Do What Scares You

     Everyone is scared of something. Heights, the dark, needles (I am terrified of needles), roller coasters, public speaking, spiders...etc. What are you scared of? I want to share a story of when I overcame a huge fear of mine. This honestly isn't an easy story for me to share, but at this point in my life I don't care. I could care less if you think this story is dumb, I'm writing this because maybe there is one person who needs to hear this. Someone who is going through what I went through.

     It was the first day of my freshman year of high school when I walked through the heavy red Logan High School doors. I wanted to turn around and get back into my mom's warm car. Unfortunately (I know we all felt like this) I knew that wasn't a reasonable option. I hardly knew anybody, I had gone to a charter school my 8th grade year and knew public school would be a lot different. The Student Body Officers helped me find my classes. I smiled at everyone hoping I would spark up at least one friendship.

     On a scale from 1 to super confident, my confidence level was a flat 2. I hated school and faked sick all the time. My grades reflected my attitude toward school. Looking back at this time in my life, I wish I could say "Hey! You're great! Nobody cares as much as you think they do!" I hardly had any friends my freshman year and when a teacher asked me something I would get extremely nervous. Once a classmate even laughed at me because I turned red. I wished I could be like everyone else, pretty, smart, well liked. I didn't know that my toughest judge was myself. My fear? Was what everyone thought of me. I was on the volleyball team but quit after my freshman year, despite my major improvements, because I honestly couldn't handle the pressure of people watching me play.

     Something happened the summer before my Sophomore year. Like a slap in the face, I realized that I was an okay person and nobody really even noticed when I said the wrong thing. They were too concerned about what everyone thought of them. My goal sophomore year was to notice the good in people instead of trying to be noticed by kids who were "cool". I made so many friends my sophomore year, I stopped caring about what people thought. I started building myself up instead of tearing myself down.

"Those who mind, don't matter.

Those who matter, don't mind."
-Dr. Seuss

     I love singing. I have ALWAYS loved singing. Even when someone told me I was off key at a karaoke night and I thought I would never sing in public again, I kept practicing it alone in my room accompanying myself with my nylon string acoustic. Once I was singing with my friends in a car on our way to get 7/11 slushees (remember how the person who could drive first in high school was always the cool one). One of them told me that they didn't know I could sing. I can only imagine I said something self defeating. I didn't think I could sing, I just knew I liked doing it. They told me I should try out for the choir. I listened to that friend, and goodness I am extremely glad I did! 

     Auditions were only in front of 4 people, but to me that was 400% more people than I was used to singing in front of. I remember I even spelled choir wrong I was so nervous. I spelled it "quoir". I made it, and singing became my life. I sang ALL THE TIME (I still do). Suddenly pushing myself to sing in front of people became a way to kick that insecure demon inside of me out to the gutter. "Sayonara biotch!" My choir took first overall at Nationals, I went to a state competition with an aria (aria pretty much just means opera), and I started singing in front of hundreds of people at least once a month. Eventually thousands of people, and I got talent scouted to go sing in Nashville for a music company that started Jason Mraz's career (which I chose to turn down because it was either that or college, every time finals come around I wish I hadn't.)

     Singing in front of people STILL terrifies me. I still become insecure all the time. However I found that there is a power in doing those things that scare me. A power that transforms me from a small town girl to the next Beyonce (okay maybe that's a bit extreme but you get it). I know that if I mess up, I will always be proud of myself for trying. Nobody will remember my mess up in a few years time unless I remind them. My senior year I was Senior Vice President, on the golf team, CX team, in a million clubs, and close to a 4.0 student. I'm not saying this to show off, I don't even know if anyone is going to actually read this. To put an end to this long story (if you read this whole thing, you are amazing and I will personally take you out to lunch), I hope you do something that scares you every day. You'll eventually realize nothing is impossible.

