Meaningful Prayer

Prayer is a beautiful form of communication. It's a way for me, as a daughter of God, to speak to my Father in Heaven.

The other week in Relief Society, we were studying a lesson entitled "Pray Always." I loved when we were discussing how to make our prayers more meaningful. The lesson mentioned five ways:

1. We should pray frequently.
2. We should find an appropriate place where we can meditate and pray.
3. We should prepare ourselves for prayer.
4. Our prayers should be meaningful and pertinent.
5. After making a request through prayer, we have a responsibility to assist in its being granted.

In addition to the listen, Elder J. Devn Cornish mentioned, "An essential and sometimes forgotten part of personal prayer is repentance. For repentance to work, it must be specific, profound, and lasting" ("The Privilege of Prayer").

Elder David A. Bednar also listed principles that help prayers become more meaningful ("Pray Always"):

1. Prayer becomes more meaningful as we counsel with the Lord in all our doings.
2. Prayer becomes more meaningful as we express heartfelt gratitude.
3. Prayer becomes more meaningful as we pray for others with real intent and a sincere heart.

There are times when we regularly pray: mealtimes, morning, night. But there are times when prayer is frequent: times of illness, times of stress, times of worry, times of fear, etc. There are other times we should be praying: times of gratitude, times of happiness, times of joy, times of excitement, etc. It's important to always keep a prayer in your heart.

What does "keep a prayer in your heart" mean? Personally, I think one meaning is to keep the channels of communication open with our Father in Heaven. To keep your Father in mind as you go through each day.

I loved what someone mentioned in the Relief Society lesson: the best way for prayers to becoming meaningful and not repetitive or vain is to actually share your emotions.

We frequently say prayers saying, "I'm grateful for this. I'm grateful for that. I'm grateful for this too. Please, bless us this. Please bless us with that." But since the lesson, I've been thinking of how I can better express to my Father in Heaven what I'm feeling. Perhaps along with mentioning gratitude, I can say how else things have made me feel. Like, I'm grateful for our meals and how wonderful it is to be able to eat filling meals as a family. Then when asking for blessings, I can say please bless us with a good night's sleep because we are stressed and would like a reprieve from waking up for our baby boy.

During the lesson, there was one more comment made that changed how I thought of prayer. She was from South Korea and was wondering why in English we pray addressing God with "Thee, Thou, Thine, Thy." It sounds much more formal. She wondered, Why do we talk to our Father in Heaven more formally? Why don't we just use 'you and your'? In her language and others there is an informal more intimate way of addressing individuals close to you. But not in English. It triggered something I've learned before in my English classes. In older English we used to have a such a form.

These were the English pronouns during the standardizing of the King James Bible and Shakespeares' time.

This is why we have prayer language as we speak to our Father in Heaven. As Elder Dallin H. Oaks said:

The special language of prayer follows different forms in different languages, but the principle is always the same. We should address prayers to our Heavenly Father in words which speakers of that language associate with love and respect and reverence and closeness. The application of this principle will, of course, vary according to the nature of a particular language, including the forms that were used when the scriptures were translated into that language. Some languages have intimate or familiar pronouns and verbs used only in addressing family and very close friends. Other languages have honorific forms of address that signify great respect, such as words used only when speaking to a king or other person of high rank. Both of these kinds of special words are appropriately used in offering prayers in other languages because they communicate the desired feelings of love, respect, reverence, or closeness.

Modern English has no special verbs or pronouns that are intimate, familiar, or honorific. When we address prayers to our Heavenly Father in English, our only available alternatives are the common words of speech like you and your or the dignified but uncommon words like thee, thou, and thy which were used in the King James Version of the Bible almost five hundred years ago. Latter-day Saints, of course, prefer the latter. In our prayers we use language that is dignified and different, even archaic. ("The Language of Prayer")

The words thou, thee, thy, and thine were once the more intimate form, but in today's age it has also come to show great respect to people as well. Prayers will become more meaningful as we use a language of prayer and follow the principles mentioned to make our prayers more meaningful

Notice how the entire 2nd person singular row has been replace with the plural version. Along with the 2nd person plural subjective.

Two Lessons for a Writer

My Creative Writing professor gave two parting lessons to those who wish to become published writers.

Write for an hour each day. Thinking about writing isn't writing. Talking about writing isn't writing. Only writing is writing. Schedule a time everyday were you simply write. Block out all distractions. Find a secluded spot and drop your phone in a potted plant on your way there (you can pick it up on the way back). It's best if you go to a spot where it's impossible to have internet access. If your spot does have internet access, turn it off. Be protective of your writing time. Let no one and nothing interfere. Schedule the time. Be protective of it. Be religious about it.

Give yourself permission to write bad. When you have an hour of time sitting in front of your computer, you have to allow yourself to write horribly. Elsewise nothing would be written. You'd think of something to write but you wouldn't write it because it isn't great. You don't like it. But you have to allow yourself to actually write it down. At the end of the hour you may have an hour's worth of junk. You hit the "Control" and "A" keys on your keyboard and then press delete. It just means you'll write better tomorrow. Nothing is perfect the first time. The second time. The third. Give yourself permission to write horrid. You just need to write.

Poetry Meters

I've always had a difficult time with poetry. Not only because I didn't understand what it was supposed to mean and represent, but because I didn't know how to figure out the feet and meters even though I've been taught over and over again. However, I finally got it this past semester.

