Happy Christmas!

I feel so sick right now and I love it! To explain first I need to say that every year as long as I can remember my family has been packing up and driving down to Utah for Christmas. This is where both of my parents are from. Every year since starting school at BYU, I've had this time of limbo between the end of finals and when my parents get here. They are coming today. They are also bringing me something better than any Christmas present. They're bringing my sweetie, Daniel. As the weekend has gone on I have gotten more and more excited to where I have now literally made myself sick waiting for them. I can only remember my sister ever getting this sick on Christmas Eve. My stomach is literally doing flipps. I wonder if he knows how excited I get to see him.

I must say though that I have truly loved my time by myself. My last roommate left Saturday afternoon and I've had the apartment to myself since then. It has been so nice to be relaxed and quiet for a day or so. I love to have the time to myself to just sit and think and get excited. Each year at the end of the semester I get rather stressed. Planning for Christmas and finishing my classes and getting everything together seems to overwhelm. Then I have this calm before the holidays start. It is a time I take to remember things that I love.

So anyway, I hope everyone has a very Happy Christmas and New Year!

The Heat

Dear Reader,
I just wanted to write a post saying how awesome my roommate is. Her name is the Heat. She is awesome. I was just sitting here, using her computer this very second. She was sitting beside me when, all of the sudden (yes I say all of the sudden instead of all of a sudden) she jerked. This jerk wouldn't have been much except she was holding her water and it spilled all over the part of the seat she wasn't sitting in. To wipe it up she just moved her bum around the chair. Yes, she's awesome.

Also, an amusing quote that she said lately is, "Cream cheese is a secret ingredient for lots of delicious meals." This would not have been weird, except that it came out of the blue! And she said it like I was in despirate need of this information.

Don't you think that a person that does things like this is awesome? Because I do!
Sincerely,
Maggie Jo Timothy

PS. Which do you think is better, Maggie Timothy or Maggie Jo Timothy?

Something Short

So my posts have been really long lately and I just wanted to write something short on here really quick. I decided the other night that one of my favorite things is to see something performed live. I love live concerts, plays, musicals, and operas. I wish I were more adept at finding things like that to go to that don't cost too much money. Well, that's it on that issue.

Growing Up

***Disclaimer: To my sister. I am nervous about posting this blog just because I don't know how you will take it. I am just writing my reactions to what I percieved you to be saying. If I am wrong in some way or I hurt you I apologize right now.****

I'm not entirely sure how this post will go. I feel as though there are many thoughts in my head and I'm not sure how to get them out correctly. This post contains my personal reactions to my sister's post "9 things I do differently now that I'm not a psycho BYU co-ed Mormon ." There are two parts to this post:

Part 1:

I admit that my initial reaction was not a happy one. In fact, I was royally upset. I percieved my sister's blog to be saying that BYU is a place that is too sheltered from the world. Perhaps even that it is difficult to become the person you want to be in that environment. I have known many people in my life that have challenged me in my decision to go to BYU and also in my decision to have my religion. Therefore, I get rather defensive. Recently I went up to Oregon State for a visit and a guy I met there told me to my face that I was a sell out for going to BYU. He said something to the effect of there's no reason that people should try to go there like they do because it doesn't help anybody. The social environment is detrimental to people. I was a little upset because he has never actually lived here. Why is it that I always here all these negative things about my school from people that haven't actually GONE to my school? Now my sister, whom I love and trust, thinks the same thing.

Here is my philosophy, BYU is an LDS school. Being such it should be expected to be a center for LDS thought. If it were a Jewish school it would be a center for new Jewish thought. If it were a liberal school it would be a place for new liberal thought. I am frustrated with people who complain about BYU not being liberal enough. It isn't a liberal school. With that said, I don't feel that people are close minded here. Maybe this is my experience alone, but I have met many very open people living here with very different ideas about life and religion than my own. (Yes they are Mormon too.) Granted there are people that are close minded, and ignorant. You would get that at any school though. Take the good with the bad. That's the kind of world we live in. You like where you live because of how you live and who you are. People can be content just about anywhere if they are living in a manner that makes them happy. It is a personal choice not the choice of the masses.

Most of that was just tangential and I'm sorry, but I've been mulling that one over for a while now. I thought I might as well just get it out into the open.

