Guest Blogger: Stanford Grad, JP: A Sign of a True Friend

I live in Boston. Lately the weather has been downright cold. I have had to wear my wool coats, scarves, gloves, and everything else.


Today was Sunday, the weather was slightly warmer, like 28 degrees instead of 18 degrees. So I wore a shorter dress with tights to church. The dress is a Jess Berry original.


At church I kept my coat on until right before the first meeting. About fifteen minutes into the meeting, the time when everyone is extremely reverent, my dear friend J, taps me on the shoulder.  Whispering, she very kindly informs me, "Jenn, your zipper is undone."


As she tells me this I reach over to indeed feel more than I expected. My face flushes.


I had apparently gotten ready so fast I had forgotten to zip up the side of my dress directly under my left arm.


I struggle to begin to zip up the dress.  Thoughts race through my head, Will this dress in fact zip up? Has the cute boy behind me heard or seen this? Who ever decided to put a zipper under the arm??


J, understanding my dilemma, discreetly zipped up the side of my dress.  I don't believe that I have ever heard a louder zipper sound. I pray that the congregation thought the sound was a scripture case.

Guest Blogger: JP's Response To CP's Post

I received the sweetest email from JP this week and as author and editor of my blog I shall post it below.  Let me also just add: CP and JP are gracious and hilarious friends, who clearly love me and I have the utmost respect for each of them.  (I did not however pay them to say such nice things...promise). 


Dear JB,

I would like to respond to Mr. CP's blog with your permission, he missed a few of the most important points.  JB, you are allowed to edit, cut, paste, and rewrite. 

Here it begins: 

Hello dear readers.  My name is Jennifer Peterson.  I would like to challenge Mr. Chris Perry to a duel of epic proportions.  Unfortunately Mr. Chris Perry is the land of milk and honey in California and I am in the cold wintry Massachusetts so this duel of epic proportions will have to be delayed until we meet each other again.  I suspect the meeting will be at a distant mutual friend's wedding that we are both crashing. I will be talking to an acquaintance that I have forgotten her name when I will notice Chris Perry staring at me across the room.  Chris will come over and ask me to introduce me to the person I am talking to.  I will glare at Chris and ignore his comment.  Yes, this will be awkward. Yes I will eventually have to admit that I do not remember the person's name.  At that point the duel will commence. Until that awkward moment, I challenge Chris Perry to a duel of words and rhetoric.

I will mention that Chris Perry is correct in advocating that Jess Berry is Better Than You, however Chris Perry is off target on the word choice "Seriously."   I propose the following word choice with supporting quotes. 

Jess Berry is Graciously Better Than You. 

Quote One:  "Well they are in good company then."  Jess, affectionately known as JB, will use this quote when one of her friends mentions that a person of prominence holds the same opinion as JB.  JB has a well defined sense of self confidence.  Using her self confidence she inspires you to find your own.  She encourages you to be the best you can be. 

Quote Two:  "Yankees are ..."  I usually don't understand the rest of these sentences as they go off into baseball land.  This quote however emphasizes how loyal Jess is to her team.  If you are lucky enough to be on her team, she will be loyal to you.

Quote Three:  She appreciates sweet potato fries.  Jess Berry appreciates the simple pleasures and the finer things of life like no one else.  She has great taste.  (see CP's cooking comments) She will make you feel welcome.  She reaches out to those who need it most.  

Supporting arguments (I could not expand on all, after all I'm in Graduate School now and have homework and such!) 

Red Checkered Vans proves she is a better shopper than you. 

Her moves to Party in the USA proves she is a better dancer than you. 

P90X proves she is a better ab ripper than you. 

Any questions/comments/concerns/rebuttals/suggestions - please email me. 