Trochee    / ˘     as in "ugly"
Iamb         ˘ /     as in "because"
Anapest    ˘ ˘ /   as in "intervene"
Dactyl      / ˘ ˘    as in "butterfly"
Spondee  / /      as in "fast paced"
Pyrrhus   ˘ ˘      as in "at the"

Each of those are a foot. Think of / as the sound DUM and ˘ as the sound da.

Point of View

When analyzing a work of literature, or trying to figure out your own story, it's helpful to ask yourself four questions:

1. Who Speaks?
2. To Whom?
3. In What Form?
4. At What Distance?

Characterization

Characterization is the formation and presentation of a character.

There are two ways an author presents a character: directly or indirectly.

Four methods used for Direct Characterization:

1. Action
2. Appearance
3. Thought
4. Dialogue

Six Word Stories

There's a lot in stories that don't need to be written. An author's most used key is the deletion button.

Writing books is a great goal, but begin perfecting yourself with short stories. Ernest Hemingway's colleagues bet he couldn't write a short story in just six words. He came back the next day with:

For sale: baby shoes, never used.

They paid up. Write your stories and condense everything to it's purest, strongest form. Imagine the process of creating perfume. It takes time to discover just the right combination of concentrated oils. You want to perfect your concentration skills before continuing. If the concentration is not perfected, then nothing you do will make it any better. Practice writing short stories. It's hard to write a good one.

Fictional Time

As a writer you control time.

Time.

You control it.

There are four types of fictional time:

1. Scene
2. Summary
3. Flashback
4. Slow Motion

Ten Rules of Good Writing

Brother Josh Allen is my Creative Writing teacher during my Winter semester at BYU-Idaho. I've learned a lot from him that I want to share with those that  have hopes and aspirations to be a writer. He made a list of Ten Rules he believes will make a story much better. If you have all ten of them, you are definitely on the right track.

1. Good writing is about desire. A character is someone who wants. Only people who want are interesting. People who want nothing mean nothing.
2. Good writing is about trouble. Perfect lives are boring and so are perfect people. The only interesting events that ever come to humanity do so because of trouble and human flaw. Therefore, good literature makes use of antagonists.
3. Good writing is carefully structured. Our work should generally adhere to some version of Conflict → Climax → Resolution.
4. Good writing earns its climaxes. Our stories and poems must "reap what they sow." They must build to a climax, avoid the dreaded dues ex machina, and bestow grace or punishment upon our characters only when doing so is warranted.
5. Good writing doesn't happen to characters – it happens because of characters. Good writing is about transformation, so we should avoid the stagnant. We must end our works either 1) in a new emotional place or 2) in the same emotional place but with greater emotional intensity.
6. Good writing "belongs" to somebody. Our works should be about a specific character and that character's struggles. Everything we include should relate perfectly to that character's development.
7. Good writing presents at least one round character. Preferably, characters will not be revealed through summary but through their speech, appearances, names, gestures, actions, and reactions to others. To make a character round, we can set one of these characteristics against the others.
8. Good writing presents at least one dynamic character. Good writing is about transformation, so we should avoid the stagnant. Also, interesting characters learn. They move from Point A to Point B.
9. Good writing communicates emotion through concerete images, not abstractions. "There are no ideas but in things," said William Carlos Williams. Communicate through the 5 senses that humans used to explore and learn about their world when they were only babies. 
10. Good writing avoids clichés. Cliches are unoriginal and emotionless. Don't use them.

These are basic rules for the beginning writer. When you become better, you can tweak these rules. You could use a cliché just to make fun of it. You could do a lot of things that aren't mentioned in here. But these are good guidelines to get off the ground with.

Uses these rules a basis for critiquing your own and other's work. I've found them to be extremely helpful in my own.

Note: Other posts where I've talk about things I've learned in relation to writing this semester are Two Poems of Mine and Mosiah 11, Alma 30, and Alma 42.

Alma 30

My Creative Writing teacher, Josh Allen, was teaching us that as writers we need to use more than one sense to describe something. "The moist-earth colored brownie tasted like the desert sand." This covers sight and taste, two of our senses. However, this description only works if the reader has seen the color of moist earth and if they have tasted sand or something simular.

In Alma 30, Korihor is leading the people away by his words using arguments that still face us today. One such example is that he says, "How do ye know of their surety? Behold, ye cannot know of the things which ye do not see; therefore ye cannot know that there shall be a Christ" (15). Korihor's saying you can't prove what you know, thus it must not be true. It's an argument that faces us all the time.

Two Poems of Mine

I'm taking a creative writing class this semester. Currently, we are covering poetry. I've recently discovered I actually enjoy poetry (some of them). Once, I tried my hand at poetry in high school and decided never again. Yet we keep covering it in all my English classes for some reason. This particular professor gave us some of the reasons why we often do not have a positive experience with poetry and thus avoid the following:

The 7 Deadly Sins of Poetry

1. The Impenetrable Haze Poem - the work as a whole does not suggest a theme that any two people can agree on.
2. Truth-in-a-nutshell - poem tries to define truth, beauty, love or evil in the abstract, it is apt to sound like a little essay in short lines.
3. Oh-Poor-Miserable-Me! - based on unrelenting self pity. Belongs in a psychiatrist's office, not writing class.
4. The Marching Band Poem - heavy-handed rhythms and rhymes drown out subtleties of sophisticated poetry.
5. Hark, The Antique Language! - you are writing for the 21st century.
6. The Wailing-Violin Poem - the reader's emotions are manipulated to evoke tears. The poem is no longer sincere.
7. The Collective-Group Poem - we all resent being included in sweeping generalizations about all women, all men, all students, all Americans, all parents, or all anything.

