sooooo...

Hey guys. Um... I got a job. I am happy and nervous. But mostly happy.

I am teaching an art history course at a private university in Lincoln. It's Ancient to Medieval, which isn't my main specialty or favorite period (I DO LOVE GOTHIC ART AND ARCHITECTURE, BUT THAT IS AT THE VEEEEEERY END!!), but I am still excited. And nervous. Did I mention that I'm nervous?

Remember when I was planning on moving to Maui? That was hilarious. Everything is in the timing of heaven, and more than anything I am grateful that I get answers to my prayers, even if they are trying in the meantime, and that they often come in super unexpected and nick-of-time ways. More on this thought later- It's a pattern in my life that I am more fully trying to wrap my mind around. Suffice it to say for now: I feel extremely blessed.

I got a delicious blessing from my bishop this week, and I feel confident that I will be okay... In the meantime, I am nervous. And happy.

The Big Three

Remember this?

Well today I am feeling grateful for prophets who answer my questions and try to push me to meet my needs. Yep. Grateful.


Jeffrey R. Holland | How Do I Love Thee? | February 15, 2000 | BYU Broadcasting

FOODIE

 

This is some local NE chevre with some herbes de provence and peppercorns, a slice of homemade wheatberry bread, a mason jar with Spanish olive oil and the core of a locally grown green pepper.

hi, lunch. 

 

These are some cookies I made for Purim, the Jewish traditional holiday where the Biblical heroine Esther is celebrated with exchanges of good fortune in the form of cookies and other foodstuffs. This sounds like my ideal holiday: the celebration of a righteously diplomatic, kind and principled woman and food (specifically cookies, my kryptonite). 

Yes. 

...................................................................

Sometimes I pride myself on being a little bit of a foodsnob, and other times I am more humble because I occasionally want a bowl of cheerios at midnight (albeit they are usually the artisan local variety adrift in locally sourced soy milk). And sometimes (usually at the end of the month), I feel a slight sense of remorse at the goodness a new paycheque has brought me in the form of ingredients and fixins. This article helped me gain a little bit of perspective and guidance, although the author's focus was on food associated with hanging out with other 14 year olds and my problem is focused on food associated with afternoon walks in suburbs of Paris, mistakenly delicious alleyways in Brugges, and markets in London. That's not even to mention the cafes in New York or even The Garden. 

(OH! That Garden!!)

Like I said: I'm a snob.

The same basic principle applies in the long run I guess:
Be more humble.

.....................................................................

CONSTANTLY:

Nourish your body: nourish your spirit.

Nourish each other.

Subvert the system that is feeding you garbage.

Fill with love.

(that was to be read as a command)

today i hung

about 40 works in my museum. I am co-curating a show about the wars fought by Native Americans from the 1850's-1890's. You know: Custer and Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull and all of those guys. It's a really hard show to do, and the content weighs heavy on me most of the time. It felt good to see my work being actualized and my ideas hung on walls. I am getting better at maths because of the practice of hanging stuff up. Eye level is 59 inches.

Sometimes my boss and I get into conversations that are pretty intense and she cries. Other times we talk about Wonder Woman and her kids. I like both of these types of conversations for different reasons. Sometimes I want to cry with her (only once, I did). I told her about that time that my mom made a Wonder Woman Halloween costume for me as an adult (I think I was 23...), and she looked like she was going to pass out with joy at the prospect of an adult person (me) seriously wearing such a getup, not to mention the fact that it was made by my mom. I felt sheepish, but also awesome. I like that she indulges and maybe even exacerbates my utter nerdiness. She is a good and curious person to me.

My head feels like it was dipped in a vat of suck and that then coagulated into more suck that is now stuck inside my sinuses. I never get sick. I need someone to take care of me.

I need to read a book for tomorrow, but on the other hand, I would rather just go to bed (blogging as a happy medium?). I cannot seem to be interested in a book about colonial African birthing practices; there is a lot that I don't know, and a lot that I don't really have entrance points to. I hope seminar tomorrow will be okay and not-overwhelming. That class makes me so vomit-y-nervous.

 I really enjoyed listening  to this today. It fit into a lot of the things I have been thinking about lately. Someone submitted an artwork to me (for this, my baby), that was called something like "Indian on a Bike". I really liked it, more than almost any other work I have yet seen for that contest. I mostly liked the artist's statement, which was simple: "Indians ride bikes too".

