Conference Weekend

This spring I am excited, as usual, about LDS General Conference, which is today and tomorrow. Unfortunately, I am also extremely tired and I have an abundance of homework to keep me busy before, after, and between sessions. I am tired mainly because I stayed up until after 2:30 am watching black and white movies, eating black and white junk food, and wearing black and white clothes with my friends. We had a black and white party, as you may have guessed. We had outfits ranging from sweats to suit and tie (three of the guys in the house looked really sharp). Anywho, after Casablanca, Psycho, and Bringing up Baby, we finally decided we really were going to bed. I hope that a lot of us can go on to be housemates in the Poulson Honors House next year--we had better at least stay in touch! Although, I admit that isn't my strong point (as you all are bound to be aware of). So, I am tired and amazed that I actually got up with my alarm this morning and now I'm just wondering if I'll manage to stay awake until Mom gets here to take me home aroung 9:00--let alone staying awake through both sessions of Conference today. I'd better, though! I need General Conference to revamp and mentally prepare for the upcoming month (my second year at the U is nearly over!).

HAPPY SPRING BREAK

Spring has come, so I've been spending more of my time outdoors. As I strolled around Officers Circle, I couldn't help but think how beautiful it is here at Fort Douglas. I continually give thanks to my parents for giving me the opportunity to live here. I love the original fort buildings, the academic atmosphere, the mountains so close by, the small community feel only a twenty-minute Trax ride from downtown Salt Lake City. Right now, I love sitting on the rocking chair on my house's front porch. I love holding class on the temporary bleachers in Stillwell Field. I love the scent of damp, sun-drenched cement left after the sidewalk has been cleaned of salt. The University of Utah has its positive aspects and its not-so-positive aspects, and Fort Douglas is one of the best of the positive aspects here.

Still, it's nice to go home for a break and I am especially in need of a break right now. Yay! Spring Break has begun! (Well, for me anyway.)

I just watched The New World (finally) and I have to say that it's an excellent movie. I was a bit apprehensive, thinking that it would either be really good or intolerable. After seeing it, I have to say that I love everything about it from the music and sounds, to the acting, to the layers of meaning in every scene. It is unlike anything else I have ever seen.

Another movie I watched this week was The Day of the Triffids. This is a 1960s sci-fi film that could safely be classified as one of the worst movies ever made--and it was absolutely hilarious to watch. I went with some friends to see a screening of it at the SLC library Tuesday night. After the film was a lecture given by a botanist from USU, who gave a lecture about actual carnivorous plants as opposed to the ones found in the movie. To give you an idea of the ridiculousness of this movie, allow me to briefly summarize the plot: An unprecedented meteor shower entrances the 99 percent of the earth's population who watch it, and also blinds them (apparently burning their optic nerves). That same meteor shower "awakens" a plant which came from space a while earlier, called a triffid. This plant grows from one to eight feet tall in seconds, uproots itself, chases people down (attracted by sounds, as our hero discovers), and eats them. Oh, and it has soon spread all over the earth. The brilliant, alcoholic marine biologist who has been trapped with his wife in a lighthouse surrounded by killer triffids discovers that sea water dissolves these plants and saves the day (nevermind that all of the major cities are burning down because of blunders made by the newly blind and nearly all hope for civilized life has ceased). As I said, absolutely awful and absolutely hilarious.

Some movies, like The New World, possess the ability not just to entertain but to expand minds--to provoke thought. Others, like The Day of the Triffids, only amuse. Just an example of how versatile art and technology are.

I'm trying to fight off anxiety, illness, and general doldrums as I look forward to spring. Spring, though it comes with the culminating project of my think tank, the Pace of Life Fair (ack! so much to do!), finals, and several important papers to write, also comes with better weather (we can hope), birdsong, better health (dependent upon the aforementioned weather), and a general feeling of rebirth and renewal. I love spring and I can't wait for it to truly arrive! I keep getting tantalizing hints of it, interspersed with ice, snow flurries, and even a blizzard.

Emily Dickinson well expresses the feel of spring:

A light exists in spring
Not present on the year
At any other period.
When March is scarcely here

A color stands abroad
On solitary hills
That science cannot overtake,
But human nature feels.

It waits upon the lawn;
It shows the furthest tree
Upon the furthest slope we know;
It almost speaks to me.

Then, as horizons step,
Or noons report away,
Without the formula of sound,
It passes, and we stay:

A quality of loss
Affecting our content,
As trade had suddenly encroached
Upon a sacrament.