As an assignment, I was to actually write some poetry. Here are two of my sincere attempts. Ironically, they are both based a little bit on my youngest brother. Tell me what you think!

HTML and CSS

HTML

I’m back to my Interact with Web Standards: A Holistic Approach to Web Design reading, and it’s getting a bit more complicated. Chapter 10 introduces HTML. Thus, HTML “consists of content – the words, references that pull in images to be displayed, and other data found on a web page – wrapped in special syntax markers that indicate what the difference pieces of context are (paragraphs, lists, images, etc).” There are some important types of HTML available:

   
1. Emphasizing pieces of text: some elements are for emphasizing pieces of text within the paragraphs, such as quotes, cited quote sources, strong/important text, code excerpts, deleted or inserted text, etc.
   
2. Numbered lists: HTML elements make this list possible and is one of the more important types to know as it is frequently used.
   
3. Forms: this element allows website visitors to enter information into the page.
   
4. Images: this element I particularly like as it means that that images can be inserted into a web page. I love looking at pictures of places and people and things.
   
5. Linking documents: these are elements that allow the linking of one document to another, even other people’s.

CSS

Chapter 11 is introducing CSS. CSS stands for Cascading Style Sheets. CSS2 became a recommendation in 1998; CSS 2.1 was agreed upon in 2001. Yet, CSS3 was started in 1998 and is still being worked upon. Some important concepts of the chapter are as follows:

   
1. Inheritance: is the mechanism by which certain properties are passed from a parent element on to its children. If it didn’t exist, you’d have to specify every property for every HTML element, every time you wrote a web page.
   
2. The cascade: it’s the mechanism that controls the end result when multiple conflicting and overlapping CSS declarations apply to the same element. It has three main concepts: importance, specificity, and source order.
   
3. Importance: the importance of a CSS declaration depends on where it is specified. The later orders override earlier ones.
   
4. Specificity: it’s a measure of how specific a rule’s selector is. A selector with a low specificity may match many elements, while a selector with a high specificity might only match a single element on the page.
   
5. Source order: if two declarations affect the same element and have the same importance and the same specificity, this is the final distinguishing mark. The declarations that appears later in the style sheet will win.

Poetry

I used to have a strong dislike for poetry. Really. The only ones I rather enjoyed were Robert Frost's; and that's only because of how famous they were and the fact I had read them before learning about them in school.

Last year, however, I discovered that I could actually learn to love poetry, beginning with having a tolerance for it. For my Young Adult Literature class I'm required to find a poem or an excerpt of a play or some such, and I remembered last year and my newfound tolerance for poetry because of a poet I couldn't remember the name of.

Thus, digging through my journals of the pervious year in the approximate time frame I learned about him in class, I found him! His name is Billy Collins; someday, I'll purchase a book of his poems for myself.

His poems are rather clever and simple and easy to understand as well as amusing. I'd like to think that I can actually identify with them versus so many other poems that I just can't comprehend at first, second or third glance. 

Here are some of his poems that I am particularly partial to:

Introduction To Poetry

I ask them to take a poem

and hold it up to the light 

like a color slide

or press an ear against its hive.

I say drop a mouse into a poem

and watch him probe his way out,

or walk inside the poem's room

and feel the walls for a light switch.

I want them to waterski

across the surface of a poem

waving at the author's name on the shore.

But all they want to do

is tie the poem to a chair with rope

and torture a confession out of it.

They begin beating it with a hose

to find out what it really means. 

Japan

Today I pass the time reading

a favorite haiku,

saying the few words over and over.

It feels like eating

the same small, perfect grape

again and again.

I walk through the house reciting it

and leave its letters falling

through the air of every room.

I stand by the big silence of the piano and say it.

I say it in front of a painting of the sea.

I tap out its rhythm on an empty shelf.

I listen to myself saying it,

then I say it without listening,

then I hear it without saying it.

And when the dog looks up at me,

I kneel down on the floor

and whisper it into each of his long white ears.

It's the one about the one-ton temple bell

with the moth sleeping on its surface,

and every time I say it, I feel the excruciating

pressure of the moth

on the surface of the iron bell.

When I say it at the window,

the bell is the world

and I am the moth resting there.

When I say it at the mirror,

I am the heavy bell

and the moth is life with its papery wings.

And later, when I say it to you in the dark,

you are the bell,

and I am the tongue of the bell, ringing you,

and the moth has flown

from its line

and moves like a hinge in the air above our bed.

Thesaurus

It could be the name of a prehistoric beast

that roamed the Paleozoic earth, rising up

on its hind legs to show off its large vocabulary,

or some lover in a myth who is metamorphosed into a book.

It means treasury, but it is just a place

where words congregate with their relatives,

a big park where hundreds of family reunions

are always being held,

house, home, abode, dwelling, lodgings, and digs,

all sharing the same picnic basket and thermos;

hairy, hirsute, woolly, furry, fleecy, and shaggy

all running a sack race or throwing horseshoes,

inert, static, motionless, fixed and immobile

standing and kneeling in rows for a group photograph.

Here father is next to sire and brother close

to sibling, separated only by fine shades of meaning.

And every group has its odd cousin, the one

who traveled the farthest to be here:

astereognosis, polydipsia, or some eleven

syllable, unpronounceable substitute for the word tool.

Even their own relatives have to squint at their name tags.

I can see my own copy up on a high shelf.

I rarely open it, because I know there is no

such thing as a synonym and because I get nervous

around people who always assemble with their own kind,

forming clubs and nailing signs to closed front doors

while others huddle alone in the dark streets.

