::: blog

a week ago today was general conference. i really enjoyed the talks and the time to think about where i am at in my life and what i need to do from here. i had questions going into general conference (mainly about direction, debt, and dating: the three things i seem to be worrying about recently) and they were all answered. i posted my notes from conference on my scripture wiki, but if you want to actually listen to the talks you can find them at the church’s website, or on www.byu.tv (under the tab “LDS Church Broadcasts”).

click here to see my notes in my scripture wiki.

here are some screen shots from the broadcast:

here is a list of three of the talks that i felt a particular affinity for:

• Let Him Do It with Simplicity — Elder L. Tom Perry
• The Ministry of Angles — Elder Jefferey R. Holland
• Come to Zion — Elder D. Todd Christofferson
• Pray Always — Elder David A. Bednar
• Gospel Teaching—Our Most Important Calling — William D. Oswald

eliana and i spent the evening together, going to a play (seussical at the scera theatre) and then getting some frozen yoghurt.

here are some photos from an evening drive along the alpine loop with my family

here is a portion of a larger video discussing the history of stuff. i recently watched this film and wrote about it for class. i thought i would embed a portion of it here, just ’cause i was thinking about it. this part talks about consumerism, something near and dear to all of us in today’s world, no?

the story of stuff (click here to see the whole film, approx. 20 min)

to see some of my thoughts, as well as a summary of the entire film, visit my readings blog, at http://readings.andrewcoy.com

so today, carl asked me if i wanted to go out with eco-response and work with some goats on a farm by utah lake. i, of course, said yes. sitting at home now, i am still enjoying the smell of it all that is lingering on my jeans.

our task consisted mostly of separating goats from… well, goats. it being mating season and all, we needed to separate into different smaller pens a number of the she-goats and then get the billy-goats and put them in there too. the only thing was that the goats didn’t know what we were up to (but maybe if they knew, they would have been even less cooperative, come to think of it), and so it took some fancy footwork to corner them and then herd them into the separate pens. it was all mapped out, just like a byu dating game, about who was to be with whom.

so it was all in all, a great way to spend the evening. i enjoyed it far more than the other thing i had going on tonight (namely, a mission reunion).

so alex, my roommate, decided that we each needed color-coded dishes to organize our kitchen and create the optimal circumstances for us to keep it from becoming a dirty-dish-mess. i must admit, it is working wonderfully well and really makes our kitchen quite cute in a funny sort of way. we like the way they look all set out, and figure that is the most time-saving way to store them, so we actually leave them out all the time, and then, when they are dirty, we wash and dry the item and then put it back on the table.

here is alex showing them off.

we also got this hanging lamp for the living room that i really like.

and here is a random picture of the roommate carl.

so for three years now there has been this festival put on by sego called the sego festival.

this was my first chance to go. i went to listen to adam and darcie play, along with carl.

here are some pictures from the day. (p.s. it was a georgeous day in a georgeous place)

a thought of getting out of the house to live deliberately, and not entirely indoors devoted to the proper placement of words and numbers for the desired end result of “a” written on someone else’s computer somewhere out there in the world of academia lead to a quick hop, skip, and a drive out to conquered (written concord) and walden’s pond (now affectionately famous for being thoreau’s pond).

I realized how long I have been away from actual forests and trees that grow naturally (as opposed to either in straight lines, or with constant watering, or not at all). all of my musings were smugly interrupted, however, as we turned into the parking lot by a sign announcing that the park closed at 8pm. at first i didn’t believe it. how does a lake close down at 8pm? and why? i didn’t think about this for too long though, being informed by a sign next to the one i was looking at that only added insult to injury, $5 parking fee. so promptly turning around we went in search of somewhere else to park but found none. everyone else had already thought of that and lots of signs made it clear that such “out of the box” thinking had long ago been out-lawed. the most natural of things seemed to be outlawed already. we turned around, resigned to the fate of paying $5 for an hour of parking by the pond and the thought of not actually getting to sit, talk, and read as we watched the sun set over the lake i only had heard about so far away so long ago.

down by the lake shore we saw a policeman in a patrol car, and still in something next to disbelief i went over to inquire about that sign i had seen. what did it mean, “the parking lot is closed at 8pm” i wondered. he answered my requests with a no-nonsense, “it means i lock the gate and tow whatever is left in there and fine ya’ too.” i explained that i was from out of town (which he could have easily guess by my lack of an accent and my silly questions) and then hurried off down the wire-fence lined path to the cabin that is no-more with signs reminding us to stay on the path as the shoreline is “protected”. ben thought that barbed wire would have been more effective with about the same look and suz talked about her first time skinny dipping (which happened to be here at walden pond). “it just seemed the perfect place to thoreau your cloths off and go for a swim” she said. i laughed. obviously she has been married to ben for a while now.

