Hair

I almost wrote you a little musing about the current state of my hair. Because when I look in the reflection of my broken laptop screen, what I see gives me a very distinct impression. But when I started writing this musing, it became rather unintentionally offensive.

On a completely unrelated topic*, have I told you about my favorite 30 Rock quote?

"Kenneth! Your haircut is disrespectful to lesbians!"

- Tracy Morgan

*wink wink, nod nod ... 

Overwhelming

How do you like the blog-pimpage? Because I am LOVING it. It'll be nice when the "I'm a Mormon" button finally works, but unfortunately my page is still in a state of 'Review Pending.' I suppose I'm grateful that they DO review each page, so no one says anything ridiculous on there. But at the same time I just want to say, "I swear mine's okay! Just let it go!" Haha.

This has been an overwhelming week, both in the sense of good and in the sense of stress. I think it's mostly been good though.

One of the good things was going to hear Condoleeza Rice on Thursday. What an inspiring woman! I was so impressed with how intelligent she is (not that I expected any less), with how funny she is, how down to earth she is, and how positive she is. Of all the great things she said, however, this is one of my favorites:

Whenever you're lacking in optimism, remember your special responsibility because of where you are and what you've been granted, to hold up those who don't fall to cynicism, and to hold up those who can see a world not as it is but a world as it should be.

I think that's an interesting way to look at it. She didn't say, "Try to see the world as it could be" or "Don't fall to cynicism." Rather, she said we should hold up those who don't fall to cynicism, and who can see the world as it should be. Over time, I suppose, we should try to be those kinds of people, but I think sometimes it's enough just to say, "I cannot be like you right now, but I can support you and your cause."

Another great thing she said was, "It doesn't matter where you're coming from; it matters where you're going." Sometimes, I admit, I wish it was the other way around, because sometimes I feel like where I'm coming from is a little better, a little higher. But I guess it's just like what my bishop told me a few years ago, that life is a roller coaster. In fact, most things in life are like roller coasters. It's like being on five roller coasters all at once (only then each of those roller coasters breaks into five more, and each of those into five more, and on and on forever! Eek). You're not always going to be going up. Sometimes you're going to be dropping hard and making your stomach sick, and sometimes you're going to be spinning so fast that you can't see anything and you feel like your brain is going to be crushed against the seat back. That's just how life is.

School is definitely one of those roller coasters that I'm on right now. And then we have the individual roller coasters of each of my classes. Most of them right now feel like I'm on the first huge incline, and I'm looking at all the loops and thinking of how fast it's going to be going, and feeling like I just ate a massive chili-cheese foot-long hot dog. (I've never had one before because they make me sick when I'm just on the ground.) I am hardly doing anything, but just looking forward to the future is overwhelming. Especially when I do the homework and feel good, and then go to class and feel like a massive failure (this is most pertinent to my French class). As I see it, there are two potential lessons here: (1) Put more work into it, and (2) Hang on as tight as you can and just try not to fall off or barf on someone. I think that's all you can really do in some situations.

To get back to my French class, you know ... I'm not so sure about it anymore. I mean, I love French literature. And I love going to class and being able to understand my teacher. I love helping people do French homework and talking to myself in French (which hey, happens all the time). But I feel like I am barely keeping my head above water in that class right now, at least as far as speaking goes. I can spell and write and memorize vocab and read and listen and understand, as long as the vocab doesn't go too far off the path. For the life of me though, I can't speak to save my life. Well, that's not true. I just feel so far behind. I wish there was a section for returned missionaries, and a section for people who have just learned French in class. Also, I feel massively intimidated by my teacher. I guess I just have to deal with it at this point. It'll either be grand, or a total nightmare. I think I can hack it. I hope I can anyways. Time will tell.

Passion

When I flew back to Provo, I had (at least) nine books in my carry-on and "personal item." This is not a joke or an exaggeration. I carried Les Miserables, Little Dorrit, Who Stole the Wizard of Oz?, The Book Thief, Made for Heaven, The Big Bento Box of Unuseless Japanese Inventions, Le Livre de Mormon ;), Little Bee, and The Day the Falls Stood Still. Let me tell you a little story about that last one...

On my last day in Jeff City, I wanted to go buy a movie. I was going to order it online, but then I saw it on the Barnes & Noble website for the same amount of money that it would cost for me to purchase and ship it from Amazon. Since we have a Barnes & Noble in town, and I kinda had a few books in mind that I thought I'd like to get a peek at, maybe even buy, so I drove over there. Much to my dismay, the movie was $10 more in the store than online, for reasons which still boggle my mind. To add to my misery, the book I most wanted to buy wasn't even in the store. How's that for cruel? But I really like looking at books, so I kinda hung around to see if there was anything else I'd be interested in purchasing.