I would rather see words out on their own, away

from their families and the warehouse of Roget,

wandering the world where they sometimes fall

in love with a completely different word.

Surely, you have seen pairs of them standing forever

next to each other on the same line inside a poem,

a small chapel where weddings like these,

between perfect strangers, can take place. 

Reading an Anthology of Chinese Poems of the Sung Dynasty, I Pause To Admire the Length and Clarity of Their Titles

It seems these poets have nothing

up their ample sleeves

they turn over so many cards so early,

telling us before the first line

whether it is wet or dry,

night or day, the season the man is standing in,

even how much he has had to drink.

Maybe it is autumn and he is looking at a sparrow.

Maybe it is snowing on a town with a beautiful name.

"Viewing Peonies at the Temple of Good Fortune

on a Cloudy Afternoon" is one of Sun Tung Po's.

"Dipping Water from the River and Simmering Tea"

is another one, or just

"On a Boat, Awake at Night."

And Lu Yu takes the simple rice cake with

"In a Boat on a Summer Evening

I Heard the Cry of a Waterbird.

It Was Very Sad and Seemed To Be Saying

My Woman Is Cruel—Moved, I Wrote This Poem."

There is no iron turnstile to push against here

as with headings like "Vortex on a String,"

"The Horn of Neurosis," or whatever.

No confusingly inscribed welcome mat to puzzle over.

Instead, "I Walk Out on a Summer Morning

to the Sound of Birds and a Waterfall"

is a beaded curtain brushing over my shoulders.

And "Ten Days of Spring Rain Have Kept Me Indoors"

is a servant who shows me into the room

where a poet with a thin beard

is sitting on a mat with a jug of wine

whispering something about clouds and cold wind,

about sickness and the loss of friends.

How easy he has made it for me to enter here,

to sit down in a corner,

cross my legs like his, and listen.

Information Architecture and 'The Details That Matter'

Information Architecture

Well, here is another entry for my Web Design and Development class. Again, it is really interesting, I just wish sometimes that I had a more creative mind in making it apply to my goals in life. The textbook I have is called Interact with Web Standards: A Holistic Approach to Web Design. It’s a great textbook. Especially for such as me who does not understand most of the very basic principles. The chapters I’ve read this time were titled “Content Analysis” and “Content Strategy”. Both really great chapters. Here are 5 concepts that I think are important to recall:

   
1. Focus on the users: I would think that this is a no brainer. Don’t assume you know what the user wants. Conduct user interviews and surveys so you know exactly what they want.
   
2. Interviews and surveys: When asking questions include asking what they think (current perception), what’s their experience (history), how much they know (knowledge level), what they want (goals), what they do (tasks), what they like best/least (satisfaction level), how would they rank features (priorities), what they would suggest (opportunities for improvement).
   
3. Web analytics: You are not actually observing people and their behaviors. You are sifting through the tracks they left behind. Web statistics show you what happened, but they do not tell you why it happened.
   
4. Content strategy statement: it’s a guideline for anyone who will be creating or editing content for the site. Content for whom and why? What content? What style? Finable content? This is what needs to be considered.
   
5. Good content doesn’t just happen: Good content is the core of a good site. Don’t wait until the end of the project to discover that the quality needed is no where to be found.

“The Details That Matter”

As part of my assignment I am to read an article from AListApart.com. It’s a really interesting site. I found and article entitled “The Details That Matter” by Kevin Potts. He begins by telling us how the graphic arts industry used to be; with it’s professionals in each field. Since then there has been a “the lower cost of entry and increasing commoditization of design” which requires all in the field to have an eye for detail to succeed, elsewise they will fail. Potts says:

Only the luckiest website builders actually build websites all day. Most of us are also part-time proofers, project managers, usability experts, design critics, navigational architects, therapists for copywriters, and general go-to experts on all thing interweb. We are responsible for not only testing in different browsers, but for knowing which browsers our audience will use, and why. We have to sit in on conference calls and listen to people criticize our work and ask the same question nine times. We are responsible for checking the consistency of link treatment. Button design. Form functionality. Whether little decorative flourish A matches little decorative flourish B. We have to pay attention to a lot of stuff, and a lot of it falls well outside the sphere of design.

It’s important to recognize that a Web Designer is no just a Web Designer, he or she must have other skills in order to succeed. But the one skill to have would be an eye for detail, because if you do not have it and you miss something “it often leads to Old Testament, end-of-the-world stuff”. Every detail needs to be thought through: top to bottom, inside and out, Potts tells us. Else you may develop a bad reputation and it becomes rather hard to raise above it. But the thing to keep in mind is “creative professionals who can see all angles of a project are the ones who ultimately succeed in the industry.” I think any profession should require an eye for detail, but if it does not, and you pay attention to the details anyways, it’ll surely lead you to success with a great reputation.

Information Architecture and Internships

Information Architecture

My web design and development class requires us to write 5 important concepts about information architecture. However, I (as I am sure many of you) had no idea what information architecture was. Luckily for me the chapter actually defines it (a total surprise, of course). What an information architect does is analyze, organize and label information on websites so regular people can actually find what they are looking for. I suppose this means that information architects are not regular people... :D

   
1. Information architect responsibilities: develops documentation on the primary audience goals, persona(s) or fictional character representing the audience, current content inventory, competitive analysis, content strategy statement, content outline, content gap analysis, site diagram, page description diagrams and wireframes. They are very much involved with the website planning process.
   
2. Defining the project: requires an interview of the client, a project brief based on the information given by the client, document technical specifications for what they wish to have on the site, develop a maintenance plan of how often the site will be updated and reviewed, and create timelines for when each phase of the project will be done.
   
