Finally Finished: Feelings

This is multiple choice. I can't decide how I feel right now. So you can choose:

A. Sondra feels like a kitten freely frolicking through a field.

B. Sondra feels like an elated toddler.
C. Sondra is stoked that she finished her last final EVER (as an undergraduate).

Five Down. One to go.

On Friday I took three finals: Temples, U.S. & Canadian Family History, and American Sign Language (ASL). Saturday I finished my Old Testament final. Today I finished my Soc 301 final. Tomorrow morning I will finish my Social Strat. paper. When I turn that paper in I'll get the final--and it's due on Wednesday. Hopefully this will all be over soon. Then I will feel like this:

Drinkin' Problem

I haven't had a cup (or sip) of coffee since I joined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Most people that know me know how much I LOVE(d?) coffee! Back in high school, one of my best friend's Janna Mistrzak bought me an automatic coffee pot--pretty much the greatest invention EVER! All you had to do was put in a clean filter, add the coffee grounds, and set the timer to activate the coffee pot at whichever hour of day you preferred. Like I said: Best invention EVER! Ever. No lie.

The reason I do not drink coffee (and many other Latter-day Saints aka "Mormons") is because I want to live in accordance with a commandment given by God called the Word of Wisdom. The Word of Wisdom is defined by mormon.org as "a law of health revealed by the Lord for our physical and spiritual benefit. In this revelation the Lord commands us not to use alcohol, tea, coffee, tobacco, and harmful or habit-forming substances, and promises blessings for obeying this commandment."

While continuing to discuss the Word of Wisdom, mormon.org further states that "your body is a precious gift from God. To help keep your body and mind healthy and strong, God wants you to follow the law of health He gave to Joseph Smith in 1833. This law is known as the Word of Wisdom, and it teaches which foods and substances you should and should not use to maintain the health of your body and to keep you free from evil influences. The Lord promises blessings of health, strength, protection against evil, and greater receptiveness to spiritual truths as you treat your body with respect and reverence and obey the Word of Wisdom.

"In addition to emphasizing the benefits of proper eating and physical and spiritual health, God has spoken against the use of:

• Tobacco.
• Alcohol.
• Coffee and tea.
• Harmful, habit-forming drugs.

"Your body is instrumental in bringing you both pain and great joy. A healthy lifestyle promotes a sense of well-being. Exercise, eating and sleeping properly, and a cheerful attitude will all contribute to your happiness. Today, the scientific community promotes many of the same principles that a loving Heavenly Father gave to Joseph Smith nearly two centuries ago."

Though the commandment is very specific in advising everyone everywhere to eat and live healthy, it is also very explicit in what types of things should not be consumed. One of these things is coffee. Mormons and non-Mormons alike speculate as to why coffee is specifically out-ruled by the Lord. Many believe that it is because of the caffeine. Some reason that caffeine, as an addictive substance, can caught people to value it above the Lord.

President Boyd K. Packer, Acting President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles has explained that "the Spirit does not get our attention by shouting or shaking us with a heavy hand. Rather it whispers. It caresses so gently that if we are preoccupied we may not feel it at all. (No wonder that the Word of Wisdom was revealed to us, for how could the drunkard or the addict feel such a voice?)"

Still others argue that coffee is a harmful substance because of the carcinogens in coffee which cause cancer. Numerous research studies maintain that "a cup of coffee is estimated to contain over 2,000 natural occurring chemical components some of which are highly mutagenic (causes changes in the cell genes). Many mutagens are also carcinogens. One cup of coffee has the equivalent of fifty times the mutagenic activity of smoke absorbed from smoking a single cigarette."

