Arabian Nights

One thing I learned about my new stake is that they put on a play annually (at least that's the rumor I heard). It may or may not be a musical every time, I'm not sure. What I DO know, is that this year we're doing a musical, and it's familiar to all: Disney's Aladdin. Auditions were this past Saturday and I got an AWESOME role. I am a narrator. I know it doesn't sound all that awesome, but you have to trust me. The play is written with five narrators but my directors felt it was too much, so they brought it down to two. I realize this will mean more lines but it will also mean more stage time. (Whoo hoo!) In my call back, I met Kathy, the other narrator, and together I know we will have tons of fun as our line are full of comedy. Basically, we are the Abbott and Costello of the show. On top of that, we get to sing and there is only minimal dancing (or so I hear). I am SO excited! Rehearsals should be starting next week and performances will be in February, and I know that sounds like a long time, but rehearsals are only two days a week; Wednesday evenings from 6-9 and Saturday mornings from 9-12. I will make sure it is taped for anyone too far away from Utah to come see it.

Other than that, not much going on here. Just working and things....snore.

Workin' Hard for the Money

Well one prayer has finally been answered! I have been looking for a job since March (although I have only been seriously looking since early July) and I was just starting to think there must be a reason for my unemployment when the door opened. I had gotten an interview with a construction company (as an office assistant) that is building a huge shopping center across I-15 from Lagoon in Farmington but in the end they decided to hire someone with more experience in the field. This was annoying because I felt I had done really well on the interview and they even told my temp agency that they had "nothing negative" to say about me. I guess that was supposed to make me feel better about not being hired. The following week I filled out an application to be a receptionist for an assisted living home my friend, Chelsea, works at. They told me the position had been filled but would take my application and resume for future reference. A few days later I interviewed for a title clerk position in a North Salt Lake car dealership. The day after that interview my temp agency called me and told me they had a position for me that I didn't even have to interview for. My friends happened to be there when I got the call so they drove me over to meet my boss (he asked if I could stop in and luckily I had that ride available). I met John and who I would assume is his fiancée (temp agency told me his fiancée wanted to meet me), Lee. They seemed impressed with my resume and I started the following day. Of course, now that I was hired, the car dealership called to offer me a job and even the assisted living home called to set up an interview. Go figure.

So here I am, I am an administrative assistant for Great Dane Cranes, Inc. I have my own office, with my own computer (including my own login), my own phone, my own set of keys, my own code to the alarm system....I feel so grown up! HAHA. Actually this is my first "real" job since in college I was just a student worker and at Griffin I was only temp so I never got keys or a login or anything cool like that. I work a lot with Janeen, who is the office manager. The company owns thousands of cranes, which are those claw machines you see in the grocery store, the sticker machines, candy machines, toy dispensers, and stacker machines (more common in the west; if you do well you win big prizes like a Nintendo Wii, Rockband, PSP, Digital Camera, GPS, Gameboy Advance, Computer flatscreen monitor, Ipod Classic or Touch, Zune, Iphone, Xbox 360, or $225 Visa gift card). We also own a bunch of jukeboxes. Aside from John (the president/owner), Janeen, and I, there are four drivers (Keisha, Andrea, Matty, and Jayson) who collect all the money from the machines, and Kevin, who does a lot of our repairs. There are a lot of family members within the group. Janeen's husband, Jeff, is a silent partner, Keisha and Kevin are married, and Janeen's brother, Neil, is our IT guy. The lady I replaced, Julie, is Janeen's best friend. As much as I love this job, how I got it is very sad. Julie's sister was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer (she smoked for ten years about ten years ago). I found out today it is in stage four and the prognosis is very bleak. Julie is the primary care giver so that is why she left the company. However, I am learning a lot and I love coming to work every day, except for the lack of air conditioning. I do a lot of computer work, entering info into and creating new spreadsheets. I manage all the large stacker prizes and keep track of who gets what and when. I also count all the money that comes in. This process takes a few hours, even with counting machines, but I don't mind it. I spent so much time looking at one dollar bills last week that I memorized all the mints that they are printed in and their corresponding letter of the alphabet. The more intelligent people reading this probably already know, but if you arrange the mints by their "code" letter, they go from east to west geographically. Very cool.