3. Interviewing the client: there should be a list of questions written out to gain information from the client. Preferably, try to give the client the list before the interview, thus the client will know the answers or have pondered on them, and so you can begin work. Do not give them the answers.
   
4. Project brief: simplifying all the information given in the interview into a one-page project brief. It’s to confirm that you understood what the client said they wanted/needed and you’ll use it to share the big picture with those working on the project.
   
5. Maintenance plan: the content must be kept complete, current and accurate. It’s important to clarify how the site will be maintained and who will be responsible for it.

These are all ideas that go great with web designing, but with that not being my particular goal in life, I see it as also a way to help with any company or business. These steps would help make any company successful with their costumers, and you could make it individualized: making sure the information is organized, making sure the project (any project) is defined, if there is a client make sure the you know what the client wants and then putting it into one page so all those involved can easily access it and know the big pictures. Finally, making sure everything is maintained; how often and who maintains it.

Internship

The Web Design and Development majors all have to have an internship. I do not believe with my English-Creative Writing major that an internship is required. However, during the in class discussion on this topic, I thought to how this could benefit me as well. It gives relevant work experience in your field of study. It offers a possibility of a full-time job opportunity and helps you discover what you do or don’t like. You also can rub shoulders with those who are experts in that area. Beginnings of a great networking if you work it right. I love how networking is basically an I-know-someone-who-knows-someone and it can get you a job. Also, an internship. Networking can cause you to end up where you want to be, but it’s amazing at how many connections you have, but you have to become aware of them and strengthen those connections. It’s recommended to make contact at least 3 to 6 months perviously. Our guest speaker said:

The internship should be done on the off-track semester, about your Junior Year. Begin to network by creating a list of people you know who may know someone. You are responsible to finding the place to intern at. Research some companies and industries you are interested in, one relevant to your major or minor. It’s recommended that you go to a paying internship rather than volunteer. Have it approved by the school before you accept.

It’s very possible to do multiple internships, but I’ll only receive credit for one. Though with me not having to even have an internship I do not know if I’ll gain any credit. But I think that this would be a great idea for me to do. It’d look great on any resume and give me great experience in the field of my choice, making it easier for me to get into that same field.

Web Business

I have a class called Web Design and Development. It's an introductory course for those who wish to become Web Designers or Web Developers, or even both.

The class actually has no influence on my major or my minor, and I took it only because I wished to know more about Web Design. Someday I'd like to create a website for myself. The only problem is I currently have no specific purpose for it. So I'm taking the class to gain ideas and information, and then pass it along to my genius brother who is majoring in computer science.

He's a fella who can create a website. I'd like to think that I'm the person who can help design and come up with ideas. Though, it would be more of a blending of ideas because, well, he's a genius.

Last Friday in class, we had a guest speaker. His name is Kent Lundin. He teaches Web Business 250.

Web Business 250 is a class with no prerequisites. It's a class where you make and build an online business for the semester. Weither you have any experience with building a website or not.

There are a few steps he spoke about:

1. Choose a Business

2. Build a Site

3. Legal

4. Searching, SEO, Google

You learn of the process and gain tools to help you choose a successful business. Once that is done you build the site. You purchase a hosting and a domain name. You learn how to work with credit cards, etc. Then you learn of the legal things, like taxes.

The last step is what I think would be the most fun.

Getting people to come to your site and to return there.

Using Search Engine Optimization can help you become one of the top sites when people are googling or searching online for something that could work with your business. Taking advantage of the social media is also a great way to get word out there. Having ads is also something to consider.

Using Google Analytics you can see information about the people who visit your site. From it you can determine why it is someone stays or leaves the site and how you can convince people to stay on your site once they have arrived. Perhaps the design of the site needs to be tweaked. Or on one internet browser the website shows up excellently, but on another it does not.

You need to ask: Is this making or losing you money? What do you want them to do at your site?

You can learn from other sites too.

Why do you return to this site? What do you like about it? Why don't you visit this site? What don't you like about it?

Learning from these questions can help you better organize your own site in a way that it is attractive to many.

Yes. Someday I'll have a website and hopefully it'll be with my brother.

First I just need to get him to take the class. Though I think it'd be a beneficial skill for him to have anyways, especially considering his interests.

:D

First Day of Second Year

I pretty much adore my classes!

This morning started with my alarm clock. What's special about my alarm clock is the fact that it has been packed away for 6 months and I haven't heard that lovely, loud, well-known beeper for such a long time. So I almost welcomed that noise.

Almost.

Lucky for me though it was only 7 am rather than any time in the 6th or 5th hour of the morning. For some reason, waking at 6:59 is too early while 7 is perfectly fine.

Well, I hopped out of bed and was nervous/excited/worried about my first classes. I hurried to dress and make myself presentable, made sure I had everything I needed for my classes and left.

My first stop: the Library.

Now I know you are probably thinking that it was my first stop, because I (the girl who reads books any chance she gets) wanted to check out a book, but no, it was because I needed something printed, read, and marked for my second class and my poor printer was starving for paper.

After that I continued on my way to the Crossroads to get myself some breakfast. To my surprise they do not open at 8, but rather at 8:30. Looking at my schedule my first class was at 9 over in the Ricks building (one of the furthest buildings away from everything else) and I wanted to be there early, especially on the first day.

So I sat and wrote in my Journal and wondering if I should grab something to go... or not.

When 8:27 came around I decided that I was just going to walk through and see if I could buy anything to go that I was interested in, and if not I'll eat after class. I ended up not finding anything and so continued on to class.

