Resolved

In the last day or two I've had a couple epiphanies.... moments of enlightenment.... or maybe more aptly: moments when suddenly things settle when the pot has been stirred for a while.

#1 - I'm swimming the moat again. Have you read the book Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert? Or seen the movie? There is a part where she goes to India to study meditation/yoga/whatever. She meets this man that torments her for a while and then kind of becomes her mentor to help her learn to meditate. He says to her, "If you want to get to the castle, you've got to swim the moat." I love that phrase. You've gotta pay the price, pay your dues, however you wanna say it. I've been putting off the inevitable all in the name of healing, but I needed the time to heal. And now that I'm healed, I'm diving back into the moat .... with a new vigor .... and with another phrase in my back-pocket: "The definition of crazy is doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results." So, I'm doing something different and that is what makes me say I've got new vigor ... enough vigor to join match.com that is. Can you believe it? For years I've stubbornly refused any form of online dating, and then on Easter this year a woman in my ward gave a talk about Easter, naturally, and closed her talk, started to walk away from the pulpit, but then returned and said this, "And by the way, match.com really does work." For some reason that struck a different chord in me. So I've been thinking about it ever since and made the mistake of mentioning it to my coworker, Greg. He's been bugging me about it ever since until I decided to join two weeks ago. Whoa. It's been .... okay. I'm corresponding with a couple guys .... that seem ..... nice. So yeah. And the moat part of all of this? I'm finally facing the inevitable ups and downs of dating again (the moat) so that I can eventually get to the castle that's gotta be closer than ever than in the past.

#2 - My statistics professor is more reasonable and generous than I gave him credit for. Four and a half weeks ago I took my statistics midterm immediately after arriving home from my trip to Europe. As soon as I looked at it, I knew I was going to bomb it. There were new terms on the exam that I had no idea what they were. He told us to study the key terms in the book and that is what I did, but these terms were not in the book. I found out the next day that the vast majority of the class was outraged by his exam and for telling us to study one thing and then introducing another entirely. That night, we tried to reason with him, but he would not listen at all, would not even consider it. We were livid, but we could tell we were fighting a losing battle, so we gave up. I think we subconsciously and independently, but therefore collectively, didn't take any action since we decided to see how he graded the exams. Four weeks later, earlier this week, he finally returned our graded exams to us. A LOT of us were flabbergasted at how generous he was. He gave us points we didn't deserve, and he has improved his teaching to clarify his expectations better than he did before the midterm. Maybe he really did listen to us. So yes. I'm entirely shocked, but very pleased that he has heard our pleas.

One last, unrelated note: Martha Stewart's Mexican Hot Chocolate Cookies are so good! I just made them tonight.

First Snow (at my house)!

Looky looky what I woke up to! The weather forecast said this snowfall was supposed to hit yesterday morning - maybe it did other places but not at my house so I was actually kind of disappointed. Now that I'm enjoying some summer activities and hobbies, I'm beginning to dread when summer and fall give way to winter, BUT I'm still very excited for winter and the first snowfall. Is that an paradox? To miss summer but still love the winter? I don't know. I am relieved, though, that I still love winter and snow - I was beginning to wonder. What I think I don't like is the in-between weeks: when it's too cold to ride my bike, but there's no snow on which to ski or snowshoe.

Happy Guy Fawkes Day

"Remember, remember the fifth of November!" Jen and I celebrated Guy Fawkes Day together. It's kind of exciting to have someone to celebrate the holiday with again - now that she's been on a study abroad to London she can appreciate the holiday with me! We ate fish and chips for dinner, bread pudding for dessert, had some tea in my Wedgwood mugs that I bought in England, and we watched the fabulous BBC version of Sense & Sensibility (which I prefer over the Emma Thompson version). Our celebration wasn't the normal British celebration of bonfires and effigies of Guy Fawkes, but it was a treat nonetheless!