OH YA AND.........

MISSION CALL!


Bangkok, Thailand


Report to MTC November 2nd




Yes, I'm freaking out in every way possible. I love it.

serious need of an update

Let's do this List Style:

Going to DC/ Virginia - Seeing two shows, seeing the monuments, Andrea's house, Fourth of July and fireworks. The Hepfinger family is lovely.

Natalie's marriage to Jonny Pants (if I can even say that)- I love them both so much, good thing they are wed.

Harry Potter!!!! - At 3 AM, dressing up. Wands. Super awesome.

Whitman Family reunion in Park City- bananagrams, puzzles, so much food, alpine slide and getting hailed on on the lift, cousins, baptisms at Salt Lake temple.

PJ starting BYUH- that fool be goin to college.

The Twilight Concert Series- Seeing the Decemberists was life fulfilling. Truly.

My 23rd Birthday- I'm 23. 

Going to the temple- The church is true and I love it. Eliza is a wonderful friend and mother, I was so glad to have her with me that day. I'm also glad that Natalie was there with me as well. 

Moving out of Provo- finally I am officially not a Provo resident. It only took me five years. I already miss living with Andrea. 

Washington State- seeing my Grandparents Guildner and eating cookies. 

The Talley's Where Here

Erin, Steven, and Ivy Rae Talley came to Utah a few weeks ago, and I couldn't be more happy.

Shout out to the Talley family: I love you!

My update

I'm mostly just too tired to write interesting thinking things, and I guess enough has happened lately to merit an update.

New Job:
I've been working the last couple of weeks at my new job as a kindergarten teacher's aide. Yup, I'm with those kids all day everyday. I'm also surprised at how much I really like it. Except for when the naughty kid peed under the lunch tables that one time. On purpose. Frills, just whipped it out and peed.

New roommate:
Natty moved back to North Ogden. I miss her a lot. I also realized how much of my day to day revolved around our friendship, in a good way. Anyway, the new roommate's name is Natalie, too. I know, gasp. She is really nice and our schedules work well together. You know, get up at the same time, similar bed times and stuff so it all runs well. I also don't think I've freaked her out yet or anything, so, go me.

New Plans:
This is the one I'm most excited about. Ok, this is not new to me, and some others, but it's new to blog land, and there are still a lot of people who don't know yet, but........ I'm going on a mission. The last few weeks have been full of doctor and dentist appointments, which I passed, whoo. So, the papers should be in within two weeks. I also finally told my mom, that's another discussion entirely. Regardless, I'm happy, so so happy.

My first public free write

Disclaimer: Ok, please understand this really is a free write. Mostly, it is exposing how my brain thinks and sounds without the lovely filter of slowing down, pausing, editing, or even just giving it time to mull over. Generally, these thoughts are just plain ol' not finished being thought out. But thinking about stuff to the point of making it an actual idea is a long process, and I feel like documenting the beginnings of these potential ideas, and hopefully a fully formed idea can come from it later. Expect these more often, as they require so little effort on my part, sorry.

Way too often we hear “love yourself so you can love others” and translate the whole scripture of  “love thy neighbor as thyself” to mean that once we love ourselves, we are better able to love others. Bleh. I really dislike how pretty much all relief society lessons tend to go this way. We will talk about service for others and suddenly for more than half  of the lesson we are discussing how ultimately service blesses ourselves. We will have a lesson on loving others and in the end we are talking about why loving ourselves first is so important and discussing ways to take care of our own needs, to not “neglect ourselves”.

I think we can’t love ourselves until we love others first. And we never get to that point sometimes, most times, because we want to do it backwards, which  is ultimately the selfish way. We are even often taught  backwards. And it gets us nothing  in the end. It is like people who say they want to “find themselves” before going to college or be able to do anything good. Bleh again. Go do things, good things, and then you will make yourself. If you haven’t made yourself, there won’t be anything to find. In the same way, if you don’t love others first, there won’t be a part of yourself to love. We all struggle with this in some way, and I think that this is why.

