there are no bad words for the coast today

After spinning my wheels for the past hour and a half struggling to solve a problem in my dissertation data analysis - re-reading notes, looking up information online, modifying the analysis and running it again, only to receive the same error message - I finally emailed a helpful TA in hopes that she can help me get unstuck. Frustrated with yet another stumbling block in this long process, I walked away from my table at the coffee shop for a bathroom break.

As I glanced out the front door onto the sunlit, tree-lined street, I was struck with gratitude. "How lucky I am to live somewhere so beautiful."

Often in these perfect moments, I lament how they seem too perfect and are destined to never occur again. Like yesterday, when I sat in the shade of a beautiful flower garden while on my lunch break. I was so enjoying the beauty around me, that it was bittersweet realizing that I would soon have to return to my windowless office and that in a few weeks it might be too cold for me to comfortably enjoy the beauty of this garden. All I wanted to do was linger.

But in today's perfect moment, the moment was just right. I only felt thankful to be where I am at this time.

Rilo Kiley – Spectacular Views

The Urban Life: The City Park

I've recently come to believe that one of the best places to experience cultural equality is at a good city park.

I've started running since I moved to this new city. And by running, I mean power walking mixed with jogging, and trying to increase the jogging. Less than half a mile from my apartment, is a lovely little park, adorned with one a fountain complete with charging horse statues, which is often frequented by a flock of geese. It features a track around the narrow park, parts of which are lined with trees and go up and down small hills.

But it's not the picturesque fountain or tranquil trees that I like best about this park.

It's the people who come there.

A middle-aged woman photographing the geese. Six Muslim women in head-coverings sitting by the fountain with their children. White, black, and Latino men playing a game of soccer together. White chicks and dudes playing volleyball. Hipsters juggling and playing with hula hoops. A Latino family taking pictures at the fountain, later followed by an Indian family doing the same. A couple laying on blankets reading. A woman by herself reading. People running, biking, walking their dogs.

I can out power walk the middle aged women but the fit men always pass me. No matter, everyone has a place at the park. It's not like a gym that you have to pay for, where everyone else seems to lift twice the weight and run twice as fast as me. Even with my currently low level of physical fitness, I don't stand out when I work out in the park.

City parks are free. Paid for by taxes, but it doesn't matter if you paid a lot of taxes or paid none or cheated on your taxes, the park is available to you - so long as you have transportation to get there. You don't need expensive equipment or clothes or an invitation or your name on the VIP list. As long as it's safe, anyone can go there and enjoy it - men, women, children, teenagers, elderly.

Maybe I'm being overly idealistic in my park description. Despite the equality offered by the park, the reminders of inequality are ever present as the park is only yards away from the most upscale shopping center in town, mainly frequented by the affluent white citizens and college kids with credit cards. And the park is always populated with homeless men, so going to the park is not a luxury for everyone. For some people, they go there because they have nowhere else to go.

Despite the realities of poverty and racial inequality that I'm still aware of as I walk/jog in my park, the fact that so many people from different backgrounds come to enjoy it makes this park one of most beautiful places I've been to.

Good News

What is the Gospel?

I struggle to define it, to describe it, mainly because I immediately think of the definitions and words and phrases that I've heard my whole life. There is probably truth in these recollections, but they feel a little stale and feel like I'd just be regurgitating something I've heard somewhere else instead of truly describing what the Gospel is to me, what I believe it to be, what it means to me. What words do I put together to describe that? Or maybe words aren't it. Maybe there's an image.


As I sat outside, pondering this question, I looked down at the grass. There was a small, orange, delicate butterfly perched on a blade of grass, gently opening and closing its wings. It wasn't a Monarch, but it was just as brightly orange, beautiful contrasted against the green grass.