Yours,

JP

Guest Blogger: CP

***Blog owner comment...because I think CP is hilarious I did not edit one word. 

Jess Berry is Seriously Better Than You

Hi everyone. My name is Chris Perry, and I'll be your blogger for this post. Please put your seatbacks in a reclined position, and laugh at the dude behind you who is currently contorting his body to avoid the largesse of his seat companion, whose life you just made a tiny bit more miserable on this 1.5 hour flight o' getting-bumped-by-sir-chub-a-lub-every-thirty-seconds.

I'm honored to have this opportunity again. Rare is the occasion in which I can write a post and not spend the entire time in a state of panic, praying that the magical humor gods don't suddenly desert me. I don't even have to write about a subject! I can just blabber on here! And I'm not even going to have to face Google Analytics and its insistence on showing me only three people read this! Ahhhh, the bliss!

No, but seriously, there is a very serious subject I'd like to discuss today, and that is why Jess Berry is Seriously Better Than You.

Reason #1: Jess Berry is an Accountant.

I used to date an accountant,* and, let me tell you, they are awesome. She eventually dumped me (coughonmultipleoccasionscough), I think because she realized that I was dating her mostly because she was super hot, but also because I would never have to deal with a tax return AGAIN. Seriously, can you imagine the world of perpetual bliss? Smooching AND no taxes? Think about the worst thing you can imagine: like getting slapped in the face repeatedly by inebriated rabid porcupines while being waterboarded with rancid yogurt (no, I am not describing what it is like to smooch me, I am making a point on the misery of taxes), then multiply that by ten, and that is what doing taxes is like.

But Accountants LOVE that stuff!** They LOVE porcupines! They even love rancid yogurt!*** But they especially love doing things like trying to convince the IRS that I don't owe them any taxes for the year in which I lost thousands of dollars on the stock market.

If you'll excuse me for a moment, I need to cry bitter tears of anguish.

Okay. We're good.

Jess Berry is better than you because she is an Accountant.

Reason #2 Jess Berry Can Cook.

Don't let her insistence on calling some mild deviant of Sloppy Joes Sloppy Dans throw you off. She can cook a mean Sunday dinner, and boy, you had better appreciate that, or you have some explaining to do. I once was running late to a dinner she invited me to,**** and I spent the entire drive sweating bullets worried that she was going to call and harass me like she is known to do. And why does she make those phone calls? Because her food is worth it people. Worth. It.

Also worth it: her Sunday dinner stories. On further reflection, I'm pretty sure those might even eclipse her dinner. I have but three words: leopard-print speedo. Curious? Well, you can either come swimming with me sometime,***** or sit down by the fire with Jess Berry and listen to her regale you with Tales from Idaho.

Jess Berry is better than you because she can cook.

Reason #3 Jess Berry Can Golf

Now, only men who are the most secure in their masculinity are capable of even mentioning her golfing ability, because they would be then forced to admit that she can destroy them on any golf course with ease. As I am known to keep a flower in my car, this obviously applies to me.****** Golfing is probably the most masculine of sports, because you drive cars, sit around, and occasionally break a sweat when the temperature in the wilderness in which you constantly hit your ball becomes unbearable, and yet, Mz. Berry rocks the golf course, and even does it without spending the majority of her time diving into lakes, re-raking sand traps while attempting to coerce the sounds of various obscenities to be unrecognizable to the ears of more righteous companions, and suffering from severe bouts of anxiety as crowds of people line up behind you and curse under their breaths for the bad luck of getting stuck behind someone whose sole successful drive occurred at some point in the nineties, and this only by the grace of God.*******

Jess Berry is better than you because she can golf.

There are more reasons Jess Berry is Seriously Better Than You, but we're going to have to cap the list here because:

A) About three people will make it this far into the post

B) I should really be "working" right now, and

C) Do you honestly need more proof than that? I'd say my point is proven.

Q.E.D.

*Okay, she technically wasn’t an accountant when we were dating, but I ascribe to the old adage that accountants aren’t made, they are born.