We are always taught lessons of virtue by saying that it benefits our own soul, growth, and understanding, that we will be rewarded in heaven as well. While these things are true, I can't help but wonder about how we would live without this promise of eventual rewards. I understand that it is impossible to serve others without the reward of at least feeling good about it. But what if the outcome was really only the other person feeling better? If it did not help us "get to heaven"? Even when it seems to not benefit us in this life, we believe that we will be rewarded in the next life, that everyone basically will get their come uppance. I wonder how much good I would really do if I would not receive the blessings in heaven.
 "He that layeth down his own life shall find it". I've been thinking about this a lot too. Finding our lives is the most beneficial thing for ourselves, so really, laying down your life for something so great is really not a big payment. A "selfless act" that results in benefiting yourself even more than it benefitted anyone else. Would I lay down my life for someone else if I wouldn't gain glory later? Or what about even getting my life back at all?
And I can't help thinking about how this extends to why I do anything. Isn't paying tithing made easier because I know I will be blessed for doing so? Do I pay because I need help financially or something, and not because the money will help someone else? Selfless acts as payment for something that I want for myself.
I know I sound so pessimistic with all this stuff about how even our most selfless acts could be the most selfish. But I just wonder sometimes.

Snow today

Someone's yard in Hawaii 2010
By: me

Let me be linen on a line.
I want to be warm and dry.

If you don't hear from me...

Hey world,
I'm not dead. It's just that Nat and I brought the Nintendo 64 up into our bedroom. Tetris and Super Mario Cart are the best things evah. So, I'll be busy for a while, um, reading Shakespeare and Joyce. Ya, that's it.
Love,
Emy

So true

From: "The Royal Tenenbaums"

"When you cheat, you don't win. And when you lose, you don't win."
- one of the kindergardeners I subbed

Sunday lessons

"Prayer"


 Some days, although we cannot pray, a prayer
 utters itself. So, a woman will lift
 her head from the sieve of her hands and stare
 at the minims sung by a tree, a sudden gift.


 Some nights, although we are faithless, the truth
 enters our hearts, that small familiar pain;
 then a man will stand stock-still, hearing his youth
 in the distant Latin chanting of a train.


 Pray for us now. Grade 1 piano scales
 console the lodger looking out across
 a Midlands town. Then dusk, and someone calls
 a child's name as though they named their loss.


 Darkness outside. Inside, the radio's prayer -
 Rockall. Malin. Dogger. Finisterre.


- Carol Ann Duffy



I can't stop this urgent feeling that there is a lot of good left in me to do.
I used to find this feeling scary. I'm glad that I have grown to find it exciting and hopeful.
Because there really is so much to do.

Freely Speaking

I was asking for a phone number from my mom. She said she would text it to me. It is kind of an important situation and I needed the number.
Five minutes later I received a text from mom.
Oh, the number, I thought to myself.
No.
A picture of her dog, wearing a floral dress, poised on a quilted bed with lace curtains in the background.

Me: That's not the phone number.
Mom: Ops (she means oops)
Me: Ya, so can you please give me the number now?
Mom: Next time.
Me: Ok, but soon please.
Mom: I love you.
Me: I love you too mom.
Mom: I think my dog is having a baby.
Me: Oh, what an adventure.
Mom: Thats nothing comparing to others advtr. Baby (her dog's name) is sweet girl i mean dog

Anyone else frustrated? I AM. I'm also laughing.


So, after hours of no other contact, I call her and leave a message to please give me the number.
She calls me back later.
Me: Hey, can I have the number now? Or ever?
Mom: You need to grow up and do something. You let the legal system just run your family's life. They just do what they want to and you let them. Why don't you ever do anything to fix this?!
Me: That's why I'm asking you for this number, to do something.
Mom: You know, you have freedom of speech! Do you know what that is?
Me: Yes, I've heard of it.
Mom: We live in America. You need to use your freedom of speech. And you aren't doing anything. You like the legal, huh.
Me: (as confused as you are at this moment) Ok then, tell me, exactly, what is it that you want me to do.
Mom: People in the legal, they think they can do whatever they want to us. They are bad. Use your freedom of speech. Grow up. You need to now these things. Grow up.
Me: Yes, ok. So, tell me specifically what you would like me to do, since I apparently don't do anything. Please, just tell me and I'll do it.
Mom: You aren't ready.

Then she hung up.

