Of Pianos and Popcorn Poppers

Hey folks, I'm back, I'm gonna try and get back into this blogging thing. I don't know if I will be detailing weeks all the time again. This time I'm going to do a topical post.

One day this past week Anna and I were at Gordy's house for dinner and we turned to talking about two of the most important Nielsen traits: popcorn poppers and pianos. This was mostly brought on by two of Gordy's friends coming to steal popcorn from his much beloved stir crazy and that Meagan and I had delivered Anna's piano to her after general conference. Like some kind of genetic trait or an early inheritance these two items have followed every Nielsen to leave the yellow house on West Sunset Drive. They are distinctly Nielsen, separately you rarely find them among college students, but in pair it is never found except in the offspring of David and Bonnie. Anna and I had actually talked about it earlier that week and then we found ourselves explaining this phenomenon to Gordy's friends when they asked if we also had stir crazy popcorn poppers. We explained that yes, we were Nielsens.

While this is humorous in that it is interesting and true, it has caused me to reflect on the true character of being a Nielsen and the legacy we follow. The mere fact that we carry these items with us wherever we go has a reflection on the things we just can't live with out. We have pianos because music is ingrained in the very core of the worst pianist amongst us (me). We all took piano, it wasn't an option it was just something you did. Music and extremely powerful tool and we were all taught how to make it. If there was one cardinal reason we were taught piano I would have to say that it was so we could serve, the church will always need pianists and mom thought we should be prepared in case that was us. We've all played for church meetings (even myself), and of course the other three have often served in callings involving the piano or organ (Anna is currently). Music was always prevalent in our home, and I think we can consider it one of our greatest blessings there. This of course extends back beyond the single dormer home in Akron, it stretches back to our Grandparents and what they taught and had taught to mommy and papa that prepared them for us. Truly we follow a legacy as our pianos follow us.

The Popcorn popper is also an item that says something distinct about the Nielsen culture and values. Why a popcorn popper? What made the stir crazy such a central part of the Nielsen childhood? Its simple really, there were a ton of us, and we are mormon. The ton of us means that we naturally fell to a food that was simple, tasty, and cost effective, something we didn't have to worry about dividing 8 ways because there would always be more of it. The mormon part meant that we kept food storage, so we order popcorn 500 pounds at a time and kept columns of it in 5 gallon buckets in our basement. It was a food that showed the importance to us of a shared family experience because we could gather together and all eat popcorn as we played games or watched movies. Many people we meet know popcorn only as something they had at the theater, but we knew it as part of the sustenance of daily life.

In short I think this pair P words represents four core values we've taken with us out into the world: Faith, Family, Fun, and Frugality. These have been a driving and carrying force to the four of us in our adventures away from home.

Lotsa Lotsa Homework

That's pretty much it for this week, just a lot of homework. I have a lot of papers due here at the end of the semester, so aside from class and work that was pretty much all I did.

Tuesday I had my last class in both Film and Communications, and Thursday was the last film lab. I'm kind of sad to see these two classes end, they were both really interesting. For our final lecture in Comms we had a guest speaker who was a public relations specialist, he was actually the man who handled PR for the Smart family during Elizabeth Smart's disappearance. So he talked about how it was to do that, it was all really interesting.

Most of the week was spent trying to work on my final paper for my international relations theory class, it took me a long time to get any traction on it. But I finally finished up the draft yesterday, it is due on Tuesday the same day that final film analysis is also due, which was my other major project this week. I did it on the 2003 live action Peter Pan. Both of those papers will have to revised on Monday, plus I also have my Comms final on Tuesday, So Tuesday should be pretty horrible, but hopefully it will get better after that.

Most of Saturday was spent working on my paper, but in the afternoon we went to a baptism for a man in our ward named Phong, he is Vietnam. After the baptism we had the ward closing social which was a Luau with a full pig roast. So that was fun.

Anyway, looks like its going to be another super busy week for me, but it is almost over now. Hard to believe.

you all have a nice week.

Stuff that happened this week

Well another week has come and gone, we are getting close to the end of the semester now. A scary thing, much to do.

Monday we had a ward family home evening at the BYU planetarium, we have a member of the ward who is an astronomy major and works there so he did it for us. It was a lot of fun.

Tuesday was another long day as all Tuesdays are apt to be. The choirs did the devotional so that was really nice. Tuesday was also the day that Tangled came out on DVD so in the evening Liz and I went up to walmart and got it and then watched it that night. It is a really great movie.

