January 20, 2009

I haven’t been able to write in a long time, and typing is faster, so this is what I’m doing for today. Plus, I’m already on campus typing up a bunch of stuff for school, I thought I might as well. Actually, I’m considering continuing to do my journal on the computer because it’s just so much faster. Isn’t it so funny that our society has taught us to be faster in typing than writing? It reminds me of a BYU devotional from last semester where the English woman who wrote “Eats, Shoots, and Leaves” came and spoke of how the English language and literature, as an art, are dying. Well, anyway, we’ll see about my journal. Of course, it can be lost fairly easily and it seems less personal to me because I’m not writing it out. But, we’ll see.

A lot has been going on. My first week of school was great. I think I’m going to enjoy all of my classes. They are quite fascinating subjects and I’m already enjoying them. That’s a good sign, I suppose. This semester is going to be fun because there are a lot of people that I know in a lot of my classes and I’ve already met a ton more people. And being with people always makes things a little more exciting. So, I’m taking this semsetr, Organic Chemistry, Advanced Physiology (with a lab), Evolutionary Biology (with a lab), Spanish Literature, and Molecular Biology lab. I was afraid 3 labs would kill me, because they take up so much time, but I think it’ll be okay since I’m not working this semester.

Speacking of which, I love not working while going to school. Already I have felt so much less stressed out and like I have more time to ENJOY learning and studying because I don’t have all this extra stuff to do. It’s great. It’s like I needed to remind myself why I’m going to school and why I enjoy school by dropping the job. I really did like working as a TA. I’ve noticed a lot about me changing, though, because I don’t have a job. Well, maybe it isn’t directly correlated, but I feel so much better. I feel less tired and irritable, more cheerful and able to be kind to people. I like that I can focus more of my attention outward now that I have more time, it feels like. I just feel like me again. I wonder if Daniel notices any difference. He’s known me for a while now, but he’s only known me while I’ve had a job. Maybe I’m the only one noticing. Maybe I’ve done a good job of how I really feel, or rather, felt.

Well, two weekends ago, on January 9^th, I had a girl’s night. Alisha (from nextdoor), Alison, Kat and I went to dinner at Mimi’s Café and then went to see a movie at the dollar theater, “High School Musical 3”, again. We had a lot of fun. When we got back to my apartment, we ate ice cream and watched “Breakfast at Tiffany’s”, because I’d never seen it before, and my roommates were flabbergasted. I still can’t decide how I feel about it, though. I think I’d need to see it again to determine, maybe when I’m not so tired. The next day, I studied for a while and went to play racquetball with my friend, Sam Murdoff. He kicked my trash! Then Dan and I went on a date. We actually went ring shopping…for real! That first week of school, I told Dan that I decided to marry him. He didn’t react much to it, but he seemed happy about it. I had decided earlier in the week, like on Sunday. And there were two nights in a row after that that as I prayed about it and thought about it, I felt incredible peace. Even after telling him that I had decided, thought, I had doubts and fears bombard me again. But, I decided to see it through, unless the feelings persisted for a long time. So, we went ring shopping. It felt strange, for me at least, to be shopping for real. We have done it before, but only joking and playing around. This time, I had to be serious about it. I found several that I liked, but only 5 that I considered and had our girl write down.  We haven’t been shopping since.

Sunday, January 11^th, Dan and I went to the CES fireside where Pres. Monson spoke. It was great, he talked about education a bit and being prepared, etc. After the fireside, Dan and I made cookies and went to visit friends neither of us had seen in a long time. We took cookies to Madi and went to see one of Dan’s friends, Dan. It was fun. But afterward, we kind of got into a fight. About kissing, of all things. And I got upset, and then Dan left upset, and proceeded to spend the rest of that night and the entirety of Monday dwelling on all the bad things. He started to doubt his decision about marrying me, and thinking about all my cons, etc.

Last week was the tiniest bit nerve-racking because of that. Especially since I had decided and was pretty firm in my decision, and then there was this fear that he was going to break up with me over something seemingly meaningless (or at least, to me). I didn’t want to call him or see him at all for the first couple of days of last week, because I was afraid he didn’t want to be with me. He called me in the middle of my TOPS meeting Tuesday afternoon, though, and we went to the gym together and then studied.