Again, so frustrated that I'm laughing.
Hey legal system, I have someone that I would like to take off the "Can use freedom of speech" list. Oh, that doesn't exist? Fine, I'm going to use my American ness rights to make my own list. And it will affect things to no end. Because I'm a grown up. Down with the legal!


And I still don't have that number.

Well Hey

My brain tends to work this way, which is why sometimes people will be wondering why I'm laughing to myself. I'm not crazy, it's just that sometimes YOU say things that can be thought of in a crazy way. So, not my fault.

My life right now:
I'm trying to eat healthy. I even learned to cook a spicy coconut chicken. That's right. COOK. And it was awesome.
I'm getting a lot of work, which I am very thankful for.
I'm not sick anymore, yay!
Natty and I are currently watching "Playful Kiss", yes, a korean drama.

That's about it. I'll try to be more exciting this week.

Rolln' with Barthes

Rolln' with (Roland) Barthes, bah ha ha.
Yay, more lit theory paper stuffs from a midterm.

*note:
(S/Z) is from one of his structuralist analysis
(W/T) is "From Work to Text"
(Death) is "Death of the Author"

Barthes, like Derrida, rejects the notion of a single, finite, determinate meaning. Barthes applies this in a specific way to literature (or narrative, text, reading, ect. I really don’t know how to say it when I can no longer call it reading I guess). Basically, he is another rejecter of structuralism, a task that is “ultimately undesirable” (S/Z 3). I am going to start with a rather list-y (boring) explanation of the binary work/text. I know of no other way that would not just turn into a big rambling mess. Here goes.

A Text is “not to be thought of as an object that can be computed”, while a Work is an object (Work to Text 156). A Text is not an object because it is a methological field, a process that is acted out. A text cuts across genres, while a work is classified into a genre. A Work goes from a signifier (itself), to a signified (its “meaning”), which is reductive of language to a single meaning. Texts go from a signifier to another signifier, which disseminates meaning, by “practicing the infinite deferment of the signified”(W/T 158). In a Work, Authors create a works that are then consumed by readers, while a Text creates authors (which is what he comes to call readers in S/Z, even if they are just a “paper I”) who “play”. This concept of “play” is “the reader plays twice over, playing the Text as one plays a game, looking for a practice which re-produces it…also playing the Text in the musical sense of the term…the co author of the score, completing it rather than giving it ‘expression’…it asks of the reader a practical collaboration”(W/T 162-3).  The difference is manifested in how the reader takes pleasure (hopefully I get to that later) in the book, one of consumption of a Work, and one of production in a Text.

This leads me to the binary of the readerly/ writerly text. I see this as an extension of our definition of work/text. A readerly text is like a Work, and is what Barthes says we need to be moving away from. Here the focus is on the author and the singular meaning of what that author wrote. The text is written and the reader consumes it. The reader is “left with no more than the poor freedom either to accept or reject the text: reading is nothing more than a referendum”(S/Z 4).  With a readerly text, the reader is a person who is supposed to take in the information and opinion that the author has laid out. In this case, the critic’s job is to decipher the meaning of the text.  In opposition to the readerly text is what we should be shooting for, the writerly text. Here, the “author” is a scripter, a copyist, through whom cultural codes (I will also get to explaining codes in a bit) flow through to the one reading the text, who is also another site for codes to flow. The writerly text is “not a thing”, but a “perpetual present”, the process in the mind of the reader, it “happens” not “is”. The critic’s job is to disentangle the writerly text, to “appreciate what plural constitutes it”(S/Z 5). Again, play is the goal, not mere consumption. The writerly text is the ideal that we can never actually write. The best we can do is “read” plural texts, or create plural texts through the way we approach it. The plural text is what cuts across the binary of readerly/writerly and is what we should be pursuing.

For Barthes, the reason we should work for plural texts is because looking for a single meaning is pointless because there is no meaning there to find in the first place. We are all in a system of codes. When a person reads, the “ “I” which approaches the text is already itself a plurality of other texts, of codes which are infinite or, more precisely, lost…the meanings I rind are established not by “me” or by others, but by their systematic mark…to read, in fact, is a labor of language”(S/Z 10-11). So, we as people when writing and reading are “paper “I”s where codes are reconfigured. In this sense, we do not read, codes read us. We read and write to reconfigure these codes, and lucky for us we always have something to do because “their number is never closed, based as it is on the infinity of language”(S/Z 6). This idea of “paper I” is basically the idea of why the author is dead, and I guess the reader along with him.

