5 Things I'm Thankful For In 2017

Happy Thanksgiving!

This year has been incredible, filled with a lot of really great ups that I'm excited to celebrate.  As per tradition here on my blog, I've created a list of things that I'm grateful for this year.

1. Community of Peace.  I got my first job this year and formally started with students in August.  Technically, at the time this post is published, I'm in the middle of week 14 with students.  Working at this school, out of all the schools I applied for, has been the greatest gift to me.  I'm grateful that I work at a school that generously gives first-time teachers a chance to learn and grow in their craft.  I'm grateful for an infinitely supportive staff that's more like a great big family.  I'm grateful for the kids I work with and how they make me smile every single day and keep me on my toes in a way that no other job has enabled me to do.  They show me my strengths and they show me where I need to grow so I can do better by them.  I'm not even scratching the surface on how amazing this place is and how wonderful it is to be part of this team.

2. My Husband.  We celebrated our first year of marriage this year and soon it'll be nine whole years of being together.  I am grateful to have my Jack by my side no matter where we go, grateful to have adventures with him, I'm grateful for his infinite understanding and how he helps me become a better person.

3. The Means to Travel.  I'm grateful that while we aren't swimming in oceans of cash, surfing on the waves of extra time, that we're still able to make time to travel and explore and are able to set aside enough to make adventures happen.  I'm thankful for that flexibility and that freedom.

4. The Company of Smart People.  I'm grateful for experienced individuals I have had the privilege of speaking to and growing with because I've had the opportunity to have conversations about hard-hitting issues with them.  When I write this, I'm thinking of the book club I was with briefly, but this happens for me in so many contexts, so I appreciate being in contact with people like this.

5. Experiences That Inspire Me To Grow.  Not everything this year has been all sunshine and rainbows.  But even the experiences that caused me the most stress, made me cry, and were just plain hard, have helped to make me a better person.  They've helped me figure out the ways I need to grow and have made me a stronger person in many ways.  As hard as things like substitute teaching were, I wouldn't take those back.  So instead of being resentful of the kids that were absolute jerks and the staff people who were unsupportive and every other negative thing, I want to be thankful that they happened.  As one door closes, another one opens somewhere.  That's what I like to think.

There's still a month and a half left in 2017, but so far, this has been a great year with a lot of growing moments and a lot of times to be grateful for.  Thank you for being part of it for me.

--Jude

Taking Care of Myself

Recently, the right circumstances have arisen where I have started making an effort towards getting serious about my health.  It's been about two weeks-- I didn't want to talk about it when I started because I was worried that I wouldn't keep up with it.  I've realized that in the past, I have talked about these plans that I have and unless they are well-supported by outside help, they didn't really lift off the ground.  This time, I'm doing something right.  So I want to talk about what I'm doing and what tools I'm using to sort of reflect on this experience so far.

My Exercise and Incentive Chart

My first goal was to walk more.  I find walking enjoyable and it's a flexible enough exercise where I can do it throughout the day, or I can decide that I need a break from whatever I'm doing and go walk somewhere for an hour.  It doesn't have to happen in a gym setting unless I want it to.  I got my fiance to participate in this practice with me.  We both got new pedometers and have made it a practice to wear it every day and compare at night just before we go to sleep.  What I needed and wanted was a record to show how far I've gone and a way to keep me motivated to continue keeping track.  My charts look like this:

The top chart is the chart my fiance and I use to track how far we've gone as individuals.  This is just my half because I don't know if this is something Jack would be willing to share with the world.  But I don't mind.  Every day for the past two weeks, I have been careful to take down my miles, even if I reached far below the recommended 10,000 steps a day.  As you can see, I started slow in the beginning and I continue to have dips in numbers of steps, but I've walked and made some kind of progress every day.  The red boxes on the far left indicate number of weeks that have gone by while the green on the far right indicates when I have reached or surpassed a milestone in our incentive chart.  I think this alone has kept me motivated to continue to keep track of my activity.  It's gratifying when every two or three days, I'm reaching a milestone and I know exactly how far I have to go to reach that next goal.

My incentive chart is below.  I created a chart with incentives for 10-500 miles.  The incentives range from going to see a movie at one of the smaller, local movie theaters to going to the zoo or seeing another part of the Twin Cities to taking the MegaBus to Chicago.  We haven't cashed in on our incentives yet, mostly because we're nearing the end of the semester and there's so little extra time, but it still feels good to be earning these activities so that we can do them at a later time.  If you've had trouble keeping motivated to exercise, I recommend this strategy.  I need a carrot in front of my nose to get me to go and stick with something.  That's just a thing I know about myself, so instead of changing that part about me, I roll with it.

