Dancing and Pioneers

On Thursday night Matt and I were discussing new movies coming out such as Iron Man 3 and Star Trek. He was saying how Iron Man 3 comes out May 3rd so I figured it would be a few weeks later here. To my surprise the next day Iron Man 3 was already here! Naturally I had to jump on the opportunity and see it before Matt so I went with a couple of friends that night. The movie was fantastic as expected and I won't say any more as not to spoil anything.

Before the movie we grabbed food at a sushi place which proved to be a very unique experience for me. We sat next to the sushi train where small plates of sushi and other food goes around on a conveyor belt and you just grab what you want and eat it. At the end the waiter counts how many plates of each color/value you have to calculate the cost. I discovered I'm quite American when it comes to sushi. I tried sushi with salmon and fish eggs, prawns, some kind of octopus ball thing, and a couple other unknowns. The sushi was good, but at the end I grabbed some teriyaki chicken that was easily my favorite. I still miss the Beaver Roll at the sushi place near OSU, but I think I will have to find new favorites while in Australia.

The next day was the long awaited "So You Think You Can Dance" YSA performance. I met up with Brock and Kaytlin at the central station after getting quite confused about locations, and then Damon drove us all to the Sutherland Entertainment Centre for the show. It was a packed venue with not the best visibility, but still fun. They had Jazz, Country (Toy Story themed), Musical Theatre (RM theme), Swing, Latin, Contemporary, and more. Each stake did a marvelous job, and I attempted to record a little of them, but unfortunately I can't get them to load. Although I have no desire to be a YSA again, I miss being able to participate in some of those activities. It was a blast to participate in the one I was in over 3 years ago (click here to see video) and proved to be a night to remember since I got in a car accident that night as well. I think there should be more fun married couple activities as well so we don't become hermits. Perhaps it's just expected that you'll have kids really soon meaning you aren't allowed to do fun stuff.

Sunday I gave my talk on the pioneers. This might easily be the most difficult talk I have ever had to prepare, and probably the worst one I've given in a long time. I think the Lord helped people to hear my word better than I actually spoke them since I got many nice comments. In the end I feel that I did my best and hopefully the Lord helped others to hear what they needed. Most of all I'm very grateful for having to write that talk for all the interesting things I learned about my own family history.

For years my grandparents (on father's side) have talked about the Standing and Baddley family that were pioneers. All I remember is that they had nice graves in the cemetery in Salt Lake City and were pioneers. Beyond that I didn't really pay attention to the stories. By working on my talk I learned that my great, great, great grandfather James Standing actually took care of Hyrum Smith's family for a bit, was imprisoned with Brigham Young, helped shoot home-made cannons at the mobs in Missouri, and was a stone-cutter for the Nauvoo temple and the Salt Lake City temple. I also learned about his family and how his son Joseph was killed while serving a mission in Georgia, and his eldest son James Varley Standing started to go blind in his later years. James Varley apparently was quite talented and liked to ride in wagon wheels spinning around and he could walk on his hands for over a block tricks. All of his younger days may have led to him going blind, but he still married a lovely woman by the name of Eliza Baddley. Eliza's family didn't really approve of their marriage since James was going blind. The small white house they lived in still exists about 12 blocks from the temple in Salt Lake City. Although I don't remember this, my dad claims I've been there or had it pointed out to me many times. Apparently there is some great pioneer history on my mother's side as well, but I didn't have time to extract it all. Family history can be quite fascinating and I am sad I have not delved into it more.

The last few days I have mainly focused on my next Statistics assignment. My teacher gave us all an extra week at my (and probably other's) request since just a day before many of us were still completely lost. I overthink it too much and then I get easily confused on what to do. With the extra time and working with classmates I'm sure we'll figure it out. This also gave me time to watch Life of Pi yesterday. I read the book a long time ago when someone recommended it because I wanted to work with tigers. It was a really good movie with some neat scenes. There is a lot of debate about the meaning and truth of the movie, but it's not based on a real story so I don't understand why there's so much debate. I will say that if it were true, I would believe that the boy could survive on a small boat with a tiger and all that occurred in Pi's story. I believe that things can be true even if there is no logical explanation for it.