Getting there early, I found a comfy seat that was half occupied and began to sit outside the room to wait until it's occupants left when I looked at the girl sitting and she looked at me and we had one of those "Oh hey! I know you!" moments. It turns out that she was in my class and group for American Foundations a year ago. We were rather relieved to know that we knew someone in the class.

Of course we talked and caught up with each other, and then sat next to each other in class, and was just glad of each other's company.

The class is entitled "The Developing World".

The first thing we did in the class was watch a YouTube video: "Where the hell is Matt?". Matt Harding's website is: http://www.wherethehellismatt.com/ and I highly recommend going to it and reading the "About Me" section. Love it. In anycase, the point of watching the video was to show globalization and how people have much more similarities than differences. For example, turkeys are raised and usually have white feathers, but if one is born without white feathers the other turkeys peck it to death. Quite literally. The turkey farmers have to raise it elsewhere, alone, to save it's life. Somes we act more like the white turkeys then we might want to admit. We seem to be a tribal people. We can truly connect to a few dozen people. But Matt Harding says that his tribe has grown to be so large and global that he can't really comprehend it. I then had the thought that Heavenly Father is so amazing in that He knows each of us individually and we are His children. Not some tribe. But His actual kids. It hit me rather strongly at that point in class. In the world today, the tribal mentality is changing faster and more rapidly than ever before through technology. Globalization is on its way. (Second side thought during class: Globalization helps to prepare the world for the Second Coming).

I then learned that Poverty is relative. We measure wealth against others. Which is what should not be done. In my opinion, after learning this, Poor means not having the necessities; Rich means having your needs met and then some.

After the class was over I headed over to Crossroads for breakfast. I caught up with a few friends, enjoyed a lovely meal, and then headed off to my next class:

"Money Management"

We had homework the day perviously in which we were to print, read, bring the syllabus and also read and interpret the scriptures "Family, Managing Finances" in the Topical Guide. In class we discussed it all. I think I'm going to love this class as well! My instructor, Sister Nelson, said that if she could she would teach how to manage one's finances just through the scriptures and not have to use a textbook, because there are three really important things in finances and the scriptures cover them extensively:

1. Tithes

2. Save

3. Debt

Tithing is what you pay to the Lord.

It is an immediate and literal way to pay back the Lord for all the blessings and gifts He's blessed us with. (Of course, He then keeps blessing you, but that's fine.) Not paying your tithes causes a lack of blessings in your life verses a curse because you aren't paying. You never know how blessed you are until it is taken away.

Saving is what you pay yourself.

One student and her husband puts their change in a huge jar that is duck-taped at the top with a slit for coins. It is a way for them to save even their pennies. It makes it easy to put money in, but hard to take it out. Also, make sure to self-evaluate periodically so you know what to save or spend.

Debt is paying others.

This is when you spend money. Money you have, or money that you don't have. Sister Nelson made clear this phrase: "Never invest with what you don't have."

Money is a stewardship.

We are told to manage our stewardships. Stewardships, however, are never people, they are blessings. What's that? What about children? The stewardship you have as a parent is the stewardship of being a parent. If you had stewardships over people, you would be interfering with their agency.

When that class concluded I headed home for an hour or so to lighten my backpack before heading to my next class. I arrived a little early so I wrote in my Journal some more... but then it was time for my class:

"Young Adult Literature"

I really am going to enjoy it. I am required to read a total of 25 books. Young Adult books. This includes Harry Potter, Eragon, Hunger Games, Percy Jackson, Repunzel's Revenge, and any other young adult book I can think of. I'm excited. :) I am required to read fun books for class. That's the best news I've heard in forever.

Yup, so today has been a good day. I've enjoyed my classes. Have tons of homework. Like being in a warm house. Yup. Love college.

The End of A Beginning

One. Two. Three.

That is the number of days I have left here in Rexburg, ID.

At least, the number of days I have left until the end of my first semester at BYU-I. It's amazing at how much I've learned this semester. The door to a wider world has been opening. I am beginning to see more of the things I never knew of. Its... remarkable.

What have I learned? What are the things that caused the door to begin opening?

Knowledge, of course. College has a lot of that.

Wisdom. Something gained through experiences.


Being the oldest, I imagine myself to be an adventurer, a discoverer. I helped to map a portion of the wilderness so my younger siblings can see what is out there and perhaps make their own adventures a little easier in a certain way.

I've learned of things that are immediately applicable to my life. If it not so immediate then it is certainly going to be helpful in the future.

My HIST 101 class has taught me that you can learn to enjoy a class that normally you might not enjoy. That even when you've changed your minor to something else and you no longer need to worry about the class too much, you still put effort into it. That just the process of doing something that you don't quite enjoy is something worth learning. It teaches you to be always cheerful and positive and looking on the bright side of things. I've learned to love that class for a variety of different reasons, rather then dislike it for one. It has become a worthwhile class just from the attitude I've had.

My SFN 302 class, or as I call it, my Nursing class, is a wonderful one. There are only 12 girls in the class and its a class where we are all there just to learn. We aren't taking the class in order to pass a test, but rather for our own personal use. Its a class where Learning by the Spirit is something that causes miraculous things to be discussed and learning about in the two hours we are in the room. The girls in this class are close. We honestly learn from one another and the experiences we have had.

My General Studies course 105, or College Success, was an extremely helpful class. I just learned about things that I probably would have discovered and learned about well into my Sophomore year at minimum. I learn of things that the college student should know. Like where all the buildings are, and generally what type of building it is. I've learned of strategies to help me acquire and remember the knowledge I learn in my classes. Its been extremely useful.