Lose It! App

I discovered this App through a person I follow on Instagram.  I'm still very new to the App, but wow, this has been a real game-changer for me.  One of my biggest struggles in the past has been that I don't keep track of my food.  Or even if I think about what I'm eating, it's a very misguided record.  This way, I choose from a list or enter in the food that I'm eating and this App keeps track of the calories that I bring in.  It's kind of like Weight Watchers, as I understand it, where you choose a goal weight and then you can eat anything you want, but you do have a certain number of calories you can have in order to stay on track.  So I entered a goal weight and a date that I wanted to reach that goal and the App said (not really said), "Alright, if you want to stay on track, you need this many calories in a day."  I was impressed because I tried to make a more extreme goal (same goal weight, but at a soon date, around my wedding day) and an advisory popped up saying that my goal was not a safe one and that I needed to adjust it.  I'm so impressed by this.  It's not enabling people looking for a quick fix, but making you think about what is reasonable for your body.

It also takes into account the exercise that you do.  So every day, I've eaten more than my allotted 1,400 calories, but I've had enough exercise to make this okay.  This App also has some nutrition information so that I can see, in basic terms, what I'm eating.  I have yet to make meaning out of this part of the App, but like I said, I'm just starting out with this.

Last night, I overate at dinner and this app took into account my other meals and snacks and the exercise that I had done already and told me that I was x number of calories over what I needed to stay on track.  So I knew that I needed to go on a walk.  I didn't have to do homework right at that moment, so I went on a walk.  It was really nice because I was compensating for my big meal and I was able to go out and explore parts of my neighborhood that I haven't been to before.  It was wonderful.

So that's where I am right now.  I'm enjoying this experience of keeping my health in mind wherever I go.  These tools have motivated me to get up and do something when I might not have been motivated otherwise.  I walk to and from school whenever I can, I walk to my jobs when the weather isn't awful, I'm in the habit of going to the gym on Mondays because it's always exciting when I get over 10,000 steps.  This is a great point in my life.  I wish that I had done this sooner.

Moving Out

Written last night, the night before I move.  Please pardon the verbiage.

Over the past few weeks, I have slowly but surely been packing up my bedroom at home.  Tomorrow, 1 September, I'm moving out of my childhood home and moving into my first apartment with my fiance.  It started looking like I was serious about moving maybe a week or two ago.  At first, it was just the books on my shelves that made their way into boxes and into the corner of the dining room.  But then the closet started getting cleaned out and the wire cubes that functioned as bookshelves for me were broken down and packed away, leaving a lot of extra space.  My extra blankets were packed up and the clothes in my closet nestled into a suitcase.  The only things left to pack now are so minor that they will be thrown in on top of the contents of the already packed boxes.

Not from tonight.  The room is even emptier now.

It's weird though because I haven't felt sad about leaving like I thought I would.  I mean, this is a momentous occasion and a milestone to check off in my life.  I'm no longer going to b living with my parents (I can't mention my sister here because she's moving to college a handful of days after I move).  But I'm not feeling sad.  It's just kind of a thing in my life that is happening, although I'm an active part of it.  I did sign the lease, after all. My dad asked me if it felt weird to be permanently leaving home.  Even I was surprised when I said "Not really," or something to this tune.  It's not that I don't love my family or that I hate being home, because neither of those things are true.  But the feeling remains.

My apartment is close to home-- it's just a few minutes away from my University, and I've lived there before.  The distance is not new, just the way to get to my apartment is new.  But having to go a different direction isn't upsetting, or at least it shouldn't be.

So my only explanation for my indifferent feelings toward moving out is this: I'm ready.  I started being ready back in Amsterdam, the day my fiance proposed, although I might not have been fully aware at that point.  There were too many other things going on at once.  But by saying 'yes,' I was starting a new chapter in my life.  I'm engaged and if all goes well, we'll be married next year.  I'll have to find a real "big girl" job next year.  So in a way, life was saying "Yeah, time to get a move on (literally) whether you like it or not" and in a different way saying, "Yeah, I know," and taking life's hand and walking into the sunset together.

So while there are a number of things that need to be taken care of tomorrow, I know I'm ready and I know that it's time.  I'm not sad, but instead I'm excited for the things that lie ahead, even if I don't quite know what lies ahead.

I'm not sure just yet how much I'll miss my childhood room.  A lot has happened in here that went into my growing up, both good things and bad (although I won't talk about the bad here... it's not the time for that).  This is where I did most of my reading, this is where I did my homework.  This is where I sat on the floor and opened my high school graduation cards.  This is the room I lived in from the time I was six months to until now, at the "ripe age" of 21.  This is where my sister and I tried to co-habitate for a short period of time (it didn't work out).  This is the room where, when I was younger, I would sing myself to sleep just because I liked to sing and I loved Disney songs.  This is where I packed for my first trip to France and my semester in the Netherlands.  This is where I wrote my stories and began to grow as a writer.  This is where I stayed up and read Harry Potter long into the night even though I wasn't supposed to.