Barthes claims we are wrong to attribute creation of a text to the author, and that doing so ultimately pushes us towards trying to find a single meaning and limits our ability to “play”.  If we give the author power, our reading turns into an act of trying to find the author, which we equate to the “meaning” and we believe we have deciphered the text. But, “once the Author is removed, the claim to decipher a text becomes quite futile”(Death 147). This frees the critic from pointless work, as there is no meaning, and then he has to disentangle the codes, or play.

I think that the claim that to give a text an author imposes a limit is not all correct. We always come at reading with some sort of way or process, and thinking about the author can be one of “those ways”. True, we can come up with many ways to disentangle a text without the author, but we can come up with many ways with the author as well. I see it as one of the expanding ways to look at a text. Not necessarily the only one, but a valid way to approach it. I find it a bit ridiculous, and limiting, for Barthes to say that “the birth of the reader must be at the cost of the death of the Author”(Death 148). This last sentence has always sounded funny (ie overly dramatic) to me because a few lines before he says that the reader is “simply that someone who holds together in a singe field all the traces by which the written text is constituted”(Death 148). He tries to “champion” the reader over the author, right after explaining that both writer and reader, equally, are simply places where codes flow. Killing off the author, to me, is ignoring one of the pluralities of the text.
And, now my thing with the “codes”. Say I totally accept his idea that we are all just made of codes in the first place. I still do not fully buy that hierarchy that he implies that we are mere sites and codes use us. That is just a weird flow of logic. Even with codes, we use them. A code is something constructed to be used, a tool of communication, a means to express what you want to express. Something constructed has a constructor. Even if it is all a “system” that we are in, it can be us using the system instead of the system working through us. Maybe Barthes just should have used different words and he meant something else, maybe (probably) my opinion on this is just as equally an assumption, a leap of logic, or whatever, as his assertions. Either way, I just don’t find it quite all thought out correctly.

I ain't no wise man

"When I Was One-and-Twenty"


When I was one-and-twenty
    I heard a wise man say,
"Give crowns and pounds and guineas
    But not your heart away;
Give pearls away and rubies
    But keep your fancy free."
But I was one-and-twenty,
    No use to talk to me.


When I was one-and-twenty
    I heard him say again,
"The heart out of the bosom
    Was never given in vain;
'Tis paid with sighs a plenty
    And sold for endless rue."
And I am two-and-twenty,
    And oh, 'tis true, 'tis true.


-- A E Housman

This is me with the diploma that was sent to me in the mail a couple weeks ago. Inside is what we are told is a representation of what I have learned up to now. If I could take out my heart and show what I have really learned, it would be much more impressive. I am now going to go write a horrid pop song using that last sentence as the chorus lyrics. Peace. 

Happy love day

Last year I posted one of my favorite poems here.
This time around:

Hey self, I'm wishing you well.

I'm sick this weekend.
I've got chills and my voice sounds like a walrus.
So just laugh at this as much as I did.

My heart is high

 "Morning"

I went out on an April morning
All alone, for my heart was high,
I was a child of the shining meadow,
I was a sister of the sky.

There in the windy flood of morning
Longing lifted its weight from me,
Lost as a sob in the midst of cheering,
Swept as a sea-bird out to sea.

-- Sara Teasdale

San Diego Temple
Taken by Erin, some time ago. 

I had a very good day at the temple doing baptisms.
My Heavenly Father loves me.
I love the gospel.
I am very thankful.
That's really all for tonight.

I choose the girl behind door number 5!

My dearest friend Nat entered me in a contest for a photography company. Please know that this was so not my idea at all.  Funny enough, it is being held on Facebook. Natty made me sound way cooler than I am, which is just more reason to love her. Here it is. 