Regardless of the reason, the Lord has said, "What I the Lord have spoken, I have spoken, and I excuse not myself; and though the heavens and the earth pass away, my word shall not pass away, but shall all be fulfilled." (Doctrine and Covenants 1:38)

The whole point of all of this rambling was not to preach about the Word of Wisdom. If anyone else either of the LDS faith or not desires to drink coffee or consume anything else listed has every right to do whatsoever he or she pleases. I am no one's judge. "Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's; and unto God the things that are God's." (Matthew 22:21) The point was, however, to discuss how frequently I drink hot chocolate. Especially when it is cold (i.e., winter in Utah) or when it is late at night before I go to bed. I didn't realize I had such a problem until I noticed this collection of cups next to my bed. haha.
I really, really, REALLY love the hot chocolate with tiny marshmallows in it. I do not, however, like hot chocolate made my Nestle. For some reason it tastes gross. So if you ever want to get me something or want to brighten my day...do it with any other brand of hot chocolate besides Nestle. Thanks! =D

Love is Never Silent

Since I'm already recommending a book I figured I might as well go ahead and recommend this awesome movie--Love is Never Silent--since it is also on my mind.

Watching this movie was my last assignment in my American Sign Language (ASL) class before our final [which is scheduled for this Friday at 7pm]. As a sociologist I was able to appreciate this movie on a difference level than other students. If you are at all interested in experiencing or understand other cultures then this is a wonderful view. I have read many books and watched many films during my academic career that have focused on the struggles and interactions of individuals (and groups) between two worlds. Love is Never Silent illustrates this exact focus on a young hearing girl and her obligation and desire to be the voice of her deaf parents which communicates and interacts with the hearing world.

Listed below are summaries, reviews, and articles written on the movie. If you are interested in watching this film it is very difficult to find at your local movie store (i.e., Blockbuster, Hollywood Video, etc.). So feel free to order it online or you can go to the LRC (Learning Resource Center at the Harold B. Lee Library on BYU campus) and check it out on VHS. It's definitely worth it!


A young woman struggles with her own need for independence and the obligation she feels for her deaf parents in this depression-era drama. A friend sees her turmoil and tells her she must find happiness on her own. However, the initial joy she finds in marriage starts to strain under the guilt she feels for deserting her parents and the bitterness they express towards her.

In its own mild, unobtrusive manner, the made-for-TV Love is Never Silent managed to knock an all-star adaptation of Alice in Wonderland out of the ratings box when it was first telecast on December 9, 1985. Based on the Joanne Greenberg novel In This Sign, the film stars Mare Winningham as a normally functioning woman with deaf parents. Using sign language, Winningham has spent most of her Depression-era childhood as her parents' only conduit to the outside world. When a close family friend (Sid Caesar in a towering non-comic performance) asks Winningham if she isn't sacrificing the opportunity for happiness on her own, she carefully considers his words. She marries Frederick Lehne, at which point her embittered parents close off their relationship with their daughter. How Ms. Winningham manages to bridge this gap is the focus of the film's final scenes. The parents are played by Ed Waterstreet and Phyllis Frelich, longtime members of the National Theatre for the Deaf.
'LOVE IS NEVER SILENT,' ON DEAFNESS IN A FAMILY

By JOHN CORRY

Published: December 9, 1985
http://www.nytimes.com/1985/12/09/arts/love-is-never-silent-on-deafness-in-a-family.html

WE have come to expect certain values in a ''Hallmark Hall of Fame'' production: fine actors, lavish sets with scrupulous attention to detail, and what must be called, until a better phrase comes along, family entertainment. We get all this in ''Love Is Never Silent'' on NBC at 9 P.M. tonight.

To be sure, ''family entertainment'' has a slightly pejorative connotation. We think of sentiment and uplift. Actually, there's nothing wrong with either of these qualities, and they're present in the production tonight. The sentiment, however, isn't saccharine, and the uplift isn't cloying. ''Love is Never Silent'' is tough-minded.

The production, based on Joanne Greenberg's novel, ''In This Sign,'' is the story of a young woman (played by Mare Winningham) and her deaf parents (Phyllis Frelich and Ed Waterstreet). The story begins in 1931. There are hard times. We get a tenement neighborhood, the details faithfully recreated. At the same time, much of this is filmed in a soft, golden haze. ''Love is Never Silent'' is an extremely good-looking production.

