Whale Rider.

Today I saw "Whale Rider" for the first time.  I'm not a professional movie reviewer, and I'm pretty much as white as white gets, but I frankly disagreed with the DVD calling it a "funny" and "heartwarming" family film.  Don't get me wrong, I loved the little girl/main character.  The pacing was slower than I'd hoped for, but it had its good moments.  My main problem with the film was the grandfather's character.

A run-down of this character's actions: The guy shuns his granddaughter after her birth (because she's not a boy).  He raises her when her father takes off halfway around the world, trying to fix up his son with locals so that a "real" heir can be produced, and freaks when his son has taken up with another girl on his travels.  He tell his son to take the girl away (because, and I paraphrase, she means nothing to him), then flat-out ignores her when she comes back to the island.  His next move is to start up a Maori school for the boys of the village, trying to come up with a new chief in the process.  Not only does he exclude her from the male-only Maori training, even though she's just as good or better than all of them.  But when the boys in training fail to complete a task for him, he goes catatonic and KICKS HIS GRANDDAUGHTER OUT OF THE HOUSE.

This is the part that did it for me.  Could you picture that happening in any other movie?  "Gee, Gramps had a lousy day at golf today, so we're going to have to evict you, sweetheart."  Tribal heritage or no, this guy is a jerk.

Then in the last five minutes of the movie (due to events I won't go into here), Gramps suddenly has a change of heart, the girl is proclaimed the new chief, and all the problems that have persisted throughout the film suddenly resolve themselves.

Bleh.  Ebert gave it four stars.  It charmed critics and won countless awards.  But I'm not impressed.  What do you think: Am I completely miss the point of this flick?

Late.  Short entry.  Backwards.  Watching Pushing Daisies makes me want to write witty dialogue with plot twists.

We made a lot of food today.  Mom made curry.  I made almond fudge.  Mom made spinach brownies (much tastier than they sound).  I made Claire cookies.  It was like the Dueling Banjos, if those involved a 350 degree oven.

General conference makes me want to be a better person.  I may be a political simpleton, but I laugh at the reporters who make a big fuss over a certain LDS politician who happened to give a large chunk of change to the Church.  (Um, it's what all of us active members do?  As long as it's ten percent of his income, what does it matter?)

Finished reading Ella Enchanted for the gazillionth time.  It always makes me smile.

Also, I watched The Blind Side.  As much as I understand that the film is about some kid beating the odds and rising above his trashy homelife, I don't get why they have to insert a gratuitous gross scene in the last ten minutes of the movie so it has to have a PG-13 rating.  Why do movies do this?  Why do they ruin a perfectly good and clean and uplifting flick with ten minutes of smut?

What I want my Sunday School class to understand.

I've been in countless classes in my growing-up years, and had a variety of teachers ranging from the barely-qualify-as-adults-themselves to the Depression-era old-timers.  I have different memories of each and several have passed from my recollection altogether.  I remember outsmarting one Brother's carefully planned object lesson on temptation and how Satan traps us.  He was using a variation on an old trap that tribes in Africa use to ensnare monkeys: coaxing me to try to grab the candy bar from the narrow-mouthed glass jar on the table.  He wasn't pleased when I deftly extracted the treat with my dainty fingers, escaping the trap intact  and smug, as teenagers will do when presented with an opportunity to score sugar and impress peers at the expense of a spiritual application.

I remember one Young Women leader who looked no older than some of our Laurels, reading The Giving Tree to us fresh-faced Beehives.  A wizened Sunday School teacher  taught us varied truths, among other doctrines and principles I am sure (though those I don't readily recall).  The term "guy" used to be applied to scarecrows only, a truth he learned the hard way after his father reprimanded him for using the term in reference to his father's boss.

These anecdotes comprise only a few random selections of people who were called to teach my classes growing up.  People who gave up their time and energy to try to shape us into better people.  It makes me wonder what this little Youth Sunday School class in England think of me; and, more importantly, what effect I have on them.

