I wonder why she bothered to change her hair (or even her outfit) if the bui bui covers everything “from head to toe.”

I “fake it” in Relief Society on a regular basis. I often feel the teacher wants to maintain a certain mood and spirit, and frequently my comment would greatly detract from said mood. My impression is Elder’s Quorum is a bit more lively and more open to debates/discussions.

danithew and Amira–my impression of this particular girl was that she dressed in such a way (including the extensions) that her family would find unacceptable, even if covered (and I assume once she gets home, she is no longer covered). Frankly, this country is very conservative and her original attire would have been appropriate for a prostitute–I can see why her parents might have been concerned. Even braids/extensions are debateable.

You guys don’t think faking it can be dishonest?

atieno–thanks for the link. I wasn’t thinking of a specific religious ban on extenions–maybe just the idea of extensions being a sign of vanity or too much of an investment in time and money for a more religious person. Maybe, though, there are more formal ideas about extensions. Married (conservative) Jewish women specifically choose to wear wigs for piety–so they don’t reveal their glory–their real hair–to anyone but family. Anyway–funny about how you wear your hair having so many ramifications.

ESO, it sounds to me like you’re the one who is exploring ideas and options of how to conform versus remain true to one’s inner self.

Have you “found yourself” yet?

Are you comfortable with the various costumes, hats, or masks you wear or are expected to wear at various times and places in your life?

Who and what is the “real” ESO ?

That might be a better question.

As children, both my wife and I were transient, after moving on from our respective families we were both transient, since we have been married we have remained transient and will probably continue.

We have lived all over, both in and out of the US. At some point, not really planning it, we started purchasing clothes that were the least regional/class/nationally identifiable, or clothes that we intend to wear in a specific region but not others. We actively try to blend, our accents and colloquialisms are pretty fluid too.

That said, since we are a racially blended family, unless someone is wearing their ethnic jewelry and there is someone there who knows what it is, we probably just confuse people. People frequently say “we know you are not from HERE, but where ARE you from?”

Are we “faking it?” I don’t think so. Are we suffering from an identity crisis for not having chosen a particular location or style to associate with? If anything I would say the opposite, that we feel free to be who we are without the constraints of geographic origin, to some degree anyway.

We haven’t had too many problems biting our tongues in Church. I can only think of one instance where we left a Church meeting. We attended a ward in the UK for several months and would have felt ungracious to have started a big to-do. So we just left that Sunday and went back the next with the intention of eventually addressing it a way that would help not hinder. The opportunity hasn’t arisen yet, but we still visit occasionally, it might still. If you really need to sound off, the Bloggernacle is a good place right?

a random john,

I agree completely and try to omit any identifying details. I may have slipped up, but I try.

Cowardly hiding behind a anonymous pseudonym helps too. There are only two people who know who I am. One probably doesn’t think that highly enough of my opinions to begin with and the other is my wife, who doesn’t think very highly of spending time on the Bloggernacle.

anything you say is public no matter where you think you are publishing it.

How sad that LDS can’t speak their minds…
You’d think (just a guess here) that Conformity was the #1 value in Morland…

No problem ESO. It’s just by chance that I know about the ban. Heard a friend mention it once when she was explaining why she didn’t braid her hair, and then she proceeded to braid her hair shortly afterwards. The kind of thing that sticks in your mind… =)

Those times in my life when I have been the most honest with myself and others (at the same time), when I have been most authentic, are the times I have been the happiest, regardless of whether I was doing what I “wanted” to do.

I’m not saying that the city girl or the country girl was more authentic, only she could answer that question.

I’m just saying when I allow myself to be who I am, I am at my most powerful.

No. To be who I am.

Shakespeare (from Hamlet):

To be, or not to be: that is the question:
Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, ’tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish’d. To die, to sleep;
To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there’s the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause: there’s the respect
That makes calamity of so long life;
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor’s wrong, the proud man’s contumely,
The pangs of despised love, the law’s delay,
The insolence of office and the spurns
That patient merit of the unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscover’d country from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pith and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action. – Soft you now!
The fair Ophelia! Nymph, in thy orisons
Be all my sins remember’d.