This has been a great room and I can't wait to see what my new place brings.  But only time will tell.

Thanks for Reading!

--Jude

Goals For 2015

It's almost the new year, so that means it's time to think about what changes I want to make for next year.  The following post will be blogging goals and life goals and I'll do my best to keep track of them here.

Blogging Goals

1. Read Freely.  While this is considered a book blog, this year, reading isn't going to be my top priority when it comes to this blog.  So there won't be book review posts every week like I've done this year.  I'll say more about this if you keep reading.

2. Blog More About Life.  Post pictures, stories, poems, videos... that type of thing.

3. Blog in Different Forms.  Videos, pictures, etc.

4. Read More Classics.  Keep up what progress you have.  You're probably going to need the classics when you take your GRE test someday (but right now, we don't like to think about that day).  To make this goal measurable, let's say: I will resolve to read 7 classic pieces of literature in the year 2015.  More is good, but seven is the minimum.

5. Read The Books On Your Shelves.  I have so many books on my shelves and a lot of them, I'm a little ashamed to admit, I haven't read yet.  As I read the books on my shelves at this time, I will make decisions about whether or not I will ever read that book again and either put them back on my shelf or put them in a box to sell or donate.

Life Goals

1. Write More.  In the past for NaNoWriMo, I've done written updates over the course of the month.  I want to do written updates like this every couple of weeks throughout the year.  I think this will help me develop a routine and stick to it because I'll feel like I'm answering to someone, whether that's actually true or not.

2. Develop a Routine for Exercise.  I think I'll have an okay time with this.  In the spring, I'll be living at home after I return from my Netherlands adventure.  So when I commute to school, I can check my calendar and pack not only books on a given day, but also clothes that I can get sweaty in and shoes that I can be active in.  I can make that a routine.  I should have been able to do that while living at school, but a lot of the time that didn't happen.  It's silly, because I lived across the street from the gym.  Now that won't be the case, so I'll be likely to plan going to the trip since I won't have easy access during the week nights any more.

3. Find a Study Spot and Make a Routine.  I want to find a place that's not at home where I can spend time working on my own with no distractions.  I have a desk at home, but I have a feeling that I'm going to have some trouble working there because a) it's the resting place for idle objects and b) home comes with a lot of distractions.  I'm thinking a secret place in the library will be nice.  But I'll do a thorough inspection.  I'm planning on taking a J-Term class (two days after I come home from Europe... call me crazy) so I'll have time to look without a ton of people on campus.

4. Move Into My First Off-Campus Apartment.  My significant other, Jack, and I have been talking about doing this.  We would like to move in together into an apartment that is close to both of our campuses.  We have quite a bit to figure out regarding this goal, but I'm going to keep this in mind any way.  We're going to look for places in the spring, but I think a lot of places won't let us move in until after school ends or right before the new school year will start.  I do hope this goal pans out this year.  It'll be nice to have a place of our own, to not have fire drills at 5:30 am once a semester, and to not have to move out during winter holidays or summer.  Rent will be a new thing, but I think I'm getting to a point in my life where I do want a place I can call my own.  Even a small place.

5. Make A Donation.  I've been thinking about this for a while.  I've been volunteering for a couple of years now, but I want to do more in the world.  I'm one person and I can't do too many things in the world at once.  So I want to find a charity that I can help out once a month.  I mean, my donations will be small (maybe $10-$15) each month, but it'll add up to quite a bit.  If you have charity ideas, I'm all ears.

I'm hoping for good things this year.  What are some goals that you have for yourself?

Thanks for Reading!

--Jude

How To Be A Decent Roommate

Fall semester for Universities are starting very soon, if they haven't already.  For a lot of students, they'll be living with their first roommate or are returning and want a better experience than last year.  I have had four roommates total over the past two years and most of my friends have been roommates themselves.  I have stories and they've told me some of their horror stories about their worst roommates.  I don't claim to be the world's most perfect roommate, but if you're just entering college or getting into a situation where you have a roommate, this list is for you.  I think you'll have a better experience with your roommate.***

This sounds a little dysfunctional to me....

1. Make a Roommate Agreement and Follow it.  It sounds stupid and it'll feel stupid when you're doing it, but it's actually a really helpful tool.  If you're attending college, they'll might give you a contract to go through with your roommate(s).  If there is no pre-made contract for you, make sure to say what's really important to you.  Is it okay if your roommate uses your dishes?  Say so.  Would you be really bothered if they borrowed clothes from your closet?  Say that.  Do you have a particular time of day when you really need it quiet?  Get it out in the open.  This is a space to say what's okay and what's not and to inform the other of your major habits before they find out the hard way.  It's a worthwhile courtesy.