The rest of the week was fine. There was a lot of studying. I was really fascinated by my evolutionary biology lab on Thursday, our first lab of the semester. We talked about creationism and other related theories that refute evolution and why they could or could not be good evidence against evolution. It’s really interesting how this argument is, actually. I watched a video today for an assignment about how religion and evolution coincide. The different arguments and ideas related to their comingling are fascinating, and coming to terms with my own reservations about it has been really good. When we first started discussing this in my classes, there were so many questions and ideas that sort of made me question where I stand. And to be honest, I was afraid of what might happen to my fiath and my testimony. There are all sorts of questions. How did God create man? Why couldn’t it just have happened the way evolutionista say? Maybe God just made the Big Bang happen. Maybe he commanded that little ameobe to evolve into man. But then, how does Adam play into this scene? Doesn’t the Bible say that God created man in His own image? Well, what image is He talking about? Perhaps He meant in His spiritual image, in the image of His soul. But then, the soul of man is both spirit and body, right? And how does one explain the age of the earth if it was created only a few thousand years ago and it was created in 6 days? Is a day in God’s time the same as it is with us? How literally should the Bible be taken in it’s account of the creation? Since the earth was created from existing materials, maybe there were fossils already lodged in the materials that make up the earth. Maybe some of the animals we assume were here weren’t actually here. And whatever happened to dinosaurs? Were they on earth with Adam and Eve? And what does it mean when Genesis says that God created all the creatures? Does that mean he created all of them separately, unable to change on their own? Are all the species that exist or ever have existed creations of God? That’s a lot of species. Or are we just making up species where there aren’t any? Maybe all of the animals that are so similar are just one species, we are just focusing on their differences and coming up with an explanation. There are so many questions unanswered, obviously. These aren’t even half of my questions. I am unsure as to how God created the earth and man and in what time frame. This however, I do know: I have faith. I don’t need to know all of the details. There is a God, and He created man in His image, and His image is what we see in ourselves: a body of flesh and blood, a spirit and a working mind. We are “gods in embryo”, we are like Him and we have the ability to become perfected like Him. The gospel is true and I don’t need to be afraid that my testimony will waver because I have questions. I think questions are good. They make us think and discover new things. I also believe that some elements of evolution are true as well. I think animals do have the ability to change over time. I think this was intended by God; the makeup of our genetic information and the ability for mutation because of its set up makes that apparent. Evolution and religion can coexist. We don’t have to pick one or the other. The complexity of organisms is proof that there is a God, and the diversity of organisms if evidence of evolution.

Wow. I got really side-tracked. This has been something on my mind for some time, though. I think it’s a fascinating topic and I’d love to do more studying on it.

Anyway, Friday January 16^th, Madi, Bekah, and Kalie Anderson came to our apartment to hang with us. It had been a while since we’d all been together, so we decided to do something. The plan was to have pizza and play games. But we just ended up talking the whole time, and everyone was gone by the time we got pizza. Dan and Mike were over too, so when everyone left, we just hung out and ate. Dan and I had a good talk, though, about us getting married. He still felt scared about it, but he said he’s pretty sure.

The next day, I slept in, then studied. Dan’s mom and sister, Emily, were in provo and wanted to take us to lunch. So, Dan, Cody and I went to lunch at El Gallo Giro and it was really good. It was fun to be with them, too. Dan came over afterward and just studied with me all afternoon. That night, we didn’t really do anything. Dan left to go running and he didn’t get back until after 9:30, so we watched some tv and then attempted to make yogurt. Towards the end of that night, I was getting really down. I was wondering why he now felt so bad about us and I couldn’t stop feeling so negative. And I was getting down on myself as well. He kept me in the car ‘til after 1AM because he didn’t want me to leave him feeling so badly. We didn’t talk much, but I started to feel a little better. I was hoping I could just sleep it off.

