Book Review: Brave New World

This is like the first book I've had time to get through all Summer. And to be honest it wasn't my favorite. I'd much rather recommend George Orwell's 1984 (seriously deserving of the title of a classic!) to people because it has the same concept but is much more well written in my opinion.

Brave New World is 'futuristic what could go wrong if technology and communism go crazy' type of deal. The 'Controllers' condition people to behave like infants and indulge in their pleasures constantly  and live in a state of stupidity so they don't know any better and will always be happy. Also because of the super controlling technology everyone never gets ugly or sick, they hardly have to work and do not understand almost anything. Tons of "everything is everyone's" and caste system and 'if we think for them they'll never know any better  extreme communist type stuff. That's just a little background on what it's like anyways. And generally it wasn't my favorite, but there was like, all of one paragraph that made me think, okay, this is a good message and that is the point this book is trying to get across. So good job Aldous Huxley on that one paragraph, but really the book would have been a better success as a short story. Here's the paragraph for you because it really does have a cool message.
When they are talking about why happiness is forced on the people of their modern civilization (and PS the 'savage' is a man who has been living outside of their civilization but moved to it):
"But I like the inconveniences" [savage]
"We don't," said the Controller. "We prefer to do things comfortably."
"But I don't want comfort. I want God, I want poetry, I want real danger, I want freedom, I want goodness. I want sin."
"In fact," said Mustapha Mond, "you're claiming the right to be unhappy."
"All right then," said the Savage defiantly, "I'm claiming the right to be unhappy."
"Not to ention the right to grow old and ugly and impotent; the right to have syphilis and cancer; the right to have too little to eat; the right to be lousy; the right to live in constant apprehension of what may happen tomorrow; the right to catch typhoid; the right to be tortured by unspeakable pains of every kind."
"I claim them all," said the Savage at last.


Anyways. I hope that made sense to some of you. Basically I think that's cool because really- it's the hardships and the thinking that make us who we are- that make life so great! If you don't have pain you never really learn to appreciate comfort...that kind of thing.

Anyways, that's was my long ramble about that book, hope you weren't totally bored. :)

Couer d'Alene, Idaho

Pictures of things I loved on this trip and a couple of my thoughts typed up in between them. Enjoy. And yes, I know it's a million pictures all at once.

Just before the trip- but it was such a cute picture I couldn't resist. My brother and his baby.

Also before the trip- got to see my sister before she moved to Chicago!

 This is the house we stayed at right on the lake. Found it on vrbo.com which I highly recommend if you are ever trying to rent any type of place to stay anywhere. It's a cool website. Anyways...firepit on the beach- which you only had to walk down like 80 steps (workout!) to get to, and a dock! Our neighbor let us borrow his boat also. And a fantastic view from any of the 3 decks.

 Flippers because, you know, I can't swim. Quin can but she still uses them as she freaks out over something...?

 Lovely.

 Hippy headband- all day every day! Especially because each day was a debate between should I shower or continue on with this wavy beachy dreadlock-esque hair of mine. The latter usually won.

 My cute family- I wanted to put a million pictures on, so to be convenient there are a lot of collages. And that face the baby's making- hilarious!

 Okay- so all up the Couer d'Alene river at the end of the lake are these houses (which are really on the shore of the WHOLE lake) but on the river especially it reminded me of a Venice-like town, just placed in the mountains of Idaho. here are some pictures of some really ritzy ones and one not so ritzy one.

 Sunsets.

  

 Fires on the beach and midnight swimming. Also. I finally got to make Smoreos! (smores on oreos)

 I would never get tired of sitting on that dock.

Love love LOVE wearing swimsuits and coverups all week.  And according to Forever 21 manikins it's okay to wear too-long shirts like this now. I liked the idea anyways.

 And from the little town of Harrison that we discovered. And I mean REALLY LITTLE! But still. They had a nice creamery and antique shop. That house in the middle- maybe I just like the color, but also I love the small old-looking houses in a small town. And what do they give their flowers to grow like that!?

The end.