2. Use Your Words, Not Your Fists (Or Other Assorted Weapons).  Things aren't always going to be hunky-dory in your dorm or apartment.  Sometimes you'll say stupid things to each other and you'll get offended.  Sometimes you'll be doing something that's really bothersome.  Instead of getting really mad and possibly resorting to physical violence, talk.  If your roommate really needs to wash their dishes due to lack of space or a mysterious odor, tell them.  If you really offended each other, take a break, but then come back and talk about it.  Write down what you want to say if you have to.  You don't have to be best friends with your roommate, but you do need to make a valiant effort towards living with them.  You might as well make your time together bearable.  On the other hand, maybe you're the perpetrator as opposed to the victim in this situation.  Your job is to hear your roommate.  Hear what they're saying and do your best to fix whatever behavior is causing trouble.  The worst thing you could do is ignore your roommate's concerns.

3. Take care of yourself.  I mean this in two ways.  The first way is literal-- shower, brush your teeth, etc.  Your roommate(s) have to live with you.  If you're not taking care of yourself, they're going to suffer just as much as you.  Plus, you're putting your roommates in the position to act as your parent, which they never signed up to do.  Your roommate's job is not to tell you to take a shower or put some deodorant on.  They're there to sleep and possibly to go to school.  They have better things to do with their day.

The second way is to take stock of yourself.  Is this living situation working well for you?  Is your roommate giving you space to get the things that need to be finished done?  Can you afford to be in this living situation, roommates aside?  If you and your roommate just can't get along no matter how many times you've talked and no matter what either of you has done to fix it, it's time to move on.  If you can't afford your part of the rent or utilities, that's a problem and you need to find a way to work that out too.  If you are having trouble doing your work in your living space, you need to address the problem or find somewhere to go where you can get work done.

4. Don't Let Just One Person Buy Everything.  I didn't have too much of a problem with this, but one of my former roommates had bad roommates that would take advantage of her and expect her to buy things like toilet paper, cleaning supplies, and other things that one would regularly need.  This depends a little bit on what kind of living situation you have.  If you're living in a dorm, you probably don't have to split up those daily things, but things like furniture and common decorations will need to be discussed.  If you're living in a suite or an apartment (on or off campus) you'll need to figure out some furniture and these daily things.  If just one person is buying a majority or all of the things you both need/want, you're going to have some tension and a potentially angry roommate.  Figure out what you absolutely need and split it up as evenly as possible.

5. To A Certain Extent, Be Flexible and Understanding.  Be open to experience and different lifestyles.  If you don't, you're going to cause a rift between you and your roommate, which is super uncomfortable.  If you have a Muslim roommate who needs to pray five times a day, don't demand that they stop or adjust their schedule because it's an inconvenience to you.  If your roommate is Wiccan and is performing rituals that are different and foreign to you, don't treat them like they're crazy or need an exorcism via the nearest Catholic priest-- ask questions and make an effort to understand.  If your roommate likes to exercise at night, ask them about it or try joining in instead of staring and wondering when they're going to stop.  No matter what situation you're in, I have one BIG or overarching piece of advice: Never assume that your roommate is trying to change or affect you in any way.  They're living their life just like you.  Make an effort to understand what is important to your roommate and respect them.  Respect will probably be returned to you.

These are some important things to think about if you're getting into a situation where you'll live with a roommate.  I hope this helps!

Do you have any roommate horror stories?  What did you learn from having a roommate?

Thanks for Reading!

--Jude

***Disclaimer: this post does not guarantee that you will be best friends with your roommate or even that you will function well together.  These are just some challenges that I or some of my friends have encountered while being roommates ourselves and is not a prediction or a definite fact of what your roommate experience will be like.

On Reviewing Classic Literature

I have this conflict with myself when it comes to reviewing critically acclaimed books.  Books like "Fahrenheit 451," "The Scarlet Letter," "To Kill A Mockingbird," and "The Catcher in the Rye."  These are books that I have finished and have reviewed already or will soon review.  Reading them was an easy decision to make, but critiquing them was another thing altogether.  I feel like because they're considered to be classic literature and I'd go ever further as to apply the label "timeless" to a lot of these books, that I can't give them anything below four or five stars (according to my rating system).  They've lasted for decades and have been cherished by so many.  Teachers across the U.S., if not across the world, teach these books.  They wouldn't do this if they weren't worth reading, right?  People don't blindly say, "This book changed my life" about amazing books, right?  These things wouldn't happen if these classics weren't 100% perfect and wonderful, right?