I had a dream that night, though, that we broke up and I now had to start dating again. It was very real and vivid, and I was extremely grateful when I woke up. It did put a weird taste in my mouth all day, though. It was sort of a continuation of the feelings I had the night before, I thought. I had meetings for my calling (which is now ward choir pianist and accompanist) all morning until about noon, so I didn’t have much time to read or reflect and get myself out of that mood. It heightened at church. I couldn’t focus in Relief Society, I was so out of sorts. So I skipped part of Sunday school to figure out what was up with me. I think I had started to get down about myself and discouraged that I just wasn’t doing good enough, or being good enough of a person, and the fact that Dan was doubting me, too, didn’t help. I did a pretty good job, in those 15 minutes, of getting over it, and I enjoyed the rest of church. Sacrament meeting was especially good. The speakers talked about the Savior and about forgiveness. It was so incredible!

That night, Dan and I went to his family’s house to celebrate his Dad’s birthday. We stayed for most of the night, playing and reading with his sisters, talking to his family, watching a conference talk and making bracelets. I had a lot of fun. But then, on the way home, Dan said something about getting married, how he still felt weird about it, and all those feelings came right back. I felt so bothered by it, but I think I felt more bothered by the fact that I was bothered. I don’t have the right, when I did the same exact thing to him. I told him that, so that he wouldn’t be wondering why I was so silent on the way home. But I couldn’t for the life of me snap myself out of it. And on towards midnight, I couldn’t even be around him. So he asked if I wanted him to leave early, and I told him yes. So he left. And after a minute and a half, I ran after him. I felt bad for having treated him so badly and I didn’t want him to think that I didn’t want him and have him leave on such an awful note. So I ran out, sobbing, and for several minutes (or so it seemed), we just stood outside his car, hugging (rather fiercely, I might add) while I sobbed into his shoulder. I kept saying how sorry I was for acting the way I did, and he kept telling me there was no reason to apologize. It took me a long time to stop crying. His shirt was black by the end of the night. We stayed in his car for a while after that, talking about how we felt, and I left and he left feeling so much better.

Yesterday was our one year anniversary of dating…or rather, of going steady. We wanted to make a day of it. So after a morning of studying and cleaning, we played racquetball, got ready and went to my ward’s fireside (I had to go, I was playing the piano), went bowling (we did horribly! I miraculously won both times, but our scores were in the 40-60 range for both games. We blame it on the intense games of racquetball wearing out our forearms. Maybe poor racquetball shouldn’t be blamed, however.), and then danced bachata until he had to leave. It was a good night. After bowling, before going back into my apartment, Dan told me what he’d been thinking about us the last couple of days. He said he’d talked to his roommate, James, just to sort out how he really felt. He said that he’s been having fears and doubts, but he (like me) feels that they are not from God, and that he just needs to work through them. He’s prayed and felt like it’s a good decision (as have I), and we just both need to not let our fears prevent us from doing something really good. So, I’m getting married. I was expecting to feel more scared and nervous about this, especially in talking to him last night and deciding for sure to get married. But I don’t. I feel extremely calm and peaceful about it. It’s the right thing to do. And it feels good.

I talked to my mom this morning after I woke up and read my scriptures. I talked to her for a long time, she told me what was going on at home, I told her what was going on with me. It was good. She told me something that I thought was interesting and sweet. We’ve all been a little lost about whatever happened with Kenny. I don’t even know what went wrong, where he started to change his mind. On Sunday, Brother Johnson spoke in Sacrament Meeting. He’s moving up to Portland, so it was sort of his farewell. After church, Mom went to say good bye to him, and he said (basically), “You know, I don’t know what happened between Kenny and Leslie. But I want you to know that we really loved your daughter.” So, nobody really knows what happened…except the boy himself. She asked me about Daniel and what was going on there. I told her about some things that have been happening, and she gave me some advice and told me some of the things she’s been thinking about.

Wow. I sure hope he doesn’t change his mind!

Daniel’s so cute! Yesterday, he wrote as his facebook “status”, “Daniel loves Leslie.” I just think that’s so sweet. I couldn’t help but write about it.

Well, this entry is now ridiculous. I better end it. Just know, today went well with school and TOPS and all. And everything is going really well. And, … I’m getting married!