Topic sentences are like practicing scales on a piano:

they’re good for you, but no one really wants to do them. There are a lot of things that fall in this category, now that I think about it. Early morning exercise, healthy portions of food, doctor’s appointments, homework, braces, shots, fillings, going to bed on time—in fact, now that I ponder this more, it seems that everything that has to do with health falls into this category. But that is neither here nor there. I’m going to try again.
My internet has been acting up lately and as a result, I’ve found myself waiting around for things to load a lot more than usual. Back in the day, when my family owned a Mac and a modem, I figured out that it took about an hour to load a single movie trailer. The way that I usually did it was to click the trailer that I wanted and then go do something else constructive like mow the lawn. After an hour, I’d come in and it would be almost loaded. It was a great system. The advent of high-speed internet sort of ruined all of that. But the skills that I learned as a lad while using dial-up internet have stuck with me and even in the midst of slow internet connections, I can find joy and fulfillment.
My mother is one who is very good at finding joy and fulfillment in the midst of trying situations. This month’s home teaching message was about the influence of righteous women in our lives and as I was preparing the lesson with my companion, I was reminded of all that my mom taught me about finding joy (or at least tolerance) in trying situations. My mom was wonderful at always being level and always I griped a lot as a kid about waiting, walking, and other stuff like that and so one of her sayings that she would share with a smile was “tired and hungry ain’t no excuse” used most often on family road trips and in airports. There was never a choice in our family after Mom asked us to do stuff. She often would allow as how we always had a choice when doing things: we could do it with a smile or with a frown. The thing would always get done, but sometimes I’d be a little worse for wear.
I made a commercial at work today. I’m a trainer for the Office of Information Technology, which means that I get to teach classes about computer software. Mostly, I teach the Adobe products and Microsoft Office. Our office has recently extended our services to all students in addition to faculty and staff, but the problem is that no one knows about it yet. So, I decided that it would be cool to make some cool commercials and get the bookstore to play them (there were others involved in the brainstorming of this, but whatever). My first one that I made was a sped up version of me making a t-shirt with a grunged-out look in Adobe Illustrator. It turned out really well, so I decided to make another one today involving Photoshop. The basic idea that I wanted to go for was that Photoshop could do anything that you wanted it to and so I decided to do a quick montage of one or two click fixes or dramatic reconstructions. That way, the audience would be able to see the beginning, or the “before” if you will, and then jump right to the “after” in just a couple of seconds. I decided to use a swaggering funk-sounding piece of music that I got from a stock music site. I think that it turned out really nice. One of my favorite things in the world is when music matches up with content just right. It remains to be seen if these commercials will ever make it to the bookstore, but I have hope.
I’m trying to love Accounting 210. Really, I am. Today I took my third quiz for the class and got a 10 out of 10. I am quite proud of this and hope that the trend will continue, but I am not completely positive that this will be the case. I took Accounting 20 last fall semester and after successfully navigating the first few quizzes, I got a little casual about the class and the effort that I would need to put in in order to keep my grade healthy. Sure enough, about two days after the add/drop deadline, I waited until too late to start the lesson that was due that night and ended up getting a terrible score for that day’s quiz. “Fine,” I thought. “I’ll just give myself a day to psych myself up for the next one and I’ll be fine.” I turned out that the next quiz was due the day after the one I had bombed and because of my further procrastination, I did pretty much the same thing the next time around. I tried my darndest to keep ahead of the curve, but from then on out, it was as though the accounting gods were against me. I had displeased them from the beginning and they were slow to hear my cries for mercy. At the end of that semester, I took great pleasure in the fact that I would never have to take another accounting class… and then I decided to go into Information Systems and learned that Accounting 200 was required in order to apply for the major. So here I am and I’ve decided to stay WELL ahead of the curve and not offend the Accounting gods as I did before. I’m doing well so far, but the add/drop deadline is coming up in two days and then we shall see how much I’ve learned from previous experience. Attitude is key, so I am trying my best to talk up the class and the major to everyone that I talk to. Hopefully the Accounting gods will have mercy on me as I bring more college student fodder to them.
Of all of the styles of Ballroom Dance, Latin dancing is by far the most satisfying for both the dancer and the watcher. In my opinion, a good samba will beat a good waltz any day. Now, the waltz may be technically more difficult, but the added clout of audience appeal pushes it over the edge in my book. When I first started dancing at BYU, I remember quite clearly going to a dance lab where the Gold II Latin students performed a samba that literally stunned me. Looking at it now, they probably weren’t that great, but looking at them made me want to learn how to do just what they had done. I started out, as everyone does, by taking Social Dance 180 and was puzzled by the fact that we weren’t doing any of the cool dances that I had seen at the dance lab. We started by working on American Foxtrot. I quickly discovered that although it wasn’t as flashy as the samba that I had seen, it was still plenty tough to learn. Leading came pretty naturally and most of the girls that I met while dancing said that I was one of the best leaders in the class. Taking confidence from this, I started taking International Latin classes, where I got my first taste of the samba. To my surprise, the samba I learned sucked in comparison to the samba that I had seen at the dance lab. All we did was bounce to the beat of one---a-two-and—one---a-two-and… the entire dance. Despite this, I pressed onwards and soon entered the world of open competitions where you compete in ballroom dance events and enlist the services of coaches in order to get choreography. It was there that I finally found the samba that I was looking for. It turned out that the bouncing that we did in the beginning class was just to get us to use what is called “foot rise.” When you have foot rise and rise to your toes, if you can absorb the movement into your body while keeping your head level, the movement is transferred to your hips, giving you the hip action that makes samba so awesome to watch. So that’s pretty much how I got hooked on latin dance.
When I hear NPR’s All Things Considered or Morning Edition, I think of Farenheit cologne and the smell of steam. When I was just a little boy, I remember very vividly waking up early and going into my parents room while they were getting ready for the day. I would snuggle down into the warm, newly-vacated covers and listen to NPR while my dad was in the shower. All Things Considered had a very distinct pattern that it would follow every morning. They would start their music and read through the headlines just in time for the music to stop, whereupon Robert Seagull, one of the reporters, would say “the news is next.” He said it every day the exact same way. About 10 minutes into the show, the shower would turn off and my dad would emerge a few minutes later to finish getting ready in the vanity area. I would usually be back asleep at this point, but the opening of the shower door would wake me up and I would see the clouds of steam coming out from the shower area. My dad likes hot showers. As predictable as Robert Seagull’s “the news is next” was the next part of the ritual when my dad would do his hair. I can’t really describe it, but he had a certain flip to the comb that he would use to get his hair just right. To this day, I have not been able to get my hair looking as immaculate as my dad. He would then get his suit on and tie his tie on and although he had a mirror right there, he would always close his eyes while tying his tie into his characteristic double Windsor knot. Right before the final push through and pull down, you bring the big part of the tie around behind the knot and I remember very specifically that he would accent the motion of bringing the tie around. I have the same accent, I’ve noticed. Finally, my dad would give himself a spritz of Farenheit cologne by Christian Dior and turn off the radio. That was the morning ritual and now whenever I hear “the news is next,” I can immediately feel myself back in my parents’ bed watching my dad tie his tie with his eyes closed while listening to Robert Seagull.