 (via)

(This was NOT the image, simply an amusing/amazing image that shows up when one searches "Indian on a Bicycle" via Google Image. I like it.)

Don't forget that. Indians ride bikes too.

A Little Bit About

work and life and stuff: (assorted notes). These are things that I want to write so that I will remember them someday when I am old and too tired/busy/scared/forgetful/ashamed/hopeful to remember without aide (possibly very soon).

My job is really cool. Today I spent the morning from 10-2 divided between placing images (paintings and photographs, mostly) and artifacts (old stuff, you know) around in the museum I work at. I took a break at one-ish to get a smoothie. I think my boss likes me. She spends a lot of time every day giving me compliments, which are mostly about my dresses, but almost as often they are about my work and ideas. I feel successful in business. (Mostly I think in terms of True Stories).

I share an office at school (I have one at work as well) with seven other people. They are nice, and I think I am starting to feel comfortable enough to let them know me. We talk about poop and real life things that require trust to discuss. I have a real hard time doing that sometimes... I protect myself too much. Trying to work on that.

I have spontaneously hung out with three new people this week, and have made plans to go out with four other new people in the course of next week. It is not easy for me to be sociable in large groups, so I feel good about these small, one-to-one activities. I get scared when there are a lot of people.

Thursday nights are my favorites. Class and work and social obligations are minimal; potential for relaxation is maximal. These are the nights when I bake bread (every other week), think about babies, and let myself be calm. I think about bread and babies so much probably because I have spent the balance of the week engrossed in discussions and debating marxist- feminist- post-colonial theory. It seems in some way, that I am making them real and giving practical application to theoretical models on Thursday nights. I used to think these thinks were dangerous thinks to think, but anymore, I take comfort in them like old friends. I think we are finally getting comfortable with one another in real ways.

I listen a lot throughout the week. I don't talk as much as I used to.

Tap water here is NOT delicious, unless it is refrigerated for several hours. I try to be sure to have at least one bottle in the fridge every night before I go to sleep, as a gift to myself when I wake up in the morning. I miss mountains and their reserves of things (including, but not limited to water). 

I am learning that I need a lot of validation every day, and am trying to listen to what my body wants more. Today, it wanted water and steel cut outs and hugs. It got all of those things, and so maybe it will tell me more soon. Learning to trust better/more.

I almost always run out of money before the month is out, but this month is different.

I feel very selfish and self-absorbed much of the time. Trying to learn to be more than that.

Real Work

I just got off a plane where a baby was literally howling for three hours straight. The connector from Denver to Lincoln should have only taken an hour and forty, but some troublesome air, and we doubled our flight time.

It gave me more time to think.

I always need more time to think.

I probably need less time to think.

Today, work was the main topic chasing itself around inside my brains. Not my work per se, not my employment, but the big, theoretical WORK work. I’m sitting there watching all of the screens in the plane. I suddenly get totally creeped out by how many screens there are. It felt very sci-borg grossy to me: this is the matrix, and we are all plugged into it. 

Every seat-back has a screen embedded, and they are a one foot distance away from the face of every human being in the plane’s womb. One is given a crumb of control in the armrest that seemingly allows volume change. What a pitiful modicum of dominion, paltry pretension of stewardship. The screens are all playing the same thing, in-synch with one another. Mine is graciously malfunctioning, and so is the only blank screen in the place (what luck).

The scene is an extended five-minute commercial for a line of luxury vehicles. Because that’s obviously what we need. 

I am struck by the juxtaposition of the wailing child and the monotony of the hyper- tan man on the screens.

There is a girl across the aisle from me that has her headphones plugged into the armrest: she is listening politely to everything they are trying to tell her, but her eyes look tired and she might not understand everything. The good news is that the exact same thing will reload in five minutes. She doesn’t need to listen. 

I incur Wendell Berry (because that is always who I incur).

Breathe with unconditional breath   

the unconditioned air.   

Shun electric wire.   

Communicate slowly. Live   

a three-dimensioned life;   

stay away from screens.   

Stay away from anything   

that obscures the place it is in.   

There are no unsacred places;   

there are only sacred places   

and desecrated places.   

 -from How To Be A Poet, 2001

And then, probably because I have been reading a book that makes me think about things like work and the world and the gospel, I begin, and I cannot stop. Why are they trying to sell a luxury sedan to this girl? What is she thinking? How insidious and totally brilliant. They win! We loose.