Well I just thought I send in the update on the job situation. Feel free to post questions if I left out any details. :)

More Annoying Rants

I've blogged a bit about the "Utah Mormon" culture that seems to see the world through these rose colored Mormon glasses that make everything look hunky dory, as long as you claim "personal revelation". Like I've said in the past, don't get me wrong, I am a strong believer and supporter of personal revelation; I know without a doubt that Heavenly Father answers prayers and gives answers to those who righteously seek them; however, I see so many people using it as a defense instead of actually using it as intended. Let me explain. I was married at 19. I was engaged at 18. I KNOW that was young, and it was something I prayed about and got revelation about, HOWEVER--I was not going to jump into anything just because I'd been given a green light from the Lord. I took time to be sure that this was the answer I had gotten, and more importantly, I took time to make sure I was asking the correct question. It was not "should I marry David?" with an expected yes or no. It was "I've really thought about being with David for eternity and I feel that we would be a good match. Do you agree?" When I received confirmation of that I took the time to make sure of it. I asked over again because I didn't think it would be a bad idea to be SURE of that answer since this was THE most important decision of my life. After I was sure that Heavenly Father approved of the union I went back into my own mind and made sure it was what I really wanted. I used the mind my Heavenly Father gave me to logically consider all the options, all the pros and cons, the risks and rewards. I thought about my desires for life, my dreams, my hopes, my aspirations, and I thought about how a marriage to David would affect these. I considered what life would be like depending on where and when and IF...I considered the alternatives and how they would affect my life. I thought about factors that would make things more difficult and/or cause more antagonism from friends and family, like my age, and ways that I could get over them. Because of my young age, I had to look at our relationship from an outside perspective, find ways to counteract the apprehension that came from the age issue. The age thing bugged me a little, too. I didn't want to get married right out of high school; it was important to me to have some college behind me. That's the main reason our engagement was so long. In retrospect, I hated waiting so long. I do not recommend it to anyone; however I would hardly recommend a minuscule engagement either. While 15 months is way too long, 3 is way too short in my opinion. Adequate time should be given to get to know someone and to prepare for a wedding and marriage; finances should be taken into account; more should go into planning a wedding date/marriage then just not wanting to wait.

Then there is the flip side. You find people who meet someone, decide within a few hours that they are going to marry them and then two days later when someone asks "Did you pray about it?" they say yes and this is supposed to appease everyone. When people (like me) question that (in Utah, anyway), it's practically blasphemy. You might as well have claimed to be Jesus Christ himself the way people act towards you. Do I doubt that a prayer has been said? Not at all. My apprehension comes because I fear that maybe people are too involved in a relationship to recognize a true answer. This crossed my mind a lot when I was looking for my own personal revelation and that's one of the reasons I asked many many many times and did everything I could to make sure I had really gotten the answer I had gotten. When someone meets someone, prays once, and "gets an answer" I wonder how serious the prayer was. On top of that, I fear about whether the correct question was asked. If the wrong question is asked, how can one expect the "right" answer? When people make mad dashes to the altar and then play the personal revelation card when other people express concern, it should raise red flags. Personal revelation is something that should come after a decision has been carefully thought out; something that confirms what our own logical minds conclude on their own or refutes it and forces us to rethink from a new perspective. When people express concern about a decision we have made, we should be able to logically explain our decision without going immediately to the "personal revelation" response hoping that that will make everyone shut up. This only says (to me at least) that the decision has NOT been carefully thought through, thus the desire to "shut everyone up".

I have some other thoughts about similar items but they will have to wait for another day. Thanks for taking the time to read my rantings.