How I am not alone

Journey as defined by dictionary.com: traveling from one place to another, usually taking a rather long time. In my journey, I am now right here. In this very moment of time, I am sitting on the third floor, by myself, with my lessons and unit planning sprawled around me. I am thinking these thoughts. The ones swimming around in my brain. Some elegantly coast through the water, some race freestyle or butterfly. Some are diving in and out of the pool. And the mountains are sitting there like a friend. The flowers from last night's party quietly exchanging breath with me. But the best part is that there are people around me. Not here in this room with me, but there are people surrounding my life right now. All different distances away, our thoughts are intersecting as I think of them and they think of me. At this point in my journey, I have these people. These people here. And while I sit along in my apartment, I feel surrounded by those I love. Twenty or so miles behind me, a mile or so to my left, hundreds of miles southeast and southwest, and scattered in every other direction are the people who are in the sphere of my life right now. How lucky I am; I must cherish the moment.

I am going to be a teacher

English Teachers are Weird

During our practicum class we were trying to convince our professor that everyone needs grammar because everyone needs to communicate no matter what they choose to do with your life. He was playing devil's advocate  and so our discussion got pretty charged. We were so sure that students needed to learn communication skills in order to be successful that we even ventured to say that a homeless beggar on the streets uses grammar, the conventions of the genre in which he is communicating - the cardboard sign, etc. After class, here is a real life texting conversation between me and my classmate Tani.

Tani: I was telling Melissa about our discussion about beggars and she said mimes don't need language! Haha I think we should bring that up next week. :)

Me: of course mimes need language!

Tani: When's the last time you heard or even saw a mime use language? I mean I guess they have to communicate ideas, but they do it completely through...miming. I can't believe we're even discussing this. People must think English teachers are so weird. :)

Me: well what about sign language? mimes are not that different. language really is just communication...and mimes communicate, and they even communicate through a shared code, or language, of mimes.

Me: also, yes we are so weird

Tani: Okay true I see your point. But the real question is, do they need grammar?

Me: hmmmm good question...if grammar is simply the conventions of a language then yes...just like a beggar needs grammar. mimes need to know the limits and channels in which their communication can flow...but then again that might just be intuitive bc it hits on human nature and experience. k we really are so weird

Tani: Seriously. But I'm probably going to be thinking about this all afternoon now...

Me: i actually love it...which makes me even weirder

Tani: I guess that's why we are going to be English teachers, huh?

Me: yep! #bestjobslashhardestjobever

Tani: :)

What do you think? 

           Do mimes need grammar???

Spencer from French

A few years ago in my French 201 class I met this kid named Spencer. He was funny and nice and a little bit different from what I would have expected. In French, every other second we pair up to talk aka practice our French, and he was always my partner because somehow we always sat next to each other. I liked him, thought he was pretty cool, and was pretty good at French too.

Then he stopped coming to class for a week, which is a big deal because in this four credit class, we were there every day. I got kinda a bit worried about him, but I didn't have his number to shoot him an are-you-okay-or-what's-up text. When he came back, I asked him where he had been (I asked him in French of course ;). He told me had gotten very sick and had been in the hospital all last week. Glad he was better, we got back to talking in French. Until he stopped coming again.

Was he okay? At the hospital again? Why didn't I ever get his number? It would have been perfectly reasonable to think that maybe he withdrew from the class. I mean, he had missed over a week, and French 201 is no springtime picnic. I hoped that had been the case, but I couldn't help but worry that something worse had happened. I hoped he was okay, but also realized that if he had passed away, I would not have even known. I would keep on living my life the same if he had dropped the class or if he had died. The thought bothered me, and I worried.

That was about two years ago. #tbt2011

The other day I was walking on campus, just thinking about nothing, maybe humming, and I saw Spencer. He was just walking out of a building, like he probably did every day, with his backpack over his shoulder and a beanie on his head like he always did way back in French class. I smiled so big at him, you probably wouldn't have been able to get the sunshine off my face. Of course, he didn't really remember me, so he gave me kind of a funny look, like "why are you so happy? I mean it is cool that you are happy, but you just look really happy and you are staring right at me." I was really happy. Just that feeling you get when you realize that someone you thought might have possibly been dead is alive, well, and breathing.

This slice of life had a cherry on top.

Stanley Kunitz

In my poetry of the natural world class we were studying the nature poetry of Stanley Kunitz, and this quote stuck out to me: "to be human is to know yourself to be living and dying at the same time." I am not sure what I think about this quote, but it definitely made me think. One of my American literature professors would always say that each breath that we breathe out is an exhale closer to death, but breathing is also one of the most fundamental things associated with life.

