Camille = Amazing! :)

Here is Camille's report for the BYU news for the marriage equality rally the other day for the BYU News. I'm surprised that they aired it! Way to go Camille! :)

"I Need The Missionaries"

I was just in a study group in the MARB working on a project when all of the sudden a man came in yelling, "I need the missionaries RIGHT NOW!" I was really surprised and thought he was kind of crazy, but I started talking to him to find out why he needed the missionaries. He told me that he was hard of hearing and came all the way from Omaha, Nebraska to see the missionaries. I was surprised that he came out here. I told him that there were probably missionaries out there that he could have met with. He believed them to be "stupid" because they were not at a college and he wanted the "smartest" ones. I showed him where their office was and we knocked. Nobody was there. He started freaking out and I found a note on the door that had their numbers.

I called the Elders, but a Sister answered the phone... maybe they got their numbers mixed up when they wrote it down the paper (I don't know). I talked with the nice Sister and told her the man's story. He wanted to meet with them as soon as possible because he needed them. She told me that she and her companion could meet with him at 11 today. He was really excited. I have never seen someone so excited in my whole life. He looked like he won a million dollars. The Sisters asked for my name and number which I gave them and they politely thanked me for doing what I did. We then got off the phone. He then asked what time it was. I told him it was about 9:30 and that he had a couple of hours to kill. He seemed kind of defeated. I told him that it will be here a lot sooner than he thinks and that he could walk around campus while he was waiting. He decided to do this. I went back to my study group and I haven't been able to stop thinking about him.

It amazes me that he had the drive and courage to come out here from Nebraska because he wanted to meet with the "smartest" missionaries. He has to have a lot of faith to come out here on a whim to probably join the LDS Church. It makes me wonder where mine has gone. I used to fully believe in the LDS Church, but as of late, I have been losing parts of my beliefs. I believe in God and in Jesus. I believe in many of their teachings and morals. There are things, however, that I am having trouble reconciling.

Life is interesting and I love the random people I meet because they teach me new concepts everyday. This man who is hard of hearing and who traveled across the nation taught me today that you can never have too much faith in God. In fact, he taught me that you can never have enough.

PS I ran into two of my readers that I know from my younger years/junior high/high school last night. It was great! This is a shout out to Camille and Drew!

Quote of the Day

"We think that when we are driven out of the usual path, everything is over for us; but it is just here that the new and the good begins. As long as there is life there is happiness. There is much, much before us!"
-Tolstoy

This was the quote of the day in my gmail account that sometimes pops up in the little "sponsored link" box. I thought it was good and would share it with everyone.

Now I'd like to know your thoughts on it and then I'll share mine... :)

The Lost Little Duckling

As I was walking up to school today. I saw a little duckling that seemed to be lost from the rest of its family. My heart yearned to help it, but I knew that me helping it would do more harm than good. I didn't want to "taint" the duck with my touch (I've heard if you touch baby ducks or birds their parents no longer accept them). I took a picture and left it there. I hope it finds its mommy really soon.

Seeing this little duckling reminded me of my best friend Aaron. Recently, he found out that I was gay. Well, it was more that I've been hinting it to him for a very long time hoping that he would be ok with it once I told him. My other best friend Natalie (formerly known as Galadriel) decided to talk to him about Proposition 8 because she heard that we were in disagreement with it. She wanted to help him see my point of view and help him understand it a little bit better. Aaron then turned on her and asked he flat out if I was gay or not. She told him that he'd have to talk to me about it, but he was very persistent and she cracked. I was completely fine with her telling him. I've been meaning to tell him for some time, but the timing has never been right. I guess that I found out why. She told him on Thursday. He kind of freaked out, but he seemed ok about it. He talked to his parents about it and they told him their thoughts about the subject. They also told him that whatever he did that he should not stop being my friend (I was very grateful for their advice to him). We then subsequently talked on Saturday.

As we were talking, Aaron didn't seem like the same person around me. He seemed very tense and very uncomfortable. He asked me a few questions about if I have acted on it and was hinting at if I thought he was attractive so I told him that he was. He was freaked out by that comment, but I told him that he was my little brother/best friend and that I didn't have feeling for him and that I wasn't checking him out. Aaron then seemed to be ok about. He still seemed like a deer in the headlights, but I thought things were going to get better. Aaron told me not to talk to him about it for awhile so that he could process some things.