Wednesday nothing to exciting happened, just work and class. I've been working a lot on a paper on Marx's communist manifesto for Political philosophy.

Thursday the were classes and such. In the evening we had a roommate night. Casey, Warren and I went up to the temple on our bikes and did confirmations and baptisms. That was really nice. Then we all went and got cheeseseaks and after that made cookies and smoothies.

Friday work was super super busy for some unknown reason, except that it was pretty warm. I took out the money draw to count at 1 o'clock like normal and did not finish until I left at three, and the count was short so Lyndi had to do it again after I left, I guess things had slowed down a little by then. Friday night Liz and I went and watched citizen cane for my film class. It is rated the #1 movie of all time by the MPAA, it was a little weird, and Liz thought it was depressing but it was still pretty interesting.

Saturday was General Conference of course. Liz and I watched the morning session at her apartment and then we went to her family's house for the afternoon session. In the evening Gordy and I and our cousin Erin's husband Sam went to priesthood at Gordy's stake center, then we all met up with the girls at Brick Oven, my Aunt Mary was in town for conference and she wanted us all to get together for dinner. It was really fun.

Note: mom their are pictures of this last event but you will have to get them from your sister.

Anyway there you have it.

lots of stuff

Busy week, on Monday there was work and class, then Liz and I met up with my family who were in town visiting. It was nice since it is daylight savings time now so the light lasts longer. We all (15 total) went to Golden Corral for dinner, that was a lot of fun.

Tuesday I didn't have class in the morning so I finished up my paper and Liz and I drove up to campus for the forum where we met up with my family. The forum was really good, it was Michael Flaherty the founder of Walden media which has done the narnia films as well as a lot of other really good movies. That night Liz and I went up to Bryce and Nicole's wedding reception, it was really nice. Bryce is an old friend of mine from back home and my family was in town to go to his wedding.

Wednesday nothing two exciting happened. Work and School.

Thursday we had Doctrine and Covenants, then I went to my film lab and Liz took a test. Later that night we made tacos and watched the movie Ink heart which was pretty good.

Friday I worked in the morning and got down to work on my paper for communications in the afternoon. In the evening Liz and I went and watched a Chinese film called Iron Monkey for my film class, it was pretty interesting, it was mostly all superhuman kung fu fighting. We were watching it for editing.

Saturday most of the day was spent on the communications paper, turned out I had to cut lot of stuff cuz it was too long. That night we went to see the Young Ambassadors show Harmony, it was really, really good. I hadn't seen the young ambassadors since I was kid so it was fun to see them again.

Well that was pretty much it for the week. hope you all had a good one. Sorry no pics, mom has them all.

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Singing in the Spring

Hello fans, welcome back, it was a pretty good week. Pretty warm all week long.

Monday was the day we'd all been waiting for: The SPRING SING. I went to work and class and then ran over to the JSB to meet up with the rest of the cast and get my hands painted with glow in the dark paint. I donned my U of U shirt to complete my Scar costume. The road show went off wonderfully, I don't want to brag but we were by far the best. You can see a picture of me and my hyenas below.

Not too much else happened Tuesday or Wednesday, lots of school and work. I have a big paper due in international relations this coming tuesday so I spent a lot of the week working on that.

Thursday I woke up to find that my international relations class and my political philosophy lab were canceled so Liz and I went to the them temple earlier than planned. While we were at the temple we ran into our friend Tess (who directed the spring sing).

Friday night we went to the movie for my film class which was Notorious, kinda weird, not much resolution. After that we went to Tess's house along with a lot of the spring sing cast and we all watched the lion king together. It was lots of fun.

Saturday I spent the morning finishing my paper which is on the democratic peace, hopefully this one will be better than the last one I did for this class. We went on a walk because the whether was so nice. Then I took the last two parts of my political philosophy test. Which were essay questions so hopefully that went well. Saturday night we went to Liz's families house for dinner.

anyway, that is pretty much the week, below you can see some pictures. Me and the hyenas, Liz playing the piano, Me and Liz on a walk, Max at his birthday party.

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mmmm... Cheesesteaks

Well, it was a busy week for Ben. He had so much to do.

Monday morning I went to work, my good friend and co worker Jenn had made me a batch of granola, which is fantastic and she brought it to work. Monday was my good mission buddy Cody's Birthday and we have a Political philosophy together so that evening I took him to get Cheesesteaks at the new shop they just opened up at Brighams Landing which is right across the intermural fields from Wyview. It was so good, tasted just like philly. For FHE Monday night we played uno, and then I went to Hilary's for a while to study for the international relations test we had the next day.