A good friend of mine is a deep thinker and has quite a reflective blog. When he graduated from college, we wrote about his lament of all the things, mostly the people, he left behind. He said that we wishes that he had begun these relationships knowing there was an end to them.

Is there an end to our relationships?

I have a particularly hard time with losing people, but I don't think that I want to start every relationship knowing it will end. Cherish the moments together, yes, but always be anticipating when things will end? Are we always dying? Are relationships going to end? Honestly, I am not sure. So I might as well always live and love as if living and loving are never going to end, and even if they do, I don't think I would change my mind.

When Hamlet said, "To be or not to be?" I like to think this is what he was talking about.

My thoughts on Facebook

Okay so I deleted my Facebook. I actually found a way to delete my Facebook completely, permanently, but I couldn't bring myself to do it. I just deactivated it. Not that I think Facebook is that great or anything, but I have been able to use it for a lot of good (talking to long lost friends, encouraging people who are down, finding ways to help someone or let someone borrow something, finding addresses for missionaries, or even getting lost items such as an iPod or wrongly addressed letter back to its owner, ect). Also, I only go on a few times a week, for less than five minutes a ses. Definitely not addicted. So why delete? Maybe this is a dumb reason, but I was sick of the pseudo-connection we have going on with relationships. There are a lot of people I really care about. Like a lot. And it is hard to see their lives at such a distance, not really being able to be a part of it or do anything to help them. But I think what really got me was that there might be people who are watching my Facebook who never talk to me, never text, or call, or, let's not get too traditional, talk face to face. And that actually bothered me. Why? I don't know, but I think that if someone actually cares enough about me to want to keep tabs on my life and be a part of it, they can call me up on the phone. But here are the problems: Am I actually enhancing human connection and authentic communication by removing myself from a social level that is possibly even fundamental to our society? What about my friends from high school who I probably am never going to call or get a call from them out of the blue? What about wedding invitations and party invitations? What about Facebook groups? The ward group? So that is why it is just deactivated, not deleted. It is silly really, but also, I gotta admit, it is kind of fun to not have one. Maybe I will delete my email address, phone number, and street address as well. Then people will just have to find me face to face and get a convo in. Elusive isn't it? Maybe I have gone too far? Oh the modern condition, where is the line? or does a line even exist?

I used to think everyone was just trying to understand the world  -  however each person can, in his own unique way. Now, I am not so sure.


Maybe some people are just enjoying the world.


Well, I am trying to understand the world. I guess, it is kind of cool when the rug is pulled out from under you. Sweep under the rug. . . or make designs in the dust. either way, is fine.

Spilling Thoughts

I think it is important to pull truth out of literature. So, what if I know more truth, understand something, have more insight than the author? I am not to try and assume what the author did and didn’t understand, how he did or didn’t see the world. I have eyes. I see the world. However wrong I am, it is the only way I know and no one can prove anything otherwise. So I am to understand literature, and through my eyes, see truth — out of something written from the pen and through the mind of someone else. . . But can every human recognize truth? From my experience, it speaks to the soul. We can all recognize love. . . and love is truth (how different are they anyway?). So the beauty is that there is a piece of something shared in literature. That piece of truth. Which may be the only untainted line of communication between two different eyes on paper. . . But if this not true — for I admit, at least right now in this train of thought, it is speculation — then I must still seek the truth out of literature — and raw human to human communication continues, a little occluded, but as close as I know for this time now.

Do you ever feel like this?

"Once I ordered a sirloin steak and a chocolate sundae, but everything was so cunningly disguised on the table that I mistook the chocolate sauce for gravy and poured it over the sirloin steak."
-Tennesse Williams "A Streetcar named Success"


Such is life

Is this chocolate or a rose? Neither. It is a picture on this blog.
Is it real? What is the definition of real anyway?

A Streetcar

I don't know if you have ever read "A Streetcar Named Desire" by Tennesse Williams. I am not recommending it. It is a horribly tragic and depressing play. I didn't enjoy reading it at all. But, I could not put it down. I was so intrigued by everything that was going on between these characters - what they were thinking and feeling and why and how they were living. After finishing the play, I read an essay by Williams called, "A Streetcar to Success." I must say it was equally intriguing, but after reading it a few times, I cannot say I agree completely. But I can relate and understand his crisis of identity. (Sometimes I wish some of these authors just had the Gospel because I think it would make them so much happier) Anyway, Williams does have a few things right:

"That time is short and it doesn't return again. It is slipping away while I write this and while you read it, and the monosyllable of the clock is Loss, Loss, Loss, unless you devote your heart to its opposition."

Life is hard. But is that way for a reason.

I think Williams and I would agree, we don't want it any other way.

Something to think about...

Is our sense of identity, sense of self, created from within or imposed upon us by our surroundings and those around us?