Sunday thoughts

A little while ago my dad posed a question to me of why I go to church. My personal answer to this is that actually a lot of the time I have a hard time sitting through 3 hours of church each week. But every once and a while something is said that REALLY was said for me! Something that I needed to hear to improve myself or to be at peace or understand fully why certain things are happening. Well folks- today was one of those days. This girl who just moved into my ward from New York -where she was singing in the metropolitan opera- was part of a program of singing and talks between her and her sister. Let me tell you. It was amazing. Especially the music- so loud and powerful I can't even explain it. But the talk this girl gave- holy cow! Let me just tell you about it in my own words. And maybe you won't understand it exactly like I did, but I just need to record my thoughts.The reason Christ atoned for us is because he wanted to know exactly how we feel, everything we go through so that he will better be able to comfort us. But not only did he die for us, he also lived for us in order to show us the opportunities we have to make amends with ourselves and our mistakes. He is the perfect example of a life that will lead to happiness. She also said that for any question in life if the why is strong enough the how and what don't matter. So why did Christ do this for us? FOR US! Because he loves us so much! He was so perfect that he really could have gone up to heaven at any point- he was PERFECT people! But he didn't. He stayed at went through all that because for him, heaven wouldn't be heaven if we weren't there! Isn't that the coolest thing you've ever heard? 

She also talked about truth. How do we know what truth is? Truth is anything that brings us peace, love, and joy. If it's not giving you these three things, you can just get rid of it! 

The church is true. It gives us peace love and joy. So what else matters? 

My Child by David Bowman

Thank you Ginger Jackson for your testimony today in church. I was truly inspired. Just the way she spoke- she was so excited to share what she had to say. She was smiling and excited. Seriously excited to share the gospel. And the way she talked about heaven "Stars and mansions and fireworks and color!" It makes me excited and so grateful for what I have in this life. :)

So here's to being excited about the truth! Because it really is SO great!

Happy Sunday. :)

Just for laughs

These are the two youtube videos I've been laughing at nonstop/ quoting ALL WEEK! Pictures from the family vacation in Couer d'Alene coming soon....but for now- have a happy weekend and have a good laugh why don't ya?

Dora the Explorer movie trailer.

Spoof on Beauty and the Beast song- make it past the first 30 seconds and it's pretty dang funny.

To plant a garden

I went on a walk past my neighbor's garden that I spent a little bit of time in earlier this summer. It made me pretty happy to see it all colorful and blooming! (except for the squash that I found growing randomly in the flowers?) Anyways. It just feels good. Knowing you created something and it LIVED! It's colorful and happy. :) 

And those green ones? They're about to bloom too!!!!!

Remember China?

So I've been in a video mood. This is a compilation of memories from my trip to China last summer. I realized I did not take nearly as many videos as I should have while I was there. I kindof like videos maybe more than pictures sometimes?
The clips go like this: The hair salon employees dancing outside to get people's attention to come in: tandem bicycling around the city wall in Xian...not the great wall- just a wall...we never went to THE GREAT WALL- but it's fine: Tong dynasty show, watch the yellow guy! : on the 20 hour train ride some of the girls got bored- and drunk, and it was midnight and they just kept singing. It's all fine though, because that friend of ours you see there, he taught them how to sing happy birthday (really more like 'hippy birsday') to me when I turned 18. Long train ride though (some of the video is sideways- so sue me) : Just as at a street restaurant, the cook is making the noodles as they are ordered, out of flour and water and a little oil. nbd. : fried rice : Me and zoie got sick near the end of the trip...so jet lag + sick voice + slap happy....that's what happened. And the song about squatters....yeah, instead of toilets they have holes in the ground to squat over- not my favorite, especially not the public ones which do not, in fact, have walls. But this makes me laugh every time I watch it.

So anyways- just some memories from last year. This trip is what turned travel fever into international travel fever. But you know what? Here are two quotes for you!

So this is Summer

These lilies are in my garden! Beautiful? Yes.

Rainy summer storms, wearing my big red sweater with an alligator. If you don't know the significance of that...The Aquabats. But I love it. I'm kindof a sucker for red things. My camera, my laptop...:) Love it.

Why do onions have such beautiful flowers but smell so stinky? The world will never know.

This year my mom wanted to get rid of the mint leaf plant that grows like a weed but smells so yummy....but instead she put it in a pot to contain it. I want one of my own for college a little bit. I LOVE that mint stuff.

(chives and basil also got put in pots so as to not get out of control...it's a good idea.)

Going on a walk with Leah right after wisdom teeth are out. Laughing hurts. 

Lots of people don't like breakfast. I don't think I really would either if I stuck to breakfast foods. So instead I wake up each morning and have either a desert, or dinner food. It mixes things up. And is perfectly normal in my family. My sister made little cheesecakes in a muffin tin to make them the right size. Lion House recipe.

