Arches

With everything that's happened in the last few weeks, it sort of feels like the beginning of the end. I just finished up my third year at BYU, I -literally- sobbed my way to the end of a 4 hour cleaning check, I camped in Moab, several of my friends graduated, I drove across the country...But, as I keep reminding myself, its really just the end of the beginning.

Camping in Moab

Landscape Arch

See college, life, everything just seems to be picking up pace lately. I accepted a TA job for next year, I'm going to Africa in a month, I received the worst grades I've ever gotten this past semester and I don't hate myself. Eh? Eh?

I'm proud of where I've gotten but I also know that I can't be stagnant. Or do I? I've moved from one set of arches to another. When I turned a bend in the highway and saw the St. Louis skyline, a glimpse of THE arch in the distance, I couldn't help but smile. This is home.

And since I got home, I've kind of just been living it up. Sleeping in till noon, reading for hours, watching tv, playing with my nephews... Even when I try to exert some will power, its just impossible. 12 cookies in one day? Check. 500 page book read within 6 hours? Check. All existing episodes of Korra watched in one sitting? Check. Appointment with the pediatrician? You had better believe it. When "watch Hugo" becomes a task on your to do list that you would actually feel good about crossing off just because it was part of the plan, you know you're in a pretty sweet spot in life.

But its not going to last. This is sort of the calm before the storm. I'm going to Africa.

A.F.R.I.C.A.

And I don't feel at all prepared. So I need to prepare. Obviously. I think I'm still just sort of absorbing the last year. I've been on the move a lot. When I glance behind me over the last 12 months, I see that I've hit up a lot of places: North Carolina, Paris, Cambridge, London, Edinburough, Devonshire, Amsterdam, Provo, Rochester, Salt Lake City, Goblin Valley, Moab, St. Louis...  When I stare in front of me I see Uganda, Rwanda, Holland...

I have friends who travel as a way of life. Who move all the time. And I want to get to that point. But as a West Country, St. Louis girl I'm a little overwhelmed. So, I can't really get myself to feel too bad about living the simple life here for a couple weeks.

Really, I'm just hanging out under an arch for a moment before I pass through it. And that's perfectly acceptable.

O Happy Day!

Here is a list of reasons why life is worth celebrating:

1. THIS SONG EXISTS

     (listen to it while you read)

2. EXTENSION

My group paper on Health Security just got extended to Monday! Seeing as we haven't even started it yet and it was supposed to be due tomorrow, this is certainly worth celebrating.

3. LONGEVITY 

And the Lord did bless Renoir and multiply his days upon the waters of his fishbowl. That's right. Against all odds, my goldfish, Renoir, has outlived his expiration date and is still alive and swimming!

Who lives in a pineapple under the sea?

4. HEALTH 

Specifically mine. Though I am also happy that there are many other people in the world who are healthy. They live fulfilling lives, they make significant contributions to society and, must importantly, they don't infect me! (Can you tell I've still got pandemics on my mind from that health conference I went to? yeah...)

5. AFRICA

Oh, what's that? I hadn't mentioned it? Well, for anyone who still doesn't know, I am officially traveling across the great waters and embarking on my next great adventure. Destination: UGANDA. I am going with Professors Dan Nielson and Mike Findley of the political science department at BYU. I will be helping with their field research as well as implementing my own project with two other students (there are about 20 students going total). My group is going to be interviewing former child soldiers in Northern Uganda and finding out their opinions about the peace building process. I'm so excited!

6. WHEELS

Thank heavens I have a car. It's the only thing that makes this bubble bearable. Ok. That was melodramatic. It's not the only thing. But it sure does help!

7. KNOWLEDGE

You know I'm super stressed all the time. I have all these words I have to write and endless sentences I need to read and countless people I need to play nice with in class. But when you boil down to the heart of it, I'm receiving an education! I'm absorbing the conglomeration of wisdom garnered through the ages. I'm standing on the shoulders of giants! I'm learning. What's more noble than that?

8. TREASURES

Chocolate...