**Except the smooching me part. See: Getting broken up with, Chris.

***I am just kidding. Nobody likes rancid yogurt. Or that freakishly-blue concoction also known as skim milk. And if they do, you should run as fast as you can and outfit yourself with a wooden stake or something because they are CRAZY. Oh, what's that you say? You like skim milk? Excuse me while I find that stake I stashed around here somewhere...

****She, being kind and loving, occasionally invites the local hermit out to interact with humans.

*****I kiiid, I kiiid. Even if I wore a speedo, you can bet I would never admit to that in this G-rated venue. Unless you like that sort of thi...I KID!

******Great thing about driving with flowers: you can continually claim it's evidence of your heightened masculinity, when it, in fact, is clearly not.

*******Incidentally, do you see how long that sentence is? It's a freaking monster. Now THAT'S a masculine sentence ladies. You'll overlook that sissy flower bit before, right? Right? And I realize I changed subjects/tenses/everything in there at least twice. It was intentional. How else can you get through a sentence that long? Seriously, who do you think I am? Wait, don't answer that.

Guest Blogger: Insights From My Asian Bro

Agency and Opportunity

Three days out of the week last spring, I spent almost two hours on commuter trains travelling to and from an internship. Each trip brought me face to face with people that I had never met and would likely never see again. It was, however, the two or three faces that I saw on a daily basis that taught me two important lessons about agency and opportunity that I hope never to forget.

Nearly every walk that I made through my trip’s terminal train station took me past several people asking for spare change. Previously, when I had seen impoverished individuals up close, I felt like I was looking at them through a telescope; though they appeared physically near, I still perceived that a vast distance between our worlds remained. My personal circumstances last spring, however, changed my perspective.

Within just a few months, I would be graduating from law school. It would be the culminating academic achievement of a lifetime of dedicated study. And though I was proud of my pending accomplishment, it was to come without any employment opportunities. Seeing these panhandlers with that reality in mind helped me realize just how little separated me from a cardboard-softened concrete seat next to them. For the first time in my life, I started to understand what an ancient prophet meant when he asked his people: “For behold, are we not all beggars?” (The Book of Mormon, Mosiah 4:19). I hope to never forget what it felt like to look into the eyes of poverty and see not just the suffering of another but also a reflection of my own despair.

This, of course, is not to make the seriousness of their situation analogous to my own. My earning potential remains high, and thanks to the generous assistance of family and friends, I have not had to beg any strangers for help. Nevertheless, I do believe the proximity that I felt to those individuals taught me an important lesson. Agency (or the power to choose) is an eternal principle, and we construct much of our circumstance one choice at a time. But just as material science limits the design options of an architect, opportunity constricts the exercise of agency. Within a man’s heart and mind may be the blueprint of a mansion, but without the right tools and materials, he may struggle to even construct a shack.

Malcom Gladwell recognized this in his book Outliers. In attempting to unravel the stories behind abnormally successful people (i.e., outliers), Gladwell observed that “[t]heir success is . . . grounded in a web of advantages and inheritances, some deserved, some not, some earned, some just plain lucky—but all critical to making them who they are.” According to Gladwell, “[p]eople don’t rise from nothing. . . . It is only by asking where they are from that we can unravel the logic behind who succeeds and who doesn’t.” It is easy to think that we are where we are because of who we are. But that is really only part of the story.

This leads me to the two lessons that I learned by walking through the train station last spring. First, I could not have accomplished what I have without the unique, and often undeserved, opportunities and advantages that I have had throughout my life. Second, failure is not always the result of poor choices; sometimes it results from a lack of opportunity. Indeed, we never really know what someone could accomplish with the right opportunities. As Anton Ego in Pixar’s film Ratatouille, put it: even though not everyone can become a great artist, a great artist can come from anywhere.