See? Isn't she cute as she cooks? 

Hiking hard core

 My and Le went on a hike the other day. Best/worst thing I could have done right before work. So this "easy"hike, well it turned out not to be easy. It turned out to be like 4 hours of hard core hiking and occasionally rock climbing. Steep stuff. And you see, we're kindof short, so it's hard to get up the "steps" of the trail.(but don't you love how some zooming and cropping makes me look THAT much taller next to her?)
The whole of the hike was spent complaining, sweating, trying to motivate ourselves by talking about Extreme weight loss TV shows, and talking about little snipits of life- mostly like "guess what I saw on pinterest the other day", "so at work yesterday", and "remember that one time when..."
But the waterfall at the end was certainly a victory. And then we had to rush back down, knees shaking, so I'd make it to work on time.

This face is pretty much how our knees felt on the way down.

 Love the gorgeous moss all up the side!

Cranes and families

Let's get a little personal here. I've been thinking about my grandma today. Mostly because in a couple of days- for the first time in a while, and probably the last time in a while, all of my family will be under the same roof. I mean my little family of siblings and parents. And then we're going to be quite spread out. And so I've been thinking about families. And so...
A year or so ago my Grandma passed away. She saw it coming. So before she left she went to each of her children's houses for a goodbye dinner. I'm not sure what went down at the other houses- but my lil' sister had been working for a long time on a paper crane project. The story has it that if someone is given 1,000 paper cranes, they get a wish. So for years she'd been working on these cranes for my dying Grandma. I'm sure most people in her situation would have liked to wish to get better. But when presented with that last crane and when asked what her wish was, she just wanted for her family to be strong. To be strong as a family, and to be strong in the church. That's it.

So that's what I've been thinking about. Being strong as a family. So as the boxes pile into trucks and miles are about to separate us for a while- here's to my own family staying strong and together and staying best friends. Because seriously- they ARE my best friends.

And just because I love videos...some recent memories with my family that I've loved. To some sentimental music...it was basically all I had.

Lots of awkward and some awesome

Awkward:

-Finding out that every night my dad cracks a glowstick and throws it out into the road to confuse people driving by. ...?

-Getting paid $5.25 in pennies by an angry customer for a sandwhich...put it was correct to the penny! I kindof felt like Derek Smeath from Confessions of a Shopoholic- you know, the annoying debt collector who eventually gets paid back in pennies.

-Speaking of work...people on the phones who don't understand directions. When I asked this girl if her address was east or west and she responded with "no...it's not like...an east or a west...it's like a number on a house." People. They make me laugh sometimes.

-A huge chunk of my city poweroutaged/blacked out. And I'm still going all conspiracy theory on it and thinking it's some top secret project of the government that caused it...or something like that.

-While watching my new favorite murder mystery TV shows- Lie to Me...I'm in this super intense part..and I hear this weird noise...so I turn around to look out the window to see none other than my little boy neighbor playing a kazoo and staring at me. For one- ??? and how long had he been there? For two- yes, I fell out of my chair in pure shock/fear. Scared the daylights out of me.

-And final awkward moment is a spider rant from a girl living in a basement...
I fear them. Who doesn't? But it's fine. I live with it. But the other day one got in my BED! So I got a little freaked out- and before killing it I may have given it a speech. Something along the lines of 'this is my one place of comfort and you are NOT allowed here!' because naturally it's okay if they are everywhere else- just not my bed. But then the second time I saw one on my bed- it got away. And I turned into a baby and maybe cried a little bit and refused to sleep in my bed until 2 spider bombs, and 2 different kinds of sprays in various places all over, a complete rearranging of the furniture just to check every inch, and a complete vacuuming. So anyways. Spiders. and I'm sure you didn't want to hear ALL that...but it's my blog, so get over it. :)

And some Awesome:

The fact that I can wear this and I'm pretty sure it's in style even though it's a total 80s way to wear a shirt.

This recipe which I made with my best friend the other day. Yeah...I made the picture extra big just to make you hungry. :)

These cute statues that I found outside a restaurant in Bountiful that I went out to eat at with my other best friend upon her return from AFRICA! We had to meet halfway while she was still in Utah. Man do I miss that girl!

But don't you just wish your local park had these fun statues in them? I do.

And summer Maxi skirts. What's not to love?