la-la-la-la-life goes on

Looking forward to a new week feels good. Last week I was holding onto yesterdays, and now I anticipate, with excitement, what is to come. Like: bring it on. I own you. And then I stumble and fall, and freak out, and that's okay. That's gonna happen sometimes.

Example:
It's Friday night, 7 pm, and I realize I need to print out some things before my all day Grant Writing class that I have to venture to the unknown territory of Hermiston, OR,  for, and catch a ride with strangers at 6:30 a.m. Naturally, our printer is out of ink. So, I talk Jeff into coming to campus with me, and we run to building after building, all to find out that each one closes at 5 p.m. on Friday nights (and 11 p.m. Sun-Thurs, whaaat?!). But I guess, really, who wants to do homework on a Friday night except for the procrastinator, and the procrastinator always pays, duh! So as I am pulling my hair out and loathing over my unpreparedness, Jeff has the idea of popping over to our friends' house, and they're not home. So, we drive to Bi-Mart in hopes to pick some up: it's closed. Finally, the unfailing, and last resort, Walmart. We scrounge up the change to buy some printer ink, and huzzah! I am ready to go. But then I dream all night. In each dream I am running from store to store, desperately in need of a restroom, and in each public restroom there is a busy computer lab with several large printers. In between each dream I wake up in a panic, check the time, and go back to sleep.

I have such vivid dreams when I am really nervous about something. When I started as a cashier at Target, I had horrible dreams about it. In many of them, I would tell the customers that I am talking on my cell phone and not to bug me. In other dreams, I would have a conveyor belt with a never ending amount of items. When I started my Shakespeare class last spring, I was so intimidated, and had dreams for two weeks straight about literature.

Does that happen to you?

speaking of change.

Isn't it liberating? Like driving in a car at just the right speed, realizing the temperature couldn't be presenting a more perfect opportunity to roll down the window, stick your head out and scream in a good way.

"Woohoooooo!"

Like you've finally got your car tire unstuck from the snow (or mud) that has caused the wheels to turn, turn, turn but get no where but deeper into the ground...

Sometimes it's the little changes, but sometimes it's huge. Sometimes it takes moving away, and sometimes it takes looking at where you are right now at an entirely new angle. That last one? That's a real good one.

in which my political opinions may or may not become more clear

It has become very evident to me, in my twenty-two years of living, that there are many things in which I do not have control.

I cannot decide who will become the next president (Thank goodness)
I, ultimately, cannot control other's decisions and opinions
I can't choose how my instructors run their courses,
or the content they provide for the course.
I cannot decide for others what is right and wrong, and I certainly can't make choices for them.
And on a more personal note, I don't know where life will lead us after college, or if a job will be secure. I don't know that we'll ever make "enough" money. I don't know for sure if my children will emulate and be submissive towards the Christlike life that I have promised my Heavenly Father I will instill in them. I can only pray and have faith that such things will come to pass.
//
I could create an overwhelmingly long list of things I cannot control. But there's gotta be something I can....

A friend of mine once shared a quote with me, and I have never found a time in my life in which it is not extremely evident and pertaining.

We see things not as they are, but as we are. 

--Unknown

My (general) happiness and contentment amidst the election and all of the evils throughout the world could be mistaken for ignorance, but I assure you that is not the case.

Sure, I wish I were more informed. (Certainly no one's fault but my own)
Sure, I get swallowed up on a daily basis by the mass amounts of knowledge I do not know, and by the tens and thousands of books I have not read.

But that is not my point. My point is that we have a choice to be happy and feel free, (albeit those are ambiguous terms) and that is extremely liberating.

Is it just me, or is the above quote really true? If I'm having an off day, or receive bad news, or something just isn't going my way, I tend to view things more negatively. Often my reactions to situations directly reflect my mood/state of mind. It continues to fascinate me.

choose to be in love with the life you lead and by all means, change it if that is not the case

because you can

Life Lately

Since I don't quite know how to manage photos via blogger yet, you will just have to make due with my slew of photos, in no particular order:

My reunion with Emily at the Flying M

Our family photo Fall 2012

Fugiyama lunch date with Sam {and the chef's specials made just for us}

Friends coming to visit in La Grande!!

& a dinner chef Jeff made for all of us

J's hair after a bike ride home from campus

At the gala with the newest issue of Oregon East literary magazine where I intern

and more!

stop signs

i'm so glad that you and i
stop at stop signs

when the rest of the world
just drives on by

living free and cavalier
is nice once in a while

but we have to care
because we have a reason

we know what happens
when we don't stop.

we know because
we've done it before,

we've been there
and we're not going back.

at least,
i'm not

Testing Day.

I don't have any lucky socks, jeans, or ponytail holders. I've only got what is in my mind and I can assure you it is stuffed to the brim with Spanish adverbs, uses of the impersonal and accidental "se," imperfect vs preterite verbs, and lots of vocabulary that has to do with different sicknesses, body parts, and the doctor's office. Ironically I have a bit of a resfriado myself. Hmmm....

I'm pretty lucky in that with my particular major, I don't have a lot of scary tests at the testing center. Do not be fooled, however, because I've got to read more than there is time in the day, and write until my fingers fall off, but I love it.

What do you love about what you do?

These people around me,
are underestimated to say the least.

Their intelligence and worth
are hidden behind their potty mouths,
which make me want to hide from them.

I know they are more than they allow themselves to be.
I pray that they are. Because as for now,
they make up the world
as I know it.

I don't have to hide from them,
I don't have to isolate myself
from this strange melancholy,

because when I step inside
and get to know their interior,
I find diamonds in the rough.