I'm no stranger to teaching.  I've done my fair share in terms of siblings, stints in Seminary, sacrament meeting talks, school group projects, Relief Society lessons, public speaking courses, visiting teaching assignments, arts and crafts groups...oh yeah, and the eighteen month mission I recently completed.  (That's a whole universe on its own: MTC discussions and practices, district meeting role-plays, zone conference talks, training new missionaries, and countless lessons with investigators, recent converts, less active members, fully active members, and somewhere-in-betweeners.)

But teaching a class, and a class full of teenagers at that, is a different ball game.  [Side note: I've taught missionaries on my mission and I've now taught teenagers, which I hope will give me some idea of what it will be like to teach brand-new missionaries at the MTC, should they choose to hire me in the next few months.] There is a whole range of mentalities from fourteen to eighteen, which can make lesson plans a bit of a challenge when you've got a handful of people all in various stages of adolescence.

I don't claim to be a psychologist or a miracle worker.  I don't have kids of my own, and it's been (holy cow) nearly a decade since I was the age of most of the people in my class.  But I have some recollection of what it's like to be that age.  I was not a huge scriptorian.  I went to seminary, and I found it interesting, but when it came down to my own personal study I was not up for more than about five minutes at a stretch.  Some parts of the Book of Mormon were foreign and boring to me.  It took a while to warm up to the scriptures, and I have Institute and my mission to thank for the leap from passing-glance to deeper contemplation.  The Old Testament remains, to a large degree, uncharted territory for me, even at the ripe old age of nearly a quarter century.

I have some idea of what it is like to sit as a teenager in a class and have the teacher ask what is possibly the silliest question you've ever heard.  Teaching manuals are full of those.  Questions that, if you've been raised in the gospel, are really more rhetorical than anything else.  And when you're a teenager, rhetoric borders on the are-you-serious? level of incredulity.  Adults, at least, will give an opinion when asked (though in my experience, the YSA ward members vacillate between the two.  I always tried to help out the flailing teacher during the dead silence portion of the meeting in cases like this.  It's really not their fault; they're just following the manual.)

I don't know what my class got out of our lessons this year.  Possibly they were thinking deep thoughts in the quiet interims.  Possibly they were wishing we would play hang-man.  Possibly they wondered who let in this crackpot who kept bringing up mission stories and asking silence-inducing questions.  But whatever else they gleaned, I hope they will gain a greater appreciation for the people who made these classes possible.  We wouldn't have much material if Nephi hadn't made the several-day trek back and forth to Jerusalem to get scriptures and prospective wives.  If Moroni hadn't written down his father's words.  If Paul hadn't made it a point to send letters to the Church in their respective regions.  If Joseph Smith hadn't kept the plates hidden in a pickle crock or under the hearth when prying eyes came around.

I hope the scripture study goals I invited them to set will help them make these people a part of their daily lives, that they'll gain a better understanding of what they carry around in their scripture cases.  These books are jam-packed with spiritual knowledge, layers-deep.  I hope they'll come to learn for themselves the joy that comes from unearthing one layer of insight after another.

I hope they'll get that adults are not just trying to ruin their teenage fun with rules and standards and skirt length stipulations.   That the book of Revelation is really not as scary as it may seem.  That attitude is the difference between Nephi and Laman.  Ultimately, that Christ is reaching out to them and hoping they'll take the steps necessary to close the gap.

I think I understand now what my old Institute director was trying to help me see: his highest ambition was not that he will be praised and lauded for being a great teacher.  His whole objective was to help his students discover things for themselves.  He was just there to show us how.  I hope I have become, in even a small way, that kind of example for the people I taught.

Maybe that's too much to hope for in a six-month stint of teaching.  But I like to think it made a difference.

I don't regret going, but the day disappeared when I signed up to go to Bristol for some stake youth-and-parent activity.  It wasn't bad when it was good, but it was long even when it was good.

I wish I could tell stories with even half of the charisma of the sweet couple in our ward.  The husband has backpacked and traveled the world.  In Holland he didn't have money to pay (or just didn't want to pay) for accommodations, so, unbeknownst to the owners, he spent a few nights in the back greenhouse of some strangers.

Lists of things I should have done run through my head.  Half my weekend chores done.  None of the study time.  I got a shipment of odd assortments in the mail.  I'm not sure exactly what I'm supposed to do with the largest one.  Something tells me I'm not going to get out of it easily.