By reading some classic literature and thinking about it, I've decided that... no.  Not even the classics are automatically perfect and wonderful.

When I read books, I generally rate them based on how I feel about the following things:

• Characters
• Writing style
• Quality of the message* being conveyed ("Is this message something that I need in my life right now?")
• Plot

Sometimes books, whether they're considered classic literature or not, have great stories, but the main character sucks or the supporting characters are cardboard.  Maybe a book has superior characters and an amazing story line, but the writer seems not to trust the reader and the message isn't something that I feel is important to my life at the time that I read a book.  Classic literature is not the exception.  Just because a teacher assigns a book in class doesn't mean that I will like it or that it'll be relevant to my life when I read it, whether that's in high school or college.  Just because it's a classic book that I'm reading doesn't mean that it can't have flaws.

Once upon a time, the books that we consider to be all-important and classic were unknown to the world.  No writer is an instant success when they publish their first book (none that I have come across, any way).  I read a lot of books that were written years ago or were published just this year.  Some of them may become classics sometime in my lifetime or even after I'm dead and gone.  There's no way I can know, because I'm not on any official committees to decide what new books will be included in the canon (list of classic literature, essentially.) and which ones are too obsolete for the canon.  I read a book and I figure out how I feel about it.  Books like the Harry Potter series could be officially put on the canon someday-- a set of books that I love.  Storm of Iron by Graham McNeill could become a classic piece of literature (although I sincerely doubt that for a variety of reasons)-- this was a book that I would prefer had never existed in the first place, it was so awful.  And if it does become part of the canon, I now hate a piece of classic literature.

Classic literature started out as books that only a few people knew about and then were deemed representative of the time and timeless (yeah, all at the same time) by a committee of people (probably scholars).  They come from the same place that every other book in existence comes from.  The same general steps are taken, but their fate is up to us entirely.  And that's why it's okay, even today, to review classic literature and really like or really dislike them as you would any other book.

That's where my logic goes any way.  What are your thoughts on this topic?

Thanks for Reading!

--Jude

*Message here does not necessarily mean the same thing as a lesson.

What I've Learned From TLC Shows

During school, while I've been going to classes and doing homework, I've been digging into shows that are aired by the TLC network.  You know, "Sister Wives," "19 Kids and Counting," and "My Big Fat American Gypsy Wedding," to name a few.  Yes, you can go ahead and judge me.

I call these shows my crappy TV shows.  I watch them during breakfast and when I don't want to think very seriously about anything.  But even though I call them my crappy TV shows and watch every season available just because I can, I'm still learning something.  Learning something from a crappy TV show?  Impossible, right?  Nope.

I have increasingly realized that this network is all about different life styles.  It's for people like me who don't live as a fundamentalist Mormon family would.  It's for people like me who only have one sibling and not 18 siblings.  It's for people like me who don't struggle in a marginalized culture and who would never dream about hosting lavish parties full of what I'd call gaudy clothing and accessories.

The people in these shows lead lives that the average American person doesn't lead.  It's a consensual voyeur experience.  People who don't live lives like these ones are allowed (I'd even go so far as to say welcomed) to look, make their judgments, hear from the people living these out of the ordinary lives, and ask questions about things that are just beyond our comprehension-- things that we would only understand if this situation were ours.

TLC has taught me tolerance and understanding.
I'm uncomfortable even thinking about having a huge and very conservative family.  But I've really come to admire the Duggar family for raising the number of children that they did and homeschooling them all, even if those are choices I wouldn't make for myself or my future family.  

I know that I never want to be a sister wife, but I love hearing from the four moms of "Sister Wives" to get an idea of what it's like to be in the situation they're in (and it has gotten intense, although I haven't finished all seasons of the show yet).  From listening to them, I've learned a little bit about why they wanted to be a sister wife and what's in it for them.  The wives have companionship with each other that wives from separate families just don't have-- can't have, because they aren't joined with the same man.  I'm not a fan of the husband though... I guess I haven't learned tolerance for him.

"My Big Fat American Gypsy Wedding" was interesting because I wasn't aware of gypsy culture.  I thought that it was a bad term to use and I didn't realize that they still existed (for lack of a better way to put it).  My idea of a gypsy is very old-fashioned-- wagons, small groups, rural... I'm not sure what else.  So to get a more updated version of this culture was interesting to learn about.  They certainly love their special occasions, and they love it when they're celebrated grandly.

Watching TLC shows certainly isn't a good replacement for watching National Geographic documentaries or the History Channel, but it's a treat to learn about identities and lifestyles that are remote enough where I could have gone my whole life and not have heard anything about them.

Have you learned anything from seemingly crappy TV shows?

Thanks for Reading!