On Sunday, we went to see Natalie speak. I picked him up and I could feel the tension in the air. I gave him a note that I wrote him expressing some thoughts that I will talk about in a minute and we left for her church. As we were waiting, there was a significant lack of comradeship that we once had. There was no joking, laughing, and talking. It was all serious. I could feel that he was still uncomfortable with me but I didn't want to say anything that might freak him out. I sat there and pretended as if nothing was going on. On the way home, I tried to spark some general conversation the talks we heard, but it was still very limited and tense. I dropped him off and told him goodbye.

Next came Monday morning. We went swimming together like we do on every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. It seemed really tense again. I could feel his uncomfortableness seeping through his smile and see it in his eyes. It could have been the fact that he was nearly naked around me and thought I was checking him, but I'm not sure. I felt really bad for Aaron. Despite feeling bad for him, I always was really frustrated with him and Natalie for telling him at the wrong moment. After we swam together and showered, we parted and went our separate ways. I broke down in the car and was on the verge of tears the whole way to school and for the next hour. I wrote Natalie a nasty email, which I really regret and apologized profusely over. Then I started to calm down and feel a little bit better.

As I have done a lot of thinking and writing, I have to realize that Aaron is brand new to his whole subject. He has never dealt with it before and it makes it even harder when it is with his one of his best friends, someone he looks up to for guidance in life, and some he considers a spiritual giant and leader. I know that in some way he feels like I have let him down. I also feel like I let him down. I feel really bad and wish I could change it, but I can't. I am no longer the perfect Sean that he thought he knew. He sees me in a completely new light. Some of that Sean was a lie, but most parts of that Sean were the real me. I think that he needs to understand this, which will then help our friendship come back together. As of right now, however, it's very easy to get frustrated with him, especially since every friend that acts like this after I have told them have stopped being my friends after a couple of weeks. I'm hoping that Aaron will be different from these other friends and eventually see me as the same old Sean. He's a great guy and I love him a lot. He just seems lost and confused like the little duckling that I saw this morning. I'll just have to see how this all pans out and hopefully he'll make it back to me as a friend.

To end with some good news, this morning was so much better! It made me really happy. I could still feel like he was a little bit uncomfortable around me but it was as overt as it has been or his has gotten a lot better at hiding his uncomfortableness. We were talking and joking. It started to feel like things were back to normal. I think this was a big improvement for him, but he probably still has a lot to think about and come to terms with. I'll keep waiting for him to come to me or Natalie with questions. I don't want to push him.

Driven

This week has been a very interesting week for me. It has been filled with a lot of ups and downs that I haven't experienced in a very long time. The good news, however, is that things are definitely looking up again and life is pretty much amazing! :)

I guess it started on Monday. I got up early and went swimming with my best bud Aaron. Then my day was full of studying for my Immunology test on Tuesday. It was an ok day until later in the evening. I get a response from an email that I sent to a guy I was crushing on and who was in turn crushing back on me. It basically said what a lot of people tell me. It is something that I don't completely understand. He told me that he liked a lot about me, but his heart was telling him to go somewhere else. This was due to the fact that I was too driven and that it just wouldn't work out with us because of that. I then sent him an email telling him that I started to get that impression and that it would probably just be better to be friends anyways. He agreed and now we are just good friends. I'm not sure if this relationship would have gone anywhere in the first place, but it kind of made my night a little worse.

I then took my test on Tuesday and totally rocked it (I only missed one so close yet so far from perfection)! Then I started thinking about what the guy said to me about how driven I was. I realized that I am completely driven. I know what I want in life and I know what I have to do to get it. This then put a damper on a good day. I went about my normal business on Tuesday with me being so driven in the back of my head. Thoughts were flying everywhere about what people have said to me in the past about my drive. People have told me that I don't make time for them. People tell me that they are afraid of my goals and dreams. People have said that they are jealous of my drive and passions, but could never do or want it themselves. People have also told me that I need to back off and be more relaxed about life. I've also had one person tell me that I could never be in a long lasting relationship because of my drive since my love and life is my drive. There are a lot of other things that have also been said but they are generally all of the same context. All of this brought me down to a low that I haven't been in a very long time.