9. MUGGLE MAGIC

 I benefit from magic every single day! I turn a knob and hot water gushes out into my sink on the third floor! I hold my hand to my ear and talk with people several time zones away! I watch moving pictures on this rectangle screen! I dance to music when there is no band in sight! Amazing...

10. COURAGE

  I've been getting out of my comfort zone lately. I didn't make a conscious decision of "I will leave my comfort zone". It just so happens that I've been meeting really cool new people lately and forging refreshing new friendships. And I've been proactive about keeping those friendships going. Instead of just leaving them in school, I've been trying to take them outside the classroom. Maybe these new acquaintances (no friends! really, they're my friends!) secretly think I'm weird. But that's good. Because I am. And the sooner they figure that out, the faster our friendship will progress :) 

Alright folks. That's all for now. My health paper may have been canceled, but I've still got to go up to campus and work on stats...and read D&C...and skim polysci...and... well, you get the idea. Basically, I've just got to get back to this celebration we call life and hope that the party isn't too crazy.

And So My Knees Are Scraped

When was the last time you scraped your knees? When you were 7 maybe 10? For me it was this past Tuesday.

See, Smitty and I trade off driving our other roommate, Lacie, to work every morning. She needs to be at work at 5 am so she wakes us up at around 4:45 and we stumble out of bed and drive her. For whatever reason, this Tuesday I was particularly tired. As I shuffled out to my car in borrowed sandals, inside-out sweatpants and eyes squinched up behind my glasses, I ....fell.

Yeah, seriously. I was just walking, and then I stepped down maybe an inch to the driveway and collapsed. It was so strange. The weirdest part was that I was totally unfazed by it. The thought process was just 'hmmm I'm on the ground. I suppose I should be embarrassed. But I don't have the energy. In fifteen minutes I'll be back in bed.'

So I practically sleep-drove Lacie to the bakery, got home pulled up my pants to see that I did in fact have scrapped knees and then curled back up in bed.

Ok, what does this have to do with anything? Well. There is a popular LDS children's song called "I Am a Child of God." The Second verse of this song begins with the line, "I am a child of God, and so my needs are great." However, when my older sister, Laura, was a kid she thought that the words were "I am a child of God and so my knees are scraped." I actually think I like her words better.

I mean, they make more sense. It doesn't logically follow that being a Child of God would make your needs great. If anything, it seems like being God's child should lessen your needs because He would provide for you. Scraped on the other hand does follow logically in my mind. Usually when you scrape your knees you are in the pursuit of something. You can't really hurt yourself just sitting on a couch. You only scrape your knees when you are trying to get somewhere. In the context of the song, I think that destination we have in mind as we scrape our knees is God. We are separated from God on this earth but yearn to do everything we can to be with him again.

All humans are in the pursuit of something more than themselves. As C.S. Lewis argues,  there must be a higher power if there is a higher moral law which all races, religions and nationalities appeal to when they protest some injustice or strive towards some universal concept of 'right'. This means that we are all, at least a little bit, aware of the God within us. If we weren't trying to be like God from whom we gain the concept of good and evil, why would we ever do good things? Why on earth, when being bad is generally easier and usually much more fun?

Well, that's where scraped knees come back in. There is a God within us, but there is also a carnal man. When we struggle to balance and overcome the more base parts of our nature as we work towards what we know is right it is only natural that we will miss up. We'll fall down, we'll scrape our knees.

But that's okay. The fact that our knees are scrapped means that we're trying. We're working towards something. We may mess up, but we have a goal. We aren't being stagnant. We know that God is perfect, that we are not, and we are trying to get there.

How do we handle these failures? Well, I would argue that we should handle them the same way I handled my little tumble on Tuesday: we shouldn't let them affect us. Remember these are scrapes I'm talking about- small problems- not broken limbs. In these cases, though we may be discouraged to suddenly find ourselves sprawled on the pavement, we should just remain calm and think things through. A fall of this caliber is more embarrassing than anything else. It's a sign that we reached too high and came up short. Maybe we were clumsy, maybe we weren't prepared, but I say there is nothing in the world wrong with that.