Tuesday was really super crazy, first thing was the IR test, which was just two essay questions which we only had an hour and 15 minutes to right. Then it was off to devotional, on the way I ran into Cody and asked him if he had to do presentations in his comms class, and he says "Yeah, thats why I'm dressed up today" thats when it hit me that I was suppose to be dressed up because I was presenting in my comms class and I was suppose to meet up with my group the hour before class to practice, uh-oh. Devotional was on spirtuality in the class room and was really good. Then to D&C with Liz, where we worked out that she would rush me home right after film so I could change, somewhere along here I got a voicemail from Will at Jamba juice saying they wanted to meet with me, but of course I couldn't meet Tuesday because I was in class straight until 6:30, this worried me because I still wasn't sure what I would do if they offered me the job. But I went to film and during the 5 minute class break ran into Jamba Juice and told Barbara that I couldn't meet that day. Then right after film Liz rushed me home, actually she was a little late because she finally got to pick up her computer which the computer people had been trying to fix for weeks, I changed into my formal clothes and then she rushed me back to the JKB where I met up my group and we practiced our presentation a couple times. Then we went to class and presented. Later that night Liz and I went up to Lindon to return her mom's laptop that she had been using while hers was being fixed.

Wednesday was a much better day than Tuesday. I was worried when I got off work because I had a message from mom saying that I needed to call papa because Joel had gotten funding to hire summer work. So now I was still in quandary about what to do if I was offered the job at Jamba. I met up with Liz at the Science center to eat before going to my meeting. When I finally met with Will, he ended up telling me that they had offered the job to Jenn (she hadn't been allowed to tell me) but that they would like to promote me into Jenn's now vacated spot of team lead. This was really the best thing that could have happened because now I didn't have to make the decision between jobs, I work more hours at better pay at school now, and I can go home and work for the summer. Also on wednesday we got our grades back for the test we took on tuesday, I got a 100% so that was happy.

Thursday the only thing exciting that happened was the elders quorum temple trip that night. It was fun. It was Casey's second time to go to the temple.

Friday night we watched another silent film for my film class, The General, it was pretty funny. Then it was time for the Spring sing dress rehearsal and cast party.

Saturday there was another Spring sing practice in the morning. Homework in the afternoon. In the evening Liz had the pleasure of having a real philly cheesesteak for the first time and we went to Megamind with Gordy and Brooke.

Well I think that's it for another week. Hope you all have fun |\/|

oh look, Pictures

Hello, and welcome back to another week in the life of Joe, ha, just kidding, this is Ben. So this week was kinda interesting, because Monday was a holiday so Tuesday was Monday (this feels like the non-linear week again) and that made it so I only went to four classes all week. However there was still lots to do.

Monday as previously stated there was no school so that was nice. Took the time to get some homework done, I made flash cards on my ipod for all the terms and concepts for my comms test this week. Then there was Sterling Party with the old gang. That was a lot of fun to see everyone and have a good time. It's a good thing Liz was going with me though because I kept forgetting that it was happening even though I was the one who had planned it for that day.

Tuesday was Monday so I went to work in the morning and studied and went to class in the after noon. I turned in my application for the office assistant position at Jamba Juice. After work I went and took the comms test, I came out with a 92 which has presently been raised to a 95 because of miskeyed and thrown out questions. I kept forgetting that it was Tuesday so I was afraid that I would forget to go to work the next morning since I work earlier on Wednesdays. Tuesday evening I had a meeting with my Comms group to plan our presentation on the yes side of whether advertising is ethical.

Wednesday I fortunately did not forget what day it was and made it to work on time. Nothing to interesting happened on Wednesday.

Thursday I only had the two classes in the morning since we didn't have film lab because we didn't have film lecture. Besides that not too much took place on Thursday.

Friday I had work and then later in the afternoon I had an interview with Barbara and Will for the office assistant position. They said we would know sometime next week who got the job. In the evening Liz and I took her little brothers Mathew and Jacob to see Tangled. That was a lot of fun, the movie was really good everyone should see it.

Saturday in the morning we went to spring sing practice. Tess decided to change my role to Scar for good since her second Scar bailed on her, I was a little sad to give up being Timone with Casey being Pumba, but that's the way it roles, included below are pictures of me a Scar with Ashley (who is a guy), who is Simba, and also me and Liz in our roles as shakers during the finale song. Saturday night there was session of stake conference which was very good.

hope everyone has a nice week. |\/|

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