Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween everyone! I hope you got out there and partied! :) We did. Shauna and I were both brave and wore our costumes up to campus for the first time. It might have been my imagination, but I swear there weren't as many people dressed up this year as there are usually. I felt like wearing a costume made me act a little differently... I felt like I had to be super extra cheerful to match my costume. :)

 Here is Shauna as a mad scientist.

 I was a rainbow unicorn. :)

For FHE, our group watched Monster House (great movie!). Then we went reverse trick or treating with a big group of people. It's a great alternative to regular trick or treating if you're in an area (like university housing) where people won't have candy on hand. You knock on the door, yell "Treat or trick!" and then throw candy into their apartment and run away! :D Lots of fun! I definitely recommend it.

Drinking Fountain

Guess who just installed a drinking fountain in her own home all by herself? (well... Shauna helped too.)

Best of all, it looks just like Shamu!

Voila! :) My inner six year old is very very pleased indeed.

Single Flower

My roommate Natalia and I went on a walk today, and we stumbled upon this beautiful flower, still growing strong in the middle of October:

It made me really happy. :)

Life in Provo is going well. Things have just been super busy. This semester reminds me of my very first semester in grad school, when I was stressed out all the time. My second semester was much more lowkey for some reason, for which I am grateful. This semester is crazy, but fortunately I have better time management skills than I did a year ago, so I am getting by.

I am loving having Shauna at school with me. She's been my best friend for forever and it's great having her around to do stuff with all the time!

On the Family Sciences

Dear Friends,

My undergraduate major was called Marriage, Family, and Human Development. It is a wonderful major but one with many unfortunate misconceptions. Let me clear a few things up for you:

1. MFHD is not "the official M.R.S. degree" at BYU, nor is it the Mommy Prep degree. This is not a major people do to kill time before they get married and start life as a stay at home mom.
2. It is not Home Economics. When I tell people my major, they often say "Oh, you must be good at cooking and sewing!" Actually, my program doesn't include a single cooking or sewing class.
3. There is a reason it is called Family Science. Family science is a hybrid of both psychology and sociology with  a family emphasis. It is a science in the same way that psychology and sociology are sciences.
4.  MFHD is not an easy program. Our program is very research heavy. Students must conduct research, study research, and learn to write research papers really well. Our professors are usually family therapists, so they are kind to us, but they are also scholars and they are used to reviewing papers for scholarly journals. They make sure that we are doing high quality work (particularly in the upper level courses).
5. In some ways, studying people and families is more difficult than studying "hard core" science topics (physics, chemistry, biology, engineering, etc etc). Each individual has their own life story. They are faced with their own unique family circumstances and challenges. They bring to the table a unique blend of personality traits, abilities, relationships, and experiences. No two people will react to the same situation in the exact same way. Also, most human emotions and experiences are difficult to capture in a quantitative way. We have to get creative in our efforts to study families and individuals. There are limitations to what we can do that we are constantly having to work around, but that doesn't mean our efforts aren't valuable.
*disclaimer: I'm certainly not saying that our major is harder than physics, chemistry, biology, engineering, etc. Students in those programs face difficulties that we don't have to deal with. But don't discount our program just because our difficulties are different than yours.*
6. MFHD can lead to careers. Many students (like me) go on to graduate programs and pursue careers as educators and therapists. A bachelor's degree in MFHD can yield jobs too. The fact is, families are important and there are many jobs out there designed to deal with family issues.

Friends, I love my major, but I wish more people would take it seriously. Just because it has "Marriage" in the name doesn't mean I am "one of those girls" who came here just to get married. Just because the emphasis is on families doesn't mean the only career track it offers is in parenthood.

Please treat our program with respect, and we'll do the same to yours. We're all here to learn, aren't we?

Love,

Shelece

Forget-me-nots

President Uchtdorf gave this talk last night as part of the General Relief Society meeting (a yearly meeting for all adult female members of our Church.) All of the speakers gave amazing talks, but this one particularly spoke to me. I especially like his "Golden Ticket" story. :)

Decoration Dilemmas

I am not a decorator.

This became apparent at a fairly young age, when I was given a locker in middle school. Other kids personalized theirs with posters, family photos, mirrors, wrapping paper...