winding our way past path-walkers and interrupting couples we arrived at a pile of stones and a fenced in square, ten feet by fifteen feet. we were reminded by the far off sound of a speakerphone mounted on the top of the patrolman’s car that it was now 7:40pm and that the park would be closing in 20 minutes, we pulled out a camera and standing next to the sign declaring thoreau’s intent to “live deliberately” ben gave me his cell phone and suz gave me her watch and i posed for a photo. having achieved our purpose (or at least what would be allowed by law and order given the circumstances) we started thinking about heading back. before we did so we felt an obligation to read the sign describing why this place was important. it showed where luisa may alcott had brought a group of people to show them the location of the cabin as best she could remember. they all stood there and each tossed a rock in a pile to mark the spot. they were only 15 feet off, come to find out years later when someone found the remains of the chimney footings in the ground. so, to be true to this historical occurrence and the homage of later pilgrams we each found a pebble in the area and, reminiscent of the throwing of the stones in mecca, we each threw it from a distance onto the pile contained rocks with names painted, strached, chiseled, and burnt-in by lasers. there was even a cracked concrete brick with “i heart nature” on it. then we left, going back the way we came on a path trod many times before (this was not the one robert frost was thinking about, or if it was, than it has been trod many times since that autumn day when he wandered this way).

making puns along the way, we managed to get back to the parking lot in time for suz to go get the car and drive over to where we were looking at a replica of the hut we just saw and a life-size statue of the man himself. as we got into the car we saw the same patrolman from before drive up, lock the gate and stop a car on its way out. it was 8:03 and we were off to concord (pronounced conquered) to see emereson’s house and to eat dinner there (which, we realized, was humorously appropriate). we had bought some food at b.good in cambridge and were pretty hungry by now. emerson’s house was (although we didn’t really care or even expect it to be otherwise) closed. sitting on a rock wall across the street we ate and laughed not wanting to have visited conquered (written concord) without having seen the sights, we drove through town and out the other side, turned right onto a rock-wall lined side-road to the place where a gun went off and the shot was hear around the world, that is, the “north bridge” of concord (pronouced conquered) where the american revolution began. after a romantic walk in the fading light of the setting sun, we crossed a well-designed wooden bridge and saw not only the monuments on either side, but a grave to british soldiers who died there so long ago. we also saw william emerson’s (ralph waldo emerson’s father) house, and the place where emerson would write his essay entitled “nature.” it was most certainly a beautiful place, but it too was closing soon (at sunset, which gave us more time than at walden pond but not too much). we turned around and went back to town, parking the car next to the masonic temple and wandering the old city streets with recently refurbished shops and galleries. the ice cream parlor was also closed, so we jsut enjoyed each other’s company and the fresh air of the early summer’s evening.

we ate some ice cream when we got home and then talked about suz’s work for a while. all of this was not what i had initially anticipated when we set out, deliberately seeking something, but it most certainly was entertaining, ironic, and perhaps even educational. in other words, i enjoyed it.

nincs több időm éppen, de akartam valamit írni mért ma este sokat gondolkoztam vissza rátok. ha csak azt olvassátok, mit írok magyarul, talán nagyon szomorúnak tünek, ami nem teljes hamis. de ez azt is jelenti, hogy valahogyan boldog is vagyok. de most történik valami fantasztikus.

újra kezdtem az egyetemet, ami nagy lépés volt, de érzem, milyen jó számomra. és képzeljétek el, hogy nem csak úgy kezdtem újra, hogy valahol egy kis terembe megyek hallgatni egy professzort, hanem a nagy világban, kint, az ég alatt tanulok egy különleges nyári prográmban. ez tényleg annyira jó számomra, hogy hihetetlen.

ma est mentem egy barátomhoz, aki holnap ad egy koncertet (hegedőt játzik), és csoda szép volt.

de nézzétek meg a képeimet és majd többet írok, amikor csak tudok.

(itt van egy-két kép a “koncert”-től)

pictures from my summer course and travels, text and commentary will come once the course is over and i have a spare moment to write something down about it all.