy is simply a funny way of being serious. -Peter Ustinov

There is more to life than increasing its speed. -Dieter F. Uchtdorf

I hope you enjoyed those.

Last YouTube video I watched: Firebolt