It's such a happy feeling.

Hopefully, you caught the pop cultural reference in my blog title.

But if not:

Can I just say that Mr. Rogers wore those shoes before they were cool?

Most normal people get to know each other before they get married.

"They date.

You go someplace special.

You know, like a restaurant, or a movie, a museum.

Or you just hang out and you talk."

I have been thinking of some fun date ideas lately.

Like going to the library late on Friday night and running around between the shelves and standing on tables and creating bedlam.

Like going to the Museum of Art and looking at ridiculous contemporary art and talking about what we think of it.

(This piece is at the MOA now.)

Well, those two are actually it.

But if you know anyone who would be amenable to the idea,

then I say, in the immortal words of Tevye,

"If they would agree, I would agree."

All up and down the whole creation

Today, I spoke in church about the creation.

I believe that God made the heavens and the earth and all things that in them are.

The creation was for us, His spirit children.

I love the creation.

I love sunshine.

I love mountains.

I love this more than anything.

I love the magenta flowers that I passed on the way home from work last summer.

I love the one bare birch tree in the middle of the forest that I passed on the way to high school.

The greatest of God's creations is His children.

Have you ever considered the magnificence of man?

Who am I, Kylie?

Yesterday in Geography, I had an

existential crisis.

No really.

We had a 5-6 page paper due on the cultural landscape of Provo-Orem.

I was having a busy week

(what else is new?)

so I had only started it the night before.

I had gone to bed at 1 am, woken up at 5 am to finish it.

Finally, I made it to class, and turned my finished-at-the-last-minute product into the pile.

A few minutes later, I looked at the growing stack of papers and thought,

"Now which one of those is even mine?"

In one quick moment, all the hours I had spent toiling seemed meaningless,

as my creation was swallowed into the faceless sea of words.

"Why a fox? Why not a horse, or a beetle, or a bald eagle? I'm saying this more as, like, existentialism, you know? Who am I?"

It's Greek to Me.

It's actually Greek to everyone.

'Cause it's Greek. The language.

And I'm studying it.

It all started (as so many good things did) when I took History of the English Language.

Dr. Chapman had us each present a Bible scripture at the beginning of class.

I looked up Luke 1:54 in Bibles ranging from Old English to the good ol' KJV.

There was a pesky word that I couldn't pin down a good definition for.

So I said to myself,

"I'll just look it up in the original Greek.

...

WAIT. I DON'T KNOW GREEK."

(Unfortunately, I can't read this.)

Then in May I went to the most wonderful BYU Forum.

John W. Welch spoke about BYU and the LDS view of education in his talk, "Thy Mind, O Man, Must Stretch":

"With stretching the mind comes an openness

to embrace more. The BYU Mission Statement

speaks of the pursuit of all truth. Our desire

is for further light and understanding, to circumscribe

all truth."

It was really inspiring and motivating.

And then Dr. Welch mentioned reading the New Testament in the original Greek.

And then I remembered:

I WANT TO DO THAT.

So I did.

Well, I will. In three semesters.

Greek 101's pretty great so far.

Suddenly I remember why I'm a linguist!

For the satisfaction of knowing that you're putting an accent on the right syllable.

For the beauty of a perfectly declined noun paradigm.

(These are the endings for nouns of the first declension.)

For the joy of a felicitous translation!

Of counting morae!

For the love of the poor little iota subscript!

Anyway, I've already gotten a new boyfriend out of it!

His name is Hansen & Quinn.

He's a great boyfriend, besides needing a lesson on modesty.

He accompanies me everywhere, he's a great conversation starter, and he makes me feel intelligent.

But he's kind of heavy, and I keep losing him, so I try to leave him in my locker nowadays.

But really.

There are some pretty cute nerdy boys who study Greek.

(Except not quite as hipster.)

And my professor says that studying Greek means you're allowed to be snooty, which is good.

Do you have the time to listen to me whine?

(About nothing and everything all at once.)

Sometimes I have like 4 amazing blog post ideas but have no time to write them.