And there was my image. It described to me a creation, a people, an individual utterly renewed by God's mercy and grace. It pointed to a coming Kingdom where all will be made right and all conflicts and disputes and lawsuits and wars and complaints and demands will cease. A Kingdom yet to come fully, but a Kingdom that can be present now. A Gospel that tells me that I am both a sinner and in need of grace and change but that I'm also fully accepted and fully loved, a Gospel that I can surrender to and that I can display as I love my family and strangers, as I love myself fully and receive God's love, as I advocate for myself and others, as I approach stresses and conflicts seeking God's grace and peace and compassion. There, I will find that delicate butterfly, renewed and beautiful.

Featured on academichic blog!!!!

A link to my recent blog post plus one of my photos was featured on academichic because of my participation in their Dress Your Best Week! Hehe, I feel a little famous, and I'm thankful that the academichic bloggers noticed how many of us wrote about learning to love our bodies in ways that don't fit the norms of what society tells us is beautiful.

Dressing my best - Tuesday, May 11th - Legs! Fair skin!

I have a love/hate relationship with my legs, but this week has encouraged me to try to show more love to my legs. Sadly, I have spent much of my life feeling ashamed of the perpetual paleness of my legs, often feeling uncomfortable wearing shorts or skirts the showed too much skin, exposing the blinding whiteness of my legs. From my friends, I alternately receive comments that I shouldn't be so shy about showing off my legs or comments that my legs are so pale, and "Gosh, can you even tan?" making my pale legs a great source of embarrassment.

When I first saw this picture from Tuesday, I was embarrassed at how pale my legs look compared to my olive-skinned, Italian-descended friend. However, thinking about it more, we're both gorgeous women, we just have different looks and body types and skin tones.

It's time for an attitude change. Though not radiantly tan, I have great legs. My legs are long, lean, and muscular enough. My legs are beautiful, functional, strong, and sexy! And I'm also coming to appreciate the alabaster shade of my skin. I often observe pale beauties, such as this model from www.modcloth.com with envy that they can look so strikingly beautiful with their paleness.

I've decided to stop envying these models, and enjoy the fact that I can also look strikingly gorgeous as a pale-skinned, red-haired, blue-eyed, thin woman! A big reason why I can pull of the henna-dyed red hair is because of my fair complexion, so I'm thankful that I have a look that is so versatile. I think that redheads are absolutely gorgeous, anytime a redheaded man or woman walks by, I'm always checking them out. It's been exciting for me to embrace the look in the past several months. So, I decided this week to show off my great legs, with this dress from H&M -


Trying to show off my dress at the bar where I sang "Bohemian Rhapsody" at karaoke night with a few friends -

A pretty "leggy" shot from this angle -

Lovin' on my ivory legs -

So, I'm thankful for this exercise to love my body for all that it is. I hope that in the future that I will feel less shame about my fair skin when I'm surrounded by tan friends, but instead feel thankful and blessed that I have a such a unique, beautiful look. I hope that my friends reading this post can also be challenged to love the parts of themselves that they may not always see as beautiful.

it is written

I've been back for over a week now, and wondering how to restart this blog thing again. Whenever I go away from it, it's always a little hard to know how to return. I've gotten out of the groove, and I lack inspiration. I know that you would probably enjoy reading about my trip, and I'd like to write more about it, but it's hard to know what to write without it becoming a list of my itinerary, and Ben has already written some great posts about Amsterdam, that what could my writings add? My perspective, I suppose, but a lot of my perspective from the trip is best shared one-on-one, and not through a blog. Instead, I found other inspiration this morning.

Last night, I saw Slumdog Millionaire. If you haven't seen it, please see it as soon as possible! I'm going to do my best to talk vaguely about plots points and avoid giving any spoilers, but if you'd prefer to wait to read this until you've seen it, then wait. One of the friends I'd seen it with had already seen it before, and she told me about things that she hadn't noticed the first time, like the depth and complexity of one of the main characters, and how even from childhood, you see the changes that this character undergoes.