My Writing Class, or FDENG 101. I love this class. The first day I didn't know quite what to think. The second day of the class I didn't know what to do as my group from the first day all dropped. But as the semester continued it became one of my favorites. I've gained a whole class of friends. The style of teaching was different in this class then any other that I had ever had. But I loved it, if only because it was what I personally agreed with from my High School years. I've recognized the things that are taught were usually already incorporated into my life, but I became aware of them and try to improve them. Things such as writing about what you really care about and for an actual reason. It has been a great semester.

My Book of Mormon 2, or FDREL 122, class has been quite fun. My teacher had surgery and was gone for 4 weeks, but in the meantime we had 2 other teachers, elderly teachers that were well retired from teaching seminary. I've learned so much. I've read the Book of Mormon several times, but learning different lessons from most every verse and discovering the words of the prophets on a particular issue that I had never thought of before.... it was fantastic! I already had a strong testimony of the gospel, but its definitely be strengthened as I read the second half of the Book of Mormon again.

American Foundations, or FDAMF 101, is a great class. Because of the program I was in in High School, I took 3 classes of American History and Government. Much of it seemed repeating, but I always learned something new. This class I expected to be the same thing, but we learned more about the economics and the principles behind our government. I have learned so many things to be applied to my life. I've learned to have better faith in God in the aspects of the economy and government in my life. I've learned how miraculous it was for the creation of our Country and what it has led to. It has been so amazing to be able to have gospel truths and principles taught in relation to both government and economics, things that many people think are entirely separate.

My Intro to English Studies class, or ENG 110, is a requirement for my English major and it has also been extremely useful. It helped me to discover all of what I could do with my major and how to accomplish getting there. Both in school and in the world. It makes me more sure of the things that I have decided to study.

These are only my classes and the surface of what I learned in each of them. But the rest of college has been just as much of a learning experience. I have learned how to love those that are hard to love. I have learned how to live on my own. I have learned how to be more responsible of self and others. I have discovered that a good attitude truly does make a difference. That a smile can mean the world. That life is hard and challenging, but worth it.

I'm wondering what exactly it is that I'll be able to learn the rest of my school semesters. What an adventure.

"Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning." ~Winston Churchill

Facing Death to Live

For my Writing Foundations class I am reading Tuesdays with Morrie written by Mitch Albom. It makes you think. It really does. Much like the book The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch.

So enlightening. So . . . It is hard to explain without reading it. But it seems to me that those close to death are more full of life, wisdom, inspiration, and cheer. Those who have lived a long life have so much wisdom they can impart to us before they leave us. We just have to listen.

Reading this book, Tuesdays with Morrie is insightful. It hit on some major principles that all humankind should know abut. It amazes me at how those people who never did know much about the Gospel while they lived here, were so close to the truth as they marched on closer to death. I wish that someone would do the work for them. I honestly think they would accept it. But they brought so many people perhaps a step closer to the Truth. We each have a calling here on earth.

As I read, I learned that even though I know a bit about life and living and the Eternities, I still lose sight of how I could and should be living my life day-by-day, hour-by-hour, and minute-by-minute. It's always much easier to imagine that "in the future, I'll be doing . . . " Or "I'll be . . . " But we have to realize that we won't become who we want to become in the future if we aren't who we want to be today and if we are not working on it throughout the day that we are living in.

"Learn how to die, and you learn how to live." So says Morrie. Once you realize that today could be your last day, all the sudden life becomes so much more in just the simplest of things. You enjoy every minute of the day. You enjoy your trials. You enjoy the family and friends in your life. Or you realize that what you have been working towards throughout your entire life is not important at all.

"The fact is, there is no foundation, no secure ground upon which people may stand today if it isn't the family. It's become quite clear to me as I've been sick. If you don't have the support and love and caring and concern that you get from a family, you don't have much at all. Love is so supremely important. As our great poet Auden said, 'Love each other or perish.' " Family. Such an important thing. Morrie hit it right on the nose. That is the foundation of Heavenly Father's plan. That is our first foundation of defense. Family.

" 'You know what what really gives you satisfaction?'
"What?
" 'Offering others what you have to give.' "

Service. That is what truly makes a person happy. True Charity. Not just giving money to people on the streets, but actual real service. Really knowing the person. Really giving ALL you have to someone. And perhaps not your material things, but your time, effort, love, joy, knowledge, and wisdom. It is hard to find satisfaction in getting and taking. But giving? That's something else.

" 'I believe in being fully present,' Morrie said. 'That means you should be with the person you're with.' "

"But really listening to someone - without trying to sell them something, pick them up, recruit them, or get some kind of status in return - how often do we get this anymore?"

This is something we don't give to people much. We are too concerned with the future. With what we want. With what we need. With what needs to be done. But in doing so we miss the life right in front of us. We could have made a difference. We could have bettered our selves. But we missed the opportunity.

"Invest in the human family. Invest in people. Build a little community of those you love and who love you."

We try to make the best investments and gain the best reward from it. One of the best things to invest in to gain the most reward is the human family. It's what we should all invest in. Imagine the profit we would gain from it.

These are lessons learned. Lessons to be applied. A lesson is not a true lesson if not ever put into relevance with our lives.

I love Life, but sometimes the best lessons learned of Life are derived from Death.

In any case, I recommend both The Last Lecture and Tuesdays with Morrie.

