What's new in Ben's Life?

I figured that I should probably write a little about me and recent developments in my life because of the following reasons:

1. Catherine invited several of her friends, family, and aquaintances to view the blog, and some of them have little to no information on me.

2. Those who do know me probably aren't fully up to date on my life and happenings (though I doubt they are really missing out).

3. I need something to do while being bored out of my mind while in my World Civilizations class (fun subject, boring lecturer).

I am still a student at Brigham Young University, and will hopefully graduate next April. My major is English and my minor is History, which equals a LOT of reading and a LOT of writing, which is ok because I like reading and writing (though it does get in the way of other things). Besides (happily) spending most of my free time with my lovable wife, I love reading interpretive historical monographs and classical novels, playing basketball and working out, watching BYU Football, the Utah Jazz, and Whose Line is it Anyway, and, apparently, complex sentence structures coupled with lots of commas.

My main love, besides of course Catherine, is Latter-day Saint history (I contemplated writing Latter Day History, without the hyphen while capitalizing the "D," which implies all the Mormon movements that claim Joseph Smith as a prophet [and yes, I don't think the LDS Church has a monopoly on the term "Mormon," but that debate is saved for another post], but I used the traditional spelling for practical matters). All of my current jobs have to do with Mormon history: I have worked for almost two years on the Joseph Smith Papers Project as a research assistant; I am currently an intern for the Church Historic Sites Department; and, I am currently editing the articles for the forthcominig Doctrine and Covenants Reference Companion. I have had the privilege of presenting at several historical conferences across the nation this last year on Mormon-related topics. I also collect, borrow, and devour any important book that is any way related to Mormonism.

As I mentioned, I am currently working as an intern for the Church Historical Department, which is located at the Church History Museum in Salt Lake City. This means that I have to ride the bus up everyday, which has turned out to be quite pleasant. Besides having to get up really early, I have enjoyed the extra reading time every day. Also, since my job places me in downtown SLC, I am taking a couple classes at the BYU-SLC Center this term (World Civ. and American Heritage--what a combo). Although life is really busy, I have been thoroughly enjoying it, especially since I have weeknights and weekends free to spend with Catherine (when she has work off, anyway). I know that freedom will dissappear this fall when I am back to full-time school, so I am taking advantage of it while it lasts.

With the propect of Grad School hovering over me like a big storm cloud, I have been forced to start thinking about what exactly I want to study. I have been more and more pulled to 19th century American intellectual thought, specifically the Romantic strain. This means I have been reading a lot about the Transcendentalists like Emerson, Fuller, and Thoreau. My dream is to get accept to Boston's History Program next year to study intellectual history under Charles Capper--the foremost scholar of American Romanticism. We are keeping our fingers crossed.

Well, that is probably more than enough info you wanted to hear about me. In fact, I am pretty bored after just writing it. Anyways, this has been a fun exercise, and it has succeeded in passing my time in class.

Adios.