Education Week

I went to Education Week at BYU to learn, to spend time with my sisters and to avoid Adam’s fourteen friends. I love Education Week, it’s one of my favorite weeks of the year. I love my sisters and I don’t love Adam’s friends—not because they’re not lovely, but because I don’t know them, and fourteen house guests are best avoided.

Utah has weather drama, even in high summer. Thunder, lightning, pelting rain—I love it in moderation. Rancho, in comparison, is very boring. Seventy something almost year round—yawn. Along with the weather drama, I enjoyed games and good food with my sisters and awesome classes.

Here’s just one of the week’s highlights. The Marriott Center holds about 22, 000 people. I walked into the Marriott for a class and sitting directly in front of me was my sister, Kathy. I thought this remarkable because the Marriott Center is huge and Kathy and I hadn’t coordinated at all. I wasn’t expecting to find her there, I wasn’t looking for her and yet there she was. (I also thought it odd that Kathy wore a navy blue shirt with little strawberries on it that matched 16 year old Miranda’s tennis shoes—navy, little red strawberries. Does this mean that Kathy is young and hip or Miranda is 16 going on senior citizen?) The class where I found Kathy was supposedly on the life before birth and yet the instructor spent a huge amount of time talking about perfectionism. I don’t think perfectionism is an issue for me. I have lots of issues, but I don’t think perfectionism is one of them, but there must have been a lesson underlined that I needed to learn because as Kathy and I walked to campus a bus passed by with PERFECTION—ARE YOU READY? written on the side.

So, I’m not perfect (no surprise there) and that’s okay. I also learned that every life event provokes a chemical reaction in our bodies and that if we retell or revisit an event we recreate that physical chemical reaction. That’s why we need to let go of negative experiences—retelling or revisiting only causes our bodies harm. I learned about simple sugars and fiber and nutrient density and how to stabilize blood sugar. And did you know that learning to breathe for relaxation is more effective than marijuana? I also took two money classes on purpose and one class that dealt with money on accident. That night I had a very vivid dream about our future finances. The next day Dow dropped 400 points.

I really believe that by putting myself at Education Week (or at any place of learning, or at any book of scripture, or book, movie, website of instruction) with an eager, open mind the Lord is able to stuff all sorts of things into my head, including the lessons I’m looking for and the ones He wants me to learn.

I’m home now. The fourteen houseguests are gone. The weather--mid-seventies. Life as I know it returns. I hope to blog a little more often, write more than I have during this busy summer, and be a little better, a little smarter because of what I learned at Education Week.