Short, Sweet, and Utterly Pointless

The Ultimate Guide to Writing Totally Awesome Blog Posts

Live It The first rule of writing is to write what you know. You might be the best writer that ever put finger to keyboard, but if you have nothing to say, that won't help anyone.

Love It You are not just contributing to cyber-spam. Your audience will know whether you really care about your message.

Write It This is still the language of Shakespeare and Rowling we are talking about. Make sure that no one needs an advanced degree in diseducation in order to understand your blog.

Blog It Make the most of your format. Use bolds, bullets, and maybe even a tasteful graphic or picture.

Hair, Skin, and Soul

     As a child, she wanted to be a doctor. She pored over her grandmother’s book on the anatomy of the human body, fascinated by the way the body worked. She was deeply interested in human illness, and she wanted to understand what made people sick and what made them well.
    As a teenager, she became her neighborhood’s “hair girl.” She loved making others more beautiful, and she decided to become a beautician. When she shared her plan with a high school guidance counselor, however, he told that she could do much better than that.
    Now, through her work as the director of BYU’s office of Women’s Services and Resources, Lanae Valentine has found that the answer to her childhood question of what makes people healthy lies in their relationships with others.
    That belief is obvious to those around her. “She has honestly been my mom here,” said Bianca Rosenhan, a native of Blackfoot, Idaho who is majoring in recreation management and works in the office of Women’s Services and Resources. “I could get so emotional about [this office]. It really is home here.”
    Valentine became the director of the Women’s Services and Resources office 12 years ago, after a long career that included inpatient work at a depression unit and teaching as a professor at BYU. She had discovered her that her real passion was health psychology while working on her master’s degree. She continued researching the ties between physical illness and relationship problems while obtaining a PhD in marriage and family psychology.
    Valentine has used her study of health psychology to expand the program at Women’s Services. She focuses on two main issues: body image and eating disorders. “We see too much that a way a woman has power can be to sexualize herself,” she said. “College is really where you shape your life.”
    Elise Peterson, the office manager for the Women’s Services office, sees women come to Valentine in for one-on-one help with some of these issues. “Women will come in crying, and often leave with a smile on their face,” she said.
    Rosenham told one story of happier tears. Valentine had shared an email she had just received from a past participant in the program’s 10-Day Challenge. The girl was currently in a center for eating disorders. She had reread the challenge and shared it with the other girls in the center, and they had all made “beautiful” t-shirts. “By the end of the email, we were all in tears,” said Rosenham.
    Valentine tailors the events put on by the office to meet the needs of college-age women. Breast cancer awareness, for example, is no longer part of the program, although Valentine added that preventative measures should begin early in life. Yoga, on the other hand, is a new addition.
    Valentine began doing yoga after attending a seminar where yoga was used as a cure for psychiatric problems. She sees it as a way of increasing the health of the mind and body. “There’s a spirit inside the body, and the spirit can get sick,” she said.
    At the same time, Valentine is concerned by the modern fitness craze. She promotes activity as part of a healthy lifestyle. “It’s important to find balance and not get caught up in all the crazes,” she said.
    Valentine finds joy in helping women find balance, healthy relationships, and good priorities. “And I still like to fix people’s hair,” she added.

And Now Featuring

This is an exciting feature story for my newswriting class. Thanks to all who helped!

Raymond Quain was a student at BYU when his roommate talked him into trying the Bamboo Hut, and he got hooked. It was a tiny building tucked into a parking lot across the street from BYU, but it quickly became an “upper-classmen only” hang-out spot that students nicknamed “The Bamboo Shmut.”
    “You could get a whole lunch for $2,” said Raymond Quain, a BYU alumnus who now resides in California. “I went there all the time—all I ever got was the chicken. If I had an extra quarter I could get the three-piece chicken.”
    The Hawaiian family that owned the Bamboo Hut eventually sold their recipes. The new owner moved the restaurant further away from BYU, yet its history was not forgotten. A large blue flag with the crest of the cougars has a place on the wall beside the palm tree, less an artifact from the past than an actual feature of the Bamboo Hut’s continuing story.
    Morgan Mix, a 19-year-old biology major from North Carolina, was impressed with the pineapple barbeque sauce. “Some people claim that they have pineapple barbeque sauce or something, but then it doesn’t taste different,” she said as she selected a sweet potato fry for dipping. “This is true pineapple sauce.”
    Forrest Addams, a customer from Pleasant Grove, Utah, looked to satiate a passion for the exotic with authentic Hawaiian food. Addams served in the military for over 20 years. His travels took him to Korea, Okinawa, and the “fabled shores of Tripoli” in Libya. Addams viewed a nice dinner at the Bamboo Hut as a staple of retirement. “I turned around and saw the bamboo,” he said.
    Bamboo goes without saying. Lava-lavas decorate the Bamboo Hut’s interior as well, with thick rope railings leading customers past the menu to the food. Jessica Torres, who has worked at the Hawaiian grill for two years, recommends the pork ribs and the sesame chicken. She recounted the story of its early days, when lines of students waiting for chicken, and pineapple on a stick extended out the door.  Now, the Bamboo Hut is a nice, calm place to work, Torres said.
    A woman hurried in for the $3.99 chicken deal. Prices have gone up since 1984, but the Bamboo Hut’s past is still remembered in its present. A sign by the door reads, “Every part of Hawaiian life is touched by legend.”