Maybe a better present would have been a dictionary.

Farmer's markets are sometimes an odd commodity.  Where else can you find ewe cheese, dog biscuits, and a wide assortment of random objects such as rubber chickens, all within the confines of the town car park?

Walking to town and back this morning, weighed down on the return journey with several pounds (monetary as well as physical load) worth of purchases, counted as my exercise.  I am now the proud owner of a second set of circular knitting needles.  I actually prefer them to the straight variety, because knitting with them doesn't cause my hand to ache quite so fast.  I hope that my crafty desires aren't inducing me into an early case of carpal tunnel syndrome, but I have my suspicions.

We ate like kings today.  Cucumber sandwiches on baguettes, plus fondue with rocket salad and pears for lunch.  Homemade pizza for dinner, a la Barbara Kingsolver, I thought.  But then, I'm in a Barbara Kingsolver kind of mood lately, reading one of her books with Mom and (when occasion permits) my youngest sister.

I've also been in a documentary mood lately, largely because of recommendations by people in Rolla.  Food, Inc. and Waiting For Superman were the top recommendations by people at church.  It's making me more critical about the things we usually take for granted: in this case, food and school systems.  Things we just assume are there aren't always in the best condition or shape to give ideal results, year after year.

Also, I got Mom to cut my hair.  She's saved us thousands of dollars over the years by learning to cut hair at home.  She's the only one in the family who goes to a salon, cause she hasn't figured out how to do her own.

Getting back on track, are we?

I stayed up way, way too late last night for no apparent reason. Facebook and Cracked.com may be the underlying factor, but my own lack of self-control is the real culprit.

Something that's been weighing on my mind for the last little while: second thoughts about previously made decisions. Like OK GO says, some things really do seem like a good idea at the time, but then the brilliance loses its luster. My poetic side wants to add: like a new coin gone rusty from the bitter tears of shattered expectations. Not sure where that came from. I haven't been reading sensationalist novels lately.

So today, as a result of my lack of self control, I made up for it by taking not one, but two naps. One shortly after eating breakfast made by my too-good-to-be-true sister. I woke up to her asking me what I wanted in my oatmeal. She's only twelve, bless her, but she already has more homemaking skills than the rest of her peers put together. The second nap was in the afternoon, after wearing myself out from...just what exactly did I do today, anyway?

Cleaned in preparation for a friend to come over to sew with my Mom and sister. Exercised. Showered. Studied my scriptures for my Sunday School lesson, and Preach My Gospel just because. Made a yummy bacon-spinach-tomato salad (a BST?) for lunch. Watched some Scrubs. Fretted over calling a former professor to make sure she is still writing a recommendation for me (she lives on the west coast so I had to wait till early evening to attempt that one). Attempted to edit one of Mom's dissertation chapters, but started nodding off (due to lack of sleep, I promise).

Post-nap (part 2) I made macaroni and cheese with tomatoes. The table was still strewn about with sewing supplies, so I made my siblings eat with me in the kitchen, balancing our plates on our knees while we listened to my seven-year-old brother's iPod. The kid has good taste, I have to say. And I'm proud of that because a lot of it was informed by me.

Items I need to ban from my life:

Scrubs. Replace with job-hunting, or at least something less frivolous on YouTube.

Late-night Facebooking. Replace with journal/blog writing.

Staying up late. Replace with the missionary schedule. I honestly felt better when I was getting up by seven and going to bed at ten thirty. I never, ever got eight hours the entire time I was a missionary, but there's nothing stopping me from adhering to a better schedule now.

My recently acquired meandering attitude toward the day. Replace by honest-to-goodness planning out what I want to accomplish. If this means countless sticky notes or the need to buy a new planner, so be it.

Refined sugar. This one was already a New Year's goal, but I've slipped up a few times lately, trying to convince myself that crisps are legitimate even if they have added sugar. Or that eating my sister's chocolate chip cookies doesn't count because they're made with chick peas. (By the way, that recipe is fantastic. You can find it here.)

Feeling guilty for every bad decision I ever make, or the possible implications of being seen as less than perfect by others. ...I'll get back to you on this one.