Answers I liked

[Humble Master]

Make sure you block out a 60-hour block of time before you watch the premiere. That show is binge-inducing viewing.

[SmurfBlueSnuggie]

This is what I've been told.

[Portia]

Humble Master's retelling of the Odyssey is the best thing I've seen in the reunion. :D

[Amity]

http://theboard.byu.edu/questions/77222/

What was the pun, Katya?

[Katya]

http://theboard.byu.edu/questions/77222/

What was the pun, Katya?

I was walking by my coworker when he loudly said "Godiva" (as in the chocolate). He was talking to another coworker and it made sense in the context of where we were working, but I wish I'd said "Godiva to you too, mate!"

So, not a really great pun, but also not one I'm ever likely to have a chance to use again.

[Digit]

Russell M. Nelson's a big supporter of using the right hand to take the sacrament. My husband said he thought he remembered him saying something about it in the last few years, so I looked and couldn't find anything that recent (granted I didn't look very extensively), but I did find something from 1983: https://www.lds.org/liahona/1983/07/que ... s?lang=eng
That said, I don't think it matters all that much. If it did there'd be something about it in Handbook 1, and I don't think there is.

Reminded me of this funny one.

[Portia]

"Let It Go" in all the languages. I know that ASL is a lot more than pantomime, but that motion of breaking free of the shackles on "I'm freeee" was just beautiful. And, like Concorde, I thought the French version has a certain unique emotional complexity. Mon pouvoir vient du ciel et envahit l'espace makes it quite spiritual (that this is a divine gift) and I really like the idea that there is a cost to her liberty - le froid est pour moi le prix de la liberté. Bravissimo!

[the anglophile]

Ah I want to learn ASL so badly. That will probably be one of the first classes I take when I get to college. It's such a beautiful and expressive language and I just want to be able to use it!

[the anglophile]

https://theboard.byu.edu/questions/6702/ From 2004, predictions on Harry's love life by the end of the series surprisingly accurate too!

[Portia]

I met my first Meese this weekend. (So I guess 18 months is my answer to this question. Do cousins even count?) Looks like it's in my phone's dictionary, too. :P

[Owlet]

"Let It Go" in all the languages. I know that ASL is a lot more than pantomime, but that motion of breaking free of the shackles on "I'm freeee" was just beautiful.

Yay! This just makes me happy.

Ah I want to learn ASL so badly.

Also makes me happy! We have some great Deaf teachers here.

That reminds me, Olympus mentioned ASL once or twice during Reunion Week. I wonder how she got into it.

[Amity]

I met my first Meese this weekend. (So I guess 18 months is my answer to this question. Do cousins even count?) Looks like it's in my phone's dictionary, too.

I agreed to meet my boyfriend's parents this Sunday. Ack. Advice?

[SmurfBlueSnuggie]

I met my first Meese this weekend. (So I guess 18 months is my answer to this question. Do cousins even count?) Looks like it's in my phone's dictionary, too.

I agreed to meet my boyfriend's parents this Sunday. Ack. Advice?

Just treat it like it's no big deal. When I've gotten nervous about meeting my boyfriends' families, I've always been miserable. One boyfriend was so chill I never got worked up. Then his eight year old sister ran outside, extremely excited to meet me, the moment I arrived, and everything went totally great.

Two of the guys I've dated, I got surprised by their parents. One was taking me to lunch and his dad called and needed to borrow some cash, so we stopped by his office. My most recent boyfriend's mom knew I was coming over and raced him to the door so she could meet me. He was planning on slipping out before that. Both were good because I didn't get worked up.

Twice I got nervous, never relaxed, and didn't really allow myself to get to know them.

I know you weren't asking me, but this is something that has been tricky for me, so I've had to learn what to do. Just pretend you already feel comfortable and act like it's no big deal. It helps a lot. At least for me.

[Giovanni Schwartz]

http://theboard.byu.edu/questions/77276/

Regarding Doppelgangers:

1) There is one other person in the world with my real life (first and last) name. He graduated from high school the same year I did. I met him once at EFY, because his roommate was the third of a set of triplets that were in my group.

2) One time in "Boys' Life" magazine, there was a kid that looked EXACTLY LIKE my little brother. Like, had the same goofy smile and everything. It was beyond bizarre.

[Digit]

I once saw a black and white picture of an Albanian woman in a National Geographic magazine that looked exactly like Jay Leno.

[UffishThought]

My students keep asking if they can call me Donna and wondering if they can watch That 70's Show in my honor. So I guess I know who my doppelganger is.

[Portia]

I met my first Meese this weekend. (So I guess 18 months is my answer to this question. Do cousins even count?) Looks like it's in my phone's dictionary, too. :P

I agreed to meet my boyfriend's parents this Sunday. Ack. Advice?

Maybe it says something about me that I've only met one set of parents! (The fact that I've only dated one guy from Utah -- and that was brief -- no doubt contributes.) Be respectful but personable, talk to them as people and not just The Olds, and dressing up never hurts. My family really goes for all that chivalry stuff too, which is whatever. They seem to be impressed when a guy holds the car door or whatnot -- which I have mixed feelings about.

[Katya]

http://theboard.byu.edu/questions/77302/

These videos are all funny, the the mustache one had me dying.

[Portia]

This question applies a lot more to my current situation than it did when it was asked three years ago. I definitely can testify from firsthand experience that it is very possible to have a deep connection and shared interests with someone whose class background and ambitions aren't exactly the same as your own. (My two most serious boyfriends have arguably come from the stratum above and one stratum below, respectively. I'd estimate the percentiles in terms of family income at 20th for my current guy, 50th for myself, and 80th for my ex.)

A lot of the greatest works of literature and film examine these issues (Pride and Prejudice, Howards End, Hedda Gabler, Middlemarch.)

Trying to makeover a Macy's kind of dude into a Brooks Brothers one is an understandable impulse but somewhat offensive in some way. And really I think arrivistes are just as annoying -- not that ambition isn't admirable, but bald-faced social climbing can just be really silly.

I mean, are the differences between the lower-, middle- and upper-middle class really worth losing so much sleep over? It's something I worry about intensely to the point where I can't even control it. I think that frankly my family lived somewhat beyond our means in some ways (we had pretty nice clothes and ate at good restaurants) and now that I'm an adult my family's recklessness really disturbs me. I see some value in the good-old-fashioned ways of frugality and self-sufficiency. But then I'm like, "public school is gross."

So here's my question -- my "friend" as he was introduced (at least it wasn't "companion" alla Ibsen, ha) has expressed an interest in a graduate program that I think would advance his real career (we're both aspiring-but-not-very-serious writers). I talk about it all the time; sign up for their emails and forward them to him; have even weighed the pros and cons of moving back to the Northwest (which has some fantastic parts and some parts I really struggled with, socially). But I think if I weren't researching it, he'd continue along in the job he finds stressful living in our college town ad infinitum.

One time he was crying and saying I was the "only one who really believed in him." And I look at his dysfunctional family and how he's had to fend for himself since high school and it's like, "yep." But I worry that I believe in myself and my inspirational qualities. But I'm pretty sure that if he just drops it all to write fantasy novels that the Pre-Raphaelite bohemian dream would lose its luster pretty darn quickly.

How do you inspire someone to be their best selves (I definitely felt very supported by him and my family in getting my degree despite all the ish that was going down at that time!) without being either delusional or a nag? :-|

[Portia]

I liked this article in the Wall Street Journal (the most alpha male-ish publication I can think of) about this phenomenon.