--Jude

One More Year of University Under My Belt

It's really late to be posting things like this, but I'm going to do it any way.  When you notice progress, celebrate it.

My last school year was crazy.  Sometimes in good ways and other times in bad ways.  It was a challenging year.  But I think I've learned a lot and grown as a person too.  Let me count (some of) the ways...

1. Tried My Hand At A Leadership Position.  This year, I was on the Residence Hall Association Executive Board as the Improvements Chair.  I applied to be an RA at the end of my first year and wasn't accepted, so instead, I was approached by the RHA Advisor about being on the E-Board instead.  I met with her to see how I could improve next time I applied and I think that impressed her to some degree.  So I've learned to follow up even on opportunities where I'm rejected.  It can only help me.  Being on the Improvements Chair gave me more experience working with people-- dealing with their complaints so that I could try and make their lives better and working with a group to organize big events and get help.  It was a lot of work, but I'm very happy with my decision to be on the board.  I won't be back next year due to studying abroad and not being a campus resident any longer, but I think the new board will do just as well.

Residence Hall Association E-Board 2013-2014

2. Learned To Deal With Interpersonal Conflict.  This ranges from solving problems with my boyfriend to dealing with my roommates.  This was the first time I've lived with people whom I didn't have any prior experience with.  My first roommate was someone I went to high school with and roomed with in France when we traveled there.  We had a good idea of what the other was like when it came to our living habits and such.  But that wasn't the case this year.  We had problems when it came to being inflexible about certain habits, openly not liking friends, experiencing the affects of each other's stress, and balancing... everything.  This year's living situation took a lot more work, but I'm glad that I went through it.  I think that it was good for me.

3. I Took Some Risks In Classes.  I took a public speaking class in the fall.  I consider myself to be a pretty strong writer, but awful at public speaking, even if 'public speaking' is just in front of one person.  I struggle to figure out how to say what I want to say often.  While I can't say that I'm the best public speaker that anyone has ever heard, I can say that I've improved a little.  I even got a little reassurance when everyone told me that the best speech I gave was when I was teaching the class about the community of people surrounding Harry Potter.  I'm very proud of that speech.  I'll never speak on a political level and I'll never be to the level that my professor is at, but if I can present information well and in an interesting way, I say that I'm doing okay, given what I want to do with the rest of my life.  This particular speech class also helped me learn to communicate with my professors.  In the beginning, we were required to turn in a transcript for every speech.  After the first speech I wrote about my Nani, a speech I'm proud of on paper, I asked my professor if I could do without the transcript, realizing that I was trying to memorize what I had written.  I did much better with a heavy outline.

4. Got The Ball Rolling For Study Abroad.  I filled out my application, I've done my running around to obtain various documents and signatures (still doing that, actually... super last-minute) that are needed before my departure, I bought my plane tickets, I've prepped this blog, met with one of the girls who will also be going on the trip with me... putting aside the fact that I'm not nearly ready to pack yet, I could probably be prepared to leave for the Netherlands in a week or two.

5. I'm Starting An Honors Project For The English Department.  A new project was created for English majors to complete, should they choose to.  Students can write research papers, works of fiction, nonfiction, poetry, etc. and work on it one year leading up to their graduation.  So that's what I'm going to do.  I've met with people who are willing to help me write what I want to write and I've started gathering ideas on how to write what I want to write.  I've also though about what I want to write about.  I want to write a nonfiction something (right now, the plan is a memoir) about my study abroad experience in the Netherlands this fall.  Since I haven't experienced it yet, I can't make any solid decisions.

6. Made The Dean's List.  This is the first time that I've done this since I started college.  Last semester, I earned all A's and A-'s in my classes resulting in a GPA of at least 3.667 for the semester.  I'm really happy with this result because there were classes where I had challenging papers that would bring me to tears some nights, challenging things to think about, tons of stuff to balance... but I did it.  And I'm really happy about this.  I'd like to thank the Academy.

This past year challenged me in more ways that I ever thought possible, but I can say that I made it through alive.  I think that next year will be even better than the last, bringing its own set of challenges and things to work through and deal with, but also some good memories, I hope.  I'm pretty excited for it.

Thanks for Reading!

--Jude

An Homage to a Life

It's never easy when someone you love passes on.

The story is complicated and very personal, so I won't go into too much detail here, but this is something that I really want to talk about.  Need to talk about, even.

My Uncle struggled with his health for over three years.  Troubles with his breathing, troubles with his brain, troubles with his heart... he spent years in and out of hospitals, struggling to be healthy and to live as normal of a life as possible.  But only last week, my family and I were told that things weren't looking so good.  We were hopeful, but I think we were also preparing for the worst case scenario.  We received updates from my grandpa about every other day, or at least as news came in, which everyone really appreciated, I think.