Me? I never put up anything. Oh, I always meant to. Just about everyday when I opened the dang thing or when I looked at my friends' snazzy decorative lockers, I'd think, "I really should decorate my locker. That'd be fun." But I was always too busy and too poorly motivated to do anything.

One of my friends went off on a rant once about people who didn't take time to decorate their lockers. "That's the only thing we can make our own in this place. Why wouldn't people take advantage of it???" Well... As I got older I tried harder. I did put up things in my locker occasionally, and when I got a lockermate, she helped improve things.

Then I came off to college. Over the years I have been blessed with many talented roomies who love to decorate. I watch them arrange things and drool over Crate and Barrel magazines and I've pondered how one  day I need to be more into that. You know, when I have my own place and more disposable income, or something. Hopefully when I get to that point, I will be more into things.

For now, I've been trying slowly to build up my talents. Like today, when I went to the poster sale at the Bookstore. I have a lovely large blank wall in my room, I figured some posters would be just the thing to brighten it up! Except there was only one poster that really appealed to me, and it was pretty small.

Pretty epic, right? I love it! I was excited to come and set it up in my room. But... there was an awful lot of space on that blank wall, and I've never been particularly good at knowing where to place things so they look good...

So basically I think what I've done is highlight all the empty space that I have left, instead of making it seem like there's less of it. Clearly some rearranging is in order. I'm thinking I should probably have put it lower down, maybe just above the bookcase or something. We'll see. I'll play around with it! I also feel like I need to get more posters to help that wall, but I don't want it to end up cluttered either. Also... my days as a college kid are numbered. Posters are fun for a college kid's apartment, but once I'm a real grown-up out there, they probably shouldn't be my main decorating tool.

Oh well. For now I have gone ahead and purchased another poster to add to my collection. Is this adorable or what? And so appropriate for BYU! :)

Never Forget

Ten years ago today I was a thirteen year old girl in the 8th grade. I was already in school when the attacks happened. I think admin must have asked our teachers to keep the unfolding events under wraps, because none of my teachers mentioned anything. Not one of them turned on a TV. Throughout the day, though, more and more parents arrived to take their kids home early. We knew that something must be going on, but we weren't sure what. Rumors came of an airplane hitting a skyscraper... but no one really seemed to understand the devastation (at least no one that I talked to). I was confused. In my mind I pictured a tiny two person plane, a Cessna or something, hitting a skyscraper and maybe destroying a room or two. Certainly such an accident would have killed a few people, but I couldn't understand why it was such a big deal. Why were people so afraid?

After school, both of my parents were waiting to walk home with me, which was unusual. They explained to me that two planes had crashed into the World Trade Center-not little planes, but huge airline jets. At that time I had no clue what the WTC was. My dad described it as a huge building with over 100 floors. He said that on any given day, somewhere between 20,000 to 100,000 people were in the twin towers. (Or at least that's what I remember). He also said that the Pentagon had been hit, and that a fourth plane had been hijacked, but the people on board had overthrown the attackers and then crashed.

When we got home, the television was on. My memory is a little fuzzy, but I don't believe the towers had fallen yet. At least one of them was still standing. I do remember watching a news reporter prepare to interview a woman on the streets of New York, a woman clutching a baby in her arms. Just as the interview started, the tower came down (or something to that effect. Again, my memory is fuzzy). A cloud of debris swept towards the camera. The interview stalled as everyone turned to look. The news reporter called for the woman to protect her baby. Everyone ran for cover.

I couldn't pull myself away from the TV. It felt traitorous somehow not to watch, to try to block out the suffering.

The next day school was canceled because one of the schools in our district was located on a military base, and the base was on total lockdown. For days after, armored planes patrolled the skies above us, protecting us. I couldn't see them, but I could hear them. It was comforting but at the same time terrifying that they had to be there at all.

As a 13 year old, I couldn't fully process what had happened. I remember asking my father if he thought this one would make the history books. "Yes! Of course!" At that time I viewed history as something that had happened long ago; this was the first time that it really hit me that history is made as we go along. History is something we are all a part of.

Looking back now, ten years later, it's amazing how many of the frightened emotions come flooding back. We didn't understand what was happening or if we should expect further attacks. All we knew is that our country was in danger. We were united in a way I hadn't ever experienced before.

Let's all take a moment today to stop and remember those who passed ten years ago. We should never forget. We can never forget.