State of the Union

     

On Tuesday evening I sat down to watch President Obama’s State of the Union Address. Apparently this is what mature adults do, or at least adults whose tv shows have been postponed for the address. I’ve watched parts of the address with my parents before, but never have I sat down to watch the entire thing. The first fifteen minutes or so was our president shaking hands with lots of other important people, so by the time he finally spoke I was more than ready to hear every word. Unfortunately, as soon as no more than 10 words came out of President Obama’s mouth, the crowd erupted in cheers. The clapping went on for a moment, and then the president said another 10 words. Again, applause rang through the capitol. After a minute or two the cheers were silenced. Barack opened his mouth again. Not only did he say one sentence, but TWO sentences! The crowd erupted into cheers and THERE WAS A STANDING OVATION. I repeat: THERE WAS A STANDING OVATION DURING THE FIRST MINUTE OF THE SPEECH AND NO ONE EVEN WON A TRIP TO THE BAHAMAS. Don’t get me wrong, I like a good standing ovation as much as anyone else, but I was beginning to think that Barack had planned seven minutes worth of speaking and had allotted 49 hours towards cheering. Fortunately the crowd started to let him speak more, he was able to say more than 12 words without fireworks going off, and he delivered a great address. However, as I was watching the cheering I thought to myself, “If I was President, I would make sure there would definitely be no clapping at my State of the Union Address.” Then I realized that if there would be no clapping at my address, I would actually have time to speak to America, so I wrote down exactly what I thought American needed to know: (Note: I tried to email this to Barack as he was standing at the Capitol, but he must not have had his iPhone on him)

First, I would start off by giving the country the Webster’s dictionary definition of the word ‘America.’ (I’ve learned from every youth talk during Sacrament meeting that this is the only way to start a talk.) There will obviously be no applause, but I will pause .078 seconds for a small chortle.

Next, I will talk about the great advances in technology that we saw during 2014. The most important, of course, being the pulley system. (For those Americans who are uninformed: my kitchen window faces the kitchen window of our neighboring apartment. We got together with them to create a pulley system between the two apartments using some pulleys, a strong cord, and my adorable flower girl basket.) Next to visiting my parent’s home, this has proved to be the easiest way to accumulate free food. Not only are all my neighbors nice, but they’re also good cooks. Unfortunately for them they probably saw the error of their ways the day the system was installed and in exchange for heavenly homemade egg rolls, our apartment offering were blackened cookies that were supposed to be cooked for 7 minutes, not 7 hours. Nevertheless, trade and technology is going well on that front.  

Now would be the time to make promises. Politicians get a bad rap for promising things they’ll never do, so I feel like if they’re going to lie they might as well lie big. During his address President Obama talked about making community college free. I think this is awesome, and I’m all for a more educated country. However, I would not only try to make community college free, but I’d also give every American a free jet pack. How else will people get to college or work? (There’s probably some political minded person out there thinking, “Rachel’s just using satire when she’s suggesting giving everyone a jetpack because she really thinks that sending people to college for free is incredibly expensive and absurd sounding.” WRONG. Jet packs are just super awesome, and so is college.) After this little bit of my speech people will be very tempted to jump from their seats and applaud, but I will wait only .49 seconds for people to breathe in excitedly before I move on.   

My next item of business would be to get rid of the acronym POTUS, which apparently stands for ‘President of the United States.’ Upon reading it the first time on Twitter, I thought it was either a bill waiting to be passed or a deadly disease. This will be the part in the speech where people suggest new names, hopefully with someone suggesting ‘Queen Rachel.’

After that, I will move on to the thanking portion of the speech. This is similar to the Academy Awards, where I will thank my mom, dad, siblings, friends, teachers, and all my peers who created and filled out class google docs during my time at college. The next optional part of the speech will include the unthanks, where I will unthank all those who did not vote for me and the pizza man who promised my pizza would be delivered in 10 minutes and instead arrived in 30. (That part of the speech will only be given if rotten tomatoes have not already been thrown.)

Following is the fact portion, where I will spew off facts about our country, making sure to end all sentences with “…or is it?!” and a loud cackle. For example: “The tax rate is going down….or is it?!?”

After all is said and done, I’d make sure to remind the citizens of the country how wonderful they are. Sure, there are people who lie or cheat or steal. There are people who will just take advantage of others and only look out for themselves. But the good people are outshining the bad. There are people out there that are buying lunch for the person behind them at the drive through, and there are people who are choosing to be honest. There are mothers and fathers everywhere whose first thought when they wake up is how to help their kids. There are people who will let you in on a busy lane on the freeway and roommates who randomly make your bed or text you to let you know they care. There are neighbors that are shoveling sidewalks and strangers smiling and Americans changing the world for better. Let that be you.  

And then, with no applause, I will take off in my jet pack through the secret skylight in the Capitol.

Now is the Time for Revolution

     Last week, as I was spending my Christmas break at my parent’s house with most of my siblings, the topic of Christmas cards came up. Every year my mom sends out a card and a letter, giving a little snippet of things each person in the family has done in the past year. Some Christmas cards have not turned out as well as others. For example, two years ago I sat down to read the card and read all about the incredible escapades of my highly intelligent brother graduating with his highly intelligent master’s degree, along with his highly intelligent wife, who were both expecting a highly intelligent son. I then read about my incredibly talented brother who was the president of an incredibly talented club. I then reached my paragraph of the letter: "Rachel is in her second year at BYU and majoring in Elementary Education. When she isn't spending time with family or friends, she is eating at Cafe Rio." THAT WAS IT. Apparently eating a Cafe Rio pork salad is equivalent in coolness to earning a master’s degree. The letter then moved on to talk about my next brother, who was also graduating, played with his band at Carnegie Hall, was getting his mission call, and solving world hunger in his free time. (In total honesty, this was the best and most hilarious Christmas card my mother has sent out.)