On a Friday night, I went and visited my Uncle in the hospital.  He was more broken and unaware than I have ever seen him before.  I cried gigantic tears and my mom and I held each other through the time we were there, however brief it was.

Sunday, I was at the mall with my boyfriend and we were on the train about to head home when my mom called and told me that the decision that was made was the the breathing tubes would be disconnected and my Uncle would be allowed to go on his own, whenever his body let him.  I tried not to cry on the phone, but as soon as I got off, they fell again and I think my boyfriend had an idea what was going on.  He just held me.

We finished our shopping and went back to my boyfriend's dorm where we played games and hung out for a while.  Not a few hours later, my mom sent a text and my sister contacted me as well.  My phone ran out of batteries, so I couldn't respond for a while.  As soon as I saw that my mom texted me, I knew they news I was going to receive.  So I didn't call her back, even though I probably should have.

When I talked to my sister who gave me the news, I really didn't know how to feel.  I had no more tears.  I was getting choked up, making sure my sister was okay, but I couldn't cry any more.  I sat in the middle of my boyfriend's dorm room just thinking.

It felt wrong for me not to feel more sad.  I should be crying, causing a scene... but I wasn't.

To receive the news that I was losing one of my favorite Uncles wasn't really a shock at all.  In my mind, I lost my Uncle 2-3 years ago; When problems started in his brain and his personality changed from the easy-going and very funny guy to someone completely unrecognizable.

This is what confuses me about my own grief: I don't seem to be grieving much at all.  I wasn't surprised to hear the news of his passing.  I was relieved, in a way.  He was out of his misery and this whole nightmare of a situation was over.  I was more sad thinking about how my dad and other Uncle had just lost another brother and how my grandparents had just lost another son.

My mom put up a picture of him on Facebook from a time when he was relatively happy and he was our happy, smiling Uncle again.  There were a billion messages saying 'my condolences' or 'I'm sorry for your loss' or other similar sentiments.  It's a nice thought, but those messages succeeded in nothing else but making me mad.  I don't think these people quite understand, even if my mom kept them all updated on my Uncle's status.  It's easy to feel misunderstood.  But then my neighbor got on and was talking about celebrating his life and what we as a family remembered about him.  Another lady who had lost her husband to a terminal illness advised us to just remember the wonderful times we had with him and make sure to take care of ourselves too.  These comments made me feel much, much better and it kind of explained why those supposed to be comforting comments were so upsetting to me.  They were so negative and sad when I don't feel that my Uncle's death was such a negative thing and not entirely sad either (though it still is a little sad).  He was not going to get better.  I believe the doctors gave us a 0% statistic for his recovery, or something hovering around that number.

I think I'm adopting a new philosophy about funerals and death.  Funerals need to be a time to remember.  It needs to be a way to accept what happened, get some closure, and start to move on.  I don't think that it's a real enough expectation for people to not be sad, but I feel like funerals need to be a bit more positive-- less morose and downtrodden.

I think that this is a post I really needed to write, so if you've read through this entire thing, thank you very, very much.  I'd like to hear your thoughts and stories about death, dying, and funerals, if you're willing to share with me.

Thanks for Reading!

--Jude

Thoughts On Valentine's Day

I love Valentine's Day!  And I'm not just saying that because of the Boyfriend.  It's a day that celebrates all kinds of love, whether it's directed at your best friend whom you've known for eleven years or a significant other that you have decided to commit to on a different level than just friendship.

It's a day to turn to that person you've taken for granted (it's quite possible) and remind them that you care about them, you appreciate everything they do, and that you're not afraid to show it.

What I dislike about Valentine's Day is the hate that comes with it.  The fact that a handful of people call it "Singles Awareness Day."  It doesn't have to be about not having a boyfriend or a girlfriend.  It can be celebrating your mom, dad, and grandparents all on the same day!  It can be celebrating your best friends for sticking with you through something difficult.  You can celebrate the existence of your pet, who loves you enough to sleep at the end of the bed and keep your toes warm (or right next to you in order to keep you company).

Something else that I dislike about Valentine's Day is how it has turned into another consumer holiday and such a lot of fuss too.  Couples proposing to each other, rushing around trying to get the last minute flowers and cards, dinner reservations that were left unreserved until the last minute... perhaps you are familiar with what I'm talking about.  It's a little sad to me that a homemade card or a home cooked meal just doesn't cut it (in some cases).  The effort doesn't matter, only the monetary symbol at the end of the night.  It's sad...

So tomorrow, despite what Valentine's Day used to be or has become, I'm going to head to school, listen to a lot of Singing Telegrams all day long (now THAT'S effort!), give the Boyfriend a plate of pink vanilla-flavored cookies that I made him tonight, and go home to prepare for babysitting later.  I'll celebrate my Valentine's Day with "Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace" and "The Shawshank Redemption" over the weekend (I hope!) and it'll be awesome!

