Sweetheart Changes! (disturbingly)

So Sweethearts have been my favorite candy for a long time. I'm not completely sure why, but I know it's not the taste.

This year (maybe it started last year) there have been a lot of changes to Sweethearts. All of the flavors have been revamped. Green is now green apple. They got rid of white and replaced it with blue: blue raspberry. Purple is grape (not sure what it was before...maybe it was trying to be grape?), and now pink is different and unidentifiable.

The other big change is what the Sweethearts say. Here are some examples from the bag I have in my desk right now:

Game On
1 on 1
Shake It
Text Me
Win Me
Play Time
Play Now
Race Me
Time 2 Dance
You Rock
Reach 4 It
Go Go Go

For some reason, I find this highly disturbing. I'm just imagining people having a conversation with these hearts:

Girl: Play time

Boy: Play now?

Girl: 1 on 1...

Boy: Game on!

Girl: Win me.

Boy: Race me.

Girl: Go go go, reach 4 it!

Boy: Shake it!

Girl: Time 2 Dance.

Boy: You rock.

Girl: Text me.

Anyone else disturbed? Or am I crazy?

Excellent Journalism

I just wanted to share this extremely well-written news article I read during my down-time at work: Floods in Brazil

The writer in me is never asleep even though I now have a job that doesn't require any writing at all (unless you count emails that are usually two sentences or less). At least my job does use my four semesters of German from college, if absolutely nothing else. So far.

When I wrote for the Scroll at BYU-Idaho, I was really frustrated with the formality of the writing, because I wanted to write creatively. Of course in journalism there are rules about accuracy, so my usual descriptive language was often judged as subjective and therefore unfit to print. This is one of the biggest reasons why I only stayed on staff for one semester. I had about three articles that I thoroughly enjoyed writing, which was too small of a percentage.

The above article, however, is a masterpiece in my opinion. It is vivid, rugged, wrenching, and graceful, just like the country of its subject. This is brilliant journalism.

And So This is Christmas

This year I decided to focus a lot more on the Christmas spirit rather than gifts, which was actually not too hard, because I finished my Christmas shopping essentially the first week of November. So during the whole month of December, I was trying to think of ways that I could serve others better and get to know Christ better.

I don't know if I did this successfully, but I can say that this Christmas feels a little different than others in the past. I have spent a lot more time with my family, and I am really glad I have. I have some crazy awesome sisters and we have a lot of fun together.

I also made and sent out a lot of Christmas cards to my friends which was something new. Usually I make cards for those friends that are immediately accessible, but this time around, I'm so far away from most of my friends, and I wanted to let them know how much I care about them even though we haven't talked or seen each other in a while. It was really nice to be able to express that.

I have also been reading/studying my scriptures a lot better in the past month, and this week I have just been reading from the New Testament. It is really awesome...instead of reading one story or chapter at a time, reading big chunks of the Savior's life really helped me to see how much he really loved us...an unfathomable amount. The best part is, he forgives us continually and wants to reward us with everything in the world. I am so grateful for him.

I'm hoping over the next year to continue these kinds of habits, so constantly be finding ways to serve people better and get to know Christ better. It is amazing what a difference it makes in your life.