24th Year Resolutions

This is my year. The year of the rabbit. Chinese New Year started a week ago; totally in line with my birthday. Which I guess I should probably tell you about.
Melinda, Katie, and Melanie visited me up at Aspen Grove on Friday. We ate massaman curry, funfetti cake, and reminisced over some choice episodes of Freaks and Geeks. Lovely.
I woke up the morning of my birthday to see this chap looming over my bed:

The twins had bought a cardboard cut-out of the Biebs, taped balloons onto him, and sneakily left him in my room while I was sleeping. 

Homeboy almost gave me a heart attack when I woke up. 

P.S. Whoever will go with me to see "Justin Bieber: Never Say Never 3-D" will be my new best bestie.

After work, I zoomed down the canyon to meet up with Mum, Pops, and Broseph to see the Carl Bloch exhibit (that experience deserves a post all to itself, so stay tuned). Dinner at Brick Oven followed. My dad made sure to tell every employee that my mom worked there back in the day. He also told them that it was my birthday...so yes...I was one of the poor suckers that they make stand on the table while they sing some variation of happy birthday because if they sing the "real" happy birthday song they could get sued because it's under copyright or something and that's why you never hear the whole song in tv or in movies or anything either. As a reward for my humiliation, they gave me a plate of whipped cream and pie crust. I loved it. 

Afterward, we headed over to Tiana's and Allison's for cake and stuff. I slept over, so of course we had a pillow fight and played "Truth or Dare" and painted our nails, and put curlers in our hair, and slathered our faces with gooey cleansing masks, and read seventeen magazine, and watched the whole Twilight movie series including the documentary "Twilight in Forks: The Saga of a Real Town"*. On Sunday it was churching time, and then back home to SLC for dinner with family and friends. Perfect perfect.

Basically my 24th birthday was no different than what a 14th birthday would look like.

In honor of a new year in my life, I've put down some resolutions. Really, I think that it is best to make resolutions on your birthday, because that is really when *your* year begins. This is what I will do, be, and accomplish in my 24th year:

1. Be more reverent

          It's too easy to be irreverent. Especially when you're trying to be funny. Or when you are living with boys. Or when your home is isolated from most of civilization. I've been listening to way too much Kanye. My internal dialogue is riddled with curse words. The self that I was on October 17th 2009 (the day I came home from my mission) would be appalled by the self that I am now. But that's what resolutions are for, right?
          Just like the primary song says, "Reverence is more than just quietly sitting". It doesn't mean you have to be boring, you just have to be conscious of what you are doing, and considerate of the spirit. If what you are doing, watching, or listening to offends the spirit; then it shouldn't be happening. What a simple standard. So I will be more discerning about the movies I watch, more selective about the music I listen too, and careful with the way I speak and act. I also want to set aside more time for the temple. 24 temple visits in my 24th year. I can do it. Twice a month. Starting tomorrow. Who's with me?

2. Sincerity: Don't be so American**

        
          Speaking English is tricky. Katie teaches English, and has found it difficult to explain to her students why we speak the way we do. Like why we are so disingenuous, for example. It doesn't matter how you feel, you will always say you're "fine". You always tell everyone, "We should hang out sometime," even if you don't really want to. And, if you fancy someone...well, for a lot of the time, you are supposed to pretend like you don't. Apparently this was really hard for her students to understand.
"American's are liars!" they said.
"Yes, we are," she said.

I'm going to try to follow my instincts, which probably means I will look foolish sometimes. I will stop being worried about what people think of me, and just say what I want to say, and do what I want to do. Be friendly; no more acting disinterested or cool.

How does one put this into practice? I'm not really sure. For now, I'm just trying to act like I'm Brazilian. They always seem confident and friendly enough.

3. Make some noise
          My brother Jeremy is pretty good at music stuff. I like music a lot too. It's high time that we form a brother-sister musical duo. Especially since there is a a gaping hole in the genre now that The White Stripes are over.

So we'll be like them, except we're actually brother and sister. And I'm guessing we'll just be doing covers. It will be fun! I think I'm more excited about this than Jeremy is.

4. Be featured in the Daily Universe's Police Beat
          I know that some of you are schemers out there. Let's make this happen.

*Some of these things didn't really happen.
** I use the term American as a title for residents of the United States.