Much ado

Graduation is tomorrow, and I've been forgetting about it off and on until now. I don't intend this to be a philosophical rant about my life post-graduation; I'm just frustrated that there is so much hassle that goes along with the ceremony. So as I plan to rant about that to you, I realize it's not actually that much, but here I go anyway.

Today, I finally picked up my master's hood from the bookstore, which was 44 dollars (with a tassle). That's ridiculous. Then, I came home to try and figure out how it works. There is a very oddly shaped piece of material coming out of the bottom of it, which, to the best of my knowledge, just needs to be shoved inside the colored material until it's hidden and not oddly shaped. So I was working on that, realizing I was going to get dressed by myself without help, when Lori came home, so I yelled, "Lori! I need you to help me!" I think she expected for something to have collapsed on me. But she couldn't figure the hood out either. Why is it so awkwardly shaped?? And why did liberal arts get white hoods? Isn't white the absence of color? Or all the colors together? Courtney, I'm sure you can help me out with that one. Either one could have some deeper significance... that's probably why white was assigned to liberal arts.

So tonight, I remembered I'll need to wear a dress. I don't have a plethora of dresses - that's Leigh's department. Unfortunately, I don't have access to her closet right now. If I hadn't virtually forgotten about all that goes along with graduation, I wouldn't be worrying about what to wear the midnight before. I started with the shoes. I decided the best shoes were either the stilettos I wore for Courtney's wedding or the sparkly heels from Leigh's. Stylish ladies, they are. I decided on Courtney's because they are strappy and go better with the sundress I found hidden away in my closet. The dress is white with yellow flowers and green leaves. I actually wore the same dress to a Tech graduation when I was a junior - shh, maybe everyone won't remember. Fortunately, I feel like the dress looks better on me now than it did three years ago. I also chose a three quarter sleeved pink cardigan with lace on the shoulders and upper back to wear over the dress to tie it in with the heels. I think it works.

I do feel a bit wobbly in those heels - and they hurt like heck - but what are you going to do? As long as I don't bust it as I'm shaking Dr. Reneau's hand, I can deal with the pain.

For some reason, I also can't stop debating if and where to get lunch with my family tomorrow before graduation, as well as where to go for dinner that evening. Every chance I get, I want Frothy for lunch because it's amazing and I like contributing to the business. However, I always have an issue with not picking the cheapest place to eat when my mom's paying. Oh well, just another thing to think about.

In addition to graduation, here is a list of the holidays that started 45 minutes ago:

Thermos Bottle Day
New York Subway Birthday
Movie Cartoon Birthday
National Pistachio Day
For Pete's Sake Day
Levi Strauss' Birthday
Tell a Fairy Tale Day

Any combination of these could be really entertaining! Go crazy!

Be on your way

I forgot to mention the last reason Monday was truly a new day. We started a new bible study in my community group. The last two that we had done were a bit disappointing, compared to the first one, which changed me so much. So now, we are doing "David: Seeking a Heart Like His" by Beth Moore. This morning, the first scripture I read in the study really spoke to me. As most of you know, I've been disappointed and somewhat sad lately because a situation I had expected to work out in my life, didn't. I've been trying to trust God with it, recognizing that He knows what's happening on all ends of a situation and still controls it all. It's just been hard, and full of ups and downs. I can't say how appreciative I am to those friends of mine who have been there to listen to me whine, cry, or just rant at times. So Monday night, at the end of Beth's lesson, she said to have a heart like David's, one that is after God's own heart, we have to give him ours fully, whatever state it's in. She said if your heart is broken, just give him the pieces and he will make it new. That as refreshing to hear. That, along with gaining a little more understanding on the situation, I woke up Wednesday morning feeling better than I had in a while.

So, back to the scripture I read this morning. 1 Samuel 16:1 is God talking to Samuel, and He says, "How long will you mourn for Saul, since I have rejected him as king over Israel? Fill your horn with oil and be on your way; I am sending you to Jesse of Bethlehem. I have chosen one of his sons to be king." This kind of slapped me in the face. I love the moments where I can so clearly see God taking me by the hand, helping me to learn something and grow and change from it. I took this as God telling me that I need to recognize that he "rejected" the situation that I have been sad about not happening. Now, I need to stop "mourning" it and "be on my way." He's got other, betterd things for me to be doing. Samuel mourned and grieved Saul's disobedience to God because he knew that meant Saul wasn't the right king of Israel. Then God told him to stop mourning because there were other things he needed to be doing - like anointing a new king.

God's process is amazing to me sometimes. And yet so many times, it's still so hard for me to trust. As far as my "filling my horn with oil and being on my way"... I'm still praying about the job in North Carolina and what I should do after the summer. It makes a lot more sense for me to try and get a job here, given the political state of things in South Korea and that having an opportunity at a university would be great, I can't shake feeling like I would never get to go to Korea if I didn't go this year and that I would be taking the easy way out by staying in the States. Maybe it really just is my choice, but before I found this job in NC, I had realized that going to Korea would require me to trust God the most, since it will likely delay my "meeting somebody" at least until I'm almost 26. That scares me. But I do think once I move out of the South, it won't seem like such a big deal because every twenty-something around me won't be married. I'm not making a decision right now; I'm just keeping my heart open for whatever direction God leads as I go "on my way."