XOXO Lauren

When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer

Walt Whitman, 1819 - 1892

When I heard the learn’d astronomer,

When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me,

When I was shown the charts and diagrams, to add, divide,

   and measure them,

When I sitting heard the astronomer where he lectured with

   much applause in the lecture-room,

How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick,

Till rising and gliding out I wander’d off by myself,

In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,

Look’d up in perfect silence at the stars.

     I haven't decided yet if I'm posting this to depict a beautiful poem by Walt Whitman, or to simply express how much I am done with school at this particular moment. While it is most likely the latter that is inspiring this post, I would like to point out that we focus too much on authority. 

     We listen to the first person to tell us how to live life, then we listen to the next person who seems to know more than the first. We do whatever it takes so that when we speak to someone someday they will listen to us when we tell them how to live life. However did we ever think twice that maybe there is no right way to live? That maybe doing what we innately believe is the right thing to do is better than any advice any "learn'd" person can give us. 

     What Walt Whitman was saying in his poem was that no chart, or diagram, or proof, or figure, or some PhD professor can tell you exactly what the real world is like. The best way to figure that out is actually being in the real world. I'm not saying school's a joke. In fact stay in school, kids! What I am trying to say is in the midst of trying to cram numbers and figures in your brain, go out and live your life and see for yourself how the world is. Instead of only seeing it through clouded lenses. 

Life is the best professor.

Spring Break 2016

Spring Break

For Spring Break I borrowed the extra seat in my brother's car and went to Portland, Oregon with his wife and 1 year old. I had never been to Oregon before so I wasn't sure what to expect. I had no idea how much I would love it. Even though it rained most of the time we were there, it was beautiful! Everything is green, even the dead trees are covered in green moss and vines. I have to say the best part though was the culture. Everyone is friendly, dresses nice --except for the bums which there are PLENTY of, great food on every corner, and the seaside... oh the seaside <3

We went to Cannon Beach, the one off of the Goonies with One Eye'd Willey. It was freezing and there was a lot of wind due to the time of year. However even that didn't change how gorgeous the beach was. Haystack rock (shown in the picture above) was quite the sight. You can tell from the picture above that my coat seems a bit tight on me because of all of the layers I had underneath. The wind was so strong we could lay against it.

 Here are a couple of my favorite restaurants in Portland:

                                                
           Pibs Doughnuts (better than Voodoo)                                             Salt & Straw Ice Cream is AMAZING

I hope you get the chance to find yourself in Portland, Oregon one day, if you haven't been already. 

-Lauren

Harper Lee

In memory of Harper Lee passing away this last week, this blog post is for her. She was a literary genius of her time. Her most well known book, To Kill a Mockingbird, addresses racial stereotypes. It makes the reader cheer for the blacks, which at the time was a disturbing thought to some. Harper Lee understood how to make the reader question their own way of thinking. Here is my favorite quote from her:

            

   -Lauren

ELECTIONS

Elections are coming up in the United States next year, and at USU this month. What are elections? That is a ridiculous question, of course we all know what elections are. However I want to highlight every aspect of elections that maybe you haven't thought of yet.

1st perspective: Voters. Most of us are more accustomed to this perspective. We look at the candidate and usually vote for the one that aligns with our beliefs, or the one we have heard about the most from our friends and family. On a more local scale, we vote for the candidate that we have more connections with. e.g." That kid was in my biology class! He seems really nice, I guess I will vote for him." However there is a great percentage of students and Americans who don't vote. Voting is either inconvenient for them, or they don't think they have much say in the matter. Are you someone who takes it upon yourself to know your candidates and votes? Or someone who doesn't vote, but complains when they don't like how things are being run?

2nd: Candidates. The key players, the brave ones. Most have lots of experience with what they are running for, some (even though they won't admit it) are in it for the title. All of them put up with A LOT! They may seem like they have a huge support group, however the bigger support group they have the bigger anti-support group they probably have. Especially presidential candidates, they hear on a daily basis why they are awful human beings. For example senator Marco Rubio was scrutinized for getting 4 parking tickets in 17 years, as if that is the worst thing a presidential candidate has ever done. Each of them have their own opinions, and they usually don't waver. Not only do candidates invest their time and life into running, think about the MONEY. According to the New York Times, Obama spent $750 million on his 2008 campaign! What about the candidates that don't make it? How would you deal with losing all of that money and effort? Would you think it was all for nothing or would you take something away from it? (that last question is a good determining question for if you should run for something or not).