This morning, I found myself thinking about the female character from Slumdog, Latika. This movie is many things, and it is most definitely a rescuing the damsel in distress story. When I reflected on that this morning, at first it irked my quasi-feministic side. Why couldn't Latika rescue herself? Why was she so dang submissive toward the men in her life? Why couldn't she have been a more dynamic character, like the boys in the film? But the more I thought about it, she was indeed a complex character. I believe that feminism is about choice, and at a key point in the movie, Latika makes a difficult choice, a choice that probably saves someone else's life, and a choice that leads her to continue her life of submission and degradation by men.

I continued to reflect on this damsel in distress aspect of the plot more, and thought that really, it was a beautiful love story. In our heart of hearts, all women (and probably men too) want this kind of love, of a man who never forgets her. Years may pass, but she is still the love of his life, and he continues searching for her, and will never be satisfied until his love is safe in his arms. He's willing to put himself through danger, and do whatever it takes to be with her. A couple of times in the film, someone asks, "What? Not her again," and encourages the main character to give up on chasing after her. Yes, her, who else but her? No one will compare, and he will continue after her, never giving up hope that they will be together again. Gosh, who doesn't want that?

And I've never been one to get a lot out of the imagery of Christ as the bridegroom, and the church as the bride, but thinking about this film this morning, that image clicked with me. I saw the gospel in this film. I saw a woman, so defiled, so degraded, living with the enemy, first being forced into this awful lifestyle, and then choosing to stay in it. And I saw a man, who loves her infinitely, and more than that, he looks at her and doesn't see her lifestyle, doesn't see the ugliness of her actions and the actions against her, but he sees her for who she is, he sees her as beautiful and pure, and because he does, that is how us, the audience sees her. She's radiant and gorgeous.

Happy Birthday Cara

My friend Cara turns 23 today. In honor of this momentous occasion, I am dedicating this blog post to the story of our friendship together, complete with photographic evidence!

Cara and I met summer of 2004 in Longview through my cousin Laura, following my freshmen year at TCU and prior to her arrival at TCU. She was wearing cool green shoes that I had almost bought from Old Navy, so right off the bat, this friendship was off to a solid start.

This is us within our first year of friendship, February 2005, at the celebration of our dear friend Britt's birthday. As you can clearly see, during this time I was actually a ferocious unicorn and Cara was a triceratops. I was cruel enough to inform her that she was extinct, but she informed me that I actually never existed. Oh snap!

May 2005, at my birthday party. By this point, Cara had decided that unicorns are obviously cooler, and shed her dinosaur ways to join me as a mythical beast. Nonexistence is pretty hip, yo.

December 2005, Cara's birthday party. We decided to both become human, but this decision was fraught with tension and stress, which led to our mutual abuse of one another.

April 2006. After months of counseling and a hard night in jail, we gave up our violent tendencies and decided to pursue a kind, loving friendship held together by mutual admiration of one another's fashion sense.

May 2006, Mortar Board inductions. Making the decision to pursue nonviolence also led to academic success, as we were inducted into several of the same academic honor societies during our time at TCU. In actuality, it was my jealousy and admiration of Cara's academic success that inspired me to be a high achiever in college, so as not to be left behind by my formerly triceratopian friend.

September 2007. During this season of our friendship, Cara had developed a life-threatening disease that required her torso to remain hydrated at all times. Fortunately, the sounds of Regina Spektor and the Decemerberists at ACL proved to be the cure that she needed.

March 2007, no longer disease ridden, Cara and I were able to enjoy concerts together without the strange hydration apparatus. Freedom from this device allowed us opportunities such as partying with the young men of Phosphorescent. Unfortunately, Cara rejected my advances and our relationship has remained mostly platonic.

May 2007, we both got drunken tattoos together to celebrate Cara's graduation from TCU. Honestly, it seemed like a really good idea at the time, and now I have a constant reminder of our friendship.