I'm gonna keep scraping my knees. Again and again and again until I don't anymore. And at that point, I'll probably start scraping my elbows. But it doesn't matter; just as long as I progress. I want to get better. I want to do better things, I want to be better. Not because I have a conscious wish to become like God. More just because its my natural moral compass. And I'm pretty sure its yours too.

Apocalypse Now?

The more I learn about technology and international relations, the more shocked I am that the world hasn't imploded yet. Its not just nuclear bombs. Or chemical warfare. Or even the numerous examples of genocide in the last 100 years. Although, all of those things are extremely disturbing.

No, today what's bothering my is a little thing called bioterrorism. I had to write a policy paper this week for my human security class about how the United States should be dealing with this issue. My research unveiled some pretty crazy stuff. For instance, bioterrorism would be so easy to do. Especially with genetic engineering. All that an enemy would have to do is obtain some sort of agent (such as anthrax, small pox etc), expose some subset of the population and (depending on how contagious the agent is) just wait for it to spread.

I talked to a health professor about this and he said that if I wanted to know what it would be like if the U.S. suffered a major pandemic or biological attack all I had to do was watch the movie Contagion. He was totally serious.

So, in my opinion my policy paper was actually pretty interesting. I mean, if I had to be up till 3 in the morning two days in a row, skip numerous classes in order to work for hours and write up until the last minute, at least it was on a really cool topic. What I learned is that the biggest thing we need to do at the moment to prepare for an attack is to improve our health care system. On any given day, people are turned away from emergency rooms because there are not enough beds or staff to take care of them. Those without health insurance wait as long as possible before going to see a doctor. If we were hit with a contagious disease there would be nowhere near enough room in  existing hospitals to take care of the sick.

So, in light of this should I just curl up in a ball and wait until the end of the Mayan Calendar? Clearly, not. There are so many frightening ways to die. But there also so many marvelous ways to live. Forgive me for the cheesiness that is about to ensue but I'm gonna change gears here and announce something I've discovered lately;

Life is so wonderful.

It's not something I always believe. But just because I don't recognize beauty and blessings doesn't mean that they aren't there. Seriously, my life is great. It's about as great as I could expect it to be in this phase of my life. I'm at a really good school. I have amazing roommates and great friends. I'm studying something I'm passionate about and I do well in my studies. I'm healthy. My material well being is provided for by those who love me.

I work hard and I play even harder.

This week I had two essays due. I was at the library until midnight on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. I skipped several classes so that I could work and I got very little sleep. I turned this final policy paper in at about 4:30 in the afternoon on Friday-15 minutes before it was officially due. It was crazy. All I wanted to do was sleep.

But instead I went salsa dancing with my friend Emily! It was so fun. Granted, I started feeling sick at about 1 in the morning so I had to go home early but it was really cool, legit dancing. And I'm a horrible dancer! I made a total fool of myself but, ummm, isn't that what Friday nights are all about?

And then the next day, Saturday, I was up by 7:30 and on my way to Goblin Valley State park by about 8 with Kristy and Laura. It took 4 hours to get there and 4 hours to drive back. I honestly wasn't too excited about it because I was feeling so rundown. But I went. And it was So. Much. Fun. We hiked through slot canyons and saw beautiful rock formations like this:

It was flat most of the way, so not too difficult, but there were moments when Krust and I nearly wet our pants.

Crossing the treacherousness water!

And there were also moments like this when I thought a little yoga was appropriate:

I guess what I'm saying is what better way to spend a day than in the great outdoors with two of your best friends in the whole wide world? There was this amazing sense of camaraderie as we drove off into the sunset, totally alone on this long stretch of highway. We just rolled the windows down and sang at the top of our voices;

Tonight. 

We are Young. 

So lets set the world on fire. 

We can glow brighter, then the sun.

I won't be young forever. And I don't want to be. It's an amazing time of life, but its also an incredibly stressful one, filled with fear, doubt and heartache. My comfort lies in knowing that I'm living the life I choose to live. One of hard work, good friends and the occasional adventure. 

From bio terrorism to personal loneliness, there is so much that can and does go wrong. I think we need to prepare for these "apocalyptic" problems but we shouldn't sit around waiting for them. God knows what He's doing.