Turning a new leaf

Hello again. Monday, I realized I needed to start a new blog and try to keep up with it this time. The title "To name is to know and remember" is a line from my favorite poem "Words" by Dana Gioia. I love this poem because it explores how the world would still be as beautiful and real as it is, even if we never used any words to describe it. But we can't do that. We use words because we need them. Here's the whole poem:

The world does not need words. It articulates itself
in sunlight, leaves, and shadows. The stones on the path
are no less real for lying uncatalogued and uncounted.
The fluent leaves speak only the dialect of pure being.
The kiss is still fully itself though no words were spoken.

And one word transforms it into something less or other—

illicit, chaste, perfunctory, conjugal, convert.
Even calling it a kiss betrays the fluster of hands
glancing the skin or gripping a shoulder, the slow
arching of neck or knee, the silent touching of tongues.

Yet the stones remain less real to those who cannot
name them, or read the mute syllables graven in silica.
To see a red stone is less than seeing it as jasper—
metamorphic quartz, cousin to the flint the Kiowa
carved as arrowheads. To name is to know and remember.

The sunlight needs no praise piercing the rainclouds,
painting the rocks and leaves with light, then dissolving
each lucent droplet back into the clouds that engendered it.
The daylight needs no praise, and so we praise it always—

In the same way, words can help us understand or even figure things out. So my purpose for this blog is two-fold in that it can serve as a way for whoever is reading to be updated about my life and thoughts and hopefully I can learn more about myself and come to new discoveries and conclusions as well in the process.

I'll start by telling you about Monday. Our Christmas tree had been up for about three months until then. Silly as it may sound, I had a lot of emotions wrapped up in that tree's grandiose presence. November through January were pretty emotional months for me; during that time, our Christmas tree was put up (in a whole night of adventure) and many of the nights we'd all stay up late hanging out were lit by the tree instead of the normal lamps. During that time, a lot of people were at our apartment regularly but aren't around anymore for various reasons. And having the massive looming tree, whose lights didn't even work anymore, still standing seemed to serve as an unwelcome reminder that our apartment was lacking in company.

The last month has been hard for me because of that emptiness. I don't do well on my own and I'm trying to figure out how to live well in this period of my life. I want to enjoy where I am instead of constantly trying to change it. This is the first time in a very long time that I haven't been attached to a guy in some way, and that's great. I need this. So I want to thrive in it.

Anyway, taking down the tree was good for me because it removed all of those memories and emotions that I had attached to it being there. Now, the apartment feels like it did when we first moved in - a great, "starting over" feeling.

Monday was also my last day of class, possibly for the rest of my life. Well, I can't see myself never taking any kind of class again, but graduate school is officially over - a change of pace in life, after almost six years, that I'm not sure how I feel about. So far, it feels good to be able to read what I want and not have ominous assignments when I'd rather be doing something else. But I love to learn. So I am probably going to sit in on a poetry class next quarter just for fun. Through grad school, somehow I managed a 4.0. It's funny because the reason I wanted an A in my last class to keep the 4.0 is because now Dr. Reneau will stop me on stage at graduation and tell everyone that I got all As. I'm excited about that, even if it's silly. It's crazy to think I'm really not in school anymore. I'm sure that will become more real to be over the next few weeks or months, and I will share any new thoughts or realizations.

I also got a job on Monday. Not a "real" job, but one for now until August. I spend most of my free time at the Frothy Monkey anyway, so now I will just be serving people while I'm there instead of wracking my brain for a good argument to write about. I knew my life wouldn't be complete without being a barista at some point.

[Side note: right now on Pandora, Muse is very appropriately singing "Feeling Good" - "It's a new dawn, it's a new day, it's a new life for me, and I'm feeling good."]

Also, in the "new leaf" department, I've been working out and trying to eat better. Bri and I actually went to two workout classes in a row last Tuesday. You'd think "Wow, that's really stupid," which is actually what Lori said to me when I walked in the door, haha, but it was great! I felt revived afterwards and much less stressed. I've also laid out in the sun two times already this week, and it's only February! I can't handle being outside in the heat of real summer though, so I need to get all of this laying out done ASAP. Last summer, I worked almost every day and only wore a swimsuit two times that I remember. This summer will definitely be different. Also, Lori and Bri are dying to do as many summer/swimsuit activities as possible since Lori didn't get to last summer and Bri won't next summer.

I'll save trying to answer the looming "So, Heather, what are you going to do with your life?" question for a later post. For now, I'm just looking forward to a school-less, hopefully stress-free summer.