July 2008, we gaze out into the great unknown of our lives together. What will the next months and years hold for us? Only time will tell.

Happy 23rd Birthday Sweet Baby Angle!!!!

a lot like love

This evening, as I was the final person to leave the clinic, I paused while walking out to my car, lingering on the sidewalk, staring out at the empty parking lot before me and the field beyond it painted by perfectly circular pools of street light, all because for the first time this season, I felt it.

It feels a lot like love, a lot like being in love. Or at least, that's the closest feeling I can compare it too. It happens in the autumn and winter, when I step outside and feel the cool, crisp air, I feel it, and I feel like I'm in love. It's not precipitated by any particular thought, it's just a feeling that overtakes me, triggered by this special type of weather. If you've felt it, then you know exactly what I'm talking about. If you don't know what I'm talking about, then I wish that I had the words to truly describe it.

So for a few moments, I stood alone, and almost didn't recognize it at first as I gazed at the field and the lights. I tried to think, what is this feeling? Do I wish that someone was here? Then I realized, this was it, this feeling that I experience every year. It caught me by surprise this time. Upon this recognition, I smiled, allowing myself to feel it, to experience it, to let it settle into my body. Then, the lights in the park turned off. I entered my car, started the engine, and was welcomed by "Say it To Me Now" from the Once soundtrack. So I drove home, and screamed along with Glen like I always do when this song comes on.

Things that are utterly refreshing that occurred in the past 24ish hours

Since yesterday morning, these are things that have served to refresh me, light me up, warm my heart, and make my soul feel light and free:

• Riding my bike to campus the first morning the cold front hit, with no jacket or sweater. So invigorating :)
• Finding an experienced student to help me with a qualitative research project. Qualitative research (as opposed to quantitative) being something that even my adviser doesn't really know how to do.
• Scoring an interview with the field practicum site that I most want to go to in the spring! I'm one of 3 interviewing for one spot though :/
• Finding out that my friend from church's third child will be a boy, probably named Noah :)
  
• Being introduced to new, beautiful things. (Thanks Ben!)
  
• Skipping stats class with 4 other students from my cohort to have an impromptu meeting/gripe session with my adviser, who really listens to our concerns and promises to answer our questions.
• Enjoying an old friend from TCU rock out with his band with some new friends
  
• Learning that the Frogs beat #8 ranked BYU 32-7!!!!!!
  
• Washing my hair for the first time after a haircut. No tangles!
• Riding my bike to campus while a light drizzle tickled my face. It felt like carbonation bubbles from a freshly opened soda tickling my nose, which I love :)
  

here I go again, my my, how could I resist you?

So, it's almost 11pm, I'm spending what I thought would be my first night alone in my new house, baking cookies, emailing folks, calling friends, watching movie trailers (Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist, RocknRolla, W., Pineapple Express, etc), when I hear the jiggling of a door handle. I probably had a few armhairs that stood on end, but instead of going into panic mode, I managed to call out, "Hello?"

Turns out it was my fourth roommate who I hadn't met yet! She's only in town for a few days, but then again so am I, so it looks like I won't be alone during this time afterall! It is kinda weird for us to just meet like this. Basically, my other roommates are a girl I knew from church, her best friend/roommate, and this fourth girl is a friend of the girl I know from church's best friend. But it's nice to finally meet her, but odd that it wasn't an introduction from the other girls. Oh well! Perhaps it's good to get to know her this way, just one on one, without the mediating friends. Or it could just be awkward.

First impression: she seems nice, and is pretty. She looks like Amanda Seyfield from Mamma Mia, which was wonderful, if you love musicals, you should see it.