And I'm in the process of deciding that that's enough for me.

Causal Logic

So this is rather nerdy but I'm taking Political Science 200 right now which is like the gateway writing class that all International Relations majors have to take in order to get into any upper division polysci courses. Last week we had our "theory" assignment. This was a 6 page paper I wrote explaining how the concept of lebensraum in heterogeneous societies effects the probability of genocide.

Not everyone wrote a paper about that. The point was just to identify how theories are prevalent in all aspects of life and to help us identify the independent and dependent variables involved in a particular theory.

My CAUSAL LOGIC was that the rise of the nation-state in Europe brought about through the ideology of the French revolution spread through the Napoleonic wars and then enforced on the world through colonialization has created artificial geo-political boundaries with unrealistic expectations about the sovereignty belonging to each individual group.

I could explain that better, and indeed I did. But unless you want me to send you a copy of the paper, you're just gonna have to trust that I'm like a total genius and know exactly what I'm talking about. A reasonable assumption?

Alright, so anyway the point I'm getting to here is that I've got some major "causal logic" jargon floating around in my head right now. The other major thing I have floating around my head right now?

The BBC tv show Sherlock.

Guys I'm obsessed. I've watched like an entire season in three days. It's just so good! And so incredibly British. And the actor who plays Sherlock is riveting. And I just finished the cliff hanger episode of the second season! And the new season won't be out for at least another year! How, oh how will I survive?

It's been a really big issue lately. As in today. It was most traumatizing between the hours of 1 and 11 am this morning. So in the spirit of over-applied intellectualism, here's some causal logic that's actually relevant to my own life. It goes a little like this:

The progression of self realization:
I am stressed and grumpy.
Interesting. Why am I stressed and grumpy?
Oh, you know...school. It's just so overwhelming. I don't know how I'll ever get it all done.
But I've always managed in the past.
But I'm tired. My stomach feels weird. I didn't sleep well last night.
Hmm, now that I think about that, why am I so tired?
....
Oh come on, admit it.
I was watching Sherlock last night.
Yes, and?
And I was so sad that the season was over that I started looking up Benedict Cumberbatch interviews. And pictures. And trivia. Ok FINE! I admit it! I was up till three in the morning just watching youtube and I may or may not be in love with an incredibly obnoxious fictional character.
Uh-huh. So that's why I am so tired, and have given up on homework and am now walking out of the library?
Yes.
And my life is hard because....?

It's a stupid example but when I stop to think about why things are the way they are, I realize that so many of my 'problems' have to do with my choices. Do I regret spending hours watching a tv show? Not at all.  Do I need to accept that time spent with Sherlock is time I don't spend on other things? Yeah. But that's a price I'm willing to pay.

It's a trivial instance, but really. Think about it. The next time I feel overwhelmed or stressed or even happy I'm just gonna take a moment to consider some of the root causes of my emotion. When I get right down to the heart of it, I've realized that most of my problems aren't really problems at all. They're just inconveniences caused by charming little quirks in my perfect personality. A lot of my anxiety come from caring 'too much' about something or someone. Sometimes I get hurt. Sometimes I fall behind. Sometimes I just want to hit pause on my hectic life and watch a cheesy detective tv show.

But most of the time the experiences are worth the cost. Ok, no Sherlock has not changed my life. But it sure has entertained me for awhile. And, most importantly, due to an embarrassing amount of fan-girling, it's given me a great reason to have a good laugh at myself. And one of the biggest lessons I've learned in the past month is that laughing at yourself is often the best remedy for a gloomy day.

My current method to cure the grumpiness caused by a night of little sleep and a day of unproductive work? Why, this picture of course: its what got my mind on theory and causal logic in the first place.

Benedict Cumberbatch. The oddly attractive star of Sherlock.
He has aptly been described as looking like "a very attractive alien"

The obvious question here is thus: Do rubix cubes lead to sexiness? Or does Benedict Cumberbatch impart sexiness on rubix cubes? What exactly is the magazine that printed this trying to imply? Whatever the intended message, this picture—a perfect example of a totally ridiculous, geek chic, ugly is beautiful, confusion is cool fashion trend—is my new happy place.

