This week in review

Swimming:
We started working on the Butterfly. I've never felt so tired after a workout. Ever. But my abs seemed a little more tone than normal the next day, so much so I'm going to start taking a day to focus on the Butterfly once a week. Hopefully I'll be able to do it.

Software Development:
My brother gave me an idea for an Android app about a month ago, so right now I'm actively working on that. About 30 minutes a day. I don't think I have much time outside of that. I'm also working on reviewing questions for interviewing. That's for about 15 minutes a day. I'm also reviewing different programming strategies for about 15 minutes a day. Right now I'm focusing on a book called Design Patterns. Erich Gamma is one of the authors. I need to order some books on testing because I think that was a weakness of mine I picked up on during my Amazon internship. That's this week I'm going to do that.I feel like Amazon taught me you need to be consistently working on your skills and applying them on your own time in order to stay on top of the game. We'll see how I do at that ; ).

So my brother's idea included graphing data, but given the context of what the data is used for, I feel like a graph doesn't show the data accurately enough to be useful. I'm going to suggest to him a different data layout where the averages, highs and lows are shown for the statistics he wanted and have a way of accessing the actual data for more details, we'll see.

Spiritual Health:
So I've been rereading the Book of Mormon over the last 6 months or so. Something I think is really awesome is the feelings I get while reading. I don't get them all the time, but the peace and strength I feel when I read it parches a thirst of mine that's hard to describe in words. Next I'll read the New Testament. That's also a good place to read the scriptures and comes with the same sorts of awesome feelings. These sources show how little hate speech there is in religion and how much God loves us.

I believe the tone towards religion has gotten a lot more judgmental of late but I don't think people are remembering all the good things religion is trying to teach us just because they don't agree with a few points. Something that I find frustrating as a member of the LDS Church is people think we're anti-gay because of the whole Proposition 8 thing. What they don't know is that the LDS Church lobbied in favor of civil unions in Salt Lake City, they also lobbied in favor of non-discrimination of gays and lesbians in Salt Lake in opportunities of employment and housing (check it out here) . I think what people forget is that one of our core doctrines is the sacredness and power of the family unit, and how important it is (a good piece of literature on that is here). Prop 8 was about protecting the family, not about hate or restricting civil rights and the LDS Church's record attests to that. And I really wish there was better dialogue between both sides of this issue so a compromise was reached. I'm pretty sure if both sides talked more about what they wanted and what they needed, they could come up with an agreement and if everyone supports it, then it will become law. Look at how fast voting rights for 18-year-olds came in the 70s. The quicker everyone has the same idea, the easier it is to make it law.