Part 2

Growing up. I think really that's what my sister's blog is about. I will admit that I had to rush off to work right after having read her blog. I spent two hours stuffing envelopes with money for the taste pannel tomorrow and had plenty of time to think. That's what I came up with. Here's my take on the topics discussed in her blog:
1. Defining yourself/prayer. Everyone has a point in their life that they HAVE to chose who they are and what they believe in. I think my sister's done it. She's made her decision. Bravo to her.
2. Lame activities/Support. This one goes off more on what was said in the comments section, but I have also been to many lame activities. Dances, I'll admit, I have stayed away from, not really ever having liked my experiences there. Also having been put in charge of many activities I personally thought were lame I know how much it means to someone if people actually show up to FHE when the only thing planned is the flour game.
3. Try to convert others. Again a timeless life lesson. Having been forced into many different social circles in the past I know what it means to have a friend that just appreciates you for who you are. I can't say I've ever converted anyone, but I can say that I have good friends that know what it means to live an LDS lifestyle. I think this lesson can be learned with no respect to where you live. BYU or somewhere else, the lesson will come.
4. Judging others. Again that just comes from growing up. Here, there or anywhere.
5. Peer Pressure. This one made me laugh. Peer pressure is overcome at different stages in life. I think of my sister as a completely independent woman who makes up her mind about many things on her own. To be pressured into not doing something by her peers seems so amusing to me.
6. Sarcasm. I personally have NEVER liked sarcasm. I have consciously tried to stay away from it, even though it pops in every once in a while. I'm glad she stopped.
7. Sleepy Sundays. I think the real message here is that she decided that she would make her Sunday more meaningful. I get this from her comments later, not the actual post itself. I personally disagree about the THREE hour nap for myself, but whatever helps you the most on Sunday.
8. Feel Guilty. I think that this is also a lesson learned in time. Being able to have an accurate picture of yourself is a very hard task. To be able to say, "I'm not what I should be, I'm not what I could be, but I'm not what I used to be either." Is difficult. By that I mean, having the appropriate perspective. I think people everywhere have this problem. Not just at BYU.
9. Opening my friendships. I will admit that at college, once you are in your major you are basically locked into a certain social circle. I'm glad my sister now can accept more people as friends. I think this was a cause of some disagreements between the two of us my freshmen year.

All in all, I'm glad my sister can see herself grow. I think it's amazing. I still disagree with her on a few issues, but for the most part I'm just glad it happened. I hope everyone, myself included, can strive to become more introspective, whether it be at BYU, CU, or anywhere else on the globe.

My Sister

This post seems to be out of place with the other one. I really do feel everything I say on this one. I guess that's one of the great things about families. You can respectfully disagree with each other and still love each other tremendously.

I love my sister. Does anyone know how absolutely amazing she really is? I don't think people around her actually do. I try to convince her, but she never agrees with me. I think she is wonderful. I love her.

Katie has always been my hero and sometimes idol. When we were younger I wanted to BE her. I have shaped my life after hers from taking the violin to wearing my two pairs of sox rolled down the "cool" way. I have followed her into the jaws of a dog and back. To me she seemed brave, fearless, undaunted, and courageous. I would do anything she asked me to. She protected me.

When we moved to Spokane I always percieved her as the popular daughter. In my mind she quickly made friends whereas I struggled. Then I watched her go into highschool. She was so fashionable. Her friend and she were always around the cool people in school. I had a hard time with friends when I was younger having had two "best friends" that decided they were too cool for me. I wanted to be just like my sister. She was popular, pretty, funny, and impressive.

Today I still see my sister as so much older and more sophisticated than myself. She has a career and a car and really nice clothes. She knows what's up in her life. She is in charge as she always has been. This whole time I have wanted to be just like her.

As time has moved on I am now finding out how my perception of the truth was completely different from hers. She has insecurities and fears that I formerly knew nothing about.

Now I see how different we are. This whole time I have tried to be her I find I am not. Don't get me wrong I am happy being me. That's a long hard road I think everyone has to travel. I still see her as a fashion expert. To me she is still brave, classic, chic, undaunted, fearless, sexy, and beautiful. I don't think that will ever change. I love her so much. She is so amazing. She is my sister.

Grotesque

****Disclaimer: Extremely Long, Emotional post. I couldn't cut any out. Sorry****

Much to my surprise I found out in my nutrition class today that I am grotesque. This startling news was doled out by a bunch of angry women and men. Mostly just the other females in my class. Here's how my nutrition class went.