Happy Valentine's Day!

--Jude

Thoughts on Life and Zombieland

Today (well, technically yesterday) I had a day where I did a lot of deep thinking. It all started with watching ‘Zombieland’…

If you’re familiar with the movie, you’ll know that everyone, at least in the United States, has been turned into zombies except for four people and Bill Murray. You would never pick these four people to take a road trip together so that they can get to Pacific Play Land where there are, supposedly, no zombies whatsoever.

Columbus has this tiny notepad where he wrote down some personal rules that he keeps and refers to often throughout the movie.

First thing that I thought about: How much I really, really want to take a road trip. I don’t really care where we end up going. Heck, I’m game for just taking whatever strip of highway looks best and then getting the Google map later so that we can get back. The big thing that I want to do is see the world and what better way to do that than to get lost and find all the good hiding places?

Second thing: How Columbus’ rules really can and should apply to real life. Seatbelts, that’s obvious. Double tap was a little harder. The only thing that I can think of since I wrote this as a draft at 2:17 in the morning is food. If you’re not entirely sure if your food is ready, cook it again for a little bit longer. Appreciate the little things, absolutely. Lots of people are so worried about the big picture: a crumbling economy, politics and whether or not it’s working to their advantage, health care, parents, children… it’s all so overwhelming when you step back and take it all in. In the big mosaic of life, when you step back too far, you miss those intricate patterns that you would have easily have caught had you been standing closer to the wall.

Never thought that I would get that from ‘Zombieland’!

(My actual elementary school, just several years ago when there was no areal mural. Excuse the bad quality)

Later, when I decided to exit my room and actually be social, I went into my basement where my mom was getting ready for bed and my sister was watching a movie on TBS. It just happened to be ‘Forest Gump.’ I’m not sure what caused her to get up, but my sister got up, left the room, and returned with her box of stuff from grade school. It seemed like a cool idea, so I followed suite and went and retrieved mine

Old art projects, crappy yearbooks, humongous handwriting that I can’t even dream of reading any more… it’s a huge nostalgia-fest, but it was really nice to just take stuff out of our boxes and show each other what really weird people we used to be. My sister spelled enough like “e-nuff” and I thought that bears “lay their babies” like a bird would lay an egg. So we weren’t the brightest bulbs in the tanning bed… We laughed at horrible spelling and grammar (alright, I did. It was horrendous…), bad pictures that were taken when our hair was cropped too short, we had gained a lot of weight (something I’m still ashamed about to this day, because whenever one of my former classmates finds a picture, they always point out how big I was), or we just looked funny in general…

My entire point of this section of this entry is that I learned just how much I’ve changed over the years. I’m not going to go so far as to say that this had a larger impact on me than on my sister (because she’s about to enter high school and that’s a big step), but since I’m three years older than her, there’s more stuff for me to go through and recollect and remember; she was in fifth grade three years ago and I was in fifth grade six years ago.

I’ve changed a lot. I don’t feel like the crazy-cat-lady that I deem my younger self to be (I’m hardly joking when I say this). I don’t want to be President when I’m forty-six, my notion that you had to be sixteen years old to start babysitting was false… my drawing style has changed significantly. I don’t use crayons nearly as often. I don’t pass notes to my best friend any more because we go to different schools and hardly see each other any more. We do email a lot though. I hope that my writing has improved significantly. Coherent sentences would be nice at the very least… I don’t feel blind to life as I kind of perceived while going through my stuff. I thought I knew so much at such a young age, but I was just a ten year old kid. I can’t know everything. I can’t be completely prepared, because certain curveballs just won’t come my way while others will. As scary as all of that might sound, that makes me feel a little bit better about myself now. If I’ve gotten through all of that crap that happened starting twelve years ago, I feel like I can take on the next great adventure with my head held high and with confident actions.

I’m sorry if this was incredibly dull for you to read, but I felt like I need to write this and I feel so much better! If nothing else, this will be good material for a future story.

Thanks for reading! I’ll try and get some more reviews up in the next few days.

--Jude

Comments and Thoughts on HP7

Here's your first warning...

Proceed at your own risk! If you have not seen HP7 yet, don't bother with this post!

SPOILER ALERT!

I'm really sorry if this video upsets everyone. I felt like this video needed to be made. I needed to talk about it and comment on everything, being the critic that I am. I feel a lot better now.

This will probably be the last Harry Potter related post for a while. I'm not sure what would cause me to do another Harry Potter post unless I reviewed the books.

Thanks for putting up with my geekiness!

--Jude