John Hattaway

Well, I am now past the three week mark at BYU. It’s proving to be a very interesting ride. Today, after getting some scratch in my checking account, dropped a pretty good chunk of it on French language software. The software is to help me learn, better, the French language by allowing me access to listening, writing, and instruction outside of the classroom. This is a good thing as I believe, today, I totally bombed my French exam that I had to take.

After the debacle that was my French test I ran into the teacher, Madame Winn, and we got to talking and I got to sharing and next thing I know we’re talking about setting up some time during the week for me to come to her office, for hours, to go over the fundamentals of the language my mind isn’t getting. There is a lot my mind isn’t getting, and I was surprised by her empathetic attitude toward the situation I find myself in. Granted, I am sure it would’ve been better for me to find myself not struggling so much with the language, but in the end, I believe everything will work out. Especially given the amount of money I have already put into books and other materials.

Anyway, the real reason for my updating isn’t to lament my poor performance in French class, that’s just crass; but more specifically to say that it is rather unnerving to sit and listen to various things going on around me and here mention of the LDS church all of the time. Granted, I am at an LDS sponsored school, attending classes taught, primarily, by members of the LDS church, around students who are also members of the same church, with beliefs that, in some way or another, reflect my own, and yet, it still seems, and sometimes feels, weird to have the conversations going on around me.

Take, for example, my literature class, we were talking Emily Dickinson (poetry is not my favorite thing) and then the teacher gets up and has us sing an hymn followed by a replaying of the music where we sang Emily Post’s poems to the lyrics. It was different to so overtly bring, into the discussion, church. The personal application of spirit in life should be something each individual seeks on their own and not necessarily something that a professor overtly publishes.