Even if the next few days are kinda weird having this new roommate that I don't know at all around, it's a good change. I've spent all summer living alone, and before that, 9 months living with a roommate who stayed in her room with the door closed 95% of the time. I need more social interaction and activity my living quarters. Though I don't know these girls all that well, I'm very hopeful about this being a good living situation. The one girl I know from church is just really kind, genuine, mature, and fun. I don't know why, but every time I talk with her, I get a good vibe from her. I feel like I can be at ease around her, which is a good quality in a roommate, and hopefully friend. I really wanted to live with friends this year, but if I can make friends with the people that I'm living with, then that's just as good, if not better.

In addition to the roommates, this room, house, neighborhood, and location are all really sweet. My room is HUGE because it used to be a garage, which means that I can fit all my furniture (desk, dresser, chest of drawers) and upgraded to a full-sized bed and it doesn't feel crowded, and I have my own bathroom. I have downgraded to a shower instead of a full bath, but I never take baths anyway. The house is wonderful. It's old and full of character, which sounds like a euphemism for ugly ("has a great personality"), but in this case, it's really not. Maybe I'll post some pictures, but for now, imagine original hardwood floors throughout most of the house, tastefully colorfully painted walls, a couple of cute pocket doors here and there, kitchen cabinets with unique treasures abounding (pull out drawers? turntable corners? pull out pot hangers?), and the house is spacious, with a living room/dining room, kitchen, then an extra "common room" where the other girls put their desks. This common room/kitchen area is really great, as lots of light spills in from the backyard.

Oh, and the backyard! It's huge, and shady, and I've already started a morning sitting out back drinking my coffee. It's so peaceful, I never used my backyard at the previous house because it was small, and hot, and no decent furniture, and there was a hyper dog, but this backyard is one that I can actually see myself enjoying. I love this neighborhood. It's all older, well-kept homes, and every yard has huge trees, so there lots of shade and greenery. And it's quiet, so you can hear birds. The wildlife is just great, I've watched squirrels playing, and seen dogs and cats around. Our next door neighbors have too adorable puppies that I can stick my fingers through the chainlink fence to pet. By far, the best animal of the neighborhood is Mutant Cat. Mutant Cat has an extra toe on each foot that looks like a thumb, is missing its tail, has a strange bump on its back, drools excessively, and is exceptionally friendly. Mutant Cat has Friend Kitty, who seems to be Mutant Cat's shy sidekick. I see them together quite frequently.

From what I can tell, there seem to be more families than college students living in this neighborhood, and it seems more diverse. I've seen an old woman in hair curlers out watering her yard one night, a couple of black preteen girls riding their bicycles around. A family from my church, the one who the husband is a psychologist that I've mentioned, lives right around the street, and the wife has a few times encouraged me to literally just drop by. When I get my bike back, I'll have to try out this "dropping by" thing and see how it works out.

Finally, there's the location. I drove to campus and parked today in about five minutes, as its about half a mile away, and it's about five minutes from the clinic where I see clients. Phenomenal. Before today, I was a commuter. Once I drove to campus, I'd stay around that area, never going home until my day was over. Today, I went home between work and clients and showered. I would have never done this at my old location, unless I had three + hours to spare. And while I was home, a friend from church rode his bike over here to collect a check I've been meaning to give him for this camp that he sent some kids to. How cool. I cannot remember the last time that I had a friend ride a bike to my house that didn't already live on my street. I can totally dig this.

the twelve

About 9 years ago, a tragic accident occurred at my university, resulting in the deaths of twelve students. One of those students had been valedictorian of my high school. Though I never knew him personally, I knew his brother and others who were close to him. Watching the news coverage of the accident in my freshmen speech class was an experience as surreal and emotionally charged for my high school as was watching the second plane crash into the tower two years later in my statistics course. There's a memorial built near the accident site honoring the twelve students. I've visited it twice with each of my parents, once in the daytime and once at night. It's a beautifully designed memorial and a moving experience to read about the lives of the twelve and see their faces etched in stone. If you ever come visit, I'll take you there if you like.