Here are the finalists for our FotoFly Bachelor. We had almost thirty people be submitted and we've narrowed it down to five. Over the next two days, you may vote for the one that you believe is the best match for Daniel. You vote by 'liking' a picture. The one with the most votes will win a night out with our bachelor. FotoFly is sponsoring an amazing, one-of-a-kind night out. Again, we are wanting only our current fans to vote on this one. Choose wisely - there may be children and grandchildren at stake here! :)

As a recent English Lit. graduate and a California native, Emy spends her free time reading all the books she can get her hands on, writing, studying vocabulary for the GRE exam, playing tennis (when there isn't snow on the ground), going to the beach (when she isn't in a landlocked state), going to concerts, and knitting. Her wardrobe consists of all different styles, but she loves cardigans and plaid. On a normal day she's wearing breton strips, a cardi, jeans and some oxfords. When she's getting fancy, she rocks a pencil skirt, colored tights and heels like nobody's business. She always looks cool, collected and well-dressed for any occasion. AND - she looks great in hats...which is pretty sweet. She is looking for someone who will go to Del Taco with her at 2AM because she can't go to sleep hungry, stay up all night telling muffin jokes (she knows quite a few), and it wouldn't hurt if he was an awesome kisser, in fact...it's kind of a requirement. Emy is an amazing person and deserves someone who is creative and quirky, but intelligent. She's as witty as the day is long and always up for adventure. She's well-read, well-spoken and well-dressed. You can't get much better than that

Temping

Update:
So, I like, substitute teach now.
This was my first week.

Wed: Kindergarden. Kill me. Totally hated it. Both stressful and annoying.

Thursday: Sixth grade. Super awesome. Loved all of it. The best thing ever. And I totes miss pre-algebra. And I totes just love teaching.

But really, never will I ever teach kindergarden. I'm still pretty sure I like kids, but man did Wednesday make me question that.

I should just wear a sign

Today at church I was asked by three different people about my racially ambiguous "ethnic-ness".

The "I'm going to guess till you tell me" approach: 
Dude: You look like you have some polynesian in you.
Me: Oh, hello. No.
Dude: Latin?
Me: Nope.
Dude: ...
Me: The usual explanation
Dude: That's so neat. You are very pretty.
Me: Thanks, my name's Emy.
Dude: I'm so-and-so.
I really don't know how these conversations ever start before regular introductions.

The "up front and direct", and only starting up the conversation in the first place to satisfy curiosity: 
Gal: Hi I'm so-and-so.
Me: Hello, I'm Emerald.
Gal: So, what ethnicity are you?
Me: The usual explanation
Gal: Wow, cool.
Me: Yup.
She didn't have anything more to say, so I left for class. I think she wanted me to ask about her ethnicity too, seeing how she was also ethnic in some way. But I really didn't care to stand there and talk about that. It really gets boring so fast.

The "round about, in the middle of a conversation already, not wanting to seem to interested but really is":
Guy: So Emy, where are you from?
Me: Southern California.
Guy: Oh ya? What part?...ya I've heard of there....do you know the -family last name-.... ya it's a nice place
Me: Ya, I loved it.
Guy: So, where is your family from?
Me: My parents both grew up in Washington.
Guy: Oh ok, but like, where are they originally from?
Me: Oh, you mean like, what ethnicity?
Guy: Well, ya.
Me: usual explanation.
Guy: Oh, that's neat, blah blah blah...
Yes, I usually know from the start what they are trying to ask me, but really, where's the fun in letting them off easy.

Anyway, that's what happened today, and most days I meet new people. I really don't mind at all, and I'm really used to it. It's just funny how some people go about it.
But here is the best one.
A couple years ago I was waiting for my food at the Cougar Eat/cafeteria  at school. There was a guy standing next to me, also waiting.

Guy: Hey there.
Me: Hi
Guy: I like your colors.
Me: Oh my clothes? Thanks.
Guy: Oh, um, well, uh, ya, that too.

WTF

On Pantaloons. Or, I read grammar books at night.

A guy in a tux at Oceanside Beach.
 I still worry if I was sneaky enough when I took this picture. 

                                                                      

                                                                 Pants, Trousers
Pants is a colloquial shortening of the old-fashioned word pantaloons, which is now used only in a humorous sense. The current and proper word for the lower part of a man's apparel is trousers. Pants, like movies, is a very popular word in current speech. It is modified to panties in speaking of a particular item of feminine lingerie.

From page 93 of How To Write and Speak Effective English  
By Edward Frank Allen
Published in 1938