Lessons to Becoming a Writer

My Writing Foundations class is one of my favorite classes.
I've mentioned before that in this class I had written an Photo-Autobiography. Which I would recommend people to do. It's kinda amazing. Sorta like scrap booking, but with more words. Rather then the pictures being the center of attention and the words supporting, the words are the main attraction with the pictures being complementary.

The lectures of the class:

Lecture number One
1. Pick a subject that means something to you
2. Have a Reason to write
3. Turn your feelings to account

Lecture number Two
Details = Power

What else have I learned?
That view point matters, that description matters, that the small details in words give a story power. That's what the element of great story telling is. Details. That's why stories told by my mother and family are always silly and rather interesting. Details.

The other day we were required to read an essay entitled "Letting the Light Shine Through" written by Deborah Harrison. What an essay!! Let's see if I can quickly summarize the main points.

1. Style: "It encompasses clarity and coherence and conciseness and voice. But it adds up to more than these individual considerations. ... Our style is made up of the choices we make in presenting our ideas."
2. "Writing forces us to think. The process of writing is thinking."
3. Clarity: "Deep or complex ideas need not be expressed in obscure ways. Indeed they shouldn't be."
4. Coherence: "A coherent essay is one that simply makes sense; it moves logically and smoothly from idea to idea."
5. Conciseness: "When we write, we want the most amount of pawer from the least number of words."
6. Voice: "I mean that you, your personality, or how you want readers to perceive you comes off the page, that I can hear you speaking in your own matchless way, that I can feel you genuinely wish to engage me as your reader."
7. Title: Walker Percy "A good title should be like a metaphor: It should intrigue without being too baffling or too obvious" (Trimble, 2000, p. 180)
8. "Which person we choose, either first, second, or third person, affects the distance we create between ourselves and our readers."
9. "Choice of tense also affects voice and distance."
10. "Word choice and levels of formality can also affect the sense of voice."
11. Delivery: "It's also important to pay attention to the details of delivery, our punctuation, usage, and layout, so that our ideas can be more easily understood and accepted."
12. Punctuation: "punctuation becomes as much as an art form as painting or drawing."
13. Punctuation: "We need to know the rules so well that we understand when it is appropriate, for our purposes, to break those rules."
14. "Usage has to do with how we actually use the language, our choice of appropriate words."
15. Layout: "A good page layout is a type of persuasion in and of itself."

I believe these are excellent points that all writing can be based upon. I placed it into a context of Creative Writing as that is what I am more interested in, but I can see how all of these previous points can be placed into essays, term papers, research papers, formal letters, fictions, non-fictions, etc.

We are each different from one another. Even identical twins are different. Their personalities are not cloned. We each have a different view on the world even if we are looking at the same thing. The things we can learn from each other if we were to have a book named after each of us in which our every thought, action, event, and experience were recorded and we could read about it. There wouldn't be a library big enough to hold it all. Everyone, once in awhile, writes something in order to present themselves or their ideas. A letter of recommendation. An advertisement. A resume. A novel. An informative book. A pamphlet. There are so many things we write.

John Jakes has said, "Be yourself. Above all, let who you are, what you are, what you believe, shine through every sentence you write, every piece you finish." This creates something that is yours and no one else's. It will be a part of you.

Depending on who the audience is we use the rules set for us and bend them into our own form. Perhaps naturally, and then with added tweaking. We have a purpose for writing. If something is recorded it is because we find it is something to take note of. Whether it is for ourselves or for someone else.

It is my impression, that any writer of any sort, in order to seem real and be truly heard through life, needs to intimately know what it is he or she plans on writing on. Whether a skill, a object, a person, a place, or an idea. You must capture the essence of it into written word and to do that you must know it. There are many ways of discovering something. To take from my history class, you can use primary sources, secondary sources, or a general overview of the topic. Primary sources I would include experiencing it yourself. Perhaps, watching and asking a person who has done it for information, but I think that might work better in the secondary sources. Then you can learn the topic from other written words or internet or some other broad source.

According to E. L. Doctorow, "Writing is an exploration. You start from nothing and learn as you go." When you discover what it is you plan to write about. Learn all you can about the subject. Writers must be very educated people if they are learning all they write about and write with authority.

These are the lessons I have learned and try to apply. These are the lessons and I will continue to try to improve them in myself. I don't think there is a limit on how high you can go.

Photo Autobiography

Have you ever tried to create an autobiography? It's difficult!

I love to write. I love to write about myself. I did it all the time in my journals. But goodness! Its harder then you would think. Starting from a beginning and ending at an ending. You don't know where to beginning or where the ending is. Should I start with my parents? Or should I start with my birth? Should I end at some eventful moment in my life? Or should I keep writing it until I've past on? That would be very difficult. :P

In anycase, for my Writing Foundations class I'm writing an Autobiography. Not just any autobiography. But a picture one. SO for every picture you are to have a story and it is about you and who you are. Because I am so used to writing in a Journal, I use that same language in writing something like this. But pictures? that's new. So I went and took some pictures and then found some and put it all together. To tell you the truth I'm rather proud of it.

Or at least the part I have done.

Today I am to have completed 5 stories with 5 pictures. I currently have 5 sections, each with at least 2 pictures and perhaps 2 or so stories in each. I don't know if I did it quite as was expected. But that's what this teacher likes. He likes us taking risks, or discovering things on our own without giving us much direction because he knows that he doesn't know everything and that the student has their own ideas on things. So if I do say so myself, I'm going pretty well.

But what a challenge! I think everyone should try such a thing. Write a brief photo autobiography. It's rather fun and exciting. And you certainly learn a lot. :D