Wednesday came and I went swimming again with my two best friends. That made me feel better but they could tell something was wrong with me. I just pushed it off telling them that I was tired and didn't get enough sleep last night. They left it at that and we went out to breakfast before I had to head to class. I went to class and learned that I set the curve on the test and that made me feel a little better, but I was still down. I had a lunch date with a girl that I've been going out with for awhile that kind of brought up my mood. We were chatting over lunch and having a good time when she brought up the topic of the relationship's progression. She basically told me the same thing as the guy said. I was too driven and that we should probably just be friends! UGH! This made my week even worse. Everything has been toppling down. Wednesday night I decided to not to do anything except stay at home. I watched LOST and loved it and then read a lot from Great Expectations by Charles Dickens (I love Dickens and that book). That made my night a little bit better. I then had a friend give me call and we chatted for awhile. She was wonderful and so helpful.

Then Thursday came around and it was a really good day. Everything in lab went perfectly. I went out to lunch with some good friends. I got everything done that I needed to at work. My old crush visited me at work and we had a great chat over chips and guacamole salsa. My mom made my favorite meal for dinner. I also read some more from Great Expectations. Everything was looking and getting better. I started feeling good about everything again. Then I get a text to go out and play glow in the dark ultimate frisbee. That was exactly what I needed to get my spirits back up and fully recharged. I saw a lot of people that I hadn't seen a very long time there and had a blast with them. I also met a lot of new people. We played for two hours and our team won by a point! It was a blast and a half and I totally enjoyed it. I then went to bed and woke up this morning to go swimming with my best buds.

Tonight I have either dancing or hanging out with a good friend tonight--I'm not sure which one yet. Then I'm hanging out with a lot of my close friends over the weekend. I'm pretty much stoked. I'm feeling myself once again and I'm feeling "21 and Invincible" again. I still have the question in the back of my mind if I am too driven. That's the person who I've always been and I really don't want to change that aspect about myself because I love that aspect about myself.

Anyways, I'm trying not to let it bother me, but I'm still curious about it. What do you all think? Am I too driven?

21 and Invincible

"21 and Invincible" by Something Corporate

I love this song and sometimes I feel like I am 21 and invincible.

Revolver

"Revolver" by Madonna

This song sounds amazing! I'm freaking excited for her new Greatest Hits album to come out and some of the new songs that she is putting on it! It is going to be fabulous!

The Gayface

This is an interesting article I read today and thought I would share it with you all. Enjoy! :)

If William Shakespeare were alive today, a couple of things would be certain. Gawker commenters would be linking his name with gossip-column blind items ("What married wordsmith was seen canoodling with another man at The Box?"). And Perez Hilton would be scrawling pearl necklaces onto his paparazzi shots. Not just because of his famously homoerotic sonnets but because Shakespeare seems to have had—let's be blunt here—a serious case of gayface.

We have this from no less an authority than the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, in Stratford-Upon-Avon, England, which in March unveiled a newly discovered portrait some historians think might be of the Bard. "This Shakespeare is handsome and glamorous, so how does this change the way we think about him . . . and his sexuality?" wondered a statement from the trust to the press. In other words: "Gayface!" (the new way of saying "Dude looks totally gay!"). Which suggests that the contemporary compulsion to pin down sexual identity has no limits, not even the grave. Because somehow it's important to us to think we "can just tell" that even guys who have been dead for 400 years were gay.

Outing historical creative figures might be the only reliably entertaining social sport we've got left. A gay rumor about the deceased is a gossip gift that keeps on giving, especially now that living celebrities have pretty much sucked all the fun out of our collective speculation, since they tend to semi-casually wander out of the closet when the sexual-orientation rumor mill heats up (see: Neil Patrick Harris, T.R. Knight, Lance Bass).

The Bard is a rather obvious magnet for gay rumors—and not just because he wore tights and was in the theater. There is the matter of his queer circle, says London gay-culture historian Rictor Norton: "If Shakespeare was as good-looking as this portrait demonstrates, then it is easy to see why he attracted the attention of his first patron, Henry Wriothesley, third Earl of Southampton"—a reputed dabbler in manly hookups. But, Norton adds, "we should not read the subject of the portrait as gay because of a certain softness about the eyes or whatever."

