i learned to understand Cezanne much better and to see truly how he made landscapes when i was hungry

i ate a bagel instead of going out that night. i didn't want to be wasteful and i had already bought a ticket for the show. any monetary sacrifice would have been well-spent in order to see the dancers that night. it was better to watch when i was hungry anyway.

"all the paintings were shapened and clearer and more beautiful if you were belly-empty, hollow-hungry" -- Hemingway

i hadn't realized how hungry i was inside - hungry for beauty, hungry for perspective. even in my average student-dom, i find myself detached from things that i used to love only to discover it on an empty stomach. it's funny, but i seem to discover my ipod every other week and realize a forgotten life i once had. i mean, i used to love that song and now i don't even know where it is. when i am not constantly around certain beauties - such as dance, music, trees - my appreciation for the sight and sound of them is exponentially greater. watching the dancers was no exception. i had fasted for so long to experience the catharsis that i only get when i watch someone dance. it is second only to being the dancer.

i insisted that my friend give me the one balcony ticket - i love to watch the dancers from up there - and i often like to go to concerts alone. i sat on the edge of the row and spent the night shifting my view around the big person in front of me - my eyes bright and hungry. i think i cried three times. the adagio to Samuel Barber's piece... you had to be there. and the dancers' company had a pas de deux to Neil Diamond. seriously. i was moved because i realized i wanted love.

the girl next to me probably thought i was over-the-top. i smiled at the cute and comedic, nodded my head with approval at a clean succession of turns, whispered "wow" when i thought something was really great, and scribbled notes onto my program in the dark.

i noticed the themes that each company brings to the stage - which as far as i can tell, stay constant with each year. the dancers' company brings soul, weight and farce. the ballet company brings showy solos and sadness. the cougarettes bring intensity and synchronized spirituality. the folk dancers, a show-stopper and sincerety.

an hour later in my law school carrell, i closed my eyes to think. the dancers were there, behind my eyelids. i had brought them with me and they were dancing.

i'd be a lot more productive if i didn't have the internet

-Bryan, BYU Student.

I complete relate, Bryan. You are not alone.

eve's surprise

tuesday night in the wilk. i'm walking back from a ward council meeting and i have an umbrella because it had been raining earlier and a sprite because at ward council they had given us pizza and psychologically i couldn't eat the pizza without imagining having soda with it too. so, my psychological pizza weirdness moved me, my legs, my umbrella, and my wallet to the express store in the middle of the cougareat for one of those low cal bottles of sprite.

i had seen my roommate, eve, in the wilk on my way to the meeting. she was studying in memory hall because it was so peaceful. i didn't anticipate seeing her on the way back, but she was still there - the fantastic eve who is everything mutlicultural. no multicultural student gets past her radar so i wasn't surprised to see her with a group of people, from i'm-not-sure-but-probably-international-origin, who had been at the latin dance night. i was delighted to see her. familiarity almost always makes me feel better about the world.

we hugged and chit-chatted. she asked if i was hungry and i said "nah, i just had some pizza. and i've got this." i lifted up my sprite bottle. she asked me humbly (eve always asks humbly) if she could have some. i handed it to her and she put it to her mouth. the next moment, she was giggling and a couple feet from where she commenced drinking, waving her hand in very eve-ish gestures and exclaiming in her musical hawaiin accent, "wow! holy cow, man! i had no idea that was soda! i thought that was water!" i laughed at this, though still a little apprehensive, just in case she was one of those fanatical health people who doesn't drink soda because it will stop your heart or something. but, to my relief, she was rather delighted. and so was i.

that experience was one that simply cannot be re-created. with no foreknowledge that what she was about to drink was a tingling, eye-watering sensation, she dove in like it was water. her response: pure surprise. i mean, she had no inkling - like what you get when your birthday is close and your friends want to take you to someone else's house to help with "homework." eve's experience was of complete, bewildering, delightful, perfect unexpectedness. i wonder how similar Mother Eve's experience was to this. did the fruit taste a million times more awesome than that everyday fruit she'd been eating? considering my role in this situation, i prefer not to push the analogy too far. but i will say:

may we all have some sprite when we think it's water moments todayand often.