Who Am I?

I love going to the theatre. There's an excitement as you walk in and see the gold leaf on the walls, the red velvet curtains hiding the stage. The chandelier glitters above you and all around you are the murmurs and conversations of the audience. The orchestra sits unseen, tuning their instruments and running scales.

You sit and take it all in, waiting with anticipation for the show to start. Then the lights dim and the music starts. The curtains are drawn back and you are transported to a different world. Shivers run down your spine as the characters start to sing.

I went to see one of the greatest musicals today; Les Miserables at the Capitol Theatre in Salt Lake. It was my first time seeing the original production (I had seen the school version when I was 16). What a beautiful and moving show! I was brought to tears many times, as I was transported to 19th century France, following the plight of Jean ValJean, a man who spends his life righting his wrongs, and running from the man who believes only in justice. It is a tale of mercy, love, redemption, and valor.

I came away singing.

Little Secrets

Here are a few admissions of my guilty little secrets:

• I joined "Friends of Josh Groban" (Josh Groban's fan club) just so I could buy tickets to his concert a day early--which meant that essentially I paid an extra $20 for tickets.
• Sometimes, when a car moves out from behind me to pass me, I'll speed up just enough to keep them from getting in front of me. I will also do this if a driver waits until the last second to merge.
• I will buy an audiobook, not because I am particularly interested in the book, but because it is read by David Tennant. MMmmmm, sexy Scottish man voice!
• I have read more than 70 books in the past 4 1/2 months alone.
• YouTube is my favorite! I have watched entire movies and seasons of TV shows on it.
• I love Disney Pop. Demi Lovato, Selena Gomez, Jonas Brothers, and even some Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus (Gasp!) all have a place on my iPod.
• I'm a total celebrity gossip. I love reading People magazine and looking at all the pictures from award shows and knowing who is dating who. It's all so stupid.
• I still sleep with a stuffed animal.
• Sometimes I get so involved in characters' lives that I genuinely feel happy or sad when things happen in their lives.
• I cry over just about everything. It doesn't help that I am a sympathetic cryer. And that I cry when I laugh. Curse these over productive tear ducts!
• I like to pretend that I am someone so much cooler than me. You know, graceful, talented, witty, charming, fashionable, and elegant. Because usually I trip and say "um . . . " a lot.

The Times They Are a Changin'

It is amazing how fast life can change.

Four weeks ago I took a test. And finished my internship at the Church Magazines. Then for the following three weeks I heard nothing from the internships I had applied to.

For three weeks I read books and watched TV, waiting to hear.

Then in one week I had two interviews set up (on the same day). I went to the interviews, which ended up being a very long day. While I was taking the test at the second interview, I could feel my phone vibrating in my purse. I check it after I leave, and it's an offer for the publishing internship at Deseret Book! And it would be starting the next day!

Whoo! It was crazy!

So I started that internship on Wednesday. I felt so much more prepared and relaxed going into this internship than I did when I started at the New Era. I think it mostly was because 1) I had already had experience, and 2) I didn't have weeks to work myself up about it, just a few hours. Haha.

The editing team at DB is a lot smaller than I would have thought, with only 4 editors and the three of us interns. This means that I will always be busy, which is fabulous. After a little bit of training, they got us started. Instead of an office, I have a cubicle. And it is right next to John Bytheway's. Oh yes! Of course, I don't think he comes in very often, but hey. I only work three days a week, from 9-5. And I get to work with books! Big long, involved books! And novels!

It's fantastic!

And tough. I've been working on a book that talks about LDS Beliefs (I think it might actually be called that, but I don't know), where they quoted from a text they can't quote from, so I have been going through and finding all of the places it has been cited and then trying to find that same quote in two other texts that we can use. It is time consuming, and can be interesting, and tedious. I finished the part I had yesterday, and was rewarded with be able to start proofreading a novel!

In one week my life has changed quite drastically, but for the better. I have truly been lucky this past year, luckier than most people.

Words of Truth, Mr. Hugo

So I was reading in Les Miserables last night when I came across this little piece of wisdom that I thought was particularly fitting for my situation:

. . . nothing is more dangerous than discontinued labor; it is a habit lost. A habit easy to abandon, difficult to resume.

A certain amount of reverie is good, like a narcotic in discreet doses. It soothes the fever, occasionally high, of the brain at work, and produces in the mind a soft, fresh vapor that corrects the all too angular contours of pure thought, fills up the gaps and intervals here and there, binds them together, and dulls the sharp corners of ideas. But too much reverie submerges and drowns. Woe to the intellectual who lets him fall completely from thought into reverie! He thinks he will rise again easily, and he says that, after all, it is the same thing. An error!

Thought is the labor of the intellect, reverie its pleasure. To replace thought with reverie is to confound poison with nourishment.

On the Event of Mother's Day

Mother o' Mine by Rudyard Kipling

If I were hanged on the highest hill,
Mother o' mine, O mother o' mine!
I know whose love would follow me still,
Mother o' mine, O mother o' mine!

If I were drowned in the deepest sea,
Mother o' mine, O mother o' mine!
I know whose tears would come down to me,
Mother o' mine, O mother o' mine!

If I were damned of body and soul,
I know whose prayers would make me whole,
Mother o' mine, O mother o' mine!