Or wait—maybe we should. "It appears that Shakespeare's eyebrows are higher here than in others of his portraits," says Nicholas Rule, a researcher at Tufts University's Interpersonal Perception & Communication Lab. "Women have a greater distance between their eyes and brows than men do"—and on a guy, those lofty brows might be subconsciously perceived as "gay." (Quick, somebody measure Ryan Seacrest's brow rise!) Rule adds that "the corners of his mouth are not turned down, as in some other portraits of him, which gives the hint of a smile." And subtly smiley portraits—think the Mona Lisa—suggest femininity. (Attention Zac Efron: Wipe that sly grin off your face!) Factor in Shakespeare's lace collar, and Jack Bauer he's not.

Rule confesses that his own gaydar is jammed when it comes to what might be Shakespeare's "new" portrait but notes, "Our research suggests that sexual orientation is processed automatically." In fact, last year Rule and Tufts psychology professor Nalini Ambady were surprised to discover that gayface may be a reliable indicator. They recorded the reactions of Tufts students to a sample of 90 male faces culled from online personals—half gay, half straight—and found that 70 percent of the time, people guessed right. Even when shown the images for as little as 33 milliseconds.

"In our studies we have not yet found full agreement for the sexual orientation of any one person," Rule cautions. In other words, someone always gets it wrong. Of course, we can hold out hope that Hollywood will get it right when casting a gayfaced actor to play Queer Shakespeare in the biopic. Hey, Chace Crawford? Gus Van Sant is on the line.

So what do you all think? Is this a myth or do you think it is a possibility?

It's Over!

My test is over! I am so happy and so excited at the same time. A lot has happened since I took my test on Saturday. I have so many good stories! I love being free for the moment.

Let's talk about my test. It was very difficult. It was harder than the practice tests that I took, but I still felt like I did really well. On the physical science section, I finished the last section with only a minute left when I usually finished with ten or more minutes left on the practice tests. I felt like this section was a lot harder than the practice test and I was sad that I couldn't go back and check my answers like I normally have time to do. I hope that I did well on it compared to the rest of the nation. Then came the verbal reasoning section. This section is definitely my crux. I usually feel like I always do well on it. The scores, however, sometimes say the opposite. I felt really good about it so I'm hoping that it transfers over into a good score too. Next came the writing section. I felt pretty good about both of my essays, but I really didn't have time to proofread them since I finished them with only one or two minutes left. Last came the biological science section. This section felt amazing! I felt really good about. It was definitely more difficult than the practice tests that I took, but I finished early and was able to go back to check answers. I think that this section went well. Overall, I feel great about my test. It was hard and I know that I put forth the time and the effort to get a good score on it. I feel confident that I did well. Now, it's just a matter of waiting a month until I receive my scores.

After my test on Saturday, I talked with a lot of friends and family for a couple hours and then hit a place for dinner. I was sitting alone, but I really didn't care because I felt like I was on top of the world. I then went back to my hotel to get ready for the evening. I was supposed to go out with a friend, but she ended up being sick and couldn't go out. I sat in my apartment debating whether or not to go clubbing. I eventually decided to go clubbing. It was pretty much amazing! I met some really cool and good looking guys and girls at the club. We stayed there until it closed at 3 and then went to Denny's for some dinner/breakfast. We were there until about 5 and then we all headed to my hotel and crashed. It was fun. We fit five people into a king size bed--some of them drunk, others sober. It was hilarious. We then got up at 7 because my flight left at 9. We said our goodbyes to each other and they told me that I need to come up and visit again, which I plan on doing! :)

I came home and had a pretty relaxing Sabbath--I was running on two hours of sleep... awesome! My whole extended family came over for a break the fast dinner. It was a lot of fun and it was amazing to feel their love and support for me. We talked about a lot of things and played some card games. I just love my family, their support, and their company. It was great! Then yesterday I went out with some of my besties! I haven't seen them in about two months and I missed them terribly. We went out to dinner and then I went laser tagging with their family. I was catwoman and totally wasted their whole family! It was a blast and then we all went to see the new X-Men movie. Life has been so good lately and I absolutely love it! I can't wait to continue with this new found freedom and enjoy life to the fullest for awhile! I'm excited because I've got 80's dancing planned for this Thursday and then I'm going clubbing on Saturday! Life is good!

I just want to say thanks to everyone out there who prayed for me, fasted for me, sent good luck wishes, and any support! You are all amazing and I love you to death! Thanks for being my friends! :)