I realized that I have spent an entire semester being very dedicated to the cause of the Writing Fellows without once blogging about them. I love being a Writing Fellow - it's fun, informative, and worthwhile. In Writing Fellows, we are assigned to a cohort, and then our cohort is assigned to a specific class to help those students with two writing assignments. My cohort worked with Matt Ancell's Humanities 202 class. What a blast. Each cohort is led by a fearless Senior Fellow. Mine was the ever-glorious Sarah Waggoner, fellow fellow and BYU economics student. Every email she sent renamed the members of our cohort to match some historical of fictional group. Once she was Harry, and we were Ron and Hermione. Once she was Ulysses, and we were Abraham and Robert. Once she was John, and we were Paul and Ringo. We all pulled all-nighters every time we handed back papers in order to get our response letters written, Senior Fellow included. What companionship! What camaraderie! She really watched out for us. And now the end of the semester has come, and with it the end of our cohort. Sarah, being the Senior Fellow that she is, wrote each of us a note and put it in our box to bid us each a fond farewell. As part of her note to me, Sarah included some musings she had, in part inspired by a conversation we once had in a Y lot after a cohort meeting. As a shout-out for Sarah, I wanted to share this with all of my own devoted blog-reading fans. Here are the wonderful words of wisdom:
The Church should teach airplane-sharing-the-gospel. It should be a chapter in Preach My Gospel.
Seriously. 51.2% of all member-missionary gospel sharing takes place on airplanes. (I just made that up.) Think about all the famous airplane gospel lessons of our dispensation. Gene Cook and Mick Jagger. Or, that story you tell every other week in Sunday School. Or just today, I had a conversation with a fellow student, Rebecca, who shared the gospel with a young man from Nigeria who in turn told her that he wanted to start a home with her, all on an airplane.
The chapter could include tips on how to make Word of Wisdom conversation from the drink service. How to casually bring up the gospel using the church literature one is reading. How to mention eternal families if one's seating companion does so much as touch their wedding ring.
Actually, we should make pass-along cards especially for airplanes. Something like: "people die on airplanes. Sometimes airplanes crash into buildings and into oceans. But, don't worry: no matter the outcome of this flight, you can be with your loved ones again. For more information about eternal families, please visit mormon.org." Businessmen could carry them in bulk in their briefcases.
Church membership would explode.
Saturday, December 19, 2009
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
Turkey or Ham? Mulan or Pocahontas? Bathroom Stall Doors that Swing in or out?
Many years ago at Girls Camp my friends and I brainstormed endless list of these two-option, quick-fire questions. Through all these years, I have firmly maintained that I prefer bathroom stall doors that swing out. But now, I'm not so sure.
There is a certain logic behind bathroom stall doors that swing in. 1) Many public restrooms can become quite crowded. Should the stall doors swing out, there would be a much greater liability of someone inside a stall injuring someone outside one. 2) With a stall door that swings in, the occupant of the stall has greater control over their privacy. Sometimes, as we all lamentably know, locks can come loose or not work in the first place. And sometimes people push the stall doors open when there is someone inside, unaware of this fact. If the stall door swings out, there is absolutely nothing the person inside the stall can do: the door is far out of their reach. If the door swings in, however, they could kick it with their foot or block it with their hand while shouting "hey!" and thus regain their privacy much more quickly.
On the other hand, we all know how difficult it can be to get in and out of a stall with a door that swings in while wearing an overly-filled backpack. No one really wants to have to stand on the toilet to accomplish this often very difficult task, especially to the balance-impaired.
What a quandary.
There is a certain logic behind bathroom stall doors that swing in. 1) Many public restrooms can become quite crowded. Should the stall doors swing out, there would be a much greater liability of someone inside a stall injuring someone outside one. 2) With a stall door that swings in, the occupant of the stall has greater control over their privacy. Sometimes, as we all lamentably know, locks can come loose or not work in the first place. And sometimes people push the stall doors open when there is someone inside, unaware of this fact. If the stall door swings out, there is absolutely nothing the person inside the stall can do: the door is far out of their reach. If the door swings in, however, they could kick it with their foot or block it with their hand while shouting "hey!" and thus regain their privacy much more quickly.
On the other hand, we all know how difficult it can be to get in and out of a stall with a door that swings in while wearing an overly-filled backpack. No one really wants to have to stand on the toilet to accomplish this often very difficult task, especially to the balance-impaired.
What a quandary.
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