As I'm browsing (extensively, mind you) this old man who works there comes up to me and asks me if he can help me. Now, I tend to shy away from these types of people (read: employees) because I really don't like being helped. Not while I'm shopping anyways. I'm pretty good at deciding for myself what I want, and plus if I can't find what I want, I figure it's not worth having because I'm pretty good at finding things, if they're put away properly. Anyways, I have digressed from my story. I change my mind about him helping me, and ask if he can help me find the book The Girl in the Blue Dress by Gaynor Arnold. It's about the wife of Charles Dickens, and it sounds like it's a really good read. To my surprise, he didn't baby me over to where it was supposed to be on the shelf, which is what I half expected him to do, but immediately went to the computer to see if it was in stock, and where it would be if it was. It didn't happen to be there, but he gave me a print out with the ISBN on it and stuff.

Then he says to me, "You're not from around here, are you?" And I was just kind of shocked, because I don't feel like I frequently give off that vibe, and certainly not in a bookstore, because I'm always comfortable in a bookstore. Surprised, I said no. As my surprise was absolutely evident in my face, he said, "A reader in here that I don't recognize? You have to be from somewhere else." After that, I kept browsing, he suggested The Day the Falls Stood Still to me, and I ended up purchasing it.

Now, the book is not the point of the story. The point is how good it felt to have someone see me, recognize what I'm passionate about, and then verbally acknowledge it. You wouldn't think that would feel good, but having this total stranger nab me as a big reader felt wonderful. It was like, "Yes! This is what I like to do! This is what matters to me! And you can tell just by looking at me that that's what's important to me!"

Of course, there are many other things that are important to me, Church, family, friends, etc. But I feel like those belong in a different sort of category. They're kind of apples-and-oranges with language and literature, you know? It's just been over the past few months that I've come to realize exactly how much I love words and language and the way that they can be used, and it's so gratifying to know that that love is apparent to other people, because I think when you have that kind of love, that kind of passion for something, it radiates. Maybe not to everyone, but there are other people who can see it.

I think back to how I felt my first semester of freshman year. It wasn't exactly a good semester, and I questioned a lot of things about myself and what I wanted to do. As a senior in high school, I had known that I was interested in English, but I also knew that that didn't necessarily translate well into a career. In fact, I still know this. It doesn't exactly scream practicality or promise for the future. But I had this moment, after I had accidentally declared myself a pre-communications major (based on my application to BYU), as I was sitting in my communications class, that I realized I absolutely hated comms. I hated everything about it ... except for the days that we talked about books as a form of media and communication. For some reason, that just warmed my heart and soul to think about how powerful the written word is, and how enduring books are, and how much happiness they've brought to me in my life. I mean, I was always the kid who got the maximum number of library books, who was in the advanced reading class in elementary school, who racked up AR points like nobody's business, and who was always writing stories or composing sentences in her head. That's just who I was. It's always been a part of me.

That doesn't apply to everyone of course. Tons of people don't figure out what their passions are until they're in college. Lots of peoples' passions don't translate well into majors. Many people have multiple passions, and have to decide how their passions are going to be a part of their futures.

But some people don't recognize their passions.

Doesn't that make you sad? It sure does me. I know how it feels to feel like you're working towards something you couldn't care less about, even if it has a more clear path to careerdom than the things you actually do care about. I just happened to be lucky enough, and maybe even crazy enough, to run away from the things I didn't care about, and towards the things that made a difference in my life--books, and French. (Aw. <3.)

I feel like the following quote is outlandishly applicable here:

Don't ask yourself what the world needs; ask yourself what makes you come alive. And then go and do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.

-- Harold Whitman

Isn't it so true though? I mean, you can tell when people don't like their jobs, or even their majors. It's painfully obvious.

You can also tell when people love what they're doing, when they have a passion for it. Furthermore, it doesn't just make them happier. It makes them better at what they're doing, because they care more about the results, and not for anyone's sake more than their own! When you love what you're doing, you want to increase your knowledge and improve your work. It's a natural consequence.

I can't help but think of Bob from The Incredibles, right at the very beginning. Remember? He looked like this:

Ohhhh. Poor Bob. Look how miserable. But when he decided to do those things that he cared about most, he made himself, and everyone else, happier.

Am I trying to justify the fact that I'm majoring in two things that aren't exactly Career-In-A-Jar Majors? Is it because my dad and grandpa and other people have been asking me a lot lately, "So what are you going to do with that, exactly? What are your plans for the future?" Maybe. Maybe I'm really just that dumb. But I don't think so. I mean, we've all had the teachers who love to teach, and the teachers who hate their lived because they're teaching and they hate teaching. You can tell the difference in everything that they do and say. They're worlds apart. They might get the same (crappy) pay, but what does that matter when there's happiness involved? You know what they all say, "I'd rather be poor and doing something I love, than rich doing something I hate." Okay, yeah, it's cheesy ... but isn't cheesy usually also paired with "true"? I dunno. Just a thought.

I guess what I'm saying is that, even when I don't love my classes, I love English, and I love French, and I love the fact that I get to study more about them and increase my understanding and progress towards my goals in each of these disciplines. I'm so glad that I have the opportunity to follow my passions, and to improve upon the world through something that makes me feel so alive. :)

Oh, and can you tell that I'm so stoked to start a new semester in a couple of days? ;)