This memorial is also near my parking lot, and today when I drove by I noticed an unusually large crowd entering the site and a school bus parked nearby. I suppose this was a school field trip which made me wonder: What's the educational purpose of this field trip? There are many valuable lessons to be learned from visiting this memorial: honoring those who have fallen, the transience of life, and the necessity to create something meaningful out of our lives. However, these all seem a bit too existential to fall within the normal realm of public school education. I do think I had some AP English courses that touched upon these themes, and perhaps the students were from an English course, and will soon be turning in compositions based on what they experienced. Or perhaps it was a history course, and this field trip was something akin to visiting the Vietnam War Memorial in DC. You know, I automatically assumed that the students were from a local school, but I never was able to see what the side of the school bus said. Perhaps they were actually from one of the high schools attended by one of the twelve and had driven in from somewhere near Houston or Austin. If this was the case, then perhaps no lesson was being contrived from this experience - they were simply paying homage to an alumnus. Whether they were directly connected to one of the twelve or not, I'm glad that many experience this memorial.

striped socks and track shoes

I cried tonight while watching Juno. I never expected a clever comedy about a sarcastically witty pregnant teenager to make my cry, but it did. I wasn't bawling or anything and the tears weren't even falling down my cheeks, but I was wiping my wet eyes by the end of it.

What other films have made me cry? The Lion King, Armageddon, We Were Soldiers, Crash. I'm sure there were a few others, but it's somewhat rare for me to cry during a film. It's usually scenes of extreme loss and grief that cause me to cry tears of sadness, but my tears during Juno weren't tears of sadness - at least not for the characters anyway. There was a sense of loss, but mostly I felt joy for the characters who had found something that they were deeply longing for.

What films make you cry?

and they were all yellow

While Texas isn't known for its fall foliage, there is this one lovely tree that I walk under every day on the way to work. Last week, this tree exploded into a vibrant bright yellow, and simultaneously dropped half of its yellow leaves onto the ground below. Every day since then, no matter what I may be thinking about ("Am I running late? I hope no one is waiting on me!" "What will I say in this presentation I'm giving today?"), as I walk through the sea of yellow below and gaze at the same bright canopy above, I am overwhelmed by the colors and utterly compelled to smile. There's no choice in this action, and very little thought involved; I simply experience the colors and feel a rush of joy.

awful feels softer

I'm glad you guys enjoyed my last post - thank you so much for the encouragement. The night I wrote it, I stayed up very late, talking online with friends, reading blogs about theology, and discovering a cool site where you can download 10-12 minute guided prayers to listen to on your mp3 player or computer.

That night, I listened to a "Review of the Day" guided prayer before going to bed. As the sacred music played, the soft voice of a British woman asked me to remember the gifts I was given this past day. My mind immediately went to Cara, whom I had called after finding out the bad news about the school earlier that day. The empathy she offered was a gift. I felt grateful and at peace, realizing that if I never experienced heartache and rejection, I would also lose the gift of empathy that my friends and family give to me when I'm hurting. I think that gift is beautiful enough to make enduring the heartache worth it.

Then, I entered my bathroom to get ready for bed. I looked at myself in the mirror and smiled. I just stood there grinning for a moment, believing that smile, feeling that everything was going to be good.

After getting ready for bed, I checked my email one last time. There, in my inbox, was an invitation from another school to come visit them in March! I just wanted to laugh at how up and down this process has been. I saw that the email had been sent at 10:30pm, and for a moment I wished that I had checked it earlier before I wrote that long post, pouring out my heartache. But on second thought, I realized how good it was for me to deal with this rejection without the glimor of hope from another school.

For about 12 or 13 hours, I was rejected and without any tangible hope. But God picked me up and gave me that smile. I hope I never forget that hope, that smile, that arrived at 2:30am on the evening of an awful day.

"If life's not beautiful without the pain,Well I'd just rather never ever even see beauty again."

Sorry, Modest Mouse, but I don't agree with you. Not this week, anyway.