It’s like the chicken and the egg conundrum, the pure silliness of which gets me chuckling whenever I think about it.

I haven’t reached a conclusion yet, but I have to admit that I’m seriously considering carrying a rubix cube around with me wherever I go from now on.

You know…on the off chance that it is, indeed, a 3-dimensional multicolored square that leads to sexiness….

Pensieve

"I use the Pensive. One simply siphons the excess thoughts from one's mind, pours them into the basin, and examines them at one's leisure. It becomes easier to spot patterns and links, you understand, when they are in this form." -Albus Dumbledore 

Lately I've been feeling like I need a pensieve. There are just so many thoughts floating around in my brain. So many ideas and memories and fears and insecurities that I just can't tell which is which anymore. Am I freaking out about everything at once or is one thing triggering another? And why?


To try and sort these things out, I've been talking to a lot of people lately. And they've been great. I've gotten some good at advice, leaned on some very kind shoulders and experienced more than ever the blessing of friendship. 


But it hasn't been enough. Talking isn't enough. Sometimes you just need to shut up and listen to yourself instead of begging for one more person's attention. Because in the end no one else can solve your problems. And it's just between you and God to work them out. So writing is my pensieve. You know that kind of cheesy quote about how writing is like opening up a vein and just letting your heart pour out? Well, that's actually how I feel when I write. I can't explain it. Even if no one ever reads the words, just trapping my emotions into the cage of language is liberating. 


I guess its because when you give your demons a name they somehow become less threatening. 


Anyway, growing up, I've always wanted to be a writer and I've written stories for a long time. This summer, in Cambridge I worked a lot on a novel that has been in progress since high school. I've gotten good feedback on it and, when I look at it objectively, it's pretty decent. But I've just lost all passion for it. So it doesn't make sense to release these problems there.


Cause, see the thing that I've always loved about writing is the way you can release emotions into fiction. Many of the characters I've worked on have been emotionally auto-biographical. If something happens to me, you can be pretty sure that a character will get that written into their script within a month. It's like victim-less voodoo. Lately, I've just needed to say words. Any words. And not in the context of a story. Just in the context of my life and releasing that vein of emotion. I want to transform my crazy thoughts into a form where I can inspect them: turn them over, examine them inside out, analyze what's going on in my brain. I want a pensieve. 


So I wrote a couple poems lately. They aren't good. I've always sucked at writing poetry. Or even appreciating it for that matter. But a friend of mine shared some of her really amazing poems on her blog which gave me the idea to try it out. And it really was helpful to write them. I thought I would just include one because it embodies the way I've been feeling lately.

A word I whisper to myself

So softly

That my soul can barely hear it.

Or maybe it’s the other way

Bubbling up from beneath

to break free from my subconscious

The landscape of the human spirit

Is a treacherous place

But occasionally beautiful

Take a deep breath

Maybe you’re just hungry

Perhaps if you lie on your back

And raise your feet into the air

You will feel alive

Just don’t look too long—

A girl could get lost

These thoughts swimming around my brain are just a little too big for my 21 year old head. Maybe one day I will be wiser. Maybe one day it'll all make sense. I hope I can look back at this time and realize all the growth I've been through. But for now, its just a confusion of words, a very unorganized pensieve...

Home Sweet Home

Hey friends!

There has been QUITE a bit to report in the last month since November and I have clearly done a very bad job relaying it here. I keep thinking of blog entries I want to write and then life just sort of runs away from me. So even though there are a lot of things that I want to write about from Thanksgiving and Christmas I decided to separate things by topic and so today's entry shall be about homes.

What is a home? I grew up in the same room of the same house for 18 years. That's EIGHTEEN YEARS of sleeping on the same hard mattress in the same little room on the second floor of the same suburban neighborhood of the same under-appreciated mid-western town. So, it's not too surprising that moving to Utah for school was a huge shock for me.

