French for "Was"

Last Friday, in English class, we discussed how to better our writing. My teacher instructed us that nouns and verbs should do 90% of the work while writing, and the other 10% is all the other types of words, including prepositions, adverbs, adjectives, and articles. That's a big difference. He said one way to keep that percentage rate is to cut out all the "to be" verbs, in what ever tense. Words like "is," "am," "are," "was," "were," especially when the word following ends in -ing (that's the past continuous tense, a horribly ungrammatical tense in writing). Many times, an excess of these verbs leads to your character passively being acted upon, instead of your character actively acting. He said that if your writing ever seems to drag, it may be because of an overbearing presence of these verbs. That prompted me to analyze my story MtH, for I find it dragging and boring in many areas, and I'm the author! I searched for "was" and found over 300 occurances, so over the past few days, I started the process of slowly editing my work and lessening my "to be" verbs. It is a challenge, but an extremly gratifying one. I find myself on page 12 with 270 occurances of the dreaded word, and still more to eliminate. Perhaps my writing skil will increase through this exercise. Other words to avoid include "would," "could," and "should," although we did not do any excersizes related to deleting these words from our writing vocabulary.
Now, another challenge presents itself. In French class, we study various verb tenses. This past week, we learned the imperfect and the conditional tenses. Imperfect means "was doing" and conditional is "would." This makes me wonder, is there such thing as Proper French, and if so, what are the rules and do to the imperfect and conditional tenses count as improper. If so, why are we learning them? Why are we learning them in the first place, if, when we translate, we should be translating into Proper English? Until I answer these questions, however, I will continue to study hard these tenses to increase my French knowlege. Also, learning these tenses makes translating songs fun, like "If I Were a Rich Man" from Fiddler on the Roof. That song fits perfectly with these new tenses. Also, the line from Peter Pan (with Jeremy Sumpter and Jason Isaacs) "If I were you, I'd give up." "If you were me, I'd be ugly." translate more easily now. Learning French, although confusing, makes me happy.

Everything Else

My Goals:

I need to learn how to talk to people and not be shy, and to stop worrying what other people think of me/what I have to say. Once I step out of my comfort zone, I will be able to accomplish more, like asking people for information concerning an ancestor.

Index at least one record a week. Attend the temple twice a month while in Rexburg. Long Term goal/records retention project: Type up the family history records compiled by Emma Jacobson concerning my ancestors.

 Challenges: Forgetting. Not being focused. Being “lazy.”

My Dreams turning into Goals

---Goal 1--- Be Published

Daily: 

• Free-Write five minutes a day

• Edit two paragraphs in MTH a day.

• OR: Write two paragraphs on MTH a day.

Weekly:

• Review edits and make changes as necessary

• Brainstorm where I want my story to go.

Deadline: End of Sophomore year in college.

---Goal 2--- Type up Emma Jacobson’s family history records.

Daily: Type/edit one to two pages a day.

Weekly: Review information and conduct my own research about information presented.

Deadlines: When finished.

I don't have many pictures of my family.

2.o Optional Research

Researching Family History Sites for my Introduction to Family History class.

The records in the catalogue at the Family History Center in Salt Lake City (and I guess in other places around the world too!) are being photographed digitally! Perhaps someday they will be availible online.

Right when I pull up the familyhistory.byu.edu site, I see the scrolling information. Seems like they have a lot of cool projects. The Immigrant ancestors looks cool. Volunteers, scholars, and researchers are using emigration registers to locate information about the birthplaces of immigrants to create a database of millions of immigrants. That would be so cool to volunteer for that project!
They have a link for script tutorials, offering guidance to deciphering manuscripts and other old documents printed in old typeface or written in old handwriting, in various languages. That will be great help when for indexing!
There's also the Nauvoo Community Project, identifying residents of Nauvoo, Illinois from 1839 to 1846. Family History Students at BYU are attempting to document each resident from their birth to their death. Kinda cool.

I think it's very interesting that many resources previously availible at Brigham Young University are now availible on FamilySearch.org, like "The Family History Archives" on BYU is now availible under "Family History Books" at fs.o. I guess it does make sense though, since fs.o is put out by the Church.

Family History is pretty fun! I'm excited to start finding my ancestors. But I don't want to just find them and do their temple work, I want to learn their stories, events that happened in their life. I want to know them. I guess I should keep my own journal, if I expect my anncestors to. Perhaps I'll try again.

CI.5: Beginning my Book of Remembrance

My Testimony:

I am a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. I know it, I live it, I love it. I know that God speaks through prophets, and that He has not stop speaking. Thomas S. Monson is the current prophet. I know that Joseph Smith was a prophet and that he translated the Book of Mormon, which is the word of God. The Book of Mormon was written for our day.
I know that the importance of families is an essential teaching in the Gospel, and that families can be together for ever. Sacred ordinances for deceased family members can be completed in the temple. Temples are the house of God here on earth. I know that my life has a purpose, and that my Heavenly Father knows who I am and loves me.
I know that repentance/the atonement is for everyone, and that Heavenly Father will forget my sins when I truly repent. I know that His Son, Jesus Christ, died for my sins.
I will never check my religion at the door, I will remain steadfast and immovable in my testimony.
[In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen]

Life Goals:

I will be published.
I will be married in the temple.
I will have children (lots if if can help it!)
I will always be a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.
I will stay positive.