Learning to see success and failure as an often unquantifiable mixture of agency and opportunity helped me realize how much more I could do to help others succeed. As Gladwell put it, our tendency to “personalize success” can cause us to “overlook just how large a role we all play—and by ‘we’ I mean society—in determining who makes it and who doesn’t.” As a result, we often “miss opportunities to lift others onto the top rung.” (Gladwell, Outliers). Therefore, “let us not be weary in well doing” and as we have “opportunity, let us do good unto all men.” (Galatians 6:9-10). Let us “[p]ause to help and lift another. . . . To the wounded and the weary,” may we “show a gentle heart.” (Lord, I Would Follow Thee, Hymn #220).

Guest Blogger: Love One Another

Love One Another

In Leo Tolstoy’s final major novel, Resurrection, the repentant Prince Nekhlyudov muses:

“Men think there are circumstances when one may deal with human beings without love. But there are no such circumstances. We may deal with things without love – we cut down trees, make bricks, hammer iron without love – but we cannot deal with men without it … love is the fundamental law of human life.” (Tolstoy, Resurrection, Oxford World’s Classics 1999 edition, p. 383).

Far too often, we view another person as less than fully human. Perhaps, in the course of a political debate, an opponent falls from humanity to the lowly species of whichever party we happen to oppose. Perhaps an annoying coworker becomes classified in our mind as an irritant, an object which we wish would simply not exist in our life. Perhaps we feel obliged to publicly separate ourselves from an immature acquaintance, lest their social ineptitude reflect negatively on our own status.

Whenever we downgrade someone in such a manner, it is obvious that we might hurt that person. It is initially less obvious that we will also hurt ourselves. As Terry Warner has written, “who we are is how we are in relation to others.” (Bonds That Make Us Free, 41). When we treat any human being as less than fully human, we inevitably devalue all humanity – including our own.

On the other hand, when we love and serve those around us by treating them as fully human – as brothers and sisters – then our own humanity, in the fullest sense of the word, will grow. As Dieter F. Uchtdorf taught in the April 2010 LDS General Conference:

“As we extend our hands and hearts toward others in Christlike love, something wonderful happens to us. Our own spirits become healed, more refined, and stronger. We become happier, more peaceful, and more receptive to the whisperings of the Holy Spirit.”

The prophet Mormon prayed “that when [Christ] shall appear we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is” (Moroni 7:48) – like him, for He sees us as we are. To fulfill that prayer, we must learn to “see as [we] are seen, and know as [we] are known” (D&C 76:94). Each person in our life – each of His, and our, brothers and sisters – must become as real to us, as worthy of love, as they are to Him. This will demand an infinite expansion of our heart and soul, and may require an eternity to complete. Thankfully, such eternal life is within reach through the Atonement of the One who has already completed the journey. We can begin to live that eternal life now, as our hearts are softened by His Atonement and we see and love others, day by day, as He sees and loves them – as He loves us.

BC

Guest Blogger: Email From Mama Berry

Jess since you are not answering your phone, i have a couple of follow up questions for you.

1. have you found a chiropractor and when is your appt?

2. Have you quit playing football.....as i am still nursing my knee i can't help but think about your sore body and how you are going to have to take better care of it or else. Even the bike helmet won't prevent that kind of wear and tear.

3. you are beautiful

4. When is the fireside for the youth you are speaking at? what are you going to say? give me your 1st or 2nd draft

5. Is it still raining? It rained here today and then snow went to Jackson and not much snow at all over there.

6. Do you feel better than last time i talked to you?

7 Have you been out of bed? hehehe

8. Are you as tired as me? I need my battery charged again (stopped at the library so i think i might just lounge and read books and not answer the door or the phone and just make something up about being confined to bed)

9. Do you want me to hug the girls for you? Morgan came over sun nite for a while and she kept wandering around saying Jessica jessica jessica we explained that you weren't here she just kept looking for you it was funny

10. Did you know that uncle rico is coaching josh's basketball game tonight? I'll let you know how it goes

11. Is your mother random?

love mom