What are we all working for?

And then I get into meaning.

I flex my legs.

I was afraid last week that I was atrophying in my mind and my body for lack of use. I realize that my body is in the shape it is because my actions have carved it so. I'm reminded of how the story of 2010 exhibited itself on my legs after I chased my professor across Europe. The story is the same for my mind. With a holiday break, my body goes lesser-used and aches from the falling down and scrapes it encountered. Blegh. My leg is feeling weak, and not as chiseled as I remembered it. I flex, and it isn’t difficult. I need it to be difficult in order to improve. I need things to be difficult in order to improve generally. Thus, opposition in all things? Sure. 

I think they are telling her that there is meaning in having things. In buying the luxury sedan and loading your dogs into it and going to the beach alone. It’s really all about the sedan- lifestyle that accompanies such a purchase. I want to take her headphones out and ask her what she loves, her favorite color, whether she prefers early mornings or late nights, have her tell me about the boys she admires in secret. I want to tell her to love the glittery pink shirt she is wearing because she is almost too old for it. I want to tell her that it will be hard to grow up because that’s what growing is: hard. And that it will hurt. It always hurts. I want to tell her that they are lying to her. They are enslaving her into a life that is filled with working for dinero that will enable her to buy, buy, buy.

This is not where life has meaning. Life has meaning in working to overcome difficulty. Life exists in opposition to death, and while we may not face it on a daily basis in our cush first-world of-luxury-sedan-advertisements on airplane-rides-in-the-middle-of-the-country, it is the actual basis of existence. And we a re being lied to if we can really divorce ourselves from the actuality of death's encroachment. Death is stagnation. I want to rail at myself for forgetting this; for forgetting the beauty that comes in growth and the power that is hidden in opposition. I need to remember that it isn’t all about the benjamins. It’s about the people; always the people. 

And here we are.

Meaning in life is found in opposition and in its absence. Meaning is found in work and overcoming. Meaning is found in change. Not luxury sedans, but howling babies whose ears hurt because of the altitude's sharpness. The baby who doesn't know that his pain will end.

wow, yeah. Sorry.

hi there. So it's recently been brought to my attention that it's maybe a little bit annoying how infrequently I update my blog here. Sorry, guys... I guess I didn't realize you were reading for reals. I'm a real-live-work in progress. Thanks for bearing with me.
I have had a lot going on lately, and I guess I'm overwhelmed with all that there is to talk about. I will start with the things most pressing, and we'll see where we go from there.

First and foremost, my neck thing. I am still alive.

Surgery went well, I don't have cancer, and I am recovering well.  Even though I personally think it's gross, I have had *many* requests for pictures of the scar...

There it is; I'm pointing it out in case you don't get it.

It's really NBD. Sometimes the healing can be a little rough, and sometimes I maybe have a perma-double-chin look going on because of some swelling, but I digress... Things are healing nicely.
I need to thank many of you for your help through the process of having the operation and the subsequent couple of days. It was really nice to have such a fantastic support system. And! Miracle of miracles! I even got some REAL LIFE COOKIES in the mail from an angel. Seriously, so good (you know who you are).
 Aaaaaaaaaaand I started work this week at this place, which is literally just a few blocks from my house. It's great so far, and it's nice to feel like I have something real to do consistently.  I think I can make it through until September.
Which leads me nicely to my next point of business which is to officially announce that I was accepted to the art history master's program at the University of Nebraska in Lincoln. It was my top choice of program... and they are sort of offering me a really (really really) good deal there. I am full of wonder and hope and nerves about what it will be like. I think I'll be calling the bishop of the student ward there to ask for some tips and some help. I haven't fully made my decision about going there just yet, as I was also accepted to BYU's program. I'm not entirely sure what to do sometimes.
Which (again) leads to my next point, which is sometimes (other times than when I don't know what to do...) I feel like it's the smartest thing to leave Provo as fast and with as much dignity as I can muster. I have been very frustrated with some things/people/cultural practices here lately (that's an entire book I could write, I guess...), and I literally cannot wait to leave. It scares me to feel so forcible about leaving a place, to have such a fortitude about fleeing a place that I have really made into my home.
I am going to visit Lincoln at the end of the week. I am excited and nervous. Perhaps I will report here.
Also, I had a really funny experience at the temple this week. Some of you maybe heard it already, but if you didn't, and want to know, I'll tell you. It's better in person, though, so I'm not going to write about it here.
And in rather un-connected pontificational news, I am really grateful for temples. Really. It had been a while since I'd been, but I was able to go twice this week. It was a really good thing for me. I am also happy to be able to hear General Conference. Lots of good things.

why I did it

I submitted my thesis for publication this week.
I got an email (so much less classy than a letter) that confirmed receipt of my "manuscript".