3rd: Facilitators. Everyone forgets about these people. They are the glue, and absolutely essential to campaigns. They aren't allowed to show preference for a certain candidate because it is a good chance they are working with more than one. Maybe I'm biased (I am a facilitator for the USUSA elections coming up this month), Facilitators have the best job. They get to see all three perspectives of the voting process up close, they usually know exactly who they will vote for, and they get to see what works for candidates and what doesn't in case they ever want to run.

Who are you going to vote for? If you don't know, I recommend taking this quiz to see which presidential candidate represents your point of view the best. And when it comes time to vote for USUSA elections go to this site. I believe that gaining knowledge about issues helps you have your own opinion, which helps you become a better arguer.

English 2010 first post

Hi English 2010 class! This is my first blog post in a long time, if you scroll down you will see proof. However this was my blog from high school so you probably don't want to scroll down, be my guest if you do (just promise not to judge too harshly).

     I would like to bring up chapter one from our textbook. I am quite fond of the idea of having an argument that, instead of causing a rift between the two arguers, creates a bond. This world would be a much more pleasant place if everyone learned this skill early on.

     Something about me is I love history. I am not a history major (and will probably never be one), but I believe that you can gain important knowledge by looking at history. Look at the founding fathers of this nation, Jefferson, Washington, Franklin, Adams, Madison, Hamilton, Monroe... They did not by any means entirely agree with each other. All of them had slightly different ideals as to how this country should be established. They, being brilliant arguers, took all of the different opinions and made a settlement. The settlement is what we now call the home we love. THAT is what arguing is.

-Lauren Morrill

Sweethearts

     Last week was the girls choice Sweethearts dance at my school. My group had 12 couples, if you don't know if that is big or not then from a scale from 1 to huge group it is really far up there! Having a mammoth group made it that much more fun though, especially because everyone got to be with their friends and their dates. What do you do with a massive group for a day date? A massive scavenger hunt all over the town of course! We separated into car groups (so 2-3 couples per group), one of the girls in my group had a sister who volunteered to give us all of our clues (we all had 10 clues, each group got the same clues to start out with they were just all in different order so we didn't run into each other too often), then at the very end of the race she awarded candy to the winners. Here are the clues that we got (we had to take a picture of every clue that we completed)

1. Do the chicken dance in front of KFC or Chick-file

2. Help a stranger cross the street

3. The boys had to dress in girls clothes and the girls had to dress in guy clothes (the opposite gender had to pick your clothes, as you can tell us girls were really mean)

4. Propose to a stranger in Walmart

5. Push your date in a shopping cart

6. Kiss on the cheek on top of the Aggie A (a college tradition in my town)

7. Pose like a superhero 

8. Pose with a statue (haha my date is getting nailed in the face)

9. Do a Chinese fire drill but we didn't get a very good picture of it

10. Get a strangers autograph 

     Then we all met at a big parking lot to determine who got first, my group got second to last haha but we probably had the most fun doing all of the challenges. We took our dates home after that then picked them up for dinner and then of course the dance. We had dinner at one of the girl's, dad's work. it was just a huge room with a table in the middle of it, decorated with hearts everywhere. Costa Vida catered and we just had the photographer take our pictures there (My sister Brooke took the pictures she is a pro seriously though check her out at http://brookemorrillphotography.com/)

If you haven't figured it out from all of the pictures above this is my hot date for the night, Jaden Connor. Oh and he also won Sweetheart's king at the dance. That's kinda cool.

Big right? 

     After the day date we went to an elementary school, it was almost 2 in the morning, in a school, pitch black, and we watched a Insidious 2! It was awfully scary but made the night that much more unforgettable and exciting. I honestly couldn't have asked for a better time!

-Love Lauren