STOP Child Pornography

This evilness must stop. Pornography can be monitered better by governments and institutions world-wide! We need to stand together and let our voices be heard. Light a million candles is a site where you can show your support to erradicating child pornography.

Gordon B. Hinkley, prophet of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has said, "It grows increasingly worse. It is like a raging storm, destroying individuals and families, utterly ruining what was once wholesome and beautiful. I speak of pornography in all of its manifestations."

To learn how to overcome pornography, click here: COMBATING PORNOGRAPHY.

Writing plainly

In my history class today we had a speaker come in to spoke about writing. we were showed a website

There are some humerous quotes and some good guides and examples on how to simplify writing. It reminded me of a scripture from The Book of Mormon, 2 Nephi 31: 2: "Wherefore, the things which I have written sufficeth me, save it be a few words which I must speak concerning the doctrine of Christ; wherefore, I shall speak unto you plainly, according to the plainness of my prophesying."

I like the idea of plain writing and speaking. I am going to aim for this.

Support 16 of Activism against Abuse in South Africa

This is a great project. You can go to MWEB.co.za and sign a ecard that will help in the process! South Africa has SO much potential! Viva Afrika!

LDS Custom CD's

I like this, get just the songs I want! Cool! Check out the site.

Morning Ritual

I discovered a site today full of tips to do in the morning.
It is supposed to help you have a better more productive day.
I am excited to try some of them!

Invisible Children

"In the spring of 2003, three young Americans traveled to Africa in search of such as story. What they found was a tragedy that disgusted and inspired them. A story where children are weapons and children are the victims. The "Invisible Children: rough cut" film exposes the effects of a 20 year-long war on the children of Northern Uganda. These children live in fear of abduction by rebel soldiers, and are being forced to fight as a part of violent army. This wonderfully reckless documentary is fast paced, with an MTV beat, and is something truly unique. To see Africa through young eyes is humorous and heart breaking, quick and informative - all in the very same breath. See this film, you will be forever changed." A friend told me about the Invisible Children site and WOW. I also watched the DVD on Google Video and man somthing needs to be done about this terrible war. Watch this movie.

There's a first time for everything!

Wow, what a week!
I did the following for the first time:

1. I went on one of those golf carts that BYU takes prospective students on tours with!
2. I showed a friend from South Africa around campus.
3. I went to the batting cages (I have a huge bruise to show for it)
4. I recorded a song I wrote for the first time - it was exhilarating!
5. I went with some friends to the "Pudding on Rice" place and it was actually cool and really good.
6. I was in a car accident (with another car, previous accident involved a deer) and I'm really lucky that I'm okay - we were close to rolling and then almost went through the wall of Chaka Rama! (seriously, I'm not making this up).

It was eventful and fun :) who knows what next week will involve.

My Passion: Singing

Someone asked me the other day if I was keeping up with my singing. For a moment I thought, "You know, I don't perform and do as much with my singing as I did a couple years ago, okay I have changed countries, started college, live on mt own, work part time and do my best to maintain my fairly good GPA, cook, clean, do laundry, date, socialize blah blah blah! So as you can see I am so busy that I was neglecting my music. Granted I had kinda kept up playing guitar and had learned to play a few songs from friends, but my SINGING had come to almost a halt, with exception of once or twice a year in church and once a year in the International Talent Show held at BYU.

Well, I am proud to say that this will no longer be the case:

A couple of weeks I was part of a womans choir that recorded 2 songs for a upcoming Jenny Phillips project! It was fabulous. We recorded at SOLARIUM RECORDING STUDIOS in Utah. Tyler Castleton produced the songs.

Secondly, 2 weeks ago we began recording a song I wrote inspired by a tragic event that happend earlier this year to two Sister Missionaries of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints serving in South Africa. The song is titled "Why". In a few weeks I will record the vocal for the song. A good friend and great singer & songwriter Brian Rhodes assisted in writing the music for this song and played the piano for the recording.

Last week, I sang in our Universities version of Idols. it was a lot of fun. Ieven made it onto the final round in December. I sang "Who I am" by Jessica Andrews.

Next week, I will be singing at BYU's "World Fest" International Talent Show for the third year in a row. I love representing South Africa!

I continue to play the guitar and have written a few songs that I would like to record in the near future. Singing is my passion!

Kids, Trees, Trampolines and Fear!

What is it about trees that attract kids so much? I came home early to day (4pm instead of 9pm) and since it was such a nice day today I lay on a bench under a tree and read. As I looked up at the sky I had falsh back of me as a kid playing in my front year. There was one tree to the side of our property that me and my siblings and the neighbour kids always played in. It was a tall tree, not one that you could built a tree house in, and yet we loved it. We spent many an afternoon climing, hiding and just having fun in it. I think we even made up stories or games in it.

It got me thinking.... Why is it that kids take every oppertunity to climb trees and once you hit your teens you seldom ever do again? Maybe its cause we get to fat :) or that it seems like a childlike thing to do? Or maybe its because we get cautious and realise how painful a fall could be or what climbing a tree does to our clothes?

On that note, it's funny for me to remember but every Sunday after church all the kids at church would run out to the big tree in the back. It was a SWEET tree, because there was this perfect branch that you to jump too and swing and then hop down. It was kinda high, but hey we were kids and we were fearless.

Even though I was still a tomboy at that age, I was not the only girl climbing this famous tree in my dress. (I don't know how we geot away with it, I'm sure I came home with holes in my clothes).

Well, the funny story is one Sunday, we stayed for a baptism. At one point my mom asked me to go find my younger sister. I being the mature oldest walked around and couldn't find her, but what I did find was the oppertunity to climb my favorite tree as no other kids were around. So, I did my usual thing but something happened this time and as I jumped to swing and grab hold of the 'swinging branch', I slipped and fell and landed on my arm. It was quite sore, so there I was, dam*, how was I gonna go back inside and have to tell my mom I hurt my arm while looking for my sister?!?!

I did and lickily we there was a lady in our ward that was a doctor. I had broken my arm (supposedly green branch break), and now that I think of it, I think I didn't climb many trees after that. So is it fear then?

We used to have one of those big trampolines in our yard. I had been a gymnast, and so when we got it I started out doing back and front flips right away. I loved it! Jumping was the greatest feeling. Until one day I guess I got tired, I did just one too many and re-bounded off it falling into our makeshift washing line of two ropes strung across the back yard. It was painful and humiliating. It was after that that I didn't do many back flips. Recently I took a gymnastics class and it took over an hour for me to get over my fear of doing back flips, I was doing them, but not correctly because I was scared. I still have a few issues doing them, I arch and puch back too much before I rotate: all due to fear.

There must be other things in my life that I don't do out of fear. Should fear stop us? I try not to let it, but it really affects a major part of the brain. I find that fascinating! Maybe I should do dome sore of survey or study???

Flickr

I love taking pictures, sometime I think I should have studied photography. Much to my chagrin I have a cheap (it was my first digital) camera, but I am buying myself a Canon A530 for Christmas - I can't wait!

Anyway, with all the pictures I took over the summer in the UK & Europe and my past 2 years in the USA, I have accumulated quite a large collection of pictures, stored on my different computers and CD's and DVD's, however, I barely look at them as it is hard to find a specific picture or just plain too much hard work.

A couple months ago a friend told me about flickr. I investigated adn foudn out that you can get a free account (with limitations). I tried it out for a bit and WOW! I love it. So, on Monday I decided to upgrade to a PRO account. It's one small payment every year adn you get 2GB upload capacity a month! It is awesome! I am currently archiving all my pictures on it. It is fabulous! You can do alot more with the paid version.