The final subject in my nutrition class for the semester is energy balance and weight gain. I don't really like my nutrition class, but this topic is one of my least favorites. I think it is the least favorite of most women, but usually for a different reason than my own. I don't like it because I honestly don't care. I am how I am and I think that's ok. I also don't like it because it tends to get women extremely worked up and I try to avoid those situations. Anyway, we calculated our BMI (body mass index) before class and I went into class knowing mine is in the 18 neighborhood.

Today we go into class and everything starts out normally. I'm learning about different types of obesity and different energy balances. Then they start talking about BMI. Here's where the train wreck started. Our professor told us about the different cutoffs that the National Health Board have come up with for various weight classes:

• Unerweight <19
• Healthy Weight 19-25
• Overweight 25-30
• Obese 30-40
• Severely Obese >40

I was a little surprised to see that I am in the underweight category. He explained that the cutoffs were based on mortality rates for each of the BMIs, healthy weights being associated with the lowest mortality. He asked the class why in particular the lowered BMI would be associated with a higher mortality rate. Snide comments came out such as, "People that are that skinny just fall through the cracks in the sidewalk and get trampled on." That was seriously a comment that came from someone in my class. My professor tried to mitigate these comments by saying that low BMI is also associated with diseases that might cause death. For example, someone with cancer, at the time of death has lost a lot of weight and would thus have an extremely low BMI. I was a little upset by all the negative comments about me being too skinny and dieing, but honestly I've always been skinny so I'm used to comments like these.

Then came the real clencher. My professor introduced a study that was done at a university on attractiveness levels of each gender. He presented this to the class to try and make the point of the unrealistic expectations that society has for body shape. Forty men were shown photos of 50 women from the neck down with different body compositions. They tested waist to hip ratio and BMI vs. attractiveness level. Waist to hip ratio didn't seem to matter, but BMI accounted for 73% of the variation in attractiveness level. The highest level in the statistical model was found to be at a BMI of around 18. He then went off on how this was an unrealistic goal. Then comments were shouted out about men only liking grotesque, prepubescent girls that weren't really women at all. Keep in mind that I have a BMI of 18 and was sitting listening to how grotesque I am! I was so mad I didn't even know what to say.

I'm not complaining that I'm skinny. I'm just noting how incredibly rude some people are when they feel attacked. It's not like I was shouting out how all the other women in the room were fat lards that needed to go to the gym and eat right once in a while. I don't think that, but even if I did I wouldn't be shouting it out to the rest of the class. I think my professor could have handled this situation in a much better manner.

Raw Meat

I went to Otto and Sons Inc. today on my class fieldtrip. It was pretty awesome. I didn't think it was going to be, but actually I was intrigued by the meat processing industry. Otto and Sons Inc. is the "exclusive meat supplier for McDonald's". They also supply meat to Nestle, Kraft, and Chipotle (a Denver based restaurant company). I thought that was an interesting fact because people in the United States feel that the meat industry is corrupt and that you can't trust your meat to be safe. Let me tell you that this is so far from the truth.

My friend Jonny read "Fast Food Nation" and was trying to tell me how corrupt the meat industry was and how they were always trying to cut corners. All I can say to that was, he read an expose of one person's experience of one factory. That person was also trying to sell a book. Like any activity, you're going to get some people who don't do what they're supposed to. Do you think that the restaurants would buy the meat if it didn't pass microbial tests? I say NO. If he wants to believe the word of one person without actually researching the truth about government regulations in the United Sates, I guess I can't force him to see the truth.

Here's my attempt anyway. First of all, companies know it's bad for business to be putting out food that would harm the consumers. People stop getting food from a place that has been connected with bad food. It would put them out of business. People want to produce something they can be proud of and if they want to stay in business for any length of time they also want to produce something the consumer will buy. Consumers stop buying damaged goods. Secondly, since the infamous Jack-in-the-Box outbreak the US government has really cracked down on the meat supply and it has become much MUCH safer. In fact, what I found out was that most of the contamination that people get from restaurants that serve meat now is actually from the bathroom. Yeah, that's right, other people in the bathroom that don't wash their hands. Kinda gross, but it's true. You should see all the tests they do on the meat coming into the facility and going out of the facility. Tests run constantly.

Also, I think that my sister should give up being an aerospace engineer and design new equipment for food processing. She'd be so good at it! It SOUNDS lame, but honestly I have been so amazed at all those machines working this past semester as I've gone through the processing plants. It's pretty cool. Well, actually she's going to go to grad school so she'd probably be WAY too qualified for that job. Katie, you rock.