But I was a little disturbed by just how homesick I got. Okay, scratch that. I was "what the hell is wrong with me?" disturbed by how homesick I got. It was me and not my parents who sobbed as they drove away. Instead of looking at it one semester or month or week at a time, I saw it as this permanent separation. My parents were leaving me forever. I had this completely unexpected physical reaction where on top of crying for no apparent reason about every day for the first week, I also was physically just sick to my stomach. So yes, literally homesick.

Here's an example: during the first few weeks of the semester a girl in my comparative lit class invited me to go to the CougarEat after class with her. I was trying desperately to make friends and do all the things I was supposed to do so I went. We were just talking about our homes and where we come from and out of nowhere I was crying. CRYING. In front of a complete stranger, in public about absolutely nothing. Luckily that girl was really nice and everything worked out. Her name is Lottie and she's now my roommate.

So that brings me to my little epiphany. What makes a home? When I left for school I missed the simple beauty of the midwest. I missed my fairly upper class neighborhood and the green grass and I missed the restaurants and the streets and the buildings I had grown up with. I missed words like "Baxter Road" and "Chesterfield Ward." More than that I missed the tight-knit group of friends I had made in high school. And most of all I missed my family. As the baby I had spent my adolescence watching one sibling leave home after the other. I felt abandoned but at least I still had my parents. When I went to Provo I was totally alone.

And then I started to meet people. They were just names and faces at first. Building a new life is difficult. I hated BYU, I wanted to transfer, to leave, to spend every semester on a study abroad, whatever I had to do to spend as little time on campus as possible. Now I can't imagine what my life would be like if I were somewhere else. The friends I made freshman year are, for the most part, my best friends now. I started college feeling like a weak displaced little girl with just a few friends from my home ward.

Now, three years later, I can honestly say that Utah is my home.

I make fun of it and there is no way that I could stay in Utah after I graduate but I now have a second family here. Of course I will take every opportunity I can to see my actual family in St. Louis, but its less of a physical need than it used to be. I'm so blessed to have people who treat me like a family member here. They take care of me, they listen to me and they love me unconditionally. Isn't that what a family is?

So, like so many before me, I want to just proclaim this lesson I have learned: that a place is only as good as the people in it. I love getting to go home and see my friends and family. They are amazing and and I love them I need them.

However, I've learned that to be independent isn't to go it alone. It's to allow yourself, even when transplanted in foreign soil, to meet new people-all on your own- and trust them enough to give them a piece of your heart. My independence isn't solitary. It's just a brand new start.

So here's to my second home and my second family who make it what it is. Here are some pictures of the spaces I've lived in in Utah over the past few years:
Freshman Year Dorm: 

It was decorated pretty awesome

But I was lonely there a lot of the time

Living in the infamous Liberty Square Sophomore Year was amazing not for the location but for the amazing girls that I had as roommates.

Kristy and I made a fort in our bedroom while everyone was away over Thanksgiving Break

Drinking 'Bubbly' together in fancy goblets from IKEA

It was a multistory fort. Here we are on the ground level

The day we moved out. I was sad to leave that apartment behind.

Pretty much says it all. 

As a third year, I feel like its all pretty old hat. Now my friends spread across two apartments right next to each other on the third floor of the Brittany Apartments. Lottie, Laura, Lacie and I live in one apartment and Katie, Ashley/Kristy, Elise and Whitney live next door. We have an open door policy and are always barging into each other's apartment. Thus effectively, I have 7 roommates. Here's where we live now:

My side of the room. I'm pretty proud of the decorations. Most of them are from my travels this summer

My desk. Notice the English themes everywhere? Some things never change

Lottie's side of the room. A rare moment when her bed wasn't made (usually she's quite faithful)

I've been told this is a "hipster closet"

Very exciting bathroom. Clean for once

Still rocking the wall map

Kitchen. It's never actually this clean

Alfred the smiley faced balloon is a good friend of Elise's

Our door

View from our front door. Could do worse, huh?

So here it is. My Provo home. More than the place, it's the people that make me feel like I belong here. I know it can't last forever but I wanted to take this blog to express how incredibly grateful I am to have been led to such amazing, smart, hilarious people who think that I'm pretty okay too.