Miss Winningham is her family's bridge to the speaking world. Miss Frelich and Mr. Waterstreet, both members of the National Theater of the Deaf, live in a world of silence. Their daughter - we see her first at the age of 10, when she is played by Susan Ann Curtis - must even arrange the funeral of her younger brother. She is burdened, and her feelings of guilt, shame, love and duty are in collision.

Miss Winningham, a fetching actress, uses sign language to communicate with Miss Frelich and Mr. Waterstreet. She speaks the lines aloud as well. With the help of Joseph Sargent, the director, she creates a touching character: a young woman torn between her own needs and those of her parents. ''Why can't you understand that - I'm not different,'' she shouts at Miss Frelich. But she is different, of course; her family ensures that.

Thus sacrifices are made. Costs are extracted. For much of the production, Miss Winningham has only Sid Caesar to rely on. Mr. Caesar plays the owner of a pawn shop, supposedly a Greek immigrant. It's nice to see Mr. Caesar on television again, although he does speak in bromides. ''People laugh at me because I talk different,'' he tells Miss Winningham, and ''Where is your life - your happiness?'' Nothing about this seems Greek, incidentally, except that Mr. Caesar wears a fisherman's cap and at one point mentions ouzo.

Meanwhile, Miss Winningham grows up. It is World War II. She meets a nice young man (Fredric Lehne) who, before he goes overseas, proposes marriage. Miss Winningham is reluctant. She says there are things about her he doesn't know. He implores; she finally confesses. Her parents, she says, are deaf.

''Is that it? Is that all?'' he says incredulously. Actually, he's touching on a weakness in ''Love Is Never Silent.'' As touching as much of it is, the family problems do grow a little tiresome. We're hoping Miss Winningham will clear out and lead her own life long before she does. Part of the problem here is that Miss Frelich, who proved in ''Children of a Lesser God'' on Broadway that she is an extremely versatile actress, is giving us a sullen and suspicious mother. She has a wonderfully exuberant scene toward the end, but it's an awfully long time coming.

Still, it is a handsome production - the executive producer is Marian Rees - and it also gives us Cloris Leachman, seen in the small part of Mr. Lehne's mother. Watch Miss Leachman, using one of her agonized smiles, take a dinner-table scene and steal it. ''Love Is Never Silent'' is intelligent and sometimes moving, but it doesn't quite touch us the way it should.

Whatever It Takes

I have been working on the summer issue of the SSA Newsletter and decided to take a short break to recommend an excellent book called Whatever It Takes by Paul Tough. A couple of posts back I wrote about social stratification and how I love the class I am taking on the topic and how it basically plagues my every thought. I have also spent a large chunk of the semester studying and researching for a paper in this class. My basic argument is that stratification begins during the initial stages of life (i.e., prenatal existence and early childhood). For the last day of class we were assigned to read Tough's book.

I LOVE this book and recommend it to anyone interested in the big picture of 'who gets what and why?' (as well as when, where, and how). I think Tough did an excellent job of combining these big picture ideas with a real-world application (Geoffrey Canada's Harlem Children's Zone). If you are remotely interested in stratification, 'fairness', or even advocating for others in public policy, NGOs, etc. then this is a magnificent, inspiring, and hopeful read.

I got a job working for a youth development program with an NGO back home in Louisiana. Turns out that they are also in-charge of several other programs that benefit low socioeconomic families and their children such as the local Headstart. I think it would be a great idea for everyone on our staff to read this book and be especially familiar with the literature review in chapter 2.

Anyhow, below is a review, summary, and comments on the book. Check it out! It's awesome.

(The following comments, etc. came from the website-- http://www.paultough.com/ ).

What would it take?