  Because I suffer from middle child syndrome, I obviously believe that my section should be the biggest and best part of the Christmas card. I will be the second person to rave about how talented and incredible my siblings are, (The first would be my great-grandmother, who before passing away a few years ago would insist that one of the Hardy children was going places, and it was definitely the youngest child. Upon receiving school pictures of us she praised me on how beautiful I finally had become. Tragically, I had to point out the picture was actually of my sister, and I still looked the same as always.) but I am always trying to figure out how to make my section a little bit more important. As I was discussing this with my siblings last week, my brother informed me that there was no way I would be taking home the bragging rights for 2015 because he's getting married. (The joke is on them, though, as I plan to insert myself in all of their wedding photos.) My sister did not take my brother's challenge lightly, and informed us all that not only will she be married to make it in the family card, but she will also have a child. I told them all that not only will I graduate college, but I planned to spend some time in jail as to really spice up the card. (Just to clarify, my sister and I were both joking. She will not be a child bride, and I will not be spending time in jail, unless my brother and his fiancée decide to sue me for photobombing all wedding photos.)

     I've never been very good at making New Year's Resolutions. Perhaps this is because the word 'resolution' and I have never been very agreeable with one another. (This is because as I child I gave a primary talk, written by my dad, all about making resolutions at the beginning of the year. I insisted that I would read my own talk, not stooping to the level of illiteracy of the Sunbeams. Unfortunately I had heard of the words 'resolution' and 'revolution' and figured they were the same thing. Wrong. So there I was, standing in front of the primary, telling the other kids that one of the prophets had counseled that "Now is the time for revolution!!" Fortunately I did not create a rebellion, but I did hear my family members laughing for the next 15 years.) However, I figured that if I wanted to reach my goal of being the best part of next year's Christmas card, I needed to shape up, so I've compiled a list.

     Rachel's 2015 Resolutions 

Do what you say you're going to do: One of my best friends, Emmie, loves Christmas. She got her advent calendar weeks in advance this year. Every time we went to the grocery store, she would tell me I needed to get into the holiday spirit and buy one. I informed her that I didn't need to buy one because I could make my own personal calendar. A bite sized piece of chocolate every day wasn't enough to get me excited, so I told her my own calendar would be filled with an apple pie one day, 3 bowls of ice cream the next day, a fresh batch of chocolate chip cookies the day after that, all coming up to Christmas day. I used this excuse every single time Emmie told me to buy an advent calendar, until one day she pointed out that my calendar doesn't work because I didn't actually eat all that food. This taught me the importance of doing what I say I'm going to do. In 2015 I will make an outrageous advent calendar, and I will eat the whole thing. 

When you start something, finish it: This past year Emmie and I went to dinner at a local Mexican restaurant, El Azteca. I told the cashier that I wanted the nachos, and we sat down to wait for our food. As we were catching up on the day's events, a small woman with a platter at least one and a half feet long walked out of the kitchen. She had a gigantic smile that covered her entire face and almost started laughing as she neared our table. She was carrying more than her weight in nachos, right over to my table. (Unfortunately the picture does not do the continent-sized platter justice) She laughed as she set it down on the table, and the cashier laughed from the front of the restaurant. Even other restaurant goers were pointing and laughing, because there I was, sitting behind a platter of nachos that could have fed a large mariachi band. Emmie and I got a pretty good laugh, and I hardly made a dent in them before I asked the waiter to get me 29 to-go boxes. This year, 2015, I'm going to finish what I start. I'm going to order the nachos and eat the whole thing. When I say I'm going to take a nap, I'm going to nap all afternoon. When I start watching a new show on tv, I will do no homework until I finish the entire season.

No Regrets: This is a year to live life with no regrets. After Thanksgiving, my mom sent me home with almost an entire pumpkin pie. It was heavenly. I had many delicious slices. Unfortunately, one day I put it in the back of the fridge along with a bunch of vegetables that I pretend do not exist. And then, like the vegetables, I forgot that the delicious pie was in my fridge. A few weeks later I pulled the pie out, mortified. I had ruined a perfectly good pie. I had taken all the sunshine in the world and had thrown it in the back of the fridge with a bunch of black tomatoes. Sometimes there's a voice in our minds that tells us that we're not good enough, and that we never will be. Sometimes that voice tells us that we're not pretty enough. Sometimes it tells us we're not smart or funny enough. The little voice in my head rings loud and clear, specifically on fast Sundays, screaming, "Remember that delectable pie you wasted?! You could've solved world hunger with that, you dummy!!" So then I go home and eat everything there is in the fridge, in order to not be wasteful. In 2015 I am NOT going to let that pie go bad, thus living life without regret.

I was once taught in a seminary class how to make and keep goals. The one particular thing that I remember is that it is important to reward yourself for keeping your goals. So, if I meet all my goals, I am going to have a banquet in my honor, on the moon, hosted by President Barack Obama. There will plenty of nachos for you all. Hope to see you there.