I would like to review the events that led up to this event in hopes to assuage the sudden and immense sense of dread that I am presently feeling about the whole debacle.

Since I got back from Europe, I haven't really done much of anything except attempt to recover my

a. sanity and 

b. regular pace. 

Now that I have finally gotten those back, it seems that my last semester is begging for me to loose them again. A grad seminar class (there used to be two of them, but I realized I was in over my head), three undergrad classes, a brand new (sort of intimidating) calling in church, a position in a presidency at school,  prepping for the GRE and praying with all of prayer parts to get into a good grad school, a baby brother leaving on a mission, the garden, and any attempt at a social-life-outlet are all semi-huge demands. Oh. And my family is crazy, in case you forgot that little detail.

Fortunately, It's fall. For me, fall is a time of total rejuvenation and preparation. I feel the best in the fall. Maybe because it's the last vestiges of summer, and maybe because I was born in the fall. I take a lot of cues from trees (it seems to be sort of a theme for me on this here blog thingy...). In the fall, trees drop all that stuff that's not super important for their survival (fact: trees drop their leaves because if they didn't, the dead weight would tip them over. That is neat: also a fact.) I like the way fall shakes things up. I want to shake too.

So there I was, talking with kb about nothing in particular. I love that girl. We were laughing, and I felt a sudden sense of urgency, like, I hadn't done enough yet, and if I didn't act RIGHT THEN, my opportunity would be lost.

I came in my room and for an hour (1am-2am...) figured out what to do to submit, tidied up an abstract I'd been mulling over, and sent them away into the void of the internets. Goodbye, forever? Maybe...

To be totally honest, I didn't think about it. I just went and brushed my teeth and went to bed. It wasn't until I got this stupid email confirming that my "manuscript" had been received that I began to freak out. Talk about inopportune timing, universe. Jeeze. I was having a really good evening too!

Anyways, now I am feeling really nervous and self-conscious about everything.  I guess I don't really ever put myself into situations where there's a slight chance that I could be rejected. This was probably a good step for me. But for the moment, it sucks.

ps. Doesn't the term "manuscript" usually connote something a little more like this:

than this:

 

yeah...

Why the world is falling apart:

via

This semester was intended to be fun and enlightening. Instead it is basically shattering my worldview and challenging everything I've been socialized and raised to believe. I don't really know where I stand in relation to so so many things, and I feel like there's a whole lot of security that's being exposed and taken away from me... I guess it means I'm learning? Anyways, I feel like I don't have a philosophical and educational and theoretical home right now- I'm becoming a post structuralist snob that can't settle on anything.
I question everything.
I feel inadequate to write any sort of history because I want to explode traditional notion and I want to look at every *other* point of view...I watched a film about this woman, Angie Debo today:



She said something that melted my heart and inspired and intimidated me:
"Tell the truth so that other people can use it."

I liked that. I need to find the drive, the passion, the resolve and the grace Debo had. She's my new idol.

In completely unrelated news, how do you guys feel about setting people up/being set up?? Have you done it/ been victim to it?? What was it like? I need advice.

CONSTANT Procrasination

In honor of the title of this post, I'd like the internets (that's YOU!) to be aware that I have not done ANY homework this semester. That's right. ZERO. All of the reading I've done thus far is purely for pleasure. I feel great and a twinge sicky about it... I mean... maybe it's just burnout, but I maybe should get busy. I have to:
-write my thesis (which so far is AWFUL... i mean AWFUL, AWFUL).
-decide what to write about re: the Northern Baroque (tossing around ideas about costume in paintings like this one - [yes the girl's face IS creepy] or this one... just thinking.)
-do ANYTHING for my other three classes. I have no idea where to start. Maybe the syllabi.

This is great, considering that I MUST do well this semester in order to get into grad school. Read that MUST... meaning no fudging it this year. It's mandatory quality this time. I have to get busy. But first, I have to throw a birthday party and clean my room.