That was the question that Geoffrey Canada found himself asking a decade ago. What would it take to change the lives of poor children — not one by one, through heroic interventions and occasional miracles, but in big numbers, and in a way that could be replicated nationwide? The question led him to create the Harlem Children's Zone, a 97-block laboratory in central Harlem where he is testing new and sometimes controversial ideas about poverty in America. His conclusion: if you want poor kids to be able to compete with their middle-class peers, you need to change everything in the lives — their schools, their neighborhoods, even the child-rearing practices of their parents.

Whatever It Takes contains what writer Alex Kotlowitz has called "the most cogent, provocative, and original thinking on urban poverty to come along in many, many years." It is an inspired portrait not only of Geoffrey Canada but also of the parents and children in Harlem who are struggling to better their lives, often against great odds. Carefully researched and deeply affecting, this is a dispatch from inside the most daring and potentially transformative social experiment of our time.

"The most compelling and potentially the most important book on the problem of poverty in urban America in years. Not to be missed." — Michael Pollan, author of The Omnivore's Dilemma and In Defense of Food

"This book changed my understanding of poverty in America in the most surprising way: it made me feel hopeful." — Ira Glass, host of "This American Life"

"Outstanding literary nonfiction, distinguished by in-depth reporting, compelling writing and deep thinking.” — Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

"A remarkable book. ... A story more gripping and inspiring than you'd imagine social policy could possibly be." — Joel Lovell, GQ

"It’s the acute awareness of the overwhelmingly black staff, students and parents of just what they’re up against that makes this book absorbing and frequently touching." - Erin Aubry Kaplan, L.A. Times

Iisus Voskres! Istina Voskres!

Dare to Compete: The Struggle of Women in Sports

I cut this little snippet from a little article/paper on a couple documentaries on women in sports. It came from the website--http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/local/scisoc/sports/s05/papers/jscott.html (I want to give them credit for this because I didn't write it.) I do want to write my own thoughts about this documentary. However, I feel lazy right now. Anyhow, I really REALLY recommend watching it. The documentary is entitled "Dare to Compete: The Struggle of Women in Sports".

"The documentary 'Dare to Compete: The Struggle of Women in Sports' is an uplifting journey through the history of women in sports. A large portion of the film traces how the women-in-sports movement coincides with the greater women's rights movement that occurred in the 1960's and 1970's. It addresses gender, race, and sexual orientation. Martina Navratilova, an amazing tennis player, discusses her struggle with the media in particular. Instead of focusing on her exploits on the court, the press continually asked her about her sexuality and used their sports pages to speculate on this, rather than to laud her for her victories. Another incredible athlete, Babe, also represents the fascination of the media—and society in general—with female athletes and their stereotype that a women who is good in sports might be a lesbian. Babe excelled in whatever sport she took on. Her appearance was initially considered 'masculine' and thus the rumors started to fly; later, when she returns as a golf player, she has grown out her hair and eventually marries. Even in class, we speculated whether or not she married out of societal pressure and was really a lesbian; her talents were yet again pushed to the side.

The media also played a large role in setting women's sports backward when, in the first Olympics that women were allowed to run a longer distance, the runners were reported to have "fainted" and been very distressed. The myth that physical activity jeopardized a woman's ability to conceive persisted for years and represents society's struggle to accept women as athletic and feminine. Being a mother is really the ultimate in femininity, and is the very thing society thought athletics must interfere with.

Another interesting piece of 'Dare to Compete' is the progress of black women in sports. Black women were given the chance to compete in track and field before white women; they excelled in it too. These female athletes may have helped inspire other athletes to push themselves and defy society's expectations. Thanks to everything that women achieved--from Babe, to African-American women's track teams, to Billie Jean King's beating a male tennis player—the way was paved for my generation to participate in sports and continue to challenge ourselves on the athletic field and to challenge society's norms for women. There is still work to be done, but each story of women succeeding in sports is a victory for all women." [All written by Joanna Scott]